Episode Transcript
[00:00:01] Speaker A: Welcome to the Grow Show Powered by Steel. The Grow show is brought to you by Marty Grinder's Grow Group, where we specialize in teaching landscaping companies how to clarify their platform, grow their people, build their processes, and realize profits. Everything we teach is grounded in real experience. Our team is actively involved in the day to day operations of Southwest Ohio's Grunder Landscaping Company.
New episodes of the Grow show are released weekly on Wednesdays. Remember to subscribe so you never miss an episode.
Now, here's your host, Marty Grunder.
[00:00:30] Speaker B: Well, good morning, good afternoon, good evening, whatever the case may be. This is Marty Grunder from the Grow Group and Grunder Landscaping Company with another impactful episode of the Grow Show Powered by Steel. This week we're going to talk with my partner Vince Toichia at the Grow Group about leadership. But first, a reminder. You can get the latest edition of the Grow show delivered to your phone, tablet or computer by subscribing wherever you get your podcasts or Watch us on YouTube for an enhanced learning experience.
The Grow show is the greatest thing since Nice people. Yes, that's right, folks. Nice people. One of the things I think may be getting lost in this AI world is the human element. There's a lot of impersonal communication going on out there, and a lot of mean people, too. To be honest, I see mean people at restaurants, I see them posting things online. I've seen them at airports, and sadly, we've even encountered them here at Grunder Landscaping Co.
Contractors wanting us to work with them. Folks, how you treat anyone is how you treat everyone. And when you treat people well, in kind and with respect, it's not always easy. I understand that, but give it a try. And this is even a reminder to me that being kind and nice to others is the way you get others to be kind and nice to you. We get tired, we get grumpy, we get things that happen to us. I understand that, folks, but you can't argue that nice people make the world a better place. They really do. And speaking of nice people, many of you know my partner, Vince Torchio, right here, one of the nicest people you'd ever meet. You're in here in the steel studios today, Vince, and we want to have a discussion on things we're seeing.
I told you a couple weeks ago that, you know, out working with the owners and leaders of landscaping companies, growing our own company, making sales calls, being a dad, being a grandpa, being on vacation with my family, I've just had time to think.
And I see a lot of things out there, some leadership concepts. And, Vince, I've been thinking a lot about this, and, you know, as we continue to grow the grow group.
[00:02:28] Speaker C: Right.
[00:02:29] Speaker B: And we continue to grow Grunder Landscaping Company, I just kind of had this thought, and I want to know what you think of it. That every issue, obstacle, problem I encounter, I see is either a lack of leadership, like there's no leadership, or poor leadership.
And so this week, ladies and gentlemen, on the Gross show, Powered by Steel, I wanted to talk to you about some hot buttons for me. I wanted Vince to help me draw them out a little bit and get his take on them. There's probably 25 of them I could have done. I picked five. So, Vince, here goes. The first one that I want to talk about, a leader is someone who can return a serve.
[00:03:04] Speaker C: Yep, you got it.
[00:03:05] Speaker B: If I just hit the ball to you over the net, and I'm not a tennis player, I play pickleball. I'm not very good, but if I hit it over the bowl and you don't get to it, you can't return it. There's just no volley going on. Like, I don't want to. I'm going to beat you straight sat there. Whatever you call, I'm going to beat you. 11 Nothing in pickle ball. It's not any fun. Like, in business, I need people I can volley with. Like, if I'm going to keep serving them over the net to you and you say, oh, that's a great idea. But you don't say, well, have you thought about this? Or, well, I can do that. Marty, what if I did this? When you and I have conversations, whether it's you telling me something, I never say, okay, okay. You don't ever say that to me. How do the conversations go?
[00:03:46] Speaker C: Yeah, Marty, what you're looking for is really, when you say this, it's a great metaphor because I can picture you and I on a tennis court hitting the ball back and forth and getting around the ball.
[00:03:54] Speaker B: Now, you'd beat me because I. You're better at tennis.
[00:03:56] Speaker C: But, hey, here's an idea I have. Here's something I think we need to execute on.
[00:03:59] Speaker B: Right.
