Stop Feeling Your Marketing, Start Measuring It | Michael Palmer, Landscape Collective

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Rob Murray (21:13): They’re swamped!

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Rob Murray (00:30): Alright, welcome back everybody to another episode of the IM Landscape Growth Podcast. you know, I probably say this more than I should because in most cases it’s not, but this time it is. But we have a unique guest and I’m really pumped to hear what he has to say, Palmer from Landscape Collective. Thanks so much for doing this, man. It’s probably long overdue.

Michael Palmer (00:45): Yeah, awesome. Glad to be here and thanks for having me.

Rob Murray (00:48): most folks that come onto the show have some sort of like crazy story about how they started their landscaping business from a hatchback or a rowboat in some cases. your background is a little bit different and your experience in the industry, coming on two years, so it’s like a fresh perspective. what you’re doing though has been tide tested and true for many years. So why don’t you give the audience a little context in terms of who we’re listening to so they can understand where you’re coming from.

Michael Palmer (01:11): Sure. Yeah, so my name’s Michael Palmer. Everybody calls me Palmer, which Rob jumped right into and that’s that’s how I like it. I do have a little bit of a crazy story. It’s just not probably the traditional one of, starting up a shop and kind of growing it from the boots up. really kind of nonlinear path background of a person who generally speaking was from design school to like branding and marketing was my world.

all over the world, a bunch of different industries and backgrounds, worked on the agency side, worked on the client side. and then a friend of mine slash former person that I worked with had left we both left the a restaurant group at the same time where I was building and designing restaurants and branding and marketing and launching with him and when he left he went to the same kind of thing where he jumped into a landscape group that needed some help and he helped grow it and he ultimately sold it to the landscape collective. and then I left and did a bunch of startups and was running around the startup world, a lot of tech stuff, ed tech and safety tech and all kinds of funny, funny, early stage businesses.

and at some point he said, Do you want to come help us? it was at that time still Shill Grounds management. and you know, Jerry and and John Owen the group had put together a bunch of businesses. I think at the point we were around twelve acquisitions or fourteen acquisitions at the time. and it was kind of just that it was a bunch of different businesses in a bunch of different markets and they were starting to figure out, okay, what do we need to do to like pull this together and really get scale.

my role was to help figure out scale and the marketing and kind of brand and and overall strategy perspective. And so, two years in, that’s where I’ve been.

Rob Murray (02:40): Sweet buddy. Well, pumped to have you on the show and it’s been an absolute joy. you know, from Paul and Ryan and the team, Curtis, they’ve all just been saying how much of a breath of fresh air it is to work with someone like you. Not to say that all our clients aren’t awesome, but you definitely bring a cool perspective. So with that in mind, the meat and potatoes of the show, as it were.

Is what’s the primary growth constraint holding entrepreneurs back in the green industry from what you see in a cool perspective from being in it and surrounded by these entrepreneurs? What’s the thing holding these folks back?

Michael Palmer (03:11): I mean that’s probably been the coolest part of the early start to this kind of chapter of my life was really just getting to run around to a bunch of different markets and meet a bunch of different teams and founders and folks that had grown their businesses. and so that was an awesome way to learn, right? An awesome way to enter into the business and to start to learn and understand like what goes on and how what makes a market tick and and how we might, find a way to to improve on that.

And I think like one of the main things you see, and again I’m gonna come at it from more like the marketing and brand perspective and the growth perspective, and that very much was, you can grow a business so far with referrals and in market perception and that kind of boots on the ground getting out there and and working the relationships, but at some point that sort of starts the plateau.

and you’re gonna need to find other growth engines and other ways to go out and get leads and ways to get leads in an efficient and scalable way and drive more visibility and drive more growth outside of your, network that you’ve developed. and what I saw when I went around there was that people were doing a lot of different things to dabble in it, but there wasn’t maybe the bandwidth or maybe the financial investment or the willingness to put financial investment.

into identifying, whether that be in market stuff, whether that be, on online lead gen, whether that be just developing enough of the channels to drive organic growth, et cetera. it was just a lot of like dip in the toe, but not necessarily diving in.

Rob Murray (04:34): Yeah, so I mean, there’s a lot there that I’d love to dig into more. because so for the record in terms of context, the landscape collective is primarily focused on the commercial sector of the industry, fair? Yeah.

Michael Palmer (04:46): Correct. Yeah, correct.

Rob Murray (04:47): There’s a lot of commercial landscapers out there, and by a lot, I would think the vast majority who would just say Legion Digital for commercial? Never.

Everybody is by relationship. Networking is what works. There’s no way people search on Google for commercial landscape services. And for years the data would suggest that’s not accurate. And then there’s this really weird thing, and I’d love to get your take on it, but there was this perception from these landscapers that all these property managers and facility managers had this like robust Rolodex of best friend property management companies.

And I was like, I just don’t think they know anybody. Like I think they I think you guys all want to know them and they’re too busy to recognize any of you. So what’s your take on all this? ’Cause I’d love to just peel back the onion kind of layer by layer.

