Financial Strategies in the Green Industry with David Whittaker

Rob Murray (00:31)
Everybody welcome back to another episode of the I Am Landscape Growth podcast. Today I have an amazing guest, Dave Whitaker. Thank you so much for being on the show.

David Whittaker (00:41)
Man, thank you, Rob. I’m excited to be here and it’s been fun cutting up, leading up to this. So I’m excited to get it on your podcast.

Rob Murray (00:53)
Awesome. thank you. Dave is a president of Equuscape Business Advisors and has been in the green industry for a couple of years. I want to say a better part of three decades of industry experience.

David Whittaker (01:08)
that’s true. And I think that’s probably the most intriguing part of the relationships that I have with my clients is I’m not a convert green hat accountant that has leaned into the green industry. I’m a green industry guy that started behind the lawnmower and worked my way up through the ranks and 10 recessions and learning things the hard way and

learning what works, what doesn’t work. And ultimately into my 50s have decided to ⁓ share that knowledge with the rest of the industry and having a great time doing it.

Rob Murray (01:48)
Awesome, man. I mean, it’s one of the best industries in the world. At least it’s the best one we’ve found over the years. We’ve been doing it for 20. And one of the things I just love about having a guest like you on is the is the vast experience. Not only were you in it and behind the wheel, but you also have an opportunity to work with a bunch of different clients in bunch of different parts of the country and in bunch of different businesses. And so that perspective of breadth, a lot of people, they’re entrepreneurs, they have an opportunity to share.

and learn from others, like still they’re really focused on the one business. having someone like you come in, I think it’s super cool. So why don’t you give us a Coles notes of that lawnmower start to how you ended up doing this thing. You kind of alluded to it quickly there and then just give us a quick little rundown of like what the core focus is over at ⁓ Equuscape.

David Whittaker (02:34)
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, Rob, essentially my story is no different than many other folks in the green industry. I was 16 years old looking for a first job and luckily enough, I’ve been truly blessed to bat a thousand with the green industry companies I’ve worked for. And Gibbs Landscape, who many people know is a preeminent landscape firm in the country. ⁓ Jim Gibbs, Gibbs Gardens in North Georgia.

is a well-known guy down in the southeast and nationwide with the green industry. I started there at 16, know, pulling weeds, being taught how to run a walk behind and all that kind of stuff, getting through high school. And then ⁓ to your point, the abridged version, ⁓ I transitioned from that. I fell in love with it and fallen into the hands of Post Properties, which was a $2 billion real estate investment trust.

It just so happens that my first job was the best landscape company in the Southeast. And all of a sudden now I’m in the hands of probably the best landscape ⁓ in-house division anywhere in the country at the time. they started Post Properties was a multifamily housing ⁓ developer that had properties all over the country. And they decided that landscape was going to become their key marketing tool.

that in order to create, they wanted to change the way that people saw the apartment business. So they utilize landscape to create that Disney-esque luxury ⁓ feel and it worked. So to the point that they changed their logo of this $2 billion company to a tulip. So I was fortunate enough to get in at about the mid-range. It was well-established. They were well on their way.

Rob Murray (04:16)
Epic.

David Whittaker (04:30)
And I was the youngest ⁓ guy on the leadership team ⁓ to ⁓ kind of transition into that next big phase. And I was fortunate enough to work there for the better part of a decade. And then they might like many stories, they went public and the board of directors had different ideas about how that would look. The landscape division in particular.

Rob Murray (04:55)
Okay.

David Whittaker (04:58)
And so I pivoted to where I would spend the next 20 years up until, you know, just last year even ⁓ to a high end, you know, landscape firm in Atlanta. And we wound up bartering the deal to take over all of the post properties properties in the Atlanta market because we weren’t national. ⁓ So as they transitioned away from landscape, I was fortunate enough to, to spearhead the

acquisition of all of those landscape properties in the Atlanta market. And it was quite the adventure. So yes, to Rob, to your point, man, I’m leaving out a lot, but you know, I went from Gibbs landscape to ⁓ post properties ⁓ to a high-end landscape firm in Atlanta for 20 years. And the really, probably the biggest takeaway is during that span of time over the past

two decades. I spent an incredible amount of time with Frank Ross, who many people consider the industry’s leading ⁓ advisors. He is more of a construction ⁓ advisor is how he started, but he immediately gravitated to some of the largest major players in the green industry and does such a fantastic job of it. works with ⁓ Jeff Harkness. ⁓ He is

Rob Murray (06:13)
Right.

David Whittaker (06:26)
one of the three prongs of the Three Point Group based in Atlanta. Frank is based out of Chicago. So I spent 20 years training under the industry’s arguably ⁓ best ⁓ landscape consultant and ⁓ have no regrets.

Rob Murray (06:29)
Right.

Here you are.

Amazing. And so what’s the, what’s the main focus of Equascape?

