Chase Cook [00:00:00]:
Our average time for approval is 2.3 days. Between our estimate completion and our approval.
Lex Mason [00:00:06]:
From the client, there is no surplus time to just go grow revenue. It's like, hey, you have a problem. Just, you know, go. Go grow bigger. Go do more. I don't have any hours. So, like, the first part of the equation is we have to reclaim those hours.
Chase Cook [00:00:19]:
So I created an Excel web spreadsheet originally, and so the guys would just grab a handful every day, and they come back and I can't read them. They got coffee stains on them. Removing the roadblocks is where we're looking for.
Lex Mason [00:00:33]:
Imagine, like, real time ROI on. You're spending, you know, $3,000 a month with me, and it's generating $8,000 a month in reduced labor. Before we even start talking about, hey, how many more repairs are we able to get done because of that?
00:47 - Introduction to Weathermatic: 75+ years of water-saving innovation
Jack Jostes [00:00:47]:
All right, everyone, welcome back to the Landscaper’s Guide Podcast. Today we're in downtown Dallas, Texas, Texas, with Lex Mason, the president of Weathermatic. They are a leading provider of water conserving technology and services for over 75 years, along with one of their clients, Chase Cook, the CEO of SMC Landcare. Lex, thanks for coming on the show. Tell us a little bit about yourself and Weathermatic.
Lex Mason [00:01:12]:
Yeah, absolutely. Thanks for having us. Excited to be here. And this is a great building by one of our awesome new partners here, you know, Slingshot. So I do want to say thank you to them for. For hosting us and being here. But, yeah, Weathermatic got started in 1945, believe it or not, as a landscape company. And eventually they got tired of not being able to track down good parts, and they said, well, let's just go build it ourselves.
Lex Mason [00:01:34]:
And so the snoddy family began to put their engineering degrees to best practice. The company transitioned from, you know, back in the day, everything was metal and brass, milled components. We transitioned the business into plastics, and then really, the past 25 years has been focused on landscape irrigation technology. So think controls, connections, software. How do we help make this labor constrained business or industry more productive? Doubling capacity, things like that. So that's really what we're focused on today.
Jack Jostes [00:02:06]:
Yeah, I love it. There's really a shortage of two things in the industry, and one is water, and then two is irrigation tax. What I like about Weathermatic and SmartLink is that it helps with both of those issues. And I had some background writing content for CoCal Landscape.
Lex Mason [00:02:25]:
That's right.
Chase Cook [00:02:25]:
Yeah.
02:25 - How SMC Landcare utilizes Weathermatic technology
Jack Jostes [00:02:25]:
In Denver. I think it was like six or seven years ago. So I'm excited to have you guys here on the show, and you're partnering with us in our Landscaper’s Summit this fall. So. And Chase, tell us a little bit about what is SMC Landcare?
Chase Cook [00:02:41]:
So we started in 2012. It came out of me working for a couple different companies, but I decided I just wanted to do something on my own, set myself apart. I wouldn't say necessarily do things the right way, but just things my way.
Jack Jostes [00:02:57]:
Are they the right way or do you just do them for the sake of Jason’s way?
Chase Cook [00:03:01]:
Well, not necessarily, but it's one of those things where I wanted to be in control. I knew the clients wanted certain things and I wanted to be in control from top to bottom.
Jack Jostes [00:03:10]:
And so tell us a little bit, what are some of the ways that you're using Weathermatic at SMC Landcare?
Chase Cook [00:03:15]:
So when they approached us a couple of years ago, it kind of clicked in that first interview or that first process where when you see every other industry utilizing technology, why can't we be one of the first ones in the area to do so? So we were having a hard time, like you just said, with the technicians completing our inspections and getting those proposals out in a timely manner. And this is a perfect opportunity to get that done.
Jack Jostes [00:03:41]:
So how did this change your view of irrigation overall? You know, before you were using Weathermatic to after, did you think of it as a necessary evil? Before?
Chase Cook [00:03:54]:
I mean, the water conservation part was always a part of our plan, and it didn't necessarily have anything to do with other than being able to transition those funds that were allocated for that utility back to something we were doing instead. So you've had these communities, especially these HOAs, who are just, you know, they don't want to raise dues or they're tied on funds or for whatever reason, they don't have the money, but they already have this allocated towards water. We can take that money and allocate it towards fences, walls, the landscape or their reserves. So that was our goal.
