Sperber Landscape CEO on Culture, Accountability & Real Growth

Richard Sperber (00:00)
think long term in this business and take care of your people, it’s about inputs, not outputs. And that’s part of the problem with there’s so much private equity and money in this business today that people are more concerned about the outputs than the inputs. with that constant pressure of…

We got to make money next month. got to make money next week. We got to make money. And so a lot of that learning goes away

Rob – Intrigue Media (00:52)
All right, everybody. Welcome back to another episode of the IM Landscape Growth Podcast. I would say I have a revered guest, but I don’t want to make him think he’s any good at this. But seriously, a really cool dude. had the opportunity to meet when we kind of first started getting this. Richard Sperber, thank you so much for being a part of the show today.

Richard Sperber (01:08)
No, thank you for having me.

Rob – Intrigue Media (01:11)
long time coming. think the original idea was to have this in a barn maybe somewhere out on the west coast and that never came to fruition but over the years you’ve had an opportunity to make it happen. Anyway I’m just pumped that it did and I’m even more excited that all our internet kicked out and the technology has been janky to start it off but here we are.

Richard Sperber (01:28)
Yes,

it seems like this is your first podcast, not your like, no, it’s not your honey. Yeah, but you guys will figure it out.

Rob – Intrigue Media (01:31)
Not my hundredth.

Yeah, one day, right? You got to stick around long enough to figure it out. What is that? It’s like baseball. Yeah, basically, this is like baseball, but there’s no outs. So the only way you lose is if you stop swinging.

Richard Sperber (01:46)
And you guys are from Toronto, so I guess that’s.

Rob – Intrigue Media (01:49)
See, I just teed you up, my friend.

Richard Sperber (01:51)
Yep, sorry about that.

Rob – Intrigue Media (01:53)
No, it’s all good. Are you sorry about it or are you just saying it?

Richard Sperber (01:57)
No, I’m not sorry about it. It’s all good. Another round. You’re pretty good. You guys don’t have a football team, but LA’s…

Rob – Intrigue Media (02:03)
Yeah, we

all we pretend like we do as Bill’s fans over here on the east side of the country. That’s been a bit weird too. But your Rams are doing well.

Richard Sperber (02:12)
They are. How the mate believes doing this year.

Rob – Intrigue Media (02:15)
I hear they’re doing great. They’re lining themselves up for another first round pick.

Richard Sperber (02:19)
Yep, exactly. You guys are on fire.

Rob – Intrigue Media (02:23)
that’s funny. You can say that here, because we don’t really have those seasons. ⁓ But all kidding aside, a lot of people probably have heard the name, the man, the myth, the legend type of thing. But when we met, first time, I want to say it was Florida. It was Orlando. And we were just trying to get a backstory. And you’re like, yeah, I started this company a couple of years ago. we’re at like $40 million or something like that. Or I don’t even know what it was. It was just, we just didn’t believe it.

Richard Sperber (02:26)
Yeah, exactly.

Rob – Intrigue Media (02:47)
and to see that kind of scale so quickly. And then learn a bit more about the history in the industry you’ve had, which has been pretty amazing. So pumped to have you on the show and share a little bit of kind of the ups and downs, wins and challenges that you’ve had. But for those of that haven’t maybe heard of Richard Sperber, can you give us a Coles Dotes of how you got into this whole thing and what you’re up to today?

Richard Sperber (03:08)
Reader’s Digest because it’s only an hour, right? ⁓ No, my father started a business 75 years ago, almost 80 years ago. And it was called Valley Crest. It was out here in Los Angeles in the San Fernando Valley. I was fortunate enough to get to work with him. And then the last 30 years, I sort of grew up and got to run the company.

Rob – Intrigue Media (03:11)
Yeah, yeah, Coles notes. Cliff notes.

Okay.

Richard Sperber (03:31)
⁓ We turned that into a billion dollar business. It was a lot of fun. We had the most amazing people in the industry working for us. So it was an honor to work with all those great people. That company eventually got merged into Brickman, which was another big landscape company, which is today now Brightview. And so about five, six years ago, I decided to

put the team back together and clients were calling on a bunch of jobs, wanting us to do it. And so I said, what the heck, let’s get back into the business. And so here we are today, different experience for sure, buying businesses and making them one versus growing a business for 75 years. I’d say growing the business for 75 years is heck of a lot easier. But it’s been a fun six years, that’s for sure. I’ve learned a lot.

Rob – Intrigue Media (04:12)
Mm-hmm.

Awesome. it’s definitely, you know, it’s something that’s way more prevalent in the industry. You know, this idea of consolidation and bringing companies together to essentially like be greater than the sum of their parts. And I know like a lot of people have thought about either doing it or maybe being a part of it. So getting their business into a group like you’re referring to. And so you say growing it from the ground up, 75 years.

you know, consolidating, bringing people together into one different path to growth. So it’s interesting because you’ve got such a unique perspective on growth and the whole point of this show is to ask the question, what’s the primary growth constraint holding entrepreneurs back in the green industry? And I think you have a pretty neat point of view. So what would you say is the biggest thing holding people back?

Richard Sperber (05:19)
Yeah, I’m not sure there’s one thing.

Rob – Intrigue Media (05:21)
That’s

why I was like the main thing these days, what do think it is? And then there’s obviously more. So feel free to expand.

Richard Sperber (05:27)
I would say it’s

the same as it was 75 years ago. It’s people, you know, and you hear everyone say, ⁓ you you go to everybody’s website and they talk about their people and their vision, but do they truly live and breathe that? You know, most of the times it’s a slogan, right? And so what makes Valley Crest so great is our people.

Rob – Intrigue Media (05:47)
Mm.

Richard Sperber (05:51)
Right? The longevity and the training and the we’re all on the same page, the same vision, the same experience we’ve all lived. Right? And when everyone’s sort of on the same page and you you recruit, you train, you let people make mistakes and learn from those mistakes and you know,

and you have great people and you let those people and you give them the responsibilities and let them grow out. I see so many landscapers where, you know, it’s a smaller business and the owners has to touch everything. And they’re holding their people down versus ours is the opposite model. We want them to feel like they’re the owners and they’re the entrepreneurial spirit of the business. Right. And we let them go versus.

Rob – Intrigue Media (06:20)
Mm-hmm.

Richard Sperber (06:34)
micromanaging them. So it’s the same as it was 75 years ago. Surround yourself with great people, train them, give them the responsibilities, let them go out and do the stuff like it was their own business. And so…

There’s lots of other reasons. I think there’s a lot more distractions today than there were back in the day when I was running ValleyCrest. That’s for sure. ⁓

Rob – Intrigue Media (06:56)
Mm-hmm. Just

like the attention deficit nature of society and social media and CNN and the noise and or is there something specific?

Richard Sperber (07:04)
Yeah, just, you know,

and I get that I’m an old man and you know, you’re a young gun, but, you know, you, know, you, you you go to these trade shows now. I went to a, when I just thought about starting a spurber backup, I went to a technology trade show. They were throwing in the landscape business and there was three or four booths there. And then there was a bunch of guys selling lawn mowers. Right. And then, you know,

Today, I went to it and there was 70 booths. And there’s an app that does everything now. I actually, literally everything. I actually see that holding people back from growing.

