Automate your sales process, retain key employees, save hours from each landscape project by finding, estimating, and obtaining landscape materials more efficiently. Those are three key areas of your business that if you made even a small improvement would have a big impact on the whole year. And that's why I'm excited to announce that on Thursday, March 9th, I'm posting a half day virtual event called Win The Spring, in partnership with Team Engine and LandscapeHub. Check out WinTheSpring.com for more information and watch today's episode where I'm going to give a sneak preview of what you'll learn at the event, as I interview directly each of the speakers who share valuable tips about how to retain employees, how to source your materials more efficiently. I'm going to share some examples of how you can get better results faster from your sales process. And Joe is going to show you how to make an old-fashioned.
Hey everyone, Jack Jostes here, and if you haven't met these companies already, I'm excited to introduce LandscapeHub and Team Engine. Many of you know me from my work with Ramblin Jackson, and one of the reasons I love running this podcast, the Landscaper’s Guide, is because I get to talk with very interesting people in the snow and landscape industry. Today we'll hear from Dave Pacifico from Team Engine, who's presenting How To Increase Employee Retention With Communication at Win The Spring. In today's interview, Dave shares a tip for retaining employees that may seem like low-hanging fruit, but I can tell you that most of the landscape industry isn't implementing this simple tactic quite yet.
First, I had a great conversation with Will and Joe from LandscapeHub while I was in Illinois last week at iLandscape. It was a great conference, it didn't snow, turnout was awesome. And while I was there, Will and Joe did this conversation with me as a preview of their presentation from Win The Spring: Take the Pain Out of Purchasing With Digital Procurement. So check this out to hear some job-costing tips and ways that you can ultimately avoid being penny wise and dollar foolish this spring.
Sneak Preview of Take The Pain Out Of Purchasing With Digital Procurement by Joe and Will from LandscapeHub
All right, everyone here I am with Will Haverkamp and Joe Juricic from LandscapeHub. We are at iLandscape right now, and we were just admiring Will's shirt. Will, tell us about the shirt.
Will Haverkamp:
So if you look really closely, these are all the ingredients to an old-fashioned, is what they are.
Jack Jostes:
And what are the ingredients? I haven't made one in a while.
Will Haverkamp:
Joe is going to tell you what the ingredients are.
Joe Juricic:
I believe it's club soda, depending on how strong you like your drink, club soda, bitters, simple sugar, and whatever your favorite bourbon is. And then I think you can top it off with...
Will Haverkamp:
An orange peel.
Joe Juricic:
And also a cherry, depending. Everyone's got their own style, but those are the core ingredients. And then all of the ratios are just depending on how much of a strong drink or how much of a sweet drink you would like to have.
Jack Jostes:
Well, very good. Well, so tell us something about plant procurement and material procurement that... So today we were talking with somebody who thought they were getting a discount, but then ended up spending the whole day driving to the nursery to get it, when they could have had the material shipped. And do you hear stories like that often or...?
Will Haverkamp:
Absolutely. So when it comes to discounting and actually what LandscapeHub does, it has to do with relationships, honestly. And it's typically based on spend with a nursery. Same thing goes with LandscapeHub. A certain customer spend through us with a nursery, it could basically qualify them for volume discounts, that sort of thing. There are some nurseries that actually participate in volume discounts with LandscapeHub, and some that don't. It's been something that's been an evolving thing. And so really what you're talking about is, are you losing, let's say, there might be a small discount that a nursery extends to someone, but you might lose that in actually traveling to the nursery to pick that up. Those are things you got to weigh your costs in understanding those costs. Some people, they don't see them as costs, but I think that's something to actually bring to the surface. It's a great point.
Jack Jostes:
So there's one, there's the fuel cost, and then there's the actual wages. How much time did it take for somebody to go and how much did you pay them? And then Joe, I think you brought up the bigger picture is what else could they be doing to generate revenue or what could they be doing that's more productive?
