What’s Working Now: New Opportunities To Serve Landscaping & Nursery Customers with Casey Hendrix [Podcast]

Jack Jostes:
So here we are. We're excited to interview Casey Hendrix from Tex-Scapes Nursery and Landscape in Ennis, Texas. So Casey, tell us a little bit about yourself and a little bit about your background in the green industry.

Casey Hendrix:
Hey Jack, thank you for having me on the webinar today. And thank you for introducing us. We, my wife and I, own the business here in Ennis, Tex-Scapes Nursery and Landscape. And we started our business in 2004 as a landscape and irrigation company. And shortly thereafter, in 2005 we purchased this nursery location from another local nursery company called The Greenery. And we have rebranded it to be Tex-Scapes Nursery and Landscape here in Ennis, Texas. So we've been in business for over 16 years. We have a great team here. We have a couple of landscape crews, project manager, landscape manager, and a nursery manager and a lot of team members that help us to navigate our duties here and just a whole tub of wonderful customers, as I'm sure your other business owners have as well. And we love what we do, we love to serve our customers, and we just love what we do.

Jack Jostes:
Well, great. Well, Casey, thanks for taking the time to be here in springtime as a landscape and nursery company owner. I know that things are busy, and I wanted to hear from you, as specific to the coronavirus and things that have changed this spring is unlike any other spring in my lifetime and probably yours. What are some of the things that you've been doing to adjust what you're doing with your operations, with your marketing, how are you responding and adapting to what's happening right now that's working, and maybe what are some of the challenges that you faced that led you to make those changes?

Casey Hendrix:
Well, of course the first challenge that we thought of is we're not going to be able to have any contact with our clients, physical contact, possibly. So the six feet away and then at the head end, the uncertainty whether our governments were going to deem us an essential business or not. And we just plunged forward as an essential business, and the state of Texas came through with that. And so we were excited about that, but on the head end, of course, there's a lot of uncertainty. And not knowing how we were going to stay connected with our customers, we immediately went to video and social media and just to try to help put our customers and clients minds at ease that we're here and we're going to offer our services and our products any way that we can.

Casey Hendrix:
And so right immediately, people were of course staying at home and sheltering in place. And so we started offering delivery services for a discounted rate or for free local deliveries for much of our products here out of the nursery. And we received an overwhelming response to that because people were at home and still are, and they want our products so they can make their landscape and their lawns beautiful. So that was the very first thing that we did.

Jack Jostes:
And tell us a little more specifically, what are you doing on social media? I'm obviously a fan and comment on most of your posts, but for the people who haven't seen you, you've got to check out Tex-Scapes on Facebook and Instagram and also YouTube. Tell us a little bit, Casey, what kinds of content are you putting out there, and what has been the response to that? Do real customers actually use social media or is it a bunch of tomfoolery?

Casey Hendrix:
It's our real clients, and they look forward to our posts now. I wouldn't think anyone would look forward to seeing me on their smartphone, but they do, and they like to stay connected. And now as many of you business owners have experienced, you've gotten so busy that it's really hard to get in front of your customers. Many times when I'm out on the nursery trying to help out, when we get overwhelmed here with sales, then one of my clients will say, "I haven't seen you in awhile." And then I of course direct them to our Facebook page so they can see me more often. But that's what we try to do. As far as content, we want to give them... I don't want to bombard them with... bore them to death to where they quit following us.

Casey Hendrix:
We like to put a lot of pictures, and we try to think here, "What are they looking for? What does a customer want to know?" Well, first of all, they want to know what looks good now, what they need to plant now, what's going on with their lawn. And then the big thing lately has been what do we have available here at Tex-Scapes Nursery that they can purchase either over the phone or do a curbside parking lot pickup or get a delivery. So we've tried to put a lot of pictures out there of our inventory, even have done some walkthrough videos of our onsite inventory, what's available here. And we've had a great response. People calling in and saying, "I want that one-gallon pink bougainvillea, I need four flats of the red pentas," or whatever it is.

Casey Hendrix:
They saw it on the video, and it made them happy, and now they get to go have some therapy out in the landscape. So pictures, video, and then they always want to know the magic question, "How much does it cost?" So we do throw some pricing out there on our platforms as well.

