[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 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 by the support of Aspire, Bob Yard, exmark, Proven Winners and nalp. Remember to subscribe so you never miss an episode. Now, here's your host, Marty Grunder.
[00:00:33] Speaker B: Good afternoon, good evening, whatever 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 do something a little different.
My guest isn't a landscape professional. It's my friend, Roger Sitkins. Roger, give a wave.
Roger works with the owners and leaders of independent insurance agencies and he's going to have a whole lot to teach and every landscape professional that's listening to us, I know this. I've known Roger a long time. It's going to be a lot of fun. 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 podcast or Watch us on YouTube for an enhanced learning experience.
The Grow show is the greatest thing since using resources like YouTube instead of just throwing your hands up and asking somebody to help you.
We have eight non negotiables here at Grunder Landscaping Company and one of them goes something like this. Thou shall not ask a question without first doing complete research and trying to figure it out on my own.
Recently, folks, my metal mailbox at the end of my driveway, it broke. I came home to get the mail. I opened up the door, the metal door fell off in my hand. Old Marty would have tried to call somebody to try and fix it. And it's just a difficult thing to find somebody to do that. I took a picture of it, I entered it in the chat, GPT went down a couple little foxholes. Five minutes later, I had the parts on order, it came in, and yesterday, folks, I fixed it. Okay? So what I'm telling you is don't throw your hands up in business. There's answers out there. Teach your team to dig in a little bit and figure it out. They'll be better in the long run. Don't take the monkey. All right, My guest today is Roger Sitkins. Roger is the founder and CEO, CEO of the Sitkins Group, a wildly successful company Roger has spent more than 40 years helping independent insurance agencies improve their sales, leadership, profitability, culture, and overall performance.
In a lot of ways, ladies and gentlemen, Roger does for insurance agencies what we at the GROW Group try to do for landscaping companies. I've known Roger for years. We've stayed in touch. We enjoy talking business together.
And I always learn something when I talk to him. Roger, I have immense respect for what you've accomplished and the wisdom you've accumulated along the way. Today, I want to let our listeners in on some of the conversations you and I have had in the past. And we're going to talk leadership, sales, operations, profitability, AI, how you build a business that serves you instead of owning you. Roger, welcome to the GROW Show.
[00:03:11] Speaker C: Great to be with you. And we've always had great conversations, and hopefully your listeners will get some things out of this that they can use to improve their business and their life.
[00:03:18] Speaker B: Well, I love what you do. You're. You motivate me. You, you reach out. You read all my great ideas. I've had you come in and talk to our aces before.
But before we get into all these lessons, can you give us a quick overview of what the Sitkins Group does and who you help?
[00:03:35] Speaker C: Yeah. We work with successful independent insurance agencies to help them become literally their best version possible, which we'll talk about a little bit later.
And the whole key thing is we challenge them to set higher standards for themselves than maybe what they've been doing before.
And really saying that, we look at the best practice studies within the independent agency distribution system and say, okay, but what's next? What can we do to be even better than that? So we're always challenging them to take on higher and higher standards because something. You and I have talked about this before, that, you know, normally 8% of people hit their goals, but 100% of us live up to our standards.
And we kind of laugh about that at times. And you say, what do you mean? Well, wherever you are today, it's something you've obviously committed to, whether you're aware of it or not. So that's what we do.
[00:04:21] Speaker B: Looking back over those years and all that experience that you had, is there two or three things that you understand about business today that you wish you understood when you were 30 years old?
[00:04:33] Speaker C: Yeah, well, I had hair back then, too, so it's a big difference. I
[00:04:36] Speaker B: had more
[00:04:37] Speaker C: hair. That's funny. Come on.
One thing, and this is something you and I have followed the same. Dan Sullivan, the strategic coach.
It's unique abilities. It's Understanding that you can't just be the rugged individualist. You've got to find out what your God given skills and talents are and focus as much of your time, energy and effort as you can do with doing those, only those unique things.
And then build a team of individuals that are always on their unique abilities too. Because most people are not. And they're just kind of doing stuff. And they do, you know, they do the good, the bad and the ugly, whatever. And so it's really saying, what are the things that I can thank God for that I have these talents that maybe others can't and spend as much time as I can there.
The other one, it's one that probably everybody's heard of multiple, multiple times, but doesn't react to, is Prato's principle. It's 80, 20 rule, but it's everything we do is 80, 20. There's a predictable imbalance in the universe. 20% will get you 80% all the time. And we break that down. You and I have talked about it.
[00:05:34] Speaker B: Yes,
[00:05:34] Speaker C: we have some new things we've been doing there, but it's basically saying, look, if 20% of what you do gives you 80% of your efforts, if you did it instead of 20% of the time, did it 40% of the time, theoretically you'd have 160% results.
But it also carries over to everything in life. 20% of what you do brings you joy and happiness. Why don't you do it 40% of the time, have 160% joy and happiness? So that's a huge one. And the next one, which kind of goes back to my old football days, but it's relentless preparation.
I'm amazed that within the insurance business, and I'm going to assume somewhat within landscaping business, you can get in a good results trap where you don't really have to do the stuff Marty talks about or Roger talks about. You'll still get pretty good results.
But it's saying no. What can I do to take it to the next level? That's relentless preparation.
Most people wing it and can get away with it because they're good at what they do versus saying no. Every event that we go on, every event we have deserves our very best. We have to pre brief it, practice it, and then debrief it and then make sure we don't replicate our mistakes.
So those would be the main things. The main thing.
[00:06:43] Speaker B: So the best version of yourself possible. I forget when I first met you, Roger, probably more than 15 years ago, and I feel blessed that we've Been able to keep in touch and I really appreciate how it's not one sided. You, you reach out to me all the time, which I am just so flattered because landscape company owners are constantly comparing themselves to others. We see this in our industry.
Someone's doing 30 million, they have a hundred trucks, they opened up another branch, they bought a company.
