Dana Groh (MSC): The “M” Stood for Miscellaneous. Now It Stands for $10 Million

Vanessa (00:05): Awesome, super excited to be here today with Dana Groh from MSC, Minnesota Sod Company, who’s been in the business for over 30 years now. This is the first interview I’ve done, so I’m really excited to have you here with me. I’ve known you for what feels like forever, because we connected right out of the gate as soon as we met at an event, but it’s maybe only been a year, year and a half?

Dana (00:37): Yeah, it’s probably been around that time.

Vanessa (00:39): And we’ve connected at all those events since. So I want to turn it over to you to intro the company and yourself, and we’ll carry on from there.

Dana (00:49): Sounds great. A little background on what we do at MSC: we do everything related to turf. We have two divisions in our company. One we call our commercial side. That’s all new construction, working on large commercial sites, installing sod, and we also do seed, regular turf seed and prairie seed, along with blanket and hydro mulch. Our other side is our maintenance side, and it’s not maintenance like most people think of in the green industry. What we consider our maintenance to be is all athletic field related. Athletic field renovations, anywhere from fertilizing all the way to a full turf renovation on the other end.

Vanessa (01:35): Amazing. And are you national, or how far do you go?

Dana (01:41): Yes, we are national. We’ve worked as far away as Arizona, we’ve been in Colorado, Michigan. We’ve definitely traveled around.

Vanessa (01:48): When I first met you, I thought it was more local, but when we dove into it, you guys can go pretty far. Have you always fully specialized in this, or how did you get into this specific niche? At Intrigue we’re always talking about how people need to really niche their companies and focus in on something, and I feel like you’re a great example of that.

Dana (02:07): It’s definitely taken some time to focus to where we’re at today. Back in our earlier days, when things were a little tighter, we joke now that the “M” stood for miscellaneous. But as time went on, we were able to dial things in tighter. How we came to doing more turf related work was that our staff was limited, so Tom and I weren’t able to be on the job sites as much. We needed to keep things simple. If you’re doing a full landscape with plant material and hardscapes, the logistics are just more challenging. We felt turf was a lot easier to systemize.

Vanessa (02:47): And you recognized that pretty early on? Because I feel like that’s the struggle for people. They end up spreading themselves too thin. In your case, it seems like you almost started out trying to focus in.

Dana (03:08): Yeah, we did pretty early on. I’d say we’ve been pretty much all turf related since the early 2000s for sure. Then we built it out from there. We started with more of the commercial side, and then back in maybe 2014, 2015, we started our maintenance division.

Vanessa (03:25): Amazing. One of our big things on this podcast is digging into the primary growth constraints that hold you back, either ones you’re in the middle of or ones you’ve overcome. Can you dig into that with me? It’s been 30 years, so you must have a lot of experience breaking through bottlenecks along the way.

Dana (03:55): We’ve definitely had to break through some barriers, but truly, in all honesty, and this is going to sound funny, it’s just getting out of your own way. As a business owner early on, you’re doing so many different things. Then as your company grows, you’re not able to keep doing all of them, because things ultimately fall through the cracks, or you just can’t put enough time into them. At one point we just had to sit down and realize, okay, we’re still doing okay here, but we need to hire for this position, so somebody else can take that position and run, really own it and have fun with it.

Vanessa (04:39): I love that, because I think that’s one of the biggest problems for leaders, getting out of their own way. Rob has said that all the time, and I’m noticing it myself. You feel like you want to hold everything and control it, but to actually take a step back and let go of things is hard. Is there anything you’ve done to help recognize that? What are the cues?

Dana (05:11): One thing that’s helped me is working with coaches. I’ve worked with a couple of different coaches over the last ten years, but especially over the last two or three, and they’ve been helping me identify areas where we need to hire out. Basically tracking: what am I doing, and what do I want to get rid of? What do I not enjoy doing anymore? It was fun for a while, but I’m at the point where I know somebody else can do it better now. And then I’m not disappointing my team.

Vanessa (05:43): I love that. Such a simple way of looking at it. What am I enjoying, what am I not enjoying, and what could somebody else do better than me?

Dana (05:56): For example, more recently, this is actually really cool. Last fall we did an employee engagement survey. We felt like the culture just wasn’t where we wanted it to be, so we said, let’s do a survey to get a pulse on where everybody’s at in the company. We did it last October, which is the height of our season, getting toward the end of the season, where people can naturally tend to be a little short.

Vanessa (06:27): Maybe a little burnout. They’ve been going so hard all season.

Dana (06:31): Yeah. So we questioned whether we should be doing it during the height of the season, giving somebody one more thing to do, even if it’s a five minute survey. But we just ran with it, and we got great feedback. We got 100% of the company. Everybody completed the survey, and they gave us great information. Through that survey, through some of the comments, it was uncovered that we really did need somebody dedicated to the people part of it. So over the last month we ended up hiring a people and HR person to come in and run with that role. It’s very exciting.

