Landscape FX’s Paul St. Pierre on Hiring Key Leaders to Unlock Growth

Rob Murray (00:29): Hi everybody, welcome back to another episode of the IM Landscape Growth Podcast. An epic guest on today, Paul St. Pierre from Landscape FX or the LFX group these days. Paul, thanks so much for doing this.

Paul St. Pierre (00:41): Thank you for having me.

Rob Murray (00:42): So I was trying to creep you like I do guests and I couldn’t find your LinkedIn profile. You kinda have one, it’s not really there, but yeah we’ve met each other a few times over the years. and I know you’ve been running this awesome business down Windsor area in in southern Ontario. and you started in nineteen eighty seven.

Paul St. Pierre (00:59): That is correct.

Rob Murray (01:00): And then somehow you got into, helping build bridges that connect countries and golf courses and who knows what’s next for Paul. But why don’t you give people that are listening a quick little rundown of like as much as you can Coles Notes summary the better part of four decades in the business.

Paul St. Pierre (01:15): Yeah, I mean it started out my dad was a land developer and you know being in construction actually was developing land and and then building homes. So that was just a natural fit that you know at fifteen years old you know those homes need to be landscaped and obviously landscaping isn’t what it it was then as it is today. you know, so I just started, you know, in a local area here in Bell River just outside of Windsor.

And you know, fed off doing our own personal homes that we lived in and just then the neighbor, you know, caught on and liked what I had done and what we had done and it just really took off in a local, subdivision here in Bell River. And you know, we, got into the irrigation side of things, got into the landscape side of things and that was just kind of a natural progression, up through, finishing high school.

And then through Sudbury through university and went to school at Laurentian in Sudbury. at the same time doing all this, I was a superintendent at the golf course that my dad and partners owned. I was flying home from Sudbury on weekends to work and either, at the golf course or working in in the business and, doing the landscape on a Friday, Saturday, Sunday, flying back to school for Monday. So

just humble beginnings for sure. Started in the back of a hatchback Chavette. crazy story. We’ll talk about the hatchback chavet maybe towards the end. Just remind me to give you give you the full circle on that. But that’s how it started. And ratchet straps, you know, pipes tied to my roof of my hatchback, replaced I don’t know how many glass, the back glass of the hatchback going over track.

Hitting the tamper, hitting the back of a wheelbarrow, and just very, very humble beginnings. saw something through university that I really really enjoyed. had the push pull between a mom that was, you know, school teacher in the school profession and then my dad was a business entrepreneur, and I had that push pull the whole time and was actually accepted to teachers college and after my four years.

had to approach my mom and dad two days before leaving for school and saying, I wanna jump into this fully out right now, not in a year, not after teachers college. And to my mom’s disappointment, I made someone very happy that had a last minute you know accepted flattered

Rob Murray (03:28): Acceptance opportunity.

Paul St. Pierre (03:31): College and never looked back. My mom was very concerned and worried what are you gonna do in the winter? You know, you can only landscape six months a year, which we obviously filled that gap, as we, really made a move into the business, into the snow side of things as well. So, definitely not a straight road there to hear lots of trials, lots of tribulations, some self inflicted, some personal situations, that caused some

some bumpy rough waters, but I love the industry and just so proud of our team and what we’ve accomplished in in the industry in these four decades.

Rob Murray (04:01): Epic. all right, so fast forward to today, can you give the audience a little bit of idea of the scale of the company and kind of what you’re focused on?

Paul St. Pierre (04:08): Yeah, I mean we’re, primarily focused you know on the design build side, both residential and commercial. and the commercial late in our career. you know, over the last five, six years. but building incredible backyards is really the precipitate of really the core of how this all started.

through the years, now clients are investing this kind of money, they’re making these major investments. How are we gonna care for it? Which brought on our property care division, which brought on the maintenance side of things and our snow removal side, naturally setting, works focused purely on residential to start. Then a lot of our clients own commercial properties, and that got into the commercial side of things.