Michael Palmer (05:30): Yeah, yeah. No, that’s amazing. I love that you use the word perception because like I had to do a lot of that changing of perception in the organization to combat exactly that, right? The first thing everybody said is we don’t find people that way. We don’t find people that way. That’s not where a property manager is. and I’m sitting there going, Hold on a second, like a property manager’s not an expert in every, possible trade that hits their site. and what’s the first thing that people do when they’re trying to like find somebody in a space that they’re not an expert in? You go to Google and you type in landscaper. Exactly. And so and so

Rob Murray (05:59): No no, I thought you go to a bar and you network and drink a beer.

Michael Palmer (06:06): I basically had to go market by market and set some precedent and show they all said like, you know, you’re never gonna find maintenance. Because in part of the network we had some different businesses that did have other some a little bit of residential a little bit of construction. and they kind of believed it for construction, especially if it was kind of like the backyard pool type thing or whatever, but they just didn’t believe it for commercial and to your point, and they definitely didn’t believe it for maintenance. And was quickly able to show that spending a little bit of money and it doesn’t take a ton, was able to get traction on search. and because I think so many other players in the different markets also weren’t believing that and weren’t necessarily investing in it. It was ripe open territory that was low cost to go find and then we did find and we have continued to find on a steady basis for going over a year now and have basically everybody in our network now, all 14 brands are now enrolled in spending in this and it’s working in every market. So that’s the other paradigm it breaks down is that you can spend search money and you will find property managers and maintenance dollars. I think we have like two or three brands in there last summer and it was generating deals and as those deals were converting. this year we have like I say we’re up to I think ten of fourteen are in there right now and that we’re getting the others online. it’s converting in all the markets and we have a tremendous amount of deal flow this year versus last year that I can see digitally and I can connect directly from directly from an online form into, you know, into the funnel and then converting.

Rob Murray (07:29): So first of all It’s just perfect. I’m very conflicted to share this message because there’s this window Yeah,

Michael Palmer (07:34): I know. It’s the secret sauce.

Rob Murray (07:36): And I think I might just, you know, I mean there we have a pretty solid listener base, but I think if they’re talking to a commercial person, I’d be like, Hey, check this out, you know, minute eight to minute ten. There there is some precedence here. and the data set that you guys have been creating it’s just been a joy working with you guys, really is unprecedented, right? Like you’re starting to get visibility too across brands.

And like, I mean this is a tactical work question, but have you seen your landscape marketing index for the collective? Like do you see all the data compiled in for your group of companies now?

Michael Palmer (08:05): yeah, yeah, yeah.

that was a big challenge and again coming in from the outside we had a bunch of different domains and a bunch of different website hosts and all those things and an effort to get scale and to do the most with our resources, that was a big part of the year one is really pulling all that together and trying to get a system in place that we could repeat. and now actually this season is the first full season we have this great flow where we see all the deal creation and kind of where it’s coming from and under one roof and then that also translates into we use Aspire and that translates into our own proprietary kind of KPI dashboard where we see it all come together. So really full funnel view. for those that are data nerds like plenty of data to look at.

it’s amazing advantage that like of being a larger larger organization. We can kind of see different markets, what something that’s working over here, we can start to try it over here. if a certain market’s having a tough time for some reason it’s not, generating as much leads, we can poke some things and look at some other places. So yeah, I mean the data is there.

Lots of it, too much maybe, but there’s never too much and it’s just how do we unpack it and learn from it and optimize and tweak and keep trying to make it more efficient and more effective.

Rob Murray (09:07): Yeah, sweet. So then let’s come back to this first idea because I think it’s one of the fundamental components of like helping these entrepreneurs and me included change mindsets to be able to unlock potential. Right. So you go into a group of folks that have a way of doing things, you challenge the status quo with a new way of doing things. Some people say, Okay, I’ll give it a shot, but a lot of folks when they go to this stuff, they kinda try to get to second base with one foot on first.

And so they dabble but they don’t invest. And so what was it like working with these folks? Like what was it that helped tip them? You know, what was that that greased the wheel? Like you help us un unpack that a bit?

Michael Palmer (09:41): Yeah, I mean I think it’s like anything else. Crawl before you walk, before you run. and then just change management, right? So really what I focused on is that there was a couple structures that were in place that I thought, the team was already on HubSpot. Okay, fine, I can manage and work with HubSpot, let’s lean into that. it’s an easy tool I can leverage out across the dashboard and get more people enrolled. there’s so just trying not to like careful to not like go in and try to like break everything, try to leverage some things that were there and figure out how to make some path that leads to resistance. And so, you know, leaned into HubSpot, had a couple of brands and a couple of markets that had some structure that was in place that made it a little easier to do some testing and start some things, or things that maybe were already in place and we were just able to kind of tweak and optimize to kind of prove out a theory. and so that that was it, right? You know, hey look, I have this set up.

