Two Weeks Away Test

We disappear for two weeks, drive thousands of miles, and come back with one big question for every owner of a service business: could you step away for 14 days and have everything still run smoothly? We went to back-to-back home inspection conferences and mastermind meetings in Dallas and Orlando, but the real experiment was what happened back home while we were gone. The answer surprised us in the best way and it pointed straight to systems, automation, and the difference between being self-employed and running a business.

The drive turned into a mini adventure. We leveled up into van camping, discovered why Buc-ee’s is basically the perfect road basecamp, and took the scenic route through the Ozarks and a small Texas town that felt like it was built for wandering. We also share a simple travel tip that might change your plans: New Orleans the week after Mardi Gras. Cleaner streets, fewer crowds, and better vibes made it one of our favorite visits to the French Quarter.

Then things get weird in the most interesting way. We stop at the Bonnie and Clyde ambush museum and the memorial site, talk about how pop culture can romanticize criminals, and compare that feeling to another unexpected landmark, the Lynyrd Skynyrd plane crash memorial. Add the Fountain of Youth, a breakfast stop, and a crayons prank, and you get a trip report that still circles back to business. We also tease a new scheduling system we are building for home inspectors and other service industries who need better scheduling without overpaying.

If you want practical business automation ideas wrapped inside a road story, hit play, subscribe, and share it with a friend who runs a service company. Then leave a review and tell us: how long could you be away before your operations start to wobble?

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Transcript

Back After A Break

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Hey everybody, it's been about three two weeks, three weeks since we recorded an episode. So Laura and I have been busy. Yeah, we are we are back to doing this. So here's something we did. We had two conferences to go to for the home inspections.

SPEAKER_02 0:19

Back-to-back-ish.

SPEAKER_00 0:21

Conferences slash mastermind meetings. So one was in Dallas, and then the other one was in Orlando. So what we did, instead of we're not real big. Yeah, Laura hates flying. So we drove there, which first of all, a lot of people think that's crazy. But we drove to Dallas, and then we had about a week. So instead of driving all the way back to Ohio, then going back down to Orlando, we just went to Dallas, took our time working out to Orlando, and then we came back up. So we were gone two weeks. But two-week time frame is a good way to test your business systems to make certain everything runs well without you. If it runs well without you, then you know you got a good like business and you're not like self-employed.

SPEAKER_02 1:17

Right.

SPEAKER_00 1:19

So some of the things we did though, because Laura and I treat things as uh you know, we're trying to treat things as much as play and enjoyment as we can. So on the way down to Dallas, well, first of all, we got a brand new van.

SPEAKER_02 1:32

So we have taken car camping to the next level.

SPEAKER_00 1:35

Car camping to the next level. So it's gonna be van camping. I still gotta build a bed in the back of that thing, but we had an air mattress, and we would just pull over, check things out. I went to my Bucky, to a Bucky's for the first time.

SPEAKER_02 1:46

We got him to pop his Bucky's cherry.

SPEAKER_00 1:49

Pop that Bucky Cherry. So I so I went to Bucky's. I Bucky loves it. Bucky, or somebody was in a costume, was at the first Bucky we went into. We got a picture with Bucky. That's on the Facebook page. You want to look for that, look for a gym trough, and look at the scroll down that Facebook stream. You'll see a Bucky there, me and Laura. Um Walla Jerky. That that was pretty cool. And then you get the taste jerky like the deli and the other and their brisket sandwiches, those are good.

SPEAKER_02 2:20

Dude, I tried telling you for how many freaking years? And no, no. It's it it's a it it's my thing now. I just refuse to go to Bucky's.

SPEAKER_00 2:28

I just don't want to go to Bucky's just to bug Laura. Really, I mean that's that's that's what it is. It's all played. But anyway, now I'm I'm I like Bucky's, it was a good place. Great place is the car camp.

SPEAKER_02 2:38

Oh, yeah, huge, huge parking lot.

SPEAKER_00 2:42

Well lit in the van. You can't, you know, we're not getting light to shine into our eyes no matter how we position the place to sleep and clean bathrooms, food at all hours of the day.

SPEAKER_02 2:54

Open 24-7. I don't have to worry about, you know, we're hitting five, six o'clock and things are closing, and I'm like, well, crap, where am I gonna go to the restroom at two in the morning?

Nature Stops And Small Towns

SPEAKER_00 3:04

Oh, like Ireland, things close early. We when we're in Ireland, we're off season, so that may affect it a little bit. But anyway, on the trip to Dallas, we we we like hiking, nature. So we stopped, we ended up in the Ozarks. Gorgeous. Gorgeous, did a little bit of hiking around there. That was nice. We did Dallas, where we had really really just in the meeting, didn't really sightsee too much in Dallas. We we've been to Dallas many times before. Well, we've been in Dallas.

SPEAKER_02 3:33

Well, we were technically in Fort Worth when we did.

