What’s Working Now: Selling Landscaping Via Video Conferencing With Cheri Stringer [Podcast]

Jack Jostes:

Welcome everyone to What's Working Now: How To Sell Landscaping During COVID-19. Today, we have a special guest, Cheri Stringer, who is the owner of TLC Gardens in Boulder, Colorado. Cheri and I met... We're both members of the ALCC, the Associated Landscape Contractors of Colorado. You attended one of my webinars in the past. Somehow we started emailing about how to use video in your sales process right now.

 

Jack Jostes:

I'm really excited to hear what you have to say, because here we are, it's April 14th and I've kind of lost track of how long we've officially been quarantined but I know that right now people are actually more interested than ever in landscaping. Believe it or not, I've been checking the Google Analytics lately or the Google Trends rather and I've been finding that... I'm going to share my screen here so you guys can see this.

 

Jack Jostes:

Over the last 30 days, like most years, the interest in landscaping has increased. I'm not going to share my screen but the point is that people are still-

 

Cheri Stringer:

I think it's because we're indoors.

 

Jack Jostes:

I think people are... Yeah, they're stuck inside but they're also maybe, although they're more interested in landscaping, they're a little afraid to invite people into their home, to have that design consultation in their yard. They were practicing social distancing. Before we get into selling and stuff, tell us real quick, who are you, what are you, how did you get into being an owner of a landscape company?

 

Cheri Stringer:

Oh, that's a great question, Jack. I'm so glad you asked this. It's kind of an interesting story. Basically, I was a molecular biologist. I had a whole another life in microbiology. I actually worked for the Seattle project in Seattle studying Cancer Research when they won the Nobel Prize.

 

Cheri Stringer:

I was in a team that was amazing. From there, though, I was working as a hobby on the sideline creating greenhouses for people, planting designs within Seattle, doing little setups so people could be outside and really live their best lives. I got the opportunity to be on the landscape advisory task force, which I kind of laugh about now in my community. That drew me in. I was actually currently getting my master's degree at that time but when I did this, I realized this is what I want to do.

 

Jack Jostes:

Wow.

 

Cheri Stringer:

I had a background in it. Yeah. By the end of this sort of project, I had brought in all these people. I had managed to bring together a whole number of companies to get to follow through. By the end, I knew it was what I wanted to do.

 

Jack Jostes:

Right and how does that play out now in running a landscape company? How does your background in microbiology impact the work you're doing from, I don't know, design to plant selection? How is that part of what you do now?

 

Cheri Stringer:

It's great. That's a great question. Well, I use a lot of science-based in everything I do. I designed everything and built everything from the beginning. When I decided I wanted to go into this, every design I did, I built and then I applied sort of a scientific method to it. I journaled it. I kept notes. I took videos. I got in my trenches but I also did something else sort of science-based, I kept records of all the plant performance material of all the wood performance and different products, all the stone. I did that with everything.

 

Cheri Stringer:

After doing it for 15 years, I learned all the construction elements and details and became sort of a go-to expert within the field for that.

 

Jack Jostes:

Wow.

 

Cheri Stringer:

Then, I started my own team, which was another generation of this and within then, I had to learn leadership and how to lead a team and I now have a design build team. We currently have 12 employees. We run three construction projects and we run about two million a year in revenue.

 

Jack Jostes:

Wow, great. That's really fantastic. Do you guys do maintenance as well?

 

Cheri Stringer:

We do you not. No. We are very unique in that.

 

Jack Jostes:

Well, tell me a little bit when you were journaling and keeping track of the plant and wood performance, over how long did you collect that information and how did you get access to it? Would your clients just let you, even though you weren't doing maintenance, would they let you come back?

 

Cheri Stringer:

Oh yeah. Yeah because we would always do a one-year review. I keep in touch with my clients. This is even more important now in the current climate we're in. It's the connection. If we have a connection, then they're going to want to talk to me, I want to talk to them, then I understand what's meaningful for them. I did that from the beginning.

 

Cheri Stringer:

We'd have a connection. I'd come back after a year and we'd kind of walk through the site. I'm like, "How's this doing? How's this performing?" We did this little steel and wood, Moon gate, "How's the moon gate working for you?" We take a look at it and we'd see how it was performing.

 

Cheri Stringer:

Then, I would write notes down. This is my science side, I would write notes down on, we could have used a different glue or we could use a different fastener or we could have done this a different way, at the same time that I'm connecting with the clients. I did that for 15 years and to answer the second question, which is the plant material, I tracked that for 15 years. I tracked the best performers and I put it in my own little database, which I find funny now, there's lots of plant databases. I still use my database.

