Jeffrey Scott: What Winning Landscape Companies Are Doing Differently Right Now

Intrigue Media (00:01.998)
Hey everybody, welcome back to another episode of the IM landscape growth podcast. have amazing, return guests and so pumped to have you back. Jeffrey Scott, you know, decades of experience yourself in the industry and, know, one of the, you know, largest coaching practices, peer groups, you name it. You’ve got such a cool perspective on what’s going on in the industry. We’re just pumped to have you. Thanks for doing this.

Jeffrey Scott (00:25.238)
I’m pumped to be here, man. Appreciate it.

Intrigue Media (00:28.226)
You know, I think the first one we did, we gave the story to Jeffrey Scott. I don’t know if we need to get through this whole thing. mean, you’ve got your reputation, procedure, yourself. We really appreciate what you do for the industry. We had a chance to attend your summit last year. It was amazing. The group that was there is just a really high quality group of entrepreneurs. And we’ve got a ton of clients in your peer groups. They all speak very highly of their experience there.

You know, without trying to blow up your ego, I would just say that you’ve done a really good job helping up the professionalism in the green industry for quite a while. So thank you.

Jeffrey Scott (01:05.666)
You know, I really appreciate that. And I, I do think there’s a, there is a little less, there’s like a little lesson in that, you know, how do you grow a successful business? It’s by waking up every morning thinking about how can I help my clients more better differently? And if you just keep doing that, it adds up over time. It, it has an impact.

Intrigue Media (01:34.062)
Yeah, compound. That’s one of the quotes I use all the time. It’s from Warren Buffett. He’s never seen a customer obsessed business go out of business. Yeah.

Jeffrey Scott (01:42.392)
There you go. And it’s, and it’s gotta be, you gotta have pivots, you know, to be successful. If you look, you know, the big companies, right? Very few companies are sick, became successful with what they originally started doing. You know, I mean, I hate to use Apple, right? But Apple iPhone, that wasn’t their first, second or third or fourth product, but they kept pivoting towards that obsession, right? And it’s what made them.

Intrigue Media (02:12.427)
Well, yeah, and it’s not only what you do for people, but also how you think about what you do as a leader. This is a big thing that we’re helping, trying to help as much as possible focus. And one of the biggest lessons actually I’ve had from doing this podcast.

is we’ve always asked that question, what’s the primary growth constraint holding entrepreneurs back in the green industry? And the most successful landscapers, entrepreneurs, all say it was them. And then share experiences on how they broke through it. And so it was a very humbling experience because for the last 18 months, people have just been telling me I’m the problem, which…

Jeffrey Scott (02:44.31)
Yeah, yeah. Rob, you are the problem.

Intrigue Media (02:46.561)
Yes. And then, and so acknowledging that and owning it and then trying to work through it has been just like this incredible, byproduct of being able to interview all these great people through the show. but then how can we take that and help people accelerate that mindset thinking that that shift of like the grind and the hustle that got you from zero to 2 million isn’t going to be what gets you from two to 10 and having to start trust and delegating and building people and putting focus into, you know, system design and development and training is really what’s going to help get you there.

and you see it all the time.

Jeffrey Scott (03:17.068)
You, you are very quantitative because you’re in the marketing business. And so can you force rank or what’s, what’s the word you use? Can you stack rank? You know, it’s an adjective and a verb. Can you rank the reasons that people that founders gave it’s me, but what part of me is the common denominator or most, most common.

Intrigue Media (03:21.174)
Hmm.

Intrigue Media (03:26.765)
Stuttering.

Intrigue Media (03:31.211)
Yeah, it’s all good.

Intrigue Media (03:43.018)
Yeah, it’s cool. at, I think at almost every share, it was some form of getting out of the way. And the ones that have figured out how to do it the best have figured out how to give people a lot of clarity and authority to be able to go do what they go do as opposed to some who…

gave away stuff, they quote unquote delegated, but didn’t give any support. And so they’re just like, hey, it’s up to you, go get it, we hired you to do the thing. And then they’re like, well, it didn’t work out, because you don’t know what you’re doing. So there’s this time on training and development with folks. But I think regardless to your point of your question, the trusting others to let go. So trusting others so that the owner can start to let go and focus on.

Jeffrey Scott (04:34.829)
Hmm. I have some data on that by the way. but I wanted to also add that my newsletter this Tuesday was on that topic that you just said, like they were literally the, hired somebody, but we didn’t invest in help them on the upfront and they failed and we’re like, you know what? Look at that person who failed and yeah, a little newsletter on that. So

Intrigue Media (04:39.171)
let’s do it.

