Jon Gohl on the Landscaping Companies Built to Win in 2025 (and the Systems Behind Them)

00:00
Robert
Hi, everyone, and welcome to the I Am Landscape Growth podcast, where entrepreneurs help entrepreneurs grow faster, better and stronger in the green industry. From leadership to sales to recruiting and operational excellence, we cover the topics holding entrepreneurs back and share how to get past those bottlenecks with the best in the industry. I’m your host, Rob Murray, co founder and CEO of Intrigue, a digital marketing company focused on helping landscape companies grow. So sit back and enjoy the show.

00:25
Jon
Foreign.

00:33
Robert
Welcome back to another episode of the I Am Landscape Growth podcast. I have an awesome guest with us today, John Goal of Aspire, Director of Client Experience. John, thank you so much for doing this.

00:43
Jon
Yeah, Robert, thanks so much for having me. Excited to be here.

00:46
Robert
Yeah, me too. John and I had an opportunity to meet in what I would consider a wonderful place, which is Costa Rica, at the national association for Landscape Professional Leader Forum. And what I thought was really cool and the reason I wanted to connect with you, John, was because you delivered this, like, what’s up and coming in the state of the industry for landscapers in 2025. Now, not only was the report awesome, and if you want to check it out, you can go to aspire.com and check it out. You can also see that we did a write up on [email protected] but you delivered it really well. So it was boring. It was really well done. And then I got a chance to say hi, and then we had a chance to have a conversation before we had this one.

01:24
Robert
And so, you know, over a decade with Aspire, working in the green industry, helping entrepreneurs in landscaping. Can you just give the audience a little rundown of, like, how you ended up getting into that space and what you’ve been up to the last, you know, better part of a decade plus.

01:37
Jon
Yeah, Robert, I, I think Costa Rica. Wow. Yeah, it was. Doesn’t it seem like yesterday? And it was quite a little bit ago? But, you know, I got in the industry kind of in a. I took a different approach. I, I knew I wanted to use my Spanish when I was a young guy, probably like fourth, fifth grade, was driven to master that language and had some great help along the way. I got into college. That was my major. That was where I was going. I was going to use it in my career. And then you get this book like Moby Dick in Spanish and you’re in college. That’s not happening. But I happened to come across some random mentor that my dad bumped into, and the guy said, hey, either double major or find a different major business.

02:29
Jon
Numbers, supply, demand, Scales like, couldn’t quite grasp that. I always thought graphs went one way. Now they’re going two ways. I found this major called agriculture. Cows got four stomachs, really cool. But we got into soil erosion things outside of just animal science. And I started to think, wow, let’s get into the landscaping side. Sure enough, I got into that landscape side. I was speaking Spanish every day. I loved the different avenues we could go in this industry. Next thing you know, I’m in Guatemala, Mexico, Nicaragua, and I’m responsible for recruiting not just 180 employees on the H2 visas, but 180 teammates. I was bringing up the team and the industry just opened up doors for me thereafter. And now I’m here talking to you, and I’ve been with the software company for quite some time and super excited about it.

03:31
Robert
Awesome. What I love about the perspective that you get to bring to the table working with an organization like Aspire is you help hundreds, if not thousands of, you know, folks in the landscape industry, green industry. And so, like, the whole theme of this show is around what’s the primary growth constraint holding entrepreneurs back in the green industry? And, you know, sometimes I think that question has different answers to anyone you ask. But, you know, here we are. And from your point of view, what do you think is the primary constraint holding folks back?

04:04
Jon
You know, when I came on to Aspire, I was on the implementation team. And Robert, we hardly had the product even built. So for the Aspire users out there was like this calendar, this contact, this property module. The rest was blank. And Kevin Kehoe, one of the founders, along with Mark Tipton, is selling this thing all over the place. And I was like, holy smokes. And what I learned when I was traveling, because we would do a lot, lot of on sites back then, is I saw and had to learn really quick Rob, how to navigate between, like, the Southern belt, the Midwest, the Northeast. They all play the game different. I think one of the challenges for anyone growing, and what helped me grow was when you can see how folks are doing something in the south and bring it to the Northeast.