Joe Juricic:
Oh, of course. Everyone's short labor nowadays, and why pay for someone to drive around and try to pick up plant material when you can work with the nurseries, you can work with folks like us at LandscapeHub to handle the logistics. And at the end of the day, sure, you may think you're saving money by having someone run and picking it up, but as, Will, you said earlier, it's you're spending extra money. You have to look at it, total acquisition cost versus per unit cost. And it's sometimes, like Will said, that's hard to realize, but when you dive into it and you look at all of your different discounts across the board, you look at the time it takes to get those, it ends up being a wash. Whereas if you go through one consolidated source, they end up actually saving you money in the long run. It might not look good in that instant on that instant job report, but in your P and Ls, you'll start to see it show up.
Jack Jostes:
Well, so how can people do this? Where should they look at this, and how can they coordinate this with their team? Because I was just having a conversation with three different people from a landscape company, and they were saying, oh yeah, we did it this way because we were getting the price per unit savings. And then the other person was like, yeah, but we lost a thousand dollars on that project by driving around. So how can landscape companies coordinate this with their teams? Because not everyone has access to a P and L, and they're just looking at that project report at the end of it. So what do you recommend to landscape companies so they can get their head around this?
Joe Juricic:
An easy thing is just to look at where that driver goes throughout the day and how far they travel. You can do very simple math. Just their route throughout the day, how much fuel they're spending, and then taking and looking at all those individual purchases, and then comparing with the discount versus buying it maybe all at one location, maybe wholesaler, maybe one single nursery, maybe doing your procurement online using some of the tools that we're going to be talking about here soon.
And that's a great way to start is just get down to, it's just the same thing as doing a time study for install. Look at your raw costs, start from there, and do it over a week. And then take the time, when you have it, maybe it could be winter or for the Southern states in between the holidays, and compare it and say, well, did we really save that cash? And that's something that a project manager can do along with someone that does have access to a P and L to compare the different cost savings.
And in some instances if your discount's that great, it does make sense. But majority of the time, especially with the rising cost in our industry now, it doesn't make sense.
Jack Jostes:
Well and Joe, I have this card here, and on it says you're going to be presenting, you and Will, are going to be presenting, Take the Pain Out of Purchasing with Digital Procurement at Win The Spring. What other pain are you going to help people take out of purchasing that I guess you're seeing happening?
Joe Juricic:
Well, along with purchasing, there's estimating. And Will and I were both contractors and sitting down and doing takeoffs and manually doing them. I made a couple of mistakes. I know Will has made mistakes, of course, but using someone like what we're going to talk about at Win The Spring to, in a sense, sub that out so that you can focus on other tasks. That's going to be huge, because the nice thing is when you work with someone that can do it for you, they'll give you a format that you can then work with a digital plant procurement person, LandscapeHub, we're going to mention a couple others in our talk, and you'll see the efficiency start to come through when you use technology to take out those pain points.
Jack Jostes:
Now, so for people who are watching this or listening and they're like, wow, this sounds great, but it's spring, it's too late for me to adopt something new, is it too late?
Joe Juricic:
No.
Jack Jostes:
Is this something I need to wait for next season or could I learn to do this now?
Joe Juricic:
You can do this tomorrow. With what Will and I are going to talk about, you can integrate it into your business tomorrow. The more you can do now, the easier your season will be.
Jack Jostes:
So Will, when it comes to digital plant procurement, one of the things that I hear from a lot of people is, well, I have these relationships with the nurseries that I've had for 10, 20, 30 years, or I've had the relationships with these suppliers and that's the key to my business. I don't want to lose it. Do we lose it, or how does doing this with digital tools and technology, how does it impact the relationship?
Will Haverkamp:
I'll give you a mix of the long and short answer. So this is a two-faced deal. There's concerns from the supplier end, and then there's also concerns from the buying end as well. Building a marketplace, it's one of the things we've had to really face, and it's a very common question, but really what our website is meant to do is it creates an ease of transaction for the supplier. As a supplier, they're going to get orders every which way to Sunday. So it's going to be text, it's going to be phone call, email. Can you imagine consolidating it all into one platform to where it comes in an easy way? So really the thing, even just at iLandscape this week is, it's been a topic of conversation to talking with suppliers about just that very thing, that this is a relationship-based industry, and this industry has been built on relationships.