So just a real natural growth that probably a lot of people experienced through the years. probably different than most, is I just went very vertical, integrated quickly. my biggest mentor in the industry was Jean Paul Lamarche. And a lot of people might be able to remember him or might remember him as going as JPL, but just really strong in the industry. And I worked closely with him for

almost 20 years. And he was just very much on overhead recovery based on overhead. So a lot of vertical integration came in and as we grew and grew to scale and size and wanted to dive deeper into different elements and fulfill the year-round opportunity. you know in 2013 that’s when we bought Rochester Place. And that really filled the void

And it was a real Sanford and Sun campground, that I totally gutted and renovated, with all of our teams that do, all of our great work in season and filled the gap between, the shoulder seasons of design build in the fall and spring and between snow removal. And we built quite a resort here and

since then built, a full scale supply center, sixteen acres, fifteen plus acres to fulfill our own needs and other contractors needs as well. And I own a publication locally, really exposing and bringing forward some great stories that happened in Windsor.

So that’s been that’s been phenomenal. The golf course has the golf course, the resort, you know, I’m into food and beverage with that side of the business turned into land development. So kind of full circle to where my dad kind of started.

Rob Murray (06:20): Mm-hmm.

Paul St. Pierre (06:21): And then amidst all that growth, brought on the commercial side where you know are engaged now, maintaining because we just finished building

the entire port of entry on the New Gordie Howe Bridge. So we just worked on that for the last better part of five years. So yeah, yeah. And backed

Rob Murray (06:35): Small project. Yeah.

Paul St. Pierre (06:38): up from that became the battery plant but again, back to back large scale projects that happened here in Windsor and we were fortunate enough to do both those projects. So that’s just scaled it up real, real quickly to,

Heavy equipment, big equipment, having a union side of the business and the design build side of the business. And yeah, while all that was happening,

we kept building.

Rob Murray (07:00): the scale of this company for somebody who’s maybe sitting at two and a half or three million bucks listening to this is probably like out of reach in their mind. and when you talk about, starting from a Chevette which we’ll get back to at the end ’cause there’s a story we obviously need to hear. I also my mom had a Chevette. Whenever we went to the cottage when I was a little kid, she used to buy a two-four at the beer store before we got to the cottage and I would sit on the front seat on top of the two-four so I could see tiny little Chevette, three sons of my mom drive into the cottage anyway.

as you start to experience this growth, because that’s the whole thing, right? Like what’s the primary growth constraint holding entrepreneurs back in the green industry? Now there’s different levels you had to learn how to deal with. So as you were going through this, you know, whatever, call it better part of 40-year journey, at what stage was it the hardest for you to figure out how to adapt yourself to the next level?

Paul St. Pierre (07:49): my growth is purely on our team. I know I shouldered a lot of it, but I mean it’s all about the team you surround yourself with and the team you’re able to coach and train and mentor. And I guess my biggest block if I look back that I had along the way was thinking I could do everything, thinking that I could be everything, thinking that I’m just gonna work harder or work more hours, so that was a big block.

for me for a long time, and I at one point I remember thinking if I’m gonna pay someone, and again it’s going back eighty, ninety, hundred thousand dollars a year, I’m gonna pay someone, those kinds of dollars, may as well do it myself. I’ll just work harder. And the tipping point happened, once I, had a few key people join the team, an executive level or management level.

outside of the core that I had started with, I really saw the tipping point really turn where, that’s where the growth really happens. So investing into our team’s been something I’ve been strong about my entire career. And even today pushing, more and more, wanting to see them grow, them succeed, grow their skill sets is something that, really held me back.

My own mind making those investments, early on. a lot of us in the industry can, make some sense of buying loaders, making some sense of buying equipment, making some sense buying the trucks, but you know, for some reason get held back on investing in that person or spending that extra dollar. we’ve all seen the you hire A players or B players or C players of two Bs, and you can hire an A. Like it’s just that.

that probably was my biggest, tipping point when I realized that, having those right people, that really allowed us to scale and really allowed us to grow. without it all falling on my shoulders.

Rob Murray (09:25): So at what

at what level was the business in terms of sales or revenue when you were really starting to

Paul St. Pierre (09:30): I would say in control, you know, spearheaded by my end, probably in the seven to eight million range.

Rob Murray (09:37): this

identity shift. Like I think personally, I don’t know if you know this, but every single time I ask this question to entrepreneurs, they’re essentially all the successful ones, meaning ones that have built businesses that don’t depend on them. That’s how we define it.

they all say it was them and then they all share their different stories about it. And then I’ve just realized over the last eighteen months that essentially every single person’s been telling me I’m the problem of my company.

