Dominick Mondi Talks Leadership & Operational Efficiency

Rob – Intrigue Media (00:31)
Hey everybody, welcome back to another episode of the I Am Landscape Growth Podcast. I have an awesome guest, always privileged to have executive directors of associations, Dominic Mundy here. Thank you so much for being a part of it.

Dominick Mondi (00:44)
Absolutely, Rob. I’m excited to do this.

Rob – Intrigue Media (00:47)
⁓ so as ⁓ a, executive director, I think where you’ve been at with Northeast spa and pool, it’s been seven years, almost eight years now. Yeah. Amazing.

Dominick Mondi (00:55)
Almost eight years. Yeah,

time has really flown by and with a big old COVID bubble in the middle, it feels like was just yesterday that I started, but it’s a great organization. Happy to be a part of it.

Rob – Intrigue Media (01:04)
Yeah.

thank you for doing this. And you’re right. It kind of distorted time for most of us. I mean, it did for me for sure. But you’ve been, you know, in the executive director, nonprofit association game for quite some time. So maybe just for the sake of the audience and every time we do one of these, just give them a little Coles note summary of, know, your, where you’ve come from and what your kind of core focus is today.

Dominick Mondi (01:11)
I did.

Yeah, for sure. So the road was winding. I graduated Rutgers University decades ago now with a degree in landscape architecture and spent 10 years or so in various aspects of the landscape industry, mostly design, build firms, did a stint at Rutgers University teaching and organizing non-continuing education programs for the industry.

everything from ISA, arborist programs to irrigation programs to landscape design, plan identification, all kinds of things like that. But then ⁓ transitioned to nonprofit management through, well, it started out as a board seat on the New Jersey Nursery and Landscape Association and then through a series of events ended up becoming their executive director when someone retired. I then moved along my career that way. with New Jersey Nursery and Landscape for

A few years, all the timeline, it expands, it contracts in your memory. think it was like six or seven years I was there. Spent a couple years with a construction association and then for the last years, last eight years here with the Northeast Spa and Pool Association or NESPA as everybody knows us.

Rob – Intrigue Media (02:33)
And then what’s your core focus there as executive director?

Dominick Mondi (02:36)
Building up the people in the industry so they can be the best version of themselves. And that may sound, sure, we do education, we do government affairs. I could tell you the stuff that we do and the program areas that we work in. And I’m sure we’ll talk about all of that. But at the end of the day, for any trade association, what you’re really trying to do is improve the business climate for the industry that you’re representing and try and help the people that are your members grow every day as individuals, as professionals, and find ways to become leaders.

Rob – Intrigue Media (03:01)
I love it, dude. And, and you know, and you can, yeah, typically, you know, someone leading an association like this, there’s a lot of complexity to it. I mean, that’s true in your, in your situation too, but that kind of simplicity and in your response, I think actually will help you do a lot more because you’re really focused on building a better environment and growing people.

So let’s find out what that’s all about. And one of the things I love about ⁓ having the opportunity to have someone like, you know, from your position on the show is just by the nature of your position, you have a broad scope. You know, you’re talking to members all across the state. You’ve probably talked to other associations across the country. And so like people in your position have this kind of, you know, 30,000 foot view of what’s going on in an industry because you’re not just focused on your one biz.

Dominick Mondi (03:20)
Yeah.

Rob – Intrigue Media (03:45)
And so, you know, the core focus of this entire show is what’s the primary growth constraints holding entrepreneurs back in the green industry, pool industry, they’re adjacent from our point of view. So what do you see as the biggest thing holding folks back from growth these days?

Dominick Mondi (04:01)
That’s interesting and you’re absolutely right and to put a slightly finer point on it. So our association is, we’re a four state regional association and since most of your audience is native to the landscape world, it’s very similar sort of layout. There is a national trade association, which we are an affiliate with. There’s other associations around the country and we do see a nice wide swath of the industry running through our boards and our chapters and our volunteer base from construction to service, but also manufacturing.

and distribution and all those other factors. And the most significant challenge most of those organizations are facing or embracing, depending on what your mindset is, is over the last four to five years, things have changed at a very rapid pace as far as how businesses are structured, what growth looks like, how businesses are transitioning either through generations or again, through growth challenges. Supply chain has been disrupted. So there’s

a lot of change and every time that happens it creates opportunity. I think mindset has a lot to do with how your business is performing. it has been a challenge. mean, all that said, it’s been a challenge to see rapid change in some cases with businesses that have existed with owners that have been in place for decades themselves. We have a very mature industry just with landscape.

to embrace that change and find ways to grow through it.

