Blizzard & Bloom: Insights from the Ice and the Green Scene

Why Your Equipment Dealer Should Know Your Dog's Name

• Jay Rotonnelli • Season 1

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Speaker 1:

Welcome to Blizzard and Bloom, the podcast where we navigate the storms and celebrate the triumphs in business and entrepreneurship. Join us as we dive into stories, insights and strategies from top professionals to help you thrive in today's evolving landscape. And now here is your host, jay Rotinelli. Here is your host, jay Rotinelli.

Speaker 2:

Hello everyone, Welcome back to another episode of Blizzard and Bloom. Last episode we had one of the senior vice presidents of SiteOne, Greg Thistle, joined us and shared a lot of insight on the industry at large and kind of as a whole, and what he sees in the future for us. So that was a great episode Today, lucky enough to have a great colleague and what I would consider a friend in the industry, Josh Flynn, who I've got to know over the past several years. So, without further ado, welcome Josh. Thanks for taking some time today to join us on the cast and just give us a little bit of background of kind of who you are and what roles you fill in your position.

Speaker 3:

Hey, jay, yeah, thanks for having me. Yeah, in a little bit of my background. So I'm currently the CEO of Power Equipment Plus. We are a six-location outdoor power equipment dealer on Long Island, so we kind of stretch all the way out from East Hampton, pretty close to Queens. I've been down here doing this for a little over two years, since January of 2023. Prior to that, I was in commercial landscaping for six or seven years, so I had a lot of exposure to the industry that way. And now I like to think of it as I've transitioned from buying and breaking to selling and fixing.

Speaker 2:

Gotcha, gotcha, nice, nice. It's been cool to see kind of your career path, and I mean never mind what you're doing down at power equipment plus, but, um, I'm sure there's some challenges that come with with being on that side of the industry, um and providing the tools and resources. So what would you kind of give us a little bit of what your path was, uh is when you came to uh lead the ship at um power equipment plus?

Speaker 3:

Yeah. So if we, if we kind of track back all the way to my beginnings in commercial landscape, I started as a field supervisor, worked my way up to the CEO of a company that was based in Portland, maine, spent, like I said, about six years there but got to touch kind of every part of the organization, manage the equipment at some point, all that kind of jazz. And then this opportunity arose to come down to Power Equipment Plus and run this. Originally we started with three locations in East.

Speaker 3:

Hampton, south Hampton and Mattatuck, sort of upon arrival, like the team in place was pretty tremendous and I saw my job as kind of you know, we need to upgrade the software systems. We needed to kind of position everybody, get everybody where they were, you know, their best fit within the organization, and then almost immediately there were a bunch of opportunities for growth. So you know one of the statistics that's always in my mind, you know for us because we're looking to. You know, grow the business, acquire maybe some other smaller um power equipment dealers.

Speaker 3:

The vast majority of outdoor power equipment dealers are well within retirement age um or getting quite close, um, and unfortunately a lot of them, like, don't have good succession plans. Um, so we we were able to acquire an additional location in East Meadow, new York, in the fall of 23. So that was our fourth. And then we were able to acquire another one in Bayshore, new York, last fall. So that was our fifth. And then we decided that there was an opportunity in the Riverhead market for us long term and without good acquisition prospects, we decided to kind of open up our own location. So it's the first time we've tried to just open one up from scratch, revitalized an old industrial building, moved some current staff that we had who was prepared for, you know, a step up in their career, and we've had that open in Riverhead since the second week of March. That's great. Now we find ourselves with six spots, kind of covering all of Long Island.

Speaker 3:

And that's kind of been one of the trends within the industry is, you know, a lot of these smaller locations are either retiring or, you know, you have to be of a certain size now to be able to manage the inventory and work with the manufacturers and all that other kind of stuff. So, um, yeah, that's kind of where we sit today. We our primary lines, uh, we focus only on outdoor power equipment. So we don't sell small tractor, we don't sell power sports. Um, with our primary lines being, uh, walker, toro, skag and right, um, with a little bit of x mark mixed in, and then, on the two cycle side, um, steel and redbacks gotcha, gotcha, yeah, we also obviously with an outdoor power equipment dealer um sales, uh part, sales, uh service and then we also do a fair amount of rental.

