The Back Side of the Fence 📱

This ain't no backyard story. This ain't no quiet tail. It's the fence show in Vegas where legends set sail. What a vinyl steel or aluminum shine. Automatic gates. The cutting edge design. Brian's here and you know he's a man. Cowboy hat got the master plan. It's the number one show in the nation. You got your destination. Still a dream on display from the Vegas. Don't let this slip away.

The strip's got it blitz, but we've got the grid. Access control so slick you won't want to quit. Every post, every panel, standing tall and proud. Have a special draw to city gates. This is where it facing away the desert call. This show's got it all. Show got your destination. Still on display.

Van show you got come at your destination. I on this come don't let this slip away.

Baby, treat your wood right. Give it love and care. Clean it proper. Stain it deep. Show that wood you're there. Don't neglect what matters most. Give it what it needs. Quality attention, baby. That's the love indeed. Treat your wood right. Give it tender care. Treat your right. Stay and seal supply. We're always there.

Would write. There you go. You know how to turn it off. It's going in a circle. There you go. What's happening, guys? How are y'all doing? What's going on, man? Doing great. Let me close this one out there. That was awesome. So, that wasn't that was a recent video you put out, but uh that was you a while back, wasn't it? Yeah, that's just old footage off the old cell phone. I had to do a a video dump, I guess, and uh just playing around, having a good time. So, what's going on, man? Everybody listening uh or listening hopefully watching, we got Caleb Roth here, which uh everybody I mean, we all know you as the king of stain. So, uh whether you like to call yourself that or not. Uh so, welcome. Yeah, man. Glad to be here. Um appreciate you guys bringing me on the show. Yep. And then we've got last but not least Sasha. What's going on, man? Everyone, how are you? We got Sasha, founder of Founders Fence, one of them, right? We uh are honored. We're honored to have you here again, man. Thanks for coming on. And uh I know you're going to be co-hosting this with us for a while. So, we're excited to have you back. Um but uh we talk about you all the time. Let's talk about Caleb for a second. Yeah, come on. I'm not important anymore. I think he's the most committed man in the room, though. He's already set up at the show. So, been there for nearly a year. I'm still here. It cost me about 20,000 a day for him to stay there all year. But he doesn't care. He said he's going to keep the room anyways. I'm out of view, though. I've got problems. The the kegs are empty. Are you from Texas? Yeah. Very deep. Deep deep south Texas. Very deep. Nice. Good deal. Yeah, that video I'm glad you played it because the this you've had the same reaction. Everybody that's seen it is is smiles and laughs. Yeah. So, I I think that's a cool reaction and uh appreciate you showing it on there. Hey, and I know that's an older one. Um but tell me what's changed. I mean, what in staining what since you made that video, has there anything that's been ch anything changed that uh that you do differently? Well, the video is very new, but uh the footage in the video is very old. So, when I first started out and I grew up in the fence business and uh wanted to make some side money, so I started staining, but I didn't have a budget to advertise, you know, we I I grew up with the yellow pages, right? And so so I would just film every single thing that I did, you know, and uh the idea was to let people in Nashville know that I I knew what I was doing and and we could stain their fence, too. And that was that was basically it. So, some old footage. The things that's changed probably is um I'm a desk jockey now and it's u I'd much rather I'd much rather be out not every day because you know it gets tough, right? But u it it would be nice to go stain a fence. Yep. And that's why you got to get this facial hair like us going right here which you got going now. It helps. It helps with that other chin we got. See the more facial hair you got when you start working on a desk you got to hide it. There you go. But uh I you know while we're on that subject though, if you had to explain another one of staining, which we're gonna be talking a lot about it, if you had to if you had to explain good staining in one sentence, in one sentence, uh what would it be? Well, probably it's it's no different than building a fence or anything else. It's attention to detail. You know, if it if it looks like crap, then you probably didn't do a good job. You probably need to fix it. So, I think um if you pay attention and you take pride in your work, you can figure out how to make your job sites look good. So, that's that's the thing is care about what you do. Treat your wood right. And and I don't I know I probably told this story I probably told this story a thousand times um about when I came and visited you um up in Tennessee was that Lebanon is where you're going to be doing your um your next event. But this this was uh this was not too far out of Nashville going uh south a little bit if I remember correctly