[00:04:00] Speaker C: Here's how I see that playing out from a production team. Awesome. I didn't think about that. Here's how I see it playing out for a sales team. Oh, you know what? This is going to make the customer experience better. And when you have conversations with key leaders of your team, you want to get in a mode where you can volley back and forth. We've all had the experience of having a conversation with our team and they don't hit the ball back.
[00:04:22] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:04:23] Speaker C: And you're like, are we. What are. What are we doing?
[00:04:25] Speaker B: Hello, Is there anybody there?
[00:04:26] Speaker C: Like, if you just want to take orders from me, like, that's what an administrator does. Not a manager, not a leader. So if you're a leader in the organization, we want to be able to volley. And again, imagine we're out on a tennis court. To your point, I hit a ball over to you, you don't hit it back to me.
[00:04:41] Speaker B: Right.
[00:04:41] Speaker C: Not a very fun game to play.
[00:04:43] Speaker B: No. And that's all that happens. Like, you're. Did you play tennis? Yeah, I played tennis with Marty. Took 11 minutes. I beat him two straight sets. He didn't score a point.
[00:04:51] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:04:51] Speaker B: Like, you want people you can engage with. And frankly, without getting into names, we've had some people here that were in roles we were trying.
We were trying to work with them to get better, and they weren't able to volley. Like, they just. It doesn't make them bad people. They weren't jerks or anything like that. They just. They weren't able to deliver. They weren't able to run as fast as we could or they didn't see what we saw. And you're not going to grow. You got to get. There has to be people in your organization that are smarter than you in other areas. Is that another way to say?
[00:05:19] Speaker C: Absolutely. And you also have to realize the point in which you need to stop the volley and then go make something happen. It's also not fun for you and I to just hit the ball back and forth for an hour.
[00:05:30] Speaker B: Yes. Right.
[00:05:30] Speaker C: Eventually, one of us has to grab the ball and go, okay, yeah, I got it from here.
[00:05:34] Speaker B: I don't know. What do you want?
[00:05:35] Speaker C: I don't know.
[00:05:36] Speaker B: What do you want? That's a volley, too, but that's not a good volley.
[00:05:38] Speaker C: No. And so different people get different energy in different ways. Marty is someone who loves to volley. You could volley all day long, and then you need a partner like me to say, okay, let's pause the volley for right now. Let's grab hold of what we've talked about, and let's go do it.
[00:05:51] Speaker B: Let's go get it done.
[00:05:52] Speaker C: I have a tendency maybe to end a volley too short, where we hit a couple back and forth. I'm like, I got it. You're like, I got more in the tank that we need to talk about, because I hadn't thought about the next five things. But you might have. And so that Happens with any leadership team. But you got to understand that when you're engaging in conversations with key leaders of your organization, there has to be a rhythm, there has to be a back and forth. And then one of you has to be able to grab that volley and go, okay, got it. I know what we're doing. I know what it needs to be done by. I'm going to communicate to you so you understand where we are with this, and I'll let you know when it's done, and then we can go volley on something else.
[00:06:26] Speaker B: You know, I'll tell you, and then we'll go on to the second one.
I really saw this happening because we had to make a change in the organization. We had to move someone out that wasn't getting done what we needed to get done. And we moved a new person in. And almost immediately, there were some things they started asking questions about or they started fixing that. I'm like, yeah, I don't know why we were doing that. We're not a huge company, ladies and gentlemen, but we're decent size now. We're going on 130 employees.
It's just.
I don't want to mislead you and make you think, like, this is just so big and we can't. You know, it's not that. It's just the bigger you get, the less you know what's going on. And you got to really rely on people. And. And when you. If you're going to grow, you got to rely on people that can hit the ball back.
[00:07:12] Speaker C: You got it.
[00:07:13] Speaker B: You got to be able to go with that.
[00:07:14] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:07:15] Speaker B: Okay, the second one. And, you know, I. I just. I think a lot of people think too much. This is a second thing.
[00:07:21] Speaker C: I've never done that before, ever.
[00:07:23] Speaker B: Well, I have. I have some, too. And I'm learning that as an entrepreneur, you know, we've made some mistakes as we've gone from four and a half million to projected 18 million.
