Jack Jostes:
Okay. All right everyone, here we are with Dave DiGregorio from Ground Works Land Design in Cleveland, Ohio. They're a three and a half million dollar design, build and maintain company. They work with residential and commercial clients. I'm excited to interview Dave today. He has worked at Ground Works Land Design for eight years, starting doing just about everything to now he's a project manager. He's one of three people who does sales at the company. We're going to talk about how they use a sales CRM to close more deals and ultimately run just a better organization. Dave, thanks so much for being on the show today.
Dave DiGregorio:
Thanks for having me, Jack. I'm pumped to be here and it's really great to reconnect with you after getting to know you a little bit down in Louisville at the GIE.
Jack Jostes:
Yeah, that was great meeting you there. I'm bummed that we won't be there in person this year. I will be speaking at the Landscapes Virtual Show with NLP this year. That'll be cool. I can't wait to go back to Kentucky. Hopefully next year, it'll be open again but it's super cool to connect with you now on the podcast. Tell us a little bit about what do you do there, what does Ground Work Land Design do? What do you guys do? How do you manage your sales?
Dave DiGregorio:
Yeah, basically we are a full service design, build, maintenance landscape company in Cleveland. Like you mentioned, we focus on high-end residential properties from a design, build and maintain standpoint. We're looking at larger cap projects and also maintaining things, start to finish. We deliver, on the maintenance side, a landscape maintenance program, which is we have several mandatory services to get started. We want to deliver a very high-end experience and a great experience to all of our clients, start to finish.
What Is A Sales CRM and What Led You To Start Using One at Ground Works?
Dave DiGregorio:
CRM, at the most basic definition, it's a customer relationship management tool. There's a lot of different options out there but pretty much we went from your typical, we start up, we're doing things on paper, we're doing things on note cards, sticky notes at one point and going to getting to so many clients where you go, "How can we keep track of everybody? It's impossible."
Dave DiGregorio:
Believe it or not, along the way, some of those pieces of paper got lost and we weren't able to remember where that person lived. What was their address? What's a good phone number for them? Do they have an email we can reach them at? We saw there was a need to dive in and get a little more, something that's more reliable and that's when we started looking around for a CRM where we can store all the client information and easily track that from anywhere.
Jack Jostes:
Right now, you guys you're on track to do about three and a half million in revenue this year. Is that about right?
Dave DiGregorio:
That's right. Yeah. At our most current projection, we're going to land somewhere around three and a half million this year.
Jack Jostes:
That's awesome. You've worked there for eight years. Just in round numbers, how much revenue was the company doing when you started?
Dave DiGregorio:
When I started, we're probably somewhere around the 500 to $600,000 mark. Now, about eight years later, we're about that three and a half million mark.
Jack Jostes:
Wow, that's quite a lot of growth in eight years. When was it, I mean, I started my company with pen and paper. I remember when I had a paper calendar that I really liked and that was how I rolled for forever. Then, I got an iPhone and I started using the calendar on there and my computer. Then, the problem with paper calendars is that you can't sync them with anything that's digital. You either got to go all in on digital or just be totally analog in your own little universe.
How To Know When It's Time To Start Using A Sales CRM At Your Landscaping Company
Jack Jostes:
When was it that you guys realized that you needed to go all in and get an actual sales CRM to keep track of everything around? What revenue mark do you think you were? What were some of the changes challenges that you were having at that time?
Dave DiGregorio:
Yeah, I would say probably south of that million dollar mark. We kind of knew there was... I always knew and I always thought technology is something that we need to lean on in any industry and especially with landscaping. There's so much that happens in a day and so many variables. You got to have something that will consistently allow you to plan for each day, attack each client and be very organized.
Dave DiGregorio:
I knew at an early stage and so did the owner of our company, we knew we had to get more involved in tech. I'd say definitely south of the million dollar mark. It's not like you need to be doing a million dollars before you need technology. Right out the gate is the best time to start using technology, the sooner the better, especially with CRMs because there's no early or no good time to do it, the sooner the better and the more comfortable you can get with your system.
Jack Jostes:
Yeah, I agree and my company, we started using one around. We were on the 800,000 mark maybe and I really wished that we had started sooner because once we started using it, it just streamlined everything. I think we could have reached our sales goals faster. For the people who are listening that maybe aren't using one or maybe they're not using it totally well, what were some of the problems that you had in the business before you started using a sales CRM?
Dave DiGregorio:
Yeah, one thing that we've always wanted to do at Ground Works is deliver a high-end experience to our clients. The biggest thing in delivering that high-end experience is the details, the little things. Everybody can do the major pieces of work. Everybody can cut the grass. Everybody can lay a paver but it's the details along the way that add up that create that great landscape experience for clients.