David Whittaker (06:47)
Yeah. And thank you for asking that because there’s a lot of people out there look at consulting firms that they try to be the jack of all trades. They’re trying to be everything to everybody. And by seeking people like Frank ⁓ and other industry peers, ⁓ we all made a decision together of what my future would look like and really hone in to provide services based on my strengths.

And so Rob, essentially what I do is hyper-focus on the ⁓ financial side of the company. And of course we can have just an incredible amount of operational conversations. I have them all the time. At the same time, the core function is ⁓ to harvest data through a myriad of landscape softwares, ⁓ hijacking it from

their QuickBooks account or whatever accounting service they use and bring it all together into a ⁓ format that they can understand. ⁓ Profit Center reporting, macro data, micro data, and essentially, you know, starting on the 15th of the month as they close out, I’m a busy guy, you know. So we extract all their data, put it in a ⁓ way that they can understand it to where they can make decisions based on real-time data.

Rob Murray (08:10)
Yeah.

David Whittaker (08:12)
⁓ flexible forecasting and re forecasting. And so essentially, I’m a fractional CFO. So I, I’m a chief financial officer that they can actually afford.

Rob Murray (08:22)
Amazing.

Right. And which is true, right? Because a lot of people don’t know necessarily how big they need to be to get one something like someone like you with your expertise and making it accessible to a larger set of clients in the industry is amazing. So we’re going to get into a lot of the financial opportunities, I will say, that people can probably start to look at. But before I do, the one question that we leave this whole thing with is, what’s the primary growth constraint you see holding entrepreneurs back in the green industry?

David Whittaker (08:55)
In the grain industry in particular, and quite frankly, the trade industry, any skilled trade, it’s gonna be people right now. And I know that’s a little bit of a strange answer coming from a guy that is leaned on for financial wisdom. But quite frankly, in the world that we live in, we’re in a crunch with talented labor.

and people willing to enter the landscape market ⁓ to make it a career. So we’re all just like you, we’re all working very hard to reignite that fire to capture that next generation of budding professionals to onboard with these companies and understand that this is a fantastic industry. You can make an excellent living doing it. ⁓

It’s definitely going to be people.

Rob Murray (09:56)
Yeah, okay. That’s cool. And so from your experience over the years, working with larger companies now working with a number of different clients, ⁓ do you see anybody like doing a good job of building a pipeline and bench strength and having people, you know, fill the key roles inside the organizations?

David Whittaker (10:14)
Absolutely. In fact, you know, there are different ways that people approach, ⁓ you know, this challenge. as advising, you know, several companies, everybody attacks a little bit of a different way. And for the most part, all of them work. It just depends truly, Rob, on what their long game is. Are they trying to scale for resale? Or are they trying to scale for solely profit?

And those are really two different things because on one hand, you know, some companies will literally downsize. They will sell off assets that they can’t manage because of the labor shortage. So they’ll actually, they’ll actually, you know, take in value to ease cash flow and things of that nature. They’ll, they’ll cut out outlier properties.

to further streamline and actually get rid of the… That’s right, know, they’re less profitable properties. So in an essence, Rob, they’re taking the challenge that they face and they’re actually ⁓ saying, hey, I can manage this with the amount of people that we’re capable of getting on board with the structure that we currently have. And we’re going to do it in a…

Rob Murray (11:13)
Yeah, like prune the bush.

David Whittaker (11:35)
in a fantastic way. We’re going to maximize margins with what we can do. ⁓ The total other opposite end of the spectrum are people that are like, hey, no, that’s not an option. Entrepreneurs, they want to grow. Their curiosity is constantly aroused. They need to be challenged. So the downsizing option is more of a temporary thing.

⁓ more for the person that is hyper focused on just the bottom line at all times. Whereas you’ve met them and they’re my client. Man, the ones that you have to pull the reins back on, those are the ones you have to watch out for. That’s where the great ideas come from. And so those people, will overextend themselves and add overhead in order to create an environment where they can actually achieve

Rob Murray (12:14)
Thanks

David Whittaker (12:29)
the level of performance they’re looking for. And one of the ways they do that is they hire a talent management director full time. in our industry, it’s such a hard commitment to make because overhead is somewhat of a bad word, right? And so at the same time, Rob, in order to achieve the revenue goals that you’re trying to achieve and the growth goals that you’re trying to achieve, you have to have… ⁓

Rob Murray (12:37)
Mm.

David Whittaker (12:58)
the human asset driving that ship, right? So the investment of a talent management director for a company that is of enough size and scale to be able to afford it will pay for itself time and time again. You just have to attach that value to the human asset that’s driving the dollars and the profits. to your point, yeah. Yeah, to your point, how do they achieve that? It’s their full-time job. So

Rob Murray (13:16)
Well, I didn’t… No, no, go for it.

David Whittaker (13:26)
What do they do? They go out and they create internship programs so they start recruiting at the college level at all of the horticulture programs and and those sorts of things. And that’s a nationwide thing. They immediately become members of of now you know and and they’re able to utilize those those resources to to reach out to schools nationwide ⁓ to attract the the industry’s greatest up and coming talent as they.

are working through school. They’re already vested in the industry. ⁓ so creating a relationship early with those students to try to court them essentially to come work for you when they graduate is the name of the game. And as much as I don’t want to make a University of Tennessee reference, know, football coach back in the day made the comment that recruitants like shaving. If you don’t do it all the time, you’re going to look ugly. in the, yeah.

