The Kaizen Way to Business Success with George Urvari

Robert
00:00
Hi, everyone, and welcome to the I am landscape Growth podcast, where entrepreneurs help entrepreneurs grow faster, better, and stronger in the green industry, from leadership to sales to recruiting and operational excellence. We cover the topics holding entrepreneurs back and share how to get past those bottlenecks with the best in the industry. I’m your host, Rob Murray, co founder and CEO of Intrigue, a digital marketing company focused on helping landscape companies grow. So sit back and enjoy the show. Hi, everybody, and welcome back to another episode of the I am Landscape Growth podcast. Today we have an awesome guest on the show, George Uvari. Thank you so much for doing this, George.

George
00:40
Thank you, Rob.

Robert
00:42
I’ve been anticipating this ever since we had a chance to sit next to each other watching a baseball game. And then if anybody is watching this fan of baseball, it’s October 3. I’m a Jades fan. Wildcard series starts today, so go Jays. George is one of the founders of Oriole Landscaping, the GTA, 37 years, and has stepped into the world of consulting with knowledge tree consulting. So, George, just to give people some perspective, can you give them a rundown of what Oriole kind of was slash is and how you ended up getting into the consulting space with knowledge tree?

George
01:22
Yeah. So if I go back, essentially, we ran our business through trial and error and then around.

Robert
01:30
That’s the system, right? Trial and error. It’s like it’s an operating system.

George
01:34
Yeah. It’s tried and true and painful. So we hired a consultant maybe 25 years ago for the first time, and we learned a lot, but it didn’t actually really help us. So we knew what was wrong, but it didn’t give us the how to fix it. But we need to be made aware of what was going on. And then fast forward, I hired another consultant who was a process consultant, and he gave us the language of Kaizen, which allowed us to start to organize and order our business. So that was the consultant number two. And then I hired, when I onboarded a software system, I hired one of their people to help implement the system.

George
02:25
So that was our third round of consulting, and I started to see the value of a, being aware of things that I didn’t know and then be having experts get me going at hyperspeed. So essentially, this accelerated our progress. And that was sort of, you know, those intangible things you spend money on. You don’t really realize the benefit until you look back in hindsight. But those were critical moments in our business that allowed us to accelerate our improvement. So I decided that I was going to take what I learned from them and then my experience making my business better, and then turn that into actually salting methods.

Robert
03:10
Epic. Okay, so Oriole landscaping, just to orient the audience, size of business and core focus of the company.

George
03:18
Yeah. So we’re doing about $7 million in eight months. Our focus is design, build, and we also are have a horticultural crew or a couple of crews now that we’re going to grow. So that’s where our focus is going to be. As opposed to the landscape construction. It’s easier to grow, and it’ll be easier to sell the business with recurring revenue. So that’s our focus.

Robert
03:43
Boom. Okay, there we go. And you said something in your quick summary, and I appreciate you know, really condensing 37 years into 60 seconds. Kaizen. Tell the audience. What is Kaizen.

George
03:55
So Kaizen is the philosophy of continual improvement. And there’s a number of tenants to Kaizen. So the first one is get your things organized. So there’s a concept called five s, which is sort set in order, standardize, shine, and sustain. And so that involves kind of like the Home Depot, where everything’s labeled, everything has a place, there’s a return section, there’s a distribution section. So you start to organize your physical business that way, and then also your virtual business. In other words, your filing tree is super organized, like the home Depot. So everybody can find everything. There’s no waste. So there’s that. Then there’s what are called the 1010 types of waste. So the goal is to eliminate waste and do things.

George
04:42
I won’t name all the types of waste, but you want to essentially reduce the amount of time it takes to do things so that you give your customer the best value and your employees don’t get frustrated doing things ten times. So there’s that. Then there’s what are called the ten commandments of improvement, which essentially is like a list of things that you should and shouldn’t do to advance your business. So an example of that would be use your craftiness, not your cash. It’s one of my favorite ones. People love to dump money at things and things don’t get better. And then there’s a concept called flow efficiency, whereby essentially you aggregate, we call the AC DC method. You aggregate information, you condense it, you distill it, and then you compound the benefits. And so we typically can get through things.

George
05:37
No word of a lie. There’s a formula 100 times faster than most businesses in terms of improving, because we’ve got this method that we employ on a day to day basis. And sort of like compounding interest where it’s incredible how fast things come bound. You know, if you have a 5% interest rate, you will double your income or your money that you’re making in 15 years. And so imagine if it was 10%, it’s seven and a half years, and then it’s 15%, it’s five years. So most businesses are glacial in terms of their improvement. And so this philosophy of continual improvement, understanding that everything you do that is better, that compounds over time, just makes your business run smoother. So most people, they work harder, longer, instead of smarter. And so we essentially want to turn that around for people.