How does an owner separate this healthy ambition, which is what you just described? Like, instead of doing it 20% of the time, why don't you do it 40% of the time?
How do you separate healthy ambition for simply chasing growth for growth's sake?
[00:07:27] Speaker C: Well, growth for growth's sake can create a lot of complexity.
[00:07:31] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:07:32] Speaker C: And it's. Is growth important or is profit important? Well, growth without recurring profit or increased value of the firm is chaos.
[00:07:42] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:07:43] Speaker C: And so the number one thing we're saying is that as you're going out there and maybe you're looking for the best version possible and how does that come about?
And then you say, well, is that really where I want to be? And how many more employees do I need? How many more trucks? How many more of this? So to me it's profit or to me, growth without recurring profit and high, high profit margins is chaos.
And then you have to create, you have more employees. That's chaos. Getting the employees, keeping the employees, training the employees.
It just gets crazy. So I'm saying that you've got to, in your mind say, am I creating complexity or am I creating profitable growth that increases the value of my.
[00:08:28] Speaker B: That to me is a key
[00:08:29] Speaker C: point.
[00:08:30] Speaker B: You know, I, I've certainly have learned the hard way and kind of in the middle of what you're talking about right there, that every problem a business has eventually becomes a leadership problem. When you see a company that's stuck, how often is the owner actually the bottleneck in your opinion or in your experience?
And then what are the best behaviors of leaders in these entrepreneurial endeavors? What are the best attributes of those leaders that you, that you've seen?
[00:08:58] Speaker C: Well, first of all, the owner of the entrepreneur is the bottleneck. About 100%. Yeah.
[00:09:04] Speaker B: That's what I find too,
[00:09:05] Speaker C: because. And I, I know I sell them in my company and we fight it all the time is like, I've got to get, I've got to get away and I've got to find others that I can really trust.
The attributes of the best ones understand unique abilities. I think that's a starting point. And they start building their teams around it. But they're also sitting there saying, do I really Want it at a deep enough level. Because one of the things, and I know you and I have talked about this before, that I always say I can never want it for one of my clients more than they want it for themselves.
And the other big thing we stress is that we are not a substitute for leadership.
We're a catalyst for it, but we're not a substitute for it. So sometimes people think that, well, I can go to one webinar, I can go to one speech, and I've solved it. No, you haven't. You heard the information.
Okay, yeah, I don't need to go to van. I don't need to do this. And then you turn around and you see things like strategic coach, like the Genius Network with Joe Polish and Peter Diamantes network, and they've got all these very, very successful people that are spending 30, 40, $50,000 a year, $100,000 a year to be in a networking group and understand that the best learning we have, and when I've sat in a couple of your ace sessions, the best learning is when they're sitting there going with really committed, successful people, sharing.
[00:10:28] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:10:28] Speaker C: Say you know somebody. I would say there's somebody in that room, has already solved a problem you've got.
And we have our big semiannual meeting coming up in two weeks now. And I'm really looking forward to it because I'm going to learn a lot more importantly our clients. You know, we always say this. If you're not the smartest person in the room, go find.
[00:10:47] Speaker B: Exactly.
[00:10:48] Speaker C: And so, so I see that the, the best ones are always, always when I look at, like our top, top, top agency owners now, in fact, one of them, we were at an event, we were doing some private work with him. And not only did he have me as a consultant, but he had three or four other people in other disciplines. And I said, chris, why do you have so many other consultants? Hell, you just need me. And he said, roger, because I don't know what I don't know. And I'm going to find out what I don't know before my competition does.
So that to me is a number one
[00:11:20] Speaker B: trait and that's a really unique situation. So let me ask you something, and I think there's two sides that this answer would be applicable. If you're a non owner listening to the Grow show, you love your job, you love the owner that you work with, but you're listening to this and you're like, marty's a bottleneck. And I don't think he realizes it you, as a coach, have had to tell your clients that they're a bottleneck. So how would somebody who's not an owner listening today tell their owner that they think they're a bottleneck?
Have you learned how to do that as a coach? In a way that gets the owner to want to listen to you instead of just making them mad to where they. It's. It's standoffish and it doesn't go anywhere. Am I making sense?
[00:12:04] Speaker C: Yeah. Well, number one, as a coach, it's different than being an
[00:12:06] Speaker B: employee.
Yeah. It's probably easier as a coach.
[00:12:10] Speaker C: Yeah, absolutely. Because you can leave.
[00:12:12] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:12:12] Speaker C: You're not. You don't have
[00:12:13] Speaker B: to go back and see. If you don't want to listen to me, fine. I'll go find somebody that wants to listen to me.
[00:12:18] Speaker C: Well, what I always say is this. I said, look, you may not. You're not. First of all, I'm telling you right now, you will not agree with 100% what I talk about. Understand that. And the stuff that you don't agree with, can we just set it aside? We'll come back to it. But the things you do agree with, let's really work on those,
[00:12:33] Speaker B: number one.
[00:12:34] Speaker C: And then second one, for an employee themselves, it really comes down to the culture and cadence of accountability that happens.
And also asking for permission. So, Marty, if you were my boss and I really saw something that I knew was hurting the whole company, and I was at a pretty good level with you, I would probably say something like this, Marty, how do I say something without upsetting?
[00:12:58] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:13:00] Speaker C: And what would you probably respond?
[00:13:01] Speaker B: I'd say, well, what do you mean? Like, tell me what you think.
[00:13:04] Speaker C: Okay. Appreciate it. Here's what's going. And you may not agree with me, but here's my perspective on it.
So rather than just jumping in your face, at least I'm going to ask for permission.
[00:13:12] Speaker B: Right.
[00:13:13] Speaker C: I know.
Like, with the consultants that work in our group, they're. They're strong people. They're really good people. And one of the things that I always say to them, I said, how do you want me to coach you? And what the best ones always say is, be tough with me.
[00:13:25] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:13:27] Speaker C: Because I always. And you know, again, you and I have talked about this. I say, look, I got thick skin. All I want to do is keep getting better.
