Evolving Your Leadership for Big Growth: Lessons from Mark Bradley

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. Hey, everybody. Welcome back to another episode of the I Am Landscape Growth podcast. Today, I have a guest who might not need much of an introduction at all. Mark Bradley, founder of LMN, you know, industry aficionado for many years. Pumped to have you on the show and sharing your perspective with the group today. Mark, thanks so much for being on it. 

 

00:53

Mark Bradley

Yeah, I really appreciate being here. Thanks for inviting me. 

 

00:57

Rob Murray

I mean, there’s a good chance that most of the people listening to this show have probably heard you speak at some way, shape or form over the last couple of years, whatever it might be. But if we can just give people a Coles Notes version of kind of where you’ve come from and what you’re up today. Just for the sake of people that might not have heard of Mark Bradley, can you just give us a quick little breakdown? 

 

01:18

Mark Bradley

Sure, sure. Yeah. I mean, I’m a landscaper at heart, just like everybody. I started a landscape company very young. I was 23. Pickup truck and a wheelbarrow. Always kind of like to talk about those early years when I’m describing my evolution, because I really started a very small business without a lot of business experience. And I was really just passionate about landscaping. And the business grew and grew. I think I was maybe a victim of my own success. Over and over throughout the years, the business grew very quickly, and as the business started to reach scale, I was really struggling to find ways to share my way of running and seeing the business with those that were now running the business for me. And so I decided to build software, which became LMN. 

 

02:10

Mark Bradley

And so ultimately, that’s really what got me into the software business. And eventually I ended up focusing exclusively on software. So, these days, I’m really just helping other landscapers grow their landscape businesses. 

 

02:25

Rob Murray

Yeah, and that seems to be the core theme of any content I’m interacting with. When it comes to what you’re up to, whether it’s like, sales training, if it’s like, you know, helping people build cultures, build winning teams, it seems like you’ve really invested a lot of your time and energy into helping people Grow. So, we’ll get to how people might want to engage you in those types of initiatives. I’m sure over the next few weeks, months, whatever, we’ll probably be involved too because, like what we’ve just heard, the feedback’s been amazing, so keep it up. Obviously, however, this show is about what’s the primary growth constraint holding entrepreneurs back in the green industry. 

 

03:06

Rob Murray

So from your perspective, you know, not only from being there and doing it, and you fast forward many years into today and now you’re helping lots of folks. I would say from our experience working with landscapers, LMN’s probably got one of the largest market shares in terms of landscapers using you guys for project management, costing and making sure their business is running smoothly. So, I can only assume you’ve talked to hundreds, if not thousands, of landscapers. So I’m just pumped to have your perspective on this question because not everybody has that kind of perspective or that breadth of experience. So, what do you see as the thing holding people back? 

 

03:44

Mark Bradley

Yeah, I’ve literally had the opportunity to teach thousands of companies how to create budgets and create a strategy to grow their businesses. And so over the years in the room with so many different sized companies, whether they were a startup or, you know, second or third generation company, what I’ve really sort of, I think I noticed more than anything is there’s always an evolution of a leader that’s needed. And so I always really try to say that, ultimately, your business is a reflection of you and your leadership. And so when the business hits a wall, it’s usually because you’ve reached the limit of your leadership skills. And so ultimately, really seeing what’s missing in the leadership side of things really dictates your ability to move forward in business. 

 

04:35

Rob Murray

Okay, so, like, I think you just titled a book, The Evolution of a Leader. And leadership in itself, as a term, can be really nebulous. People have different, you know, definitions of it. They don’t, you know, leadership by authority, leadership by position, leadership by influence. There’s John C. Maxwell, there’s all these books, blah, blah. But I mean, what you just said really hits home with me in a lot of different respects. You know, even growing my own business, trying to evolve myself to become a leader, let alone evolve my leadership skills to become a better leader. Can you just break down a little bit what you mean by, you know, what it is to be a leader that evolves? 