But a lot of that growth has come from jumping in and not. Not getting into these conversations, like, what about this? What about that? What if this happened? What if. If we got in lawn care? What if the tank leaked herbicide all over the place? I mean, what would we do? What happens if the ep. I mean, you get into these things where it's just like, okay, yeah, that could happen. Let's be prepared. But don't spend all your energy talking about that. Go on this. And it gets me into a saying that I. And I mentioned this on the Grow show a couple episodes ago.
I realize now, in retrospect, my great aunt Tad used to say, hindsight's good stuff.
If you recall, a few years ago, I posted a sign that said, procrastination.
[00:08:11] Speaker C: Is the language of the poor shop.
[00:08:13] Speaker B: And I was told to take it down because it didn't resonate with our team. I get that now. I'm like, okay, yeah. But I think with business owners, I think this message does resonate and you can't procrastinate and grow. Like, you got to decide is, is this something that's. With our strategy? Does it go through our filters? Can we adequately do this?
When I. When I tell you like thinking too much, how does that inhibit growth? How does that affect.
Why do you think? Knowing what you know about me and knowing what you know about the companies you work with, why would that be something that someone's got to watch out for?
[00:08:48] Speaker C: Yeah, because it's indicative of the fact that you don't have a clear enough path as an organ.
[00:08:52] Speaker B: Clarity of purpose.
[00:08:53] Speaker C: That's where when you procrastinated on a test, you procrastinated on doing something, it was probably because you didn't really know exactly what you were doing, so you didn't want to get started because then you couldn't fail because you never started it kind of thing. And so typically, I think, Marty, to your point, when companies are procrastinating on things, they don't have a filter. They don't have a vision, mission, values, a strategy of what they're going to do and not going to do. So they have no way of running anything through a filter. So we're just going to wait and we're going to not execute on it, and we're going to put.
[00:09:24] Speaker B: That's the safe play.
[00:09:26] Speaker C: Exactly. The perceived safe play is I don't know what to do with this, so I'll just sit. So I'm going to wait because I don't have anything I can run it through. I can't say yes. I can't clearly say no. I'm in a gray area because I haven't done enough filtering of my business. So I'm just not going to do anything.
[00:09:42] Speaker B: You know, we just had our grow meeting here this morning where we bring the whole company together and we communicate. The more people understand what you're trying to do, where you're going, how you're going to do it, how their actions. I mean, today, if you noticed, when I summarized, I just said what everyone else said, but I rammed home the point that whether you are an American Or a Mexican or El Salvadorian. There's opportunities here for you and let's go. We all can do this. The more you communicate to them about where we're going, what the map looks like, what's the score? Where do I go? The scoreboard. Seth talked about going and clicking on dials and aspires. You can see how you're doing. You know, I think that's the thing. Like, if we don't have a filter to run things through and we just do analysis paralysis and we kick it off down the road and not do things. I'll be. I'll be blunt with you. I don't think I would have bought that other building in Cincinnati if it weren't for you and Seth.
[00:10:33] Speaker C: Right.
[00:10:33] Speaker B: You were telling me about all the companies that we work with in the grow group that are doing it and they've done. And here's what you've learned from it. And, Marty, you should do it. I'm paraphrasing. You didn't talk like this, but you often hear someone say, well, I'd be a fool for not doing right. You didn't say that, but you'd say, marty, like, you can do this. Like, why would you think you couldn't do this? And Seth would say, cincinnati is an incredible marketplace. Have you ever driven down around there? I mean, why couldn't we do it? So, like, there's three of us that are kind of making decisions here together. It's me, you, and Seth. We have other people involved, but it's kind of the three of us that focus on the strategy and what we're then going to go talk to the leadership team about. And if it weren't for you folks, like, I mean, I remember even saying, look, it's. You're just doing what you already know how to do up here in Dayton. You're just going to do it in another town. It's not. And I. You guys talked me into it, and I. I wanted to do it. I just.
I'm 57.
[00:11:26] Speaker C: Right.
[00:11:26] Speaker B: I guess I'm kind of scared, you know, like, my boat's shiny. I don't want to take it out and get it all dirty. And I need to go get it dirty. Right.
[00:11:32] Speaker C: We're good.
[00:11:33] Speaker B: Because we can clean it up.
[00:11:34] Speaker C: We're good right now.
