Backwoods Services: Crushing it one driveway at a time

Lori Kaye Lodes

Contributor

May 12, 2025

EAGLE RIVER – When Jordan Kohn started his summertime business in 2022 at age 17, he said he took on a variety of odd jobs. 

As his business vision became clearer, Kohn said gravel installation became Backwoods Services’ bread and butter.
Nowadays, he said Backwoods Services has a reputation for bringing life back to customers’ driveways – whether that’s creating new driveways or restoring existing ones. 

Kohn said as the business – located at 7136 WI-70 in Eagle River – has grown and evolved, so too, has he.

Like father, like son

Growing up in his father’s landscaping business, Kohn said he got a running start in the industry.

Describing the workplace as a second home, Kohn said he would often head there after school to grab a skid loader or ride other equipment.

He said his grandparents like to tell the story about how, when they needed a load of firewood, the then-12-year-old Kohn took it upon himself to drive one of his dad’s wheel loaders to their house to deliver it. 

Kohn said for him, it was about knowing – and knowing early – that he wanted to work in the family business.

“I wanted to be like my dad, and I wanted to own my own business,” he said. “I grew up in the midst of my dad’s business.”

During the summer of his junior year in high school, Kohn said he knew he needed a job.

Enticed by the idea of working for himself, Kohn said his parents encouraged him to take the steps necessary – secure insurance, apply for an LLC and create a name, etc. – to launch Backwoods Services.

He said the business’s name was broad enough to encompass the evolving nature of the business. 

For the first year or two, Kohn said he took on odd jobs as he figured out his way. 

“My first job was reshingling somebody’s shed, and I did a lot of brush cleanups,” he said.

During his senior year, Kohn said he began contemplating what he wanted to do with his career and his life.

“I knew I liked doing gravel driveways, because I liked being on equipment and even did some work on our own driveway,” he said. “So, I rented a skid loader and began doing driveways (through my business) after high school. The business took off from there.”

When he graduated high school in 2023, Kohn said he hired two friends to work alongside him, tackling the increasing amount of gravel driveway projects in the heat of summer.

“Back then, we did one job a day, one job at a time,” he said.

When his friends left for college in August, Kohn said, he was back to being on his own – but ultimately hired new employees that following spring.

He said 2024 marked the first year he employed two crews to perform the work and removed himself from the frontline action.

Instead, he said he focused on the increased administrative work required by the growing business, which often included doing estimates at night.

“That year, I worked from 7 a.m. to midnight pretty much every day, responding to two to three estimates a day and managing the projects,” he said. “I did that for six or seven months.”

Fortunately, Kohn said he was able to tap into his parents’ first-hand knowledge of being entrepreneurs to learn the ins and outs of everything from invoicing to bookkeeping.

He said he benefited from his mom’s willingness to pitch in on the bookkeeping, while his dad offered valuable knowledge about operations. 

“There’s no way I would be at this point without the help of my parents,” Kohn said. 

Off to the races

Business grew, Kohn said, as he continued to utilize Facebook, initially posting his services in community groups and evolving to establish a business page and investing in Facebook advertising to promote his gravel driveway services. 

“I used Facebook to look for work, and that’s pretty much true to this day,” he said. “About 90% of our marketing is on Facebook.”

Along the way, Kohn said he learned to create engaging, focused images to post and not to dilute his core business and core message – which is high-quality gravel driveway services.

Though Backwoods Services also offers excavating, landscaping, land clearing and snow removal, he said most of those services are outgrowths of customers’ need for a new or restored driveway.

“Everything outside of gravel driveways stems from them in some way,” he said. “We would do a driveway quote for a customer and as part of it, (they) would want new landscaping, or needed land clearing to put in the new driveway, or even wanted someone to do the excavation to build a house. Before adding those services, we couldn’t do those.”

Seasonal ebbs and flows

Using Facebook to promote gravel driveways, Kohn said, has not only generated business interest, but also been a great forum for recruiting new hires.

Though the business is year-round, he said he scales back the crew to just himself and two other office staff members in the winter – with Backwoods Services snow removal employees working in an on-call capacity.

Kohn said online hiring is of particular importance in March, which is when he begins gearing up for the busy season of gravel driveway services that runs from April through November.

He said 90% of driveway projects occur during that timeframe.

By summer, Kohn said the team is up to 12 employees, who are split into three crews.

He said the goal is to add a fourth crew of employees.

Kohn said it’s not surprising how late April/May brings in calls and online inquiries, as gravel driveways emerge from the covering of winter with very apparent issues. 

“Gravel driveways can look rough this time of year,” he said.

Whether it’s the result of incorrect grading, lack of gravel, heavy traffic, heavy water runoff, rainfall or other factors, Kohn said gravel driveways are subject to the elements and require maintenance.

How frequently that maintenance needs to occur, he said, is determined on a case-by-case basis.

That’s where Backwoods Services comes in, Kohn said, with recommendations of the best material, grade and techniques needed for the longest-lasting gravel driveway possible. 

“High-quality work is a big focus,” he said. “Our (stance) is that we’ll do it right or we’ll do it again.”

High standards

Over time, Kohn said he has established a quality specification handbook that outlines the standards of practices to which all Backwoods Services employees are held.

He said it outlines everything they do as a company and how they perform the services.

Though it was a lot of work to assemble, Kohn said it outlines questions he would receive time and again from employees and ensures they rise to the quality bar for which Backwoods Services is known. 

Kohn said he sees the company’s other key differentiators as professionalism, responsiveness and excellent communication. 

“We try to look professional and be professional when we go out to jobs, and to be on the ball with communication,” he said. “Right there, we set ourselves apart from others doing what we do. One of the biggest complaints we get about other companies is that they reach out to them but nobody gets back to them, or they come out onto a job and are in ripped jeans and a dirty T-shirt.”

Kohn said he emphasizes to his office staff the need to be responsive with communication, whether it’s on the phone or responding to an online inquiry, because that sets the tone with the customer.

“I tell them, ‘by being responsive and on the ball with communication, we can impress a customer before we even get on the jobsite,’ and then our job is way easier,” he said.

Though these behaviors and mindsets sound like an exercise in getting back to the basics, Kohn said that’s probably because they are.

He said he’s learned a key business lesson the past several years: “simple scales, complex fails.”

The premise, Kohn said, is not to try to be everything to everybody with services, as well as break down the work into easy-to-understand steps and language for the benefit of both employees and customers. 

“You only get that one or two seconds before someone scrolls past you, and you have to make that great first impression,” he said. “When I listed all my services in an ad, I didn’t get as many hits as when I simply said, ‘gravel driveways’ big and bold. When something is simple, it scales.”

Kohn said it’s a phrase his employees hear bantered around the office frequently.

He said that mindset and his faith in God have led him on a fruitful and successful path for the business. 

“Learning to trust God in every decision has grown the business more than I could ever have imagined,” he said. “I generally pray about a decision before I make it, and God shows me (the answer) in some way, shape or form – be it a sermon in church or a verse in the Bible.”

For more details on Backwoods Services and the services it offers, visit backwoods-services.com.