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Why They Came To NALP Elevate
00:00
Erika Mathis
One thing that Justin's done recently is, like, he was saying, like, not give me everything, not give me all the problems.
00:05
Justin Mathis
Pretty comfortable where we're at. Of course we want to grow, you know, some.
00:09
Erika Mathis
We're the sum total byproduct of every person that we meet and have helped or that has helped you in your life. And I thought that was really cool.
00:15
Jack Jostes
Hey, everyone. Welcome back to the Landscaper's Guide. Today I'm excited to interview my client, Erica and Justin Mathis from Mathis Landscapes in Glenville, North Carolina. So we're here at NALP Elevate in Phoenix, Arizona. Why did you guys come to the show? What were you hoping to learn?
00:33
Erika Mathis
Just, like all the new AI technology, kind of, you know, where everybody's at in the world. I mean, just kind of learn from all the different classes and everybody's different experiences. I think that's what my goal was when I came here.
00:44
Jack Jostes
So that's cool. And what about you, Justin?
00:46
Justin Mathis
I think the networking and just all the new technology, like Erica said, out here, just making connections. I'm looking for a coach, so, you know, just somebody to help us and to grow our business.
The History Of Mathis Landscapes
00:56
Jack Jostes
That's cool. Tell me a little bit quick story about the business history. Where are you guys? What do you do?
01:03
Justin Mathis
Absolutely. So we're In Glenville, N.C. small little town up in North Carolina. I went to Clemson, got a horticulture degree, graduated in 05. My dad had a landscaping business, so in 2012, we got the opportunity to buy him out. So Mathis Landscapes was born in 2012. Kind of been a landscape, has been part of my family history ever since I was born.
01:26
Jack Jostes
That's cool. And what about your dad's family? Like, was he the first or did somebody else in the family work in the business?
01:34
Justin Mathis
100%, he was the first. He started it. He was the owner operator for many years, and then I worked for him when I got, you know, every chance I got. And, yeah, that's where we are now.
01:44
Jack Jostes
That's cool. So you took over the business and rebranded it. Was there a tree in the logo prior to that?
01:51
Justin Mathis
No, sir. I really don't remember what the old logo was. I think it was just his name and just Robert Mathis Landscapes.
01:57
Jack Jostes
So that's cool. How did you. How did you decide the. The tree logo?
02:02
Erika Mathis
We knew that we wanted it to be something like, with our mountain trees, like some type of evergreen like that. So that's where we. We just started with that and we kind of. I don't know why we chose three, but we chose three, so. And that was the basis of it all.
Their 60/40 Revenue Split Explained
02:15
Jack Jostes
Well, I like it. And so what. What kind of work do you guys do?
02:20
Justin Mathis
We're a design install, also maintenance. I'd say we're probably 60% construction install with the rest being maintenance. It's high end residential, very little commercial. Our small town, we just don't have the commercial properties. It's like your local dentist office would be. Are commercial and also some residential home developments, golf course, you know, stuff.
02:46
Jack Jostes
So. So it's 60% new or like construction and 40%. Is that what you want as far as the revenue split?
02:53
Justin Mathis
I think it's working for us right now. We're kind of happy with that. We. I enjoy the projects, the construction side of it. I think maintenance is kind of your bread and butter. You know, it's kind of guaranteed money. So it's kind of nice to have that in your back pocket, generate some cash flow. But yeah, that's where we're at and I think we'll stick with that for a little bit.
03:11
Jack Jostes
So you've been in business 20 years this year, right?
03:14
Justin Mathis
Basically 13. Because before us, me, myself, I started working with my dad at, in 2005. So I kind of have been in the industry for 20 years. But our company. 13 years.
The Million Dollar Question: Where Do We Grow?
03:24
Jack Jostes
Oh, okay. All right, cool. And so where do you want to take the company? What's in the future?
03:30
Justin Mathis
That's a good question. Million dollar question for us right now, you know, pretty comfortable where we're at. Of course we want to grow, you know, some. And see, I don't know, just see what the. I don't know what I want to do. I don't know what. What do you want to do?
