In this episode, Angelique Robb shares her fascinating journey from petroleum engineering to running a landscape business across continents. She discusses the biggest growth constraints in the landscaping industry, including waste, rework, and the need for better collaboration, and introduces her innovative platform, SYNKD, which connects professionals across disciplines to solve complex industry challenges.
“Landscaping combines science, creativity, and grit—it’s not just a job; it’s an art form.”
Here’s what we discuss in today’s episode:
[00:00] Introduction
Rob introduces Angelique Robb, an engineer turned landscape business owner, and founder of SYNKD, setting the stage for a discussion on industry challenges and innovation.
[01:00] Angelique’s Career Journey
Angelique shares her transition from petroleum engineering to landscaping, highlighting how her engineering mindset influences her approach to design and construction.
[06:00] Starting a Landscape Business in Scotland
Angelique discusses her experience building a successful landscape design and construction company while balancing her career and family life.
[09:32] Challenges in Running a Landscape Business
Angelique opens up about managing her business remotely during COVID-19, emphasizing the struggles of leadership transitions and adapting to unexpected circumstances.
[15:25] The Importance of Design and Construction Synergy
Angelique explains the need for collaboration between designers and contractors, sharing her insights on bridging gaps to improve project execution.
[19:31] Growth Constraints in the Green Industry
Angelique identifies waste and rework as the biggest bottlenecks for landscapers, stressing the importance of tracking inefficiencies to protect profits.
[27:39] Critical Path in Landscaping Projects
Angelique introduces the concept of critical path management, explaining how to optimize schedules, manage overheads, and anticipate defects.
[33:03] Launching SYNKD: A Platform for Collaboration
Angelique talks about founding SYNKD to connect professionals across landscaping disciplines, promoting communication and sustainability within the industry.
[38:57] Launching SYNKD During COVID-19
Angelique shares the challenges of introducing a new platform and event-based business amid the pandemic and how she adapted to the circumstances.
[41:32] The SYNKD Event in 2025
Angelique gives an overview of the upcoming SYNKD event, detailing its multidisciplinary approach to fostering industry-wide collaboration and efficiency.
[44:20] Community Projects and Industry Impact
Angelique discusses SYNKD’s involvement in nonprofit initiatives, including a therapy garden project, and how collaboration benefits both professionals and communities.
[46:13] Closing Remarks
Rob thanks Angelique for sharing her journey, insights, and vision for the future of the green industry.
Actionable Key Takeaways:
- Measure Rework: Track how much time and money are lost to fixing defects, and consider budgeting for these costs.
- Understand Critical Path: Identify and manage tasks that directly impact project timelines to optimize efficiency.
- Prioritize Quality: Invest in training and high-quality materials to reduce maintenance and rework.
- Embrace Multidisciplinary Collaboration: Connect with professionals across design, construction, and horticulture for better project outcomes.
- Stay Agile: Be prepared for unexpected challenges, such as weather delays or labour shortages, with a proactive mindset.
- Continuous Improvement: Learn from past projects to anticipate issues and refine processes.
Resources Mentioned in This Episode:
- SYNKD Website – Explore the platform and event details.
- Highgrove Partners – Landscape project tour partner.
- Take It Outside – Nonprofit for landscape professionals.
- Piedmont Precast – Donor for SYNKD’s therapy garden project.
- Festivals Acadiens et Créoles – A three-day festival celebrating the music, crafts, and food of South Louisiana.
Episode Transcript
00:00
Rob Murray
Hi, everyone, and welcome to the IM 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. Hi, everybody. Welcome back to another episode of the IM Landscape Growth podcast. Very cool episode in front of us today with a very special guest. I have Angelique Robb on the show today. Thank you so much for doing this, Angelique.
00:47
Angelique Robb
Sure. Looking forward to it.
00:49
Rob Murray
Now, Angelique has a remarkable, like, history in terms of how she’s intertwined with the green industry. Owning her own landscape business in Scotland while living in Louisiana.
01:06
Angelique Robb
No, no. I have. So I owned it there, and it’s only been since COVID that we moved back to Louisiana, and I’ve been looking for a new business.
01:15
Rob Murray
Yeah, you can get the. You’ll unpack the details. History in the petroleum industry. Currently running SYNKD, a media company bringing landscapers together all across the country and the continent, with a badass event that happens annually. So let me just turn it over to you and why don’t you give people a little bit of a kind of Coles notes of, you know, where you’ve come from and what you’re up to these days. What’s your core focus?
01:44
Angelique Robb
Okay, well, if I make this too long, you have to tell me. Yeah, give me a signal.
01:48
Rob Murray
Also, for everybody listening or watching, it’s Friday, 3:00. I’m having a glass of wine. I think she’s having a cider.