Speaker 3:

So we rent a lot of the things that we also sell, the Toro Dingo line being one of those. So yeah, we kind of try to be a bit of a one-stop shop for everybody.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, so one of the things I was thinking about that you know a lot of the folks have been discussing is the mergers and acquisitions. Right, it seems that's pretty common now, I guess really in the in the US business marketplace as a whole. But we've been talking trades a few episodes ago and how some of the older folks are getting out of the trades and there's not enough. Younger folks come in and I think about some of the businesses and, to your point, maybe lack of succession plans. Either they don't have anybody in the family to hand the business down to or they're just not sure which way they're going with it. It's interesting to see how your success has evolved just with the expansion of stores. What are some of the challenges that come into play when you're dealing with some of these mergers and acquisitions and taking over these companies?

Speaker 3:

Yeah, so you know, in terms of like things that are challenges but are probably more easily, easily fixed. Software tends to be one of them, and just systems and operations. It's still a very, a very paper heavy um type of industry. Lots of clipboards. Um, I'm aware of of of a fairly large, you know seven figure dealer on the Island that just doesn't use computers.

Speaker 3:

I don't know how that's possible, but they do Um, and with that comes the challenges of like inventory management, work order management, um sales history, how do you determine what you're going to buy, all that kind of stuff. So at each of the acquisitions that we've done, we've upgraded the software systems. We currently use Ideal, which fills pretty much all of our desires in terms of what we need from a dealer management system, and then we also tend to be able to bring in different lines Um. So choosing what you're going to sell is is a pretty big challenge as you acquire another location. You know, maybe, maybe they, maybe they're the only ones who sell that particular product and like I don't know if I really want to get into that super heavy.

Speaker 3:

Uh, one of the dealerships we bought recently was selling Polaris um as a line and we opted not to purchase it just because it was going to confuse everything. So some of those decisions I would say obviously employees is both a challenge and also can be the greatest benefit to acquiring another location. We've had situations where we purchased a location and it was just two technicians and the owner and I was like, okay, how do we fill out this front counter staff? And then we've had other situations where the majority of the time the staff on hand is great and ready to go, we tend to do things a little bit differently. Where we have, I would say, higher, I would say, more qualified, more tenured folks, but fewer of them. At the counter, where you'll see a lot of dealerships, maybe they have six or seven people, but combined they don't sort of have the, I would say, the acumen of two or three of our folks.

Speaker 3:

We work really hard on training and finding the right folks. I've sought out a few people who weren't in the business at the time when we acquired it and was like, hey, I really think you need to come back and check this out again. We'd love to work with you again. So people is always a challenge, but also just a rewarding challenge when it works out. And yeah, inventory management can be a big thing. You walk into a store that you're hoping to acquire and all of a sudden they've got hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of stuff that they haven't sold in two or three years. And you go through the process like, all right, how am I going to move this? How am I going to handle this? And that's just a different challenge as well.

Speaker 3:

But at scale, now we do have the opportunity where, like, oh, I've, only one of my stores has only ever sold that piece or equipment in two years. But it happens to crop up at one of the locations randomly and it's like, all right, let's just grab that and move that over there. So that does give us an advantage to be really flexible in our inventory. But yeah, it's same challenge as a lot of other, as a lot of other businesses. Right, like like people is always is always a challenge um inventory management, new vendors, um and then customers. So you know long island is a big place. There's a lot of, there's a lot of people here, there's some customer crossover. Um, we try to keep the dealerships at least 30 minutes apart and we use minutes on Long Island, not miles, cause it is.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, for sure, For sure, yeah You're. You're introducing yourself as a new entity to new customers and even if none of the people at the dealership change, if the name changes or they think there's some a lot of times these businesses are very tied to the owner themselves right right. That's a challenge to overcome and introduce yourself and make sure they understand where you're coming from and you intend on doing business. You know the way that it has been done and and improving it for the customer yeah yeah, no that's, that's great.

