Down to Earth’s Jay Worth on Fixing the Hiring Excuse Landscapers Love

Rob Murray (00:29): Hey everybody, welcome back to another episode of the IM Landscape Growth Podcast. amazing guest, long overdue. We have Jay Worth on the show today. Jay, thank you so much for doing this.

Jay Worth (00:39): Thank you so much for having me. I’m I’m really honoured. I know there’s been a ton of really smart people on this show and I feel un distinctly underqualified to be here, but I appreciate it.

Rob Murray (00:47): I don’t think it’s the case though. Like so it’s when I say long overdue, Jay and I met, I don’t know, maybe four years ago or something like that, five years ago. And yeah, and you know, you’re you’re one of few people that have been in a lot of the same places. Like we really, you know, went to all the shows. Like we we went state to state to state to state, national, whatever, provincial, Canadian, American, whatever. And and you are all you always had, you know, your ear to the ground, you knew what was going on, and you had a pulse that a very few people

Jay Worth (00:57): Yeah, it’s been a minute.

Rob Murray (01:17): had. you know, experience vast 15 years plus in the industry, single ops, super cool now with down-to-earth landscape and irrigation. yeah, I’m just pumped to have you on it. So thanks for doing this. All right. So like everybody else, we need to give the audience some perspective in terms of where you’re coming from. So can you give us a Cole’s notes in terms of like your experience in the industry and what you’re focused on these days.

Jay Worth (01:27):
My pleasure. Grateful to be here. Yeah, so I got my start in college, shoveling the ground like a lot of people. I was working an office job and it was slowly killing me. And I was like, I need to be out, I need to be physical. and I I bounced around a little bit. I tried one landscape company that I wasn’t really happy with. It like a Mo Blow and go place and I was about to give up on it and someone said to me, Hey, my brother in law runs a company, you should talk to him and it was full service. I did everything that summer from pouring exposed aggregate concrete patios, and we had to do that one twice because we screwed it up. to you know, decking, to hardscaping, brush clearance, digging French drains by hand. I mean, I just really got kind of a full spectrum on the industry and and thought that was gonna be like a college thing. I found myself during the recession, the Great Recession, selling lawn care door to door, and that was my first real professional entrance into the industry. I did that for six years in total. Yeah. Yeah. I you know, I learned a lot about dogs. Let’s just say you have to get really good with dogs. but I, you know, I just I I really did enjoy it. I I fell in love with the actual science of it. I fell in love with the people in particular that work in the industry. And since then I’ve I’ve done lots of things. I’ve actually done some stints away from the industry. I sold

Rob Murray (02:29): Solid intro. Nice.

Jay Worth (02:51): Advertising B to B for a year. I worked for a digital marketing agency for a brief stint, you know, about eight or nine months. And but I’ve always come back to the industry and so I’ve I’ve worked at a an eight figure full service landscaper that that made the LM150 three times in the five years that I was there. and I ran all of their marketing eventually ran all their marketing and their inside sales teams, trained and staffed my team there. And then I went to single ops and and had a great time there, really good people, ended up doing the the podcast for them, hosted a hundred epis over a hundred episodes of Green Industry Perspectives. did a brief stint at a at a super high end residential landscape company in Indianapolis and now I’m at down to earth and I supervise the team of business developers that sells new construction installation here and they are kicking butt and taking names. I have an absolute rock star team and I could not be any happier. got really good support from from leadership. My team is hungry and kicking indoors and and making things happen and so I’m just they make me look good. I can’t I can’t complain. Yeah.

Rob Murray (03:54): Beautiful. So I have so many questions, but before we get into those ones, the the the name of the game on this show is is the what’s the growth constraint and you know your your perspective working in many organizations running a podcast with single ops speaking to over a hundred of the best of the best your industry understanding you know being around hundreds if not thousands of landscapers what do you see as the primary growth constraint holding entrepreneurs back in the green industry

Jay Worth (04:24): so maybe I have a different take on this ’cause I’m looking I’m taking a longer view on this, right? I don’t know that it’s the primary constraint today, right now. We’re recording this near the end of June twenty twenty six. I don’t know if right this second it’s the primary growth constraint, but the most consistent growth constraint I have seen so can I answer the question that way? Is that okay? Over Okay. Over over the last, you know

Rob Murray (04:26): Yeah, yeah. Yeah, of course however you want, man. That’s the whole point of having you.

