David:

[0:00] Well, hello. Today I'm happy to have with me Joseph Descans from Sunny San Diego. He's been an arborist for about 45 years. He is an author and getting into speaking is also a coach. Welcome to Redeeming Business Today podcast. Joseph, glad you're here.

Joseph:

[0:17] Awesome. Thank you for having me, David.

David:

[0:20] Yeah. And one thing I like to ask my guests right when they first come on is, what is one way you believe we can honor God in our business that others may not know about?

Joseph:

[0:31] Wow, that's great. So obviously your just conduct is the first thing, just be nice and personable and just love people and care for people. They feel that. Obviously, they want that. And, you know, as the saying goes, you know, they don't care what you say until they know they care. And so that's the first thing. And then I guess we'll just stop there. You asked for the first thing, one thing. So, there we go.

David:

[1:01] That's fine. So, you've done a lot of things, and you also talked to me about your journey. So, could you bring our audience up to speed a little bit how you started and what you're doing today and the change that's come over the past few years?

Joseph:

[1:15] Okay so just in business so I started trimming trees when I was 15 years old here in San Diego California my cousin got me started by climbing palm trees so I just kind of climb with a pair of gloves a Levi jacket and uh Sony Walkman right that was important and a hat right and so I just kind of free climbed the palm trees and trimmed them because that was you know paying better than mowing lawns and the other stuff we had going on so that's how I started and then I just kind of grew and got tools and stuff and then, one day I talked to a customer and they said oh we're not going to hire you because you're not licensed so then I went out and got a contractor's license and then over time I got certified with the ISA as a certified arborist and so just kept going and growing and here we are today.

David:

[2:12] Very good. You told me, we had this pre-interview call, and you talked to me about tomatoes, peaches, and avocados, and about business, how that relates. What do tomatoes, peaches, and avocados have to do with business?

Joseph:

[2:27] Okay, very good. So, God always talks to us or often talks to us in parables and allegories and similes and metaphors, all those good things. So, one day I was just many, several years ago, maybe 2006, 2005, I was just kind of in financial dire straits and taking a dive, spiraling. And so, I said, I asked the Lord, I just did a simple prayer. I said, Lord, you see where I'm at. I know that no matter how deep this ditch gets, you can get me out. And so just a simple prayer. And then a month or two later, I was sitting on my couch reading John 15 and the Lord spoke to me, and he said, you need to get out of the tomato business and into the peach and avocado business. And so, thinking about my own yard, I had no tomatoes, but I did have peaches and avocados. And so, what he said didn't make sense.

Joseph:

[3:30] And so I said, okay, what does that mean? and he said, and he likened tomatoes into just the nine to five you go to work every day. On Friday you get paid and then you have to start over you go back to work on Monday and you know if you don't go back to work on Monday you don't get a harvest and that's like tomatoes because you plant a tomato, and it grows up quickly and produces tomatoes but then it dies and you have to start over.

Joseph:

[3:58] And the peaches, I had a peach and avocados in my tree, in my yard. And the peach I planted, I got from my sister. She had a peach tree and all of the rotten peaches; she just threw them in a pot. And at the end of the summer, she had a little peach tree growing out of the pot. So, she gave it to me. I planted it. The next year, so in one year, it produced one peach. The second year, it produced 50 peaches. The third year it produced 100 peaches. And then the peach tree, as you know, can go on to live for hundreds of years, so generations.

Joseph:

[4:35] And then the avocado is a little bit different. It's a little bit tougher because the avocados can take 5 to 15 years to produce the first avocado when you plant them from seed. So that means that you may be basically working on a source of income for, you know, five to 15 years before you see any fruit. And then it starts producing it. And like the peach, it can go for generations. So, he was telling me basically to get out of the nine to five grind and start building residual income.

David:

[5:13] Very good. No, I like that illustration. So, for you and building residual income, what did that look like then?

Joseph:

[5:20] So first I wrote down the vision. So that was my first book. If you want to grow rich, plant a tree, biblical insights to growing wealth. And so, I wrote down the vision and then I started doing stuff. And then one day God gave me a specific project. I was just praying in the morning after I dropped the kids off at school, just kind of walking around my kitchen there praying. And so, I prayed the first half hour, and I was going, things are feeling a little different here. And then the second half hour, he basically gave me insight to a movie. I didn't see a movie. I didn't watch it. I just understood a movie. And the movie is called Hosea, the prophet who married a prostitute. That's what I came to call it. And so, after that, I started working on the book and it took me 10 years. So, it's the perfect avocado, right? Right in the middle, five to 15. It took me 10 years to write the thing. So single dad with four kids, you know, all running my own business, all that stuff. So, it took me 10 years to kind of do that on the side. And so, I finally got it published. And now I've done the screenplay and looking to produce the movie.

David:

[6:37] Cool very good no I like the illustration about the avocado because some businesses do take off and make money right away and others do not.

Joseph:

[6:47] Right, so there's projects you know it's easy to weary you know and especially as an author writing a book after you've read it and edited it you know 25, 30, 50 times you feel like just wadding the thing up and throwing it away, you know, hitting the delete button. And so it's kind of tough and, you know, but having that insight up front and just knowing that, you know, on the back end, you're going to have something that's going to potentially last for decades and generations, then that helps you get through the process.

