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00:00:01
Rising Out of the Ashes: From Ash Bore Blight to Industry Leading Tree Care Company
80 Plays2 years ago
In this episode of The Better Contractor Podcast, Join Brent Oberlink and Travis May as they dive into the world of business, leadership, and community service on The Better Contractor Podcast with guest, Josh Guin from Oak Bros Trees.
On the episode, they discuss entrepreneurial beginnings, and pivotal moments that shaped their company's trajectory, including a transformative event that led to a renewed focus on safety and professionalism. Through candid conversations and personal anecdotes, they highlight the power of resilience, innovation, and community engagement in building a successful business.
Tune in to The Better Contractor Podcast for entrepreneurial advice, industry insights, and inspiring stories that will empower you to take your contracting business to new heights while making a positive impact in your community.
#GreenRevolution #SustainableLandscaping #CordlessTechnology #LandscapeInnovation #FutureofLandscaping #BatteryPower #EnvironmentalSustainability #Efficiency #CostSavings #RoboticMowers #LandscapeTech #GoCordless #GreenFuture #LandscapingTrends #EntrepreneurialMindset #OakBros
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Transcript
Introduction with Josh from Oak Bros
00:00:11
Speaker
Welcome back to another edition of The Better Contractor. Today, I'm proud to have Josh with Oak Bro's Tree. A few episodes ago, we had his wife Jackie on and loved it. So we decided to bring Josh on as well. Josh, welcome. Thank you very much, gentlemen. Brent, happy to be here, happy to share a little bit about what I do on a daily basis and a little bit more about our company. Awesome, man. Travis, as always, welcome.
00:00:38
Speaker
could see you here. I'm excited about this one. Oat Bros is becoming a kind of a family extension of the better contractor. Love it. Yeah, no, it's awesome to have like minded people on the podcast. So when I say like minded, I'm talking like, you know, from the business standpoint of how to conduct business, how to do business. It's that growth and self improvement mindset. So really have enjoyed having you guys on looking forward to talking some more.
00:01:07
Speaker
When we kick off, I kind of like to have a little bit of time where the listener gets to learn a little bit about you. So tell them just a little bit about you personally, and then we'll transition into how did you get started with Oakbros? Absolutely. So maybe a little bit of recap from Jackie's podcast, but, uh, got a family of five. I had the pleasure of working with my wife at Oakbros. We have three beautiful children, all very small. And.
00:01:36
Speaker
I am involved in a lot of different things in business. I'm actually the fire chief in the community that we live in. So we can get into that
Josh's Background in Tree Care and Fire Service
00:01:50
Speaker
a little bit later. But in 2009, I started Oak Bros, but also joined the fire service all at the same time and went to college for that.
00:02:01
Speaker
got my degree from Eastern Kentucky University in fire explosion investigation. So had several different paths to go down, whether it was private, whether it was federal, whether it was municipal firefighting or fire investigation, but chose to kind of do both. And so I am running Oak Grove Street Care full time doing the fire department.
00:02:31
Speaker
full time and then was met with a crossroads. The business was starting to blow up and I had to make a decision. So I focused on the business still continuing to serve my community in a volunteer capacity. And at the end of the day, that's what I'm designed to do in this world is to serve people and help advance people's lives and professional world, but also in their personal lives as well. I love it. I love it.
00:02:58
Speaker
Yeah, and one of the last things we'll talk about too is a little bit of a kind of giving back program on this podcast, which I think is really cool and I want to hear more about that one for sure. But as you started Oprah's, what was some of the initial challenges you had as you took off? Well. It was 2009 and I was a senior in high school. You started getting away at my age. I'm 33 years old and I've seen a lot in my young ages, but have had a wonderful time.
00:03:28
Speaker
learning from people much smarter than me. And I would say the most difficult thing was starting a business. Number one, we didn't really know what we were doing. And I had a business partner at the time, Nick Campbell, who is my best friend, always will be, always has been. And we started the company together in high school and he exited in 2012.
00:03:56
Speaker
kind of had a passion and vision for something else in his life. Because at that time, it was a side business. We were going to college. We were still in high school, yada, yada. And he didn't really maybe have the same mindset or path or vision of what this company could be. And I did. It was the heart and the brunt of emerald ash borer.
00:04:23
Speaker
in the state of Illinois back in 2009. So we had a large amount of work to be done. And so we luckily just got into the business at the right time because there were so many trees that had to be removed. Not saying that that was what our hope and intent and focus was, but that was the current workload was a lot of dead trees in our community. If it wouldn't have been Emerald Ashmore season, it may not have been the same type of success or
00:04:53
Speaker
me really able to start the business and flourish. But there's just so much work at the time that there could have been a million companies come in to town and we all would have been fine. I'm surprised it wasn't Ash Bros then. There was a lot of funny tag lines for different business names for buddies over the years. Yeah, those early years, it's awesome you started that young. So I started Atlantic Corp.
00:05:24
Speaker
Young, but not that young, 24 years old. Uh, my wife, I think it was 23 when we started. So young, but it's amazing how when you first are getting going, you're just so hungry. So it's just, you just go, go, go, go, go, which is awesome. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. My wife was in law school, so it allowed me to really focus on the business, but, um, it is cool, like that hunger and that drive at that age that we all have.
