Building & giving away a $19,000 lawn care set-up

Hey Siri, how far away is Ames, Iowa? Ames is about 212 mi away by car. Let's get going. Shot always works better when you have the truck unlocked. Hey, check it out. That's Hollandale and Clarks Grove, Minnesota. That's one of the places I grew up. Still in Minnesota, but close enough to Iowa that the boys and I could hop in a car and 30 minutes later be checking out all those pretty cornfed Iowa girls. How the heck are they going to use that crane to lift that windmill prop all the way up there? That's what I want to know. And people can build some amazing things. Yeah, we're all kind of stupid all by ourselves. But when we get together with other people, we can share our knowledge and make something amazing. [music] I see it already. This is the guy that's [music] giving this whole setup away. Cory, how you doing, buddy? Doing good. Good to see you again. All right. Before we even get started, I know we're going to do a walk complete walk around. We're going to check this trailer out, but why are you doing this? You know, um I've been in the lawn care business 30 years, which kind of dates me a little bit, but uh we've been selling accessories for now 21 years, and really got crazy with the accessories about 4 years ago with social media. We added a lot of products, and uh you know, everybody's been really good to us. And so last year, I was thinking, what can we do to give back to the community that would be fun? Um maybe change somebody's life. Mhm. Um, and we thought, well, we'll just give away a trailer. That's how it started. And then I thought, well, we'll deck it out. And then reached out to Xark and they donated a mower. Reached out to Green Touch. They donated some of the great racks that we have to hold some accessories. So, it kind of started off as a simple project. Um, and then of course we expanded it up and got a great trailer put together, 12T trailer. Had it wrapped up here good. Put some fancy wheels on it. got all the goodies for somebody uh to win this and change their life and get out there. This is like a one and you're done kind of setup. Yeah. I mean, for a small guy, you still got room to add another small mower on the back if you needed to. But, uh I mean, this is going to be a dream setup for somebody. They're going to have everything that many of us I didn't have a nice I didn't have this equipment for 15 years in in business. We had junk. I see you have the easy gate on it. Can you can you before we get going anymore, can you just tell us everything that they could win? And this is like worth 19 grand, right? Yeah. So, the total value on this is right at 19,000. We're giving away a lot of other accessories that aren't maybe shown here. Just a lot of little um other goodies. Trimmer uh covers, blower covers, the advanced shoot, some mower blades. Um a lot of goodies to really get you set up so when you get home, you're ready to go. So, we want to just start right here on the corner. Um we can do it right from the front. Okay. We've got the uh backpack uh sprayer rack. We've got the 3gallon Commander electric sprayer right here. So they'll have a a sprayer ready to go. We've got the easy gate, which is the all stainless steel housing, aluminum roller assembly, which takes about 85 to 90% of the weight off the gate, so you're not letting your heavy gates slam to the concrete. So one guy, one hand, you can lift and lower your gates without busting your back. You and your dad invented that one. I just I want to throw that in there. Ballard, he invented these. I want to tell you a little side story about Corey that most of you know, but a lot of you don't. He actually owns a lawn care company. How many people do you guys employ? Uh we're down a little bit, but maybe 165 or 170. And so they started, him and his dad started the company and they started to invent products for themselves. So some of this stuff is from other companies, but some of this stuff is stuff they made for themselves. But okay, sorry, I didn't mean to cut half and half. A lot of guys say you just sell other people's stuff. Um it's about half and half and we're uh we uh intend to continue to build. We've got about five new prototypes coming. So, we're always building new products, things that we use in our business, things that we think will make guys just more efficient, effective, safe, and ultimately more profitable. So, we're always coming out with new products, and um but we also represent some other brands that we think are great in the industry. And um could we make them? Sure. But they've already got it figured out. And so, um we're distributors for some other great brands as well. Absolutely. That's the way to do it, man. Up in the front, we've got more green. Is that green touch? Yeah. So, this is the green touch tool rack. I'm going to include uh just some hand tools as well. So, you got a couple shovels, you got a hard brake, um you got a few tools right there. You can add whatever else you want to, but it's a great spot to keep your tools. The trailer actually comes with a toolbox. This is a um Dittle