[00:11:34] Speaker B: We are good.
[00:11:35] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:11:35] Speaker B: And it's been great, and it's amazing to see. I go to the Cincinnati office on Fridays. The culture down there and what they're doing. And, you know, I walked in the sales office where we have three Salespeople working away. One of them is my son and their mom. They're, they're all in the same office. They're in cubes and their backs are to the door. And I went in there to just get a couple things. Every single time they had bids up or pictures of job sites, they were grinding away.
[00:12:02] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:12:02] Speaker B: And so it's working and it's going to work. I mean, some bumps.
[00:12:05] Speaker C: Right.
[00:12:05] Speaker B: We had a tremendous amount of money we had to spend to get it set up. Investment people don't know who we are in Cincinnati. That's like, to be honest, kind of hard for my ego. What do you mean you don't know?
[00:12:14] Speaker C: Grunder landscape.
[00:12:15] Speaker B: We've been around 41 years. Well, we've never been in Cincinnati. Never heard of us. I understand.
So it's, it's been good. And to have clarity of purpose and see all those things and, and have other people on your team, I would surmise that's probably one of the values of the ACE groups that, that you basically run with Jim Callai from our strategic partners at McFarland Stanford. That's a peer group, that's a board of advisors for them to get them over procrastination. Right, Marty?
[00:12:40] Speaker C: No different than our filter. If I said to you right now, Marty, I think we should start a pond water management business, it might be like. No, you said no immediately. Yeah. No, Marty, I think we could do more commercial grounds maintenance.
[00:12:52] Speaker B: Yes. I'd look at that.
[00:12:53] Speaker C: Why even. You don't even have to think about that.
[00:12:55] Speaker B: No, because our. I know that. Right.
[00:12:56] Speaker C: And our vision, mission and values are clear. And we don't have to spend time procrastinating on pond water management because it's not part of what we do. Yeah.
[00:13:03] Speaker B: Right.
[00:13:03] Speaker C: And so that I think is where this procrastination comes from is that you don't have anybody outside of your organization that can help you see that.
[00:13:12] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:13:12] Speaker C: And you don't internally have your again, your vision, mission, values clear enough on what you do.
[00:13:17] Speaker B: And that's why I think, and I know some people can pull off virtual peer groups. I'm not going to argue that as if you're, you know, like the accountability calls. We have peer groups.
[00:13:28] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:13:28] Speaker B: That does help keep it together. Man. When you're sitting with someone for two days and you're getting to know them better and you're seeing and hearing and feeling them in person, I just think it's really hard to duplicate that kind of influence that that has.
[00:13:42] Speaker C: I agree completely.
[00:13:43] Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. Let's move on to the next one. And it's this concept that what you're doing speaks so loudly, I can't even hear what you're saying. You know, Vince, a few years ago, we toured Dorothy Lane Market over here by our office. It's a wonderful grocery store. They have three locations, building a fourth one that we're involved with a little bit, going to hopefully take care of it and do the snow. My friend Ed was the manager there. Vince, he was a great guy. He was. He's. He's still alive, but he's smart, friendly, really good business person and. And a great teacher and a listener. And we were talking one day about his job, and. And I was like, kind of. I don't know. I guess we were fawning over each other. Like, I was telling him how. What an awesome job he does. And he's like, well, I think you guys do an awesome job. And he's like, to be honest with you, I think your job's harder than my job. And I'm like, oh, no, it's not. And they say, well, no, wait a minute, hang on a second. He's like. Because I've been thinking about this. He's like, when. When I come in in the morning, in 30 minutes, I can literally touch every part of my store. I can go in every meat cooler. I can talk to every employee. 30 minutes about what it takes for me to walk the whole store. And I literally can talk to everyone. Now, it may just be, hi, how are you? Good morning. I check the bathrooms. I. I look at different things. He's like, you know, I was thinking about your job and all your people. So you talk to him in the morning, and then they leave. He said, with as many crews as you have, there's no way you could, like, get around to see them all every day. Do you get. I'm like, no, I can't do that. And he goes, so they could be out doing Lord knows what. And I go, yeah. And he's getting me nervous. You know, I never really thought about that way. And then he said. And then they. They come back at the end of the day, and you got another chance to hook up with him. I said, right. He goes, I just think that would be hard because I would think, like, micro cultures could develop on the other teams when they're not around you and so on and so forth. And so we. I. I think subconsciously I knew that, but I never had anybody vocalize it like that. And so that's why we stress everybody here. Your shirts are tucked in. You have the right hat on, the bathroom's clean, your truck's clean. If you spill mulch in the yard, you go and get a bucket and you sweep it up and you throw it back in the mulch bin, or if it's contaminated with gravel, it goes in the dumpster. People come here to visit us and they're like, oh, my gosh. I mean, what do you. Well, first of all, I want our place to look nice. And if you want to come see us, come to one of our field trips, please. We've got a whole bunch of them remaining. I know we got spots available in all of them, but it's that. But it's also we want them, we want to show them that so that when they're on the job and they're hot, I hope they go the extra mile. You notice this morning I recognized a crew that came in tired but did what they needed to do even when no one was looking.
