What does volunteering in a women's prison have to do with business? In today's podcast interview, I talk with Jessica Winkler, our Director of Operations, about how she volunteered at a ministry in a church and how she had to create boundaries with those relationships and how that's similar to business. Plus, in this interview, we talk about why does your company need an integrator? Why do you need a Director of Operations? And what are some of the cool new products that we're working on this year? So check out today's podcast to find out.
Hey, everyone. Welcome to The Landscaper's Guide Podcast, where we share sales, marketing, and leadership inspiration for the snow and landscape industry. My name is Jack Jostes, and right now I'm on a ski hill in Colorado. Got a really exciting interview. And you know what goes great on a ski hill and podcast, even if you're not on a ski hill, is beef jerky. Yeah.
Jack Jostes [00:01:01]:
Yeah. So I'd love to send you some beef jerky and the Landscaper's Marketing Field Guide, it's actually a print box. We'll ship you in the mail with some jerky and answers to the most commonly asked questions to help you get found by your Hell Yes Customers. So tell me where to send it landscapersguide.com/toolbox. I've got a link in the description you can click on. And now let's get into the conversation with Jessica.
Jack Jostes [00:01:31]:
All right, everyone, we are at the top of the mountain here at Winter Park, Colorado ski area. I'm with Jessica Winkler. Jessica, how are you doing?
Jessica Winkler [00:01:33]:
I am doing fantastic. It is a beautiful day in Winter Park. We got to enjoy some time with Robert and his family and his amazing dad Rick, who showed us all over the mountain. He was like our personal guide today, which made snowboarding and skiing so much fun. So glad we got to do that. So thanks, Jack, for a sponsored day on the mountain.
Jack Jostes [00:01:56]:
Yes, absolutely. It's the Ramblin Jackson ski day. I think I've been doing this since I started Ramblin Jackson 15 years ago, and we've been working together for just over seven years, which is so cool. Happy Ramblerversary. So thanks for coming skiing.
Jessica Winkler [00:02:13]:
Thank you.
Jack Jostes [00:02:14]:
My pleasure. Honestly, the fact that we get to go do this is. It's pretty awesome. It's not the only reason I do things, but it's a key thing for me to get to go and do this. So you've worked at Ramblin Jackson for seven years. Tell us a little bit. What is your current role and how did you get into it? What's a little bit of your story?
Jessica Winkler [00:02:34]:
Yeah. So I am currently the Director of Operations at Ramblin Jackson. I started as a part time project manager seven years ago. Jack talked me into becoming an employee after quite a while on my own. And, yeah, worked my way up to Operations Manager and then Director of Operations. So for a lot of our clients and for potential clients, I'm one of the people behind the scenes who's involved in your projects and in your accounts. I'm helping the Account Manager strategize on annual plans. I'm helping projects make sure that everything is up to Ramblin Jackson quality.
Jessica Winkler [00:03:09]:
I'm also involved in a lot of the processes and different things that you might experience at Ramlin Jackson.
Jack Jostes [00:03:16]:
Well, thanks for doing all of that.
Jessica Winkler [00:03:18]:
You're welcome.
Jack Jostes [00:03:19]:
Because I think it's so important that companies have a person like you in their company. And a lot of companies don't. A lot of our clients don't. And so we were talking earlier about how you need the visionary person and the operational person. So what's your perspective on that?
Jessica Winkler [00:03:37]:
Yeah, I mean, we work with a lot of really amazing companies, and we have seen that if it's just a visionary there, they have big ideas. But without somebody who's really focused in on taking those big ideas and creating processes around them and integrating them into their company culture and how their employees work, it can cause a lot of problems. It can cause a lot of stress for their employees. It can cause a lot of stress for their clients. So it's really important to have that mix of the big idea person, the visionary, the one who's got the roadmap of where they want to take the company and how they want to lead. And having somebody who can take those ideas and put them to paper. Really.
Jack Jostes [00:04:20]:
Yeah, absolutely. Put them to paper or video or training videos or all these different things. And I agree. And so that visionary integrator is Traction lingo. We follow EOS, which comes from Traction. I'm a big believer in it. Really glad you're here in this role. And also there's also the tale of two integrators.
Jack Jostes [00:04:41]:
So we had a client that actually had two very operations minded people who merged their businesses. And what happened?
Jessica Winkler [00:04:51]:
With nobody to lead that ship, they kind of just imploded, unfortunately. You really do need both.