Dave DiGregorio:
One thing it really solved for us was to be able to track communication throughout the process. There's so many of those conversations you have with clients from the initial conversation to the day you start production. All those little conversations add up but I know any landscaper has been there where you have the old, "You said you would do this," conversation with a client.
Dave DiGregorio:
Those little things, those little hiccups along the way, maybe you did say that, maybe you didn't say that but if you're able to track that digitally and reflect on that and say, after each meeting, have a nice, clear, concise communication history, you can deliver on those promises and you can also go back and say, "You know what, this is what we talked about. Here's exactly when we talked about it and this is why we're delivering what we are now." That was one thing that really helped us ramp up the total experience for client.
Jack Jostes:
Yeah, and I really believe that the client experience is what differentiates landscaping companies because everyone, like you said, can do the work, certainly finding people to do what the work is hard, right?
Dave DiGregorio:
That's very difficult.
Jack Jostes:
I think that this also relates to being able to hire and pay more for top talent is, is being able to deliver that experience to your customers, like you're talking about and the CRM allows you to capture all those little details. Then, if you do have turnover in the middle of a project, you've got it logged somewhere, you don't have to dig through someone else's email or text history or whatever. Assuming that people actually use the CRM, it's there, right?
Dave DiGregorio:
Right. Yeah, absolutely.
How To Choose The Right CRM For Your Business
Jack Jostes:
Which CRM are you guys using and which ones did you consider? How did you end up with the tool you're using?
Dave DiGregorio:
Yeah, we went through a couple initially. First one we used was Salesforce. We jumped right into that. It's a great tool. It's really good but we found it just more on a very high level, large commercial application. It wasn't really fit for us.
Dave DiGregorio:
We eventually landed on LMN, which is Landscape Management Network, which is a landscape-driven CRM platform. We kind of landed on that about four or five years ago. We actually met them at the GIE initially, and we were in between a few and we didn't know exactly. It was hard to make that decision, but we were just kind of impressed by LMN in general. We pulled the trigger on LMN and I would say that's probably single handedly the best decision we ever made for our business, almost undoubtedly.
Jack Jostes:
Wow and why? What makes you one of those-
Dave DiGregorio:
Traditional CRM is storing saving clients' information. LMN really takes you from start to finish. You have something that's tracking that experience from initial phone call to breaking down the progress of the job once it's completed. That has been, that tool has just been fantastic for us. A, it's cloud-based. That's a huge thing. If you go back to your old [gripesome 00:12:24], I left my lead sheet at the office. I have to drive 15 minutes there and go pick it up to get my information and take it back to the client. Being able to access information from anywhere from a phone, an iPad, computer, anywhere you have internet access is invaluable, that's invaluable. The fact that it's cloud-based, makes it very, very easy to access everywhere.
Dave DiGregorio:
Outside of that, just the platform in general to be able to build your estimates in there, to be able to track your budgeting in there, to be able to track time once the project starts, it really is the full package. It starts with the CRM, but it really leads you through. To have something to be able to track that client experience from start to finish, is what allows us to set ourselves apart, deliver a better experience and make sure we're being profitable the whole way through.
Benefits and Outcome Of Using A Sales CRM At Your Landscaping Company
Jack Jostes:
What are some of the ways that you know it's working? Are you able to share maybe, are you closing more sales? Are you increasing profit or productivity? What are some of the benefits that have come out of this?
Dave DiGregorio:
Yeah, I would say, I mean, the biggest thing, the biggest benefit individually is that when you have access to all these things and you can streamline, enter the client information, track those communication histories, build your estimate, and do it all very quickly, one salesperson can now do the job of three salespeople and you can manage that process much more efficiently. You're eliminating whatever you would pay a salary and commission to a salesperson is whittled down to one person that can do it, not only just do it, but do it effectively from start to finish.
Jack Jostes:
Yeah, and one of the things that I really like about using a CRM is that it can help you manage a process. You can help people follow a process more easily than if Dave, the sales guy, is out with his paper and notebook doing what Dave does and we have no idea what Dave does, we can now manage people a little more closely and that allows you to then hire other people like your company now has three people.
Jack Jostes:
Now, there's going to be a little variances between each salesperson but for the most part following the same process, talk to us a little bit, what is the Ground Works Land Design sales process like? What are some of the milestones that, let's pretend you get a new lead through the website contact form or someone calls you or they email you, "Hey, I got referred from my neighbor," what are some of the stages that you're going to guide me through if I were a customer?
Dave DiGregorio:
Yeah, our typical sales process is, like you said, the initial touch. Whether it comes from a phone call or a referral, a website, that's one thing we can track as well as a referral source. That client can be, we can attach that to referral source, which is, as you know, in the marketing industry, it's very, very, very important. You got to know where your leads are coming from. On that initial phone call or request from our website comes in, it gets assigned to whoever is best fit for that client. If someone says, "I'm looking to do a new home build and I'm looking for a full install," we have someone that just does that. If they're saying, "I'm looking for maintenance for my property," that's kind of something I specialize in is maintenance of properties. That'll come [crosstalk 00:15:55].