 

05:20

Mark Bradley

Yeah, absolutely, I think. And you kind of hit the nail on the head. It’s a pretty vague term and we use these terms like leadership and culture kind of freely, and you see these things everywhere. I remember really starting to focus on culture as the business started to grow. And what I didn’t realize is it was just my leadership that was developing the culture. And when the culture wasn’t good, it was because my leadership wasn’t good. And so when I kind of think about culture, the way I like to think about it is culture is really just the way it is in your business. And so if the culture’s not good, then the way it is in the business is not that good. 

 

06:00

Mark Bradley

And so as a leader, I think what I learned over the years is as the business grows, my leadership skills need to change. Because as the business grows, there’s more people to lead, there’s more customers to manage, there’s more things that need to get better. And as a leader, if you don’t really work on yourself and you’re not really developing as an individual, then you can’t really expect to be able to rise to the occasion of the needs of the business as it starts to grow and expand. And so I, really early on in the business, when things started to feel uncomfortable, I really started to seek mentorship. And that was really a theme for me throughout my career, was really seeking mentors. 

 

06:47

Rob Murray

So, I mean, I think what you just said is chock full of maybe an episode or two on its own, but we ended up at mentorship, so I don’t want to let that go. So I’m going to write this down, and we’re going to come back to it in a quick second because I think it’s super important. But you said a couple of things I think are really interesting, and we want to just maybe take them in here because you said leadership is the culture. Like you said, in your experience, my leadership was the culture. And culture is what it is. Like, you can’t say your culture is something. It is what it is, right? Whether you do it on purpose or not, culture is how people behave and act and show up and the routines and traditions, all that kind of stuff, whatever. 

 

07:25

Rob Murray

And then you talked about how as the company grows leadership level, you almost had to level up your leadership in order to, you know, direct and lead a culture. When you said my leadership is a culture and culture is what it is, can you just help people understand if they’re on the leadership journey now, you know, whether they’re a million dollars, 5 million, 10 million, $50 million business. And I find as people scale up, they probably have a better mindset around leadership because they’ve had to, you know, pressure creates diamonds. But if they’re think if people are listening to this being like, I want to grow my business, I want to be a better leader. And we talk about leadership as culture and culture is what it is. Can you just maybe break that down a little bit for folks? 

 

08:14

Rob Murray

Oh, Mark, you there? 

 

08:18

Mark Bradley

Good. Yep. 

 

08:20

Rob Murray

All right, sweet. So we had a little Internet glitch. It happens; no big deal. You listen to talk radio, sports radio every once in a while, like, yeah, it happens. Like someone phones in, they get disconnected, whatever, we’re back, no big deal. But you said about this idea. So my leadership is the culture. Culture is what it is. I can’t say I’ve ever heard that position like that. Well, I believe that to be very true. But can you just maybe break it up a little bit for folks? They can understand what you mean by that. 

 

08:52

Mark Bradley

Yeah, absolutely. So I always talk about this transition that happens and I use the ones and the threes to kind of describe it. When you’re a $300,000 startup landscape business, you’re a different leader than when you’re at a million. You need to be a different leader. And sometimes, people don’t want to evolve. And so they want to use the exact formula that they use to get to a million to get to 3 million. And then they want to try to use the same formula that got to 3 million to get to 10 million. And that just doesn’t work as you start to scale because the numbers start to get much bigger. And so getting from 300,000 to a million, that’s a big leap. And for some people, it never happens. 

 

09:38

Mark Bradley

And for those that it does happen for, I think what they start to see very quickly is they need to become a leader. And getting to a million dollars, you’re kind of hands on business owner, you’re an operator, you’re out there doing what you need to do and you’re running by intuition. But when you go to push past a million dollars to go from that one to the next three, which is 3 million, you’re generally really having to evolve in a few key ways. Number one, you’ve got to be able to actually share your plans and strategies with other people so that they can go and do the work that you used to do on your own. And now you can no longer see and touch and feel everything that happens in the business because there’s just too much happening. 