Jay Worth (04:49): More than fifteen years, I’ve been in the industry almost twenty years at this point. The the most consistent growth constraint I’ve seen is we’re not able to adapt and make the changes that we need in our businesses to staff effectively. And so I’m not just talking about field labor. I’m talking like when you get to that point where you need an operations manner, when you get to that point where you need an office manager. It’s it it’s it’s both sides. It’s it’s field staff and it’s office staff. And I just think that we knowing when to pull the trigger on those things is something I’m probably not qualified to speak at, but how to attract those people is something that I’ve become really passionate about. I’ve I’ve spoken at conferences about it. I’ve been published in several industry publications about it. I’m speaking at three conferences on it this year. I’ve written a book about it. Like I can that’s something I’m really, really like I love this industry so much and I wanna see our companies in our industry be healthy and thrive. And you can’t do that if you don’t have the people in your company and you’re not treating them the right way and you can’t keep them. No, it doesn’t matter how much you can sell, you you can’t get it done, right? So

Rob Murray (05:52): Yeah, no, it’s fair. And I think it’s such a cool perspective too, ’cause we talk all the time about this idea of like you know, the grind will get you from, you know, zero to maybe a million and a half and you could really probably push it to two million where you essentially hire people around you that will help you do what you need to do. But then at some point at two and a half or something like that, you you you hit a ceiling, you can’t do it all, and like i everything’s running through you and if that continues to happen it’s like burnout and then there’s the age old adage of what got you here won’t get you there and then so there’s all these things about this requirement to adapt in order

Jay Worth (06:16): Hundred percent.

Rob Murray (06:24): To bring on and staff properly and keep great people. So what what do you see are the symptoms of people that aren’t adapting? Like how does it show up in their lives? So if I’m a listener of this episode, can you describe what I might be experiencing? So I go, oh shit, that maybe that’s me.

Jay Worth (06:31): Hmm. Yeah, absolutely. And and I think you you already hit one of them right away is anytime everything rises and falls on you, you’re in trouble. Right? Like if you get hit by a bus today, you go on vacation for a week and it all falls apart, you come back and it’s chaos, that’s a problem, right? So i the the fact that you can’t if you can’t step away and you can’t trust people in your company and you there’s no one to pick up the slack. those are all big that that’s probably I think the primary red flag. The other thing is like I don’t know anybody that got into this business because they’re like, you know what? I just love scheduling. You know, right? Like like nobody gets into this business because they’re like

Rob Murray (07:20): I’m gonna grow this business to schedule my ass off.

Jay Worth (07:23): Yeah. Like I don’t know anyone that’s like, you know what? I’m gonna go start a landscape company because I love receivables. Right? Like there’s there’s all this stuff that we do that we got into this business because you you love being outside. You love plants, you love getting your hands dirty, you love developing people at some point. Like I know some people that they’re like, I just wanted to become an entrepreneur because I wanted to grow something, and this was the the lowest barrier to entry.

Rob Murray (07:30): Yeah.

Jay Worth (07:50): And I want to invest in my people. I actually know a guy like that and he’s got a very successful company. he was on my podcast a couple times. So shout out to Jeremy. But like if you if you’ve lost sight of like if you’re in the weeds with stuff that’s not your strength and you you don’t have someone to help you with that, maybe you’re not at a point where you can hire full time someone yet, and that’s a different. But like I think the other thing is if you put off the important things that need to get done to the business to run because you don’t like doing them. That’s also probably a sign that maybe there’s some things. If you are at a point where you’ve got another sign would be if you’ve got a at the point where you you do have staff, you can you can afford to to keep people on staff, but you can’t keep them.

Rob Murray (08:19): Mm. Mm.

