Episode Transcript
[00:00:01] Speaker A: Welcome to the Grow Show Powered by Stihl. On the Grow show, we share ideas, tips, tactics and insights to help you grow your landscaping business. Based on our team's 40 years of experience running a landscaping company and working with other owners and their teams to do the same, new episodes are released weekly on Wednesdays. Here's your host, Marty Grunder.
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 Powered by Stihl. Today we're going to be be talking about something that those of you in the south are into right now and those of us in the north may be into. If you aren't into them yet, you're going to be into it soon. What is that? Spring cleanups. And I've got the great Alan Witt, one of our terrific group leaders here at Grunder Landscaping Company in with me today in the Stihl Studios. 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 Microsoft Outlook's Q function. If you're not familiar with this, you need to get familiar with this business leaders. I'm surprised at how many folks don't know how to use this feature. One of the things I'm working on in the new year 2025 is not emailing anyone on my team after hours or on weekends if at all possible. When I'm working after hours, I like to get things done and I often get into emails and sending them and with the Microsoft Outlook queue function and we're going to show that on the screen right now, you can go cue them up, set it for a time you want them to get them all right and the associates can get them, you know, not during the weekend or at night. Business owners can be more smart about this and you can hopefully be a better leader. All of us owners and leaders of our departments and companies need to keep work and our teams free times separated. We'll do more on this subject in a future episode of the Grow show. But for now, give Q emails a try. Now on to the Grow show spring cleanups. Ladies and gentlemen, whether you do elaborate spring cleanups on multimillion dollar homes or you do HOAs or condos or office parks, industrial, municipal, whatever it is, a system is needed. And today Alan is with me and we're going to be talking about what's important in a spring cleanup. Alan, welcome to the grow show.
[00:02:23] Speaker B: Thank you. Thanks for having me.
[00:02:24] Speaker A: Happy to have you here. Alan, tell us a little bit about you. You're a lifelong pretty much landscaper, aren't you?
[00:02:29] Speaker B: Pretty much. I've been in the industry about 34 years and something I really enjoy.
[00:02:34] Speaker A: Well, you do a great job here.
Tell us a little bit about what a group leader does at Grunder Landscaping so folks that may not know can understand.
[00:02:44] Speaker B: So my opinion, our job is to make the team members and the team leader's job easier. As easy as we can.
[00:02:52] Speaker A: Super.
[00:02:53] Speaker B: We need to go ahead of time, check the job out, try to tweak anything we can find. Cost saving, time saving.
[00:03:01] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:03:02] Speaker B: Ways to do things.
[00:03:03] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:03:04] Speaker B: And just make it easy for them.
[00:03:06] Speaker A: And you are very good at that. And I guess there's a fine line between you don't want to run it for them. You want to. You want to help them get better, but at the same time, you want to be prepared. I know your notes are legendary. I guess a typical thing that you would do today is there's jobs on for tomorrow, and you're going to go look through their jobs and you're going to see the notes. You're going to gain an understanding of it. You may want to go back to a salesperson and say, hey, this isn't really clear for them tomorrow. There's a lot of things you're doing as a leader. I would say in the world according to Marty Wham, the team leader's job is about today. Your job is about tomorrow. Like you're trying to stay a step ahead of them, to make them as efficient as they possibly can. Would that be a way to explain it?
[00:03:45] Speaker B: Yeah. Actually, in my mind, I'd like to even be two or three days. Okay.
[00:03:49] Speaker A: Why?
[00:03:49] Speaker B: Because, simple fact, I might get to a job and think, oh, this is not going to take that long at all. And I can pull that maybe back over here to this day, because I know this may be.
[00:03:58] Speaker A: I see.
[00:03:59] Speaker B: So as long as I get the insight and permission from the consultant, I'm able to do that.
[00:04:04] Speaker A: And I know some of the group leaders have more crews reporting to him, like Lorenzo. He runs the mowing. He may have nine crews that respond.
[00:04:11] Speaker B: Eight or nine.
[00:04:12] Speaker A: How many do you have that are responsible to you?
[00:04:14] Speaker B: 5, 4 or 5. And then a couple. Couple of the watering.