 

Jack Jostes:

Yeah, that's amazing. Prior to starting the webinar, we were looking at one of your designs, and I hadn't seen this tree before it was a Crimson Sentry maple.

 

Cheri Stringer:

Yes.

 

Jack Jostes:

Is that a landscape in Boulder and is that a tree that really thrives here?

 

Cheri Stringer:

Yes, it is. As you know, we're 5,000 feet in the air. We are in a high plains desert. A lot of people will contact me and they'll say, "Hey, I want you to do this architectural design, but I really want this lush landscape." You can't always do that but here's where the Crimson Sentry maple comes in. It's such a wonderful performer. It's a columnar tree with a beautiful purple leaf, as you saw, has Japanese edge to it but because I know how well it performs in Colorado, I use it a lot in modern landscapes, because I know I can count on it not to get too big for the space.

 

Jack Jostes:

Yeah, great. Yeah, it was really interesting to see it and it was growing so straight and it was so small though and it had that kind of purplish color of the Japanese maple. I wasn't quite sure because they normally don't grow straight up like that. Cool. Well, check out and what was your website? It's tlcgardens.com?

 

Cheri Stringer:

Yes. It's tlcgardens.com. You got it.

 

Jack Jostes:

If you guys want to see that Crimson Sentry maple, check it out. They're really cool landscape. Well, let's talk about what's changed…

 

Cheri Stringer:

Sure.

 

Jack Jostes:

... recently in the last 30 days, we're in the middle of a world health pandemic and we were emailing because you're still selling.

 

Cheri Stringer:

Yes.

 

Jack Jostes:

A couple weeks ago, I did a webinar about how to use video in the sales process because what I'm seeing is that we need to, I really feel like in any business that has kind of a consultative or design-build element to it, my business, your business, where you may use to meet with people in person, people are going to be resistant to do that. They're going to be reluctant to do that. They still want to buy from you and I really believe that using video is one of the best ways to position yourself as an expert, engage people and like we're doing now using Zoom video conferences is second best to meeting in person. Tell us a little bit about how are you guys, how have you adapt... What challenges, I guess, have you faced in the last 30 days? Then, how are you adapting your sales process to overcome them?

Cheri Stringer:

Okay, which do you want me to do first?

 

Jack Jostes:

Let's start with the challenges. What were the challenges that like, what's it been like for you running a landscape company during this time?

 

Cheri Stringer:

Well, there's a couple challenges. The three most prominent ones are, you gotta keep your construction projects going still. Even though we're quarantined, we have construction projects where we have our crew split up, right?

 

Jack Jostes:

Mm-hmm.

 

Cheri Stringer:

We've got to keep that progress rolling. Most of our clients that we're working with right now, they want to keep going. They want to keep going and keeping that going, even at a slower pace, but being aware of the public safety concern and being like, okay, we're outside, we've got to sterilize our equipment. We've got to have social distancing on our crews. We split up our crews so they're farther apart. We have them on two different construction projects but then we also had the second challenge, which is how do we maintain the connection to our clients, right?

 

Jack Jostes:

Right.

 

Cheri Stringer:

We know, I know the most important thing right now is to make sure that my message is exceptionally clear. If I can get my why across very clearly and I can up my game in presentation skills, then I can maintain that connection but the challenges, let's get a studio set up. Let's get video set up. Let's set up that right away and get clients familiar with it because the very first challenge I got hit with was clients not feeling comfortable with video. I could be really prepared but they're not, right? That's seldom too.

 

Jack Jostes:

The clients didn't want to meet with you on video?

 

Cheri Stringer:

No, they want to meet in person, even though we can't. They'd be like-

 

Jack Jostes:

Oh, I see. They still want to, right?

 

Cheri Stringer:

They'd be like, "Can we meet outside," or "Can we be on the balcony and you'd be down on the ground," or "Can we stand at the barbecue station and you stand over there?" That was the first challenge was, okay, we need to meet on video. This is going to be great. This is going to be fun. You're going to love it. It's TLC Gardens Mobile, right? There's a whole PR piece to this, which, I had to overcome in a very short period of time. I transformed or I guess I hit these hurdles really hard the first two weeks of the quarantine.

 

Cheri Stringer:

Then, I had challenged number three, which is let's get a way for people to pay without exchanging paper, right?

 

Jack Jostes:

Yes. Yes.

