How To Get Your Team To Take GREAT Landscaping Portfolio Photos [Podcast]

Jack Jostes: 

And did he take that on a camera or a phone? Just on a smartphone. That's amazing. You know, and so that's the, the crazy, the great thing right now is, you know, if you're, if your team and they're just using their personal phones, right? Correct. You know, your, your, your people are going to have a smartphone and they have incredible cameras. And if you check out this photo on the, on the map, for those of you who are listening, check out, check out the website at GSU, landscaping.com/portfolio these are some sweet lines. That's incredible. So did he win the photo contest for that month or whatever?

Craig Attkisson: 

I gave out $200 gift cards last month. One was for that picture and the other one was for the guy who submitted 42 pictures.

Jack Jostes: 

Awesome. Okay. And so when, when you, when you're sending these out or, uh, or what, you're just kind of choosing which one you like the best, is that kind of the,

Craig Attkisson: 

it is. So, and one thing I've failed to mention, I try to make this as simple as possible. Um, so telling someone just to text it to me and it's not very organized. So I set up an email address for our company. It's pitchers at GSU, landscaping.com so they can send it right to us. Um, so it goes every, when a pitcher comes in, it goes to all the managements that everyone can see it. So everyone can be proud of it. So, and then, then I print out all the pictures and I, um, I mean it's pretty, I'd say to me it's fairly obvious which one is going to win every month. And if it's a couple of great ones, then I'll give a couple of gift cards the way I see it. I'm getting a lot of great pictures and I'm not having to do any work. So a couple couple of gift cards is a great way to reward our guys for stuff that they're proud of and we're getting good stuff out of it.

Jack Jostes: 

And then tell us what, what happens once the email is sent to pictures@gsulandscaping.com don't you use Zapier to, to, don't you have some of their automation set up after we get the email?

Craig Attkisson: 

I do. So are, this gets a little complicated, but um, I actually have it, all of our information go right into air table, um, which is a, um, kind of like a spreadsheet meet meets a database together. Um, we just started doing that this year. I just had it for five years. I just had a, um, email address and it would just come into our inbox. But now I've got a place where everything organizes and goes right into a place where we can look at all at the same time

Jack Jostes: 

automatically. And so for people who, you know, who are listening that maybe not are using Zapier, it's essentially it's a software that makes software talk to other software. Um, you know, so instead of, you know, manually downloading the photo to your computer and then uploading it somewhere else and then, you know, doing all these things, this is all automated through Zapier, that email automatically sends the photo to air table. And, um, what, what are some of the results of, you know, obviously you're, you're people are, I mean, you're getting photos that you're using on your website, you're using them on social media, you, you even have one in your proposal. Now, what are some of the other results or impacts of kind of having this, uh, this photo culture? It's really become part of your operations. How else has it impacted the business?

Craig Attkisson: 

Well, I think for starters, uh, we have a good culture here and everyone wants to produce landscape and they're proud of, um, so at the same time, it, it's, it's helping recruiting, uh, from a standpoint of a lot of people want to be here. A lot of people want to produce stuff that they're really happy to do. Um, for me as a business owner, it's helpful to have it. I typically take pictures in the same way every single time. When I'm doing things, it getting different perspectives and different views from different angles, from different people. Um, it's super beneficial. You know what I mean? Um, it's, um, I wouldn't even think this, take some of these pictures and do some of these things, um, and getting that feedback that I can then use for marketing for my company, whether it's newsletters or the website or, um, social media. Um, it makes it really, really simple.

Jack Jostes: 

Uh, you're, you're one of the few landscapers. I know recruiting is not like a big problem right now. Okay. So that's kind of weird, right? Um, but it's, it's not weird because you've built an incredible company, you know, you, you've built a company where people want to work. What are you doing on the recruiting side? And, and it may not even be recruiting. It's more of a leadership and the culture side. What is the culture like at GSU and, and how does that then impact recruiting?

