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, wherever the case may be. This is Marty Grunder from the Grow Group and Grunder Landscaping Company with another episode of the Grow Show Powered by Steel. This week we're going to talk to our recent Grow host, Jason Cromley from Hidden Creek in Columbus, Ohio. Jason, give us a wave and we're going to get an update from him. 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, you can Watch us on YouTube for an enhanced learning experience. The Grow show is the greatest thing since walking. Yes.
Sounds silly, but walking. I've gotten lazy folks with my steps. Just a lot going on and not near enough steps. And I've gained five pounds of the 23 I've lost in the last year. Not good.
Not good, Jason. Back to walking.
[00:01:21] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:01:21] Speaker B: And I truly find myself in a better place when I do all these steps. I listen to Headway, which is a book summary app. Sometimes I even stop in the middle of the road or the trail and I send an email to someone I think of or I take a note. But I'm moving. And a guy in my position, a gal in your position that's listening to the Grow show today, you need to be moving. And it doesn't seem like walking would be part of your work, but it can be because physically it helps you. It's a cleansing experience and I need to never stop. So here's to those steps. Jason, my friend, welcome to the Grow Show. Speaking of steps, I know you had knee surgery and tell us how you're doing with that. You dropped one daughter off at Loyola of Chicago last week. Your son at Boston College. How's it going, brother?
[00:02:08] Speaker A: Well, I can totally emphasize what you just said. My steps, my workout, my morning routine is my sanity.
Yes, I'm on the treadmill mostly about 5:30, finish that, hop in my sauna for about 20 minutes, hop in my cold plunge, and I love it. I'M coming to work fired up because that is where my ideas, my emails, just my own personal time work. Because the second you walk through the doors you're. You're in a different mode, right? So there it's a little bit more reactionary. So when you get those steps in, you get that proactive brain versus that reactive brain.
[00:02:41] Speaker B: There's a book I'm listening to called the 5am work club or something like that and it talks kind of like what you're talking about there about the importance of jump starting your morning. So I'm anxious to finish the book. It's a summary I'm listening to, so that's good. Well, listen, it's been about 180 days since we were up there in Columbus for Grow Again. Thank you, thank you, thank you. You did an awesome job. The sharing, the experience, we continue to get feedback from it.
I think people that have never been to GrowJace and they really just don't understand the community that with people like you as a host, what we've created and the energy that comes out of a thousand plus success minded landscapers literally like kids in toy stores looking for things.
Looking back on it, I know I asked you this question the last time when we had you on how did hosting grow help you improve? What did you learn? Let's get a little update on Hidden Creek.
[00:03:37] Speaker A: Yeah, I'd love to. And again, hosting was a true honor for us. As I said before, I went to another grow five years prior, six, seven years, can't even remember. And it changed my outlook. The community that I saw and I saw a company, I'm like, I don't want to be them. I want to be bigger than them, better than them. Right. I'm slightly competitive person if anyone gets to know me. So for me it was an inspiration and also helped jump my start my career into the ACE peer groups as well too. So really grow without it, I don't know where my business would be. I honestly get to give you praise for that, Marty. So. Well, to be able to host, you know, and share what I shared is, is the ultimate win for someone who wants to give back to the industry. And I think that's probably what sets our industry apart is the give back and so grow six months later. You know it's funny, within two weeks after Grow, we kind of looked at each other like what are we supposed to do now? And I'm like well guys, we're still a landscaping company, believe it or not.
[00:04:35] Speaker B: So it was kind of weird.
[00:04:36] Speaker A: It was such A huge buildup, as I think I equated. It's kind of like, you know, your only kid, if you had it, getting married. Right. You hope to only do it once. And when you do it, you got to put all your eggs into that. You know, that's a great analogy. Basket. And when it's over, you're kind of looking around like, you know, I felt like these parents, like, you know, my kids are gone. Everything's gone.
And so it was back to work as usual.
But, you know, takeaway wise, it was really the preparation for Grow that was so impactful to my team. Right. It was getting PowerPoints ready, getting slides ready, getting the facility ready. You saw so much pride come out of where people actually.
[00:05:14] Speaker B: Oh, gosh, yes.
[00:05:15] Speaker A: Sometimes people forget, right? You get so caught up in the, you know, the. The daily work at all times that you just have to find a way to kind of jump. And we. We did that. We jumped back into something that was new for us, and we started deep diving our own company. And it was funny. One of the questions I asked the team after I said, how amazing would Hidden Creek be if you guys did everything that you said in the slide you presented? And they're like, well, we'd be amazing.
And I'm like, it's because those slides are really what you want to be doing every day, right?
[00:05:46] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:05:46] Speaker A: Because we don't talk about, well, I have four fires a day, five different distractions. Right? You just talk about if every day worked out great, this is what my role would look like. So that was probably the best part, is just seeing what people really want to do with.
[00:06:00] Speaker B: So it was like a vision casting, kind of great.