Rob Murray (14:22)
Ha!

David Whittaker (14:25)
And so in the people business, that is exactly the case. You have to be recruiting all the time. You have to have, you know, boots on the ground and advertisements out there and creating interest to generate. You’re essentially advertising ⁓ for the human asset as much as you are for earning new business.

Rob Murray (14:48)
Well, it’s really sorry. First of all, I have to write down this quote verbatim. I’m going to make a note. It’s at 14 minutes inside this recording because the idea that if you don’t record recruiting is like shaving. If you don’t do it all the time, you’re going to look ugly is magical.

David Whittaker (14:54)
Yep.

And it was Philip,

Philip Fullmer. Again, I hate, I hate to quote him.

Rob Murray (15:04)
Yeah, I won’t say what his profession is when we quote him. ⁓ Anyway, that’s magic because it’s so true. And it’s really interesting you say that too, because we have a client out in ⁓ West Coast and he’s built these relationships with even like high schools in their local area and community colleges and goes to job fairs, gets involved in communities, throws parties, always looking to meet people. ⁓

curious, like introducing himself everywhere he can. And over the last four years, five years, I guess, it’s 2021, if you include this year, has had a wait list for people looking to get a gig. And this is during a time like in 2021, it was probably the worst in terms of trying to find people to come like people would, you know, sign an appointment agreement and then not show up to their first day. It was it was kind of bananas.

And this person had no issue whatsoever because they were doing a lot of stuff with like handshakes and building relationships. And he would even say that he was spending like 20, 25 % of his time looking for people. And then one of the things you just said there, so just trying to articulate, you know, the message you said about this internships and co-ops and partnerships. Definitely. It doesn’t have to be at a national scale too. It could be local. But then you said something that’s really interesting about, you know, you’re always recruiting like shaving like

But it’s like you’re looking for clients, but this is you’re looking for team and the recruitment approach with like, I’m always marketing to find team members is very similar to the recruitment approach or the customer acquisition approach to marketing and sales. But a lot of people miss that. And so there was, there was kind of two things I want to touch on on that idea. One is a, if you’ve listened to David and what he said, it’s correct. Like if we’re recruiting all the time, we will find good people. ⁓ but when it comes to the finances and you look at

budget lines for say marketing, budget lines for recruiting. What do see?

David Whittaker (17:06)
So that is a fantastic question. And I’m very glad you asked because in my world, you’re trying to substantiate every ledger code, right? You’re trying to quantify what each of those pieces mean that doesn’t involve fuel and it doesn’t involve, you know, the people in boots on the ground generating a dollar. So advertising dollars,

Different companies treat it different ways. And the best way I’ve ever seen it done is that they will tie a direct percentage and they will commit to that percentage month in and month out, regardless, Rob, of how the last month went, because they believe in the process. They believe in the program and they understand that, you know,

starting a process in 2001 or 2021 is going to pay dividends in 2025. So advertising is such a multi-pronged and important piece, which is why you’re in it. You are so crucial to the industry is that if they were to commit to a set percentage and they can certainly call me and I’ll be glad to have a conversation with them to help support your cause is

You can tie dollars directly, especially if you do a great job of tracking where calls or interest is coming from so that you can really dial in your marketing strategy. Rob, you should treat your marketing strategy as a dual pronged attack on clients and personnel at the exact same time. So why would you, why would you create a

Rob Murray (18:51)
Love it.

David Whittaker (18:56)
⁓ a situation where you’re not utilizing your current campaign to do both. That doesn’t make sense. So I’m sure you can speak to the fact that for even if it required a few extra dollars, why not involve people and associates in your advertising campaign as you’re attacking the market for, know, clientele, you really should involve people.

and make darn sure that you mention your people as a part of, and who doesn’t enjoy as a client watching an advertisement or listening to an advertisement where you put your staff on a pedestal. mean, that’s where the connection is gonna happen ultimately anyway. Who’s gonna be showing up at my front door? I see pretty pictures. I see beautiful landscape, but I see a lot of that.

What’s different about you and what’s different about your company and companies that are highly successful are those that invest heavily in it on their team, you know, through training and things like that. And they mark, they market that on, on a, on a consistent basis.

Rob Murray (20:03)
Yeah.

Yeah,

that’s awesome. Because I couldn’t agree more with what you’re saying in terms of marketing recruiting kind of going out at the same time in the same way. But one of the things we found, so we did an analysis of 150 landscape businesses across Canada and the USA. And the average marketing spend was 0.7 % of revenue. I think it’s difficult to say that there is one percentage that fits every business because I think it’s

different sizes, you need different dollars. Like if you’re a $10 million business, 2 % is 200 grand. That’s a good marketing budget, especially if you’re not like, you know, multi-state or national. $10 million in a local marketplace with 200 grand, you could dominate for a really long time. If you’re a million dollar company and you spend 2%, you spend $20,000, you could probably start to lay some foundational pieces. And if you’re a $5 million company and you’re spending 2%, it’s $100,000. That might actually be a bit too much.