 

10:24

Mark Bradley

And so that big evolution there is really learning to trust others, learning to Set goals and share the mission with other people in a way where they understand what exactly you’re looking for in terms of success. And so I think what happens a lot of times is business owners fail to be able to relay that information in a clear way. So the evolution. 

 

10:50

Rob Murray

Oh, man, you’re speaking to my heart, man. Like, like I, I think. And there’s so few. A lot of people talk about the idea of delegation, you know, when going after going past a million, you know, having a team that’s going to help and you delegate your responsibilities. But not many people have shared the idea around sharing your plans so people understand what’s in your head and trusting them to go help you do it. I think that’s a really neat perspective because you can only share what’s in your head if you take the time to write it down or say it out loud and communicate it clearly. And I could tell you from experience with 100% confidence, when I went from a million to 2 million with our business, I did a pretty bad job sharing plans. 

 

11:35

Rob Murray

Like, my biggest feedback I got from folks was context, man. Please help us understand where the heck you’re coming from with these ideas. 

 

11:42

Mark Bradley

Yeah. And most of us struggle with that. Me included. I found that it was very hard for me to explain what I wanted done because they couldn’t really see what the end was. And so I always try to tell people to really focus on understanding and aligning on what you’re really looking for and start with the end in mind. When you’re really clear of what that should look like, then it’s easier for other people to help you get there. And I think one of the things that I found most frustrating early in business, as I was crossing that million dollar threshold, was feeling a little bit lonely and feeling like other people just didn’t understand me or feeling like there wasn’t common sense. You often hear people say this, and there is no common sense. Right. 

 

12:30

Mark Bradley

We have to be able to share a plan, describe what we’re looking to achieve, and then allow others to help us get there. It’s just no different than going for a drive from coast to coast. We need to know where we’re going in order to decide how to get there. 

 

12:47

Rob Murray

Awesome. And so you’re using the ones and threes. You talk about the idea of going from 1 million to 3 million and then 3 to 10. So what’s that evolution look like? 

 

12:54

Mark Bradley

Yeah. So getting from 1 to 3 million is really you being enough of a leader to be able to set strategy and share Plans, and really, at that point, other people can help you get there. I think when you get to 3 million, you have to really evolve again. You have to become a little bit more strategic as a leader. I think the leader of a $3 million plus landscape company should really be focused on setting strategy, building people, and building relationships that are going to turn into revenue. And so I think really, that as you pass 3 million, you really have to be focused on creating systems and processes, but more importantly, building people who can then utilize those systems and processes and work autonomously to actually get things done without you being present or without you kind of coaching in the moment. 

 

13:49

Mark Bradley

And so you’re really building people at that point who can work completely independently using the systems and processes that you’ve created. And you sort of manage more by data, more by metrics. At that point, you start to see what things are actually doing by monitoring results and using metrics. And I think if you try to do it any other way, going from 3 to 10 million will be very difficult for the leader and even more difficult for all of the employees. 

 

14:22

Rob Murray

Around them, for the team. Yeah. So I think, you know, without being a selfish plug, but I got to lean into this a little bit. Like those metrics and like, you know, efficiencies on jobs and execution and I mean, LMN is kind of like, that’s kind of the tool. Like, that’s help what creates visibility for folks. Fair. 

 

14:41

Mark Bradley

Yeah, absolutely. And really that was why I decided to build software. I was at 5 million. I was struggling as a leader. My leadership skills were weak at best. I knew that I needed to make sure that others could really, truly see the business the way I’d see it. And I just needed to create a tool so that they could see estimated versus actual hours in real time and understand where they should be and where they should go next without asking me all the time. And it really was built out of a need. 

 

15:13

Rob Murray

Yeah, I know. And so, like, it seems like from the, you know, and listening to the story from before, you were bottlenecked so hard that it was, you know, and no one could see what they needed to do. So you had to figure out a way to show everybody, not only get the right information but show it to everybody so they can see what they need to do themselves. I think it’s really important, though, that people understand that, you know, that 3 to 10 million gap that you’re referring to and evolving as leader from, you know, you might even still be a bit more hands on 1 to 3, but 3 to 10. 