So it’s been quite a humbling experience. And so I’m trying to shift this identity, what you’re talking about exactly. And it almost feels like for me personally, it’s taking time to let go of this old idea. And then I also get caught in this thought around, well, am I letting too much go? Do does everybody have what they need? And I’m in this cycle of am I getting in the way again? Or is this the time to let go? What was it like for you as you shifted from work hard?

Drive harder, work more to letting go. Did it take time? What was that identity shift like for you?

Paul St. Pierre (10:30): Yeah, I would say it didn’t take me a long time because at that point I had already, full disclosure, blown up a couple marriages, had enough personal struggles along the way. so after I’ve gone through some of those trials and tribulations, you definitely, revert to things have to change. I think for me it was the whole mind shift.

of really understanding that I can’t do it all and I’m not doing what I need to be doing. when I realized that and I started being able to, just really rever my go-to question to my entire team is what do you need from me? What am I stalling? What am I holding you back? what do you need from me to really, really, take on, and allowing them to make mistakes and allowing them to make decisions.

knowing that they may not do it exactly the way I would or sell a project the way I would or install it exactly the way I would. but man when I I started being able to let go what I’ve seen in more times than not is giving that trust and your team wants that trust and they will excel.

the minute you let go and you can get over your own personal biases and mindsets around that they will take it and run they don’t want to fail now I’m a person that a hundred percent trusts fully right off the hop it’s not earning it’s again that I’m wired a little different that way where it’s you don’t have to earn my trust

Rob Murray (11:46): if we hire somebody, you’ve got trust. We if we didn’t trust you, we wouldn’t hire you in the first place. So like you gotta lose

trust, not gain it. At least in an organizational setting from my point. I’m with you.

Paul St. Pierre (11:55): Yeah, so that’s how I have always been. Now, does it come burny once in a while? Does it hurt? Is there some pains

Rob Murray (11:59): Sure.

Paul St. Pierre (12:00): that come with that? Absolutely. is it a perfect formula? No. But when I was able to start really letting that piece go, in some cases, it was forced getting away and not close enough where I can drive in.

Or or you know, ten, twelve years ago when we bought our house in Florida, you leave, you’re not next door. I mean even if it does snow, you’re down there. And you know, so that was a big push for me when we bought that was to entrust the team. And the funny story about

Rob Murray (12:29): Well it’s it’s go for it, go for it.

Paul St. Pierre (12:32): Yeah, no no, the funny story about that is I came back

through over the last couple of decade and I come back and I’m so happy it’s gonna snow and I’m gonna jump in, one of the new nine twenty loaders, I left the house, got all ready to go, I’m going to jump in, and I get to the shop and one, there’s no keys anywhere to be found. we have some spare loaders, things like that. All the keys were gone, everything was gone. So I started calling around and they’re like, Paul, we were told not to let you get in a loader, we’re told you know

Rob Murray (12:56): Ha ha.

Paul St. Pierre (12:56): So they wanted as far that way and pushed it. But that was a funny night and one hour later I get home and my wife said, What are you doing home? I thought you were so excited to get going. I said, there’s not even keys in the machines. I can’t even start a machine. They now have tanks for fuel, this, that, you need a code to fill trucks and this and that. I

Rob Murray (13:13): You’re locked out.

Paul St. Pierre (13:14): I can’t even, you know, get k fill up I wanted to fill up my truck and ’cause I had a truck I went I wanna put my plow on, I’m gonna go. And I couldn’t even

fill up with fuel. Nothing ’cause it was like they had a card lock system and so

Rob Murray (13:25): Was it a w

I mean that’s a pretty amazing experience for you, right? Like I mean that’s

Paul St. Pierre (13:28): Yeah, less.

Rob Murray (13:29): you’re you’re fully out. Like not only,

Paul St. Pierre (13:31): Yeah.

Rob Murray (13:31): you know, figuratively, but like literally, you can’t go do anything. That’s amazing.

Paul St. Pierre (13:36): Yeah. Yeah,

I still make my way to job sites, you know, daily when I’m in town

Rob Murray (13:40): Sure.

Paul St. Pierre (13:41): the days of me jumping on a machine at a job and doing things like that, it just you know, that you will erode more than it’ll help. And

Rob Murray (13:50): Yeah.

Paul St. Pierre (13:50): help out when you think you’re helping. So it’s again, putting all the systems and processes in place has been huge.

You know, Mark Bradley, another mentor of mine, definitely, has some push, and pushed us down the whole lean side of things and everything to do with weight and

Rob Murray (14:04): Waste is the enemy.