So our job, even at LandscapeHub, is to marry the two together. So it's really, for a supplier, you see it as a sales channel. For as a buyer, you see it as an ease of transaction as well. So literally, that buyer can call that supplier and say, hey, I've got a LandscapeHub order, let's talk about it. And again, it's a question that I ask suppliers as well. They say, well, what happens when a customer calls me and asks me about a LandscapeHub order? My answer to that question is very easy. Well, what do you do when they call you about a regular order? You talk about it. It's the same thing.
And so really it's about perception, and really cutting out the blurred lines of, hey, LandscapeHub is an extension of a supplier's team as well as we're an extension of a buyer's team. A lot of these folks, like landscape companies, they don't have enough people to sit in the buying seat. They need to be able to move their estimating and quoting, and then also placing orders easily. And so does a supplier on the other end. They need to be able to work through these orders. They're also suffering from a lack of labor and all those things. And this is something that just streamlines the process. We're not trying to cut out the relationship. We're trying to enhance it, almost in cutting out the noise, Jack.
Jack Jostes:
Well, I feel the same way about sales, too. So we've shift a lot of things in selling to happen online. So some of the things that I'll be talking about in my presentation will be about pricing pages, giving people price ranges in advance, having forms that they can fill out online that you might ask them verbally, normally. A lot of people are like, hey, it's 10 o'clock at night and I'm just finished talking to my spouse about the landscape project. Cool. I'm going to fill out this form right now and get this to you. And like you said, it enhances the relationship, and it makes you easier to work with. Every relationship of every kind requires good communication. And if you can be easier to communicate with, it just enhances the relationship. It doesn't replace it, it's just happening online.
Will Haverkamp:
100%. And there's a lot of questions that we ask up front, the buyer, about a certain order. Can you accept a truck at where you're... As far as, can you do a semi that's delivering to the actual job site? There's a lot of lines that we clear up prior to them placing the order that are probably questions that they would work through with the supplier, that might take 20 minutes to talk through on the phone. But it's again, it's realizing what that process is and how it saves you time. I think it's the fear of the unknown. It's the false evidence appearing real. What'd they say about fear? But it's once you dig into those transactions and you recognize where the time saving is from a buyer's standpoint and a supplier, is really where you start to win.
Jack Jostes:
Awesome. Well, speaking of winning, we hope to see you all at Win The Spring, where we'll hear more from Joe, and actually from Joe and Will. I'm getting it mixed up here. I know who's who though. So we'll see you guys there. And speaking of winning, we got to get going. We got to go play some Topgolf.
Will Haverkamp:
Amen. Let's go.
Joe Juricic:
Yeah, let's go. Let's get to it.
Jack Jostes:
All right, let's do it.
Sneak Preview Of How To Increase Employee Retention With Communication by Dave Pacifico of Team Engine
Next we have Dave Pacifico, the co-founder of Team Engine. Dave is a software engineer and product manager. He has worked with hundreds of green industry businesses over the last five years, as well as hundreds of other blue collar trades businesses. And I'm excited to have Team Engine partner with us in this event. They're one of the few softwares that I actually recommend to my clients, and that's because I always want to recommend things that are really good. And I love, ultimately, the thought that goes behind Team Engine. And Dave, I wanted to ask, for landscapers listening, what are some of the ways that employers can make their teams feel valued?
Dave Pacifico:
Thanks for having me, Jack. I appreciate it. We're super passionate about this, just the idea of taking these kinds of jobs and turning them from more transactional, the idea that somebody is supposed to show up to the job, get the job done, go home, and be happy about having a job. It's just not working anymore. And we're really passionate about turning them into careers and things where people feel passionate about the company that they work for, and the job that they have, and the team that they work for. And so some of the things that we see being most effective, is just making them feel like owners of the overall business in terms of the problems that the business has to solve. You need to hire a lot of people, get their referrals, get them involved in the goals that you have for hiring and expanding your team.