Dave DiGregorio:
Initially, we get that phone call or email that it gets assigned to the sales representative. Within that, we want to have a max of 24-hour window where we're contacting that person. Usually, it's much quicker than that, especially with a phone call. We'll go ahead and transfer that phone call to the representative's cellphone so we can try to get that process down very quickly.
Dave DiGregorio:
From there, we set up an appointment with the client to meet on site, talk through their needs, talk through their interests and what they're looking to have done. Once we do meet with that client, we're entering communication history on their profile in our CRM. That way, it's stored in one location with that client, with a timestamp, the date we met, the time we talked, and exactly what they're interested in. That's one way that it's a huge benefit is that that's always there. It lives there. You can reflect, four years ago, what was my first conversation with Mrs. Jones like? What did we talk about that initial time all in one location? From there, we're developing an estimate getting into the client on a bigger design build project, that process gets a little more lengthy as far as material selection and all those things in a more smaller scale, service maintenance, things of that nature. It's a pretty quick process.
Dave DiGregorio:
From there, we schedule out the work, deliver the product, follow up all along the way and complete the project. From there, we're doing follow ups. If we have some really big clients, we'll do some nice gifts. We try to do personalized gifts after the process is finished. We're always asking for people to rate us online as that's an extremely, extremely important thing for us to have good online ratings since the landscape of how people buy is generally people are sold on you before they even call you.
Jack Jostes:
I'm so glad to hear you say that and I'm glad to hear that reviews and gifts were part of the process. One thing that we've started doing is actually sending gifts during the project. I build websites, we do search engine optimization and branding, you guys build and maintain landscapes. Aside from you building landscapes and me building physical things, they're similar in the sense that once people buy, there's a long time that can go by before they get what they bought. There's a lot of opportunity for them to be unhappy or things like that. We have strategically added gifts along the way during the project that I have found have really helped people, I think, just feel good during that project. It might just be something to consider. I think, sending a gift at the end is awesome.
Dave DiGregorio:
I like that, yeah.
Jack Jostes:
One of the things that we do is we write website texts for people. That's the biggest pain and problem that people have when they're creating a website. We take care of that, but you still need to read it. That's where it's like, "Oh, man, I've got to read all this stuff." We send people coffee. It's just fun. I love that you've got gifts baked into the process. I think this overall, sounds like a really good sales process. One question is, so you said, when the lead comes in, it gets assigned to the right person, who's deciding on that? Do you have an office manager? Who actually manages that decision?
Dave DiGregorio:
If it's really clear-cut, like where it should go, our office manager fields that phone call and said, she knows, everyone in the company knows that I'm doing mainly maintenance and then smaller cap projects. Usually, it's a pretty obvious clear-cut who it's going to, the designer on staff and then the owner kind of work together on lead. Sometimes he'll do individual projects, but for the most part, the owner of our company is doing a lot of a larger project sales. It's pretty clear who does what. I think that is important to know and be niche about, okay, who's doing what, get really, really good at that process and let those people that are good at that process do just that instead of, "I am pretty busy right now. Can you take this for me?" It's not great because, sure, I can handle it. We can get it done but you're doing this all day, every day, all day long. You're customizing your process. You know what to look for, ins and outs. Finding a way to get really good at people getting niche at certain parts of the sales process is really, really important.
Jack Jostes:
Yeah, I agree. Having that role clarity also allows someone like an office manager or whoever answers it, they don't need to say, "Oh, let me get back to you." It's just like, "Hey, you're the best fit for meeting with Dave. I'm going to transfer you to Dave." That, as a customer, gives me a lot of confidence that you're passing the ball to the right person. You said then you then set up an appointment on site with the client, how much qualifying are you actually doing on the phone before you set up that appointment? Are you just scheduling an appointment with everyone who calls in or are you having a conversation on the phone first?
Dave DiGregorio:
Yeah, there's quite a bit of qualifying. I mean, even our office manager does some baseline qualifying, based on where are you geographically. Are you within our service area and not going outside of that, because we know this is where we want to be, this is where we want to work. Some real basic level qualifying comes from the initial phone call. Once it gets to us, we're doing a lot of qualifying because when we look back on our pen and paper days, any phone call that came in, "No problem, we'll be there. Can we meet? You want to meet today or tomorrow? What's good for you? I'll meet you there." You show up and who knows what you're walking into.
Jack Jostes:
Right.
Dave DiGregorio:
One thing that we picked up that has been a very valuable tool is really qualifying, understanding the type of person you want to work with first and foremost and then be what questions do you need to ask in order to make sure that A, this is a good fit for you or this is someone that we're looking for, not just someone that's looking for a contractor but do you fit the bill for our business model? Are you the person we're looking for?