Towards um what was the city it was in? Uh this this event was at a much smaller venue. It was in Alexandria, Tennessee. That's where actually our our office is located. Yep. This year is probably about 10 times that size. I think it's 30 20 or 30,000 square feet. So much bigger room. Yeah. And I went I mean it was amazing the energy and what you guys you had me so excited about staining. I was I was back in Las Vegas trying to figure out how I was going to apply stain to chain link fence posts. I just want all I wanted to do I think I reached out to you. I'm like all I want to do is now do staining. That's how that's how jazzed and excited I was. You can see me in this video in the back there. And if you know me, I never pay attention to nothing. And I was like totally uh fascinated by what you Yeah. You got your book there. Everything. So that's it was a picture book. It had a lot of pictures in it, you know. It was a coloring book, you know. It's it's black and white fences. You stain them. So speaking of black and white, I hear your phone is all black and white now. What What's the deal with that? So I'm in a I'm in a business group called EO Entrepreneurs Organization. And um we interviewed a new guy to be in our forum yesterday and he was doing big things on High Level and he just said that his phone was in black and white and it cut his screen time in half and I just said, "Hey, I'll just give that a shot." So 24 hours in black and white phone. Is it working or you just find yourself watching more I Love Lucy reruns or what? No, no. I mean it's So apparently there's some science to it. I think it doesn't uh if it it doesn't release dopamine near as nearly as much. So it so you don't find satisfaction in just doing stupid stuff on your phone, like looking at all, you know, all the pickup trucks for sale or whatever. And um I I grew up in the fence truck with my dad. And so when we'd go to a gas station, I'd go in and I'd get the wheels and deals with the classic car trader and I just looked at stuff for sale and I I knew all the cars. I knew all the models and makes. I knew all the motors. And uh I guess that's still with me because I just love I ain't I'm not buying anything, but I just love looking at stuff for sale. It doesn't matter what it is, man. I look at trucks, classic cars, bulldozers, dogs, chickens for sale. I don't care, man. I like looking at for stuff for sale. So, I like goats. I think goats are cool. Yeah, goats. Goats. Yep. He's Australian, man. They look at different stuff over there, man. That's not even unusual. It's like it'll be like a group of them just sitting around there going swiping left, swiping right, people. Yeah, I I caught myself on one of those military auction sites. We were just driving down the highway and we see a sign for some military auction and my wife gets on there and uh she starts, of course, like you, I'm just sitting there scrolling through it going, "Man, like like I need an old retrofitted Humvey, right? Or something with a tur removed turd on top of it or something." Or like a Mercedes Unimog with a backhoe mounted to the front of it. You know, they've got those. Yeah, I try to I try to I do not have memberships to the big auction sites for that very reason. You wonder if you're ever going to need that. Then you go back and watch some zombie movie and you're like, "That's why I need that." Well, when I was a kid, I'd be sweeping the shop floor and there'd be screws and nails and, you know, you know, 5/16 chain link fence bolts and uh you know, you get in trouble if you throw those away. You got to you got to get the bolts and the nuts out of the trash and put them in the bin, you know? Oh my god. I'll I'll yell at my guys more if I catch them throwing away a 30 cent tension band and a bolt in the in the trash can than I will if they back my truck into something. It upsets Well, it's mine. Yeah, it's mindset, isn't it? Yeah. Yeah, it is. But speaking of fences though, what's the biggest difference when you're staining? And I know I could go off on everything else. What's it when you're staining? What's the biggest difference between staining a fence and

Staining a deck? And I think this is a you know, this is always pretty interesting for us. Okay. Okay. Well, I don't know how interesting it is, but it's it one and one one one you're looking forward and one you're looking down is, you know, that's the biggest difference. But, um, fencing's generally rough cut in the United States. And so, and and you have six feet kind of like this wall behind me, you got six feet of gravity. So, if you put a penetrating stain that self-levels, you can just throw it on the on the wood and it'll it'll just slowly level itself out. On a flat surface, you don't have gravity. So, you got to do the spread. You got to spread it around. And uh and and decks are smooth as well. So gen generally you can put as much stain as you want on this and you can't mess it up. But if you put too much stain on a deck, it it can't there's nowhere for it to go. So you you want to kind of leave a matte finish on a deck when you're done. So if you got excess stain, you want to spread it around or wipe it up, something like that. So it's when you're training people, is it is it kind of a completely different setup? Is it different training methods you use? Or is it uh you know, is it kind of basically the same? you know, I think um I think there's some training training systems out there for fencing or for whatever that's really detailed. Um but the I think the guy that I'm looking for, you know, is the guy we want to give them enough to go out there and figure it out, right? And so there's a thousand ways to skin a deck or skin a cat and same thing with with staining. And so there's so many ways you can do it. We want to get the basic principles to people and let them figure it out on their own. And I I think that's kind of the approach that we take. Um, and I'm not fence building is a like a very detailed craft. You got to know certain things to do it right. With staining, like if you get the stain on the wood, it it pretty much will do the job itself. And um, so yeah, here I need a drink apparently. So, um, so we focus we tend to focus more a little more on the business side than most people because you know it doesn't matter how good you are at something. If you can't keep the the numbers right, if you can't take care of your people, if you can't run the business right, at the end of the day, that plane eventually crash lands. So, so we try to focus kind of do a allaround focus on that. Yeah. So, are you drinking is that pecan or oak or what what flavor is that? Sash, have you done much staining? Is there a lot of staining in Australia? Oh, look, I'm gonna tell you, it brings back some very bad memories. I'm I'm a son of a painter. Uh, my dad, I've been painting when on your video where you had the brush. My dad taught me how to bend the brush in and get the line. No tape. Tape was illegal. Yeah. Yeah. So, a lot growing up having a father that owns a painting company. We did a lot of there's a lot of wood especially decks and staining that um you know rag finish spray spray finishes um roller finishes I think these days and correct me if I'm wrong I think the spray gun technology these days are really good like back in my day it was old school you know paint with a brush or a roller if you're doing fine stuff use a rag um but nowadays with the spray nozzles these days you can get a good finish nice spray evenly. Um but yeah, no, it's horror stories for me. Painting and me not good friends. Yeah, you might you might need to lay down for a couple minutes and not not watch that video again. But yeah, um there a lot of there a lot of great tools out there now in in the products, you know, the products make it make it a lot easier, too. So, you know, our our product's called Expert Stain and Seal, and the idea is basically if you use this, anybody can look like an expert. So you get a you get a finish that looks really nice. So it's easy for somebody like me who grew up breaking rock and digging fence post holes. I can then look like I really am better than I am with a good product. Do you have to ever when you do your first coat, is there any light sanding after that? I know the fencing is rougher. Do you once it's on it's pretty good. You don't have to do any sanding and do another coat. It's just No, it's one heavy coat. you just do one heavy think of a a dry sponge. Uh wood is the sponge, right? And so, um oilbased penetrating stain that's got a lot of oil in it. It's just going to soak right in. And so, you can put as