Craig Attkisson: 

We're a team, uh, and so we've got to all work together and we promote that a lot. Um, we, we work really hard to onboard our guys, give them the absolute best equipment that they can, um, give them clear goals of what they're trying to get accomplished. Um, and we listen to them. I mean, I, I S I have a pretty intense onboarding process where we're, um, we're trying to bring the right guys here in the first place through the interview process. When they do come here, I'm having a 30, 60, and 90 and every six months after that meeting with the team members. So I'm asking them on a scale of one to 10, how do you like working here? And then I ask a series of seven, seven to eight questions that there may be corny questions, but they're, they're meant to spur conversation. I want to make sure that they're getting what they want out of us and we're getting what we need out of them. You know what I mean? So it's nothing comes up as a surprise because we're, we're talking it out, we're figuring it out. If something's left field, I'm going to know about it before I get slammed and he doesn't show up ever again, you know?

Jack Jostes: 

Yeah. Right. And, and you know, I love that question of on a scale of one to 10, how are you feeling about working here? And, uh, you know, one of the things that we're working on together as net promoter score, um, you're using gather up to gather that from your clients. I'm, I'm a big believer in it because, you know, what I found is that you learn a lot when you get the seven or the six or the five and you call your customer and say, Hey, we're looking to get eight nines and tens. What's, what's the gap here? And you find out and you can absolutely find that out from your people. I remember I waited a long time to ask that to my own staff. And in a, in a company meeting, I asked one of our departments how they were feeling and they were feeling pretty low and we needed to make some immediate changes. And we did. And, uh, without mentioning somebody specifically, can you share a story of maybe a time where you had that conversation and you got a seven, six or a five and you were able to coach or mentor that person given what they need to get them to, to be an eight, nine, 10 and a longterm employee?

Craig Attkisson:

Well, I don't know that I can't, one doesn't come to mind, but one, one story that does come to mind is I want them to know that I'm listening to them. So one example of that is we, um, I asked them w one of the last question is, is there something I can do to make you or help you do your better? So I'm just, I'm just straight out throwing it out there any way possible. You know, one guy was talking about, um, we're always working on crew efficiency and the timing on the jobs and stuff like that. Um, he mentioned that on one of his properties we had, we had one bagger at the time for, for six Mo crews. We had one bagger. So he used this bagger on that property. He noticed by the end of the year that the malt hadn't been blown all out and it looked a whole lot better than a lot of our other properties. So I went and got bags for everybody else and it's saving on man hours. Our properties are looking better. It's helping us in a couple of different transitions. And I gave him credit for that in our meetings and gave him a bonus for that. Just promoting, you know, promoting good thinking, how we can get better, cause I can't, I can't think of all the stuff, you know, so

Jack Jostes: 

that's awesome. That's, that's great. Um, and in the, in the, in the Monday meeting, so I wanted to just acknowledge some of the things that I think you're doing really well. Um, you know, we had an overwhelming response of people who wanted to hear this recording and come to the live thing. And I, it's banned. It's a pain for me running a web design and SEO company because my clients get better results when they have great photos on their website. And if I, I can't go everywhere and take everyone's photo for them. Um, and they all struggle with this.

Craig Attkisson:

Nope.

Jack Jostes:

What I think you're doing well is you're reiterating this every Monday. So, so you told me before the show started, um, there, there are two ways, there are two things that happen at the start of every Monday morning. So what, what, what are they?

Craig Attkisson: 

So I start every Monday morning meeting with our motto, landscaping you're proud of. So I want to reiterate that I do it on the beginning of the meeting and I do at the end of the meeting just so we're, we close everything up. The second thing I do is promote this pitcher program. Um, so if it's, if it's not the first of the next month, I'm just talking about it and kind of, you can kind of direct your guys on what kind of pictures that you're, you're gonna um, rank a little higher this, this month. Like maybe I want more people in my pictures or maybe I want to see, um, you know, guys working in our pictures or, you know, having a good time that we can use it on our, promote our, our, our growing our team. Um, so that, that's, that's kinda how I do it. And then own the beginning of every month. Um, I print out every one of the pictures in our, in our big circle. I pass them out and they, they start cutting up for five minutes. They just looking at all the pictures and like, they want to be the person who wins this. What is this thing?

Jack Jostes: 

And, uh, do you have a GSU hall of fame or like where do those winter pictures, where do they live?

Craig Attkisson: 

On our website?

Jack Jostes: 

On your website? Hell yeah. Right on. Okay, cool. Yeah. Um, you, you don't have a a corkboard or something where the Panama,

Craig Attkisson: 

I don't, but by no means are we perfect on this. We've found something that works for us. Um, but I do like the idea of maybe posting those pictures so they can see them and have them have them up there.

