The Great Game of Landscaping: Ryan Markewich’s Formula for Success

00:00
Robert Murray
Welcome back to another episode of the IM Landscape Growth podcast. Today, I have a pretty unique guest, Ryan Markewich. Thank you very much for joining us, Ryan.

00:43
Ryan Markewich
Oh, you’re welcome. Thanks for having me.

00:46
Robert Murray
And so, why do I say unique? I say it because, well, not only has he founded and operated a landscape business for 30 years, but he’s also found ways to step out of it and get ownership structures in it so that he can do other things. And some of those other things can include a great game of business coach. And I’m not sure how many folks listening know what that is or what it’s all about, but we’ll have a chance to explore it with a little bit of depth today. It is nothing too crazy. It’s a big topic. So, I’m really pumped to have this conversation. So again, Ryan was, let’s get into it. If you can give people just a heads up, okay, what’s the 30-year company? And then, what are you up to these days? Summary as much as possible.

01:30
Robert Murray
It’s a long journey to put into a minute.

01:32
Ryan Markewich
Yeah, no problem. Started with a lawnmower and a truck knocking on doors. We decided we wanted to design, build, and maintain luxury homes for nice people who appreciate details and nothing else. And we’ve kind of stuck to that business model ever since. About six years ago, I decided I wanted to start bringing employees in as owners. And we can dive into that a bit later if you want. And so one thing that helped me along the way was, you know, with all my experiences and my finding of open-book management as the Great Game of Business has pioneered, it was to become a coach under that methodology. And so I did. About three years ago, I became the only great Game of Business coach on the planet from the green industry.

02:26
Robert Murray
There it is. Yeah. So what a unique, you know, layering of specialization. And so, you know, give people a quick understanding. What is the great Game of business? What are you talking about? I mean, there’s a book, maybe people have heard of it, but you know, Cole’s notes, an overview of what this whole methodology is about, okay?

02:42
Ryan Markewich
It started in the early 80s with a large conglomerate business in the United States that was failing. It became a turnaround story of how they went about turning this company around by purchasing it from a bunch of middle managers, who purchased it from the International Harvester. It was an engine manual engine remanufacturing division of International Harvester. And they just realized in the early 80s when interest rates were 18%, and they had an $8.9 million debt with only a hundred thousand dollars down, that, you know, the bank would take them, they could take their business anytime from them. And in that mic, in that economy, there just wasn’t much else for those families to do. So, in order to save their jobs, they said, what are we going to have to do?

03:30
Ryan Markewich
And what they realized in the whole process of trying to find all that funding to buy that business was that there was a secret language of business, and that was the financials. You know, no one really cared about on-time delivery and, you know, how spotless your boxes were when you shipped and all that stuff. They really, the banks, really cared about the financials. And so what they said was, you know, besides the financials, we just need to get our people up to speed on financials and business literacy in general. So they just started talking business. It got a lot of attention in the US because it became a really big turnaround story in American business history. And they later coined it the Great Game of Business. That was it.

04:16
Ryan Markewich
It was the name of their way of practicing open-book management, which went, sorry, just went, which went far beyond open-book reporting. And that’s what I think a lot of the problem is with using that term. Open book management is that people think, oh, I give my people the numbers, but they still don’t care. Exactly. When you say I in the statement, you know, you’re, you know, it’s, you really block the amount of education it takes to understand and deliver them.

04:47
Robert Murray
Right. Well, it’s really interesting, first of all, that you point that specifically out because one of the toughest things that we had to try to figure out when reading this methodology was how do we make someone responsible for a number on our income statement? Not to say that they’re accountable, meaning like they have to do it, but they have to make sure that it’s being done or at least being watched and it’s being reviewed and to figure out who inside the organization should be tied to what was. It was a pretty daunting exercise. And then, I mean, you know, many years later, as we’ve kind of gotten refined and better, we look back and say, well, A, we should have had a coach probably would expedited things.

05:31
Robert Murray
But B, the impact’s been pretty amazing because you got a bunch of people that give a crap about what you’re trying to do.

05:36
Ryan Markewich
Right. I mean, it’s much like a game. It could be the largest. It has the largest result in your life. It’s your livelihood, your family’s livelihood, your employee’s livelihood. It has players, rules, and an outcome. So, in essence, it’s a game. And so. And people just don’t take it seriously enough. I think they’ll play hockey on the weekend harder than they will play at work. And I think.