Much as you want on there and it'll level itself out on rough rough surfaces. You don't got to sand it. You don't have to to strip it or anything to recoat if you come back three or four years later and want to recode it. So, pretty easy for a fence guy to do. So, what's the prep work on this thing? Is there um is it is it more I mean is it like painting where they say you know 90% of the work is prepping or is it I think I think yes and no. So like this this deck or these boards on the background here that are to to my left and right and below below us that's like an old smooth cut decking with some kind of funky nails or something fasteners but something like that. Yeah, you would have to do a lot of prep to make that right, which would be you want to clean it. You want to brighten it. Uh, and then after it dries a couple days, you could stain it. The the guys that get the best results though on flat surfaces, smooth stuff, they're going to sand it with like 40, 60, 80 grit, no more than 80. And uh that'll really make the wood look brand new and give you the best result. But for a fence, if it's a new fence, six months old or less, stain it, man. You just go right for it. And uh if it's, you know, three or four years old, gray, you just clean it and brighten it. And uh I'm the type that paints over cobwebs, any any [ __ ] that's in the way. It doesn't even matter. Like you get me a roller and I will roll over it. Like if it's somewhere I mean this this prep and cleaning stuff, I have no attention span for it. I just can't do it. Yeah. You're like a landlord. Oh. Oh, for sure. I'm like I'm a slum I'm a slum lord in my own house. So you don't even have to rent from me. I will slum lord paint over some cobwebs and dirt and then my my my roller all filthy and I'm trying to paint something in the garage and it's like, you know, you should do it. Well, if you I believe you put enough of that paint over there, it just it just cleans it at the same time. But so that being said though, you know, I'm sure what happens though. What happens when if somebody skips the proper cleaning and the drying time if you know and they just go straight to staining and it needed to be prepped and stained? I mean, does that does that deteriorate the stain? Does that make it not I mean, what what goes wrong? I mean, if I someone like me that would just go out there and I'm like, you said you'd make me look like an expert and I didn't follow the rules. Yeah. So the thing the thing we have to remember is that stain is a stain. It's not a paint. So it's going to highlight the beauty of your wood. But if your wood's ugly, it's going to highlight the ugly of your wood. And so so like like this cedar behind me, if we put whatever color we want it on there, it' be beautiful. The wood's brand new. This this this background you have, if you were to put like a golden honey colored stain over that gray wood, you're not going to get the result you want. So, so just having the the awareness or the understanding of what to do, you know, does this need cleaned or not is important. Uh, and then the wood's got to be dry. You know, it said something about drying time in that question. If you know, the best way is to have a moisture meter. 13% moisture or less is ideal, but you can put your hand on the wood. If the wood feels room temperature, then it's probably dry. If the wood feels cool to the touch, then it's probably it's probably a little wet. And so, you just want to make sure you wood straight before you stain it. Oh, yeah. So, if you skip it, it's uh But if you skip it and it's still wet, it's just going to take to dry or you know, I mean, that's kind of what I'm getting at. If it's say you just don't you're impatient, you just you're trying to get this thing done by 4:00 in the afternoon to get paid and you just uh you end up just moving ahead before you time to wait. Yeah. So, that's a good question and it's something that a lot of guys run into because it's like they're trying to get paid, right? Uh so, we got to get this done. If you're using a stain when you open the lid and it stinks, there's a lot of smell to it. That means there's a lot of solvents and the job of the solvent is to get the stain into the wood before the solvent evaporates. So, if you put a high solvent stain on wet wood or or if it's maybe 150 degrees on the surface of the wood because it's really hot, that solvent can either flash dry away uh or or evaporate away

