Have you had a hard time bridging the gap between snow events for your snow removal and landscape crews? Check out today's interview where I talk with a landscaper who invested in real estate so he could keep his staff employed year round in between snow events, doing home repair on his properties. And right now I'm on a horse because we're at his horse ranch and believe it or not, he's never ridden horses until today and he owns this place. So you got to check out today's interview with Mark DuBois to see how real estate has opened. A lot of opportunities, not only for himself, but his people.
Hey everyone, Jack Jostes is here and welcome to the Landscaper's Guide. This show is all about helping lawn and landscape contractors grow your business, grow your people, and think of out of the box ideas like this one that I'm going to share with you today about using real estate investing and real estate can not only benefit you, but it can benefit your people. And we're on a horse ranch in Grafton, Wisconsin, and I hope you enjoy today's show. If you're new to this show, be sure you subscribe at landscapersguide.com so you never miss an episode. Let's get into the interview. All right, folks so here we are. Are we in Grafton, Wisconsin right now?
Speaker 6:
We are in Grafton, yes sir.
Speaker 1:
And we're in your horse barn.
Speaker 6:
Correct.
Speaker 1:
This is pretty incredible. And Mark, have you ever ridden a horse?
Speaker 6:
I have never been on a horse in my life.
Speaker 1:
So you own this property. You just bought it. These are Jessica's horses.
Speaker 6:
Correct.
Speaker 1:
And you've never ridden one?
Speaker 6:
That is correct.
Speaker 1:
So we have Windy and River.
Speaker 6:
Correct.
Speaker 1:
How do you feel, Mark, about riding horses for the first time?
Speaker 6:
I'm scared to death, a little nervous.
Speaker 1:
A little nervous, but luckily we have the capable Jessica who you've known for a long time.
Speaker 6:
Yeah, 40 years.
Speaker 1:
Forty Years. That's incredible. Well, let's do it. Let's ride some horses. Is that cool?
Speaker 6:
That's cool. Let's do it.
Speaker 7:
And just sit down quietly.
Speaker 6:
Jack, we got enough, right?
Speaker 1:
Well, why don't you guys ride a little bit.
Speaker 6:
Ride where?
Speaker 1:
I think this is the first time I've ever ridden a horse with a client. This is the old way of doing business. Right?
Speaker 6:
That's right.
Speaker 1:
We are bringing it back.
Speaker 6:
Some people go on golf courses, we get on horses.
Speaker 1:
That's right. All right, Mark, you just went horseback riding for the first time. How was it?
Speaker 6:
Yeah, it was good.
Speaker 1:
I've only done this a handful of times and I really enjoyed it. It was fun.
Speaker 6:
It was fun.
What Is Quality Landscape And Lawn Care?
Speaker 1:
So for people watching or listening, tell us a little bit. Who are you and what is Quality Landscape and Lawn Care?
Speaker 6:
Yeah. So I'm Mark DeBois, the CEO and founder of Quality Landscape and Lawn Care. I started it right out of college in 1995, so we're entering our 27th season. We're full service, commercial landscape maintenance, snow removal, as well as residential landscape design and a little bit of residential lawn care in there as well.
How Did He Get Into Real Estate
Speaker 1:
That's awesome. So we took a break from going to the SIMA Symposium to come ride horses. And one of the things I wanted to chat with you about was how did you buy this? Just tell me a little bit about... You own a lot of real estate in the Milwaukee area and it started because of your landscape company and your staff. So tell us a little bit about how much real estate do you have and how did you get into it?
Speaker 6:
Probably 13 or 14 years ago, I had two foremen, one who is pretty good and one who is really good, the guy that you want to grow your business with. And he came in and basically put in his two week notice and so I stopped him and I asked him, "You don't like me? You don't like the company? Why are you quitting?" And he said, "No, You're a great boss. I love the company." He goes, "I just can't not work all winter long."
Speaker 1:
And so were you doing snow at that time?
Speaker 6:
We were doing snow, not a lot of it, but in Wisconsin, it may not snow for four weeks at a time, three or four weeks, so they would get laid off and collect unemployment and he just couldn't survive on a couple hundred bucks a week or whatever it was in unemployment. And I totally understood that. So I instantly started thinking, how can I bridge this gap? And what can we do in Wisconsin? You can't landscape, obviously, when it's 10 degrees outside and four feet of frost on the ground.