Jack Jostes:
Well, yeah, that's great. And I remember last fall you made a video about mulching, and I had been renting for like 10 years, and I had just bought a house a couple years ago, and I was wanting to put mulch down before the wintertime. And I had forgotten a lot of mulching 101, and I thought of you when I was mulching and remembering to leave some space near the trunk of the tree. And so some of that stuff that the people listening or watching might take for granted, or where you made a really good video about wind to water during summertime in Texas is probably a question you get asked every day. And that type of content is evergreen content, meaning it's good pretty much every year at that time, the year you can post it, email it out.

Jack Jostes:
One thing you said just now and when we were preparing for this is really key, which is what's available now. And I think what you're doing a good job with is telling people what you have available and giving them instructions on how to buy it from you. One of the things we had talked about was acknowledge, adjust, and then achieve. So tell us kind of the formula that you use to, go from... Some of our people are still in a state of chaos maybe, and you had come up with a really simple way to filter through that to figure out what to do. Tell us a little bit about that.

Casey Hendrix:
Well, as I mentioned, and you just mentioned, the first thing when anything happens is acknowledging that something is changing, something is happening. And acknowledging those changes to our communities was step one for us to figure out what we needed to do next. So acknowledging that there is change happening was step one, and then figuring out, "How are we going to adjust our business? How can we still serve our customer base? How can we still..." Of course the first question that pops into your mind is, "How are we going to pay bills? How are we going to pay our employees? If the business shuts down, how far will our reserves take us?" And so we had to figure out how to adjust our business operations for worst case scenario.

Casey Hendrix:
And so we started thinking through those things, and that's when we took to video and let our clients know that we stand with small business, we stand with our clients, and we stand with our employees and their families. And we're going to get through this. And so reassuring my employees on day one that, "Hey, this is going to be okay. No matter what happens moving forward, we're going to be okay." And so making those adjustments to the business to the way we communicate with one another. And then the outcome of that is achieving success in this changing world, which we've experienced hereafter. And I think we have seen an increase in, obviously people are at home, and so a big increase in gardening, home gardening, raised vegetable gardens. And I'm sure many of the other landscape business owners' client base is retired or semiretired, and many of them aren't able to construct those beds, those gardens, whatever it may be. Or they don't have the vehicle to haul four yards of raised bed mix and put it in the garden.

Casey Hendrix:
So identifying right up front that, "We can do those things for you, and here's how you get in touch with us. Here's the next step for you." And just clearly defining that to our clients, I believe, set us apart from many people in our area that were just kind of floundering and looking around going, "What are we going to do next?" And I wanted my clients to know that we're here for you, and because gardening is therapeutic.

Jack Jostes:
Yeah, it absolutely is therapeutic, and it's a great time of year to get started with it in many ways. And really what you're doing is making it simple. First of all, you assessed the risks and you communicated with your team. And then what I really think you did well was proactively market and offer something to people. And I think right now a lot of people are apprehensive about selling because they're worried they're going to offend people, and I think that you could market in a way that would be insensitive to people's, maybe a change in their finances or their health or something like that. And I also think if you're offering what you have and people choose to buy it, great, it could really help them to have an improved landscape or a garden or something to do.

Jack Jostes:
And what you're doing really well is giving people something they can say yes to now and making it easy for them to get it with the home delivery or whatever the next steps are. This is a time where a lot of businesses cut their marketing, where you didn't, you actually increased your marketing. Why did you do that? Why, you know what I mean? Usually people are like, "Oh my God, we better stop marketing." But you're increasing the amount of videos you're making, and we're doing some work together. Why? Why wouldn't you just cut? When you're assessing the risk and counting your gains, why not cut the marketing?

Casey Hendrix:
Well, I can tell you we have found the area that the marketing has made a big difference. And it made a difference when the economy was in a boom, and now it's made a difference when the economy is headed into a lull. And so it would be foolish for me to cut that at this point because I believe it's one of the reasons we've been able to do well, is staying in contact with our customers. And so I don't want to go into the dark and be forgotten about, and we've actually gained new clients because we've been out there.

Casey Hendrix:
Gaining new clients because we've been out there, in front of them on social media, directing everyone to our website. And so, we've actually increased our customer base the past couple of months. Of course it's spring time and people are excited about planting so, sometimes it's hard to narrow down exactly where are these people coming from. But if we look back over the past years till now, we see that these areas that we've increased in marketing are doing a terrific job of bringing us the qualified leads that we're looking for.