brand trailer and it comes with this front tool box. We also sell a tool box, but this is a kind of a nice little feature. Keep some mixed fuel, keep some things in here. It locks so it's nice. You can keep extra whatever you need to do there. Got the line spool rack and the Samurai Furry line right up front here. Um so you can keep your trimmer line right here. It's got the cutter on the side so you don't have to have snips in your pocket. If we're looking down on the mower, we've got the Power Locker 300 right here, which locks your mower safely in place, legal in all 50 states. And here's the really I mean, can't can't miss this beautiful machine right here. You talk about the X Mark. Yeah. So, Xark donated uh this amazing This is a $13,000 60-in brand new mower. Um we're also going to send an advanced shootute cover with it. Uh some other accessories, the light bar, blades, some accessories to deck this out. Um, we're not going to put any accessories on their brand new mower, but we'll let the uh let the winner let the winner do it, right? Let the winner do that. We'll send the parts with them as well. Up front here, got the water cooler rack, 5gallon jug there. Keep hydrated. We've got the 5gallon fuel cage. I went ahead and put a sure can 5gallon fuel in there. So, it's kind of nice. You can flip this down right here, fill up your motor. Oh, you don't have to take it out. No, you don't even have to take it out, which is really nice. It's a great design. Um, remember all these uh racks lock as well. They got the quick release. You got your lock right there. You can get them keyed all the same. So, uh, everything we're showing you here, guys, we sell on the website as well. So, um, but you got the quick release right there. Unlock that. Quick release. You can open it up. Very simple. Everything is built right. Now, are you giving away the blowers and trimmers as well? Absolutely. So, got the backpack blower rack. This is the BPS 100. Giving away this Echo 70 or 770. So, they'll have a brand new backpack blower ready to rock and roll. Giving away two string trimmers. Um, both of these are set up. Pull one of these out here. Both of these are set up with the Darwin's Grip, one of our bests sellers. So, the Darwin's Grip, guys, you can adjust this any way you need to, but really allows guys to stand up straight when they're trimming. If you're a short guy like me, not a huge issue, but tall guys are always hunched over. So, with the Darwin's Grip, you're standing upright, so you're not busting your back when you're trimming all day. Just a great feature. They're one of our best sellers. So, they're ready to rock and roll. They're coming with the Darwin's grip as well. Now, did you buy this trailer, Cory, or did they donate that? I bought the trailer. Okay. Bought the trailer and I had our guy next door does custom graphics, so we went ahead and graphicked it up for you. Um hopefully you'll leave our stickers on, but it looks really, really good. [laughter] I even upgraded the rims. I'm kind of a rim guy. I was No, I was going to say that's not stock rims, man. I can't [laughter] leave stock rims, buddy. It had some just black kind of boring rims. So, I took it to my tire guy and had him put some fancy rims on it for you. Nice. Nice. Nice. Cones on the back. Your safety back. We've got the safety cone holder. So, you've got the um Didn't you guys make that? Yeah, that's one of our products. So, you can keep three safety cones on the back. We also got the sign that says always hiring great people. Put your phone number there. You can also switch this sign out. Some guys like to switch it out and say, you know, fall a, free estimates, whatever, spring cleanups, it's advertising, whatever you want to do right there. anytime we stop, we put our safety cones out. Um, I think it's just a good way to, you know, let people, couple things, it it's safe. You put three cones out, guys see you when you're on the street. But I think also customers take a glance at who you are. If you got your logo on your truck, they see who's in the neighborhood, who's working. So, it's just a great way to promote your business as well. Um, so just a really nice, easy, clean setup here. We've got all the goodies on it. Again, uh, [snorts] they're going to be able to register on the website, and that's going to be effective April 1st. You'll go on to our website. Um, we've got a quick form to fill out. You have to subscribe to our YouTube channel to be eligible. And uh so you fill out the form and then uh we're going to take about a week to get through all the entries, which will probably be a lot. And uh and then we're going to narrow it down to 10 um that we think are the best candidates. And then uh from there, we're going to ask some guys to maybe send some short videos and and let our audience participate potentially in in picking who we think is the best fit. You know, uh you know, whether it's a young kid, it could be a military vet that's injured, maybe somebody doing good in the community, taking care of some retired people, maybe some group homes. I just want somebody that's