[00:00:01] Speaker A: Welcome to the Grow show brought to you by Marty Grunder's Grow Group, where we specialize in helping landscaping companies 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 are released weekly on Wednesdays and are made possible with the support of Bob Yard. 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 Grunder Landscaping Co. And the Grow Group. Thanks for downloading the Grow Show. Today we're going to be talking about good shortcuts and bad shortcuts and how to save time without sacrificing quality. 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 Aspire, the wonderful industry specific software platform that we use at Grunder Landscaping Company. It makes our business so much better, folks, and it makes it easier to run. I'm not sure where we'd be without it. It's worth every penny, folks, and probably the best shortcut to success I could ever offer up. A landscaping company that is focused on growing at the at least 3 million dollar or more annual revenue level. The word shortcut can have a bad meaning, I think. But for this episode of the grow show, number 159 to be exact. That's incredible, folks. It's a good word. Taking shortcuts gets a bad reputation, but the truth is, if you're running a business, you have to take shortcuts. Ladies and gentlemen, the real question is, are your shortcuts helping you deliver a better experience or are they quietly hurting your quality? Because. Because here's what I've learned, folks. There are good shortcuts and there are bad shortcuts. A good shortcut saves you time and nobody notices.
A bad shortcut saves you time. But your customer feels it, your team feels it, and you probably feel it in the wallet later. So today I want to walk through how we think about shortcuts in our business here on the production, the sales admin, and even the AI side. And how to make sure we're saving time with without sacrificing what actually matters. So the first part I want to talk to you about is the shortcut Filter. And before we implement any shortcut, ladies and gentlemen, we have to run it through a simple filter. Number one, does it maintain or improve quality? And if it's not doing that, why are you doing it? Number two, does this actually make us more efficient, or is it just faster in the moment? Are you trying some new gizmo or. Or did it. Did you decide you didn't want to go out and measure a job, you're just going to kind of freelance it from the shop? And then when the day of the job comes, you'll go out and you'll lay it all out? You know, I can't tell you how many times I did that 20, 30 years ago. And it bit me in the butt. Like, I couldn't get back out there when the crew went out there. I should have measured it. I was off of materials. So does it actually make you more efficient and faster in the moment? Or number three, does this make our team better or does it just make them busier? Because some shortcuts can save you 10 minutes today and cost you 10 hours next week. Like the example I gave you of years ago when I wouldn't visit job sites and I'd kind of wing too many things. Or it was the never ending solution I had, which was, I'm not going to worry about that. I'll worry about that when we do the job and I'll go out and meet the crew. And then the day the crew went out to do the job, I wasn't available. I didn't get there. The job became unprofitable. My team got focused, all that stuff. Those are the things you got to watch for. And let's talk about production, shortcuts, production. This is where a lot of our time is either saved or wasted. Let's think about the truck positioning. All right, where we put those. I think one of the simplest things we can look at is where is the truck parked? I've seen crews park on the street when they could have pulled into the driveway, cutting their walking distance in half. I've seen people park trucks on the street when they could have parked in the lot next door and. And pulled the truck right up to where we were working. Now, it doesn't sound like that big of a deal, folks, but if every crew member's taking an extra 20 or 30 steps per trip with a wheelbarrow and they're doing that all day, that adds up fast.
Every single step, folks, gets multiplied hundreds of times a day. So there's the where to park the truck example the work sequencing example. Another one is the order that the work gets done.
I can't tell you how many jobs we've done or I've seen them where the crew installed the trees before the final grade was put down, or the crew installed mulch before they were finished with all the grading. So then what happens? You end up going back and having to rework your work. You're fixing what was already done. That's a perfect example of a bad shortcut. They weren't trying to cut corners necessarily, but they didn't think through the most efficient order. Let's talk about the route optimization example. Same thing with routing. If your cruiser zigzagging, zagging across town all day, you're losing time you'll never get back. You're going to most Mrs. McGillicuddy's yard because she wants it on Wednesday and you're taking a shortcut to do that. And then you're back in the neighborhood on Thursday.
Those are bad shortcuts. You don't make any money driving around, folks. You make money producing work. And I think the best companies cluster their work so crews can stay in one area and stay efficient.
Let's talk about the pictures and work orders and this might be the best example I have to share with you. I think one of the best shortcuts we've implemented is requiring pictures on work orders. And with Aspire, we can even attach a video to the work ticket in the spire on the tablet. And here's what's interesting. That doesn't really save the crew time, but it saves the company time.
Because now your sales team, your account managers, your leadership team, they can all see what's happening on that job without driving out there. There. There's so much clear and it makes so much sense in terms of client expectations and the follow up phone calls to talk with them to make things right with the client. So instead of three people visiting a job site and maybe some of that's back to see a client who's not completely happy because things were confusing, nobody has to. That's a smart shortcut, folks. Some other production examples I could go on for days. I would also look at things like are the trucks set up the same way every day? Do you have toolboxes on your trucks so that the guys and the gals do not have to spend time ordering and putting the same things on? There are tools always in the same place. Are the material stage close to where the work is happening? Are we being efficient? Are we taking smart, smart shortcuts? And one of the biggest ones is preparing before the job even starts.
The best crews don't just show up and figure it out, folks. They know the job, the layout, the plan, and they execute accordingly. Let's morph into some sales shortcuts.
Now, you know, in sales because this is another area where time can disappear quickly. I think you have to think through this. I've been really harping on our sales team here at de Grunder Landscaping Company in the spring of 26 about bossing their calendar, not letting their calendar boss them.
