Robert Clinkenbeard Reveals the $20M Mistake Most Landscape Owners Make

00:00
Robert M
Hi everyone and welcome to the I Am Landscape Growth podcast, where entrepreneurs help entrepreneurs grow faster, better and stronger in the green industry. From leadership to sales to recruiting and operational excellence. We cover the topics holding entrepreneurs back and share how to get past those bottlenecks with the best in the industry. I’m your host, Rob Murray, co founder and CEO of Intrigue, a digital marketing company focused on helping landscape companies grow. So sit back and enjoy the show, everybody. Welcome back to another episode of the I Am Landscape Growth podcast. Today, a very special guest, Robert Clinkin Beard. Thank you so much for being on the show.

00:37
Robert C
No problem. Good to see you.

00:39
Robert M
What? 25 plus years in the green industry, running large shops, independent, you got peer groups, coaching, you know, we’re going to talk about EO entrepreneurs organization, the entrepreneurial Master program. There’s just a ton of experiences here. So I’m pumped to dive into this episode. So give it, give us the Coles notes of how the heck you ended up from. I mean the first thing I could see here was ILM and then all the way into Wilson360. Like what’s that trip look like?

01:11
Robert C
Yeah, I mean starting off really quickly, beginning. Yeah, 40 years in the industry.

01:16
Robert M
Jesus Christ, man, you gotta write a book on what you eat.

01:20
Robert C
Went from Scotland to Phoenix, worked for Valleycrest, got some great trading with Vala Crest. Decided I wanted to do my own thing. So in 2001, started up ILM grew really quickly. 0 to 15 million and 20 million in 15 years. Decided to sell, just obviously to have some partnership issues. So sold to aspland back in 2016 and then jumped into, partnered up with Bruce Wilson. He had his own consulting firm. Great mentor, great icon in the industry. And then, you know, I knew Bruce was retiring. You know, he’s got some amazing knowledge here. And it just decided to rebrand it to Wilson T60 a couple of years ago. So we’re still, you know, still getting our name out there. But I just love helping entrepreneurs, especially in the green industry.

02:12
Robert M
Very cool. And so then what’s the core focus of Wilson360? Like what are you guys up to right now?

02:17
Robert C
So main three offerings. We do peer groups. We have about 10 peer groups, probably 60 odd companies in that. Three to five companies per peer group. And then we do consulting. So different types of projects that come through either bonus structure or specific project and training. And then the third piece of that is coaching. We help companies scale their companies. So we have probably now 14 people on the team, all amazing industry experts. And will come in and coach and expertise and whatever that discipline looks like in the green industry.

02:54
Robert M
Well, that’s perfect because that’s the entire theme of this show. So I’m pumped that you’ve got that experience to share. Core focus. Is there a certain type of business that you want to work with or is it across the board like commercial residential maintenance, whatever.

03:09
Robert C
Commercial residential. We look after more, I would say probably, you know, average clients we work with right now is rough. Roughly about 13 million. I think sometimes. It’s sometimes a struggle working with companies in that 3 million or less because they’re still very much in the weeds. So it’s nice to be able to work with, you know, CEOs leadership team who are really focused on growing, scaling and having some type of exit.

03:37
Robert M
Very cool. All right, well, growing and scaling. So name of the game Y today, like every other episode, the question of the moment is what’s the primary growth constraint that you see holding entrepreneurs back in the green industry?

03:54
Robert C
Yeah, I’m asked that question a lot and I’ve got a really simple answer which I can dive into more. But people, 100% people, whether be the owners, whether it be, you know, wrong people, wrong seats all around the people. And I experienced that myself. Probably took me a few years of making multiple mistakes to realize that. But you know, once I got those good people in place, find the right seats for them doing the right things. I mean, really, my company massively scaled once I’ve learned from those previous mistakes.

04:32
Robert M
Cool. So you said a couple things there. You said people and then owners and then you said wrong people, wrong seats. So tell me about people issues with owners. Like they’re the owners. They got no issues. What do you like, what do you mean?

04:49
Robert C
No, no challenges whatsoever. Owners, you know, they, a lot of them. I, you know, I obviously have my own podcast and you know, a lot of stories I hear or people.

04:59
Robert M
Okay. No, you can give a. Give a quick plug.

