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Why you should always answer the phone.
An interview with Austin Gray, Owner & Operator of Bearclaw Land Services.
Bryan Shankman
February 08, 2024
Welcome to the very first edition of The Workbench! The Workbench is a resource-rich weekly newsletter for current & aspiring home service business owners.
For this inaugural post, we spoke with Austin Gray (@theownerop), the Owner & Operator of Bear Claw Land Services—a specialized forestry and land-clearing company based in Colorado.
Austin is also the host of ‘The Owner Operator’ podcast and is helping people start & grow their own local service businesses with OWNR OPs.
The 7 Key Takeaways
We learned a ton in our conversation with Austin. Below are the seven most essential insights about starting and growing a home or local service business.
1. Engage authentically with your community
Bear Claw Land Services is not Austin’s first local business. Before starting Bear Claw, Austin owned & managed a specialty coffee shop & roastery called ‘The Perk’, which operated alongside a co-working space Austin also owned.
Through managing these local businesses, Austin built deep, authentic relationships within the community that would prove valuable during the launch of Bear Claw.
Austin leveraged this hard-earned network when launching Bear Claw by cold-calling old customers and friends to spread the word about his new venture.
I just said, “Hey, it’s Austin from the Perk; I’m a local entrepreneur. I’m starting another business and told them about my background. I told them I offered tree services, land clearing, and fire mitigation. Here’s my number. Here’s our website. We will take great care of you.”
One of these cold calls led to Austin’s very first job. One of the people he called explained that they needed a single driveway cleared, and none of their existing providers were willing to do the job.
Austin took the opportunity to win his first customer by showing up, doing the work, and officially starting Bear Claw Land services.
2. When opportunity knocks, be ready to answer
After completing a few one-off jobs that he had secured via cold calling, a bigger opportunity came to Austin, and he was ready to make the most of it.
A neighbor saw Austin using a rented skid steer on his property and approached Austin for help. The neighbor’s HOA demanded that certain land areas be cleared quickly; otherwise, fees would be assessed to the property owners.
Like his first job, Austin saw an opportunity to help a neighbor, provide value to another satisfied customer, and continue growing his new business.
I called the rental company, rented the skid steer, and went there. We agreed upon an hourly time and material rate for my rental cost, plus my labor, time, and operator’s time to operate the equipment and any dump fees associated with cleaning up that slash or woody debris.
While loading up the equipment from this neighborhood HOA job, Austin got a call from someone who saw the Google Business listing he had recently set up. Even with only a few jobs under his belt, Austin knew the value of his services and was confident in closing his next set of work.
By the time I was done with that first job, I was loading up the equipment and got a call from a guy saying, “I’ve got a property. We just got a letter from our HOA that we have to do a certain amount of cleanup. You offer tree services, right?” So I went over there, and I met him in person. He doesn’t know that I’ve only done a few jobs, but I quote him like I have a full-time business, and he hires me to do the work.
3. Always answer the phone
After completing around twenty jobs, Austin was presented with an opportunity that he dubbed ‘The Federal Project,’ which would be the biggest job Bear Claw had taken on.
A random Chicago phone number called Austin one day around 11 am asking if Bear Claw was available for a “little project” that had the capacity to “clear 20 acres in the park”.
Austin assumed it was a small city park, and eager to grow his burgeoning business, he jumped at the opportunity and said yes. The next step was lunch in Grand Lake, so Austin agreed to meet with his contact for lunch the following day.
His anonymous contact turned out to be a superintendent at Kiewit (one of North America’s largest construction companies), and “the park” is the 265,807-acre Rocky Mountain National Park.
Austin ultimately ended up winning the project and a future project within the Rocky Mountain National Park, both of which helped bring Bear Claw close to $1mm in revenue.
Austin attributes this big win to two simple things:
Answering the phone.
Showing up in person to lunch.
I asked him, after we performed the work on the job, “How did you find us?”. He said, “Well, Austin, when I flew into Denver, I pulled up my phone. I typed in ‘land clearing and excavation, Winter Park, and guess who showed up first: Bear Claw Land Services.” Bear Claw was the first listing in the search. So he called us, plus the next two guys in line. I answered my phone immediately. I showed up to lunch when he asked me to. I met him in person, I shook his hand, and he didn’t even consider either of the other guys.
4. Delegate ruthlessly.
Bear Claw is not Austin’s first business. As such, Austin had accrued a wide range of skills that he easily could’ve leveraged when starting Bear Claw.
But, while he had the skills to design his website, he knew he’d be able to make the most significant impact on the business by focusing on what he was great at and delegating the rest.
Austin is great at:
Selling
Estimating
Leading the field crew
Everything else must be delegated.
I need to outsource everything other than selling, estimating, and leading the field crew. Those were the three main things that I needed to focus on. I wanted to challenge myself to delegate all the things that didn’t feel like a great use of my time. The website was #1 and social media was #2.
5. Get creative when hiring
Given Austin’s focus on delegating everything in the business besides what he was great at, hiring the right people was crucial.
After hiring an agency to handle the website and social media, Austin had to fill two key full-time roles: 1. Officer Manager. 2. General Field Labor.
Sticking true to his community-first approach, Austin found creative ways to source great talent nearby.
He found coffee shops to be a great place to find office managers.
I recommend going to every single coffee shop in your area. I would say, “Hey, my name’s Austin. I have a small business. Here’s my card. I’m hiring for a part-time role. Pretty simple blocking and tackling, just administrative tasks.” Now, we’ve created multiple positions in different roles for that person. She’s still with us today. She’s an absolute rock star.
Hardware stores, restaurants, and farm & ranch stores presented a great pool of candidates for general field labor.
I went to all the local hardware stores, and every time I was in the hardware store, if somebody asked if I needed help, I would say, “Yes. Also, if you have any friends, or if you know of anybody, I’m hiring for some outdoor like landscaping style work. Here’s my card.” Also, hang flyers in restaurants or farm & ranch stores. It’s so rudimentary, right? And it’s so boring. But this stuff works.
6. Physical presence is paramount
Austin prides himself on being physically present and active in his community while doing his work.
In a world increasingly shifting online and with business trends like remote cleaning companies gaining popularity, Austin sees being physically in person and doing great work as a competitive advantage.
The way you earn respect in the local market is by getting out there and proving to people that you’re willing to bust your butt and earn people’s respect. And when you do that, the word spreads like wildfire. People will say, “Hey, here’s Austin and a couple of guys that showed up on time. They told me they would deliver 5-star service, and they did. They asked for a 5-star review, and I gave it to them.
7. Leverage digital tools to grow
While a lot of Bear Claw’s early growth came from Austin being physically present in his community, there were two digital tools that Austin saw as necessities:
A well-designed website
While Austin believes being physically present is key, these digital tools can work in the background while you’re out doing the work.
When starting a business right now, you should start with a website and a Google Business profile. These things work together while you’re hustling in the field, blocking and tackling. Google is marketing for you, and you’ll start picking up a couple of calls here and there from the website.
Austin sees digital tools as an easy, competitive advantage as well. These tools offer businesses a simple way to stand out against legacy competition, which has been slower to adopt them.
There are a ton of baby boomers out there right now with businesses that have a ton of market share in any given service and do not even have a website. By simply building a professional website and setting up a Google Business profile, you are already ahead of your baby boomer competition.
Wow! You made it all the way to the end, thanks for sticking with us.
The full interview with Austin is available on YouTube below and Spotify Podcasts here.