 

Cheri Stringer:

This is a big challenge that a lot of people overlook because you got point of sale, which is easy to do. However, there's lots of fees. Then you've got ACH, which you're going to set up with your bank. My challenge was, how do I maintain those sales, both in construction and design with a mobile interface and make it easy for my clients. That was challenge number three.

 

Jack Jostes:

Those are clear challenges of yeah, I mean, in keeping construction going. One thing that I found in the last 10 days that with some of our clients is even when they are working that the neighbors of the clients are like, "Hey, what are you doing? Don't you know there's a pandemic?"

 

Jack Jostes:

Last week, we helped create a print letter that you can download and fill out. I don't know if you saw that for those of you listening.

 

Cheri Stringer:

I did. I loved it, Jack.

 

Jack Jostes:

Oh, thank you.

 

Cheri Stringer:

I thought it was fantastic.

 

Jack Jostes:

Oh, thank you. Yeah. Those of you who haven't downloaded it, you can get it at landscapersguide.com/covidletter. Even if you are keeping construction going, communicating with the neighbors of your clients normally is not an issue, but now it's like, "Hey, who are these people?"

 

Cheri Stringer:

That's exactly what we had to do. We had to create a letter with our logo. There was PR with the clients. There's PR with my team to make them feel comfortable. Then, there's PR with everyone around my clients. We had to create a letter that we posted. It's on our trucks. It's to all neighbors around us. "Hey, this is," just informative. That's fantastic and stead on.

 

Jack Jostes:

Well, thank you. I mean, I think, what we've been trying to do is and why I wanted to have you on the show is to help keep the green industry working safely too. It's not that we're ignoring the safety issues out there.

 

Cheri Stringer:

Correct.

 

Jack Jostes:

It's more of like helping spread the word, helping people get prepared, helping them communicate. Tell us a little bit... Those are some of the challenges we're all facing. How have you adapted your sales process to overcome them?

 

Cheri Stringer:

I love that. Okay, that's a great question. I'm so excited about answering that. Within the sales process, what I had to do is pretty much up my game. We've got an opportunity right now and it's an amazing opportunity to get better at presentation, clearer, because now we're on a video platform.

 

Cheri Stringer:

Aside from the challenges of setting up a video platform, I've got to deliver. If I can deliver once, clients are on it. They're on board, right? Then, I'm just going to build momentum from there.

 

Cheri Stringer:

One of the first things I did was double down and went back to presentation and theater and how do I project my voice? How do I stand? How do I get my energy across on a video? Because it's like I can sit like this, which is very common for videos or I can be really animated, right?

 

Jack Jostes:

Yes.

 

Cheri Stringer:

I almost feel like I got to be animated because now I don't have the body language in person. That was the number one thing I did to overcome the hurdle of video and I knew as soon as I could get to a video with a client and they could experience that, then they were hooked.

 

Cheri Stringer:

I did that right away with my construction team. Then, I had to jump on it with design and then I'll go to the other challenges. The design video challenge is, now, I've got to make a sale through video. That's a little different, right? I had to adapt my process a little bit there by adding in things that I send before we get on.

 

Jack Jostes:

Yes.

 

Cheri Stringer:

They research it. I sort of pre-prepared. Now, normally, I would do that in the in-person, right? I've given these things and it was woven in but now I do that in advance. Then, when I get on, I just get straight to the point. I know, let's just spend our time connecting, right? Then, I had to have a way to deliver sort of a click opportunity during the video, right?

 

Jack Jostes:

Yes.

 

Cheri Stringer:

During the video at the end, they're like, "Yeah, how do we move forward?" Now, screen share, click to join our team. Okay.

 

Jack Jostes:

Nice.

 

Cheri Stringer:

It's like a whole another challenge to get to where they can just press the button. One of my clients said to me, this is over 15 years and you can hear such great, crazy things from clients. I had this client at one point, I was about a bit halfway through my career and she said, "Cheri, you have to make it easy for people to press the button."

 

Jack Jostes:

Yes. I love it. Yeah and I-

 

Cheri Stringer:

I love that. It's so good.

 

Jack Jostes:

Well and I think that people are going to expect more of this type of buying moving forward. I think that when we emerge out of this whole quarantine, there's still going to be some lingering after effects of people are going to realize, "Hey, it's pretty convenient to order my groceries and either pick them up or have them delivered. Hmm, I don't know why I'd go back in the grocery store when it was so great not going in." We're going to have all of these experiences that have changed the way that we expect to buy from local businesses or all the restaurants who have quickly adapted to having online ordering and curbside pickup. I think you're really onto something with the click to pay online. I'm curious, are you using QuickBooks Online or Service Autopilot?