Jack Jostes: 

Well, yeah, I like it. You know, we have a beef jerky club at Ramblin Jackson, so we live our core values and one of them is to be on time and prepared to add value. So we're always on time and ready to add value to a meeting. We're not going to show up and be like, what are we doing? You know, we're going to be, we're going to show up on. And so every Monday we let our employees, our team nominate each other and you can get a point for living a core value. And then you tell the story of like, Craig did a great job of being on time to add value here, blah, blah, blah. And at the end of the quarter, whoever gets the most points when it gets to keep, we have a bowl. It's a little bowl, a statute toy, statue thing.

Jack Jostes:

And uh, and then you get to keep that for, uh, for the, for the rest of the quarter. And then at the end of the quarter you could decorate it and pass it. You mail it to the next person cause we're a remote company. Um, so that's one of the ways that we, we kind of keep it going and we have like a little trophy that you can, but you only have it for a few months and you have to decorate it. So there's, I think there's a lot of, I think these things, you know, it's funny, um, they seem kind of corny or cheesy or silly, but they're actually the things that people really enjoy and remember and they, they, they reiterate, you know, uh, you know, landscaping. We're proud of that, that, that's one of the first things when we met, uh, that was one of the first things that we talked about. And I love that it makes its way down into all the little details of things that you do.

Craig Attkisson: 

I want to say that I'm not, I'm not a good speaker and it does, it doesn't feel comfortable in our group. In our Monday morning meeting, I didn't start out thinking that, man, I'm, this is, I was born for this. You know what I mean? But it's something that, um, it's needed for the group to get together and to, to reiterate the things that you want to promote. So landscaping you're proud of. This is what we're, our whole company is about and promoting this picture. They, this is what I want. I want you to be proud of it and I want to get some pictures out of it. You know what I mean? So it's, you're going to feel uncomfortable starting this. You just gotta do it and you to do it on a regular too.

Jack Jostes: 

Yeah. Do it on the regular, because so many people at the beginning of the year say, all right Tim, this spring, take some photos, you know, and then it's fall. And they're like, well, we don't have any photos. So you're doing it, you're doing it week by week. What's, I'm curious, what's the third thing that you talk about? At the Monday meeting?

Craig Attkisson: 

I was trying to, we talked about that gather up. I tried to start off positive, so I tried to pull a positive feedback that um, on an install project or a maintenance project. Um, so give some good, you know, we're getting some feedback or like a Facebook review or an Angel's list review of some sorts. I'm reading that to the group to kind of promote, um, okay. Do some training, um, safety training or um, you know, the topics of the day.

Jack Jostes: 

Good, good. Um, one, one of the other things that I wanted to talk to you about was online scheduling. Now you've been, you know, right now it's may 20, 20, depending on people listen to this. I think you're ahead of the curve in the sense that you've been doing online scheduling for a while. Um, before this whole covert 19 thing broke out and all of this, what like, why do you, why do you have online scheduling? And how does it, you know, just walk us through what it is. So if you guys check out Craig's website, the call to action is not request to quote, it's book an appointment and you can literally schedule it online and it removes all the back and forth emails and the things that people frankly hate about landscapers, which is calling them, not hearing back, emailing them and not hearing back quickly. Oh, I'm not available at this time. It just removes all of that. So from a customer's perspective, it's like, great, please great. Come and meet me at four o'clock on Thursday. Why did, what's it been like and how has it, why do you continue doing that?

Craig Attkisson: 

Well, we've been doing that for about five years. Um, it is, it is an absolute game changer. If you put everyone, you send everyone to the website and have them be able to schedule online, all I'd say half of your phone calls stop. And I know what everyone's going to say. The biggest concern is, Oh, I can't see if I'm going to do a good job. You know this, if this job is right for me. So we have a lot of different screening process that go through. One of them is right on the website. The first thing I asked them to do is put in their zip code. I want to see if they're actually in the area that we service. That's our first screen. If it's not in the right area, then it's going to say, sorry we're not, we can't service you. Um, the second thing is they can, after that they can set up a meeting.