Rob – Intrigue Media (07:36)
Mm.

Literally.

Tell me more about that, what do mean?

Richard Sperber (07:50)
That’s my opinion, but I’m an old man, right? You’re a young guy. ⁓

Rob – Intrigue Media (07:53)
No, no, I get it. But like the fact that

there’s an app for everything and gets people distracted, it’s holding them back. Like on the surface, when you say that, I agree with you. I just don’t know exactly the perspective of where it’s coming from. So just expand on it a little bit.

Richard Sperber (08:04)
No, I would say that, know, Valley Crest, we grew into a pretty big company, North of a billion dollars. We didn’t have any of those apps. Not one of them. And we grew as fast as we grow today, right? We were just as profitable as most landscape companies were. The only difference is we didn’t have all those apps, so we didn’t have to pay the fees for all those apps. Right? And…

Rob – Intrigue Media (08:11)
Yeah, I’d that’s pretty big.

No.

Hmm.

Right.

Richard Sperber (08:33)
Right? We gave people responsibility and we held them accountable for it. Now there’s an app for everything and they have an excuse like, no, I couldn’t do this. The thing didn’t work. And they don’t learn. Right? And like an example is there’s always estimate. I’m sure they’re all good, by the way. And they all do great things. And I don’t know what those great things are, but a lot of people are buying them. So I’m sure they do great things. you know,

Rob – Intrigue Media (08:50)
Sure, yeah, yeah, I get that.

Richard Sperber (08:58)
There’s nothing wrong with slowing down. I’ve never had a customer come to me and say, you know, how fast can you get me that bid in the next day? I mean, we’ve never lost a job because, you we didn’t estimate, but, before you’d have to go out and walk the job and estimate it, right? Maybe you’d walk with the manager or the salesperson, right? And that’s how you learn, right? There’s a group of people bonding together now, going out and walking a job.

Rob – Intrigue Media (09:19)
Mm-mm.

Richard Sperber (09:21)
If they all see it from a different, they talk about it. All that learning is out the window. Because now there’s an app that flies over it, takes a picture of the job, we plug it into the machine, the guy spits it out, he emails it to his boss. There’s no more, there’s no learning. And there’s a mistake, it’s the app’s fault, not mine.

Rob – Intrigue Media (09:41)
That’s fair sentiment.

So where’s the accountability? Yeah.

Richard Sperber (09:48)
Yeah.

Where’s the learning and where’s the interaction with, you know, and so when you’re in front of that customer and maybe you have, you’re a salesperson or maybe you’re the boss and your estimator did it, right. And you’re all in front of it. There’s a different conversation you have with that client. Cause you know the job a lot better if you actually walk.

Rob – Intrigue Media (10:09)
Sure. Well, and then

you, and then you learn how to think about it too, not just what it is. You know, it’s really interesting. There’s other, mean, there’s definitely, ⁓ well, I’ve, that’s what I’m saying though. There’s a wave right now of people coming or, or leaders bringing people back to the office. And one of the things I saw, interview with a CEO was that junior folks are getting the most gypped with remote work.

Richard Sperber (10:16)
Put on a dinosaur.

Rob – Intrigue Media (10:32)
because they’re not getting the stuff that you’re talking about, the water cooler, the mentorship, the coached sales situation, the pre-call, the debrief, all that stuff you’re kind of talking about, they’re not getting exposed to it. And so like their ramp up time, their network, they’re built like the building of relationships, not just themselves and their boss and their peers, but everybody in the organization and customers is like non-existent.

Richard Sperber (10:57)
Yeah, like everything has to be speed and immediate. I’m not sure, you know, if that’s the thing.

Rob – Intrigue Media (11:04)
I think

that’s a fair perspective. and with all of that, it seems like…

Richard Sperber (11:10)
I that

owns some of those apps that everyone’s buying. I just like to own some of those apps that everyone’s buying. Please get some shares, exactly. no, you know, so this is one step in the time business, right? The plants keep growing. Yeah.

Rob – Intrigue Media (11:13)
What’s that?

Right. I’ll get some shares anyway.

Yeah.

Richard Sperber (11:33)
you think long term in this business and take care of your people, you know, it’s about inputs, not outputs. And that’s part of the problem with like there’s so much private equity and money in this business today that people are more concerned about the outputs than the inputs. And so with that constant pressure of…

Rob – Intrigue Media (11:49)
Mm.

Richard Sperber (11:55)
We got to make money next month. got to make money next week. We got to make money. And so a lot of that learning goes away because now everyone’s under a little more pressure.

Rob – Intrigue Media (12:02)
Yeah, well, it’s like we’re in this constant sprint for the quarter instead of this marathon for the decade.

Richard Sperber (12:05)
Yep.

Yeah, you can’t run a business in a two minute warning or two minute drill.

Rob – Intrigue Media (12:12)
Yeah. Well, it’s interesting you say that too, because, you know, working with a few folks in similar spaces, looking for different ways to build and specifically customer acquisition for like high net worth clients. like people that want to spend $500,000 or a million dollars on a project, you know, having good Google reviews and a Google ad strategy isn’t really enough to just get someone like that to reach out to a stranger.

to spend a million bucks. There’s more to it in terms of if they don’t know somebody, because typically they do know somebody.

Richard Sperber (12:43)
You need to string some sentences together.

Rob – Intrigue Media (12:45)
Yeah, and probably lay some groundwork to build a relationship over a couple of years. But when the ROI window is, nine to 12 months max, you start to consider essentially substituting or taking away from the 10-year approach just to make it happen now. It’s almost like that, well, I don’t want to get political, I’m inflationary type of approach to printing money.

And that’s not political. That could be just over the history of time. then as a person, marketing apps are good. I don’t know. I don’t know.

Richard Sperber (13:15)
No, but marketing apps are good. marketing,

we’ve always spent a lot of money on marketing at Valley Crest. Not as much as Uber, we do think marketing’s

Rob – Intrigue Media (13:26)
Well,

it’s a huge win if you do because a lot of people don’t. So you just put yourself into an advantage situation, no question. So as a person who’s been in 75 years of growing organic to now coming out shooting like a cannon and bringing people to one, what do you see as like the biggest difference in growth? Because you said the 75 year approach was like easier and now bringing all these people together quickly is actually going to

Richard Sperber (13:35)
Thank

Rob – Intrigue Media (13:50)
quite a bit of challenge associated to it. So what’s that experience like?

Richard Sperber (13:54)
I wasn’t there the whole 75 years, it seems you could tell, No, I think it’s,

Rob – Intrigue Media (13:57)
I get it. I mean, I couldn’t tell.

Richard Sperber (14:02)
You you go out and, know, I mean, Margarit.

I thought it was going be a lot easier than it was. Right. We’re going to go out. I got some money. We’re going to go out and buy a bunch of landscape companies. And we’re going to say, this is the way we did it. Let’s all go. But you know, they were in business for a long time also, and they have their ways and their vision and their culture. you know, as much as like the amount of respected Valley Crust, they really love their bit. Right. You know, everyone has their own culture. It was great. And this and that. And so it’s hard to get people to move.

