Super excited about this conversation. A man who I've been getting to know really over the past couple of years, but I feel like I should have known this man my whole life just by his passion for the industry, his history in the industry, how he is educating the industry. I mean, you know, the things I've learned about Phil, I've just been super intrigued about and I feel like we're on a similar mission together, Phil, you know, so I had to get you over here, had to get a podcast on with you and then, you know, excited to see how we can work together in the future. So. Yeah, and I think the feeling is mutual, obviously, last couple of years that I've gotten to know you, I've seen your passion. Likewise. And seeing what you're trying to do for hardscapers that are out there and trying to train and teach guys how to install properly and whatnot.
And I think that that is key. That's always been obviously just my drive is to is to change the industry and get contractors to, take their businesses to new levels. And, I always go back to really success is life after work. So I was always trying to find ways to alleviate said one more time. Success is life after work.
I think a lot of us think about that when we're out there doing it, and I didn't either. When I first started, I was that grip and rip a guy, you know, just always just trying to get the job done faster, quicker. And I didn't always think about the efficiencies. So over time that comes with age, it comes with experience. But it didn't happen overnight. But I love what we're doing. And, and I love this opportunity to visit the other and so Pave Tool Innovators, right, is your company. But what you're doing right now with some of these products and you're like revolutionizing, you know, how we're installing, which is so wild to me and, and the day and age that we're in with these young guys coming in or, you know, getting people to realize even guys who are my age, like, success comes after work.
So how did this premise kind of start, Phil, just, you know, real quick on a little bit of your background and, you know, well, first, what were you doing before Pave Tool? Right. Let's just start there. So I was 11 years old. I started, working at a farm on the street. I'd pedal my bike down every day after school in the summer full time. But, that was a gentleman who taught me work ethic. And he. It was hard, hard work. They didn't have a lot of equipment, was a lot of hand work. So I, I got the work ethic there and then, 15 years old, beginning of my early, summer of 15, I went to work for another landscaper, and I worked there about three months. And my brother, was going to school for landscape, design and whatnot.
And we always said we wanted to do something together. So that summer, actually, we started Bahler Brothers. So I was 15 years old, and we started that. That was 1985, and we actually laid our first patio that year. It was the, Octagon wood square called unit. A core was ideal block product. I know block was one of the first, manufacturers in the U.S. to bring pavers into the country. And, we laid our first patio. We really fell in love with hardscape the way at the time. 15, I was the youngest of four brothers. So I always joke around, say, yeah, I guess I got stuck doing all the work. So, But I spent my my entire career. Then in the field. We fell in love with hardscapes early on. And that really was primarily, primarily what we did was hardscapes.
Male rose. We did some light landscaping early on, and we'd have to go back and replace the bushes or some of the other customers I wanted it to be dry is, you know, they didn't work so plants would die. We said, right, well, pavers don't die. Yeah, yeah, we have to have a problem with pavers. So we kind of gravitated towards I was like, yeah, this is really easy. You know we could just square foot price and you know pricing is easy. So I remember we we started out doing a lot of driveways early on, maybe just a quick story. I don't know how long the Godfather thing, like, So up the Canada. Some friends of ours were up there and they had, showed me some of these developments or every driveways on a paper. And I'm thinking in my head, this is early on.
I'm like, how the driveways hold up in such heavy frost conditions now. Like, oh, that's the beauty of it being segmental pavement. It flexes with the frost. So I got my wheels thing and I'm like and I went these developments, every driveway was done and it was like this is really cool. So then I went home with all this passion. I said, oh, we got to start doing driveways. You know, like my brother always called me the dreamer. I was always the one with all these crazy loose kata right about that. But you're also the you are the achiever. So we, that we got this. Yeah. Right. Well, it wasn't to probably 2 or 3 months later, we get a call. Hey, this is Al Grout. We're from Canada. Why don't you do driveways down here?