Jack Jostes:
Well, good. And I think as the economy changes that people become more cautious of where and with whom they're going to spend their money. And that's why and how are they going to do that research? They're going to do it online, right? They're going to do that. And so you're doing a lot of the things, well from your logo, I see it on your hat behind you there to the website, to your SEO. And then the video piece, I think is really just differentiating you and making you seem more helpful and personable. So, so keep it up [crosstalk 00:17:15]

Casey Hendrix:
One of the things on that Jack is that you've really helped us with is using those platforms to build trust with our client base. And when they see that on social media, they check our website, they see our branding. It's all trust building and when someone trusts you, they'll keep you, they'll spend money with you, they will rely on you as a source for what they need. And that's one of the things is trust building.

Jack Jostes:
Yeah for sure. It is largely about trust and one of the things that happened, so we did some work together a couple of years ago and we started getting a lot of leads through the website, almost to the point where you now have a full... Is Nathan working full time in sales or what?

Casey Hendrix:
Yes.

Jack Jostes:
Yes. So, you now have a full time salesperson and we are getting so many leads that... Well, we needed to find a way to make sure that we could prioritize the people who are really ready to buy from you. So we did something that I, wish I could get all my clients to do this, which is you started charging for the first meeting. So, you charge for the first meeting and you have online scheduling.

Jack Jostes:
So, if you guys check out the Tech Scapes website, you can literally book an appointment online. It syncs with Nathan's calendar and you guys charged $79. This is not for design, this is for the first consultation. So tell me, before we get into the results of that, what were some of your apprehensions around that? I know a lot of people are cringing right now listening, thinking about the idea, but they're also intrigued. What were some of the fears and apprehensions you had about charging for the first appointment?

Casey Hendrix:
Well, obviously the first one is it's a change and it's just a big change. And as a people, as our natural instinct, we're scared of change, right? That's what all the fear with this COVID-19 is, the change of what... How's this going to change my life? And so, obviously this was a change in direction for our business. We've provided free estimates for most of that 16 years. And I had spent personally a countless amount of hours chasing and bidding everything that every time my phone rings. And so, obviously we were very apprehensive about the thought of charging for our first meeting. How is this going to affect? Are we going to lose business? Are we going to lose projects that we want to bid on? There are just so many thoughts that rush to your mind and it's a big decision.

Casey Hendrix:
It was a very large decision for us to approve and accept and move forward with that thought. And you planted that in and using our website as a tool for scheduling meetings and more and more we have to do things faster and more efficiently with less and less people many times. It's just part of doing business, but we were very apprehensive about it. With the thought of losing customers, losing clients and people going, Oh, that's not going to work, you're crazy, we're not paying you. And the fact... Who do you think you are? Well, we're special.

Jack Jostes:
You are, you are. You just said you have 16 years of experience. So, what has been the response from your clients? Is it working? Are you guys going out of business or like what's happening since you now charge for what... And most people in the area do it for free.

Casey Hendrix:
Yes. And so, I don't even know where to start with it other than to say people are booking the appointments and it's allowing us as a company to spend more time on each qualified lead and the website's narrowing down the project for us. And so we're able to commit more quality time to each potential project. And the outcome is that our acceptance and approved ratio has skyrocketed. We have at least had a couple dozen. I'd say 24 to 30 appointments booked since the first of March, which doesn't seem like a lot. Okay? But it is, especially when you look at, most of those appointments are now approved projects and they're on our to do board. And we didn't have to spend all of our time spinning our wheels providing free estimates for folks that never intended on hiring us.

Casey Hendrix:
They just wanted one more competitive bid and one more time with a professional to pick their brain, for us to tell them what they should be doing so that they could hire someone cheaper to actually come and do our recommendation. So, that has been a relief to us as a company because you're able to breathe now and you're able to focus on those projects that are going to be approved and they're going to turn into something and you're just able to help more people, more efficiently.

Jack Jostes:
Yeah. I think when you focus on the outcome of serving clients, and you realize that at some point if I have too many, I can't really take a great care of them. But if I focus on the people who really want to work with me and they've paid a little something, you're able to deliver a better experience to them. So, it's no surprise to me that your close rate of those appointments is higher than before. And I think for people who are scared to do this... If you think about it, I had a client who is closing one out of 20 estimates and I learned that, while it was for a couple reasons. One, they were estimating for everything. Whoever answers their phone wasn't qualifying at all.