It’s flowing from the sales team and these biz developers are into Aspire and they’re converting and they’re happy with it. And when I added, some spending Google doing this to this, help spot lead form on the website, that was flowed through and like we saw some, wins there. And then taking those wins to the next market and saying, hey, you guys are pretty close to this if you let me do X, Y, and Z on the website to change it. or hey, you’re spending money over here with these guys.

But are you watching it go all the way through? I mean, that was one of the biggest things I noticed is like to your point, I think about like where the conversation we were having about dipping your toe, it’d be like, I’m doing a little email over here and I am spending money on search, but they weren’t paying all the attention to any one thing. They were just paying a little bit of attention to everything. And so like the the biggest recommendation

Rob Murray (11:09): Yeah, common issue, right?

Michael Palmer (11:12): is pick a thing and like try it and work on it and make sure that the system is in place to do it all the way through and what I mean all the way through that you can say I spent X or I did X and it yielded X. and be able to show that win and then take that and then roll out from there. that’s where my first focus for the first year was really cleaning up the system, proving something worked and then starting to apply it across. And it took and it’s still doing it to be honest, we’re not done yet. But now that the sales in that kind of search lead it is in place and we’re starting to see that work and we’re being able to apply it to multiple markets, now I can go choose the next thing. And I’ve been very strict. like, why aren’t you posting on social? or why aren’t you, you know, do an XYZ to like continue the growth and I’m say I you know, we can’t. Like let me do this and should get this running and make sure everybody’s running and continue and approve it and then let’s go test the next thing. And in the background I’ve been testing cold email prospecting getting lists and I’ve been testing some stuff on LinkedIn and I’m testing things but real small potatoes to try to figure out what’s gonna work and how it’s gonna work before we go, tackle it full Monty. But it’s always do it, set it up right, run a good test, and then make sure you can talk about what actually happened in the end. And I think that’s the biggest thing is that if you don’t follow it to the end and see and you’re able to really understand and articulate what worked, why worked, and how much it was converting and why it was converting, like then it’s kind of wasted money. You’re just throwing dollars out there and just not getting it. I had plenty of guys that said, I’m spending some money and I can feel it. That’s what they would tell me. It’s like I can I can I

Rob Murray (12:40): Of course.

Michael Palmer (12:41): feel the call. There’s like more phone calls or like, you know, I feel it. And I’m like, well yeah I don’t want you to feel it. I want you to tell me that you spent a thousand dollars and it got you five thousand dollars.

Rob Murray (12:49): And it works. So wait, hold on a second. You’re telling me you can measure leads all the way through to revenue? I think a lot of people don’t necessarily know that it’s possible. and so like the idea of investing in something like this is that feeling and it’s just like they’ve done it before, it didn’t work, and anyway, for anybody listening, yes it is possible. You can get lead all the way through to revenue and it becomes crystal clear when you set it up right like Palmer has.

Michael Palmer (13:09): I mean that’s the advantage of everybody, you know, everybody’s living and out and working out of their phones. Everything’s digital. It’s not, as much about putting up billboards or, doing this and that. And I’m not gonna say don’t ever do that stuff, but like honestly it’s just there’s a place

Rob Murray (13:20): Sure, there’s a place.

Michael Palmer (13:22): and a time maybe. I don’t focus on it ’cause I hate doing things that I can’t measure. and I always wanna be able to s like I said, say that this amount of spend, got me this amount of revenue.

Rob Murray (13:30): That’s cool. And I mean like you’re like running a landscape marketing agency inside the landscape collective, essentially, right? And and so

Michael Palmer (13:35): Basically, basically yeah.

Rob Murray (13:37): like all the stories you’re sharing it just like resonates so hard with us ’cause

Michael Palmer (13:40): Ha ha.

Rob Murray (13:41): when someone comes on board, they’re like, Well, can you do social? Can you do email and can you do all this stuff? We’re like, Yeah, but like you don’t have attribution in place and like there’s nothing measuring anything right now and your website’s garbage and your local reputation’s brutal. So like one

Michael Palmer (13:50): Let’s choose an object and go after it and then, you know, once that goal’s met then we can move on to the next one. it’s been a lot of discipline in that and then just telling people like, Hey, I would love to do it, but we haven’t chosen to invest in it. I don’t have the resources or whatever, you know, and let’s

Rob Murray (14:04): Yeah.

Michael Palmer (14:04): be real smart with our effort.

Rob Murray (14:06): Well I think the other thing that you’re saying without saying is this is a course of years. You know, you’re layering in and building systems over the course of years, not in the course of weeks, months or quarters.

So can you shed some light to that like annualized thinking, that system building perspective that you have? Because we see all the winners, all the entrepreneurs that win are the ones that think in years and decades, not in quarters and years. So help us understand that thinking from your perspective.

Michael Palmer (14:30): It I was a lot more to do it yeah, I wasn’t necessarily putting time on it and some of the time in our world and within the Landscape Collective has more to do with the amount of businesses and the amount of markets that we’re in than it does to do with like actual, you know, time to execute. So it was a less a little bit more about like the focus is more about what is the problem that’s most urgent and most needed to be solved and where can we have the biggest impact. And for us it was about organic growth, and helping really drive another avenue in for a sales organization. So when I came on, they’d already done a fair amount of investment into a sales organization in the traditional way that a landscaping business might. They had, people going out and selling and doing all the, boots on the ground and the networking and the hanging out at trade shows and going to events. And it was, I thought, and we talked about as a business, organic growth is one of our top three goals, maybe right behind renewal and retention. But it was the one that was the most easily set up for me to have an impact as a marketing man and marketing team of one.