Jack Jostes [00:04:28]:
So does that give you an advantage when you're selling against other companies who maybe aren't using it?
Chase Cook [00:04:33]:
Yes, because we have. Well, this is the labor savings part for me, but we were doing these global commands manually, but now we can turn this water off within five minutes, over 200 something controllers. So that was the main driver there.
04:49 - What is SmartLink technology and how does it benefit landscape companies?
Jack Jostes [00:04:49]:
So what is SmartLink? Maybe you could share just from your. How does it work and what does it do?
Chase Cook [00:04:58]:
I may let him talk about the technical part of it, but for me it saves my labor. I haven't had to add any more bodies to get things done. But we've increased the revenue almost over 100%.
Jack Jostes [00:05:10]:
Wow.
Chase Cook [00:05:11]:
From last year. But it's a web based system or cloud based system that uses cellular, not Wi Fi. So we can access all of our controllers from anywhere in the world at any time, turn them on and off, look at faults, any alerts they send us, manipulate the schedule.
Jack Jostes [00:05:32]:
So how does that help you? So talk to me, maybe like, has there been a weather event in the last year or so that this enabled you to take care of in a different way than you would have in the past?
Chase Cook [00:05:44]:
I mean, this is the time of year where we normally would start trying to turn stuff on, right. But we've had an exorbitant amount of rain the last month. So as soon as we go to turn something on, we have to turn it right back off. Well, if you were to think I had to send a technician to every property to do that, and then I'm like, oh, no, we need to turn it all off now. So let's go back out there again. But I can do this from, one person can do this from their computer at the office.
Jack Jostes [00:06:08]:
And then does it also give you information about if there's repairs needed or things are broken or things like that?
Chase Cook [00:06:18]:
So there's multiple stages to that. It will tell us if there's an electrical problem. So you have your bad solenoid or valve's not coming on. Valve's not opening. If you add the flow to it, then you can start noticing if there is a break in the main line or the lateral line. So, yeah, it will alert you to those overages.
Jack Jostes [00:06:39]:
That's awesome. So, Lex, maybe you could tell us a little bit about penetration rate and how does typically, what's the typical revenue makeup for a landscape company? For what percentage of revenue is typically irrigation? And then how does that impact commercial landscape companies?
Lex Mason [00:07:03]:
I might even back up like one step on it is we try to keep things super simple. The landscape, like irrigation technicians, one of the hardest roles to hire, train, and retain. There's just simply not as many of them available to do the amount of work that's needed. And so we set out to go like, okay, there's got to be a better way to do this. It's 2024. People are still driving three quarter ton diesel trucks, I mean, around town to turn a dial and push a button. It's crazy to me that that's still like, no other industry is still doing things this way. And so we really built a model that allows people to, like, I mean, like Chase, I mean, now, a couple hundred contractors across the country to make that an easy, pull out your phone in your pocket and do things that used to take days or weeks of, you know, time that otherwise you could be billing out, doing other productive things.
Lex Mason [00:07:53]:
And so that was kind of the first, the genesis of it was, we got a, there is no surplus time to just go grow revenue. It's like, hey, you have a problem. Just, you know, go, go grow bigger. Go do more. I don't have any hours. So, like, the first part of the equation is we have to reclaim those hours. We got to do automate things. We got to put new systems in place to reclaim those hours.
Lex Mason [00:08:16]:
Then it's, hey, how do we go deploy that time as productively as possible? And so that's really where SmartLink comes in. We help automate about 40% of an irrigation technician's average day, and then we go and redeploy and coach and train our clients on, hey, let's go get our inspections done. Let's start doing more in depth inspections and taking photos and figuring out, hey, how do we improve this site? And to chase's point, really, kind of the beginning of Weathermatic was all about saving water in those dollars. Now it's kind of the byproduct of the rest of it. And so chase and other companies, as they've used SmartLink, start to realize, hey, if I can go and, like, turn down or reduce my clients water budget, all of a sudden there's new funds to be able to use to improve the property, which those dollars end up in, you know, SMC Landcare's pocket instead of the utility company's pocket. I haven't met anyone who would rather be sending money to Uncle Sam than, like, spending on investing in their property. Like, it's just a no brainer. Been the, that's been the piece.