03:42
Erika Mathis
I think, I mean, well, maybe some of this is like the options that gives us options here. Like talking to these people. We're seeing like, okay, is this the direction that we want to grow? Do we want to maintain, like the construction side of it? Do we want to grow more Maintenance? Just. I think one of the big things for us is finding out that ideal client and working for that ideal client and. And that's something y' all have helped us with, is qualifying for that ideal client and making sure that we get the ones that, you know, that like, have big, beautiful ideas and then we're that person that can create everything for them.
Talking Budget Earlier And Qualifying Leads
04:11
Jack Jostes
So tell me more about, like, in working together with Ramblin Jackson, how has qualifying leads changed for you?
04:21
Erika Mathis
So, you know, we don't have our website up and running yet, but I'M hoping, like, by the time that we get to that point, just even the discussions with Robert, just the script that. I mean, even the script that we had when we came on with y', all, you know, just having that conversation, just saying, how does this. Like, if we're getting into this is what we would do, you know, and, like, is that too much? And then is this, you know, or is that too little? Like, what are you looking for in your. In your project? And then when it comes to, like, the money side of things, like, does, you know, when we get to a certain threshold, does this make you uncomfortable? Like, how are you feeling with this?
04:54
Erika Mathis
You know, that was a big thing of just having that comfort conversation of being able to actually articulate that to our clients and having that conversation before we even get started with them, instead of getting out there and then being surprised.
05:03
Jack Jostes
And, you know, so you're talking about budget a little earlier, budget a little.
05:07
Erika Mathis
Bit earlier, and then just, like, the no surprises thing, I think, is the big thing. You know, the pricing page. You know, we've never thought about putting that on a website. That's a huge kind of game changer for us. We've never. Because it. You would want the secrecy or the elusiveness of it all, like, you know, just keeping it behind closed doors. I'm gonna make it too long. The keeping it secret was more of, like, because it was just having a project that had so many different potential differences. Like, you didn't think we could do a pricing page because everything was so different. And knowing now that we can at least put something out there so people can start to qualify themselves or they can at least just to, you know what kind of where we stand or what kind of company we are.
Why A Pricing Page Builds Trust
05:48
Jack Jostes
So, yeah, and the thing about the pricing page is everyone says, oh, I can't do it because it depends. But then you guys tell people it depends on certain things every day over the phone. And the goal is mainly to educate people on what are rough ranges, because unless they've either worked in landscaping or they've already hired a company as professional as yours, they probably have no idea how much stuff is going to cost. So my whole strategy with the pricing page is to, like, build some trust with them of, like, hey, here's roughly what it costs, and most landscape contractors don't do it. And so they have that surprise meeting. And whereas you guys have been, like, kind of upfront all along, like, hey, here's this helpful range. And I find that it helps people get to the actual budget sooner.
06:38
Jack Jostes
Because a lot of times in design build, it's a dreaming process of, like, well, we don't know. We know that we want our yard to be different, but you're the designer, and you do need to arrive at a budget at some point, though, right?
06:51
Erika Mathis
Yes, exactly right.
Transitioning From Operator To Owner
06:52
Jack Jostes
So tell me a little bit. What do each of you do in the business at this time?
06:58
Justin Mathis
So I'm a little more in the office right now. I used to be completely in the field working with the guys, kind of that operations manager. Still got a little bit of that going on, but now I'm trying to focus on just being an owner instead of an operator. Just learning some of the things. Things that the girls in the office are doing. Just trying to learn all the aspects of the business, you know, from everything still in the field with the guys when I choose to be. And I would say I'm more of the operation manager kind of position.
07:24
Jack Jostes
And what about you, Erica?
07:26
Erika Mathis
So I'm kind of like the bringer together of everybody. So I, you know, I do a lot of the recruiting. Like, I find the people that, like, I think it would be really good in our team. I have Jessica here. She was somebody that, like, it was just a personality thing, and so I went after her. And we've, like, one of our other designers, Renee's just a fantastic person. So just finding, like, qualities of people, like, that's probably one of my favorite parts, but them, you know, doing, you know, the accounting side of it, making sure that we're, like, looking at some KPIs and stuff like that. Like, making sure that, like, things are kind of being, you know, lined up how they should be lined up. But, yeah, so that's where I'm kind of standing at. Right.