 

15:45

Rob Murray

Letting go and making sure you understand what’s going on with the business and people can see it too is I just don’t know if anybody understands how important that is for a lot of reasons. And I think it comes back to this idea about leadership as culture. Because if you’re as a leader demonstrating trust by giving people visibility into what’s going on, then they know they can do the same maybe with their teams. Because you have to, you know, you’re not obviously delegating to an entire staff. You have a. Probably a leadership team at that level. Fair. 

 

16:20

Mark Bradley

Yeah. I mean, I think when you start to push past 3 million, what you need to be able to do is make sure that the strategy that you have set for the company can be broken down into bite-sized goals for each department, each crew and each person. And if everybody in the company understands what good looks like, and they understand when they’re winning and when they’re not, and when we have metrics that we can just simply refer to and align to so that we all see the business the same way, then we have a chance to win. And I think what happens in a lot of businesses is there are no metrics to discuss. And so we don’t have a scoreboard. And we all know what happens when we play sports with no scoreboard. We’re just kind of out practicing, right? 

 

17:10

Rob Murray

Yeah, no one wants to watch that. 

 

17:12

Mark Bradley

No, no one watches the practices. They watch the games. And so when we keep score, we’re playing the game. And so I really believe that if everybody has a key metric and for field crews, that’s just estimated versus actual hours. And for. 

 

17:28

Rob Murray

This is not rocket science. 

 

17:29

Mark Bradley

Like, no, this isn’t complicated. Sometimes, people hear metrics, and they clam up. But really, what we’re talking about is we go out, and we estimate jobs, and we know how long they’re supposed to take. We should make sure that we actually get the jobs done on time. And that simple metric at the front line will allow a company to scale exponentially because pricing the work, tell the people doing the work how long it should take, and they’re focused on actually getting it done in those timelines, then the business is going to be healthy. 

 

18:04

Rob Murray

Well, and I think to your point, when people hear metrics, they clam up a little bit. And really, what you’re talking about is just measuring how well you keep your promise. 

 

18:13

Mark Bradley

That’s it. That’s really it, for sure. 

 

18:15

Rob Murray

And it’s. And it is, really. And one of the things we talk about a lot, you know, is with people of all different sizes. But, you know, most people are growing, say, sub 2 million, going beyond. It’s almost crazy how it’s a differentiator in a marketplace to do what you say you’re going to do when you say you’re going to do it. So, like, actually following through on the promise that you created and doing that repeatedly over time is a differentiator these days. Bananas. 

 

18:42

Mark Bradley

It really is. And I think, again, evolving as that leader. As you push past 3 million, it’s really important that you can explain the mission of the company, who you help and why. And then it’s really important that you can explain your vision for the company. Where are we going to be in 10 years? And if we get there, what impact have we had on the community the people we serve and the employees that are part of this company? And I think when that’s super clear, it becomes much easier to set a few goals that everybody in the company can always align to. They don’t need to serve those goals specifically. They just need to align with those goals. 

 

19:23

Mark Bradley

And so those big five, for me, in a landscape business, and quite honestly, in most businesses, should be, first off, we have to grow revenue. Revenue is the fuel for the business. We need more revenue to get better, so we always have to have revenue. Number two, we have to grow people. We have to be constantly focused on developing people, on attracting new people into the business so that we can serve our customers better. So number three, we have to get good attracting customers. So we’ve got to be focused on building a brand. We’ve got to be focused on being recognized in our local market as being this amazing company that solves these problems that customers out in the market are looking to solve. 

 

20:11

Mark Bradley

And then fourth, I really think that we have to be really efficient in the way that we go and do the work. So we want to be the most efficient company. And then last and certainly not least, we have to have the best customer experience possible. And when we do the first four things well, that customer experience gets to be a lot easier. And so I think as a company, when those five objectives are really clear and when we can create metrics to measure whether or not we’re succeeding in those five areas. And when we can explain this very simply to everybody in the company, we can build a company where everybody’s making all of these things better. In my opinion, that’s where we end up having a culture of continuous improvement. And that’s, I think, what everybody really wants. 