doing really good in the community um to win this and and and have the opportunity to change their business, change their life, and and uh somebody that's super excited about the opportunity. And so that's what we're doing. Nice. I'm going to ask these guys to do us one more favor, too, just to help boost this video. If you guys would do us a favor, comment down below and share the video with somebody else. You don't have to do that to win the mower. It's not part of it, but it actually helps let the video go a little bit farther inside of the algorithm. So, I'm going to ask that favor from you guys. Yeah. And if you know somebody, you know, maybe they don't see this video, if you know somebody you think is going to be would be a good candidate, tag them in it, share the video with them. Um, we'd love to get as many participants as possible. Um, and, uh, really get, you know, really get a chance to share this out there. And again, everything that we've shown you guys here, we've we've got about 250 products on our website that we sell for lawn care, landscape professionals. So, um, you know, we've just had incredible support. Now, there is some legal mumble jumbo that has to take place with any contest or stuff that we got to follow the laws, you guys. So, um, we're going to put up some of those laws. Just a little rules and regulations. Yeah. I thought I could just build a trailer out and give it away, and it turns turns out there's a few rules. [laughter] Uh they don't let you just give stuff like that away. I think you should be able to because there's value. You can't just give it away. But uh pretty simple stuff though. You just uh and so whoever wins it will come and pick it up from us. We're going to offer uh some money for fuel and lodging. So if you win it and you live in the state of New York, um I'm going to pay your fuel and your uh um lodging to come pick this up here. So we'll bring you in and um I think a few other people are going to donate a few things. I know Brian's mentioned he might give somebody kind of his business packet that if it's a small guy and help him out with some templates and some bidding forms and um we really want to set whoever you know wins up with everything they need to to get out there and rock and roll. But if you don't win, don't worry because you've also give 10% back by using the code dirt monkey force. Dirt Monkey Force. Yeah, dirt monkey force. So if you if you order anything on the website guys, you get to coupon code. Type in dirt monkey force. that'll take 10% off anything on the website. Um, so yeah, you can certainly utilize that. So, when it gets down to the five final uh contestants here, the four that don't win, we're going to give them a $250 gift card at Ballard as well. So, if you're in the top five and you don't win, uh we're going to give you a $250 gift card to be used on any of our products as well. So, we're giving away that. So, I just The guy gets second place. He's like, "Oh, shucks." Well, yeah, you didn't win the trailer, but if you need something, we've got uh you can go ahead and jump online, spend 250 bucks. We'll send you a trimmer rack or an advanced shoot or easy gate or whatever equals up to 250 bucks. And uh so we're going to do that with four people uh you know, people that get second through fifth. So, when are you actually do you know when you're going to actually decide? Uh so, we're going to make the decision by the first part of May. We plan on giving the trailer around uh May I think May 6th or 7th. I'd have to look at the calendar, but we're planning on hopefully getting the winner here once we get it narrowed down to a small group. And then we're going to have uh have them probably send us a short video under two minutes why they think they're the best candidate. And then we're going to probably share those videos or we will be sharing those videos on our Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, um and try to get some feedback because again, I really want it to go uh I want it to go to the right person. Okay. Um and hopefully that's you guys. All right. Any last words from you on this one, Corey? Uh, not really. We, uh, again, we just appreciate you guys following us. You know, you can find us at ballardashink.com. Um, again, we've got hundreds of accessories. We appreciate the support. Um, the community has been great to us. Uh, we've just uh we've seen sales better than we ever expected considering all the crazy stuff going on in the world. So, bor-ashink.com, Dirt Monkey Force takes 10% off everything on the website. and uh enter and uh take a shot at winning this uh amazing setup. Okay. Thanks, Corey. Thank you. You know, you guys have watched me on the wall and I've told you that I actually met every single person that's on that wall and this is these are the kind of people that I like to work with. All right, so take that into consideration. And this is why I hang out with Ballard. This is why I'll drive 450 mi to come do a video for you guys. That's all I got to say, man. Share joy, spread positivity, God bless, and go get them. You guys enter. Nice.