SPEAKER_00 3:35

Fort Worth, yes. And then we went to Grandby because it was a cute little town that some men mentioned while we're at the meeting. Checked out Grandby, Texas, cute town, kind of back in the 50s.

SPEAKER_02 3:48

Every freaking block had like wine tasting wine, like every literally every block in this town.

New Orleans After Mardi Gras

SPEAKER_00 3:55

There's a little center area that is nice little shops and I think, but yeah, winery, like it, like there's there's eight in this going around this little center. Then we end up near New Orleans as we slowly made our way back to well to Orlando, and it was the week after Mardi Gras. So we just missed Mardi Gras. Which I'm thinking now, and we've been to Mardi Gras before a couple times. I think the week after Mardi Gras is the best time to go check out the French quarter because it's not stupidly crowded. The city just cleaned up because of Mardi Gras.

SPEAKER_02 4:35

So it didn't smell at all. Like it was nice. This was probably the best New Orleans trip I think we've ever had.

SPEAKER_00 4:44

Yeah, not not crowded, but it's friendly, not really any crazy, stupid, drunk people. So it it was nice. So if you're going to New Orleans, man, the week after Mardi Gras, I think that is the best time. And there is a KOA 30 minutes from the French Quarter.

SPEAKER_02 5:00

And that is a new one. Like it's only been within the last year or two that it's been opened. So it's brand new. It's got really nice facilities. We did some laundry there.

Crime And Rock Memorial Detours

SPEAKER_00 5:12

Yeah, it was a nice place. So we did that, and then we from there, and I can't remember if it's before or after. This is a little bit of our adventures, driving, and we had time to kill. All of a sudden, I see Bonnie and Clyde Ambush Museum, a sign for that.

SPEAKER_02 5:30

I'm like, what is this?

SPEAKER_00 5:31

What the heck is that? So there we go. We go over there. It is a little, it is a very run-down town. Um, they they could definitely need visitors, but I can't remember the name of the town. But anyway, it was the locate the museum is the site of where there used to be a little restaurant, little deli, where Bine and Clyde stopped at and had their ended up being their last meal before they drove down the road about seven miles and got ambushed by uh police and and got shot. But it's an interesting building. Check it out check it out while it's still there. Because they I I hope they listen to this because they got some electrical stuff they need to check out and to make it safe, because there's electrical uh home inspector, can't shut shit off. I'm walking across extension cords that are strewn across the floor, like plugged into extension cords, and they're duct taped down to the floor so you don't trip on them, but the duct tape is wearing out because it's been walked on so much.

SPEAKER_02 6:36

Well, and then there's the battery that's powering, like the car battery that was powering lights. I saw two car batteries with extension cords. The whole time through here, he's like, Did you see those electric cords? Did you see those extension cords? This place is gonna catch fire. It's a fire trap. This is a fire trap. I'm amazed it's still around.

SPEAKER_00 6:54

So I'm hoping they get that stuff fixed. But really interesting, kind of creepy as well.

SPEAKER_02 7:00

Yeah, very creepy.

SPEAKER_00 7:03

Because the movie movies, there's been a plug. Several movies, and I didn't seen those things since I was little, so we were gonna watch those, but I kind of think they kind of romanticized Bonnie and Clyde because this is right after the depression. So people were like against wealthy people, it seemed like.

SPEAKER_02 7:18

So it kind of seemed that may have been the theme why people were like them's mother taught him poor people were good, rich people were bad. Just period end story. As she's beating the living crap out of him, so obviously she wasn't that good.

SPEAKER_00 7:33

Correct. So the psychology background we have is like, all right, we gotta we gotta do a deep dive of that, but there's really no point in that. So anyway, we did that, and then they had a memorial where they were shot at the ambush site, and that was I didn't I do not get this at all. Bonnie and Clyde, they were they were thieves, murderers, murderers, and there's a little memorial, and then people nowadays are start are coming up and dropping off like gifts gifts, like uh beers, beads, sodas, candy, shots of sodium chloride, sodium like in syringes of sodium chloride, no needle, but I I think you use those to irrigate wounds, which by had a very serious, they all had some injuries because they've been fighting and avoiding the police and getting injured. Car accidents and shots and so we did that, then that then shortly after that, heading more toward Orlando, here came oh Leonard Skinner too. Which is a Leonard Skinner memorial.

SPEAKER_02 8:35

I'm like, what the heck is this?

SPEAKER_00 8:37

I don't know anything about Leonard Skinner. Why is there a memorial? Well, you may know I did not. Their plane crashed, I don't know what year. 77. Their plane crashed, and three of them the band members died, or are two. Not all were band members, one was a sister of the band members. Anyway, there's memorial for that because that was a plane crash.

SPEAKER_02 8:59

That was a pilot and co-pilot died.

Fountain Of Youth And Crayons

SPEAKER_00 9:02

Yep. So then we went on to Orlando. No. Pas de Leon.