[00:06:03] Speaker A: Great way to put it. It really was, you know, if you could write your ideal job description, put it on the board, everybody did that. And then. Does that happen every day? No. Right. Four days a week, three days a week. In the spring, it feels like you do it one day a week.
We're getting through that spring summer rush, right? It's fall. And as people's minds are kind of shifting again, you see a whole new phase of people, especially our own team members. Right. And I kind of want to go down in the next town hall and be like, hey, guys, guess what? Marty called. He wants us to host grow again in 2027. What do you think? And I would love just to see their reaction.
[00:06:38] Speaker B: We might want to do that.
[00:06:39] Speaker A: So it would be great just to see their reactions, because I think this time, because now they know what it was. I think they'd be like, let's do it.
[00:06:48] Speaker B: Like, maybe we do that for April Fool's next year. I'll come up.
[00:06:51] Speaker A: Yeah, that would be hilarious.
[00:06:53] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah.
[00:06:54] Speaker A: So bring a couple of tour buses by and be like, hey, guys, I forgot to tell you, we got 300 people coming in today.
[00:06:59] Speaker B: Yeah, exactly. Just a mini grow.
[00:07:01] Speaker A: Yeah. Right.
[00:07:02] Speaker B: So when we talk, I think your goal for the year is 26 million. How are sales?
You're up the road from us. You're an hour and a half north of where we're at. I'm in the steel studios at Grunder Landscaping today.
How are sales? What are you seeing out there? Are you on track to hit those goals? Talk to us.
[00:07:19] Speaker A: Oh, boy. Just going to start right off with, you know, am I on track or off track? Which I appreciate. And as you saw me on the stage, honesty is not my problem. So we're not.
Yeah, our goal was 27 million. Not to correct you, but just to verify. Good.
[00:07:33] Speaker B: I knew it was close.
[00:07:34] Speaker A: Yep. And we're chasing down 25 plus right now. We're not sure about the plus plus. We had a terrible Q1 and no, nothing to grow by any means. Just didn't have the carryover we needed. And last year.
[00:07:49] Speaker B: You mean like backlog?
[00:07:50] Speaker A: Yeah. Didn't have enough work in the winter.
[00:07:52] Speaker B: And, you know, Jason. Right. There is an important thing for anybody that's joined us today on the gross show, Powered By Steel. You know, we're recording this first of September or so, and it's really important to be out right now looking for work for next year. And not only do you have to be finding projects to finish up the year at whether your sales are 800,000, 5 million, 20 million, 60 million, you better be laying some stuff down for next year.
[00:08:15] Speaker A: 100%. And it takes all stress off of that Q1.
[00:08:19] Speaker B: Yes. So. And it helps with budgeting and alignment. You know, not just the financial part, the people part, that. What do we need to work on this winter? Think about how much better it'd be if you got. We just sold a very large job for next year. We'll start it in April.
Look at the Runway. We've got to try to maybe get a little bit better deal on supplies now that we've, you know, we've. We've won the bid. Maybe we can go back to some of our suppliers and ask for a little more. Who knows? You can. You can think all that stuff through, can't you?
[00:08:47] Speaker A: Oh, yeah. And. And backlog is confidence. I mean, you can say when you get Six months of backlog. Everyone in the company has confidence. Production does. Right. Ownership does. Foremans do. They're like, wait, I'm protected. We're not living in this, you know, what game are we playing next week?
[00:09:03] Speaker B: Great point.
[00:09:04] Speaker A: So, you know, that's the thing that right now our goal is. And we should be there because it's in and it is tough in our world. I lost a million dollars and actually probably a little bit more in the last 24 hours, but we also closed a million.
[00:09:18] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:09:18] Speaker A: So it's like this up and down type of world. We should be able to close out this year in terms of sales in the next three weeks. We'll, we'll have sell out the whole year.
But I'll be honest, I've got about 20 plus million and pipeline right now. That would all go into next year.
[00:09:35] Speaker B: Oh man, that.
[00:09:36] Speaker A: Yeah, that's, that's massive. And that's just design build, that's not maintenance and other opportunities. So it's really forcing us to kind of think about next year's goals. Right. And I had big goals for next year and I really want to work on those. We're trending. And I will say this. And it's one of the things that even came up in our peer group. I'm getting more leads now, Marty, than I've ever got in the history of the business.
[00:10:01] Speaker B: Why?
[00:10:03] Speaker A: It's a great question and it's one that I can tell you. We have kicked up our marketing this year. We did a custom mailer that went out to over 5000 homes. Million dollar plus value, who don't have swimming pools, who are next to golf courses.
[00:10:19] Speaker B: Okay. Right.
[00:10:20] Speaker A: Like as targeted as we could be. Right. That is our ideal client areas not profile, just areas. Right. And we did a piece that was not a postcard that was very unique. It was again, above and beyond. And I think I probably had seven friends text me alone to say this is the greatest piece I've ever seen.
I'd already worked for it. Right. They, they hit that criteria.
And I think we've sold since it went out. I think we're at 5 design fees that have been sold for a little over $20,000. And each of those probably equates to about a quarter million to $350,000 job.