And I've always been interested in real estate. I did own a three family from five or six years prior to that, but I realized I wasn't ready to get into real estate at that time. And so I went back to that and started buying single families and mostly duplexes in the city of Milwaukee because quite honestly, that's all I could afford at the time. And I asked my guys, I said, "Hey, in between snowstorms are we cool with painting, cleaning, and doing tile work?" And I have some really talented guys on the landscape side that can fix and design and build anything. So we decided let's give that a shot to help bridge that gap. And that's what I did. And 14 months later I had 120 units that we purchased and continue to renovate.
Speaker 1:
Okay. So you started your commercial real estate business mainly to keep your landscape crews employed through the winter doing essentially home repair on your rentals.
Speaker 6:
Correct.
Speaker 1:
So how many properties did you buy initially and what year was this roughly?
Speaker 6:
We started buying in 2010, so during the peak of the housing market crash. So I bought them at a good price. We went from six units to 86 units in 14 months. I would not recommend that pace to anyone else. Whoa.
Speaker 1:
Okay. So you got up to 86 units and were you doing the property management for that or did you hire property management company?
Speaker 6:
We were doing it all in-house originally. And at about 40 to 50 units, we realized this is a whole other business. And we maxed out at about 130 doors and there were some challenges with doing that. And one of the biggest ones was the property management. And after going through six or seven property management companies that were either unethical or incompetent, we then decided to start our own property management company.
Speaker 1:
Wow. Okay. And so how many people work at that company?
Speaker 6:
Two, a maintenance man and one girl that does the books in the office and myself. I spend about five hours a month in that.
Speaker 1:
Okay. So how many units do you now have?
Speaker 6:
We now have about 50.
Speaker 1:
50, okay.
Speaker 6:
We have been selling off the inner city properties, which are harder to manage and after 10, 12 years I had enough of that and we're 1031 exchange knows into higher end single families that we could scale and they're easier to manage. It's more in line with my landscape company. Everything we do for landscape is high end, topnotch work and that didn't fit the model because you couldn't spend the money and do high end work in the city because the tenants didn't care or respect it. So we're transitioning into higher end single families, as well as developing some other commercial real estate.
What's The Rough Breakdown Between Landscape And Snow
Retention Strategy
Speaker 1:
Okay. So about a third year staff will stay on through the winter. So has that been a good retention strategy? Has it worked out like you thought it would?
Speaker 6:
Yeah. I mean, it's been great and that's how I got into it in the first place was I had to bridge that gap to keep really good guys that wanted to keep working, working. It's developed into a whole other business and that's worked out well for me, but it's been good for retaining guys. We're interviewing, that's one of the first questions we get is, well, what do we do in the winter? Some guys ask it, but they don't really want to work in between storms and one of the challenges, we don't know how much snow we're going to get. So I could have homes under contract, need my guys. If we get hammered all winter, we won't have any time to go work on the houses.
Speaker 1:
So then do you just sub that out and hire a construction crew?
Speaker 6:
It hasn't happened yet to that extent. We've gotten behind schedule, obviously. I do have a full time maintenance guy who's incredible. So he would just work on that all summer long if that's what we needed to do.
Speaker 1:
Well, that's awesome that you were able to retain your people and then expand your wealth, really, through real estate. And they both benefit from it. Because finding people, if you were just a landlord to do the work for you, isn't easy right now anyways.
Speaker 6:
It is not. Yeah. So anything we can do to offer them year-round employment was the goal.
Personal Life
Speaker 1:
Great. So tell us a little bit about your personal life. One of the things that I enjoyed hearing was that you now work a pretty reasonable amount and you coach basketball and you went camping with your family last weekend. Tell us about that.
Speaker 6:
Yeah. So one, I do not enjoy camping. I don't know why people do it, but my wife and children love it so I suck it up twice a year to go camping. I'm married. I have three kids, a 10-year-old daughter, nine-year-old daughter and five-year-old son. Both of my daughters are playing basketball, which I've been coaching for the last few years for my older daughter. They're both on the same club team this summer, so that's been a lot of fun.
