00:00 - Val Lesak
You know, it's a lot of kind of that emergency responder type environment. You don't know where your husband's leaving for three to four days, leaving you with children, working from home, trying to manage everything on your own, investing time, money, emotions into the business. I dealt with a lot of resentment in the beginning, and it was really just a growing experience to try to understand each other more, understand what he was going through, and to find other women like me who could kind of support me through it.
00:26 - Jack Jostes
That's the dark side, if you will, of small business. And entrepreneurship is some of that sacrifice that it takes. And in particular for the snow Fighters, you gotta go when it's snowed.
00:34 - Jack Jostes
Hey, everyone. Jack Jostes here. And welcome back to The Landscaper's Guide Podcast. Today I'm here with Val Lesak from Influential Encounters. Val, welcome to the show.
00:49 - Val Lesak
Thank you, Jack.
00:50 – About Influential Encounters & How They Got Started
00:50 - Jack Jostes
So tell us a little bit. What is Influential Encounters?
00:52 - Val Lesak
Sure. Influential Encounters is a group we started for women initially for the snow industry, but we are quickly expanding to include landscaping and construction, and really anyone that's involved in the trades to provide opportunities for them to meet, inspire, and influence each other.
01:11 - Jack Jostes
That's cool. How did this all start?
01:13 - Val Lesak
Well, it actually started at SIMA Symposium last year in Pittsburgh. My husband Scott was here, and he met a woman called Jillian Burns who has her own landscape and snow business in Boston. And they were chatting over dinner one day, and he said, you've got to meet my wife. You have so much in common. So we met on Zoom the following week and started sharing a little bit about our heart. She had a passion for women of the construction industry and the snow and landscape industry and bringing them together. And I had a passion to bring snow wives together.
01:45 - Val Lesak
So women like me who are married to someone within the industry and just seeing that there's a lot of isolation and a lot that can just really make a woman feel alone as being part of the industry, we wanted to help correct that problem.
01:58 – Finding Support as a Snow Wife
01:58 - Jack Jostes
Yeah. Tell me more about that. What is a snow wife, and what does it feel like?
02:03 - Val Lesak
Yeah, so it's funny because we joke around a lot that, you know, like, my husband and I almost didn't make it in the beginning because he was married to the business more than to me. Yeah, so, you know, it's a lot of kind of that emergency responder type environment where you don't know where your husband's leaving for three to four days, leaving you with children, working from home, trying to manage everything on your own, investing time, money, emotions into the business, and then Coming home with not a whole lot to spare for the wife or the family. I dealt with a lot of resentment in the beginning, and it was really just a growing experience to try to understand each other more, understand what he was going through, and to find other women like me who could kind of see. Support me through it.
02:45 - Jack Jostes
Well, thanks for sharing that. I mean, that's a deep share. That's the real stuff. That's the real. That's what small. That's the, like, dark side, if you will, of small business and entrepreneurship is some of that sacrifice that it takes. And in particular for the snow fighters, you gotta go when it snows. What tips do you have for folks listening? Maybe other snow wives who might be forwarded this podcast or for the people working who are doing the snow work that are having these challenges at home?
03:19 - Val Lesak
Yeah, absolutely. My first tip is to find your people. So I think anytime you have community and someone that can relate to you in a very deep level. When I started talking to other women about what I had gone through, they had the exact same experiences. And it was just that feeling of, I'm not alone. Someone has been through this, they've gotten through it, and they have advice to share. So kind of finding that mentor and community to help you through it.
03:43 – How Influential Encounters Builds Community
03:43 - Jack Jostes
How logistically, though, do you do that? Because when does this community get together? Right? It's not during snowstorms, is it?
03:50 - Val Lesak
No, but we text each other, we call each other. So what? We start with Influential Encounters. The idea is we get together in person, but though we tell every person, you don't leave here without making five new best friends. So get each other's contact information, make new friends, and stay in contact through them. So this past winter, we've only been in business for nine months right now at Influential Encounters. This past winter was by far the one where I had the most community. I had girls check in on me, Hey, I know your husband's out doing whatever. How you doing with the kids? You surviving over there? Do you want me to call you? And vice versa. We're just offering each other support through the snow season.
