Jack Jostes:
Hey, everyone. Welcome back to The Landscaper's Guide. Have you ever thought about merging with another company, acquiring or selling your company? Well, today I've got the founders of Y&L Landscaping & Tree, a full service snow and landscape company in the Baltimore area, and also their general manager here to talk about lessons they've learned from merging with Pikesville Tree Service. First, Levi, tell me what's been the best part about the merger so far?
Levi:
The best part to me is the learning from a company that has a lot more experience and knowledge that I didn't already have, and I also really enjoy working with people that I'm familiar with and friends. I got to accomplish both of those with the merger into Y&L.
Jack Jostes:
For people who may not know you, tell us a little bit about your background and the friendship, how do you know Yossi.
Levi:
Yossi and I are childhood friends. I've known him for 20 something years. I don't remember the date. We lived together in Baltimore many years ago when I was still in high school. We developed a rapport and a friendship. As the years progressed, I would call him, ask for advice. We would refer each other to customers.
It got to the point where we were talking for probably about an hour plus every day about different situations and different ways that we're working together. It was fun, but the problem was we weren't aligned 100%. We were two separate companies at that point in time and entities.
Jack Jostes:
That's great. You had that friendship. You naturally started referring to each other. I'm curious, Yossi, what would you say has been the best part of the merger so far? When did you actually do the merger?
Yossi:
The merger took place in June. We closed it in June of 2021. We spoke about it for about a year or two prior. Like Levi was saying, we were talking on a daily basis and the conversations got longer and more business than personal at that time. It was clear that Pikesville Tree was in need of additional administrative assistance. They were lacking in certain areas, while we had a robust administration. What we found is that, like Levi was saying, we ended up referring to each other's business on a daily basis.
The more we referred business to each other and the more we spoke, the more I realized the value that Levi could bring to the table and that a tree division could bring to the table. And for I'd say about probably five to ten years prior to that, a tree division is something we spoke about developing and we thought about developing and it just wasn't taking off. There were a lot of delays, and this just became a no-brainer because it was like there's a great guy over here that I've known for most of my life and he has a great division.
He was able to build up the Pikesville Tree business in a very short period of time. He was able to take it from a very small company and blow it up in a matter of a couple years. I really value that and I recognized his talents. To me, it was a no-brainer to try to merge companies and to bring Pikesville Tree on as a partner.
Lessons Learned As Part Of Merging
Jack Jostes:
That's great. We're in March 2023. It's been about two years since it officially happened. What's been the hardest part or some of the lessons that you've learned as part of merging?
Yossi:
Some of the lessons that we've learned is that the value of the two companies' name, which was Pikesville Tree Service, what I failed to recognize is the tremendous value to those two words from an SEO perspective. When we made the change, although now we're very pleased with the change, it was a challenging period because we lost a certain amount of business in the Pikesville area in a certain amount of business in the tree division, and it took a little while to build that back up.
Like I said, it took a little while to build that back up and we ended up being very pleased with the results, but there were definitely some hurdles initially until we got past that point.
Jack Jostes:
Yeah, absolutely. Levi, what else have you learned in the process or what's been hard?
Levi:
One of the hard parts was figuring out the name. Both of us had a lot of time and we're very passionate about our companies and we couldn't go with the name Y&L Pikesville Tree Service. It became very clear that Y&L was the dominant name, being around for a lot longer, having a little bit of a larger fleet than us. Being in the yard and land was very interesting and it became a no-brainer to go with Y&L because our names are Yossi and Levi.
It ended up being a beautiful fit. But there was a lot of going back and forth, what name, who goes under what, and it was an obstacle at first. We didn't know how to overcome that because neither one of us had that experience.
Jack Jostes:
Allan, what else would you say are some of the either wins or challenges from the merger?
Allan:
I would say challenges would be just combining two businesses that are fairly different. I mean, they're thought of in the same category, but they are fairly different. We had to combine two company cultures. We had to combine teams of people that had to learn how to work together. Right around the same time, we moved into a new larger facility to accommodate both companies. And that's a change. And just change in general can be hard on an organization.
I would say just those natural challenges. We didn't really have help. We didn't have outside help. There were a lot of things that were tackled or maybe not tackled during the merger that we then had to circle back and decide on how to handle. I mean, even getting everybody in the same uniform or branding all of the trucks and figuring all of that out, it was a challenge.
Jack Jostes:
Looking back, if you could have made a little checklist that you would've implemented before moving forward with it, so the papers have been signed or even before the papers were signed, what would you do differently?
What Would You Do Differently Before Merging?
