End Of Year Reflection And Leadership Lessons
00:00
As we roll into 2026, I'm excited about where we're heading. We are innovating a lot of cool things at Ramblin Jackson that I can't wait to share with you. I'll give you one thing that you should work on right now in this season. If you're watching this roughly in the winter of 2025 or early 2026, one of the new things that I'm going to over communicate because it's so important is review recency. It's our final video podcast of 2025 and in today's episode, I'm going to share with you some of my biggest and frankly hardest leadership lessons that I learned this year. And also some really exciting announcements about new products and services that we're going to be releasing in 2026. They're going to help you grow your snow and landscape company faster.
Introduction To The Landscaper’s Guide Podcast
00:51
My name is Jack Jostes and welcome to the Landscapers Guide podcast. For those of you who don't know me, I'm the CEO of Ramblin Jackson, the snow and landscape marketing agency. We've been in business since 29, 2009. How do you even say that? And we have hundreds of clients. I'm really grateful. We've got employees all over the country and it's overall, it's been an incredible year. And you know, one of the things that was great that happened this week, literally this week, even today, while I record today's podcast, are some of my biggest wins in leadership are that I had three former employees reach out to me to talk about working together again. And I consider that a win. You know, a former Rambler texted me this week and was like, hey, I want to be a Rambler again.
Former Employees And Building Long Term Bridges
01:47
And I replied instantly, let's talk. And when they ramble resigned several years ago. I wasn't even their direct manager, but I called them that day and thanked them and was curious about what they were up to next and let them know that in the future when things change, remember that this is my phone number and that you can reach out to me and it won't be weird. And they told me they remembered that and it wasn't weird. We had a great conversation. We'll see where it goes. Another Rambler messaged me about some just life changes that are happening for them and we ended up having a conversation and finding they're not going to work here again, but a different way to collaborate in the future. That's a win, win.
The Cost Of Waiting Too Long To Let People Go
02:35
That's what I like to target, a win for me A win for them, a win for my customer. And another former Rambler who left on good terms introduced me to somebody else to work here who could be a good. So I consider those wins, especially in light with what I'm going to share about toxic people and how to handle them as a leader. I just had a call with a client yesterday who shared with me that one of his biggest wins was finally letting what he said was a cancerous employee go. And after that, their customer service got way better, their client retention got better, they had record sales, but that while this person was here, there was this weird vibe, this negativity in his company that he really disliked. And you know, I'm going to get back to that.
Print Marketing Wins And Hard People Decisions
03:30
But you know, another win this year was that a client got my. A former client got my print newsletter and texted me a picture of it was like, I love what you're doing in this newsletter. Can we talk again? And. And they ended up coming back and are now one of my highest paying clients again and we're crushing it together. Love working with this company. Meanwhile, somebody else was telling me that my print newsletter is a waste of money. This person doesn't work here anymore. It doesn't really matter. You know, a hard lesson was I had to ask a long term person to leave the team at one point in the past and my reflection really at this point in the year was that I waited too long to do that. I knew it should have happened and I understand why it happens.
A Players, B Players, And C Players Explained
04:21
You know, talking with my client yesterday, sometimes people are here and maybe they're performing well. I've talked about this in other episodes of there's like this quadrant of A players are a high culture fit and they're a high performer. You know, a B player may be a culture fit, but maybe they're not performing at their capacity and we can coach them up to be an A player and show them what an A player looks like. Maybe they haven't been on a team where there is an A player opportunity. Right. And I've had many people rise up and grow and that's extremely rewarding. And then there are C players who are not a culture fit and they're a low performer.
Recognizing C Player Behavior
05:05
You know, one time, you know, I run a remote company, I have a meeting with some of my staff over Zoom and we're meeting there and I could see that one of the people was clearly like looking over their camera, over their computer, like looking at something behind them and I could see lights and colors coming over their eyes. Like I could See the reflection? I said, just call him Bob. Bob, are you watching tv? Bob was watching tv. He's like, oh, yeah, I got the game on, but I'm paying attention. And like, no, Bob, you're clearly not paying attention. And we noticed, like, turn it off. So that's a C player. And then there are. There are. There are people who may have been high performing or are currently high performing, but they are not a culture fit.
Toxic Behavior And Leadership Stress
05:54
And I hadn't had this experience where maybe they're not a culture fit with you. And the hard part is when they. Maybe they have a really good rapport with their co workers, but they're toxic to their manager or to you as the owner. And the stress of that is significant. It can impact your physical health. It can bleed into your thoughts on the weekend or when you're on vacation or things like that. And it's weird. It's a weird position to be in, especially if something like that happens as you grow. And what I've learned is, you know, when you promote certain people, other people can respond in a way that maybe they're envious. Envious can be good. Maybe it inspires them to grow and get better or ask for a different promotion. But then there's jealousy.
