How can you turn your competition into a referral source? Find out in today's interview with Scott Parker from Parker Landscape Design. Plus, find out which of Scott's pets escaped from his dorm in college and what it ate. It's pretty scary. Find out in the episode.
Hey, everyone. Jack Jostes is here, and welcome to The Landscaper's Guide. This show is all about sales and marketing to help you grow your snow and landscape company. Now, today we just finished a video shoot with one of my clients, Scott Parker. And while he was here, we had an incredible time and learned some hilarious stories as well as some of the things that have made Scott successful. So I'm excited to share that with you in today's episode.
If you're new here and you haven't yet subscribed, make sure you do at landscapersguide.com/podcast. See a link in the show notes. And when you subscribe, I will send you our top three sales and marketing podcasts to help you grow your business right away. Now, let's get in today's conversation with Scott Parker.
All right, everyone. Welcome back to The Landscaper’s Guide podcast.
Today I'm here with my client, Scott Parker from Parker Landscape Design. He flew out from New Jersey to do some videos. We just shot five videos. You told me some hilarious snake stories that we're going to get to.
Parker Family Promise
One of the things that we did while we were here was we branded, we titled the Parker Family Promise. And I really believe that this is one of the things that really sets you apart from any of your competition. What is the Parker Family promise?
Scott Parker:
So we guarantee a phone call back same day, unless it's just too late at night. But someone calls us, even if they're a client that was 10 years old, we will get back to them the same day.
Story Behind A Third Generation Landscape Professional
Jack Jostes:
Nice. I like that. And tell us a little bit about your family history. So you're a third generation landscape professional. Your family had a nursery. Tell us just a little bit about-
Scott Parker:
Yeah. So my grandfather started a nursery in 1948 in Scotch Plains, New Jersey. They were growers, and then they couldn't really make money doing that anymore. So they opened ... they became more of a retail and wholesale garden center, and then they started to do landscape work out of that facility.
Jack Jostes:
And then eventually, that grew into landscape services. And did they have a 24-hour call? Did you learn this from your parents?
Scott Parker:
No. No.
Jack Jostes:
People
Scott Parker:
But I do remember my father saying, "If you return calls and you do what you're supposed to do, you can make a very good living in construction." And I remember at first thinking, "Well, duh, of course." But a lot of people don't do that. And the feedback we get all the time is, "Oh, you're the only person that called us back. You're the only person that showed up on time, said you were going to do what-
Jack Jostes:
It's just the basics. So we went out to dinner with Robert and we talked about this. It's kind of like showing up and doing the basics-
Scott Parker:
Exactly.
Jack Jostes:
... and working hard every day. It's not that hard to be successful if you show up, call people back and do what you say-
Scott Parker:
That probably pertains to any industry-
Jack Jostes:
I think it does.
Scott Parker:
... but especially construction, because so many people have such bad experiences that-
Jack Jostes:
Well, for sure. So I appreciate that you have that. And one of the things ... So we had an incredible dinner. We went to Brasserie Ten Ten in Boulder.
Scott Parker:
Phenomenal.
Jack Jostes:
Which I haven't been to in three or four years. I think it closed during the pandemic and-
Scott Parker:
Oh wow.
Jack Jostes:
Anyways, it's back open. That was an incredible meal.
Scott Parker:
It was delicious. Yeah.
What Really Happened To Scott Parker's Snake
Jack Jostes:
Honestly, it was so much fun. And one of the silliest things that I learned was about your snake, your pet snake in college. So I wanted to have you on the podcast. Normally, we talk about sales and marketing stuff. So Scott, tell us about your snake in college.
Scott Parker:
So for anyone not familiar, Burmese pythons are being hunted in the Everglades of Florida because they're invasive and they're causing a lot of damage. So I had two of them, a brown regular one and a yellow albino one. And I'm in my fraternity house in New Orleans, and I woke up and I had two clips on the top of the tank and a huge rock to make sure they didn't escape. And the tank was ever so slightly open. And one of the two snakes, they were probably about eight-foot each, escaped. And it wasn't until about almost a year later, I'm on the phone with my mother and I hear across the fraternity, cursing and my buddy saying, "Get the blank into my room."
My mother heard it. I said, "Mom." She said, "What's going on?" I said, "Let me call you back." Went into the room. True story. My snake was coming out of a hole in the wall. Fraternity house was nasty. We had rodents everywhere and cockroaches. So snake was very happy. Part of the body was coming out of the wall, vertically up his bedpost. And the head of the snake was under his sheets.
Jack Jostes:
Wow.
Scott Parker:
And my snake was probably 25% larger than when I lost it. So that's one of a couple snake stories. And now I'm banned. My wife told me, if I bring a snake home, she'll divorce me.
Jack Jostes:
Well, Denise is an incredible woman-
Scott Parker:
Thank you.
Jack Jostes:
... but she will not tolerate any snakes.
Scott Parker:
No.
Jack Jostes:
Which is fair, I think, especially after you let one loose in the dormitory.