[00:04:18] Speaker A: Watering routes, yeah. Which, by the way, folks, watering is the most profitable service we do. Just sort of a funny little tidbit and that kind of Stuff. What are some of the challenges that you have as a group leader?
[00:04:30] Speaker B: Just, it's hard to stay on top of the ball all the time just for the simple fact. There's so much going on here, and our workload is a lot, which is a good thing, don't get me wrong. But always rather be busy and looking for it.
[00:04:42] Speaker A: We've. We've grown a lot.
[00:04:44] Speaker B: We have grown tremendously since I've started.
[00:04:46] Speaker A: I know. And it's amazing. And in fact, I think the first year you were here, we grew last year by more revenue than the entire first year you were here. To kind of give into context for the growth. And it's not all been easy, folks, but I would say it's been fun. And when you have people like Alan that embrace the challenge, Seth listens and watches the grow show. He won't like the fact that I say challenge because he says there are opportunities, which I understand. And we've done a lot. We've been a battle here very, very well. And you've done a really nice job, Alan. I know your crews like you, and you do a great job with that. So we have. We have a lot of systems here, ladies and gentlemen. Aspire is a system. We have safety protocols. We have a system for a spring cleanup. Why do we have a system for a spring cleanup? What, in your mind, is the reason for that?
[00:05:31] Speaker B: Well, I think if we don't have some kind of system available, it's gonna get into our efficiency.
[00:05:38] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:05:38] Speaker B: So if we have the system available, we're able to follow a system pretty much. Not to a t. Every job. Every job's different, but it keeps us within the boundary so we stay efficient.
[00:05:49] Speaker A: Yeah. And I think the system yields better quality results. The training, we're not. If we're going to try to scale, I mean, on a. On a typical day now with the opening of our Cincinnati office, we could have a. We have. We could have a crew almost 100 miles apart now working. And there has to be some similarity. It can't be. You know, this crew wants to do their edges and things this way, and another crew wants to do another way. I don't think we are so rigid that we don't let our people freelance a little bit. But the basic parts of a cleanup, that's got to be the same on every property, right?
[00:06:21] Speaker B: Correct.
[00:06:22] Speaker A: So when we think about doing a spring cleanup. And again, whether you're in Florida, Texas, California, Arizona, Topeka, Kansas State, and Ohio, Bangor, Maine, wherever you are, there's elements of a spring Cleanup. So when you think about a spring cleanup, which we're getting ready to get them started here. What, what, what is part of our spring cleanup system? Go through it a little bit.
[00:06:41] Speaker B: Well, so again, I would want to try to see the job.
[00:06:44] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:06:45] Speaker B: At a time.
[00:06:45] Speaker A: All right.
[00:06:46] Speaker B: Just in case there's anything out of sorts or something with the property that's a little awkward. And then, you know, when we show up, we have a game plan. So one guy will start cleaning and edging, getting the weeds out of the bed. Another team member will start trimming probably, and then the other team member will start cleaning up behind those guys. So we kind of try to start from point A in my mind and go all the way through and clean one time.
[00:07:11] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:07:11] Speaker B: Then we'll put our pre emergent things down. Fertilizers, and then we'll start mulching.
[00:07:15] Speaker A: Okay. Who is responsible for what? Is the team leader only doing the edging or does everybody kind of do everything?
[00:07:22] Speaker B: In my opinion, I like to see all team members doing everything.
[00:07:25] Speaker A: I agree with you. So why do you like that?
[00:07:27] Speaker B: Well, again, we're trained here to train our team members.
[00:07:31] Speaker A: Right.
[00:07:32] Speaker B: To train them to be team leaders. To train them, the team leaders, to be group leaders. So we train from within and we build from within. So we need to constantly, constantly have a well rounded team member that can do anything.
[00:07:45] Speaker A: Yeah. Because there's a time when the team leader has a wedding to go to or they're sick or whatever, and they're the number two guy has to come in. Sometimes you have to patch a crew together to try to stay on target. And a big part of our growth has been some of these younger folks that we've had. Our mission statement talks about creating opportunities. And we've grown a lot. I mean, there's tons of people now running a crew that last year were.
