Nicole Downer, co-owner of Downer Brothers and a 30-year veteran of virtually every role in the green industry, joins Rob Murray to unpack why culture is the primary growth constraint holding landscape companies back – and what it actually takes to scale it intentionally from $5M to $10M and beyond. This is a rare, honest conversation about servant leadership, morning huddles, delegation mistakes, and why a strong culture is not a soft concept – it is the foundation every other system has to be built on.
“Nothing happens in our business that earns revenue without the field team. Absolutely nothing. I can sell my face off – but by definition, we are in service to them. We are meant to grease the wheels to make them successful. And that mindset was key.” – Nicole Downer
Here’s what we discuss in today’s episode:
[00:02] – Welcome and Introduction Rob introduces Nicole as someone he is a raving fan of, setting up what becomes one of the more candid leadership conversations the show has had. Nicole comes in with a cliffhanger she dropped before the recording started – which the episode delivers on.
[00:46] – Nicole’s Origin Story: Literature Major to Landscape Veteran Nicole did not plan to be in the green industry. She followed love into it in 1995 and never left. Over three decades, she has worn almost every hat in the business – controller, office manager, horticultural division leader, designer, and design-build project lead. A longtime employee called her a chameleon. She considers the industry a gift that came with a great guy.
[02:02] – Where Downer Brothers Is Now and Where They Are Headed Downer Brothers is at $7M in revenue. The goal is $10M at 18% profit margin. Nicole is clear: the revenue number is not the real target. She calls chasing top-line numbers without margin “an insanity number and an amplifier of chaos.” The 18% is what they are actually managing toward.
[03:43] – The Primary Growth Constraint: Culture Nicole’s answer is immediate and direct – culture is the biggest thing holding landscape companies back, because culture is hard to scale. She is not talking about scaling a bad culture. She is talking about what happens when a genuinely great culture runs into the complexity of growth and the owner can no longer personally be the carrier of it.
[04:23] – The Self-Regulating Ecosystem (And Why It Eventually Breaks) For years, Downer Brothers’ culture self-regulated. New hires who were not a fit got weeded out naturally. Good people with no skills got developed. Good people with skills got room to run. The ecosystem worked because it was small enough to manage organically. The cliffhanger Nicole teased at the start: that ecosystem is now fragile, and scaling it deliberately is the next challenge.
[05:44] – The Rum Line: Culture as Your Navigational North Nicole introduces a sailing metaphor that becomes one of the defining frames of the episode. The rum line is the straight line from point A to point B – your true course. Growth throws storms, wind, and waves at the business constantly. Culture is the rum line you have to keep returning to no matter what pressure hits the system.
[07:46] – People First Before It Was Popular Nicole and her husband rejected the “you’re lucky to have a job” mindset before it was a widespread conversation. The reason was simple: they loved sports and teams, and they wanted people around them who would show up if the house was on fire. They built reciprocal loyalty deliberately, not reactively. That value system started driving decisions over a decade before it became industry language.
[09:51] – Is a Strong Culture a Cult? Nicole’s Take Rob raises the idea that some people call tight-knit cultures cults. Nicole’s response: “My business is kind of a cult too.” She is not defensive about it. If the alignment is intense and the buy-in is real, the word cult is usually coming from the sidelines out of envy, not from any genuine critique. Cult is the root word of culture. She leans into it.
[12:20] – Family vs. Sports Team: Why Nicole Says Both A lot of operators choose one framing or the other. Nicole does not. She raises her four daughters the same way she runs her team – she tells them she is not preparing them for an okay life, she is challenging them to live an extraordinary one. High expectations and genuine care are not opposites. Her team is asked to “do math problems while playing an elite game.” She would not have it any other way.
[13:19] – The Investment of Direct Feedback Nicole shares a real example with a team member named Liz, who wanted to leap from a field horticulture role to sales designer. Nicole’s message to her was clear: “I am not going to be easy on you, and it is not because I don’t think you’re doing a good job. It is because I know you can be great.” She frames hard feedback as an act of investment, not criticism. Liz delivered.
[15:07] – The Compliance Trap and the Servant Leadership Shift Nicole describes a moment from last year where she was obsessing over timesheet accuracy, pushing compliance from the top down. It was not working. She stopped, reset, and went to the field with one simple question: “Are you having any trouble?” She started finding out about odometer errors, app syncing issues, training gaps – things she could actually help with. Compliance followed without anyone being pushed. The shift was from enforcer to servant.
[16:38] – The Foundational Belief: Nothing Happens Without the Field One of the most quotable lines in the episode. Nicole puts it plainly: nothing in the business earns revenue without the field team. That means the office, the managers, and the owners exist to grease the wheels for the people doing the work, not the other way around. That mindset reoriented how Downer Brothers structured support for their crews.
[17:32] – Culture Is Your Brand Nicole lands on a phrase worth writing down: culture is your brand. It is what every job candidate feels when they consider working for you. It is what every client feels when they work with you. It is present whether you manage it intentionally or not. The question is only whether you are shaping it or letting it grow on its own.
[19:41] – Leading at $1M vs. Leading at $7M: The Real Difference At $1M to $1.5M, the owner can be on every job, with every crew. That is not a scalable model. At $7M, you cannot multiply yourself. The business stops being about field labor and equipment and starts demanding something entirely different: leaders of leaders. Nicole is honest that they were terrible at it at first. Hiring managers was its own new learning curve – one with very little muscle memory to draw on.
[22:20] – Teaching as a Path to Mastery One of the most underrated leadership development tools Nicole mentions is teaching. Whether that is training a manager, mentoring a newer business owner, or coming on a podcast – the act of teaching forces clarity that reading and listening alone cannot build. You think you understand something until you have to explain it to someone else.
[24:20] – Morning Huddles, Games, and Division Subcultures Nicole got curious and started attending the morning huddles of each of her divisions. What she found surprised her. Each division had its own distinct subculture. Maintenance – team-first, flat, collaborative, nobody wants to lead formally but they cover for each other without being asked. Design build – alpha dogs with strong betas who support the hierarchy. Horticulture – less focused on interpersonal dynamics, more externally focused on plant material and aesthetics. Same company. Three genuinely different cultures.
[25:16] – The Birthday Game That Revealed Everything To build trust and vulnerability in huddles without putting anyone on the spot, Nicole introduced simple games. One of them: without speaking, organize yourselves in a circle by birthday month. The design build team figured it out in minutes – leaders emerged, systems formed, it was chaos with a plan. The maintenance team could not do it. They got stuck. So Nicole adjusted the game, gave them two people who could talk, 60 seconds to plan, and they nailed it. The debrief became a conversation about leadership, planning, and collaboration – framed through a silly game they actually experienced together.