Jay Worth (08:32): That’s a that’s a big red flag for me too, right? Like, okay, there’s there’s something something going on there. Or, you know, you’re at a point where you can do that and you just really you seem to be like hitting your head against the wall, like no matter what I do, I can’t recruit good people. that’s a another so I’d say those are some of the the biggest indicators for me. Like everything revolves on you, you’re putting off tasks. Yeah, you can’t find or you can’t keep good people. Those are those are some big red flags for me.

Rob Murray (08:59): Yeah, well and it seems like they’re like they’re almost like graduated steps, like the first one of you can’t step away and can’t trust someone to pick up the slack is like the first level. And then the second level is you can’t afford to get people in, but you can’t find people or keep people. It’s almost like a like a graduated problem. so why don’t we just touch on that one? Because a lot of people talk about the idea that like, you know, if you if everything runs through you and you’re you’re you’re you’re not working on the business, you’re only working in the business, and there’s a lot of there’s a lot of people speaking about this idea that you have to trust and and all that kind stuff. But not a lot of people talk about this idea that like, okay, you’re at a point where you can’t.

Jay Worth (09:06): Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Correct.

Rob Murray (09:31): can’t afford people and you can’t find people or you can’t keep people and I hear it a lot when people are just like, you know, there’s no good people. And there are there are common ’cause it’s okay, tell me tell me why. What’s up with that? Not a second.

Jay Worth (09:39): Yeah. That drives me crazy. I I don’t believe that for a second. I have worked with so many and that I’ve worked with so many extraordinary people in this industry that you cannot convince me that there are not people that want to work in this industry. I just don’t believe it. That’s a that’s a that’s a bunch of that’s a lazy answer. I can’t find anybody. You if you’re listening to this and that’s you and you I can’t find anybody, there aren’t any good people in my market. No, there are. They’re working for somebody else, and you need to work on you and on your company to get them in the door.

Rob Murray (10:13): So this is something that I really love. you gotta work on you. we have this idea that like you have to be a leader worth following. And so maybe maybe can you speak from being from from a team member’s perspective, can you contrast an owner that was like tough to work for versus an owner that was like fuck a hell yeah, like run through a wall for? And what the difference was in terms of how they showed up?

Jay Worth (10:21): Hundred percent. Mm-hmm. Yeah, I’ll give you two examples from my days in college when it the two first two companies I worked for. One was the the Mo Blow and Go company, and he was a good old boy. Not that there’s anything wrong with good old boys, if you’re listening to this, don’t be triggered. Right? But he was he was he was a good old boy. Yeah, exactly. He was a good old boy and and he was a good guy. He was he was an okay guy, right? he was a little immature, but he was

Rob Murray (10:49): Yeah. They probably have a trigger in their hand.

Jay Worth (11:01): It was me and he had two employees, two other full-time employees, and then he had me for the summer help. Okay, fine. Both of those employees were El Salvadoran, and this guy didn’t speak a lick of Spanish, and he was married to a Colombian woman, and he would literally get into a fight with this guy, his main guy, you know, the other guy was like, Okay, I’ll just do whatever you tell me and no argument. But one guy pushed back and frequently, right? And he would pick up the phone, call his wife, put it on speaker and be like, you know He said this to me, blah blah blah blah blah. Tell him I said blah blah blah. And then like they’re arguing through speakerphone. Okay. I’m not kid whi via his wife who’s been put in the middle of this thing because she’s a fluent Spanish speaker. Now, th and this was part of my I was like, this is not like if you can’t even communicate yeah, it’s not healthy. Like and they’re doing this like outside of the customers’ houses. We were we were it was mainly childcare centers like kinder care daycares, right?

Rob Murray (11:43): Healthy shit.

Jay Worth (11:53): That we were doing. So like they’re they’re standing outside outside the truck and he’s they’re screaming he’s screaming into the phone and this guy’s screaming back and his wife’s brrrr back and forth between the two of them in Spanish and English and it was it was chaos, right? The next guy I worked for, I was like and plus and he was also he was cheap. Like we had a bunch of these so I worked in I lived and worked in Virginia primarily, but he had like a dozen of these childcare centers in Maryland. He didn’t want to make two trips to Maryland. So he we’d have to get up at like I’d have to leave the house at like three o’clock in the morning, get to the shop, we’d drive and do all of them in one day ’cause we’d go like east west across the state and and then back it was like a fourteen hour day, fifteen hour day. It was awful. And then the next day it was like back to work like normal. I was like and we did this once a week, all summer. the next guy I worked for, he was like, we don’t start ’til eight ’cause I don’t like to get up early. And which you can question the the wisdom of that decision, but as a college student I loved it. Right? And and the first day I pulled up

Rob Murray (12:42): Whatever. Yeah.