People want their friends to have good jobs, they want to work with good people. You can get them involved in that. Get their feedback about how you can improve. Oftentimes, generally we all know the best ideas can come from the people who are experiencing the day-to-day work of the business and are out there in the field, get their opinions, get their thoughts on how you can improve, how can safety get better, how can you serve your customers better? And then show them that you're reacting to that feedback and taking action based on it. And I think your team will feel like they're really part of something bigger than just the work that they do day in and day out.
Jack Jostes:
I totally agree. And as far as communicating with your team, especially during the springtime, a lot of landscape companies, they might have multiple crews out, and it can be rare... I have a client who told me that their whole company only gets together once a year at their Christmas party. So they've got all these different crews coming in different times, going to different locations in different vehicles. What are some of the ways that you can use technology to communicate with all those people without them having to come to, maybe, another in-person meeting, which is just difficult to get everyone to?
Dave Pacifico:
And it's not timely. You can't get the information out quickly in that way, either. The natural thing that a lot of people in the world would think about is, we'll send them an email. I think as we all know, this type of workforce just don't necessarily use email. It's just not natural. It's not something that they're going to respond to regularly. And so we just find that text messaging is an extremely effective, and actually preferred, method for communicating with field workers. In fact, when people apply to jobs and we ask them, is it okay if we text you as part of this job, as part of this hiring process, we see 96% of applicants actually opt in to receiving texts, and this isn't, I have the checkbox checked by default and you forget to uncheck, and all sudden getting all these marketing emails, you actually have to opt in and check that box in order for us to send text messages through Team Engine. And 96% of people do that. I think that speaks for itself in terms of what they prefer in terms of communication.
Jack Jostes:
So are you actually sending out texts, then, to get survey data, or to ask people how they're doing?
Dave Pacifico:
Yeah, you can really do a lot, I think, as most, especially younger, people know these days, you can get a lot done with text message. And so whether it's getting simple information out there or recognizing someone's birthday, work anniversary, those things are really important. But you can also survey them. You can say, hey, what could we be doing better today to make your job more worthwhile? Or what's one way that we could be safer on the job site? Things like that. And just get that information really quickly and easily without anyone having to install an app, manage a username and password, anything like that. Makes it really simple.
Jack Jostes:
So as we enter what some people call the hundred days of hell, it's a very busy time in the green industry, what are some of the ways that employers can get their teams involved in communicating with them even when it's during that super busy time?
Dave Pacifico:
So we feel pretty passionately about the value of automation for really repetitive stuff, but doing it in a thoughtful way. So when I think of automation, or when a lot of people do, they think of that really impersonal bot type frustrating experience, where you're clearly not talking to a human being. But if you need to get simple instructions out to somebody, or you want to recognize someone's birthday, and you're going to say the exact same thing every time, there's no reason why you need to do that manually every single time in the exact same way. You can combine being personal with automating those steps. And so that can save you time during what's an incredibly busy time of the year.
And then like I said, just identifying the problems and the challenges that go into those 100 days, and figuring out how to get your team involved. If we need to hire a lot and get ramped up quickly, well referrals can be a great way to do that, like I said. Or if you have particular challenges, things you want to improve from the last 100 days, so it's a little bit less hellish this year than it was last year, how do you get that information? Go survey your employees.
Don't just rely on your office staff or your leadership to determine how to improve this year versus last year. Get the whole team involved.
Jack Jostes:
Well, I really like that, and one of the ways that I do that with my own team, I use Google Survey, I survey my team quarterly and I ask for an employer net promoter score. And I've learned that asking people, why did you give me that score, is one of the most important things I can do. And I believe it has led me to have deeper conversations with employees that I've then retained because I listened to them and I found out about issues. And it doesn't always end with just getting a response to the survey. It's often of like, hey, I saw that you gave us this feedback, can you tell me more? And sometimes there's not more, but a lot of times there is. And that, I think, you're absolutely right. The people who are doing various roles in your company are aware of problems or things that could not only help with employee retention and their satisfaction, but often customer satisfaction and customer retention. So I really like that.