Jeffrey Scott (05:03.117)
We use a personality profile and it measures people on 24 different traits. It’s Winslow, which is sort of an obscure one. It’s not well known. It’s pretty comprehensive. People these days want to use the quick and simple ones that you can get done in, you know, 15 minutes. And it’s really simple and easy, but the Winslow takes 24 different data behavior.

Intrigue Media (05:10.251)
Which one is it out of curiosity? OK.

Intrigue Media (05:18.241)
Yeah.

Right?

Jeffrey Scott (05:32.502)
metrics. And so the one that shows up as scoring the worst for entrepreneurs is trust. Like literally trust is one of the 24 metrics. And I think some entrepreneurs don’t trust cause they got into the business through some kind of, I don’t know, something happened. They got fired or they left a bad situation or

Intrigue Media (05:40.757)
Right.

Intrigue Media (05:44.844)
Right.

Jeffrey Scott (06:00.014)
you know, there’s some little baggage that goes along with how they got to where they are. and others have just blood, sweat and tears and probably made some bad hires or good hires, but didn’t onboard them correctly, had disappointments, you know, and, and that lack of trust. I was thinking about why people hire us and what one of the top reasons is to help the owner get out of the way. Like,

Intrigue Media (06:14.242)
Mm.

Jeffrey Scott (06:27.467)
where they’re overworked and underpaid. So not only are they in the way, but they’re underpaid in the way. And that’s one of the reasons. The other, the second reason is they’ve hit a glass ceiling. And so they really, they’re growing, but they’re going slowly or they’re not growing. Like we can’t get a past whatever, pick a number. And then the third really is when they get older, exit planning, transition planning, retiring in place, which is also about getting out of the way.

Intrigue Media (06:32.856)
Right.

Intrigue Media (06:56.909)
Mm.

Jeffrey Scott (06:57.899)
You know, like people don’t really think about selling the business until they start feeling it inside them somewhere. Somehow.

Intrigue Media (07:06.23)
Right, they’re just kind of getting tired or over it at some level.

Jeffrey Scott (07:09.385)
something, you know, and you and I were talking beforehand that it’s terrible to get into the business in day one. You’re like, well, I’m going to sell this business. You, that’s not customer obsession, right? That doesn’t really maximize your value ironically, but it’s also not good to start at the end and be thinking about it then. So you do want to build those systems that allow you to scale, have freedom and make it more sale.

Intrigue Media (07:23.203)
Mmm.

Intrigue Media (07:36.525)
Yeah, I think they’re way more tied together than mutually exclusive. Like we had a guest on the show from Off Deal, epic guy, he asked me, like, what do you think investors are looking for? know, private equity or whatever. And I was like, cash flow and low risk. I think if we can create predictable cash flow with low risk, we have a good business without the owner involved. You know, to oversimplify it.

Jeffrey Scott (08:00.737)
Yep. Yep.

You know, I think you take cash flow divided by risk and you’ve got the formula.

Intrigue Media (08:10.233)
Exactly. And then, you know, no ownership or, you know, I don’t know what the subtraction or times, you know, ownership involvement, but sure key man, right? Okay. So what we, we, uh, I, I honestly, we could riff forever. I, I think at some point we need to do one of these where we just sit back and have a coffee and see what happens. But I did have an agenda that I wanted to speak to you about. Okay. Okay. So that you’ve, because of the nature of your, um,

Jeffrey Scott (08:17.313)
that’s risk you could boil that down to so yeah exactly

Jeffrey Scott (08:32.919)
Yeah, yeah, me too. Let’s jump in.

Intrigue Media (08:39.864)
your and your perspective. Knowing that entrepreneurs get in their own way and we can agree that there are ways to get past that, but for the sake of today, we’re just gonna talk about what’s going on this season.

What are you hearing from folks right now in terms of the state of the market? know, the time of recording is May 13th, 2026. Are people, like who’s winning and what are these companies doing? What are these leaders thinking about that’s helping them win?

Jeffrey Scott (09:10.765)
Well, that’s a very, very big question, but let me give you some data first. So I did a survey a couple of weeks ago compared to last spring. Where are your sales today? 24 % said they’re behind last year. Everyone else though is the same or ahead. Only 20 % said they were the same. So that’s less than 50 % in total. And 35 % said they’re ahead.

and 22 % said they’re way ahead. And so I think people were surprised in general how well it’s going given the massive distraction in the news and in, you know, with gas prices as well. I think people are happily surprised what’s, you know, that’s going so well. And I have some clients that are

I was talking to one, his name is Nick. He’s in Minnesota. Hey Nick, hope you’re listening to this. And it’s like, you know, we’re sold out for this year and this guy’s been growing fast and he’s already sold out and he’s in the, let’s see, let me do my numbers here correctly. He’s in the, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight figure business. and he’s like, all right, we got to bring some more crews on cause there’s parts of our company we want. We don’t want to stop growing the maintenance part.