[00:13:33] Speaker B: I
[00:13:33] Speaker C: want to breathe
[00:13:33] Speaker B: 100% of what you say. And I think you find successful people are that way.
[00:13:38] Speaker C: Absolutely.
Absolutely.
[00:13:41] Speaker B: So I. I see this constantly, Roger. My people aren't accountable. My people don't Communicate. My people don't follow the process. My people aren't selling. I even heard one time a client tell me that he was surrounded by idiots. Then when I asked him if he did all the hiring, he said yes. I said, then therefore, would that make you an idiot?
You just, you see this stuff where people are maturing as a leader and they go from blaming someone to accepting responsibility and looking for root causes.
How important is personal accountability at the top? And what do leaders tolerate that can quietly destroy this high performance culture that you talk about?
[00:14:20] Speaker C: Let's talk about the tolerate first.
One of our favorite sayings, do not complain about that which you tolerate.
[00:14:25] Speaker B: Yep.
[00:14:26] Speaker C: And the other one is never be man alone. What we see all too often is you get the, you know, the entrepreneurs out there goes home and he goes on, this person's driving me crazy. And this person, this is terrible. And that's terrible. But if you don't say anything to the people that are not doing what they're supposed to do, then you're mad alone.
And so rather than being mad alone, you've got to find a way to go and have a conversation.
But it really leads back to the probably the most important thing in all of this. It's accountability. Is there a cadence and culture of accountability within the organization?
One of the things that we started doing singularly and now we've expanded to all functions within our clients is we used to have what we call the producer Performance Agreement. So the salespeople, and we listed out very specifically, here's exactly what you're supposed to do, and we signed it.
We realized that in some states, by the way, their labor laws didn't exactly allow that.
Okay. But we kept playing with it. And one day in a debrief with a private client, I said, you know what I just realized? That document we're using is a one way document. It's all about what the salesperson has to do. I think we have responsibilities and entrepreneurs to make promises to our team members about what we're going to do and provide for them.
So we literally created a two way. It's called the. It's a two way promise. And it starts off using our terminology. Number one, here's exactly what the agency is going to provide to you as a salesperson. Okay. And conversely, here's what we expect from you. So we're laying out the rules of the game.
Here's what we expect.
And the beauty of this is that if it's in writing, it happened.
If it wasn't, if it's not documented in writing. It's a conversation that gets misremembered, misinterpreted. And we sit there and say, well, I didn't know that, I didn't know that. Or the other one is that we have a big team meeting. Everybody goes, yeah, that's what we're going to do. And as soon as you leave the meeting, one employee looks at another, says, don't worry, this too shall pass because there's no follow
[00:16:26] Speaker B: up.
[00:16:27] Speaker C: So having a two way promise, it basically starts off as a company, here's what we're going to promise for you, here's what we're going to do for you. Conversely, here's what we need for you. So we have it with our sales, between the salesperson and whoever the sales leader is, the chief revenue officer, we have it between sales and service working together as high performance teams. We have it as the leaders of the organizations making promises. And my role in this job, my job, here's what I'm going to do again. Then the agency says, here's what we're going to do. And the beauty of it, Marty, is that it's taken what normally is an uncomfortable conversation. Not everybody loves conflict, okay? But what this allows us to do is to have a conversation that's based upon promises that have been made.
So I can say to you, marty, and this is the key phrase, Marty, please help me understand, while you're not doing what you said you were going to do, now in the past it would be, well, I don't remember that.
Now I've got a document, I can share you. In fact, a lot of times we'll even say, well, excuse me, I've already. Did somebody, did somebody like steal this?
Did somebody sign your name?
[00:17:38] Speaker B: Who is this?
[00:17:39] Speaker C: Yeah, and that sure looks like your handwriting to me. And of course then we start laughing. Well, what it does, it creates a conversation that's going to get to the root of the problem. So let's say I'm a salesperson, but I'm not asking for referrals. You know, like they introduce me to your neighbor next door that's got the nice lawn or needs lawn work, whatever.
And rather than just saying, you know, Marty, you're not asking for referrals, I can say, marty, please help me understand why you're not asking for it. Well, I don't really have a comfort level. Why don't you have a comfort?
How can we do this? How can we improve?
Because what we want to do is through a coaching process when we start saying, well, what could we do to improve? I want you, if you're the salesperson, to design your improvement plan.
What should we do? Well, I don't know.
What do you think? Well, I guess maybe we could practice because I'm not really comfortable asking, okay, let's practice.
Or I don't really understand why we're different than others. Well, let's talk about that and get it where you've got an eyelid tattoo as we call it. But you know, it's so, well, it's like it's tattooed on the inside of your eyelid.
[00:18:40] Speaker B: Right?
[00:18:41] Speaker C: So. So when we can do those things now we've got a basis to, to encourage, to force high performance.
Because as leaders we know what they should be doing and the best people, I believe at every function, whatever it may be, know what they should be doing.
But it's never been documented. So now this two way promise, and the cool thing is it creates a culture that says, number one, we're going to be in our unique abilities, God given skills and talents. Number two, we're going to make and keep promises. But who do we make and keep promises to?
To our clients, to our fellow workers, to our leaders.
So everybody in the organization is thinking about, I made a promise, I need to keep that promise.
And unfortunately they don't have to do that, especially when it's not documented. So you can tell I kind of have a passion for that.
[00:19:35] Speaker B: So talking about accountability and making promises, nothing happens till someone sells something. You use a term that I've always liked. You talk about your future ideal client.
Can you explain what that means? Because a lot of landscape sales professionals, a lot of landscape companies, a lot of landscape companies, owners, they say we need more leads. And sometimes I think, no you don't, you need more of the right leads.
So how should an owner figure out exactly who their ideal client is and then intentionally go after more of them? Because I know this is something that you work religiously with your clients and it's kind of what we talk about here at the Grow group. Like not every sales dollar is the same. Like there there are sales that are good and quite frankly there's sales that are bad. Can we talk about that?