08:03
Erika Mathis
Do Doing the marketing side of things. Like, I've never, you know, we've never put anything into marketing. And so besides T shirts. And so this is the first time that we've actually invested into marketing and seeing what building that brand would look like for our company, so.
Why Justin Is Looking For A Business Coach
08:15
Jack Jostes
Well, we appreciate your trust in doing that with us. And we haven't launched it yet, but we've already, you know, collaborated on certain things, like sales process and getting that dialed in.
08:27
Erika Mathis
Yes.
08:28
Jack Jostes
So I'm excited to see it all come to fruition soon here, and then it'll be spring before we know it. You had mentioned that you're looking for a business coach. What kind of questions or coaching are you kind of curious about?
08:44
Justin Mathis
Just someone that I can throw and bounce some ideas off. Just, you know, learn how to Scale her business, grow her business, just anything so I don't have to. You know, we're married and it's kind of tough to bounce some things off her sometimes. You know, I don't want to put that stress on her, the negativity on her of some issues that might be happening in the company. So just to have somebody to coach me through what I'm thinking, what I'm feeling, you know?
09:06
Jack Jostes
Yeah. You know, I work with my wife too, and there have been phases where she works in the business more than others. We have two kids, they're now 9 and 10. And for a period my wife was like, way in the business and then she had to like, step out of it and now she's coming back into it. And there were some times where, like, I don't know about you, but I want to. I often think of these things, unfortunately, at like 10 o' clock at night and like, she's like trying to like, wind down and like, watch a show, something, and I'm like, I've got this idea. And she's. And I've learned to just be like, hey, do you want. Can I ask you this idea? And sometimes she's like, no, I don't want to talk about it.
09:44
Jack Jostes
And then sometimes she's like, yeah, cool. And then we do talk about it. But having a coach, I have a coach who I can talk to about other stuff in my business has been helpful. So I think that's a good idea.
09:56
Justin Mathis
Yeah, absolutely.
09:57
Jack Jostes
Because I don't know, unless you want to work all the time and maybe you do.
10:00
Erika Mathis
No, we did. And that was like, that wasn't great for our relationship. So that's been a learning curve too. It's just kind of like having to navigate how do you still have a married relationship and, you know, be parents and still work together and have like different ideas about all those and bring them in and like, even if they're conflicting ideas, you know, that's something that we've really had to learn and work on and like, be able to communicate effectively and learn how to communicate effectively with that kind of stuff.
Protecting Your Marriage While Working Together
10:27
Jack Jostes
Well, and that's an ongoing. I think it's an ongoing thing. How old are your kids?
10:30
Erika Mathis
17 and 15.
10:32
Jack Jostes
Oh, wow. Okay. Yeah. Well, so now they're. You probably have more. You have more. Hopefully, maybe I would. I don't know. Mine are, oh, eight years away from that. That's gonna go so fast. They're so, they're so. They're still like little Kids to me.
10:45
Erika Mathis
Yeah. So I mean, it really does go super fast.
10:48
Jack Jostes
I know it does. But what are some things that have worked with that and like figuring out how to preserve your marriage, how to work, integrate it into the business. Right. So in a way that you're like, yeah, this is good. Because I know it's a balancing act. So I'm just curious what works for you guys.
11:06
Erika Mathis
One thing that Justin's done recently is like, he was saying like, not ask me, not give me everything, not give me all the problems because like I'll, I will go in and be like, okay, well we could try this, this. And he'll actually just be like, okay, yeah, that stuff happened today. I'm like, how was your day? Or he just won't even bring it up. And like that's a whole different set of problems or having somebody else that he can talk to that's maybe, you know, a different friend or something like that, or somebody else within the crew. Because I mean, I can unload a bunch of my problems off onto Jessica and we can talk through it with a different type of lens than we can maybe necessarily have with your husband or with your spouse.