Rob – Intrigue Media (14:29)
Sure.

Richard Sperber (14:35)
you know, into a vision that, you know, we know works to grow. Um, you know, you know, we, you know, we partner with these regional businesses. They’re from like 5 million in sales to 30 or 40 million in sales, right? They’ve all been in business for a long time, right? How do we make that bigger and better? Uh, so to get them to grow is, you know,

Rob – Intrigue Media (14:54)
Mm-hmm.

Richard Sperber (15:04)
it’s giving more people responsibility than they had at their previous place. And the bosses get really nervous about that, right? The employees are excited about it, but the, well, we shouldn’t like, because they weren’t giving them responsibility. So we’re teaching them, you know, about we’re a very open business. Like here’s a financial every month. This is what it means. Here’s the things you need.

We give them everything they need, all the tools. We’re a support system for that. It’s been hard to get everyone on the same belief system.

Rob – Intrigue Media (15:35)
awesome.

Yeah, it’s a big ask. know, belief systems are pretty strongly ingrained. There’s something that you’ve said though, kind of a couple of times. I wanted to see if you’d unpack it for us for a quick second. It’s idea of giving people more responsibility to kind of let them run with it like it’s their own business, but then hold them accountable. I think a lot of people use those words, but in practice don’t necessarily make it come to life very well. And so I’m curious from your perspective, what does that look like?

You know, if I’m, if I’m an owner of a business or running a business and I see an opportunity to let go of the reins and give people more responsibility, I’m unsure how to do it. And I don’t know necessarily how to hold them accountable. It seems like you’re a very clear perspective on, what that looks like. So would you share it with us?

Richard Sperber (16:29)
Yeah, first of all, it’s giving them responsibilities that, you know, you know, let them feel like an owner, right? And so they get to make decisions like the owner gets to make. So they can sit in front of a customer and say,

yes, we could do this or no, we can’t do that or yes, we’ll do this for this, right? Because, know, we’re a big company and we’ve always looked at, you we’ve always had to been, we’ve always been competing with smaller companies where a lot of times the owner is the one in front of the client and we have a manager, a branch manager in front of the client. But we need that branch manager to think and feel like the owner of the business that he’s selling against, right?

Rob – Intrigue Media (17:07)
Great.

Cool perspective, yeah, yeah.

Richard Sperber (17:16)
So he can make that decision just like that owner can make the decision. Right? Because that owner can sit there and they’re going to say, he owns the business. And he can put his hand out and shake it and close the deal. Well, we want our people to think just like that owner. Right? And make those same decisions. Right? And by the way, we want to reward them. We want to give them all a piece of the action, a piece of the profits. Right?

Rob – Intrigue Media (17:23)
Mm-mm.

Richard Sperber (17:40)
you know, we make sure that they’re developing their people and giving their people responsibilities and let them so we want them to think and feel and be entrepreneurial. Can’t say the word. Sorry. Just like our competitors are because that’s what we’re competing against. That’s our usually we’re competing against is an owner.

Rob – Intrigue Media (17:51)
No, no, I get what you’re saying.

Well, and I think that’s where typically an entrepreneurial organization would have an advantage over a larger company is because the company is more nimble, the owners dedicated their, you know, at the customer’s place, whatever it be, business or house. But then you’re like, no, let’s be intentional about building people to feel like owners and give them the opportunity to make decisions like owners. So then you’ve got leaders doing that scared shitless that they’re

gonna make mistakes, but they’re gonna let it happen anyway, because that’s the whole point.

Richard Sperber (18:29)
and you can’t fire them because they make a mistake.

Rob – Intrigue Media (18:31)
So yeah, let’s shift it into that accountability piece. So they make a mistake. Somebody mentioned this one. I think it was at NALP’s Leaders Forum and the guy was talking about training people up as like your kid on a bike. you both know that when a kid’s learning to ride a bike, they want to get to the end of the street. And when you let them go the first time, they’re going to wobble and they’re probably going to bail and it’s going to hurt a little bit. But you don’t go over and skate them and take their bike away and they’re never going to ride it again. You put them on, you lesson learn.

get back on and reorient. What’s it like from your perspective in terms of building these people to feel like owners and then when they make mistakes or get it right, what does that accountability look like?

Richard Sperber (19:11)
Look, know, this made a mistake. It cost the company X amount of dollars, right? Well, and then you go fire that person. Right. And so then he goes to work for your competitor and he’s not going to make that mistake again because he just learned that mistake. why let him go? He’s like, we’re paying for the education.

Rob – Intrigue Media (19:12)
you

Hahaha

Right. And

regardless of whether they stay, we’re paying for it.

Richard Sperber (19:36)
Yeah, we’re paid for literally. why, you know, why, why let him go? Right. And so, you know, that’s part of, you know, learning and it’s part of them feel comfortable, you know, every time if you were like yelling at them or threatening their jobs, they make mistakes, they wouldn’t make decisions. Right. They won’t, they won’t feel comfortable. They got to feel comfortable. They got to feel like, you know, it’s more important to them than it is us.

Rob – Intrigue Media (19:53)
Mm.

Richard Sperber (20:05)
to succeed.

Rob – Intrigue Media (20:06)
themselves. And for the company.

Richard Sperber (20:07)
for themselves,

you know, there’s things like, you know, if you treat people bad, yeah, you got to fire somebody or if you do something on Saturday, there’s some things that, you know, some core value stuff, but other than that, it’s like.

Rob – Intrigue Media (20:16)
Sure, core value stuff.

Richard Sperber (20:20)
Go please. Am I supposed to say something?

Rob – Intrigue Media (20:20)
worth it.

No no you say if it’s if it’s other than that like if it the whole point is like if you’re not killing somebody making somebody feel like a douchebag or like being mean you’re not stealing line like you know you’re living a good life with your chin up trying to do your best and you make a mistake it’s okay. Make the same mistake three times in a month we might have a problem.

Richard Sperber (20:34)
Yeah.

Yeah,

those are the odd little stuff, you know, being, you know, the bigger you get being nimble and quick gets harder and harder.

Rob – Intrigue Media (20:46)
Yeah.

Yeah, well, it’s Titanic, right? You can’t turn it quick.

Richard Sperber (20:57)
which is the big advantage is, you know, there’s great landscape companies out there that they’re nimble and quick, right? And we have to figure out how to compete against them. And you’re not going to do that micromanaging everybody. Or.

Rob – Intrigue Media (21:10)
Then,

you know, I totally agree. And I’m curious from your perspective, if you’re talking to a bunch of owners who are listening to this and they do know that they have to let go of stuff and stop micromanaging and focus something on, you know, where their time is going to be spent.

Richard Sperber (21:23)
Well, that’s how they’re going to grow. That’s why most companies, you know, don’t get to the billion dollars we were.

because that owner is holding it back.

Rob – Intrigue Media (21:33)
Right. So then it seems like owners need to adapt different mindsets or different ways of thinking or elevate their way of thinking and their way of acting as it gets more complex as they grow the company. What would you say from your experience is like a key decision point or like inflection in a business that will stagnate if that

if the business owner doesn’t evolve or it’ll unleash if they do. Like have you seen that pattern emerge in a few spots?