[27:50] – Incentive Design Has to Match Team Culture Nicole introduces Prodive, a company they are working with to build an incentive plan. The birthday game exercise taught her something important before they designed it: the maintenance team should win and lose together. If they had rewarded individual crews, their best player – the one taking the hardest commercial routes and holding the line on hours – would have been punished for playing defense. Knowing your team’s culture before building systems for it is not optional.
[30:08] – Hire Fast, Onboard Slow Nicole pushes back on one of the most-repeated hiring mantras in business. She does not believe you can hire slow anymore – good talent moves too fast. But you absolutely can and must onboard slow. The distinction matters. Rushing the onboarding is where culture breaks. That is where people do not learn what the company actually stands for or what will and will not be tolerated.
[32:18] – We Will Never Sacrifice Culture for Talent Nicole’s hiring philosophy in plain terms: we will give you autonomy, we will develop you, we will challenge you – but if you are not committed to aligning with our culture and our direction, do not take the job. She says this needs to be communicated in the second interview, not discovered six months in. Culture is not negotiable, no matter how skilled the candidate.
[33:29] – Celebrate Loudly, Correct Privately Downer Brothers runs leaderboards in their meetings – but the leaderboard is not only about KPIs. It might recognize the crew member who took the hardest commercial route all season and held the line. Nicole’s principle: celebrate the positive as loudly and publicly as possible. Correct issues one-on-one and privately. The culture follows the narrative the leader chooses to amplify.
[34:10] – Safety, Quality, Efficiency – In That Order Nicole’s operating priority list is deliberate and sequenced. Safety first because the work is inherently dangerous and people have to come home. Quality second because without it the business has nothing. Efficiency third. She is direct: if a manager is shoving KPIs down people’s throats and emphasizing losses, they will never align with what Downer Brothers is trying to build.
[37:13] – The Delegation Mistake Most Growing Companies Make Nicole’s honest admission: she hired managers and then handed them the keys without showing them what good looked like first. No model. No example. Just expectation. This year was the reset – getting back involved, modeling the behaviors, and then slowly passing the baton in a way managers could actually follow. The lesson: delegate the role, not the standard. Show the standard first.
[41:53] – Simplicity as the Real Skill from 5 to 10 Rob closes with an insight Nicole reinforces: the biggest leadership challenge going from $5M to $10M is reducing complexity to simplicity. The business gets more complicated by nature. If the leader adds more systems and layers instead of simplifying, the team drowns. Get back to fundamentals. Remove what is not working. Build up from basics.
[42:21] – The Bilingual VA Who Fixed Timesheet Compliance One of the most practical solutions in the episode. Downer Brothers hired a bilingual virtual assistant based in Mexico to handle timesheet errors, run end-of-day processes, and support field team members who speak Spanish. Within a month, managers were removed from the end-of-day process entirely. The VA manages it start to finish. She also provides compliance reports and helps the team troubleshoot tech issues in real time. Affordable, effective, and completely field-team-facing.
[44:44] – Maya Angelou: Still I Rise When asked for a book or author that shaped her, Nicole goes straight to her roots. Maya Angelou’s “Still I Rise” is the defining piece of writing in her life. You get knocked down. You get back up. Every day is a new day to be great, to do great, and to lead. She has carried that as a personal creed through every season of the business.
Actionable Key Takeaways:
- Treat culture as the rum line, not a bonus feature. Culture is not a nice-to-have that gets addressed once the business is stable. It is the navigational line you have to return to constantly as growth throws pressure at your systems. Map it, name it, and build every new hire and process around it before the storms hit.
- Stop enforcing compliance. Start removing obstacles. Nicole went from top-down timesheet enforcement to showing up in the morning and asking “Are you having any trouble?” – and hit 100% compliance faster than any mandate ever produced. Find out what is in the field team’s way and remove it. That is the job.
- Hire fast. Onboard slow. The old “hire slow, fire fast” advice does not hold in today’s labor market. Good talent does not wait around. But rushing onboarding is where culture breaks. Build a slow, deliberate, touch-point-heavy onboarding process and communicate your culture clearly – including what will disqualify someone from staying – before they are six months in.
- Never sacrifice culture for talent. Skills can be developed. Culture fit cannot be forced. Nicole’s standard: give new leaders autonomy and challenge them hard, but if they are not willing to align with where the company is going, they should not take the role. Say this in the second interview, not the exit conversation.
- Model the behavior before you delegate the role. The biggest delegation mistake growing companies make is handing off responsibility without first showing what great looks like. Build the standard visibly. Let your managers see you doing it. Then transfer ownership gradually instead of all at once.
- Celebrate loudly, correct privately. Run a leaderboard that recognizes the kind of excellence your culture actually values – not just the highest numbers. The crew member playing defense all season on the hardest commercial route deserves recognition too. People replicate what gets celebrated, so own the narrative you amplify.
- Teach to master. If you want to grow as a leader, start teaching. Training a manager, mentoring a newer business owner, coming on a podcast – the act of explaining what you believe forces you to get clear on it in a way that reading and listening alone cannot produce. You learn at least as much as you give.
Resources Mentioned in This Episode:
- Maya Angelou – “Still I Rise” (Poem / Author): Nicole’s longest-held source of personal inspiration. The message of getting knocked down and getting back up is the creed she runs her leadership by. Strongly recommended for anyone who has had a hard season.
- Prodive (Software / Incentive Platform): A company Downer Brothers is working with to build a field team incentive plan. Nicole’s insight: design your incentive structure around the actual culture of each team, not a one-size-fits-all crew-by-crew model.
- LMN App (Field Management Software): Referenced as a tool the Downer Brothers field team uses for time tracking and job management.
- FleDio (Fleeio) (Software): Used by Downer Brothers for vehicle circle checks and safety compliance in the field.
- Leanscaper (Peer Group / Industry Community): A landscape industry peer group Nicole credits with exposing her to new thought leaders, books, and business perspectives that accelerated her leadership development.
- Bilingual Virtual Assistant (Mexico-based) (Operational Solution): Not a named tool, but a concrete model worth replicating. A bilingual VA now manages end-of-day processes, timesheet compliance, and field support calls independently. Affordable and field-team-facing.
Episode Transcript
Rob Murray (00:02.018) Hi everybody, welcome back to another episode of the IM Landscape Growth Podcast. I have a, I’m a raving fan of this guest and so pumped to have her. We got Nicole Downer on the show today from Downer Brothers. Nicole, thank you so much for doing this.
Nicole Downer (00:18.058) Thanks for having me. I’m excited to be here.
Rob Murray (00:20.556) Yeah, me too, especially with that little nugget you dropped before we started recording. Now I’m just like curious. Like you gave me like a cliffhanger to get into this. So, you know, for the audience’s sake, quick one, you know, Coles Notes summary on, you know, how you ended up in this awesome industry a little bit ago and what you’ve been up to and kind of what you’re focused on now. Just give us a bit of a rundown ’cause I know you’ve been involved in like all sorts of parts of the industry.