05:10
Jon
Maybe it’s a way they’re doing street sweeping in the south, but snow in the Northeast. There’s some parallels there. And I think one challenge is getting outside of your network and networking on a larger scale, seeing how the rest of the country are performing things. Because if you think about it, I had the opportunity and I love this industry. These are the greatest problem solvers in the world. In each company is like a special Forces unit. I worked for a former Navy SEAL for five years in disaster response management. And there was always a solution, there’s always a way out. Prior planning prevents poor performance.

05:51
Jon
But to see how one Special Forces unit does something in one part of the country and then visit a special Forces group at another, while they’re all fighting the same war, they might be delivering two different services, but there’s some parallels there. So I think networking, getting out of your region and seeing how others are playing the game elsewhere in the country will help you perhaps connect some dots and change how you’re doing it, to adapt. So adaptations a big deal there.

06:25
Robert
Yeah, that’s cool. I mean, like when you are in the middle of the forest, it’s tough to see all the trees and so, you know, widening the perspective. So like the growth constraint is almost like you don’t know what you don’t know until you go try to find other places that you can see the blind spots that you don’t know you have. So there’s almost like an ignorance. Not to say it’s on purpose, but maybe it’s like naivety. There’s probably a better way to play the game. You know, it was interesting. I was listening to a podcast today and they’re just saying like, if you see somebody who is, say, more successful in business than you are right now, well, it just means that they’re learning how to play the game, maybe a bit better.

07:00
Robert
And so I think your point about getting into like a national network or a national stage really help you see how people are playing the game.

07:08
Jon
Yeah, exactly. You’re exactly right.

07:12
Robert
So then you talk about the idea of being like, almost like the best solution oriented folks in the world, these people building those landscape and disaster relief, all this kind of stuff and you have to adapt. So, you know, with the world changing remarkably fast and faster every day, the advent of, you know, automation, Internet of things, AI, you name it, Robots, autonomous vehicles. What do you find people doing in terms of like embracing this stuff or resistant, like laggard to technology, you know, enablement. Like, what are you seeing?

07:58
Jon
It’s coming quick, isn’t it? I mean, it’s here, it’s coming, it’s fast moving. You know, when I look back on the past decade and Robert, I’m going to step back 20 years to, in 25 plus years, when I got in the industry, the company I worked for, they were building something similar to an Aspire. Now I’m new to the industry. To me it just Seemed like it made sense. It’s a new video game on how to play the system. But is. I spent more time in the industry. Started going to. Back then, I think it was the gie. It was Alka. Some certain technology started coming to us. But I’d say In the past 10 years there’s been a massive investment and the attention has really swung towards this industry. We haven’t ever been respected like we are today. Oh, you’re just a landscaper.

09:06
Jon
You plant trees, you cut grass. Oh, man. I run several businesses within the business. Right.

09:12
Robert
I mean, and we shape the outdoor experience for people all across the country. Like, no joke.

09:19
Jon
But the influx of technology targeted towards our market I think has shocked us all. It wasn’t something, you know, we didn’t grow up at T Mobile or AT&T. We weren’t ever a part of a tech industry. And now it’s here. And I think some of us have been slow to embrace it, recognize it. And I, I truly feel for those folks because I think they’re missing the boat. Technology’s here. We’ve got to leverage it. And I am so thankful and hopeful and confident for the clients that we do have that have embraced it because I think that early adopters, the people that are adopting now are the ones that are going to be able to continue to adopt. There’s people that. I’ve been doing business the same way 30 years. Why would I get on a system like this? I’ve never needed technology.

10:20
Jon
But you’re being swarmed now by up and coming companies that are embracing it. And those are the companies that are going to run circles around you all day long, you know.

10:30
Robert
Yeah, it’s, it’s interesting, you know, this almost paralysis when there’s all this technology being thrown at a new industry or anybody really. So back at that leaders forum, Jim Carroll, the, you know, the futurist, one of the keynotes came up and was just demonstrating all these different ways to leverage AI. Was using Google LLM, he was showing people how to use ChatGPT and Mid Journey. And the folks at my table were just like, jaw dropped, tuned out. They’re like, this is too much. Like, I can’t even try to embrace this. So I’m just not going to. So what do you say to folks that are like, maybe putting their head in the sand?