04:27 - Jack Jostes
Yeah. Right now I'm just thinking about my wife, you know, because for her, it's more. When I go and do these shows, actually, is I don't do snow removals. I market snow contractors, though. But one of the things that I do is I go to these shows, a number of them. And in the beginning, I went to a lot of them when we had two kids under two. And it was a really. It was hard. It Was comes up now, right?
04:53 - Val Lesak
Yeah.
04:53 - Jack Jostes
And I talked with a client last night about the conversations he had with his wife about the early years of starting the business, and like working through that. I think it's really interesting what you're doing and that you've created that community because a lot of the entrepreneurs, a lot of business owners, they get to go to the Snow and Ice Symposium and they have buddies and things. But I hadn't, you know, I hadn't thought about an organization that would build community for my wife and people like her. So I think that that's. That sounds really great.
05:28 - Val Lesak
Well, she's welcome to come to any of our events. We include our partners and vendors as well.
05:32 - Jack Jostes
Yeah. Because I mean being married to an entrepreneur in any industry I think is. It's different from not being married to an entrepreneur.
05:40 - Val Lesak
Absolutely. Yeah. You just never know what's coming.
05:43 - Jack Jostes
There are a lot of ups and downs and risks and late nights and long periods of gaps income or people. Stress, like when you need to fire people is very stressful and that impacts you.
06:01 - Val Lesak
Whether or not we want to, we bring it home, right?
06:03 – Expanding to Women in the Trades
06:03 - Jack Jostes
Yeah, for sure. What's your vision with Influential Encounters? Where are you heading? So you've got some in-person events. What else is coming?
06:11 - Val Lesak
Originally it was going to be these dinner events and were going to stick with that and do four a year and just bring these women together. Very quickly blossomed into much more than that, which we're so grateful for. We've partnered with Storm Academy and we've taken a handful of women team out to Storm Academy in Minnesota and we've done hands on training and learning in their classroom environment, which was really awesome. We rented a beautiful lake house and we all got together. Really incredible community building, team building that we had there. So we're going to do more events like that from there. We have asked the women what do you feel like you need? Whether they're an operator, they're a business partner.
06:50 - Jack Jostes
Yeah. Because we kind of talked a little bit on this podcast about the snow wife that support community. But what about women in the trades? Because that's another focus of it.
06:59 - Val Lesak
Yeah, huge focus. The idea is it's the exact same. If you are in an environment where there's potential for isolation, it's just, it's no good. It's breeding ground for resentment or turnover within a company. Right now there's only about 7 to 10% of women make up the snow and landscape environment workforce. So we're really passionate about trying to Increase that number by providing this type of experience.
07:23 – The Top Challenges Women Are Facing
07:23 - Jack Jostes
We were at that networking event last night and you were telling me about coaching around communication. So tell me a little bit more. What are the specific areas of support that your organization is helping people with?
07:33 - Val Lesak
Absolutely. So we started asking the women of our community, mainly at our dinners, but then through the relationships that we've built. What are the things that you seem to struggle with the most day in, day out, regardless of your role? Primary things were communication skills. So things like how do I ask for a raise based on my value, how do I speak up at a meeting without feeling like I'm aggressive, but being assertive and heard and respected. So there's been a lot around communication. The other thing we just keep hearing over and over again is help me to set boundaries. And whether that's at home or in the business, women say yes to almost every. If we're capable, we usually say yes to it, letting no be a full sentence and sticking with that, setting boundaries.
08:21 - Val Lesak
So we're really working with the women on kind of these almost like a well being approach to it of like you have to take care of you have to be able to set boundaries, you have to be able to communicate and speak up for yourself in order to succeed, really at home, with your husband, with your kids, or in the workplace.
08:38 - Jack Jostes
Well, that's great. Do you have questions for me about sales, marketing, anything?
08:45 – What Makes Ramblin Jackson Different
08:45 - Val Lesak
What makes you so special? Like what makes you stand out in a world full of sales and marketing services? Like what makes you special?
08:52 - Jack Jostes
I don't know that I'm special, but my clients are special. And so what I'm good at is helping them figure out why they're special. I'm good at helping people figure out what they already do really well and then how to communicate it to people. So as an example, some of my clients always get back to people within 24 hours and I might help them brand that as a guarantee. Like, hey, we're going to have a standard at the company that we're going to measure at the company meeting about company response time and we're going to have a penalty if we're late and we're going to have a prize when we do it. And so that then makes them marketable to clients because they're creating currently meeting with somebody who's late, who doesn't respond.