05:01
Robert C
Yeah. Commercial landscaper podcast. We’ve done about 240 episodes. So. Great, great. Different nuggets you get from that. But one of the things I, I see it as a passion there that people will almost fall into the business. You know, they start cutting grass, you know, maybe during the holidays or at college or whatever, and then suddenly they’re have a business and then suddenly they’re at 5, they’re at 10 million. Didn’t necessarily know a great deal about business. So, you know, they’ve done it through, I suppose the school of hard knocks and learning along the way, but, you know, and they get to a point where they’re either protective of their business or they. They think they know all.

05:42
Robert C
Whereas, you know, coming in from a subtype, outside perspective or a coach, you know, we’re able to see some of the buying spots they haven’t necessarily seen. So we can quickly determine where some of the obstacles are in business, to scale the business. And it’s amazing what happens. And when you’re in that coaching environment, you know, unfortunately, you know, sometimes you have to be pretty blunt in what they’re not seeing.

06:09
Robert M
I don’t feel like you have too much of an issue being blunt.

06:14
Robert C
No, I. I don’t.

06:15
Robert M
Maybe you’ve learned how to be tactful, Is that what you’re saying?

06:17
Robert C
Yeah, but, you know, we. I think we both have kids and, you know, it’s never nice to tell somebody that their baby’s ugly.

06:25
Robert M
So then what do you see as the common blind spots? Like, you know, there’s. There’s probably only a handful. Maybe there’s more. But like, I bet you with your experience, seen it time and time again, eventually patterns start to emerge and it becomes pretty clear of, like, all right, what are the. What are the top blind spots you see holding these owners back?

06:42
Robert C
I mean, going back to your, you know, theme, the people piece, you know, they maybe have somebody who’s been in with a company since near the beginning, but they’re definitely not that right person for. For growth. Maybe they don’t have a sales mindset or growth mindset, but they want to feel some type of obligation that they feel as though they’re now earning that spot.

07:03
Robert M
It’s like misplaced loyalty.

07:05
Robert C
Yeah, absolutely. Loyalty. But they’re maybe in the wrong seat on the bus, but they don’t want to. They don’t want to have that tough conversation with them. The companies don’t know their financials, the cost, so they’re still somewhat flying blind. You know, they’re just hoping that more money comes in and goes out. So it’s definitely a blind spot.

07:28
Robert M
Yeah. Sales cures a lot of ailments. Right.

07:31
Robert C
And. And, you know, they don’t have. I see. I don’t know how many companies I see. They just don’t have some type of a sales strategy or something. Sales playbook.

07:42
Robert M
Tell me more about that. You’re talking my language now.

07:46
Robert C
Well, I mean, you ask them who their core customer is, and a lot of them don’t have a clue. I talked to them about, do they have some type of a Sales activity sheet, find out where their BD teamers spending their time. Maybe they don’t even have a sales team in place. They’re just relying on account managers to go and have conversations. But there’s no real clear sales strategy to the team now. One of the biggest things I found, you know, which really helped my company ILM back in the day, is we moved from a, you know, traditional landscape company to more of a. I felt more of a sales marketing company where, you know, we listened, we, you know, read the book Ultimate Sales Machine Chat Holmes Chat homes.

08:34
Robert M
Good stuff. Yeah.

08:35
Robert C
Sales playbook. We found out what the core messages we should be seeing to prospects would go in to do presentations to management companies. And it was all really clearly scripted out and what that follow up looked like. And really between that and also the sales being brought into enhancements, I mean, it really was a huge game changer for our company. You know, to the extent were getting hundreds, 120, 130% penetration rate for enhancements over matrix, that’s huge.

09:11
Robert M
And so, just for the record, the book is the Ultimate Sales Machine by Chet Holmes. And I think he used something like pigheaded discipline, I think was like the term that he comes back to all the time. It’s like, this stuff isn’t difficult, but if you have to execute with discipline over and over again. So I’m going to come back to execution Sales execution in a minute. But the top three blind spots. What I got from you is misplaced loyalty. So you got people that have been there for a long time, but they’re not necessarily there to set you up for growth in the future. You’re flying blind financially and you just don’t know where your numbers are at. So it’s difficult to understand where you’re making money. So you’re probably limited with working capital. And then there’s no sales playbook or sales execution.

09:48
Robert M
So can we just walk through those three ones quickly?