06:02
Robert Murray
Isn’t that interesting?

06:03
Ryan Markewich
I think there’s a fundamental human energy crisis that could be turned around through simple education and tying people’s behaviors or line of sight to what’s really important as you go along.

06:18
Robert Murray
So let’s bring this into the lens of landscape and the green industry. The whole theme of this show is around what’s the primary growth constraint holding entrepreneurs back in the green industry? So why don’t we just start there and get Ryan’s take on that question. What do you see as the biggest thing holding people back these days?

06:35
Ryan Markewich
Well, I think in any industry, we will focus on the green one because it’s very present in my life, and I really believe it’s education. And I would say engagement. Let’s use the word engagement, because if most people are producing at 60 or 65%, there’s a lot of wasted energy in the marketplace in general and in landscaping. And it’s just that people don’t understand how good it can be. So there’s that aspect of it as well.

07:10
Robert Murray
All right, cool. So let’s assume for a moment that the status quo is whatever, 65% engagement for whatever. That’s arbitrary, but it paints a picture. What does 95% look like? If I’m a person listening to the show and I’m like, okay, engagement, that’s a big deal. Nebulous. I don’t really understand what you mean. Let’s say I make it better. Well, I guess we can contrast it. What does 65% engagement look like? What does 95% engagement look like?

07:36
Ryan Markewich
Right. So I think you could look at it through the lens of efficiency even, you know, when everybody is rowing in the same direction, and they have a common goal, and they understand that goal because they’ve been educated in what that means, and they have a stake in the outcome. There’s a far better chance that you’re going to reach that goal. And so I just think, you know, it’d be if you make it equivalent to a sports team, hockey, soccer, baseball, it doesn’t matter if you’re running up the field or the ice and you’re really in harmony because you understand what it means to play as a team member and the other team member understands what your role is and you understand what their role is. You’re moving the puck or the ball up towards the goal at once.

08:26
Ryan Markewich
So you’re more engaged because you understand the outcome.

08:31
Robert Murray
And so, how does that show up in a landscaper’s life? If I’m a landscape entrepreneur and I’m like, you know what, my team’s fully engaged. Maybe they are, maybe they aren’t. How do I see it, in real-world terms, from a landscaper’s perspective?

08:44
Ryan Markewich
Yeah, fair enough. So, for me, I see it in our rhythm of huddles, and I see it in the results of the profit. I see it in the results of the actual engagement of employees on several levels. Employee satisfaction that we actually measure. So we would measure that quarterly. We measure us; we have scoreboards that measure the financials. We visit those every two weeks as a team, and we track our efforts against the plan that we all helped make. So when there’s that high level of understanding of that plan and what constituted it with regards to players and spending vehicles, sales plans, contingency plans, you’re just going to get people that are far more engaged.

09:35
Ryan Markewich
So when I’m sitting in a meeting, which I rarely attend these days because I’m doing other things, I can see, you know, 13 to 15 people bringing their line item ownership to the, to the huddle and really owning it, like delivering on those metrics.

09:57
Robert Murray
What is it though? Like, can you, are you allowed to give it away a little bit? Like.

09:59
Ryan Markewich
Oh, yeah, I can give anything away. Yeah. Sorry if I’m dancing around it.

10:02
Robert Murray
No, no, it’s all good. But I just think, like, first of all, you know this stuff better than most people. Like, you’re a certified game of business, a great Game of business coach, and you’ve been running the landscape company for 30 years.

10:13
Ryan Markewich
Right.

10:13
Robert Murray
So there’s definitely a curse of knowledge I have to try to break down. So that way, I can selfishly get what’s in your head out into the Ether for the audience to listen to.

10:21
Ryan Markewich
Got it.

10:21
Robert Murray
Give us an example then of what a line item would look like. There are actually a couple of things I want to talk about, so we’ll get there in a quick second. So team satisfaction, you mentioned. We’ll get there. The scoreboard of financials, I think, is a really interesting topic, and people need to understand what that means. And then, in this case, you’re talking about a huddle. So, first of all, what’s a huddle? How often does it happen? And what’s this idea of a line item and people owning the line item?