[00:11:01] Speaker B: Yeah. So which is big.
[00:11:03] Speaker A: Huge.
And we sold problems getting.
[00:11:05] Speaker B: Didn't probably get in some neighborhoods you weren't working. So now your trucks can be seen. The neighbors are going to have. The neighbors are going to come over and see what's up they're going to want to keep up with the Joneses. I mean, we know how this works.
[00:11:15] Speaker A: Yeah. And we hit a lot of the same neighborhoods that we're already. So it's like they've seen our trucks. And people say, I've seen your trucks every day. I just. With this mailer. I just had to call you. Yeah. But the mailer was unique because we were taking calls three weeks after, which meant these people kept it. They set it on their table, they looked at it, waited, checked out our website, and then came back to us.
[00:11:36] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:11:36] Speaker A: So that's one component.
[00:11:38] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:11:39] Speaker A: We did do some Google pay per click this year, which is pretty expensive.
It did help to get some leads. Um, I can't say they're the world's best sleep. That's a much bigger net and sometimes catching much smaller fish, if you will. But it gets the phone ringing. And our referrals have been through the roof and our SEO. So I think last week alone, we tracked 45 qualified leads came in last week.
[00:12:05] Speaker B: Okay. And, you know, there's something I think you're. I know you're going to know this. How long you been in business, Jason?
[00:12:11] Speaker A: 27 years.
[00:12:12] Speaker B: 27 years. How many people hate you?
[00:12:15] Speaker A: All of them.
[00:12:17] Speaker B: No, I'm just saying, like, you have a good reputation. We do, too.
[00:12:21] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:12:22] Speaker B: And we're finding there's a certain amount that comes along with that. And, you know, just from being in business and continuing to do the right thing. And I. I told my team this yesterday, and our. You call it. What do you call. You call it your town hall? We call our meeting grow. We have it once a month.
[00:12:39] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:12:39] Speaker B: Look, the work you're doing today is selling tomorrow's work. And you've been doing that for 27 years. That helps to.
Operations, house, hiring going. What are you seeing out there?
Very wet. Spring. It was wet for summer. Now it's bone dry here in Ohio. What are you seeing? Are you overcoming any hiring. Talk to us about operations and hiring.
[00:13:01] Speaker A: So I'll hit the hiring piece first. Honestly, we're almost fully staffed. We're not seeing. We got maybe one deficit. And that's a person who's been with us for a long time, who just decided to go work for another company. But we don't need to replace it now, to be honest, because it's. It's September. You know, we're kind of winded down, so we'll take our time looking for the perfect fit. You know, I hate to say it. This is. If this is April, you're like, I need, I need a body panic.
[00:13:26] Speaker B: And there's. Gosh, there's so much wisdom in that, Jason.
[00:13:28] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:13:29] Speaker B: To not settle. We've had some turnover here, too.
We've had some nice people that helped get us to one level, but they're struggling. You know, we've gone from four and a half million to 18 million in the last four years. That's crazy. And it is crazy. And to brag. 95% of that's organic growth. 5% of it are accounts we bought. So it's been a lot. And some people, they can't handle it, you know, or they, they were fine with the pace at four and a half, six and a half, but now at 18, it's a, it's a whole different deal. And they're struggling and we hold them accountable and they didn't like it. And it's a friendly separation. It's not like we're throwing rocks at one another, but they just can't. They can't do it anymore. Growth is tough. It's not for everybody.
[00:14:13] Speaker A: And we've had that for many years, Marty, as you know, same thing.
[00:14:16] Speaker B: Yeah, well, it's new to me. Like, I.
It hurts when you see your turnover, but I can't say it's. It's turnover for the right reasons, Jason. They're people that, they're not helping us get our goals done and got to get people in here that want to do that.
[00:14:34] Speaker A: Yeah. And it's tough because, you know, Marty, you and I are very similar. We've done our gallop strings together. You know, we. We kind of use the same techniques. Yes. You know, and the one thing that I've come to discover is, you know, I am who I am and I'm never going to change.
I like myself, I like what I've done. I'm super proud of my company, my relationship with my wife, my kids. So if you don't like the push, the accountability that I'm going to drive, it definitely isn't a good fit.
[00:15:00] Speaker B: How, how are you finding that? Because that's something that Seth and I are talking a lot about. Like, him and I are intense, and I don't know how you interview for that. Like, we're telling them how it goes, but I don't know that people really understand it. You know, they, they come through here, we talk to them, we share it, we make it look pretty easy.
Then you get it on the day to day grind and they start to see. We had an employee that said they didn't think they could keep up. So we looked into her hours and it was 38 hours, 39 hours and 41 hours. What are you talking about, keep up?
[00:15:33] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:15:33] Speaker B: Like where, where 40 is the basis? Like, it's probably more like a 48, 50 hour a week job when we're rolling here.
[00:15:40] Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely.
[00:15:41] Speaker B: So how. How do you. Are you doing anything special?
Is there something you figured out in terms of hiring that's helping you improve your success rate?