Intrigue Media (10:38.892)
Right.

Jeffrey Scott (10:39.117)
And so, but it’s, yeah. So I think people are surprised at how well they’re doing. And I think, and you and I were talking a little bit about this and you were mentioning that, yeah, except for the, some of the guys in the snow disc areas, which is just like snow storms going on all over the place. I got a text from a client in Colorado Springs. It’s snowing. This was like last week. So I think that.

Intrigue Media (11:04.142)
Yeah.

Jeffrey Scott (11:08.885)
as forced a frantic late start, if you will.

Intrigue Media (11:12.588)
Yeah, and we see it ourselves across the system. Lead flow is up, even in snow areas, but deals haven’t closed yet and projects haven’t quite started. We had frost where I live yesterday. so I’m aware of this. was speaking to my wife specifically about this. We were just in Florida for 10 days. So we decided we’re going to do Portugal for three months next year.

Jeffrey Scott (11:26.561)
You need to move out of Canada.

Jeffrey Scott (11:37.473)
I think all Canadians have or used to have a place in Florida. Maybe not anymore, but…

Intrigue Media (11:42.24)
I think there’s less than there was maybe a year or two ago.

Jeffrey Scott (11:45.069)
But Portugal’s a good idea. know, for not much money, you used to be able to get citizenship there pretty easily.

Intrigue Media (11:47.148)
I’m looking forward to it.

Intrigue Media (11:52.001)
I know, I think they locked that down. took a look. Okay, so, you know, we’re seeing this too. Last year was a soft year. This year, all the demand signals, know, traffic on sites is really good. The leads that are coming through all of our sites is strong.

and the sales is just not quite there yet, but all the indicators point to a really strong season across the board. know, different sizes of business, that kind of stuff. But one of the things we’re seeing on a regular is a very, what’s a good word to describe it? Laze, fair approach to sales. And so,

We like our recommendations are every leads responded to within five minutes, if not immediately. Every lead gets five to eight follow-ups. So typically it takes about seven for someone to respond. There are specific types of information that are required at different stages of the process. Designs are sold, even sometimes visits are sold for low tickets. But the…

The conformity to that approach is low. So we see very few people taking that kind of robust, what we would consider a professional sales approach.

Jeffrey Scott (13:10.221)
Yeah. I’m with you a thousand percent. By the way, let me up the number of seven to 10. You, think I discussed this with you last time maybe, but the first sales book I ever read was spin selling, which that guy is like the he’s before Cardone and anyone else. He wrote the book and he’s like, we did a study with thousands of people and we found a few successful salespeople with follow up at least 10 times. Cause that’s what it would take.

Intrigue Media (13:36.579)
Right.

Jeffrey Scott (13:37.697)
I mean, now you can automate some of that, nothing beats a phone call or an outreach. I’m sure this whole story is going to get changed in the next six months, but…

Intrigue Media (13:48.461)
Right, probably. So you’re seeing the same thing though, and so I’m trying to figure out.

you know, what are people doing that are winning right now when it comes to, okay, we’re in this peak demand cycle. This is not news to people listening. You know, middle of May. And this is where a lot of people make or break seasons. Yet the vast majority of practitioners we see out in the field aren’t taking this, you know, sales thing. I wouldn’t say seriously. It’s not that they’re not taking it seriously. And I’m not sure if it’s just that they don’t know that there’s a different way or a better way to do it.

Jeffrey Scott (14:24.397)
Well, let’s call it not seriously, but let’s, let’s split it into pieces. So you’ve got the owner who’s selling and they’re the only main sales person. So we’ll start there. And then we’ve got the owner who, whether he or she knows it, they’ve become the sales manager because they hired another sales person. They’re still selling. they’re a selling sales manager and they may have a, you know, two, three, four, five, six sales people. They may,

Intrigue Media (14:27.15)
Mm.

Jeffrey Scott (14:52.875)
salespeople and maintenance that are that they’re they don’t realize they’re the sales manager for that person even if that person reports to somebody else and then finally you get we’re hiring a sales manager so the people who have actual sales managers let’s not talk to them least not first let’s assume they got their act together but when you’re the sales when you’re the owner when you’re that selling sales manager the player coach you

Intrigue Media (15:00.652)
Right.

Jeffrey Scott (15:22.573)
Probably deep down, no, there’s a problem. I was literally talking to a client yesterday. He’s got two branches or two companies. One’s in Alabama, one’s in Minnesota, right? And he was just complaining to me about the lack of sales skills that his people have. And IM sure he’s running hard. He’s opening up a new branch. Does he have time to train these salespeople?