Jack Jostes:
They were meeting with everyone and worse, they were spending 12 hours, 12 man hours and I know how much they were paying that person. It's a lot. If you're thinking 10, 12 hours per estimate times 19 to get as a zero result. Like, wow, what if you just met with five people and still sold one? And what if all five of them paid you to meet?

Casey Hendrix:
If you're a landscape contractor and you're listening to this right now, you know where your profits been going. You want to look at your bottom line at the end of the year and think, I saw all this money, but it's gone. And where did it go? Free estimates took most of it.

Jack Jostes:
Yeah, yeah. Free estimates are definitely not free. Well, that's amazing. Did you have any resistance from your staff or... Really what I'm getting at is, how did you help prepare your staff to get on board with this? Because this was an organizational change to go from free estimates and people answering the phone, "Oh yes, let's schedule your free estimates." to now whoever's answering the phone needs to sell something. They need to sell a $79 something. But it's still, it changed things. How did you get the team, how did, how did this become the Tech Scapes way of doing the initial consultation?

Casey Hendrix:
That's a great question. And here at Tech Scapes, we don't make any major changes to the company before putting it before our team because they are so important to us. We need them on board before we ever start something. So, I pitched it to them, way before we ever decided to do it and they shared my concerns and we worked through them together. I came up with scripting, you helped me with some of the script of how to sell this proposition. And since then we've worked together, me and the team, myself and you to kind of make this proficient and they have it down now. It's just second nature, they answer the phone and someone says, "I need someone to come and look at my landscape. I'd like an estimate." And so, whomever answers the phone says, "Well, what is it that you're looking to have done your landscaping." Right?

Casey Hendrix:
"Well, I'd like to take everything out and start over." Well, those are key words that we love to hear because we recommend landscaping. I don't know, you other guys and girls that are on here, but we recommend landscaping be changed every seven to 10 years. And you might think that's crazy, but shrubs get out. They get overgrown and they get tiresome. They get to be a maintenance nightmare and cost a lot of money. So, once every 10 years, it's time to refresh. It's time to... You paint your house every 10 years at least. So, it's time to refresh your landscaping. So, when we hear someone's ready to do that, that is a project we're interested in. And so then we'd direct them to our website and walk them through the online scheduling process and we let them know up front, it's going to cost you $79 to have a project planning consultation with one of our project managers. And what am I going to get for that? Well, you're going to get a guaranteed meeting time with a professional, right? A trained professional, not just as you say, Chuck in a truck.

Jack Jostes:
So, I was doing a presentation in New Jersey recently and I was talking about Chuck in a truck and there was sure enough, there was a guy named Chuck. He was in good spirits about it but yeah, he let me know a different word for Chuck and a truck.

Casey Hendrix:
Yeah.

Jack Jostes:
Anyways. Yes. So, so yes. So, a few keywords here that you've already mentioned though, that are very intentional, that have a big impact is project planning consultation with a professional, right? So you're just completely changing the perception of what I'm getting versus a "bid" or an estimate. Those are terrible words. An estimate? Well, what does that mean that? Well, what's going to go wrong? Like what wasn't included in the estimate and a bid? Okay, better get three bids.

Casey Hendrix:
Right.

Jack Jostes:
There is a project planning consultation. I love that. And so, have you had anyone just be totally offended by this? Has anybody...

Casey Hendrix:
I wouldn't say totally offended. We have had some questions arise. Could you repeat that? Did you say you're charging? We're going to get some other bids so we're not paying everyone to give us a bid. Clearly, so yes we've had some pushback, but when the dust settles, those are projects that 99% of the time we're not going to get and I don't want to sound arrogant in saying this, but we didn't want them either because that's not the ones that we're focused on. So, it's a good thing. It's a positive thing but no, we haven't had any just kind of lose their mind over it.

Jack Jostes:
Yes.

Casey Hendrix:
So, $79 has been a great point for us because our clients have found a worthiness in that and they have found it to be beneficial. When you tell them you're going to spend... This is allowing us to be able to spend more quality time on your proposal. That's what they want to hear because they want accurate, they want it done right. Our customers know that we pay attention to detail. And so, we haven't had any kind of major things go wrong over it.

Jack Jostes:
With the way that if you haven't tried this, that I like to answer that, because we charge for an audit. We don't do free marketing plans either and it's that way we can actually assess what people need and create a customized plan for them. And the question I like to ask people when they tell me, "Oh, well, we talked to three other web people and they're doing free things for us." I always just ask, well, why do you think we charge for it and they don't?