Nicole Downer (00:46.798) Yeah, I mean I didn’t intend to be here. I’m just gonna admit right from the start. I kind of married or fell in love with a guy who pulled me into this industry. And I, I studied literature, so kind of funny that I ended up in this space, but I feel like it’s really where I belong. And when I met my husband, it was nineteen ninety-five, I believe, and it was first help us with this, help us with that.
And then I’ve worn almost every hat in the business. A woman and good friend Angie who worked for us for a long time said that I’m a chameleon, that I’ve kind of done a lot of different things from controller role to office manager to running, running and growing our horticultural division to design build and being a designer and running
some of our biggest jobs. I mean it is, it, yeah, been through the whole thing and I, I really love it. I feel like it was a gift that kind of came with a great guy. So yeah.
Rob Murray (01:43.896) Literally you, you’ve been through the whole thing.
Rob Murray (01:55.992) Beautiful. And now what’s the focus of the business? Size, what are you guys going after right now?
Nicole Downer (02:02.95) Right now we’re about seven million. Our goal is to get to ten million at eighteen percent. So we’re really focused less on the vanity number, but I think it’s more of an insanity number and an amplifier of chaos that I don’t really, we have some resistance to that top number, but the eighteen percent’s really where we’re focused. It’s gonna be a really hard thing to achieve and you know.
That line, your reach should exceed your grasp, is definitely what we’re striving for and you know, we’re, we’re going for it and if we get close that’s great and ultimately we wanna get there.
Rob Murray (02:40.574) Epic. Well if you don’t have a goal, there’s no way you can, right? And then what do they say? Revenue is vanity, profit is sanity and cash is king. You’re well aware. All right, sweet. So I mean you guys have been growing too. Like when we started working together you were probably just south of five.
Nicole Downer (02:43.275) Right.
Nicole Downer (02:47.096) Yeah. Yeah. Very true. Yes. Well.
Nicole Downer (02:59.756) Yeah. Right about five. Yeah, I think we were five, five. But we’ve only known each other for a year. Which is crazy. And kind of what you guys have helped us do in that year’s time is pretty cool and yeah, pretty excited about it.
Rob Murray (03:03.704) Yeah, I know.
Rob Murray (03:12.834) Thank you. Well, I just think it’s, but it also says a lot to how you guys roll. Twenty twenty-five wasn’t necessarily the best year for a lot of folks. And the professionalism of sales, we see it time and time again, is just like lacking. And you know, to be able to make hay when the sun isn’t shining is a difficult task. And I think you guys have done a great job. So yeah, pumped, pumped to be along the way with you.
Nicole Downer (03:26.904) Mm-hmm.
Nicole Downer (03:30.808) Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
Rob Murray (03:35.414) Okay, let’s get to the meat and potatoes. That’s the whole show. So, what, what is the primary growth constraint holding entrepreneurs back in the green industry?
Nicole Downer (03:37.335) Yeah. Yeah.
Nicole Downer (03:43.574) In my opinion, it’s culture because culture’s really hard to scale.
Rob Murray (03:48.824) Tell me more. Culture’s a weird one, right? ‘Cause some people have different definitions. Like what is it, what is it, what is it, what is it for you?
Nicole Downer (03:53.55) And I think you can scale a shitty culture if you don’t care about it. And yeah. Right. Yeah. And I think probably a lot of people don’t value culture. But from where I’m coming from, we’ve worked really hard on our culture. We started working on it before it was cool to talk about culture and talk about people first. You know, not long ago, the hiring person was in the driver’s seat and people were quote unquote lucky to have a job.
Rob Murray (03:58.873) Right. Yeah, you can just scale bigger problems.
Nicole Downer (04:23.968) But that’s just, didn’t resonate with us. So we started to work on our culture a long time ago. And for a really long time that worked really well. Like we got to a point where really it was this ecosystem that kind of managed things itself. It self-regulated. Like a person would come in and didn’t make the cut, they would get weaned out pretty quickly. They’d get eliminated from that system.
And if you were a decent person, a good person, and maybe didn’t have skill sets yet, they’ll develop you. If you’re a good person with skills, they’ll let you, let you run. And I don’t know if the word indoctrination is the right word, but you know, you get assimilated into that ecosystem. But where we’re, where we are right now in that cliffhanger you’re talking about is now we’re in a phase where we have to scale our culture.
There’s not enough clones, of course, and I, to do it alone. And so figuring out how to encode that culture within a larger system and think through all the different steps that you have to take from hiring to onboarding to all of those things in order, and then the structure within your company to have all those touch points at your huddles and things like that that reinforce culture is just a whole different level of thinking. And it’s almost like
culture’s that rhumb line that we have to kind of follow in our business. I don’t know if you know that sailing term, but I think it’s a really cool one that to get from, it’s your point A to point B is your rhumb line. And all the different pressures that can be placed on you, whether it’s a storm or the sail, the winds or it could be the waves that can throw you off course, that rhumb line is something that you have to kind of hold the whole way.
Rob Murray (06:15.468) Come back to it, come back to it, come back to it.
Nicole Downer (06:17.098) Yeah, exactly. And what we’re finding is that that rhumb line’s really hard to hold. That you throw a lot of storms and you throw a lot of pressure and you throw a lot of all the things that growth throws at your system, you can start sailing off course really easy and you get vulnerable and you realize that ecosystem is a little fragile and that you have to scale it slowly. You can’t, you can’t scale it, you know,
without thought and without building the systems and I will say I would have told you a couple of years ago, our culture’s great. You don’t have to scale it. There’s nothing to do there. We’re good. Like we’ve got it.
Rob Murray (06:52.516) Right. Well, it’s, it’s interesting you bring that up because there’s a couple of things I’m gonna come back to. One is how you, you even said it in the way you’re talking about, like how we have to think differently in order to do it at this level. But I think a lot of people sometimes underestimate the complexity of the dynamic of relationships as you add one person to a twenty person crew. Like it’s not twenty relationships, it’s like
It’s like 400 relationships. And if you add another person, it’s like another 440 relationships. Because there’s you and me, and then there’s you, me, and them, and then there’s you and them, and then there’s me and them, and then there’s the three of us as a dynamic. And so it’s like the complexity of relationships explodes as you bring in more people. I think that’s a big reason why you have to probably think differently now, which is so cool.
Nicole Downer (07:39.256) Mm-hmm.
Rob Murray (07:46.275) Coming back to it though, you mentioned at the beginning that there was this person recruiting that was like, “You’re lucky to have a job if you come here,” and you were like, “I don’t think that’s gonna work. We’re gonna go people first and focus on culture.” What was it that happened or what made you click to think that way?