Rob Murray (15:28): Right.

Michael Palmer (15:28): that’s another thing you have to think of. And again, that’s gonna be a restraint that most people have. They either have none and they have somebody that’s part timing it as a dual rule, or they have, you know, very limited resources. And so even, at our scale, it was a marketing team of one to start.

And so that was where I was able to have the most impact on one of the highest, target goals as a company that we had, which was organic growth and lead gen was my way of doing that from person to one. I can manage multiple websites if I get them on the same chassis. I can manage multiple

Rob Murray (15:55): Yeah.

Michael Palmer (15:56): Google, profiles and Google accounts in search if I can get it, you know, kind of my arms around it as an individual. and so as I have another person, now we’re a marketing team of two, so we’re huge.

Rob Murray (16:06): Watch out.

Michael Palmer (16:08): but as we got more resources and more time and as that system got more in place, then it was then now I’ve started to move on to, you know, big goal number two, which like I said, retention and renewal, which everybody I know can speak to in this industry. And so that’s the one, right? Those are the the y you know, what is it, the bird in hand. Like they’re they’re there. Let’s make sure we’re nurturing and making sure making the most of our relationship with them. And so that’s now I’ve been able to get that system in place and now move to this next goal.

Rob Murray (16:33): Love that. So then when you got in there and you’re starting doing lead gen, I mean the the sales focus within the landscape collective is probably higher than normal in terms of sales operations. But we see a lot of issues with sales execution.

So leads come in, they sit maybe a day, two, who knows, maybe three. they get reached out to once, they don’t reply, they are you know, they ghosted us, they they’re tire kickers. Can you speak a little bit to the sales process and like how demand gen and lead gen and and marketing and sales really do kind of lockstep in order to make it work properly?

Michael Palmer (17:10): Yep, it’s a hundred percent you some same with everything else, really working relationships and working with those folks and it’s the same thing. I had to prove and break perceptions with them one again, one or two at a time.

worked with you know one or two folks, got them to be kind of endorsement endorsements and and ambassadors for it and kind of continued to to walk out from there. but but exactly what we said everywhere else, the same kind of barriers, the same perceptions came. And so once as again some of the luxury of having the the network of business developers that we had, once we were able to find some folks that were do what we you know doing it right or it or you know more I may maybe more importantly or or whatever, is having success, we

Rob Murray (17:49): Mm-hmm.

Michael Palmer (17:50): started to talk to other folks about what was happening and it and and so that it’s it’s the things you just talked about. Like when an an online league comes in, now they all know and they all are super excited because they’ve seen the data that like that is whether it may maybe whether they’re a tire kicker or not, that is somebody that has intent. Like they’ve found they found their

Rob Murray (18:08): Yeah, yeah. They put their hand up.

Michael Palmer (18:10): They found their way to you, they put their hand up, they saw something they liked, whether it was in the search ad or on your website or whatever, and they are asking for something. So like if you’re ignoring that as a salesperson, I don’t know what you’re doing and that’s you know, it took me a minute.

to break that barrier down, but not long. Once the again, once the data started flowing and once I was able to show a couple of folks that like I can give you like real dollars and real deals and those deals can’t convert, then word spread and now it’s not nearly as big of a challenge. and now it’s more about, hey, you know, s so and so over here in eastern Pennsylvania, you don’t seem to be having the same success as, you know, this guy in Indy.

here’s what he is doing or here’s what she is doing that is kind of she’s responding right away on email, she’s following up with a phone call, she’s making a note, you know, to do it again a week later. You know, you can’t you you can’t leave and it’s about speed. And they all start like we had a group sales meeting earlier this summer and a couple of the folks that we asked to speak kind of on behalf because we’re still doing it. We’re still continuing to like go out and champion the cause. they kind of said it’s speed It’s adding value to what they already gave you or what they already know, like and trying to read between the lines and kind of ask the deeper, more probing questions about the problem that you can try to solve in presenting yourself. So you know, but speed was the number one thing. And then, you know, as a as a this day and age and as a marketing organization, we put in some stuff in in place to to bridge the gap. If something falls through the cracks, they still get an automated email from me that’s like introducing them to their salesperson and and so there’s w

Rob Murray (19:44): Right. So you’re nurturing the lead on behalf of the sales reps and just touch points.

Michael Palmer (19:47): Yeah, and so and then that’s a it’s sort of like a backup plan, right? It’s there to to support them and try to make sure that they can’t fail but you know, nothing beats as soon as nothing beats that form coming in and then them getting on the phone and talking to right away or then, you know, responding in an email right away.