Casey Hendrix:
Yes.

Jack Jostes:
And then, they always stop and think, and they'll usually say something like...

Jack Jostes:
They always stop and think, and they'll usually say something like, "Well, you guys must be better." I let them decide if they want to do it. I just, I just ask them, "Well, why do you think we charge?"

Casey Hendrix:
Yeah. That's a great segue.

Jack Jostes:
Yeah. That question will sniff out the people who are just getting three bids and looking for the cheapest vendor. I think this applies to selling anything, because the people that you ... Really, I think you're going for a no in the sales sooner, right? If it's a no, like let's get to the no sooner and save everyone some time, and if it's a yes, then great. We're going to take really great care of you.

Casey Hendrix:
Exactly.

Jack Jostes:
Do you have anything else to add on charging or online scheduling? What I'm hearing is higher qualified leads and an increase in close rate, and we can't ignore that you're generating a small amount of revenue, but it's something for those appointments. What's been the operational benefit, because it's springtime, and like you're saying, staffing is just always hard, and you're doing more with fewer people. What has been the operational I guess relief or anything, if you will, from that standpoint?

Casey Hendrix:
That's a great question also. The relief from an operational standpoint is prior to the online scheduler, someone calls. "I need an estimate. I need somebody to come out and look at my project." "Okay, well, let's see. Let me get your information." We have this sheet and we go through, and our lady that answers the phone and does a lot of our office work here, she'd go through and fill out, take down all their information and give the sheet to myself or Nate. Then it'd be up to one of us to call them back and set up a meeting, look at the calendar. "Well, I've got this project here. I don't know. It might rain." We would just go through all the wind and then start the back and forth with the client.

Casey Hendrix:
"We can meet you on Tuesday at 2:00." "Oh no, that doesn't work for me. Let's do 10:00." "No, we've got a meeting at 10:00." This back and forth would go on for days sometimes, right? It's amazing. Now Nate can just receive these meetings, and then he can qualify them, and then he can go meet them and put together their proposal. Then if they need a design, we can do that for them. That's an additional fee. It takes out all the back and forth with the client. They pick.

Casey Hendrix:
I had a client pulled up here the other day, and this was during the virus. She pulled up, rolled down her window, mask on everything, and she says, "I would like for someone to come meet about landscaping." I went through, explained it to her, and she said, "Well, check your calendar and get back with me and let me know when would be a good time to meet." She said, "What's convenient for you?" I responded, I said, "Everything on the calendar, the online scheduler that you see is convenient for us, so now it's up to you to pick a convenient time." She went home right away and set up the meeting, and there was a convenient time three days away. Nate's already met with her, and he's currently working on her proposal.

Jack Jostes:
Amazing. If she did contact another landscape contractor during this time, one, they probably haven't even called her back yet, and two, when they do, they're going to do the several day, "Well, how about this time, this time, this time?" Meanwhile, you've already gotten her to pay something. The professional's going to meet with them, and why would they even really consider anyone else? One of the things that drives landscaping clients insane when they're trying to buy is simply getting a professional landscaper to come to their house at a specific time. Landscapers are notorious for not returning calls, emails, missing appointments, so you've just removed all of the friction from the buying process for that customer, and wow. Why wouldn't they go with you? Even if you're more expensive than the other company that took a week to coordinate that first call, "Okay, these people are probably going to be easier to work with."

Jack Jostes:
Great job doing that. That was an uncomfortable ... One of our core values here at Ramblin Jackson is grow or die, and grow or die is all about realizing the things that you're uncomfortable about that are important, and then learning them and doing them. I think the online scheduling and charging for an appointment and making videos, this has been things that you needed to like work through, yeah. Like you said, that change can feel uncomfortable at first, but you did it, and I'm really thrilled to hear that it's working

Casey Hendrix:
well, I appreciate that. I think one of the reasons that you and I connected was that grow or die mentality. I had that, so I can really resonate with that and stand behind that. That's one of the driving factors of making these positive changes. Sometimes they are hard and uncomfortable, but the longterm of it is ... I mean, I think I asked you when we were first talking about this, who else is doing this? I did a little research around my area here. No one. I mean, it's crickets. You have some people that are doing it in other areas of the country, but I'm not afraid to try new things as long as they can make sense and see the future of it. It made sense, and my clients love it.

Jack Jostes:
Good. Good. It's ultimately serving the client in a more efficient way, and the marketplace is responding positively to that, because just because no one else is doing it doesn't mean it is the wrong way or it's a bad idea.