Before the wood's dry and before it's able to penetrate into the wood. So, if you if you do that, then you're you're just left with basically some kind of a slurry on the surface of the wood and the stain won't actually penetrate in, which would lead to a failure. Um, if you're using a stain that's got more oil in it, there's a little more forgiveness because oil doesn't evaporate. So, if the wood's a little wet, oil will push the water out the back and, um, you know, if it takes two days for the wood to dry, well, the oil is still there. It'll soak in. So, um, ideal is, you know, 13%. But um guys that do it for a living, they they start to understand uh particularly based on the product they're using what the limits actually are and they'll push it. You know, I I never verbally out loud make recommendations to push that because if you know, if you tell a guy 13%, he's probably going to say, "Oh, well, you know, 17's probably fine." But if you tell him 17, he's going to say, "Well, the 25 is fine, too." Right? So, we want guys to kind of follow the rules. But if it's if it's a little higher moisture content, you can get away with it, especially with a heavy oil based type stain. Cool. Yeah. I mean, I've always wondered about that. I'm like, because I'm, like I said, I'm notorious for going out there and just uh moving to the next step before it's done. I'm sure I'm not alone on that. Well, and to translate into business owner terms, if you stay in the wood and it's too wet, you're going to have to come back and fix it, right? That's what it comes down to. And nobody wants call backs. Sash, are you a prepper? Cobwebs, mate, on their wood. Okay. In the paint. I can have the cobwebs after the fact, Brian. Not during. Well, if it's too thick, I'll pull the co It's You could get them. You could just pluck it off. You know what I mean? Use a little screwdriver or something to get it off afterwards. Are you a prepper? Are you guys both a prepper? I mean, do you when you're staining something, do you follow the rules every time? Well, I think like we it depends. Like if you're a oneman show, you you're a cowboy, right? You understand all the tricks, all the things you can get away with. But when you try to scale your business and you got people working for you that aren't maybe thinking of all the things you are. If you let them and train them how to do the cowboy stuff, um I just typically say everybody's not a cowboy, right? So the the more the more team members you get, the more you scale, the more you're going to want to follow those procedures. And we're going to do the same mask, the same cut in, the same drop cloths, the same fence sign, the same, you know, photos to prove we did the prep work every single time. But if it's just you out there, man, I mean, it's your business, right? So you can you can take all the chances you want, but there's, you know, there's a few things you want to do every time. My lesson in life with painting is everyone thinks it covers up imperfections. Uh-uh. There's an imperfection. Painting generally staining even more so. It'll bring it out more. So yeah, it's not a bad thing to prep a little bit and then get into it because once you've got it on there, you're going to have to sand back if it stands out, you know? So every time, oh, just put a coat of paint on it. It'll cover it up. I'm like, yeah, that's not how it works. Well, if you're going to offer a premium service, you might as well do the premium service, right? So, do it do it right. You know, I think that's the way probably probably anybody in the fence business was probably raised to do things right, you know, or you had to redo it uh if you grew up like me. So, I kind of I kind of try to follow that rule pretty pretty strict. We got some bruises. We got some bruises to prove and some scars to prove why somebody was chewing us out for doing it wrong. Right. Oh yeah, man. I still get nervous when I hold a flashlight for my dad. Yeah. That's what I mean. But hey, what um and and speaking about that though, if people do do something wrong or when they're out there selling the stuff, I mean, everybody's got different approaches when they're selling. like uh some people sell uh speed, some people sell warranties, some

People I mean there's just a million different approaches that people go about on on some people are selling price, right? So uh when they're out there doing that, um what are some of the biggest lies homeowners are told about either lifetime or like five year stains or whatever? I think I think a lot of people buy into the idea of they could just do it once and be done. But I think really from a from a sales perspective as a as a fence installer, particularly if you're doing like treated pine, um I grew up in a pine market. We built pine fences. They were beautiful. Our customers love us. They give us a fivestar review. 6 weeks later, they call back and they're pulling their hair out. They hate us. We're terrible because the fence warped. There's cracks. There's twists in it. And they're mad at us. They want us to come fix it. And so, you know, probably 20 years ago, everybody started putting clauses in their contract for warpage. and you know, acts of mother nature, things like that. And um for a fence guy, if you're trying to sell value, first of all, a good oilbased stain will greatly diminish warping, cracking, and twisting. And it looks beautiful, right? So, it looks great. Your fence signs on it. It looks better than all the neighbors. People are going to call you. And you're you're you're fulfilling the C like the need, right? They they need a fence, but they also need to protect that investment. And so, I try to think of it as price verse cost, right? Like if you build a new fence and you don't stain it, it cost whatever it cost, right? And but if that fence falls down or has to be replaced in seven 10 years, which is pretty common, um there's a price, you know, there was a price per year to own that fence. So if you stain and seal it on regular basis, the the price initially is going to go up a little bit, but if you can extend the life of that fence to get 20 years out of it, well, your cost of ownership's diminished greatly. Uh, and all the while you've been getting recurring revenue on the fence because you've been out there cleaning it, staining it every couple years, your fence sign is on the best looking fence in the neighborhood and you, you know, you're taking care of your customers. So, for a for a fence guy, I think that's important is to be just to be able to sell a product you can stand behind and and not be running from the callbacks of of warping and twisting and things turning gray and looking bad. What do you think people are out there actually telling homeowners that that uh are probably, you know, I mean, you know, oh, we get a lifetime warranty on this ch. We we know that. I mean, some of these companies may not even be around five years later or 10 years later or so. What do you think uh what do you think some of the common like just misstatements people are spitting out there about, you know, maybe do they take the the warranty that you put on your product and say that's what they're warranting, you know, for the fence? Maybe that doesn't maybe that doesn't really pertain if they don't install it correctly or something. What do you think they say that they shouldn't be saying? I I see a lot of companies, the smart ones, they say, you know, this sounds kind of extreme, but they'll give a 30-day warranty on a wooden fence, and they say, "But if you stain and seal it within 90 days, we'll extend that warranty to 5 years or one year or whatever, but you know, it's like workmanship, right? So, if if I'm going to be in business, I you know, and if I go out of business, I'm going to start another business, right?" And so somebody asked me once or I guess I asked my team um because I said I want to go to a lifetime warranty in our service business for staining which doesn't really make a whole lot of sense but I but I asked the question I said well let's let's just say we stain a fence for somebody's granny and uh and she calls us back three years later and says I walked in my backyard for the first time you know since I got my wheelchair or whatever and uh the back side of the gate you guys didn't stain it. Would you come fix it? I said, 'What are you going to do? They said, 'Well, we're going to go fix it. I said, 'Okay, that's a lifetime workmanship warranty. Workmanship is easy to warrant because particularly in construction, you can see it, right? Yeah. Um, if you know what you're looking for. I know there's some structural things you can't see those those 4 inch deep fence post. You don't see that till it's on the ground, but