Jay Worth (12:47): He is walking around the yard speaking to all of his employees, greeting them by name, speaking to them in Spanish, because there were sixteen Hondurans and one El Salvadoran. And I all knew I knew Pablo was Salvadoran because all sixteen of the Hondurans told me. If you know, you know, right? And and they didn’t even bother to learn my name for the first two weeks. They just called me Gringo. And the first I came back, you know, Monday of the next week and they were like, Gringo, you came back. I was like, I told you I wasn’t going anywhere.

Rob Murray (13:01): Right. Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

Jay Worth (13:14): Never had a gringo that stayed this long. But like I was I was immediately in, and part of that was because and that owner, his name was Jerry Link. Part of that was because Jerry had made the the people a priority. That was the difference between the two. Right? The one guy didn’t bother, couldn’t be bothered to learn a lick of Spanish, even though he was married to a native Spanish speaker. The other guy took the time to connect with them in their heart language, right? Like so that

Rob Murray (13:15): Yeah.

Jay Worth (13:40): Not only so that they were instructions were clear, but so that he could win them over. And

Rob Murray (13:45): Yeah, it’s like you no one cares how much you know until they know how much you care type of thing.

Jay Worth (13:49): Absolutely. And it made a world of difference. I watched a guy, I was just talking about this yesterday with the coworker. I watched one of these guys our our designer put diesel in the Bobcat by accident. It was a gas engine. He put it the wrong fuel in. I watched one of these guys stick a hose in there and siphon it with his mouth. Diesel fuel. For the owner. Yeah, yeah. it was gross. He started retching afterwards and but like he he that’s the difference though. He was willing to do that. For Jerry, because Jerry had invested in him, had built into him, had trusted him, had bothered to get to know him. and you understand as you’re scaling a company, you can’t do that with everyone. I don’t at me, people. Like you got a hundred people, you can’t possibly be invested in all their lives. I get that. You need to do it with your direct reports and and expect that of them. And then it and then it correct.

Rob Murray (14:35): Yeah, that’s cool. And cascade it. So that’s really that’s a really cool contrast. And then because I also hear, you know, not necessarily explicitly, but like implied in the way that people are running their their businesses, like, I just don’t have time to go do that. Like we’re busy. We gotta get the work done. And it’s like such a weird counterintuitive thought that if you slow down to win the hearts of your people, you’ll all run faster together. And

Jay Worth (14:52): Mm-hmm. Absolutely.

Rob Murray (15:01): So it’s just like i they’re set they’re kinda

Jay Worth (15:02): that’s yeah. Yeah, yeah.

Rob Murray (15:04): setting the standard of bringing a team together. And I think it’s really cool how you’ve contrasted the two with experiences that you’ve had. So then when you go ahead. No no, you’re good. Go go.

Jay Worth (15:10): Do you know sorry, sorry, just a a quick thought on this. Do you know how you I don’t know if you guys have these in Canada every we have some here and another big in the UK, variable speed highways. Have you seen those? Where like there’s a LED sign. So I watched there’s a woman named Hannah Fry, she’s a British woman, she explains how these things work. And ’cause they they do it on the M4, which is one of the main highways through through England, and she explains it. And what happens is if all the cars are traveling at a certain speed, let’s say it’s 70 miles an hour.

Rob Murray (15:20): Yeah, sure.

Jay Worth (15:36): And there’s any kind of traffic jam ahead. They all come flying up and then it’s brake and it’s brake lights and blah blah blah. And then it and then that backup actually continues on way past the point where it would normally do. So what they do is they reduce the speed, let’s say they drop it to 50, and that gives people more time to make decisions. And that that time is what improves the flow of traffic.

Rob Murray (15:58): great analogy, my friend.