David:

[7:27] I have a slight idea about writing because my daughter's a writer and she has a few self-published books and I know how many times she rewrites the story it's not once or twice it might be 10 times and there's been books where I’m like, you know I read it what in the draft mode it's like so how was that I just kind of put that one to the side I don't like that one anymore. She's on to the next one because she writes Christian fantasy, and she just learned so much as she's growing that she doesn't like the first stuff anymore. So, she all these things she learned, she's putting into the next book and she's like, we're just going out with this book. But, yeah, it takes a while to write.

Joseph:

[8:09] That's cool. How old is your daughter?

David:

[8:11] That one, she's just turned 30. She's turned 30.

Joseph:

[8:17] Okay. You look very young. You do not look 50. You're telling me she's your daughter. I'm like, oh, my goodness. He looks like 28 or 30 himself.

David:

[8:27] Yeah. That's one of my shock factors. I'm actually 54.

Joseph:

[8:32] Yeah. Good for you. Congratulations.

David:

[8:36] Thank you. Thank you. So, I know it's interesting when you talk about the work week. And I know the New Deal back in the 30s, Roosevelt really promoted the 40-hour work week because I think there's a lot of people working 70, 80, 90 hours a week. Talking to you, you talked about the biblical work week in the Bible times, what that would look like. Would you like to explain that to our audience?

Joseph:

[9:03] Yeah, so the biblical work week is six days a week, right? We see that in Genesis. And then Matthew 10, it's either 10 or 20. We see the field owner and the landowner going out and collecting workers to work in his field all day. And so, he goes out the first hour and he goes out again and again, 11th hour. And so, then the people in the 11th hour, they worked one hour, and they were complaining about the, you know, the other guys were complaining about them because they got paid the same. Right. So, 11 plus one is 12 hours. So, it's six times 12 is 72 hours. So that's a biblical work week. And so basically the way the Lord put it to me is we have a kind of an ideal situation here and that you can do your regular job, your tomato job, your nine to five and do that 40 hours a week and then spend the other 32 building residual income, something that It'll last for generations where, you know, my minor amount of work to maintain over generations and just pass it on from.

Joseph:

[10:17] Your kids, their kids, their kids. And so that works out perfect. And so, you know, there's a lot of variables in that. And if you're like me, you know, you, whatever you set up, is it going to work perfectly? You got kids and you got things happening that don’t go right. And of course I surf too. So, when the surf's up, you got to go surfing, right? You got that window, you got to get it when it's good, especially when you got kids. So, there's a lot of things that come up. And one of the things was, I think I took my kids five to the ER five times in one month, you know, cause every little thing under the sun, you know, people like look down on me and, you know, it's just, if you don't take them to the hospital immediately, the doctor, you know, and so I remember once it's like a five hour commitment, right. And to go to the ER. And I remember I took my, yeah, I took my daughter once and they let us out about two o'clock in the morning. And, you know, at the end of it, they just gave her some Tylenol or something. I forget what it was. And she was so apologetic. She's like, dad, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I made you do that. And, but, you know, whatever, what can you do?

Joseph:

[11:37] So all that stuff happens. But, you know, so there's plenty of things to derail you, get you off course, but you just remember, get back on course and get back at it and make it happen till you get the finished product.

David:

[11:53] Yes. And I'm not promoting a 72-hour work week, but I think we have, as a society, I think we get lazy. I think we get lazy and we're like, I only have to work 40 hours. I don't want to work any more than 40 hours. But that's kind of like, what's the ideal? For you, maybe it's 50 hours, maybe it's 30 hours. I don't know. But it's just to look at it from a new perspective even to say, what can I do? What should I do in this situation?

Joseph:

[12:22] Yeah, there's a lot of people that, you know, really examine how many hours are you using? How many hours do you really have? How many hours are you sleeping and blah, blah, blah, and wasting time? And so, yeah, that's it. It's time management. It comes down to that. And really, the goal with that whole story is to be the landowner, right? Because he's got it easy. He just goes out and finds some workers. And you know he goes I’ve got a little schedule put up of what he does during the day you know he gets up early eats breakfast gets the first bunch of guys goes surfing for a few hours comes back gets the next bunch you know and then whatever eats lunch you know and so you know you've got a whole different picture than you know working out in the hot field for 12 straight hours, right?

David:

[13:18] That's right. That's right.

Joseph:

[13:20] So when you're young, you know, you put in those hours so that you can get the field. So, you can buy the field or a field, whatever field, a bunch of fields

Joseph:

[13:31] so that, you know, you can relax later on in your life. Hopefully you can pair that 72 hours down fairly quickly, you know, as quickly as possible.

David:

[13:42] Yes. Yes, absolutely. Absolutely so what's next for you? You talked about possibly writing another book, is that true?