He needs to. Um, but I, I’m just with you a hundred percent. And what we do is we promote technical people. Oh, you can estimate where clients like you, where you, know, but generally, you know, the product, right? And so we’re going to make you the salesperson. Uh, but selling is, is there’s so many skills to it. Such a profession. I mean, I don’t know if you want to go down that rabbit hole or not.

Intrigue Media (16:18.624)
A little bit because there’s some stuff I think that people aren’t necessarily ready to dig into and maybe we can do a session on advanced sales, but I’m talking about people not using calendars. I’m talking fundamental, foundational tools that don’t require mindset training. It’s more of like a behavior discipline.

And this is one that we were actually shocked when we asked, like how many people in the audience use a calendar for sales and invite clients to said calendar events. It was shocking. It was less than 10%.

Jeffrey Scott (16:54.315)
You mean I’m going to send you an invite for when we’re going to talk next? Yeah, yeah.

Intrigue Media (16:57.42)
Yes. I’m gonna send you an invite for when I’m gonna show up at your place.

Jeffrey Scott (17:01.601)
Yeah. Yeah. Thousand percent. God, where? Okay. I didn’t know we were going to dive down this.

Intrigue Media (17:08.002)
Well, I’m just on this little mission right now of like, we’re in the demand cycle guys, like just use your calendars and you’re gonna be captured so much more. And I think the biggest reason why it’s so important, I mean, I have a very selfish reason it’s important to me because essentially when people work with us, they continue to work with us if they make money. But we only generate leads, we position and generate leads. And we have tools to help with sales, but if they’re not using the tools, then the sales leak.

And so like the more we can get people being better at sales, think the more freedom we’re going to get for owners. But selfishly, if we continue down this path, not this episode, but just with working with our clients, they’re going to get better and they’ll be happier. So that’s where it’s, and it’s like, it’s timely. It’s like, this is the time.

Jeffrey Scott (17:49.496)
You know, I would say some of the common issues I see is, I mean, the most common is not setting the follow-up appointment. You do not leave an appointment without a follow-up appointment. Book, wait, say it again?

Intrigue Media (18:00.473)
Bam fam, book a meeting from a meeting. Bam fam, book a meeting from a meeting.

Jeffrey Scott (18:08.203)
You have to, I think being afraid to talk about price with, but not realizing that you’re selling doesn’t actually begin until a price is mentioned. Everything you’ve done up to mention the price is not selling. It’s might be consulting. It might be helping. It’s not selling until the client understands the price and then their eyes go in their head and to think about it.

Intrigue Media (18:25.016)
Yeah.

Jeffrey Scott (18:36.065)
And until you have time to pull out the objections and talk about it, that’s selling. And so not only do you need to bring the price up, but you should bring it out, you know, when you still have time to work through it and talk through it and read someone’s body language. and so the whole confidence around price and using price as a tool for selling, think it needs to get discussed and trained in, and a good owner has figured this stuff out, right? A good salesperson, I should say.

Intrigue Media (19:03.437)
No question.

Jeffrey Scott (19:05.901)
But realizing that price isn’t the problem or it’s the tool that we have to use to sell. Selling doesn’t happen on email.

Intrigue Media (19:17.582)
What do you mean? What are people doing via email, Jeffrey, that made you bring that up?

Jeffrey Scott (19:22.943)
Selling happens when you when you’re talking to somebody so that you can hear it’s not always about objections, but I’m just going to stick with it so that you can hear the objections and deal with them so you can explain the value behind the whatever. And so and I even tell my internal team and we’re always selling things, whether it’s sponsorships for our summit or clients or ideas, even ideas, you need to sell that.

person on that idea, call them up. You can’t email them and sell them. so, yeah, those are three right there. Even ideas are getting sold. Everything we do really is sales. I mean, isn’t it?

Intrigue Media (20:07.15)
There’s a beautiful book, Daniel Pink, to sell as human. And it touches on this and we will drop it in the notes if someone wants to check it out on Amazon or something like that, or Audible.

Jeffrey Scott (20:16.621)
I remember like one thing per book. I gave you the spin selling thing and I probably remember a couple from it. Dan Pink, what I remember from that book is that the best salespeople are ambiverts. They’re not extroverts and they’re not introverts.

Intrigue Media (20:29.102)
because, right, I think one of the chapters is chameleons eat more pie.

Jeffrey Scott (20:36.477)
ambiverts. Extroverts don’t stop talking, shut the up and be quiet. And introverts, you know, okay, hello, you can only be so much of an introvert. So a good ambivert, they know when to talk, they know when to shut up.