Craig Attkisson:

Um, and we asked for a small description of what it's all about. If we see something that comes in that doesn't work for us, what we're doing, um, then we'll cancel the meeting and, you know, say that we're not the right contractor. Um, as we, as soon as they sign up that we talked about Zapier before, I have an automatic pre-meeting document that goes to them and tells them everything that they've kind of selected if it's a maintenance, a landscape or a hardscape project. And so I send them a specific, um, pre-meeting document that, um, give them every detail, gives them rough pricing, gives them detail of what we're doing and how we do it and why we do it. Um, you'd be surprised we're getting so good feedback from them saying, wow, thank you for putting all this together. And I understand like I've answered the 10 questions that we get answered, asked all the time. There's a frequently asked questions section that they've read and like, Oh, I don't get asked those questions anymore because it goes right into the document and that document actually self sorts people out too because they'll, if they're just looking for someone who can just cut it one time, it specifically says we don't do one off mowings and they'll just cancel the meeting themselves. So all that stuff happens automatically.

Jack Jostes: 

Yeah. I love that. You know, and um, in my book I talk about how you can disqualify bad prospects with your website. Every day I hear P contractors high, all I need, I need quality leads. The internet doesn't produce quality leads, you know. Well that's cause your website isn't disqualifying people. So you, you are automatically disqualifying the people who just want a one off Mo for their enormous yard that they haven't taken care of in 10 years. Uh, you're, you know, you're, you're telling people the budget. So if they're looking for the cheapest person, cool. Uh, let them, let them go get the cheapest contractor. They're not a fit. Right. So I love that you have this and I love that you're sending that, that document. The other thing you're doing really well is sending video and you've got video on your website. And last time we talked a few weeks ago you had even gotten a little branded background. And how is that going? I haven't seen any new videos. Are you still making them? I just haven't seen him yet.

Craig Attkisson: 

I had been a little Slack here recently because I just, it's um, it's spring and we're trying to kind of kick stuff out here in this unique time. Uh, but yes, we got a little, it was a little screen kind of like you see behind a sports arena. You know, they're doing their interviews afterwards. He was, I don't know, 300 bucks and it looks pretty professional. Um, we did our covert 19, uh, video in front of that. Um, it part of our pre-meeting documents that sent out. It's a video that says, Hey, thank you for signing up. Please read the document and kind of encourages them and say, listen, I'm, I'm the owner of the company. I'm just trying to say, Hey, I put in a lot of time and effort into these documents. Please read them because this tells you everything that I know about our services in this document. So it, man videos really hit home and a lot of people really love it.

Jack Jostes:

Yeah, video really is powerful because you know, everyone has a slightly different learning style. Some people like to read, some people will watch a video, but they wouldn't read. Some people wouldn't watch a video, but they will read. And this way you're reaching all of those people, uh, automatically is, is the beauty. I think my favorite thing about using video in my own business is I have tons of onboarding videos for clients and things and they show up and they don't, we don't spend a hour going through,

Craig Attkisson:

you know,

Jack Jostes: 

client one Oh one questions. It's like, Hey, how can I help you? And you can get, you can just help more people faster, I think help the right people faster. Um, I wanted to go ahead.

Craig Attkisson: 

The other thing that we didn't talk about is with the on online scheduling, the system that we use, I don't have any no-shows too or people's like, Oh, I thought the time was this time or this time. Um, it automatically sends them reminders and text messages. So every, everyone's going to be there on time and they know it and they, I can send pre-meeting documents again, just so they hate just, just to remind you to read this before, you know, an hour before the meeting. So just to kind of nail it home.

Jack Jostes: 

Awesome. Yeah. You're, you're, you're using a lot of repetition in the right in the right way and, uh, that, that can really help. So since we originally wanted to meet about photos, I wanted to share some tips about how to take great photos on your smartphone. And my first tip for people is, is to hold your phone in landscape mode, meaning hold it horizontally. And the reason is if you're going to put these on your website, a lot of people are going to view these on a horizontal screen on, on a, on a computer browser or uh, whatever. And by taking it horizontally, it's going to just display more of the photo. It's going to allow you and Craig that photo of the residents, the lawn maintenance client, man, that was spectacular because it had a nice focal point. It used the rule of thirds.