Um but I think I think offering a lifetime workmanship warranty is a good thing. And if your product has a warranty, um, that's, you know, the stain we manufacture has a lifetime warranty, but it it comes just like a new Ford truck or I think you're a Dodge truck guy. If you buy a new truck, it comes with a maintenance plan, and you lose your warranty if you don't change the oil, if you don't do the maintenance. And so our idea is we want it's it's easier to get dollar number two than dollar number one. So once you have a customer, you want to keep the customer. And so they know they got to maintain the wood. And so if we give them a very clear-cut, you know, maintenance plan of wash it every year and for fences restain, do a maintenance code every three years, you you're going to be in the backyard in the neighborhood every year from until they decide not to do that anymore. And you know, why do people stain fences? Most people, you know, they know that you need to seal the wood to protect it. They know that you need, you know, to prevent water or UV damage or mold or rotting. But really, I think the main reason people stain their wood in America is because it looks good. And so if you if you can if you can, you know, we're all working in these backyards where they've got super, you know, really nice landscaping, grass, swimming pool, outdoor kitchens, all this stuff. They want the wood to look good. So why are you why would you walk away from that opportunity to to pick up that extra revenue? And um there's a lot of ways to do it. I know some guys in California pay their guy their their their subcontractors or I guess their employees, they pay them a day rate and uh they're building with redwood. It's it's dry. So they build the fence and stain the fence every day and it it it's zero more labor for them. And so there's there's some opportunities there. Some low hanging fruit for some fence guys watching. So do you offer like do you do you offer a maintenance plan for your clients or you know encourage the people you train? Is that sort of a bit of a t not a tact? So, yeah. So, we offer So, we have a service company based in Nashville and we do offer a maintenance plan. Um, people pay us monthly and we'll take care of their fence forever, but I I know me and I know that I'm going to I will mortgage my house to make it right if I have to, right? But I we work with thousands of contractors and I don't know all of them. I don't know, you know, what their morals are. And so for a long time we really tried to talk guys into doing maintenance plans. But we know that the turnover and in with contractors is kind of like three years. You know guys get in business two or three years later they're gone. So what we did we flipped it upside down and put the warranty on the homeowner and basically so if if you use expert stain and seal you stain their fence or their deck you say okay customer you now have a lifetime warranty. Here's what you have to do to maintain that warranty. And so it puts the ball in their court and um if that company goes out of business, well, they still can have their warranty as long as they as is they can prove that they've done the maintenance. And so I think that makes it a little easier for contractors to have kind of a set standard on this is what the maintenance is and they can they can do their maintenance plan where they call them once a year, where they bill them monthly, they bill them yearly, it doesn't matter. There's a thousand ways for them to do it, whatever they're comfortable with. But I think that's uh that's kind of the way we take that that approach. So, I guess to answer my own you answered the question, but to answer the question about probably one of the the biggest uh lies homeowners or maybe I don't want to say lies is that people are doing something bad. They're not, but I mean probably is there taking that lifetime warranty label on the side of your container and they're telling people this stain has a lifetime warranty and probably not filling them in on um what it takes the maintenance-wise and stuff properly. Yeah, I think there's some of that, but I think the real problem comes from a lot of the big box brands that people see on TV and they see on billboards, they hear about it on the radio, they trust those brands. Um, but a lot, most of those are film forming water-based products. And so, they go on the surface, they seal the, you know, a fence post, a wooden post is a straw. All the moisture that comes through the