George
06:32
So they end up with a better life balance, work life balance, and obviously are profitable and of course pay themselves well. So I typically like to look at people’s lives in terms of quality of life, number one. Number two is how much income do you make? And then number three, how much profit do you make? And there’s sort of an order. Doesn’t all happen at once, but that’s sort of the approach in terms of our consulting method.

Robert
06:58
One, two, three, epic quality of life, income, profit. And I love it because a lot of times business owners are looking at different ways to grow their business and they often forget that it’s meant to help them with their life. It’s kind of the reason that’s the whole point, to start a company. Okay, so theme of this podcast is all around identifying and helping entrepreneurs break through the growth constraints within the green industry specifically. So right now, what do you see as the primary growth constraint for landscape entrepreneurs?

George
07:37
So, I’ll start with leadership. Essentially, most people are poor leaders. They don’t understand what kind of leader they are. They are terrible at delegating. They don’t know how to build a team, they are fearful, and so they make poor decisions or they delay decisions for too long. And essentially that holds them back. So I would say leadership is the number one constraint. And leadership is something that can be taught. You’re not born with it. Some people will obviously more naturally better leaders, but it can be taught. And the reason I know that is I play tennis with the vice dean of the rotten business school, and we’ve had some great conversations because he teaches MBA students leadership. And it was quite revealing to hear his perspective on leadership.

George
08:34
So it’s not that you can’t be a good leader, it’s that you don’t know how to be a good leader. And some of it is psychological. So you just can’t get. You can’t take a leap of faith. So, essentially, when I look at people improving, there’s what I call awareness. So I didn’t know. There’s understanding. Okay, I get it. There’s acceptance. Okay, I believe it. Then there’s a leap of faith. Okay, I’m going to try it. And then there’s the actualization. I’m doing it right. And most people can’t get to step five. They’re essentially handcuffed. And so I need to get them to step five in a safe way. And so if I can take the fear out of decision making, then you will become a better leader. So, essentially, it all comes down to psychology.

George
09:21
If you understand people and you understand how to get people from a to b, then you will have a huge impact. So the interesting thing about getting better is you will get better because you have to. So you’re in trouble. So a lot of our clients contact us because they’re in trouble.

Robert
09:36
Yeah. Pain is a great motivator.

George
09:38
Oh, it is. So is. So is curiosity. So some people are curious, right? Some people are inspired. So they see what we’ve done in our landscaping business. They’re like, yeah, I want to copy that. And then some people are wealthy. So what I mean by wealthy is they’re wealthy of mind. So there’s like, yeah, that makes sense. That is a tangible thing that I can understand. It is concrete, and I’m going to do it because I can. And so they don’t look at risk like most people. Those are the easiest clients to work with because they have to be trusting, number one. But they understand the risk is quite low, actually. So. So the analogy would be, let’s say my favorite one. My favorite question is, if you could go to Harvard, but you didn’t have the money, would you go?

George
10:30
And a lot of people say, no. Why not? Yeah, exactly. I would beg, borrow, steal, lie, and cheat to get into Harvard if I had the ability.

Robert
10:39
I don’t even care about the education. I just want to go hang out with everybody there.

George
10:42
You’ve got it. You’ve got it. So imagine you’re friends with, you know, one of the Kennedys, let’s say. Think of the opportunities that’s going to bring you. Case in point, the networking. In terms of leadership, there’s sort of low level sales. That’s client to client. You’re with the client, dealing with the client. Then there’s high level sales. It’s essentially marketing networking. And people don’t recognize how important networking is. I was just in New York City this week, and I was on the 53rd floor of an event from one of my friends that I met at our golf club. And, you know, they rented this penthouse for the 60th birthday. It must have cost $60,000 for that one event, for sure. And it was unbelievable.

George
11:28
And you’re sitting there looking out at New York, at the Hudson river and all the surrounding buildings, and you kind of understand what it’s like to be at the top. So I’m in landscaping. I’m kind of ground level. But, you know, imagine hanging out with those people, the benefits that it brings to you. And so where are you hanging out? So leadership, understanding the networking component, getting out there, joining your association. I know you guys are members of, I think it’s EO, which is entrepreneurs organization. There are huge benefits, and most people are in their little myopic silos of ignorance and they wonder why things don’t get better.

Robert
12:06
So I love it. Okay? So, I mean, it really rang true. And by no means am I saying I have this leadership thing figured out. I know that I’m always having to improve my game, but many years ago, I realized that I was a directorial leader. It was like, by nature, tell people what to do under whatever type of stress. And I learned that through EO, actually a facilitative leader can actually be much more powerful and get people moving a lot more. And then I learned the lessons of slow down to speed up and, you know, and they, and there’s so many more that come with it. So talking, like, for the audience listening now, you know, there’s going to be a few buckets of people. One is going to be, I am a good leader.