Rob – Intrigue Media (05:17)
Well, yeah, it’s really interesting you say that too, because I guess it was this year, but at the NALP Leaders Forum, it was in Costa Rica in January, and they had a futurist, Jim Carroll, come and did a piece on AI and how it impacts, you know, landscape and beyond. And the amount of folks that were just like, I’m OK, I’m tapped. Like, this is, I’m not trying to figure this out. Like, I got five years left. I don’t know if I want to.

dig into this one. think the tune has probably shifted quite a bit because it’s just something we can’t ignore. But to your point, the change has been so much, it almost becomes overwhelming. Not to say it is, but it can feel that way. And so because there’s so much change, what do I focus on?

Dominick Mondi (05:52)
Yeah, and if the mindset is growth and growing your business in whatever that means for you, could just be top line revenue, could be something more metric based as far as route size or number of projects, could be a lot of different things, could be region area, geographic area served, however you view growth and want to measure that, the opportunities, but also probably the needs to collaborate with others in the industry is more significant than it’s ever been. I think there’s a

some kind of a limit because we’re seeing more in the pool of industry, more murdering, more acquisitions, more roll-up models sort of spreading across certain areas of the country and franchise models as well. So if you’re in a position where your business is relatively successful and you’re good with where you’re at and you’re excited about what you do every day,

then you can probably incrementally continue to improve where you are. But if you have more of a mindset of, want to scale what I’m doing, there’s more opportunities, but they’re different. They’re harder to navigate. And I think there’s a lot of education that business owners need to avail themselves of to understand what exactly their options are besides just, well, I need more staff so I can build more projects. Between capital infusions of all different sorts, and again, that

direct mergers, consolidating of smaller businesses into larger entities. We’re seeing a lot of that and I think it’s happening in the landscape industry as well. And I think for some people it’s intimidating. It’s a scary prospect, but it is a great opportunity if you are interested in learning about it seeing if your business fits.

Rob – Intrigue Media (07:14)
100%.

So, I mean, there’s a lot that you just kind of mentioned there and kind of going back to the first thing you said is around mindset. And I think that’s a probably, you know, an episode on its own ⁓ talking about, you know, entrepreneurial mindset. But in terms of your experience over the last, whatever, two decades ish of working with these types of entrepreneurs, what mindsets are winning?

Dominick Mondi (07:33)
Right.

Rob – Intrigue Media (07:46)
And which ones are maybe, you know, we have the same, if if your, if your foot hurts, sometimes you step in on your own toe. ⁓ and we’ve done a lot of work internally here at Intrigue to try to really understand the mindset of the type of partner that we’re looking for to work with. Cause they’re, you know, I, as far as I’m concerned, all entrepreneurs are insane. They’ve all jumped off a cliff. They’re trying to build a plane on the way down. They’re the crazy people that literally shaped the world into a new thing.

Dominick Mondi (07:53)
Right.

Mm-hmm.

Rob – Intrigue Media (08:12)
And I have nothing but respect and love for someone that’s willing to do that and put their house in the line and ⁓ sacrifice so many things. But within that group, we see it. There are people that have certain mindsets that are flourishing and some that have mindsets that are having a tough time. And I’m just curious from you, in terms of specificity, member size, number of businesses as part of this whole Northeast multi-state thing, how many people are part of this thing?

Dominick Mondi (08:17)
Mm-hmm.

So we cover New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Connecticut. We have four chapters under us. And the combined total of all of that is about 950 company members. And then however many actual individuals are involved in that. So most of the organizations that are part of NESPA have five, six, seven, eight people that are on their leadership team or their managers that come to events and engage with us. So it’s thousands of people.

that we interact with over the course of the year. Probably the largest opportunity to see that on display is at the pool and spa show in Atlantic City every year where we welcome north of 10, 11,000 people from the industry into that event. So it’s a good cross section. see a lot of different individual business owners, entrepreneurs, managers within entrepreneur-led businesses of all different scopes and scales.

Rob – Intrigue Media (09:24)
And so then what, knowing that the context of your observation is quite rich, what, what do you see as the, the mindsets that are helping people, you know, go and what are the ones that you see that are maybe getting in their own way?

Dominick Mondi (09:38)
It’s absolutely the same things are happening in the environment to everybody. know, cluster rising, labor is always a challenge on different levels. All of the things that are out there happening. There’s an element of positivity, seeing what’s happening as where’s the opportunity, not just how do I fix this problem. And there’s a flexibility in the mindset of

people who are really succeeding that I talk to. My flexibility, I mean mental flexibility as far as being able to get excited about working through a challenge, being able to see what’s always happened, see what’s happening and say, maybe what happens next doesn’t look like that, but what can I learn and how can I take what I’ve experienced, see what’s in front of me and then be creative about doing the next thing. I think rigidity and thinking is one of the biggest.

stepping on your own toes to moving forward in a very dynamic business environment.

Rob – Intrigue Media (10:32)
Yeah. mean, and I think we’ve been to something where you, you, you alluded to it, but I think it’s kind of baked into what you said. It’s like, there’s an energy to it. It’s like, not only is it an opportunity, but it’s exciting. And it’s like, this is something that I’m looking forward to tackling. Um, versus maybe like, it doesn’t matter what’s happening out there. This is what I do. This is how I do it. I’m going to keep doing it. And that’s that. So if I’m maybe in a place where I’m like, okay, I’m open to becoming

Dominick Mondi (10:40)
Mm-hmm.