I work reasonable hours. I'm home for dinner just about every single night. If there's a big client and the only time they can meet is 6:00, then there's always exception to the rules. But I'm home by dinner. We don't work weekends. It's rare that I'll work on a weekend. Again, always an exception to the rule, but that's what we're doing right now. They'll be starting volleyball in August, so my wife will be coaching them in volleyball and we come out here. The kids absolutely love it out here. Jessica's been giving them riding lessons and enjoying the horse farm here and we're going for ride. I'll see you later.
Key To Success
Speaker 1:
Okay. All right. We'll see you, Mark. So how long did it take you to grow your business to the point where you got to enjoy, I don't know, having a more reasonable work life balance?
Speaker 6:
Years.
Speaker 1:
Like 10 years?
Speaker 6:
I'd say the first 10 years, it was insane. I mean, 20 hour days, days I never even went to sleep, whatever it took, but I was young. I was single and I didn't care. I was willing to do whatever it took. I'd say the next five years or so we really got serious about knowing our numbers and who do we want to work for. Early on, I wanted to be a million dollar business. That was it. Typical who cares about the bottom line? What's what's the top line? Hey, I own a million dollar business. And I got there.
The problem was it cost me $1.1 million to do the million. And I went, "Well, this isn't very much fun at all." So then we got serious about knowing our numbers. And so doing that for a few years and fine tuning all of that. And I would say the last six, seven, eight years having the right people in the right spots has allowed me to have a life and still make money.
Noon-To-Noon Promise
Speaker 1:
Great. Well, and one of the things that I like about Quality is that you all have... So one of the things I try and get my clients to create or rather just communicate, a lot of times businesses have something that they're doing really well that actually does make them different from their competition. And for you all, I really believe that your unique selling position needs to be rooted in a pain and a frustration of your customer. And you all have the noon-to-noon promise. So, so what is the noon-to-noon promise and why do you have it and how do you manage it?
Speaker 6:
So the noon-to-noon promise is something I came up with years ago. And one of my fears when I started a company was I was 20 years old, just turning 21, so I didn't think anybody would hire me. So I asked clients that hired me, "Why'd you hire me?" And they said... I heard it all the time. I still hear it to this day, which is shocking to me, but you're the only one that called me back in a timely manner. And fast forward, a few more years, doing some sales training, we have a rule time kills deals. So when somebody calls you, that's what they're thinking about right then and there is whatever project, whatever service they need, they're not happy with somebody, or they want something, a patio, or they're not happy with their lawn service.
So the quicker we can get back to them and get in front of them, the better it is. I wanted to explain it in a way that I could teach it to staff members. And that's how I came up with the noon-to-noon promise. And what that is any client of ours calls us before noon or emails us, they're going to get a response that same day. And if they call us after noon or email us after noon, they're going to get a call or an email back by noon the next day. The phone call may be just to call them and say, "We have no idea what's going on, but we're going to look into it." But if there's a problem and they call, it's just festering. So if you don't call them back for a couple days, they're just going to get more and more upset.
Speaker 1:
For sure.
Speaker 6:
That's how we came up with the noon-to-noon promise.
Speaker 1:
I think that and I know that your clients really appreciate it. I can tell. I think really in business, in general, when you don't have communication, you think the worst is happening and even when the worst is happening, I think it's good to know.
Speaker 6:
Yeah.
Speaker 1:
We don't know what's going on, but we're looking into it, like you said or here's what we are doing or, "Hey, we hear your concern. We appreciate it." So I like that. And I like that it's measurable. And then you have a system with your software to manage it. I'm curious, without naming names, have you ever had people who maybe didn't care about the noon-to-noon promise?
Speaker 6:
Oh yes. They don't work here anymore. It's a core value now. It's not just something that for a while, it was just a guarantee, a service guarantee that we said. Now we've renamed it as one of our core values. It's probably one of our most important core values when it relates to our clients. But you can't work here if you're going to just blow off the customer and communication.
Speaker 1:
I love it. So we went out for dinner with a bunch of landscape and snow contractors, some of my clients, some people that I just know from SIMA and you're a pretty transparent open book guy, even at the dinner and then even on the podcast. Can you tell us a little bit about the profit sharing that you do at your company and what are maybe some of the pros and cons of offering that?