Vanessa (07:13): That’s super exciting, and to have a hundred percent completion rate is huge. We do a lot of surveys here too, to figure out our blind spots and keep a pulse on culture. How many team members do you have, to get a hundred percent completion?

Dana (07:28): We’re really lucky. We’re a company of 30 during the height of the season, and we back down to about 15 during the winter.

Vanessa (07:36): Were there incentives, or do you just have an engaged team?

Dana (07:41): No, we just have an engaged team. There was no incentive other than, hey, thanks so much for doing the survey. And we did a follow up with everybody, which was really helpful as well. But to get a hundred percent, that’s pretty awesome.

Vanessa (07:53): It speaks to your culture and the team you already have. And the idea that you circled back is big. That’s been the biggest thing for our leadership team too. Sometimes we’d implement feedback, then do another survey and hear we weren’t communicating well, because people never actually heard back about it. You actioned it right away, and the team saw you hire that position and put the feedback into play.

Dana (08:28): Yeah, for sure. It’s been a great thing. We’ve had a lot of takeaways from it, and I’m sure we’ll be doing more.

Vanessa (08:35): Is that the first one you’ve done?

Dana (08:37): That was the first one we did for the entire company.

Vanessa (08:42): Super cool. And the HR person will be more on the recruiting and hiring side? Any wins yet?

Dana (08:52): The person just started within the last week, so it’s still pretty new.

Vanessa (08:56): Super fresh, very exciting. Any other blind spots over the years, or aha moments like the HR one, where you realized you needed to hire for a position?

Dana (09:16): One other great moment was about 10 years ago. We hired a business coach who is also a really good friend of ours. Tom was finally able to get him to hop on board with us for a couple of years before he really retired. He went out of retirement three different times, and we got John to come out for one last go.

We’re in the green industry because we love the work part of it, right? But neither Tom nor I really knew the financial part. Reading your financials, what are the numbers telling you? We were terrible at that. We were not looking at our numbers at all. The gift that John gave us through coaching us for three years was educating us and showing us what to look for. Without his guidance, we would definitely not be where we are today.

I remember shortly before he retired from working with us, we were right around a million at that point, and he said, I have given you the tools to get to 10 million. Here we are 10 years later, and we’re pushing 10 million this year. I believed it, but I just couldn’t see it at the time. Over the last two or three years, I’m like, yeah, I can see it now. I give John a lot of credit for where we’re at today.

Vanessa (10:45): It’s huge having people around you who’ve been through the experience, which is what I love about the green industry, how collaborative it is. Business coaches, events, roundtables. You mentioned the finance side specifically. Anything for the listeners that you didn’t know before John came on that you put into place?

Dana (11:16): There are so many things he gave us. Even as simple as building a budget and looking at, okay, where are you against your budget today? Are you ahead or behind? And looking forward, even your next five years. Writing it down, so you can go back and see whether you’ve been meeting your benchmarks. And if you’ve met your benchmarks, celebrate it with everybody. Hey guys, remember five years ago when we said we were going to build a new shop? Well, here we are today, we built a new shop. It’s so exciting to realize those dreams.

Vanessa (11:56): That’s huge, Dana. It’s the book The Gap and the Gain, have you heard of that one?

Dana (12:02): I’ve heard of it, but I have not read it.

Vanessa (12:04): It’s a good reminder, because we’re always chasing the next goal or benchmark. In your case, you wanted to get to 10 million, and how exciting to actually be there. But once you hit it, we’re usually already setting the next one. The gain is taking that moment to look back at how far you’ve come, because sometimes you’re just in the day to day craziness. And something else you said that resonated: he told you it was possible, and you believed it because you trusted him. When you set those one year, three year, five year, ten year goals, it seems so daunting. But as you take bite sized chunks toward them, things start falling into place. For us, saying we wanted to be leaders in marketing and sales in the landscape industry felt far off, and years later it’s all happening. And now you’ve hit the ten million.

Dana (13:31): That’s our goal this year. We’re on track to get to ten million, so it’s very exciting.

Vanessa (13:35): So exciting. Any other takeaways from John?

Dana (13:43): He had so many, it’s hard to pick.

Vanessa (13:48): I know, you worked with him for so long.

Dana (13:52): He worked with us for three years, and when it came time for him to retire, he emailed us the day before our next meeting with him. I was like, John, why would you email me? Why would you not say this in person? And then after our in-person meeting, I knew why. He knew he needed to give me a heads up, because I was a hot mess. John, you can’t be leaving me. I’m crying reading the email. Then we’re in our meeting, me, Tom, and John, and I’m trying to hold back tears, like, we’re not going to be able to do this without you.