Richard Sperber (22:03)
not sure I understand the question.

Rob – Intrigue Media (22:04)
Like is it a certain size

of company? Is it a certain number of people? Is it like…

Richard Sperber (22:08)
Yeah.

You know, I sort of look at it as, you know, what can I, you know, well, there’s two different, right? There’s construction and there’s maintenance, right? So it’s a little hard to mix that all together, but you know, at some point you can’t go out and see every client yourself. So you need a great account manager that takes over some of that.

Rob – Intrigue Media (22:21)
Mm

Richard Sperber (22:31)
Right. And so anything when you start getting to a million and a half or $2 million in size of a business, I would think you’d need a great account manager that is managing those accounts and you’re not. That doesn’t mean you can’t go there and you can’t check in and meet the, you know.

Rob – Intrigue Media (22:46)
Yeah, do the major D thing. You know, shake some hands, walk around the tables, say what’s up.

Richard Sperber (22:48)
Yeah,

you got to pass on those relationships on a day-to-day basis. Right? So you can continue to grow the business.

Rob – Intrigue Media (22:58)
And then what’s the next thing after that?

Richard Sperber (23:01)
Right? So as you keep growing the business, this is how you invest in the business. Maybe you have to hire a second account manager at some point. That person doesn’t have a full book of business because the company is not that big yet. Right? And so you just got to be patient with that rather than I’m not going to hire that person because I just don’t have enough work for that person.

Right? So you don’t hire them until you get the work, but then they haven’t worked with you and they don’t understand your culture and they don’t understand how you run your business and then mistakes happen. But if that person was working there for six or seven or eight months already, you let them grow into it. It’s more seamless.

Rob – Intrigue Media (23:38)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, I get that totally. So then one of the things curious then from your perspective and in all the growth that you guys went through with Valleycrest, but then also with what you’re doing with Sperber, hiring from within, promoting from within or hiring from outside. So you’ve got, you know, there’s this dichotomy, not dichotomy, but this, you know, this classic case of the Peter principle where we essentially promote people till they’re, till they’re incompetent. What’s that? Right. What do mean?

Richard Sperber (24:02)
That’s me, that’s me. ⁓

Rob – Intrigue Media (24:07)
I

So you’ve just everywhere you go, you’re like, okay, fire me now. I’m out. I got too far. I’m fire me. Well, no, I’m just, just, you know, there’s a common thing about, you know, the best account managers become the account manager lead, the best sales people become sales managers or VP of sales, but really they just want to be hanging out with customers and closing deals. You know, the best laborer can be a, you know, a lead on a, like a supervisor on a crew and then a foreman. There’s just all these examples where people.

Richard Sperber (24:12)
No, go ahead.

Rob – Intrigue Media (24:32)
hire or promote from within because they think it’s the next step for these people. But they actually don’t have any experience in that leadership capacity versus bringing somebody else that has experience who wants to be part of a culture, but maybe they’re not happy where they are. I’m just curious to get your take on promoting from within and taking and hiring from outside.

Richard Sperber (24:52)
Yeah, think that, mean, like, right, it’s, we only have an hour. Like, this could just go on for like ever, but like, and I’ll use sales as a great example. Like, people always take their best sales person, right? Okay, you know, you you’ve been here five, yeah, we’re gonna promote you to the sales manager. Well, sales management and going on two different skill sets completely. Two different jobs, two different everything.

Rob – Intrigue Media (25:05)
Yes, this is exactly what I mean.

Two different jobs.

Richard Sperber (25:21)
Right? And now you took your best salesperson out of doing what he’s great at, selling. Right? So what you need to do is make sure that you compensate him great. Keep him excited as a salesperson. Maybe you call him a seat. Like, right? Maybe he’s helping mentor once a new salesperson and get him involved behind, but don’t have him be a sales manager. Like I see that all the time. Like sales management is a great job to hire from outside.

Salesmen, the longer they’re in your business, the more successful they’re going to be. Don’t promote them in a sale. There’s thousand consultants in this business. I wouldn’t listen to any of them, including myself, just to put it like.

Rob – Intrigue Media (25:57)
No, we see it and hear it.

We’ve seen it ourselves, like not only. Right.

Richard Sperber (26:06)
You know what, Dean feels right.

Yeah, so, but like when account managers like, you know, one of those account managers, like you keep growing, maybe that person will become a branch manager one day. All right, so that’s, some logic between where you’re growing people and what positions they should be in. you know, letting people have other opportunities are great. Just make sure that the right opportunities they can be successful at.

Rob – Intrigue Media (26:19)
Yeah.

Yeah, that’s cool. I think sales manager is a good example of one that happens all the time that is a bad fit for a good salesperson.

Richard Sperber (26:38)
I also see a lot of times where they take someone that’s an account manager and he’s just not, or she’s just not, you know, cutting it and you like him and you make him a salesperson. Right? Cause you don’t want like, we’ll make them a sales person, right? Or vice versa, right? And so sometimes you have to make hard decisions, which is better for everybody in the long run usually.

Rob – Intrigue Media (27:00)
Yeah, so actually that’s a really cool perspective because a lot of people get caught up on loyalty, lack of decision making, or at least what I’ve heard of and experienced is people are like, ah, they’ve been with us a long time, just can’t cut the rug out from under, or pull the rug from under their feet. But then there’s this whole other part of the company, 60, 80, 100 people that are being impacted by having someone that maybe shouldn’t be there. Can you just kind of expand on what you said there about like, you got to do what’s right for everybody else too?

Richard Sperber (27:28)
Yeah. And I think, you know, Valley Crust was certainly, we were certainly guilty of, of this. mean, we, you know, we were very people oriented, so we gave people a long time to fail.

You know, which is okay. I mean, there’s pros and cons to that, right? You know, you don’t know what people are going through. Maybe, you know, they’re going to something, you know, and maybe they’re slower learner than other people, you know, so you got to give people a chance and help them as much as you can. But, you know, we were really slow on letting some other performers go.

But on the other hand, it helps build loyalty because, you know, the people that are performing see that and say, okay, that person got more than a fair shake versus, wow, you guys like jumped to that. got rid of that person. They were just starting to do good. Right. And so it’s a two-edged sword. Right. Because when you let someone go, you always got to think about the people that are staying and how they’re going to react. Because the person you’re letting go is gone. It’s the people that are staying that you got to worry about.

Rob – Intrigue Media (28:27)
Yeah.

It’s totally.

Richard Sperber (28:33)
Because

how does it affect that?

Rob – Intrigue Media (28:35)
And if. mean, more often than not, we hear about this stuff about like how. ⁓ man, I wish that person was gone long ago. Why did it take you so long? You know that kind of feedback.

But I think that’s in some cases, not all cases. So then coming back to what you’re up to now and this alignment, because this is kind of what you said at the beginning about there was a couple of components that helped you guys grow at ValleyCrest. One was the fact that you guys had a very shared living experience. So having people that are with you a long time really makes a lot of communication that happens when someone’s new not necessary because everybody knows what they’re doing. They’re marching to the same beat. They’re all moving the same direction.