So, you know, 2%, I think is a decent starting point, but it’s not necessarily a catch all for everybody. ⁓ but what I do see though, is that it’s, it’s, it’s vastly under budgeted. But the reason I’m bringing this up is because we haven’t had the opportunity to see people’s, recruiting budgets. And one of the things that we found really fascinating and we would hear this a while back and it’s kind of shifted a little bit of late in terms of before it was like, we can’t get people to do the jobs that are coming through our door.

We’re here a little bit more now. It’s like, I still need more leads. Like I’m booked out till November, but I’m not booked out till April. So leads is definitely something that people want to consider. However, in the same breath, people will be like, well, even if I did land a bunch, I’m not sure if I have the crews to be able to support what I’m actually trying to do. ⁓ but one of the things that clicked for me a while ago is the idea that, okay, one customer, if your average deal size is say 60 K, that customer’s worth 60 K maybe twice over say a five, six year timeframe, a team member.

especially a lead is probably worth 600 grand a year in terms of what they can manage in terms of revenue. And so when I think about the math around what a customer’s worth versus what a good team member’s worth to a business, and it looks disproportionately more valuable for a good team member, but I don’t see people’s recruitment budgets matching that. What do you see on the recruitment side?

David Whittaker (22:25)
Exactly that. mean, it’s like you and I, we’re long lost brothers because as you describe it, that’s exactly what I see. You know, it’s a disproportionate, you know, use of their dollars. And so if they can see, and this is the way I explain it to my clients that are having trouble on the personnel side. The spend is relative to the outcome, right? But really the spend needs to be directed

where it needs to go. You need a company like Intrigue and you need to have a relationship with a guy like Rob in order to direct that attention to the places it needs to go and through your data and analytics, tell them what’s been successful based on whatever their campaign is, right? So in the same regard, now have the conversation back with me as a data guy from the numbers side. Rob, the very first thing I do when I take on a new client,

Rob Murray (23:13)
yeah, 100%.

David Whittaker (23:24)
is talk about their prior business. How have they been doing business up to this point and what got them here? And the first thing we do is we look at their, because everybody is so concerned about EBITDA score and that sort of thing. We look at their reoccurring maintenance, right? That’s where the value is. That’s where ultimately you’re gonna, you know, that’s where the name Equiscate comes from, equitable value in your landscape business, right? So.

Rob Murray (23:47)
Nice.

David Whittaker (23:49)
We look at their churn rate or their turnover over the course of however many years of data I have. And for most of those companies, it’s the first time they’ve ever even measured it. They have an idea. Yeah, they have an idea. But in order for us to be able to properly predict what the next year or two is going to look like, we have to know what that turnover rate is as it relates to their current book of business so that we know how much to sell in order to find gains, right? Guess what?

Rob Murray (24:00)
even looked at it. Sure.

David Whittaker (24:18)
Those companies definitely do not measure their, their personnel turnover rate and what they’re going to find if they start doing that, Rob, they’ll find that the majority, the most companies are the same. The majority of the, the people that they lost, it was in the first 30 days or 60 days. So they need to really focus attention on the onboarding side and the initial training side and the, the courting stage.

Rob Murray (24:23)
Mm.

David Whittaker (24:46)
needs to continue into the honeymoon stage to get them kind of out of that danger zone and that uncomfortable period of transition, right?

Rob Murray (24:54)
Yeah, well, it’s learning.

It’s frustrating. It’s difficult. It’s yeah, it could be overwhelming.

David Whittaker (24:59)
They’re humans. It’s like taking an adult and plunging them into a new school district in middle school. I mean, think about that. Just because you cross the threshold of being an adult doesn’t mean that you don’t have the same types of insecurities around new people and new environments and things of that nature. So having a good ⁓ established transition set of people that are very deliberate

about taking those people by the hand, so to speak, putting them with your best supervisor. You know, the biggest mistake in the personnel business I’ve ever seen, Rob, is when you take what you think is an all-star and you’re like, we finally hit on one, we’re gonna transition them as fast as we can so they can run this route because it’s really struggling. So what do you do? You put them on the route with your worst supervisor.

that ultimately you have tagged as somebody you’re either going to transition away because that route struggling or they’re going to demote and that sort of thing. So what do you do? Yeah, man. So what do you do? You take this great person and you put them on your worst team. So their first experience with your company is just not a good one. so you explain it to them and they understand the concept of what you’re…

Rob Murray (26:03)
Find another spot in the bus, yeah.

Reasonably, they get

it.

David Whittaker (26:23)
But at the end of the day, they’re…

Rob Murray (26:25)
but they’re emotionally

drained, frustrated, being modeled the poor, the wrong way.

David Whittaker (26:28)
That’s right.