09:38 - Jack Jostes
And when they see that promise and then they have the data to back it up, that's actual branding. Branding. A lot of times people think about branding as a logo and you know, a branded Shirt and like, vehicle wraps and yeah, that is part of branding. But what do you actually do that makes you different? So you asked me, I guess, what's my branding, in a sense, and that's the thing. So I created it Landscaper's Guide, because to me, it's not about me, it's about creating a platform mainly. I actually just love the industry and I love networking people. And I'm like, hey, do you know so and so. And the podcast is a way to bring on people like you. And now hundreds of other people are going to hear about what you do, and that.
10:27 - Jack Jostes
That is rewarding to be me, to simply introduce people. And then when it makes sense, then I get introductions for what I do. But I think the thing that we do at Ramblin Jackson that's different from other people is a focus on sales process. So we help people think about, well, what. What are the steps to become a commercial client and how are they different from being a residential client? And then we build that into their website and automate certain parts in between, whereas many landscapes or many marketing companies don't know the difference between commercial and residential.
10:59 - Val Lesak
So last night when were chatting, you had mentioned that about 50% of your workforce is made up of females.
11:06 - Jack Jostes
Yes.
11:07 - Val Lesak
I think that's incredible for any organization to achieve. What makes your culture so special that women feel like it's a great place to work?
11:16 - Jack Jostes
I don't know. You may need to ask one of them. I've just hired people. Like, it's kind of like, hey, are you good at what you do? Then let's. And do we like working together? And there have been. There was a period where I had three. I had four employees total, including myself, and three of them were women. A few years later there, it was like, 80% men. And then it changed again. So I've never, like, set out to meet some kind of quota of like, oh, I need this many Women, or whatever Title 9 criteria. Like, it's just kind of happened organically that I have met people who I enjoy working with that are good at what they do, and they've gotten promoted because of that. Many of the women who work with me are moms.
12:02 - Jack Jostes
Communicate with people about, like, hey, I need to pick up my kids from school at this time. Like, great, go do it. Like, I need to do stuff with my kids. That's this time. And so there's just communication. And that is something that I value in the people that I work with. It doesn't matter to me that they, male or female, it was just like, did we get the work done well together? That's what I think I do. Yeah.
12:26 - Val Lesak
Well, it's amazing because you answered. It's more about your organization's culture than it is. No one wants to be turned into a metric or a goal, you know, for meeting a certain criteria or number. And it's just about what is your culture. And it just represents something that is, in general, very inclusive.
12:43 - Jack Jostes
We have core values that are meaningful at Ramblin Jackson. And so that's actually how I hire and retain and promote people. And it has just kind of evolved that way that I think roughly half are women. I actually don't even know I would need to put it in a spreadsheet, but the last time I did that, it was like, roughly half. And on my leadership team, we have two women and one man. I also think. I mean, partly, I do think that men and women bring different strengths to an organization. We are different. And I have found that having women on my team just bring a different perspective to things. But again, though, it's more about getting the job done.
13:29 – The Value of Inclusive Culture (Without a Quota)
13:29 - Val Lesak
Well, I think there's a beauty to that when we can just kind of fully embrace it, that there are differences and we don't. I mean, that's what we're trying to encourage the women of our community to just embrace who you are. Like, whoever that is, just show up as yourself. Don't hide your femininity or don't, you know, don't hide who you are just to fit into a role or an industry. What are some things that you wish people of the snow industry knew about your company?
13:55 - Jack Jostes
One is that marketing does attract commercial customers, and we have spreadsheets of sales data to prove it. There's often a. And I agree with. So there's kind of like an attitude of, well, all you got to do is a good job, and it's a relationship business, and you get referrals. And I agree. So I wish people knew that doing a great job and earning referrals is not mutually exclusive to also attracting customers from marketing. So sometimes people are like, oh, well, people need to do marketing because they're not very good at what they do and they're not getting enough referrals. And the way I see it, I get referrals. I have a lot of referrals. And I'm always marketing my business because I want to grow at a faster rate than just waiting for something.