Jack Jostes:

There needs to be three things in the photo and you're either covering one of them or two of them and that, that had a good focal point in the rule of thirds. But you just keep it simple, you know, hold it, hold it horizontally. And um, the other thing is the lighting. That photo, that photo was taken on a slightly overcast day. A lot of times there's a misconception that bright sunny days are the best for photos. Often it's easier to take a photo when it's overcast. Um, now you don't want to be out in the rain per se, but if it's a kind of muggy day, that's great because it's actually easier to, for the photo not be blown out. What are some of the other tips that you've shared with your team to help them take great photos?

Craig Attkisson: 

I really promote people in the pictures. I mean, not only, I mean, whether it's customers or, I love having team members in the pitchers doing the work so we can, we're promoting getting additional, uh, team members and, uh, I don't know, brings, it brings a pitcher to life when you have people in it. You know what I mean?

Jack Jostes:

Yeah. I really think it does. And I like, um, having photos of people, especially you guys have nice branded shirts because that reinforces the brand, uh, throughout your, your website. People like, Oh yeah, I think I have seen that in my neighborhood and Oh yeah, I have seen somebody in that shirt. And it, it makes it seem familiar. Whereas if you only have photos of lawn and landscape stuff, it's hard to remember. Uh, okay, well who did this? Uh, I'd like to see more photos of Craig on the website because you know, people are, you know, Craig and the rest of your partners who are doing sales, you, we want to set you guys up. So that way when you show up, not only have they gotten the video, the document, but they've seen your photo and then they're not surprised to see you. Right. So it's not about Craig, it's about helping the client understand and feel comfortable with this guy who's at my house. Okay. This is Craig. I've seen him. I've seen his photo. I know why this person is here. Right?

Craig Attkisson: 

Yeah. It's usually not a problem with me because all the pre meeting documents, I'm on the video. It's my two partners. Uh, they don't have a whole lot of camera time.

Jack Jostes: 

Yeah. We've got to get them in there. So, um, very good. Well, um, what are, what are, um, is there anything else that you wanted to share with people before we, we break into Q&A?

Craig Attkisson:

No, just, just make it something that you do. I mean, pictures are a big deal. We are a visual product. I mean, yes, we provide a service, but people want to see their landscape look awesome. So if we can get some good pictures to promote yourself, I mean, it's getting your team members to take them for you. To me it was a no brainer. Um, so I, I, you just gotta make it something that you do and you do it and you reiterate it all the time.

Jack Jostes:

And, and how do you, how do you communicate? What's the benefit aside from the incentive? Or is it, I mean, it has to be, so it's more than just the, the gift card. It's the, you're, you're spreading them around in front of the team. It's part of the experience.

Craig Attkisson:

Yeah. I mean, guys, they really do cut up for five minutes and just like, Oh man, look at that one. Oh, this one, definitely one, you know, they, they know that this stuff is looking good and they, they want to be that one that everyone talks about and they want, they're proud of it. They want the rest of the team to be proud of it too.

Jack Jostes: 

Good one that goes back to your culture and your motto of, uh, landscaping we're proud of. So I think it all, it all ties together and this is just a way that you're living it. So next I'd like to bring our landscape marketing strategist Robert on and here's some of his thoughts about this. Robert is often meeting with people and looking at websites. So, um, Robert, glad to have you here.

Robert Felton:

Glad to be here. Thanks Jack. I'm Robert Felton. I'm the landscape marketing strategists here at Ramblin Jackson. I actually talked to Craig before he joined as one of our customers and was always just impressed with his work and got blown away by what he's doing. And you know, I think something that I'd like to hear a little bit more about is Zapier. You know, I think a lot of people don't know what that does. And you know, you really automated a lot of simple processes and connected a lot of different software and there's nothing more frustrating than moving from one software to the other. So could you tell us a little bit about Zapier and how it's helped you out?

Craig Attkisson:

So I really like to work hard once and have it do all the work for me the whole rest of the time. So as soon as we already talked about the information coming in off the website, all the meetings, all the information from the client, all that's taken from the website and the meeting that's set up and put into spreadsheets automatically, it's put into our, our, our proposal software. It's put into our Panda doc that sends stuff off to people I don't have to type the name in again. Um, and we can kind of track it throughout the whole process. So all the pre-meeting documents are done, um, instantly. It's, it's having programs talk to each other and that Zapier is the program that does everything with that.

Robert Felton: 

So this connects to different softwares. It's kind of like a Excel formula or something like that.