Lex Mason [00:09:19]:
I mean, we have some benchmarking reports out there. You know, Greg Herring does a great job with his benchmarking report that, you know, we worked with this year, but that 20% to 25% of whatever base dollars you do in recurring maintenance, we want to see in irrigation repairs and enhancements. Like, not landscape enhancements, irrigation enhancements. And so that's your, if you're a company that's looking for like, hey, where do we stack up on this? Take base maintenance dollars, you know, and put irrigation repair and irrigation enhancements over that. And that 20% to 25% range is like a good health score. Y'all are like 40% now or something crazy.
09:55 - How SMC Landcare drastically reduced their approval time using Weathermatic
Chase Cook [00:09:55]:
Yeah, I would say our average. I think Brandon pulled this up the other day. Our average time for approval is 2.3 days. Between our estimate completion and our approval from the client used to be like.
Lex Mason [00:10:08]:
2.3 months for, like, the average.
Chase Cook [00:10:10]:
We would go back to the property and we realized, oh, wait, they didn't approve last month's repairs.
Jack Jostes [00:10:15]:
So how does Weathermatic help you produce those estimates faster?
Chase Cook [00:10:19]:
So as. So we utilize their system to its full potential. So the. We actually took a guy that was on a maintenance crew, and we asked him, can you use an iPad? Do you play video games? And he said, yeah. So we gate. We trained him on the inspection part of it. We did remove that, the inspection, and the technician is no longer the same person. So we have.
Jack Jostes [00:10:41]:
I think that's really smart that you. You've split those.
Chase Cook [00:10:44]:
Yeah, I mean, it was, because this is the first time we've ever been 100% completed on every property every month, which is.
Jack Jostes [00:10:52]:
And you, how long have you been doing this?
Chase Cook [00:10:55]:
So, for us, it's been twelve years. Yeah, but I've been doing this for 25, so it's. And this is the. In all that amount of time, this is the first time I've ever done 100% completion.
Jack Jostes [00:11:06]:
That's incredible. So you have it. What do you call that person who does the inspection?
Chase Cook [00:11:11]:
Just the irrigation inspector.
Jack Jostes [00:11:13]:
Okay. So they go out and assess a property. They have their iPad.
Chase Cook [00:11:16]:
Correct.
Jack Jostes [00:11:17]:
And they've got the Weathermatic app open. And then does that help produce a proposal that they can send to the client?
Chase Cook [00:11:24]:
Yeah. So you have to build a little bit on the front end to make it easier in the long run. So spend that five minutes to save the 150 minutes. So we have kits through. We use aspire. So we have these kits we build in aspire. We've transferred those into SmartLink, and so those two softwares talk to each other, but as he's building the estimate, as he's marking problems and taking the photos, it is automatically building the estimate behind the scenes. So by the time he hits estimate or inspection complete, the estimate is ready to go.
Chase Cook [00:11:55]:
And so he just hits send. The client gets the estimate before we even leave the property.
Jack Jostes [00:11:59]:
You know, I love this because I was actually just talking with a client, and I was like, so tell me, like, how do you create your estimates? And, like, well, we have this paper checklist, right? And then we come back to the office, so. And, like, someone scans it.
Chase Cook [00:12:12]:
Yeah.
Jack Jostes [00:12:12]:
Well, another person types it, and then, like, months later, literally, like, people are getting an estimate.
Chase Cook [00:12:17]:
So I created an excel web spreadsheet. Originally, and it had everything in it, and I hoped I captured everything. Sometimes it was too much information, but I had boxes of rings of paper with that form, and so the guys would just grab a handful every day, and they come back, and I can't read them. They got coffee stains on them. I got to decipher what they're mean, like blood. So it's like, okay. And on top of that, it's like, okay. Then I got to take it and type it back into that same spreadsheet on the computer.
Jack Jostes [00:12:56]:
Right.
Chase Cook [00:12:56]:
And hope I understand. Zero photograph of evidence of what's wrong. Well, the average homeowner doesn't have that many irrigation repairs, but the average commercial property does. Every month, there's something wrong. If you have a drip zone on your property, you have a repair every day. I mean, there's rabbits and rodents chewing at it. There's whatever. We got high pressure.
Chase Cook [00:13:17]:
As the cities develop around here, the pressure's increasing, increasing. Those parts blow apart. So when I sit there and do these inspections and there's nothing wrong like that, well, there can't be nothing wrong, so. But. Or there is something wrong, and now I have to try to prove it.
Jack Jostes [00:13:32]:
Right.