01:53
Angelique Robb
Yes, cheers. No, it was a great idea to look in the fridge and see what random alcoholic beverage I had in the office. So. Yeah. So, Rob, I’ll try to make this efficient. So, I’m an engineer by trade. Petroleum engineer. Graduated from LSU. Go Tigers, Louisiana. Started work in Texas and Louisiana offshore of the Gulf of Mexico; fast forward. I got an opportunity to work in Scotland, and it distorted my accent for the rest of my life. Maybe. But yes, I moved to Scotland. Let me see if I can even remember. Oh, that’s not important. But I’ve lived there for 20 years before I took my Scottish husband and half Cajun, half Scottish kids from Scotland and moved to Louisiana, which is where I’m from originally, but I never thought I would live back in Louisiana. So that’s a little, you know, nugget.
03:01
Rob Murray
I mean, you kept it brief. I gotta give you credit.
03:04
Angelique Robb
So I moved to Scotland. And not as you know, I love my job in the oil industry. But while I was in Houston, I bought a house, and I was so excited to design, on paper, on graph paper, my landscaping for my backyard. And by landscaping, I mean a two-level deck with built-in seating and pergola, a patio area and planting, you know, so I mean hardscaping and softscaping. It’s the most exciting thing I’ve ever done. And I was like 23 or something, you know, and I stuff about it, loved it. I went to either Home Depot or Lowe’s; I can’t remember what. And I was like, I need 24 by fours at, you know, whatever length and blah, all this stuff. And they’re like, okay, and do you need this delivered? And I’m like, oh, yeah, I need it delivered.
04:12
Angelique Robb
Oh, and I need a skill saw and a jigsaw, and you know, like, so. So, yeah, kind of, you know, it was just a project on my own. And then I. It was just so exciting and. But the first thing, it’s like, okay, my cuts weren’t good enough. I didn’t like how the wood was shrinking over time, you know, like all these little things bugged me. So I think my engineering brain was, you know, problem-solving. Okay. The weather is harsh; it rains a lot, then the sun dries it out a lot, the wood shrinking and growing, and you know, like, how can I do this better next time? Oh, and I have a day job doing engineering. Okay. So, I ended up in Scotland, and that experience never left me.
05:00
Angelique Robb
And although I was doing more interesting projects in the oil industry and I switched companies, you see a bit of a possible ADHD behaviour. I think I’ve worked for about 11 different oil companies in my career and got bored easily. And the thought of doing hardscaping, you know, design and hardscaping and obviously softscaping, but really hardscaping is what you can transform spaces with. You have to have the softscaping. I love plants, but again, to me, it didn’t make it transformational.
05:47
Rob Murray
So it accentuates the space. It doesn’t create the space.
05:50
Angelique Robb
Yeah. And so I really, I couldn’t get that out of my head. And I had a place that had a challenging backyard, and I did a design, and then I was like, well, I don’t have time to build it myself because I need, you know, I’m working a lot. I’m on call on the weekends, and I called a lot of landscape companies to come and give me a quote. And you’ll recognize this. Anybody who, you know, not everybody came to give me a quote. And then, you know, the follow-through wasn’t there. And then as we know what it’s like, I mean, I know that it’s your swamped, you know, when the weather’s good, but I had one guy come out, and he went, oh, no, you don’t want that. I can do something much cheaper for you and you know, it’ll be much better.
06:49
Angelique Robb
And I was like, no, I know what I want.
06:54
Rob Murray
I want this.
06:56
Angelique Robb
And that day, I was like, okay, screw it. I’m doing it myself. And. And I’ve been in love with the industry since. So, you know, I did like a. There was a landscape design and build business owner who taught design and construction, and I did a class with her. I did multiple classes with her. And I got a degree or certification. I don’t know what it was, but it was more about whether I was serious about another career. Because I feel like you have to, you know, it’s fine to say, oh, I’m gonna go do this, I’m gonna go do that, and it be a whim and you not understand the gravity of what you’re doing and take it seriously. So. So I did that. And then I did my first project when I was.
07:50
Angelique Robb
We were digging it up, and I was eight months pregnant with my first kid. Yeah. And. But I was still working in the oil industry, so I still was doing that three days a week. And I started my own company where I was doing the design, doing the interaction with the client, and then subbing the work, but still on site, you know, had my hands in every part of it, but just not physically doing the work because I didn’t have the skill set to do it straighter. I knew I didn’t have the skill set, so. And that was the start of it. And yeah, I just. The challenge that we have as an industry really satisfied my need for change and for variability and need for a challenge because we have, you know, mother nature to deal with.
08:51
Angelique Robb
We have lots of different personalities to deal with.
08:58
Rob Murray
Yeah.