We want our driveway done and pavers. And so just kind of light bulbs went off. And so we, we did the driveway. Fell in love with it. Like, this is really cool. So we started Driveways of Distinction by your last driveway first. Oh, I love that. So it was a cool tagline. So we did when we first started and we laid probably a lot more pavers, even though we do now with a way smaller girl. Sure. When we were doing driveway after driveway after drive after driveway. So we did a lot, a lot of driveway installations. So that was kind of our claim to fame back then. Yeah. When our driveways and then, over time, then it really transitioned. People like, why am I spending 50 or 60 around driveway when I could spend in my backyard and enjoy it with my family?
Okay, so that kind of transitioned things. That was kind of come alive outside and outdoor living, let's say that's that's your story, but that's almost the story of the industry. Right? And it's yeah, it definitely has changed. So but we were you know, as for brothers, we all we realized early on we had to get a just separate job sites. We I mean, we all get along great and everything. We all had different ideas and whatnot. So we all had our own own areas. And I kind of went into the real, the more exotic, elaborate hardscape builds and anything that was vertical. So I did a lot of the retaining walls, a lot of the grill, you know, a lot of that high end stuff. I always like mass, so I was always good to heights and elevations.
And so that was kind of my forte. But a lot of site work, excavation. But we had crews in the early on. It was hard to maintain our help where we're up in New England. So we would lay off right around Thanksgiving time. The guys would leave springtime. It would be lucky if you got 50% of these guys back. So by the time you got new guys in and started retraining, it was sometimes June or July before you were turning profit. So it got really, really frustrating. So we said, how can we do this better? So we started, in the winter time. She said, we got to come up with better efficiencies, you know, to try to speed up our process, our installation process.
So that was kind of when we, started inventing and creating tools in the shop, efficiencies, fabricating your kitchen floor for probably 15 years. We made money maybe every third year. It was really frustrating. And the equipment we were buying for plowing wasn't conducive to hardscapes. It was too light and nimble of truck. We needed something bigger and heavier for moving product and materials, so it really didn't pay off to go that route. So we, like I said, we focused more on how can we be more successful in the field.
And so we did. We started renting tools and systems, and we bring our guys in early. We do a training for these guys. Okay, here's a tool. Here's a system. I look at any other industry. There's all these SOPs which we didn't even know that term back then. It was a standard operating procedure. We didn't know what SOP was, but we're creating them early on. Yeah. And we would physically write down the standard procedures of how to do every task. So what help came in, we could train them and teach them. And then we, we were able to track that, you know, and the efficiency of it. And again, we kept doing more and more and more tools to get us more now. But the tools are only for in-house right now. Tools are only for in-house at this point.
So they were crude. I mean, I'm not a great welder. I, I'm, I like the fab part and everything else. My brother was a good welder, so together we could we could produce some pretty good products. We created all these different tools and it was, it was 2006. I had actually invented, designed two retaining wall block for our industry. And I knew, the owner of Techo-Bloc Charles Ciccarello, I so I approached him and asked if he'd be interested I block design, he came down from Montreal and met me in a restaurant, fell in love with my block design, had a written agreement on the design.
And then, I had showed my little portfolio showing some of the tools we had. And he's like, well, these tools are really cool. I didn't think a thing of it. He went home, I went home, he showed me now product, and I would never forget it. I was on vacation, I was down to Florida and I get a call. Phil, this is Charlie Ciccarello. He. So he saw those tools. He's overthinking them all. He says, I want you to make one of every tool you've ever invented. He said, ship it up to me. So I want to start a tool business. And I was it later, because it's always was my dream. I knew our tools had a lot of value in speeding up the efficiencies in the hardscape world. And so, I started cutting into edge and I was super excited.
