Jack Jostes [00:00:01]:
We met at Elevate down in Charlotte recently and I learned that you're an avid alligator hunter.
Jason Lee [00:00:06]:
I went with someone the year before, saw the process, we applied for permits. It seemed like a lot of fun. And once we started, it was one of the most fun things I've done in my life.
Jack Jostes [00:00:15]:
I wanted to talk about following the money. Sometimes people come to me and they think that they need to become a design build company when they're not and they overstretch themselves trying to do design build. It goes poorly and they end up hurting their reputation.
00:29 - Meet Jason Lee: SkyFrog Landscape & His Path into Horticulture
Jack Jostes [00:00:29]:
Hey, everyone. Welcome back to The Landscaper’s Guide. Today I'm excited to interview my client, Jason Lee. He's the owner of SkyFrog Landscape down in Gainesville, Florida, and he's also the co-host of the Green Side Up Podcast with his buddy Jordan. Jason, thanks so much for coming on the show today.
Jason Lee [00:00:49]:
Jack, thanks for having me. So I'm looking forward to the conversation.
Jack Jostes [00:00:52]:
Tell us a little bit about SkyFrog. Where are you guys and what, what's some of your background in the, in the landscape industry?
Jason Lee [00:01:00]:
So SkyFrog Landscape is headquartered in Gainesville, Florida. So we're kind of north central Florida. We're about an hour north of Ocala, kind of an hour and a half from everywhere. So we're an hour and a half from the west coast to Florida, an hour and a half from the east coast, North Central, about an hour, hour and 15 minutes from the Florida Georgia border. So that's our general location, kind of right smack dab in the middle of the state. Gainesville is known for the University of Florida and the Gators. So go Gators. We actually accomplished a winning football season this year.
Jason Lee [00:01:28]:
So for college football fans, that's a big win for Gainesville after a few poor years. I grew up about an hour and a half east of Gainesville in a small rural town in Putnam county and got introduced to horticulture at a very young age. My family had an acre of cut foliage where we grew tree fern and we cut that for the greenery, for flower arrangements. So that was my introduction into plants and horticulture. Probably at 8 or 10 years old. My dad started me growing container plants. So I grew three varieties of container plants and sold them to local retail and wholesale nurseries that, you know, from 8 to 10 years old, probably in through high school, I continued to do that. And then once I could drive, I just naturally started doing, you know, cleanups for people, you know, weed eating, push mowing.
Jason Lee [00:02:17]:
I'd throw the push mower in the back of the truck and that type of thing did not live in any, any area where I could have the traditional, you know, take the push mower around the neighborhood. There were no neighbors. So then I figured out that if I put a couple yards of cypress mulch in the back of the truck, you know, I could make $80 to $100 if I went and spread that in somebody's flower beds. So that kind of started part of my landscape installation career. And after graduating high school, I knew that I wanted to do something outdoors and didn't want to be stuck in an office. So I went to the University of Florida, was looking at their agricultural programs and stumbled upon nursery, landscape and nursery management. So I figured, you know, I've been growing plants for, you know, the better part of my life, been dabbling in landscaping, I might as well go do that. And so I went to study environmental horticulture at UF and that was a great experience.
Jason Lee [00:03:08]:
Went through their program, got my bachelor's degree there and, and continued to do more design build, you know, as I learned more about landscaping while I was there and operated a, you know, kind of small design build firm company while I was going to school there.
03:22 - What Services Does SkyFrog Landscape Offer?
Jack Jostes [00:03:22]:
That's awesome. And so tell us about what are all the services that SkyFrog offers nowadays?
Jason Lee [00:03:28]:
So we're a full service company. We offer design build services mainly focusing on residential renovations. So a lot would consider some kind of enhancement work for landscapes. There's a lot of 20, 30 year old landscapes in Gainesville, you know, neighborhoods that are maturing. So a large book of our work is going in and doing tear outs and new softscapes, you know, redoing hardscapes or installing hardscapes where none were installed before. We do a little bit of new, new home construction, a little bit of build construction. Not a large part of our book of work. And then probably half of our book of work is landscape maintenance.
Jason Lee [00:04:02]:
So we do a large amount of commercial maintenance, including HOAs and office complexes and, you know, things of that nature. And then we have probably about 150 to 180 residential accounts. So it makes up about 30% of our landscape maintenance book of work.
04:19 - How Jason Got Into Alligator Hunting
Jack Jostes [00:04:19]:
Awesome. And so we met at Elevate down in Charlotte recently and I learned that you're an avid alligator hunter. So we had a great conversation about that and I was just tell us a little bit, how did you get into alligator hunting? And I think you've gone with some other landscape industry people recently. So tell us a little bit about that.