[00:08:07] Speaker B: On a crew, correct?
[00:08:08] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:08:08] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:08:09] Speaker A: On the spring cleanup and aspire, what are. Let's go back to the spring cleanup. I think I missed a point. What are some like, do's and don'ts on spring cleanups? Like when you see another crew working for another company or, you know, all of our followers here on the grow show Powered by Stihl, they're landscapers. What are some do's and don'ts with cleanups?
[00:08:29] Speaker B: Dudes, we always want to do a good job. We always want to be efficient.
[00:08:32] Speaker A: Sounds stupid, but why do a good job?
[00:08:33] Speaker B: Why Efficient sells the next job.
[00:08:35] Speaker A: It does. And I think sometimes we overlook that, don't we?
[00:08:38] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah.
[00:08:39] Speaker A: And you know, with cameras and everything else, you're always being watched.
[00:08:42] Speaker B: Right.
[00:08:42] Speaker A: And it's not that hard to impress, is it?
[00:08:45] Speaker B: No, it's really not. I always say if we show up and do what we say we're going to do, it's no problem. We'll sell the next job.
[00:08:52] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:08:53] Speaker B: Because a lot of, a lot of places just don't.
[00:08:55] Speaker A: They don't. They don't. I mean, everywhere you go, it's that. It's like in some places you go, it's like you're bothering them. We try to be cheerful, polite. So what are some other do's and don'ts of cleanups?
[00:09:04] Speaker B: Don'ts. We're going to keep our uniforms on properly. We're going to wear our things properly.
[00:09:09] Speaker A: Right.
[00:09:09] Speaker B: We're going to stage our trucks properly. Out of the way, the client, out of the way, the clients driveway. Whatever the case, if we need in the driveway, we'll ask for permission. We don't just roll in and take over.
[00:09:20] Speaker A: Why?
[00:09:21] Speaker B: Because, well, for one, we're a professional business and we cater to the client. Yeah, we want their business.
[00:09:28] Speaker A: I finally got it solved. But my neighbor, he's a real nice guy and he. When he. I can't tell you how many times the landscaping company was doing the work across the street and they pull up and park all their trucks in front of my house and start walking on my yard, unloading their trucks. And you know how I am on my yard because you get the fortune of helping me with. But it's like, why are you doing that? You're not. You're not working at my property. And I think the unintended consequence of being sloppy with those kind of details are you're not endearing yourself to the neighbor who could be a client. And you and I both know the value of route density and efficiency. Maybe next year you set up shop on the cul de sac and you do all four houses at once.
[00:10:07] Speaker B: Correct.
[00:10:08] Speaker A: All right. By being the nice person, they're working. That's being considerate. Are there any more do's and don'ts of spring cleanups?
[00:10:14] Speaker B: Just doing a good job, being pleasant with the client, making sure the client is aware and that we are aware of anything they want special done.
[00:10:22] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:10:23] Speaker B: You know, the team leader needs a knock on the door, introduce himself, let them know what the plan is for the day. It could be even a multi day cleanup. Sometimes they're large cleanups that we do and it might be multi day or a single day, but let them know that we're there. And if there's anything they need done, want done, just let us know.
[00:10:39] Speaker A: Yeah. Can you tell me a little bit about the training that we will go through? Because I think we take some time to, you know, even though we've done cleanups for years and we have some team leaders have been here 10, 20, 25 plus years, we still do training on that. What does that training look like?
[00:10:56] Speaker B: It's just kind of a overview.
[00:10:59] Speaker A: Like a refresher. Yeah, yeah.
[00:11:01] Speaker B: Like a quick crash course, kind of a wake up course, I would say.
[00:11:05] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:11:05] Speaker B: Get the wheels turning in your mind again. We're shifting gears from wintertime and snow removal and probably not quite the fast.
[00:11:12] Speaker A: Pace run at all.
[00:11:14] Speaker B: Time to. Hey, guys, we're gearing up. We got to get rolling. These are things that we got to be looking for. You know, we got to be checking the window wells, making sure we're getting the leaves out. Any debris that's blown in there over the winter, we want to be getting that. We're going to pick the mat up, we're going to blow underneath the mat. We're cleaning the front porch off, but yeah, well, let's lift the mat up and clean underneath it.