11:11
Robert
How, how can they lift their head up and take like one little step towards, hey, it seems daunting, but if you just put one foot in front of the other, you might be able to Start building some momentum towards embracing this stuff.

11:24
Jon
Yeah, Robert, I’m no different than these people. I work for a tech company. It’s mind blowing to me. One thing I’ve learned, and I’m glad you asked this question, is I’ve implemented companies all across this country. What I’ve recognized in the room, when I’m training folks, and sometimes it’s five people, sometimes it’s 20, there’s somebody in that room asking questions, how does this work? How does that work? And I ask like, who is that? They’re like, oh, that’s Jimmy or that’s Kim. They’re like second tier. They just wanted to be here, so we let them be here. No, those are the people that are embracing this. These are the people that become your power user or they go out and explore. They identify what’s a good fit for the company. They end up owning it.

12:21
Jon
So if you’re like, whoa, technology, like, can’t go there. This is crazy. I bet there’s someone in your company that can. All these things are video games in my mind. And our developers can’t stand it when I say that, but it is, it’s a video game man. And it helps you elevate your business. So if you’re not comfortable, that’s okay. It’s totally okay. But discover, recognize those individuals or start thinking out the box, out of the box. When you’re hiring to bring people in that can embrace that and they become the leaders in that. And Robert, what you’re doing is not just expanding the wealth of knowledge in your business. You’re bringing new people to the table. And I think that’s what’s going to help you scale your business.

13:12
Robert
Yeah, that’s cool. And so one of the things that we’ve seen time and time again with software adoption of any sort in any company, executive support or ownership or leadership, support from the executive level is like paramount for success. It can probably be done without it. But every single time we see the leader of an organization say, I support this, and then gives it some due attention over time, it works, it wins. People get it going. It’s like if it doesn’t live in the platform, it doesn’t exist anyway. There’s all sorts of ways to get the message through the group.

13:43
Robert
So if you’re talking to that same owner who isn’t necessarily going to get their hand, like sleeves rolled up and they’re diving into the systems themselves, they’re going to use a proxy and find somebody who’s going to be able to advocate for the system on their behalf, but they see that the purpose and what it can do for the business, they’re just not necessarily going to get as involved. What do you say to those leaders in terms of how they can support that champion? You’re referring to God.

14:14
Jon
The leaders had the guts to step into that role in many cases. They had the guts to start this company. And what I love about people at the leadership level, especially the founders, Robert, is they have vision, they have a dream, and they’re able to chase it, attack it, whatever you want to call it, and they achieve it. What I find sometimes happens is think of when you come into any system, whether it’s a GPS system or a system like Aspire, it’s almost like a mirror. And a lot of the visionaries are stuck in an old vision or they don’t know who they are today. They haven’t looked in the mirror. Imagine, Robert, if I’m your tailor coming in to tailor a suit for you and you’re looking in the mirror for the first time, you’re like, holy smokes.

15:13
Jon
But what I’m trying to talk about is understanding who you are and who you want to become and setting some goals to achieve who you want to become. I think it will set you up for success and finding the people to do that. We’ve got to create a new goal, we’ve got to achieve it. But it’s really up to that visionary person to make sure those people are getting the support, to make sure that the leader themselves are reminding themselves of that vision, of that core. Sometimes when the struggle gets tough, we abandon it because we’ve been dropping for 20 to 20 years. Why would I use this new technology instead of saying, hey, we got this, let’s get over the hump, let’s drive this home and let’s move on to the next one.

16:03
Jon
But encouragement, being there in like being part of the group. I’m not saying you have to know the button pushing and the inside, but being the leader to say, I’m gonna, rah, we’re gonna back this up. No negativity. Because when people say, hey, Rob, I just got out of this meeting, we’ve gotta adopt this, it’s never gonna work. The second I say that to you, it’s not, it’s over. It’s creating positivity throughout the leadership organization responsible for driving this project that we got this. We are not walking away from it. So either get on board or perhaps look somewhere else. And that’s a Tough thing to say, but unfortunately, sometimes we have to cut the cord and we got to move forward.