Jack Jostes [00:04:57]:
You do need both. And then they ended up disbanding. So they were separate companies. They merged and then they broke up. And I think it was a lack of vision within that company. And ultimately they were incompatible operations people, which was sad. I never liked seeing that. But one of the things I learned, I think, skiing and through the retreat that you have volunteered in a women's prison.
Jack Jostes [00:05:22]:
So tell us a little bit about that.
05:23: Jessica Shares Business Lessons Learned from Volunteering at a Women’s Prison
Jessica Winkler [00:05:23]:
Yeah, so, for several years, I worked at the ministry called God Behind Bars, and we went into the women's correctional facility, really, just to be a presence there. It was one of the ways that we got to bring church into the prison. And, yeah, sure. Yes, these women, they're there, but they're separated from society at this point. They all come from different backgrounds. They all have different stories, but this was an opportunity for one to bring the church in there to them, but also to have that human element, to be able to listen to their stories, to show compassion and empathy, and to just be there. It's a little bit interesting in the sense of from a relationship perspective, you kind of have to respect the boundaries of the prison. So one of the things that they taught us at volunteer training was you can't let the success or failures of the women inmates affect your own mental well being or your own emotions, really, because they could have very big failures.
Jessica Winkler [00:06:28]:
They could have very big successes. They could end up having to stay longer. They could end up getting out and then coming back in. So it was really important that you kind of had to compartmentalize those relationships a little bit. And it's kind of like sometimes our clients or sales, we don't want to see bad things happen to our clients and the people we work with. Sure. But you kind of got to compartmentalize a little bit in the sense of, you can't let their success or failures have such a big impact on you that it affects the rest of your business or what you're doing.
Jack Jostes [00:07:05]:
Yeah, I agree. That reminds me. I had a Sandler sales trainer who said that sales is not a place to get your personal needs met. And I think that it's something that we can write down on paper and say, oh, yeah, this is my job, and I don't care. And also, it's really hard to separate them sometimes, because Kara, my wife, was like, Jack, your drug is sales. She's like, you love sales. And when we sell a webinar ticket for $47, I'm like, yeah, it could be, like, the smallest sale. It can be a big sale.
Jack Jostes [00:07:48]:
I get excited when our clients make sales. So I love sales. I think it's fun. And I've had to learn that lesson to kind of separate myself, because, unfortunately, sometimes people, just. Their lack of results or business challenges have nothing to do with what we're doing for them. But I think you need to have a heart in it, though, at the same time. And that's Helping Small Businesses Ring the Bell. Everyone who works at Ramblin Jackson does care very deeply about our clients and the results, and we're rooting for them.
Jack Jostes [00:08:26]:
So how do you strike that balance? Or maybe how do you coach some of your employees that report to you who are in that relationship with the client role? Because I know sometimes it eats at them.
08:39: How to Navigate Human Relationships & Overcome Challenges at Work
Jessica Winkler [00:08:39]:
It can. And I mean, relationships are messy. Human beings are messy, regardless of what that relationship is, if it's between an Account Manager and client, or a Project Manager and a client. And, yeah, sometimes messy things happen. And so it could be that something went wrong in a project or an account and we're having to either fix something or correct something. That can be emotionally draining. That can sometimes be hard. So taking a step back from that a little bit and kind of helping the team not focus on that solely and also helping them see the wins, because a lot of times there are plenty of wins to look at.
Jessica Winkler [00:09:19]:
There's plenty of places where the bucket is full. So when we do have to deal with these tougher situations, we're coming in and we're not drained. And also because what we do is we design websites and we write content. There's a creative element to that. And sometimes it's hard to let go of the work, especially if maybe you really liked it and the client didn't. I'm sure that happens with our clients sometimes in landscape design.
Jack Jostes [00:09:48]:
Oh, yeah, right.
Jessica Winkler [00:09:49]:
So you can't be super attached to that either.
09:53: Tips for Maintaining a Healthy Work-Life Balance
Jack Jostes [00:09:53]:
Yeah. There's a healthy balance there of like, hey, I'm producing this thing for you. It's kind of about the thing. I need to care and do a great job, but I can't let this thing that then some other person is going to be happy or unhappy about control all of my feelings. And that's another Sandler thing that we've done a little bit, is the IR value exercise, the identity versus role exercise. And it's essentially that your personal identity needs to be separate from your role at work. And that's something that I personally, I mentioned this often. Like, I change clothes for work, and then when I'm done, I change out of those clothes, and that helps me be like, all right, I'm done working.