Paul St. Pierre (14:05): waste, you know, he’s been amazing, to a lot of industry, to our industry and so you know,

Rob Murray (14:11): Big time.

Paul St. Pierre (14:11): we implement those things and I run it by dashboards now and

I have a sense of what’s going on for sure.

Rob Murray (14:17): Yeah, well visibility creates accountability and when you can see everything on a dashboard it means you can play the game. Anyway, you said something interesting as you were talking about that, and you said, I’m not doing what I need to be doing. By not letting go, you were not doing what you need to be doing. A lot of folks I talk to are like, Well, if I let go, what am I gonna go do? But it seems like you were actually stuck not being able to go do what you need to go do. What was that for you at that time?

Paul St. Pierre (14:41): I’m very, very visual and I need to see it or I need to, you know, that’s how I produce so I went so far where they made me a baseball hat like you have on And it was literally working in the business or on the business and I just turned my hat and I physically for so long had to wear this hat.

one to my team said, okay, I’m working in the business right now, but then okay, I’m gonna flip it around now, I’m gonna work on the business. So that whole separation, it was tough. It was tough for sure. but that to me, that hat, and I still have the hat. Still have the hat.

Rob Murray (15:11): Buddy, I’m steal

I’m stealing that idea and I’ve got a couple people I’m gonna give it to. That is fantastic. And by stealing it, I mean I’ll probably give you credit, but that’s money. And and then your team can see it too, right?

Paul St. Pierre (15:19): No. By all means.

Rob Murray (15:22): Anyway,

Paul St. Pierre (15:22): Yeah.

Rob Murray (15:23): that’s super cool. So when you say working on the business, this is a cliche, right? We hear it all the time. You gotta work on the business, not in the business. And so what was on the business for you? What did that mean that you were doing?

Paul St. Pierre (15:32): Yeah, for us for us a lot of it in our growth, ’cause it was a little bit of a rocket ship growth, for quite a few years. budgets were huge, all our banking relationships and you know, lines of credit.

Rob Murray (15:43): A lot of people underestimate how important it is to not only have like the relationship with the opportunity for capital.

you know, vis-a-vis a bank, really important when growth is, on the doorstep, which requires financial acumen, strong financial statements, budgets. But I think a lot of people underestimate how important it is because the type of growth that you’re talking about, or any growth really in the space of fifteen, twenty percent sustained over a period of time, requires capital. Can you just speak to a little bit in detail about why it’s so important that you’re there at the table with with the financials and the relationships around it.

Paul St. Pierre (16:16): Yeah, I mean anything reporting wise that you’re gonna put it forth to anybody. you know my growth was not solely, on traditional financing. ’cause there’s no way I could have grown the way I did with traditional financing. building again that trust. We’re gonna talk about trust, trust from our team to me, trust, in the community, I have an event today at three o’clock, can’t wait to be there and I’ve got a few people that helped me along the way and

It’s just building those strong relationships in the community were really, really important. I remember needing, money to make payroll on a Friday. I remember needing, half a million dollars to buy salt back in the day and those things can’t take weeks and months. it’s just making me

think a little bit of some of the mistakes I made ’cause none of this and I disclaim none of this was done on smooth waters along the way. but the whole idea for a long time and anyone that will listen to this, growing a business and thinking, I don’t want to pay a lot of tax and I don’t want you know my financial statements, you know, don’t want to show too positive and this and that. I mean that’s just the wrong thinking right out of the gates.

and I was fall to that for some time because you need those financial statements, you need strong financials to it doesn’t matter if you approach anybody personally or traditional banking that happens. this infamous, let’s do some cash and let’s pay cash and you know it doesn’t hit the balance sheet, doesn’t hit the profitability, doesn’t hit anything and I made those mistakes and that could have really, really hurt me. And again, working with JPL

He was just so adamant to, building strong financial statements to sustain growth. And it was an integral

part of what needed to be done for the scale that we scaled it to.

Rob Murray (17:48): That’s asked that’s epic. And so I think it’s interesting you say strong financials. You know, some people are talking a bit about how, it’s been years of people talking about economic uncertainty, but it seems like there’s some sort of maybe downward thing that might happen in the next five years. Who knows? all I know is that having a strong balance sheet is a good strategy,

You’ve been through a couple storms. You’ve said it yourself a couple times. I mean two thousand and eight, nine didn’t necessarily hit Canada as much as it did the States, but Windsor got impacted pretty hard. Can you speak a little bit about what it was like dealing with downturns and how you guys kind of built the business so you could weather the storm?