[00:11:34] Speaker A: Yep.
[00:11:34] Speaker B: Things like that.
[00:11:35] Speaker A: The training, if I remember right, it. There's. There's a handout and typically one's in English and one's in Spanish. Can you talk a little bit about why we do that, how that works?
[00:11:44] Speaker B: So again, we just want everybody to be on the same page. The Hispanic guys, we try to get it in a translated form that they understand and that flows better for them.
[00:11:53] Speaker A: Yep.
[00:11:53] Speaker B: It doesn't always work that way, but we try and I think they get the point. So then when we're talking about it, you know, number eight. Ocho.
[00:12:01] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:12:02] Speaker B: They get what number eight is. They're reading it and then we actually do it and display it.
[00:12:07] Speaker A: How tough has it been for you to interact with our H2B workers from Mexico and think, is it El Salvador?
[00:12:15] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:12:15] Speaker A: How. How difficult has it been for you to work with them? Talk about some of the things you've done to overcome the language barrier.
[00:12:22] Speaker B: Personally, I use Google Translate on.
[00:12:24] Speaker A: Okay, okay.
[00:12:25] Speaker B: Things like that.
[00:12:25] Speaker A: Yep.
[00:12:27] Speaker B: Really, it's. It's not been a struggle for me.
[00:12:30] Speaker A: That's what I thought. It's not been. I mean, there's such reliable workers and we have such a hardworking team. The little nuance of using your phone or the other, you've dealt with it like you're fine with it.
[00:12:40] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. Actually, I like it because a lot of they tell me I talk too fast.
[00:12:44] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:12:45] Speaker B: So they need me to slow down, so I give it to them in translation. Yeah, yeah. No, we do a good job and then, of course, we can actually physically show each other.
[00:12:53] Speaker A: There's so much show and tell. That's true. Yeah.
[00:12:55] Speaker B: We just work it out. It's not a problem.
[00:12:58] Speaker A: Yeah. Well. And I think it helps that you have a great attitude towards it. You and I are very close to the same age when you came here. We have this wonderful piece of technology called Aspire that we run our business with, this enterprise system. Tell me what you think of Aspire and does it help you or is it a pain in your butt?
[00:13:17] Speaker B: I do not pride myself being tech savvy.
[00:13:19] Speaker A: Right.
[00:13:20] Speaker B: It's just not what I mean.
[00:13:21] Speaker A: Right, exactly.
[00:13:22] Speaker B: So it is a very, very, very useful tool.
[00:13:25] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:13:25] Speaker B: I've tried to wrap my head around it.
[00:13:28] Speaker A: You've done a nice job with it.
[00:13:29] Speaker B: It's a big time saver.
[00:13:31] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:13:31] Speaker B: The more I learn, and the more things I learn, the better the jobs are getting.
[00:13:36] Speaker A: How is it helping you specifically? Like, what if we told you we're getting rid of it and going back to paper? Would you think we're nuts?
[00:13:42] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:13:42] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:13:44] Speaker B: Well, I. I can take my tablet out in the truck, I visit the job site ahead of time, I walk around, take pictures. I can download those pictures right to that work order.
[00:13:53] Speaker A: Yep.
[00:13:53] Speaker B: Or that ticket.
[00:13:54] Speaker A: Yep.
[00:13:54] Speaker B: I can pull notes and then I can add ticket notes for that day for that occurrence. Not the ops notes, that's usually from the consultant and they flow every week. But the visit or the ticket notes, we can change weekly, every visit, whatever it is. And I'll add those pictures of certain things that we need to get done or the client asked for, or things we just don't see all the time.
[00:14:16] Speaker A: What role does Aspire in your mind play in helping us make money?
[00:14:20] Speaker B: I think it's great because it plays a big role because one thing, the route density. And it helps to.
[00:14:26] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:14:26] Speaker B: Helps to make the. The routes for the day, the daily routes, because I manage the lane keeping lots of stops.
[00:14:33] Speaker A: You may have a crew that has 15 stops.
[00:14:35] Speaker B: In a day. Yeah, in a day.
