Building a Hands-Off Business: The Road to Financial Independence with Trina Julian

Building a successful business that can operate without your constant involvement is the dream of many entrepreneurs. Trina Julian, founder of Country Girl Gardens, turned this dream into reality by scaling her landscaping business from a backyard operation to a seven-figure enterprise in just seven years—all while creating systems that allowed her to step back from day-to-day operations.

Trina's entrepreneurial journey began in 2015 when she started planting flowers for customers as a side hustle while working as a barista. With determination and vision, she set a goal to leave her coffee shop job by age 30. Though the numbers didn't seem to add up on paper, she remained committed to her vision. After making $10,000 in her first year as a side business, she gave her two weeks' notice on her 30th birthday and never looked back. This commitment to her goal, despite the uncertainty, highlights the importance of setting clear objectives and timelines for business growth.

What sets Trina's approach apart from many service business owners was her clarity about the end goal from day one. She frequently mentioned wanting to either "build her way out or buy her way out" of the business. This mindset shift—viewing her business as an asset to grow rather than a job she created for herself—influenced every decision she made. Instead of remaining the technician who performed the landscaping work, she quickly positioned herself to focus on getting jobs, scheduling crews, hiring employees, and purchasing equipment.

One of the most valuable lessons from Trina's experience is the importance of hiring proactively rather than reactively. Many business owners wait until they're overwhelmed before bringing on help, but Trina recommends hiring before you think you need to. This approach gives you time to develop your hiring skills and find the right people without desperation driving your decisions. She also emphasized that every time someone quit, it presented an opportunity to upgrade talent and improve the company—a perspective that helped her maintain momentum during challenging transitions.

The cornerstone of Trina's success was developing comprehensive standard operating procedures (SOPs) for every role in the company. She shadowed each employee to document their processes, created detailed guides with interconnected links in Google Drive, and wrote instructions so clear that "you couldn't mess this up." This meticulous documentation allowed her business to continue functioning even when she was personally sidelined by a horseback riding accident. A new operations manager was able to step in and learn the business through written SOPs, proving that the systems worked without Trina's direct involvement.

This realization—that her business could truly run without her—prompted Trina to list it for sale earlier than planned. Thanks to the hands-off nature of the operation, the business attracted multiple interested buyers and sold within two months of listing. The key factor that made it valuable was that Trina had made herself replaceable by documenting everything thoroughly and creating systems that anyone could follow.

Now, Trina helps other service business owners develop similar systems that allow their businesses to scale while reducing their personal involvement. Her experience demonstrates that with the right mindset and systems, you can transform a service business into a valuable asset that generates wealth beyond your direct labor—creating true financial independence and opening doors to new opportunities. The roadmap she followed proves that with vision, documentation, and deliberate hiring, entrepreneurs can build businesses that serve their lives rather than consuming them.