Dave, I'm really excited to have you at the Win The Spring event. You'll be presenting How to Increase Employee Retention With communication. I'm super stoked for this.
We've got why communication is so important to employee retention, what you should be communicating and what to do with the information, how to use text messaging and other softwares without blowing up the cell phone of one manager. I know so many landscapers who like one person's personal phone, they're sending out to applicants, right? They've got dozens of people, they've got all these other people. It's a total mess.
Dave Pacifico:
Stuff gets lost. Hopefully that person doesn't leave.
Jack Jostes:
And I think there's a risk here in not doing this really well, because if you're asking for this feedback and you're starting conversations, but you're not responding and following up on the information, it can actually make things worse. So I'm really excited to learn from you and your presentation. Check it out at WinTheSpring.com. And Dave, thanks so much for coming on The Landscaper’s Guide.
Dave Pacifico:
Yeah, sure. It's going to be great. Hope to see you at Win The Spring.
Sneak Preview Of Get Out Of Sales With An Automated Sales Process + Advanced Lead Qualification System
Jack Jostes:
When you've built up a good reputation for your snow and landscape company, you're going to get referrals in the spring. And after you've established the foundational four, your branding and differentiation, your website, your local SEO, and online reviews, you're going to get way more inbound leads coming into your company. While referrals and leads are ultimately a good thing, when you get a huge volume of them during the spring, it can create a lot of stress for you and your staff, the people answering the phones, the people who are responding to the forms on your website. By leveraging automation, you can save not only yourself and your employees time, but also your customers time. And when you save everyone time, they're going to enjoy working with you, both your employees and your customers. This will free up time for your employees to truly serve customers and do a great job, and actually sell, instead of teaching people landscaping 101 over the phone to find out that they don't have a budget.
In my presentation of Get Out of Sales With an Automated Sales Process and Advanced Lead Qualification System, I'll be sharing ways that you can reduce the amount of time that you spend on sales, while generating more qualified leads who close in less time, and ultimately increase your close rate. At Ramblin Jackson, one of the reasons snow and landscape companies trust us, is because we work to help get the owner out of sales. That is if the owner wants to get out of sales. Some of our clients, the owner enjoys doing sales and awesome, cool, we can help you make your life easier. And for many of our multi-million dollar clients, their goal is to build a system that their employees can implement for them, and that's where we can really help.
Here's what Nate Dixon, the project manager from Tex-Scapes Nursery + Landscape in Texas had to say after we helped them brand their sales process, automate appointment scheduling through their online calendar, and even charge for appointments. Yes, charge for appointments in Texas.
Nate Dixon:
The whole process has saved, I don't really think I could even put it into a time, a narrow time. Days, it's saved, honestly, days, because like I said, Mondays you come in with 20 notes. Well now I have 20 emails, and they already have their place on the calendar, so I don't have to worry about calling them back, setting them up an appointment and all this. It's already done. I answer questions that they have in specific, then we meet and go over each one of their projects.
Jack Jostes:
What's amazing about this is that it has allowed the owner of the company, Casey, to focus on other areas of the business, like developing high school apprenticeship programs and flying his airplane. How cool is that? For real, he has an airplane. So if you want to be like Casey and fly an airplane, you've got to come to Win The Spring. A lot of people say that spring is the start of 100 days of hell, and it is going to be hard. But it'll be a lot easier if you can automate parts of your sales process, if you can retain your key employees, and if you can source materials more efficiently.
Join me at Win The Spring on Thursday, March 9th. Bring your sales, marketing, and operations people for the price of just one ticket, without even having to leave your office. Check out our early bird pricing at WinTheSpring.com. I'm Jack Jostes, thanks so much for checking out this episode of Landscaper’s Guide, and I look forward to seeing you at Win The Spring. WinTheSpring.com.