10:46
Ryan Markewich
Sure. So what we need to do, and this is where a lot of businesses get confused, they can attend a conference, they can read books, and when they leave that conference or put the book down, it’s like, oh, where do I start? Right. It’s huge. And because you get so overwhelmed because you have to pick up the shovel the next day, gotta to the world. Yeah. And you get distracted. But so what we want to do through a series of, you know, employee surveys and some economic research and customer data gathering, as well as marketplace gathering on all levels through competitors, is we want to assess our business through four particular perspectives. The financial, the marketplace, the operational, and the people. Right.

11:33
Ryan Markewich
And so when we take all that data and put it in there, we can get a consensus on the critical number or critical numbers, which represent the one to two things that are most likely to hold the company back in the coming 12 months as they relate to the long term objective of the company. So, one of them would most often come from a financial statement. Maybe net profit, maybe it’s gross margin, maybe it’s cash. Another one would be more on the operational or the strategic side, like people development or all sorts of things that relate to just making your business run more efficiently. So last year, ours was net profit and people development. That’s why I use those. We realized that those were the two things that could have the greatest impact negatively or positively on us.

12:37
Ryan Markewich
And so then we would just tie behaviors. And we’re getting to the line item ownership now, and we tie behaviors to those critical numbers per department or per role. So we have a line of sight from the people who are doing the work to the final outcome.

12:57
Robert Murray
The two most important things of the year.

12:59
Ryan Markewich
Yeah. So, in essence, you know, if we have Lexi owning the people development line item in the maintenance division, she would report on a bi-weekly basis in the meeting in front of everybody, where we stood on the calendar of events planned, so if we, in the month of May, if there was 102 events planned, particular checkboxes on that calendar, then she would report on that twice a month, an actual and then forecast out the rest of it. Our goal would be 100% on those, of course, to finish those development tasks.

13:41
Robert Murray
Right. That’s a big deal.

13:42
Ryan Markewich
Yeah. So we know in real time where we are relative to the plan we made.

13:46
Robert Murray
Yeah. What I love about that, too. Maybe you can speak to this idea. So, first of all, net profit is a tangible thing. People can see it’s an outcome; it’s on a financial statement. There’s no real if, ands, or buts about it unless you decide to write off or not write off some maybe big-ass dinners you had with your friends. But for the most part, net profit’s real. People’s development is interesting because it can be nebulous just by its nature. Then, you talk about this idea of events. And by events, I’m assuming it’s learning and social or some combination of the two to give people an opportunity to be with each other, master their craft, and maybe master themselves. You know, people development is one of the biggest issues or constraints we hear about on the show. Right.

14:30
Robert Murray
So we’re into interview number whatever, maybe 52, 53, something like that. Forty people probably answered people.

14:38
Ryan Markewich
Right.

14:39
Robert Murray
Some, some shape or form, whether it’s, you know, hard to recruit, hard to grow, hard to keep, hard to take care of, you know, whatever it might be. And then there’s, you know, the next biggest answer, I think, is the leader is the constraint. So, between their ears. And so when they get their head right, then they can grow. If they grow themselves, they can grow everybody. And then there’s a myriad of, you know, smorgasbord answers. So, talk about this people development piece. So there’s this, you know, great Game of business approach. Yeah, it’s one of two things that are the most important for the year. We’re going to make it a priority. Then how do we go about making it happen?

15:14
Ryan Markewich
Right. So, from the Great Game of Business side, it is more of the framework of how to get people engaged. And it’s a system, it’s a methodology, it’s a process, it’s all that and more. But you know, dealing with people development in itself. Well, we’ve created our own university, and we call it a passport. Yeah. So we have like a passport to success. And so when we do. Yeah. And I think one of them, a really cool and very simple thing that people can do, and I do this with my clients when I sit down with them, is like, let’s look at what the company needs for people next year.

15:53
Ryan Markewich
And then let’s look at five years out, say 20 or 30, and you just write down each role, and then you write and chalk down the number of people in each role, and then we build that into an organizational chart. And none of this has been pointed at in labeling anybody yet. Then we have each person on the company, in the company, on a small post-it note, put their name, and they walk up and put their name on the roll on the wall for 2025. And then they do the same thing for 2030. So then all of a sudden, and of course, in 2030, if you have big growth plans, we’re looking at two and a half times in the business in sales. So we’ve got a much larger organizational chart. It shows you where the gaps are in who you need.

16:44
Ryan Markewich
One beautiful thing for us in the last two or three years in a row doing this is that we’ve really only needed entry-level people. Yeah, right.