Jack Jostes:
Yeah, I think that's so important. We have a podcast episode, for those of you listening, about the Hell Yes Customer Worksheet. I call it your Hell Yes Customer, which means when the phone rings and it's that person, you're like, "Hell, yes! I can help you with that." Then, you need to have a no list also.
Jack Jostes:
A funny story, I was speaking in New Jersey and they have a lot of poison ivy out there. I was just kind of surveying the audience. I was like, "Hey, what's the one service that you don't want leads for?" This guy is like, "I don't want leads for poison ivy removal." I'm like, "Well, somebody's got to do it and I bet somebody will. Does anybody here do poison ivy removal?" Sure enough, there was a guy who's like, "Yeah, I'm all about it." I'm like, "Great. Now, that you have a no list, find somebody you can refer to who's on your no list and now you can just say, 'Hey, thanks, Mrs. Smith. We don't do poison ivy, but Larry's poison ivy removal does and here's his number.'" Now, maybe Larry pays you a commission, maybe not but you've got a no list and you can give that office manager, "Hey, we don't do these services. We don't work in these zip codes. This is our service area."
Jack Jostes:
I really see the whole sales process as a disqualification process. You're disqualifying people and then when you find the right people, you take amazing care of them. So many landscapers just meet. One, they don't qualify at all. I did a mastermind last year at their Breakfast of Champions table and there was this guy, the owner, had his office manager. He's like, "Oh, I'm working 100 hours a week," and we dug into it. His office manager was anyone who called, she schedules an appointment for the owner of the company to go and meet with. They didn't qualify at all. He was-
Dave DiGregorio:
He's been all over the place.
Jack Jostes:
Literally all over the place. I'm really glad to hear that you guys have that clearly defined and for those of you listening, if you check out landscapersguide.com/hellyes, you can get that Hell Yes customer podcast and the worksheet. You've got a really clearly defined Hell Yes customer. I love that. You also have, for those services, a specific salesperson who's going to take the call and then you're qualifying on the phone before you go and meet with people. That's all sounding really good.
How Dave Uses the CRM at Ground Works Land Design
Jack Jostes:
Dave. You guys are doing so many things well with your sales process, with your CRM. For those of us listening, I encourage you to watch the video version of this on either YouTube or at landscapersguide.com/podcast because Dave actually prepared something to share on the show. I'm going to let Dave. Go ahead and share your screen and show us what is your CRM actually look like? What are the deal stages look like and kind of just walk me through. I hear that you have a really good lead in your database. Tell us about that.
Dave DiGregorio:
We've got a Hell Yes client on the hook right now. I mean, this guy is, he's biting hard. I mean, this is exactly what we look for here. We've qualified him to the nines and he's ready to go.
Jack Jostes:
Oh, great. Wow. Okay, walk me through. What are we looking at here?
Dave DiGregorio:
We got a client. His name is jack. He's from Colorado. We took the lead in. He called us. As you can see, real easy to follow, we got his name, his address, the city, the state he lives in, the zip code. Over here, we're able to kind of track and assign. Right now, he's a lead. At some point, he may become a client. He's not a vendor or subcontractor but there are some other ways to track what this person is. We can classify him under residential, commercial, government, other. He's a residential client. He's got a really nice home. He's considering creating an outdoor living space.
Dave DiGregorio:
Here, we can assign this to the correct person that we talked about earlier. I've got our designer, myself, our marketing manager, our office manager and the owner here. We can assign who this goes to. Once that is assigned, the nice thing is you can shuffle through and you can filter out, I want to look at only my leads, or only my to-do's, which is really nice, because there's a lot that come in a lot, that go out, you can just focus on just that sales representatives leads.
Dave DiGregorio:
The referral, where it came from, which is super important. We've got all this list which you build out on your own. This is not where they just give you a list and you're stuck with them. Everybody's business has different lead sources and they do different things that generate lead. Once we assign a lead source, this will track how many people came from Facebook this year. How many people came from a Google search? How many did we get from Instagram, which is really important metrics to know where you want to step on and what's working for your business.
Dave DiGregorio:
Referral notes, when it comes in, he messaged us on Facebook, he's pretty impatient, but has plenty of money to spend. Expect a fast response and wanted a good sized project.
Dave DiGregorio:
This is our basic CRM screen here in the element platform that we use at Ground Works. That pretty much shows this is all the basic information that you got. As we scroll over, we got contacts, which you can get a little more in depth, we can get your email on here, your phone number, you can directly start to email right from here. This will also cop, BCC your emails when you click on this so you can save your email thread within this client and communication history.
Jack Jostes:
When you're using your regular email either on your phone or on the desktop or a browser, does it log it in here?
Dave DiGregorio:
It will, yes.