That’s right. And no different than you said, commit to the percentage and carry out the marketing campaign the same way needs to be treated as you recruit and transition associates that first couple of three months, because if you can commit to that, you’re going to get past those danger zones. And there’s a series of them, you know, the first 30 days, first 60 days, 90 days, Rob.

Statistically, if you can get them past that 60 to 90 day mark, chances are they’re going to stick around for a good while. And if you don’t, if you don’t do that, you’re going to wind up hiring and rehiring that same individual’s position maybe three or four times during that period. So which of those options makes the most sense? I mean, it’s a pretty easy choice.

Rob Murray (27:02)
Yeah, that’s amazing.

Yeah, that’s cool.

So, and so then when you’re working with clients and in your experience over the last, you know, whatever many years, ⁓ and you look at, you know, ⁓ leaders and entrepreneurs, owners of businesses, leadership teams that have successfully onboarded a bunch of folks and built great teams. ⁓ is there one or two that come to mind that you could share, not necessarily your names, but just some, like a, ⁓ an anecdote about the mentality or the mindset of the leader in terms of like, what makes them.

think and act in a way that onboards and treats people in a way that develops them and turns them into like where they believe they can have a career.

David Whittaker (27:54)
I’ll be honest with you and I have no problem mentioning names or companies because this individual is a very good friend of mine and the company is a well established national company that is not a client of mine, but I have no problem bragging on him. ⁓ Steve Favre is a very high level guy with Rupert down here in the Atlanta area. He and I have done the same job essentially and been on the same recruiting path for

Rob Murray (28:01)
Mm.

Yes.

David Whittaker (28:22)
the majority of our careers. And there are a few people as good as him in the business. And if you want to continue this conversation, you should do the next one with him. Yeah, but Steve has done a fantastic job of establishing a good program that works over time. But I think at the end of the day, what you’re going to find, what’s different about Steve versus these other companies that try to replicate the same program and are less successful.

Rob Murray (28:31)
I would love to.

David Whittaker (28:51)
Rob, actually cares. know, he’s as old or older than I am, and he’s been doing it for the past 30 years at some capacity. The reason he’s still involved even, he probably has grown out of it professionally, is because he truly cares. He truly cares about the individual. He truly cares about ⁓ them being comfortable in the transition phase and learning and growing and all of that sort of thing. So…

You just can’t be disingenuous about it. You can’t run it. ⁓ you know, you can’t just be a coach that cracks open the playbook and says, Hey, take this home and learn it. then, you know, everybody let’s get together on Friday and figure out how to win a ball game. He, he, you’ve got to be a coach that’s, that’s actively involved, that truly cares open door policy, you know, Hey, anytime you need to come in, let’s talk about life. You know, how’s mom and them.

you know, are the kids doing? Talk to me about, you know, what I can do outside of just the nine to five, which in our world is more like, you know, six to eight. ⁓ But what can I do outside of that? Where do you need the most help and truly, truly care about everybody and help them grow into, you know, fine young men and women. And that’s truly where the

Rob Murray (29:58)
Yeah.

David Whittaker (30:14)
there’s a transactional approach that doesn’t work, that’s where you go into the transformational approach. So a transformational approach is probably the short answer to the long-winded answer that I gave.

Rob Murray (30:26)
No, it’s beautiful.

It’s really interesting you say that too, because like I’ve, you know, after doing like a hundred of these interviews and interviewing from like a sales perspective, like probably a thousand plus, you know, leaders, entrepreneurs in the green industry, it’s, it’s, there’s like this pattern that’s emerged. And I don’t think it’s unique to landscape. think it’s really just businesses, but there’s like this, you know, initial, I’m going to start this thing. Oftentimes there’s a chip on the shoulder. And so it’s like, I got to go.

I got to go create my own thing. I got to find a way to make a space for me. And, and there could be a lot of reasons for that. And then like, okay, I’m getting busy. I need some help. I’m going to bring in some people. I don’t know how to recruit, but I need some friends or some people. I’m going to use some job postings and whatever. And then there’s this mentality of like, well, if I want to do it right, I got to do it myself. And so you’ve got some people and some turnover and there’s like, I got one, you know, maybe a unicorn that’s now working with me and we’re gelling and we’re starting to grow. And then it’s like,

Maybe one step back, two steps forward. It’s frustrating. Some people are doing some weird things as a leader. Now I got to like create more clarity so that people understand how to win. get to like two, three, five million. And then at some point I found that there’s this like, like there’s very few companies at 10 million that don’t have a, or bigger that don’t have a mindset of service. Like this leader, this leadership mindset that switches into I’m here to serve all so that they can all serve well.

And I was just curious, like, have you seen people make those transitions? And if, there a tip or two that you can give people if they’re in one of those spots and feel like they want to go to the next spot?

David Whittaker (32:04)
Man, again, it’s divine intervention because what you just said gave me chills because I’m actively watching it happen every day. My clients, as we have more dialogue, as we dig deeper in and start peeling back the layers, it’s not just about the business. It’s about the mindset. So we can talk about numbers and we can really, really do a deep dive there, but Rob, really where it leads to?