16:54
Robert Murray
To get to where you are today.

16:56
Ryan Markewich
Yeah. Or even moving forward, like for next year. If we just had entry-level people, we would be totally fine and on track. This tells us that our people development program is working really well now. Yes. Now, if you came in here and you’re a landscape superstar with the right attitude, great, that just propels it forward. But I tell you, you don’t want to leave people’s development to chance that you might find them, and you might not. Training people, whether it’s using, you know, the LMN greenest platform, or whether you’ve built your own or you’re outsourcing it or whatever that looks like, it’s gotta be a pretty significant line item on your profit and loss statement. Like you really have to invest in that because without that, you know, I.

17:41
Robert Murray
Think you’re putting out fires all day long if you don’t do it right.

17:44
Ryan Markewich
Yeah. Realistically, it’s the businesses that get the people part right that are going to dominate.

17:50
Robert Murray
So, whatever you just said right there, just for everybody listening, we’ve had the most successful people in terms of size of business and involvement or lack thereof in said business and earnings. So, it’s not just revenue for the sake of vanity. No, we’re talking about autonomous organizations that have an owner of 20 million-plus. All of them, the most successful ones, identify themselves as a training and development company that happens to do landscaping.

18:24
Ryan Markewich
Yeah. You know, quite honestly, Rob, business was probably always like that, but you could get away with not doing it, you know, in the old command and control days. But if you don’t do it now, you’re fighting an uphill battle. And if you grow and you scale your business outside, you know, in revenue past that point of having good systems in place, like, you know, there’s. There’s 500,000 to a million to three, three to ten if you get it. If you. Every time you make a step, you have to invest a little differently, and you have to become a little bit of a different leader at each stage. You have a high risk of messing things up.

19:08
Robert Murray
Yeah, I. Yeah, totally. And so. Okay, there’s a lot in that. And. And it was interesting. I’m not sure if you had a chance to see Mark’s interview here about a month ago, but I did. Yeah. So, he spoke very poignantly about the idea of elevating yourself as a leader as the business grows.

19:24
Ryan Markewich
Right.

19:25
Robert Murray
So going back to this thing, though, about training as a. A big part of your profit and loss, like, is there a percentage of revenue that you recommend or is there a certain level of investment that you think people should consider at different stages of their business growth? Or how do you look at it?

19:45
Ryan Markewich
I think it’s going to range year to year and really depending on how aggressive you are. So, for instance, and this is why I’m wary of benchmarking in some cases, because you stack yourself up against all these other companies, but you might have a different objective that particular year.

20:07
Robert Murray
Yeah, sure. But if there’s an idea, though, like, some people might not even have training as a line item.

20:13
Ryan Markewich
Yeah, well, you have to. And so if you do that organizational exercise and you’ve got a person that’s pretty good at an entry-level, but next year they want to be at, you know, in the technician level. Are you just hoping they’ll land thereby? By showing up every day? And you might. Because your training might be all on-site, how could you elevate that? And what would you need to do on an individual basis? And what would you need to invest on an individual basis? So we don’t have. I don’t have a particular percentage of sales that we’ve put towards it. We just put whatever is needed.

20:45
Robert Murray
Yeah, okay. And it’s.

20:46
Ryan Markewich
And we don’t. Yeah, no, it’s nothing. And, you know, and so if we had to put all of our profit into people, and we were looking at our net income forecast and it was 2 or 3%. While we’d address it, we wouldn’t take it away from the people.

21:01
Robert Murray
Okay, that’s a cool lens, right?

21:03
Ryan Markewich
Yeah. You would have to find it another way.

21:05
Robert Murray
Yeah, that’s great.

21:07
Ryan Markewich
Yeah.

21:07
Robert Murray
So, and then, going back to this idea, people and this team satisfaction survey.

21:12
Ryan Markewich
Yeah.

21:13
Robert Murray
You’re measuring it quarterly, I think you mentioned.

21:15
Ryan Markewich
Yeah.

21:16
Robert Murray
What are you asking?

21:18
Ryan Markewich
How satisfied are you at work with regards to compensation? The people you work with, the tools that we’re providing and just an overall, you know, the education we’re giving and just, we’re just trying to find holes in what we’re providing.

21:33
Robert Murray
Are you asking so like eight different questions or 10 different questions?

21:36
Ryan Markewich
I think there’s probably five questions. Yeah. Someone would own that, and they would report on it in our meetings and huddles.