Craig Attkisson: 

Yeah. So it takes information from the program that gathers the meeting to our, um, to our database program and it translates one piece of information to the other. Um, so it, it works well on linking everything together so that way we don't have to, um, I don't like typing in information a lot. I don't paint like paying for expensive programs that are very expensive that, um, that I can just build on my own. It's kind of like a DIY huge system. That's where they explained it. That's awesome.

Jack Jostes: 

Well, Craig, you know, I'd love to see another program you're using is air table, which we mentioned briefly. Um, would you mind sharing your screen and showing us the GSU rocket ship? Uh, for those of you who haven't seen this, this is just mind-blowingly. Cool. Um, so just walk us through some of the ways that you're using this, uh, to run your company.

Craig Attkisson: 

So this is, uh, I have air table here putting in all of our pictures. Um, so this, this is all of our pitchers. When they submitted it, who it is. Um, so I can kind of go, so here's, here's a ton of pictures. Um, so you can see there's like 40 some pictures. This is the guy that won one of the bonuses. This, this, uh, this round. There's a lot of nice pictures that he's, he's framed up and he's done himself, um, that he's really proud of. So that's all the pictures go there, but you can see from the up top. Um, so I'll just go, this is our main page on leads.

Craig Attkisson: 

Here's all of our active leads. So this is, um, so this lead just came in. So I assign it to, um, the salesperson that needs to go to, this is just, this is the only real manual process in the whole system is a sign and telling what location it's at and it goes in there instantly, but you can see all the different, um,

Craig Attkisson: 

all the different leads we have in the different stages. Right now. You can see when the proposal has been sent, um, you can see what follow up stage. So I have a followup system. As soon as I send out a proposal, it starts a chain reaction. So two hours after I send out a proposal, it sends a follow up and says, Hey, I sent a proposal about two hours ago. Just want to make sure that you got it and see if you had any questions about it. And then it, after five days it follows up. And then after five days more, it follows up with different types of tactics, um, to kind of go after to make sure that they know that we're paying attention and that we again, um, I don't have to do it manually. It's doing it automatically.

Jack Jostes: 

Yeah. Yeah. I love this because you know, we work with people on their SEO to generate leads. We build their websites and a lot of times people drop the ball in the followup phase. Even, even once they get to the proposal stage, they don't follow up. And what I love about this is that you're, you are automatically following up and what you're sharing now is, is your equipment and I was really amazed that your, how you manage your, your, your, your vehicles in here. So tell us a little more about it.

Craig Attkisson: 

Yeah. So again, this is like a database meets an Excel spreadsheet. So it all talks, it's a great way to store stuff so you can put all your information with all your pictures and every piece of information. So, um, like this truck, it's got the VIN numbers, it's got, it's got every piece of information where it's at, um, what year it is, where it's housed, everything that you would need to know at one place, which is really great. And it also talks about we can also inter service tickets in here. So we don't have any open service tickets right now, but you can enter in service tickets that goes, ties in directly to that piece of equipment. So it, all the information is in the same place all the time. Um, amazing. Again, this could be overwhelming pretty quickly, but it's, here's our 30, 60, 90 meetings we were talking about earlier. Um, so I, I, I performed the meetings. I have a nice little form, actually I can show you the form.

Craig Attkisson:

So here's the form that I use. The date of the meeting, who the team member is, um, who's conducting the meeting. Um, on a scale of one to 10, 10 being the highest, would you rate working here? What would you change if you could, uh, what do you dislike the most and why? What do you like the most and why? Um, what job or tasks do you like doing better than anything else? So I'm just kind of asking them questions that, there may be corny questions, but I'm asking them questions that spur conversation. So I want to get to know them and what they like and what they don't like. So this is all this all housed here.

Robert Felton: 

Can you share that story that you talked about, about the bags and how you incentivize that employee? Was that,

Craig Attkisson: 

that's where we talked, you know, you've mentioned that

Robert Felton: 

one employee came up with an idea here in this meeting and you've implemented, all right, what was that? I can't remember the name.