Rob Murray (20:03): Yeah, it’s cool. I mean we so we typically ask people like what’s the lead response time and most people say it’s like twenty-four to forty-eight hours. Like it’s somewhere in there. And so we’re like, all right, cool. So like our expectation is five minutes.

Michael Palmer (20:14): Hehehe.

Rob Murray (20:14): And they’re just like, how can I possibly do five minutes? It’s like, well, let’s break it down and see what we can do to make it work. and actually there was a story of one company who actually bought they hired a lead response person full-time, forty grand a year. they worked six hours a day, so they didn’t work all day. but their only job was lead response. They only answered the phone, they only responded to form fills. Like that was it, nothing else. So when they weren’t doing that, they weren’t allowed a project. They were literally on their phone playing like Candy Crush or something, whatever back in the day.

and that that person alone within the first three months closed a hundred and fifty thousand dollars worth of deals by responding quickly. And so I just think people underestimate the idea of speed and the fact that you’re reinforcing it is huge and I just want everybody here listening to it it you can win.

Michael Palmer (20:50): It’s they’re hot, they’re ready, you know. Chump if you get there quick, you’re gonna beat you. They probably fill out three forms, you know, your yours and two other persons ’cause they’re looking for help and they have a problem to solve. So the the first person to respond, the faster you solve their problem, the quicker you get it off their plate. you know, we yeah, you kind of alluded to this before, but property managers are they’re busy. Like they’re deal

Rob Murray (21:13): They’re swamped!

Michael Palmer (21:14): They’re dealing with all the fires of the day, they’re dealing with all the you know, whether it’s a tenant or you know, the all the doors in the residential communities, like there’s a lot of people they have to make they make happy. They’re working on multiple, you know, multiple properties at once. They can’t be everywhere, they can’t do everything all the time. So it’s just like shit on the

Rob Murray (21:32): And they get shit on all the time.

Michael Palmer (21:33): table. A hundred percent. And just like when you’re serving As a customer, you’re trying to take problems off their plate. It’s the same thing in sales. If you’re if they’ve reached out and they have a problem solved, they need it done fast for and they’re they’re looking to get it off their plate so they can move on to the next problem. So there’s there’s absolutely everything to do with with quickness. And I love that you said the like the inside sales thing essentially, because like it’s I’ve actually been talking about that recently of as a way to speed up slash you know, there’s certain markets where we’re not as mature and we don’t have as much sales support and so maybe we can we can hit a couple of markets as they get up to maturity with a resource that can can do just that, respond quickly.

Rob Murray (22:10): Yeah.

Yeah, well I mean it’s like I mean there’s so many examples of this, but I don’t know, if my wife’s ever like, Hey, let’s go, like I’m not like, give me minute, I you know, when people want something, they want something now. And so, don’t don’t let it get cold ’cause who knows if you get back and then all of a sudden they’ve found somebody else or they’re too busy to get back to it, you know, strike while the iron’s hot.

Michael Palmer (22:31): Exactly.

Rob Murray (22:32): So, You you look at the bigger picture here from the marketing team as one which is now doubled in size, which is amazing, congratulations. where what do you see coming up down the horizon? Like you know, a lot of the entrepreneurs we talk to or even associations are not necessarily focused on what’s coming when it comes to marketing and sales and you know, the next gen customer and so like where do you see the opportunities in front of you that people may not see clearly yet?

Michael Palmer (22:54): I mean I hate to use the buzzword of the day, but I’m definitely leveraging AI just to be faster, more efficient and to continue to like analyze data, you know, even just help with content, to h basically maximize the resource that myself and one other person are. so obviously like that’s sort of like the obvious one. but we’re also using it to develop, you know, tools that allow us to better serve our customers too.

and so the w the I mean that’s the if I’m thinking of just from a business objective standpoint, the you know, lead gen is the is one and again you know search is search right now, but like we’re starting to see more and more search being AI referrals versus, you know, the traditional search referrals.

Rob Murray (23:36): It’s almost hit one percent in our system. And and last year Yeah, and well and

Michael Palmer (23:38): Yeah, I I’d I mean I’d say even in ours it’s a little bit bigger already, like

Rob Murray (23:42): last year was zero point zero zero zero four. Like for the whole and that’s like on a hundred and seventy thousand leads. And this year

Michael Palmer (23:46): Yeah. Yeah.

Rob Murray (23:49): it’s it’s almost at one percent. Like the rate of change is very big. It’ll jump, yeah.

Michael Palmer (23:52): It’s happening fast and I think that’ll just leap even faster. I mean it you just you know, I my mom’s will say that she’s like been on Chat GPT, which is you know, she’s pushing eighty, so that’s a that’s she can barely text but she does. i exactly.

Rob Murray (24:03): Yeah. And now she’s got Chappie, her new best friend.

Michael Palmer (24:08): but so yeah, not to beat the AI drum, but it’s definitely a thing. and then the other you know, the other path for me is is just continue try to, you know, continue to meet the audience where they’re at.

and and that’s just through tapping into the ev any in any channel that’s that’s out there. So, if they’re professionally on LinkedIn I’m going after there. If there’s, you know, all the forums and all the places that they’re kinda talking behind the scenes, we’re going there. it’s really just knowing your audience at the end of the day, it’s and and whatever the latest kind of technology is, to to go find there.

