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???? Connect with Robert Felton: https://www.linkedin.com/in/robert-felton/
???? Ramblin Jackson: https://ramblinjackson.com
????Ramblin Jackson on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ramblinjackson/
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00:00 – Why Your Biggest Competitor Is Doing Nothing
00:00
Robert Felton
So when someone requests a website review, I get notified immediately. I mean, some of those people are just fans and some are really hot leads, but a lot of times the people who are consistently on that list will eventually purchase from us. The one that's most likely taking most of your business is nothing.
00:14
Jack Jostes
Hey, everyone. Welcome back to the Landscaper's Guide podcast. Today I'm excited to interview our director of Client strategy, Robert Felton, about one of our favorite topics, which is gold mining. This is nurturing leads in your database. This could be existing customers that you're gonna cross sell additional services, or often it's leads that may take years to nurture along in your database before you close them. And it's a special day because it's Robert's eight year, what we call Ramblerversary meeting. He's worked for Ramblin Jackson for a total of eight years. It was technically yesterday, but celebrating today.
00:51
Robert Felton
Hey, they don't need to know.
00:53
Jack Jostes
Robert, thanks for rambling for eight years.
00:56
Robert Felton
Yeah, it's great to be here. I mean, it's been, I don't know, not a lot of people my age work somewhere for eight years. But I mean, I really like what I do. And I mean, you've created a great work environment and we always joke there's an exclusive club of Ramblers who've left and then realized they wanted to come back. So we always joke about that. And I'm so happy I came back and it's been great.
01:15 – Robert Felton’s 8-Year Journey At Ramblin Jackson
01:17
Jack Jostes
Yeah, me too. Yeah. So you left for a brief period and then came back and left on great terms and you've been just slaying it since then. So you started at a junior business development role. So, Robert, I mean, I think you're going to learn a lot today in the podcast because Robert has done everything from like cold calling, cold emailing, junior business development working up to a landscape marketing strategist, and then now you're the director of client strategy managing at this time. Two landscape marketing guides. Tomorrow you're doing a paid sales training with a client.
01:57
Robert Felton
Yeah.
01:57
Jack Jostes
And so you just, you know a lot. And you've also, you always continue to grow. And one of the things that I think that has helped you succeed is what we're talking about today, which is gold mining.
02:06
Robert Felton
Yeah.
02:08 – What Gold Mining Your Database Really Means
02:07
Jack Jostes
What is gold mining?
02:08
Robert Felton
So gold mining is utilizing the tools and information you already have and digging through it to find opportunities you maybe have overlooked or opportunities that are hidden in the information. The data, the sales data that you already have. Sales and marketing data. I should Say it's kind of looking back. I mean, one thing that's cool is every event Jack's ever spoke at, we've got the contact list. We have, hey, these people attended this Texas event in 2021. And I can go back and look at those people, see what they did and start reaching out and remembering information about them.
03:25 – Using Notes, CRM Data, And Weekly Planning
02:48
Jack Jostes
Yeah. And so it's a combination of CRM, data spreadsheets, and then also we both use paper. Yeah. So I wanted to hear, you know, because a lot of our landscape professionals listening, maybe they're not super into the CRM or they haven't figured it out or some of them. I've gone to multimillion dollar landscape companies that literally have a whiteboard. Now I'm seeing more adoption of tech in the landscape industry. And we're going to talk about Lead Wrangler, our software in a little bit. But what's kind of your method would you say for combining those things?
03:25
Robert Felton
I think one thing I have to do is thank you. And I think it's a traction tactic. I'm not entirely positive, but we have a weekly plan that's due to you or your supervisor every single week. And I've been doing it for like eight years. So something that I can do is I have quarter one, quarter two, quarter three, and every single year and I'm keeping track of what's most important to me every single week. So I can go back and reference 2022, quarter two, who almost closed that year or that quarter who was on my hot list. I'm constantly keeping a hot list and filtering it in and out. So that's just a Google sheet that I've been keeping track of.
04:02
Robert Felton
And when I don't know what to do, sometimes I'll go back, look at a few different years, see, and go, oh yeah, I remember them. And then I take action. The other thing is I have all my notebooks, I'm constantly taking notes and I have them all in my office. So sometimes I just grab one or two and look back and I don't know, I have a good memory. So it starts jogging and I remember and I can see circled things on the paper and I'm like, oh yeah, they did have that problem. And one of my favorite is, you know, not just following up is not something I would say. I would say, hey, when we last talked in 2023, you were having a big recruitment issue. Have you found someone to help you with that question mark?
04:43
Robert Felton
And gets a lot of responses.