 

Cheri Stringer:

We actually have QuickBooks desktop, but I have experimented with QuickBooks Online has some other features. It's the point of sale challenge, right?

 

Jack Jostes:

Right, right.

 

Cheri Stringer:

Within video sales.

 

Jack Jostes:

Tell me, what I'm really excited about is learning more about how are you preparing the client before the meeting? I'd love to know because I want us all to Zoom out and think about our design build process and we've probably got a phone call, maybe we're doing some kind of design consultation. Now, we're at a meeting where we're going to present something to them, right.

 

Cheri Stringer:

Right.

 

Jack Jostes:

What are you sending either before that first meeting or how are you helping kind of warm them up?

 

Cheri Stringer:

Okay, sure. Let me try the screen share.

 

Jack Jostes:

Great, yeah. Show us what you're sending.

 

Cheri Stringer:

Let's see if this works. I saved these through my photos. This should work.

 

Jack Jostes:

Go ahead and click share screen and we'll see.

 

Cheri Stringer:

Yeah. You're going to see a lot of photos now. I should be able to select the photo, right?

 

Jack Jostes:

Yeah, I can't see your screen yet.

 

Cheri Stringer:

Okay, hold on. Do you see this now?

 

Jack Jostes:

Yes, yes I do.

 

Cheri Stringer:

Okay, great. This is the four steps of design. This is one of the very first things I share because, okay, right now, we're in uncertainty. All of us feel it. The first thing I want to do in sales is prep them so they know exactly what to expect.

 

Jack Jostes:

Yes. Yes.

 

Cheri Stringer:

Here it is.

 

Jack Jostes:

Yes, you got to teach people how to buy from you, right?

 

Cheri Stringer:

Exactly.

 

Jack Jostes:

So many people come to me and they say, "Jack, I don't get any qualified leads from the internet." It's like, "Well, you've got to qualify them…

 

Cheri Stringer:

You do.

 

Jack Jostes:

... by communicating a process and that's exactly what we're doing here. I love this.

 

Cheri Stringer:

Exactly.

 

Jack Jostes:

You're teaching them, oh, an initial meeting, a design commitment. What is that? Nobody has ever thought of this unless they've heard you before. I love it. Okay. What else?

 

Cheri Stringer:

Let me see if I can share one other one, which is important to the process as well. Can you see this one?

 

Jack Jostes:

Yes.

 

Cheri Stringer:

Now, it's going to look like Dropbox and that's the way it's supposed to be. I share this with the clients with renderings and I show them that we have a file structure to share with them digitally.

 

Jack Jostes:

Love it. What program are you using to create these digital renderings?

 

Cheri Stringer:

These renderings are created in SketchUp. I use Vectorworks landmark for all of our designs and create a 3D model walkthrough for the clients, a video. I'm sending them a video. I'm sending the renderings but I'm also, at the same time, communicating our process. This is what you're going to experience with us…

 

Jack Jostes:

Absolutely.

 

Cheri Stringer:

... design and build.

 

Jack Jostes:

Great. Great.

 

Cheri Stringer:

That's some of the things that I share with clients before and I have more but I don't want it be long.

 

Jack Jostes:

One suggestion for you might be to send a Screencast video with those things that shows people pretty much what you just did with me and a tool that you could use is called SoapBox.

 

Cheri Stringer:

Oh, okay.

 

Jack Jostes:

There's another one. That's what I use. There's also one called Vidyard. Let's say your client is Nancy. The video would be like, "Hey, Nancy, looking forward to meeting with you on Zoom in a couple days. Make sure you download Zoom before the meeting and our meeting is at 2:00 and before that, I sent over looks like a Dropbox folder. Here, let me show you how to click through here." Now, she's going to hear you and see you and trust you and feel like you have helped her even that much more before that appointment.

 

Jack Jostes:

The other thing that I'm encouraging people to do is if you have time in the process, is to send something in the mail. This has been a part of my process for a while. We send a gift. We send a copy of my book. We send beef jerky. I just had a client who's a remodeler, they send coffee, because they're out in Washington and near Seattle and that's part of their brand.

 

Jack Jostes:

I think the more that you can send little videos and helpful PDFs like you have and a gift in the mail, it's going to make them feel like, it's going to help make up for that lack of rapport that you can build in person. There is, I mean, this is second best to meeting in person but it's the nature of selling right now. These things, I think, even if you still meet in person, this little prep work for your client is going to make them feel, it's going to help them understand what they're buying.