Scott Parker:
Yep. I have one more story that kind of goes along with this. In New Orleans, the snakes like a lot of heat. And we used to take these two specific snakes outside, get big planks of plywood and buy a ton of rats. And we used to bet on which snake would eat more rats faster. So kind of-
Jack Jostes:
Wow.
Scott Parker:
... interesting snake stories.
Win The Spring
Well, this conversation with Scott have been ridiculous and hilarious, I really enjoyed meeting him. He is about to share some wisdom around relationships and how to view your competition in way that can help you grow your company, so stay tuned for that, end before we get into that I want to invite you to join me on Thursday March 9th, for Win The Sring, it’s a half day virtual workshop focus on helping you automate your sales process so you close deals faster, ultimately your are easy to work with than your competitors; how to retain employes by communicating with them, even when you have a ton of crews, a ton of different people, how do you keep in touch with each individual person in a leverage way without stressing out your managers and how can you procure plants and materials faster and more efficiently. Check out WinTheSpring.com for more information.
Sales Tips
Jack Jostes:
Awesome. Well, Scott, thanks so much for coming to Colorado and doing the videos with us. I'm curious what ... You've been in business a long time, you've built a successful company. What would your sales tip be for other landscapers who are watching, if you could get them to do maybe one thing that you've figured out over the last 20 years that works, that you do every time? What works?
Scott Parker:
Don't be stubborn. Learn from your competition. You can learn what not to do and learn what to do. And throughout all the years, I've taken little tidbits of advice from employees, from vendors and kind of pieced it all together. And another thing, we've had some employees that did not work out, and were not good employees.
But even with those bad employees, we learn sometimes one or two good or bad things not to do. So don't be pigheaded even if someone has been doing this a long time. Don't have an ego, continue to learn. And the last thing, you could also make money working with your competition. So instead of looking at your competition as competition, there's a lot of different synergies that you could align with a competitor, so you could both make money.
Jack Jostes:
What are some of the ways that you've done that over the years?
Scott Parker:
So we're not a big company, and there's services that another one of our competitors might offer that we might not, or vice versa. So, sometimes a competitor that's not in our geographic area or performs different services, we will refer them and they will refer us, and we get free business out of it, as well as they do. So that's probably the biggest thing. You might get a great lead in a county or an area of your state that you don't service. Instead of throwing it away, make some money off it by referring.
Jack Jostes:
So, do you get a commission from-
Scott Parker:
We'll do one or two things. We'll either do straight referral, you refer me, I refer you, or we'll give a small commission on a referral and they will do the same for us. Yeah.
Jack Jostes:
I like that.
Scott Parker:
Yeah.
Jack Jostes:
So, Scott, do you know any people who aren't a competitor to Parker Landscape Design that we should send this podcast to?
Scott Parker:
A ton. Yes. Yes, yes. Yes.
Jack Jostes:
All right, good. Well, so I'll send you a link, and now you'll have something to send them.
Scott Parker:
Yeah, Absolutely.
Jack Jostes:
Deal?
Scott Parker:
Sure, sure.
Jack Jostes:
Cool. Well, anyways, hey, it's been really fun working with you, Scott. Thanks for coming to Colorado.
Scott Parker:
Jack, thank you so much. Yep.
Jack Jostes:
. Thanks-
Scott Parker:
Thank you so much.
Jack Jostes:
... for sharing.
Scott Parker:
Yeah.
Jack Jostes:
What was the name of that snake that escaped, by the way?
Scott Parker:
Burmese Python.
Jack Jostes:
No, no.
Scott Parker:
Do they have names?
Jack Jostes:
Did it have a name?
Scott Parker:
I don't think I ever named them, which sounds weird, but they probably had names. But I was in college. I might have been too drunk to remember.
Jack Jostes:
Yeah. Got it. Cool. Well, hey, thanks so much. And everyone remember to feed your snake and don't let it loose. And check out our other podcast episodes, sign up, make sure you don't miss the podcast, and we'll send you some that are more focused on sales, marketing, and leadership, right when you sign up at landscapersguide.com/podcast. And Scott, thanks again.
Scott Parker:
Thanks, Jack.
Jack Jostes:
Hope to have you back.
Scott Parker:
Appreciate it. Yep.
Jack Jostes:
Thank you.
Scott Parker:
I'll definitely be back.
Jack Jostes:
Well, that was really fun. I enjoyed working with Scott. We recorded some videos that he's going to put on his website. One of the cool things that we did was a portfolio showcase video where we told the stories of some of the projects that he worked on, like this cool outdoor lighting project for a historic property from the 1800s. We talked about one of his clients' outdoor living spaces, and we showcased Scott's home. And that was a really cool thing just to talk with Scott and see how he designed his backyard and why he chose the plants that he did, and all the cool bluestone. I didn't realize that bluestone had such a variety of colors. So it was really fun. Really enjoy working with the snow and landscape industry because I get to work directly with people like Scott who are fun and interesting and run great businesses. So I hope you enjoyed today's episode and my name's Jack Jostes. I look forward to talking with you next week on The Landscaper's Guide.