 

20:58

Mark Bradley

When they start a business, they want to get a little bit better every day. We all know that happiness is kind of hiding right behind incremental improvement. When we can see incremental improvement, we feel a little bit better. When we measure, and we can see that things are getting a little bit better, everybody can celebrate together. When we get a bad result, we can almost even celebrate that because it tells us what we need to do next to get a little bit better. But ultimately, as a leader, if you’re going to push past 3 million, I think it’s much easier to push past three and go straight to 10 or even 30 million when you’ve built a continuous improvement culture. 

 

21:39

Mark Bradley

And as a leader, as I talk about evolving, to get past a million, you really have to evolve into a leader that’s focused on continuous improvement. 

 

21:50

Rob Murray

That’s cool. I mean, Kaizen, for some folks have maybe not heard it, but that idea of a system from being better for the sake of being better, I think it’s pretty amazing. And if you look at, like, you know, progress is addictive for folks. And, yeah, they’ve. How dare I make a lease reference at this point? But, you know, you got Craig Berube, new Leafs coach, come in. I don’t know if you’re a hockey fan or whatever, but regardless, the analogy fits. Yeah. Oh, man, kill me now. But anyway, glutton for punishment, I guess. But it was really interesting. They. They talked to, you know, Berube. How are you going to create accountability within the organization? And his answer was actually pretty cool. 

 

22:30

Rob Murray

He’s like, well, ideally, the team holds themselves accountable in the locker room, and I don’t really need to be doing that. And I think that kind of speaks to your evolution as a leader. Like, I think as you’re growing from zero to 300,000, then you’re at 300,000, you’re like, oh, shit. I have to be a leader. I kind of have to put on my leadership shoes. And then you get to 1 million, you’re like, okay, now I got to figure out how to be a better leader. I got to 3 million; now I got to start figuring out how to be a good leader. And then you go over 10 million, you’re like, I think I need to make it so the team starts to lead itself. And I think that’s really the magic. 

 

23:03

Mark Bradley

Yeah, you’re spot on. And going past 3 million as a leader, what you actually learn is that it’s your job to attract and build leaders. And that’s a very different skill set than you know, when I had my pickup truck and my wheelbarrow and I was out laying pavers or planting beautiful gardens. 

 

23:26

Rob Murray

Right. 

 

23:26

Mark Bradley

Becoming a leader that can attract and build leaders who can then attract and build leaders for themselves is a very different role. And so this evolution of a leader, what happens is as the business grows, it almost tells you what you need to do next, but it’s very hard to listen. We all have focusing, and so we see all the things that aren’t going smoothly in the business for ourselves. And that’s usually where, you know, the frustration draws our focus. And so we start to fix these things one at a time. 

 

24:07

Rob Murray

You know, honestly, don’t ever step back. 

 

24:09

Mark Bradley

And fix the people problem. And I think a lot of times we just keep doing what we used to do harder, but it become. But we do more of it and it gets harder and harder. 

 

24:19

Rob Murray

It’s fascinating. And I said to you, I don’t even know if it was before we started recording or if it was just when we started. Like, I’m looking at this as like a. And I. And actually, to be quite honest and be blatantly blunt with everybody on the audience, every time I do these interviews, it’s just unpaid consulting. Like, I’m just getting free consulting for all these wicked, smart people. I just get a chance to interview them and share it. Right. But when you speak like that, it’s just crazy because we’ve been talking here and I’ve been thinking about, like, we’ve had a really good crew of folks jump into leadership opportunities. And it’s. It’s been. It’s. It’s game change. It’s what’s helped us grow. And. 

 

24:54

Rob Murray

But then you look at the layer underneath and it’s like, well, what are we doing to grow the next group? And what are. What are we doing to help the leaders that we grew to grow more leaders? And like, it’s. It’s a gap. 

 

25:05

Mark Bradley

Right. 