Speaker 2:

We, we, we talk a lot about and I I know you're big on this is relationships, right, we talk about. I know in our industry with the landscape, like very seldom is it transactional business. It's mostly, you know, relational. So how does that look from a power equipment standpoint? Do you find that you're in relational sales often and you have certain contractors using equipment and they come back to you all the time, or is it more transactional?

Speaker 3:

It is very much relationship based and again, this is not about me. It is very much about the technicians and the folks at the counter and their relationship with their customers that they're going to see every other day.

Speaker 3:

um, we have folks that have been coming to us for 20, 30 plus years um and again, you know how you retain those customers is like living up to your commitment to them, and some of the commitments you know. One of the I guess the ethos or a mantra that we have is that our goal is to get equipment and parts into our customers' hands as quickly and accurately as possible. So we try to make every decision based on that. That means if I have to drive all the way from one end of the island to another one to get a customer the part they're looking for because their machine's down, I'm probably going to do it. Um, you know, if that means we have to special order something, we have to get it here as quickly as possible, we're going to do it. That also means having, you know, appropriate levels of staffing, the right systems and operations to move work through the back of the shop.

Speaker 3:

So much of this is service related. Like you can buy a lot of these mowers from other people, but if you don't have the confidence that you can bring it back to that location to fix it, then what's that relationship really worth to you? And one of the things that we try to focus on too is you know, our success is very much dependent on our customer success. So if they are up and running, like from, I would say from a purely financial or business perspective, you'd be like, oh cool, like their machines are breaking, like that means I have the opportunity to fix it where we try to think of it as like it's all about uptime coming coming from landscaping, like the most important thing is that your machines and your people are there and they're, and they're they have their job.

Speaker 3:

They're working. Yeah, that's not happening and our customers aren't successful. And retaining their customers? They're not. They customers, they're not going to have the funds to come back and buy stuff from us. So we focus a lot on uptime and getting customers in and out, improving the turnaround time in the shop, special order parts and then also just focusing really heavily on our data, making sure that we're stocking the right parts at all times. We try to meet or exceed a 90% fill rate, which we've had great success doing, and it just you don't want your customers disappointed. There are certain things that must always be in our shop, like if, if a customer ever walks into one of our stores and we don't have a set of Walker blades, we have failed. We don't have a Kawasaki filter Like we failed, and we're just not gonna let that happen.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, so you know, you know it comes to a point where you and your team know, know the clients and their needs and then to your point, right, like if they're not up and running, then that doesn't prove bode well for you, right?

Speaker 2:

So that's what I think. When you talk about channel partnerships and I know us here at Piscataqua when we look for dealers and vendors, and whether it's power equipment or you know, hardscape products, you know it's all about the relationship and the value that it brings, not the price but the value, right? So I see some folks, and you know some smaller contractors and you know, buying some equipment at the box stores and things like that, and I think to myself, boy, what are you going to do when that, when that breaks, and how are you going to get that fixed Right? But I know, for me, even on a personal level, I value the service and I have a few small pieces of equipment and I know that my local dealer can take care of me and if he doesn't have that part that day, he works hard to make sure he gets it.

Speaker 3:

So to me that's that's a win win situation to go like so much deeper than just like power equipment they're. They're like also very personal. A lot of folks come into one of our locations and there's a good chance that the person lying on the counter, like you know, knows your kids names, like knows, knows you have a dog, you knows your and sometimes it's like knows you're going through a tough time and you know, I hear the conversations that are happening and it's not about dollars and cents, it's how are you doing, how's work, what can we do for you? Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 3:

And it just it. It means a lot. They trust us like they trust a lot of their business. Success is dependent on whether or not we can deliver for them, and if they trust the people at the counter, they're just that much more likely to come back.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, absolutely, we kind of go down a different route here. As far as power equipment goes, the latest and I'm sure you're seeing it in here in the demand for it, but battery operated equipment, what does that sector look like and do you see that continuing to grow and what are some of the challenges with that? I know it's kind of a, it's kind of a bigger animal, but I'm just curious with some of your input on the battery stuff.