05:04 – How To Follow Up On Specific Problems
04:45
Jack Jostes
Yeah. So that's a great follow up on the specific problem. And for landscape folks, you know, if somebody had a drainage issue and they didn't close, maybe you got to the point where they, you met with them, they got a proposal, but they ghosted. That's a perfect time to follow up. When there's a weather event.
05:04
Robert Felton
Yeah.
05:05
Jack Jostes
When it's raining. Hey, you know, we've got this weather event coming and I thought of you. Did you ever get that drainage problem solved?
05:13
Robert Felton
Yeah.
05:13
Jack Jostes
And they're going to reply if they didn't. They're going to be really impressed that you followed up on that. And they're probably going to be like, oh, crap, I didn't. And I. I'm sorry, I went on vacation and then I got sick or like life happens. So I like the. Keeping the notes on what was the problem they had and then following up on the problem is so important because I get so much lazy follow up from me too. From salespeople just checking in, just following, circling back. Circling back on what?
05:44
Robert Felton
Yeah, to close. I don't want to do. Yeah, make your sale. I want, I mean, you to solve my problem. So you need to remember the issue or the problem. And it's so important. So keeping.
07:34 – What Is Lead Wrangler And How It Works
05:55
Jack Jostes
Keeping good notes in a CRM and then also pen and paper and then planning your week, though, I think that's a key thing for salespeople. And so you mentioned something that I think is very similar to selling if you were actually a landscaper, which is there are times of year where like, you're gonna have no shortage of people contacting you. They're. They're pursuing you. It's springtime, there's a weather event. There's. There's a reason that you're more or less like riding a wave almost and responding. And then there are times a. Where it's slower or it's October, November, December for a landscape company. And that's where you're going to need to do more of the topic that we're talking about, which is gold mining. And that's where you're looking in your database and you're finding a reason to follow up with people.
06:42
Jack Jostes
And that's where having those notes is so valuable. So that way you're organized and you know why you're following up. And I've hired a lot of people for different home projects, landscaping, remodeling, plumbing. And when people follow up and they actually remember what we talked about, I'm like, oh, this person is going to save me time. Whereas I've hired people who are disorganized or they forget and they. Unfortunately, I've had things drag on for months even, because they come and they don't remember what we talked about and they don't get it done, and they're like, oh, we can't come back for two weeks. So I think it's really important. And one of the tools that we've created at Ramblin Jackson is Lead Wrangler. So we've personalized this software to help landscape companies follow up and keep in touch with people.
07:34 – What Is Lead Wrangler And How It Works
07:34
Jack Jostes
And we've been using it at Ramblin Jackson for. I can't believe it's actually close to 18 months.
07:38
Robert Felton
Is it really? Wow.
07:39
Jack Jostes
Yeah, it's actually close to 18 months before we rolled it out to our clients.
07:43
Robert Felton
Oh, awesome.
07:44
Jack Jostes
And one of the things that I like about Lead Wrangler that helps us in our gold mining is the engagement score.
08:42 – Understanding Engagement Scores And Hot Leads
07:51
Robert Felton
Yeah.
07:52
Jack Jostes
So can you tell us a little bit about engagement score?
07:54
Robert Felton
Yeah, I love the engagement score. So an engagement score is something that you can set up. It's kind of saying, hey, when somebody does x, y and Z actions, we want to be notified that they've reached the engagement score limit. So you could set it. It's an arbitrary number, but you can set what you want it to be. But, I mean, we have it. And when someone gets over 10, which means they've probably looked at the pricing page, they've opened several of your podcast emails, and they visited the website at least separate times, that really gives me an indication that this person is hot. I mean, something I always talk about is do not treat all leads equally. You should be treating your A leads, B leads, hot leads, talking about hot, warm, cold. I mean, these are hot leads.
08:42
Robert Felton
When they reach this engagement score, it means they've taken action. They're interacting on their website. I kind of compare it to when you look at something on Amazon and it starts following you around on the Internet. It's kind of the same ideas. They know the CRM Lead Wrangler knows that this person's been on the website, done things, interacted with the marketing, and they're more likely to know Ramblin Jackson, Jack Justice, Robert Felton, and being able to get further quicker with a cold call or a website review.
10:50 – Why Pricing Page Visits Signal Serious Buyers
09:10
Jack Jostes
So, folks, listening, you're probably getting contacted by me and Robert, and we know when you're visiting certain pages of the website, and we're now helping landscape companies do that. So a way that landscape companies could do this is if we did commercial landscaping as an Example, and we have certain HOA communities that we're targeting. Yep. And we also have certain hospital clients or apartment complexes. We could build out pages for hoas that talk about and they have testimonials from hoas. We could have the apartment complex page with photos of apartment complexes and so on.