 

Cheri Stringer:

Yes and I find it allows me to focus entirely on connection during the videos, right?

 

Jack Jostes:

Yes, yeah.

 

Cheri Stringer:

I'm not focused on process there. I'm just connecting. That's the only thing I'm doing.

 

Jack Jostes:

Exactly.

 

Cheri Stringer:

Then, I let them drive that. They asked the questions…

 

Jack Jostes:

Great.

 

Cheri Stringer:

... they write and the more they talk, the more I know about them.

 

Jack Jostes:

Awesome. How many people roughly have you gone through this little TLC Gardens mobile experience?

 

Cheri Stringer:

Yeah, we're calling TLC Mobile, correct.

 

Jack Jostes:

Okay, TLC Mobile.

 

Cheri Stringer:

Ironically, I have been working on it for three years and I'll answer that question but I'm working on TLC Mobile for three years for a national platform.

 

Cheri Stringer:

We actually released TLC mobiles and national platform just two weeks ago on a three-year plan and then decided we're going to bring this to all of our local clients because of what's going on.

 

Cheri Stringer:

TLC Mobile actually became bigger than we thought it was going to be because it just made sense. Within that, you were asking me how many, we have five perspective clients right now. We have three construction clients right now. We've got a total of eight on this video platform.

 

Jack Jostes:

Cool. Tell us about... Have any of them signed and closed and paid?

 

Cheri Stringer:

Yeah, yeah. In fact, we sold a front yard design with a construction project. We're doing the backyard and we were trying to sell the front yard. We sold the front yard design on this moving platform and then we sold a new design-build client on this moving platform.

 

Cheri Stringer:

We've had two sales within that short period of time and all the rest of them are moving along in sales process what I expect. They're asking questions. We're interacting. I'm taking photos of their site. All those things that you do during the process as you get closer to the sale.

 

Jack Jostes:

They're sending you photos and things?

 

Cheri Stringer:

Yeah. Yeah. Dialogue.

 

Jack Jostes:

Great. Awesome. Well, that's awesome. What are some other wins that you want to share either close sales or things that you like? This is now part of the process because it's really worked. What are some other wins that have come up for you and adapt during this process?

 

Cheri Stringer:

Oh, it's just realizing that there's some things we don't need anymore.

 

Jack Jostes:

Yes.

 

Cheri Stringer:

Our old process was basically people call in and we phone screen them and then we send them a bunch of information via email and then we setup an onsite visit and onsite visit then we go through some of these things and then we go back to the office and then I would do a follow-up call and we make a sale for design build.

 

Cheri Stringer:

I say design build because when you're doing design, it only adds a little bit different but now what we realize is we can do so much faster and better by preparing the information beforehand for the TLC Mobile platform, the video. I feel like it's sharper. It's cleaner. I try to make it more vivid. We're actually compressing the sales process in a lot of ways.

 

Cheri Stringer:

Now, but what you're talking about, I love your ideas, Jack, about sending them a pre-video. I haven't thought about that but it means that we're getting on this video and we're closing with fewer meetings, right?

 

Jack Jostes:

Right.

 

Cheri Stringer:

Less overhead.

 

Jack Jostes:

Less overhead and then also less windshield time, right?

 

Cheri Stringer:

Less windshield time, less drive time.

 

Jack Jostes:

If you were able to cut an hour or two out of their day from driving, you could probably close another two sales during that time, right?

 

Cheri Stringer:

It's true and I had not only the designs but I have construction. Our three construction projects are spread out. If I combine by drive time on a typical day before this and also the prep time for sending all the stuff, I've got half a day's worth more time to connect with people…

 

Jack Jostes:

That's so much time.

 

Cheri Stringer:

... to write content, to pre-videos.

 

Jack Jostes:

Yes.

 

Cheri Stringer:

I mean, there's a lot of opportunities here.

 

Jack Jostes:

Great.

 

Cheri Stringer:

It's all the drive time and all the overhead that short of, it becomes like, "Oh, we got to do it this way." Actually, we don't. It's like you were saying about the grocery store. We don't do it this way.

 

Jack Jostes:

Yeah, the other thing that I really like about selling over video is that you can meet people, you could probably let's pretend that you're meeting with a professional who's in an office and maybe you can't go home at noon but they could maybe meet with you for a 30-minute video call on their lunch break, you know what I mean?