Nicole Downer (08:06.606) I think it’s just our values. It just never made us, we never felt like people were disposable and we thought we had a culture in our industry where
a lot of people in this industry kind of felt like at that point in time where there were more candidates than there were roles, people acted like people were disposable. And you could just say next in line, you know, and take someone else into a role. And we didn’t feel that way. And I would also just say like my husband and I both love sports and love being part of teams. And we felt like
Rob Murray (08:28.973) Hmm.
Nicole Downer (08:45.822) like if we feel better when we have a team around us who, if our house is on fire, they’re gonna be the first people there helping throw water on it, then people want to feel that way in their roles and what they do. And we wanted that type of environment. Raising a family and raising a business at the same time is an extraordinary challenge. And we just felt like, you know, we really wanted people, good people around us and we wanted people around us who we felt like were gonna be loyal to us and
we knew we needed to offer the same thing to others and so we did. I mean I, I’m gonna say that.
Rob Murray (09:20.652) So it was kind of always there, and it was like this itch that you just had to finally scratch and be like, “Okay, let’s move through this.” So the
Nicole Downer (09:26.602) Yeah, definitely. Definitely. And yeah, we leaned into it pretty hard. God. Probably about eleven, twelve years ago. Yeah, it’s been some time. A lot of work and it’s hard. Culture, something like that, you get really protective of because you know how long it takes to build that trust, to build that community, build
Rob Murray (09:31.276) And how long ago was that?
Rob Murray (09:39.072) Okay, so it’s been some time and a lot of work.
Nicole Downer (09:51.81) I mean, you and I had a conversation about, we were talking about how, you know, some people say Leanscaper is a cult. And you were like, “Well, so what? My business is a cult.” And I was kinda like, I like that, Rob. Like my business is kind of a cult too. Like we, the people who believe in what we’re doing, we’re loyal to it. We’re bought in. And if alignment is intense and that’s why you’re calling it a cult, I’ll just say, hey, no, that’s not a cult, that’s a lot of work. Interesting.
Rob Murray (10:17.088) Yeah, and, and cults just have bad raps because it’s the bad ones you hear about. The, they’re manipulative and you know, and cult is the root word of culture. So like what are we, what are we talking about here? And I also think it gets a bad rap because people on the sidelines, it’s almost like a, I was, envious position. It’s like it, it can’t be that good.
Nicole Downer (10:21.962) Right, right. Right.
Nicole Downer (10:28.458) Right. Yes. And that’s right.
Nicole Downer (10:44.195) Yeah.
Rob Murray (10:47.306) So there’s gotta be something wrong about it. And to them, have fun. Like I, we got one life.
Nicole Downer (10:49.014) Well, right.
Nicole Downer (10:53.762) Right. And you pick apart, go ahead and pick apart my culture ’cause I’m gonna too, because that’s how you make it great. You’re always reflecting, you’re always saying, “What did I do wrong here?” You’re always saying, like, what’s the lesson in this? Must be a better way.
Rob Murray (11:05.784) There must be a better way. Yeah, well and I just, you know, there’s one life to live and I think if you can build an organizational setting where people spend the vast majority of their waking hours
into a place that encourages people to grow as humans, not as role-based people, but as humans, you make people’s lives better. And I think that’s why entrepreneurship has been such a huge part of my life and our focus as a company, because it’s something that I think it really does have a more meaningful chance to change the world in a meaningful way than most other platforms through corporations or education or institutions or governments. Which I could talk about for a very, very long time and I, and I will at some point maybe get a chance to do that.
Nicole Downer (11:35.82) I agree. I agree.
Rob Murray (11:46.187) But one of the things I wanted to get your take on, because you kind of alluded to it in a couple of different ways, but not explicitly. And we hear a lot of people talk about how at work they’re like a family. And then we hear about other organizations talking about how they’re trying to create like a high performance sports team type of vibe. Because you can’t fire family, but you can hold people accountable if they’re in a high performance sports environment. And we also find that people in both sides of those things can have high performing cultures and they can have crap cultures. So I’m just curious, what’s your take on the
Nicole Downer (12:02.059) Mm-hmm. Right.
Rob Murray (12:16.287) family versus sports team type of thought process?
Nicole Downer (12:20.256) I kind of would go, I would say the one doesn’t exclude the other. Like I, when I think of, I have four daughters, I always say to them, I’m not preparing you for an okay life. I’m challenging you to live a pretty extraordinary life. And so I’m gonna expect a lot of you. And I feel like, I think, but I mean it’s, you know, they’re gonna do chores. They’re gonna, you know,
Rob Murray (12:40.17) I don’t doubt that for a heartbeat for the record.
Nicole Downer (12:49.878) They’re gonna study hard. They’re going to excel at the things that they’re gonna do. They’re, we’re gonna expect them to be great humans at the same time. And I say the same thing about our team. We’re asking our team a lot of the time to do math problems while they’re playing an elite game. It’s a lot and it’s a lot of pressure. And so I kinda think of it as, I don’t know, my family life is like building an elite sports team and my business is the same thing. Like
Rob Murray (13:16.544) Yes.
Nicole Downer (13:19.754) I, we’re driving for excellence. I don’t know how to want to do something different. And I have too much respect for my family and for the people who work for me to not expect them to not just be good but to be great because I know they can be. And that’s something I will say. Like I have a couple of new people on my team that we’re able to promote into higher level roles, and I really challenge them a lot. And I’ll say directly to,
you know, maybe Liz is a good example. She wanted to take a pretty giant leap from a field role in horticulture, taking care of plant material, to becoming a designer and a sales designer. And I’ll say to her, I’m not gonna be easy on you, Liz. And it’s not because I don’t think you’re doing a good job, it’s because I know you can be really great. And so I’m gonna challenge you to get up that learning curve quickly because you’re ambitious. And so
I’m always gonna be kind, but I’m also gonna tell you things very directly. And it’s me investing in you when I do that. And she gets that and she’s, I mean, pretty amazing what she’s done so far this year. So.
Rob Murray (14:19.468) Love that.
Rob Murray (14:27.67) Well, I mean there’s so much to what you’re saying too, ’cause like the, we, I talk about this idea of the Golden State Warriors approach, right? You bring winners together and then other winners want to join. And, and then the idea is, and there was this saying that what you just said reminded me of, it’s like no one cares how much you know until they know how much you care.
And I think a lot of people miss that little piece because they, they probably do drive towards excellence and they are trying to get more out of their folks, but they don’t necessarily have any conversation up front about how the fact they’re gonna be hard on them to get them to be better. So like was that just a natural thing for you to do, or did you figure it out over time, like
Nicole Downer (15:07.756) I don’t know, it’s like little shifts like
I was so like compliance oriented last year. I was like, my God, we got to get these timesheets right. We got to get, you know, we don’t want the, we don’t want collapsing of job descriptions because, you know, people weren’t entering their time properly. And then it was a manager looking at it and then a controller looking at it, and it’s like all of a sudden now like a bunch of people are touching the same thing, and now it’s the controller managing the timesheet that’s supposed to be down at the foreman level. It just doesn’t make sense. And so I would go up to people and say,
like, you gotta get your timesheet right, or you gotta do Fleetio and make, you know, and then all of a sudden I was like, can you just stop it? Like it was just like
recognition that like get back to fundamentals and just go back up to people and just say in the morning, “Are you having any trouble? Like, how are you guys doing?” I don’t even know how to help them. I’m not, I’m not great on the LMN app. I’m not great on the Fleetio app, which we use to manage like our circle checks and all that safety. But to just check in with people because that’s ultimately what I want to know.