09:48
Jack Jostes
And when people in your database are visiting those pages or when they're visiting your pricing page or opening certain email campaigns, we can set up automations that notify the account managers or salespeople from our clients that hey, you know, Bob Smith reached a engagement score of 10 and you can see then which pages that person viewed and follow up with them.
10:15
Robert Felton
Yeah, it's pretty cool. I have it set up to email notify me, so I could even text notify me, which I used to do in the past. But when someone does any of my hooks or reaches an engagement score. So when someone requests a website review, I get notified immediately and I try to take action as soon as possible. The other one is when somebody reaches that engagement score, I get a notification, I click on the name and it goes directly into Lead Wrangler and I can start seeing what they're doing and how they reach that engagement score. So something that we saw that's pretty cool is, you know, most people who buy from us have visited the pricing page, our pricing page, at least once.
10:50
Robert Felton
So just kind of a cool trend that we're starting to see as people who are serious buyers are going to be looking at the pricing page. So I think going back to the landscape example, I mean, working with commercial landscaping clients, it's so important to know what they're interested in. And I mean, if someone's on your HOA page or your 10 big mistakes that snow removal or snow and ice management companies make and blah, blah, I mean, it's a really good time to maybe call them. It is, yeah.
12:09 – The Follow-Up Mistakes Most Contractors Make
11:20
Jack Jostes
And so part of it's waiting for them to do things. And then there's also things that we can proactively do with lead Wrangler, like email marketing campaigns. So I wanted to talk about email marketing because many people are good at generating leads like through Google search or word of mouth or Google Ads and they, they qualify and then they send a proposal and then that's it. I'm amazed by how many landscape professionals go through so much work to create a detailed estimate for somebody to only just send it and then they don't follow up. So what we're helping people do is follow up at least three times personal, like a Combination of automated follow ups. Like, hey, did you get this proposal? Because one little comment on that.
12:09
Jack Jostes
Like one time I got a follow up from a painting company that gave me an estimate and it came from some really weird email, you know, and I had met with, I think his name was Jason. So I was searching my email for like a quote from Jason, but it came from Foothills. I can't even remember their company name because I built a relationship with Jason. Right. So, so like little stuff like having your first and last name and your company name in your proposal is really important. So that way when people search it or when they get it, they recognize who it's from. But you know, he followed up and then called me and closed the sale.
12:47
Robert Felton
Yeah. A vital one for me is making sure when I'm selecting a proposal software is that I can control inserting the link that I don't have to send it through the software. Because assuming we use proposify as one of our softwares and I could send it through Proposify and it would come from infoproposify.com or whatever and no one would be able to find it. So I really. That's something that's just important to me personally is I'm very creative about my subject lines. I always make sure Ramblin Jackson's in there so when they type it in, they can find any and all interactions with me. But yeah, I think one other note that you mentioned earlier is just they send the agreement and never follow up, things like that.
13:30
Robert Felton
I think an important thing is people forget about their biggest competitor all the time, which is doing nothing. I always hear about the other landscapers all the time. But the one that's most likely taking most of your business is nothing like, their kid got sick, they went back to school, their car broke down, I mean, then they forgot. They don't do the drainage project, they don't do the outdoor living project. So if you just give up, it's just you're putting so much money on the table and you're spending so much money to get these leads that you gotta make sure that you're competing against doing nothing. So that's the one I talk with clients a lot about, is just, oh, I don't wanna bother them, I'm not gonna follow up. Or we didn't win that one. I'm like, you probably have another shot.
14:10
Robert Felton
You'd be surprised.
14:10 – How Email Marketing Reactivates Old Leads
14:11
Jack Jostes
Well, well. Cause what happens for the client is sometimes they then get embarrassed.
14:15
Robert Felton
Yeah.
14:16
Jack Jostes
That they're like, oh, I didn't reply to Robert or whoever the salesperson is, and it's been months and they're embarrassed and following up on the problem like we talked about earlier, hey, have you solved this drainage problem? Did you hire a snow removal contractor for next year? We only have three openings left is one of the things. And I think there's automated and personal follow up that should happen with every proposal and then putting people in a lead nurturing sequence. So this is where maybe you do your three follow ups.
14:50
Jack Jostes
And then this is where the power of email marketing is so great is if you continue sending email marketing to them and it includes links in it to your website and you have lead wrangler set up now you're giving them a reason to click back onto the website and be like, oh yeah, I remember this company. Cause if they went out and got three to five quotes or whatever, the chance of them remembering all of those people when most of them don't even follow up is really low. And if you're the one that one follows up at the time of the sale and ideally schedules a meeting like, hey, why don't we meet next week to review this? Yes, I will send it to you. I think that can really help. And then the email marketing.