Jason Lee [00:04:41]:
So we started. It's been I guess we've been in. 2004 was the first year that we actually hunted alligators. And you know, growing up in Florida, we. We dig frogs. That's another adventure where we go out and harvest frogs and fry frog legs and so a lot of things on the river and outdoors. My dad was a. He's a retired game warden with the Florida Freshwater Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission.
Jason Lee [00:05:04]:
And so he was a game warden, you know, the entire time that I grew up and so outdoors all the time. Just never really was introduced to alligator hunting until I was in 2004. I was in college and we just applied for permits. So I went with someone the year before, saw the process, we applied for permits. It seemed like a lot of fun.
Jason Lee [00:05:25]:
And once we started, it was one of the most fun things I've done in my life. So it's. It's a blast. We haven't stopped. We are avid, as you said, we're avid alligator hunters. Slightly obsessed would be an understatement. So, yeah, so we've been doing it ever since.
Jason Lee [00:05:40]:
We love taking new people. Been in a peer group for the past four years with some other landscape contractors from across the country. So I recently. I'm nine days out of shoulder surgery. So I think when I saw you, I was, I was pre surgery up at Elevate, but I injured myself when we had Mark Smith with Smith Lawnscapes set of St. John's Michigan, and then Matt Hiner with Hiner Outdoor Living from Colorado Springs. They were both down hunting with me and I tore my rotator cuff. So.
Jack Jostes [00:06:08]:
And that was, that was pulling a big alligator into the boat. Right?
Jason Lee [00:06:11]:
I was trying to catch the big alligator and I missed and I missed. So the fact that I missed with the big, with the big hook yanking on the, the rope very hard, that was, that was. That's what popped. That's why the lack of resistance popped the rotator cuff. But you know, we've. It's a good networking thing. So I mean, we obviously with friends and family, we take out, you know, we take some clients out, other contractors, people we know. It's.
Jason Lee [00:06:33]:
We guide a little bit for, you know, professional guide service when they need extra help or extra hands and an extra boat. So just nice fun. So it's actually, it's a great hobby to have. You know, it's quite entertaining.
06:34 - The Ins and Outs of Alligator Hunting in Florida
Jack Jostes [00:06:47]:
Yeah. And you know, I hunt deer and elk here in Colorado and turkey. I fish for trout and you know, deer and elk. There's a season and then there are tags and some of them are only good for, I think one of them is only good for four days and that's it. So what, what's alligator, what are the regulations like in Florida? Is it a bag limit for the whole year or is there a season or what's, what's that like?
Jason Lee [00:07:17]:
It is. So there's a bag limit for the whole year. It's a true lottery system with no preference points for the hunters out there. You know, I believe that some of your stuff in Colorado is probably based on preference points and a lot of the big, big, other big game out west. So it's a no preference points 100 lottery system. You get two, two tags, so two permits if you get drawn and then you get drawn for a specific area and a specific week. And they give out four specific weeks that you can hunt. And then after that there's an eight week makeup period.
Jason Lee [00:07:47]:
So the hunt is between August 15th and November 1st. So you get drawn for a specific area, specific time. And then if you don't harvest your alligator in that first week, then you can have the next, whatever it is, six or eight weeks to make up that time and try to hunt.
Jack Jostes [00:08:03]:
And then the bag limits two, right?
Jason Lee [00:08:05]:
Yes.
Jack Jostes [00:08:06]:
So two per year, but only, only if you get a tag. So is it possible that you wouldn't get a tag in a year because of the lottery?
Jason Lee [00:08:15]:
No, there is, and especially in the high, the high demand areas. So the chances are getting lower and lower. Once Swamp People came out on TV, the demand for alligator hunting went up in Florida. So it's been growing ever since then. Social media makes it more, you know, more of a thing that people desire to go and do. So we probably have 16 to 20 people in our, in our group, kind of hunting group over the years that go with us. And you know, we have everybody put in for different areas around the state, you know, based on where they live and how often they can hunt. We're probably drawing on like a 35 to 40% success rate.
Jason Lee [00:08:53]:
So it's not, not, not a super high. And that's what putting in for some really good areas. And then the more you can go and the more time you have, we kind of put in for some lower, you know, what we consider lower end areas are harder to hunt. You know, if we have somebody that's only going to be able to come for a weekend, we want them to, you know, have, have a Good area to go to so we can guarantee success a little bit easier.
Jack Jostes [00:09:15]:
What, what is the alligator hunt success rate? You know, here in Colorado, for an elk, the overall success rate is really low. It's like 10 or 11%. So only one out of 10 guys will get one. Or depending on how you look at it, you know, one in 10 times that you go. There are of course hunters who are more skilled and better at it that have a higher rate. But of all the people who go, it's like 1 in 10. What, what are the, what's the success rate for an alligator in Florida?