[00:20:20] Speaker C: Future ideal client is, you know, like you have suspects prospects or do you have future ideal clients? And all too often we say we need more leads. We need more leads.
Those are suspects.
Those are people that probably could fog up a mirror if you held it underneath their nose and looks like they might have some landscaping that needs to be done. A couple of the Rules that we teach, Marty.
Number and I think these will apply. Number one, no practice quoting. Don't just throw quotes out there to a whole bunch of people. Secondly, no unpaid consulting. I know in our field, a lot of times a producer goes in, he or she doesn't super qualify the risk. It's just somebody that wants to get a quote to keep their current agent honest or compare what would, you know, what would draw charges versus someone else.
And they do a lot of work. They put into it, they do a lot of design work, and then all of a sudden someone else gets the sale because we didn't super qualify. We didn't ask them, you know, what are the rules of the game? What are you looking for? Tell me what a perfect relationship would be. So no practice quoting, no unpaid consulting. And then the next one is the best day to lose the sale is the first day.
I've seen salespeople forever, especially younger, newer ones that'll chase a deal and they get used and abused, okay? Because they. They think they might have a chance. They just don't know any better. You know, they. Oh, honey, don't worry. I'm working on a big one.
[00:21:41] Speaker B: Right?
[00:21:42] Speaker C: Yeah. Well, it's sort of like, I tell you what, we get this one, we're getting a big screen TV and putting Fido back on wet. It's like,
[00:21:49] Speaker B: right?
[00:21:50] Speaker C: Crazy stuff we do. So we look at it and we say our. Our stated goal that we have for the all the teams we work with is very simple.
Simplify and focus on the following.
Everything we do is about retaining and obtaining ideal clients. Okay. Retaining, of course, is once we get them like your business is like ours. The good news is people have to pay you every year. They do landscaping every year or every month, you know, depending on the service.
And so it's number one is retain. What are we doing to create such an outstanding experience for them that they feel that there's never a question whether they will continue?
[00:22:28] Speaker B: Right.
[00:22:28] Speaker C: But more importantly, they turn into raving fans. That would easily give us a referral.
[00:22:32] Speaker B: Right?
[00:22:33] Speaker C: So retaining and then obtaining. What's the process that we have for looking at who are our best clients? Well, you take a look at who are your. Take your top 10 clients, your top 25 clients, and look for the common characteristics. Why is that a great client? Us? What is it about them that's makes them a great client? And then you just ask yourself a question. How do I replicate that?
[00:22:55] Speaker B: Right?
[00:22:56] Speaker C: How do I replicate it? And the best replication, at least in our business, and I would Assume in yours is a referral.
[00:23:02] Speaker B: Yes,
[00:23:03] Speaker C: is a referral.
So the bottom line, again is, is find out what you really want to go after.
Find out the names of what you really want to go after.
Find out who they know and get a referral. And then have a. You know, I will tell you this, too, Marty. I don't know if you were guilty of this, but in my early days, there were times I got a referral, I didn't follow up.
[00:23:23] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:23:23] Speaker C: Oh,
[00:23:24] Speaker B: yeah, We've all been killed. How stupid.
[00:23:25] Speaker C: How stupid,
[00:23:26] Speaker B: Right? Exactly.
No practice quoting. No unpaid consulting. The goal is to retain and obtain ideal clients. Those are all good things. Let's talk.
[00:23:37] Speaker C: And the best day to lose the sale is the first day.
[00:23:39] Speaker B: Yeah. The best day to lose the sales. The first day. Let's talk about differentiation, because I see this a lot, and I know you deal with this a lot with insurance agents.
It may even be. Well, I don't know. I don't want to say this because I don't like it when people say this about my business, but it might even be a little harder for an insurance agent to demonstrate differentiation over a landscaper just because of all the optical proof that we can give someone. Like, here's what our project looks like. This is what my lawn looks like. There's, like, a level of emotion in insurance. I don't know that there's a picture that has the emotional height or level, if you will, that. That, you know, is. Landscaping and insurance are different. So we hear landscapers. We do quality work. We've got great people, we have great service. Everybody says that. How does a company truly differentiate themselves in the marketplace? And then here's where I struggle. Like, how do you teach a salesperson to communicate that in a compelling way?
[00:24:39] Speaker C: Well, in the insurance business, it's. They have some generic things. They say, we give great service. We represent all the carriers. We can save you money. We've been in business for a hundred years in this town here. And then they also. And by the way, we have the best people. And I always laugh. It's like a vortex opened up in the universe to suck
[00:24:56] Speaker B: in
[00:24:56] Speaker C: the best people to their own.
[00:24:57] Speaker B: Yeah, right.
[00:24:59] Speaker C: And as a salesperson, if you say those things, you look at the prospect and their eyes have glazed over because they put it a hundred times. Okay, Knowing. I think in any business, knowing your points of differentiation starts eliminating some of your competitors.
And so we, as you know, we use acronyms all the time, so pods, points of differentiation. What are the points of differentiation?
We have to be Very specific in saying, what is it that we do that others don't do? Or what is it we do that others may do? They don't do as well as us, us. And they don't really promote it. It's just kind of, that's what happens.
So we look at it, we go through a process of saying, number one, what is your point of differentiation?
And then number two, the famous radio station wiifm, what's in it for me? In other words, looking at this, the homeowner or the commercial property just saying, what's in it for them? Why do they care? It's not like what's important to me, it's what's important to them. So here's what we do. What's in it for you? Why is this like this? Okay, then we actually show a piece of evidence. And this is one of the biggest things that I'd love to be able to say 100% do it, but only the great ones do it. They literally have either an electronic pad or they've got a three ring binder that like, it could show pictures before and after pictures. Or here's what this looks like in our case. Let's say they have a disaster recovery plan in place, they have a claims advocacy program.