Allan:
Well, I mean, I can say that I mentioned we didn't really have help. I think that it's not a small checklist, it's a big checklist. We probably could have gone out to the industry and spoken to some other people that have gone through mergers of this sort and just gotten some insight into what to expect, and pose those questions to them.
If you had to come up with a list, what would go on that list? Just more help. I didn't necessarily have to hire a consultant or anything like that, but the industry is a great resource, and we didn't really utilize that very much.
Jack Jostes:
What about you, Yossi? Looking back, what would be maybe one or two things that would absolutely be on the checklist that weren't?
Yossi:
I'll second what Allan said over there because the reality is, if we had a consultant that was involved that had experience with mergers and acquisitions, we would've been aware of more of the challenges and how to overcome them in advance rather than going through it for the first six to twelve months until we were able to plug a lot of those holes and smooth things out. Like Allan was saying, there were definitely some cultural differences.
Pikesville Tree was a younger company and a lot of it was just on paper where it wasn't as organized. There were a lot of challenges with getting the team on board, the crews to start using the app that we use and to use all sorts of technology that we utilize.
That's what comes to mind. Other than that, I think that would probably be the most helpful suggestion, I would say, for anyone that's looking to have a merger or an acquisition.
Service Autopilot
Jack Jostes:
The culture piece and how you work, because landscaping is very different from tree service, bringing them all under one roof, under one brand, the management and the day-to-day communication must have changed a lot. What is the app that you use for Y&L that everyone's using now?
Allan:
Service Autopilot is what we've been using. It was a little bit of a challenge just to get everybody on board with everything they had to do with the app.
Branded Search
Jack Jostes:
Figuring out the name definitely makes sense as a challenge, and recognizing the Pikesville Tree Service brand is one of the things that I think could have been done better on my part too. We worked on that together. When I look back and what we're doing now that I think we could have done better out of the gate is branded search. The phrase Pikesville Tree Service is your brand name, but it's also the town where you did tree service, right?
Helping people understand Pikesville Tree Service is now part of Y&L is really what we're working on right now. We have a news release coming out. We have a page on the Y&L website that's going to rank for Pikesville Tree Service. My goal with that is partly so when an old customer Googles you and we still have the Pikesville Tree Service web set up, they're going to see this news release.
Hey, good news, Pikesville Tree Service is now Y&L, which means that you get drainage and snow and landscape services available. I think that it could have been done a lot sooner, but I also don't think it's too late to announce it to people. Some of the ideas I have in my mind are to call all of your customers. I'm not going to do this, but I think you or someone on your team.
Notify Old Customers About The Merge
I think this is an incredible opportunity to call all of your old customers and say, "Hey, it's Levi," or whoever's calling. "Hey, it's Carl from Pikesville Tree Service calling to let you know we're now part of Y&L Landscaping and Tree Service." "Oh, cool." "Have you done your spring cleanup yet? Have you done X, Y, and Z?" I think it could be a really awesome opportunity to announce this on the phone, on email, maybe direct mail people. I think that even though it's been a couple years, if you haven't really announced it yet, there's no reason that we can't.
Yossi:
I love that idea.
Jack Jostes:
Who is going to pick up the phone and call all the customers for real?
Yossi:
Levi.
Jack Jostes:
Levi? Okay, cool. You don't need to go at it alone. At Ramblin Jackson, we've done what we call them call jams, and that's where we'll literally... Allan and Levi are in the same building. You're in different rooms and you're like, "Hey, at 1:00, we're going to have a call jam and we're going to touch base in 30 minutes and see who's made more phone calls." One of you will then set the pace.
If you have a bunch of people and you have a prize, that's how you can get a bunch of people to compete with each other. We did it. We gave away pizzas if you won the call jam. One time we did a referral drive where we simply called and asked people for introductions. Levi, do you think there's anyone else on the team that would call with you?
Levi:
Yeah, we have some other office staff up here. Lisa, Zoe, maybe Adriana. There are other people that I think would like to partake in that?
Jack Jostes:
We've got this new page on the website. We've got the news release. I think a phone call with a nice voicemail and then a personal email from you, especially as the owner, would go a long way with me. There's a tree service company here in town. I live in a small town and there's one primary tree service company.
If they merged with somebody else and they called me, I'd be like, yeah, actually I do need help with landscaping and I really liked you. That to me is more of an outbound marketing opportunity, but it's a hell of a reason to call people in the spring and let them know about all the services.
Yossi:
I said I love the idea so much that I'm going to be joining this competition.