Robert
12:46
This guy doesn’t know what he’s talking about. One’s going to be, I don’t like being a leader. One’s, I wasn’t a good leader. Maybe I’m a good leader now. Maybe one is I’m not a good leader. What, what does it look like or sound like for somebody who is not necessarily where they need to be when it comes to their leadership?

George
13:03
Chops. So the number one thing is to understand yourself.

Robert
13:08
So I highly recommend, how do I recognize that I’m not leading the way? Like, what are the symptoms around me so that I’m, like, trying to paint a picture of, like, if you’re not great at leadership or if you’re a bad leader, this is typically what the organizational environment is going to look like and what it’s going to feel like to you.

George
13:26
So I’m going to back it up because there’s actually twelve different leadership styles, right? So if we go back and you identify what kind of leader you are, then that’ll determine your style. And style has a huge impact on organizations. I’ll give you an example. So let’s say that you’re an inspirational leader, right? Say a Martin Luther King. You may not be to manage anybody, but, man, you can get people to come out to rallies, right? Let’s say that you’re a benevolent dictator. There are dictators. There are benevolent.

Robert
13:57
No. Benevolent. Benevolent dictators, right?

George
13:59
They’re rare. They’re rare. So maybe the king of Jordan might be an example of that. But he was actually a special forces guy, so he understands decision making and trade offs. Tactics and the strategy and tactics, they’re two different things. So some people are really crafty, but they don’t have vision. So there’s different types of thinking. So for example, there’s conceptual thinking, there’s analytical thinking, there’s procedural thinking, and there’s storytelling, right? So the best CEO’s are conceptual thinkers. And you may not have that talent, right? Having said that, on the, you know, on the battlefield, if you’re a soldier, you could be a tactical leader who in the moment makes amazing decisions but doesn’t really have a strategy. You just react to things. So reactive behavior is essentially tactics.

George
14:56
And you can either have a controlled environment where you don’t have to fight anybody, which is awesome, right? And then you also have opportunities where you’re an opportunist, where you’re able to seize on opportunities because you’re tactical. But essentially there should be a strategy. Do this, don’t do this. If this happens, do this. And some of leadership is decision trees. But to go back to your point about the difference between great leaders, I will read this off to you. So you have boss and you have leader. So a boss knows everything. A leader admits mistakes. A boss tells people what to do. A leader demonstrates how to manage work. A boss criticizes. A leader gives good advice. A boss talks fast. I got to work on that one. And a leader gives direction. A boss demands respect.

George
15:51
A leader earns and deserves respect. A boss says, I. A leader says, we. A boss blames others. A leader works together. A boss commands. A leader asks a boss, this is one I caught on you a little bit earlier, uses but or because or no but. And a leader uses and instead of the word but because but diminishes or dismisses what happened before whereas and allows the thing that happened before to be acknowledged. And it’s an addition, so you don’t have to delete something to move forward. And a boss is stuck on fixed ideas. And a coach is coachable. A leader is coachable. So those are some distinctions between behaviors. And the crazy part is, it’s not that you’re a bad person if you’re a boss. It’s just like you don’t even understand that you’re behaving that way.

George
16:47
So it’s kind of neat in that consulting sessions, when somebody does boss behaviors, I call them out immediately. We kind of make it a joke, but it’s just so much more inspiring to work for a leader rather than a boss.

Robert
17:00
Very cool. So leadership being the primary growth constraint. You were starting to get into this idea of self awareness. It sounded like as like a step to start moving in the right direction when it comes to raising your leadership level. So what does that look like? How does someone start that process?

George
17:18
So you can go online and you can take a Myers Briggs test for free. There’s also the five personality types. I think Jordan Peterson has that. Maybe it’s $10 or something and kind of look at like, what’s your DNA? Who are you? So I always like to use animal kingdom analogies. You know, if you’re born a lion, you know you’re not going to behave like a lambda. And so if you’re a lamb and you’re going to be a leader, maybe you want to find a shepherd. So you want to understand who you are. So if you’re not a hard, tough person, it’s harder to be a leader for sure.

George
17:58
But if you can align yourself sort of in the shepherd kind of idea of a shepherd, then you’re going to surround yourself with people who are nurturing, caring, but you also have a nice dog that will take care of you and take care of your herd, so you can still lead. You don’t have to be in front leading necessarily. You can be leading from behind by surrounding yourself with amazing people. So we talked about the different types of leaderships and sort of the psychology behind this. So there are what are called bureaucratic leaders, people that are wicked at process and procedure. Guess what? You need those in your business. And sometimes it takes a team, not I, we, to move ahead. So you say, okay, I’ve got the direction. I’ve got the vision.