Rob – Intrigue Media (10:59)
more opportunity minded. I want to be excited about this thing. I just, I’m kind of scared shitless cause there’s a bunch of shit going on. I don’t know how to deal with it. Or I just don’t know where to go or what to do. And you mentioned this idea of collaboration becoming kind of ever more important opportunity to like, know, Hey, there’s a lot of people going through the same thing. You can learn from others. If I’m listening to this right now, what’s something that I can do to start like seeing what it’s like over there and start to get exposed to that type of thinking.

Dominick Mondi (11:06)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, and while this may sound like shameless self-promotion, it’s only because I genuinely embrace what we do, And there are, when you’re talking about associations in landscape or pool, again, they’re very related and there’s a lot of overlap. The people that are involved are doing the same thing. Maybe not exactly, and probably not exactly. But if you’re willing to put yourself out there,

Rob – Intrigue Media (11:29)
No, that’s I’m teeing you. I’m teeing you up. I’m teeing you up. It’s all good.

Dominick Mondi (11:51)
and say, I’ve got a problem, I’ve got a challenge, I’ve got a question. I just have a curiosity. Like, I saw you got together, know, company A got together for company B. I’ve seen you at this show for a few years. I’ve never come up and talked to you before. I want to do something like that. How’d it go? You’d be surprised. That sounds like something where if a lot of people think the response they would receive is, that’s my business. It was nice seeing you. Thank you, right?

Rob – Intrigue Media (12:16)
luck.

Dominick Mondi (12:17)
Good luck. I

figured it out. You go figure it out. And it couldn’t be further from the truth. Again, nothing’s 100%, but the wide majority of people that are excited about what they’re doing are excited about talking about what they’re doing. They want to see the next person succeed. The next 10 people that succeed behind them not only validates their own success, but it creates a stable floor for the next great thing to happen, right? And the next great opportunity. you have to go out and talk to your

the people that are in your market. Get involved with national associations, things like with a lot of the programs that you guys are a part of through NALP and in your own work at Intrigue to hear people, tell a story on a podcast and send them an email. Maybe they don’t respond, what have you lost? But maybe they do and they tell you the story that unlocks something for you or they make the connection. Sometimes it’s just about getting the right person on the phone to ask a question.

The same thing that’s happening for the average entrepreneur is happening at other levels of these industries, at the distribution level, at the manufacturing level. Talk to your sales reps. Talk to the director or vice president of sales when you see them at a trade show, even if you don’t talk to them on daily basis. What are their experiences? What are the opportunities that they want to see you grow? That only helps them, right? Who do they know? Who have they worked with that has a great success story that they can put you in touch with?

Rob – Intrigue Media (13:28)
Yeah.

Dominick Mondi (13:35)
Go back to what I said right at beginning. We’re in the business of growing people, right? And building leaders. And that’s at the end of the day, the core part of what associations do, what we try to do, and putting people together for that network. And networking is not cocktail parties where you share a drink and you exchange business cards just because you happen to be in the same room. Associations can create this environment for you to share with other people what your goals are.

and have them say, I just talked to this other person who has a similar goal. Let me introduce the two of you. That’s the biggest resource out there for people that are trying to grow and evolve their business is the people that are around them trying to do the exact same thing.

Rob – Intrigue Media (14:07)
Yeah.

Yeah, it’s unbelievable you say that too, because like, just recently I was at a show and because we do them all the time, this is, mean, marketing 101 is be where your customers are. So we go to all these things, right. But, somebody asked me, they’re like, you know, is it worth it? You know, all this travel and that kind of stuff. And I was like, it’s been unbelievably worth it. Not only because it’s like helped us build relationships and build customers, all that kind of stuff. That’s part of the business, but the network we’re building.

Dominick Mondi (14:37)
Mm-hmm.

Rob – Intrigue Media (14:42)
to, so I talked to somebody who’s got, you know, a route with let’s say 700 customers on it and they’re like trying to get to 2000. They’re like, well, actually I know a guy who’s got 2000. They’re across the country, but they got 2000. Like, do you want me to intro? And they’re like, yes. I’m like, great. To your point. And you, if we ended up working together, great. That’s not the point. It’s just the, and then the openness is unbelievable.

Dominick Mondi (14:53)
Mm-hmm.

And that’s the great part about these networks that you get from a show or an association or the relationship with the podcast like yours is, yeah, it’s hard for you’re at 101 Main Street and the guy at 103 has the same business. It is hard at some point to always share certain things. But three zip codes away is all it takes sometimes to have someone who’s not in your market or not bumping up against you every day. And people are very happy to share.

Rob – Intrigue Media (15:22)
Maybe we’re merging.