Jason Lee [00:09:43]:
I mean, I would say between, I don't know overall for us, we've gotten pretty good at the craft over the years. My partner Harry that I've been hunting with for probably 18 or 20 out of the years, you know, we've kind of got a dialed in system that we use on the boat. And, let's say in a given weekend, you know, if we have two or three days to hunt, I would say it's a 90 to 100 success rate. It would have to be really bad weather for us not to be able to harvest, you know, harvest something. And it also depends on what you're after. You know, if you're, if you want that, you know, 12 inch or I mean 12 foot alligator, which would probably equate to 200 inch whitetail deer, you know, then that's, you know, we might have to go a little longer to accomplish that just because they're not, not swimming around everywhere. But no, our success rate's pretty high. As long as we're hunting in areas that were, you know, our boat's conducive to that.
Jason Lee [00:10:36]:
We're, we're used to hunting and now we're kind of going, we're exploring more areas. We're going down to South Florida to hunt more, which adds to the adventure. You know, just going to new places and seeing new things. You know, even though we're here in Florida, there's a giant difference between what the St. John's river looks like in Northeast Florida versus, you know, Lake Okeechobee in South Florida.
Jack Jostes [00:10:55]:
So what's the ritual of alligator camp like for you? Like, do you rent a cabin? Do you camp in a tent? Like, what do you, what's it like to, what's the camp part like?
Jason Lee [00:11:07]:
We've never really had, it's not so much a camp because normally we're hunting pretty local to where somebody lives. So, you know, it's, it's, you know, it's for me, it's, I'll stay at my friend Harry's house. You know, when Matt and Mark came down, I brought my camper over, put them up at Renegade Renegades on the river. So they stayed at. It's a really nice RV park on the river. We've rented some when we travel. A lot of times when we travel we'll stay in hotel rooms or we've gotten a few Airbnbs, especially if there's an Airbnb on the water and we can put the boat in. I think this happened twice and that's awesome.
Jason Lee [00:11:37]:
Like that's a whole nother.
Jack Jostes [00:11:38]:
Sounds pretty ideal.
Jason Lee [00:11:39]:
Yeah. So that's, that's, that's pretty nice. That's been, you know, some ideal, ideal hunting situations there. But it's not like the traditional deer camp I would consider.
Jack Jostes [00:11:49]:
Well, it sounds, sounds like an, an awesome adventure to go alligator hunting. And how much, how much meat would you take home in the freezer, do you think? For your average alligator?
Jason Lee [00:12:02]:
Most of our alligators we sell to a processor and we sell the alligator whole to the processor and then he processes them for meat for restaurants. And I would say on a 12 foot alligator, which is a very large alligator, he's probably yielding 125 to 150 pounds of clean white meat. So the legs and some of the other muscles on the alligator is more of a red meat. So for restaurants they prefer kind of the white meat. And so he's probably getting 125 to 150 pounds of premium meat and then he can sell the other meat for other other things.
Jack Jostes [00:12:36]:
That's awesome.
Jason Lee [00:12:37]:
Cool.
Jack Jostes [00:12:38]:
Well, I hope your shoulder heals up and you can get after it again next year. I recovered from a shoulder injury myself and I wanted to share something. It's called crossover symmetry and it's an at home physical therapy band set that has all of these exercises that you do to strengthen the muscles in your shoulder and man, that, that really helped me recover. I had some old sports injuries from when I was in high school that have come and gone and they came back and this, this, this was something. Crossover symmetry. I just seem to know a lot of people who have had shoulder injuries, so I thought I'd share it on the podcast.
Jason Lee [00:13:18]:
Awesome. I appreciate that because we're, we are now on the official road recovery. So.
13:23 - The Green Side Up Podcast: Why Jason Started It
Jack Jostes [00:13:23]:
Cool. Well, tell me, so tell me about the Green Side Up Podcast. So you've got SkyFrog Landscape. You guys are, are, you're growing, you've been in business For a long time. And then is it a couple years ago that you started the Green Side Up Podcast with Jordan?
Jason Lee [00:13:43]:
We started January, February of this year. So I think we set it up when we initially launched. I think we'll end up with 52 episodes at the end of the year. So this will be our first, first full year in the podcast. We drop an episode every Thursday, so we're doing one a, one a week.
Jack Jostes [00:14:01]:
That's cool. I, yeah, I enjoyed it. I listened to the story with Corey Ballard and that it was just kind of cool to hear you guys talk about how, you know, hurricane season is really a mixed blessing in some ways. It creates a lot of short term work, a lot of cleanup work. And then for people who run tree care businesses, they're in some ways losing a client three years from now, right, because maybe you're going to remove a tree that was knocked down from a hurricane and now there's no tree to trim three years from now. For that client.
Jason Lee [00:14:42]:
And then different parts of the state is a lot different. For Jordan specifically in Tampa, they do a lot of pruning. So they prefer to preserve their trees, you know, you know, nurture the trees, prune them properly, you know, try to create long term health. And so unfortunately in this last storm, which of course we had back to back hurricanes this year, so the first hurricane dumped a lot of water which, you know, saturated the soils. Second hurricane comes in more rain and a major wind event. And so a lot of the trees that they were seeing failed, just failed from the root system. So they just toppled over.