 

25:05

Rob Murray

Right now. And when you said the. The. The business tells you what it needs, but sometimes it’s hard to listen; that was really helpful because, like, I’ve. I’ve seen this happening, but it was when you articulated like that that it hits me. It’s like, okay, cool. The next step really is coaching these folks to develop their own leaders. Because my innate thought before was, well, I gotta go grow some more leaders. And maybe I do a little bit, but. But maybe I need to help these leaders grow more leaders anyway. I just think that’s really cool, and I’m just trying to be selfishly honest with everybody that this is valuable for me more than maybe the audience itself. So, anyway, going back to this whole thing around growing people, and we kind of talked about. 

 

25:49

Rob Murray

You mentioned this in the email as one of the topics. If I’m a leader of a business right now, listening to this, and I’m like, you know what, you’re right. I do need to grow people, I need to grow leaders, or I need to have my leaders grow leaders. Like what. What kind of steps do you start taking? Like you mentioned earlier, I was not a good leader, in your words about yourself. And then obviously you’ve studied and you’ve made this a discipline. So what does someone else do if they’re thinking this way and they don’t necessarily know how to do it? 

 

26:19

Mark Bradley

Well, I will start by saying this is. I will never, ever stop evolving as a person individually. So personal development is a life’s journey. And becoming a CEO or becoming a business leader is also a life’s journey. It doesn’t ever stop. And so there is no beginning and end. Really what it is, it’s just life. And I kind of try to look at my life as being one. I try to think of my life as being fully integrated. I have to evolve as a person in order to evolve as a leader. And so I think I have to start always by evolving as an individual. And sometimes, you know, when I’ve evolved, maybe as the business needs told me where to evolve as a leader, I actually outgrew myself as a person a few times. And that can be pretty stressful. 

 

27:19

Mark Bradley

And I think sometimes we lose sight of just why we’re doing what we’re doing. 

 

27:26

Rob Murray

How did that show up, though? Can you just break that up a little bit? 

 

27:29

Mark Bradley

Yeah. I’ll tell you how it showed up for me is I found myself 100 pounds overweight. I was putting more emphasis on developing as a leader and developing the business than I was in loving and caring for myself mentally. 

 

27:46

Rob Murray

Yeah, that’s a big deal. 

 

27:48

Mark Bradley

It is a big deal. And then I. As a result, I neglected to do so. To put enough effort into my marriage, and I ruined a marriage. And so it’s very easy for you to over-rotate on developing yourself as a leader and as a business and leave yourself as a person in the dust. And so, it’s very important to prioritize yourself first. And so, for many years, my evolution looked like evolving as a leader was my number one goal. And I was always looking to grow the business. And I was telling myself that I was doing all of this for my family and for myself. But the truth is it starts to get upside down. 

 

28:36

Mark Bradley

And so now what I do, and it took a lot of work to lose weight and it took a lot of focus to kind of shift my perspective. But now what I do is I really focus on my mind and body first. So, my prioritization for my personal goals is to optimize my mind and body. Then I optimize my romantic relationship. Third, I optimize my relationship with my kids, my family, friends, co-workers, and the community I serve. And fourth, I focus on evolving as a CEO. And it’s much easier to evolve as a CEO when those other things are all in balance. 

 

29:17

Mark Bradley

And I think oftentimes we sort of the business tells us where we need to evolve as a leader, but when our leadership isn’t evolving fast enough, that’s telling us where maybe we need to evolve as a person kind of getting outside of ego and really starting to see things a little bit more clearly and having the self-awareness and the empathy for others to actually make decisions that are truly selfless. And as an owner, if you’re going to push past 10 million, you really do start to need to take on a little bit more altruistic view of the world of yourself and you need to really focus on helping others. And I think that’s what a lot of people really miss. Money is a construct. Money is something that we created in order to trade our time with others when we’re helping others. 