Jay Worth (16:00): And so i when people have more time and space to make those decisions, yes, you have to go fast, but you have to give your people time to think if you want to be able to eventually trust them to execute the way you would want to. They have needed they need the space to say, well, how would my boss do this? What would they want me to do? What’s the real goal here? What judgment calls am I allowed to make? How what will the ramifications of my judgment be? They need the time and space to think that without it having to be constantly.

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

Jay Worth (16:27): Right. So

Rob Murray (16:27): Right, ’cause then they’re just going, going, going and there’s no way to look back or

Jay Worth (16:30): And as they learn to make those decisions properly, six months from now, it’s gonna be so much faster. Cause they know how to make the decisions.

Rob Murray (16:36):  Then they’re gonna start to speed up. Love that. So going back to this No no, you’re good. No, I d I mean the analogy on the variable speed highway, I think the whole idea of like you if you look at your business as traffic. Yeah, exactly. But that’s like a concrete example because people have been telling me to slow down to speed up for over a decade and I had no idea what the fuck they were talking about. Finally it hit me. No, it’s great. I I love it.

Jay Worth (16:40): Sorry, go ahead. You slow down to speed up. I’ll send you the video clip. I’ll send you the video clip of it. She actually breaks it down and I’m like, That’s genius. How’d have I never seen that before? Yeah. Yeah.

Rob Murray (17:02): Please do. I’m definitely I gotta post that in a bunch of places because it that’s a concrete example of a weird thing that’s you know airy, but anyway. So th going back to this idea of adapt to recruit and retain, what are what are some of the biggest stumbling blocks? Like where do people get stuck? Like when you’re when you’re working with all these folks or talking to everybody, where’s like the hardest kind of like adaptation point for a leader or an owner?

Jay Worth (17:05): Yeah, yeah.

Rob Murray (17:25): Is it like the first, you know, getting the first people or is it the first office hires? Is it the first like hire that’s good at what they do? Like where where do you see people trip up on this you know, means to adapt?

Jay Worth (17:37): I was just listening to another podcast, and I think it might have been yours actually the other day. where where someone was talking about the idea of like, we hand off the stuff that we don’t like. You know, because or or excuse me, we hand off the stuff that we enjoy doing as leaders because we feel bad giving the crap we don’t like to somebody else. And I think that that’s just and that that resonated with me. I was like, yeah, I have seen leaders do that. I have done that myself.

Rob Murray (17:42): Sweet

Jay Worth (18:01): Like gosh, you know what? When you find someone that can operate in the right in their strengths, like, you know, you may hate that scheduling, but you there’s somebody you know who like that’s energizing for them. Like, man, I made it all fit. It was like a giant puzzle. Yes, exactly, right? Like, and then and then we hang on to that because we’re like, I really enjoy the other things. So I think it’s it’s not so much

Rob Murray (18:14): I get to do I get to do people Tetris all day long, this is my game.

Jay Worth (18:27): what it’s it’s I think it’s more task based. And I think that if you’re just self aware about what things give you energy and what things drain your energy, and you can bring the the best of yourself by focusing on your strengths and and hiring out for those things that you’re not as skilled at but you know are critical, I think you’ll do a lot better. If that’s if that makes sense.

Rob Murray (18:46): Yeah, for sure. Well, and then the idea too that people like not everybody sees the way the not everybody sees the world the way you do. And and actually almost every single time they just don’t. And so something that you don’t like, somebody will probably love. And giving away things that give you energy, especially as an entrepreneur, is probably not the right path forward, because you’re gonna bring the most value when you do it.

Jay Worth (18:52): Correct. Correct.

Rob Murray (19:08): So when you when you in your experience, like one of the things we’ve seen, and doing this podcast has made it like really kind of a slap in my face, because essentially I’ve had 18 months of people telling me I’m the problem. So that’s a humbling experience, but whatever. was the idea of okay, like you gotta hire out what you’re not good at. And then eventually to really grow, you gotta hire what you are good at. And so

Jay Worth (19:21): Ha ha. Yeah, that’s true.