Rob Murray (32:13)
Mm.

David Whittaker (32:33)
is why is that happening? Why are we here? Where does that come back to, Rob? It comes back to people, processes, and vision, right? So where does it start and end? With that entrepreneur’s mindset. And so to your point, they have to make a shift away from the transactional side to the transformational side. They need to…

Rob Murray (32:44)
Mm.

David Whittaker (32:59)
So many entrepreneurs, you hit on a point a second ago and I don’t even know if you knew exactly how profound it was. I think there was a time, especially in my generation, that was raised highly competitive and you were taught that the only way to win is to beat out everybody else around you, right? know, win the game. That’s it.

Rob Murray (33:19)
Get to the get on the top of the podium.

David Whittaker (33:24)
And so, and you know what? In a lot of ways that was healthy because it gave you drive and it made you competitive. But I tell you, as I got older and wiser, and I think you would agree, you start to learn that it’s really not about beating out the guy around you. That as the whole sum, we all are more successful if we work together. If we pool our resources.

if we lean on one another, even in the same sandbox, in the same market, you know, to break bread together, you know, every once in a while and talk about our challenges. And you’re going to find in the landscape business, there is an abundance and probably limitless amount of opportunity out there that there’s enough market share for everybody. And so that this stigma of

Rob Murray (33:54)
Mm-hmm.

David Whittaker (34:15)
I’ve got to beat out the guy next to him. I I’m not going to talk to him about how we can pull resources and find our way to the next level. It is ridiculous because what you’re going to find to answer your point, the most successful ones have figured out how to shed that chip on their shoulders, what you said, and now they can relax and stop trying to beat everybody.

Rob Murray (34:37)
Mm.

David Whittaker (34:42)
and start looking around and going, know what, this is a lot more fun when we all work together and we all, you know, sit in the same room and we can change pricing strategies confidently together to…

Rob Murray (34:54)
And you can buy stuff

together and double the amount you buy and get better pricing and increase your margin.

David Whittaker (35:00)
Amen. Amen. And I’m not going to name drop this one. I did hear it. I’m not, I don’t know the personal personally. I don’t know that they want me to re quote it just yet. It’s fresh. But the saying was that the landscape industry has to figure out too, on this personnel thing, how to pay their people more money. So one of the, yeah, we’re not super attractive to some people because it’s dirty, it’s hot and that sort of thing. But

We have got to figure out a way as an entire market to pay people better than just slightly, you know, better than living wages. You know, if you want to attract preeminent talent, there is a side to it where you and I can only be so charming and so transformational to where these people understand that they have to make enough money to…

you know, buy a house to have cars to get kids to practice and get married and those types of things. And unfortunately, sometimes as our market ebbs and flows, field personnel are not living at that level. And so we have to figure out a way as an industry to get together and further empower ⁓ not the middle management piece, but we need to further educate and empower the guys that are the boots on the ground.

Rob Murray (36:08)
Yeah.

David Whittaker (36:24)
We’ve got to find a way to get them more money and that means we have to charge the client more or eliminate middle management to a certain extent. And I know that scares people, but at the same time, the people that are really making the money, the boots on the ground, if you’re having a tough time keeping those guys around, you have a multitude of problems. And one of them is you probably aren’t paying them enough money, which is crazy coming out of a financial guy’s mouth, but it is reality.

Rob Murray (36:50)
Well, it’s also where the business comes to life. You know, it’s that’s where the customer service, that’s where the customer interaction happens. So I think there’s a lot to that. I think that’s actually another episode we could do on it’s entirely on its own. However, I did. There was there was a couple more I want to get to. I know we’re kind of running out of time, but one of the things I’ve seen a lot and it so like we always talk about this idea of like buddy in a bear trap. And so like this idea that people are innately nice and

David Whittaker (37:02)
I think so too.

Rob Murray (37:19)
amicable folks and just like a bunny in a forest, it’s soft and cuddly and couldn’t harm a thing. But then if you put a bear trap around its foot and you try to like help it, it will actually freak its, it’ll freak out. It’ll try to bite you. It might even try to nod its foot or rip it out of the bear trap to try to get away from you. Cause it’s just so freaked out cause it’s feeling so much pain. And so sometimes we’ll see entrepreneurs acting kind of like that in a, in in a weird way. you’re just like, wow, the business looks good. Your team’s awesome. Like what, what is making you

you know, maybe not be the nicest in the way that you’re approaching humans around you. ⁓ And what I’ve learned over the years is that a lot of times entrepreneurs maybe overextend themselves financially with the business. They’re taking more out than, you know, maybe they should quote unquote. Can you speak a little bit to like owner’s pay versus role pay versus size of business?

How much should I be making as an owner regardless of my role? Should I separate the two? Like how does that work? We get, talk about a of people, a lot of people ask this kind of question.