Paul St. Pierre (18:22): Yeah, I mean I think that’s where kind of the natural, you know, bringing on other offerings that we did. I didn’t get into snow right away. that was years down the line. but bringing in other offerings, getting into, you know, we didn’t do lighting, all the offerings that we’re doing today, all in encompassing, I would always look in those times

to bring on something else, to vertically integrate something. today I I know our own Ready Mix concrete company, volumetric trucks, so I control my destiny on concrete day in, day out. so looking at investments or things that we’re using, that’s all the natural setting of having our own supply center, which brought into all our own trucking, traxels and tandems and live bottoms and

controlling everything that we can for our own supply chain, right up down to, supplying all our own salt and and not having to worry about what’s going on in the temperament of the salt world day in, day out. And so that vertical integration, but none of that happens without that strength of financials, ’cause it doesn’t matter if you’re going to buy a piece of equipment. if you need to finance it, if you’re buying a truck, if you’re buying it doesn’t matter, Getting lines of credit with,

Ford Canada or getting a caterpillar account and everything’s all on strong financials.

Rob Murray (19:30): straight up. And I mean you talk about working on the business and you just named, you know, whatever, a dozen initiatives over was probably a dozen or more years. And obviously it’s been working well because you can see where you’re at now. you did mention in the last piece that you’ve vertically integrated into salt supply and there’s this other guy who likes to own stuff south of the border close to you, Troy. And seems like you two have built some sort of a partnership. Maybe you can give the audience a little bit of a sneak peek into what you guys have been up to and what you’re doing with it.

Paul St. Pierre (19:58): Yeah, Troy and I, we met at many industry events and we met, three, four years ago down in Orlando at one of Mark Kellan events, Mark Radley’s events, and you know, our past similar. we’ve had some of the same challenges, same wh you know, war stories and we’ve become very, very close friends. And he trusted me

starting a little bit last year, but we’ve really pushed it there into the market this year with the hot pink. we’re just giving back to, families affected by cancer and we’re just really, really happy to take on the Canadian side of that.

Rob Murray (20:30): It’s pretty fitting that you finished the Gordie Howe

Bridge project and then you literally bridged the countries with this project and brought it. I know, it’s awesome. And I mean people can’t see

what you’re wearing if they’re listening to this, but Paul’s busting the US and Canadian flag on opposite sleeves with hot pink on the chest. I think it’s pretty amazing.

Paul St. Pierre (20:46): Yeah, and he it’s just Troy’s a very faith based man, believes in doing great things and I’m just so happy to be, taking on this across Canada and we’re gonna do some big things, we’re going down the line I will have our own bagging solution in place, moving into next winter. we’ll have our own bagging plant, so

everybody’s feeling the pinch on what’s going on in the salt world, anything to do with, bags or bulk and yeah, we hope to become, a real player in a solution in both those markets, both sides of the border.

Rob Murray (21:15): Yeah, that’s

both sides of the border, that’s awesome. Especially these days. It can be a little bit muddy sometimes to see what’s going on with the relationship there. all right, so I got a couple questions, but I don’t want to run out of time. So let’s just throw into this hashback Chavette story. Give it give us the goods.

Paul St. Pierre (21:29): last October, my son was just being really, really attentive to me, Dad, what are you doing on Friday? What do you do on Friday? I’m like, Daniel, I’m playing golf Friday, I play golf every Friday and you know, where are you gonna be at? this time, where you be at this time and I got done playing golf and he’s like, Where are you? Where are ya? And I’m like, Daniel

Rob Murray (21:44): Like Jesus Christ, this kid’s incessant.

Paul St. Pierre (21:46): Come see me, and Daniel’s twenty-four, so it was not like he’s a young child, waiting for dad to get home. And we live two minutes away and got home and all of a sudden my son’s home and my dad and my niece’s husband and I’m like, This is really weird So I walked in the house and I said to my wife and I’m like, Honey, what’s going on?

Like what kind of blow up is there and and what’s happening? and I said, Honey, don’t let me get in, go to the pool house and there’s a blow up ’cause I don’t want to lose my top in front of my dad and if something happened to Daniel.

Rob Murray (22:13): Yeah.