16:52
Robert
That’s cool. So then go on the flip side of that for a second. You have folks that are adopting your system, and it fails. What are some of the common fail points that you can share with folks that are listening, that are thinking about adopting a system like Aspire, you know, all. Whatever it might be to, like, plan for or to think about so that they can avoid, you know, some of the fail points.

17:15
Jon
Yeah, I think a big one that comes to mind, Robert, is culture. And how are we culturally. Is the company culturally healthy? We have these things called core values, and some people just write them down on a. A sheet of paper, but the companies that live by them are the ones that are ultimately the most successful. So examine your culture. How are we today? Do we have common themes? Are we trying to change lives or achieve the extraordinary? Are we focused on being a great team? The other thing is process, procedure. People all day long will ask for SOPs. What’s the best way to perform purchasing? But. And that’s a fantastic question. We love it. We embrace it. But really identifying your processes and procedures, which you already have, just in a lot of cases, are not documented.

18:20
Jon
So if we could document, how do we. When somebody calls in, says, had, I’d like you to put an outdoor kitchen in my backyard. From the second we get that phone call to the second we create the estimate or the customer meeting, that process is in place. But get some documentation on how you’re currently doing it, right or wrong, will allow you to understand who you are now. So that when you understand who you want to be or where you want to go, it’ll help connect those dots. Almost like mapping to. Okay, this is an example of this. When we get the phone call, here’s how we’ll build it in this system.

19:03
Robert
Yeah, that’s cool. We talk about this a lot. This just came up on Monday. But a process is not a process.

19:07
Jon
Unless it’s written down and unless it’s practiced. And we hold people accountable.

19:12
Robert
Yeah, no doubt. Right? That’s. It’s not alive if you just write it and then store it. Right?

19:16
Jon
Yeah, yeah. When I look back to my. My schooling in the disaster restoration business, working for that former Mass chief of Navy seals, I mean, those people have process, and everyone follows it. I mean, otherwise in their end, there would be fatalities.

19:39
Robert
Right.

19:40
Jon
Like mission failure. But when we take that approach, that this is real, this is serious. It’s incredible. And one thing I wanted to Point out too, is there’s certain processes or certain things that you might do in operations every day. And I heard somebody tell me a couple weeks ago, well, I do it a few times a week. Couple times a week. Well, not every day. But it’s really important to understand what you do daily, how that impacts your teammate downstream. I’m required to go in and look at my cruise times today, this morning on what they did yesterday, or this afternoon on what they did today. It’s fresh in my mind, but I’m also. So I’m recording good information. I remember what went down and who didn’t show up or who was late.

20:37
Jon
But what I really am doing is setting up my payroll teammate so that when it’s time to run payroll, they’re good to go. So understanding how your decisions impact the team downstream makes me want to be a better teammate.

20:53
Robert
Yeah, that’s cool. Especially if you have a culture oriented around team, which is going back to your point of do you have a healthy culture and that’s going to help you create change? I guess there’s got to be high correlation to healthy cultures and change willingness versus, you know, maybe Negative Nancy’s and that kind of stuff. So, okay, you’ve mentioned a couple times this disaster relief business and working for a master chief, Navy Seal, ex Seal, like, what did you glean like that must have been an amazing experience to see that kind of discipline, accountability, you know, commitment to process. What did you glean from that experience that was something you’d want to share with, you know, people in the entrepreneur seat or leader seat of any company?

21:35
Jon
Yeah, you know, I appreciated our walks one one. I was responsible for the yard, for the shop, and we’ve all got yards and shops, but I appreciated somebody coming around and we would do a tour every day or once a week. Excuse me, Robert. And identify things that were out of place, that should be in place so that we had good process in the yard. It all starts in the yard, all starts out there. I’ve always said if you could send me a shot of your yard in your shop, I could tell you if you’re a good fit for a system like ours. And I take that away. The other thing that the biggest takeaway was prior planning prevents poor performance.

22:19
Jon
So anytime we walked in to a commercial, the aftermath of a fire or a public storage unit that had a flood or the fire suppression system broke and it’s flooding down, we always had four or five plans of attack. So there was, what’s your plan? A plan B, Plan C, I had D and E figured out. But if I was, if I could deliver those three, I was good. And it’s always having an, like an escape route, a solution route, and that could come from labor. What if we don’t get our visas this year? What is my plan? Because it’s a lottery.