Chase Cook [00:13:33]:
Okay, well, we repaired something last week. Why are we repairing something this week? Well, now I have photographic evidence, so they train us on how to take the photos. Like, you know, the further away it is, the less urgent it seems, the closer it is. Now we lose location. So we have to have a happy medium where we can tell where it is and how urgent it is. And so the guys, you know, you'll see a finger in every photo pointing at it, and then, so it's like we know what it is, and then we have an identifier, and there's zero reason to say this isn't what needs to be done. And so we are at. That's how we get to that 2.3 day approval rating.
Jack Jostes [00:14:10]:
How many, how many clients do you currently have where you're deploying? Weathermatic.
Chase Cook [00:14:15]:
So every customer has Weathermatic. We provide the controllers at no cost to them. Part a is for us, have the controller on site. The subscription costs every month would be less than I would pay a guy to go out there one time, so I don't charge for it. So that benefits me on the labor efficiency side. So regardless of them, if that was just my only obligation was to do the inspection, I've already saved the money just by having it. The revenue part is bonus, the repair, reporting, and all that. I haven't had to hire anybody new to do this.
Chase Cook [00:14:53]:
So we already had the staff.
Jack Jostes [00:14:54]:
Have your staff found it easy to learn?
Chase Cook [00:14:56]:
They hate going to a property that doesn't have it. So as soon as we get a new property, their goal is to get this installed as soon as possible. So now there are some situations where we don't have an actual controller there, but they have a virtual platform so we can still do the same inspection regardless of the controller.
15:14 - Weathermatic’s sponsorship of The Landscaper’s Summit
Jack Jostes [00:15:14]:
Are you looking to stay ahead of the curve with the latest in irrigation technology? We're excited to announce that Weathermatic is one of the proud sponsors of the 5th Annual Landscaper’s Summit happening October 10. Weathermatic has been revolutionizing the green industry since 1945 with innovative irrigation solutions that help landscape professionals manage water more efficiently and effectively. Their innovative SmartLink technology platform empowers you to save time, increase revenue, and optimize water management effortlessly. Weathermatic's commitment to excellence is, is evident in their installations across over 70 countries, including high profile sites like the U.S. Capitol Building and Buckingham Palace. Imagine what their expertise can do for your business. To learn more about how Weathermatic can help you increase the ROI of your irrigation department, head on over to their website at weathermatic.com. All right, now back to the show.
16:24 - How Weathermatic uses solar power in irrigation
Jack Jostes [00:16:24]:
So just before this, we were having some nachos, some nachos and networking. And while we were having nachos, you were telling me about the solar component. So talk to me a little bit about how you're using solar. How are you powering these units and what do you like about it?
Chase Cook [00:16:39]:
So they have a unit that is, what do you call it? Highway rated? Is that what it is?
Jack Jostes [00:16:45]:
Tex dot.
Chase Cook [00:16:46]:
So it's a sturdy piece of equipment. It utilizes larger batteries. But also on the repair side of it, it's still AC. So we don't have to deal with any latching, solenoids, which never seem to work right. Also, it prevents that freeze in the middle of the night or that rain event in the middle of the night to where the sensor tells the controller not to send a signal now. And so now the zone is still running because it doesn't tell it to turn off, but it just allows us now to also provide controllers where there is no power. So we can still run these. We don't have those pucks in every valve box.
Chase Cook [00:17:29]:
We have no idea what it's running. We have no idea how it's programmed. So, yeah, I mean that. And I mean, they have a lot of other stuff coming on board I'm pretty excited about. But yeah, this is, I wouldn't do this any other way besides the SmartLink?
17:46 - The history of Weathermatic: from brass parts to SmartLink technology
Jack Jostes [00:17:46]:
Well, Lex, also, you know, over nachos, I got to learn a little bit of your family story. Can you, can you tell us a little bit some of the history of Weathermatic?
Lex Mason [00:17:54]:
Yeah, for sure. So Weathermatic is kind of the story of, like, of two families. So the original founders, the snotties, I think I gave their quick, their quick kind of intro here earlier. And so really, Mike Mason, my father, I say bought the company, but that's really an elegant term for. He was a turnaround guy who thought, hey, I can step into this thing, and in three to five years, I'm going to buy it, we're going to fix it, we're going to flip it, we're going to make a lot of money. We're still in it 30 years later. So it's been ten times harder than we ever thought it would be, but it's been 100 times more impactful than we thought it would be, which is really exciting. And so, really, he transitioned the business from brass and metal for those old school irrigators out there who, remember everything used to be metal or some form of, like, brass kind of component like that.