Jack Jostes:
All right. If you'll let me, honestly, I'll do some calls with you. I love calling people, honestly. One of our core values at Ramblin Jackson is to be human and pick up the damn phone. We get lost in emails and all this stuff. I found the best thing is to call people. How are you? Hey, we now offer landscaping. Would you like landscaping? I bet a lot of people would say yes. We're going to have a call jam, and we'll have to do a follow-up podcast on the results of that.
But showing up for the other brand is part of it, letting your current customers know. One of the things that we've talked about is the outgoing voicemail I think could be better. The, "Thanks for calling Pikesville Tree Service, now a part of Y&L Landscaping and Tree." Oh, cool. I called the right people. There's a lot. There's so much legally to update, bank accounts, uniforms, people, apps, email, your website, SEO, Facebook.
It is pretty overwhelming. But here we are, you've merged. What was another challenge just weather-wise this last season that we were talking about before we started the recording?
Weather-wise Challenge
Yossi:
Like we spoke about earlier, the lack of snow, as everyone on the East Coast knows was, well, very evident. So much so that some of the local snow companies have gone out of business. We managed to capitalize on some of their equipment with an auction that we actually visited earlier today and purchased a bunch of their stuff.
But this actually brings it back to a huge benefit with this merger, because it allowed Y&L Landscaping to have an additional lucrative division. Adding a key division to it was perfectly timed because we were heavily reliant on snow removal and now we're more diversified. This was a great move. We're very happy we've made this move.
Jack Jostes:
That diversification can definitely provide some stability when there's a low snow year. Then you do have the overhead of that equipment on the flip side, so it has some challenges too, I'm sure. But when that market opportunity is there, you'll be prepared and partly balanced out from the tree and landscape and drainage division.
One of the things, Yossi, before we started recording was that I think at one point, were you called the grass guy or the grass something? Tell us a little bit about how you got started and what were you doing at that time?
Yossi’s Background
Yossi:
At the time, this was in 1998, I was working in a local supermarket and one of my coworkers told me that he mows lawns on the weekends. I actually didn't grow up in the States. I grew up in Israel, so I didn't know anything about mowing lawns. We got talking a little bit and he taught me the basics of mowing. I went ahead and I bought a lawnmower. I started knocking on some doors, and I just basically said, I'll beat the other guy's price.
I just kept knocking on doors and I collected a nice amount of customers that summer, that spring. I'd say about two months in, I already hired a teenager to help me. One of the days I was sitting in the truck, I was talking to that customer about their lawn and she asked, "Do you offer landscaping services?" I said, "Sure, sure, we offer landscaping services."
And then I turned around and asked my employee, I said, "What's landscaping," because I was not familiar with that word. I learned everything I learned on the job. That was a great experience.
Jack Jostes:
Oh, I love it. Did you imagine at that time that you'd be running a multimillion-dollar enterprise that does snow and drainage and tree service, landscaping? Could you have ever dreamed of that at that time?
Yossi:
No. Just like I was not aware of what landscaping was, I did not know what snow removal was or drainage solutions are. I could not have dreamt of that. All I wanted to do was make some money and be able to make my payments on the truck. That was my goal at the time. But as time went on, I've matured a little bit and I've grown into being more ambitious and having bigger goals.
Jack Jostes:
I love it. Levi, what about you? What was some of your story getting started?
Levi’s Background
Levi:
I actually have a comparable story to Yossi. I was volunteering to help one of my friends who now works for us, Rami, remove a tree at someone's house. We were just picking up the firewood that was left over and someone said, "Do you do tree removal?" I said, absolutely. They said, "Could you give me an estimate on the tree?" And I went out and the tree was already on the ground. It looked fairly easy at the time and I really didn't know what I was doing.
I said, "Let me get back to you." I went online. I started looking up how to not remove a tree and mistakes. I went to the store and I saw a $500 chainsaw. I went back there and I said $500, that way I'll get a free chainsaw. That was the first tree I removed. And then I volunteered to help some real tree guys down in Florida. There were some hurricanes that were heading there, and we were going to remove the trees and bring down some supplies from Maryland.
While we were in Florida, we were talking about a tree company and what a chipper is and climbing and things I never heard of before. I never knew the difference between an oak tree and a pine tree. Certainly after, I found myself in the field, on the ground learning about how to run a chipper. It just took off from there and worked late nights. Kind of comparable story to Yossi.
Jack Jostes:
I love it. Allan, how did you get into the business?
Allan’s Background
Allan:
I got into the business as a teenager mowing lawns around my neighborhood and literally at 14 years old went to work for a company, well, a pseudo company, a couple guys just starting out, and learned the industry, stuck with the business. I've been in it for over 45 years now, primarily in commercial maintenance, but just about every other aspect, heavily in the snow removal business.