08:58
Angelique Robb
You know, in some cases, the. The clients are the challenge. In some cases, the. The contractors or the employees, that’s a challenge. Like the whole thing’s a challenge, and it’s like, you know, I like the puzzle pieces of how to get it to work, and you end up with something aesthetically beautiful. Hopefully, at the end. And you know, a product to show that people live with for a long time and everybody learns.
09:32
Rob Murray
Right? Yeah. So, the business is still operating today?
09:37
Angelique Robb
It is. Now, that’s been a challenge in itself because when my husband and I decided, he. My husband is Scottish, but he has lived in the US more recently than I have. And he kept saying life’s too short to live in Scotland. I mean, I love Scotland, but more from a weather point of view. You know, there are pros and cons everywhere you live, no doubt. But Scotland is pretty far north, and it’s pretty wild. Well, at all times of the year. You know, we always say that, oh, look at these beautiful pictures. Look when we’re hiking here and camping here, and we’re like, yeah, but you can’t actually see the wind howling in your ears and the fact that you were about to be blown off the mountain and.
10:29
Rob Murray
Yeah, no one’s ever heard of a Scottish tan.
10:31
Angelique Robb
Yeah, there are. It’s more of a windburn, really.
10:35
Rob Murray
Yeah, exactly.
10:39
Angelique Robb
So there are all these things that, you know, obviously I have very fond memories, but, you know, you drink whiskey out the bottle because it’s so flipping cold and, you know, you’re trying to stay alive and while camping and the, you know, with two inches of water in your tent and, you know, all these great things.
10:59
Rob Murray
Sounds amazing.
11:00
Angelique Robb
Yeah.
11:03
Rob Murray
So it’s still over there.
11:05
Angelique Robb
It’s still over there. And I, we. I spent a year trying to work myself out of the company, and really. And I did it. But then COVID hit like five months after us leaving. And my employees at the time did an amazing job and they were like family to me.
11:30
Rob Murray
And how big was the crew? Just to give people a bit of.
11:32
Angelique Robb
A sense. Gosh, that’s a good point. I think. We had three companies that we subbed out. We had an electrical company where we had all the trades, but we had three regular landscape construction companies that we would use depending on what the job was in-house. We had a horticulture install team of two to three people because we had part-time workers as well as full-time workers. We had a landscape architect and a couple of others that were contracted, you know, so we could deal with those es and flows of the seasons. And I had an assistant that she really, you know, I always said everybody needs a Jenny because she just really. I hired her when I couldn’t afford it. Yeah, when I couldn’t afford an assistant, it was double what I wanted to pay.
12:35
Angelique Robb
But she was like, I’m only working for this amount. And it was the best money I ever spent.
12:41
Rob Murray
So you’re, you know, your crew in-house is somewhere around ten subcontractors. Anywhere. Three companies could be anywhere, 20, 30, 40 people.
12:48
Angelique Robb
Depends on the job. Yeah. So really. But I would say we’re in that, you know, 10 to 15 regular people all year long, but it would grow.
12:59
Rob Murray
Business is somewhere around 2 million, or two and a half million a year.
13:03
Angelique Robb
Yeah. Yeah.
13:04
Rob Murray
And you worked yourself out of it so you could move into a different continent.
13:08
Angelique Robb
Yes. And then Covid happened and they did a. I mean, they did a brilliant job, but it was really different from the US in that there were a lot more rules. You couldn’t leave your house further than five miles, or you could get stopped by police and ticketed. The company could get fined. Yeah.
13:32
Rob Murray
You know, but they had no idea. I got. I got pulled over. So I was. I’m in Ontario. Right. It was like the most tyrannical of all the world in terms of, you know, whatever that was. Hey, I got pulled over by a police officer. Like, you’re not allowed to be out here, sir. I have to give you a ticket. I was like, cool. What’s the ticket for? I don’t. I don’t know, but I was supposed to write. I’m like, cool. Just. You just tell me what it’s for. Are you ready to take it up? No problem. I’ll take the ticket. I’m going to work anyway. What an interesting time that was.
14:02
Angelique Robb
It was. And so. But then I had my. My. So Jenny, who was doing an amazing job running the company, and I was like, look, how about I give you and Susanna the company and you take it? And they just got so burned out. They were like, no, I just. You know, I’m done. And so, I ended up in this situation where I was Zoom. Interviewing people. They stayed on until I got somebody else on, but again, I had to interview them remotely and hand the company over to somebody I’d never met. And. And that only worked for a short time. And then I. It was one of these points where I could tell, okay, this is not working with that person. And he kind of resigned at the same time. He could see the writing on the wall.
15:04
Angelique Robb
So we kind of went, okay, but it’s not working. Found another person. And we’ve been in transition for a. But we talk weekly. It was daily to start with. And I feel like I know this guy so well, but again, it’s a challenge. And we’ve never met in person.
15:25
Rob Murray
Yeah. How crazy is that?