[00:16:15] Speaker C: Right.
[00:16:16] Speaker B: What are your thoughts there about that concept?
[00:16:18] Speaker C: I think what we've done a very nice job of, again, to the point of this, number three, which is basically leading by example.
[00:16:24] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:16:24] Speaker C: Have you explained why we do those things?
[00:16:27] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:16:27] Speaker C: You don't just pick up spilled mulch or the Gatorade bottle in the yard because Marty and Seth told you to. It's because how we do anything here represents how we do anything on a job site. And so if you don't properly take care of the place that we all are at and operate and work and live at, basically, how are we going to entrust you to do that on?
[00:16:46] Speaker B: I think that's even a narrative that probably group leaders need to have because the way you just explained it, that's even better.
[00:16:51] Speaker C: And it allows them to understand why that's so important. And basically we want to lead by example in everything that we do. And if we're not going to lead by example here, probably not a very good shot we're going to lead by example on a job site. So it's the same thing. How you do one thing is how you do.
[00:17:06] Speaker B: And it seems so trivial, but the way we dress, I mean, I'm, I'm not anything fancy, folks. I'm in my standard Grunder landscaping logo shirt. I've got gray pants on, dress shoes. I mean, this is how we look. You're in your grow group stuff. How you dress, how you keep your desk, how your truck looks. I mean, you know, I, I, I know we're getting more and more casual, and I understand that, but I Think you just got to understand the message that it sends when you get lackadaisical on some of those details.
I think it's really hard to get the cat back in the bag, as they say, or whatever the expression is, when you start allowing that stuff. Because whatever you allow, you encourage. I don't think I'm a dictator here. At least I hope I'm not. But there's certain things we do. Like, I go out in the yard two or three days a week in the morning in my yellow vest, and I pick up trash, or I'll go to someone, I'll say, hey, why don't you help me clean this up real quick? Hey, you're getting ready to pull away. You're going to get that? Oh, yeah, yeah, sorry. I got that. Recognizing. Hey, I took a glance in your truck. Thanks, man. Appreciate it. Hey, last night I happened to be looking at the cameras when you came in. Thanks for emptying those trash cans when you came back. I really appreciate that. And I think, you know, and I've learned this from you. I knew it. But you. You remind me of it. It's. You really got to catch your people doing things right, too. Like, that's part of the job as the manager. It's not just to go around and kick everybody's ass. And I wouldn't advocate you do that anyway.
Some people need a little bit more pushing than others, but it's also recognizing for little things. I mean, I just had a nice conversation with Kim that works up at the front desk, and I told her, hey, thanks for all these little things you've been doing, the cleaning, calling me when somebody called for me, you know, because you were afraid. Because my email wasn't working last week. Just being there, like, being smart and being engaged in your job.
Look for the behaviors that you want and recognize, though, like, tell them. Thanks.
[00:18:52] Speaker C: It's one of the best things of the Grove meeting. It happened this morning, as you said. Even getting the individually highlighted team member in front of everybody at 1900 Old Byers Road, in front of the team at leveling over teams on and now and recognizing them individually for the things they're doing that fall into that leadership bucket. Right. One of the core values that we have about doing things the right way. And so even that alone is a great reason to have these team meetings.