Bottom of that post, it goes out the top. And the same thing with the fence pickets that touch the ground. And so any when when you when you basically put a plastic wrap on that fence post or that or that fence, you cause premature rotting and things like that. And so it's a good idea. So So people go to the big box store, they buy a stain that says 10ear warranty or 25 year warranty on vertical surfaces and uh the coating will last 25 years, but the wood they put it on is going to rot out in four or five years. And so that's that's the big problem. And so again, we kind of flipped it on its head. And we would we would rather our our philosophy is to make a product that's going to make the wood last the longest. And so so penetrating stains are more sacrificial. So they go on they go in the wood, not on the wood. They give life to the wood. And um the the color uh the pigment is what blocks the UV damage. The oil and sealer is what protects uh from weather. But as it's kind of like a fuel gauge. So as the color starts to fade, it's just the gauge telling you, "Hey, it's time to reoil this fence." And so we just keep that tank topped off by doing maintenance every couple years. And that's kind of the idea. That's the plan. And um that's it. We make our own We make our own stain here at Las Vegas Fence. We use uh all we So we recycle everything. I mean we're real big on recycling all of our used motor oil from our trucks. We just use that as stain on the fences and we've had zero issues. No, no issues. Zero issues. Lifetime. Lifetime on our used motor oil stain. There you go. You know, a lot a lot of motor oil now it's like fish oil. Did you know that? No. Is it? Yeah. Like you I think you look at pens oil or Quaker State and on the back it says it's fish oil. So fish oil is good for fences. So what um when do you think I mean this is big like you said box stores and stuff have it. So when do you think DI DIY staining makes sense and when should they call a a pro? And it's okay since you know there's a lot of fence companies uh listening if you said hey everybody should always hire a pro. But we know that's not always the case since it is sold everywhere. So, I'm hoping you'll just tell me the truth. When would the, you know, when would it be make sense for a DIY person saying if if the if the fence customer is an engineer, you might want to let him do it himself, right? I mean, I think it just comes down to being honest with yourself and say, is this a project that I'm actually going to get my butt off the couch and go out there and do myself, or am I just going to talk about it for three years and then never get it done? And uh that's what it comes down to. I mean, there's so many products out there now that anybody can use. Um, I just think I think the contractor ought to offer the service. And, uh, you know, there's going to be projects you don't want, but just like when you build a fence, but, um, if you can just cherrypick your good jobs and say, "Hey, you know, this one has 16 koi ponds and grape vines and statues in the backyard, we'll let them do it theirel and uh, but this is a nice wide open brick house with a big backyard and nothing in it. We'll stain that one. That's an easy one. And uh that's a good way to start and then and then when you get good at it, you can you can take on the the fancy backyards and charge big money for it. So, this will be a fun one. And your answer to my next question cannot be um Las Vegas fences motor oil stained fences. Okay. It can't be it can't be the answer to this one. But what's the worst staining job you've ever seen? Well, I I would just put it in a class in a category. Um, film forming transparent and semi-transparent stains are are they're a film. So, think think of a a a colored piece of plastic. You put one layer on and then you put another one beside it and you overlap them. You're going to have a dark spot in the middle where there's two coats or there's two layers. And so, film forming stains are very difficult to get, you know, to get a uniform look because you put a little here and then you got a light spot. You touch up the light spot, now it's a dark spot. And then you you wind up redoing the whole panel and then you just get stripes and runs all over the place. And so I saw one the other day. I was taking a guy out and and just

Showing him a bunch of a neighborhood with a bunch of fences. And this fence you could see every every roller mark. You could see everything in it. And uh when you see those, we've all seen them. They look like crap. Like that's the worst. Like that's that's you. It'd be better to take a bulldozer to it than do that in my opinion. You know, it just looks so bad. And you think that's like a film? What is it? like a film like uh it's just stains that Yeah. they just sit on the surface. Oh, and and we think they're going to dry clear or something and they end up drying and like like I I think I've seen stuff like that where it just never quite really dries. It's it's all streaked and it looks funky. It doesn't look like the wood looked before, right? And so so when you put a good stain on a fence, the wood looks the same. It's just a different color. It's maybe deeper and richer, but it's a different color. those film forming stains, they'll look it'll look like a tiger or a zebra, you know, when you're done. Yeah. My stuff penetrates. I don't know. I mean, it's deep, man. None none of that sitting out there like that. It's in It's in deep. Yeah. You know, you don't If you don't get a ticket from EPA or some somebody out there, then you didn't stain it right. Do you even use oil in Las Vegas? Harder and harder in Australia that it's harder and harder to use oil oil based stains now. I don't know. It's just I thought oil kind of went away for a while then it all went to water b I mean like painting obviously it was a lot of oil when I grew up right and then it went to a lot of waterbased and then was it was that like a thing for a while then it kind of then it it works back to oil. Is there areas of the country where you can't use oil? California is really hard to ship stuff into. So I mean I know you ship stuff all over the country. Is there issues with trying to get So so in the old in the old days an oil base was actually the sealer was an oil. It was a drying oil and so it was an oil base. It was a pigment. It was the oil which was a small amount of a drying oil like linseed oil or something like that. And then you had your carrier which was the the majority of the product was a solvent. Solvents are cheap. They evaporate. They're they're just they they serve a purpose and then they're done. That's what smells. That's what depletes the ozone layer. That's what you know can cause health concerns. And so the way our stain is, it's different. And so so we have a drying oil, but we also our carrier instead of using solvent, we're using like a a conditioning oil, a mineral oil for that. And so that's that's really what makes our stain different. You take the lid off, there's no smell. It's because it's just it's literally it's oil. So um so that's what we do. And and so when people, you know, old school people think of an oilbased stain, they think of something, you open the lid, it stinks, it smells, and that's a sign of it being good. Um, today it's just it's different. And so so our stain's legal in all 50 states, it's legal in the UK, Canada, um, Australia. We we'd love to get it in Australia. So um, yeah, it's just it's a totally different chemistry. So it's it's more similar to putting motor oil on your fence in some ways because motor oil the the the motor oil the the the the carbon from the you know from the engine deposits that is used in pigments and so carbon is something that used so you're going to get that dark color but the oil itself is actually conditioning the wood that's what what what makes the wood you know kind of swell up and and uh hold it shape and so so yeah so the stain that we make is is similar to that in some ways in the fact that it goes into the wood it conditions the wood keeps water out that way gonna bathing in motor oil, too. You know, don't give him any I'm telling you, man. I mean, I'm not I refuse to go pay to dump my oil somewhere. See, I got to use it somewhere, right? Well, you know the You remember the old signs the government made that said, "Dig a hole, put gravel in it, and then pour your oil in it." And I remember No, we don't even People don't change their oil anymore. Remember we grew up everybody, you'd go down and buy five quarts of oil at the oil. Yeah. And you buy your oil filter and your your oil and you'd uh you'd change