I'd be up late, late nights and my brothers were at I really I don't know about the dreamer as well. So here I am at night by myself making tools cut and try to pretty up our tools. He came that I said I can't ship these up the you never know what they're for. I said, why don't you come down? I said, I'll do a demo with you. So I had 21 tools that I had at that point and I set up 21 stations. He came down. I went through every single one of them. He's like, these are really cool. And then he sent down pay repeat. And, Alex or Robert Crew, which is Alex. Who's that? He's with Techo, the CEO. He came down. He was with Techo-Bloc at the time. They fell all over the tools and we picked eight tools that first year.
That was 2006. So I wanted to Canada that, summer I actually worked with their in-house engineer, Ian, have a tremendous spy, one of the smartest men I've ever met. He taught me how to fold metal and bend and tab so that the welds weren't really holding anything is more the tabbing and the interlocking up of the product. And so I learned a lot from him and, went up there that summer, filmed all those tools. And then 2007, it was debuted at showcase a whole afternoon session was on the tools, and we never were partnered in it, but he, he, we had an agreement as far as, you know, selling the products he would sell his there was dealership. Sure. And it worked. It was it was amazing. It was rules you're creating in-house in the shop to make your crews more efficient.
We're now getting out there to the rest of the country. And sure, like ACS, if I can get contractors to buy your tools, that will not only increase the efficiency of that whole industry as a whole, but contractors will be sped up. They'll solve quicker and faster. And in return they're going to buy more material for me. So that's kind of his whole motivation. And, and I've always looked at like, our industry is so broken. It's like, here's your hammer and chisel, go to work. And it's like, no, it has to be different. Now you look at the woodwork in this. They have tools for every aspect of woodworking. And some of those tools, machinery will take you two hours to set up to make 2 or 3 cuts. Yeah. And I look at what we're doing and it's like, all right, there's got to be a better way.
And getting that system a process. We're getting back to kind of what we developed. Then with those tools and systems, we're able to be that efficient. So literally all of us, we shut down Thanksgiving or shortly after we don't send out a single bill till April 1st, so the entire company shuts down. We're that much we're profitable that much that us four brothers could live off it.
And then we would shut down the entire company till, February, first, shut down all of January, shut the lights off, take the equipment off registration. And Jan, February 1st, all the salesmen would come back and maybe 4 or 5 guys in the shop and start work and go through all the equipment to get everything prepped. And then April 1st, all our guys would be back, you know, start working again. But even now, it's rare that we have to hire probably more than 3 to 5 guys a year. So we are all our help. Almost all our help comes back every year. And you're hitting you're making a profit that first week. So it was so different, you know, from the old days where you're just you're just just and you run your credit. That too that some of this tool and efficiency development is the standard operating procedure. Right.
And we were able to get ourselves profitable enough. And like I said, oh, maybe we take a little side note, but one of the greatest things I feel that we did with Bill was we open up our books to our help, and we would have a toolbox meeting every Friday. So every Friday we'd sit there, every job that all the paper paperwork was in, I got, got, estimated hours, made sure that we're making a profit on it. We'd have our profitability on it. And so we they knew we wanted to make a 43% gross profit margin. And we had that number. We also had a, two vials we filled up. One was sales and one was profit. And I knew at the end of there we wanted to make X amount of profit, whatever that number was, six, eight, $900, whatever that number was, we'd have it up there.
So every week we would color that in. So when it came in in the morning, if we were on goal for profit, we'd have donuts or bagels there. So the guys knew what a direct visual like, hey, we're on profit because they knew if we hit profit at the end of the year, every single one of their employees was going to get a 10% bonus. Wow. So that was huge as far as retaining our help, because they knew that if they hit that they could get their bonus. They go on unemployment, they could use that bonus money to compensate for what they weren't making. A so that was that was life changing for us. I mean, that like you're I feel like you guys were doing a lot of the things we're doing now, like with the tools or anything, like I'm telling people to do, be transparent with their companies now and put stuff up like that's on the board.