Jack Jostes [00:10:41]:
And my kids know that I'm done working, but, yeah, and of course, if there's a problem at work, yes, of course, it's in the back of my mind distracting me a little bit. But it's a lot less when I'm working all the time kind of thing. Or one thing I did recently is I deleted email from my phone and I didn't add it back yet. I don't think I'm going to do that.
Jessica Winkler [00:11:02]:
That's key. And this is actually something that I do coach all of our team members on is don't have notifications on your phone. Just don't. You don't need them. We all have notifications on our desktop. We're all attached to our email all day. So when you're at the end of the day, turn it off, let it go.
Jack Jostes [00:11:22]:
Yeah. It's so important.
Jessica Winkler [00:11:23]:
It's so critical for mental health.
Jack Jostes [00:11:26]:
I agree.
Jessica Winkler [00:11:26]:
You got to turn it off. And if you're on vacation, throw your phone in a box that you can't open.
Jack Jostes [00:11:33]:
Right. I delete all the work apps when I go on vacation, and it really helps.
Jessica Winkler [00:09:18]:
And that's actually something that most Ramblers when they first start, they're like, really? I'm like, yeah, don't have email on your phone. And when you take a vacation, you delete Voxer, get it off.
Jack Jostes [00:11:48]:
Totally. Yeah. I'm like, if there's really something I'll need from you, I would call you or text you, but it doesn't happen very often.
Jessica Winkler [00:11:48]:
So, Jack, what are some of the big things that are going to be happening in 2024 for Ramblin Jackson that our clients may be excited to hear about?
12:04: A Sneak Peek at New Products Launching at Ramblin Jackson
Jack Jostes [00:12:04]:
Okay, so some of the big things that are happening that we're working on. One, we're creating a new audit. And the audit has all kinds of things about specific market competition, because the question everyone wants to know is, how long does it take to get results? And the answer is kind of complicated because it depends on your local market. How many competitors do you have? How many Google reviews do they have? As an example, we worked with somebody in Chicago who had seven Google reviews. And when we were Googling landscape design Chicago, there was a competitor with, I think it was like over 120 and then like 100 and then 70. So we're helping people even more thoroughly gauge where they're at in their local market to know what they need to do. And then how long is it going to take to see those results? So that's one of the things that I'm excited about with the new audit, is giving people some of those local market factors and then also some more advanced competitive ranking factors. So one of the things that I'm seeing is a huge thing still, is your business name. Partly because we had a client in Richmond, Virginia, and there is a company there called John Richmond Landscaping. And so the guy has Richmond Landscaping in his business name, in his domain name. All of the links pointed into him, say Richmond Landscaping. So we're going into some of those advanced things, business names, things like that. So I'm really excited. And that audit is going to be the foundation of a new book. And the new book that I'm writing is about direct response marketing. So we're taking a lot of what we've been doing for years with multi touch multimedia marketing and applying that for clients.
Jack Jostes [00:14:03]:
And we've already been doing this with clients with direct mail postcards, and driving those postcards to landing pages, rolling out call tracking, rolling out advanced reporting dashboards, and then helping people build a sales pipeline tool. Because one of the challenges that we've seen in the landscape industry, there's beautiful software, wonderful software, once you have a client. But a lot of these softwares don't really help you. A lot of them don't even integrate with websites. And it's like 2024, and you can't even use Zapier. Like, come on, really, guys, you know who you are. You know who you are. Software companies integrate with Zapier.
Jack Jostes [00:14:03]:
Let us connect to the website. So we're going to solve that by creating a simple pipeline tool that helps people see where did each lead come from? And then we're going to be able to grade our clients on how quickly did you get back to that person? So I'm really excited because we're going to be going even further into the customer journey with things like text messaging, chat bots on your website, AI chat bots, so much email automation. So we've got so many new products coming that we're collaborating on, and we're experimenting with all this stuff right now on ourself. And we're even rolling out one of the dashboards for a client. We're not going to say who it is yet, but we are tinkering over here. So I'm excited because it's kind of like every few years. Well, I can't say that I've done it every few years, but I wrote Get Found Online in 2018, and then a few years later, I wrote The Tree of Good Fortune, and that kind of became the foundation of what we did. And now we're really in an innovating period where we're building and experimenting and expanding our services.