23:03
Robert
Yeah.

23:04
Jon
We got caught with our pants down. We lost 180 visas one year when I was huge. It’s massive. And we didn’t have a plan in place. And that hurt. Had we had one, I’m not telling you that there would have been no pain, but it would have been less pain. We could have gotten ahead of the curve. And having a plan at all times is critical. Whether you’re coming into tornado season, hurricane season, there’s always something going on in this industry that we cross our fingers, hope it doesn’t happen. But I’d much rather stand here crossing my fingers with a backup plan.

23:48
Robert
Yeah, that’s cool.

23:49
Jon
And that’s what that man. That’s what that man taught me.

23:52
Robert
Very cool. So on that note of cross your fingers, hope it doesn’t happen, or be mindful of macro forces. What are some potential headwinds hitting the industry in 2025 that may or may not occur, but maybe some people are talking about or can see on the horizon.

24:12
Jon
Well, labor is a big issue.

24:14
Robert
That’s. Yeah, that’s not going away, I guess.

24:16
Jon
Eh, no things are happening. Labor is probably restrained. I’m not well versed, Robert, on the tariff situation. When we ran that survey last year, there was. People were more concerned about material costs and availability than labor. That was the first time material concerns outweighed labor. That was only a percent. I don’t know if material concerns were that high before. And we’ve had some storms. We’ve seen a couple PVC plants go down. Irrigation materials were a challenge. And went through the COVID war. Payments became a big issue. We had to pay our vendors probably sooner than we used to. But yeah, I think labor is going to be quite frightening. And then we’re seeing also starting to see, I think on the construction side, some demand going down coming out of COVID And that is where having a diverse portfolio is so important.

25:34
Robert
We tell more about that.

25:36
Jon
Well, you want to keep a balanced portfolio. So some companies are now beginning to offer more services or service lines and not being 100% construction or 100% maintenance or 100% lighting. They are beginning to balance with construction, with maintenance, and maybe some other new service lines or new divisions. So that all of their eggs aren’t in one basket. That way we can pivot.

26:07
Robert
Yeah, yeah.

26:07
Jon
I’m down in construction. I can use those troops, ship those resources, pivot and still get worked on, still drive sales and other. And other markets, other divisions that are successful.

26:25
Robert
Yeah, I mean, that’s just good planning, I guess. Anytime. Yeah. And. And if you have a. Any type of, like, increased risk perception, maybe now is the time to start the planning process to get that sorted. Okay, shift gears for a quick second. You mentioned labor. You’ve mentioned labor quite a couple times. And, And a lot of people have, as a growth constraint and, you know, talking to associations, state level, national level, there. There seems to be a bunch of initiatives to how to. How do we get the next generation of, you know, leaders and, you know, people coming into the industry, engaged in landscaping, in the green industry. What are you guys doing at Aspire to help the industry this way?

27:04
Jon
Yeah, I first, before I talk about that, I want to talk about our role as an industry. And there’s this. And anyone here listening, you gotta. You gotta know this, right? You had to experience it. When I got into the industry, I was stoked, man. I’m speaking Spanish. I’m using this agriculture major. Like, everything’s coming together. Awesome. I go to a party, it’s some friend, former friends of mine, old people I’ve known for a while. Everyone’s a lawyer, doctor. And again, they’re like, oh, you’re a landscaper now? I said this earlier on the program, right? Like, no, you don’t understand what I do. But I feel like there’s this stigma about our industry, and obviously it’s changed. I talked about that with the investment, the technology. I mean, this mark, this industry is not going anywhere.

27:53
Jon
But I think as stewards of the industry, we can do better. Instead of I’m sending out an irrigation tech or we’re an irrigation division, we’re a water management division. I’m a water management expert in changing who we are and actually leveling up who we actually are in educating not just our clients, but our senators, our local officials that we’re here to help. Right. We’re here to make that change. That’s the first step to drawing more people in. Yeah, that’s not a landscape. This is a. You know, we’re here to manage weather. Weather changes. We’re all about water management and how. How we can incorporate whether it’s permeable concrete or planting a green space. I mean, all these things have an impact. That’s key. Not to Sidebar. Too much.