Lex Mason [00:18:40]:
And so he helped transition the business into plastic injection molding and nylon parts and set up, you know, overseas manufacturing processes to ultimately bring the pricing down. And then really, I got involved in the business. I've grown up in it. So, I mean, every. There's not a job inside of Weathermatic that I haven't done at some point, which is, which is a, not something a lot of people can say. So it's been a really amazing learning experience and kind of childhood, I mean, growing up in it, but really, the part where I kind of came in was helping bring, okay, we have this amazing platform, SmartLink, that fit a need, but we didn't really know how to bring it to market. And so when I graduated from Baylor, went down to Houston, Texas, was my first, was kind of my first full time job here at the company, being out of school, and it was okay, we got to figure out a way to make this thing work. Like, it's such an incredibly powerful tool, but it doesn't really fit the way that our primary customer, the landscape maintenance contractor, needs to use it.
Lex Mason [00:19:46]:
And so we invented a new banking product that, I'll save that for another day. That's probably a financial podcast kind of a thing to talk about how we actually did that. We helped create a new, basically, financial model that allows people to pay monthly for the equipment, the service, and the installation. All in one now, folks like SMC here, it's not a let's go cold call and knock on doors and try to sell controllers for Weathermatic like so many of our competitors have always done. It's, hey, I'm just going to make this part of the way that we do business. It's a couple dollars a month that we're going to embed in the contract and save our clients some large capital upfront expense. And so that's really the transition there.
Chase Cook [00:20:31]:
And that removed roadblocks because we did an estimate for a community about a year before I met Lex and we went through all the brands and how do we do this? This property had 15 controllers and all of them were about, once you got the retail part and the installation was about 45 grand for the property, no matter what brand we used. Well, if I was able to have met them a year earlier, be like, well, hey, I have a solution and it's not going to cost you anything.
Lex Mason [00:21:00]:
Just renew my contract.
Chase Cook [00:21:02]:
All you got to do is hire me to do the maintenance. So removing the roadblocks is where we're looking for. You know, we encourage some other, you know, power companies.
Jack Jostes [00:21:13]:
So does that require though a lot, certain length of contract in order to get that?
Chase Cook [00:21:17]:
No, because we have. So the controllers are the properties. So once we install the controller, it's theirs. If they were to cancel us within a year for whatever reason, you know, there is a small cancellation fee, like $199 per controller, but we retain the cell card, that's ours. Because once we go, if we lose that and we have that cell card, once we get another property or another controller, I just move that cell card to that new controller. So that has all my, we can save archive data. So we ever got that property back, I now can just plug that cell card back in.
21:55 - Who is Weathermatic’s Hell Yes customer?
Jack Jostes [00:21:55]:
So how many clients and customers log into Weathermatic themselves? Do many of them actually use it or is it primarily just using it?
Chase Cook [00:22:03]:
Yes, because there is some information. It's like, I don't know if I understand this. And then that raises questions we probably shouldn't have to answer kind of thing, but to say that we have the ability to show them so much more information so we can show them average, you know, the runtime for the week, how much gallons they probably used, the rainfall. We have that, all that history. There's some other dashboards that are just recently come on board or KPI's or whatever you want to call them.
Lex Mason [00:22:32]:
Yeah, like the labor rates and reduction and time spent. Yeah, we wanted to try to create something that showed, you know, like SMC and other, I mean, clients, hey, you're spending this money on SmartLink. What does it actually doing for you every day? Like up to speed. So I mean, imagine like real time ROI on, you're spending, you know, $3,000 a month with me and it's generating $8,000 a month in reduced labor before we even start talking about, hey, how many more repairs are we able to get done because of that? So that's something new that we like.
Jack Jostes [00:23:00]:
Helping them visualize that.
Lex Mason [00:23:02]:
It's like showing your value. I mean, like if you could show your client real time, you know, number of leads, game number of clicks, like whatever, on a daily basis compared to your fee, like it's a, you want to talk about a retention tool, that's it for sure.
Chase Cook [00:23:14]:
And the ROI, the irrigation is the only thing on any property that actually will start paying for itself based upon the water savings. So we just started doing the pressure regulation part of it because as we are on property more and more, the repairs start to become less and less. Well, the property is also aging. So then we can show like, hey, it'll cost you this much to fully convert your system to pressure regulation. And we can reduce your water usage because we're not having to run it as long because we're at the correct pressure. So we can have a full new system and then with Weathermatic’s warranty, we can provide them at least three years in parts, you know, a warranty.
