Three Habits Of Highly Successful Landscape Leaders
Jack Jostes:
What's up everyone, Jack Jostes is here, and welcome to the Landscapers Guide to Modern Sales and Marketing podcast. This show is all about educating and inspiring the green industry with stories, sales tips, and more ultimately to help you grow a better business.
One of my favorite things about running Ramblin Jackson and this podcast is getting to talk to interesting and successful people, to find out what are they doing that's working.
#1 - They Get Up Early
There are a few key things that the most successful landscape leaders have in common -- and the first one is they get up early. In my mastermind, Kelly from Pleasant Landscapes gets up super early. And so does Scott from Forever Green Landscapes. Well, I'm not getting up at 4:00, I am getting up at 5:00. And I found that when I stick to getting up at the same time every day, it really leads to a much better day and week.
#2 - They Exercise
The second thing they're doing is exercising. In a conversation about how to avoid burnout in my mastermind, everyone agreed that taking care of yourself, exercising daily is essential.
Craig Attkisson:
Yeah, I 100% agree. You got to work on yourself all the time. I work out at 4:00, also. My wife and I, we work out at 4:00 every day and it gets you right for the whole day. It cleans a whole lot of stuff up and you feel better about yourself No matter what crap hits the fan.
Jack Jostes:
I got to hang out with Scott Callenius from Forever Green Landscapes at my book launch party and we went out for dinner. Unfortunately, I think that trip may have ruined some of his plan, but he'd been doing the 75 hard challenge. Which is 75 straight days where you need to drink a gallon of water every day, read for 10 minutes, workout twice a day for 45 minutes. But he's been doing it and after falling off the plan he was doing, he got back on it. So I thought that was pretty rad.
And while I was enditing this Podcast, Ramblin Jackson SeNior Project Manager, Rebecca Chambers, just announced that she finished the 75 Hard Challenge. Congrats Rebecca on your hard work!
Right now I'm actually out on a hike and my wife and I, one of the things that's working really well for us is we put an hour in the day, every morning for each other to go and work out. And that's also created a lot of extra family time with the kids in the morning with me with them and then her with them. So that's what I'm up to right now.
#3 - They Read
And that brings me to my third and final point, which I believe is one of the most important. Which is reading. Absolutely the leaders that I'm ... leaders are readers. And no, I know a lot of you are busy and not everyone enjoys reading print books. But I found that more and more of the successful people I'm talking with are listening to audio books. I was talking with Chris di Stefano from di Stefano Landscapes and he was telling me about how he works out and listens to audio books. So does Scott Lesak.
So, talk to me a little bit. I joked before the interview that, "Oh, personal growth. That means the CEO's just reading a bunch of books." How do you include your team in personal growth? And how does your own personal growth impact the other people in your organization?
Scott Lesak:
Impacting the organization with my personal growth is the easiest way to answer that question. I learn first, everything I give, I have received. I have learned everything that I try to give away and succeed in giving away. So my personal growth does start first. You're not entirely wrong with the CEO reads books. That's how it started, it started reading books. And one book told me to start building a plan around my personal growth. So I started building a plan. We can read all the books we want, but taking some of the actions that are suggested in the books is how we actually get ahead.
Jack Jostes:
I just talked with a guy named Bob Weaver, whose company grew 150% in the last year. And guess what? He reads 48 books a year. Last year, I did a post and video about three books that I recommend landscaping company owners read. They're not mine. They're just really great books that I've read that I recommend to all of my clients.
The Benefit of Audio and Video Books
And I'm excited to announce just this week we completed the full video book and audio book version of my book, The Tree Of Good Fortune. Now I've released it as an audio book and video book because I know a lot of my clients, you're out driving, maybe you're doing snow removal. Maybe you're driving to a job site. And this is prime time for education. One of my favorite mentors is Dan Kennedy and I learned from him to think of your car like a college. And how can you all always be listening to things? I'm out on a hike right now, I'm going to be listening to Sales Management by Brian Tracy. It's a book I'm listening to it for like the fourth time, because there's just so much to glean from it and listening to it again.
I'm going to put in the show notes a list of other books that people like Tory from Better View Landscapes, he emailed me a list of bunch of books. I haven't read all of them, but invest time in yourself, wake up early, listen to books. And hey, if you haven't listened to or read my book yet, check it out, TreeofGoodFortune.com. You can get the audio and video book. I'm releasing it in a way, kind of like an online course where you can save it to your phone with this app called Teachable. And you can go chapter through chapter. There's bluegrass in there, I play music and here's a little sample of one of the chapters.
Chapter 4
Branding + Differentiation Part 1: Hell Yes Customer
"If you try to please everyone, you're going to lose your ass." Gino Wickman
A mother, her son and their donkey are taking a long journey through the countryside. The mother is riding the donkey with the son, walking alongside as they enter a village. All of a sudden the village people gather and start stoning them. The pair run away and manage to escape. The mother is dumbfounded. As they approach the next village she thinks, "Maybe they thought it was inappropriate to have the son walk." So they switch places and prepare to enter. But once again, they're stoned by the village people. At a total loss, she thinks, "Maybe it's the donkey. Maybe they worship donkeys in this country." So before entering the next village, they decide to pick up the donkey and carry it. But it proves so heavy that as they cross a bridge, the donkey falls over the side, lands in the river and drowns. What's the moral of the story? If you try to please everyone, you're going to lose your ass.
I borrowed that fable about the donkey from one of my favorite authors, Gino Wickman, who wrote the book, Traction - Get a Grip on Your Business which is absolutely one of the most impactful books I've ever read. I recommend it to every business owner. A key lesson, having a strong brand is essential to creating profit. And having a strong brand as much about who you sell to as it is about what you do and how you do it. Not everyone is your customer. It's not your job to be a jackass whisperer. That's what my sales coach, Hugh Liddle taught me early on in my career.
Being successful in business has much more to do with learning to say no to opportunities, including customers or even employees which are not a fit for you. As it does with creating opportunities to say yes. Too often, landscapers I see struggling the most with their sales, marketing, operations, and finances are full service landscapers who sell everything to everyone. This isn't to say that offering a variety of services to a variety of customers can't work. But it's quite easy to grow too fast, spread yourself too thin and cause major chaos when you attempt to please everyone and charge forward with weak marketing.
In this chapter, we'll share our process for clarifying your Hell Yes Customer and how to stand out from your competition when selling to that hell yes customer through branding and differentiation.
What Are You Reading?
All right, everyone, I hope you got some value today. I hope you learned about some new books and some habits of the people that I'm seeing or are just working. And I'm curious, what's working for you? Post a comment below, what books are you reading? Let me know. I'm really curious, I'm always looking for new books and podcast and things. So send me an email, Jack@ramblingjackson.com
Top 3 Business Books For Landscapers
https://landscapersguide.com/top-3-business-books-for-landscapers/