Like, do you have a training gap? Are you running into any problems? And then all of a sudden I was finding out things like the odometer reading’s wrong. And so then I can’t proceed. I’m like, I know who can help you. Run and get that person, or timesheet issues or things like that. And you just found like we got to 100% compliance like that this year. So cool. But it was really just being like very human and not creating an us,
Rob Murray (16:31.383) How cool though.
Nicole Downer (16:38.146) excuse me, us versus them mentality and instead just be that servant leader, like really trying to embrace that concept this year. Like I really, like nothing, nothing, nothing happens in our business that earns revenue without the field team. Absolutely nothing. I can sell my fees off. By definition. And so we are in service to them. We are meant to grease the wheels to make them successful. And that mindset was key.
Rob Murray (16:53.962) Right. It’s just by d, it’s by definition.
Rob Murray (17:03.148) So
Very much so, and probably why you’re scaling and will hit ten sooner than you probably expect. But there’s, there’s something in the way you’ve described it, okay? And this idea of servant leadership, a lot of people have probably heard it, some people have learned about it, some people practice it in this case. Was it always, always like that, or did you learn how to lead?
Nicole Downer (17:07.404) Yeah.
Nicole Downer (17:32.098) Think I’m, every day I’m learning how to lead. I feel like Leanscaper and meeting you guys and being in a richer environment where I’m talking to more businesses and kind of learning from them the things that they, their, their thought leaders, reading the books that they read. And you know, a lot of it’s like working on myself. Like I feel like I’m a different, just like I’ve talked through different roles, I’m a different person every year.
And you know, you can’t lead people you don’t understand. So taking the time to really connect with every single person on your team, be more present, is huge. I’m a big believer now that culture is your brand. If you have good culture, that’s what, that’s what every candidate’s gonna feel when they come and think about you for employment. It’s what every customer’s gonna feel when you’re
selling them something or they’re working with you on a project, your culture is everything and it is immersive. And just, it’s right.
Rob Murray (18:33.142) And it’s there no matter what. Whether you’re intentional or not, like we always, we talked about this idea back in the day, it’s like culture’s like a petri dish and core values are the environment of the petri dish. And so if your core values aren’t there, I mean it’s something that’s gonna grow, we just don’t know what it’s gonna look like or what it’s gonna smell like.
Nicole Downer (18:42.551) Yeah, I like that.
Rob Murray (18:49.303) Whereas if we wanna curate something that’s gonna help people foster a better version of themselves, then we gotta be intentional about it. I just think it’s awesome. So my question to you, so listen, for the folks listening that are maybe not where you’re at yet, or maybe even are, I wanna try to get a little bit more tangible and some things they can think about or do. But before I do, if you were to lead the way you led twelve years ago today, would it work?
Nicole Downer (19:18.168) Yeah.
Rob Murray (19:19.769) They would have.
Nicole Downer (19:22.284) Yeah, I think it, the way I’m leading now, if I had, shoot, no, no, no, no, no.
Rob Murray (19:24.427) No no, if you, if you, if you were to lead today. So t, so what’s the difference and how did that’s, how did you go from there to now and what it, what, what is the difference to start with? Just so people can like maybe resonate with where you were, if it sounds like where they are now.
Nicole Downer (19:41.452) Yeah, when you like at a million, one point two, one point five, somewhere in there, you can be on every job. You can be with every crew. And luckily a lot of those team members are still with us. We have a lot of longevity. We have a guy who’s been with us 27 years, a handful of people 15, 12, 10 years. Well, I would say the seed of what we did back then is still growing. It’s a tree that we’re kind of in the shade of now.
Rob Murray (20:00.568) Epic.
Nicole Downer (20:09.712) So what we did back then was really important, but it wasn’t enough. We were able to kind of be everywhere and we were able to lead, we were able to be model, we were able to like shepherd all of that, but we can’t, it, it became a point where we couldn’t multiply ourselves. And it wasn’t, it wasn’t field labour and equipment anymore. It became, well, we have to become
leaders of leaders and we need to hire managers. That was its own learning curve. I think we were terrible at it at first. We didn’t, you know what I mean? Field labour. Yeah. So bad. I mean field labour, it’s really easy. Like you, yeah, we have it down. You have your rapport. You know how to like talk directly and then yes. Yeah. So much muscle memory. But then when you were
Rob Murray (20:41.27) Yeah, me too.
Rob Murray (20:50.806) You got repetitions in, you’re doing it all the time.
Nicole Downer (20:57.346) all of a sudden bringing in other professionals who have other work experience and other ideas about leadership, and then they start challenging those things, and you’re like, my gosh, I don’t even know how to articulate what I believe, but I know it’s not this. And how do I guide them and be respectful of them? My God, it’s so much harder. And a lot, I wouldn’t say it’s harder, it’s, this is new. Yes. And everything new is hard.
Rob Murray (21:14.028) Ha ha ha.
Rob Murray (21:18.624) It’s new to learn. Yeah. Yeah, like the first time I see a boy kiss my daughter, I’m gonna lose my mind. But eventually I think I’ll grow into it, you know? Okay, so you
go from being around everywhere and then you’re having to lead leaders. And so you really are levelling up your own leadership. You kind of mentioned this idea. You’re always learning how to be a better leader. You kind of threw a couple of ideas in terms of how you’ve gone and done that,
being around peers, whether it’s at, you know, industry events or through associations or say Leanscaper like you mentioned, be reading books that are being recommended from like mentors and that type of stuff. But like what are one or two, as you look back, what are one or two, not necessarily an aha moment, but sources of leadership growth that you pursued because it was like helping you think differently and act differently that someone might be able to grab from you and maybe check out themselves?
Nicole Downer (22:20.376) I would say one of them is try to start teaching. Like coming on a podcast like this, trying to train a manager, all of that stuff. You become a master when you teach. So on some level, maybe working with a mentor, maybe it’s a person who’s starting out with their business. You might think that you’re giving, but you’re gonna, you’re gonna learn as much as you give. You’re probably actually gonna learn more.
And then I think also just having like a lot of curiosity and be willing to experiment. Like one of the things we did this year is I got, gosh, I’m so sorry. We got a little more, I got a little more involved in our team huddles in the morning. And it was really interesting. And just having that curious heart, I think, helps you grow and learn. But one of the things I thought was so interesting is spending time in each division’s huddles.