Jack Jostes [00:23:54]:
So Lex, who should use SmartLink? So we have a lot of people listening. Some of them are more residential focused, some of them are commercial focus, some of them are a mix. Who would you say is like your Hell Yes Customer? Like, it's a slam dunk mutual fit. When you talk with these people, it's easy.
Lex Mason [00:24:11]:
Any end user that's spending more than $500 a month on landscape, it's a no brainer. I mean, so this is like, can be a retail, I mean, Wells Fargo bank. This can be a, you know, most of the homes here in Midway Hollow and Preston Hollow and, you know, Highland park are spending 1000, $201,500 a month on landscaping on a residence property. You know, we're not a great fit for the DIY kind of home Depot stuff. We've got some people, I mean that call it a competitor, call it a different kind of channel that like make really great products for that. But if you're managing a, you know, the landscape and irrigation of a client spending more than $500 a month on the on the site, then it is a no brainer. And that's 90 plus percent of the market for like professionally managed properties like that.
Chase Cook [00:24:56]:
I mean, I told my neighbor because he's watering all the time, but he only mows every other week. And he says, oh, it's on my budget to mow every week. I go, well, apparently it is because you're watering more than you need to be. I was like, if you cut this off, you'll be able to afford that every week. Mow. I mean, I think with your data you can actually show them how much they've saved.
Jack Jostes [00:25:16]:
So do you want homeowners and residential users, or is it primarily you want.
Lex Mason [00:25:21]:
Two of our best clients? I mean, like original clients here in town, I'll name three. But Southern Botanical Lamberts were kind of the first two to really grasp it. In Dallas, this was before we even had the partner program. So they, Jason, we did an event with Jason Craven, the owner of Southern Botanical last week, and he joked that he was the partner before the partner program existed. And I mean, their original business was all like high end residential. Lambert's same thing, all high end residential design, build and then transfer over to maintenance. Lonza Dallas is a phenomenal, you know, client of ours, and 70, 80% of their book of business is that, you know, kind of mid to upper level, you know, residential landscape space. So, yeah, anyone doing like professional landscape maintenance in the residential world, and you get clients spending four or $500 a month to cut the grass, trim the trees, do color treatments, things like that.
Lex Mason [00:26:13]:
It's a no brainer. The dollar 25 a cut. You know, residential service businesses were probably not the best fit. It's going to be a little out of market for that kind of thing.
26:23 - SMC Landcare’s Hell Yes customer: Commercial vs. HOA
Jack Jostes [00:26:23]:
Well, and Chase at SMC Landcare, do you guys primarily do commercial or is it entirely commercial at this point?
Chase Cook [00:26:31]:
Yeah, it's mainly HOA. Okay, so some people call that residential.
Jack Jostes [00:26:34]:
I consider that commercial.
Chase Cook [00:26:35]:
That's commercial?
Jack Jostes [00:26:36]:
I think it is because you're, we.
Chase Cook [00:26:37]:
Did it the same way, an office building or a restaurant or anything like that.
Jack Jostes [00:26:40]:
It's ultimately, it's a collection of residences, but it's, I consider it a commercial.
Chase Cook [00:26:45]:
Sales, the common area or if we're doing individual, you know, front yard maintenance is the kind of same thing.
Jack Jostes [00:26:51]:
So you like doing HOAs?
Chase Cook [00:26:53]:
I mean, that was my original portfolio with another company and I just got good at it. Yeah, most people don't like them. They don't like dealing with them.
Jack Jostes [00:27:02]:
You're the second person I have problem.
Chase Cook [00:27:06]:
I'll develop that relationship. Yeah, we'll do meetings like this. You know, we'll explain and we'll tell them no, because my goal is to outlast them. Their terms, two, three years. I'm planning on being there for 10-15.
Jack Jostes [00:27:19]:
So I like it. I have one client who specializes in HOAs in Florida, and he kills it because so many of his competitors are, like, really excited about the design build stuff, and now they're kind of not staffed to do the HOA maintenance, and they drop the ball. So I think specializing in it can have a lot of.
Chase Cook [00:27:39]:
It's recession-proof because the dues are coming in regardless.
Jack Jostes [00:27:42]:
Right.