Jack Jostes:
Nice.
Dave DiGregorio:
As long as you BCC, it will save it in the communication history, which I'll [crosstalk 00:30:02] in here.
Jack Jostes:
That's so important especially as the owner of the company if I need to call and check in on a job, I can see exactly the last communication with the client and having that email thread is so helpful.
Dave DiGregorio:
Absolutely.
Jack Jostes:
Go ahead, what's next? You've got a lead named, Jack. He's interested in outdoor living. This is all looking good.
Dave DiGregorio:
At this point, we'll meet with him and that's where we start to add communication history. We can add after the initial phone call, kind of what they're interested in, outdoor living space, if you can get a rough budget off them, that's a big qualifying question that sometime last [inaudible 00:30:44] depending on what they're looking for. Do they want a fireplace? They're interested in some retaining walls, just general notes you need going into that first initial. As you're meeting with however many people for you eventually get to this client, it allows you to go back and reflect and say, "Oh, yeah, I remember we talked. You were looking for an outdoor living space, the fireplace," anything going into that.
Dave DiGregorio:
This is where you can develop a really nice robust communication history with a client that allows you to go back, what we were talking about earlier, is remember all those details, record all those details, and then follow through and deliver on those details exactly the way it was agreed upon as you go along that process.
Jack Jostes:
Great, great. What's the deal? Do you have deal stages or an actual, like a pipeline of stages that you can move me through?
Dave DiGregorio:
Yeah. Once we get to the estimates, that's the basic sales, initial sales process. Once we get into estimates, you've met with the client, you've talked to their needs, you're starting to build out an estimate and that's where we can kind of get the different statuses. As you can see, you can build as many estimates as you need for this client. This is what it looks like from here and estimate status right here is where we can move through that sales process. Are we at internal approval? If you have a supervisor, you need to approve the estimate form before you send it out to the client or meet with them, proposal phase.
Dave DiGregorio:
They have it. They're looking at it. They're pending. Did you lose the estimate at this point? Is it on hold for some reason? Maybe they're waiting on another estimate or maybe something comes up financially that they're just waiting on. They haven't been able to make a decision. Contract pending, which is we're getting ready to sign it or it's ready to go or just maybe waiting on a deposit or some final materials and then sold and lost. These are obviously the biggest two categories. This is the end game here. Did you complete and sell the contract or did you lose it? This is where you can get reflect for the better or worse.
Jack Jostes:
Are you able to add notes when you lose a deal?
Dave DiGregorio:
Yeah, we can add those. Typically, we'll put that in the communication history. Just showing, "Hey, we lost the deal." It'll show lost deals on the year. At the end of the year, when you get into winter, we can go back and just pull up a quick report of all the jobs we lost and reflect on why.
Dave DiGregorio:
Now, some of them are out of your control. They just said, "Oh, the other company was cheaper." So be it. Unfortunately, there's some things you just can't do. You got to make sure that you're not bending over for clients just because they want a cheaper price. You got to be at, where you got to be at or it's not worth the work. Then, even with the sold jobs, what do we do well? What went well throughout this process, and what do we want to continue to replicate ourselves and then also, as we grow, what do we want new record sales representatives replicating along that way that was really good and really set ourselves apart?
Jack Jostes:
Great, great. One of the things that I really like about having this with those milestones where maybe it's on hold or it's pending, these things is you can, whatever makes sense for your business monthly, at least quarterly look through, what deals do I have that I either lost or on hold and, wow, it's been over a month since I've contacted them. I'm going to send them an email. I'm going to call them. I'm going to send them something in the mail.
Jack Jostes:
I think that so often, landscape companies, they get inundated with leads and they're not tracking it like this and then they may have forgotten to send the estimate or maybe they've sent it but they never follow up. Tell me what's the followup process? Let's pretend that you've got this client for the outdoor living space. You come out. You meet. We talk about budget. You send me an estimate and I never reply, what happens? How do you systematically manage that?
Dave DiGregorio:
From a design build standpoint, you're not dealing with hundreds of clients like you would be on the main inside. At that point, once we can create a report that says, "Here's our contracts that are in the proposal phase or they're pending and never heard back." We don't have something that's automated that just says, "Hey, we haven't heard from you in a week," because that sales process is very personal. It's [crosstalk 00:35:27] somebody and being personal, the minute they start to feel that it's cold or this is too fabricated, it's really off-putting the clients especially in our business where the job is so personal. It's their home. It's their space they're going to create to create memories with their family, they're letting you into their house, you've pet their dog, it's personal at this point.
Jack Jostes:
Yeah, definitely.