Joseph:

[13:52] Yeah, I’ve got a kid's book that I’m working on my next project like for teenagers and stuff like that adolescence so that's a really cool book it's a Christian themed book too and looking to do the movie. So, once I fully achieve my goals with my Hosea book and it's in film, then I will move on to the next one. I have, as you can see, done a lot of stuff and it's easy for me to get off into too many different things. I do that too much. But nevertheless, I've decided to put that until I know what I'm doing. I've accomplished the first one and then it should go a lot quicker. Right. The first one is the hard one.

David:

[14:43] Yes. Yes. And you talked about maybe doing a workbook on the 29 keys to excellent business.

Joseph:

[14:50] Yeah, 29 Keys to Excellence in Business. Yeah, so yeah, I've got those. I've basically taken notes. I've got it started. And once I get it done, I guess we'll be doing a coaching program with that.

David:

[15:07] Okay. Do you mind sharing just a couple of those? What are the keys, a couple of the keys in business?

Joseph:

[15:17] Yeah. So, my very first one is strive for perfection. So, you want to do everything, your best work. You want to put your best foot forward and always just do the best job. You know, you don't want to get caught in and not move forward until it's perfect. But when you are doing things, you want to do your absolute best work. And so that's my first key. Let me see my second key here is excellent customer service. You want to treat the customer, you know, nice, perfect. And, you know, you want to give them the utmost respect and, you know, just, just serve them. You're a servant to your customer. You know, different people have different attitudes. I remember I worked for one guy and I stand up to my customers, you know, and I, and there was a customer, I was on the job and he was like she was talking to him going oh I don't like this I don't like this and then he barked at her like he had a kind of a short fuse and then he barked at her and I’m like whoa you know you don't want to do that so I’m sure he lost that customer nevertheless you know you want to you want to treat your customers with respect sure and about that I don't know how much hang on what comments.

David:

[16:38] I just, that's fine. But as far as excellent customer service, do you have any ideas on how to have what makes an excellent customer service?

Joseph:

[16:51] Well, obviously, you want to respect your customer. You're there to serve them. You are there to do the job. They have something in mind when they hire you. They want something done, and they want it done right, and they want it done the way they want it. And so, you have to understand what that is, figure that out. Obviously, it helps to get everything in writing. So that's one of the other keys. That way you know and they know exactly what everybody wants, and that way you can do if it's all on writing hopefully then that that communicates everything between the two of you and you know exactly what you want you can do it perfectly so that's what you want to do you know you don't want to get sidetracked on what you think is best what you want and so you want to do what they want and that that takes me into another one. You're the expert, like I'm the expert of the trees. And oftentimes customers want something different. Sometimes they go, okay, we just want a nice-looking tree, do it. We trust you. And other people are very specific and sometimes they want to do the wrong thing. And so, you know, part of customer service is to nicely tell them, hey, you know, that's the wrong thing. This is the right way to do it, especially with trees. When you trim them out of season, you can kill them. You need to let them know that.

Joseph:

[18:15] When you trim them really aggressively, that can kill them and cause long-term impact, even if they're not dead.

Joseph:

[18:24] So there's a lot of dynamics that go into doing things properly. Obviously, if you're a mechanic, you want to explain them. And even if they want to do the wrong thing, they want you to hack their tree, make it a hat rack, and you tell them and then get it in writing and say, I had to learn this the hard way, get it in writing saying, I don't recommend that. Otherwise, when you do the hat rack that they wanted and the thing doesn't come out well, they go, oh, that was your fault, right? And so, then you need to be able to have that in writing so you can come back and say, no, remember this? I said I did not recommend that. So, yeah, that's all. Those are all parts of customer service there.

David:

[19:09] Sure. Yeah, I read a book once on customer service and they said, don't treat your customer like they're your last customer. Treat your customers like you want them to come back.

Joseph:

[19:21] Right, exactly. Exactly. So, you want word of mouth. So that's another thing. Have an excellent name because you want word of mouth. That's your best advertising. It's free. And, you know, you know, it's just like going to a restaurant or a movie or anything else. They say, hey, that's good. This guy's good. Whatever. You know, that's what you want. And you've already got your foot in the door. You know, don't blow it.

David:

[19:48] Yep well thank you very much uh how can how can my audience find out more about you Joseph

Joseph:

[19:56] Obviously, yeah, you can go to my website, Joseph.deskins.com or Josephdeskins.com. I don't think there's a dot in there. Josephdeskins.com. You can find me on Facebook, Joseph Deskins, Facebook. I'm on LinkedIn also. And then I rescue cats from trees. So, two cat rescuers. I think that's, Instagram or YouTube. I got YouTube videos. So those are pretty fun. My favorite one is number 10 kibbles and Instagram is tree cat rescuer. So, I think those are all my, my addresses where you can find me.

David:

[20:39] Okay. Okay. Very good. And so out of all the things you've talked about today, what is one thing our listeners can take away that will help them operate their business in an excellent way?

Joseph:

[20:52] Operate their business in an excellent way. I guess the secret sauce, as I call it, for all of it is you need to care. So, it needs to be important to you. Whatever it is you're doing, you need to do it with love. And if you do that, you're going to be successful.

David:

[21:13] Okay. Very good. Well, thank you, Joseph, for spending some of your valuable time here on our show today. Appreciate that. And remember, wherever you go today, remember that time has limits. You can't do everything, so choose wisely.