21:48
Robert Murray
That’s super cool. And you’re doing it quarterly so you have a pulse throughout the year. It’s not just like an end of the year, how did we do? And it’s too late and people are frustrated or burnt out.

21:56
Ryan Markewich
Yeah, yeah, exactly. You have to move in real-time. I mean, the whole purpose of education and getting people involved, one, people support what they help create. And if they don’t help create it, they won’t believe it. If they don’t believe it, they won’t commit. If they don’t commit, they won’t execute all that stuff. Right. Is it that in real-time, you want to give people the tools, which is education, to deal with the unfolding drama that comes along with life and business? And it happens from both perspectives. The company needs to understand what’s happening in real-time because, you know, 7:00 comes around every morning, and everybody’s pushing to get out the gate by 7:05 to get the work done.

22:40
Ryan Markewich
And when you have an open book or a great game company or you’ve tied profit sharing, profit gain sharing to the outcome, you’ll see them leaving the compound earlier than most companies.

22:51
Robert Murray
Yeah, that’s cool.

22:52
Ryan Markewich
And coming back later.

22:54
Robert Murray
So, on the note of financial performance, you also mentioned when you’re talking about team satisfaction, the idea of a scoreboard of financials, and what I kind of got from that, as you knew, skimming past it, was that it’s maybe more a more simplified scoreboard, kind of like a football field or a hockey scoreboard, because there’s only a couple of numbers on those things and it’s easier for people to understand like is that kind of the nature of it?

23:16
Ryan Markewich
Right. I wish I could show you some pictures, but I have our critical number scoreboard as one of those. You look at it for three seconds, and you know what it is? It’s like your Jumbotron. So there are basically two numbers on there and then a couple of stats, which are very small. And then we have drivers, or some people would call them key performance indicators or metrics, that really are the behaviors in each role in the company, whether that be our human resources, our partners, our construction, design, build, or maintenance. The three or four things that we could talk about on a bi-weekly basis are going to have the biggest impact on those critical numbers because we know that what gets talked about gets done.

24:05
Robert Murray
Yeah, right. Where, what is it? What do you say? Where the focus goes. Energy flows.

24:09
Ryan Markewich
Yeah. Aside from those ones, we do have a large financial scoreboard. It’s a simplified P and L. So, per division, we would look at revenue through gross profit on a weekly, bi-weekly basis. Then, once a month, we would funnel the gross profit per division into a company-wide huddle, and then we would just subtract the overhead, and we would have our net income.

24:37
Robert Murray
Perfect.

24:38
Ryan Markewich
Yeah.

24:39
Robert Murray
So, what are the two numbers on your critical number scoreboard?

24:42
Ryan Markewich
People development and net income.

24:45
Robert Murray
But is there a number for people development? Oh, it’s the events.

24:47
Ryan Markewich
Yeah, it’s a number of events. So when we build our development track for each person, each thing is considered an event, and that just gets tracked in a spreadsheet. So it could be, you know, onboarding. And there are, you know, 20 tasks for onboarding people. Right. What base? You know, just some basic. What is the great Game of business? Also, you know, where do you park at the Farm? You know, driving, etiquette, safety, you know, all the regular stuff.

25:16
Robert Murray
Well, a regular one thing, I mean, did you or anybody hear that there’s onboarding? Formalized onboarding is the thing, right? Not just get in the truck, go have it, go have at it.

25:24
Ryan Markewich
No, we learned our lesson on that too many years ago. I mean, we focus on the luxury market, and we like to be accurate. And when you’re selling a playoff game, you know, you have to deliver on it. The business is a promise.

25:42
Robert Murray
It can’t be a Jake Paul fight.

25:43
Ryan Markewich
No. Oh, don’t get me started. The. Your business is a promise delivery system.

25:50
Robert Murray
Oh, I totally believe in that.

25:51
Ryan Markewich
So through the communication of what’s being promised by the people making the promises, the more we. Yeah, yeah, sales. But you know what? It’s funny as you get more and more people who are educated in what doing good business is. Actually, what constitutes doing good business? You’re all salespeople, and so you get other people making promises, and then in that communication system, they’re bringing it back. So you know, there’s just a better chance when more people understand what the promises are that you’re going to deliver on them.

26:27
Robert Murray
I love it.

26:28
Ryan Markewich
Yeah.