Your oil. Nowadays, I I don't half the people don't even know how to change their oil. I bet I bet you we I bet you we know I bet you both of us know a dozen people that wouldn't know how to change their oil if they if you told them to. If you gave them the tools. Yeah. Yeah. We had we had a young kid working for us a couple years ago and told, you know, part of the every day was to check the wool in the truck. Man, he walked over there like he knew what he was doing. He flipped the hood up and he walked around the front of that truck for about five minutes just looking. And uh he had no idea. He had no idea how to change the oil. He had a truck. So, he probably walked over to the Tesla and he's like he's like, "Look, we got to we got to teach people the stuff that we that we learned and the stuff we were abused with. We got to teach people uh maybe in in not such an abusive way, right?" I guess, right? I don't know. Right. Nobody was so emotionally supportive to us when they were teaching us. There was no emotional support. You wouldn't even show a feeling like crying in front of them. That's for sure. Oh, yeah. I I used to tell guys that I got like the worst thing that could happen um back in the old day on a fence crew was to go sit in the truck. Oh, cuz it was hot. You He's not going to let you roll the window down. You can't take a nap. You got no cell phone, right? And so it's like that is the worst thing ever. Oh, you didn't get taken back to the shop when you were done and you were sick and not feeling good. You'd have to like you said, you'd have to go sit in the truck and you wait if if it was only an hour into the day. You sat there for seven hours if you weren't working. But you weren't getting a ride back to the You weren't getting a ride back nowhere. I'll just carry bags of concrete. That's better than sitting in the truck. Yeah. Better off just working. So, what uh what's the I mean, while we're on that though, what um while we're talking about the staining, what's what's something that people do that permanently ruins the fence or deck? I mean, before is it like power washing? Is it something that'll completely ruin it? There's no point in staining it after that. It's gone. Well, probably. Um, and this would be kind of a debatable thing, but putting some kind of a solid coating like like if you put this brand new cedar and you painted it black, you know, unless you're just trying to achieve a cool look. You've kind of you've kind of ruined it because it's very difficult to get it off once it goes on. Yeah. A paint or solid stain, something like that. It looks beautiful when it's new, but it's going to crack. It's going to peel. It's going to cause the wood to to rot earlier. And so that's probably a great way to run your fence is to put some kind of a, you know, solid film forming stain on it. Now, if you got a 13-year-old fence that's gray, it's got 15 different repairs on it, solid stain's a good choice for that. But if you got some brand new wood, I' I'd use an oil on it for sure. So, um, have you ever went out there, um, it kind of leads up into this. Have you ever went out there and the job was just too far gone and you just refused to do it? it had maybe some paint or something on it. And even though I mean you have some I'm sure you have some processes to get if it's a new enough fence and somebody screwed up and put the wrong stain on or something, you probably have a way to get that off, right? Yeah. You know, when I grew up in the fence business, sometimes we'd we'd quote a job and there was rock everywhere. And we knew we were going to have to drill every hole, jackhammer every hole. And sometimes we just bid those projects in such a way that we'd let the next guy get them. um because we had work, you know, it's there's, you know, like a lot of guys in the fence business in December and January, they're taking on jobs they might not do in July, right? And so staining is the same way. Like there's there's projects that we just don't want to do. We don't want to strip wood. You know, our core customer is is got a wooden fencer deck. It's three years old or less and it's never had anything on it. That's what we're shooting for. you know, when we get all of those will start thinking about taking on some of the other stuff and and you know, a lot of times, uh, the new guys that are getting started,