But then you talked about training and failure and recruitment. And then this vision and alignment piece, it kind of all kind of comes together. So it’s like this, this strong vision, this recruitment approach, this training, this shared life experience. creates like a very cohesive group that can, you know, probably move quickly together. What, what’s the, and then you also mentioned the idea that like this P it’s like a lot of times it’s all about the people. like a slogan, but it’s not like the way they live.

And if you look at recruitment, onboarding, training, offboarding, promoting, whatever, there’s a big mix of people, things, and vision’s a big part of it, all this stuff. When you look at all of it in the way that you’ve talked about it, what’s the linchpin or the cornerstone that needs to be established in order for it to all function properly? Or is it truly a mix and it can’t?

It all has to live together.

Richard Sperber (30:06)
No, look, I think, you know, our customers are all people, right? Our employees, the field workers are all people, right? Our vendors at the end of day, they’re selling us a product, but you know, they’re people, right? And so, you know, it’s truly a people business. And so if you can’t get that right, this is just not the business to be in. Right?

Like, whenever we had a underperforming branch, right, it was never about like, ⁓ all the clients are bad or, you know, the lawnmowers don’t work in this part of the country differently than the other. Like, it’s always about the people. Always. It’s never anything else but that.

It’s not, the competitors are tougher here. the prices are too low. It’s never any of that. It’s always, we don’t have the right people. They’re not on the same page as us.

Right? They’re singing off a different page, song sheet than we are. Right? So it’s always about the people. So you can’t live and breathe that. Right? And make sure you’re, you know, taking care of your people. And by the way, it’s more than it’s like, and you see all this and I hate to, I really don’t want go back to this, but like, you know,

Rob – Intrigue Media (31:06)
different song sheet.

Richard Sperber (31:27)
You’re there to support them. That’s what the, call it the corporate office is there to do. You know, you’re there to make their lives easy, give them the tools they need, support them, not to be, shit, here comes someone from corporate. Right? And, you know, and I see today with, you know, with all this private equity, with all the money in the business today.

like information is needs to come quicker, better, faster and a lot more of it. Like you only need.

eight, nine, 10 things to run this business in my opinion. And that’s all the stuff that’s being cranked out. Like all this information you’re putting in all these people’s brains. I find completely useless. Right? It’s just, know, all it’s doing is bogging them down. I saw a picture. I thought I took a picture of it and it was an advertising on one of these companies that are trying to sell landscapers some app that does something.

Rob – Intrigue Media (32:10)
Well, mean, it’s.

Richard Sperber (32:26)
and there was a guy in his pickup, a manager in his pickup truck and he had two computer screens in his pickup truck where he can have all this stuff. I’m going, and that’s what’s wrong with the business right there.

Rob – Intrigue Media (32:37)
Well, I think it’s fascinating you bring it up because more creates less focus, right? Like we see it a lot in terms of trying to help people build priority and focus. It’s like a muscle that’s been weakened, I think. People are looking at so many things. It makes it difficult to look at anything with intention. So curious though, the seven or eight things.

Richard Sperber (32:59)
They’re all outputs.

You’re only giving outputs to those people, right? This is what the labor was. This is your product. Oh, you spent $2 more in gas this week on the last truck, right? It’s all that stuff. It’s never, how many clients did you see this week? Nothing pops out on that or like, where’s the job look like? Like the stuff that’s actually important, why are you going to get fired? None of that’s getting spit out of a computer.

Rob – Intrigue Media (33:03)
Mmm.

Richard Sperber (33:23)
Like how fast, you know, did you follow up with these three things with the client? Like none of that’s getting spit out. It’s all, you know.

metrics that are, again, in just my opinion, most of them are pretty useless.

Rob – Intrigue Media (33:36)
Well, you know, it’s like, especially on the maintenance side, I don’t care what, I don’t care what business you’re in. If you don’t get customers and keep customers, you don’t have a business.

So those seem like pretty important numbers. How many customers did we get? How many customers did we keep?

Richard Sperber (33:50)
Yeah, how many customers did you see this week? What was the conference like?

Rob – Intrigue Media (33:54)
And I mean, that’s an interesting perspective.

Like as a self-proclaimed old guy with the advent of AI.

And having field service reps out there, being able to have them self-coached with their own instant AI sales coach. I’m not saying you want to do that, but if I had somebody in a field, they could have a pin on their shirt when they go talk, they could have it summarized go back to them saying, hey, you did this well, you did this well, you missed that, you missed that. Next call. Keep that in mind. Well, what’s your take on this whole approach to AI and how it’s starting to eat up some industries and

Where do you see it going?

Richard Sperber (34:33)
Yeah, I think that.

our client, right, is a human being that, you the grass is dead or it’s got a yellow patch or the tree just fell down or why are these shrubs not looking good? Because they have a boss, right? And they want you to come out there and explain to them what happened, why is it like this and how fast are you going to fix it? Right?

Rob – Intrigue Media (34:57)
Sure. Yeah, it’s pretty simple.

Richard Sperber (35:00)
Well, you’re fired. Now, if you want to write that person a letter explaining all that.

Good luck.

Now, right? It’s harder for that person to fire you if you show up and say, I’m really sorry. A, B and C happened. I’m going to, you know, the crew’s actually coming tomorrow to fix this, this and that. Right. And this way there’s some, you know, the closer you are to that client, the harder it is for you to get fired. Even if you didn’t do everything right. They, they’ll always give a friend a second chance.

Rob – Intrigue Media (35:27)
know, relationship matters,

Yeah, big time.

Richard Sperber (35:32)
or even a third chance. But if you don’t have the relationship and you send them a email through your program you have with a video on the four pictures you took of the bad area and say, you know, which came three days late, like great with an ⁓ AI written, you know, I got this, you know, I got a hundred emails a day and I’m in

Rob – Intrigue Media (35:41)
with a video of a drone footage.

Richard Sperber (35:57)
Our offices in Westlake Cal, it’s in Los Angeles, it’s a little Westlake and it’s like, and this guy keeps sending me an email who can help me because he’s just helped a few other companies in Westlake improve their snow margins. right. It’s obviously, yeah. Okay. So who are the guys in Westlake that you’ve helped because it hasn’t snowed in Westlake in a hundred years.

Rob – Intrigue Media (36:11)
Hmm.

The snow margins here are fantastic.

Yeah.

Richard Sperber (36:27)
You know, and so it’s just like, you know, it takes that, know, know, is AI gonna do some stuff? Yeah, could it maybe do stuff better, faster, quicker at some point? Possibly.

Rob – Intrigue Media (36:39)
I think it’s neat though that you come from a spot where you were at scale more so than 0.1 % of all companies in the country without this appetite and constant thirst to make it faster and spit out more information and collect more numbers. It’s like you guys were running a steady ship, consistent approach, people oriented. And so what was it from that that you bring over to Sperber now?

That’s something that you just, you know, it’s kind of like the hill you die on to make sure it stays authentic and true.