[00:19:18] Speaker B: And, you know, John is one of our employees. He's been here five or six years. He works in the nursery. He does all kinds of little things.
And I worry about John getting taken for granted. I Mean, I say hello to him, I thank him, but. And I hope John's not listening. I have in my calendar about every four months to send him a note because he does a lot of little things that get taken for granted. And I get worried that, wouldn't that suck to go home and for, I don't know, two straight months and nobody told you good job or thank you. I mean, even for me, you know, you folks may think, like, when you come up to me at the end to grow and say, man, that was great. Thank you, or I get cards and you've gotten them where they say things like, you've changed my life. I mean, sometimes you read a card like that and you're like, yeah, sure. And then you think about. You're like, well, gosh, I guess I did. I mean, that. That stuff goes a long way when you recognize people for things.
[00:20:10] Speaker C: No doubt.
[00:20:11] Speaker B: All right, let's go on to number four. How do you perform when it gets tough? We've had unbelievable amount of rain here. Yeah. Today it's like 92 out. The older I get, the less the heat bothers me. Believe it or not. I don't know what's going on. If that's a. Yeah, I don't know there. My wife says I'm nuts. Maybe I am nuts. It just doesn't bother me like it used to. I'm also not out working, but, like, over the weekend, it was 90 something. I was playing golf. I was. I don't know. I don't know what's going on. Maybe I need to go to the doctor. But you know, you're going to get hot. Both from a temperature perspective and a temperament perspective. Your backlog may be waning.
You may have had a couple key people. It happens every year. Like, I don't know what it is about the hourly worker. Some of them just can't stay in one place longer. Like, you try. You saw, they had a lot of job hopping, but they came in, they started out great guns of fire. They did a great job. And then one day they just disappear. Show hands. It just happens.
You get hot, but you can't let your team see a sweat, right?
[00:21:08] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:21:09] Speaker B: When I say don't let them see a sweat in the world according to Vince, what does that mean?
[00:21:14] Speaker C: It means that you have eyes on you as a leader in the organization. Whether you're leading a sales team, leading the organization, whether you're a production leader, you've got a team of people that look up to you. And any behavior you have, you've allowed them or encouraged them to have as well. So you come in on a Monday morning and you're frustrated, then you're bothered and you walk in, you immediately change the perception of that team for that day. Oh, watch out. Marty's in the mood today. Oh, watch out. I saw Vince this morning huffing and puffing about something. You immediately start that off on a negative front. It doesn't mean, to your point, that you can't be real with them, you can't be transparent. But to your point, again, it's a great metaphor for July and August. Not letting them see you sweat is critically important.
[00:21:54] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:21:54] Speaker C: And you got to have key people that you can talk to. Those.
[00:21:56] Speaker B: Well, I was just going to say that. Like, how many times do I call you at the end of the day and I say, you got a minute?
[00:22:00] Speaker C: Oh, yeah, of course.
[00:22:01] Speaker B: All right. And I may tell you, somebody did this, somebody did that. Why did they do this? And you'll, you know, you'll, you'll listen to, you'll be helpful. Like, sometimes you may say, hey, I'm sorry. Sometimes you may say, yep, but somebody did something good today. Right, Marty? Yep. Let's talk about that. And then I get pulled out of the funk. Like, we all get that way. I don't. What I'm not telling you folks that are listening here today on the grow show Powered by Steel. I'm not telling you to be quiet. No. I think you got to get it off your chest, but I think you got to be careful to who you get it off your chest to.
You can't go to your team and complain about cash flow and how bad you've got it. And then you had to take money off your home equity line to put in the account because they don't care.
[00:22:43] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:22:43] Speaker B: All right. Now, you might tell them, cash flow's tough. We got to make sure we're collecting receivables. You might tell them that. But I could certainly call you and say, man, I had to put money into the company today off my home equity line because, you know, we've got two and a half million dollars out in receivables.
[00:22:57] Speaker C: Right.
[00:22:58] Speaker B: And we can talk it through. Like, things like that happen when someone, if they see you sweat, I think then they see you as not someone to go to with their issues. And I don't think they look at you as someone who can provide solutions. Like, you're getting really worked up. I don't want to go to you again.