09:51
Robert C
Absolutely, absolutely.

09:52
Robert M
All right, sweet. So, like, let’s say I’m listening to this and I’m like, yeah, maybe I do have somebody that’s been here maybe too long. I. I don’t necessarily want to have that tough conversation. So they’re hearing you talk about misplaced loyalty in a tenured staff member, and they’re like, ooh, that is me. What do we do about it outside of just saying bye?

10:11
Robert C
I think the thing I’ve. I’ve learned to use, you know, probably more so recently than before was personality assessments. You know, Going out and finding their strengths, their weaknesses, their blind spots. And then, you know, looking at your org chart, you know, I think I go into a lot of companies and people say, hey, what should my org chart look like? So we’ll go through a real exercise and a lot of the time people make the mistake on putting names in.

10:37
Robert M
First instead of roles.

10:39
Robert C
And I put in roles first and then who’s the best person for those roles? You know, when went through Covid, what was that? Four or five years ago, A lot of companies really struggled. You know, they went back to zero revenue or dropping significant revenue. And it was a lot of time for people to go back and reevaluate their companies to find out who are the true roles we need for the company and then looking at employees strengths to fit those roles. So I, I think that’s probably one of the biggest things I do is look at the roles, look at their strengths, put the names then in those positions, and then figure out what’s. What do I need to do to build this dream team to double, triple in size? Where are the gaps? Where are the overlaps to help scale the company?

11:29
Robert M
And you mentioned personality assessments. Was there a tool that you prefer or a couple that you would recommend to people?

11:35
Robert C
Yeah, the one we use is, you know, the inner metrics. But there’s strength finders out there. There’s disc. There’s a new one came out, working genius, which is Patrick Lencione. There’s so many different ones out there. I have your Culture index. CI is another one. But I think just sticking to one proven personality assessment and doing it using it two ways on new employees coming into the company to see if they’re a good fit for the role. And then secondly for your existing employees to make sure they’re in the right seats. And then b, you know, when you’re creating almost like many working groups, do you have a nice mix of strengths within that working group to work on some particular project if you don’t work, have a team with all the same mindset.

12:30
Robert M
Yeah, they’re all conceptual, social people. They’re never gonna get anything over the finish line. Yeah. So what was the one that you used though? I missed it.

12:39
Robert C
Inner matrix is the one I used.

12:41
Robert M
Inner matrix metrics.

12:43
Robert C
Yeah, Inner metrics or another name for it is advanced Insights. But I’ve used both that and Culture Index, both really great assessments. And you know, if you learn it, if you get maybe somebody certified on your team to understand it. But I think it’s another, you know, when you Talk about hiring people. It’s another point in that GPS to really evaluate. So if you’re bringing in the right.

13:04
Robert M
People, so you do this and then you realize, okay, your intuition is true, you do have a long standing team member that shouldn’t be what, in the position they’re in. What do you say to the folks listening to this that are in that situation? What do they do about it?

13:18
Robert C
I mean really, you’ve got to have that tough conversation with yourself that, you know, ultimately I hope this would be the case, is that you’re looking after your future, your company’s future, your family’s future. So what are the things I need to do to take my company to the next level? And that may end up pushing people to the side, finding different positions with them, maybe having a, allowing those people to find their true calling in different companies. But I think having those tough conversations and I think that’s where using something like either a coach, mentor, peer group to help with those types of conversations and really pushing all the output. I mean you’re talking about people that may be with your company for 10, 15 years.

14:10
Robert C
You’re having to sit down with them and say, hey, you’re not the right fit for me to double in size. I mean that’s a pretty brutal conversation.

14:17
Robert M
It can be, yeah, for sure. So peer group, coach, mentor, someone who’s had the conversations, maybe they’ve gone well or not gone well, but you can definitely learn from someone who’s been there before. That’s cool. So then the next one around, flying blind financially, where do you see like same question patterns like what are the common blind spots financially?

14:39
Robert C
You know, if you’re in the gross margins are not in the right place, if you’re still sitting at, you know, below 7, 8% net profit. I mean, you know, most of the companies we are in our, they’re in our network or in a Pew groups, they’re all typically 10, 15 plus percent. So you know, there’s something in there that’s holding them back. Maybe they’re not sharing financials with their team. Maybe they don’t have a true understanding of the numbers. They don’t necessarily want to admit that.