[00:15:50] Speaker A: You know, I'd love to sit here and say there's a magic bullet. We do the disc assessment for a lot of office staff, you know, prior to final interviews, so we understand what we're working with. You know, we'll check the references. But remember, and someone told me this one time, they're like, when you do an interview, that is the absolute best that person will ever be.
[00:16:08] Speaker B: Oh, yeah. They're never going to smell better, look better, or appear better. I mean, they're. Yeah. And you need someone. So you're just.
You know. What I've learned to do is to train myself and I don't do too much interviewing anymore is under my breath, I say to myself, baloney. Yeah, baloney. That's not you. That's not true. That's exaggerated. You're looking for an over preponderance of proof that they are who they say they are.
[00:16:29] Speaker A: Yeah. And that's true.
[00:16:30] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:16:31] Speaker A: And. And we've had some amazing hires this year and we've seen some people go this year. And I hate to say it, there's still that. People really don't know what intensity looks like. Right. What our industry looks like.
And again, at your size. Right. And we've had a lot of people we've interviewed, they're like, well, I run my own company. You know, I do. I did $2 million a year and I think I could be a project manager for you. I'm like, just so we're clear, you now have to manage $4 million, probably 10 different subs and 20 people with the truck. So let me ask you, you wanted. Are you really ready for it?
[00:17:07] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:17:08] Speaker A: You know, you got to understand, I'm going to call you.
[00:17:10] Speaker B: It's. And they're going to tell you. They're going to tell you. Yes.
[00:17:13] Speaker A: Well, why would they say, I don't think I can handle that? Right. Right.
[00:17:16] Speaker B: I mean, I guess, Jason, at the end of the day, you try to do the best you can and if they don't work out, it's higher slow and fire fast. Right? It is.
[00:17:24] Speaker A: And I mean, I've got, you know, a bunch of people even in my HR team, and we do a really good job, but sometimes you just.
[00:17:29] Speaker B: I loved your HR team. If I could come up and kidnap those folks, I would.
[00:17:34] Speaker A: Yeah. Believe me, it's. It's been helpful.
[00:17:35] Speaker B: We had a great hire there.
[00:17:37] Speaker A: We're.
[00:17:37] Speaker B: We're on the. We're on the rebound there. I'm very pleased with what we're doing.
[00:17:40] Speaker A: Yeah, the bilingual is a huge help to it. I. It's hard to deny that, that's for sure, but. And we're pushing our HR team to be even better, to be honest. Like, I want better onboarding still to this day, because I'd rather figure this out right off the bat, and I want these people to understand, you know, it's very true.
[00:17:56] Speaker B: Right.
[00:17:56] Speaker A: I use the analogy. We're the Ohio State football team. We want to win the national championship every year, and everybody wants to beat us every year, right?
[00:18:03] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:18:04] Speaker A: They want to take our employees, take our clients. Because when you said, how many people like you? I said, well, my clients love us, but all my competitors probably don't like us a whole lot.
[00:18:12] Speaker B: Well, yeah, I. My competitors probably don't like me either. I mean, especially doing all this stuff we do in the grow group. I. I sometimes those that don't know me, I mean, I probably sound like a know it all. I think if they listen to me long enough, they see that I talk a lot about the stuff I've screwed up, too. So.
[00:18:27] Speaker A: Yeah, we could do podcast after podcast.
[00:18:29] Speaker B: Oh, my gosh. We could talk for three days about the stuff I've screwed up.
[00:18:33] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:18:34] Speaker B: So how' the spirit of the team with the drive? I mean, you've been laying it down since growth started. Like, that's hard. Like, how's the team?
[00:18:43] Speaker A: Team's good. You know, it like anything. Like I said, we just survived summer, right? Lots of vacations, lots of time off. Clients are back again. So that part's good. Operationally, though, it's been a tough month. I've taken a call probably every day of a client upset about something. And these are clients still reaching out to me. And it's, you know, I'm upset about my. My pool service. The chemicals haven't been right. And I'm like, okay. And, you know, I hate to say it, there's a part of me that's got that little bit like, why am I taking a call about pool chemical service? I don't know how to service my own pool. I don't know what to tell these people, but they just want to be heard.
[00:19:18] Speaker B: And I, we, we did our mid season survey, Jason, and we had six bad surveys and I went and saw all of them. I just finished it up last night.
And you know, in every case, it was a situation where the client didn't feel heard.
[00:19:34] Speaker A: Always. I mean, it really, it was, it.
[00:19:37] Speaker B: Was like they had a concern. It wasn't addressed promptly because it wasn't addressed promptly. They took us to not care. And, and the stuff that I teach that I don't want happening has happened here. And that is that, you know, I teach that once the job is sold, that's when the selling starts.