Dave DiGregorio:
There's also a fine line between, following up professionally and then just being too aggressive and putting people off. If we don't hear anything for a week, usually a quick little, "Hey, just I sent over the estimate. I wanted to make sure you got it, make sure you didn't have any questions for us," and sometimes that's enough to go, "Oh, it ended up in my clutter," or "It ended up in my junk folder," or, "We've been super busy this week. Bill and I have been out of town. We're going to be back on Saturday. We'll give you a call then. Thanks for," sometimes it's as simple as that or they didn't see it at all. It is important to do the follow-up.
Jack Jostes:
Definitely and the nuance of not doing it too much, of course.
Jack Jostes:
I don't necessarily think you have to automate that follow up but having it set up like this so that way you can at least see the status quickly and you'll probably know who you need to follow up with.
Dave DiGregorio:
Just have a list of pending job like things that are out there and you know exactly, "Okay, this has been X amount of days. I need you to take a look at this." From a more long term standpoint that I think is something that is more successful than people give it credit for is what you mentioned earlier and that's, "Let me look back at some jobs that were maybe pending from the spring and its fall now. I didn't hear anything back. We get so busy." As soon as someone doesn't really respond, we're just moving on to the next thing and just forget it.
Dave DiGregorio:
When you can go back and reflect and we've closed a lot of business on sending somebody an email, say, "Hey, we met on April 14th of this year," which we know exactly because it's in our communication history. "We talked about this, this and this. I never heard back from you. I don't know if it's something you're still interested but just wanted to kind of reconnect on it. Either way, just let us know." We're not closing every time but there is a lot of people that go, "Thank you so much for following up. We just weren't ready to do it. We're ready now." You're at the forefront.
Jack Jostes:
Definitely or especially this year, with what a weird spring the whole nation faced, the whole world, says simple email this fall September, October, "Hey, Jack, we talked in March, obviously weird time. Is this something you'd like to discuss again?" "Yeah, actually it is." "I've been stuck at home for six months and I would love to have an awesome backyard. I canceled on my vacations and let's do some landscaping." It can even be an upsell for other services.
Jack Jostes:
That reminds me, you and I, we mentioned that you play music. I don't know what instrument you play. I play mandolin. I ended up I ended up buying a Northfield mandolin. Their company out of Michigan and I did a lot of research. I contacted some mandolin makers and this guy, he ended up having a waitlist that was like two years or something and my instrument broke and I needed to get a new one fast and I'm like, "Hey, that's cool. Maybe someday."
Jack Jostes:
He just emailed me. That was six months ago. A personal email that was like, "Hey Jack, I just created a new YouTube series about how I make these mandolins. I thought you might like it." I'm like, "Man, this guy is on top of it, remembering to email me six months later," and it's the same thing as this landscape sale or whatever it is. Maybe you'll reach out for a fall cleanup, or "Hey, did you see that there's a big snowstorm coming. I'm guessing you already have all your snow contracts lined up, but if you didn't, if you had openings, you could reach out to people." Anything else that you wanted to show us in the CRM?
Dave DiGregorio:
This is a really, really robust program. LMN has just done a fantastic job and it takes you start to finish and that could be a whole podcast in itself, just diving into all the features here, but just from building out estimate, having everything you need.
Dave DiGregorio:
Now, one of the thing it highlights, as a CRM is, are you truly billing what you need to bill? Are you getting enough money for the work you want to do, which is all built in and allows you to track even through production? At a production level, you can track a commercial property where there's hundreds of man hours flying around, where do you stand on here and how is it easily accessible, which is also mobile?
Dave DiGregorio:
Our field foremen are logging in from iPads, their iPhones tracking things all along the way and we're able to see in real time where we stand, how are we doing. LMN is a CRM but it's a lot more than that and it's all in one place, which makes it very, very convenient to be able to deliver that a client experience.
Jack Jostes:
Does that time tracking, is that the same way that they log their timesheets for payroll?
Dave DiGregorio:
You can do it that way. Now, we don't do that for payroll but we do use this kind of as a checks and balance system to see when are we logging in on LMN compared to when are we logging in to work each morning and logging out. It's kind of a two-part process, but a lot of people do I know use this for their payroll as well.
Jack Jostes:
Yeah, sure. I'm aware of that. I just know that some people, there can be a gap between the time tracking for, you think you've got your financial data here, but then, okay, now, I actually have my time tracking over here from payroll and there can be a gap. I think whenever possible, I'm keeping the same reduces the opportunity for that problem, but I like that you're able to at least track your estimated man hours versus actual, that's pretty awesome.
Dave DiGregorio:
Yeah, it's super, super important and just sometimes you have big contracts and this is highlighted us. We had a very large commercial property we're maintaining. It was a pretty high dollar figure. We thought, "Man, there's so much money here. How can we miss?" You track the real hours. You track what's really going on. At the end of the day, you go, "Man, this is not worth it. We're losing money on this contract, even though it feels like how can we pass up on this massive contract? This is going to boost our revenue by 5% with one client.