Speaker 3:

So I think, I think you know, for us we're in a unique situation because some of our locations are in and around towns that have restrictions on certain types of gas powered products.

Speaker 3:

Right, it's not California, but some towns have bans on gas powered blowers from Memorial Day to Labor Day. Some of them, like the town of Southampton, has it year round. So it just presents a challenge to our customers. I would say that on the eastern half of Long Island there's a very high battery adoption. I would say that on the eastern half of Long Island there's a very high battery adoption, whereas on the western side, where there's not quite as many restrictions and just a different type of clientele. For us and what we recommend to our customers is, at this point homeowners like probably shouldn't be purchasing gas equipment. The stuff that they need to work on at their homes. Battery fits the bill in pretty much every category except blowers and larger commercial mowers. Um, on the larger commercial mower side, it's because it's not necessarily because of the run time, it's because of the cost. You know you're still looking at a zero turn that's going to be in the mid to high 20s and that's that's minimum, you know some of these other ones can get up into the 30s and sometimes 40s um

Speaker 3:

manufacturers all kind of pushed out their model and their version. To be completely frank, like none of them have really taken off super well because and some of that's government you know the incentives have come and they've gone and then they've come back and then they've gone again. So it gets a little bit confusing and then we're not able to give the right information to our customers. I don't think that the you know even stuff like interest rates, like all this stuff kind of hits at a weird time where, sure, you want to buy a $30,000 lawnmower that will have a return because of you know no gas. You know very few, very few wear parts in terms of, you know, filters and all this other kind of stuff, oils. But there's a timeline for that until you see that return. And if they're going to pay eight percent or whatever on a mower, like now is not the right time.

Speaker 3:

But when you look at it from a two cycle perspective, in, in our opinion, battery for string trimmers, hedge trimmers, all those types of things, everything except the backpack blower commercial contractors have what they need. It's a little bit more expensive up front, but then again, from a power equipment dealer perspective, I'm probably never going to see that machine again. There's nothing to fix. I joke that there's like two things that keep us in business bad fuel and people dropping stuff, bad fuel being like 75% the problem. Right, so if it's battery, you don't run into that. Um, and the but the blowers just presents such a such a hill to climb. Um, we have manufacturers coming out with models that have the power but not the runtime, and then you have some that maybe have a decent amount of runtime, but not the power.

Speaker 3:

And then you're talking about just exorbitant cost. I think it's have some that maybe have a decent amount of runtime but not the power, and then you're talking about just exorbitant cost. I think we're at a little bit of a stall. If I'm being frank, I think right now the innovation is more on like, how many more tools can we add a battery to, as opposed to how are we improving the efficiency of the tools that we already have? And I think the hang up is in the battery itself. How much power and how much runtime can you, can you, smack into this small little vessel? Um, particularly for backpack blowers and on the mower side, it's just the cost of those batteries. You know you're looking at five to eight, sometimes ten thousand dollars just for the battery cell component itself. Um, they're extremely heavy, which you know having been in maine. Like you guys are getting a lot of rain. Like you can't, you can't put a two thousand pound machine on a lawn.

Speaker 3:

it's going to destroy it yeah um, it's a shame because, like there are applications we're seeing municipalities have a lot of um adoption. Wide open fields, large properties, like that stuff fits the electric, electric zero terms will be fine for that um, but until that price point gets a little bit closer and you get a little bit of adoption and it kind of seeds itself into the, into the landscape, folks pay attention what other folks are doing and we haven't seen that tipping point where you know someone's bought a couple of them and then all of a sudden they've you know, told everybody how amazing they are. Yeah.