Rob Murray (19:33): Have you seen some people hire out what they are good at and then like miss it because they like micromanage, they still get too involved because they understand it so well. And I mean, I’m I’m really leaning towards the idea of sales because you have a track record of sales success, which is not necessarily common for a lot of people. but have you seen that happen where someone does bring in somebody that’s good at what they do, but then they just don’t let go because they know it so well?

Jay Worth (19:55): a hundred percent. And I’ll tell you this is so there’s a great book by a guy named Hans Finzel. It’s called the Top Ten Mistakes the Leaders Make. and number one, I’m gonna spoil it for you, is what he calls dirty delegation. So you you delegate to somebody else but you don’t let go of it. It’s the number one mistake. I see a lot and I I won’t say I won’t say every leader makes it, but I think it’s one that’s a very common failing. Like we we Leaders naturally gravitate towards that because, like, that’s the one thing I’m really good at. And so I know I’m good at it. And I see somebody else and they’re not doing it the way I would. And we kind of die inside a little bit because you know, like that’s not the I’m so good at this. I know I’m good at this. I’ve been good at this my whole life, and they’re doing it not the way I would do it. And and so it’s

Rob Murray (20:41): Mm. And I love how you say that too, ’cause it’s not that they’re doing it wrong. They’re just not doing it the way that I would do it.

Jay Worth (20:46): A hundred percent, right? Like and so you wanna get in and tweak and twist and s and it’s really hard as a leader to know where that line is. And sometimes you know, there’s been times I’ve gotten that right in my career and there’s been times I’ve gotten it wrong. There’s been times that I’ve by far like been way too in someone’s business and there’s been times where I’ve gone too far the other way and I wasn’t involved enough and somebody went off the rails and it it blew up in my face. But I think that generally speaking, if you can try and err on the side of let me equip them for everything they need to do the job, train them, equip them, and then step back. And ’cause ’cause they’re gonna they’re gonna do it a way that’s different than the way you did it. That doesn’t make it wrong and I and I know diversity is like a big buzzword. I know there’s a lot of people that this is gonna trigger for but but the but diversity, doing it things differently doesn’t necessarily mean you w when people come with with different ideas, you might find results that you didn’t see. Can I and I I don’t wanna can I give a quick example? So my wife and I lived in Italy for a couple of years and we first moved there

Rob Murray (21:47): Yeah, dude, go.

Jay Worth (21:52): we bought like we had like it was almost all it was all like tile and hardwood and stuff in our apartment. So we bought a little like Dyson like cordless you the broom vac kind of deals, right? And we just bought a cheap one. It was at the store. We got it home. They’re amazing. Yeah, yeah. It wasn’t a Dyson, it was like an off brand, but it was like I got it home.

Rob Murray (22:02): They’re amazing, by the way. Product placement, they’re amazing. I want dyson like I don’t know, someone to sponsor us. That’s joking.

Jay Worth (22:12): Yeah, exactly. But it was that same kind of thing. It was like the long handle and the little broom at the end and the k little canister up here, right? And we got it home and there was one critical piece missing, the piece that connected the canister to the tube was actually missing. It was just not in the packaging. So I’ve got to go back to this store then and and with Google Translate, because we’d only been there like a a couple of months, you know, I’m trying to explain what happened. And when I finally get it through to the saleswoman, what she does is she goes and grabs another box. Now I don’t know how it is in Canada. What would you expect to happen when she goes and grabs another box? What do you think is the next thing that’s gonna happen?

Rob Murray (22:44): Well, I the way that you were telling the story, my mind said she’s gonna take the part out of that box and give it to you, or give you the box. But my thought was to take the part out.

Jay Worth (22:52): Well, that’s it so in the US, what she would do is she would exchange the whole unit, right? She would just give you a brand new box. But you’re you’re exactly right. What she did was she opened up the new box, rooted around there, pulled everything out, found this one piece that was I’m not kidding, is this big. She pulled it out and she goes, here. Hands it to me. But

Rob Murray (22:56): Right, which yeah. Well you were in Italy, so I figured and then restocks the box. No, I’m joking.