George
18:46
By the same token, let’s say you are an autocratic type of leader, right? Or dictatorial leader. That works too, but it’s going to be a very ugly workplace. And those places thrive as well. There’s no right answer. There’s different ways to lead. It just depends on what you’re comfortable with and who’s going to stay on your team. Because I assure you, if you have a wolf pack culture, someone’s going to get bitten quite a bit. Whereas if you have sort of that shepherd mentality, it’s much more nuanced, takes more work, mind you, but it’s certainly a better place to work for most people.

Robert
19:27
So the idea is, okay, so let’s go online, take an assessment, become self aware, and then from there, once I understand what kind of leader I am, I can start to make some conscious decisions on how I want to start moving forward as a leader.

George
19:37
Yes.

Robert
19:38
So then. Sorry, go ahead.

George
19:41
Yeah, I was just going to say. And so also remember that you might be an advisor. So, you know, lawyers aren’t leaders, they’re advisors. And unfortunately, some of them run our country. But lawyers are there for protection and advice. They shouldn’t lead anybody into anything. And some of them are in the combative roles. Right. Some of are in sort of diplomatic roles. Those are all different nuances of leadership. But the actual commander who gives a direction of what we’re doing, where we’re going, when we’re doing it, how we’re doing it, who’s on the bus? Who’s not on the bus, who, you know, off the bus is hard, right? There should be people that aren’t on your bus. That is where the hard part of leadership comes in, because it’s emotional. So there’s what’s called objective thinking and subjective thinking. So subjective thinking is feeling.

George
20:26
So a lot of people are feelings based, I feel. And then objective people are, I think. And usually those tend to better leaders because they look at facts and they are less sensitive to feelings. But overall, they make the best decisions. So the best leaders are able to balance objective and subjective thinking so that you move forward and take care of people as you go. And that’s difficult. So, you know, there’s a lot to leadership. And I guess most people don’t really think about leadership that much. They just command or they have instinctive abilities that they’ve learned that work. But the best companies I’ve seen take leadership training and they take it seriously, and it’s amazing. They use what’s called a Socratic method. So, in other words, to get answers.

George
21:17
They ask questions, and the questions get people to arrive at their own conclusions after thinking about things objectively and subjectively. And so their ability to follow is much higher because they came to the conclusion themselves. It wasn’t you telling them what to do. I love it, and that’s very important.

Robert
21:37
Okay, so we got leadership as the number one thing, which I think is awesome, because so many people, whether it’s through this podcast or, you know, haphazardly at a conference or whatever, landscape or not, but specifically landscape staff, number one issue, what I find fascinating, when people look inward and they admit, like, I’ve had a couple people on the show, one of them being Chris Sheer, he said himself, and being the bottleneck of the company and having to grow himself as a leader in order for the company to grow, I find that those people typically become the most successful, if not aren’t already.

Robert
22:16
And what I think is really interesting in the way that you put it, and I would get your take on this thing, is, if staff is the perceived constraint and leadership is really the constraint, how does getting leadership right then dovetail into getting rid of staff as an issue?

George
22:32
Okay, I’ll give you a great example. So there are two leaders that I’ve come across that I think are the highest level of leadership I’ve ever seen in a couple of companies that I’ve consulted. And actually one of them was an employee that I hired, and he left my company. He gave me three months notice, which is awesome.

Robert
22:53
Yeah. It says a lot about the character in itself. Right.

George
22:55
It’s unbelievable. And then when he handed the car back, he had it detailed on his own dime. Okay. He had a coach that he hired just for growth, personal growth. See the personal growth coach. Imagine that 28 year old gets this job with another company. We recommend him highly. Within three months, he’s given the keys to the business. And he says to the owner, I’m going to give you ten chances to change your behavior. And every time you behave poorly, you’re going to get written up by me, and on the 10th time, I will no longer work for you. Okay, now that’s leadership.

Robert
23:40
And explicit. And communicate it.

George
23:45
Yeah. And so I just imagine you come in and he’s high level. Like, everything’s precise, everything’s contemporaneous, he writes everything down. He’s procedural, he’s got vision, he’s agile, crazy smart. He was check, check. Educational background is ridiculous in mathematics, great people skills, actually an introvert. And you look at this person, you say, wow, you know, if I had this person, my company, it would change radically. It’s a game changer. Yeah. So that word you just said, the game. Game changer. What is the game changer for your company? And it’s you. And so, you know, if you’re not prepared to be a great leader and understand what that’s all about, there is no hope for your company to improve rapidly. It’s just impossible.

Robert
24:42
So did that leader with the ten points, did he stay or did he go?

George
24:49
So the leader, so imagine he gets hired, he takes over the business, and the leader just kind of throws his hands up and is now, well, there’s a new leader who’s better than him. And, like, to the point where it’s so obvious that, you know, why make a mistake when the other guy can do it for you? I mean, you know, sometimes leadership is getting out of the way, letting other people that are better than you do the work. It could be something below you, it could be something on the same level as you, or it could be something above you. So my rule of thumb is, if there’s somebody better than me at something, here’s the keys, like, go do it. Awesome. You’re the best. So it’s not about power. Like, people confuse leadership and power. I don’t care about power.