15:26
Angelique Robb
So he’s now signed a contract to purchase the company. But we’ve said, okay, you have to deal with a lot of shit from the last guy, you know, picking up the broken pieces, you know, and fixing some jobs that weren’t done well, you know, let’s do like a three-year handover so that, you know, he had never done the design part. He had only, you know, built it, and he’d never installed softscaping either. So he’s. As a company, he’s learning, and unfortunately, by the time he came in, the other guy had. Sorry, I don’t know if I can say that but it pissed off everybody, you know, so like, I had a lot of turnovers, and so the previous guy pissed off everybody.
16:14
Angelique Robb
So they were slowly leaving, and you know, so really were starting afresh with Drew, and it’s probably for the best because then he could pick people that he worked with. Well, he had two of his own crews, but he was adding the landscape design side, which, if you don’t understand that side, it is. You can’t just add it and go, okay, we’re going to do design. You know, it’s a different type of person that goes.
16:44
Rob Murray
It takes the mental capability to see something and bring it to life visually, which is a different skill set.
16:53
Angelique Robb
It is. And I think that when we’re used to. A doer is not always used to being a creative thinker. And I, I feel like I’ve been able to put one foot in each camp just because of what I’ve done in the past and engineering and then, you know, like, I’ve been able to do that, but I, I don’t have the patience to do a design completely. And I. A more conceptual design. And I always needed somebody to do the detailed design. And I would say, no, that, no, that won’t work for this reason. But, you know, the details just don’t have the patience for that. But, I would liaise between the landscape architects and the contractors, too. I was like a translator, really. And.
17:44
Rob Murray
Right. Because, you know, both worlds.
17:46
Angelique Robb
Yeah. And I didn’t at first. You know, I had to do designs for many years and work with different contractors, and they would say, well, how are we doing this? And I’m like, how the heck am I?
17:58
Rob Murray
Am I going to build that?
18:00
Angelique Robb
Yeah. And how. And I was like, this is what I want it to look like. And okay, well, that’s what you want it to look like, but that doesn’t mean I know how to build it, you know, that’s. And so, you know, I’d been through these iterations, and so I, you know, after you do that with different contractors for a while, you start to anticipate those issues. And then I could help coach the landscape architects that are not buildable because. Or that doesn’t make any sense, you know, or. Or that’s great. But, yeah, they’re gonna slip all the way down that, you know, so.
18:41
Rob Murray
So going through all this vast experience and, like, this whole. The whole theme of this podcast revolves around the primary growth constraint holding entrepreneurs back in the green industry. And so you had this really cool opportunity to have a career in the oil industry that led to a wicked awesome, enthusiastic kind of hobby job that then inspired a new career, which moved to a different continent, started an entire business and built up a crew, and then moved back so that you were working out of the business completely on the business, not in it. And then Covid happened. The weird thing totally disrupted everything, and now it’s in a transition period where you’re actually, you know, moving off from the business. So you’ve really had this. It’s really cool. And now you’re running SYNKD, which is something we’re going to get into in a minute.
19:31
Rob Murray
But knowing that with your background, the experience you’ve had working with other people, and now that you’ve been exposed to, like, tons of landscapers at all different levels of the industry, what do you see as the big issue and the big growth constraint holding people back in the green industry currently?
19:48
Angelique Robb
It’s funny when you said this is the question that you ask everybody; I was like, oh, my God. I was listing all kinds of things, you know, I was like, what is it like? I wanted to get to the crux of the matter because I also feel like there are so many distracting little things. Like, you could say labour. I mean, you could say everybody does. I know, I know. And I’m like, no, I think it’s what I see that I feel like it’s hard to see when you’re in the business, you know, but. But we as an industry don’t have that. And again, I learned this in the oil industry, but it’s more of a manufacturing thing. It is the waste and rework that because we have such a challenging environment, we’re outside, and we never like it.
20:55
Rob Murray
I think this is a really interesting perspective. So, like, when you say waste and rework. Sorry, I don’t mean to interrupt. Keep going.
21:02
Angelique Robb
That’s okay. That’s okay.
21:02
Rob Murray
I’m so pumped you’re bringing this up.
21:05
Angelique Robb
Well, because I think, you know, it’s, like I said, this challenging environment that, like, when you’re building a house, once it’s watertight, you’re golden.
21:17
Rob Murray
Yeah.
21:17
Angelique Robb
You know, you know, you’re past all of these un.
21:23
Rob Murray
You’re in a controlled environment all of a sudden. Right.
21:25
Angelique Robb
Oh, my goodness. They have it so easy.
21:28
Rob Murray
Yeah. Right.