[00:19:54] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:19:55] Speaker B: And we've got a couple salespeople here that is not going well for them. Okay. Because they're not following up. They're not listening to clients. You know, when you put a patio in for someone and the client has two cracked pavers and they have to call three times to get someone out there. The work ticket was turned in, but scheduling didn't know it was an emergency, so they just put it where they had an open block. You know, the salesperson has to say, listen, you got to get over there right away. Or you know what, it's two crack pavers. Take the brick extractor, Mr. Salesperson, and go over there and do it yourself. It's no big deal. That's. And that's the thing that we're struggling with. Like, you know, you grow and you have departments and I think some of the entrepreneurial jump in and do it spirit leaves your business a little bit. And we're struggling with that a little bit. We'll fix it. I got them all righted. It wasn't terrible. I just don't like going on here saying everything's perfect, just like you. We got people upset with us too. And I'm, I've made them all right. I think in the long run, all of them are like, gosh, Marty came out and yeah, I came out because I want to find out where, where are we breaking down?
And most of them were, they were little things like that, you know, just little things.
[00:21:03] Speaker A: Yeah. And I'll be honest, I turn every one of those probably like you, I'm going to sell something while I'm there. Yeah. Because the easiest way to get my people to come back is put a little fifteen hundred dollar ticket to it that says, hey, while you're there, fix the two tiles for us.
[00:21:15] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:21:16] Speaker A: And, you know, it's been one of the things, I'll be honest, Marty, just, you know, full disclosure. I've been struggling lately with the complaints because you know, when I was small, you knew to fix the two tiles. You knew that if you fix those two tiles, that's a referral which could be the next hundred thousand dollar job.
[00:21:31] Speaker B: Right.
[00:21:32] Speaker A: And sometimes, and you know this, sometimes the sales team is like, we need more leads. I'm like, you gotta earn them guys. You know, you gotta ask for them, you gotta earn them. But the best way to do it is just over.
Over, not overproduce it. Overemphasize how important each client is, is able to.
[00:21:48] Speaker B: I think salespeople don't realize that. And this is on us, Jason. We got to train better. I suppose that they're running a business with inside a business and if that client's happy with them and you ask for a referral or you ask if there's something else you can do for them, I would venture a guess, 20% of the time you're going to get something else out of that.
[00:22:07] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:22:07] Speaker B: You get your book of business up to 3 million, I would say you could expect on an annual basis 600 to a million of that annual revenue you're tasked with generating can come from referrals or repeat business.
[00:22:19] Speaker A: It should be an easy calculation in all. And people store this day say where does most of business come from? Everybody says referrals, right. But how much right is actually referrals and how much was lost is the key thing, right? Yeah, that's the worst.
[00:22:33] Speaker B: Somebody that didn't say anything, like every single one of these people, four of them said I can't. Basically they said, I can't believe you came out.
How many people do I have out there that didn't want to bother us and are going to go away and silently have left working with us? I don't know, I'm trying to stay on top of that. We care, but that can happen. You know, there's, you have, we have 140 employees now, Jason. I mean there's landmines out there everywhere we got to be careful of. And I think it's good that we're talking about this. So whoever's listening to us today on the Grow show, Powered by Steel. You know, you can't get cocky. You can't, you gotta, you know, if you're $2 million and you're busy, take a Saturday morning, take your 8 year old son, put him in the truck, go around, look at some jobs, make sure clients are happy. That's the greatest way to grow a business, is to have happy clients.
[00:23:23] Speaker A: And I'll tell you this. I've taken the last few Saturdays, besides taking my kids to school. I bidded some. Some job sites, showed up with donuts. Right. Went out to see the guys. That's my place, I'll be honest. Yeah. I'd sit behind a computer checking emails, making sure that I'm the world's best communicator. 90% of my day. When I hit job sites, it's like my inner spirit.
[00:23:43] Speaker B: I haven't. I haven't done that. Jason. I'm gonna write that down. That's something I should do, is come in on Saturday and do that. I could easily do that.
[00:23:50] Speaker A: Yeah, that's.
[00:23:51] Speaker B: That's not hard. That's more about being intentional and wanting to do it and putting it on your calendar.
[00:23:56] Speaker A: Yeah, my. And this is my hope for next year. If I can afford this budget, I would love to get myself some sort of small mobile business. Right? Get me a Mercedes bus with computers and TVs, hire a driver, and I would literally not be at the office. I would go to job sites all day long.
[00:24:14] Speaker B: Now. Now you're really on to something crazy.
[00:24:16] Speaker A: That would be my ideal situation. Even if it's just two days a week. Get me out of this office. Get me on job sites, talking to clients, meeting with the crews. Right? That's how you'll really kind of get the. My. My inner spirit, you know, animal. Right. All the way down from the guys who are out there just cranking in the heat up to the points who are like, wow, you're. You're the owner.
[00:24:38] Speaker B: Makes sense. So let's talk about that. So you're an idea guy, and you gotta factor in, like, you can't chase everything. You know? You and I both know that this maximizer trait that we have in our strengths. Finder is good, but it can also be bad.
Like, April's probably not a great month to be telling the team about all the new ideas you want to implement. That was for October and November.
[00:24:59] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:24:59] Speaker B: You got feedback from all the attendees at grow. You had 1100 people rifling through your underwear drawers. I know you put a focus on a couple things after the event.