They specifically manage total cost to risk, whatever it may be, every one of those things, they have something that's a piece of evidence. So a piece of evidence could be a brochure, it could be pictures, it could be a testimonial letter from a current client. Because if you don't have a piece of evidence, all you are is a salesperson, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And they go, crap, I've heard it before.
And then the final thing in this, in this experience, this planning, is to say, okay, pod, what's in it for you? Here's a piece of evidence. And then we create a series of questions we're going to ask the prospect.
And when we ask them questions about our points of differentiation, we different people have different approaches. Some people teach attack, attack, attack the current provider. We find if you attack the current provider, you make the prospect look stupid. And their defense barriers.
[00:27:18] Speaker B: I agree with that completely.
[00:27:20] Speaker C: Yeah. And so what we say is, by the way, when your current agent does the annual resurvey, what happens there? Or by the way, can you show me a copy of the latest stewardship report? Your current agent.
[00:27:35] Speaker B: Exactly.
[00:27:35] Speaker C: And so we try to stay away from it. We just assume they already have it and how it impacted their business.
So to get salespeople to the point where they know the pods, they have a binder that has the evidence so that supports it. And then they ask specific questions about that. When they're asking questions about the services you provide, the prospect in effect is designing their landscape or their insurance plan.
And then they buy it from you. How cool is that?
[00:28:06] Speaker B: I think, correct me if I'm wrong, but I remember probably the most impactful thing you ever shared with me.
I remember I was in Florida and I, I met you at a Cracker Barrel because I wasn't too far from you. And we had breakfast. We've met many times.
And you were showing. You were talking to me a little bit more in depth about what you just shared that. You know, Roger, only in politics can you attack your competitor and seemingly win. I just, I don't think it's classy and I think the way you said it is the way to think about it. Like, you're making your prospect, you're belittling them. You're making them feel like they made a bad decision. And where you think you're impressing them or getting them to come towards you, you're probably in many ways turn them off to where you're pushing them away.
[00:28:48] Speaker C: Exactly.
[00:28:49] Speaker B: But you told me that you gave, I think you had a, like a, an audit where someone had to fill out, like, when's the last time you had this done? Or whatever. And it got the client, the prospective client to say, how come my agent isn't doing this stuff for me? He has, he hasn't come out and looked at all my jewelry. He hasn't seen the updated development next to me to know that now I have more water being pushed and I could have a flood. I don't know. Is, Isn't that what you, you found that being one of the first things you worked with a client on to help them? Right.
[00:29:20] Speaker C: They, they, they have to know their. Well, they don't have to.
In the insurance business, like you said, Marty, you can go to bought any agent, you can get a quote
[00:29:28] Speaker B: on
[00:29:28] Speaker C: anything. Okay. Versus saying what are the things you do? Like one of our largest individual producers. The guy has 5 million of commission income on his
[00:29:40] Speaker B: book
[00:29:41] Speaker C: of business. That's big. That's his. It's. The whole agency is even bigger, of course.
And that's very big in our industry. Okay. He has one specific thing. He says, how is your current agent helping move your business?
[00:29:55] Speaker B: That's a.
[00:29:55] Speaker C: How's he helping improve your business? That's it.
[00:29:57] Speaker B: That's it.
[00:29:58] Speaker C: That's all he does. You know, the, the other, I mean, just to be able to say the reality is we're different and like our best ones, when they're working with a future ideal client, they don't want to look at the insurance policies because what, what happens in most insurances, it's look, copy, quote, unquote, look at your policies. I'm going to copy the information. I'm going to give you a quote. I'm going to preamble.
[00:30:22] Speaker B: Right.
[00:30:24] Speaker C: And that's, that's a terrible game. It's a commodity game versus a trusted advisory game.
[00:30:30] Speaker B: Right.
[00:30:31] Speaker C: So.
[00:30:31] Speaker B: All right, folks, let's now hear from one of our trusted partners in our success at Grunder Landscaping company.
[00:30:38] Speaker A: This is Emily Lindley with the Grow Group. Come see Marty and I at our home base, Grunder Landscaping Co. In Dayton, Ohio. This year we host small groups for our GLC field trips to show how we operate a successful landscaping business and how you can, too. Sign
[email protected] before these events sell out.
[00:30:55] Speaker B: All right, we're here with Roger Sitkins on the Grow Show.
Let's move into operations and profit. You know, Roger, one of the things I preach here at the Grow Group is you can't scale chaos.
Entrepreneurs aren't always naturally attracted to systems. I think they think erroneously that systems might slow them down. What have you learned about the relationship between systems, discipline and growth?
[00:31:20] Speaker C: Wow.
Number one, you have to have them. All right, okay.
To me, it's about creating playbooks. What are the playbooks you're going to follow so that everybody's doing it? Because I love your thing. You can't scale chaos. I wrote
[00:31:35] Speaker B: that
[00:31:35] Speaker C: one down. Thank you. Okay.
[00:31:36] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:31:37] Speaker C: But when you look at it, you say, this is how we sell. So again, in our case, retain and obtain.
So retain.
I want to have an effect. Like, we use football terms a lot. What's your set offense and what's your set defense? Your set defense is how you keep clients forever.
That's the experience. Your set offense is how you get new clients.
So when we look at it, we say, what are the things you're doing or should be doing where the system's there? Okay. One of the, one of my favorite sayings I know I've shared this one with you, is your current business model is perfectly designed for you to achieve the results you're currently achieving.
And normally when I say that to someone, they kind of go like. It's like a two or three second. They go, what? I said, well, your, your current business model's perfectly designed for you. To achieve the results you're currently achieving. And they go, we don't have a business model. I said, well, actually, your business model is to not have a business model.
[00:32:32] Speaker B: Yeah,
[00:32:33] Speaker C: it's like playing sandlot football. Okay, you're going to go over here, you're going to go over here. I'm going to run around versus saying, here's what we do to keep accounts. Here are the systems, procedures, et cetera. Here, culturally, here's how we're going to be operating. Here's the promises we make to each other to achieve it. So here's what we do to keep them, here's what we do to get them. And everybody has to have the same playbook. Because what happens in most sales organizations is that you get the top 20% of the salespeople, make 80% of the sales, and you might get, let's say you've got five people on your. Your selling team. You might get one that just blows away everybody else.