[00:14:36] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:14:37] Speaker B: So then it's important if their day is going well, then I can look and I know another day in their week or maybe even next week, that we could pull a few things monthly, something like that, where it doesn't really matter what day we hit them on, as long as there's some travel time or some visit time in between.
[00:14:54] Speaker A: Without getting into the specifics of what we pay a bonus on Aspire helps us make money. We track the hours. And one of the ways the men and women get a bonus in the entire company is through efficiency of hours. And it does a beautiful job with that. Can you explain what you look at there in terms of the hours and the analysis of them?
[00:15:12] Speaker B: So the company sets the amount of hours where we're going to work. That's the first half of our bonus and that's dictated by the company. So we strive to get those amount of hours in that are worked. And then the other dial is the efficiency part of the bonus or the second half.
[00:15:26] Speaker A: It's a two part each year or.
[00:15:28] Speaker B: Each six months, twice a year. And we try to make sure we're on the efficiency side of getting things done ahead of time, within that range.
[00:15:38] Speaker A: And you know, where we're at like all the time we're up in the Stihl studios. You can go downstairs into your office and you can go pull it out and see where you're at. And that's something that you've learned how to do. And, and it's pretty cool to watch you because you. Even when we do our grow meetings, which are our monthly meetings, when the whole company gets together, you've been known to get up and talk about the hours and where we are and what we're doing. I mean, you have a very intimate understanding of it.
[00:16:02] Speaker B: Yeah, that was just drilled into my head at a young age.
[00:16:04] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[00:16:05] Speaker B: Money time counts.
[00:16:07] Speaker A: Yep, it does. So we have 20 plus different crews that'll be doing spring cleanups in a little bit. They're going different directions each day, doing all kinds of properties. Is there any nuances to training them, you know, to a quality job, making it consistent? Is there any other way that you support the teams? How do you deal with. I'm giving you a lot, but it's a lot of things that I know you deal with. Like you got a real good team leader and he forgets to take, I don't know, he forgets to take the pruners on a stick and he's done it twice in the week. Like, how do you deal with all those challenges? Are you a, are you a screamer and a yeller? If you see somebody not doing the job the way it's. Talk to us a little bit about how you lead out in the field and make things better from that perspective.
[00:16:50] Speaker B: Well, normally I was always taught to lead from example.
[00:16:53] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:16:53] Speaker B: When I show up to the job site, I'm not above anything.
[00:16:56] Speaker A: I'll do Whatever.
[00:16:58] Speaker B: Do whatever.
[00:16:58] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:16:58] Speaker B: It doesn't matter to me.
[00:16:59] Speaker A: Right.
[00:17:00] Speaker B: Things like forgetting things on a consistent basis. Yeah, we'll address that.
[00:17:05] Speaker A: How will you address that? What will you do?
[00:17:06] Speaker B: I'll just take them aside, talk to them, you know, something going on.
[00:17:09] Speaker A: And so, like, let's just pretend I'm Marty and I've been doing that. What would you say to me, hey.
[00:17:13] Speaker B: Marty, you've missed a couple things this week. You know, you needed the pruners a couple times.
[00:17:17] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:17:17] Speaker B: And you've left them at shop. You know, is there something going on you need?
[00:17:21] Speaker A: Right.
[00:17:21] Speaker B: Someplace.
[00:17:22] Speaker A: And why. Why have you learned as an experienced manager that that's a better tactic than saying, what the hell's wrong with you?
[00:17:28] Speaker B: Well, we all carry a life.
[00:17:31] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:17:31] Speaker B: We try to leave it at home, but we don't always. We're not always successful with that.
[00:17:35] Speaker A: Right.
[00:17:36] Speaker B: So sometimes there's things going on.
[00:17:37] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:17:38] Speaker B: And you don't have to get into their private side of their life.
[00:17:41] Speaker A: Right.
[00:17:41] Speaker B: But a lot of times you just got to let them know you care about how they feel and what they're doing.
[00:17:45] Speaker A: Right.
[00:17:45] Speaker B: And you want them to be successful here, so you're just trying to help them along.