Jack Jostes:
Right. Often, it's those big clients or big projects where people don't track or end up losing money. That's great.
What Would You Say Is Your Number One Favorite Thing About Using the CRM?
Dave DiGregorio:
I would say, I mean, really all around., it's, in my opinion, it's a must have. If you're operating a landscape business, you need a CRM. We know how crazy landscape businesses. How many barriers variables we have? You do not need... I mean, anything you can do to stay organized and stay efficient is important. This is easily your number one tool without a doubt. As an owner sales standpoint, this is by far, the best tool you can implement into your arsenal.
What Challenges Did Ground Works Face When Setting Up the CRM?
Jack Jostes:
What were some of the challenges that you faced in setting it up that now that you've done it, you might share with somebody that they could avoid the first go around?
Dave DiGregorio:
Yeah, that's a really good question because I think some people go into certain technologies and think we're going to sign up for this. We're going to use it and it's going to fix all of our problems. That's just not the case. This is a tool. This is like a skid-steer, you can buy it but if you don't have someone to use it, well, it's not going to do much for you. It takes time. I would say, be patient. If you're going to be jumping into this, be patient with it. Consult other people that have used this specific platform and talk through some of those issues that maybe they had and help you build your business on.
Dave DiGregorio:
One thing that we did, we tried to convert all of our clients and upload them all and there was just a lot of issues and a lot of wasted time. It would have been better off if we just kind of started from the beginning, instead of trying to import all these people and spend all this time, entering all this data. Just start fresh as the leads come in because then you enter them cleanly. You enter them the right way. You're not getting a lot of old backlash from old things that you just really don't need to be focusing on. That's a big piece that we wasted a lot of time on is trying to convert too much instead of just hit the ground running.
Jack Jostes:
What were some of the insights and decisions that you've made as a result of tracking the lead source for marketing? Have there been any surprises along the way of like, "Wow, this was really working," or, "Hey, we should totally cut this marketing expense."
Dave DiGregorio:
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, it definitely highlights marketing avenues for sure because when you're tracking where they come in from and where true sources are, you go, "This is really doing nothing for us." There's some avenues, not to slam anybody one way or the other, because everyone's going to be different. Certain things are going to work for certain people and certain businesses. What we focus on is the high-end residential maintenance and things work well.
Do We Look Like the Mercedes Benz of Landscaping?
Dave DiGregorio:
Facebook's been a good avenue for us, believe it or not. Our website, just having that updating, that has been a really good lead source for us and not just a lead source, but it's a qualifying tool. As people get to see us, again, like I mentioned earlier, a lot of people are sold in doing the research on the backend before they even contact you to begin with. They're looking, "Do they have a Facebook page? Does it look good? What does their website look like? Does it look professional? Does it look like the other brands that I buy from?" We always say, "We want to be the Mercedes Benz in landscaping." Does our website, does our digital presence portray that? Do we look like the Mercedes Benz of landscaping? At one point, we didn't and we weren't getting those lead sources until we updated, until we spent the time to do that. That was a big highlight and once we did that, our CRM allowed us to track, we're getting way more qualified leads now that it looks like the brand we're trying to deliver.
Jack Jostes:
Yeah, yeah, it's amazing just how much your internet presence can impact the quality of the leads that you get. Often I hear landscapers say, "Well, the internet doesn't work. I get garbage leads." "Dude, your website is like 10 years old and you have photos. You have scans of photos from 2004. No wonder you're getting bad leads," right?
Dave DiGregorio:
Yeah.
Jack Jostes:
It's something that you've got to maintain and constantly keep fresh and always add new photos, in particular. I think the photos are so important. The photos that you have on your Google listing, on your Yelp listing, on your Facebook listing, all need to be pretty good. They need to be like, "Do I want to lead for this project?" "Yes, keep it." "No, then get rid of that photo."
Dave DiGregorio:
Get rid of it. That was a hard decision to make. We hired Joe, who you talked to, our new marketing manager. There's a lot of things that he said, "Listen, these are some old photos. This is not what you guys are going for anymore. They're nice projects, but we got to get rid of and move on," because the business has pivoted for five years. It takes a while to find out what you want to do, who you want to be as a brand and once you do that, you have to really portray that. It's not always you need the most high-end photos if that's not what you're going for. If you're looking to be a middle of the road maintenance program, make sure you have good maintenance photos and make sure you look affordable, if that's what you're going for. Everybody has different business models.
Jack Jostes:
Yeah, I love hearing you say that it's so important because so often landscapers they'll only do a professional photo shoot and only put out the photos from that one $300,000 job they did that one time where they didn't make any money and they totally hated it. Now, they have these enormous project photos all over their website and they don't have any photos of the 20, 30, 50 whatever thousand dollar job or the maintenance one. It's largely putting the image out there of what you want to attract and that's why I created that Hell Yes Customer Worksheet.