Rob Murray (24:42): Yeah, I’m marketing one one right be where your customer is.

Michael Palmer (24:44): There’s no I mean I it’s hard to I you know, there’s not like some secret like looking around the corner thing that’s gonna be your silver bullet. It’s still at the end of the day you gotta find the way to talk connect to the person.

Rob Murray (24:54): So then are w are you seeing anything right now where you guys started to dabble or think about testing SMS Legion?

Michael Palmer (25:00): Yes.

it’s a th it’s kind of a challenge w just the way our organization’s setup and then the way the pr previous systems kind of were i getting at people. So that you know, that’s all about opt-in, just because there’s a lot of legality around using SMS to to outreach to people. So you still have to get close enough to you to to be able to have opt in in a way that allows you then to go kind of chase down.

I th we’re looking at it a lot more when it comes to people that you know, either people that have lapsed that were in the system that we’re trying to get back, that you sort of have a default opt-in for. and we’re going out and spending we definitely are spending a lot more time trying to figure out how to get the current base and any potential base kind of into that that wheelhouse. so it I I wish I was further along in it. It’s been in my back to back to kind of discipline and focus. It’s been on the list and I’ve done some testing in that regard. but but I you know, it has a lot to do with just the constraints of the of the channel.

Rob Murray (26:00): Yeah, that’s cool. I w and I think it’ll be interesting to see what happens in the next five years as you know, the twenty five year olds of today become the thirty year olds of tomorrow and how they really just

Michael Palmer (26:08): Sure, they’re way more

Rob Murray (26:09): they just don’t want to be on a phone call. It’s all text. So I’m just curious how lead forms will start to become all mobile SMS based. I don’t think the email’s gonna go away overnight by any means, but I’m definitely interested to see how this plays out over the next five years ’cause I think it’s gonna be more and more asynchronous communication and you know we’re we’re seeing phone call volumes starting to drop already. overall lead volumes are still strong, but anyway it’d just be interesting to see business

Michael Palmer (26:33): I I I mean I can echo that to a degree. If I I thought, and I haven’t fully disproved it, but I think to your point, I had a I had kind of a hypothesis back maybe a year ago where I thought phone calls was going to be this massive channel. and actually using some of the what converts data, I was looking at that and I’m seeing there’s a lot of lot of phone calls coming in still. and I was in theory I was like, I bet there’s leads here, I bet there’s you know and there are But to your point, it wasn’t as big of a it wasn’t we weren’t missing as many things from the phone calls as I thought we were, as I as a hypothesis and what I come I came to find and I I stopped kind of chasing it as hard because I just there’s some there and I think we were doing a decent job of getting them and they weren’t necessarily totally falling through the cracks, but it wasn’t as I thought it was gonna be way juicier. I thought we were leaving like, you know, tons of dollars or tons of calls on the floor.

and after I investigated it was w it was more juicy on the digital side, it was more juicy on the online form side and like the folks, you know, were much more used to reaching out that way and starting it that way ’cause it’s less friction, less skin off their plate and to your point, like people are a little less, especially maybe a younger generation, a little less apt to pick up the phone. so yeah, I I that was an interesting, you know, hypotheses that that I yeah, broke for me and I just stopped chasing.

Rob Murray (27:49): That’s cool. But s when it comes to your background, you know, sales and marketing, brand, you know, cross industries, at the end of the day, you know, understanding your customer, figuring out what resonates and making it so that it’s attractive for them to want to put their hand up and talk to you. What are some resources that you kinda draw inspiration from that if people are interested in the subject matter they might want to check out?

Michael Palmer (28:08): I’m tr see here, I’m trying to think stuff that’s like approachable. I I I mean at the end of the day I’m following and running around a lot of these property management forums and I just like looking at the different industry organizations that have to do with property management and HOAs and apartment complexes and multifamilies and all that stuff and I’m just trying to see what the conversations are and what they’re talking about and what the problems to solve.

Definitely doing all the in landscaping industry stuff to make sure that message is on point and that we’re tracking along with, you know, we’re sending out stuff obviously as every

Rob Murray (28:36): Yeah, and and so where did you get your foundation though of like this approach? ’Cause like your your marketing and sales mindset is pretty strong, like clearly, more so than the average bear by a long shot. So is there any like inspirations, authors

Michael Palmer (28:45): I

Rob Murray (28:48): or anything, speakers that you kind of would draw from?

Michael Palmer (28:51): I mean I mean I’m trying to think of like thi I mean it’s the folks that are most empathetic with knowing audiences. So like the Simon Cynics of the world, the Malcolm Gladwells of the World, the what’s the guy yeah,

Rob Murray (29:03): Seth Godin.