Promotions, Jealousy, And Culture Challenges
06:46
And when people get jealous and fearful and angry and resentful, they can become toxic. And so that's just been an interesting thing I've learned in promoting people is not everyone's gonna be thrilled about the promotion of another person. And when the people who are not thrilled don't applaud that person or cheer them on and then become toxic, it's your job as the leader to get rid of those people fast. And that's a really hard thing to do. A players handle change and growth with grace. And sometimes that change means they're leaving the company. And some of the stories that I mentioned earlier about people who left did it with grace. And I talk about being a bridge builder versus being a bridge burner. So I'm in the build a bridge camp.
Bridge Builders Versus Bridge Burners
07:42
When that client that I talked about was leaving, I let them know, hey, here's all your stuff. We built it in a way that you can, you know, continue using it. And were helpful in the transition, and we even followed up with them over time to see how they were doing, because I had a rapport with that person and actually cared. But I helped them leave another agency when were onboarding a client. Their agency deleted their Google Analytics years of data for no reason. Right. Or they do really weird things like that so. So I'm in the build a bridge camp. I'm helping people get to where they're going. They're helping me get where they're going. And then sometimes I need to walk back over that bridge and say, hey, I have an opportunity. Can we talk about it?
Handling Change And Letting People Leave With Grace
08:28
And then sometimes, like this week, people come to me and say, hey, things have changed. Do you have an opportunity? And the answer could be yes. So A players handle that change and growth, including leaving the company with grace, whereas toxic players behave like victims. So my job is to coach and challenge and retain the A players, coach and challenge and retain the B players, coach them up or out and be clear with them about what. What do we need? And then ultimately graduate. Or some people call it unhire the C or toxic players to another bus. And I had a great interview with Peggy Burns from Michigan this year. That was one of my favorite moments, is getting to spend time in person with my clients on the podcast. And so I want to roll this clip, because Peggy has figured it out.
Peggy Burns On Becoming Unafraid To Fire
09:25
She's been in business. You don't want to screw around. If you're on Peggy's team, you got to hear her talk about it. And I've met some of the people who have been there for a long time, and they love working with Peggy, who, because she operates this way.
Fear, Leadership, And Losing Control
09:39
There was a period of time where, like, I've had a couple managers that just wanted to do everything their way. And I was. I guess, admittedly, I was a little bit afraid, because if they left, this was going to make a hole that I can't do everything. So how is that void going to get filled? How is that void going to get filled? And they just kind of worked out where they, you know, they left. And one of them was unexpected, and I was pretty angry and pretty overwhelmed. But in that moment, I just was like, you know what? I'm not gonna be afraid of this anymore. I'm not gonna be afraid to have my company look bad because you know more than me about how to do something. Like, I will figure it out. Like, I am done with that.
Becoming Unafraid To Fire
10:27
I like that. So that was something. Before we pressed record, were talking about becoming unafraid of firing people.
Being Held Hostage By Employees
10:34
Yes.
Fear Of Letting People Go
10:35
And I wanted to start with the fear, though. Like, I've had it, and I've had people on my team for too long, and I was afraid, oh, crap, this person does a lot. What am I gonna do? I can't do everything. And then I've learned that keeping people too long, like, once they're gone. I'm like, wow, why did I wait so long? And I know that every business owner goes through this because you. I interviewed your son today, right? You. You. You said you grew up in a family business. And so there's the family dynamic. There are people Logan mentioned, somebody that has worked there for 35 years. And he's what, 22?
Family Business Dynamics
11:14
He's 24. Yeah.
Leadership And Interpersonal Challenges
11:15
Or 24.
Joy And Complexity Of Long Term Teams
11:16
Yeah.
How To Become Unafraid
11:16
Right. So he's like. So there's. There's all these interpersonal challenges, and that. That's the. The joy of the business, too. When you have those relationships that are working really well. How did you become unafraid to.
Refusing To Be Held Hostage
11:31
Because I didn't want to help be held hostage anymore. You know, it's like, you might know how to do this. I don't know how to do this. I don't have a desire to learn how to do that, but I'll find someone who can do that. And so I'm just not going to be held hostage anymore. That's basically what I decided, that's. I'm done with that.
Applying The Lesson As A Leader
11:48
So I shared that because, like, I learned this year, and like my client I talked to yesterday learned this year, it's hard, and you've just got to do it. And the sooner you do it, the better you and your people will be. Now, there is a prayer that I learned that I wanted to share with you. It's the serenity prayer. God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference. Now, I find a lot of peace in that prayer.