What are the things that maybe you feel really good about that you've implemented as a result of feedback at Grow? And what are some of the things maybe you're still working on?
[00:25:19] Speaker A: So I am really happy with how marketing has turned out. It's giving me the confidence that I need to get leads. Right. And I did bring in someone to help me do that. So marketing, I feel that I've got that part down now. I've talked to a lot of friends in my peer group and everyone's getting more leads right now. The economy has changed. Right. The mind shift has changed and we got to maximize it while you have it.
[00:25:40] Speaker B: And let, let me just give you a little background on Jason's peer group. His peer group has major players from eight metropolitan areas.
Nine.
[00:25:50] Speaker A: There's 12 in the group. So yeah, I mean every area.
[00:25:54] Speaker B: Okay, so 12 areas. And so that's a good survey. I mean that, that's like, that's not, that's not like four guys getting sitting around at Starbucks talking. These are, I think the combined revenue of your group is over $200 million, isn't it? Oh, yeah, yeah.
So that's a good sample size. So carry on. I just wanted to give everybody a framework in which to understand why. I think this is really good feedback that you're seeing this.
[00:26:17] Speaker A: Yeah. So, and we've been talking and we just had our off site visit two weeks ago. I was unfortunately able to to make it, but I hopped on for part of the zoom, got some information, got numbers, got all the feedback. So I still been talking with these guys. So the marketing piece has been working out well for us and I hope that's the same for everybody. But if you are paying attention, you're like, I've never had so many leads. Good.
Call them all. Schedule them all. Even if it's a month out. Sell Q sell. We need to sell through Q2, right. My goal is to be sold through Q2 by the end of October.
We have been using a lot of SOPs creation, a lot of chat, GBT and AI has helped us do that.
[00:26:59] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:27:00] Speaker A: And we've actually been working a lot lately on our design handoff from again, so many times, even in our own world, you're going so fast, it's like, well, design got it done productions, like we're missing five things. It's like we'll figure it out on the fly and then we didn't figure it out. So we're really kind of slowing down to speed up. We're getting all designers to design the exact same way. From first concept to final concept. We're getting all CDs to match the same. We're getting everything to go back to the same. I really had a bunch of independent business owners like you had talked about, which we want them to think like business owners, but they weren't thinking like Hidden Creek business owners. They were thinking like, well, my name's Jim And I'm going to run my business this way. And I'm like. And I'm running it this way. So now we're trying to say, nope, you guys are really just a franchise of Hidden Creek. So let's all do it the Hidden Creek way. So project startup and closeout has become a big tax for us.
SOP processes onboarding is another key one we're going after right now. And I've even recently hired a fractional COO to help me out.
[00:28:02] Speaker B: Wow.
[00:28:03] Speaker A: Just to kind of get some of the noise, if you will, and tell.
[00:28:06] Speaker B: Give us, I mean, we could be here for three hours talking. I love talking to you. Give me some of the. What's the Reader's digest version of what the fractional COO is working on.
[00:28:15] Speaker A: So really he's trying to help me manage all my direct reports. So I have, you know, my controller reports to me, my director of revenue reports to me, Director of operations report to me, and then director of administration report to me. So I got four direct reports and sometimes. And I meet with them a one on one each per week, actually twice per week, an hour, the first one, a half an hour for the second one. Then I'm in leadership with them as well too.
And I drive most of those meetings. Right. I'm bringing a lot of the content, I'm bringing the things I want. They're bringing things they want to dos tasks, rocks. And my COO is trying to help me with all these little ideas that I have. I'm like, I need you to work with this person on this. I need you to work with this person on this. And I need you to make sure you're following up with these people. So they're more of a taskmaster, if you will. But when I get the next big idea, I'm running it off this person. Hey, I had an idea. Let's talk about an acquisition. Let's talk about if we were to do another location. Let's talk about if I switch, you know, CRM systems in the middle of, you know, fall. Right. All these different things. I'm running a lot of my ideas through them. Because what I don't want to do is create noise for the people who are in the grind every.
[00:29:21] Speaker B: No. And you're doing that, right? I. I would say five years ago you may not have done that based on what I saw you doing. And that does cause issues. That's.
[00:29:29] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:29:29] Speaker B: The first filter is the leadership team there to see if there's buy in, have them shoot holes in your theories. You Being confident enough to take their feedback if they don't like it. Now, sometimes you have to push on even if they say no, because it is your business. But that's a lot better environment. The one you're describing, I believe.
[00:29:47] Speaker A: Yeah. And the fractional is one day a week. Right. It's, you know, I can't afford five days a week.
[00:29:52] Speaker B: Sure.
But also that, the other thing with that, the other thing I like about that, Jason. So you're trying it one day a week, you might find, oh my gosh, well, let's go to two days a week.