21:32
Angelique Robb
But, like the fact that you go and spend all this effort laying, and in the UK, the primary method of pavers is bonded and mortared. Not, not, you know, open grades and, you know, just cemented edges and stuff like that. But you go and lay this, and it looks beautiful. Then, snow hits, and after six months, Yeah. The freeze-thaw and. And what? Like, it’s like a dagger to the heart. Like, you know, the mortar pops up there, shrinks, cures, you know, pops out the. Then the pavers pop loose, and then, you know, what kills me is like, okay, to do this right, we have to lift the whole patio and rebond it and re. You know, because you put one paver in, and it’s never going to be exactly right, especially if you’re working with natural stone.
22:45
Angelique Robb
Again, in Scotland, we worked with a lot more natural stone than I see here. So again, a little bit different perspective. But it really bugged me. This is why I can’t do any landscape construction myself; I know I can’t do it to my own standards. Like I have, you know, great.
23:05
Rob Murray
Like, you need to hire somebody who’s done this a lot messed up and knows what after doing. Yeah, yeah.
23:10
Angelique Robb
But like, I, I don’t think we. And I’m saying we because I. This is the size of company that I’ve had and also I know the stats in the industry in the US Is now, I don’t know if this is North America or us. I should clarify that with when I’m talking to Canadian fellows.
23:32
Rob Murray
Oh, you’re fine, you’re good. Whatever.
23:33
Angelique Robb
No, but I, I’d like to know the difference too, but we have like 700,000 landscape businesses and 86% or nine employees or less.
23:46
Rob Murray
Sure, Yeah. I might even be higher, you know, and with less employees.
23:49
Angelique Robb
With less employees. Yeah. And so, really, you’re in that. That harder growth period, too. But we don’t have time to measure how much rework we do or how much time we’re wasting. You know, it’s like, get over to that job and fix it and like, you know, you’re constantly fighting fires and what about how many times, you know, you rig up outdoor lighting, and it was a humid day, wasn’t raining, but maybe humid day. And you know, the connection that you made that day, you know, blows out like a month later. And then, you know, it’s just, it’s the phone call from the client, and it’s, you know, even if it’s not the business owner taking that call, it’s like measuring the minutes that you’re dealing with, the whole logistics around that you’re calling the electrician.
24:50
Rob Murray
But to your point though, like those little issues, you know, quote unquote, for people that watching, just listening, are seemingly insignificant on a case by case basis.
25:01
Angelique Robb
Yeah, but I think it’s huge.
25:03
Rob Murray
But as you can see, there is an even bigger problem. And if you think about, you know, the amount of free work that’s done.
25:11
Angelique Robb
Yeah.
25:12
Rob Murray
Let’s say, let’s say you’re, say yours.
25:13
Angelique Robb
Free work is free work.
25:15
Rob Murray
Yeah, exactly. And if it’s a hundred thousand dollars off, you know, if you check every minute of, you know, the answering of the calls to the loading of the vehicles, to the dispatching of the resources, to doing the work, to coming back and making sure it’s all good, you know, if it’s 50 grand a year or $100,000 a year in free work, that means that’s bottom line money gone.
25:36
Angelique Robb
It’s a big deal because it’s, you know, your focus is on the new work, the bigger value. So you’re like, just get somebody over there and fix it. Okay. Don’t wor, you know, even if it’s stuff that’s under warranty, let’s say it’s the light fixture and it’s under warranty, even, you know, you still have to ship it back, you have to disconnect it.
25:58
Rob Murray
It takes time.
26:00
Angelique Robb
Yeah. Even if you’re not, like I said, even if the electrician guarantees their work and all these things. And so the thing that I found I was always looking for is how we have worked our failures out of the critical path. And again, you know, the words that I’m using, I, I know because of the oil industry and I, I didn’t.
26:30
Rob Murray
Realize I was about to draw on that in a quick second. So keep going. Yeah, yeah.
26:35
Angelique Robb
You know, I didn’t realize how much, you know, I brought with me, if you like.
26:41
Rob Murray
But, well, you never hear the story. So, I always hear about the high school university summer job turned landscape company. You know, like that is a common story. In green spaces or second-generation environments, parents’ nurseries turn to landscape installation, whatever. Never once have I heard the petroleum engineer. Oh, come on, turn landscaper. No, but it’s legit. Right. I think that having not only a corporate background but also a very intensive engineering background is important. And I think a lot of people lose sight of the fact that process is process. Whether you are in a service business or you’re in a product development business, a manufacturing company, or whatever, you’re still in the.
27:26
Angelique Robb
It’s still process and project management.
27:30
Rob Murray
And when you say critical path, can you just explain what that a little further for folks so they understand where you’re coming from?
27:39
Angelique Robb
Yeah. So when you look at your schedule for one crew, you know, throughout the year, anytime they are doing something, if you. Yeah, this is a hard one to describe. No, no, I’m like, I want to draw it.