Richard Sperber (37:10)
You it’s a harder hill. It’s a taller climb for sure. Right? Because you got a lot of convincing to do with people that are coming from their own experiences at their own companies. And by the way, they were all good companies because we just paid them a lot of money. Right? And so like you can’t just tell them, by the way, this is all wrong.

Rob – Intrigue Media (37:25)
Right.

Richard Sperber (37:29)
But if you want to get from good to great, this is the way we did it. And it’s bad, because I don’t want to be like, you know, and no one’s done it yet again. So let’s do it this way. Right now, the wheel works until someone invents a new wheel.

Let’s keep with.

Rob – Intrigue Media (37:44)
So

what’s the biggest core focus though in terms of.

Richard Sperber (37:46)
⁓

We do great, exciting projects. We’re only six years old, right? we’re relatively new, but they’re getting to see some of the jobs because we sell a great, big, fancy job for someone up in Northern California. And so they were excited about it. They were nervous. We’ve never done a big resort hotel before, Richard, up in White God’s. ⁓

And so it was a new experience. And so it’s a slow, it’s a process. Like everything just doesn’t happen overnight. Like I’m an impatient guy. I want stuff to happen overnight, but it just doesn’t work. You know, the great thing about today is there’s going to be tomorrow. It’s like, if it doesn’t get done in a year, we’ll it tomorrow. Like, you know, you know, you.

The construction business is like giddy up and go. The maintenance business is the tortoise in the hair.

Rob – Intrigue Media (38:36)
Mm.

Richard Sperber (38:41)
you know, patience.

Rob – Intrigue Media (38:42)
So with a person who had a natural inclination to want to get it done yesterday, speaking of you, and then this new perspective, not new, but this oriented perspective of patience, and there’ll be a tomorrow, when did that shift happen?

Richard Sperber (38:58)
it’s been a journey, right? For me, like back in the Valley Crest day, you know, again, it’s our, you got a lot of responsibility to go and screw shit up. So I did more, I screwed up more shit than everyone that’s ever worked at Valley Crest. Sure. And that’s certainly on the people’s side. was, you know, I was impatient. You know, I worked hard, but I wanted

Rob – Intrigue Media (39:10)
You

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Richard Sperber (39:24)
You know, my dad was the boss. It was a tough position for me, right? And people didn’t always want to listen to me. And I thought they should too. Cause like, you know, and so I pissed off a lot of people.

Rob – Intrigue Media (39:27)
Mm.

Richard Sperber (39:34)
Right? And A, I felt personally bad about it, even though I kept doing it. But every time I like pissed somebody off, was like, God, I feel so bad about doing that. What’s wrong with me? Like, it was just like, why do I keep doing something that makes me feel so bad? But then I see like my dad and other people in business are pissing off people. They’re getting so much out of them. it’s like, I’m going like, at some point I just had to start changing. you know, if I wanted to…

Rob – Intrigue Media (39:38)
Okay.

Mm-hmm.

Richard Sperber (40:00)
move the company in a direction that was gonna be where we were going versus like me pissing everyone off. So yeah, know, so I was, I started when I was a kid. So I was probably 28 when I learned those lessons or think I’m.

Rob – Intrigue Media (40:13)
I mean,

it’s invaluable though. I I was assuming it’s not just a lesson of becoming more patient, but it was also an acceptance of like, hey, I can breathe a little bit here and probably make a lot of more people feel better about themselves. And if we get the feeling that way, then they’re probably gonna move better together. like, how did that all kind of piece together outside of the fact that, your conscious knew it was the wrong approach. So how did you start to, I think it happens a lot. I think people would get a lot out of hearing the shift.

and you don’t have go into too much detail, but what was there, was there a couple of things that really helped you move into that different approach?

Richard Sperber (40:47)
God, there was all sorts of things like.

I don’t if I want to go over it live, but no, look, was a lot of people that had been with the company a long time, as my dad started to give me more responsibility, said, God, if Richard’s going to be the future here, we’re out of here. So people started to leave.

Rob – Intrigue Media (41:04)
But you decided to look in the mirror.

Richard Sperber (41:07)
⁓ yeah, was like, yeah, people started to leave. My dad gave me the responsibility, I don’t know why, to go like, we were extending our bank loans and stuff at the time. like, my job was to go take these bankers to a couple of our offices here in Southern California and everything. And I took them around and showed them around.

You know, and we didn’t get the lump because the guy goes, if your son’s gonna run this place, we’re not gonna qualify you for the whole.

So is that a good thing or a bad thing, Dad? I don’t know. There’s got to be another big.

Right? So those are all the learning things, you know, that my dad never fired me. I would have fired myself. Right? So.

Yeah, I mean, there’s a hundred things that I could admit a lot of mistakes. But I’ve made all mistakes and that’s what’s helpful that I try not to make the same mistake twice anymore. And we’re here to help people and that’s part of helping our people like.

Rob – Intrigue Media (41:48)
Yeah, I just think that there’s some beauty.

Richard Sperber (42:01)
You know, this is why you don’t do this. Cause we’ve, I’ve done it 10 times that way and I’ve failed all 10 times. Here’s the, and really it’s like, here’s the eight things you need to run your business. And then we’d always get people that now, but I want to know this, this, this, and that. We’re going to why.

Rob – Intrigue Media (42:08)
Yeah, 10 for 10.

That’s a question. So what are the eight things?

Richard Sperber (42:20)
Why?

that’s secret sauce stuff.

Rob – Intrigue Media (42:26)
Well, give me two.

Richard Sperber (42:26)
Smile.

Rob – Intrigue Media (42:27)
Love that.

Richard Sperber (42:29)
That’s not one of the eight things, unfortunately. No, it’s a little throughout. And this is how old I am. had, you know, I like to say I said this, but my dad actually said it. Like my dad would go, back in the day before you were born, like you’d get a paycheck every week, like print it up with your name on it, like an actual check, right? And then so.

Rob – Intrigue Media (42:31)
⁓ come on, kill me, Smalls.

Richard Sperber (42:54)
The man, our managers would get a stack of checks. And we got a distribution and my dad, we go, you know, you just don’t have, you don’t have someone that you personally, at least twice a month personally hand out every check, shake everyone’s hand and say, thank you. They could show like that.

Rob – Intrigue Media (43:13)
Yeah, that’s cool.

Richard Sperber (43:16)
You know, so you can’t measure that, but it’s a bunch of little stuff like that. we used to do, yeah, we used to do these truck giveaways, right? And so we gave 17 free trucks away every year in the company. All you had to do is not get hurt. Right. And then we’d put your name in a hat by the region and then we’d pull your name out.

Rob – Intrigue Media (43:25)
Yeah, just stack.

Richard Sperber (43:45)
you win a truck and we have the truck sitting there. We videotape it. You can go on YouTube and see some of the truck give it away. And we did that because we were trying to improve our insurance so we can get better rates and so we’d make more money. Right. And so after two or three years, we picked up like we couldn’t get away 100 trucks. We would have still made money. That’s how much we make. And then we decided like, okay, well, we’re pretty much at the top of the

Rob – Intrigue Media (43:50)
Yeah.

Wow.