Dominick Mondi (15:31)
share their success stories.

Rob – Intrigue Media (15:32)
Yeah, it’s been one of the main reasons we ended up picking this industry with pool and landscape was just because of the openness. But one of the things you did say at the beginning and you just brought it back up, but the idea of building up people and giving people an environment to share with each other is a big part of it. But as a leader to have the focus of building up people, like what are you guys doing outside of the networking piece to kind of build leaders inside the industry?

Dominick Mondi (15:56)
We see the governance structure of our association itself and the chapters that are under us as the tool to do that. It’s more than just the mechanism to run the decision making of the association and have good oversight. It’s where people that say they want to get involved, we find a place for them to do something. Be on a committee that’s actually being productive. Join your chapter…

Rob – Intrigue Media (16:18)
productive productive

committee rates and oxymoron. No, I know they do.

Dominick Mondi (16:20)
They exist, I promise you.

Join ⁓ a local chapter’s board of directors, start going to meetings. then through those things that are in place, because they have to be, because we’re a nonprofit organization, so we have to have a board and all the boring stuff that we do for a governance model.

run our own set of internal trainings. do an event every fall, a leadership conference every fall, where it’s all focused on the people that are serving in those positions, coming together in one spot with about 100 volunteers for two days to talk about how to be better as a volunteer leader. And while we’re often very focused on how do you get more out your time at the association, know, leadership is leadership, it translates. So we want folks to be successful here.

to rub elbows and stand shoulder to shoulder with folks that are also successful while they’re here. And then that naturally starts to grow out into their business and into the community. And folks that join our board because someone asked them to come and get involved, they just knew them locally. And then five years later, their vice president of the organization or they’ve elevated their standing now go to the same trade show they went to and just kind of walk the floor and went back to their room.

now can’t find their room because of the number of dinner invites and let’s go grab a drinks and whatever else that comes up. we try to build leaders in the association and do it from a place that helps them keep those leadership skills as they move on into the other aspects of the industry.

Rob – Intrigue Media (17:49)
It’s so well set. I’ve had an opportunity to be on boards in a number of different situations and it’s like leadership practice because it’s not your budget. like, you know, if you’re in the negative at the end of the year, it doesn’t impact your family’s lifestyle. But even better, think volunteer leadership is by definition harder. Cause I have no position or authority.

based on an organizational hierarchy that I own. And now we actually have to work on true influence and relationship building and reciprocity and service. And I really do believe volunteer leadership is, is the best leadership training. And so I’m just curious, like, there’s a couple of things I’ve noticed in these types of board environments. One is when you start to volunteer and lead, you’re leading leaders, especially in an association full of business owners.

Dominick Mondi (18:13)
Mm-hmm. Right.

Mm-hmm.

Sure,

100%.

Rob – Intrigue Media (18:38)
And then you’re at a board table with a bunch of leaders, leading leaders, and now you got to try to lead them. So that’s an interesting, cause they’re all, you know, they got their own entrepreneurial nature. So what do you say to folks that about that leadership opportunity? Cause I think you nailed it. And I think it’s hard to like fully articulate for someone who hasn’t been through it, but anybody who has can speak to it. But if there’s somebody saying, you know, I really do need to level up my leadership.

Dominick Mondi (18:47)
Mm-hmm.

Rob – Intrigue Media (19:02)
What is it like for people as they go through that path you’ve described?

Dominick Mondi (19:05)
It’s important to, it’s got to start right from that walk in the door, right? We actually talk a lot about how the way to get people involved. We do all the things that anybody else does. do marketing, email, communications. do, we have our own podcast, all the block and tackle communication stuff. But at the end of the day, when I have that hundred people in a room, if I go around and say, when did you get involved? 80 % of them are going to say when, and point to somebody else in the room probably when,

so-and-so asked me directly to come to a meeting with them. And when someone wants to get involved, get them there. And then the very first thing that has to happen is somebody, not me, somebody else that does what they do for a living, right? Someone who’s been involved in the association for a little bit of time has to walk across the room and say, come sit next to me, I’ll tell you what’s going on.

And that’s the most important thing. And this is true for your business. If you’ve got, if you’re hiring people, you got to make sure that you bring in three new guys that they’re not just standing there leaning on a shovel going, I don’t know what to do. And all they get is maybe an order of direction. Someone who’s been with your company for a while has got to go, Hey, let’s get through this morning. And then I’ll buy you cup of coffee and tell you a little bit more about the history of the company. Anything like that to make the person feel not just

Rob – Intrigue Media (20:12)
You

Dominick Mondi (20:24)
present but welcome. That is the first step. It’s the most important step in which undoubtedly a long journey rate of growing. But if you want someone to not just show up to be a part of your organization, nonprofit, profit, business, association, that first interaction can define their whole relationship with your company.

Rob – Intrigue Media (20:25)
Yeah.

You name it.