27:57
Rob Murray
It’s all good. It’s all good. It’s all good.
27:59
Angelique Robb
So when you’re calculating your overhead, let’s tackle it that way: you’re looking at your critical path. You have to make sure that you’re covering your overheads on your critical path. And if the job takes, instead of 30 days, takes 60 days, you’re. You’re losing out on your overheads because you’ve not budgeted enough money. And you’re going into debt instead of making money and instead of covering your costs. So, what I mean is that if you can have, let’s say, it’s a subcontractor, maybe it’s a vendor do some prep work, I. E. You know, you have somebody else grading a slope or digging out of a foundation while your team is laying paving in another area. That digging is off the critical path of the job. The job will still be 30 days.
28:58
Rob Murray
If it’s a day or too late, it doesn’t matter.
29:01
Angelique Robb
Yeah, it.
29:02
Rob Murray
Well, on the digging part.
29:04
Angelique Robb
On the digging part. Yeah. Yeah. Because it’s not taking your part of the critical path.
29:08
Rob Murray
Yeah.
29:08
Angelique Robb
And it’s not on your critical path. You know, you said that the job would be 30 days. Well, as long as you know different parts are progressing within those 30 days, they’re not counting toward your critical path, and you need to have your overheads calculated on that. You, that it will delay your next job starting and not cover your overhead. So, I think the issue of knowing your finances is much more complicated than just knowing your daily rank. What’s your hourly rate? Because it’s your critical path. What’s on your critical path, too? And do you have any defects that you have to go back to fix anytime you have to relay paving that you’ve already laid?
29:56
Rob Murray
And who’s budgeting for defects?
29:59
Angelique Robb
Yeah.
29:59
Rob Murray
If anybody.
30:00
Angelique Robb
We should be. We should. Yeah.
30:03
Rob Murray
And some people might have a 20 defect rate, some people might have a 2% defect rate. But is it being budgeted for in.
30:10
Angelique Robb
Are you measuring the well first off?
30:13
Rob Murray
Right. And then, are you budgeting for it?
30:16
Angelique Robb
Yeah, that’s cool. So. Yeah. And then. Okay. You also have to factor in weather delays. You know, that’s separate from defects, that’s separate from critical path. You know, it. We. We have I. The. A really hard job.
30:38
Rob Murray
Yeah.
30:38
Angelique Robb
And. And. But that makes it more interesting for me to stay in it. Like, you know, like in the oil industry, I move jobs a lot because I was like, oh, yeah, it’s kind of copy and paste. There’s no copy and paste if you always like. Let’s say we did mostly residential, but residential, you know, I’ve had people go, I just want to flatten the yard. And I’m like, okay, well, you can’t do that because you have, you know, neighbours put up a bunch of retaining walls. Yeah. And I’m like, okay. And when you put lots of retaining walls in, it now looks like a swimming pool. Okay. So, you know, it doesn’t look aesthetically pleasing. So, actually, let’s slice it in half, do curves, and get creative here.
31:25
Angelique Robb
But I’ve always seen the design challenges as a way to interject creativity as well. So. Yeah, but. So, we’re getting a little off-topic. But I think waste and rework are about quality, and they’re also affected by the quality of workmanship and materials. And I also feel like it’s hard to, you know, the best paving that you used on this job could be the worst choice for the next job. Like, every job is so different. And so you need to know a lot all the time. You need to know. You need to know about outdoor plumbing, you need to know about electrics, you need to know about house construction. And if you can tie into it, if you can’t, if you’re going to do anything that harms the house.
32:27
Angelique Robb
You know, we have to know about grading, water management, and stormwater management. We have to use irrigation to drain the softscaping water flow from our hardscaping. We also don’t want to slope the patios too much so that you’re sitting like this and spilling your drinks all the time.
32:45
Rob Murray
You know, am I wearing one shoe? What’s happening right now? Okay, so this. I mean, I love it because, I mean, you. You bring this engineering mindset to this whole, you know, industry, which is so cool and very rarely, if ever, heard. And then you started SYNKD.
33:03
Angelique Robb
Yeah.
33:04
Rob Murray
So what the heck’s this all about? Like, give people a bit of, like. If you listen, though, the landscape entrepreneur is the one listening to this show. Yes. And you’ve got a pretty awesome approach to supporting these folks. So what is SYNKD and what made you start it up and what is it?
33:19
Angelique Robb
So I had a. I like to say media platform because it’s not just a publication; it’s not just an event. It’s, however, people who need to hear it. But I had something like this in the UK, and all of a sudden, I started getting a publication in the Mail. And then I was like, oh, wow, this is like the best of the best. Sharing their projects, their secrets. Okay, maybe not all their secrets, but like. And I’ve been looking for stuff like that. I didn’t know it existed in the UK, and I didn’t know. Or maybe it’s being brought in from Europe or something. Oh. And then they started having events. Again, I always think of efficiency. I want to. I found it was a very convenient method, too. These publications can be used to get inspiration for a project.