[00:30:04] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:30:04] Speaker B: Then you go to two days a week and you're like, listen, I haven't. Now that I see this and what this lets me do, or I'm going to hire a full time coo. I can justify it. Now, that's the. We often tell smaller landscaping companies to hire a temp. Like when I'm working with somebody that's a million, $2 million a year and they're struggling with administration, we'll tell them to hire a temp. That way you can, you can cease with them if you want, but you can start seeing, like, what's the benefit to having someone focus on that? And more times than not, they're like, oh my gosh, I don't know why I didn't do this sooner. So what you're doing there, smart, I think.
[00:30:39] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:30:39] Speaker B: And I don't know where you find a fractional coo. That's gotta be kind of tough.
[00:30:43] Speaker A: But it was funny. I met him at a networking event that I love going to, and I actually talked to him because he used to work at a former very large landscaping company, we all in the US and of course I wanted to understand more of how they did things.
So I said, hey, do you think you could help me network and business develop? He's like, well, I also do this. And I'm like, well, this is great. I get to double dip this.
So I get kind of some of his past knowledge from another company that worked at the business development, the networking part of it and the COO part of it. And luckily he was working with a friend of mine, so I was able to do a very good qualification call with a friend of mine who also uses him a fractional.
[00:31:21] Speaker B: So that's fantastic.
[00:31:23] Speaker A: Sometimes the stars align, right?
[00:31:24] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:31:25] Speaker A: You put good karma out in the world.
[00:31:27] Speaker B: I also give you credit for something here you may not realize. And I want to talk about the things that I've learned from you, but I give you credit for going to A networking event. Because there's a tendency, I think, when you're in your position to get lazy with those things, to rather go play golf or go have some drinks or just go home. And it's. You know, I always tell people, jason, I know you've heard me say this. What happens when you do nothing? Nothing. I've gotten heavily involved in the Dayton Chamber of Commerce, and now that I see what I'm getting out of it, I shouldn't have waited this. I was involved for a long time. I didn't like some of the things they were doing, so I took a pause from them for about 15 years.
They got a new president. I love them. I love what they're doing. I've gotten involved. I chair public policy for them, and I'm seeing what I'm getting out of it. The connections, the. The business acumen, understanding things. I'm involved with something at the airport to try to bring another airline in. I'm on a little committee for that is. I'm learning a lot. And I'm meeting people that either could do business with Grunder Landscaping Co. Or even more importantly, Jason, they know people who could do business with Grunder Landscaping companies. When I listen to you do this, I want to. I want to focus on the things. And it's the same thing I shared when we did the update a few months ago. You're open. This is amazing. I. I love your confidence, but at the same time, I love how critical you are of yourself. And you certainly talk about the things you have to work on. Your energy is infectious, buddy. Your creativity, your sight, the way you have there with some of the cultural things, the signs, the. The setup, the organization, the branding. But I think the thing that I admire the most in you is your guts. The guts you demonstrated doing the same presentation 17 times, which is what you had to do because you had 17 groups come through on a knee that you ended up having replaced.
You probably OD'd on a leave in Advil. I don't know what you were doing to stay standing.
Yeah. And I admire your guts. And you still make time to go to Boston College and set your son up for success.
You still go to Chicago to set your daughter up for success.
You and I follow each other on social media, on Facebook, and I see you spending time with your lovely wife.
And, you know, I admire the guts because that's what it takes. And when I see you doing that stuff, you need to know you are an inspiration for me, because I'm like, all right, well, I Like Jason, like, I don't want him out doing me up there in Columbus. I need to take my wife out on a date night. I need to go visit my kids. And I think that's the power of what we do in the GROW group, in our peer groups and in grow is that you get around other success minded individuals that in some ways directly push you and in many ways they indirectly push you. Like, you see something that you want and if you really want it, you really want it, you're going to do what it takes to get it done. So I, I appreciate all those traits in you.
[00:34:24] Speaker A: Thank you. I, that means the world to me. I think, as you know, I admire you the same for everything you've done and what you've done for the industry. And just to let you know how I really put myself out there, Gene Freeman is flying in tomorrow to spend the weekend with me because, oh my gosh, Texas fan and I'm an Ohio State fan.
[00:34:43] Speaker B: So of course about that and I invited him and his way.
We will put Gene's picture up right now. Yep. And Gene is the Host of GROW 2026 in Dallas, Texas, which will have all kinds of things included here in the notes. And Jason, you know, I'm positive that big son of a gun is going to try to outdo you. And you're probably telling him he can't do it.
So he'll, I mean, this is just going to be something.
[00:35:08] Speaker A: It's going to be great. And he's staying with me the whole weekend, taking him to the. God, you know, him. And I hope I have kiddos, you know, I did. I got a couple, you know, handles just in case. And my wife.
[00:35:19] Speaker B: Okay, you might need like a 55 gallon drum of that stuff.
[00:35:22] Speaker A: My wife to dinner last night says, just so you know, you're not as big as Gene, you can't keep up with Gene. We're going to do one drink, one water. One drink, one water. Yeah. And I'm like, yeah, I can take them. I think this year I could take him.