Speaker 2:

It's interesting because I hear what you're saying too, like it seems like the trend has been how many more tools could we get that are, that are battery powered? Right. But then we think about this whole battery powered thing and I think about the infrastructure that's needed to support these, when the teams are out and about, right, and you think about a box truck set up and you know, ok, then at that point now you've got to put solar panels or whatever it might be, and so it's not just the power equipment alone, it's, it's all the other, you know subsequential things that support it. Right, the chargers and the other components and additional batteries. And so I know that can that, can you know, be cost prohibitive to to certainly some of the smaller, smaller outfits?

Speaker 3:

Yeah, that's, that's where a company like you know, I think, I think Cress, has like an interesting offering. It's just it's the sticker shock, right? Yeah, you know 10, 10 000 bucks to put that thing. You know that that basically large power cell in the back of a truck, um is a lot for, even as a startup for these guys yeah and, and I think, other charging solutions.

Speaker 3:

You know milwaukee has like a portable battery generator that might have some application there. I think solar panels is definitely like an interesting model, but it doesn't charge them fast enough. So you're really looking at a situation where, like you, just got to load yourself up with a bunch of batteries that charge overnight and then hope that it makes you through the day.

Speaker 2:

Hope that you can get through. Yeah, that's tough. That's tough when you talk in production. Yep, get through. Yeah, that's tough, that's tough when you're talking production. So talk about maybe some of the industry challenges that maybe you might be seeing across the country, such as emissions and standardizations and things of that. I mean, are you seeing much in the way of that and, if so, how do you keep up with it and how does it relate down to the end consumer? How do you keep up with it?

Speaker 3:

and how does it relay down to the end consumer Outside of the battery and it being a noise versus emissions, versus pollution, whatever you want to call it, outside of that, it's not too too much.

Speaker 3:

A lot of those restrictions are set to California, which is interesting because some of the manufacturers have to sell like a California modelia model of the same lower that we can purchase here in new york, um, and and when these types of, you know, pieces of legislation come up, um, I'd say the biggest challenge is is where it's, town by town. So you, just you're, you're having landscapers who are trying to work within zip codes that are right next to each other, that have wildly different expectations about how they're supposed to operate, and then that's also puts the onus on us of like, hey, do you know what the restrictions are in this town versus that town, versus that town? And it's it's just, it can be difficult to even keep up with. And it's blowers, like blowers is the big one. We've seen a little talk about mowers.

Speaker 3:

I think you're going to get significantly more pushback just because of the cost, um, I know the state of new york is looking into a rebate program, um, for folks who want to transition to battery, which I think is one of the better ways to approach it. You know, more carrot, less stick, um, but you know california gets to kind of do its own thing with its relationship with the epa. The state of new york, like there's a bill in committee for, you know, restricting the use of gasoline powered like any small equipment. It's not going to go anywhere, yeah, it's just not going to get enough adoption statewide.

Speaker 3:

Um. So for us, really, it's the the biggest challenge is keeping up with where and when these things are happening. Um, because unfortunately, as my experience was in landscaping as well, these things aren't well announced. They're not.

Speaker 3:

All these meetings are not well advertised um and in turn then they are not well participated in by landscapers and the people who use the equipment, so there tends to not be wonderful representation. Um, my opinion is just making sure that everybody has the best information possible to make the best decisions. So yeah, that's. The biggest challenge is just how how quickly things can change where they're changing, and that it's just not uniform anywhere.

Speaker 2:

Gotcha. Yeah, that's interesting, and sometimes they're tucking these bills in amongst other things and to your point you're not really seeing them. So kind of one of my final pieces. We talk, you know, the economy is on everybody's minds and the skepticism and where things are going, has that affected your business power equipment and, if so, in what ways might it be? And what's some maybe some good advice for some folks out there that on a contractor level that are maybe skeptical about, you know, future purchases or in how long they're keeping their equipment and so forth.