Paul St. Pierre (22:15): And again, that’s probably some PTSD to my own situations of what I’ve cost myself a whole on the way, but so get into the pool house and make the story real short. they had found

The same year, not the same vehicle, but they found a 1976 Chevette that won numerous awards across the US in Cincinnati, Ohio, and brought me to the front yard. by then our whole family’s there, everybody’s around, and rolled up a 1976 Chevette that I started my business in. So it was a special full circle moment, especially coming from my dad.

And my son, yeah, pretty amazing.

Rob Murray (22:55): That’s beautiful that’s beautiful.

and so where is this wonderful award-winning Chavette now?

Paul St. Pierre (23:01): So it’s it’s

got a cover on it, sits in the garage. I bring it out every so often. I mean the fumes in the thing is just I mean no suspension, you know, no power anything. Yeah.

Rob Murray (23:10): No.

Paul St. Pierre (23:10): it’s a Sunday ride. It’s you know, stick shift and the fumes are plenty and you know no.

Rob Murray (23:17): It’s it’s it’s beautiful though that I mean I I think it

it’s a testament to the impact that you’ve had on people all around you. for someone to go out of their way to get you something like that. I’ve never heard of a Chevette winning an award for the record.

Paul St. Pierre (23:29): Yeah. no, it this thing won awards all across the US. It’s I’ve got all the award winning like its thing is in incredible mint condition. And so we’re gonna do something cool with it. We’re gonna put it, you know, on one of our facilities. I got this I use a lot of sea cans at our facility, so I got a thought of putting it inside a sea canned. And for me it’s just always where it started, how it started.

You know, you haven’t seen our facilities, but one of our other facilities I have our old office that we ran our company in that’s less than I would say two hundred and twenty square feet, and it’s an old bank machine. So again, dating myself being fifty-five years old, but an old bank machine when Royal Bank came out and they were putting bank machines in while the facilities or the banks weren’t built for it, so they would put outdoor exterior.

bank machines. And it’s a bank machine that we moved around to multiple facilities and ran our business out of and it’s part of our onboarding when I bring people for their onboarding message and just say, you know, we ran the entire business for eight years out of that. And it’s always just a a great reminder of how it all started and, staying humble, being humble, and just

really putting your head down and working hard at the end of the day.

Rob Murray (24:38): Yeah.

Well and and you mentioned a couple things. I’d love to just maybe, wrap up with this kind of topic for a quick second is around mentorship. you mentioned Mark, you mentioned was it JSL JPL, John Paul.

Paul St. Pierre (24:49): JPL, Jean Paul Lamar. Yeah.

Rob Murray (24:51): how did you end up connecting with mentors and what drove you to that type of learning?

Paul St. Pierre (24:56): I’ve always been the curious mind. I’ve always wanted it doesn’t matter, even at the stage I’m at today, I wanna be better tomorrow than I am today. So that curious mind is always there. And reading’s always been of interest, studying’s always been of interest. And, I met JPL at an LO event. He spoke at one of the LO events, so he was a speaker and met him and you know, it just something rang true to me.

Like everything else, if I’m gonna do it, I’m gonna do it right. I’m only gonna do it the right, I only know how to do it one way and I was all in, jumped in head first, full body, and JPL and I became best of friends along the way. I know that that wasn’t something that he did consistently with clients. But we became very, very close and

it’s imperative to surround yourself and it doesn’t have to be in industry. It just so happened for me it was that. It happened that, you know a lot of Mark Bradley’s principles, LMN’s principles, everything are based on either Van Der Koy or JPL and kind of a meld of the two systems and so just very aligned and that’s kinda when Mark started into the LMN world and started his path.

again, another LO event that I believe that one was at Blue Mountain, all in with to Mark Bradley, listening to what Mark you know had to say and you know, right up to today. I mean, even what Troy and I are experiencing, him being on the other side of the board, me being here, later stages of our businesses and what do we do with our businesses today, where do we take our businesses?

it’s incredible to have and there you know there there’s so many great things today in our industry. everything Mark’s got going on now with Leanscaper is incredible. and I mean how many guys are doing a great job in our industry and so I mean it is imperative to you know I love industry events but I also am part of some pretty crazy amazing masterminds that are outside of the industry.

which then really open up to business as a whole. Yeah.