David Whittaker (38:20)
Yeah, that’s a great question. And every client that I have does it a totally different way. You know, some people, some people pay themselves religiously every single week with the rest of their payroll. ⁓ Some people actually do that, but they cut themselves live checks so that they don’t have to cash them immediately if cash flows tight. So they’ll, they won’t do direct deposit. They’ll, they’ll, they’ll have, you know, live checks and then

Rob Murray (38:25)
No.

David Whittaker (38:45)
And the reason I know that is, is as I’m doing the numbers, I’m like, man, something’s funky with salary. And he’s like, well, that’s because I just went and cashed three months worth of paychecks. And it’s like, okay, well that, that makes more sense. Right? So, you know, you have some people that approach it that way. You have some people that just do periodic, ⁓ you know, owner contribution draws, and things of that nature. ⁓ but I will say the most successful companies that I’ve seen out there, Rob pay themselves.

a what you would think, probably not what you would think, you have a pretty good idea what they pay themselves. What the general public might think is much less than they really should be. ⁓ And then at the end of the year, they figure out a way to benefit on a tax basis and that sort of thing. But the best ones I’ve seen, they live within their means and they pay themselves as well as

Rob Murray (39:41)
Mmm.

David Whittaker (39:44)
probably their highest paid associate and to be honest with you and then what they do is they they take the rest of their money and and and set it to work for themselves. know investments and retirement and different places. Obviously ⁓ they they they want to step on the bottom line. They want to take that money and and and move it to places that it’s going to going to work for them. ⁓ But yeah, that country club mentality. I don’t have any current clients that that have that approach.

I do know those people and I know who, you know, that if you want to go to the opposite end of the spectrum that pay themselves an extraordinary amount of money that have country club memberships that they won’t miss a payment on, but they’ll bounce a check. And, you know, so there, there are definitely those extremes out there. ⁓ but the most successful companies that I’ve seen, they’re living in that transformational world. They’re, they’re immersed.

Rob Murray (40:30)
Right.

David Whittaker (40:42)
and attached to their people and the heartbeat of the company starts and ends with them as we were saying. They kind of live in accordance to how the company behaves, how the people are behaving. So as the people go, they go.

Rob Murray (40:58)
Yeah, that’s cool. just find those folks are happy. Or anyway. ⁓ And so then in terms of ⁓ net income and retained earnings as a percentage of budget, it might be different as businesses get bigger. But, you know, I’d say a five million dollar landscape business is probably the largest group of what I would consider entrepreneurs. So the largest segment in the landscape industry is

David Whittaker (41:02)
Yeah.

Rob Murray (41:27)
under $500,000. The next segment is between $500,000 and $1 million. As you go up, gets more rare air. But if you’re running a $5 million shop, what would be a good net income, ⁓ assuming you’re paying yourself market rate for your role? And what should people think about when it comes to retained earnings?

David Whittaker (41:46)
Yeah. So as it relates to net income, you’re referring to their net profit as a company as a whole. Yeah. So just want to make sure people understand you’re not talking about what they’re personally paying themselves. So as it relates to their, their net profit, typically once you reach that, reach that 10 % mark, if you’re in reoccurring maintenance, you’ve kind of reached a really nice spot. It’s really tough to reach that, that, that level.

Rob Murray (41:52)
Yes, that’s correct. Yep. Yep. Yep.

Fair enough.

David Whittaker (42:16)
⁓ when it comes to staying competitive in the market and that sort of thing. You start adding in design build and things of that nature just so that your listeners can kind of comprehend what we’re talking about here. Let’s take ⁓ a reoccurring maintenance business and say 10 % is a really good number. Let’s set it to the side. And then now let’s talk about a design build firm.

I personally manage ⁓ a couple of design bill firms that live in the 25 to 30 % net margin range, which is, man, it’s really strong. And I watch the way they do it. To your point, they kind of overextend themselves a lot of times. And those are the companies that actually pay themselves very modest amounts of money and that sort of thing, because they want to reinvest in their people. know, they’re, pushing those dollars around. ⁓ So that’s not to say that at the end of the year,

Rob Murray (42:46)
Yeah.

David Whittaker (43:08)
that when they file their taxes, it’s 30 % margin, right? But realistically, throughout the course of the year, they can turn those. Well, if you were to kind of marry those two together, depending proportionally on which portion of that is design bill versus reoccurring maintenance, let’s say it’s 50-50, then do the math and you wind up, mean, bullseye type money of a well diversified company.

Rob Murray (43:10)
Right. No.

Yep.

David Whittaker (43:37)
you’re somewhere between that 15 to 20 percent margin and that’s really strong for the green industry.

Rob Murray (43:47)
And if you’re listening to this and you want to maybe learn about how to get to those numbers, how would someone reach out to David Whitaker?

David Whittaker (43:56)
Well, I appreciate the fact that you’re even giving me that opportunity because as you know me, I’m not here for that purpose, but I very, I definitely would love to talk to some of your audience and the best way to get a hold of me, I have to make sure I read my number directly from the piece of paper because my wife says that I use the wrong ⁓ area code numerous times.