It's been a long time, but I love the industry. This company has given me a great opportunity to utilize my knowledge and experience and help build a great team here. It's been a lot of fun.
Giving Back To The Community
Jack Jostes:
Allan, can you tell us a little bit about Mitzvah Monday? What is Mitzvah Monday and how are you giving back to the community?
Allan:
Right. Mitzvah Monday, a mitzvah is a good deed, and both Levi and Yossi have always been generous to the community, philanthropic in many ways. We were just looking for a way to spread that around our team. How can our team get involved? We just thought if we could identify someone in the community periodically, maybe once a month, that had a landscape or a tree challenge that they didn't otherwise have the money to resolve, that we could come in and help them.
We put this program, this idea together. We're working with a local charitable organization that has contacts in the community that people go to when they're struggling and they need some assistance. They put us in contact with people that are really in need. We try to go in and just do the job and not put too much of a spotlight. We don't want people to feel like... We don't want them to be embarrassed that they're receiving some kind of a charitable project.
The neighbors don't really know what's going on, they just think they're getting work done. That's what this program is about.
Jack Jostes:
I love it. It's really great that you help people with that. You work with a charitable organization and they help you find out who might need that.
Allan:
Correct.
Promotional Items - Candles
Jack Jostes:
I love it. Tell me about the candles behind you, Allan. Where did those come from?
Allan:
It was partially inspired by you guys. No. You have this little program where you'll send out jerky. It's a gimmick really. It's a way to connect with people. I started to think, it would be great if we had one of those as well that we could become known for. Also, we do a lot of promotional work and mostly people give away keychains and pens and little lanyards and things like that. We do that as well, but I was looking for something that was a little bit different.
I thought of the idea of giving away candles, something that people would appreciate, that could sit on their desk or in their house and remind them that we're out there because that's what promotional items are for. I came up with the idea of candles, but I couldn't find the candles that I wanted already made. The idea started to develop, well, maybe we can make our own candles. And if we can make our own candles, we can control the scent.
Why not put together a collection of candles that have the scents that we come across while we're working outdoors? Because that's one of the great things about working outdoors is you can smell the fresh cut grass. You can smell the leaves in the fall. The tree crew is cutting down a pine tree, you could smell that all around. Here's an example. The team makes these candles. People will take the supplies home. It smells like leaves.
They'll take the supplies home and work with their family and make candles. We have fresh cut grass, as I mentioned. We have fallen leaves. We have a woodland snow candle and we have a pine tree candle, and they're all in line with our service lines. I can tell you, we did a property management trade show just last week, and there were probably 250 attendees at this trade show.
We probably gave out 400 candles. I guarantee you that 95% of the people attending that show stopped by our booth because they were drawn in by the candles. It gave us a reason to have a conversation. It gave us an opener.
Jack Jostes:
I love it.
Allan:
Hold up two candles, what scent do you like better? Can you guess what the smell is? For the trade shows, we have smaller versions that we make. We have, as you can see, our company logo, our phone number on each one. It's got a small lid, candles inside. They were just a huge hit.
People absolutely loved them. They loved the idea. They loved the fact that we made them ourselves. They love the fact that we're sharing the sense that we find when we're out working, all of it. It's really great.
Jack Jostes:
I love it. I love what you said there about it gives you a reason to have a conversation. I mean, we ask people at trade shows, "Hey, do you eat meat? Do you eat beef jerky?" Sometimes they're like, "No, I'm a vegetarian." We're like, "Cool. We have this trail mix that you've got to try," or whatever. We're prepared for the different ways that it can go, but it does create a reason to have a conversation. I'm curious, have you ever sent them to people in the mail?
Allan:
Sure.
Jack Jostes:
Okay, all right.
Allan:
We have a gift box that we'll put together for every new customer and mail out. We'll put in a company hat. We'll put the keychain and the pen in there, but we'll put some of the candles in there as well. One of the things that we did after the trade show was we had a basket raffle, and it had candles in it and some other things that we put together. People had to drop their business cards in. We collected 70 business cards just for the raffle.
We went through and pulled out about 14 or 15 business cards of companies we wanted to target, but people that were higher up, like regional managers, vice presidents, things like that. We actually have gift boxes going in the mail tomorrow to those 15 people with a handwritten note and some candles and some other things as well.
Jack Jostes:
I love it. I love it. I have a couple questions. One, how many candles do you have in total and round numbers? What's your stock look like currently?