26:30
Robert Murray
So you have those key drivers and then. So what are the key drivers on net profit that you’re looking at this year?

26:38
Ryan Markewich
So, the key drivers would again be the ones in communication. So, project management meetings we realized were lacking, so we put a focus on that for them, and they held everyone in 2024 that was scheduled, and they would, they would report on those. So the other ones would be efficiency and billable efficiency. So, budgeted versus actual. So we have a target of 80% of our time in construction. I think maintenance was the same as what we wanted to have billed. We put 20% nonbillable as just as a target. And I think, and in both cases, they beat that target. But we realized there was going to be a heavy push towards nonbillable time and more education because we’re growing people. So this year, it might be. That number might be a little bit higher. So.

27:36
Robert Murray
Very cool.

27:37
Ryan Markewich
Yeah.

27:38
Robert Murray
So then, if someone is sitting there saying that, maybe they don’t have the most engagement.

27:46
Ryan Markewich
Right.

27:46
Robert Murray
So they’re. But maybe they do. They don’t know what does a, a non engaged team look like from an entrepreneur’s perspective on a day to day? Like how would they see it show up?

27:57
Ryan Markewich
I think. Well, it shows up in a lot of ways. You can probably feel it at first. But that’s also a measure of the expectations of the owner and balancing those expectations with what they’re putting in. And so I mean customer complaints, you know, not very engaged, you know, water cooler shit talk.

28:22
Robert Murray
Absenteeism.

28:23
Ryan Markewich
Yeah, absenteeism. You know, people come in all the time asking for races when there are no real ways to measure it. So, I guess this is the entitlement.

28:36
Robert Murray
Yeah. Okay, cool. That’s a good one. And we hear that a lot. So let’s say I’m experiencing that and I want to start exploring this world that you’re speaking of when it comes to the great Game of business for my landscape company.

28:48
Ryan Markewich
Yeah.

28:48
Robert Murray
What do I do to start? And you can selfishly plug yourself if you want.

28:52
Ryan Markewich
Yeah, well, I mean, like I said, there are a few ways to get in the Game. Just like any game, if you wanted to play hockey and you want to just do it on your own, well, you go down to Canadian Tire, get some, you know, some skates and a stick and a puck, and find a local pond and you know, go out there and how much effort you put into it’s going to have a direct result to the outcome you have. You then you could, you know, at the second level, hire a part-time coach, or you could get on YouTube and learn some stuff, and you know, then you’re just one step higher. If you want to move fast, you have somebody who’s been through it, and you hire them.

29:28
Robert Murray
Right. So let’s say I want to dip my toe though and just see if it’s for me. How do I explore it?

29:33
Ryan Markewich
I would say there’s a lot of information about it on the Internet. There are the books, the great Game of business, stake in the outcome, and get in the Game, so there’s good there. Or just, you know, phone me up. I’d be happy to talk to anybody about, you know, whether it’s for them because it’s not for everybody. If you think that it’s a, this is a one-and-done type thing. Suppose you think that you’re going to just trick people into caring more. Suppose you think that by producing a profit share program or a bonus system that, you’ll get people to care, you won’t. And I mean that’s, sadly, that is probably the number one thing people think they go to that first almost.

30:19
Robert Murray
Well, it’s easy to understand, right? If I pay them to do this thing more, they’ll do it more.

30:24
Ryan Markewich
Yeah. But the problem is if you pay them to do it more without the education, more entitlement comes.

30:29
Robert Murray
Oh yeah. I’m not saying otherwise. I’m just. It’s a simple thing to think about, right?

30:33
Ryan Markewich
Yeah. Yeah. You remember Clark W. Griswold from Christmas vacation, right?

30:36
Robert Murray
Well, tis the season. Yeah, yeah.

30:38
Ryan Markewich
Tis the season.

30:41
Robert Murray
So how do they get ahold of you then? If they wanted to have a call for half an hour to see what’s up and how, what are you doing with folks?

30:48
Ryan Markewich
Well, my website is R Mark Ca. It’s R M A R K dot CA or Ryan Marc CA, which is probably the best way. Send me an email or go through the website.

31:01
Robert Murray
Yeah, cool. And then, in terms of somebody wanting to engage with you as a coach, what does that look like in terms of engagement? Broad strokes.