SPEAKER_02 9:08

Ponta de Leon. We stuck our Tootsies in the fountain of youth.

SPEAKER_00 9:12

Yep, yep. So it's gonna make us any any younger. But then, all right, so then the very next day, we are going to get breakfast because we are in Florida. We're in Florida, obviously, heading toward Orlando. We go to, I think it was a first watch restaurant, which is good good food. Yeah. Laura secretly tells the hostess to get me uh crayons. Yeah, you think I was mentioned this crayons and the little collaring sheet that they have for little kids, okay? And I was like, look down, like like we like what what'd you guys do? She's like, oh no, no. The host is like, no, no, she's gonna make sure you're taken care of. I'm like, all right. Then she hands me the crayons. But five minutes later, Laura. Five minutes later, but you're five to ten minutes later, Laura is the one with the crayons collaring like a little kid.

SPEAKER_02 10:02

You weren't entertaining me.

SPEAKER_00 10:03

So I think the fountain of youth had more effect on her than it did me.

SPEAKER_02 10:07

But then I am younger.

SPEAKER_00 10:09

You are younger, right? Yeah, so you less to go to get in a collaring age.

Orlando Mastermind And New Scheduler

SPEAKER_01 10:14

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SPEAKER_00 10:39

So from there we went, we made it to Orlando and we uh we had the meeting, and that was good. Made some uh introductions because we're working on a new scheduling system. So if you're a home inspector and you listen to this, get hold of us. We we have a new scheduling system that's coming out that's gonna uh gonna it's gonna really kick ass and save you lots of money.

SPEAKER_02 11:02

Well, and it's not just for home inspectors, it could be any service industry, actually.

SPEAKER_00 11:06

It it it could be it could be it could be made made for that.

SPEAKER_02 11:09

But we we did it primarily for the home inspection industry because there's nothing out there.

SPEAKER_00 11:14

Yep. So get hold of me, I'll get you information, maybe get on the list to uh beta test beta test that get on the uh founders thing, whatever we have for that. Um so we did a meeting. Meeting was alright. We met various people, vendors that some some could help us out, maybe some you know some not. And then we came back up to Ohio where it was cold.

SPEAKER_02 11:42

Yeah, it was nice down there.

Testing Business Systems While Away

SPEAKER_00 11:44

We were gone for two weeks and the business ran smoothly, which is very nice. We had a few phone calls, but it was nothing because there weren't any problems. There were no problems kind of just checking in, really, what's what it seemed like. So that's that's what we we've been up to. So if you whatever business you have, I recommend you see how how long can you be away and the wheels not fall off the business. What automations do you have to take care of things?

SPEAKER_02 12:16

What automations do you need to take care of things?

SPEAKER_00 12:19

Yeah, and are you able yeah. And and this this is a good way where you figure that out. Because you're gone like, holy crap, I need to do this, and I don't have a way of getting it done. Well, you now you know that's the system you need to focus on. That's how it works. So Laura, any any other thoughts on what we've been up to the last two weeks? I mean, today it's I mean, it was like very nice yesterday, and now it is gonna get cold again. It's Ohio.

SPEAKER_02 12:45

Oh, I I heard that uh what's the name of uh Buckeye Chuck or something like that?

SPEAKER_00 12:51

Yeah, yeah, Bunks on a Phil, then it's Buckeye Chuck.

SPEAKER_02 12:54

Buckeye Chuck apparently has been arrested. According according to a Facebook post because he was so bad this year that the same day he said it was going to be an early spring. We had all four seasons, apparently, according to the said post. You had rain, freezing rain, snow, and dice temperatures. So Buckeye Chuck's in trouble.

SPEAKER_00 13:21

Yeah, well, uh that that happens. Yeah, it happens. Meteorologists, they're they're they're loud very, you know, air.

Groundhog Day Through Swedish Eyes

SPEAKER_02 13:27

Well, well, here's something funny. So we've recently started um talking with the gentleman out of Sweden who who went through the school system in Sweden. And I made a snarky response about Buckeye Chuck one day, and you know, like going with Buckeye Chuck over Punk's Tawny Phil because he said spring. And apparently in Sweden, in their school system, they teach that we as Americans actually believe in Groundhog Day and not that it's like a satire. Like they think that we genuinely follow this freaking groundhog day. And we take that shoot seriously. And they take that seriously. So there's your enjoyment for the day, how other people interpret things, and it's just it's just kind of interesting.

SPEAKER_00 14:11

Correct, correct. So I think that's it for this. Just wanted to update everybody um that and really give testimony that we do have great systems that work fantastic, and that we have the backup, the the people, and the systems to get things done, and then we're always um available as well to help get things done for your your real estate transactions. I think that's about it.

SPEAKER_02 14:32

Take care, everybody.

SPEAKER_00 14:33

Bye.

SPEAKER_02 14:33

Bye.