Casey Hendrix:
That's right. I would like to clarify something on it too. One of my team members or most of them here questioned right off. I'm just going to use the word Mrs. Smith. "Mrs. Smith always hires us to do her flowers but we have to go out and meet with her and see does she want zinnias or does she want pentas, or does she need mulch. Are we going to charge for that meeting?" I thought that's a good question. We've already won this client, and it's not a fact of a new project. This is ongoing work. There is those cases that we don't charge them the $79 to book a meeting. It's a done job. We're putting it on the schedule to do the work, so you don't have to use it for those, but the mass of phone calls that come in that say, "How do we get someone to come to our house?" They go through the online scheduler and just simplified it.

Jack Jostes:
One thing before I forget, have you mentioned the online schedule on your outgoing voicemail when people call after hours?

Casey Hendrix:
Yes.

Jack Jostes:
Okay good.

Casey Hendrix:
We also have a hold message, because a lot of people get put on hold. We have two lines here at the nursery, and many times they're both ringing or putting people on hold, so we mention it on there as well. We've gotten back on the phone more than once and someone will say, "I heard you say about setting a meeting from your website," so definitely.

Jack Jostes:
Cool. Awesome. Well, one other thing before we open up to Q&A. I wanted to touch on was recruiting. I think in general, every lawn and landscape company is facing a challenge finding labor, finding not only laborers but also managers, project managers, foremen, designers. Every position is hard to fill. How has your digital presence impacted recruiting, since before when you had that ... Do you remember that old website that you have? Do you remember that? I'm just now remembering it from like two years ago. From going to that to where you are now, has it impacted recruiting at all?

Casey Hendrix:
It has. It is at a large impact on our recruiting. As a business owner, you get caught up in the day to day, what you call doing it. You're just grinding, and you know your website's there and you know. "Yeah, go to my website and you'll see some pictures of my projects," or whatever. What I didn't realize is the huge impact on our branding that the website was having or not having, and being found by ... You're not going to go work somewhere and you pull up their website, and it looks like a roadside something that will be here this month and probably gone the next. You want to work for a substantial company that has benefits, that is going to be there, and there's potential room for growth and learning and personal growth and can help you achieve your personal goals.

Casey Hendrix:
Once we realized that and built the new sites, more than one of our hires since that time had said, "Yeah, I went to your website, and everything looked great." We have links on there. You can fill out an application. You can email it to the proper person. You can click on our Careers page, and it shows a picture of our team then positions that are available. They click that position and then they read, "Oh, I've got to be able to lift 50 pounds. I've got to work out in the sun, and I might not be a good fit." Then that person doesn't call us. Wonderful. I didn't have to interview that person, because we put that information out there, what we're looking for very specifically, and if it doesn't fit then, hey, move along. If it does, great. Give us a call.

Jack Jostes:
Yeah, absolutely. It's similar to attracting the right clients. You need to disqualify some of them, because you don't want to go through that interview process, hire somebody and on the second day they're just exhausted and can't hang for the rest of the season, so telling them the things that are hard and also highlighting the things that are good, right? It's a little bit of both. Can really help you spend less time talking to the bad fits and more time with the right fits. One of the things that you do really well for the people who are listening is the photo of you and the team and your trucks, because largely what we're talking about is establishing trust with people that, "Okay, I can feed my family. I can grow my career here," and it's a very emotional decision. Those photos of other people is really impactful to a potential employee.

Jack Jostes:
So often people just have, it looks like a wanted ad. Like, "wanted: person to lift rocks and mow stuff in the sun." It's awful, you know what I mean? You do need to sell people on why come do this work here? The photos of the team and the owner in particular I think are really important even, yes, even in landscaping recruiting. People do look at this before they apply, and I'm excited. I expect that you'll see an even an increase hopefully in that. Yes, the economy is changing, and hopefully that means that more people will be available to come work at Tex-Scapes.

Casey Hendrix:
Absolutely.

Jack Jostes:
Well, great. Well, so what I'd like to do next is do a little Q&A for the people who are here, and we're going to bring you Robert Felton. He's our landscape marketing strategist. Come on board Robert, and we're curious to hear what some of your takeaways from our conversation so far were.