George
25:35
I don’t care about prestige. None of that stuff matters to me. All that matters is that my life is easy and other people’s lives are easy, and we make work a great place to be. It’s fun. That’s what fun is.

Robert
25:49
Well, and that’s where I want to even take this next level. First of all, that example of someone coming in and having tenacity might not be the right word, but, you know, the confidence to say to somebody, look, I got ten. Obviously, this leader didn’t behave well a couple of times, and then he gave him the ten point, you know, ultimatum. But then, so you have a leader then who is, who’s behaving well, who might be procedural or inspirational or whatever it might be in terms of style. And then consistency, I know, is a big part of good leadership because it creates ecological safety. People can, they know what to expect from this person. They’re not showing emotional ups and downs and scaring. People are cuddling them and no one knows what to expect.

Robert
26:36
So then people become, you know, confident and comfortable and. Yes, and want to stay. And because there’s so many people staying, the culture gets stronger. There’s camaraderie, there’s bond rapport. People want to come versus the opposite, where someone might be a boss. Majority of the time, people don’t want to stay. It becomes difficult to you know, attract new talent. So can you just speak to the idea of, like, retention and recruitment and the. And how important leadership is to making those two parts of the business successful?

George
27:08
That’s it. That was summarized beautifully. So imagine I want to help a business, and the first thing I come across is the leader. And then I see all the leaders weaknesses, their traits. Right. And I have weaknesses, too, don’t get me wrong. I offset my weaknesses with people that are much stronger than me in certain areas. Right. And it’s like, hey, you know, like, fantastic. Thank you. So, essentially, the first thing in terms of the leadership, like, if I was going to fix a business, because this podcast is about growth, but the truth is, you got to fix your business before you can grow, because you just grow. Problems like growing isn’t necessarily a good thing. Growing a tumor doesn’t help you know?

Robert
27:55
No, it doesn’t. That’s actually really bad.

George
27:57
Yeah. So, so if I look at a business, I. It’s pretty simple. I have like a, B, C, D E. So a is savings. In other words, cuts. What am I going to cut? And a lot of people are tied to things. Oh, you know, I love that machine. Or I, you know, or that person’s so great. And they’re like, well, they’re not really that great. So essentially, from the savings perspective, we got to get rid of some things that you don’t need that don’t help you, actually. And then there’s opportunities for change. Okay? So we’re going to do things differently, because what we’re doing now we didn’t even know is hurting us. And if we made these few changes, it would be so much easier. So let’s make some changes then. Those are easy, by the way.

George
28:36
Those are like, those cost no money. They basically require, you know, decisions. And most people tie the concept of decisions and choices together. So a choice comes from the heart, a decision comes from the mind. And so we need to make hard decisions. And sometimes those are choices. And choices are really difficult because it’s black and white. Whereas a decision, you’re weighing things back and forth. You hem and yo haw. You have to make a choice in your heart. I know this is right. So savings opportunities, change opportunities. Then we’ve got investments. Well, guess what? They take money. I got to invest in a bunch of things. And once we make those investments, then in terms of investments like assets, infrastructure, equipment, trucks, yard loaders, things like that, inventory, we’ve got to make some investments in people.

George
29:31
So maybe I need that CFO or whatever it is. We’ve got to make some investments in technology. We need to make some investments in experts. So generally hiring a marketing firm like yours, right, guess what? Branding is massive. If it wasn’t massive, Apple wouldn’t do branding. And so if you don’t have a branding expert, I call them experts on your team. And yes, it costs money, but the return is insanely amazing and it’s intangible. Or hiring somebody to help you set up your finances properly. Properly. Or your estimating systems or all those things. Experts, right. So we need to make investments, but most of us are afraid to. It’s like, oh my God, I’m going to spend 15 or $20,000 or $50,000, but what’s your return on investment? So my golden rule of thumb, this is simple. This can be taught.

George
30:25
If I make a decision and the return is one to one, in other words, I spend a dollar and I get the dollar back the same year. I do it every time. I still can’t get people to hire me as a consultant sometimes because they just can’t get over the concept that I got to spend money. So how do you move the business forward? You can’t. You’re stuck. So there’s a bottleneck and it’s a leadership bottleneck because they can’t see the benefit. They’re so afraid. They’re in such a savings mindset. Savings and investment are the two same sides of the coin. Right.

Robert
31:00
The last time I checked, a savings account doesn’t pay nearly as well as an investment account.