[00:17:50] Speaker A: One of our favorite people that we've had here the past couple years is a young man by the name of Devin. And he left. We're going to get him back one way or another. He went to do something different in a different state.
[00:17:59] Speaker B: Right.
[00:18:00] Speaker A: But Devin was a very quiet kid. I think it took me a year of working on him before I got him the smile. And by the time he was, he, you know, he had just. He just left us. I'm. I'm really hoping he comes back. I know you are, too. He was a supremely conscientious, caring. And once he realized, I'm just a regular guy, too, and so are you. I mean, I had a great relationship with. How did you get Devin to open up to you? What did you do?
[00:18:27] Speaker B: I just talked to him. You know, I let him know that I was here to help him any way I could.
[00:18:32] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:18:33] Speaker B: Whatever he needed.
[00:18:34] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:18:34] Speaker B: Whether it's inside work, outside work, whatever. Whatever he needs. I'll do my best to help him, and I genuinely mean that.
[00:18:41] Speaker A: Yeah, he was amazing. I know. I have robotic mowers at my house that like to, you know, burp, and he would go out to my house to water and. And quite frankly, we've had other crews that didn't notice this. He saw one of my mowers stuck back in the woods like he's not watering the woods. And he, he went back there and he texted me. He's like, hey, Marty, one of your mowers was stuck. I got it going again. And it was helpful. I was out on the road speaking. I wasn't, you know, the mower could sit there for a week. Sure. And I, and I, when I see stuff like that happen, like that's going above and beyond. He cares about his job. And I, I'm gonna compliment you for that because I think you took an interest in him and I know he liked here, working here. I think he might come back. Yeah, he did. So I want to commend you. And I don't know if you know this or not, but when he left, he said that you were the best boss he's ever worked for. And that was just cool to hear. And that's, you know, you and I are toughies. We're tough guys, but we got a soft side to us, and that's the balancing act. If somebody forgets a darn piece of equipment three straight days, I'm not the nicest guy in the world on the fourth day. But before we get to that fourth day, I'm going to have some conversations along the lines of what you said. You know, is everything okay? We talked about the focus on the man hours and the on site time and how that governs what are. Like, I know you're a thinker. We're getting started on 2025. Do you have some goals for your. Your job here this year? Are there some things you reflect back on 2024 that you want to try to help us make things better? Where's Alan on those thoughts?
[00:20:04] Speaker B: So actually, it started last year because I see the routes we're on.
[00:20:08] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:20:08] Speaker B: And I see how we can take part of this route and put it with this route. I don't know why we. We didn't see it before. To make our routes more dense, I want the guys to be aware of their on site time. We never want to short sheet anybody. We're not in that business.
[00:20:26] Speaker A: Give them their money's worth. Absolutely.
[00:20:28] Speaker B: Even more.
[00:20:28] Speaker A: Right.
[00:20:29] Speaker B: Usually a little more.
[00:20:30] Speaker A: Right.
[00:20:30] Speaker B: But we got to be aware of our time frame because some of the clients, we end up getting out of that time frame and running over a lot or we get outside the. Okay. What we call the lk, like the scope.
[00:20:42] Speaker A: We're doing things we're not being paid to do. Right.
[00:20:44] Speaker B: Should be an enhancement.
[00:20:46] Speaker A: Yep.
[00:20:46] Speaker B: So we need to make the consultant aware of it. Hey, you text me, I'll Text consultant. We'll get them involved.
[00:20:52] Speaker A: Great point, Alan. And I think it's. I think there is some difficulty. Cause, you know, our slogan is where service is always in season, we're always pushing on our men and women to take care of the client. And. But. And sometimes they unknowingly get into an area they shouldn't be doing. They think they're doing a good job.
[00:21:07] Speaker B: Exactly.
[00:21:08] Speaker A: But we're not getting paid to do it. It's beyond the scope.
[00:21:10] Speaker B: Exactly.
[00:21:11] Speaker A: And you can get carried away, like, well, gosh, I prune this bush and now she wants the rest of them. I shouldn't have done that because now you know those kinds of things. So that. That's a challenge and. And something to be working on. Is there any other goals or anything you're thinking about when it comes to 20, 25?