The Serenity Prayer And Leadership Clarity
12:26
And sometimes I even write it down on a piece of paper and I think about what are the things that I can change, what is my side of the street, what's my part in the conflict or what happened that maybe I need to own up for and apologize. And the sooner I do that, the better. And then also there are the things I cannot change. And coming to the wisdom to realize that sometimes when people are doing really toxic things to me or my family or my staff, it really has more to do with them than it does with me. And that's hard to process while it's happening. But this is the real challenge, frankly, of leading a team is dealing with this murky people stuff.
Leadership Reflection And Transition To What’s Next
13:19
And I wanted to share that prayer with you and this story from Peggy, because those stories, hearing from Peggy and that prayer are the things that help me do what I need to do in leading the company. So those were some reflections on leadership on some of the hardest lessons I learned and as we roll into 2026, I'm excited about where we're heading. We are innovating a lot of cool things at Ramblin Jackson that I can't wait to share with you. The first one being Lead Wrangler which is the ultimate landscape sales and marketing CRM. We've been refining this over the last year. We're using it internally at Ramblin Jackson and we've been rolling it out in pieces with ease email marketing for some clients and we are rolling it out for our current clients.
Introducing Lead Wrangler And Sales Automation
14:11
In the first quarter we're gonna be rolling out Lead Wrangler Fundamentals which is going to give our clients more accurate reporting automatically about their lead source of where did this lead come from. And we're gonna automate some of the things like inbound phone calls can be recorded automatically. Outbound phone calls from the office to customers can be recorded. We're going to be able to transcribe this and use AI and then coach our clients on coaching their office staff. Sometimes we're actually already doing this meeting with them but like how to be good on the phone, how to ask for the appointment, how to get the budget, how to do some of these things that are harder soft skills. We're still going to have a human doing that and we can use this technology to coach those humans to better, to use automation.
Email Marketing, Sales Enablement, And Rev Ops
15:05
Some of the things we're gonna be building this year are more email marketing services, sales enablement and rev ops. That's kind of geeky industry jargon but really we're gonna be able to show our clients like who opened the emails this week, who's clicking on the website. Maybe you have an HOA lead that you've been nurturing for years or some other commercial lead and now they're opening your emails again and they're clicking on going to be able to automate some of those notifications to then coach our clients salespeople with what to call and say and have pre written email templates. So this is going to be fantastic. And we're already rolling this out and in the future you know, it will allow us to do things like AI phone answering and website chat and AI chatbots on the website pulling in.
AI, Content, And Online Scheduling
16:03
We're masters at writing long form content about pricing and process and sales. We've already been doing this for years and we're now feeding that into AI in a way that can interact with customers automatically. Again, still getting to the point where you're going to need to talk to somebody. But online scheduling is going to be built into this. I'm also on track to launch my new book, the Tree of Good the Landscaper's Guide to Direct Response, Sales and Marketing. So while we've been testing all of these things, we've been with our clients and with myself. I've been writing the book. This is how I did a lot of innovation when I wrote the first book. And that propelled us years forward.
Innovation, Wild Frontier Clients, And Early Access
16:49
So there's so much social media coming out, we're doing a lot of video, a lot of really exciting innovation at Ramblin Jackson, and we'll be rolling that out for our Wild frontier clients first. So that's one of the benefits of being our top level client. A wild frontier is you get first access to innovation. Things that we're testing and creating. And it's always based on what's working for us and what's working for our clients. Another thing we rolled out in 2025 that we're going to be taking a step further is seasonal marketing campaigns. So depending on where you are in the United States, there's seasonality. Are you above the Mason Dixon line? Does it freeze or not? If it does freeze, you know, there's sprinkler blowouts and winterization and fall cleanups and all these different things.
Seasonal Marketing Campaigns By Region
17:41
And we have clients in Arizona where it's a different market or different parts of Texas where they don't need that. So we've built out seasonal campaigns to adapt to the services that you want to sell during the different seasons. And we've created editorial calendars. So it makes doing your direct mail and your Google Ads and your social media and your email marketing and your video content. Whether we're doing that for you or we're doing it with you, Some of our clients have in house marketing teams, but we're able to just organize that. A lot of this comes from my background in journalism and running my own marketing with editorial calendars and thinking of those things to create an offer for the season in which your customer is going to buy the service. So really excited to be sharing that.
Review Recency And Google Rankings
18:39
And I'll give you one thing that you should work on right now in this season. If you're watching this roughly in the winter of 2025 or early 2020 26, one of the new things that I'm going to over communicate because it's so important is review recency. So having recent reviews within the last 30 days on your Google listing is a key ranking factor on Google, including an AI mode. It's a key thing. Reviews and review recency in AI overall, in AI tools like ChatGPT or all these different things is review recency. So that would be one thing to focus on this year is to always be asking, right? So there's the ABCs, always be closing. There's also always be asking for reviews. You figure out the acronym for that.