George
31:04
That’s right. That’s right. And there is risk with investments. So, you know, I have some rules to sort of calm down your subjective thinking. So the first one is, if I make this investment decision from a leadership perspective, will it put me at a business? No. Okay. Now I can move to step two. Should I do this, yes or no? All right, what’s the pros? What’s the cons? And then what are the unintended consequences? What didn’t I see coming? And so that will get you to yes faster. We need to get to yes a lot faster because people think at glacial speeds. And leadership is about making decisions. If I’m right, and this is going to sound arrogant, but I’m right nine out of ten times when I’m wrong, I just go, oops, sorry.

George
31:49
And I know it wasn’t going to put me out of business, so I reverse course and I fix it. I move forward.

Robert
31:54
It’s great. There was a person just to highlight that idea of decision making. There was a person name eludes me at this point. I can find it for the subscription or the description of the podcast. They said his biggest advantage as a leader and as an entrepreneur is that he at least five times more quickly making decisions. So he said they think about it. Somebody who takes a week to make a decision makes 50 decisions a year.

George
32:17
Yes.

Robert
32:17
Who takes a day to make a decision, makes 360 decisions a year. And that compounds very fast.

George
32:24
Right. And so if you put a filter on there of the ROI filter, your if then logic with a qualification of examine the unintended consequences. Right. Then it’s pretty hard to screw up, actually. And now imagine you have an advisor or a coach who’s been there and done that and who has the filter of experience and also isn’t, you know, a wild man. You’re going to end up moving forward at lightning speed. But most people, they just can’t get over the hump. They’re so afraid of spending money. The irony is that being an entrepreneur is the riskiest thing you can do. And then you go into cocoon mode while you’re in the entrepreneurship, you know?

Robert
33:09
Yeah. It’s like people almost get to a comfort level and then they just don’t want to lose.

George
33:13
Pretty much. That’s it. But they won’t lose. That’s the crazy part. They won’t lose. So essentially, imagine you’ve got to cut stuff. That’s not hard to do. It’s easy to cut stuff. People think it’s hard, but it’s really easy. Sell that piece of equipment, raise some cash, do something better with it. Spend the money in marketing, get better sales, upgrade your customers, sales training, whatever. And the money’s there. The money’s in your balance sheet. Most of the money people don’t realize is sitting there wasted in their businesses and they haven’t deployed it properly. Okay.

Robert
33:42
So give us a quick example of that, because not a lot of people necessarily understand balance sheets well at all, let alone the fact that there’s going to be assets or cash resources sitting there, liquid in a balance sheet that they don’t know how to deploy.

George
33:52
Right. So a balance sheet essentially is your total net worth and your liabilities. So in other words, I have cash, I have stocks, I have bonds, I have a car, I have a house. Right. Then I have liabilities, I have a mortgage payment, I have car payments, and my net worth or my equity is the asset minus liabilities. Thats essentially a balance sheet. It tells you what youre worth. Then the question is whats the quality of my balance sheet. If you had all your stuff in vehicles and you had no home, thats worth a lot less because it depreciates on a house, which appreciates if I had all my money in cash, it would be a safer, more liquid investment that I could use. So I’ve got a more liquid balance sheet, which allows me to do things.

George
34:43
So essentially you want to create liquidity in your balance sheet or the ability to leverage your balance sheet to create liquidity so you can use that money to invest in your business. And so it’s tied up in a truck that’s doing nothing. Right or being used by.

Robert
34:58
Once a month. Sorry, once a month. Like they’re using it for like, it’s like a special truck project. Once a month?

George
35:06
That’s right. And then, and then it messes up their schedule. There’s a whole like litany of cascading, negative things that happen. And so what I do essentially is I look at, okay, let’s. What should we get rid of? Are you okay with this? And, you know, hopefully the people are, and they raise some cash and that pays for me. So I cost nothing. And actually they have some money left over to do some other things, maybe spend some marketing money on you to get better customers. That’s how it rolls. We’ve got these investments that need to be made in assets, people, technology experts. And then we also have revenue opportunities. So once I made these investments, I’ll give you an example.

George
35:47
Let’s say I bought a yard loader and I have a property, then I can get tenants, then I can unload my trucks more efficiently. Then I can set up my own distribution system. So im more efficient to my job sites. That money came from that idle truck or whatever that was sitting there resting in the corner to afford these investments that now allow me to get, lets say a tenant, or maybe I get material savings because I can grab things on the backhaul. Theres a whole bunch of things that are going to be spin offs or revenue opportunities as a result of those investments. So if you make the cuts and then you make the investments and you reallocate the money, you can actually create additional revenue with zero effort. So people don’t understand how to do this.

George
36:35
And that’s what’s called vertical integration, which is a whole other topic. But leadership is understanding how this all works. Most people didn’t get a business education. I was lucky enough to study economics and finance and organizational behavior at university. So I had a little bit of a background in this I still learned the hard way.