31:13
Ryan Markewich
Yeah. Well, I like to go through a bit of a discovery process. Like I said, it’s not for everybody. You know, a great. A good, great game leader has to believe that people are able and willing and want to win and that you have to have a good, strong belief in people. I mean, the great Game is just the methodology on how to connect the dots between being a person, making profits, and having fun along the way.

31:42
Robert Murray
Love it.

31:43
Ryan Markewich
You know, in my mind, and you’ve been at it a bit, so I don’t really understand your great game journey, but you definitely know about it, and most people don’t, Rob. So again, I’m sure you’ve seen some. There are ups and downs, and you’ve experienced the concerns that people might have. Yeah.

32:07
Robert Murray
And do what we do in 17 years. And I think it’s interesting, too, because as much as we understand the methodology and the concepts, we don’t necessarily get the numbers right. And so we have unintended consequences. We make the decisions. And so for us, our business, we’ve gotten to a point where it is simple now. Like, it’s taken us a long time to get to simple. However, for us, net profit is fully correlated with keeping customers and getting new ones. Actually, keeping customers is more important than getting new ones.

32:40
Ryan Markewich
Right.

32:41
Robert Murray
And then so all the drivers that run through the organization for keeping customers are the priority, and those are where we get the most visibility, for sure. But that’s neither here nor there. We’re not here to talk about me. We’re here to talk about you. So let me go back to creative roots landscaping and the fact that you are no longer really there, and you’re this business coach for landscapers with a great game of business.

33:03
Ryan Markewich
Yeah.

33:04
Robert Murray
How did you make that happen? That’s kind of a bit of magic or a big question that people are looking for.

33:10
Ryan Markewich
Yeah, well, that’s a secret, Rob. I’m just kidding. You know, I podcast over. Yeah, yeah, no, I just kind of got tired of going at it alone, so I was a bit burnt out. Just like any business owner, as you transition between the different sizes of company and go through all that. And I had been over 20 years already pushing quite a bit, so I just said, well, start with the end in mind. And I got that from many books. The E. Myth and Think and Grow Rich are all books I read as I was growing up. And I Fell across a business model. Well, first, the Great Game is 100% employee-owned. Sorry. SRC is SRC Holdings, which Great Game is a part of. And then I found another one called Zingerman’s; they’re in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

34:02
Ryan Markewich
It is a really amazing company that had a very similar approach to business with regard to open and consensus-based decisions and everything. And so they had managing partners, and I had this idea, well if I had a managing partner, I was going to get more buy-in per division. In the end, we just decided to go with a, you know, bringing employees in who were deserving and proved to care enough about the company and about themselves to learn more. And so we’ve done that five times over now. So there are six people in ownership, and that has really given me the freedom to live a little bit of a different life. I spend my winters in Mexico. I really enjoy it. I like fishing, but I still work hard, and I do a bit of coaching on the side.

34:55
Robert Murray
Yeah, beautiful. And so did these folks pony up dollars were yes. Gifted or how did it work?

35:02
Ryan Markewich
No, no gifting. Not even my son, who’s the largest shareholder at this point and soon-to-be CEO of the company. We came up with a system to identify how much each individual being considered could own the company. And of that, they had to come up with a minimum of 25% of the value of the company. From there, if they had the extra money or extra exterior financing, that’s great. If they didn’t, I financed them.

35:37
Robert Murray
Yeah. Okay.

35:37
Ryan Markewich
And then, and then. Sorry. And then on annual basis they had to pay out of their dividends. 80% of their dividends plus interest until.

35:48
Robert Murray
The share value was paid off.

35:49
Ryan Markewich
That’s right.

35:51
Robert Murray
Love it.

35:52
Ryan Markewich
Yeah, it worked out really well. You know, it, it just. What it, what it ended up with. What we have now is just more hands-lifting.

36:02
Robert Murray
Yeah. Well, in many hands, light works.

36:04
Ryan Markewich
Yeah. And so you don’t just get that from ownership. Went from ownership. You do get that from employees as well if you’re involving them in the right way.

36:14
Robert Murray
Yeah. I know a lot of business partnerships where 50% of the owners do not have much.

36:20
Ryan Markewich
So.

36:20
Robert Murray
Well, I think you said there is a mechanism for the payouts, though. Pretty amazing. So, just to recap, what I think I heard was 25 of the share value that they’re going to take, but let’s say in this case it’s 10%, they would pay 2 1/2% of the value of the company, and then with the 7.5% remaining, they’re going to get paid dividends like they own 10%. But 80% of those dividends are going to go to you, who sold the shares to them.