Rob Murray (44:04)
I

David Whittaker (44:20)
But but my direct number and and this is the thing Rob that that’s different about me versus the you know full service firms that have bookkeepers and you know training coat, know life coaches and all this stuff I I’m me ⁓ I’m the guy you actually talked to I’m the one that you can call on a cell phone like like an attorney on retainer as I call it ⁓ and I pick up I reply

And we, this is exactly what our monthly meetings look like and sometimes in between. So I strongly encourage anybody out there. give a full hour of my time to do the initial discovery call to just talk like you and I are talk about their business, what their challenges are, what are some of the roadblocks? What are their aspirations? And you’d be amazed at what we can get accomplished in an hour’s time. We just did it in a shorter amount of time. So

Rob Murray (44:56)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Yeah, it was

pretty awesome.

David Whittaker (45:11)
I

encourage anybody if they want to call me directly or text me, you know, if they’re younger generation and they don’t feel comfortable talking on the phone, they want to text, they can do that too. ⁓ The number is 770-685-4700. And in order to get ahold of me, I encourage everybody to go to my website. That’ll really give them a good idea of what the product offering is. I offer flexible fee scheduling to based on you said it.

you know, 500,000 to a million to 3 million to five. So I offer a package to basically any size company out there based on their revenue stream. And I try my best to accommodate them to make it not only affordable and practical, but to make sure that they pay for me within the first quarter. So the markup values that we make adjustments to, ⁓ you know, the slightest little tweaks.

I make sure that they get an immediate return on their investment. mean, that’s the business I’m in. So the proof’s in the pudding. So please go to my website, www.equiscate.co. There’s no on the end. I’m in the financial business. I wasn’t willing to buy that for the extra thousand dollars that it would have cost. So ⁓ that’s why it reads that way. And then obviously you can just email me directly. It’s D Whittaker. ⁓

Rob Murray (46:27)
Yeah.

David Whittaker (46:35)
and then Whitaker, W-H-I-T-T-A-K-E-R at Equascape.co. But start at the website, go from there. I’d love to schedule a call with anybody in your listening audience and spend some time sharing with those guys for an hour or so doing a discovery call. And hopefully from there we can establish a relationship and a partnership and move on from there.

Rob Murray (46:57)
Awesome, man. Appreciate that. Two quick ones before you go. One inspiration, author, speaker. Who would you say that someone should check out?

David Whittaker (47:07)
Actually, let’s see. I made some notes here because I love referring to people. ⁓ Author-wise, ⁓ I didn’t actually write this one down because you’re asking from an inspirational standpoint. ⁓ I’m a big time Christian, as you know. I have a podcast, it’s called Equascape Insider, Grass to Gratitude, where I involve that aspect. Any Christian leader, I strongly encourage people to kind of lean on.

I’m old school, so Billy Graham is a big influence that I trust had the right meaning behind what they were doing and motivation. But current day, as far as learning things, I’ve noticed in our industry, Rob, that most people have a very short attention span. so, I believe his name is…

Gordon. It’s the Energy Bus, ⁓ that series of books. I’m gonna have to look up his name real quick for you. ⁓ But I believe John Gordon. It is Gordon. So the Energy Bus, those series of books are such easy reads and simple but profound messages to where if you order a series, and I highly recommend this because they’re very quick reads,

Rob Murray (48:15)
John Gordon.

David Whittaker (48:33)
order an entire series of books that John Gordon recommends and read them in the order he recommends because each one of them kind of stacks one on top of the other. And ⁓ that’s a really good one and really simple. If you really want to get more complex and less motivating, I did write one down because I thought you might ask is the book Traction is a really tough one to navigate through.

Rob Murray (48:43)
Awesome.

Well,

it’s like a manual.

David Whittaker (49:00)
It’s a manual. So I recommend that to really any level of entrepreneur, but I will say, and you can attest it’s a tough read, you know, for a beginner if you don’t read a lot. But to your point, if you treat it like a manual, take notes, try not to read it all in one sitting, use it as as a something, a reference point to your point. Um, and then, you know, there, there are a lot of stuff out of the verne harness. I wrote down a scaling up.

⁓ You’re nodding like you know, that’s he does a good job of doing some short blurbs out there for your younger audience that has a short attention span. But I highly recommend reading books because it forces you into a place where you’re not just using that time to read a book. You’re really it’s an introspective moment. So try to try to you know, you can watch your short videos, you know, for a lot of your days and that sort of thing for entertainment value.

But when it comes to educational value, read books, sit down, give yourself that quiet time. It’s therapeutic and educational all the same. Yep.

Rob Murray (50:06)
Your brain absorbs it better. Yeah.

And a cool compliment attraction is a book called What the Heck is EOS. We use it for our team when we onboard to help them understand like what we’re doing as a system. Anyway, man, you’re the best, David. Thank you so much for doing this. We’re out of time. We got to do another one. And so I just really appreciate you doing it. And thanks everybody for listening to another episode of the I Am Landscape Growth Podcast.

David Whittaker (50:13)
Yeah.