34:17
Angelique Robb
Like, I’m. I’m burned out. I can’t think of any more design stuff. I have these issues, actually. I’m gonna just sit in the corner, and in fact, I had a beanbag and flip through it and just, like, get away from the computer debrief. You know, just flip through kind of mindlessly, but then, like, it would spark ideas. So. So I used it for that, but I also used it for newer products. Less maintenance, higher quality. And it was actually their idea. The. The company in the UK, they. When they found out that I was, and I’ve met them at, like, award ceremonies and stuff because we had won some national awards in the UK, and so I had met them at this kind of event.
35:05
Angelique Robb
And when I mentioned, oh, we’re moving to the States in a year, but it’s a secret because we’re not telling our kids because they’re going to cry. So, like, you know, and they were like, we’ve always wanted to launch in the US Will you launch our magazine and event? And I was like, that’s a funny thing. Like, I don’t know anything about doing that.
35:26
Rob Murray
Right.
35:27
Angelique Robb
Okay, well. And I said I have enough on my plate. We have this year of prepping the company, prepping our house, doing all this stuff, lying to our kids. You know, we don’t even know what state we’re going to move to. Like, we haven’t figured that out. You know, it’ll be fine, but I’ll. I’ll talk to you later. And they just kept, hey, you know, want to talk about it yet? And I was like, not yet. Not yet. Well, we moved in the fall of 2019, and it was. It was an emotional move for the kids because, at the time, they were 8 and 11, and we lived in the country. They went to a country school. Some of the kids got dropped off in tractors, you know, but. But Scottish. Rural Scotland is very shy. So, I mean, I’m.
36:22
Angelique Robb
I’m an introvert who’s extroverted. And. And people thought I was, like, the most extroverted person who’s this crazy lady. No. And. But then you come to Louisiana, and you realize that I’m not as extroverted as most people were. Where I’m from. You know, so the kids got a real culture shock. And. And I. So. And I was like, okay. My husband and I talked about it. I went to some nursery and landscape events in the south once we moved here. I was like, okay. You know, everybody’s saying, wow, this is a really good idea. Connecting, you know, a platform, whatever you’re doing, you know, publication, and event is what we started with, and it connects design, construction, horticulture, and ongoing maintenance under one umbrella. And everybody said, oh, yeah, because this other group never talks to us, and that other group never talks to them.
37:22
Angelique Robb
And, you know, it could. It could make our lives easier if we could communicate. And it sounded like it used to be that way. And, you know, the industry, maybe. And I think it’s a. I saw this in the oil industry. You would. You would need technical strength in your disciplines. Landscape architects have to have that discipline, strength, construction, you know, horticulture, all these things. But you also had that umbrella or that red thread through all the disciplines that made you understand where everybody’s coming from because otherwise, you have different objectives and different drivers, and you can just get out of whack.
38:15
Rob Murray
Otherwise, you have a sphere for a house.
38:18
Angelique Robb
Yeah. Yeah. Well, I don’t know. Yeah, that was a whole nother conversation. Now, how do you.
38:25
Rob Murray
How do you mow a sphere?
38:26
Angelique Robb
You know, but so. And I was like, okay, everybody seems really, you know, oh, this is maybe something that I should do. So I went to London and spent a couple of weeks there with that team just to understand how they run their business so I could see how to do it in the US, and then I registered the company, and the next day, COVID hit OH.
38:57
Rob Murray
An event-based print publication.
39:00
Angelique Robb
And 2020 was going to be the year that I go to all the landscape conferences and learn about the industry.
39:07
Rob Murray
So when was your first show then?
39:10
Angelique Robb
We had our first show. I launched the publication in 2021.
39:16
Rob Murray
Yeah.
39:16
Angelique Robb
Only in the southeast of the US in 13 states and we had our first show in early 2022. I think it was March actually 2025.
39:25
Rob Murray
The show is number three.
39:27
Angelique Robb
It is, yeah.
39:28
Rob Murray
Amazing. And so if someone’s listening to this, why would they go and how can they sign up?
39:34
Angelique Robb
So, we have a website; our main website is SYNKD synkd.io, which is short for synchronize. We want to get all of the sectors and the disciplines in the industry on the same path, foot, you know, footpath or whatever. But we also want to offer them solutions that have worked for other people. Often, there are solutions that work for people, but they don’t have a path to talk about because they involve all the different disciplines. And again, in a sustainable way, like how can we do things better but also more sustainable and also financially viable, you know, and the companies make money on it and it not cause more work and more cost and then nobody wants it, you know, so it takes a multidisciplinary approach to solve bigger problems.