Jason Lee [00:15:14]:
It wasn't that the tree was structurally defective. You know, if there's a tree that has structure problems and a lot of times it's, that's rated for removal and recommended for removal. So they had perfectly healthy trees with great structure that were just, you know, just falling over. So that is a long term loss for revenue. It's a short term gain for, you know, for a lot of headaches. So Jordan's been, I mean, he spent two months just pulling his hair out, you know, running as, as wide open as somebody could run. You know, some of the landscape world, I'm just up here, we pick up sticks for two weeks and then, you know, and then it's kind of back to normal for us. But for the tree care industry, it's a, I don't know, that's a big headache.
Jason Lee [00:15:51]:
So some people love it. I mean, you have tree guys out there that chase storms, and they do storm work and they love it. And, you know, that's great for them, but kind of for the home, when it hits a hometown tree company like Jordan and Tampa, that's more of a major. A major ding.
16:04 - How Podcasting Can Boost SEO and Generate Leads
Jack Jostes [00:16:04]:
Yeah. So I wanted to recommend your podcast to people. Lots of just great conversations with other landscape and tree professionals, and to suggest being a guest on your podcast or my podcast, or generally being a guest on podcasts. We just had our Mastermind together, and I shared with people that being a guest, for those of you listening, being a guest on a podcast is great for your SEO, because most podcasts are going to have show notes that link to your website. And when you get links to your website from other people's websites, it helps you rank higher in Google and get found by your customers.
Jason Lee [00:16:46]:
We were actually, we had a call with Dana, with. With Ramblin Jackson. So we had a call or every other week call with Dana yesterday, and we were talking about backlinks. So when you mentioned that earlier in the Mastermind group, that kind of clicked in my head. It was just like, well, if that counts as a backlink, that's a really good. You know, that's a very easy thing for me, for SkyFrog, since we're already doing the podcast and we're, you know, we try to. We've kind of done a poor job of being on other people's podcasts, which for podcasters, we probably need to do a little bit more. Probably need to do a little bit more of. But.
Jason Lee [00:17:17]:
But, you know, whenever you said that earlier, it clicked. It's like, oh, man, I need to make sure SkyFrog is plugged. Because if that helps the world of the Google algorithm, then that's. That's a very easy, easy thing there.
Jack Jostes [00:17:27]:
Yeah. And, you know, the chance of your customer listening to my podcast or of your landscape customer listening to your podcast is really pretty low. I mean, our audience, my audience is similar to yours. It's landscape industry professionals. And so even though we're showing up and serving the landscape industry with this conversation, it helps you get more landscape customers to an extent, because I'm going to give you yet another link to your website. And yeah, you're right. I need. I need to go on a podcast tour next year.
Jack Jostes [00:18:00]:
I'm working right now.
Jason Lee [00:18:01]:
I'm.
Jack Jostes [00:18:01]:
I'm writing the second edition of The Tree of Good Fortune, and it's in the works, and we're getting chapters done. And when it's done, I'm gonna. I'm gonna reach out to landscape industry podcasts and come on the show and share, share things that are working. So I got to do it.
Jason Lee [00:18:18]:
That's a great way to help do a book tour.
Jack Jostes [00:18:21]:
Oh, for sure. Yeah. And, and, and, you know, if you haven't been a guest on a podcast, it's kind of easy. Like we're just hanging out on Zoom, having a conversation, recording it, and then I'm going to do all the rest of the work with the help of my team to get the podcast up and running. So, yeah, check out Green industry. I'm sorry, greensideuppodcast.com I'll put a link in the show notes. Right. Just as an example, there's yet another link.
18:48 - Following the Money: Finding the Right Customers
Jack Jostes [00:18:48]:
And I wanted to talk about following the money. So this was, you know, something that we're collaborating on. Tell me what does it mean to you? And let's talk about some ideas to help the audience follow the money and get more customers.
Jason Lee [00:19:06]:
You know, with SkyFrog, us being in Gainesville, I moved back to Gainesville. So as I mentioned earlier, I think I stopped at. I graduated from the University of Florida. And so between University of Florida and me starting SkyFrog, I worked on the east coast of Florida for two years for Austin Outdoor, which was a large regional company at that point who got bought out by the Yellowstone Group. So during that point in time, you know, the economy crashes, things were not looking so good. Palm coast was the city that Boston Outdoor was headquartered in. And so they got dinged really hard with the construction business and construction businesses and all the mortgage, mortgage stuff that was going on back then. So I saw Gainesville as kind of an isolated area that was a little protected from the recession then, which it was.