Speaker 3:

Yep, we definitely. It's weird, right, because we're going to be busy in spring, almost no matter what Um. It's more the concern for once, the initial push is over how many more sort of I don't want to call them discretionary, but like additional purchases are these contractors going to make Um and for? For reference for our company, you know we're about 75% commercial across our six locations for sales, so on the consumer side, a little bit not quite as impactful, but still would have an impact. Again, it falls in the same category. It's like just trying to keep up with what's going on. So what we've seen so far is you, knowro and x mark have have initiated surcharges on all of their machines, um and and their parts um. We have seen other companies go in the exact opposite direction um, skag and right have actually leaned into the current pricing structures that they have um and guaranteeing no increases to my current to my current knowledge, again, this could change next week.

Speaker 3:

Sure, um, and then, uh, walker, same deal, like no, no increases. Um, it really depends on the manufacturer and what you're dealing with and where they source their parts and where they build everything, and whether it's assembled here or if it's actually manufactured in the United States. Um, and again, that varies widely, wildly, from manufacturer to manufacturer. We're not seeing like a lot of pushback of customers coming in and being like I'm not buying that because of X, Y, z, but the prices are going to dictate that.

Speaker 3:

So, you know Toro and Exmark prices are going to go up. We'll see what happens with the other brands. For us it's just keeping up with the pricing in our systems, with our staff all. For us it's just keeping up with the pricing in our systems, with our staff, all the way that we present the equipment in the showrooms, I would say, and parts, because we get parts from different manufacturers for the engines and Kawasaki and Kohler and Briggs and we tend to not see the price increases with them as easily. We get uploaded price files but it can tend to change without, without much notice.

Speaker 3:

Um and and incrementally right, Like we're not talking about stuff going from $10 to 25, we're going like 10 to 12, but that can creep on you over time. So for us it's just trying to keep pay attention and keep up with every single little notice that's coming in. Apparently you you know I wasn't involved in this during covid, but like this is very it can be it's reminiscent a little bit of just like hey, all of a sudden price increase, price increases, and what we haven't seen yet but I'm anticipating is going to happen, is not necessarily price increases but availability issues. So you know sort of the word and you know I would say globally and for.

Speaker 3:

So you know sort of the word and you know I would say globally and for the United States. You know the United States in particular with China of like, how much is getting shipped over here and how many containers are missing? When, when and where are we going to see that impact? And then what's interesting is, how are we going to see that impact on the back end? So say, everything goes back to normal. There's a flood of shipments. All of a sudden, all those shipments with the speed of which people wanted to get to the united states, all those containers actually end up costing a lot more. So then prices can go up again and unfortunately I don't know that prices ever really come down once. And that's. That's a whole other topic that we could spend hours discussing.

Speaker 2:

That we don't need to do today? Yeah, for sure.

Speaker 3:

But it's just keeping up with everything. I would say my best advice is if you're on the fence, now is a better time to purchase larger stuff. Don't fret about some of the smaller things, and not so much because of the price of the unit, but interest rates right now are about as good as they've been in the last two or three years. And manufacturers when manufacturers get fearful of whether or not sales are going to be where they need to be, they go to financing first. They might do some promos, but they tend to drop the financing first because they can buy points from the bank and all of a sudden you start seeing 0% or 1.99 or 2.99. I would say the majority of our customers right now somewhere around 3.99 for 36 months, not bad.

Speaker 3:

Way better than a car, and you know where, this time last year and even the year before, you were probably closer to five, maybe six, um, so I would say it's less so about like, oh, is that machine going to be available or is it going to be $10,000 more? Like sure, some of them might go up, but you're going to see like four or $500 increases on a $10,000 unit, something like that Maybe. I think where the bigger concern is is is and the thing that's significantly out of our control is like how does all the financial markets and all that kind of jazz and the fed and all those different movements, um, how is that going to affect their ability to finance equipment when they want to purchase it?