And learning they each have their own subculture and they’re so different. Like our maintenance team is team first, flat management. No one wants to really lead. They kind of lead in their strength and their support of each other and their love for each other and they don’t let each other down. Then you go over to design build, alpha dogs, alpha dogs and really strong betas who really love supporting their alphas. Very hierarchical, very strong leadership, good at different things.
And then if you go in the hort division, they’re not even really thinking about that interpersonal as much. They’re more like focused on the plant material or, you know what I mean, focused on aesthetics and really working together on kind of like that external sort of goals and not, I don’t know, it’s just different.
Rob Murray (24:01.611) So, so then yeah, so you go witness all this stuff, and some people might be like, “Well, don’t you have a culture? Isn’t there a way that they’re supposed to be?” But then you’re kinda saying it with this smile, like there’s this diversity of culture. And so, like, help us understand a little bit more about like your take on how that’s all different and good.
Nicole Downer (24:20.258) Yeah, so with the maintenance team, I’m, I’m a big believer in what makes you good makes you bad. So when I kind of discovered this about the maintenance team, we started to do things like in our huddles we play a lot of games. So the idea behind that, just to kind of talk about that a little bit, is we, you can’t get, like we’re pretty big now, so even in that division, there are a lot of people in a circle. You’re never gonna get some field guy who
might speak broken English to be willing to like throw out an idea and say, “Hey, we’re having a problem. We’re not doing good on hours because of, I don’t know, some issue with the equipment and how we’re maintaining it.” They’re just not going to be willing to do that until you build that trust. And so my thought process with that is let’s start building some trust by playing silly games. Get used to laughing with each other, talking in front of each other. And so we, being vulnerable. Yeah.
Rob Murray (25:13.891) Being vulnerable a little bit.
Nicole Downer (25:16.62) And build that trust and kind of get to know each other a little bit better because you’re working in small crews and you’re only together as a group for a few minutes a day. So kind of building that team culture. And so we started to do that and you started to see people getting, feeling more like they were part of something bigger than themselves, which was really exciting. I forgot where I was going.
Rob Murray (25:38.413) Well it was the, the idea of different cultures and different teams being a good, and what makes them good makes them bad.
Nicole Downer (25:41.558) Right. Okay, right. Thank you. And so one of the little games that we played was, okay, now quietly, without speaking, get yourself in order of birthday in a circle. You know, this is January, over here is gonna be December, ready, set, go. And when we did that with the construction team or the design build team, my gosh, there were leaders. You over here, blah blah blah blah, you know, and they had their, you know, they were putting up their fingers and they were, you know, trying to like
Rob Murray (26:10.969) Ha ha ha ha.
Nicole Downer (26:11.692) call the day versus month and they were kind of figuring out a system and they, they got it really quickly. That’s their strength, right? But like maybe build, you know, camaraderie and stuff, stuff like that, outside of their divisions are a little more competitive with each other. So you go over to the maintenance side, they really struggled with that task. They, they couldn’t get it. We, we gave them a lot of opportunities. We gave them tips. We let them do one.
Rob Murray (26:39.065) It’s like two days, guys. Come on.
Nicole Downer (26:41.034) Right. It was really, really hard. But then we went back and did it again. I said, okay, we’re gonna have two people who can talk. Two people can talk. So those were the leaders, the planners. You have one minute to plan. You can talk as an entire group. You have one, 60 seconds. Come up with a plan and then you gotta implement it. And then when you’re implementing, only two people can talk, the other people have to be quiet. So then they can ask questions. Are you January, February, March, you know, and kind of like put them in order?
Rob Murray (27:08.909) Right.
Nicole Downer (27:10.69) And then they, they got it and then we reflected on it and we talked about okay, so what was different? And try to not tell them what was different.
Rob Murray (27:18.425) You had a leader and it worked.
Nicole Downer (27:21.696) Exactly. You had planning and you had leadership, right? And so, and we, was that not collaborative? Was that, wasn’t a dictatorship? It was very collaborative and it made the team stronger, right? And so just kind of talking to them about those concepts was really important. And in that team, it’s also like important. We were talking about an incentive, we’re working on this incentive plan
Rob Murray (27:25.197) Yeah.
Nicole Downer (27:50.072) that we’re trying to build with a company called Prodive. And one of the things, I was really glad that I got to know this team better because if we had rewarded each crew differently, but we loaded one of the guys with the worst route because he was our strongest and he was gonna get rewarded worse when he’s the one playing defence all day and everyone else gets to score the goals, that would have been horribly unfair.
Rob Murray (28:16.93) Yeah.
Nicole Downer (28:17.174) And so we decided as a team, after kind of reflecting on this and understanding who we’re leading, we decided they’re gonna win and lose together as a team. ‘Cause that’s gonna, that’s gonna align with their culture and it’s gonna support their culture. And culture, it, I don’t know how to define it, but it’s what is, or something like that, someone once said to me. Or it’s what people do when no one’s looking. To a certain degree, I don’t dictate the culture.
Rob Murray (28:40.823) Yeah.
Nicole Downer (28:44.702) I support it, maybe steer it and reinforce it and protect it, but they create their culture as well. And so to a certain degree, it’s respecting it, challenging it maybe to be better in some ways, but also like supporting it with those systems. I think it could have been horribly explosive if we had, if we had rewarded them. I mean, we don’t have it onboarded yet, but if we had rewarded them crew by crew and they got to see an app who was,
Rob Murray (29:03.745) Right.
Nicole Downer (29:14.218) you know, it, it would have been so unfair. Whereas the design build team would have killed us if we did it. You know what I mean? Right? Yeah.
Rob Murray (29:17.311) And
Well, what we had, this presentation we did a while ago, but we, we tried to figure out culture and we decided, okay, it’s the habits, routines, and traditions behaviour inside an organizational setting when the owner isn’t there. So I think what you’re, what you said is, is spot on. But I think what you’re talking about is so neat though, because you’re building these habits and routines and traditions.
Nicole Downer (29:37.612) Yeah. Well you said
Nicole Downer (29:45.166) Mm-hmm.
Rob Murray (29:46.033) And people are loving it and it really is starting to come to life. So that being said, you know, not to celebrate everything because you’ve mentioned before that you’re running into this issue again of scaling culture ’cause it’s becoming, you know, magnified. So like what is it, what’s, what are the symptoms that you’re experiencing that make you think that this has gotta be shifted?
Nicole Downer (29:56.814) Mm-hmm.
Nicole Downer (30:08.428) Yeah, I think just in a, where we failed in a couple of roles, I would say like my reflections are that, that we need to be talking about, everyone says hire slow, fire fast. And I don’t think it’s possible anymore to hire slow. I think it moves too fast and good talent goes too quickly. I think you have to, yeah, I think you have to onboard.