Jason Lee [00:19:54]:
And so when I decided to start my own business, it's like, well, I'll either go to the St. Augustine or Jacksonville area or I'll go back to Gainesville. And so I made a choice to go back to Gainesville, which then was great. But now as we've grown our business to the sizes that it is, I'm starting to see some limiting factors. And with the growth that we would like to have, you know, it's really, Gainesville is a large, a large, small town that has a university in it and a couple of really big hospitals. So that is, you know, creates a lot of what Gainesville is, which is a great place to live. You know, it's a great place to live. We don't have the hustle and bustle of Jacksonville.
Jason Lee [00:20:29]:
We don't have the traffic jams on i4 of Orlando. So to. To live and, you know, raise a family, it's great. But then to grow, you know, grow the size landscape business that we'd like to have, you know, it's. I see some limiting factors, and one of them is the money. So, you know, being in the middle of the state, you know, we don't have that coastal money that people flock to kind of with that affluency, you know, in the allure of the beach and the. In the oceans. So we don't have that part of Florida.
Jason Lee [00:21:00]:
We've been doing some strategic thinking and planning and talking to Robert Felton that works with you, you know, going over some ideas with that. And then even when, you know, Matt Heiner and Mark were down with me, you know, Matt's in Colorado Springs with a pretty affluent area, does a lot of fancy water features, has the Rocky Mountains as a backdrop. And so, you know, talking with him about, you know, what to do, he's like, well, you just got to follow the money. So either start building pools, you know, or, you know, in your area or something along that, you know, along that line. And we went down that rabbit hole. And, you know, I've really. I'm really starting to settle in my mind that, you know, not that we need to close up shop and move or just go and try to insert ourselves into a different part of Florida, but it's a natural progression for us to do some work in Ocala, which is about an hour south of us. So when we do some work there.
21:54 - Expanding Beyond Gainesville: Growing into New Markets
Jason Lee [00:21:54]:
So there's two areas that we do work in outside of Gainesville, mainly landscape installation services. So not. Not landscape maintenance, but we'll do projects in Ocala, Florida, which, like I said, is about an hour south of us. And it's a large kind of horse country area. So between horse country and then, you know, retirees coming from up north, there's a lot more. A lot more of that is coming down. So they're selling their homes up north at a premium price, and then coming down to Florida and, you know, they might sell their house for $800 or $1 million. And, you know, they come down to Florida and buy a $300,000 house, and it's nothing for them to, you know, drop $75 or $100,000 on their tiny little backyard.
Jason Lee [00:22:33]:
So for us, those are, you know, those are great projects. And so between Ocala and then, as I mentioned earlier, were working on the east coast, so I went to high school in St. Augustine, Florida, and did some work in St. Augustine and Jacksonville. So that's another natural fit with some connections that we still have to travel over there. And we might do three or four jobs a year. But, you know, if we turn three or four jobs a year into 12 or 15, then that could be, you know, a game changer to our top line and our bottom line. So we're exploring options of how to, how to market in those areas which you and I were talking about earlier.
Jason Lee [00:23:08]:
So, you know, my biggest thing is how through, you know, SEO or ad campaigns or how we can make that happen and be successful.
Jack Jostes [00:23:16]:
Well, yeah, there's. There's a number of things that are running through my mind, and one of them is partly to play devil's advocate with you for a minute and just share. I don't know, sometimes people think. One, I love the idea of following the money and going there and you're staffed and good at doing these design build projects, and that is a reason why you should do it. But sometimes people come to me and they think that they need to become a design build company when they're not, and they overstretch themselves trying to do design build, but they don't have the photos or the portfolio to support it. They don't have the people and processes, and it goes poorly and they end up hurting their reputation. So I just think, I think following the money by selling what you're already good at is just something I wanted to share because I have a number of maintenance clients who say, oh, I want to do design build because that's where the money is. And they're really, they're, they're not ready for it or the design build people feel like, oh, I wish I had the steady recurring income of maintenance. And they open it and it doesn't go well.
Jason Lee [00:24:24]:
And for us, you know, and I've been in some of the guys that were in my peer group, you know, a lot of them are very affluent areas across the country. So when we're talking about design build, you know, for us, if we do a $15 to $30,000 job, that's a great job for us. You know, in other markets, these guys are doing, they won't do anything less than, you know, $100,000 or $150,000 or, you know, their ideal project is, you know, $250,000. It's like, well, that's not for us. We haven't. I've never done a residential project that big, you know, for, for SkyFrog. You know, we might dabble in some larger projects, if it's a commercial installation, which we'll do if the right job comes along.
Jason Lee [00:25:01]:
So, you know, for Ocala, we try to set our minimum job at around $3,000 in Gainesville. So we'll do jobs. It's just kind of our, our minimum. What we figured out for, you know, a crew to go out for a day with, you know, a ballpark of, of average material for a day's worth of work. That's what we pick. So, you know, that's what we tell people in our screening calls when they call in. You know, for Ocala, if we've got a driving hour, okay, maybe it goes to a $10,000 minimum. And we're working on that now.