[00:21:25] Speaker B: So I just think through that, we can make the guys more aware of what's going on at each job site. And in turn, it'll be more profitable on its own because the density. We'll get more travel, we'll get more jobs done in a day. And at the same time, we're going to be aware of our time on the job site. So turns to the bottom line.
[00:21:44] Speaker A: Okay, I'm going to kind of spring. I don't think it'll be a tough question for you, but, you know, I'm full of those. People always ask me, how do we keep our men and women looking so good and our trucks looking so good and our grounds so good? The truth be known, when we have a field trip or something here, we scrub the floor. Okay, but we don't do a whole lot. This is how we roll here. Okay, in your opinion, how do we do that? How do you get your men and women to look good, to keep their trucks clean, the job sites clean? What do you do? What's the secret there?
[00:22:15] Speaker B: Well, I think a lot of it is just the culture. It's the way. Way we're taught.
[00:22:20] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:22:20] Speaker B: When I interviewed here, they walked me around and we looked at a lot of things, and I said, how do you guys keep this so clean? Okay, how's the yard? And they looked at me just like a blank stare. Like, it's like this all the time.
[00:22:31] Speaker A: Pretty much.
[00:22:32] Speaker B: I'm like, wow, I was impressed.
[00:22:34] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:22:35] Speaker B: And, you know, I'm not gonna lie. 85 of the time. 90 of time it is. It gets messy.
[00:22:41] Speaker A: Oh, yeah. Well, like in the. In the rain and the spring rush, the loading area gets caked with mud and mulch and the snow that. Yeah, absolutely.
[00:22:51] Speaker B: There's times things we throw.
[00:22:52] Speaker A: Right, exactly.
[00:22:53] Speaker B: Over here. We'll get it later.
[00:22:54] Speaker A: Right.
[00:22:55] Speaker B: We're in a hurry today, but. Yeah, right, yeah. It's the culture. Everybody wraps their head around that. Everybody keeps their truck clean, wiped down.
[00:23:03] Speaker A: Right.
[00:23:04] Speaker B: Clothes clean.
[00:23:05] Speaker A: Right.
[00:23:06] Speaker B: Warm properly.
[00:23:06] Speaker A: And we have things that aid like there's boxes all over the grounds close to the trucks where there's cleaning things. And when they're loading, they're not just allowed to stand there. It's constant movement. You got plenty of time to rest when we drive to the next job. So. Well, and I want to compliment you because you always look good. Your desk looks good, your truck looks good. We've talked about this, you and I, all of our leadership team here. We have to be great at the things we want everyone else to be good at. You said it before that a leader sets an example and nothing's beneath me. And that is so true. So is there anything I didn't ask you or a point you'd like to make as we wrap this up?
[00:23:43] Speaker B: No, I think we just always need to be aware of who we're trying to manage and what we're trying to get done.
[00:23:49] Speaker A: Yeah. Alan, thank you.
[00:23:50] Speaker B: Thank you.
[00:23:50] Speaker A: You're a good man. I love working with you. So, folks, that was Alan Witt here today on the Grow Show Powered by Stihl. I hope this discussion helped you. Can you imagine about 50 of these conversations at one of our field trips at glc, what that might do for your company? There's one a month, August till December. I hope you'll consider coming and seeing us. You'll meet Alan. He usually does a presentation there. And if you have been here before for one of our field trips, come back because a lot has changed. We've got a new agenda because you know what, we're always striving to improve everything that we do. That's what winners do. That's going to do it for this week's edition of the Grow Show Powered by Stihl. Folks, if you haven't done so already, subscribe to the Grow Show. And if you can give it a rating or share a comment that helps more success minded landscape professionals find us. And if you really want to help us share this episode with your team or any landscape pro, you know, take out your phone right now and text it to them. Okay. Thanks for joining us on the Grow show this week. We'll talk to you next week.
Thank you for listening to this episode of the Grow Show. Be sure to subscribe so you never miss an episode and head to growgroupinc.com for more information and resources to grow your landscaping business Business. A special thanks to the folks at Stihl whose support makes this podcast possible and whose reliable handheld power equipment makes our jobs easier daily. We'll talk to you next week.