Robert:
Hey, Casey. Thanks so much. I'm Robert Felton. I am the landscape marketing strategist here at Ramblin Jackson, so kind of the first person you talk, figure out what your ideal customer is, what you were talking about. If you're running around meeting with bad people, let's talk about those good people and figure out how we change our marketing to be more for them. Thanks so much for coming, Casey. I always love watching your story. It's been about two years since we started working together.

Robert:
My big question is, because I'm a big shopper. I remember being a kid and going to the nursery with my grandparents, and I would go for Easter, and I would go for all of those events. I like the decor aspects. I like to window shop, and I'm just worried that a lot of nurseries are dependent on those, those kinds of events. How are you working to conserve the culture, so that way this nurseries don't come a race to the bottom. "Well, I can get my chiminea online," or, "I'll get my decor online." How do you see that changing and how have you kind of worked to conserve that culture around coming and seeing you in person and it being an experience to go to the nursery?

Casey Hendrix:
Well, that's a great question. Being a small business, we don't always have the lowest price on our products, but what we beat everyone on is our customer service. We can tell you about the products, we can educate you on our products, how to use them, how long they'll last, what to expect when you use them, how to grow anything that we sell. We really put a big focus on that customer service and that information, just putting out a tub of information to our clients, and saying that, doing it in the simplest way possible, because you don't want to get lost in the jargon of ...

Casey Hendrix:
... because you don't want to get lost in the jargon of botanical names of plants. That's not going to assist anyone. But telling someone what the mature height of a plant is and if it grows in this certain area, and we tell our clients when they come up here and they are kind of window shopping and our nursery team out there, they'll say, "Could I see a picture of the area?" And of course they've taken a picture. They pull their smartphone out and, "Yes, here it is and there's a tree over here." And so in conserving that culture, just helping to educate the clients. And when I got in business, I worried about the younger generations that were coming on because you mentioned your grandparents. All of our grandparents loved the garden and my grandparents still garden. They can vegetables, they put the vegetables away in the freezer, they love old-timey flowers. And so that culture and that vintage era of gardening is not lost, it's in fact growing.

Casey Hendrix:
And the younger generation, we see millennials interested in gardening like never before. And so it's very exciting to be able to offer these products and services to the next generation as well as the older generations as well, and help preserve that future of gardening.

Robert Felton:
That's awesome. What about how you're communicating that online? I'm a millennial and we've started the garden because of what's going on. I think that's a common thing that's happening right now. I don't know much. I've been Googling stuff, but normally I would go and ask you questions but I can't. Are we kind of creating content to continue that education? And I've seen some great videos, but is that [crosstalk 00:50:11] priority or something that's in your mind when you're creating this content?

Casey Hendrix:
One of the things that we mentioned right off is Facebook Messenger and we have had a great response to Facebook Messenger, a lot of questions come in there. On our Instagram posts, always we get questions back. Do you have that plan or how do I do this or how do I do that? And course, taking phone calls. But messaging and email and comments and all of those things are certainly ways that we've communicated.

Robert Felton:
Yeah, I'm a big texter on Facebook Messenger and those tiny little things that pop up. So I'm glad to see that you're doing those and that's what I expect and I would buy from you instead of the other guy because of that. So thanks, Casey.

Casey Hendrix:
Awesome. Thank you. Thank you for your questions.

Jack Jostes:
Yeah. And Casey, you said something that I think is really important, which is... And for those of you listening, my experience, got started in the green industry. I worked at a plant nursery and garden center in Des Plaines, Illinois. And it was a really great experience because customer service was such a focal point of how we greeted people and the questions we asked them. And that's a really great question of, hey, do you have a photo of your area on your phone. Is an amazing way to engage people and I love that you're using Instagram and Facebook Messenger. I'm curious, operationally, who is looking at that and answering it as their job, right?

Casey Hendrix:
So that's a great question and I wanted to mention that we have such a great team because none of this would be possible without all the team members that we have here. I can't do it, my wife Tiffany can't do it all on her own. There was many years we went through and just as you said, doing it, doing it and grinding it out. And now we're just both with a great team here to help us do those things. Tiffany still does a lot of our Facebook work. The past couple of months we've stayed at home, she's been home with our kids and so Kristen actually does most of the answering here of our Facebook Messenger and managing a lot of those posts and putting a lot of those posts on, and she does a great job as well. And it's helped our whole team also being in the know, what do we have available right now? What are people asking for?