 

30:14

Mark Bradley

And so when you start to get past 10 million, you really have to start to understand that your leadership is only really focused upon how you’re going to help others. And you’re helping your employees first. Because if you help them develop as they develop skills and know-how and awareness of the business and they understand how to make that business operate better, then what you’ve done is you’ve built a company. A company is nothing more than a group of people. When that group of people can serve your customers better than everybody else in your market, you’ve built something amazing. And so I think as a leader you have to really focus on the fact that your job is really nothing more than to help others. You’re helping your customers; you’re helping your employees. 

 

31:08

Mark Bradley

And in the process, the byproduct, the money, just comes from the number of outcomes you’ve helped. It’s just an outcome, just a result. Yeah, that’s it. Yeah. 

 

31:17

Rob Murray

And I mean, so yeah, I’m getting the impression you’ve had a chance to share these ideas a couple of times because they’re pretty succinct. And I would say that you could probably, we could probably do an episode completely on the last, like whatever minute you’ve of what you just mentioned. And I think there’s some beautiful irony in this thing about this balance between selfishness about yourself in terms of mind, body, spirit, and, you know, taking care of me first so I can take care of more and others better. Like, because selfishness is like, I’m going to do this to make as much money as possible and make it so that I’m better. Whereas, you know, selflessness almost starts by being somewhat selfish so that you can be your best self to then serve others. 

 

32:03

Rob Murray

Like there is an irony in the way that we’re thinking about these things, and so if someone is going on this journey and they’re like, I don’t have time to work out, I don’t have time to be with my family. I need to make money. That is the thing that has to happen. Now. What do you say to those folks? 

 

32:25

Mark Bradley

I try to explain what happens when you start from the other end. The reality is if you’re focused on trying to grow the business purely to get more money and then you’re trading all of your time to get more money; then you might end up believing that you don’t have time to work on yourself. But I think when you start to really look at your business as something that has been created to help others, you realize that you have to build a big foundation in order to help others. And I believe that this foundation dictates the peak that I have in front of me. 

 

33:07

Rob Murray

Just like a building though, right? Like if you go wide and deep, you can go high, high. 

 

33:12

Mark Bradley

Yeah, just like a pyramid. I always look at a pyramid. It’s much easier to walk up the side of a 45-degree mountain if it’s got a huge base and a huge peak. We’re going to, it’s going to be easier to climb. And so, just like that, I want to build a big base by working on myself first. Because I am the foundation of my business. I am the foundation of my relationships, I am the foundation of my marriage, I’m the foundation of my fatherhood. And so if I don’t build a big foundation, then what I’m actually building is a house of cards. And so it’s so important for me to be as healthy as I can be so that I have endless energy. 

 

33:54

Mark Bradley

From 5 am until 10 pm, I have to eat right so that I have that energy that gives me my mental clarity, which allows me to learn and absorb, and allows me to serve others in the state that I want to be in, which is very present and very energetic state. And so I have to start there. And so it’s not actually for me. And for that reason, it isn’t really self-serving. It’s. 

 

34:22

Rob Murray

I know. That’s why it’s so beautiful and ironic, and I just love it. 

 

34:26

Mark Bradley

Yeah. Yeah. And then when my relationships are all positive and when I put time into my romantic life and my life with my family, friends, and coworkers when I put that time into those relationships, I’m finding the fulfillment that I need in my life so that I feel good, and I’m intrinsically motivated to continue to get better at being a CEO so that I can continue to serve more people. 

 

34:56

Rob Murray

Yeah. That’s beautiful, man. Well said, my friend. So, you know, you go from your words, not the greatest leader, whatever it was, to, you know, very mindful and making sure that you’re in a good position to bring your energy from 5:00 am to 10:00 pm and. Well, first, would you do another episode? Because I’ve got notes here, and I can’t keep talking for three hours because these episodes are supposed to be 50 minutes, and we’re almost coming to time. But would you be up for do another one? 

 

35:22

Mark Bradley

I’ll do as many episodes as you’d like, so that’s no problem at all. 

 

35:26

Rob Murray

Epic. But for someone who’s listening, where did you start your path? Like, mentorship is something we need to end on before we finish. But was there a resource or something that just kind of kicked you in the butt and started getting you thinking a bit different? 