Jack Jostes:
I tell this story all the time on the show, but I have a client who he's telling me, we're talking about his ideal client and he's saying, "I really hate these projects that have any kind of roofing structure or an in the ground pool or these water features. Man, that's really stressing me out." We were looking at his website and I just shared my screen I said, "What do you see is your main photo on the homepage?" Sure enough, pool with a roof, structure with a roof and the water feature." It's like, all of the photos were these enormous properties.
Jack Jostes:
We talk a lot about design, build sales on the show, but maintenance is really just a wonderful part of landscaping that doesn't get enough attention.
What is Your #1 Sales Tip For People Who Sell Landscape Maintenance Services?
Dave DiGregorio:
Yeah, I would say, we're trying at Ground Works to shift the idea and there's this weird stigma around maintenance that you have to do it. It's just a necessary evil and if you break even, that's good enough. That's just not right. If you're going to do something, you should do it, then you should do it well, and you should be profitable at it.
Dave DiGregorio:
The biggest sales point for us is that when we're dealing with people that have larger homes, they're busy people, they don't have time to think about it, we're selling that experience, we're selling that. You don't have to think about it, things just get taken care of around your property. We're selling our employees, our professionals. We are uniformed. We're a no smoking facility. We don't let people smoke in our shop, let alone your property. Our trucks are lettered. People are looking good and they're delivering that service for you all the time. Busy people, if they're paying for something, are willing to pay a little extra in order to know it's getting done the right way and not have to think about it.
Dave DiGregorio:
For us, that was really a big like aha moment and when we figured out this is our hell yes client. This is who we want to work for and they're a pain in the ass, they're hard to deal with, but they pay for it.
Jack Jostes:
Sure.
Dave DiGregorio:
That's what we need to deliver.
Jack Jostes:
Right on. I think that mindset around maintenance needs to shift in order for you to really enjoy it and it can be very profitable. A lot of my most successful clients have thriving maintenance divisions. Dave, is Colorado in your service area?
Dave DiGregorio:
It is for the right client. We are willing to travel.
Jack Jostes:
Okay, you're willing to travel for the right one. Well, your close rate on that one, your score confidence, it might need to go up then from 50% some I think today, pretty impressed.
Dave DiGregorio:
I think we can actually go up in that 80, 90% range.
Jack Jostes:
Well, we'll have to see if you follow up. That's the key, right? Well, good, Dave. Hey, thanks so much for coming on the show. I really appreciate you creating a client for me in your CRM and just kind of showing us everything that you're doing, it really helps the green industry and I hope somebody's listening, there's so many nuggets to take away from this. Again, thanks for listening. Any other final comments for the audience? Can people reach out to you if they have questions?
Dave DiGregorio:
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, we're super open to that. We love getting involved in the industry. That's the one thing that is pretty cool about the green industry in general is everybody's willing to help. It's a tough business and people are always willing to bounce ideas off of each other. You can reach out to us on our website. We're very active on Instagram, @groundworkslanddesign, Facebook. We would love for people to reach out and we love collaborating and anytime you have something like this or some sort of interaction, you always pick something up from the other person or even highlight some things that you're doing that maybe just talking through it, you realize like, "Hey, man, we can do this better," or something always comes from it. We're very active on social. We'd love to hear from anybody and reach out and talk through any questions.
Jack Jostes:
Well, great. Well, thanks for making yourself available. For those of you who are just listening, you can check out, it's groundworkslanddesign.com or if you Google Ground Works Land Design, Cleveland, Ohio I'm sure you'll find them.
Jack Jostes:
I just wanted to recap and reiterate some of the things that I think you're doing well that I want people to take away. One is that you're tracking the marketing source in your CRM. I think that's so helpful. I just interviewed Craig Attkisson from Green Side Up Landscape in Richmond, Virginia and he was sharing with me he was able to cut his marketing budget by, I want to say like 50% over the previous year because after using his CRM, I'm able to see, I can't remember the exact amount but he was able to cut it significantly. You can save a lot of money. I like that you're following up with old leads.
Jack Jostes:
Everyone who's listening right now, if you're like, "Oh, I don't have time to set up a CRM," that's fine. Look into your sent email folder of the proposals that you've sent to or you never heard back and just simply send an email to those people you're tracking billable time versus actual man hours to get your at least some gross profit margins throughout the project not waiting until the end of the year when you've lost all your money. You've defined your Hell Yes Customer. That's one of, I think, the most important things in sales and marketing is getting clear on who do I want versus who do I not want. For those of you listening, definitely check out the episode landscapersguide.com/hellyes to learn more about that. Dave, thanks again for coming on the show. It was awesome.
Dave DiGregorio:
Thanks. My pleasure.
Jack Jostes:
Yeah. My pleasure. Thanks for listening. We'll see you guys next Friday.