15:52: The Value in Hiring an Executive Assistant
Jessica Winkler [00:15:53]:
Yeah, I'm really excited to see some of these roll out and honestly help our clients get them to the next evolution and hopefully provide some solutions to common problems we're seeing all the time, like sales process, like autoresponders. And just as you and Robert have talked about getting back to people fast.
Jack Jostes [00:16:14]:
Yeah, a lot of this isn't new, but it's just so needed in the landscape industry because I think if we can help people standardize and templatize how they respond to people, they will just stand out as more professional. They'll get back to people faster, they'll have templates, they'll have a way of selling because that's the number one thing people really come to us for, is they want to get the owner out of sales. And a key part of that is having automation and having systems set up to sell and to communicate with customers.
Jessica Winkler [00:16:51]:
And that is also why you need an operations person, because they can help the visionary take that roadmap and lay it out into something that's really going to make a big difference to their customers.
Jack Jostes [00:15:52]:
Totally. And we've interviewed Erin, who's my Executive Assistant, who also works with other people on the team. But I think it's cool. I know Scott Callenius as an example, is somebody who, from Forever Green Landscape Services down in West Palm Beach, Florida, hired an Executive Assistant. And I'm getting emails from her now. And I just texted him actually yesterday. I'm like, Scott, how is it going working with this person? He's like, I can't believe I waited so long to do this because I have another client, one of our favorite clients, Hal. Hal's listening.
Jack Jostes [00:17:38]:
If you're listening, Hal, hire an operations person. Anyways, I love Hal. Right? And Hal is at that point where he really needs someone. And yeah, when you have the right people on your team and the right marketing and the right automations, it's kind of fun. You know what's cool is the Ramblin Jackson website is working right now and it's automatically sending people things. People are ordering books and jerky and things. And because of that automation, I can go skiing. So thank you for interviewing me.
Jack Jostes [00:18:14]:
Now I'm interviewing you. We've been interviewing each other. We're on the hill. Any parting thoughts for the audience of The Landscaper's Guide?
Jessica Winkler [00:18:23]:
Well, you may not see me that much if you're a client at Ramblin Jackson, but I love our landscapers. They're our favorite people to work with. And I can't wait to roll out some of these new products and that new book later this year for you guys.
Jack Jostes [00:18:39]:
Yeah, I'm excited to work with you on that, too. And I think we do genuinely love working with the landscape industry, and that's something that I don't know that you knew before working here.
Jessica Winkler [00:18:38]:
No. You interviewed me to do a bunch of Pilates studios.
18:54: Why Every Landscaper Needs to Know who their Hell Yes Customer is
Jack Jostes [00:18:54]:
So we experimented. So I think this is part of business, though. And so I think it's part of having a Hell Yes Customer is that it makes it enjoyable for your people to work at your company. And I think you need to do the work to figure out who your Hell Yes Customer is because, yes, you came in at a time where I thought it was Pilates studios.
Jessica Winkler [00:19:15]:
Yeah, that didn't quite work out.
Jack Jostes [00:19:17]:
It did not work out. We had one really great Pilates client.
Jessica Winkler [00:19:14]:
I think we found the only good Pilates client.
Jack Jostes [00:19:24]:
And that's okay. But we went for it, like, actually built a separate website and logo. I had a booth at a trade show and spoke at one, and I'm really grateful for that opportunity. And the people who tried to work with us, that just. I was like, you know what? This is not the right fit, but landscaping really was.
Jessica Winkler [00:19:50]:
Yeah. And I'm very grateful because they're amazing people to work with, and it's always something new every day.
Jack Jostes [00:19:49]:
Well, that was fun. Definitely enjoy working with Jessica. Hope you enjoyed that conversation. And remember, I'd love to send you some beef jerky. So tell me where to send it at landscapersguide.com/toolbox and we'll ship you out the Landscaper's Marketing Field Guide. It's a print booklet with some awesome stories and tips to help you get found by your Hell Yes Customers. Check it out.
Jack Jostes [00:20:19]:
Landscapersguide.com/toolbox. See the link in our show notes. My name is Jack Jostes, and I look forward to talking with you next week.
Show Notes:
Watch the full episode + see the transcript at: https://landscapersguide.com/podcast/
Tell us where to send your beef jerky: https://landscapersguide.com/toolbox