Intrigue Media (20:40.544)
you

Intrigue Media (20:49.974)
Yeah, two ears, one mouth, right? Use according. All right, so then going back into the season now and what’s working for folks. What are you seeing as a highlight or a bright spot around the companies that are, so you mentioned 20 % of businesses are doing the same. There’s a bunch of businesses that are kicking butt and there’s a of businesses that are down from where they were last year. What are you seeing as a common behavioral trait or thinking or mindset in the winners?

Jeffrey Scott (21:17.271)
Well, it’s a value chain within the company. And so it starts with marketing. And so they, the companies that are winning and have been winning and growing figured out the marketing, right? They worked with a professional company like yours, and they weren’t afraid to invest in it. And they figured out the marketing and then they figured out the selling, right? They’re like, okay, this is a process too. And this needs training too. And so, you know,

What’s that expression? Nothing happens until a sale is made.

Intrigue Media (21:53.516)
Yeah, there’s no money to count, no people to hire, there’s no jobs to do.

Jeffrey Scott (21:57.516)
No, but you can’t forget marketing because nothing happens. Well, I shouldn’t say that. I was gonna say nothing happens until that phone rings. But, Ivan Katz, who’s the cohost of our summer growth summit, he’s going to give a whole talk on business development in the residential world, which is kind of unique, right? We know that’s how commercial works, but he’s like, you know, I’m not going to count. I can’t wait for that phone to ring even with marketing any

and vets a lot in marketing. And so he built it with a whole approach to business development. he, you you gotta, you gotta, so you have to get those two things figured out. And I would say staffing, you know, how did my client Nick in Minnesota, he has been growing like a weed and he has been great at staffing. And what he has done well is a very good reputation.

People want to work for him. He’s a nice guy. Nice guys finish first in our industry as long as they’ve got some backbone built into their company and they’re accountable with their values and their dos and don’ts, their 10 commandments. But nice guys are the ones that win in the long run. It’s not what you would believe, it’s not what the movies would have you believe.

Intrigue Media (23:22.944)
Well, I think Ivan’s got a story about that too, and like how he shifted his leadership style to become more of an attractive company to recruit staff.

Jeffrey Scott (23:31.522)
Yeah. So they got the staffing figured out. They’re a nice person. There’s social media. They get the word out. Nick is also a good business developer. Like he’s built his business on residential outreach, maybe a little more typical cause it’s bid building. So that’s the typical way to outreach. Ivan is going to show everybody how you can do it across the whole business regardless. But Nick has a strong network. Every time I talk to Nick.

He’s like, yeah, I went to school with this guy and we’re going to hire him. Like, how many people did you go to school with or did you know growing up and he probably, he’s a great networker. You have to be a great networker and the owner has to drive that. And I don’t care what size your business, if the owner isn’t driving the, the outreach to new clients, prospects and employees, then they don’t

Intrigue Media (24:06.626)
He’s like, I’m still going to school. I gotta meet people.

Jeffrey Scott (24:28.095)
know what their job is. remember seeing Jack Welch speak. This was in Stanford, Connecticut. And this is way back. You know, they used to be based in Stanford and then outside of Stanford, Croton on the Hudson. Yeah. And then somebody caught up to complain about his one of his stove or one of his appliances. The guy was so humble, accepted responsibility for, I don’t know, a faulty

Intrigue Media (24:40.194)
Yeah, and Jack Walsh is pretty awesome dude.

Jeffrey Scott (24:56.66)
ironing board. I don’t even know what it was. You it was some appliance. But he said how he spends his time visiting his most important clients around the globe. Like even Jack, even the CEO of a big company is out selling. Nothing happens, right? You’re selling ideas and then you’re selling products. By the way, I do think owners should always be out there selling ideas. You shouldn’t necessarily have to be the salesperson.

Intrigue Media (24:58.146)
Whatever.

Intrigue Media (25:16.792)
Mm.

Jeffrey Scott (25:24.535)
but you should be the business developer or the person out there selling the idea of their company like Nick does. He’s got people who want to work for him because he’s always out there, you know, promoting the company, selling the idea of the company. So why sell a service or a product as an owner when you can go out and sell your company? And I don’t mean to private equity. I mean to the larger community.

Intrigue Media (25:51.223)
Yeah, absolutely. We talk, a lot of folks will call us, know, sub 500K and essentially like we’re not really in a position to help them. Like the cost is just not quite there, but they have time.

And the idea of networking at a local chamber of commerce or a hospital fundraiser or their local EO chapter, entrepreneurs organization, like it just isn’t top of mind in terms of getting out into the community and being actively involved and building their network. And that idea of like, your network is your net worth. It just doesn’t.

Jeffrey Scott (26:24.673)
Yeah, cliches, cliches become cliches, generally because they’re correct. Like that’s a cliche, but it’s correct.