Isn’t that the truth, right? And so many folks forget about the importance of onboarding, put so much attention in the recruitment interview. And then maybe it goes to fizzle or maybe it doesn’t. I did want you to just share a little bit around the folks that end up being leaders of leaders and at the multi-state board level. From my experience anyway, the folks that are leading on boards like that just happen to be some of the most successful people in the industry.

So I’m not sure if it’s they’re successful, therefore they can do it or they did it, therefore they become successful or a combination of the two kind of situations playing out. But it does seem to be a very high correlation. What’s your take on that?

Dominick Mondi (21:20)
That’s a very interesting and accurate observation, right? It’s the chicken or the egg type of conversation and.

Rob – Intrigue Media (21:26)
Mm-hmm.

Dominick Mondi (21:27)
I don’t think, I think you’re right. think that people that are inclined to put themselves out there and lead in a certain style are more inclined to join an organization and then get involved with it. I think the challenge for those board leaders is I always tell them that one of their most important jobs is to find their replacement.

Because that’s the nature of a non-profit. Nobody owns it. So the person that’s been on the board for 25 years and doesn’t want to go anywhere, sometimes that serves a function, but they still don’t own anything just because they’ve been there. Right? So every board member, when I say that, what I mean is, should be trying to find the next person to fill their seat if necessary, to keep that energy replenished and to bring new leaders through. I think

Diversity of personality is as important as any other kind of diversity. And there are people who are really, really good at building pools, who run tremendous. We have a board member who runs a service route that’s maybe he’s got 100 clients, and it’s all in about three square miles, and they are the nicest, highest end pools you’ve ever seen. It’s a huge little niche for him. And he’s very introverted when I met him.

Rob – Intrigue Media (22:35)
Yeah.

Dominick Mondi (22:37)
And now he’s on our executive board and on track to be president. He got involved because he knew some people and they just finally said, you should come with us. And 10 years later, he’s the one bringing people to meetings. So yes, the people that come to you and open the door and say, I’m here. What do want me to do? You’re right. Their mindset is already there for them. It’s about getting them to be involved with grabbing the other people, people who show up.

and sit in the back, but they’re there for five years in a row. And you’re like, they’re always here. They’re the ones that that guy needs to go back to and say, Hey, come sit up front this time, I want to talk to you and see what that being being a leader like that, by the way, doesn’t mean being loud doesn’t mean leaving every conversation. It’s not about just telling everybody how great you are, how great you know, shouting loudest from the mountaintop. Leadership looks like a lot of different things. But I think it’s incumbent upon those folks that

Rob – Intrigue Media (23:06)
Yeah.

Dominick Mondi (23:29)
voluntarily step up because like you said, there’s an alignment, right? They run a good business. They’re all about being out there. They’re probably involved in their community. Now they’re involved with their industry. Empowering them to not just do what they’re doing, but to find other people who have the potential but don’t have that. They don’t stand out. Yeah, they don’t have the peacock feathers to stand out in the crowd. Or they don’t see, that’s a great, Rob, great point. It’s internal. They don’t see themselves.

Rob – Intrigue Media (23:32)
Mm-hmm.

Identity yet?

Or they just don’t see themselves like that yet?

Dominick Mondi (23:55)
as the leader they could be. then sometimes that’s a benefit of being involved is other people start to show you that, give you that confidence.

Rob – Intrigue Media (24:02)
I’ve seen it play out like the way you’re telling the story. I’ve seen it play out so many times and I think it’s a beautiful answer to the idea of like it’s both like people that are successful can be really big help to an association and the association can be a really big help to make people successful. Like I think it is both. I think the way that you’re you know framing the way that people enter and the way people are present over many years is pretty yeah it’s on point. I just think it’s cool.

I do have another question for you. We’ll do it, you know, afterwards when we’re not airing this whole thing, because I do want to get a sense of what’s going on with the association. And so one of the questions we talked a little bit about before we got going was, so I mean, you can’t answer the question with they should become leaders, because we’ve already talked about that. if I’m a member now, and I’m like, you know, hey, this association is great, know, Northeast Spas, they’ve been treating me well.

Dominick Mondi (24:29)
Yeah. Yep.

Okay, sure, absolutely.

Rob – Intrigue Media (24:50)
What can I do to get some more value out of what I’m doing here?

Dominick Mondi (24:54)
Absolutely. So one of the things is to take advantage of the education that we provide all year round through both Nespa directly and our partners at the chapter and national level. industry, the pool industry is very complex from a technical perspective. You’re talking about building a pool and you’re talking, so you’re talking about electrical work, you’re talking about plumbing work, you’re talking about excavation, talking about concrete work, you’re talking about forms and

all there’s you’re touching a little bit of everything. And then it’s all got to come together safely and beautifully. So your client is happy. We offer a wide range of training from everything to free monthly technical and business webinars right up through multi day certification programs for both construction and service. And sometimes I think we almost offer too much it’s intimidating.