[00:33:11] Speaker B: Right.
[00:33:11] Speaker C: One of our private clients who I was dealing with a couple years ago, had an interesting situation.
We were about halfway through the year, and he had already exceeded. He was a chief revenue officer. He had already exceeded the sales goals for the whole year. He was really excited about it. And he had nine salespeople, okay. And they were, I mean, way ahead. I said, well, let's look at. I said, actually, those results aren't very good. He said, why? I said, because you have seven of your salespeople that are not on track to hit their goals. So you had two that over exceeded and seven that were way behind. I said, if those top two were there, where would you be? He said, I'd be in trouble.
[00:33:50] Speaker B: Right.
[00:33:51] Speaker C: So it's a matter of. One of the things that we work towards is what percent of your salespeople hit their goal.
[00:33:57] Speaker B: Right?
[00:33:59] Speaker C: Because you could always get saved by a couple of them. So coming right back to the playbooks, one of the things that.
That we're really stressing now, Marty, is that. And I don't know if it applies to yours, I think it might, but it's a takeoff from Pure 8020, and that we now are analyzing a client base in four quadrants of 25% each. I think I shared that with you recently.
And what we found is that the top 25% of the clients are 88% of the revenue.
[00:34:28] Speaker B: That's crazy.
[00:34:28] Speaker C: Well, if 20 is 80%, 25 are probably 88.
But then we see the next 25% are only 8%. So the top 50% of the customers are 96% of the revenue.
And so now we look at it and say, why do we even have these other ones? And in analyzing, getting systems, getting procedures, looking at our business model, looking at the KPIs, we should be measuring. What we're really seeing is there are three profit drains in our clients. I don't know if it'd be yours, but we see that we have profitable accounts, subsidizing, unprofitable accounts, profitable salespeople, subsidizing, unprofitable, and then profitable employees other than sales that are subsidizing, unprofitable employees. And you go to the Gallup poll that says 70% of employees are not engaged.
[00:35:13] Speaker B: Yeah. No wonder.
[00:35:15] Speaker C: Holy smokes.
[00:35:16] Speaker B: Right?
[00:35:16] Speaker C: You know, then you wonder why we're not getting better productivity.
[00:35:19] Speaker B: Exactly.
[00:35:20] Speaker C: And at the end of the day, we talk about chaos, et cetera, and growth.
If the growth does not include increased capacity, and to me that means revenue per employee, then we're going backwards.
We're adding people, but we're getting less revenue per employee, which to me is one of the most important measurements any company can do.
[00:35:42] Speaker B: So, speaking of measurements, you have really thrown yourself in AI and the future of business. And I know you're not just talking about it. I know you're doing it. You and your team have created. I think it's called Saku. Saku, Roger. AI.
Using your years of coaching, philosophy and intellectual property. So first, tell us what SACU is, if that's how you pronounce it.
[00:36:06] Speaker C: Well, it's Sakur, but it's close.
[00:36:08] Speaker B: Okay. And what you've learned in building it, because this is.
[00:36:11] Speaker C: Well, this
[00:36:12] Speaker B: is fast.
[00:36:13] Speaker C: Saku.
Saku is the leader of the company.
[00:36:16] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:36:17] Speaker C: And he is the source, or she is the source of all knowledge in the universe. S, A, K, U.
And when you're Saku, everybody comes to you. As a matter of fact, when you're Saku,
[00:36:27] Speaker B: I see, they
[00:36:28] Speaker C: bring you all their problems, okay? They walk in your office, and whether they've got a file or they've got a blueprint or whatever, they walk in and they look at you and they say, we've got a problem, but they're handing it to you already.
Okay. And what do you say? Well, I'm so cool. I can handle it. Don't worry. And you get all. You know. Basically, they take the monkey off their back and put it on yours.
But that. I talked about it. So much of that became my nickname. Okay. Roger, you're so cool, and we'll come to you for Stuff but the AI is a clone or it's in my voice. Okay.
All they did is they took the opening of our book, the audio, the introduction to the audiobook that I recorded and they put it into AI and everything I've ever done basically is in there now. And they can say hey Saku, I need to know more about the two way promise or I need to know more about the reverse referral process or the continuation process.
And he would say well Marty, that's a great question. Let's go through it.
So the beauty of it is that it replicates you as the leader because you're hard to replicate and you've got to manage your time just like everybody else. And one of the leaders, all of us, I don't name more but I can remember the days of getting, getting interrupted all the time, all the time. And so the AI helps there. The other, the biggest thing I see overall and it's not just in the insurance industry, it's in everything I looked at.
You have to understand the difference and I'm preaching to the choir, you have to understand just between human and non human tasks.
And there are a tremendous number of tasks, paperwork if you will, standard operating procedures that don't need a human.
But right now they get a human.
[00:38:11] Speaker B: Right.
[00:38:12] Speaker C: And so in fact one of one of the companies we deal with, Resource Pro, which is a phenomenal company in the insurance industry, they do a lot of the back office process.
I got 13 or 15,000 employees now and overseas. It's crazy, but the leader, the CEO of the company, I was keynoting at one of their events last year and he shared and I won't have these numbers exact but there was a specific process within a very large agency that happened like 14,000 times a month.
And what they found was that 100% of those got reviewed by a human.
And once they realized AI could review it and look for the exception, they found that of the. And again these numbers are not exactly right but they're representative of the 14,000 transactions. Something like only 42 of them needed to be looked at because the rest were checked by AI and they were accurate.
So think of the cost savings there. So anything you can fact they've actually identified 70,000 sops that could be looked at by AI.
[00:39:22] Speaker B: Wow.