 

Jack Jostes:

It makes it easier. The other thing that I love about video selling is that you can record the meeting. Ideally, if you're selling to a home owner and there's maybe, there are partners and you've got two different decision makers if you can, ideally, you're selling the both of them at the same time, right?

 

Cheri Stringer:

Right.

 

Jack Jostes:

But if they can't make it or one of them doesn't show up, cool, record the video and now the video can help sell for you.

 

Cheri Stringer:

Yes, true.

 

Jack Jostes:

There are two videos I would add to your process. One is a pre-video before this video presentation and one would be a video after it, like a thank you video. That's like, "Hey, thanks so much. Here's a recap of the plan. By the way, hey, I removed…

 

Cheri Stringer:

I love that.

 

Jack Jostes:

We were going to have a fire pit but when we talked about the budget, that was the item we didn't want. Hey, I removed that.

 

Cheri Stringer:

Nice, I like that.

 

Jack Jostes:

Now, the total is this and oh, okay. Thanks to really listening to what I said in that meeting. That feels good."

 

Cheri Stringer:

Yeah, no, I like that.

 

Jack Jostes:

Anything, I want some-

 

Cheri Stringer:

That's in line with our company values too, Jack. That's where I think video is actually this unique opportunity to clarify your voice.

 

Jack Jostes:

Yes.

 

Cheri Stringer:

Clarify your message because, I don't know if you... You and I agree on this. I remember talking about this the day at ALCC too. This was just that, people talking about, "Oh, I've got all these unique things with my company. It's the T shirts my guys wear and it's the process we take them through," but actually, what's unique is you. The clearer your voice is, the more authentic you are.

 

Cheri Stringer:

Now, you have this opportunity to do that with video, I think, and it gets away from, "Oh, we're going to do this the way we've always done this." Now, we're going to go back to being authentic.

 

Jack Jostes:

Yeah, I agree. I think there's a whole lot of people, maybe you're listening right now and you're like, "Oh, I'll never do video." You're going to get blown away by people like Cheri. I have a client. He's listening. His name's Scott. We're actually texting videos to each other. He does commercial work…

 

Cheri Stringer:

Okay, got you.

 

Jack Jostes:

... and he's like, " hey, all my property managers won't call me back because they're all millennials or whatever." I'm a millennial but, I'm like, "Hey, text them a video." We started doing this and he's already getting a response.

 

Cheri Stringer:

Nice.

 

Jack Jostes:

Again, these are not like professionally shot videos. Yeah, I've got this big fancy mic for the podcast but…

 

Cheri Stringer:

Sure.

 

Jack Jostes:

... I'm talking about like smartphone videos, use your iPhone, use your computer like just get started.

 

Cheri Stringer:

Yeah, just do it.

 

Jack Jostes:

Just do it and people will be like, "Hey, that was pretty cool. Thanks. I think I like you better than the other two bids I got that didn't make a video." You know what I mean? What a way to stand out.

 

Cheri Stringer:

Totally.

 

Jack Jostes:

I'd like to open up the panel. Do you have anything else to... Well, actually, before we get to that, I did want to talk with you about leadership. Was there anything else before we talked about leadership on the sales process that you wanted to make sure we talked about?

 

Cheri Stringer:

Just the importance of connection and that we can up that game. Everybody can up their game in terms of precise presentation, but it's just like you said, actions speak louder than words. If you just do it, you will get better. It doesn't have to be perfect…

 

Jack Jostes:

I agree.

 

Cheri Stringer:

... from the beginning.

 

Jack Jostes:

Robert, just chatted a question that's really relevant here and it's something at Ramblin Jackson too that I'm working through with getting my team, I'm curious has anyone else besides you at the company using video or is it just you?

 

Cheri Stringer:

Actually, my whole team is.

 

Jack Jostes:

Wow.

 

Cheri Stringer:

We have a whole bunch of videos that are going to hit social media pretty soon because they've got GoPros all over the place.

 

Jack Jostes:

Okay, great. Love it. For the landscapers listening who are not good on video and I'm not good at video and I don't have a personality for video…

 

Cheri Stringer:

Just practice.

 

Jack Jostes:

... How would you coach your non-video now video people to become video people?