[00:23:16] Speaker C: No. And it, it ultimately stifles them. And then the organization, I think it does, because they need support.
[00:23:22] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:23:22] Speaker C: They're team members, like everybody. They need support. They don't maybe don't know how to answer an email, or they maybe don't know how to address a client, or they don't know how to handle the scheduling thing that's come up. And they're like, well, I don't really want to go to Marty today. He's in a bad mood. So now I'll just either ignore it or try to do it on my own and maybe really not know what I'm doing. Or maybe just ignore it and hope it goes away.
[00:23:43] Speaker B: And, you know, I know some of our team watches and listens to the Grow show. They're going to learn one of my tricks. But the end of the day is normally not the greatest time to have a conversation with someone. And I don't know if the first in the day, in the morning is either, but if somebody's saying something and I feel like. And I learned this from my accounts, I went to. If I feel it like this is really pissing me off, I'm gonna blow. I'm gonna blow. I will just say, all right, man, you know, it's the end of the day. I got a few more things I have to do. Is there any way we could talk about this tomorrow? And then that person doesn't know if you're upset.
[00:24:16] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:24:16] Speaker B: If you agree with them, and then you can let it process. And, Vince, I can't tell you how many times I've come in the next morning and I'm like, why? Did I let that bother me that much? Or, well, no, wait a second.
I'm going to call their boss, and they shouldn't have been coming and talking to me anyway. And we're going to work this out. This isn't that bad.
[00:24:34] Speaker C: No.
[00:24:35] Speaker B: And I think it's just having the strength and the coping mechanisms not to let them see you sweat. Now, sometimes I think it's okay to up the ante a little bit. I remember a couple of years ago, we were telling people not to throw stuff in the dumpster. And we kept throwing things, rakes, metal pieces, and I had had enough, and I brought all the stuff that the grinding people came and I laid it down on the ground and I said, ladies and gentlemen, enough.
This is ridiculous. We have to pay now to repair the horizontal grinder. Because all this stuff was in here because all of you were too lazy and had no pride to pull it out. This is not conduct becoming of a member of Team Grunder, can. Can we get better support here? So, I mean, there's times where I, you know, it's not. It's all ruffles and feathers, and there's a time when you got to say, like, we got to dig in. But I think that if you react to every single force that comes into your life or every single obstacle or comment, that's hard.
[00:25:34] Speaker C: Yeah, absolutely agree.
[00:25:35] Speaker B: Hard. All right, we got one more number five. When you make it about you, you lose. When you make it about the team, you win. What do you think of that statement?
[00:25:43] Speaker C: I think it's so true that you're mistaking. You're fooling yourself if you don't think your team knows the difference. When you're in a leadership role, the way that you talk about things, they are totally in tune with their, like. Well, yeah, of course Marty would say that. Well, yeah, of course Vince would say that. If you make it about yourself, they're going to know immediately. And, Marty, I think you've done a very nice job in showing again, starting with changing the mission statement to be about creating opportunities for the team to grow and succeed, that. That decisions we are making are not decisions that are benefiting Marty.
[00:26:17] Speaker B: Right.
[00:26:18] Speaker C: They're benefiting the team.
[00:26:19] Speaker B: Well, they are benefiting me, though. They're benefiting everyone.
[00:26:21] Speaker C: Right, but they're not just benefiting you.
[00:26:23] Speaker B: No, they're not.
[00:26:23] Speaker C: Everybody, we're not talking about things because you want a third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh home and say, we got to create more opportunities for our team. That's our mission. If we're not doing that, then we're not believing and behaving in the way that we said we were going to as an organization.
[00:26:40] Speaker B: Right.
[00:26:41] Speaker C: And when we lead with that and we're sincere about it, the team knows that.
[00:26:45] Speaker B: Yeah, they pick up on that. They can smell that. And I think that's so important.
It goes in all things. I think even when you have a situation, not making it about yourself. I've. I've mentioned this before. I clean the bathrooms. I don't clean them every week. I got Alan. That helps me a little bit. And then we have a cleaning company. But I'll do things like that. Like, I just think, folks, if you want people to follow you and you want them to pay attention to little things, that stuff's got it. You got to show it's important. Like, it's got to be part of your every day. And I think, you know, I don't.