15:09
Robert M
Right. Ego’s in the way.

15:11
Robert C
Yeah, I think a lot of them, you know, will hide behind the numbers or they do a bad job of sharing them with their team. I think one of the biggest things with my company was when I, I think, suppose it was, you know, we talked about EO offline and how the value of EO and listening to a lot of speakers and the value they saw in sharing maybe not all the financials, but certainly a good portion of the financials onto their team. And then holding certainly some of them accountable to the performance of those numbers. Those metrics was a big changer in my company. I even got to the extent where we had five locations. The way I, I treated them all as entrepreneurs.

15:55
Robert C
Each branch manager said, hey, this is your own treat, this is your own small company without the risks of a true business owner. And here are the metrics that you need to be held to. And it was just amazing, their shift in mindset to be able to say, wow, I’ve got my own business now. You know, I can now hire fire, I can now put strategy in place, I can now control cost more. So again, it helped to elevate the whole company. There was almost like that sense of competition between branch managers.

16:30
Robert M
Yeah. Awesome.

16:31
Robert C
So it was just amazing to see that whole conversation.

16:36
Robert M
And it’s difficult to highlight and share financials if you don’t understand them. So, like, you really do need to know what’s what in order to communicate properly. And the stuff you’re talking about in terms of giving people some responsibility or accountability around getting those numbers to a certain level, I mean, that’s like great game of business type of stuff. I’m not sure if that’s where it kind of was inspired from, but that’s, that’s pretty awesome.

17:00
Robert C
Yeah. And to be able to put some of the bonus system based on those numbers. So back to your point about the education piece. I mean, not only did I as an owner, you have to up my game with understanding the financials. And I think that’s where the peer group I belong to help. They used to challenge me, especially around the balance sheet. But you know, we brought in different experts into the company. You know, people like Greg Crabtree, simple numbers. You know, we brought in some fractional CFOs into our company and again, that allowed my team to again grasp the numbers, ask questions, trust other people coming into the company, rather than just hearing from my business partner.

17:42
Robert M
And I, yeah, there was a saying I heard, I can’t remember when it doesn’t matter, but you’re never a prophet in your own land. And it’s like getting some outside professionals to come share insights with folks.

17:54
Robert C
Yeah. Because when they heard, you know, especially I remember one time in particular, Greg Crabtree came in and he Said, yeah, this is what you’re, you know, you’re making. I think it was at a time, 6 or 7% net profit. And he said, yeah, you guys aren’t making much money. And the guys are saying, well, we thought you guys were making money.

18:16
Robert M
Yeah, and you need a bigger boat.

18:18
Robert C
And the way. Yeah. And the way Greg explained it, he said, yeah, pretty much 5% is life support. 5% is what it takes for you to reinvest in your company, especially if you’re going through a growing phase. So he said, minimum, it should be 10%. You know, you should be building your budgets based on, you know, 10% as being that baseline. So it. It just really opened up the eyes of my whole management team. They were able to see, oh, that light bulb moment finally came on, that.

18:50
Robert M
You’Re not just buying yachts left, right and center.

18:53
Robert C
Yeah. I mean, weren’t. We weren’t driving fancy cars or yachts and all that stuff, but so it was actually really relieving to see somebody else come in and them having that light bulb moment.

19:06
Robert M
That’s cool. Well, I think some people are, like, maybe even afraid of the idea of, like, showing them what it is, thinking that it might be more than what people think. But I can tell you from experience, most people think you’re making a lot more than you are.

19:17
Robert C
Yeah.

19:18
Robert M
As a business owner, not to mention the fact that your house is on the line.

19:22
Robert C
I always remember a story that Bruce shared with me. He went to meet this new client for the first time, and the guy said, hey, can you come to the back of my car? And opened up the trunk of the car, and he opened up this old briefcase, and he carefully opened up his financials to show Bruce. So it was almost like this hidden.

19:44
Robert M
Yeah, it’s like something from Pulp Fiction. Right. So you’re gonna start glowing gold. It’s like, what is in this bag? Yeah, that’s cool. Well, and I think it’s like, it’s, you know, the financials tell the story. They don’t lie. It’s the language of business. So being versed in the vocabulary is important for everybody, especially the owner. And if the owner can get it right, sharing with the team is awesome. So margin being a big one, if you’re running at 70%, you’re essentially on life support. And you’re probably. There’s waste somewhere inside the organization. Where do you often see the waste? If someone is operating at that level, where are some maybe bright spots you can highlight for folks? Maybe they can go look, it was Interesting.