 

Cheri Stringer:

Oh, I love that question, Jack. I'm so glad you asked that. I actually brought my son into this. I called my son. He's in theater. He's doing theater production in college. I said, "Look, I want to have my team be able to do these videos and feel comfortable with it." I said, "Hey, you have gotten any tips of pointers?" One of the best pointers he gave me was one, do not one like you did with me, Jack, where you say, "Hey, this is the message we want to get across." This is the why I want to get to... Live your best life." As long as you know what the why is, it makes it really easy but the biggest tip was remember to pause, count one, two three, four because we all rush on video or in a presentation, we come talk a little bit faster. We lose that impact that we can have with our verbal presentation.

 

Cheri Stringer:

When I was questioning my team, I took that from my son. I was like, "Thank you. That's awesome. That's a great insight." I would just say, "Look, here's the why. Right now we're trying to achieve as showing people how our team is working safely in this COVID-19 pandemic. That's the why. Now, shoot some video and then when you're on video, remember you're just casually talking with your best friend. I would talk to them a little before and remember to pause.

 

Jack Jostes:

I love that and that's one of the tips here. I'm getting my people to pause. I'm sure that they're laughing, listening to this because we work on this all the time.

 

Cheri Stringer:

It's so hard.

 

Jack Jostes:

It's funny, I studied theater.

 

Cheri Stringer:

Okay.

 

Jack Jostes:

That was one of my backgrounds. Where does your son study theater?

 

Cheri Stringer:

He's at Allegheny College in Pennsylvania.

 

Jack Jostes:

Cool. Great. Yeah, I think, pausing and just being yourself and what I have found in getting my team to do things that they maybe didn't want to do or did they didn't realize was important was again, explaining that why.

 

Jack Jostes:

An example of this that is really relevant to all of our landscapers is you all need to get reviews on glassdoor.com and Indeed and Google because if you're trying to hire people, they are going to look at your online reviews and decide if they should we apply for you or "Hey, I've heard of BrightView. I love BrightView. Nothing wrong there but, do you know what I mean? It's like okay, massive digital presence are like, a company that has negative reviews that the owner hasn't responded to and nothing on Glassdoor, nothing on Indeed.

 

Jack Jostes:

That was actually where I was. I had a negative review average on Indeed because I didn't really think it was a priority. Then, was I having a hard time recruiting and when I shared my team, hey, you're feeling really overwhelmed and it will really help you if we had a new project manager. Well, guess what? That person is going to look at our Indeed and could you help write reviews and then we became a highly-rated company and honestly the recruiting became way easier.

 

Jack Jostes:

I think communicating the why and we were talking about Simon Sinek's book, Start with Why…

 

Cheri Stringer:

Start with Why.

 

Jack Jostes:

... before we started here. Great, great.

 

Cheri Stringer:

I had a tool, Jack, for your viewers and that is on Indeed, if you're on the company side. You can create your own company webpage but what's great about that is we have our own webpage on the internet but within Indeed, I found that I could do 360 reviews with my team.

 

Cheri Stringer:

Same thing on Glassdoor, same thing on Google and when you start doing the internal reviews where people are actually working there, you can get those reviews our and those are even more relevant I think for our stars. That really helped us. We had some negative reviews and then we did internal reviews. Now, we have all these five star reviews and everybody working with us and it just makes us a difference.

 

Jack Jostes:

Oh, it does. Absolutely. Why would anyone and I see this the whole COVID thing changing... There's going to be more online research before people A, choose where they're going to work because they just got laid off at their other company that they felt was secure but it wasn't. Who's going to be on my property during landscaping? Are they going to be safe? There's going to be so much more internet research that the online reviews, your website, your branding, your photos, all of that before we get to the opportunity to send somebody a video but really we're focused on selling today.

 

Jack Jostes:

You've already done a really good job with a lot of those things. Tell us a little bit about, how do you empower your employees to be authentic? You started talking about this a little bit with the video but how do you, what does that mean?

 

Cheri Stringer:

Yes, no, that's a great question.

 

Jack Jostes:

What does it have to do with landscaping?

 

Cheri Stringer:

Gosh, I never even thought about how important it was to be a good leader but you have two ways really to influence people, one is to inspire them and the other is to most of us is owners, we start off we just kind of don't do it intentionally, we try to control. I inspire.

 

Cheri Stringer:

To inspire people, you've got to have a really clear voice in your why but you got to know the culture of trust. The culture of trust comes from knowing that you understand their perspective. I always follow Seven Habits of Highly Effective People.

 

Cheri Stringer:

Understand first and listen and then be understood. I will get perspectives from every team member. I'll understand do they have the tools they need to do the job or not and if they don't, what do they need from their perspective, not mine.