Jay Worth (23:13): Yeah, yeah, and then restocks well, not done if she restocked it, but like yeah, yeah. But but the point is, and so we think we see that and we think, my gosh, that’s crazy. Why wouldn’t she just give me the brand new unit? But truthfully, she probably could protect her company more than if she had just handed me a new unit, ’cause how does she know that me, the foreigner that doesn’t s isn’t communicating clearly, is is is on the up and up and has, you know, the the the product actually functions and I didn’t break it.

Rob Murray (23:16): I’m just sure.

Jay Worth (23:40): And I’m trying to return the broken thing that I did to the to the store and get a brand new one. She protected the company far more than we do with our with our typical customer service policies. And at the end of the day, all I needed was a working vacuum. I don’t care how I got it. Right? So everybody won. But it’s not, it’s absolutely not the way. And that’s what I’m saying is like problem solving.

Rob Murray (23:47): Yeah. A hundred percent.

Jay Worth (24:00): When you hand that off to somebody is gonna come and it’s gonna look different because they’ve had a different background, different life experiences, they were raised differently, maybe they speak a different language as their primary language. You’re gonna hand it off and they’re gonna approach that problem very differently than you would because they’re not you. And that’s okay as long as the job is getting done.

Rob Murray (24:16): Yeah, that’s cool. Yeah. Well, and I th Well, and I think that’s kind of what you were saying before of like train, equip, and then let them go. I think the consistency and customer experience in terms of like the way of the business is important to protect, but the nuance of the way someone drives from point A to point B is probably okay to have some autonomy. Yeah.

Jay Worth (24:33): Yes. You can set standards for like, okay, these things need to happen, right? And you should. But I wouldn’t micromanage the how we navigate through those, if that makes any sense.

Rob Murray (24:47): Yeah, I love that. Absolutely it does. So I I wanna this I don’t we have to do another episode for the record because I we haven’t really got a chance to dive into sales and this is something we see as like a it’s like it’s it’s a huge problem.

Jay Worth (24:53): Ha ha.

Rob Murray (25:01): We generate leads for our clients and we track every single lead, whether it’s a phone call or a form submission. We we listen to the calls, we see how many are answered, how many are not answered, we see their lead response time, we we see all of it. and and we know that the professional sales approach in the industry is getting better, but there’s still a huge opportunity to be great. and with your experience, not only door to door, regional biz dev, supervising a sales team can you help paint a picture of what an effective sales approach inside a landscape business looks like?

Jay Worth (25:32): Yeah, I think and maybe this is just ’cause I live in Florida now and the bar is really low here. Okay. But I think it’s

Rob Murray (25:37): I I think it’s across the board. There’s so much opportunity for people to kick some ass.

Jay Worth (25:41): I think a big part of it is just actually being consistent with follow-up. Like, I can’t tell you the number of times someone says to me my parents, my parents needed some some work done at their place. They put out they called four companies, no responses. Zero in a month. Like it’s like the bar is extremely low. You don’t have to call somebody

Rob Murray (25:57): Zero.

Jay Worth (26:04): I know you see you’ll hear a lot of salespeople, and I disagree with this slightly. You’ll hear a lot of salespeople say, like, you need to be on the phone with them within five minutes of that Form submission. Depends on the service line for me. Like if it’s lawn care or pest control, yeah, sure. Get on the phone right away, because if you don’t, True Green’s going to, right? But if you are selling design build and you call them back within five minutes, to me as the consumer, that signals maybe they’re not busy.

Rob Murray (26:20): Right.

Jay Worth (26:29): Maybe they don’t have a backlog, right? Maybe they’re a little too available. So I just think but I think that like just getting to them, like maybe same day is really important. Just call people back. Like it’s not that hard. I know the phone won’t bite you. but like I I think that’s a big thing. And then consistent follow up, right? After you’ve made a presentation, like especially if you’re design build, you’ve put

Rob Murray (26:41): Yeah.

Jay Worth (26:52): Hours into the design, into the thoughts, and into sitting with the clients and interviewing them and and come up with this really creative, beautiful process, and you present it to them and then you walk away and you wait three weeks before you. Why? Why? Just just call them. Like do say, hey, I wanted to see if you guys had any questions after you talked about it, after the presentation. Was there anything you wanted to tweak? You don’t even have to make it a sales pitch. Did it did the did the design land with you? Was there anything we need to adjust?