Chase Cook [00:27:43]:
You know, everything kind of started going down. The restaurants, we were doing, the commercial buildings when Covid hit, and they were calling me, we need to defer, cancel, and we didn't have to do that with the HOA. So.
27:54 - Prospecting strategies for landscape companies
Jack Jostes [00:27:54]:
So how do you, what works for you for prospecting? Do you go, how do you get clients?
Chase Cook [00:28:01]:
Most of it for us, we. This is probably our first year, if you want to call it. We're getting into the marketing part of it. So everything up to this point has just been word of mouth. Or as a management company changes over and we stay on, they now like what we do, and so they bring us onto other properties. So that's basically how we're starting to get into CAI. And, you know, Jake's doing some social media stuff at the company, but for that, most of it is just word of mouth.
Jack Jostes [00:28:33]:
Cool.
Chase Cook [00:28:35]:
I will say with them. He talked about a couple of the other companies. This has been great for us because using SmartLink and having the Weathermatic Partner Program has got us talking to people that you would think would be our competitors. But we're calling each other Will, who's over at Irrigation Agronomy. He and Giuseppe talk all the time trying to troubleshoot stuff in the field, or how would you do this? Or how would you do that? So to have them basically start a peer group without starting a peer group has been great.
Lex Mason [00:29:04]:
I'd love to ask. We obviously both work in the commercial. I know you have some snow oriented clients here as well, which we kind of stay away from, but what's some of your kind of go to market strategies, too? You've got now over 100 paying marketing clients here now, like in this with your business. And so what have been some of the kind of tips and tricks and outbound inbound strategies that you've done to secure clientele?
Jack Jostes [00:29:27]:
Coincidentally, today I'm here in Dallas to go to the super conference, which is led by my favorite marketing author, Dan Kennedy. And Dan Kennedy wrote the No B.S. Guide to Direct Response Marketing for Non-direct Response Marketing Businesses. So kind of a mouthful of a title. But what I learned from Dan Kennedy was to pick a Hell Yes. What I call a Hell Yes Customer, he calls an ideal customer and then have multimedia marketing. So it's a combination of digital. So we're doing video today that's going to be released as audio.
Lex Mason [00:30:05]:
It's kind of omnichannel.
Jack Jostes [00:30:07]:
Omnichannel multi-touch. That's then going to be cut up on YouTube, audio podcasts. It's going to be sent out via email, social media, and then there's the print component. So we have a beef jerky club at Ramblin Jackson where we actually mail beef jerky to people in the mail.
Lex Mason [00:30:25]:
Really?
Jack Jostes [00:30:25]:
Yeah. So you can go to landscapersguide.com/toolbox and I'll ship you a Marketing Field Guide. Some of my best content, I have a print newsletter and some beef jerky. So that's part of like when I'm, what I just did there was I made an offer and people can, and if they're like, yeah, that sounds kind of interesting, they'll go to that page and then they'll get my print stuff and I get their email. So it's been a result of all of those multiple touches because then I'm able to build a relationship with somebody. And maybe somebody's like, hey, I'm looking for marketing services right now. Cool, we can talk. Maybe they're like, I'm looking for information, but I might need you a year from now.
Jack Jostes [00:31:09]:
And I want to be the person that has sent them. Value in podcasts, video, print newsletters, invitations to events, networking events, nachos. Meet people for nachos. So that's really been what has worked for me. And then going to events, going to landscape trade shows. And the thing I love about the landscape industry is the camaraderie of it and the willingness to teach. Like, you guys just shared so much on the podcast today. And the industry, I think at these shows, like, people are teaching a lot.
Jack Jostes [00:31:44]:
So I go and speak at these shows a lot and that's been really helpful. And then I also, with the podcast, just interview people that I think are interesting.
Lex Mason [00:31:53]:
Yeah, okay. No, that makes sense. Over the past five years or so, we've recruited about, we're nearing 300 now, which is really fun, but we're always looking for like, hey, what's the right kind of organic channels and ways to connect with people? That by default aren't sitting behind a computer screen all day long, you know, every day. They're typically, you know, out working with their teams, instructing, coaching, and so, like, the digital footprint, too, has its pros and cons.
32:21 - How podcasts and technology are changing the landscape industry
Jack Jostes [00:32:21]:
Well, a lot of those people are driving. They're driving around from job site to job site and they're listening to content. So I found that audio podcast. I have a business coach, Jason Swank, who's like, yeah, dude, take your video and make it a podcast. It'll be like ten minutes of work every week. Now, it's more than that, Jamie. Jamie's here.
