The Sprinkler Nerd Show

I've come to realize that what I do is art. Because making things is where I feel the most free. In this solo episode, I reflect on creativity, curiosity, and the relentless pursuit of making things better. Why I believe there is no single right way to do something, why I had to figure so much of it out myself, and how the process of making has helped me discover a vision I couldn't fully explain when I started. For years, that vision existed mostly in my head. I had to build it, break it, learn from it, and build it again. There was no shortcut. The making was the learning. And now, something is changing. The vision is becoming real, and I'm beginning to see how other people can become part of it. Whether you're an irrigation technician, contractor, entrepreneur, or someone who simply loves what they do, I hope this episode encourages you to think differently about your own craft. What's your art? Stay curious.

You're paying for clicks and leads. How much of that is actually turning into paying customers? I'm in St. Louis at Chans Weber's office at Agile & Co., with marketing questions straight from a podcast listener who wants to know whether his money is being well spent. Google Business Profiles, Google Ads, marketing reports, and return on ad spend are all on the table. How do you expand into another neighborhood without landing in "Google jail"? Which numbers should your marketing company be showing you every month? And with a $700 average service ticket, what can you afford to spend to win a customer? There's also the part we have to own as contractors: answering the phone, following up quickly, and turning an inquiry into a booked job. Before spending more on advertising, it's worth asking what's happening to the leads you're already buying. This episode is for irrigation and landscape business owners who want to understand their digital marketing, ask better questions, and grow a business that makes money—not just looks busy.

Daniel Overton is 25 and already has 8 years in irrigation. He works for Ricci's Landscape Management in northwest Indiana, listens to the podcast, and reached out to me back in July. We've stayed in touch, I sent him a soil moisture sensor to experiment with, and I wanted to get him on the show to hear what he's seeing in the field. We talk about learning the trade, the hardest parts of being an irrigation technician, and why your troubleshooting process matters more than the tools you carry.  I'm curious what keeps people like Daniel excited about this work, what technology they see coming, and what they wish the industry would do differently. There's a lot we can learn by asking the younger people already doing the job.

What if life isn't like a box of chocolates? Maybe life is like a box of choices. Choose wisely. Today I'm recording from CitiesAlive, the Green Roofs for Healthy Cities conference in New York City. I'm here not because I have to be. Not because someone sent me. I'm here because I chose to be here. And that got me thinking about the last 25 years. I didn't just "end up" in irrigation. I chose irrigation. And I've continued choosing it—through curiosity, technology, entrepreneurship, sensors, water, mistakes, questions, and thousands of little decisions along the way. In this episode of the Sprinkler Nerd Podcast, I explore what it means to actively choose the work you do, how to know when it's time to choose something different, and why not making a choice is still a choice. Ask yourself one question: Knowing what you know today, would you choose what you're doing again? If the answer is yes—choose it. Go all in. If the answer is no—choose something else. You don't have to know exactly where it will lead. You just have to remember that you can choose again. Life is a box of choices. Choose wisely.

What does it really take to go all in on a landscape business? Dean Ricci started mowing lawns at just 10 years old, pulling his mower behind a bicycle with a homemade trailer built by his dad. By high school, he had trucks, trailers, equipment, and employees. More than 30 years later, Ricci's Landscape Management has grown into a multimillion-dollar company with more than 65 employees. But this conversation isn't really about landscaping. It's about building a business. Dean and I talk about the transition from doing the work yourself to building a team that can operate without you, creating systems and SOPs, developing leaders, adopting technology, making mistakes, letting go of control, and surviving the growing pains that come with scaling a company. We also talk about something every contractor eventually has to confront: At some point, working harder stops working. If you're an irrigation contractor, landscaper, plumber, electrician, HVAC contractor—or anyone trying to turn a trade into a real business—there's a lot to learn from Dean's journey. From a lawn mower behind a bicycle to more than three decades in business. Dean Ricci went all in.