Hey, everyone, Jack Jostes here from the Landscapers Guide to Modern Sales and Marketing podcast and Ramblin Jackson. And I'm with our Senior Landscape Marketing Strategist, Robert Felton. Right now, we are somewhere in Louisville, Kentucky. We just got out of the GIE+Expo and the Landscape Show with NALP and we just wanted to chat about three takeaways that we're seeing and trends that we're seeing in the Green Industry. And this is our first time doing this show together, but we've gone to the Nursery Landscape Expo -
Robert:
Pro Green...
Jack:
And we went to the Far West show, and I'm glad that you got to come on this trip. And two of our other staff came Brooke and Kristen came for the launch of the Tree of Good Fortune, my new book, check it out a TreeOfGoodFortune.com. But we wanted to talk about some of the trends, some of the things that we're seeing here. And one of the problems right now is definitely labor shortage of labor, retaining labor, getting, getting people to apply. And these three takeaways all kind of fit into that.
Labor Shortage
Robert:
Yeah, I agree. I think, I mean, it's interesting because labor is such an interesting issue. And what I like to talk a lot about is being more efficient, being smarter, playing the game a little bit better. And I mean, that's something that we kind of don't think about. It's always get more people, get more people, get more people.
Jack:
Um, someone is vaping and scooting around us [laughter]. We're right next to whiskey row. And, it's good. I'm glad we're here.
Robert:
Well, I think the cool thing is, is, is being more efficient and something that when we started working together, it was always like, oh, the internet, it's not really, for me, I'm all about referrals. It's something that I heard over and over again. And the people who are investing in SEO and marketing are getting ahead. They were starting to overtake the big guys who are just kind of, well, fat and happy. [laughter] That's what I call it. But what I'm kind of seeing is a similar trend with video, it's just, I mean, I'm asking people who are $3 million landscapers, $30 million landscapers, and they're all saying, well, I'm like, Hey, are you doing video? And they go, no, but I know I should be doing video. And that's just, I want to talk about how that could be a little more efficient for labor. And I think you mean using in your process, you mean, I don't know, you always talk about how video is flashy and people do the flashy video, but they don't use it in their process to help make it more efficient for their staff or qualifying leads, you know?
Jack:
Yeah. Well, yeah. So, um, I think people often think of branding videos and that, and I think they are kind of cool when you have the drone footage and you've got all this gorgeous footage of the lawn care application in slow motion and people watch it and they think, oh, that was pretty. And you, you must be professional, but they don't really understand how to buy from you. And what will, the way that we use video with our clients at Ramblin Jackson is putting it in the process at key phases. So things that that upset customers or when they get surprised by the timeline or the price range. And then you have to then spend a ton of time teaching your client landscaping 101. Here's how much a patio costs. Here's how long it takes. And, you know, video when you're short-staffed to using a video can actually create a lot of leverage for you. And I think of video the same way that one of our clients, Nate Fetig from Alpine Gardens up in Fort Collins thinks about his machinery and his equipment is that it, it doesn't replace people, but it extends, it extends the people. It kind of alleviates them.
Using Video for Clients + Employees
Robert:
I want to talk about that a little bit more. Cause you mean check in on the person who answers your phone. They're probably saying the same thing over and over and they're tired of it. They're like they keep asking, can I get an estimate on the phone? Can I get an estimate on the phone? They probably answered that question hundreds of times a week. And a lot of these things can be taken care of with video. Your office manager can be happier. You're not the owner answering the phone. Maybe it's your wife answering the phone right now. I bet she hates answering the same question over and over again, or your partner. So I mean that extends the life of that client - I mean that employee - loving to work at where you are. It also helps you increase your close rate because that person has those questions before.
So I think there's just so much value in video. And we think about it in that branding way, but I think, thinking about it in your process, saving you time, educating the customer. Imagine if you didn't spend 30 minutes on budget on every call instead, you spent 10, you know, that's 20 minutes times how many estimates you do a month, a year? You know, same with your office person they're answering, they're spending all this time. And then all these other leads are going to voicemail, educating them about how they can't get an estimate online, like send them to a video, educate them, put them through a sales process. People are used to that nowadays.