14:48 - Jack Jostes
And to me, marketing is a way that you can put energy and money into a resource to grow faster or to get the right type of customer. With marketing, you can really choose, like, who is my customer and why would they buy from me? And whereas a lot of companies that don't invest in marketing, they have a really boring brand. They're like, we do commercial marketing. Well, it's like, do you do hoas? Do you do municipalities? Do you do apartments, shopping centers? Industrial? You know, all of those are all varied. Hospitals, like, the industrial client could care less about the hotel client and the hotel client could care less about that.
15:28 - Jack Jostes
So that's where many people don't realize that they can go after specific types of clients with marketing instead of just being vaguely commercial and leaving it for people to wonder, what does that mean?
15:40 - Val Lesak
Yeah, absolutely. What's an example or story that you've seen that entire explanation come to life?
15:48 - Jack Jostes
Well, so one of them is, I have a client who specializes in HOAs. And so when he came to me, he was commercial and residential. And he was always complaining about his residential clients. And I was like, well, what do you do really? Well, he said, oh, we kill it for these HOAs. And I said, well, what if you just stop doing the residential? And he actually closed that. And he grew from like under $1 million company to 5 million entirely in HOA. The reason that's interesting to an HOA buyer is because they've hired the full service company who does everything for everyone, and they're meanwhile, they're distracted by doing everything for everyone and their HOA lawns aren't mowed and it's Memorial Day and like, that's what we need. And he's like, hey, we only do HOAs.
16:44 - Jack Jostes
And we have a support ticket system on our website. So when your HOA community members are frustrated, they fill out the support ticket. And that actually makes him different to that customer. And he's like, I don't want the hotels, I want HOAs. And that makes that customer feel like, oh, you're my person, you're going to take care of me.
17:05 - Val Lesak
Absolutely. Yeah. You built a relationship, knew what his ideal client was, and was able to consult him along the way. I think that's incredible. It's a very cool story.
17:13 – Who Can Join Influential Encounters?
17:13 - Jack Jostes
Okay, so Val, it's been fun interviewing you. I think there I wanted to just kind of recap on who can join Influential Encounters. One is female business owners. Right. I have a number of Snow and Landscape clients who are women owned businesses. The women in there who work at their companies who want to network and then also snow wives. Is there anyone else who might benefit from this?
17:41 - Val Lesak
Yeah, we have a lot of support from different partners and vendors and suppliers who have come alongside. I think one thing a lot of people don't realize is that a company like Western or Cat, there's still a male majority environment for a lot of our suppliers. So welcome them in because we're all working towards the same goal, which is really exciting. They understand the snow industry, so even though they're not working directly in it, they have a full understanding. And then we're able to see some really beautiful relationships and partnerships grow from becoming friends first and being part of the community first.
18:16 – How to Get Involved
18:16 - Jack Jostes
And so for people listening who are interested, how can we get started? How can we connect with you?
18:21 - Val Lesak
Absolutely. So we have a website, which is www.Influentialencounters.com. We have a contact us section on that. Jillian Burns and I, Val Lesak, we're both on Instagram and LinkedIn. We do that primarily as our form of contact. Our email addresses are on our website. We're just here to meet new people and really just take this as far as we can. So always open to conversations.
18:49 - Jack Jostes
Awesome. Well, so if you're listening to this episode on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, take a screenshot of it and send it to a woman in trades. Right? Cool. Just share it and check out www.Influentialencounters.com if you're watching this on YouTube, share that video with them. And thanks so much for doing what you're doing. I think it's really cool and I look forward to seeing it grow. All right, cool, Val, thank you.
19:13 - Val Lesak
Thanks, Jack. Appreciate it.
19:16 - Jack Jostes
Like today's episode and subscribe to our YouTube channel to get upcoming videos to help you grow your Snow and Landscape company. My name's Jack Jostes and check out my free resources in the show notes and click the next video to grow your business.
Show Notes:
Watch the full episode + read the transcript:
https://landscapersguide.com/podcast
Get free marketing resources + beef jerky:
https://landscapersguide.com/toolbox
Learn more about Influential Encounters:
https://www.influentialencounters.com
Connect with Val Lesak on LinkedIn:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/val-lesak/
Follow Influential Encounters:
Instagram: @influential_encounters
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/influential-encounters/