Intrigue Media (26:28.91)
Yeah, yes. Absolutely. And so, and Ivan’s gonna help share what’s going on at your Grow Summit. So why don’t you just take a second and let people know what the Grow Summit is. Do a quick little piece for this year, because it’s 2026 and you got one coming up in August. But then knowing that people will be listening to this, you know, maybe a year from now or six months from now, what they can check out and what to expect from something like that and why you do it.

Jeffrey Scott (26:54.263)
So the summer growth summit, by the way, you can find it on our website, jeffreescott.biz. B I Z. Now, if you’re in the south, you spell Jeffrey J E F F E R Y, but I’m from the Northeast. So it’s spelled R E Y, that biz you go into events, you can find it. The summer growth summit. We’ve been doing it now for eight years. I think it started off with like a different name and then we evolved it and

There’s, always includes a facility tour. This year we’re doing a double header and we’re visiting two companies. Ivan Katz is Great Lakes Landscape Design. He’s around 10 million, know, rough numbers and Troy Klogg Landscape Associates. He’s around 20 to 25 million. think he’s in the middle of doing some acquisitions. And so I think it’ll be 25 when we go to visit him. And so wherever you’re at, whatever size will be, you know, a system to rob and duplicate. So.

We do the facility tour. We hear from the managers how they do whatever they do best in those host companies. We hear from the executives in day two, give some higher level feedback. And of course I’m speaking and we bring some outside speakers. We have a pre-event. So there’s a full day conference before. So in total, it’s a two and a half day summit. The pre-event, we bring the owners to give talks and that’s where they’re both going to

be talking about their origination story, business development and marketing branding, the front end of how you grow the business. and then we’ll have other speakers there. Kurt Labute just signed up to speak and he’s going to give, you know, he’s freaking awesome. And his story is, I won’t give any of it away, but it’s humbling and awesome at the same time.

Intrigue Media (28:37.548)
Yes! Yes, I do, and he’s been wanting to speak. It’s great. He is a beaut.

Jeffrey Scott (28:53.275)
he has shrunk to almost nothing and greatly expanded to something pretty big and he’s been through it all even more. So he’ll be sharing that. We’re going to bring an outside speaker to talk about lean production. Like you hear that term around, but who’s actually teaching you how to do lean management, lean production. Nobody is. It’s just a word thrown around. but we have somebody who’s going to actually teach you how to do lean and you can bring that into any part of your company to make it leaner. so.

other speakers on day one. Uh, and we’re going do an AI panel as well. And, uh, quite a bit on the pre event. So that’s the event. It’s got a facility tour so you can touch a truck and see the systems and hear the people. And it’s got education. And this year, August 18th to 20th in Detroit. I had, I believe we have

Intrigue Media (29:46.091)
and Detroit, right?

Jeffrey Scott (29:50.455)
Sort of partnering on a little giveaway. You want to tell them what it is?

Intrigue Media (29:53.631)
yeah, so in the speaker notes from this, and you’ll probably see it on our socials or even around this event, but we’ve got a ticket from Jeffrey and the team for the event that we’re going be giving away for half price. So check out the speaker notes in this and see if you want to sign up for a chance to win it.

Jeffrey Scott (30:09.677)
It’s basically a first come first serve, right?

Intrigue Media (30:12.59)
We owe others one, right? So I mean, yeah, get it what you can. It’s in Detroit. It’s gonna be amazing. We had our chance to attend the summit for the first time last year. The feedback was unbelievable. The group that’s there, because I think that’s one of the biggest benefits of your whole company. And then this summit specifically is talking to all the other attendees that are there. It’s just massive value in itself. We’re super pumped to be part of it again and really appreciate you putting it on.

Jeffrey Scott (30:41.537)
One of the tricks we do is we sit people by their title. So it kind of forces like you bring three people and it allows you to separate from them for part of the summit. You can get back together for dinner and stuff with your team, but the owners can sit with owners. The PMs can sit with PMs. And so we do our venture interactively. And so this allows them to network, to grow their network as we spoke about initially.

talk about shared problems. Now, on the facility tour, we don’t do that. But when we’re sitting on conference tables, we do. I think that’s been a very powerful tool to help networking.

Intrigue Media (31:22.306)
Yeah, well, there’s a lot of project managers that don’t get a chance to go hang out with a bunch of other project managers. So I think it’s amazing.

Jeffrey Scott (31:28.321)
Yeah, or controllers with controllers, right? All that.

Intrigue Media (31:31.214)
So then that’s coming up in August and we’re middle of May now. What you’re seeing in terms of, you know.

the winners of people that are doing really well, talking about these people that have a really good reputation in their community, they’re already sold out in the one case. What else do you see, or maybe flip the other side, what’s the one mistake you’re seeing most common right now that people might need to think about because they just don’t see it, like a blind spot?