Rob Murray (30:34.25) I, I kind of agree with you on that one. Like be ready to get fast, but plan it all so you have infrastructure to do it fast. But anyway, keep going. Sorry, I agree with ya.
Nicole Downer (30:38.446) Yeah.
Nicole Downer (30:42.646) Yeah. But I think we didn’t, we onboarded too quickly. You know, I think the, you know, some, some of the failures kind of belong to the people, not good fit, you know, whatever, but didn’t ask enough questions, didn’t seek to align. But I think one of the things that I feel like I’m trying to learn now or I’m trying to figure out is what does scaling culture look like? And one of the things I have is that hire slow,
no, I don’t think you can hire slow. I think you have to onboard slow. And I think you have to have a lot of touch points in that onboarding. And one of the things that I want to communicate to future hires is that we’re going to give you a ton of autonomy to do your job because we’re going to hire you for some good skill sets. But you have to toe the rhumb line. And if you don’t toe the rhumb line, you’re not going to be part of the team because we’re never going to sacrifice our culture for talent.
And we’re never gonna sacrifice our culture for whatever you think and whatever direction you want to go in. That is not, if it’s not where we’re going, you’re not gonna make the team. And I think I have to be that honest with, with people when they come on board with us, that you’ve gotta be constantly finding ways to align. And it doesn’t mean I’m gonna micromanage you, but it means that if you’re not looking to align with our, with our culture and where we’re going and who we wanna be,
you’re not gonna make it. And so don’t even take the job. I mean you can say that in your second interview as well. This is the expectation of this company. Like our culture is our brand. Our culture is sacred to us. And
Rob Murray (32:18.871) So what are the behaviours that show up within that culture when it’s like, when it’s not aligned? So like we, we talk to a lot of people when they’re like trying to figure out what their core values should be and we typically say like, “Well what makes you shake your head and swear?” And then, and then usually the opposite is where your core value lives.
Nicole Downer (32:32.503) Yeah. The negativity drives me crazy. Can’t stand it. People want clarity on what, you know, what is good. And I think you can do that by focusing entirely on the, on the positive. So if you were to come to a Friday morning meeting, or you were to come to our sales meeting or you were to come to the metrics meetings, which will start this week,
you will see us focusing on a leaderboard. You will see us focusing on excellence. And excellence might not always be KPIs being the strongest. It might be that guy playing defence for the team all year long, taking the most competitively bid commercial properties and making them a success. And toeing the line at like a hundred percent of hours, which is an average for the season, in the spring in a wet, heavy growth period, it’s pretty freaking awesome.
Rob Murray (33:29.325) Yeah.
Nicole Downer (33:29.794) Right. And so he might make the leaderboard. So like the narrative of what we communicate is ours to own. And, and the messaging to our team and how we guide our team, it’s just always focus on the positive. People, then people know what they’re striving for.
Rob Murray (33:43.074) Well I, I love it. You’re putting a bright spot and highlighting the wins and what looks great. And so what it, what it’s like, everything that you’re not saying is what we’re not about. And, and so it’s really easy to say don’t be negative, but it’s, it’s not that much harder to say be positive.
Nicole Downer (33:49.549) Yes.
Nicole Downer (34:02.028) Right. And it’s like you’re, you know, someone who, metrics are not everything, right? Qualities, we say safety, quality, efficiency. And we mean it. Like nothing matters in what we do if we don’t bring people home safely every day. And what we do is inherently dangerous. And the people around us too, right? And quality, if our work isn’t quality, forget it. Game over. Like that’s a, that’s a deal breaker.
Rob Murray (34:19.765) Absolutely.
Rob Murray (34:29.399) Yeah, that’s table stakes.
Nicole Downer (34:30.978) Right. Efficiency is third, and it’s the third in a three-point list. So if you’re KPI, KPI, KPI and shoving it down people’s throats and kind of emphasizing losses, losses, losses, you’re never gonna align well with who we are and what we’re trying to do. Better just to recognize the people who are killing it, and then be asking questions of the people who aren’t, aren’t doing well. And you might find out that,
I don’t know that there’s, yes, right, an obstacle. Maybe they’re overproducing on a, on a property over by the dumpster and they’re weed whacking. And maybe they should just be focused on perfection in front of the clubhouse, but every other week hit the dumpsters. I, I mean I’m not saying that that’s the solution, but, but a lot of times you just have to ask questions and observe and, and see
Rob Murray (35:00.643) Something is in their way.
Nicole Downer (35:25.794) where they’re missing, or maybe what you’re gonna discover is that you underbid a contract on that list and that, it’s like, we own it. But I think, you know, getting curious is important, asking the right questions is important. And yeah, it’s that just does not work well for us. And the way I think about it is a lot of the people who work for us, you know, they’re working for us in a physical job all day long. And there’s a lot of people who work for us who also work a night job.
Rob Murray (35:31.767) Right.
Nicole Downer (35:55.022) And you know, they’ve gotta have joy in their lives. They spend so much of their lives working. I feel the same way. I work thirteen hour, twelve hour days far too often. And if there’s not joy in what I’m doing and if I don’t feel supported and happy in what I’m doing, I mean yeah, forget it. I’m done. I’m done, you know?
Rob Murray (36:01.752) Mm.
Rob Murray (36:12.141) Forget about it. Yeah. So I do completely agree with you. And I think I’ve actually had those conversations with my business partner over the years of just like, if this isn’t gonna be fun, what the heck are we doing it for? It doesn’t mean it doesn’t have to be hard, it can be hard. Hard’s good, but life’s too short not to be smiling. We can’t take this thing too seriously. When you
Nicole Downer (36:18.326) Ha ha
Nicole Downer (36:28.93) Yes. Hard’s good. Right. Right.
Rob Murray (36:37.197) go from being on every job or seeing every project and, you know, probably knowing every customer and you’re, you know, you’re with your team all the time, one point two, one point three million, whatever, to six on your road to ten, and you’re not necessarily doing all the things, what, what clicked for you to, and how did you bring a team in and then step away from the day-to-day
operations so that you can give yourself the space to observe huddles and ask questions and be curious? What, what was that click and, and how did it come to life?
Nicole Downer (37:13.516) I would say the mistake I made is probably being a little too late to hiring that team and then being so eager for delegating that, that I kind of delegated it right away instead of showing the way. Yeah. So last year was a year of delegation. I think we set up our managers to, like, God, how are we supposed to do this? You didn’t even model this for us. Like, what the heck? And
Rob Murray (37:29.133) Cool.