40:38
Rob Murray
And so when is your event?
40:41
Angelique Robb
Oh, it’s January 14th through 16th, 2025, in Atlanta, Georgia. And we are bringing a lot of different disciplines together in a curated trade show. Intrigue Media is one of those people who are coming, and I’m so excited to meet you guys in person. Well, yeah, we’re in person before that.
41:01
Rob Murray
I mean, we’re obviously pumped to be part of it, and I, and you know, I think what you’re. To your point, though, there are a lot of associations put on shows, and they’re great, and I’m not trying to say anything otherwise, but the idea, yeah, is 100%. But the idea of putting this thread through the disciplines so that people start speaking to each other more and understand where they’re coming from. I mean that it can make any type of firm more efficient and if anything, better equipped to handle the challenges of customers and organizational dynamics. I think it’s amazing.
41:32
Angelique Robb
It should be a step change. Now again, what I’m dependent on, and I’ve gotten support from this from the beginning, has not grown as much as I want. I’ve not gotten as much feedback as I want. But, like, the people that get it are like, oh my goodness, you know, this is powerful. And you know, I want to be a part of it. I want to learn from everybody. I want to do more with you, and that’s what I love. And I want us together because I can’t do it without everybody being involved. I don’t have all the answers, and nobody on my team has all the answers, but we’re like the facilitators of getting the answers.
42:17
Angelique Robb
And the one-on-one conversations and interviews that we do for the publication, for our podcasts, for our social media, all of that helps us create a better event each year and get those people who are solving some of the issues or have some of the questions put them in the room together and.
42:42
Rob Murray
Let’s have the answers in the room.
42:44
Angelique Robb
Like, let them know the answers in the room. It’s like I like to say one plus one equals five, you know because you don’t even know how you’re gonna get to that five. But you’re gonna, you know, you’re, you’re gonna extrapolate that to a lot more than just adding it up because we’re better together and we might speak different languages and we, you know, as in different drivers, different objectives, but at the end of the day, we all want the same things. We just have to, you know, have that ability to be in the same room together.
43:23
Rob Murray
Love it. So if someone wants to come to the show, what do they do?
43:28
Angelique Robb
They buy tickets on our website, so synkd.io, and then we have an event tab. Buy tickets there. We have discounts. If you have more than three or more, there’s a discount level. More than six or more, there’s a discount level. We also have some VIP events that they can go to. They’re expensive. What’s an expensive dinner? Which is why I have to charge for that. But like, and we have a business leader, a coaching session. We have a tour of Highgrove Partners. You know, so we have other add-ons. We also have a construction project that we’re going to do the day after the event, and I’m still working on a lot of the details for Take It Outside. They’re a nonprofit out of Atlanta made up of landscape professionals who donate their time.
44:20
Angelique Robb
No cost to join, but they donate time. And we’re going to do a therapy garden for an addiction recovery campus. And we’re getting materials donated. And I’m. Every time I get some materials donated, I’m kind of tweaking the design so that we can, you know, like, we got some walling donated from Piedmont Precast, who will be at our event as well. And they are donating 200 square feet. Yeah. They need square feet of their grand ledge walling because we need a retaining wall. And so I’m like, oh, okay. That can’t do as much of a curve as I’ve drawn. So I have to, like, rejig the design and, you know. You know, so we’re getting donations, we’re piecing it together, and then we’re.
45:04
Rob Murray
Going to mention the fact that you’re also doing this in Atlanta and the. I don’t know if you know about this. Anybody listening, but I think one of the best places in the whole world for food is Atlanta.
45:14
Angelique Robb
Oh, cool. Well, I’m in Louisiana, so I think.
45:18
Rob Murray
I know where it is.
45:18
Angelique Robb
Pretty good.
45:19
Rob Murray
Well, I’m gonna have to come visit. I mean, you got the Cajuns, right? So.
45:23
Angelique Robb
Yeah.
45:23
Rob Murray
Do you know the history of Canada and the Cajuns?
45:28
Angelique Robb
Yes, I do, because of the Acadians. Well. And. Yeah. And so we have a festival in Lafayette every year, and we have since I was little, so at least 50 years. Where that festival is called Festivals Acadiens, and it is in Lafayette, which is a small town with 100,000 people. They have direct flights from Nova Scotia to Lafayette for that festival. And it’s. They have Cajun speaking tents. They bring musicians from Canada and Nova Scotia in, but all are local. Local here, too.
46:05
Rob Murray
So it’s such a weird tie because it’s just, like, so far apart. Anyway, I think it’s amazing. I just appreciate you so much for doing this. Thank you, Angelique.
46:13
Angelique Robb
Well, thanks for having me on. This is fun.
46:15
Rob Murray
Okay, thanks, everybody, for listening to another episode of the IM Landscape Growth Podcast.