20:25
Robert C
I did a big training session with a pretty large company in the east coast and we got into it a little bit. There was some ops people on the team, there were some account managers in the team and we really just took a really simple exercise. So they had, you know, probably easily over 100 trucks. And we should start talking about routing of the trucks. We talk about idling of the trucks, how often they routed. So idling on an average time. And it was amazing. Once we did those calculations, I mean they could have saved easily 100, 150,000 a year just from managing, optimizing routes. Optimizing routes. Looking at clamping down in the idling, monitoring GPS a little bit more, being a little bit tighter by getting the crews out in the morning.

21:21
Robert M
Yeah, so just little, little tweaks, Massive difference.

21:27
Robert C
I mean people look for all these game changing ideas and all these innovations. Yeah, that’s still helpful, but why not start in your own backyard?

21:39
Robert M
Well, and I think that’s a great example of waste, you know, getting started sooner and tighter. Not having trucks idle know tighter route optimization. That’s not rocket science, you know, that is just simple discipline, almost pigheaded discipline, 100% discipline.

21:58
Robert C
If you just take, you know, something coming from the top and then making sure the team have buy in and then just focusing on it for, you know, 60, 90, 120 days and just seeing what, you know, difference you can make and if you’re able to share some of that wealth with their team, then they’ll start buying even more, all the better.

22:20
Robert M
Okay, so then the one thing that, so you brought this up and I think I’ve only had one other person. We’re, we’re not quite at the two 200 plus episodes. I think this is like 70 or something like that. But I think I’ve only had one other person talk about sales in the way you did, but not specifically. So you mentioned that a lot of people don’t have like a sales playbook or they don’t have like a strategy for sales execution. So what does that look like when they’re like that? Just so if people listening to this are like, oh, that’s me, they can identify it. So if I don’t have a sales playbook, what am I doing or not doing?

22:53
Robert C
It probably took us a good year to develop it. But once we built in that rhythm, that discipline, we trained all the team on all the sales metric. I mean, I’ll give you a few examples. You know, we gave all the tools to our I mean, effectively a lot of our people in our team are sales people. So production managers, account managers, business developers, we’re all talking to the same type of people, but we gave them all the tools they needed to be successful. So laptops, you know, WI fi cards. So that when somebody asked us for a proposal, we don’t, we wanted that turned around within half an hour, two hours max, if it’s a bit more complicated and it might take a week or so. But while that prospect was hot, ready to buy, we wanted 100%.

23:52
Robert C
So it wasn’t just a case of giving them a proposal. We built fact sheets as well. So almost like a visual of what the service they were buying. So if they wanted duration, if they wanted overseeding, if they wanted tree work, we came up with a one page, almost like a fact sheet. This is why, this is how, this is when. So you had that visual and you had that one page. So it’s almost like an FAQ as well. So when you had that one pager along with the proposal, I mean our close rate jumped from 20, 30% up into 60, 70%.

24:33
Robert M
So the context behind the numbers.

24:35
Robert C
Yeah, it was massive, absolutely massive.

24:42
Robert M
Why?

24:44
Robert C
What not. Not only are we increased closure rate, we’re having highly satisfied clients, we’re having clients who are seeing, we’re now more proactive. We’re actually investing in properties, we’re interested in properties. You know that was combined with it, were really massive into client budget spreadsheets as well. So when you had the spreadsheets, you had the proposals, you had the pictures, the FAQs, I mean those simple things again, massively changed our growth in our company.

25:25
Robert M
What’s the spreadsheet piece? The budget spreadsheet? What are you referring to?

25:28
Robert C
We had like a 12 month mapped out spreadsheet that they would see so.

25:33
Robert M
You could help them understand what their investment is going to be throughout the year.

25:36
Robert C
Yeah, what month, the costs. So, you know, we all know property managers do a, you know, they do their own budgets.

25:46
Robert M
Yeah.

25:46
Robert C
And so this was almost like a plug and play. We were helping them prepare their budget for next year.

25:55
Robert M
Oh, so you gave them like a working template tool, 100% EPIC. I’m assuming at some level you share that with people in your peer groups and the people you’re doing coaching for.