Craig Attkisson:

Yeah. So, um, that was, this was, that was in this we talked about, um, you know, the baggers on the, on the mowers in this meeting we talked about, um, he just thought it was a good idea to add baggers because it would save on man hours. It can make our properties look better. Um, from that standpoint, it was all gathered from one of these meetings that, um, that we, that we, that we hold and it, again, this all ties back to our team. So here's our team members. I have a calendar here that tells every key date that I need to know about. So when, when their birthday is, when their year is, when the 30, 60, 90 days. So I can know when I need to have these meetings. Um, so again, I look at this every week to kind of make sure I have all these meetings dialed in. Um, we have, we have all of our active team members and every piece of information that you need to know on our active team members list here and what what they do here. Um, there is an org chart here somewhere too that I don't know if it's up to date or not, but maybe not.

Craig Attkisson: 

But there's a, there's a lot of different ways you can sort this information too. So these are all the leads that I just showed you. Um, but you can sort them by, um, by timeline. So actually did this here. Um, so you can see what leads are coming in, um, by salesperson and if we won the job, how much the job was and everything like that, what type of job it was. So we, we, we try to, you can filter this information on air table, um, any way you want to. Um, and you can group stuff and filter it to get the information that you want out of it. So the main reason I did it is because I didn't know how I was getting my leads. So that's why I investigate this in the first place. Because I'm paying Angie's list, um, I'm paying, uh, I'm paying Jack to help me with the, the Google side of things and I want to know that if it works or not. So if I track everything that comes in or where the lead source was, um, it works well.

Robert Felton: 

And so what have you been able to interpret from? I mean, we only launched website I think

Jack Jostes: 

six weeks ago. Um, what, what have you found about, do you have, do you track things like close rate? Are you able to share any insights from what, what you found from the marketing?

Craig Attkisson:

Yeah, so we're definitely, you know, we launched our website in mid February, I believe. I can't, maybe it was March, maybe it was March. Um, but we're definitely seeing an uptick in our, um, our Google leads, which is great. Um, and I, I love being confident about that. You know what I mean? I love knowing that, you know, I think January we had one lead from Google and it's gone up. Um, last month, just from Google alone. We, I think we did $40,000 from Google. Um, which is great. You know what I mean? We're working, we're seeing steady progress, we're seeing steady leads coming in that we know that are from Google because that's what the clients are telling us. We're asking that question on our website. We're asking how did you hear about us? And so we're know if it's from a Google lead, they're telling us their founders from Google right when they remembered doing it. So it's, it's definitely been helpful to know that. And not to toot your horn, but it has worked for Google so far and we're really excited about that.

Jack Jostes:

Cool. Well, I appreciate you sharing that. What, what, um, have you, have you been able to cut any marketing since you started tracking it? And maybe, I mean, unrelated to the work we're doing together, I'm an advocate of, of, of, of tracking marketing. I have a chapter in my book, chapter 11 is called measure results. And I even share, uh, how to put this into QuickBooks. I, um, I, I take it with my own marketing. I know where every single client came from and what marketing led me to that her. So that way I can, I can look at, okay, well how much did I spend and then what did I get and what was it profitable. Have you been able to, um, and, and I know that for a lot of people when I won, I asked them to do this. They just, they're like, Oh, I don't want to do more busy work. What, what are, I mean I'm sure some people are listening to this and they're like, man, this dude's a geek. He's got everything in his air table. I could never do that. But like I'm, I'm guessing like you've probably saved the cost of several employees who would need to do this stuff or like what, what is like, so one, thank you for sharing your air table and your, and your lead sources and all this stuff. What has been like the business result for, for you from setting up, setting all this up? Because this,

Craig Attkisson: 

I'm just curious. Yeah. So first of all, I took my suspenders off for this meeting. I am definitely not a geek. Um, I just want to make sure we're on the same page on that. So from that standpoint, I just liked doing stuff that it doesn't automatically, I don't want any busy work either. I just want it to work, you know what I mean? So I'm, I'm going to, I'm going to work really hard one time to automate it. So it does it for me all the time. So your, one of your questions was what, did we stop? Anything? We have stopped doing Google paper click currently. Um, and we're actually, I did that for the last two years. Um, I think we were pumping $1,200 a month into Google paper click. Um, and honestly, the honest answer is we're getting more leads right now than we did with pay-per-click. More better quality leads right now with the SEO work that we've done. Um, versus just kind of trolling on Google paperclip.