Jason Lee [00:25:29]:
So say, okay, if we have to go to Ocala, what's the smallest job? We don't need to go down to Ocala and just expect to do, you know, $100,000+ jobs. You know, we, I think the last three jobs that we've done were between $40 and $60,000 in Ocala, so which is still, you know, a good sized job for what we would do in Gainesville.
Jack Jostes [00:25:47]:
So did it, did it go well? Was it profitable?
Jason Lee [00:25:52]:
No, they were, they were the only down. The only downfall is, you know, it all depends on. You get into design, build. Every job's unique, so it takes a little bit more skill. Every job's different. They're not cookie cutter jobs by any means. The only downfall was I had to be a little more involved. So, you know, taking my time to go down and just make sure, making sure everything's going right, you know, that was only.
Jason Lee [00:26:13]:
But I like, I still like doing that. You know, as a business owner, I mean, I like getting out in the field and, I mean, I try to have to force myself not to be out in the field, but it's still a good thing to get out with the guys and, you know, run projects and, and be the face of the company. So, the travel time going to Ocala for me would probably be the biggest hang up that I'm wasting two hours a day. But too I say I'm wasting two hours a day in the truck. Some of the, with my ADD, I guess some of my most productive time is while I'm driving. Like sometimes it's just like, you know, if I can just like, let me just go drive. How about I just drive to Tampa, turn around and drive back. Give me four hours in the truck and see how many phone calls and things I can accomplish and a lot of times it's, it's pretty impressive.
26:53 - Using The Tree of Good Fortune to Attract High-Value Clients
Jack Jostes [00:26:53]:
So I'm in the office a lot, but I sometimes am out and about visiting. I have some clients here in Colorado or events that I go to and I get so much done on the road, on a call or, I don't know, I just get inspired when I'm out and about and I get a lot of creative work done. So as far as, you know, picking your Hell Yes Customer and the budget could be different in Ocala. And yeah, building out your Tree of Good Fortune with a limb for each city and a branch for each service. This is a key strategy and, you know, following the money. Sometimes people come to us and they're like, Jack, we want SEO data to know exactly where we're going to go and build this thing.
Jack Jostes [00:27:34]:
And I'm like, hey, you're actually probably not going to find any data that's going to support this decision. Meaning, like Google Keyword Planner might not give you the best number of searches per month in Ocala, but you have that local market intelligence. You know the market and you see where things are going. And that's where we try to help our clients be entrepreneurial. And see, hey, we, we're seeing a trend of people selling their house in Connecticut and moving to this part of the state and they've got an extra $100,000 to spend on their landscape. Great! Let's go for it. Let's build pages there. And some of my most successful clients have built them in the areas where they knew there was going to be demand. And it has worked.
Jack Jostes [00:28:24]:
And then also sometimes it doesn't. Right. So that's, that's where it's, it's entrepreneurial. To me, it's somewhat risk taking, but it's like real estate investing. Like, we're going to build these pages where we know the market is or where it's coming.
Jason Lee [00:28:39]:
And sometimes I get caught up on what I want to do in certain areas or even in Gainesville, you know, what areas of our business we want to focus on. But I was on, I was on a call with some guys last week and, you know, the topic was exactly what I mean. Marketing's the most. Trying to get leads is the most talked about thing that I think any landscape contractors will talk about, you know, during a conversation, if it lasts long enough. And, you know, we were discussing the fact of, well, maybe I shouldn't try to, you know, if I want to, if I want to try to focus on growing our landscape lighting division in Gainesville. Great. That's what I want to do because I like doing it and I see it as a profitable book of work. But if, you know, pressure washing driveways is the most searched thing to do, you know, in our area, or is five times, you know, 5x searched for versus landscape lighting, then maybe we need to crank our pressure washer up and try to pressure wash some driveways.
Jason Lee [00:29:29]:
I mean, you know, just interesting as an example or, you know, whatever, people are actually looking for the work because if no one's looking for landscape lighting and we're wasting all of our time and money trying to find it, maybe we should, you know, put our focus on what's actually being searched for.
29:42 - Smart Sales Strategies to Upsell and Retain Clients
Jack Jostes [00:29:42]:
Well, and then I think there's, there's, you know, client ascension, meaning maybe that client who buys you power wash their driveway and you have a sales conversation with them, like, hey, by the way, have you ever considered uplighting that tree? You know, and maybe you. I. What I found that works well in landscape lighting sales is to bring some lights and show people what it looks like. Because a lot of people, if they haven't experienced landscape lighting, they don't know that they want it. They have no idea what they're missing. But when they come out in their yard and there's lights shining up on a tree and it, the pathway is lit up and you, and, and you show them. That was a tip that somebody who came on my podcast did and he would, he would have like a little event. He'd bring people wine, he'd make it like an evening experience of like, hey, we're gonna get together.