Rob Murray (26:40): Think thinking, right? Yeah. That’s

cool. And and I think I you know, anybody listening to this that is part of associations or goes to events already knows this, but the community in the industry is unbelievable. Everybody’s so open, willing to share. I mean, we’ve been working with landscapers for whatever, fifteen years, pretty exclusively for about seven. and we’ve been in a bunch of other industries over the twenty years we’ve been doing this and

we haven’t found one even close to the openness and willingness to help in the landscape industry. So you’re a big part of that too. you’re leading by example. but even the stories you’re telling about this mentorship and connecting people to all these events, it’s just you just hear it all over the place. I just think it’s a really cool part of being in the space.

Paul St. Pierre (27:15): Yeah, and I’m still pushing it even, as I’m trying to exit my business without exiting that whole cliche of really where I’m at today. I’m part of a great organization, called MMT. And they’re they’re unbelievable. and I’m only in industry, if you want to call it, person in that in that mastermind. You know, another one I’m part of right now is M19

So it’s

Rob Murray (27:36): Mm-hmm.

Paul St. Pierre (27:36): a M19 is a nineteenth hole, so it’s it’s a golf related

Rob Murray (27:39): yeah

yeah, they must have caught you for sure. You get to go golf epic stuff, talk biz with really smart people. That sounds great.

Paul St. Pierre (27:46): Pretty amazing. Pretty amazing. And yeah, so I’m just a big believer that it, you know, just never stop learning, never stop, wanting to improve. And I expect that and want that from our team. You know, I put it out to my team regularly and they all know they bring me anything. I will invest in their personal growth, both in business or in the business and personal.

I I’ve stood up at any any of our meetings, as a team and I asked them to bring me if there’s any challenges that they have or anything they wanna master or anything that they wanna learn and bring it to me and I wanna invest in them. make them better. And that’s really to the core of what I’m

really pushing, and my my push for my force today.

Rob Murray (28:29): successful people are always focused on training and developing their people. There’s no question about it. so as a lifelong learner, would there be an author or speaker that you would give a shout out to or two that the audience should go check out a book or a podcast I don’t know whatever anything that you think would be worthwhile checking out?

Paul St. Pierre (28:46): my team will kinda laugh, but the book’s not the greatest but reading crucial conversations.

Rob Murray (28:52): That’s a good book.

Paul St. Pierre (28:53): I loved it. that was another strong, strong pivot in my in my career. when you you’re fearing a tough conversation with a team member, you know, a loved one anyone in your life. Anyone.

Rob Murray (29:05): Family, yeah. Well I think it one of the things I’ve

I’ve found with having crucial conversations outside of the book is that there are people that are too nice to be what they think is mean. So then they tippy toe around feedback. And then there are people that kind of come off as asses and they need to like soften it. this book kinda gives you a path no matter which way on this end of the spectrum you are. It’ll really just help you like, hey, that there’s there’s kindness in being candid.

Paul St. Pierre (29:27): Yeah, and it’s the precipit I always look at it, it’s the trajectory of if you would have addressed it or had that tough conversation or that crucial conversation, how that could have changed the trajectory of the next steps. you know, how those building blocks just build upon each other, upon each other. And that was a big, big, big move, for me. You know, culture wise, and a gentleman by the name of Tony Garerri for sure as well.

You know, our our culture.

Rob Murray (29:51): Sorry, I

I missed I missed the name. What was that? Tony?

Paul St. Pierre (29:53): Tony Garerri. G-A-R-E-R-R-I. Tony owns a company called Roma Molding and in Woodwood Bridge. And he’s a really, really dear friend. You know, so from a culture perspective, I mean he’s got his own entire TonyGarerri.com brand. he’s been a very, very strong mentor.

Again, these are all regular meetings. Tony comes in once or twice a year. JPL came in once or twice a year. I don’t take the foot off the gas on these things and it’s not just in times of need. I learned long ago that even when things are good, just keep keep pushing it, keep keep building, keep growing, keep growing everybody’s skill sets and

I don’t wait. I’ve never waited for things to turn. You were talking earlier about a downturn. This I can honestly say I’ve never ever and the company has never looked for a day’s work or wondered where we’re going next week or next month in my entire career. Ever.

Rob Murray (30:50): Thank you for doing this.

Paul St. Pierre (30:52): Thank you for having me.

Rob Murray (30:53): And thanks for everybody to listen to another episode of the IM Landscape Growth Podcast. See you next time.