Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] 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. Filling in for our host, Marty Grunder this week is Grow Group Vice president Vince Torchia. I'll let him take it from here.
[00:00:26] Speaker B: Hello, everybody. Vince Torchia here from the Grow Group, here for another exciting episode of the Growth show, Powered by Stihl. It's spring 2025, and I've had a chance to be on the road the last few months with our ACE care groups. I'm thrilled to not only facilitate five of our groups, but be involved in a lot of the aspects of what the peer groups do in partnership with our strategic partners at McFarland Stampedale, Dallas, Texas. So a unique seat that I get to sit in is a facilitator, and so I get to see what companies all across the country are doing, what they're doing well, what they're struggling with, and really what's their outlook for 2025. So today I just wanted to share with you a few updates on what I'm seeing our ACE numbers working through and challenges and opportunities they face as it comes in the spring of 2025. Number one, as we've said for many years, as goes a leader, so goes continue. It continues to ring true in 2025 that our ACE peer group members, whatever they're focused on, whatever they're feeling, moves throughout the company. So if you're stressed about sales, your team is stressed about sales. If you're worried about operations, they're worried about operations. If you're focused on a new building or an acquisition or a new offering at your company, you're terribly thinking about those things. And so I encourage everyone to do is sit down and say, what really are my priorities for this spring? And do my priorities match what I'm actually doing on a daily basis? Because as we get busier, as we have more demands on our time, any difference between what we say our priority is and what we act on as our priorities really becomes illuminated to the team. And so as you're going through again the spring season, make sure that whatever you're telling your team is the priority actually shows up in your actions. And if it's not, that's okay. Just take the time to correct it, be cognizant of it, and be aware of it. Because what we want is focus we want focus from you and focus from the team on what our priorities are, and we don't want a deviation between them. So number one, for this spring, as you go through it, think about what you're doing on a daily basis, whether that's your calendar, your to do list, meetings you're involved in, the clients you're speaking to, and make sure that aligns with what your priorities are so that we don't have a difference between what we're talking about and what we're actually doing. Action will drive results, and let's focus on our most important actions for the spring.
Number two, growing leaders within companies. Many companies are growing, right? It's been a great thing the last few years to watch companies get larger and larger, and our growth is sometimes outpacing the leadership that our team has. So this spring, I need all of us to look in the mirror and say, what are we doing to make our leaders better? What are we doing from a training perspective on the technical skills they need, whether it's horth ultra skills, hardscaping skills, mowing skills, the technical skills that we need to do our job, and then what we've been calling and runner landscaping, the soft skills, the way to interact with clients, the way to interact with team members, how to carry yourself as a leader, how to be present in a meeting, how to do the things that you need to do that have nothing to do with horticulture or hardscaping, for example. And so again, I talked about a gap between what we say our actions are or what we say our priorities are, where our actions are. I want, again, I want to talk about maybe a gap that's developing in companies between the growth that we want to have and the growth we're going to invest in our leaders.
Again, we're only going to move as fast in a company as the slowest person of influence in our organization. And we need to ramp up, speed up, move quicker in terms of what we expect them to do from a leadership perspective. So then this spring, we have to look in the mirror first and say, am I giving them the tools? Am I giving them the resources? Am I giving them enough time to grow as a leader?
Many of us who have been in leadership roles, we got through leadership by figuring it out every day, by making mistakes, by bumping our elbows, scraping our knees, getting a bloody nose every once in a while and moving through it. Sometimes we're not even offering our team the chance to fail and then move forward because we're swooping in and doing it for Them swooping in and saving them out of something or we're like taking over a project, not even letting them learn through it, right? So we're never even letting our team members touch the stove, say, that's hot. And oh man, I don't want to do that again. So again this spring, we've got to let our leaders read and we've got to give them the tools to be successful. Not everything's going to be perfect, that is. Okay. We just heard a great podcast from Marty, Old brother Rich. In the early days of Runner. I was howling, laughing at it and it was a good reminder that man grunder landscaping. Still 40 plus years later, there's a lot that we can do to improve and that the mistakes that Marty was making 40 years ago are different than the things that we're working on now. But all of those mistakes, all those issues, all those problems led to the company to be where it is today. And so again, we've got to take a step back, even in this busy mindset, have a little bit more of an outward look, a longer term look on what's happening and make sure that we are giving our leader the chance to be successful.
So start with ourselves and the training programs. What are we doing or not doing to give people the tool they need to be successful? Number two, I would encourage you to ask them what they need, right? Hey, is there a book you've been reading? Is there a podcast you've listened to? Is there something you can give them that's external, maybe not from you? The same voice they hear all the time to make them a better leader, to make them a better soft skills leader or a culture leader on the work they do on a daily basis.
So number one, let's make sure our actions and our priorities are aligned. Number two, let's make sure we're aware that we are probably asking our team to do more this spring they've done in the past and what are we doing to set them up for success?
And finally, number three, again, something we've stolen from Bat Dicloncione many times. Everybody in the organization needs to take on this idea that they are a chief reminding officer for spring of 2025.
Many of us know exactly what we're supposed to do. We know what our priorities are, we know how we're going to accomplish them.
But we don't spend enough time talking about it with our team. Whether it's meetings, whether it's town halls, whether it's one on ones, whether it's reminders and Emails, whether it's weekly updates, we don't spend enough time just reminding the team of what our goals are, whether those are sales goals, operations goals, culture goals, HR goals, whatever the case may be.
Many times we say things once we have a set it and forget it mindset, and we never revisit it. Where. When I see great companies and peer groups, when I see great leaders leading, it's oftentimes that I can almost know what they're going to say or I can mimic what they're going to say. I know what they're going to bring up, I know how they're going to say it. I know some stories they're even going to tell about it. Which again, on one hand, sounds funny because I'm telling you to be repetitive and I'm telling you to say the same things over and over again. But on the other hand, that's how people learn.
We've all heard the stats about how long it takes for somebody to hear something once and then recall that when they actually need it. Companies are no different. And so as you're sitting in the seat of CEO, as you're sitting in the seat of leader, whatever it is in your organization, whether it's leader of a crew, leader of a sales team, leader of an ops team, or leader of a company, we all have to take on the mindset this spring that we are going to be these chief reminding officers that we're never going to apologize for the things that we talk about and the things that we remind our team. Marty jerks about it all the time. How many of us have heard him give a presentation on mission, vision or core values? Right? We all hear it all the time. But guess what? That's the most important thing for me to be reminding the team about on a daily basis. About where we're going, about what we're going to achieve, the things that we need to do, and the beliefs and the behaviors, our core values that we exhibit along the way.
So I want all of us listening to this show this spring to focus on being that chief reminding officer and not apologize for sharing the same stories, for sharing what our goals are and talking to our team about what matters most.
So I encourage you all to again, make sure your actions align with what you've said and what your calendar says. For example, for 2025, I would encourage you all to take a step back, look at the growth we've had as a company, and figure out where do we need to support our leaders to make sure this growth continues. And finally, number three Never apologize for being the Chief Reminding Officer and reminding our team of what matters most at our organization.
That's it for this week on the Grow Show, Powered by Stihl. For one of these shorter episodes, continue to listen to our podcast every Wednesday for updated information to help you grow your business, grow your team, and better your life. Thanks again and we'll talk to you soon.
[00:09:20] Speaker A: 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. 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.