 

Cheri Stringer:

Then, within that, I allow for a structure but I allow from empowerment for each person within my team, to be empowered within their position. I outline exactly what I want to see. "Hey, next time it will be great if you did this. This is fabulous. Could you add this little piece?" Then, we talk about why, why? Why would we want to do that.

 

Cheri Stringer:

Then, I listen. Then, I'm able to, I guess, inspire my employees with the overall vision. I'm really a laid back in terms of leader. I like to for people to have their own voice and that's what everybody's saying and these reviews are like this is such a unique place because we can add our piece. We can add our own experience. We can add to the whole vision of live our best lives.

 

Cheri Stringer:

I mean, we just went through this on the board this morning yesterday and everyone said, "I'm so inspired." I was like, well, I started with why, live our best lives, that's us living our best lives, our clients living our best lives, our vendors living their best lives.

 

Cheri Stringer:

Then, how do we do it? What is it we deliver while we deliver something that's missing? Maybe that's a natural environment. Maybe that's a friendship. Maybe that's professional development. Maybe that's a skillset.

 

Cheri Stringer:

Then, the how, we do that with our values. Our value is our freedom, courage, integrity. Now, as soon as you line that out and you give people something a framework, they can bring their authenticity and their individuality to that. I take that when they bring that, I encourage it. I'm like, "Yes, I am so glad you brought that up. That's amazing. I'm so glad you brought that to this team. I hadn't thought of that. That's really great." You got to do that consistently. It's like an environment of no judgment, no criticism, gratitude, appreciation along with the vision.

 

Jack Jostes:

I love that. What employees don't want freedom and individuality, right?

 

Cheri Stringer:

Right.

 

Jack Jostes:

Who doesn't want that?

 

Cheri Stringer:

They surprise me all the time. They bring stuff that, I didn't think of that, but God that's great. That fits right in the vision.

 

Jack Jostes:

Great. You've done a lot of the branding and vision and mission and core values, the things that a lot of small business owners I know that I thought were not important that were very clearly branding…

 

Cheri Stringer:

Yeah, I did too at first.

 

Jack Jostes:

... I've got real work to do but it's actually I think when you really do that, that that's how you start to really thrive and grow a company where other people are expected to come and do it.

 

Cheri Stringer:

Centered.

 

Jack Jostes:

I think you've done a lot of work to get your company to the place where your people would feel comfortable to follow you and do video. I just wanted to point out that's great.

 

Cheri Stringer:

Yeah, I mean, it is something that I think ties to sales too, Jack, because if your team is happy, they're out there and they're happy doing the construction and you're being safe in this environment and your social distancing, you're sterilizing, you're showing your clients that you're doing that and yet you're still building these amazing environments. They see them happy and they wanted to do more. They want them to work in their yard but it's also the whole team we know enjoys interacting with clients and they enjoy bringing their uniqueness to it. That, having that framework allows that.

 

Jack Jostes:

That's great. That's great. Well, thank you so much for doing this interview. It's been really fun and I certainly learned a lot and I'm sure the people listening, if you're listening, take action on one of the things that you heard today like don't do it next week.

 

Cheri Stringer:

Like right now.

 

Jack Jostes:

What would you say, Cheri, would be the number one thing that made the biggest impact for you in your sales that you changed?

 

Cheri Stringer:

Making it easy for people to connect through video because it's the very first thing as the first hurdle that people are facing is I don't want someone to come to my house. Establishing that you have it, I've got it, it's easy for us to meet, give it a name, and allow people to connect with it, send them the link, that's the first thing.

 

Jack Jostes:

Great. Great. I love that. Thank you so much everyone. We're going to go ahead and wrap up the webinar. If you are listening live and you'd like to chat with either me or Robert about your sales, you can schedule with us online at meetjacknow.com. I wanted to share this, we had a comment from Cathy, "Great work. You really did a great job."

 

Cheri Stringer:

Thanks, Cathy.

 

Jack Jostes:

For those of you who want to meet with us, we'd be happy to chat with you about your sales through meetjacknow.com and check out that site anyways because it shows you can actually pick a time on our calendar instead of emailing us and we email you. It's like, "Hey, book an appointment online at meetjacknow.com." Check that out. You did great today. Thank you so much. Bye everyone.

 

Cheri Stringer:

Yeah, thank you. That was fun.

 

Robert Felton:

Thanks Cheri. Thanks Jack.

 

Jack Jostes:

Yeah, it was fun. Bye-bye.

 

Cheri Stringer:

Bye.