Richard Sperber (44:15)
greatness for safety. Let’s cut, we don’t need to do the program anymore. But we went like, the changes that these guys like, it changed people’s lives that we said we can’t do, we gotta keep doing it. We kept it up, right? We give away hundreds and hundreds of free trucks. And by the way, the only thing that’s stopping most of our guys from going into business themselves is having a pickup truck.

Rob – Intrigue Media (44:29)
Yeah.

Right.

Richard Sperber (44:43)
Very few of them left. And if some of them did, so what? Good for them.

Rob – Intrigue Media (44:47)
Yeah, exactly.

That’s beautiful. And it ties it all together. You’re rewarding folks for doing the thing that’s best for the company. It’s also best for them. You’re giving people a ton of value. You’re celebrating the wins with them. It’s just a bunch of little things stacked up in one little giveaway. it’s not a little thing. It’s a big deal. But it still kind of exemplifies all that.

Richard Sperber (44:50)
But.

But like,

yeah, you need to like your gross margin on a job, right? It’s not that hard. are you selling enhancements? What’s the gross margin on the enhancements? You know, what’s your retention rate? I mean like.

You know, there’s a, we have a little bucket of stuff and anything beyond that. I was like, to me, like spend time either with our employees or their clients or their vendors, with the people.

Rob – Intrigue Media (45:39)
Yes, with the people.

Full circle. So one resource that you’d share with people that kind of gave you an aha like an author or speaker or somebody. You can’t say show hey, Tony.

Richard Sperber (45:51)
No.

What? You have the same bookie as him? No. No. That’s a joke. You want to know something? I had the opportunity to grow up in this business, you know, you know, my dad that I got a mentor every day. a guy named Gene Janelli that ran our construction business. You know, there was like 10 or 15 people that, you know, were my dad’s.

Rob – Intrigue Media (45:53)
Hahaha

I’m aware.

Richard Sperber (46:18)
You know, Bruce Wilson, that were my dad’s age is the wrong thing, but before I got into the business, John, yeah. Yeah. So, I mean, I learned a lot from those people, both right and wrong. Right. I got an opportunity to sit in a lot of meetings that I was just there to listen. Right. And I soaked it all, fly on the wall training.

Rob – Intrigue Media (46:22)
Genre, generation, whatever, yeah.

Just fly on the wall training.

Richard Sperber (46:38)
I learned so much, you know, doing that. But I was never like…

I’m not a book reader. We didn’t go to any seminars. We use this, you know, we had this fails.

Rob – Intrigue Media (46:47)
You’re just doing it. Well, I’m pretty

sure a boardroom from 40 years ago could have been had a author and each person in a seat.

Richard Sperber (46:56)
Yeah, mean, yeah, we had a lot of personalities, right? And trying to take the good from the… But that’s how people learn, right? You know, we had this guy that was Stanley Colton and…

He was like sale, he did like, but he was at the corporate level at the point, right? And highly detail oriented, right? And he’s one of these guys, you just, you learn he would call you in the office and he would like, look at you and he’s going, I need you to talk to you about something. Where’s your pen and paper? I need you to write it down. Like, and he would give you a pen, write this down. I’m telling you what to say right now. Go, da, da, da. Are you writing it down?

And then you get mad because you don’t do it. He goes, OK, we’ll type the letter together right now. had a typewriter, a literal typewriter, like in detail.

So you learn something from everybody. Like, when I’m working a big job with a superintendent, I say it differently than his thing. I go, hey, it might be helpful if someone’s writing this down. Right?

Rob – Intrigue Media (47:56)
Might be.

Richard Sperber (47:58)
But

look, it’s fun. I love doing the big jobs. It’s a great business, right?

You just, just hope it continues to stay great. And there’s like, you know, cause you meet all these passionate people. And so my concern is that we’re bringing so many people that are not in the industry, into the industry, they’re in the service business. So they’re really good at maybe running companies, but they don’t have the passion to be a gardener or build great gardens. And I think, yeah, I think that, you know, people’s, you know,

Rob – Intrigue Media (48:25)
Yeah, be a curator of the land, right?

Richard Sperber (48:32)
The client knows that.

You know, the client can smell it. They can know it. They know how like, because at the end of the day, the right, might have a service issue, but we’re dealing with something that’s living, right? It’s organic. It’s like important. And the client needs us to solve. They know if you know how to actually, you know, to solve the issue and you understand the issue and you’re there to help them.

versus someone that’s just like, know nothing about it, I’m in the service, it’s okay, I’ll make sure someone’s out here tomorrow, goodbye.

Rob – Intrigue Media (49:04)
Right.

Yeah, I’ll make sure it gets dealt with. I have no idea what’s going on right now.

Richard Sperber (49:08)
Yeah, I’m not sure why all this happened, but I’m on it.

Rob – Intrigue Media (49:12)
Yeah,

which has got some merit, but I hear you’re passionate. I mean, I would say based on my experience, you know, going to all these shows, the future is bright for landscaping. There’s a bunch of really passionate, eager entrepreneurs entering the space. We talk to all sorts of them and the business acumen of the average entrepreneur in the first five years of business has increased dramatically in the seven or eight years that I’ve been part of the industry. It’s actually kind of really neat to see.

Richard Sperber (49:42)
Well, it’s not going anywhere.

Rob – Intrigue Media (49:44)
No, definitely not. No, it’s not. And I appreciate you just blazing trail and being so open to share as much as you won’t give the eight numbers. It’s fine. It’s fine. Richard, it’s fine. You won’t share the eight numbers to run your landscape business. It’s fine. You gave me half of them.

Richard Sperber (49:52)
Let’s go. What did you say?

I’ll say, ⁓

I had like, I gave you some of them. Enhancement work, it’s growth. Like, it’s just, it’s like, it’s not that hard. But when you start doing like…

Rob – Intrigue Media (50:00)
I know I heard you. heard you. I’m also giving you crap. I don’t mind. You’ve been amazing.

Yeah.

You know what though is hard? Choosing what isn’t hard to focus on. There’s so much information available to people. They always over consume data.

Richard Sperber (50:16)
You got it. You clicked off.

You clicked off for a second. So I lost the first sentence that you were about to say.

Rob – Intrigue Media (50:25)
I was just saying the hard part about the simplicity of eight numbers is that people are inundated with a sea of information. So getting the data is easy. Knowing what to look at and simplifying the complex is a bit of an art form and some magic to it, especially someone that’s been through it.

Richard Sperber (50:41)
What do you with data,

somebody?

Rob – Intrigue Media (50:44)
What’s that?

Richard Sperber (50:45)
unless you’re getting the data is easy.

Rob – Intrigue Media (50:48)
Well, they’re trying

to position it as if it’s easier today than it ever has been.

Richard Sperber (50:52)
Getting accurate data is hard.

Rob – Intrigue Media (50:54)
Fair enough. Yeah. Garbage in, garbage out,

Richard Sperber (50:57)
getting accurate information is hard and then it’s giving them simple accurate numbers. We do these rankers every month. We got to stay in business, you got to collect your money.

Rob – Intrigue Media (51:10)
Yeah, that’s fair.