Michael Palmer (29:05): the blink, all you know, all that kind of stuff where it’s really about perception and mindset and finding your people and like understanding their motivations. that’s I mean that’s the stuff I’ve always kinda like read up on and most been most kind of interested in. outside of that, yeah, it’s like

Rob Murray (29:18): Well I mean you just named some hardcore classics that I think a lot of people just like glaze over though these days. Like

Michael Palmer (29:25): That I guess true, but like may I’m a I’m also like getting a little older so like some of my references are probably a little more classic too. Yeah.

Rob Murray (29:30): But I but they’re ti they’re timeless though. Like I haven’t seen anybody come out and look make Seth Godin, Malcolm Gladwell, Simon Sinek, Daniel Pink look like they didn’t know what they’re like. Their pieces and their

Michael Palmer (29:41): Hun yeah, I mean

Rob Murray (29:42): research are strong as it gets. So as much as you like kind of glaze over them ’cause you maybe think of them as second nature, I think it’s a good time to remind people that these these things are worthwhile resources. Like even even the tip that

Michael Palmer (29:51): Yeah. And they’re s they’re still generating content and they’re still a paradigm or a you know, whatever that’s kind it is timeless. It’s and so

Rob Murray (29:58): Yeah. And they just brought modern research to help understand classic principles. And they just do it in a really interesting way. I mean, I’m pretty keen on all those, so maybe you just struck a chord for me.

Michael Palmer (30:07): Yeah. I mean that’s it I mean I hear ya. interesting, like same kind of thing too though, is like similar concept of like old tricks but like maybe new territory or old tricks but technology is more advanced. One of the things I’ve been working on lately too is just like a proposal builder. and back in the day people used to do all this where you could come to a site and you could kind of build your own tailored, you know, thing, but it was always pretty like chunky and like logic based and it didn’t really, you know, it didn’t really get you to a nuanced answer. and I think that’s changing and that’s something that we’re playing with now. Just with AI and with just how easy it is to kind of like add dynamic responses into kind of a a web form or whatever. there is a lot of opportunity to like custom, whether it’s you know, custom ads custom proposal builder, customize like how you respond to people with the generative kind of nature of it. Like that’s kind of interesting and exciting because it allows you to be very kind of one to one in

Rob Murray (31:05): Yeah.

Michael Palmer (31:06): your response at scale. So like to your point about looking around corners and maybe it and I kind of s I guess I started going down the AI path but maybe didn’t take it that far. But like that’s kind of really interesting where you’re seeing stuff like on LinkedIn where like you can post an ad and then it basically inserts the business name and inserts the person’s name as a tag basically so it feels as though it’s coming like directly to them. it seems maybe cheesy or inauthentic, but at the end of the day it you know, it does start to work.

Rob Murray (31:31): Well, it cuts through the noise at least at the beginning until people realize like like

Michael Palmer (31:35): Yeah, exactly.

Rob Murray (31:36): have you been seeing all these spam calendar invites come in in the last couple of months?

Michael Palmer (31:39): Yeah. There’s plenty of spam to like cut through and it gets you. Even the most sophisticated like non you know, person that’s trying not to get caught by fishing can still like bite on these things. Not to not to say it’s fishing, but it’s good.

Rob Murray (31:48): Well well, I mean, I I our team was just like well, I mean pff it is what it is, but I mean it’s just like, you know, I think as the customer becomes more cynical and skeptical, the technology to cut through the noise becomes more robust and it’s like the you know, it’s essentially like the security and the police or like the criminal and the police, you know, the it’s just constantly evolving. I think this there’s always these windows though, of advantage.

Michael Palmer (32:11): If you stay if you get ahead of it and you find it early, you can leverage it, ride it out, and then get to the next one. Yep. We’re just gonna cut it.

Rob Murray (32:14): Which is which is why I’m not gonna share this podcast with anybody that’s in the commercial space. No no no. I’ll send it all to the residential guys.

’cause I think the other thing too, and this is just one last thing I want wrap up on, ’cause this is something that yeah, like Paul had mentioned that you guys were working on at the beginning of the relationship was just like the your understanding and the business’s understanding of lifetime value of a customer. A lot of people don’t see it.

and they always look for, you know, the next twelve months or they’re always looking at, you know, return it it has to be this short term window. But you guys with your lifetime value understanding really saw like the investment into yeah, I mean you guys at some level buy annuities, like your customers stay for six, ten years, whatever. can you just help us understand from your point of view with a commercial landscape, you know, company property maintenance, what does that lifetime value mindset do for the business?

Michael Palmer (33:03): I mean yeah, that’s to your point very much maybe a commercial thing more than a residential thing because there’s much less desire from a property and an HOA standpoint, especially if you’re doing a decent job to go back out and like figure that out again, ’cause that’s

Rob Murray (33:16): Mm-hmm.

Michael Palmer (33:16): a painful process for them. So again, understanding your audience and knowing their friction, like they’re not looking to add more headaches to their year. and so yeah, I mean that’s a huge, huge that’s like I said, like if I was maybe gonna like pick top goal for the company, it’s always retention and renewal like we’ll first. I yeah yeah, we

Rob Murray (33:33): That is the key to growth period.