15:31
Jack Jostes
One of our clients, Scott Parker Landscape Design High end residential, first email campaign we sent out, he reactivated two sales and these were just people that were in his database for a long time. They got a proposal in the past, didn't buy for whatever reason, and now they're back. And that email, the cool thing is it was sent to everybody.
16:33 – Identifying Your Most Engaged Prospects
15:54
Robert Felton
Yeah. So I think talking a little bit more about email and the sequences and following up with people is you can see open click rates, things like that. So it's just like a nice place to be able to find a little bit of information. So you'll find raving fans. Like, I know who the raving fans of your podcast are. There are people who listen and open and click on it every single week. So I mean some of those people are just fans and some are really hot leads. But a lot of times the people who are consistently on that list will eventually purchase from us. So knowing and paying attention to those people getting information, but I mean sending out an email, even a monthly, a newsletter or something like that.
16:33
Jack Jostes
Yeah.
16:33
Robert Felton
And not only, oh, we got a lot of clicks and opens, it's like who clicked and opened, especially in commercial, it's just so important.
16:40
Jack Jostes
Like yeah, well, so back to you were talking about prioritization for salespeople. So hot leads, these are the people who are most likely to close. Yeah. And, and you always be focused on them first. If they're, like, about to buy, you should focus on them. It's like if you were a restaurant and you come and take somebody's order, like, bring them their food. Right. Like. Yeah, get it done. Otherwise they're going to be like, why are you ignoring me? I'm really upset. And then warm leads are people. Maybe they've scheduled a meeting in the past or they've filled out the form on your website, but you haven't connected with them. And then the cold leads could be people who are in your database or maybe you're doing true outbound work.
17:20
Robert Felton
Yeah.
17:20
Jack Jostes
You know, and you would focus on them last. But. Yeah, the open rates and the clicks give you some of that information to help you prioritize.
17:29
Robert Felton
Yeah.
17:29
Jack Jostes
And I like what you said earlier, that you're planning your week around that.
17:32
Robert Felton
Yeah.
17:32
Jack Jostes
And if we could get our clients to do that, they would be unstoppable. Like, if they, even if they had a day, a week where they called people back, Even if it was simply days that had gone by, like, so many think contractors don't ever call anybody back. That if they even did it once a week. I mean, ideally it would be twice a week or three times a week or every day.
17:53
Robert Felton
Yeah.
17:53
Jack Jostes
But I know how busy our clients are, and then they lose staff and they're, they're. They have no shortage of things to do.
18:00
Robert Felton
There's also a little bit of just fear of the phone. A lot of people seem to have it.
18:04
Jack Jostes
Yeah.
18:04
Robert Felton
It's a hard thing to get over, but I mean, it's just like video. Once you start doing it and you kind of get into the routine and it's pretty easy. So I challenge you to try it. You know, call a few of those.
18:15
Jack Jostes
Leads or text them.
18:16
Robert Felton
Yeah, text. Texting works really well.
18:18
Jack Jostes
Texting is great.
18:19
Robert Felton
Yeah.
18:19
Jack Jostes
I think with some people.
18:20
Robert Felton
Yeah.
18:20
Jack Jostes
So some people love email, some people love text. Some people are like, dude, do not text me.
18:24
Robert Felton
Yeah.
18:25
Jack Jostes
I actually don't like texting for business stuff very much.
18:30
Robert Felton
Okay.
18:30
Jack Jostes
Like, we're here at a conference and I'm like, hey, we're meeting. That makes sense. But like, all the time.
18:35
Robert Felton
No, it makes sense.
18:36
Jack Jostes
I. We have other.
18:37
Robert Felton
I text to plan things. I'm not a small talker via text, but I'm a pretty good small talker.
18:42
Jack Jostes
That's good.
18:43
Robert Felton
I always just laugh because people are like, you're so Good at this, but not. I'm like, where are we going? What's the directions? Is my text messaging.
18:49
Jack Jostes
So we've talked a bit about Lead Wrangler and many people may not know what it is. It is the premier sales and marketing CRM for the landscape industry. We've created this. It's only for our clients at this time. I don't really want to offer it to everybody. It's more something that we created to simplify reporting so we can do call tracking phone numbers. So when we do postcards for clients, when we do Google Ads organic search, when they get calls, we can tell them this came from this marketing source and it can record Also, one of our clients does an amazing job.
