Meet Jacob Krum | Business Builder and Home Services Entrepreneur

We had the good fortune of connecting with Jacob Krum and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Jacob, what is the most important factor behind your success?
It’s all about the people – The most important factor to my success is the folks I work with and the team that we’ve built. Being an entrepreneur is tough stuff and without people that you can rely on and a team you can trust you’d be hard pressed to make it very far in this game.

I’ve made many mistakes when selecting business partners and also when hiring people in the past. From that I’ve obsessed over how to best mitigate bad hires and bad business partners from poisoning the organizations that I’ve built and that I’m apart of. The best frame work I’ve found when determining if someone is a good fit for me is something that I took from Patrick Lencioni’s book The Ideal Team Player. In it Lencioni talks about there being 3 main criteria to determine whether someone is a good fit for your organization or not. – They are:

Humble
Hungry
Smart

I’ve found that if someone possesses the right mix of these three character traits they have the makings of a great fit for any organization. Your entire mission as an entrepreneur should be to 1st embody these characteristics yourself, in the hopes that you can become an ideal team player and 2nd develop a hiring process and culture that attracts and creates these types of individuals. If you are able to build an organization that is filled with folks who have the right mix of humble, hungry and smart you will build an organization that can compete in any market place and in any economy.

What should our readers know about your business?
I help small business owners grow their businesses so they can have more time to focus on what matters to them. Specifically – I own two companies. Trim Landscaping and Reach Cleaning Services. Both companies are geared towards helping Small business owners in those two services run their business. Trim and Reach handle customer service, invoicing and scheduling for small business owners so they can worry about what matters to them – showing up on time and doing a good job.

I’m proud of a lot of things – I’m proud of the amount of small business owners that we have been able to help and grow. I’m proud of the people that we employ and I am proud of the work that we’ve done.

But, business is tough. I haven’t always gotten it right and I’ve made a ton of mistakes up to this point. What I’ve learned is that is the point. You’re supposed to make mistakes and learn from them. Take the hits, roll with them and do better next time.

One of the hardest part’s about being an entrepreneur is being ok with imperfection. Sometimes the goal is simply make it till next week. The road isn’t easy and it’s not pretty. If you want success and to make it in this game you need to be prepared to be disappointed and heartbroken at time. The best thing you can do is find people who are willing to stick out the suck with you – and when stuff hits the fan be prepared to lean on each other to drag each other out. Really, that’s all we can do in life and in business.

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
If my friend were in town we would:

We’d Hike Camelback Mountain
Go to Songbird for a Coffee Downtown
We’d Have lunch at the Vig Downtown
Walk along Scottsdale Waterfront
Get a drink at Hanny’s
Catch a Sun’s Game
Get a Cigar at Churchill’s on 44th
Lots to do, so little time.

Who else deserves some credit and recognition?
The people I’m most grateful for in my life is my family and friends. I’ve been lucky enough to have the opportunity to build a business that allows me to work with both family and friends – specifically I’d like to shout out my parents Ted andJanet, and my business partners Brad Denson and Connor Dubin. Without them, business wouldn’t be as fun and the tough times wouldn’t be as bearable.

They’re the real heroes

Website: https://trimlandscaping.com/

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jacobkrum/

Image Credits
Dustin Moore – Ivio Agency