28:55
Jon
But you know, when I was growing up, like the master gardeners in your neighborhood or like your grandma, your great aunt.

29:02
Robert
Yeah.

29:03
Jon
What’s my sister in law in her 30s like, people outside of our industry love this. They’re getting educated and so reinforcing that I think will help draw people to the industry. Technology, it’s here. Embrace it. Get it to the newer people that understand and pick it up so quickly. I think that’s the number one thing we can do. We see NALP with the Roblox video game.

29:31
Robert
Oh yeah, such a cool initiative.

29:32
Jon
Yeah, it’s awesome. Like we’re getting grade school kids up to high school kids playing this game. They see, they see like great companies like steel Chainsaw on board. It’s there. And what Aspire is doing is Kevin Kehoe. Ten years ago or 11 years ago, went to our first national collegiate landscape competition that NALP hosts. It was at Brigham Young University. And he said, wow, someday wouldn’t this be cool to really get aspired into the classroom. And then of course Kevin got sick. We were starting to leverage and get some industries on it. Kevin got sick. And God bless Kevin, he passed away. And huge mentor of mine, huge mentor, huge visionary, dreamer, and the man knew how to execute. But what we’ve done is we’ve provided a full instance. I’ve built out what I call a starter system.

30:36
Jon
So if a university is interested, I copy it. And Robert, it’s got services, plants, mulches, granites, anything you’d need. The system’s like push button ready to go. Let’s start estimating, scheduling, using it today. And we’ve been able to pair up with great companies like Sunline out in Utah, Land Care, Mike Bogan, Skyler Westergaard have been huge proponents to bring Aspire into the classroom, help students understand. And it’s like one or two classes a semester. But let’s say we’re doing landscape maintenance, estimating. How do we look at a job? We look at things that are qualitative. Are the trees mature? This is a subjective estimate, right. I don’t really know how much it’s going to take to pick up the leaves, but I have a good idea.

31:30
Jon
And sure, there might be some factors hidden back there, but then these are the things that are measurable and we have production factors and we actually use this 20 tool called property intel to measure and we use this thing called Aspire to produce our estimate that holds those production factors. Doesn’t mean the student needs to know it, but we’re in 25 universities right now. We’re in two tech high schools. We were just at NCLC last week. And I’ve had a struggle because we want to bring that next generation up. I’ve had a struggle getting professors. And mind you, Robert, this is. These are programs that are starting to shrink and in some case just diminish in our universities. And you get these professors, they’re no different than the owner coming onto a new program. I’ve been doing this curriculum for 20 years.

32:24
Jon
Why would I change now? Students love spreadsheets. No, that’s. They like video games.

32:32
Robert
Right?

32:33
Jon
Video games. And what we’ve done is we. We created a student certification. We built this new LMS that was for our clients. You have a new hire. Bring them in. At least help them understand how to play the video game. I don’t know, Robert, you. Me, I grew up like Nintendo. There was like up, down, left, right, couple buttons, and then to kick was B, to like super kick was like up BB or something like that. You know what I’m talking about?

32:59
Robert
Yeah, of course.

33:00
Jon
Get them familiar with it and then show them how you play the game. But last week we had this. Do you have Aspire on your resume? And if I can’t get to the professors, I figured I get straight to the students. It was unbelievable. We now have students that are getting a student certification. They get a digital graduation sent to them with a unique URL they can put out on social media. They can get on their resume. But even cooler was they’re bringing their professors to us. I have at least 17 schools to reach out to.

33:36
Robert
Amazing.

33:37
Jon
And I want to say God bless Phil Allen, the head of the hort department at byu. Robert, it’s now a college credit, independent college credit. I’m hearing University of Georgia, Eastern Kentucky, Michigan State, Colorado State. They’re getting behind it. I mean, think about it. It’s like if you were going to a new job, you’ve got to have all. You’ve got to have your. Your windows. You got to be, you know, under. Be proficient in windows. That’s starting to happen with Aspire because people like Phil Allen at byu, they want their students to go to Aspire clients. These are people going somewhere. These are people that are going to provide a flight path. You’re not just working for three people in a truck.