Jack:
They are. And then the other thing is that it helps you train your employees because at Ramblin Jackson, we use video to not only train our clients about what we do, but also train our staff. And that brings us to our second point. So the first one was about, really the industry, the green industry, I think is using digital marketing. I mean, the websites that we're seeing there four years ago, people were like, I don't, I don't need a website and now they've got them. They're good. And they're looking to those next levels of beyond just generating leads. How can you leverage?
Robert:
Well, it's the people who are using video are already, they're ahead. So you're playing catch up at this point and everyone that I know that's using video, and I met some clients here and there they're using video and they're, they're growing, they're taking employees from other guys. I mean, they're doing all this stuff that I like to see. And, I mean to get there, to be ahead, to be on the cutting edge, that's kind of, what's already here. So I mean, that's the same game as it was four years ago. Like, that's where you need to be.
Jack:
Absolutely. And so one thing that was an issue four years ago, it'll probably still be an issue four years from now is labor, right? Finding, finding people to work, retaining your people, and you and I both ended up at a presentation about recruiting from The Harvest Group, yeah I love those guys.
Robert:
Bill and Ed, I think.
Jack:
Yeah, they were great. They were awesome. And they did a great talk, and one of the things they emphasize, maybe even most of their presentation was about retaining people. And they were saying, Hey, if you, if you have people going out the back door, you don't need to focus on getting people in the front door.
Robert:
You gotta close the back door first.
Employee Appreciation
So I actually did a Breakfast With Champions Mastermind table about recruiting, and in particular how to have an employee appreciation event. And one of the things that I learned from somebody at my Mastermind table was that they, their thing, now, it wasn't the only thing, but they started doing a company paintball outing. That sounds awesome. They're down in South Carolina. That was one of the things, but a key thing that I saw from the companies that had said that they've improved their employee retention was recognition. And so many of them, we interviewed Wade Martin recently, that podcast is coming out. And Wade Martin, he has a culture coins where they give you, if you're living the core values of the company, they give you culture coins, and those coins can be used to go out for dinner. You can buy your crew lunch. You can turn them in for real things. So that was one of the things that I liked. And then I heard several people mention profit-sharing, and they said that the profit-sharing helped their staff understand the financials of the company and improve them and then feel like they were, you know, incentivized to do that.
Robert:
I think combining that with the open book, you mean that's something I've heard a lot too, is you mean, I, growing up, it was never like your boss would share the finances with you and that's something I'm seeing way more common and it's something that you do. And it's something I really appreciate about Ramblin Jackson and that open book, you can kind of almost calculate what the profits going to be, what your bonus is going to be. And I mean, that's really an exciting thing. It feels like you're part of that, you know where we're going, you know the numbers, you're way more in the business. So I think that's such an important, important recruiting tool. And I think that combined with the open book, you know, and that's something that just didn't seem common a few years ago. And now it seems like the big guys who are doing good all have that policy and are doing profit sharing. And yeah. So I think that's interesting
Jack:
The profit sharing and then many of them are also using a software to track their financials, track their job costing, and that's letting their managers and then the other staff understand how much time is it supposed to take? How does it impact the company? And then how does it impact their bonus? When things are done inefficiently.
Robert:
I was talking to a landscaper, this was before the expo, but he was having an issue with profit margins. They were just disappearing. He wasn't doing well, and it was interesting because he did share his numbers and he started talking with his managers and all his managers thought they were doing great. And he was, they had no idea that their margins were disappearing. So it kind of was going back and opening the books and, you know, doing that, that really brought him in. And then the managers like, oh, we could do this more efficient. Where's this margin going? And if you don't, if those guys, your most important people don't know your numbers, how are they supposed to help you reach that goal? So I think that's a really cool takeaway.
Jack:
My main question for people who were at my Mastermind table, cause I wrote down a whole notebook full of things that they were doing really well, whether it was, some of them were bringing an ice chest full of Gatorade and water to the job site. Some people had a spring comeback party where they gave people, boots. And, you know, especially for your seasonal people who were off during the winter, now they're coming back after not making a lot of money and now they need to buy stuff to work.