[00:39:22] Speaker C: And I think every business, when you look at all the paperwork you do, you can get rid of it. One of the biggest lessons I've had on this overall is the number one thing that would differentiate most businesses and certainly in the insurance business is knowledge And a lot of the knowledge you have is because of the experience you've had. You know how to do it.
And AI is really leveling the playing field because anybody can get the knowledge now.
So what used to be your differentiator is no longer your differentiator. Because anybody can go in. Like, I'm a big fan of Claude. Okay. I use Claude the most anyway. And so I can go in and ask just about anything and I can get the knowledge.
So what that's doing is that's saying, how do we free up those employees are the keepers. We want to become relationship managers versus knowledge workers.
And the more they can spend time enhancing relationships because right now they're so busy processing work, they'll even say, I don't, I don't have enough time to talk to my clients like I'd like to.
[00:40:26] Speaker B: Exactly.
[00:40:27] Speaker C: You know, they just feel, press, press, press.
[00:40:29] Speaker B: Right.
[00:40:30] Speaker C: So getting as much of the non human work as you can to AI, to gather as much knowledge as you can from AI and then use them and understand that if we, what we truly believe is that relationships are what it's all about.
And I know you believe,
[00:40:48] Speaker B: yeah,
[00:40:49] Speaker C: if, if relationships are what it's all about, then I better spend as much time as I possibly can managing and enhancing relationships, making deposits with my clients versus always trying to take a withdrawal from an empty account.
[00:41:04] Speaker B: Love it. So let me ask you this, Roger. If you owned a 5 or 10 million dollar landscaping company today, where would you start using AI tomorrow morning?
[00:41:15] Speaker C: Well, number one, I would look at every process and enhance it. And the nice thing is once AI takes it over, that's your, you know, we just always say the agency's way of doing business. What's the company's way of doing business? And now it's consistent because when I used to go in and consult one on one with agencies and I'd go and I'd sit down with, let's say a group of commercial service people or claims people, whatever, or producers, and I'd ask a question. Tell me how you do this. Well, the first person would say, here's how I do it. And invariably the second person would say, well, I don't do it exactly that way, I do it this way.
[00:41:47] Speaker B: Right.
[00:41:48] Speaker C: And then the third person would say, I don't do it either way.
[00:41:50] Speaker B: Right, exactly.
[00:41:51] Speaker C: There was no consistency on the way of doing business. You've got to determine what's the best way to do it and then empower AI to do that process. So that's where I'd start And now what I'm doing is I'm going to free up my people to spend more time on relationships. I'm going to free up my salespeople. One of the things, Marty, of everything that I've ever Talked about in 40 plus years now, I think the thing I'm going to be known the most for is a salesperson's either in a green zone or a red zone. And the red zone is when they're caught in service work doing crap they shouldn't do.
And the green zone is there's only four things in our business. There's only four things a salesperson should do. Make sales, proactively, manage relationships, have a continuation process, not a renewal process, and build your pipeline. So sales, relationship management, relationship continuations, and pipeline building. How do I use AI to get me to do the discipline within that? Like an example, we believe very clearly that the top 20 to 25% of your clients that are 80 to 88% of your revenue. Okay. Should receive a formal stewardship report every year. Here's what we said we were going to do. Here's what we did. It's not. You had. You needed 15 certificates of insurance and two claims. So what did we do to move your business forward? Okay. By the way, it's showing visible progress.
Okay. Because you made a great point earlier. Landscaping, I can see it.
[00:43:17] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:43:18] Speaker C: And insurance.
[00:43:19] Speaker B: Right.
[00:43:19] Speaker C: Okay. So when you look at all the discipline it takes to stay in the green zone, and our goal is producers in the green zone 80% of the time. Because right now most salespeople are part time salespeople and crap magnets.
[00:43:33] Speaker B: Right.
[00:43:35] Speaker C: So if we can get them in the green zone 80% of the time and then say, now all the discipline that I need and my set offense and set defense are enhanced through AI.
And it can remind me, hey, don't forget, two weeks from today you've got a stewardship report due on Grunder Landscape, whatever it may be.
And so that's where I would start right there. And like, if you say every one of our clients, we need to know the anniversary of when they started with us. We need to send a birthday card to them. We need a Thanksgiving card, a Christmas card, whatever. AI doesn't.
So it takes the extreme discipline needed to become a best version possible.
And it takes it out the hands of people that inherently are not very difficult.
[00:44:21] Speaker B: I think you've given me the best analysis of how to use AI that I've ever heard.
AI can help you build the relationships. It can take care of the Knowledge work that you were otherwise doing and allow you to spend more time with clients. I love it.
[00:44:36] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:44:36] Speaker B: Let's hear from another one of our trusted partners. In our success at Grunder Landscaping Co.
[00:44:42] Speaker D: Are you still doing takeoffs with software from the prehistoric age? Sure. You could reach flow state counting thousands of tiny symbols and measuring endless lines. Or you could let Bob Yard's AI handle it in minutes and reach flow state at the gym instead. Bob Yard automates takeoff so you can bid faster, win more work and spend more time developing real business relationships. Hundreds of contractors already use Bob Yard to win more bids with less effort. You should too. Go to bobyard.com to book a demo. Make sure you mention grow, show when you sign up and get one month free.
[00:45:16] Speaker B: All right, we're back with Roger Sitkins from the Sitkins Group, my longtime friend and a mentor of mine. Roger, we're going to wrap it up here today with kind of like a rapid fire. Going to ask you some questions. Don't overthink them. Just, just give them your best. Rogerisms, strategy or execution? Which matters more?
[00:45:34] Speaker C: Execution. The difference between knowing and doing. You got to close that.
[00:45:39] Speaker B: What's one habit
[00:45:41] Speaker C: I hate it when I hear people say I know, I know, I know. No, you don't know because if you knew you'd be doing
[00:45:46] Speaker B: I do that too much. You're right.
What's one habit you consistently see in highly successful business owners?
[00:45:52] Speaker C: Personal routines that drive your day.