26:09
Robert C
Yeah, they love it. I mean I’ve one company we worked with last year, they’ve seen Almost again, within 9, 9 months they’ve seen 5, 7% increase in enhancement sales just using that tool. Alone.

26:31
Robert M
And you’re talking to the same people.

26:32
Robert C
Work to get there. Yeah. But once you. You get, you know, that flywheel going.

26:39
Robert M
Yeah. The behavior is getting grained. So you take whatever six months to a year to get the whole thing good to go, and then you just start building into your process.

26:47
Robert C
Yeah. And that touches you. Circling back to the people part. You know, you have to have the right people to be able to deliver the message, build those client relationships, propose those spreadsheets, propose the, you know, the actual proposals.

27:02
Robert M
Yeah.

27:03
Robert C
So you have to have the right type of people who are in that. That growth mindset, that buy into that whole sales culture. Culture.

27:12
Robert M
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, and the thing I love about it, too, is because, like, you’re actually just giving people an opportunity to make their lives better. They could say no. Like, oftentimes so many people are just like, I don’t want to bring that to people. I don’t want to be a pushy salesperson. And like, I asked this of groups, you know, hundreds, if not thousands of people. How would you define a salesperson? And the common adjectives are, like, you know, sleazy, you know, verbose, talkative, pushy. And so, like, when. When people think that’s the way a salesperson is, they don’t want to be that person. And so, like, helping people see that, you know, problem solver, listener, consultant, helper, expert, you know, like they’re. Yeah, exactly.

27:59
Robert M
We always talk about the idea of sales isn’t between you and the prospects between you and your parents.

28:03
Robert C
Right.

28:03
Robert M
You know, so many people are messed up between their ears. Well, it’s tough though, right? You ask your dad how much he makes on the dinner table, he smacks upside the head, says, none of your business. Or like, you got, you know, people telling you, don’t talk to strangers. So, you know, I can see how it gets muddled. Hey, that’s cool. I mean, that’s just a great example of sales execution. Anything about, like, getting foot through the door, like, if people are looking at, like, a lot of people we talk to, and we’ve got a couple of approaches that we share with folks that. That can work really well. But from your point of view, if you’re.

28:34
Robert M
If you’re trying to get your foot in the door and take or get a new account, it’s an interesting sales process because 999 times out of a thousand, they have somebody, and if they’re. If they’re looking to switch, it’s usually because they need to get their price down or someone Messed up. So then from your experience growing from 0 to 20 million to 50 years or 15 years, what were you doing with your team to get feet into doors?

29:04
Robert C
So you probably wouldn’t like me seeing this, Rob, but we didn’t do any advertising whatsoever.

29:11
Robert M
No, for commercial sales we recommend going to knock on doors and actually give people food. But that’s a different thing.

29:17
Robert C
Yeah, we, you know, it’s all about relationships and network. So we.

29:21
Robert M
Right, so how did you get your guys to go do it? Like what was the, what were the activities they would go do?

29:27
Robert C
We would, you know, join committees on some of their big associations. If mom boma. We would take part in all the industry events, the fun events. Probably one of our biggest events which was a lot of fun but a lot of hard work was the Phoenix Open. You know, we had a box in 16th home and we spent about, oh, I don’t even know how much we spent 50, 60,000 on that between entertainment, but clients or prospects used to love coming to that. We would partner up with other industry vendors, security companies, janitorial companies. A lot of them would have similar target clients.

30:13
Robert M
Right. But non competitive network.

30:15
Robert C
We’d have joint events with them. So everything possible to try and find out if we had the target person. We had a list of our top 50 flagship properties that we wanted to go after every year.

30:29
Robert M
Top 50 list. That’s a note for anybody listening to this on the commercial side.

30:32
Robert C
Top 50 list, top 50 list. And then we just ground down and figured out how do we get into that property? Who is the manager, who’s the assistant, who are they connected with? How do I work my way through my network to get to that person? I get noticed. Is there some special gift I can send or some way I can get noticed? So were like, we always were thinking outside the box how to get names out there. We leverage my Scottish heritage. All, all our events we had kilts.

31:09
Robert M
That stands out.

31:11
Robert C
So whatever way we could do to stand out and get noticed, it ended up with people actually coming to us.