11:42
Erika Mathis
So I think him taking some of the stuff off of my plate and then me keeping some of my problems off of his plate. So we kind of have little separate corners that, you know, we're not just always coming to each other like, hey, fix this. You know, I think that makes, that was a big thing for us.
11:59
Jack Jostes
So that's cool. What about you? What do you think?
12:02
Justin Mathis
I think one thing I've been doing, I got a 30 minute commute to my house. So once I leave the office, I kind of shut it off. I'm trying to, you know, try my best to not bring that to the house and once I walk into the door, just have that family state that I'm going into and it's like, alright, I'm focusing my attention on my family right now and just leave out of work.
12:21
Jack Jostes
Some people I know have a separate floor phone for work. Do you do that?
12:25
Justin Mathis
I don't. I think you got one or just Jessica's got it. So I don't thought about that. I'll just turn mine off.
Leadership Lessons From The Keynote Speaker
12:34
Jack Jostes
That's, that's good. That's. That's good because I think it can be easy to. When it's on your phone, it's always with you. Right? So. Well, that's cool. So what are maybe some takeaways from the show you said you wanted to come and learn about AI. Did you see any talks yet where you're like, yeah, I can't wait to go try that out?
12:56
Erika Mathis
No, there wasn't anything particular about AI yet. But where were there some things, like, just using Copilot for some things. But maybe the speaker that we had this morning, did you listen to him?
13:07
Jack Jostes
The keynote? Kevin Brown?
13:09
Erika Mathis
Yes, Kevin Brown. I thought a lot of the stuff that he said. I wish I had my notes on me to, like, look at it right now.
13:15
Jack Jostes
What were some of your takeaways from the keynote speaker this morning?
13:18
Erika Mathis
So with Kevin Brown, one of the big things I thought was so cool with him was he's like, we're the sum, total byproduct of every person that we meet and have helped in or that has helped you in your life. And I thought that was really cool to just me, on my personal level, to take a list and almost an inventory of all the people that have helped me in life. And, like, I think that comes back to the whole. I think we're in a place in our life and in our business right now. We're trying to really foster that attitude of gratitude and be appreciative of everybody that's helped us get to the places that we're going. And that's y'. All, that's like his dad. That's, you know, my parents. That's our kids that have helped in the business along the way.
13:52
Erika Mathis
That's like, our employees, the H2B guys. I mean, I think just me making a list and just really kind of remembering how much, like, everybody has helped, and then taking that and returning that to, like, our own employees and, like, making sure that their life is better because we're in it. You know, somehow that their. Their life is better because we're in it. So that was one big thing that I took away from Kevin and then never go wrong doing the right thing. He had a few different things. Oh, and even the way that, like, he was talking about the whole Disney thing, as far as having. When they were talking about the lady walking them to the table and just saying, I hope you have a. I hope I'm the first person to wish you a magical day, I'm like, that's great.
14:31
Erika Mathis
So, like, if somebody. If one of our employees picked up the phone like that, and just like, good morning. I hope I'm the first person to wish you a magical day. Or, like, that's how she ended the conversation. I'm like, okay, how can we Disney. Disney. Fy. Our script. How do we make the magic? How do we make it the Mathis Magic? You know, and we take that into everything. How do we make a Mathis Magic property audit? How do we make what? Like, I mean, I love it.
14:53
Jack Jostes
Yeah.
14:54
Erika Mathis
Like, come up with something like that. So, yeah, those were the big things from Kevin that I took away.
Jack’s Journey Into The Landscape Industry
15:08
Jack Jostes
You can't go wrong doing the right thing. I liked that. Do you ever find in design that you need to tell a client no or that you need to. Telling them the right thing isn't what they want to hear? Because that was what was going through my mind when he was saying that.
15:24
Justin Mathis
So, yeah. Jack, I got a question for you. How long have you been in business, and what got you started in this one?
15:29
Jack Jostes
Well, so I've been in business since 2009, so 16 years. And I started doing freelance marketing for people because I couldn't find a job writing for a newspaper. I studied journalism in college, and theater, and I play mandolin. I played mandolin in a band for, like, six years, and I did all of our marketing. And then I was like, I need to actually make money. And so that was 2008, 2009, and no one was hiring one. The job market was just awful. So I started doing freelance work and found that businesses needed help with social media and email marketing and things that I had learned to do promoting my band for the last six years. And when I was in high school, I worked at a garden center, and that was just my spring and summer job.