Rob – Intrigue Media (25:21)
Yeah.

Right.

Dominick Mondi (25:42)
But chances

are if you have a question or a skill gap either with you or your team, and you’re not sure how to fill it or how to train up, the opportunity is there within the organization you’re already a part of. One of the key benefits is as a trade association, the business joins, the owner signs up, but the benefits as far as discount or free training extend all the way down to everybody in the company. So you can send your new crew members in March

to how to open pool classes for $45, $50 a piece. At our training facility, we have a hands-on, I think a lot of people don’t know that right here in Hamilton, New Jersey, we have a hands-on training facility with a test pool where we actually run classes on how to take the liner out and replace it in a pool with a liner, not just on a PowerPoint. So hands-on training, all kinds of training, asynchronous training, it’s all available through the…

Rob – Intrigue Media (26:11)
That’s a no-brainer.

Epic.

Dominick Mondi (26:31)
through your membership and not everybody I think knows the depth of what is available to them.

Rob – Intrigue Media (26:35)
Yeah, that’s cool. It’s interesting too, because without a shadow of a doubt, the most successful entrepreneurs I’ve ever interviewed, all at some shape or form, identify themselves as the owner of a training company that just happens to do ex work. And so many people struggle with building training programs. And so you’ve got one sitting underneath your feet, take advantage, I guess, right?

Dominick Mondi (26:48)
Right, that makes sense.

Yeah,

yeah. And as a resource, our staff team is always talking to members about different things. And one of those is if it’s not just as simple as we send an email, you see it’s a class on how to repair heaters, troubleshoot pool heaters. So you sign your guy up who needs to learn that. Sometimes it’s taking the practice stuff of calling in and talking to somebody on our education team and saying, do you have anything for this? We have an in-house trainer that runs a lot of programs. Sometimes he goes out.

to member companies to deliver something that’s a little more customized. We’ve been trying to do more of that and spread the word on it where if you want to bring 10 people from your team into our facility, that’s not an open broadcast class. That’s you essentially rent the room and the trainer, you bring your team in, he’s going to do the training and you get to stand next to him. So he’s saying this is how you troubleshoot this particular equipment pad.

Rob – Intrigue Media (27:27)
Amazing.

Yeah.

Dominick Mondi (27:48)
And then you get to stand there and say, by the way, that’s how we inventory these parts internally. So you know what you’re looking for and how to scan things in and out or whatever. So that’s happening together. And you’re doing one training. So it’s customized, but it’s an industry specific.

Rob – Intrigue Media (28:00)
I can’t see or imagine why that isn’t full every single week, month or calendar of the year. Cause that’s, that’s unbelievable value. switching gears to the business climate, because this kind of segues like training folks up by definition does make a more favorable business climate, but that’s not the nature of business climate. You’re talking about, you know, macro forces, external forces, making them more manageable, and more approachable for companies to grow.

So without getting into too much nuance detail, help people understand a bit more about how you shape the industry to promote entrepreneurship and the business inside the association.

Dominick Mondi (28:35)
Sure.

A couple of pieces to that, but one of them is we have a government affairs program that we work with in that aspect of creating the business environment. So there’s a lot of things that affect pool builders from building code adoption, Department of Health regulations, especially around commercial and public pools. Obviously just anything that affects business in general we’re interested in. And so one of the benefits of

Rob – Intrigue Media (28:47)
Mm-hmm.

Dominick Mondi (29:00)
being a member is you help support our efforts where we have lobbyists in Harrisburg, Trenton, Hartford, and Albany, all with their ear to the ground constantly, all trying to make sure that building codes are updated to the highest standard. We work with members quite frequently in the spring who are on a job site trying to get a pool in the ground. There’s this question about an interpretation of that building code that the inspector has. We’ll send letters.

will offer up published commentary from International Code Council that helps sometimes clear up those issues. Those are the types of resources that when someone asks, why should I join? They often are looking for something quantifiable. I always say why someone joins an association and why they stay are very rarely the same thing. There’s normally a why. There’s a why that’s always tied to a hook. you’ll save money on this. So you get a free ticket to that.

Rob – Intrigue Media (29:43)
Interesting you say that.

Dominick Mondi (29:49)
Okay, so how much are gonna cost me? You need to the cost benefit analysis because you don’t really know yet. The folks that stay tend to stay for the things you can’t put a price tag on. I was on a job, say, inspector wasn’t going to approve me. That’s what got involved. I got the information I needed to communicate with him. I went, members who go down to Washington, DC every year for the Pool and Hot Tub Alliance’s day on the Hill and they get to see how this works and feel like they have some influence, which they do. So it’s related to the networking.

and the leadership thing. Those are the types of things we do to help create the environment. So that’s all external stuff, right?

Rob – Intrigue Media (30:20)
Mm-hmm.

Dominick Mondi (30:22)
Yeah, complete answer.