Rob Murray (37:39.097) And then, and then you didn’t do it right. Like, I, I know. You’re like
Nicole Downer (37:43.858) Right. Right. Right. Right. We’re doing it all wrong. No. That’s super popular to say, right? When you’ve given no model for what it should look like. Right. And I, I would say that was the big mistake we made was being like, okay, awesome. They’re here. Now they can do all this stuff and like, all right, good luck. And then kind of backing away. And we kind of did that last year, the whole year. And then this year it was like, look, ultimately we are responsible for this. We’ve got to get involved and let’s
Rob Murray (37:52.543) It happens all the time.
Nicole Downer (38:13.41) let’s take certain pieces of this, the huddle, off the list. Logistics and ops kind of with our divisional managers and manage that vibe, that energy that, hey, I don’t want to miss huddle because it’s really exciting to be there and it’s so welcoming and it’s the best, one of the better parts of the day. And it’s the way I want to get started in the day. And I don’t want to miss out on an opportunity to define what I think makes a good leader or what I think, you know, foreman,
or what it means to be a good crew member, because I wanna be part of kind of how they’re gonna train people in the future. Like you just don’t wanna, you wanna create an environment that they don’t wanna miss out on, whether it’s playing hacky sack in the morning or some other silly game. It’s like a happy place. And you know, I can give myself permission
to spend five to seven minutes with that many people standing around because I understand the ultimate goal. But I don’t know that a manager coming into a, a job trying to define themselves, they’re probably more like me before, where I’m like, alignment, I need to get compliance and us versus them. And they’ll make all the same mistakes I make, but, or you know, Chris would make. But like, you know, you come in and you just kind of get playful and you know, they’ll tell you like,
Joe, who runs our maintenance division, like he’ll say, what, what we’re doing is working. It’s really great. Like everyone’s there on time, everyone’s excited, everyone’s ready. It’s a good vibe, it’s a good, just everyone’s working better together. And he knows it’s the silly games that I’m doing that are, is creating some of that. But you know, I think I could pass the baton a little bit more and I’m less involved in maintenance now, but
Rob Murray (39:54.434) Yeah.
Nicole Downer (40:03.116) and I think it’s been more effective in design build, honestly. And then anyway, I just think it’s, it’s more than I made a mistake, that I’ve learned from, and then kind of dialled back and said, that was my, my thing this year is, we’ve gotta get back to fundamentals. You say that a lot in club sports. I mean
Rob Murray (40:24.461) Yeah, absolutely.
Nicole Downer (40:25.982) Right? You say like why, we can’t even pass and catch and get ground balls in the crosse. Like why are we trying to put in plays or zone defence? Like get back to fundamentals. And it was that same thing, like why are we layering all this crap on them? It’s too much. Get back to the fundamentals and build up.
Rob Murray (40:44.151) Well, and it’s, it’s super cool that you talked about that too, because the, one of the last pieces I wanted to address, and we have to do another one of these please, because there’s, I’ve got so many other questions I’d like to go in different directions with, but I think the biggest skill set or challenge a leader faces going from five to ten
Nicole Downer (40:50.802) Yeah, it’s fun.
Rob Murray (41:03.481) is reducing the complexity to simplicity. Because by nature, the information flow, the people flow, the relationship dynamics, it is more complex. And so if everything stays the same, just bigger, it’s going to be more complex.
Nicole Downer (41:19.63) Mm-hmm.
Rob Murray (41:21.665) And then as leaders, if we can simplify what we’re doing so that we can get back to the fundamentals, understand what works, I think it serves a lot of people really well. So when you say get back to the fundamentals, it sounds like you’re kind of, you know, getting back to basics, trying to simplify this approach. Don’t overwhelm these folks, and then they can all work faster and better as a team. What
What do you do tangibly to make that a reality?
Nicole Downer (41:53.614) Tangibly, I mean, we’re, we’re kind of meeting them where they are. Like if we have chronic problems with timesheets being accurate, we hired a VA, a bilingual VA. She lives in Mexico. And so when she sees a timesheet error, she will call them up and she is providing training all day long to folks,
Rob Murray (42:21.505) Epic.
Nicole Downer (42:21.986) resolving issues, and she also was running end of day. So we had an end-of-day process that our managers would run. Then we had our VA on the call with them and she was doing a lot of the behind the scenes and they were kind of the front person. But now we’ve had her in place probably about a month, we don’t even have our managers on end of day anymore at all. She manages that process from beginning to end.
Rob Murray (42:48.469) And the field support’s probably pumped to have someone support them through it.
Nicole Downer (42:52.488) Yep, for sure. And she’s bilingual. She can, she can talk to anyone in the field and help them. And she can hold them accountable. She gives us compliance reports. We’re reinforcing that at huddles. We’re celebrating every time we have a day of perfection on either Fleetio, yeah, it’s awesome. It’s awesome. And we celebrate it every Friday. Like we give feedback, negative feedback or not negative feedback, but
we correct issues one on one, but we celebrate loudly the positives. So, you know, and, and that question usually boils down to, did you have trouble with your timesheet yesterday? You’re like, my God, it wasn’t syncing or it was this or that. And I’m like, my gosh. Before you leave, why don’t I get you on our Wi-Fi? And then at least the beginning of your timesheet is there. And so then
Rob Murray (43:33.079) Ha ha.
Nicole Downer (43:44.706) you know, when our VA calls you, she knows that you’re, she knows that you’re present that day. She’s not calling to find out if you’re even at work. At least your timesheet’s started. But yeah, tangibly that, it, it’s like creating the structure and support and, and that repetition and someone who’s kind of owning that, that administrative aspect of the, of that pillar in our business
Rob Murray (43:50.936) Yeah, yeah.
Nicole Downer (44:09.765) has been key. And really giving them someone who’s on their side trying to coach them has made all the difference in the world. Yeah, and, and it’s super affordable.
Rob Murray (44:18.103) Love it.
Yeah, well and meet people where they are. I think is just a really cool way to capture that when you started. Okay, we’re out of time, but we gotta do another one. But last one though, if someone, if there was a book, an author, a speaker that you would recommend that kind of gave you a bit of an aha, what would you say it would be or who would they be?
Nicole Downer (44:27.618) Okay. Okay.
Nicole Downer (44:44.738) I’ll go back to like my roots. Maya Angelou is my biggest hero. And the poem where she says, “And still I rise,” is one, one of the defining things in my life. That you get knocked down, you make a mistake, whatever it is, you just pick yourself up again and try again. Every day is a new day to be great, every day is a new day to do great, and every day is a great day to lead. But
you’re gonna get knocked down and you just gotta keep getting up.
Rob Murray (45:16.193) Maya Angelou. Epic.
Nicole Downer (45:17.798) Mm. Yep. She was poet laureate for I think Bill Clinton, I believe. But anyway.
Rob Murray (45:28.991) Awesome. I love that. That was, I haven’t heard that one before, so thank you. I’m gonna go check it out. You’re amazing. Thank you for doing this, everybody, for listening to another episode of the IM Landscape Growth Podcast.
Nicole Downer (45:40.504) Thanks for having me.