Robert:
A lot of them might have found a different job. So it's like, you mean, oh, that spring party's coming up, he's going to take care of me. I'm going to go back to him. Maybe you don't stay at that winter ice cream job or coffee shop or whatever it was. You're going to go back to your employer instead of being like, eh, I don't want to be a landscaper this season. I'll just stay at my winter job. So I think that's really big.
Jack:
Yeah. Well, whatever it is, whether it's the spring party or paintball, do you have photos and videos of this on your careers page, in your job ads? Most job ads start with wanted: Person to lift 50 pounds in the sun. Must have three years of experience doing landscaping, you know? And it's like, well, good luck finding somebody that has that, that's going to work for the rate most of these people are putting out there. So a big one was putting the, looking at Indeed, looking at the job ads in your town and seeing what are people paying? And there's an interview we did with Nate where he had to increase his salary 30% for his current staff and then his new positions and he got it. Yeah. so some of these things are all measurable.
One of the things that we realized is, hey, it was fun. We brought, uh, two of our other Ramblers, Brooke and Kristen on the road. And, we went out for dinner with Kristen. I'd actually never met Kristen because we run a remote company and we had dinner. We had a Tomahawk steak and that was really fun. I'd never, I'd never done that. And so, um, I got to meet the employees of a bunch of our clients. I met the Local Roots team. I saw some of the CoCal people here. And some of these things you can't quite put a number on, like, what is the value of going on the road with the other Ramblers?
Robert:
Yeah, I don't know what is it, how would you assign a dollar value? Like, I got to meet Brooke, someone I work with all the time, you know what I mean? That's really important for me to start developing that relationship because we've got to learn to trust each other. So, what is the dollar value to meeting her and getting that trust and whatnot. And then, I mean, you can't really put that to it. And I think that's something that's fun that we've been talking about is just what is the value, the ROI of the investment of coming to one of these shows, you mean it's changing a lot of it's about experiencing something with your team. You know, when I talk to guys they're like this is where I take my guys out, we get some whiskey and we have a steak dinner. And I mean, you don't know if that's why they stayed longer, two more years. You mean they could extend the time that that employee stays with you. So it's really hard. I mean, it's an expensive thing to come to these shows and why are people coming? I mean, a lot of it is unmeasurable. There's not a lot of ROI. And we experienced that too. You know, we've had parties, we've seen clients, there's all kinds of stuff and assigning a dollar value to that's hard. So it kind of comes down to the feelings and stuff like that.
Jack:
Well it does. Yeah. And does it feel like it was worth it or not?
Robert:
I think it feels like it was worth it.
Jack:
Well, good. I certainly think so. And it is exciting to learn about Elevate the NALPs new show. It's going to be in Orlando next year and I'm excited for that. You know, and I think part of me is disappointed that it's not part of this show in Louisville. And it's also like we saw a lot of people who were lost here and they thought they were registered for Landscapes, but they were registered for GIE, or they were registered for GIE and they couldn't get into Landscapes and they didn't know that. So I think with, with NALPs new conference next year, I'm looking forward to checking that out.
Robert:
Yeah, I was a little hesitant about it. You know, my first time here I'm like, well now I gotta go to two shows, but then it was like, oh, I could really see how this could be good to have those two.
Jack:
And they're going to do their facility tours, which I think sounds really cool. And normally you'd have to go on one of their field trips in the middle of the summer, but now it's all part of that or their new annual.
Landscaper's Sales & Marketing Summit
Thanks so much for checking out today's video. Hey, if you want to implement some of these things, I invite you to join me for my 2nd Annual Landcaper's Summit. It's a two day virtual event on November 17th and 18th. And the first day we're going to have the Stop Losing on Price Workshop, where we're going to teach you how to differentiate your landscaping company from your competition. So you can charge more and attract the right leads who actually want to buy from you. And the second day is all about automating. You can use some of the things like we talked about today, like using video and automation, and we're going to have a live panel with experts and influencers from the green industry. I recommend that you bring your team, bring your marketing team, bring your leadership team to this two-day event and focus on your sales and marketing and recruiting.
Order your tickets online at landscaperssummit.com and hurry early bird tickets end soon.