So when you get up in the morning and you're doing your thoughts, you're doing your prayers, whatever you do and you go to the gym, I mean the consistency of the routine drives everything.
And then the second part that's really come true now is it's the two way accountability. The two way promise.
[00:46:11] Speaker B: I love it. Oh,
[00:46:12] Speaker C: by the way, the other part of two way promise I didn't cover if like I'm talking as a salesperson, you're not doing what you said I can as a, as, as the salesperson you can challenge me. You can say yeah Roger, you said you'd do this and it's not we can communicate. So I didn't, I'd forgot about that.
[00:46:29] Speaker B: What's something business owners waste too much time on
[00:46:34] Speaker C: their non unique abilities doing things that other people are absolutely,
[00:46:38] Speaker B: yeah,
[00:46:39] Speaker C: absolutely have the factory installed equipment to do a great job of. They're doing jobs that someone else could do and they can't do it as good as you, but they can get 80% of it done and you can find
[00:46:49] Speaker B: that's a big Deal. You're right. What's something they should spend more time thinking about?
[00:46:57] Speaker C: The design of their best version possible.
What does the best version possible view look like?
When that first started, Brent Kelly, our president, asked me a question. What is. What is. You heard the story before. What does the best version possible of an insurance agency look like?
And I just couldn't stop thinking about it. Three o' clock in the morning, I got up and I went on my iPad and I said, best version possible.
And a songwriter from Canada, Chris Assad, popped up the words from his songs. Close your eyes and imagine the best version possible of you. That's who you really are. You've got to eliminate any obstacle that's in its
[00:47:32] Speaker B: way.
[00:47:32] Speaker C: And so to me, them spending time there, Absolutely. Staying on top of it and then always thinking about this.
What's the next needle?
[00:47:40] Speaker B: Yep.
[00:47:42] Speaker C: What's the next thing that will improve and. And don't ever stop improving.
[00:47:47] Speaker B: What's something Roger Sitkins believed about business 25 years ago that Roger Sitkins no longer believes
[00:47:54] Speaker C: every sale would be a great.
[00:47:56] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:47:58] Speaker C: Every dollar is a great dollar.
[00:48:00] Speaker B: Right. And when we just. Let
[00:48:02] Speaker C: me
[00:48:02] Speaker B: quote. Right. We know that's not true.
[00:48:05] Speaker C: Yep.
[00:48:06] Speaker B: Okay. One last question before we wrap it up. Roger, you've had an incredibly successful career. You've literally helped thousands of people.
You've built a great business. You've made an impact. And at this stage of your life and career, how do you define success today?
[00:48:23] Speaker C: Three freedoms.
Three specific freedoms that we preach all the time. Financial freedom, Relationship freedom. And. And time freedom.
[00:48:31] Speaker B: Financial freedom. Time.
[00:48:33] Speaker C: Yep. Time. Precinct. If you have enough money to do what you want to do to support your church, support your community, support, whatever relationships. The fact that 20% of your clients are the. The most important relationships.
And then time. Where do you spend your time?
Get those three. That's total freedom to me.
[00:48:51] Speaker B: Well, Roger, this has been terrific. I appreciate you coming to us from outside of Atlanta, Georgia today.
And I think what our listeners have heard today proves something really, really important.
There really aren't insurance company leadership principles and landscaping company leadership principles. There's just great business principles.
Leadership matters. Knowing your ideal client matters.
Sales discipline matters. Systems matters. Profit matters. Culture matters. And now trying to figure out how to intelligently use AI that matters too.
So before I let you go for the landscape professionals who's listening right now and thinking, Roger gave me a whole bunch to work on, what's the one challenge you would extend to them? To go back into their company and do differently? Starting tomorrow morning,
[00:49:38] Speaker C: simplify and Focus
[00:49:39] Speaker B: simplifying
[00:49:40] Speaker C: what happens with people that really want to get better all the time as they chase too many things and get to the point where you simplify everything you do and you have a laser focus on two or three things. And like with the best, absolute best, they have one thing they're going to get done every day.
[00:49:58] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:49:59] Speaker C: Lots of people say three. You get one of the right things done every day.
[00:50:02] Speaker B: A week. Seven a week.
[00:50:04] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:50:05] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:50:05] Speaker C: It's amazing what happens.
[00:50:07] Speaker B: Roger, you're awesome. Thank you. I've learned a lot from you over the years. I have tremendous respect for what you've built and more importantly, the way you've gone about building it. Always being there for me. I love our conversations. I know they'll continue. I'm glad we could share you and your wisdom with my friends here on the Grow show today. Thanks for joining us.
[00:50:24] Speaker C: It's been my pleasure, Marty, as always. I enjoy our time together.
[00:50:26] Speaker B: It's fun. All right, folks, here's what I want you to take away from today's conversation. Don't limit where you learn from, okay? We can learn from insurance, manufacturing, hospitality, the restaurant industry, technology.
Just study great businesses, study great leaders, study great sales organizations, and continually ask yourself, how could we apply that to our landscaping companies?
And I think one of Roger's strongest messages today is don't just let your company happen to you. Be intentional about it. Decide what kind of team you want, decide what standards you're going to maintain, decide what financial results you're going to produce, and decide what role you want your business to play in your life. Then use your people, your processes, your systems, your smarts, and the increasingly prevalent tools like AI to help you build it. Being busy isn't the goal, folks. Being bigger isn't always the goal. As Roger said, building the best possible version of yourself and your company, that's a pretty darn good goal. Well, 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, share this YouTube link or take out the podcast and forward it to a friend, a family member, a fellow competitor, a landscaper, you know, someone that might benefit from this that will really help us grow the Grow Show. Thanks for joining us on the Grow show this week. We'll talk to you next week.
[00:51:52] Speaker A: Thanks for listening to the Grow show and a special thanks to Aspire, Bob Yard, Exmark Proven Winners and NALP for making this episode possible. We'll talk to you next week.
Sam.