 

35:44

Mark Bradley

Yeah. And so I’ve always really focused a lot on mentorship. I think I learned to seek mentorship kind of naturally. I had a very strong father. I had some great coaches in hockey. And along the way, when I didn’t know what to do next, there was always a voice of reason. And so in business, when I started to struggle and I wasn’t really sure what to do next, I always found myself asking others who had done what it is that I wanted to do. And so seeking people who have had the success in your space, I think is the best place to start. And so for me, what I did was I joined Landscape Ontario and was super fortunate to have an incredible leader of that association, Tony DiGiovanni and many other landscape business owners who had seen a lot of success. 

 

36:41

Mark Bradley

And so getting involved in the association, sitting on some committees, getting to know other contractors as a young entrepreneur, and just simply asking them all of my most difficult questions, that was a great place to start. And that really set me on a. On a path that I’ll never sort of ever stop mentoring others for that same reason, because what those people gave me allowed me to evolve and that’s why I do what I do. 

 

37:10

Rob Murray

It’s awesome, man. And so we interview a bunch of folks that are like presidents or directors of associations, whether they’re provincial, national or state, whatever, and it’s fast. And for the audience listening, like the correlation of people that get involved in committees and leadership within industry associations and their success, it’s close to one. 

 

37:33

Mark Bradley

Yeah. 

 

37:33

Rob Murray

People that, the people that get involved at the leadership level within these industry associations, either they’re doing well, and they can get involved, or they get involved, and they do well. Like, I don’t know which one’s more prevalent, but they’re both true. And so anybody listening, there’s just another example of getting involved in your industry association, being around winners and helping other people better. That obviously is doing really well for folks. Author, speaker, and industry-like resource. Something that you’d want to share that you love, that you follow or inspired you, that you’d share with somebody, something they should check out. Wow. 

 

38:11

Mark Bradley

I mean, the list is endless. And I think that the list is always widely varied based on what people are trying to achieve. For me right now, I really have been focused a lot on different parts of my own software business, whether it be marketing or whether it be development, particularly with everything that’s happening in AI. So I’m probably reading about things that are maybe a little bit different than landscapers, right? Right now. But yeah, what I tend to. I tend to focus on most for me is leadership and personal development. And then I’m always looking at, like, the very specific things that the business needs right now. And I think as a leader, if you’re trying to evolve specific to the business, always focus on what the business needs are and those problems that you’re struggling to solve. 

 

39:10

Mark Bradley

You have to go and find a mentor who has accomplished what you’re trying to accomplish in a similar space. And so generally speaking, I’m always finding that person based on what my immediate need is. The faster you find them, the faster you see their frameworks and pull their framework into your business. Never taking the advice word for word, but taking their patterns and applying them to your business, I think is where all the magic happens. And so that’s cool. It never ends. It’s just a. It’s a never ending journey of hunting. Hunting for mentors. And the best part about scaling a business is after a while, you actually get to hire some of your mentors. 

 

39:53

Mark Bradley

You get to hire experts in very specific areas of the business to come in and run that part of the business, but simultaneously teach you and make you better so that your overarching strategy in your business gets stronger and stronger once you’ve got those patterns and that person on your team. I think that for me, scaling the business was almost more fulfilling in the sense that I could always hire my mentors and grow as an individual because of the fact that I could afford to as the company started to grow and grow. 

40:30

Rob Murray

Yeah, that’s awesome, man. Well, Mark, I appreciate you doing this. I guess, long story short, if you didn’t get any nuggets from this thing, mentorship is obviously a great step forward. And if you don’t know where to start, industry association is a very easy step into it. Really appreciate you doing this and sharing the whole idea around. You know, growing a team and the primary growth constraint, really starting with the leader itself and the business demanding more of the person, founder or leader of the business, and evolving that way. I don’t know if you’ve got a book in mind, but the Evolution of a Leader seems like a good title for a book you might be able to write. Anyway, long story short, appreciate you doing this and thanks everybody for listening to another episode of the IM Landscape growth podcast.