Rob Murray (27:14): Well, and one thing too, first of all, I it’s totally I love that. there’s two things that we kinda recommend for folks. One is let them know you when you can do it if they give you an answer by X day. So we can do it this week or start this day, but we need an answer by this day. And if you say no, it’s okay. But if you say yes after that day, I can’t guarantee that time.

Jay Worth (27:28): Mm-hmm. Yep. The start date, correct.

Rob Murray (27:37): So why don’t we put a little 15-minute calendar reminder for a decision call? And if you have any questions, we can discuss it. If you decide you don’t want to move forward, just let me I’ll delete it the calendar. but just keeping that thing in in in motion. Anyway, your follow-up response, I mean, same day, love that. You know, five minutes, I mean, we might recommend five minutes. but same day, great. And

Jay Worth (27:41): Yep. Just ch yeah, yeah. It’s a great idea. You’ve got a different you’ve got different skin in the game though. You’re generating the leads. Of course you want them to call back within five minutes.

Rob Murray (28:02): Well I know, we’re just like close these deals, man. Our clients stay if they make money. So we’re just trying to do everything we can to make money. Anyway, we gotta do this again. I we can we do the next one all on sales systems, sales leadership and ’cause I th I just think it’s something that is ripe for people to get better at.

Jay Worth (28:06): Yeah yeah. Yeah. Sure, absolutely. Yeah, yeah. And I’ll just say this, th the the the spoiler there is you need to have a documented process.

Rob Murray (28:23): Whoa, what do you what are you talking about? I know what I’m doing, I don’t need to process anything.

Jay Worth (28:26): You need to have a documented process and it needs to be followed by everybody and it and it needs to be followed consistently across the organization. That’s the we’re done. That’s the episode. But yeah.

Rob Murray (28:30): I’ve been doing this for fifteen years, Jay. I know exactly what I’m doing. Well, I you know what though, man? First of all, well this it’s a teaser, a documented sales process is way more than people think. I’ve done this exercise with many people. Send me your sales process.

Jay Worth (28:49): Mm-hmm.

Rob Murray (28:51): And and they they don’t necessarily know what it is. So I’m really excited to break it down to see how people can like kinda catapult their sales professionalism and and really help create some predictable growth in their business. Jay, thank you for doing this. You mentioned top ten mistakes leaders make as one of the resources. What’s another aha author or speaker that you draw from?

Jay Worth (29:08): Man. If you’re talking about sales, there’s a guy, let me look it up here quick. I think it’s Jeffrey Fox and it’s How to Be a Rainmaker. It’s a short book. Yeah, let me take a look here. Yeah, I think it’s Jeffrey Fox. It’s a short read. It’s probably only yeah, Jeffrey J. Fox. It’s like a hundred and twenty pages. It’s not long. And it is magnifique. Yeah, it’s terms as I the only thing I take exception with is like I was reading it while I was doing door to door sales. And in that book he actually calls door to door salesman a dinosaur. Like this is a thing from a relic from a bygone era. I like, screw you, Jeff. You know? But

Rob Murray (29:28): On point. Yeah, whatever, man. But it ended up working.

Jay Worth (29:45): Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I I would say How to Be a Rainmaker is a great one. And then I I try to listen to for sales stuff I also listen to the the Jeb Blunt sales gravy podcast. Patrick Lancioni. I think yeah, and I think one of the and it’s it’s I’ve seen it a lot on LinkedIn recently and I and I was fortunate enough that I I read it in a prior role. We did it as like a leadership team, but Unreasonable Hospitality by Will Guidara.

Rob Murray (29:57): Classic.

Jay Worth (30:09): is that’s incredible. Like in fact just this week I had to I had a I had a a conversation with people on my team was like let’s make the charitable assumption. Just make the charitable assumption which is something that lives rent free in my head from that book. So yeah, I I would say that’s a good one. Go go check that one.

Rob Murray (30:09): It is a g it is a good one. Love that. Alright, we’ll put him in the the summary after this. thanks everybody for listening to another episode and thank you, Jay, for being an amazing guest.

Jay Worth (30:32): Thanks for having me.