Michael Palmer (33:35): as a marketing team jumped down to number two with lead gen, but we’re coming back up to the top. So like but yeah, so I mean I think I think the notion that that you’re just trying to make sure that like sorry, I’m like I lost my train of thought ’cause I circled back around, but basically so give me the question again. or like

Rob Murray (33:52): No, it’s okay. It’s just you guys, your mindset on lifetime value is just super strong. Like more more robust than everybody else that we’ve talked to typically.

Michael Palmer (33:56): yeah, there you go. Yeah. Yeah. So like we know we know that our customers generally we we we try to renew it greater than ninety percent. We don’t do that in every market, but on on average we get we’re pretty close to ninety percent. That’s super important. back that friction point is that friction point is a challenge. and so it for the customer and so you’re trying to replace that friction point. So we know that if we nurture them and we work them and we talk to them, communicate with them regularly, give them chances to give feedback.

make sure that they feel heard that we can count on them to come back year over year. And so when I bring dollars in, I mostly am looking for the acute, how is it helping me this month, this year on my sales goal? But I certainly have the calculator of ROAS and and understand like my LTV on all these like acronyms and terms. So my return

Rob Murray (34:39): Yeah.

Michael Palmer (34:40): on ad spend is something I’m looking at. I’m looking at it year over year and how much did I spend and how much did I generate this month, this year. But I’m definitely also sharing and showing and forecasting.

that dollar that I spent likely is worth, you know, six times ’cause I think that’s our average right now is like six point something on our annual like what we how long we can we keep somebody. and so you can really put a six X on that spend for most of the dollars that you’re bringing in ’cause you’re likely gonna keep them for at least a few years, if not, you know, for a long time.

Rob Murray (35:09): Yeah.

Michael Palmer (35:09): and so it’s definitely a talking point. I will say, you know, when you’re talking to the operators and you’re talking to to the the people that are at the banks and whatnot, they they care much more about the acute one than they do about the the lifetime value one. But it’s, you know, when you’re talking about renewals and you’re talking about returning customers and you’re saying that that’s the number one goal in your business, then you can it’s definitely an easier conversation to have that the lifetime value, it has a it does have a real value. Those are real dollars and I calculate it and you just basic, you know, what’s your average, how long does your average customer stay?

and like I said, for us that’s a little over six years right now and and we that’s always a major objective of ours is to maintain and keep that at as high as possible. That’s the the dollars in the bank.

Rob Murray (35:53): Yeah, that’s cool. Well, I I think I mean I mean and y you guys are in this like kind of magic middle that a lot of people don’t ’cause like you have like a sophisticated approach to something that’s a bit more long term with like short term pressure and results, but it’s like all in the auspice of building something bigger and better as a group.

But I think it also gives you guys the idea of like we can spend a bit more to buy this thing. So if we’re not completely profitable, like, you know, on a say six to one ratio in year one, maybe it’s three to one year one and it’s six to one for the next five years afterwards. Anyway, I just

Michael Palmer (36:23): Yeah, no, I mean like and to your point, like if you know, you might want to say I want five times my ad spend, you know, generally that would be like a great target to have for your revenue. I might be okay with four right now, or I might be okay with three point two five because I know that of that, you know, three X that I got right out of the gate, a lot of that’s gonna stick around and like continue to come back in the door.

Rob Murray (36:45): Yeah.

Michael Palmer (36:46): and you know, and then you could you base it on the industry, right? Like how well does service businesses, how well do they typically, you know, return on this kind of spend, average it on that, look at your local market and try to make the best, you know, decision for you. And if you’re residential, it’s a little harder. But if you operate great and you’re awesome at keeping customers, then then you should be able to, you know, as a way to continue to add growth to your company, it should be an option to to look at. But again, you gotta be watching it and making sure you’re calculating all those things.

Rob Murray (37:14): Well, I I think that’s the other thing too, and just to end this note, and I think it’s something we can maybe touch on another episode in a couple months, but the sophistication that most people bring to their operations and project management is like really, really high. And that level of sophistication on sales and marketing is like not even close typically.

Michael Palmer (37:28): tends to drop. There’s n but to your exactly like they’re looking at KPIs, they’re looking at data, they’re digging through like, you know, weather weather almanacs and like they’re like operating like

Rob Murray (37:35): Gross profit, billable hours. Like it’s high level shit.

Michael Palmer (37:40): Yeah. And then to your point, then I’m like, well, you’re spending dollars over here, but you’re not doing any rigor at all, or maybe very little rigor. And so a hundred percent. if you’re gonna spend the money that’s like always been my number one thing since I’ve been watching this. If you’re spending the money, I don’t know, maybe I’m a tightwad but if you’re spending money I wanna see what it’s doing

Rob Murray (37:57): Yeah, that’s the goal. And we’ll leave it at that. Anyway, thank you, Palmer, for doing this. Everybody listen to another episode of the IM Landscape Growth Podcast. You’re the best, man. Really appreciate it.

Michael Palmer (38:04): Awesome. Thanks, appreciate it.