Jack Jostes: 

That's awesome. And for those of you listening, I did not pay Craig to say that, but that, that, that is an improvement. It makes my job way easier when you have your own data. Um, well that's amazing, you know, and I think that that, uh, you should expect that to continue. 

Robert Felton:

I have one more quick question. You know, I think something that a lot of clients struggle with is getting people, even here at Ramblin Jackson, you know, Jack is very comfortable on video. It's very strong. You know, I've been working on becoming stronger on video. You know, a lot of people get kind of nervous when they take pictures or part of the picture or part of the video. And I'm just wondering, it sounds like you've really created this great culture and I wonder, wondering how you maybe coach someone who struggles being on camera or you know, uh, someone who's nervous to take pictures because everyone sees them and you know, do you have, I know a lot of, you know, labor workers, they really like, you mean some of this technology stuff, man, that's kind of what they say. So I was just wondering if you had some helpful hints to help someone who maybe uncomfortable starting this process and how to be more conscious.

Craig Attkisson:

Just baby steps. It's not, you're not shooting off a rocket ship here. You know what I mean? So I really baby steps for me, I'm not good on video. I, I, um, it's still a, it's still a challenge for me, but the baby step that I took is I downloaded a teleprompter onto my phone. So I'm taking a video and I'm reading a teleprompter. If that's the baby step that I needed, I could well think out what I was going to say. So it was very concise. Now I was using that as a template. That was my crutch to get going. Um, and now it's, it's becoming easier and it's, it's kinda like I'm riding a bike. It just take seat time. The more you do it, the better you're going to get, the more comfortable you're going to get, the better your it's going to sound. But my crutch to get started was a teleprompter. Um, and then I got, um, I got a nice with Jack talked about the lighting, I got nice lighting for shooting the video. I got a nice background. It was $300. And the light that was, I don't know, 25 bucks off Amazon, um, a couple of small little things and you're set up to go

Jack Jostes: 

like Jack does it, it makes it super easy for yourself to do it because then you'll do it right all the time. Yeah, that's, that's my, um, I, I'll say that it is hard, you know, and I, I've been doing a weekly video for about 11 years now, so a lot of times people are like, Oh, Jack, you're so comfortable on camera. You should watch. I have it up on YouTube. It's terrible video. It's just not that they're great now, but it's like a, like you said, it's like seat time on a bike. You get more comfortable at it. And I would encourage people like I'm sure get the branded background and a light and stuff at some point, but Hey, get started honestly with your phone. And, uh, one of the frustrating things honestly is that a lot of the phones, the videos I shoot just on my phone without the lights are all the things that I try and make.

Jack Jostes: 

Perfect. I get a better response to because people are like, Oh, it's just some guy trying to help me. And I think there's like kind of a balance of you don't want to spend too much time making the video perfect, but whatever you do, make it easy. Like I have my office set up, um, I designed this office with these led lights in the ceiling and these led lights just look great on camera. So I just turn them on. I have the camera right behind my computer and I'm ready to, I'm ready to record within less than a minute. I can, I'm up and running. So, um, well cool Craig. Well you're, you're a really inspiring guy. I appreciate you coming on the show and sharing so openly the things that are working. And for those of you who are listening, get started, set a goal, create an incentive, make it part of your weekly meeting.

Jack Jostes: 

Don't set it and forget it at the beginning of the year cause you'll never get the results if you do it. Craig's doing, you know, rewarding people making it a competition. People love competitions. Right? And, uh, and then reminding people every week you're gonna you're going to get those photos and put them up on your site. So, um, thanks so much for, for, for tuning in today. And, uh, you can see the show notes, you can see the transcript of this. I'm going to include the photo that we talked about that, that one, um, at landscapersguide.com/podcast so be sure to check it out there. And thanks again Greg. Thanks Greg. Thank you. Well, thanks so much for checking out today's episode. Craig, let me know after the, after the show that he'd welcome any emails from you. So feel free to, to email Craig, it's craig@gsulandscaping.com. And for those of you who enjoyed this episode, subscribe and make sure you don't miss them. You can get the full show notes and some of my other bonus content if you sign up at landscapersguide.com/podcast and if you're enjoying this on YouTube or Apple podcasts or Spotify, you can subscribe in all those places. So thanks so much for listening today's episode and go out and get your team inspired to take photos.