34:29
Robert
Yeah. You’re working in a professional organization where.

34:32
Jon
You can go somewhere, you can dream as big as you want, and they’ve got a place for you. Just help them understand their dream, your dream. And they’re going to help you understand how to get there.

34:43
Robert
All right, so there aren’t many people impacting the industry in terms of recruitment and youth engagement like that. So I just really appreciate you sharing. And for anybody listening, I’d say that’s a pretty badass approach. As we’re coming to the end of this, you know, episode, is there anything going on right now that you want, like, the. The entrepreneurs in the industry to know about in terms of what you guys are up to or what they could expect from you guys in the next couple months? Any events or something that they should keep an eye out for?

35:15
Jon
Yeah, AI is coming. AI is coming. You’ll see it in one of our next releases.

35:22
Robert
Oh, cool.

35:23
Jon
One of the great things that happened to Aspire by joining the Service Titan organization is they’ve got it together. Service Titan didn’t just go public because of numbers. They’ve got good process, good procedure. They’ve got fantastic, talented people. And they are. They’re all about changing lives, about achieving the extraordinary. And I’m seeing it firsthand as we begin to integrate into their company, about being a great team. What’s so cool is Service Titan has a couple other companies, right? Aspire, we have field routes, which is towards our pest control. But Service Titan is building a tool that will allow us to bolt on something that’s really cool they do, or something really cool that we do across these different products. That’s a huge investment, but it allows us to bring so much more diversity to the people that we serve.

36:32
Jon
You know, Aspire traditionally was focused on commercial companies. We were lacking in the residential side. Service titans really sharp on the residential. Now we’re able to bring those tool sets and those modules together so they work for everyone. And that. That’s. That’s a big thing that’s coming. It’s going to be a huge game changer because it’s already. It already exists. It doesn’t need any more investment to build. It’s built. We just got to figure out how to get it to fit in the Toyota and now into this Chevy, right?

37:06
Robert
Two of the top five safest cars, actually, that you just said that. That’s interesting. I’m looking at getting a Tahoe right now, and it was top of mind. So one resource, author, speaker, podcast, something book that you’d recommend to the audience that impacted you in the last, you know, whatever, 10, 12, 15 years.

37:28
Jon
O. Robert Bustaman. I think it’s Robert Bustamante. Robert Bustamante, former CIA person, season one has a Great episode on how the CIA gather information. So and what I mean by that is being the dumbest person at the party, not the asking questions. And before you answer a question, answer more and think because we already know our answer when they ask a question or how are we going to respond, let go of that and ask more questions. The more questions we get, the more information we get and the more we can take back to the Fort Digest and then go back at it again.

38:17
Jon
But that guy’s been a big game changer for me when talking to clients, prospects, different people in the industry in terms of what they’re doing, who they are, the amount of information you’re able to gather, if you just reprogram how you listen and perhaps not respond, will open the doors to a wealth of information.

38:43
Robert
And so what. What is. It’s Robert Bustamante is the person and is it like a series or what is.

38:49
Jon
Yeah, he’s got some everyday espionage.

38:52
Robert
Everyday espionage?

38:53
Jon
Yeah. I tell anyone that works has worked with me, like, check this out because it. When we have problems or a customer comes to you with a problem, we already know the solution. It’s an irrigation leak. But if we start listening to what they’re really saying, heck, there might be 10 more problems going on within the property that aren’t even tied to the irrigation link, but just created 10 more work orders for us.

39:20
Robert
Everyday espionage, winning the workplace. Andrew Bustamante. Is that it?

39:25
Jon
That’s it.

39:26
Robert
Very cool. I’ll have to check that out. I appreciate you sharing.

39:30
Jon
Yeah.

39:31
Robert
And for everybody listening to this, thank you so much for listening to another episode of the I Am Landscape growth podcast. John, thank you for your time, buddy, and sharing with the wealth of knowledge and how you guys are engaging the industry at every level. Thanks, buddy.

39:43
Jon
Yeah, thanks for so much for having me. And just remember, everybody, we walk on, we never walk alone.

39:49
Robert
Beautiful. Okay, see you everybody.