Like, I feel like you guys have been paving the way per se. Yeah. For all of this that, you know, you have been doing this stuff and now we're trying to get other companies to do this stuff, you know, literally like breaking ground on some of this stuff. It is. It was you guys at the Bahler Brothers. Right? I'm not saying we had it down to perfection. I hope I don't ever come on. Oh, no. We still always got tons and tons to learn. But, another thing, like I said, that gross profit margin, every job and job cost it. We were able to see which jobs we were and weren't making money on, and so we'd bring it up at the meeting and say, okay, this job. Yep. We had a 48%. Woo. Everybody's cheering. Next thing like you're 30% like oh what happened.
Oh we blew hydraulic line or you got a flat on the way to job. You know those things happen fine. But all of a sudden you're down at 30% and you're ask the crew what happened. They're like, no, that job went perfect. Now, you know, you got a bidding problem. Sure. And I always say you don't play a baseball game and wait till the ninth inning, say, hey, what's the score? Right? You want to know the scores every inning. And if you're behind, you get the team together and rally in the end, say, hey, we got to change different strategy. It's kind of the same way in business. You know, every job, this job cost. And let's not make the same mistakes, the ones that are profitable. Or maybe those are the jobs you want to continue to chase after with your sales team, the ones that you are profitable on.
So developing a systems and processes, developing the in-house tools, taking them to the public now. But you know, I feel like that's where you started. But I feel like your premise now is just to save these guys backs. Like, let's get back to the success after work, because now that's what you're trying to do with this is, okay, we got the tools out there, but now you're trying to develop a new tool next year that does this. It helps us in the field and helps save our backs. Right? Absolutely. So every year we are about 6 to 10 tools we come out with and develop. I got a list. I just showed yesterday. I showed a gentleman I don't know is like 50 products dream Enfield. Yeah I still I still got like 50 products on this list.
So I don't think I'll ever run out of ideas of stuff to develop. But and again you have to meet the masses. So that's another unique thing that when when you're looking at my team is it's not just me, I mean our team behind us, my my family and all our employees, they're all assets and, paved on helping us get product. I can see the company is good ones. Every time I meet your boy, every everybody is like. So in the end. And the greatest part of what you can look. So many. I know what you're selling them is something. It's going to change your life one way or another. It's going to speed up in efficiency. If they if they grasp it and they, you know, get the products into their systems and processes, it does change your life.
Yeah. And that's probably the greatest compliment we could ever get is people go up, they say, me and you have no idea you've changed my life. But yeah, that's amazing. So it's it's it's fun. It's my passion. Like you said, just having success as life, being, you know, after work, it it is amazing. Yeah, yeah. When you can. So becoming more efficient with the tools that Phil has created years and years in the making. Right. Oh, it's the passion for efficiency. You know, Ken, coming up with standard operating procedures when he didn't even know what our slope was. What's that? I love that I feel like you seriously are one of the grandfathers of our industry. Like, the more I hung out with you, like, you literally are a living legend in our industry and I hope you all just realize that with this man's story and what he's doing with Pave Tool Innovators.
So I'm serious about that, Phil, and that's why I'm excited to have you in this booth. I mean, you know, we're excited to start working with you because we're all about efficiency and changing people's lives, too. And we have a passion for keeping the industry moving forward, like keeping these young guys interested in it. And when they can use some cool tools and not go home sore at night. I think they might be interested in this. So thank you so much for sitting down with us. I'm really excited for what the future holds on our partnership. I am, I'm I'm looking forward to to I think, like I said, you touch a lot of people. You've done a great job. Social media. Your design is really awesome. Like all your curves and all that flow and whatnot.
I love the way you transition stuff through the project. That's really cool. How so? I think it's it's neat. And like you said, you got a great following. So I appreciate that. And I look forward to helping your contractors. Yeah, that'll change their lives. Thank you so much. So Pave Tool Innovators times Hardscape Mentor here at Hardscape North America. Thank you so much, Phil. We're going to go both get back to our booth now and kick this thing off. So awesome. We'll see you on the next one. Thank you.
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