Navigating Success and Setbacks in Business

In this episode of "Love Your Sales," host Leighann Lovely sits down with Mike Long, founder and lead designer of LightQuest, an outdoor illumination company. Mike shares his entrepreneurial journey, recalling the evolution of his businesses from lawn care to lighting, emphasizing the importance of a strong work ethic, adaptability, and passion. They discuss the challenges faced by entrepreneurs, such as constant change and the necessity of hiring smarter to grow effectively. Mike offers valuable advice on forging ahead despite difficulties and underscores the need for continuous learning and improvement. Tune in for an inspiring conversation packed with practical insights for budding entrepreneurs and seasoned business owners alike. Contact Mike – Website - https://calllightquest.com/ Email - [e-mail] LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/in/mike-long-cold-clvlt-659b6959/ -Special Thank you to our Sponsors – Genhead – www.genhead.com and Accelerategrowth45 – www.accelerategrowth45.com -Robb Conlon – Intro and outro – Westport Studio - https://www.westportstudiosllc.com/ -The Brave Ones – Instrumental Version Song by Jan Sanejko - https://artlist.io/royalty-free-music/song/the-brave-ones/119489 -Ready to grow your business? Schedule a call with us today - https://api.leadconnectorhq.com/widget/bookings/discoverysalesleighann -Channel Subscribe link - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC-O7W9DzaRv4waodQKCprIg?sub_confirmation=1 Leighann Lovely: Welcome to another episode of Love Your Sales. Today, I am joined by Mike Long. He is the founder and lead designer of LightQuest, an outdoor illumination company. Mike Long grew up in Southeastern Wisconsin and has been an entrepreneur most of his life. He started his first business in 1994 and has never looked back. From 1997 to 2017, he was the founder and partner in a very [00:02:00] successful landscaping and lawn care company. And in 1998, one of his lawn care clients asked about landscape lighting. Mike has never. Looked back ever since he was hooked on that. And I am extremely excited because Mike, you have owned four successful businesses over the years and, and maybe more in there, as a serial entrepreneur, but, you tell us a little bit about yourself. Mike Long: All right. Yeah. My name is Mike Long. So I started in lawn care. We actually started mowing in 1994. We started a mowing company, small landscape jobs, stuff like that. Built it up. Big enough that we could sell it and we did. Um, we wanted to learn the lawn care side of it, the spraying, the chemicals and all that stuff. So we sold the company. We actually went to work for TruGreen for 2 seasons, learned that business, left, started our own company, and that's, that's, in 1997, that's the company we started, was, our first company was called Green Masters. [00:03:00] We built that up, you know. And in 2001, so literally 4 years, we had a national company wanting to buy us out. So we sold to the Scott's Fertilizer Company in 2001. That's when Scott, you know, the big Scott's Fertilizer Company, they used to be in lawn care. They got started in this area, in Southeast Wisconsin, by buying our company. So then, the next day, they literally left with a floppy disk. That's all. They left with a floppy disk and they transferred a whole bunch of money to our account. And we're like, hey, what are we So they left us in business, we went back to work the next day, and we started this professional lawn service. And we went to fertilizing commercial properties only because they didn't buy a commercial business. We built that up huge. We're doing a couple million dollars a year and just commercial business. Doing realizing, uh, stuff like that. We also started a landscaping company at the time because we had a 3 or 9 compete. Let's start a couple of different businesses and keep going. Great journey, we brought some partners in. Um, [00:04:00] we've sold the landscaping company to 1 of our employees. A month before the 1st bank collapsed in 2009, so when the whole big economy, we literally lucked out timing wise, and we sold it a month before that., because a lot of those, a lot of those builders that we're doing work for actually went out of business. Then once the solely focused on, uh, long care again. Built that up huge again and true green big national competitor was after us for a couple of years. It was no, we're not ready to sell and I'm ready to sell. So we ended up in South result was sold in August of 2017. And then I was full time in lighting the next day. I started the lighting company a couple of years before that, just part time on the side while doing the lawn care. So I had some business already lined up, but, you know, I just, I just set little goals. So we sold August of 2017. I said, all right, I want to do 125, of work before the year. Guess what? We hit on 20, hours of work before the end of the year, then just kept building and building and ...