Vanessa (14:29): But that’s what he said though, he gave you all the tools to hit this. Do you have the next benchmark of what you want to do?

Dana (14:37): We always try to keep our five year vision pretty close. We’re going to keep on track with building up our people. We’ve definitely had the best success, which I think most companies do, building from within. Building a career track for people so they can actually see it. What I’d envision would be like an MSC University, so people can get more education within the company. We do training now, but what more can we do to get people elevated faster, if that’s what they choose to do?

Vanessa (15:14): And that’s always resonated with me about you and Tom. You’re both very into the team and the culture and elevating everybody together. Is there anything else you do on the culture side? Speaking back to getting a hundred percent on that survey, you obviously do things that make people feel appreciated, and everyone I’ve crossed paths with seems to love their time there. Any tidbits? Because culture can be a struggle for people.

Dana (15:45): It can be a struggle. One thing we do twice a year is two company days. In May we always do a spring startup. In the morning we do kind of a “state of MSC,” what’s going on, where we’ve been, where we’re going. Then in the afternoon we try to do something fun to get everybody laughing. We’ve adopted MSC Olympics, so we do some sort of game in the afternoon. We set up an Olympic stage, and the top three winners get to stand on the podium. Just something fun so people can laugh together.

Vanessa (16:24): And have that bond and rapport, and realize we’re humans in this together, a team and a bit of a family.

Dana (16:31): Yeah, for sure. And we don’t have a central office. We have quite a few remote people, and basically only our team leads report to the shop. So it’s a great opportunity to get everybody together, people who don’t always see each other. That can be a challenge.

Vanessa (16:50): Coordinating the schedules, but putting the effort in obviously goes a long way. I’m going to fully steal that idea from you. We do a leadership retreat every year, and the Olympics is a really fun way to do that. And we have an Intrigue University day, biannual right now, but we’re thinking about doing it more frequently, maybe quarterly, to get everyone together. We were actually talking about combining it with our retreat, and I feel like that’s what you guys do, right?

Dana (17:27): Yeah, it’s a combination for sure. And then in August we do another MSC day.

Vanessa (17:34): Super cool. And you’re a team of 30 but hitting around 10 million. Do you have a lot of contract workers, or how does that work? You’re very lean and efficient on that front.

Dana (17:50): Yep, we’re definitely lean. What we’ve been able to do over the last years is recognize what type of work is the higher revenue per hour work, and that’s where we’ve been able to focus. That helps keep the number of people a little lower.

Vanessa (18:08): And the niching side definitely helps with that too.

Dana (18:12): Yep. It’s getting the right jobs, the right timing, the right people, to get all the gears going in the right direction.

Vanessa (18:22): Super cool. Any other challenges or constraints you’re experiencing right now? When I talk to people, they mention that once you tip the 10, there’s the next hurdle. Anything you’re working on?

Dana (18:44): I would say our biggest hurdle as a company right now is our project handoff. The reason it gets more difficult is because we’ve grown. At one time there was one person in charge of most of the handoff. As we’re growing, there are more people who are part of the handoff, and naturally stuff slips through the cracks. So it’s a matter of getting that system in place, so the field team has all the information they could ever need. But what one person thinks is important, another person may not. So it’s really balancing, getting into people’s heads and just asking the questions: what do you guys need, and how does that all need to look? That’s one of our biggest initiatives right now, getting that ironed out and dialed in.

Vanessa (19:44): That’s a huge thing. Before, one person managed it all, so they knew it all, it was all in their head. Now you’re passing it off so somebody else has it all. We’re going through that right now, actually. We call it our Client 360. It started as a project, and at first I didn’t understand the vision. Rob mentioned we need to put every piece of information we’d ever need from somebody in a spreadsheet, and I’m like, where is this going? But now with AI and everything, it’s actually going to make our lives easier. And to your point, we’ll have every single piece of information in one spot, so when it passes between people, account exec to account manager to operations, they have it all. Right before this call, that’s what I was working on. It’s daunting and a bigger task up front, but it takes out the assumptions you were talking about. Having everyone at the table putting in all the info they need, so it’s all in one place, is a painful process. But when it’s all in there, it’s going to be amazing.

Dana (21:06): Yes, it can definitely be a painful process for sure.

Vanessa (21:11): I feel like that’s it. The growth is in the pain.

Dana (21:14): Yes, it is.

Vanessa (21:18): Anything else exciting coming up at MSC? You guys are pretty visionary, big leaders in the space. Where do you see it in the next ten years?

Dana (21:33): I’d say just continuing our growth, what we’ve been doing. Fine tuning our systems, keep working on our people, building our services. We have plenty of room to grow with the services we currently offer, so it’d be getting more market share in our current area where the company is based, and then expanding into other markets.