Jeffrey Scott (32:00.78)
You know, I have to think about this. There’s, there’s more than one. So I’m really thinking about different ways to answer that. think the ones that are winning, don’t give up. I know it sounds cliche, but if they get, have a setback, they roll forward. if there’s a problem, they turn it into an opportunity. I have a client who, one of their executives just gave their notice.

She’s like, dang, it’s spring. And this person just gave their notice. I’m like, hold on. Why did this person gave you their notice? And let’s look at the role they do in your company. And the fact that they basically gave up, they were giving up because of a problem. They gave up so easily. Is that the person you really want to build on? No. And so instead of you firing them, which you ultimately would probably have had to do, because the person wasn’t really living up in multiple ways.

I’m like, they just gave you a gift. They gave it at the wrong time. Okay. You don’t want that gift in May, but you’re going to get somebody much stronger. We talked about what a stronger person in that role would be. And in my Jeffrey Scott community, I’m like, let me connect you with somebody in another company who is stronger. So you can talk to somebody who is at that higher level. So you can, you know, get a visual for what you need, or not a visual, but you know,

Intrigue Media (33:00.686)
Yeah, no it did.

Intrigue Media (33:24.95)
Well, just get your head wrapped around what this person could look like, what they sound like, what they do, how they talk, how they work.

Jeffrey Scott (33:30.925)
Yeah. So I think that perseverance, not giving up when you have internal problems in your company. And then when many, many, problems are opportunities, not all of them. get that. Right. Oh, our biggest client just left us and then we had to fire a salesperson and a crew. Okay. That’s not an opportunity necessarily, but many of them are. And I have the same issue. I have to like gulp. Did that just happen? Oh, wait a minute here. If I look at this a little differently,

I’m actually going to spring forward from this problem. And so we, you know, we have to walk the talk to you and me, Rob. but I, I, I see that as important. My client, Nick, and I would mention his last name, but I just haven’t asked his permission. I’ve been coaching him now for.

Intrigue Media (34:04.259)
Mm.

Jeffrey Scott (34:21.357)
four or five years, four years. And he started off with his cell phone on the truck.

He was answering all the leads. He’s now eight figure business. He was answering all the leads cause his cell phone was on the truck. I remember after we did our first consulting and I sent him back and I learned like six months later, six months later, I’m like, you were hiding this from me. His cell phone was still on his truck. I said, you have to give away that phone right now to your office and you have to go get another number. but he mentioned something to me last week. I’m getting around to answering your question.

Intrigue Media (34:39.644)
Ha

Intrigue Media (34:54.391)
Yeah.

Intrigue Media (34:58.871)
No, no, it’s okay.

Jeffrey Scott (34:59.949)
He’s like, since we started coaching, said, I said, you really been, you shocked me at how you went from my cell phones on the truck to just growing like a weed. He’s like, you know, I’ve got you as a coach. And so I’m taking advantage of it. Oh, it’s that simple. Taking advantage, making the moves. You know, he’s got the network. He’s just making the moves. I think you have to make the moves.

Intrigue Media (35:24.908)
Yeah, instead of sitting thinking, pondering, not deciding.

Jeffrey Scott (35:28.619)
Yeah. Now, do we have clients that make moves too quickly and end up in a ping pong boom boom, you know, make or an echo chamber making the wrong moves? Yes. So there’s going to be 20 % that maybe need a coach to be more thoughtful, but 80 % of you listening make more moves. Get moving.

Intrigue Media (35:50.709)
Yeah, well, it’s I think one of things to layer on that thought and this is one of the things that Not only do we see a lot, but we also experience ourselves as a company is that a lot of people are thinking in like months and quarters Whereas we’re seeing the winners they think in like years and like Three to five years like they’re thinking years and decades

And the biggest difference between the two thinking that we see in the way it shows up in these clients is that when they make all these decisions, they’re still trying to get to the same place in three years from now. Whereas people thinking in months and quarters are making decisions and they’re just like, they’re like, let’s try this, let’s try this, let’s try this. They’re not really trying to get to a certain spot. So the repetition in the learnings and the failures don’t compound.

Jeffrey Scott (36:36.311)
Hmm. Interesting. I thought you were going to say the opposite, but I hear what you’re saying. I mean, agree with what you’re saying. but the ones that are moving and shaking, aren’t waiting a calendar year. Like he doesn’t wait cause it’s not, it didn’t cause it’s not in his budget. So I want all my clients to have budgets and then I want you to go wreck the budget.

Intrigue Media (36:46.008)
No.