Profit-Sharing Pros And Cons
Speaker 6:
Yeah. So I've always wanted to reward my team for being efficient and it's a hard job. There's nothing easy about what these guys are doing day in and day out. And they may have the mindset or they did have the mindset, hey, I'm getting paid hourly, so there's nothing extra in it for me if I go a little bit quicker. So we've brought our team in to go over some of the... We've brought in consultants where we've looked at the financials with the guy who's mowing lawn or the guy who's only been here for six months, so he's on a string trimmer still. And I've always said, "Hey, if we're profitable, the first 5%, 7% has to go back into the company, new equipment, reinvesting, anything after that, I'm going to share with the entire team and the guys who bring the most value and look at those types of things, get the bigger bonuses."
So we do an end of year... Last year, we did a big Christmas dinner. We did it right after the new year because Christmas time is always so busy. We invited all spouses and kids, so we had 75 people there and we handed out some awards and some raffles and then everyone got their year-end bonus and that's been a great thing.
Speaker 1:
Tell me a little bit about this horse property. This is your literally your first time riding a horse in your life, right?
Speaker 6:
Correct. Yes, it is.
Speaker 1:
And you're during a podcast interview.
Speaker 6:
I know.
Speaker 1:
So that's pretty good. So how did that happen? What's going on?
Speaker 6:
How did this happen? It's a crazy story. So just across the street right there is my business, is my main shop and we have completely outgrown that space. And so we need more room. And the previous owner, who's also named Jack, who owned this property, came to me a few years ago now and said, "Hey, we're thinking of relocating to Tennessee." This property became available and I needed a little more storage. So I was not looking for a 64 acre horse farm with at the time, I think we had nine horses on it. Like I said, I've never been on a horse. I knew nothing about horses and didn't really think it was going to be possible, but I loved the location. The very next day, my best friend's little sister calls me up and she's been working for Jack, the previous owner, doing horse training and lessons and she wanted to take over that business from Jack and obviously would need this facility.
So it was an unbelievable opportunity for her to do what she's always dreamed of doing full-time. And that still wasn't enough for me initially to make this kind of an investment, but it was enough for us to sit down and me and Jess had coffee multiple times. And the more I sat with her, the more I realized, okay, she really knows what she's doing with the horses. And I could help her with the business side of things. We had the facility.
We use a little bit of the Quonset hut, but as she's growing her business, she's going to be kicking me out of there. So there's plenty of room to build another building. So that's what we're going to do, hopefully this fall. And it solves the problem that I have for my landscape company, which was my number one priority. So we can put up another building. Jess leases the land. There's two houses on the property that I collect rent from, so even though it was a much bigger investment, it was really a no brainer. And we're coming up on our one year anniversary and it's been a win-win.
Speaker 1:
Cool. Well, Mark, thanks so much for coming on the show. For people who want to connect with you and network with you, what's the best way to get in touch?
Speaker 6:
Yeah, I'm on LinkedIn. So if they want to connect with me there, that's probably the best way and the easiest way to find me and happy to help anybody.
Speaker 1:
Excellent. Yeah, so Mark DuBois. I'll put your LinkedIn and name and everything in the show notes and thanks so much for checking out The Landscaper's Guide. All right, everyone. Thanks so much for checking out today's podcast. I hope you enjoyed it. I've never done a podcast from a horse, but it was a pretty special experience because Hey, we're in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, the area of Milwaukee. I went to college at Marquette University. It's amazing to be back here. We were at the SIMA Snow Symposium. It was the 25th symposium and I recorded my talk Attract and Sell Your Hell Yes Customers. So if you do landscaping and snow removal and you'd like to get a copy of that recording, just send me an evil, not an evil. Send me an email, symposium recording to jack@ramblinjackson.com. Just say symposium recording. Send me an email, jack@ramblinjackson.com. And I'll send you a recording. All right, everyone. My name's Jack Jostes and it's been fun talking with you. And I look forward to seeing you next week on The Landscaper's Guide.
Speaker 6:
Whoa, Jack, he's coming right at you. I don't know how to control her.