Speaker 3:

um that that's. I would say that's. That may be not what everybody's thinking about, um, you know they're much more concerned with the sticker price, but the financing will catch you way worse than the sticker price? Yeah, and I think in that availability they've manufactured most of everything for this year. We probably wouldn't see significant equipment problems until next year, maybe some random parts and stuff. But I don't see that as being the issue.

Speaker 2:

It's more on the financing side, I think, than anything. Yeah, well, good, I appreciate that tidbit of information and you know, I think it goes back to you hit on some really good points today. I think you know relationships are huge. I mean, they're big for everybody, right, not only from your side but, I think, from the end user and a contractor level, because if you have a really good partnership, they're going to take care of you on both sides of things, right. So you know, I think that brings a ton of value to that relationship and that partnership. So, but if there's something that you think that could kind of catch us off guard, would you say it's going to be more and maybe you hit on it already, but it sounds like maybe the over, overbuilds or, to your point, the push of getting equipment here, you know, down the road and now we're going to have all these containers of equipment Outside of that. Do you see anything else that you know that really could trigger something out of the norm?

Speaker 3:

I mean, I feel like we covered, you know, from a you know terrorist perspective, you know financing, availability of equipment. Um, I mean, if anything you know with the current administration, like, uh, you're not going to see more restriction on gas power, you're probably going to have some of it, so that's probably not much to worry about right now. Um, just like the, the general, just economic state, right Like our customers.

Speaker 3:

You know, have customers who are, you know if their disposable income starts to dry up, like that can create a challenge. So it's just, you know, I don't necessarily know how you battle that I feel like it can crop up, you know, pretty quick, as we've seen, and it can also be long and drawn out. So it's just doing a lot of little things, right, um, taking care of your equipment, like, bring it in for service, make sure you're hitting all of your intervals, protecting your investments, protect your employees. Um, you know, continue to build those relationships with your customers.

Speaker 3:

And you know, for us, one of the things that we've done, you know, on the uptime side and just trying to build those relationships, is, you know, we've started offering, you know, free preventative maintenance labor for the first four years, or 1800 hours of any commercial grade or residential grade machine that we sell. And it seems wild. It's like, hey, how are you going to be able to manage that? But it's like, listen, I have the resources and you've put your trust in us. We want to make sure that your machine runs. And now more than ever, like, if you're not going to be able to, you know, if things get a little weird or maybe it's not the right time to buy a piece of machine.

Speaker 3:

Like most important thing is that you take care of it so you know, find the right dealer, find your, find your person that can take care of this equipment and you trust it, you trust them with it and you know, because, outside of your employees, your equipment is going to be your biggest financial investment. And so, yeah, I would say don't, don't let a big repair catch you off guard and then, all of a sudden, you're forced into the situation to have to deal with some of these things you can't control.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, yeah, well said, thanks you, you, you really, josh. You really brought some great insight to folks, I think, on on many different levels here. Super valuable information. So folks want to get ahold of you. What's a?

Speaker 3:

good way to get ahold of your company. I'm on Long Island, certainly appreciate the time, and you know power equipment plus one com. Um, you know facebook, instagram, all that other kind of jazz. Um, you know, I'm on linkedin. But yeah, frankly, call any one of the stores and hopefully they can figure out where I am that day, uh, and they can get you my contact information. But I love chatting about the industry, love chatting about equipment, landscaping, whatever it might be awesome.

Speaker 2:

Thanks for being on the show and you heard it right there from Josh Flynn so you can catch him at power equipment plus onecom For any needs you have out on the long Island in New York. So thanks, Josh, for being on board today. Next episode we've got a real estate broker coming on to chat with us about kind of the state of the real estate in the Northeast.

Speaker 1:

So looking forward to that as well. So thank you everybody. Take care. Thanks for tuning in to Blizzard and Bloom with Jay Rotinelli. We hope you feel inspired and empowered. Don't forget to subscribe and leave a review. Join us next week for more insights and stories to help you bloom in your business journey.