So certainly getting control of your calendar is a great shortcut, and I think it's one of the best things you can have a sales team focus on. That doesn't necessarily have to do with technology. It's just the control of that calendar. You're driving 30 minutes one direction, then 45 minutes back for your next appointment. Your day's gone. Are you planning your day the night before? Are you bossing your calendar or letting your calendar boss you? We coach our team to group appointments geographically.
If you're in one area, stay there. Your clients and your prospects will listen to you, drive the conversation, and let them accommodate you per se. This alone can save hours in a week.
Let's talk about a pre qualification story. That's another one of these good shortcuts, pre qualifying leads.
I remember taking some sales training over 10 years ago, and the trainer strode out into the classroom in front of us and said, you should be able to close 100% of the calls you go on.
And I remember that's the first thing he said. And I thought, this guy's an idiot. You can't close 100% of the calls you go on.
And I still think it's difficult to close 100% of the calls you go on. But he's right. What he was teaching was if you screen your calls right, folks, you can close most of them. If you're sending a salesperson out to meet with someone who isn't serious or doesn't understand your pricing, that's not a good use of time.
I can't tell you how many times we've been talking to someone on the phone and they said, yes, I want a fire pit, I want a barbecue area, I want a patio. I want to reinvent my entire backyard. Okay, we'll come see you. When would you like to meet? And then you get out there and you start talking to them, and they tell you they watched HGTV and they have $1,500 to spend, and you're like, what am I doing here? A few simple questions up front. Screening folks, that is a great shortcut. It can save a lot of wasted trips.
What about AI and sales? Looking at this as a shortcut and I think AI can help you in a lot of areas. Let me share with you how we use it. We draft follow up emails. I was just talking to one of our sales professionals on a very large job that we're quoting that we're pretty hopeful we're going to get. It's an out of town company that we're working for. The sales professional myself might have to fly and see them. I said, hey, why don't you craft an email of what you think we ought to tell them? Put some salesmanship in it, run it through Chat GPT and then send it to me. What they sent to me hardly needed any editing at all. It was terrific. It was in their voice. It was well done. So we use Chat GPT for follow up emails. We use it for organizing proposals. How can we organize this best Researching prospects, researching products. There's all kinds of things, folks, but here's the key. AI helps you prepare. It doesn't replace the relationship.
I am deeply concerned about our reliance on AI from a human interaction perspective. You are not going to be able to go to a customer's house or office and say, let me see what ChatGPT tells me. I ought to tell you right now. You got to learn that stuff, folks. If your sales process starts to feel generic or automated or robotic, you've gone too far with that AI stuff, folks. You it is a tool that should allow you to spend more time with the two most important kind of people in your company, your clients and your team. It should be enabling you to do more with less, not running your whole life.
Let's morph into some administrative shortcuts.
I think this is where a lot of hidden efficiency lives, folks. Email templates, things you always say, do you have those simple things like those can save a ton of time. If you're writing the same message over and over again from scratch, you're wasting energy. Why do that? Systems and processes. Systems and processes enable ordinary people to do extraordinary things. Standardizing your processes is another big one there. Onboarding, checklists, job setup, procedures, consistent workflows. All those things that you regularly do, where are they? How are they impacting you? How can we set them up regularly for success and bring consistency to the process as well? When everything is built from scratch, folks, every time you slow down, all right, there is a checklist that a surgeon uses. There is a checklist that a pilot uses. There is a checklist that a firefighter, a paramedic, a landscaper uses, that automation and those types of things are things to do. And when we're looking at automation, use it to confirm appointments, for payment, reminders, review requests.
Aspire is what we use. Whether you're using Aspire or lmn, those are the two best software programs in the country, folks. I think they've got pretty far ahead on everybody else. Those two companies, they enable you to do a lot of this stuff, folks. You should be using them. You should be constantly trying to get better. When there's a question box that opens up on your software, read it. Get better, take a seminar. Even in the busy season, it makes sense to continue to refine your technique and your skills at running your software to make your company more efficient.
These are things, folks, that don't need manual effort anymore that I'm amazed at the amount of people that don't use them.
And then let's as we close up this rather short session on the Grow show, let's talk about some visibility systems. And again, this ties back to things like pictures on work orders. The more visibility your team has, the more they understand, the more clarity of purpose they have, the fewer phone calls, emails and site visits you need. You should be doing every work ticket with the mindset that you are going to be on a Caribbean cruise without cell service and cannot be gotten a hold of. I think if you approached all your work there with good shortcuts and bad shortcuts, you'd see a difference there in your company's profitability, organization and stress.
Shortcuts go wrong, folks, when they become dangerous and they start affecting quality.
We see it when training gets rushed, communication gets skipped, quality checks disappear. Or when people rely heavily on tools like AI and stop thinking critically. Okay, if your shortcut creates rework, it wasn't a shortcut.
So here's the takeaway for this week's edition, the 159th one of the Grow Show. Short are not the problem.
Bad shortcuts are the best. Companies consistently look for ways to be more efficient, but they never do it at the expense of quality. Because at the end of the day, folks, the goal isn't just to move faster, is to deliver a better experience in less time. If you enjoyed this episode of the Grow show and you're looking for more good shortcuts, come see us at our field trip. All the dates are listed on our website or feel free to reach out to
[email protected] that's going to do it for this week's edition of the Grow Show. 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 out, take out your phone right now and share this episode with your team or or any landscape pro you know that's going to do it for this week's edition of the Grow Show. We'll talk to you next week.
[00:14:51] Speaker A: Thanks for listening to this episode of the Grow show and thank you to Bob Yard for their support of this episode. Visit growgroupinc.com for more resources to help your landscaping company succeed. We'll talk to you next week.