[00:35:35] Speaker B: Yeah, he's just such a lovely guy. Well, that is so much fun. Have fun.
[00:35:39] Speaker A: So it'll, it'll be great.
[00:35:41] Speaker B: When I was talking to Vince, I told him I was going to be interviewing you and, and I said, is there anything, Vince, you want me to make sure that I get across? He said, I think you need to remind Jason of the impact that they made.
Ace is everywhere. When Vince is out on the road with him and we see him, they're taking what they learned from the event we did their growing. They're robbing and duplicating your structure, your branding, some of the equipment things that you did, some of the sales tactics. I'm sure people today are like, he sent out postcards. Maybe I better get a postcard. Yeah, you better get a postcard. I can't say enough for letting us come in there how great of a host you were. It was the best grow we've ever done, Gene. I hope you're listening. Big Gene. I doubt very seriously you can do grow better than Jason did. I. I know he's fuming right now.
[00:36:25] Speaker A: Oh, yeah. Luckily, you won't see this till after he's been at my house.
[00:36:29] Speaker B: Okay. Yeah, that's better. Well, you know, everything's bigger in Dallas. Everything.
[00:36:32] Speaker A: So, yeah.
[00:36:33] Speaker B: Jason, is there any other thing you want to bring us up to date? We can tie a bow on this because I know you have a lot of work to do today. Thanks for coming on.
[00:36:40] Speaker A: You know, the biggest thing I would say that I'm kind of realizing is we're already getting ready to start budgeting for 2026. Right.
[00:36:46] Speaker B: It's.
[00:36:46] Speaker A: It's never too early to start talking about that. But as I said earlier, that's so true. The sales team has to be ahead of this and get you that backlog, because with backlog, you can make what I would call proactive decisions versus reactive. When you don't have backlog, you're just trying to hope to God you're going to hit this number, do that thing. So. And.
[00:37:05] Speaker B: And Jason, that is a great note to end on, because even as recent as 10 years ago, we would do our strategic planning in October or November, and doing it then is better than not doing it. But we just finished our meeting last week, and much of it was spent talking about 2027. We've already got 2026 laid out. That's in stone. We're ready to go.
You can't grow without being way ahead of the curve like that.
[00:37:31] Speaker A: Oh, yeah.
[00:37:33] Speaker B: It's. It's. I just. I never. That's part of the reason we weren't growing, Jason. We weren't planning enough to. To get in a position to win. You can't go and hire. If you want to jump sales by 20%, it would go to say you need 20% more salespeople, 20% more trucks, 20% more people. Now, not always because we doubled sales and added one truck because we were very inefficient and sloppy.
[00:37:56] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:37:57] Speaker B: But there has to be some planning, and it Is difficult. You're right. A great, great point.
[00:38:02] Speaker A: Yeah. So look at last year's numbers. Look at this year's numbers, right. What works? Start assessing. Really kind of triage your own company because we know in the maintenance world August, September, October are pretty flat. Right. Not much is happening. It's enhancements. Try to get them sold. Right. Most of your design build work is already sold, but we have today we're doing I think three or four after action reviews. Right. The job's been done. What worked, what didn't, from financially, from operations to sales. So we're going back through and checking out these jobs to say look, what After Action Review.
[00:38:32] Speaker B: I love it.
[00:38:33] Speaker A: Yeah. It's a big military term. It came from one of the books I've read in my peer groups. After Action Review. So after every military operation, I think that's flawless executing. I think, yeah, I think that was it. Yeah. But after every, you know, you have.
[00:38:45] Speaker B: An agree debrief, come back.
[00:38:47] Speaker A: What we do right, what we do wrong. Even if they didn't lose anybody or if it went perfectly, did it go perfect?
Right. You never know till someone said so. We're doing a lot of that right now. So dive into what 2025, what worked, what didn't budget for 2026, get that out ahead of you and get excited for it to really take it on and keep giving back to this industry. So that's.
[00:39:08] Speaker B: Well, Jason, thank you. Oh, I, oh, I wish you good luck. My daughter's an Ohio State grad so we'll, we'll, we'll see what happens. I understand Texas is very talented, but I'll never underestimate Ohio State, especially after last year when everybody had them as dead and they win the national championship.
[00:39:26] Speaker A: Trust me, I was there. And you will see pictures of me and Gene this weekend.
So before, during and after.
[00:39:33] Speaker B: I wish I were there because it'd be kind of like tall, medium, small, right?
[00:39:37] Speaker A: It would be yes.
[00:39:38] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:39:39] Speaker A: So we'd be.
[00:39:42] Speaker B: Yes, exactly. Love you, brother. Thanks for everything you do well 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, take out your phone right now and share this episode with your team or any landscape pro. You know, hit share episode, text it to them. We would really appreciate that. Thanks for joining us on the Grow show this week. We'll talk to you next week.
[00:40:13] Speaker A: Join Marty grunder and the Grow Group team for the annual event for landscape pros. Grow 2026 will be held on 2-10-12, 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 Brick pricing ends on November 1st. Register this month to lock in the best rate.