Jack Jostes [00:30:34]:
I'm gonna bring wine and cheese. You guys relax. I'll bring you outside when it's done. And you show them the lighting. So, that might just be an interesting thing to think about. Is the power washer client going to become a landscape design client? Maybe if you build a good relationship with them and if it keeps your crews busy and you're doing it profitably, that could be a good strategy.
Jason Lee [00:31:02]:
Yeah, so it's, whatever. And since we're a full service company, I mean, it's, we cover a lot of bases with what we're doing. So in between fertilizer applications, irrigation, maintenance services, you know, we do landscape lighting. You know, and then obviously the design build type things, you know, hardscaping, softscaping, you know, there's a lot of crossover between a lot of those, a lot of those things. So, and then a lot of them are just Incorporated, if we get a design build job where we're doing a renovation, then a lot of those other things kind of fall into play.
Jack Jostes [00:31:32]:
One thing that I think most landscape companies do poorly in the industry in general is communicating that they do the other services. And I think a combination of print leave behind, like the right brochures, door hangers, print materials, emails, postcards, phone calls, and like in person conversations over time. Those are the things that you can control that can help you cross sell those other services to those customers. And one strategy, I had somebody on our podcast from All Purpose Landscaping, they did postcards and phone calls. So this was the key thing that they slated. I call it a call jam at Ramblin Jackson where we'll get three or four of us together. We meet on Zoom, we mute Zoom, and we literally call people in our database and then we check in every 20 minutes and we're like, hey man, how's it going? How many people did you talk to? How did it go? And it builds a little accountability, like because no one wants to do it. But once we start doing it, we start talking to people, we start having a good time.
Jack Jostes [00:32:46]:
And anyways, All Purpose did this and that's how they, they filled their book with Christmas lighting clients. It was, you know, through this outbound approach. So I'm a big fan of. Yeah, we're going to do SEO and also hit them with postcards, hit them with emails, hit them with phone calls. And if your Hell Yes Customer is selling their home and moving into an area, you can buy databases of people who are buying a new home. And you could send them gifts. You could send them a welcome gift. Hey, welcome to the neighborhood.
Jack Jostes [00:33:25]:
So there are ways of buying that and they Google you and see you and they see the reviews. It's often multiple little touches over time that lead to the customer choosing you. I don't think there's any one single thing by itself that's going to do all of it for you.
Jason Lee [00:33:43]:
Yep. So, yeah. So I guess so in two ways. I guess we're trying to follow the money is what we talked about with dipping into other markets, dabbling in other markets a little bit more than we currently are. Because we are doing that and have been doing that, but then also trying to chase in our Gainesville market, you know, whether it's higher, higher ticket sales or, you know, as you mentioned, we're, we're being more diligent with our quality control inspections the past year, this season, we were, our production managers did a really good job of that. And so that's just more especially since a lot of people are still working from home, you know, if not permanently, you know, part time.
Jason Lee [00:34:22]:
So they're having a more face to face client interactions on their inspections, you know, or if Tammi, who's my landscape designer, you know, if she's slow, it's like, hey, why don't you grab like, you know, three inspections today or four inspections and she'll go to the inspection and then if she runs into the homeowner, then it's kind of like for them it's, oh, you know, and a lot of times they already know who she is, but if she has to introduce herself, you know, I'm the landscape designer, you know, I'm just doing, you know, a quality control inspection for your yard. And so that's just another, another way for us to kind of follow that money and money with our, our, our current customers and having that in person interaction, you know, if, if there's time to do it, you know, it's been a, a pretty good success for us.
Jason Lee [00:35:02]:
So she's definitely sold some work just from, from being out and about.
35:06 - Hiring an Account Manager to Boost Revenue and Retention
Jack Jostes [00:35:06]:
I like that. You know, one, one, one, one other strategy before we wrap up that, that's working for one of my clients is they have an account manager and that person's job is to call customers, email them and help them buy cross sells, help them buy the other services. That's their whole job. In this particular client, they do design, build, they do maintenance. And then they also opened a pest control division. And I just asked them, I'm like, do you have anyone who's calling, like literally calling all of your customers? He said no. And he went out and hired somebody full time position. That's a base salary plus commission on upgrading and retaining and renewing those clients.
Jack Jostes [00:35:50]:
So I think, I mean, yeah, I mean I think a focus on new customers and like SEO is absolutely going to help with that. And the right postcard at the right time and the right email. And I shared this in the Mastermind, my landscape company who helped me with some work. They sent me a text message yesterday and there, because they did a project for me, we couldn't get all of it done. I had an event here at the studio and they texted me, they're like, hey Jack, do you still want to get that flagstone done in your alley? We have an opening to do it this week. Do you want it? And I'm like, yeah, I do. Like, how much is it? So they were in between jobs, right? They were in between, they were, I think they were waiting for material to arrive at a big project in another town. And so they had like a day and they filled it by sending the right text message to the right customer at the right time.