Casey Hendrix:
And one of the things that I haven't mentioned is just having the products and services available, just being available. I've gone many years, I don't give my cell phone out to a lot of clients because I don't want to do all of our business through my cell phone. I don't mind it. Many times I give it out if I need them to text and communicate, but I want them to communicate through our business because Casey is not the business, Tex-Scapes is the business and every team member is a part of that. So them constantly managing that, I don't worry about it. They're answering the questions. Sometimes if they get stumped, they'll come and say, "How do I answer this? What do I say?" They're asking for multiple things and we don't know if it can all go out on one load together.

Casey Hendrix:
So they come pick my brain about those things. But yes, it's been a great asset and the whole team being involved in that, each one having their area of expertise has been key to making it a success as well.

Jack Jostes:
That's really great and one of the cool things amidst this whole coronavirus thing that there's a lot of terrible things, you were talking about young people getting into gardening. I'm going to share my screen here and I'm going to share a couple things. One is the searches for gardening. So what I'm looking at is Google trends right now and every year, it's spikes of course. And end of May, or end of April, early May, people were like, oh, gardening. The snow melted, we should plant stuff. And then it kind of dies down and then it peaks again. And the seasonal peak, the highest one was in 2016 and then we're way past that now by a significant amount, from 80 to 100. So what this is showing is that people are Googling gardening, they're Googling landscaping, they're very interested and they're finding that information of course on the internet.

Jack Jostes:
And one tool I wanted to share with you and the people listening that we use at Ramblin Jackson is Agorapulse. We should probably get Robert in here because he's doing a lot of messaging on Instagram. But I can schedule social media posts to go out. I can upload my videos and say I want this to go out on Sunday at eight o'clock. I'm doing bedtime at eight o'clock on Sunday, but I've got a social media post scheduled because that's when people are on Instagram, right? So it's a really powerful tool that can also help you from a computer manage all of the chat coming in and out of your Facebook for your business. So that was one tool that you might consider in case everyone's doing it from their phone, which is great. You still get the notifications, but this can help manage it from a computer, which is my preference. It's just easier to get in here and get out.

Jack Jostes:
One other thing I wanted to point out was my coach, Wayne Herring, tagged me and he mentioned my nursery folks, this is C&C Candies and Country Store. They're in Friedensburg, Pennsylvania and one thing they're doing that I would suggest that you do is Facebook Live videos. So Facebook Live, you can literally go live and make a video and they're literally just showing people what they have. This is a 40 minute video of them walking through saying, hey, we've got bread, we've got candy, we've got donuts, we've got whatever. And so in the nursery, you can go live on your phone as long as you have a decent signal and go live and say, "Hey, it's Casey, I'm here and today we've got roses and petunias and by the way, we've got a sale this weekend on mulch." Or whatever and show people that stuff, and then it saves it and you can record it. You can put that on wherever you want.

Jack Jostes:
You're already doing a lot and these are just a couple of tools that I'm using and that I'm seeing people using right now that can can help you do this really efficiently because when you go live on Facebook, you've probably seen this, when you see other people go live, all the people who like your page get a little notification that so-and-so's live, and then they can comment and ask questions and you can be like, "Yes, we do have..." Whatever plant they're asking about.

Casey Hendrix:
Yes, yes.

Jack Jostes:
Well, hey it's been a real blast and we said we'd end on the hour. I think we could probably hang out for the rest of the day talking about this.

Casey Hendrix:
For sure.

Jack Jostes:
So I wanted to end on time and thank everyone, first of all, for listening and thank you Casey for being a guest here, sharing all this, for sharing our value of grow or die and doing things that are uncomfortable, and sharing what's working now. I mean, this is amazing. I mean, you're telling people what you're doing and it's working. So hopefully, you all can take something away. We do have the transcripts of the interview available at landscapersguide.com/podcasts. So if you want to check that out, you can read it there. We'll have a link to Casey and his social media, and thank you all so much. Have a great week and I'll look forward to seeing you guys next time.

Casey Hendrix:
Thank you.

Robert Felton:
Thank you, Casey.

Casey Hendrix:
Bye.

Jack Jostes:
All right everyone, thank you so much for checking out this episode of the Landscaper's Guide To Sales and Marketing. Again, my name's Jack Jostes and thank you for listening. I invite you to share this podcast with somebody who needs to hear good news. It could be a landscaper or a garden center, or just a small business owner who might be having a hard time. And again, check out the show notes at landscapersguide.com/podcast. Thank you so much for checking out this episode and I look forward to talking with you next week.