Building Reviews And AI Visibility
19:34
But the point is we want timely, fresh reviews and we absolutely want to be the highest rated in our market. So I'm excited about that. We've got nearly 700 reviews at Ramblin Jackson. Total. Check out ramblinjackson.com reviews as an example of what we recommend you do. Yes, we're always getting Google reviews. I got five this month and we also got, I think another five reviews directly on our website. And so those reviews being embedded on my website help me show up in the AI overviews in ChatGPT and all these different things. So we've got a lot of things coming.
Personal Goals And Practicing Consistency
20:32
Excited to share that with you and I'm going to share some of my personal goals. One is to be a finalist at a mandolin contest here in Lions. I've never competed in it. I don't think I could win. Just to be honest. I don't think I could win, but I think I could place. I could place. I have gone and silently judged on my own at this mandolin contest. I'm not an official judge, but I've always picked the finalists and most of the time the winner. And I think I figured out what I need to do. I just got to practice. I just got to practice. That's really a lot of this comes down is just doing it.
Fitness Goals And Staying Consistent
21:15
Another goal of mine is to run a 5k in under 29 minutes. That was my previous record and same there. I just gotta run. I just gotta. I just gotta do it. It's 100 mile an hour winds right now. I don't know if you can hear the wind coming into the microphone, but literally 100 mile an hour winds.
Taking Time Off And Hunting Season
21:15
I did not run today because I didn't want to get stuff flying into my eyeball. But otherwise I'm going to run on Sunday. I'm going to hunt deer and elk again. One of my favorite moments this year was taking time off. Did not fill my tags this year, but man, I had a great time. I was offline for free five days watching the sunrise and sunset. That was very fulfilling. We take Mondays off at Ramblin Jackson. It's one of our perks because man, this time of year right now is so full.
Seasonality And Taking Mondays Off
22:13
The fourth and first quarter is like spring for you guys. So we enjoy taking Monday off during the summertime. It's a typically slower time of year. That's how we've kind of embraced the seasonality of being a landscape focused industry. I'm going to read the New Testament entirely. That's my goal.
Faith, Reading Goals, And Family Travel
22:13
My church is reading it and I think they said they've broken it down to five days a week of reading. So we'll see how that turns out. And I'm going to go to Mexico with my family. I can't share which event it is, but I'm speaking at a really cool landscape company with one of the best companies in the industry and I'm super grateful that I get to bring my family with me to that. I'm going to share more about that later.
Gratitude For The Landscape Industry
22:59
Overall, you know, end of the year, I'm just super grateful for the landscape industry. I love what we do. We are working, you know, a pattern is we work with a lot of second generation family owned businesses.
Helping Second Generation And Growth Focused Owners
22:59
So if you're watching or listening to this and you are the son or daughter in law or son in law, often usually one of those paths and you've got a really great business and you've been in business for a long time but you know, you want to refine your marketing and embrace automation and technology and AI and all of these different things. We'd love to have a conversation with you or if you have just straight up hustled, you've started your own company from scratch. And through pure grit, determination and endurance, you have broken past around the $2 million mark.
Scaling Beyond The Next Million
23:54
We can help you get to the next million and maybe you're looking to grow a 4, 5, 6, 7, 9, 10 million dollar company. We're great at helping you standardize your sales process and get the owner out of sales and increase your efficiency.
The Real Impact Of Marketing Systems
23:54
One of the biggest wins for me this year, I mentioned it in another podcast, was getting to have dinner with a client and his wife. And his wife said, hey, you guys really helped us, my family, you helped us save time, spend more time together. That's the result of the work we do here.
Why This Work Ultimately Matters
24:52
All this techie stuff is ultimately about people stuff. It's about streamlining it, making it more efficient, giving you more time to spend with people, either with your employees or your clients or your family. That's the result of getting your online automation and your sales and your lead generation dialed in. I'm super grateful to work here with the Ramblers. We have a lot of great Ramblers. We added two new Ramblers this year who are killing it and crushing it. And so that feels good.
Call To Action And Brainstorm Invitation
24:52
And what are you excited about next year? What are you up to? And maybe we can help you get those results faster or with less stress. Or maybe you can offload some of the work to us. Book a Brainstorm call with us. If you haven't met with me and my team at Ramblin Jackson, book a 15 minute marketing brainstorm at landscapersguide.com/stormstorm. It's a 15 minute call. We'll learn about who is your Heliyas customer, what are you doing for sales and marketing to get those Helios customers.
Book A Marketing Brainstorm
25:47
And if it makes sense, we'll schedule a follow up conversation to see how we can help you. So go ahead and book that landscapersguide.combrainstorm. My name is Jack Jostes. Thanks for listening to the Landscapers Guide. I look forward to sharing more sales and marketing inspiration with you next year. And let's have a great year.