They start taking on those hard jobs. They get a bad taste in their mouth. So, I think it's a good idea to kind of hold your ground. You're not going to starve, right? Get go get go get the good stuff and and work on that and you'll be a lot happier. Yeah. So, um, before I get on to my final question, I did want to bring up I'm I'm I'm really excited about I was really excited to see you guys do this because I really, um, and you know, I mean, I I I talked to you guys about the fence university thing, and I don't even do stain, and I'm super excited about the staining university that you do. So, um, you are expanding it this year, though, and it's it's going to be March 4th to the 5th, and I'm going, by the way, I'm going straight there. I know, you know, we got the fence crews going on, I think, until like the 3. So, I've had to tell everybody, don't get my return flight because I'm going straight to your event when we get back from our cruise from the fence cruise. We need a stained cruise. That sounds we'll do it next. But so, only because I know if there's anything you guys do, you guys do it first class. So, um I this this was I'm pretty excited about this event. So, tell me I mean I've been to your other one like like you said in Alexandria. This one's going to be in Lebanon. Um that's not too far right from where it's it's it's closer to the city. So, it's it's in it's in a big city. So, um, lots of food to eat, lots of places to stay, lots of stuff to do. Um, but yeah, it's it's a we've done it at this location before, um, or the same grounds, but this building is a new it's a brand new facility. And so, it's huge. It's a big expo center. So, in in the past, we've basically had the fire marshall say, "You can't bring any more people in here." You know, we've always outgrown our places. And so, uh, it's going to be hard to outgrow this one, but uh, we're going to give it a shot. So, the new place, it's brand new. It's beautiful. going to be a lot of vendors there. Um, we're going to Ford trucks are going to be there. All the big sprayer manufacturers. Um, we got a fence install school going on there at the same time doing a doing a no dig fence, wood privacy fence, pre-stained fence, and uh, how to stain a fence, how to stain a deck, how to restore wood, how to pre-stain wood, you know, how to bid jobs. We got a bunch of great keynote speakers coming in, business coach speakers, uh, you name it. So, we got a lot of cool stuff. Are we going to have a little bit of um are we going to have a little bit of that action with some some groovy music and stuff going? Oh, you know we you know we will. And then uh we got a cigar we got a cigar a mobile cigar lounge coming and yeah. So Wednesday night it's Wednesday and Thursday. Wednesday night uh we're going to have a big campfire under a big pavilion and hang out with the guys that want to stay late and uh we'll eat tacos and and bar barbecue and smoke cigars, have a good time. So how do they um get more information on this? Um, is it it's your normal website for the staining university? You can go to the normal website, but make it easy on you. Just go to staininguniversity.com and uh come check it out. There there will be a certificate if you like certificates, you know. Um, but I think the main thing is you there's everybody's at a place in business and uh to get to the next place, it's it's it's really good to talk to people that were that are where you are. Yeah. But they were but they were there 10 years ago, five years ago, 20 years ago. And uh so it's great for networking. you can meet a lot of people that can help change your thinking, help elevate you to the next place, and then uh you might learn something. You know, I think um there's there's going to be people there with a lot of experience in the industry doing doing that. Fence builders, there'll be painters there. Anybody who does wood care and so it's going to be it's going to be a good event to get to and and get outside your box. Yeah. Yeah. And I still talk to a lot of fencers that I met at that event. And well, how many how many years? That must have been like two, three years ago. Three years ago, right? Yeah. probably two or three years ago at the last one you were at. Yeah. And I could look at that picture and I still talked to probably a bunch of those people just in that photo that um that was that I pulled up earlier that was from your website. So um that's

Kind of cool. Sasha, have you done any of these staining stuff? You go to one of these events yet, right? No, I don't I haven't been to an event yet. I'm going to try to drag you to this one. I'll try to So where's Sasha? Are you in Australia or where you at? I'm originally from Australia. No, I'm in Southern California. So, we One of our locations is in SoCal and the other one's in Arizona. Well, SoCal is a great stained market. Arizona's hit or miss. Yeah, it is. Yeah. Very hit or miss in Arizona. Definitely. Um, SoCal is definitely Southern California's got lots of staining in Oh, yeah. Yeah. And I'm sure you know people if somebody's looking for stain or somebody that uh California I got a bunch of guys in in the Bay Area San Diego area. Yeah, for sure. So, hey, my final question though. What's the one thing you wish every fence contractor understood about staining? Like if you could snap your fingers and every fence contractor out there understood this about staining, what would it be? Um I I think I would say this. I would I would say um what if I to say how long does it take you to build a privacy fence? They might say two we set the post, we come back the next day and finish it or we drive for it, whatever. And I would say what if I told you you can make that same margin, same profit in two hours by staining it. I think that would be something that might make their ears perk up. Yeah. There you go, man. I appreciate you coming on. I know it's late for you. It's like what 6:30, 7 o'clock for you. Oh, yeah. It's not bad. Yeah. You know, you're probably you got your black and white screen going on right there. You're probably getting ready to watch Matt Lock or Murder She Wrote or something in black and white. I got I got some Land Man to watch and some other stuff in the heat of the night, man. In the heat of the night. Sasha, thanks for coming on too, you guys. Um, everybody that's listening, um, definitely get over if you haven't been to one of the standing universities, go check it out. I'm sure I'll see you at Fence Tech here in another week or week and a half. I'll be we'll be coming up walking that. So, um, if Hey, grab grab one of us. Grab grab him at Fence Tech, too. Hopefully, we see you guys all there. Um, go to your website, go to theirs. Uh, go to one of these events. This is how we keep all this stuff alive, everybody. We appreciate the support. Industry loves it. All right, we'll talk to you, Caleb. Have a good one. Take care, guys. Appreciate you. All right.