36:46
Ryan Markewich
That’s right. Boom. Yeah. Took a while to figure it out.

36:51
Robert Murray
Yeah. Well, we have an ESOP here as well.

36:54
Ryan Markewich
Oh, you’re an actual ESOP? Yeah, 100% in Canada. Interesting.

36:59
Robert Murray
Yeah. And so our mechanism isn’t quite as accessible because we make people pay straight up what they’re taking, we do finance some payments, but the idea of giving them the dividend structure and then using only a percentage of the dividends that goes to them until it’s paid off, I think it’s a really cool idea.

37:19
Ryan Markewich
It’s simple. The ESOPs, I mean, you’re a big enough company to warrant the ESOP. And as you know, the ESOPs in Canada are not nearly as evolved as they are in the US one side. On the other hand, from what I know, and I’m not an expert, they’re a little more pure yet still. So, there are some interesting things coming down the pipe with the Canadian government now. They’re focusing on employee trusts and stuff like that, which I really look to, you know, study more moving forward because not every option is right for every company. So, as a coach, it’s my job just to help guide people to what’s right for them.

38:01
Robert Murray
Yeah, that’s cool.

38:02
Ryan Markewich
And so, you know, that’s that part of that discovery process, you really got to kind of understand, you know, what the main objectives are and you got to get inside the owner’s head and just kind of bring all that information out.

38:14
Robert Murray
Yeah, that’s cool. So, outside of the great Game of business, which is obviously a great resource, what kind of author or speaker would you recommend to somebody who hit you over the head with inspiration?

38:27
Ryan Markewich
No.

38:27
Robert Murray
Wow.

38:27
Ryan Markewich
Over the years, I have met hundreds of people.

38:30
Robert Murray
But like one or two that just kind of pop up as I ask.

38:32
Ryan Markewich
Ari Weinsvig. He is the part owner and founder of Zingerman’s in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Has probably some of the most powerful writing that I’ve ever taken in. He’s got a four-book series. They all start with the Elapsed Anarchists’ approach to managing ourselves, the power of beliefs in business, doing better business, etc.

38:59
Robert Murray
It was the starting note.

39:00
Ryan Markewich
Elapsed, Elapsed Anarchists approach. Yeah. And because he studied Russian history, and then he became an owner of a deli with a friend. And now they’ve built that up to, you know, probably. I think there are probably about five or six hundred people in the company. Why?

39:18
Robert Murray
Yeah, well, I think. I think I read about them in Small Giants.

39:20
Ryan Markewich
Yeah. Yeah, exactly. And so, yeah, there’s another great book. Bo Burlingham is an amazing guy. I always see him when I attend the great game conferences. And Bo wrote Small Giants, another great book.

39:34
Robert Murray
Yeah.

39:35
Ryan Markewich
You know, and for the landscape industry, everybody should be. Anybody who’s on LinkedIn or Instagram should be following Mark Bradley straight up. And me and his story is. Is. Is remarkable. And there’s. There’s not much he hasn’t seen or done. And he is on a mission.

39:53
Robert Murray
He is on fire.

39:55
Ryan Markewich
He’s on a mission. And. And he. He has already changed the industry, and I don’t think he’s anywhere close to what to being done.

40:04
Robert Murray
Very, very cool.

40:05
Ryan Markewich
Yeah.

40:06
Robert Murray
The last piece was R, Mark. So R M A R K dot ca.

40:12
Ryan Markewich
That’s right.

40:12
Robert Murray
Suppose you want to get in touch or rmark.ca for an email. Yeah, we’ll put the link in it. In the description of the podcast, make sure it’s available for everybody.

40:24
Ryan Markewich
Right. And we might have to have another one because there are a lot of parts we didn’t touch on, like mini games. And actual scoreboarding and.

40:31
Robert Murray
Yeah, I mean, I got to keep these to 45 minutes from what I’ve been told, and we’re about to bump into it, so I’m down many games. And scoreboarding. That’d be awesome. Episode or two, maybe even three or four.

40:46
Ryan Markewich
Sounds good. Rob, appreciate you having me on.

40:48
Robert Murray
Yeah, thank you for doing it, Ryan.

40:49
Ryan Markewich
I appreciate it.

40:51
Robert Murray
See everybody.