16:21
Jack Jostes
And I did theater, and I started doing public speaking for Constant Contact, the email marketing company. And they sent me to speak at a garden center trade show, a landscape garden center show. And I was like, hey, I used to work at a garden center. And they're like, you know what we do? And I'm like, yeah. And, like, just knowing the difference between a garden center and a plant nursery and an arborist and a landscaper, like, really basic stuff resonated with the audience. And then I got a couple clients, and they referred me. And then I got invited to speak there again. And I told some case studies, some successful success stories, and it, over a few years, became about half of my business was the landscape industry.
17:03
Jack Jostes
And eight years ago, I went all in on it, rebranded the company to focus on landscaping.
17:09
Justin Mathis
Awesome.
17:11
Erika Mathis
And if you liked it, like, how much have you learned about like the whole landscape and culture, like, while you're here, like, has that been.
17:17
Jack Jostes
Oh, I. I always. I always am learning about the landscape industry. But I was thinking while you were talking that the industry as a whole is full of really grateful people. I really. I really mean it. Like, I interview landscape. I get to interview landscapers, and they're usually really just grateful for their business and their community. They get to work with plants and, like, you build stuff. So that's why I think it's a cool industry. The people seem to really love what they do. And I don't think every industry is like that. So I'm always learning. I also think that landscape. I'm always learning about construction. We have clients all over the country, so I'm learning about different plants and soil and weather.
18:05
Jack Jostes
And the seasonality here in Phoenix is way different than it is in Dallas, Texas, and Dallas is even different from Houston. So it's repeatable enough that we have a really good system for working with businesses all over the country, but it's also different and interesting enough that it's not the same thing at all. And then once you get north of the Mason Dixon line, it freezes and that changes the plants. And do you do sprinkler blowouts and do you do snow removal? So we have clients all over the country and they really. None of them. It surprises me. I have over 100 clients. None of them do the exact same thing.
18:50
Erika Mathis
Right. Which is kind of cool.
18:51
Jack Jostes
And none of them do the same thing the same way. So that's what I think is fun. But we also get to add value from what another landscaper did.
19:03
Erika Mathis
Absolutely. And that's one thing Robert's done so great, is like. He's like, well, this has happened with another company or gives us an example. So it's not just even marketing that we're getting into with like Rambling Jackson. He's helped us like, well, you know, just even the whole sales process, like, this is what another company's done. This is what somebody. How they've used this. And so I think that was. It wasn't just about the marketing side of things. I mean, it was. It was on top. Y' all have over delivered as far as that goes so well.
19:29
Jack Jostes
Thank you. Well, yeah, we love the opportunity to work with you guys. And it's. And so you had asked, hey, should I know this about you? And that's. That's kind of a cool thing that you didn't know. I think that, I don't know, you feel taken care of. And we're kind of just meeting right now, so. That's amazing. That's what I try and help my clients do, is build processes. You still need great people, and I have incredible people, and we have great processes because there have been times where I have all the processes in the world, but without the right people, they're just. Yeah, right. So. Well, Justin, you were killing at Buck Hunter. You were in it. I got some action shots that we're going to edit into the video podcast version of this. Where do you feel like you won?
20:22
Justin Mathis
I do, absolutely. I mean, I got a freezer full of meat over there, so, yeah, we're good.
20:27
Jack Jostes
You do. You crushed it. So thanks for playing.
20:30
Justin Mathis
Absolutely. Thanks for having me.
20:32
Jack Jostes
So, Erica, for folks listening who want to network with you, how can we get in touch?
20:36
Erika Mathis
So you can go to www.mathislandscapes.com and then our phone number is 828-743-0710.
20:46
Jack Jostes
Cool. Well, it was great interviewing you both, and thanks for coming on the Landscaper's Guide podcast.
20:50
Justin Mathis
Absolutely. Thanks.