20:15 – Lead Segmentation And Building A Dream List
19:27
Jack Jostes
They have a call center answer their phone and then the call center fills out a form and that automatically creates a lead for their salesperson who then opens the app on his phone and calls them and it records it and transcribes the notes. So he's out and about. This is a lawn care client. He's out and about trying to do 10 estimates a day. So he's busy. So the more time he can spend selling and the less time typing stuff, that's really the key. And this automates a lot of that. So it has a lot of integration capability, helps people with not only their reporting, but also a pipeline tool to keep people along the way from website to this stage to phone call to estimate. And what else?
20:15
Robert Felton
Yeah, I think two things that I find really awesome about Lead Wrangler is, I mean, I've worked in sales a long time and you mean a lot of times people leave, things happen and you gotta step in and take over and Lead Wrangler gives you those notes and those opportunities. I mean, we had some turnover and I had to take over a few accounts and I could go in, I could see what emails were sent, I could see what phone calls were made, I could see vital notes. So when I step in, yes, I do have to do a little catch up. And it's not just like, oh, I don't know anything about you. It's like, hey, I know X, Y and Z. I know this is that right? I asked for confirmation. They were impressed. I knew something still needed to catch up.
20:51
Robert Felton
But thank goodness I had Lead Wrangler, I was able to catch myself up. I think the other thing I think is really important is lead segmentation a little bit. I mean, it's one of my favorite things that we've always done is like Jack speaks all over and I Can look back and see. And I can message the people who attended Jack's events in Texas, and I can have a message that's a little more tailored to Texas clients who have seen Jack speak, things like that. So one of my favorites is building what you call a dream list. Clients who love to buy things, who trust you, who want to know what the new hottest thing is in outdoor living. I mean, you have a client in Kansas City. I mean, she's always art. She's selling saunas, whirlpools.
21:35
Robert Felton
And these people appreciate being followed up and told. Like, everybody's getting this. You want it, don't you? And they do. So I just think being able to organize those lists and organize your leads in a way that makes follow up more efficient.
23:02 – Cross Selling To Increase Customer Lifetime Value
21:50
Jack Jostes
Well, not only follow up, but cross selling.
21:52
Robert Felton
Cross selling. I mean, this is.
21:53
Jack Jostes
This is the number one way to increase your lifetime value per customer. So getting each customer. So ideally they buy the backyard and they buy maintenance, and then later on they do their front yard. But if they only buy maintenance and haven't done the install project yet, Keeping track of that. So you can send promotions that like, hey, we're currently scheduling design consultations for the spring. Yeah. Dream up a new backyard with a.
22:23
Robert Felton
Yeah, we loved working with you last year. Are you interested in adding anything to the project? If you get us, get in touch now. We could have it done before, you know, it's too early, too far into summer or something like that.
22:34
Jack Jostes
So one of our best campaigns that we did with Lead Wrangler was one of the first, actually, was with Tice Landscape Works. And so we did a campaign for front yard landscape installations. And the primary people who took advantage of it were their existing customers. And we pushed it early in February before it got hot. And we're like, hey, you're one of our premier clients. We want to give you priority scheduling to get your project done before Easter.
23:02
Robert Felton
Yep.
23:02
Jack Jostes
You know, and we had a campaign, and then the number one thing they did was they called everyone. They. They called. Like, it's the hardest thing. If we could get our clients to call, like the phone call. It's really. All of this is meant to create an opportunity to have a conversation.
23:17
Robert Felton
Yep.
23:19
Jack Jostes
So I think being prepared with your follow up. Never just follow up or just check in.
23:27
Robert Felton
Yeah.
23:27
Jack Jostes
Like, like get a life. Like, do something better.
23:29
Robert Felton
Don't treat all leads equal. There's no way to treat them equal. You gotta prioritize. And you mean, I. What was it? Closest alligator to the boat. Not the best reference here. That's usually a problem but who's the closest to buying and you should work your way back from there. And I mean it's kind of like laundry on my list. It never really gets to the top but.
23:48
Jack Jostes
Well right now we're under a cool moss covered live oaks in Amelia Island, Florida. We're at the Bach Business Partners Leadership and Sales Summit and this was a cool event if for folks listening check out Bach Business Partners. They're, they really have a, a cool, tightly knit, truly exclusive group like he was talking yesterday that they like turn away a lot of people.
24:13
Robert Felton
Yeah.
24:13
Jack Jostes
And the quality of the people here is really high. We've gotta go. Yeah we've gotta go to the dinner event, see some awards. Thanks for coming on the podcast.
24:21
Robert Felton
Always happy to be here. So. So good talking to you Jack and looking forward to being on it again soon.
24:27
Jack Jostes
I hope so.
24:27
Robert Felton
Yeah.