31:19
Robert M
Yeah, it’s badass. So I mean like you, I guess, what do you say? Like relationships grease the wheels of commerce, right? So and the events even and partnering with janitorial security companies, like that’s not a lot of people are doing that, put on co events or just even having like a, a monthly networking group where you’re trying to figure out how you guys can help each other. That’s 100%.

31:45
Robert C
I mean we looked after a lot of the Class AB office buildings. So, you know, when you think about it, we’re doing the outside and then jaratories cleaning the offices, and then securities, a little bit of both. So one way or another, between our connections, our network, we’re going to know who’s managing that property. It may start off with the assistant manager. I think they’re a hidden gem.

32:12
Robert M
Because no one really goes after them, but they still actually know how everything works.

32:15
Robert C
They’re doing the attention, they’re doing all the hard work. Give them a little bit of love to the meta lunch. They’re obviously they’re eventually going to become property managers. And I look back at my network now back in Phoenix, and a lot of these assistants I used to deal with, they’re now, you know, regional managers. They’re now looking after large portfolios.

32:40
Robert M
Right. So how did a Scotsman survive summers in Arizona?

32:45
Robert C
A lot of time in the pool, worrying the bottom.

32:51
Robert M
That’s great. It’s. I mean, I’ve only been there in the winter. I don’t even think I’d want to go in the summertime. All right, cool. You know, this people thing is obviously a big part of it. And we talked about misplaced loyalty, flying blind, and no sales execution, but we didn’t get to the wrong people, wrong seats. I know you’ve alluded to it in a couple of different times, and it’s been pretty consistent with everything you’re talking about. But if there’s one last kind of nugget to help people think about getting people in the right seats, doing the right stuff, right people, right seats. You know, what would you say to a group listening to you right now?

33:23
Robert C
Two things. You know, really refresh your org chart just to see who’s in it right now. Evaluate and look for any gaps or overhead overlap. And then I use a really amazing tool, and I actually learned it through Vern with scaling up. There’s the talent assessment, which I, I what’s one of the first things I do when I go into a company? I’ll pull that talent assessment sheet and I’ll look for the A, B and C players. And it’s pretty telling. Pretty telling. And what one in particular, you know, I work with a large pool company. They build, you know, 500 pools a year. And when I first started working with them three years ago, I would see all the people that were sitting in that C player level are now elsewhere.

34:20
Robert M
And that’s no coincidence.

34:25
Robert C
No, no. Companies having record growth, record profits.

34:33
Robert M
I’m pretty sure the talent is it, the who, what when?

34:40
Robert C
No, no, it’s a, it’s like a four quadrant chart and I mean I could send it to you if you send out any links or any type of, you know, attachments to your.

34:58
Robert M
Yeah, I was just trying to figure out the scaling up because they usually do give away some decent resources and that one is familiar to me. I just can’t find it on here.

35:07
Robert C
Yeah, I’ve adapted it slightly but it’s, isn’t it really simple but effective tool?

35:15
Robert M
Yeah. So then can you just take a quick second and break it down for people so they understand then maybe if they want to reach out to you, they can grab the tool and we’ll go to that in a second. But how does it work?

35:24
Robert C
The Y axis, you’re looking at how productive they are. They’re coming in, working super hard, head down every day and the X axis is how they’re living the core values, you know, if they’re got integrity, if they’re artists, if they’re, you know, all the different core values. So if they’re scoring high in both areas then they’re probably going to be sitting in that A box and then if they’re deficient in one way or another, they’re probably sitting in A, B or C level. So the people that are sitting into that lower sea level, they’re the ones you really have to carefully evaluate and determine, you know, is it worth the effort into coach and developing them or do I find a place in another company for them?

36:13
Robert M
Yeah, that’s cool. You’ve obviously. Oh yeah, eo, we talked, we didn’t get a chance to go into this quickly. I, I, I feel an obligation to share EO with more entrepreneurs because it’s had such an impact on my life. Very, very significant. I actually moved my family to Costa Rica for two years because of connections through eo got to, you know, be introduced to scaling up and start to learn what I believe some definition of strategy is and has been me massively impactful. Also getting to meet a bunch of people that, you know, run companies and suffer the challenges and you know, reap the rewards very similarly. So kind of finding a tribe. But going through your LinkedIn profile quickly before this, I saw that you were a graduate from EMP or the Entrepreneurial Master’s program.