Allan:
Currently, we're low on stock since we did the show. We probably have 100 of these larger ones and probably 250 of the smaller ones right now.
Jack Jostes:
Levi, approximately how many Pikesville Tree Service customers were there?
Levi:
At the sale?
Jack Jostes:
In the history of the company, how many... Maybe you have a spreadsheet somewhere.
Levi:
Thousands of customers.
Jack Jostes:
Thousands.
Levi:
Some people call us small, little...
Jack Jostes:
Yeah, that makes sense.
Levi:
Some people are calling for a lot clearing or an apartment complex and we're there for a week, but there's been multiple teams going out over the years. There have been a lot of customers.
Jack Jostes:
Well, you may need to pick a number or a goal, but one idea I have is, what if we called them and offered them the candle and sent them the candle in the mail with a little postcard that said, "Pikesville Tree Service is now Y&L Landscaping and Tree, and we offer X, Y, and Z."
Levi:
I love it. I think it would get their attention. Because if you're opening up a box and it says that name, you open it and you look at it. It's not like a little money mailer where you look at it and throw it in the garbage. You're going to be like, "Why did I get a candle? What's going on here?" You're going to take the moment to read it. I think it's a really good idea.
Jack Jostes:
Yeah, I think that would be a way to reactivate all of these... They're kind of like dormant trees, if you will. They're just there. They're ready though. They're ready to buy from you again. I think we need to pick a number and have a candle goal. Not everyone will answer. Not everyone will want the candle. But, "Hey, it's Levi from Pikesville Tree Service, now Y&L Landscaping Tree. Have you smelled our candles?"
I don't know. You come up with something that makes them laugh on the phone. "Hey, what's the best address for you? Are you still at X, Y, Z Pikesville," and ship them out. What do you think, Yossi? Do you think it would work? Would we get some business doing that?
Yossi:
Absolutely. I think it's a great idea, and I think we're going to capitalize on that one. Especially now on the Y&L side, we have, I don't know, over 100 commercial accounts that... We probably have hundreds of commercial accounts from over the years that can be revived. I think that gets people's attention and I think people will absolutely love it.
Unlike a pen or a keychain they'll just throw out, this is something to look at and probably even a nice amount of people will actually light it up and keep it on their desk, so it's going to be a constant reminder. But even if they don't need services now, they may call later. I'd love the idea.
Jack Jostes:
I think in the call and in the email and in the postcard, you could mention Mitzvah Monday. You're sending them a gift and you're telling them about Mitzvah Monday. I think this would really work, and you have your website up. Your SEO is already on track. But now this kind of direct mail, direct response phone call sort of thing I think could really proactively fill your pipeline back up, and most importantly, help people understand that Pikesville Tree service is now Y&L. I think that's the key from my perspective. I think if we could really work on that, it would really get things back on track.
Yossi:
I couldn't agree more.
Jack Jostes:
All right. Well, guys, thanks so much for coming on The Landscaper's Guide Podcast and sharing your story. It was awesome hearing that. I love, Levi, how you came up with the $500 price to get your first chainsaw. That's such a great story. And Yossi doing door-to-door sales to start your company is so good. I'm just so impressed with what you all are doing now, and thanks for working with us on your site with Ramblin Jackson.
We really appreciate it. Allan, people who are listening, like you said, maybe reaching out to some people in an industry who are doing an acquisition or something. If somebody wanted to connect with you all, how can we do that?
Allan:
Yeah, I'd be happy to talk to anyone that has those challenges and wants to run through it. You can reach me through email, Allan, A-L-L-A-N, @yandllandscaping.com. You can check out our newly launched, revamped, Ramblin Jackson created website at yandllandscaping.com.
Jack Jostes:
Cool. I'll put links to that in the show notes so people connect with you. Coincidentally, I actually have a webinar that I'm partnering with some other people in the industry on on the topic of mergers and acquisitions. I'd love for you to come. If you're listening, it's on Wednesday, April 19th. It's Maximizing Profits with Mergers and Acquisitions for Snow and Landscape Companies.
I'm presenting it with somebody I had on the show recently, Christeen Era, who wrote the book Profit First for Lawn Care and Landscape Companies, and her partner from Green Profit Academy, Steve Bousquet, who has been in the industry for over 40 years, has personally done I think five acquisitions and has advised a lot of people.
I know there's a lot more to learn on this topic, and I'm excited to have them on our webinar series. Check that out at landscapersguide.com. My name's Jack Jostes. Everyone, thank you so much for listening to The Landscaper's Guide. I look forward to talking to you next week.