Rob – Intrigue Media (30:22)
That’s good. So that’s okay. That’s Yeah,

complete. Um, so then I mean like mindset, lots of change, you know, um, there was the transition in business ownership supply chain. Um, you know, labor’s always got its issues and challenges here or there, whatever, but AI. So a small topic of change. Um, it’s a thing. It’s a thing. Um, so what do you see in terms of how people can ramp this up?

Dominick Mondi (30:41)
happening. It’s a thing. It’s not going away.

Rob – Intrigue Media (30:49)
or what they’re thinking about how to use it, what’s going on across the, you know, thousand companies that you’re seeing as part of Northeast Spawn Pool.

Dominick Mondi (30:55)
Yeah, I think we’re initially noticing the AI influences less than sort of the traditional business applications. It doesn’t mean people aren’t. It’s not what we talked about. That’s what’s being talked about as much. We’re seeing a lot in the technology of the pool itself. Automation has been big for, has been growing for a few years, but we’re seeing more AI introductions into how the pool can… ⁓

A pool, residential pool in particular, can be managed remotely through all kinds of technology to limit down service time, actual physical visits, send water sampling information back to your office without ever going out. A lot of this is not in full application yet. That’s the type of stuff we are seeing more of. AI to help analyze sort of business efficiency, things like routing your service teams.

Inventory management, that’s where we’re starting to see it more. I still use it to help me write emails sometimes, but that’s it.

Rob – Intrigue Media (31:47)
Sure, yeah, yeah. And one of the things

I was curious too in your use cases is just around like permits and building codes. And if there’s an opportunity to build a database that’s like a custom, you know, GPT or something similar, or even like a Google LM, like Notebook LM, where we like compile all the different permits and building codes, licensing requirements, and then have like a database. Have you heard of or seen anybody try to take a stab at that resource?

Dominick Mondi (31:53)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah,

not heard of and talked about, yes, not really sort of executing through that kind of learning language model where it’s updating it in real time and whatnot. I’d say that’s something that would be desperately needed. So one of the challenges is nothing’s new under the sun, right, as they say. And a lot of times there’s an issue that might be bubbling up where

Rob – Intrigue Media (32:25)
Mm-hmm.

Dominick Mondi (32:33)
I’m trying to think of a quick anecdote, but something’s happening maybe in Southern Connecticut where government’s trying to change something. They’re trying to reduce barrier code and we don’t think it’s got a good safety implication or whatever the case may be. And chances are somewhere else in the country that’s happened, right? Some county in Tennessee tried to do the same thing and an argument was made and a letter was written and all of that exists on the record and could be useful.

in those conversations in the other place. So yeah, that type of information would be very helpful. It doesn’t really exist. It is a role that the associations try to fill as best they can so we know what we’ve worked on. So we’ll talk to the Florida, the FSPA, Florida Spa and Pool Association. Sometimes they got a great government affairs director down there, Dallas, who

you know, him and I sit on the same government affairs committee, we can call each other and say, you ever seen this before, have you ever seen that before? So we’re doing that manually, humanly. But yeah, that’s a great application if it can be put together.

Rob – Intrigue Media (33:29)
Mm-hmm. Humanly? Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, I mean, I think there’s a lot of, think the big data set is a overlooked use case in a lot of cases when people are thinking about how they can run AI in their businesses. And now, know, and building training models that it might take two years, three years to build something like that to be effective. I was just curious, I’m asking all the executive directors this question. So maybe somebody will start talking to each other and start getting it out there. It doesn’t have much of a use case for me personally, but I know it helped a lot of our clients. Okay, so.

We’ve got building people and the leaders in the association. got mindset as like the thing that’s holding people back and in some places not, rigidity being the thing that is, ⁓ an excitement and seeing the opportunity in front of us being the thing that is helping people not holding them back. you mentioned this idea of building up people and before we kind of move into a wrap up thing, I’m just curious, like for Dominic, where did this aha moment come for you and, and why is

building people such a focus as a leader from your point of view.

Dominick Mondi (34:27)
I have to give credit to Nespa specifically. When I first made that move from running my own landscape business and working for other landscape design build contractors over to managing the association, I spent a lot of time learning kind of just how to do the job, right? What is this nonprofit thing? What is a bylaw? Why does it matter? Why do I have to read it? But I loved it.

I knew I wanted to like, I enjoyed that level of thinking and I always enjoyed working with people. There was a group called the Nursery Landscape Association executives or NLAE. And in that industry, there was pretty much every state had their own landscape contractor association of some kind. And then there was NALP and there’s American Hort, right? So you’ve got that tier thing going on. And all of the executive directors,

of those state level organizations would all meet once a year somewhere and have their own meeting where it was a little bit about how to be a better association manager, but you also got information about what’s going on in the industry because that was all of our interests. And it was a eye opening experience because of the community that existed. I quickly found myself making connections and still am friends with Scott who we mentioned earlier in Illinois, but I just talked to

Rob – Intrigue Media (35:31)
Mm.