Richard Sperber (51:12)
Right? So we have a simple raker that all our branch managers get like.

you know, Betty’s at the very top of that list because she’s the best at collecting money and Joe’s at the very bottom and there’s a bunch of people. We send a ranker every month so everyone gets to see who’s the best person at collecting the money and where they are and Joe’s the worst and maybe Joe will call Betty and say, God, you’re on the top every month. What are you doing that?

Rob – Intrigue Media (51:38)
Love it.

Richard Sperber (51:39)
Right? And so we send those rankers out that have the margins and customer satisfaction. And so people, not only you know how you’re doing, but everyone else knows in our company like.

who the shining stars are in that.

and they’re all really simple.

Rob – Intrigue Media (51:54)
And it’s all, you know what though, think that’s something hit me. know what it was. Many moons ago, doesn’t matter. But the idea of like a leader, like one of the core like.

skill sets of a great leader as a company gets more, gets big and complex is to make it simple.

You know, and there’s a thousand people or 2000 people working in an organization to simplify that down to the idea of eight numbers. You know, I think that is, that is a bit of a trick.

Richard Sperber (52:18)
But I tell, you know, I tell some of our executives, you know, I go, you guys are doing things to people, not for them. Our job is to do people do things for our people, not to them. Right? And so stop doing things to them, do things for them. We’re here to help them and support them and make their jobs easier. Our job is to make sure we’re doing the right things.

Rob – Intrigue Media (52:30)
I love that though, man.

Richard Sperber (52:42)
our manager’s jobs are making sure that we’re doing things right. So, like, come on, guys.

Rob – Intrigue Media (52:47)
our job, do the right thing, manage your job, just do it right.

Richard Sperber (52:50)
You can take that. ⁓

Rob – Intrigue Media (52:52)
I’m gonna put your name next to it and quote it if that’s okay.

Richard Sperber (52:55)
Yeah, put big quotes on it and they’ll say, we’ll pull that from Winston Churchill or something.

Rob – Intrigue Media (52:57)
I’m

Whatever

man, I appreciate you. Hopefully we get a chance to do another one of these. I got to run but yeah, it’s just a pleasure. It’s been just awesome to get to know you and you always bring a smile and a ton of energy and fun around everywhere you go. It’s very easy to see the impact you’ve had on people’s lives. Every time I get a chance to see you, you’re always smiling and shaking hands with somebody who’s giving you hug and saying thank you. And so I appreciate what you’re doing for people in the industry and sharing what you did today. And I just love it.

doing this for people, not two people. So your whole approach is genuine. I just appreciate it, Yeah, shoot.

Richard Sperber (53:29)
Yeah, it’s. Quick question.

Are you good? I saw there’s some trade show. I wrote it down, but I couldn’t find it for you in L.A. And I see you guys are having ⁓ the. What’s it called? Dreamscapes.

Rob – Intrigue Media (53:40)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It’s a dream. Dreamscapes.

Dreamscapes.

Yeah. They’re from the UK, like the original companies from the UK. And this is their first, U S event.

Richard Sperber (53:55)
Okay, so are you going to that?

Rob – Intrigue Media (53:58)
I will not be, but we will be.

Richard Sperber (53:59)
Yeah, you got some people I saw that you had a. I mean, it’s in LA, so I thought I’d swing by. I’m not sure what it’s all about. They’ve reached out to me a couple of times.

Rob – Intrigue Media (54:08)
Yeah, I mean, it’s going to worth checking out. mean, I’m not sure how well they’re trying to make a splash. So they want to bring something like this to I think it’s going to be LA annually. I don’t know. Their whole their whole reputation in UK is really strong. So I’m assuming they’re going to do a really good job.

Richard Sperber (54:17)
I’m going to this.

I’m going to this, I’m thinking about going next week to this Paracel. It’s in Lyon, France. It’s a big landscape show.

Rob – Intrigue Media (54:29)
That sounds fun.

I haven’t been there.

Richard Sperber (54:32)
Yeah, these there’s two big trade shows in Europe. I’m very curious because you go to the local landscape are like in Phoenix. Like how many people were there? 3000 4000. Yeah.

Rob – Intrigue Media (54:42)
we’re elevate.

1200.

Richard Sperber (54:47)
think they’re more than $1,200, but it doesn’t matter. Call it $2,000 or $3,000. How many trade show booths were there? $300, $400?

Rob – Intrigue Media (54:49)
Whatever, call 2000.

tops.

Richard Sperber (54:57)
There’s two shows in Europe that compete against each other. They both have about 1,800 trade show booths and 17,000 people are attending both shows.

Rob – Intrigue Media (55:11)
Right. It’s just never a next level.

Richard Sperber (55:13)
So it’s like, so I’m really curious, like, what’s going on there that…

Rob – Intrigue Media (55:19)
Well, they’re ahead of us. Everything they’re doing is 10 years, five, 10 years out from here. Yeah, it’s awesome, man.

Richard Sperber (55:23)
which is why I’m going there.

People see, see if I can learn anything, I can learn anything, but I’ll learn something. And the worst case, the worst is suddenly in France and I’ll go have some fun.

Rob – Intrigue Media (55:33)
Yeah, mean, a glass of Bordeaux isn’t the worst thing in the world.

Richard Sperber (55:37)
So, all right, well, I’ll tell you how it is. All right, man, how many people, like, listen to your podcast?

Rob – Intrigue Media (55:40)
Amen. Well, thanks for doing this.

Uh, I mean in terms of unique listeners year to date, it’s probably like 3000 or something like that.

But in terms of any given episode, could vary.

Richard Sperber (55:53)
in

I know you have a thing at 1 o’clock. You have like some other thing right now.

Rob – Intrigue Media (56:01)
yeah.

Richard Sperber (56:02)
And it sold out, I was going to sign up for it.

Rob – Intrigue Media (56:05)
no, that

was earlier today for the sales and marketing masterclass. There was 12 of us. It’s a peer group. It’s not a peer group, but it’s like, there’s peer exchange. So like the group can’t get too big or everybody doesn’t get an opportunity to share.

Richard Sperber (56:08)
How can it be sold out?

⁓

I saw it and first I said, how can you even, I hope I’m not on that thing live because I’ll say something stupid. And then B, I said, I’m going to listen to it, but I got the time zone wrong, obviously. And then B, it said it was sold out, so that’s good.

Rob – Intrigue Media (56:32)
Yeah, it was awesome. It was a cool one. It was a kickoff. We’re going to be doing it monthly for clients only. We’ve got a bunch of stuff that we’re coming out. So stay tuned. There’ll be a bunch of stuff to come check out if you’re interested.

Richard Sperber (56:33)
So you have to pay for that.

If you’re living in a fun city, I’ll go. Like Toronto. It has to be a good fun. It’s like I’m not going to Arkansas.

Rob – Intrigue Media (56:47)
Okay.

What about Tulsa?

Richard Sperber (56:54)
and those pop off the list.

Rob – Intrigue Media (56:57)
Well, thanks for doing this man. Appreciate it. Alright everybody for listening to another episode of IM landscape world podcast.

Richard Sperber (56:58)
Amen.