Jason Lee [00:36:49]:
We were talking, I think, I mean, the topic came up in the Mastermind earlier, but last week we, we've got a letter that we're going to send out to all of our maintenance customers and we're going to try to go back through our CRM and pull out jobs that didn't close. We've seen a lot of jobs, at least in our market. You know, Tammi's close ratio has definitely dropped the past couple of years. You know, whether it's economy driven or whatever is driving that, I think a lot of us are economy driven because we're seeing, you know, we're not seeing a lot of the work that, you know, the work that's not being sold isn't being performed by other companies. It's just not being performed.
Jason Lee [00:37:27]:
So, you know, the homeowners are either waiting, you know, whether it's the economy and money or, you know, they're just not ready or it's more than they thought. Whatever the scenario is, you know, we're seeing that, that a lot of times that job's not being performed. So kind of, you know, the letter that we're going to write is going to be catered towards our maintenance customers and to them and just kind of get up there and just mail that out and be a first step.
Jason Lee [00:37:47]:
But I like your idea of the call jam. You know, it's especially for our maintenance customers or if we still have, we have the email and the phone numbers for the proposals that have been sent out and not, not fulfilled the past couple of years. Just go ahead and send them a letter and then call them for sure.
Jack Jostes [00:38:01]:
And even a text message of hey, Jack, have you finished your flagstone landing pad?
Jason Lee [00:38:09]:
Yeah.
Jack Jostes [00:38:10]:
Literally that could be the whole email or text message. And so often people get busy or they get sick or they go on vacation or their kid graduates or like whatever life stuff is going on. And they actually haven't hired anyone. And you following up with them can reignite the wholesales conversation. So go do it.
Jason Lee [00:38:32]:
Yeah, I like that.
Jack Jostes [00:38:33]:
Send some people a text today!
Jason Lee [00:38:36]:
We definitely will. Maybe not today. We'll crank that up tomorrow morning.
38:40 - How to Connect with Jason & Final Thoughts
Jack Jostes [00:38:40]:
Okay. Tomorrow morning. Yeah, it's 5:30 Eastern Time for you. Well, Jason, hey, thanks so much for, for coming on The Landscaper’s Guide Podcast for folks listening. I'm going to put a link to your website and, and your podcast, Greensideuppodcast.com and check it out, guys. Connect with Jason and Jason. Anything else before we wrap up?
Jason Lee [00:39:04]:
I think that's good. You can also find us on @skyfroglandscape and @greensideuppodcast on Instagram for social media. That's kind of where I tend to. Tend to follow the most.
Jack Jostes [00:39:14]:
Yeah, for sure. And yeah, I mean, funny story. I mean, we've been interacting on Instagram for a while and I didn't know it was you. I didn't know that you. I thought it was like some other guy named Jason because it just says Green Side Up Podcast Jason
Jason Lee [00:39:28]:
and Jordan
Jack Jostes [00:39:29]:
And Jordan. And I didn't know it was you, but I felt like we had this like Instagram rapport going for a long time and then we met at Elevate and I was like, that's you! Awesome!
Jack Jostes [00:39:40]:
So, yeah, yeah, definitely connect on Instagram for sure. Awesome, Jason. Well, hey, thanks so much for coming on the podcast.
Jason Lee [00:39:48]:
Thanks for having me on, Jack. I appreciate it.
Jack Jostes [00:39:51]:
All right, folks, I hope you enjoyed today's podcast conversation with Jason. And I invite you to check out a link to his website in the show notes. Go to Skyfroglandscape.com. Ramblin Jackson, the sponsor of this podcast, my marketing agency designed, wrote, built that website, helped Jason with his sales process. And look, if you want to get more of the right leads to your snow and landscape content company and you want to talk with somebody who gets the industry, let's have a 15-Minute Marketing Brainstorm Call. This is a simple phone call where we're going to talk to you about who is your Hell Yes Customer, what are you doing to get the right leads, and is it working for you? We're going to give you ideas that you can use to get more clients right away on a simple phone call. So go ahead and schedule your call at landscapersguide.com/brainstorm and we look forward to talking with you soon. My name is Jack Jostes. You've been listening to The Landscaper's Guide Podcast and I look forward to talking with you in the next episode.
Show Notes:
📺 Watch the full episode + read the transcript: landscapersguide.com/podcast
🥓 Want free beef jerky? Tell us where to send it: landscapersguide.com/toolbox
📞 Let’s talk marketing! Book a FREE 15-minute brainstorm call: landscapersguide.com/brainstorm
🌿 Connect with Jack Jostes on LinkedIn:: linkedin.com/in/jackjostes
🚜 Learn more about SkyFrog Landscape: skyfroglandscape.com
🎙️ Listen to the Green Side Up Podcast: greensideuppodcast.com