Lex Mason [00:32:41]:
She manages.
Jack Jostes [00:32:45]:
But to export the audio from a video and upload it to the podcast host is. It is. It's not like reinventing the wheel. And we've gotten over 50,000 downloads. Jamie's laughing because she's managing the. It is a lot of work to release the podcast every week. Yeah, but that, that would be one thing for you guys, and you guys are starting to make cool video content.
Lex Mason [00:33:11]:
And that consistency has obviously been tough to, like, do it. But I try to sit down like, hey, once a quarter and interview three or four of our partners and just do probably more than trying to fish for an endorsement or doing that deal. Like, there's, there's such a challenge with, like, the aging industry and bringing in, like, new, young, fresh talent, like, into it that, I mean, I hate to break to everybody, but the people don't really go to bed and dream about becoming a landscaper all the time. But I really believe with the amount of technology and innovation that's, like, happened in here that it's, you know, it's our three. It's our job to help paint what is landscape today? I did an interview today with CG out in LA, and they said, hey, we're a technology company that happens to do landscape. You know, like, that's some of the mentalities that exist out there now.
Jack Jostes [00:33:59]:
Well, for sure. And there's so much innovation and automation and robotics and all different kinds of things happening in the landscape industry. So I've been working in the landscape industry for about ten years, and in the last three, I've seen so much innovation with automation and all those different things.
Lex Mason [00:34:16]:
Yeah, for sure. So that's what we're.
Jack Jostes [00:34:18]:
So that was, you know, I talked about marketing, but I think from a sales standpoint, then reaching out to people, you know, and going to events and things like that and having an offer. And so for people who are listening that are curious about Weathermatic, tell us what. What would we learn if we did an irrigation audit with you guys?
34:34 - Weathermatic’s Irrigation Audits: How they help your business
Lex Mason [00:34:34]:
Yeah, that's our normal kind of call to action, so to speak, is, hey, before we try to sell anything, like, let's get under the hood, let's figure out, hey, what is your penetration rate today? How are you doing inspections? Are you doing inspections? How are you doing proposals? How does all that flow through your operating system? Whether you're using, like, boss, aspire, you know, lmn, whether you're using some kind of modified form of quickbooks or whether you're in, you know, the still, the Excel spreadsheet world, like, whatever it is. And then we can kind of paint you a picture pretty quickly of, hey, here's another company just like you, 10 miles from you that went from here to here, and this is what happened. And so that kind of before you buy anything, before you even commit to spending any money, like, you want to figure out, like, what's going on under the hood.
Jack Jostes [00:35:19]:
Yeah.
Lex Mason [00:35:19]:
And then we can make a recommendation on, hey, let's tackle this first, or, brother, you gotta. You gotta get stuff figured out before, like, we can bring any value to you at all. And there, I mean, there's a fair share of those. And then, you know, that's the whole. The whole kind of spectrum of that.
Jack Jostes [00:35:33]:
So is that something that you can do remotely over Zoom?
Lex Mason [00:35:36]:
Yeah, we do it over Zoom all the time. I think you are going to throw a webpage up there.
Jack Jostes [00:35:40]:
Yeah. So if you're listening or watching this, check out our show notes. And also, we're super grateful to have Weathermatic as one of the sponsors for this year's Landscaper’s Summit. It's the 5th Anniversary. It's our 5th Annual Landscaper’s Summit. This show is really focused on sales, marketing, leadership. We have technology partners like you guys, so I love in person events. And this thing is cool because it's virtual and you can bring your whole team.
Jack Jostes [00:36:13]:
So, you know, check that out at landscapersummit.com. and Lex, Chase. Thank you guys for coming on the show today.
Chase Cook [00:36:23]:
That was great.
Jack Jostes [00:36:24]:
Like, today's video. And subscribe to our YouTube Channel to get upcoming videos to help you grow your snow and landscape company. My name is 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 + see the transcript at: landscapersguide.com/podcast
Tell us where to send your beef jerky: landscapersguide.com/toolbox
Register for the 5th Annual Landscaper’s Summit: landscapersummit.com
💧 Weathermatic: weathermatic.com
👤 Lex Mason: linkedin.com/in/lexmason
🌱 SMC Landcare: smclandcare.com
🚜 Chase Cook: linkedin.com/in/chase-cook-076556227