Robert
36:55
So what do they say? A, students are the best and they get hired quick list. B, students are the managers, and c, students are the owners?

George
37:03
Yes. Yes. And so my goal as a C student is to get all A’s, right? I got to get all A’s on my team. And you don’t have to be that smart, but you have to have a few operating principles, and you have to hang out with really smart people and get really smart people to work for you because they believe in what you’re doing. They believe in your product or your service, and they get fulfillment out of their work. And if you can inspire people. So inspiration is a big part of leadership, then people will do all kinds of things for you that they otherwise wouldn’t. So, you know, one of the other concepts of leadership is what’s called flow efficiency. That goes back to Kaizen. So imagine you have a soccer team.

George
37:51
I used to watch my daughter play really high level soccer, and the coach would say, don’t force the ball. Every time someone forced the ball would get stripped and you’re on your back foot. So they would wait, hold the ball, and then distribute the ball at the right opportunity. But further to that, when I looked at how they operated their practices, they had a routine. The players came whether the coach was there or not. They did their burpees and stretching and all other stuff. Then they would run laps, and then they would do drills. Then they would do specific drills. They would do individual drills, team drills. Then they would play a game. They would get the result, go back and continue to work on practicing. So meetings, the concept of having awesome meetings is the same thing as a practice.

George
38:38
You do not get better playing the game. You get better practicing. The best example I can think of is Roger Federer was injured and he took six months off to practice, and he came back and he won three majors. Now, those of you that are not familiar with tennis, essentially, there’s like 168 players and one person wins. Very difficult. And it’s sort of a, like, just, you got to get through one game, then another game. And as it works, the best players end up playing each other. So why did he win? He won because he was practicing while everybody was playing. It’s that simple. And we don’t spend time on meetings. We don’t have meeting structures. We don’t have agendas. We don’t communicate well. We have, you know, we have a no mindset. Oh, that won’t work in my company.

George
39:29
It’s one of my favorite ones I hear all the time. It’s like, well, hold on a second. How come it worked in my company and the all the other companies? The only reason it’s not working is because you’re not doing it and you’re not basically investing the effort to make it happen.

Robert
39:42
Well, that belief and that leap of faith ping that you’re talking about earlier.

George
39:47
Exactly. So. So, you know, there are some things that are unpleasant. People hate change. So just for fun, I learned this from one of the consultants way back when. I heard everybody should cross their arms right now who are listening to this podcast, cross your arms. Now, what I want you to do is cross your arms the other way.

Robert
40:06
I hate this. It feels so weird.

George
40:08
It’s awful. Now, some people are ambidextrous and they say, okay, well, I want you to work for me. Me, because you’re an agile person. But the fact of the matter is, most of us hate change. We hate it, and some changes are absolutely necessary. So one of the best lines I ever heard from a leadership perspective is the people will change or the people will change. So that’s leadership, right? That’s my mindset. I want eight players, and there are some things that we’re going to raise the bar on. In other words, set a standard and we’re all going to agree to the standard. And those people that don’t agree with the standard can’t play on this team showing up on time. That’s how hard is that. So we accept poor behaviors as leaders, and we wonder why we get poor results.

George
40:55
One of my favorite leadership tips or techniques is, let’s say you have a meeting and somebody’s been behaving poorly. What we do is we’ll send an Uber to pick them up and bring them in the office for a little discussion. So everybody knows if you’re getting an Uber, it’s not good. So the idea, though, is we don’t do it in a punitive. We say, here’s the standard. We know you can do this. This is a re education opportunity. Please comply. It’ll better for you and better for us. We want to give you more money, but until this happens, we can’t do that. So they go out and then they have a choice to make. Are either going to change or they’re going to change. Yeah, but we don’t wait, like we call it out immediately.

George
41:42
The only exception to that is if the person’s angry. So you never argue with angry person. So their disposition has to be calm. So imagine they’re taking the uber ride over their head spinning. They have time to think and calm down. They probably already know what it’s about. And at this point, actually, I’m going to create a sign that says, what’s your disposition? So if you’re angry, we can’t talk, just take the day off. We have to be in a calm state of mind to have a rational conversation. So I can’t let the tail wag the dog. And these are all some leadership principles that everybody’s picking up from this podcast. It’s a question of whether or not they’re going to actualize them. And that’s where the coach comes in. You can call up your coach and say, hey, I got a situation.

George
42:27
What do I do? Well, here’s what you do. Here’s how you do it. Cool. And you end up with more positive results than negative results over time, the more you do it. And so it’s compounding, right? It’s a compounding benefit. And this is one of the best lines I ever heard. I had one of my friends who was head of HR for a huge company at 5000 employees, and I said, okay, so I want your kernels of leadership wisdom. He was an HR guy. What are five sort of plaques you would have above your desk in your home office, sort of crystallizing all of the wisdom that you’ve learned. He said, well, George, I only need one. I said, really? What’s that? He said, the plaque would say, you have no idea how close you were to getting fired.