I think I started to learn. I had to quit talking. So Much about myself and making so much of it about myself when I was your age because I had had my fourth child and I was getting a little bit worldly in wisdom and seeing things and I was probably getting embracing emotional intelligence. I don'. Know that I had a whole lot in my 20s.
[00:27:37] Speaker C: Right.
[00:27:37] Speaker B: And then you see other leaders behave and you're like, well, that's ridiculous. Like they're making it completely about them. I see it when we visit companies and the owner does all the talking. Like the team never gets to talk. It's all the owner. They don't delegate any significant responsibilities to anyone else. You're not going to grow.
[00:27:55] Speaker C: Right.
[00:27:55] Speaker B: Like, who would want to go in where you got the keys to everything? Like some people want to take the ball and run with it.
Any other thoughts on any of the stuff we've talked about here that come to mind?
[00:28:05] Speaker C: No, it's one that we talked about many times just in this last point and then we can wrap it up. But the language that we use as owners and leaders is critically important.
[00:28:12] Speaker B: Jim Cowell talks about, absolutely. We know that. But he drove that home to us. And it's so true. Always me being thoughtful of the words you pick.
[00:28:19] Speaker C: Totally even just moving from me to we, I to we.
[00:28:23] Speaker B: Or dumb. Me putting a banner up that said procrastination is a language of the poor. Where I thought that made sense, I think it does make sense for business owners. But I could see where a team would be. Like, what does that mean? Was Marty, think we're all poor? Like, I don't. I mean, I see why that was. I see why that could be misconstrued to think that I was insensitive and it wasn't a very smart thing to post.
[00:28:45] Speaker C: And so I would encourage everybody in a busy season of July, August, September, as we're rolling through the back half of 26, pay attention to your length. 25. Thank you. Headed towards 26. Pay attention to your language.
Speak as a team, act as a team, win as a team.
And that in and of itself will set you up for great leadership.
[00:29:02] Speaker B: No, it's great. And you know, Vince, it's funny as I'm sitting here talking to you, this edition of the Grow show, Powered by Steel. If a potential team member that wanted to join our company was listening to this, they probably couldn't manipulate us a little bit and win the interview, start volleying with us. Well, because they would, like, be able to talk about what we're looking for. You know, folks, if you just focus on what we talked about here. You're going to go places in your life. You're going to go places in your company. I know that. I've been on the other side of the five things we talked about and I've been on the winning side. The winning side works. So the question I have for you this week on the Grow show is are you going to try and do any of these things we just talked about? Are you going to keep going through the motions too? Okay, I'm 57 years old. I've been here 41 years. I have gray hair, I have grandkids. I think I know what I'm talking about here. On the topic of leadership, to me, blunt, forgive my confidence and cockiness right here, folks. I really do.
Retirement isn't in the cards for me. Helping others is. And I hope Vince and I just helped you a little bit today. Vince, any final comments here before we close it out?
[00:30:03] Speaker C: No, I go back, I would go back through our five points. I figure out where am I good in these five points? Where am I weak in these points? And Marty, to your point, start taking action to be a better Adam.
[00:30:11] Speaker B: Thank you.
[00:30:11] Speaker C: Thank you.
[00:30:12] Speaker B: Appreciate you. All right, folks, that's going to do it for this week's edition of the Grow Show, Powered by Steel. If you haven't done so already, subscribe to the Grow show and if you can give it a rating or share a comment that helps more success minded landscape professionals find us. And if you really want to help us share this episode, take your phone out right now and share this episode with any landscape pro friend, maybe even a foe. You know, send it to them. Folks, thanks for joining us on the Grow show this week. We'll see you next week. And don't forget to sign up for one of our field trips. There's a link here in the show notes. You can come see myself. You'll have a great time. We'll teach you a lot. We might even change your life. Have a great day.
[00:30:52] Speaker A: Join Marty Grunder and the Grow Group team for the annual event for landscape pros. GROW 2026 will be held on February 10th 12th, 2026 in Dallas, Texas and feature a behind the scenes tour of complete land sculpture alongside breakout sessions diving deeper into the topics we cover each week on the Grow Show. Early Bird pricing ends on November 1st. Register this month to lock in the best rate.