Intrigue Media (36:56.075)
you

Jeffrey Scott (36:57.431)
You better not not have a budget. You better not not. You better double not have a budget, meaning you got it. You need the budget for pricing and for revenue goals. So you got to have the budget. But if you live and are afraid to make changes from that budget, you’re not an entrepreneur. Okay. I just said something rude and I didn’t mean to, you know, insult people. But my point is you got to be able to make these moves and somebody comes along.

that would be a great hire. I’m going go to your point now because you have that long term plan and you know you need that person. But they showed up six months early. You got to make the move.

Intrigue Media (37:36.546)
Get it. Love that.

Jeffrey Scott (37:38.71)
Now your budgeter is going to hold you back. Okay. You need to be accountable to whoever’s doing your budgets and you need to have that discussion. How much more do we need to sell that’ll pay for this person’s salary this year? What’s that number? Tell me the number and I’ll go make sure we sell that much more so that you can have the accountability internally.

Intrigue Media (38:01.059)
Well, so same idea though. So we had an opportunity to bring on a head of results and so like really cool people that have run what we kind of have run in a different industry but in a similar type of data model. And we didn’t have it in the budget and we went to the account managers and said, hey, you guys have a gift budget for your clients. Are you cool if we steal from that and use it to hire this person that will get them all better results? And they were just like, please, please do that.

Because like, yes, a cutting board with your initials on it is beautiful, but getting, you know, a couple hundred thousand dollars more in sales into your book because we got the right people in here to do a better job is probably better. So I think to your point, you know, even being creative with your team on where you can allocate resources from for these decisions is a big deal.

Jeffrey Scott (38:50.861)
Okay, there’s my answer. us a winding road to get there. Yeah.

Intrigue Media (38:54.902)
Whatever, that’s amazing. But I also think it’s cool because we actually heard it from a bunch of, call it 10 million, and by a bunch I mean a handful of people that met us late in their budget planning process and had already started executing on their year. And they’re like, our budget doesn’t have it able for us to come work with you because we already got this and we don’t have this budget for it. And we’ll probably end up working together next year. But they missed a year.

Jeffrey Scott (39:23.275)
I got to tell you what, almost everybody I talked to to sell my services, if we’re talking to them at a certain point in time, they’ll be like, you know, I didn’t have you in my budget this year. Nobody has us in their budget. Nobody, but we can make you money in a given calendar year. I guarantee it because my numbers prove it. So this is not an expense. It’s an investment that pays off within a year.

Intrigue Media (39:36.711)
Hahaha

Jeffrey Scott (39:53.894)
Does that need to be in your budget? So on the one hand, I love how our industry has wrapped their head around budgets and gotten more professional, but you don’t live and die by that. That’s a, that’s a basement that you build your house on, but let’s get building.

Intrigue Media (40:01.72)
big time.

Intrigue Media (40:12.718)
Right. Well, I appreciate it a lot too. Because if there’s a, and sometimes I’m a bit of, I’m guilty of sacrificing profit for growth and investing in tomorrow and pouring more foundation, because I always think you have to build deep if you want to go high.

So I get some pushback from some folks of like, okay, enough building and laying foundation. It’s like time to reap what you sow and take the harvest of your fruit. But I don’t know, man, I think doing it right and building it better for customers is always a good idea.

Jeffrey Scott (40:46.765)
You know, that’s a, one of the mantras we have or tools we use here internally in our coaching practice. What’s in the client’s best interest? When we have a conundrum, we had it, we had an all hands meeting yesterday and we’re talking about a new product. And one of our guys is like, I don’t know. Is that really in our client’s best interest? You know, everyone’s empowered to bring this up. And we’re like, you know, I hear what you’re saying. And he’s like, why are we doing that? And I was explaining how it

it was in the client’s best interest. like, but is it really? And then he brought up some other points and we’re like, all right, we’re going to keep batting this idea around. We’re not launching it because we have to satisfy that question. Is it in the client’s best interest?

Intrigue Media (41:31.074)
Love that. Appreciate you. If someone does wanna reach out, mean, jeffreescott.biz, check out the summit. If they wanna contact you, same thing, or is there a better spot?

Jeffrey Scott (41:43.799)
You know, they can email me Jeff at Jeff or Scott dot biz. That’s R E Y. Yeah. Northeastern exactly. And in the South, some even leave the E out. It’s like Jeff Ry R Y. But that’s, that’s not me, but that’s how you get me.

Intrigue Media (41:48.718)
Yes, northeastern.

Intrigue Media (41:55.757)
Jeffra, I mean that sounds right. And then spin selling, we’ll put it in the speaker’s notes as a book. Daniel Pink to sell as human as well. I appreciate you man, thanks for doing this.

Jeffrey Scott (42:09.741)
Thank you.