George
43:17
And it was like, oh, my God. And you think about it’s the other way. Oh, my God. You have no idea how close I was to court quitting. Right? The flip side of that coin. But imagine that plaque was not there and that never happened. That would be the goal. Right? So clearly there’s a misunderstanding that’s going on between your staff and yourself. There’s a misalignment. And, you know, if we’re not honest, frankly, honest with people, they don’t know. And so that creates misunderstandings, assumptions which are dangerous. And again, that’s an application of leadership. So that high level leadership is the example of one of my employees who said, ten strikes and I’m out of here. Wow. Isn’t that refreshing? Right? And we’re all capable of it.

George
44:04
One of the techniques that I do to get people to sort of stick to their word is I say, okay, I need you to look me in the eye, I’m going to shake your hand, and we’re going to agree on this. I am going to do this. Repeat after me. And sure enough, the compliance rate is way higher because it’s very difficult to break a bond when you look somebody in the eye and you shake your hand and you say it out loud. I say it out loud. I commit, too. It’s a big deal. Marriage vows are the same thing, right? You’re essentially making a commitment to another person, and it’s a big deal in front of a bunch of other people. It’s a lot harder to sort of, you know, I’m out of here.

Robert
44:42
Well, yeah. And are you familiar with Robert Cialdini stuff?

George
44:46
No.

Robert
44:47
So there are seven principles of ethical influence, and one of them is the principle of consistency. I will. I will be much more than like, hey, will you let me know? And they say, yes. It’s like, no, you make them say, I will let you know. The more likely they are to follow through when they say, I will do something. That’s really, that’s cool. And Robert Cialdini, for anybody who’s listening, is a really great resource. It’s Jedi type of stuff, but very cool. Researched anecdotal, seven ethical principles of influence. It’s really strong. Okay, so on that note of resources, as we’re coming to the end of this podcast, George, we’re gonna do another one. We know we have to do a couple of these. When it comes to building my leadership chops. What kind of resources? Authors, speakers, videos, podcasts.

Robert
45:32
Would you recommend someone check out if they wanna dig into this a bit more on their own?

George
45:37
Yeah. So one of my favorite podcasters is a guy called Lex Fridman, and he interviews everybody from a spectrum of, I guess, careers. So, you know, he might interview a philosopher, he might interview Elon Musk, he might interview a president, he might interview an MMA fighter, he might interview a physicist, he might interview anthropologist. And you start to see the patterns and you start to understand why certain people are successful and why others aren’t. And you also start to combine concepts that make you more powerful, because person that can connect the dots can essentially use intuition to extrapolate what the future is going to look like. And I’m a huge fan of Lex Fridman, so those of you that are interested in all kinds of different topics, go check out his podcast. Like Gary Kasparov, just the world’s greatest chess player.

George
46:53
The things that they have to say are just so profound and they make you know, a more whole person.

Robert
47:01
I think that’s really cool. That’s. I appreciate that. And, and then on the flip side though, if someone wants to really get going and they want to engage with George and knowledge tree, like, how do they do that?

George
47:10
So you can go on our website, knowledge tree consulting, and you can book a free 15 minutes evaluation and have a little discussion with me about your business. We can send you a document called business Report card that quickly will give you analysis of where your strengths and weaknesses are. And then, yeah, I’d love to work with you. We also have an upcoming open house coming on October 21 at JC landscaping’s facility. He is an amazing leader and runs an amazing business. So that’s another opportunity to meet with us. Going to be at landscape Ontario on the 12th and the 13th, I think.

Robert
47:56
Yeah, this won’t be live for the, for that. Oh, but you can find George, engage with landscape Ontario. What other associations do you kind of help with?

George
48:08
That’s pretty much it right now. Like, you know, we really just started to dive into our consulting business. I’ve been doing it ad hoc for, you know, for 15 years, but now, and now it’s a serious business.

Robert
48:19
So it’s game on.

George
48:21
Yeah, exactly.

Robert
48:22
Well, it’s been an absolute joy. I really appreciate this. And we’re gonna have to do another one. So in the next, you know, whatever month or so when we sat down for a ballgame, 3 hours plus, there must have been seven or eight podcasts that we could have recorded there. So I really appreciate doing that. If anybody wants to get in touch with George, knowledge consulting.com, I’m assuming.

George
48:42
Yes.

Robert
48:43
Yeah. Awesome. Okay. Thanks again for doing this and thanks everybody for listening. The I am landscape growth podcast is brought to you by intrigue, where passionate marketing meets predictable results for entrepreneurs. Remember to like and subscribe the podcast so you don’t miss the next episode. And if you would like to be a guest on the podcast, please visit intriguemedia.com and click on podcasts.