37:03
Robert M
Can you speak a little bit about like your experience with EO and how it’s helped? Robert?

37:10
Robert C
Yeah, 15 years ago, again it was life changing for me, not only for my business but also my family, personal life just that forum experience with being able to have that environment where if you are going through challenges with your family, personal business, to have that closed forum, to be able to share that with them and be that release. Sometimes if you’re going through some tough times. I went through that tough time when I was thinking about selling. There was multiple times I shared some of the challenges I had and they were an amazing resource. So not only did you have that forum experience, but there’s state events, you’ve got regional events, you’ve got global events. I’ve traveled the world and met some amazing people in my network. And I think you said it in one word a minute ago, Rob. Was that tribe?

38:04
Robert C
I feel as though they’re my tribe and I could reach out whatever circumstance I’m in and know I’ve got hundreds, thousands of people behind me.

38:15
Robert M
Yeah. Like there’s like this unwritten rule about EOers. If you call up an EO or they answer and it doesn’t even matter where in the world or how well you know them or even at all. Yeah, yeah. So definitely worthwhile checking out. It’s eonetwork.org if anybody’s interested. Okay. Robert, if someone wants to check out Wilson360 talking about peer groups, coaching, consulting, how do they best reach out to you guys?

38:37
Robert C
Yeah, if they go to the website wilson-360.com we have all the different services in there. You’ve got the people to connect with in there and you can check out who our experts on the team. But check that out. So you can go to visit me, Robert clinking beard on LinkedIn as well.

38:52
Robert M
So very cool. And then there’s the Commercial Landscaper podcast.

38:56
Robert C
Commercial Landscaper podcast again. Just, just look online. We’re on all the different channels. We have a show that’s released every single week. I think, Rob, yours is coming up here pretty soon as well. So excited to get you out there as well.

39:10
Robert M
Well, we’ll definitely have to share it with this audience, that’s for sure. It was, it was a pleasure to do it and it’s nice to have you on the other side of it for this one. So thank you for doing this. Robert. Was there one last piece you wanted to mention a ago?

39:20
Robert C
One last of pieces. Say that again.

39:22
Robert M
There was just something I thought that you had that you wanted to share, but it’s okay. I got one more question for you.

39:29
Robert C
One more question or one more, I suppose, piece of advice? I mean, I think just reach. The landscape industry is such a great industry that people are more than happy to. To share their experiences and their. Their wealth of knowledge. Reach out to people industry. They’re happy to. Happy to share and help you through some of the challenges. And don’t hide your challenges. Just be open and honest and people were willing to jump in and help.

39:59
Robert M
And it’s amazing because it’s like, I’m not sure if it’s unique to landscaping, but it’s unique in my experience of, like, how open everybody is to sharing, even in, like, a local environment. I think it’s pretty special. So last one then, before you go. Author, speaker that has hit you and you’re just like, aha. That you think people should check out.

40:19
Robert C
Wow.

40:22
Robert M
I know there’s a bunch, but just.

40:23
Robert C
One of those great book. Who. Not how. I forgotten the. I think the author was he at the mp. He was. That book hadn’t come out yet, but again, it’s all about.

40:44
Robert M
Oh, it’s teacher coach.

40:47
Robert C
Strategic coach. Yes.

40:48
Robert M
What’s Dan.

40:53
Robert C
Dan Sullivan.

40:54
Robert M
That’s it. There you go.

40:55
Robert C
Dan Sullivan. Yeah. Who. Not how. Again, all about the network. Who, you know, how they can help you connect those dots.

41:03
Robert M
Yeah. You don’t have to figure everything else yourself out yourself. You know, it’s not figuring out what you need to know. Maybe it’s sometimes just who you need to know and who can help you do it. Right.

41:10
Robert C
Yeah. It’s not. You don’t necessarily have to reinvent the wheel. Probably been there, somebody’s done that, tried it, and either been successful or failed miserably.

41:20
Robert M
Yeah. That’s awesome. Well, thank you again for. For doing this, Robert. Really appreciate having you on. With all experience you’ve had, you know, helping people literally get past this primary growth constraint in so many different ways. And everybody else for listening. Thanks for listening to another episode of the I Am Landscape Pro podcast.

41:35
Robert C
Cool. Thank you.