Dominick Mondi (35:39)
Jeff Stone the other day, who’s the executive director of Oregon Association of Nurseries. I haven’t worked together in 10 years, still friends, right? All through this group. So that was my own experience of what could be. When I got to Nespa, was the first thing I noticed. My first trade show was my first day, was the community that exists here. So take no credit for what came before, and people that were involved loved each other.

I mean, loved each other. They couldn’t wait to get to the next meeting just to see each other. And they would go into the boardroom and they would bang their fists and they would argue with each other and they would point fingers and they would walk down the hall to the bar and they would all get a drink. And it’s like it never happened. And at first you’re like, are these, are these people crazy? No, they’re just, they just loved the community so much. It was their own third place. was what inspired them to do better.

Rob – Intrigue Media (36:21)
A little bit.

Dominick Mondi (36:32)
And taking my own experience with NLE, but then seeing what was on display here made me really fully embrace that idea that what we’re doing here is so much more than just helping people build pools or running a training class. That’s the what, but the why, as Simon Sinek would say, it’s about the people and we’re doing it because it genuinely matters to the individuals who are involved. And if it matters to them, it should matter to us.

Rob – Intrigue Media (36:56)
Yeah, well, and it’s happening. You know, we’ve been doing presentations, talks, whatever, conferences, landscape pool, and a lot of other for a lot for a lot of years. But in like 2018, 2019, we would ask an audience of folks very similar, if not people from your membership about like who hears heard of Simon Sinek, Seth Godin, Jim Collins, John C. Maxwell, and it was like crickets. It was, you know, not not a lot of people. I asked those

Dominick Mondi (37:03)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, seminal stuff

right there.

Rob – Intrigue Media (37:23)
I asked those same questions last 24 months and it’s like 80 % of the room are studied. Like the level up of professionalism, self growth, leadership growth inside the industry in the last seven years has been pretty amazing.

Dominick Mondi (37:33)
Yes.

Yeah. I hope that it starts with awareness because there’s so much more accessibility to bite-size video media. I hope that everybody that’s seeing clips of Simon Sinek and quotes from Jim Collins are reading the texts because there’s some great stuff in there. And I know a lot of those concepts have evolved. You know, from good to great came out in 98 or something like that, right?

And there’s been subsequent installments and updates, but some of the core principles in there I still use in my own business, in my own work, right, as well as when I talk to people. Yeah, that’s great to hear. And I would say I see the same thing, that there is more of a sense of I’m not just a landscaper, I’m a business owner since COVID.

Rob – Intrigue Media (38:16)
Yeah,

it me goosebumps even when you just say it like that. Okay, so then a piece that you would recommend, speaker and author, some resource that you’re like, this is worthwhile. If you’re listening to this, go check it out.

Dominick Mondi (38:29)
The last book I gave to somebody was called Design for Belonging. And this is the intersection of the environment and the people within it and creating spaces. So this goes to both designing physical space, but also designing your culture, but designing a space that’s inclusive. Not an innovative concept, but from the perspective of a workplace.

or an outdoor interior environment, it really walks through a lot of great examples of how to design a space that makes the person you want, people you want to feel welcome, welcome. What goes into the actual design of it, not just, oh, I like pink, so I’ll put pink in here, right? No, no, no, what goes into the quality of the space, the scale of the space, how does that affect people? So design for belonging, I don’t have the author in my head. Yes, there you go.

Rob – Intrigue Media (39:11)
Suzy Wise? Okay,

yeah, cool. I haven’t heard this one. That’s awesome, man. I’ll check it out. Thank you. And was there another one?

Dominick Mondi (39:16)
Yeah. And the other one I

have to always mention is Unreasonable Hospitality. I’ll be completely honest, I hadn’t read it until I watched The Bear, season two, and Richie’s holding it in the episode forks, think, because it was given to him in the restaurant. And I was like, that seems like a thing. And then I was like, my, it’s a thing that just missed me somehow. And I’ve probably read it three times.

Rob – Intrigue Media (39:21)
yeah, that’s a gooder.

It is pretty cool. also love food and beverage as a analogy for service period. And I mean, it does hit home for sure. All right. Last piece then if someone is curious to learn more about Nespa, what do they do? Where do they go?

Dominick Mondi (39:52)
They should visit www.nespapool.org for all the information about our association proper. They should also visit www.thepoolspashow.com and that is our annual trade show and conference in Atlantic City coming up the last week of January. We are known for that event. It is the largest by attendance trade show for the pool industry in the country in Atlantic City every year.

Those are your two best starting points and I can be reached if anybody wants to ever connect at dmondi, d-m-o-n-d-i at nespapool.org or find me on LinkedIn.

Rob – Intrigue Media (40:30)
Thanks so much for doing this. And thanks everybody for listening to another episode of the IM Landscape Growth Podcast.

Dominick Mondi (40:31)
Absolutely.