Vanessa (21:53): Cool. So market share, but also cross promoting and growing your current accounts too.

Dana (21:58): Yeah, certainly. We have plenty of opportunity ahead of us there, definitely.

Vanessa (22:04): It seems like you’re just getting started, meanwhile you’ve been on this huge momentum. You’re at that really cool tipping point. On that note, are you integrating any technologies or AI that people should know about?

Dana (22:24): We’ve been using LMN for quite a few years now, and that was definitely one of our game changing moments back in the day, 10 years ago. LMN really helped us. They were our first system. Before that, there really was no system. It was a quote on a napkin or a verbal quote. It was really bad. It was so bad that for a while we’d do a job and it’d be like, Tom, what am I supposed to invoice this job for? And he’d say, I don’t know, you’ll have to call Shaughnessy. And I’m like, so I have to call the customer to see what I’m supposed to charge them?

Vanessa (23:04): You’re like, there has to be a better way. That’s what we’ve been saying at the office lately. Anytime there’s something in the bucket of what you don’t like doing, it’s “there has to be a better way.” And I feel like these technologies are allowing us to move faster and spend more time on the personal side of things. More time with clients, or in my case, doing the things I love to do and less of the daunting tasks. So LMN was a bit of an unlock for you. I love them, the system’s great, it integrates well for tracking. And the amount of people who haven’t gotten there yet, but when they do, it’s that first step.

Dana (23:56): Definitely. And then as we started bringing in more people, the system was already there. All your history of your jobs is there, the history of your time is there. It makes bringing in people so much easier, and the learning curve is so much less. We give LMN a lot of credit for where we’re at today.

And now we’re implementing LeanScaper, which has been a lot of fun. I’d say we’re at the elementary school level, we’re in the sandbox figuring things out, but it’s amazing what feedback it gives you. For example, I saw that some people were starting to do huddles, and I wondered what was in those huddles. So I did a prompt about the team leads who were doing the huddles: can you tell me some things that are working, or some struggles they’re having? And it gave me this great summary. I took the summary and sent it to the team lead, like, hey, how does this sound, is this similar to what you put in the huddle? And he said, my God, that is astonishingly accurate.

Vanessa (25:04): Just because it’s using the system and what everyone’s feeding into it.

Dana (25:08): Yeah, I was able to read the huddle. As one of the owners and a leader of the company, it was a great opportunity. Not that I don’t want to talk to my team, but maybe Alex is in the thick of it right now, so I’m not going to call him. I was really able to see what was going well, what wasn’t, who needed support. As an owner, that’s so magical, really.

Vanessa (25:33): Super magical. And that way you’re not having to call someone, coordinate schedules, play a bit of broken telephone. It’s all right there for you, and it highlights the areas you need to focus on.

Dana (25:46): Right. And that’s just one example. You could take an estimate and drop it in, and it’ll give you feedback. Did you think about this? You might need some more time here. Instead of running it through another person, you can run it through the LeanScaper process, and it gives you so much better information.

Vanessa (26:12): And sometimes it’s less subjective too. I was getting ready for our leadership meeting and asked, based on all the information I’ve given you, what have I learned, or can you identify any blind spots I should look into? And it will actually assess it for you. If you don’t know where to start or what’s holding you back, putting that information in can help identify it.

Dana (26:40): Yeah, for sure. It’s definitely a great tool.

Vanessa (26:44): That’s super cool. Well, I’m very excited we got to do this today. I have one final question, but was there anything else you wanted to chat about? This has been super helpful for me, and I’ve already taken things I want to implement, especially the Olympics day for our next event.

Dana (27:05): I’d say one other thing that’s really helped Tom and myself over the last couple of years is we joined ACE Peer Group, and that has been super helpful for us as well. So shout out to them.

Vanessa (27:16): That’s huge. That was kind of going to be my final question anyway, resources, but you’ve had it sprinkled throughout the whole podcast. ACE Peer Group, LMN, LeanScaper, John, but he’s retired, so he’s off the table. That’s a special one just for you. Any other resources?

Dana (27:43): I would say podcasts like this, and reading books, have been super helpful. The more information you can get in your brain, the better.

Vanessa (27:57): For sure. And sometimes I’ll listen to our podcast and it reminds me of something. It’s that repetition.

Dana (28:10): Yeah, the repetition is huge. Even though you heard it from somebody else, being reminded of it again by the next person down the line, it’s huge.

Vanessa (28:19): Well, I would love to do this again sometime, so let me know if you’re into that. Maybe we’ll do a Tom and Dana one, a couples in the industry edition. That would be a good one. It’s been amazing having you on. I really appreciate your input, and I know the listeners will as well. Thanks for coming on, and we’ll talk to you real soon.

Dana (28:43): Yeah, sounds good. Thanks, Vanessa.