00:05:54
Speaker
But then at the same time, I speak for myself here, I was so hungry just to grow, grow, grow, that sometimes there's little things that maybe slipped through the cracks. And with Lantern Corps, because we work a lot inside of oil and gas, safety is a huge, huge thing for us and has been from day one, because you're simply not going to go get contracts if you don't do it. So I know in 2012, you had a little bit of a hiccup on a job site.
00:06:20
Speaker
Not uncommon in the tree world, unfortunately, but I think what's important here is your response
OSHA Inspection and Safety Overhaul
00:06:25
Speaker
to it. So there's a lot of companies that will have a safety issue or whatever happened. And they just don't simply react. I mean, we've taken, Lanarkore has taken a lot of contracts from competitors on that, where they've had something happen, but they did not react appropriately, mitigate that hazard or whatever. We offer a solution and then now we have the work.
00:06:47
Speaker
And we've had things happen over the years too, but it's our response to that. That's what gets us ahead. So I want to hear a little bit more. Cause I think you guys did a very good job of mitigating and actually reacting to that instead of being like, eh, this tree care, it happens. Can you tell us a little bit more about that? Sure. Of course. And I, I told the story a lot. Um, it's basically how to deal with leadership pain.
00:07:17
Speaker
able to help the audience. But first, it's a little bit of a shame on me because I had been in the fire service for four years since then, which if anybody you know is a fireman, safety is at the utmost importance. It should be ingrained into your DNA. And so I've always known, since I've joined the department, how to be safe, why to be safe, and should have carried that over into my own business.
00:07:47
Speaker
It did to certain points, but it wasn't one of those, you're gonna do it or you're not gonna do the job at all type of things. Hey, if I left the harness at the shop that day, I'm not gonna go back and get it. I'm just gonna continue with the job and I'll remember it tomorrow type of thing. But yeah, so there's a lot of ways to discuss leadership pain
00:08:15
Speaker
And in 2012, we were randomly inspected by OSHA on one of our job sites, unannounced, unplanned. At the time, we were very small. We had three or four employees. I was still an owner operator at that time working on the job site with our team. So I was there, luckily, and, you know,
00:08:46
Speaker
It was a very oh crap moment because I had never really experienced this before. Didn't really know who they were at the time. Saw them from the bucket. I was up in the bucket at that time and could see them a block or two away. And that's how they like to do things. They like to build the story, paint the picture. And so they start taking pictures from the block or two away and then
00:09:19
Speaker
through picture and video. So at the end of the five or ten minutes that he was kind of walking up and taking pictures, comes to the job site, shuts us down, introduces himself,
00:09:35
Speaker
see OSHA on his safety vest when he turned around I thought I had a heart attack because I knew oh boy no matter how good we were with safety or no matter how many policies and procedures we had in place they can find just about anything and at the time it was the winter we had left our safety harness for the bucket in the back of our pickup truck that night the night before and it snowed and so it was a block of ice
00:10:03
Speaker
This is an honest story, not telling any fibs that harness was in the truck with the heat turned on blast, trying to defrost it when the ocean spectra comes on site. The other thing, our chipper operator had his safety glasses on top of his head like this.
00:10:25
Speaker
instead of bound. So there was a violation. Long story short, we got popped with two serious violations for not wearing appropriate personal protective equipment, PPE, and they were serious violations. KOSHA classified as like two or three different classifications. Well, serious violations result in a very expensive fine, whether it's a first offense or not. And
00:10:54
Speaker
It shook me to my core, to be honest with you. It was a huge problem, a huge issue for a very small company that wasn't making a lot of revenue at that time, didn't have a lot of clients, still trying to find my way in the industry. And so I had big decisions to make, like a crossroads 101 decision. Saddle up or shut up is kind of what I thought, right? You're either going to give in or give out,
00:11:25
Speaker
on this issue, because as you indicated earlier, Travis, it could be a business ending problem. You know, for some businesses that receive three, four, five violations at once, you're looking at over $100,000 in violation fees that you would have to pay. Now they have payment plans and yada yada yada, but at the end of the day, a dollar's a dollar. And as a business owner, especially this day and age, every penny counts.
00:11:55
Speaker
And that's very much the stick, so the stick and the carrot, and so safety. I think I've talked about it before. My dad was in oil and gas, and he was health and safety coordinator pretty much. I think for most of his career, at least to the second half, he was an oil-fueled hand, and things prior to him worked his way up. So safety was always kind of ingrained, and I never saw it as anything other than that's something you're just supposed to do.
00:12:21
Speaker
And it's a carrot and a stick. But I mean, I've been in other organizations that I've worked. We've had the safety stand downs. We've had the safety briefs and the content that gets pushed out. And a lot of it can be super dry. A lot of it, people don't understand. And wherever it gets attributed as far as who's responsible for this, probably a little bit on both sides, taking ownership of it, but don't understand how it actually impacts.
00:12:51
Speaker
a check in the box, it's actually inhibitor for us to get in our job done. It's some sort of thing that we have to check the box on. And they don't really understand the why behind stuff. And there's the carrot and the sticks, you got the OSHA. OSHA was big, big in our house as far as a household name growing up. But my dad very much had a good partnership with them. And he took an approach much like with what you did. And I guess we'll talk a little bit about this to you about how
00:13:20
Speaker
It transformed later into the relationship, but he had a great working relationship with OSHA versus some organizations. It's the big bad bear lurking behind the, or down the road a mile away with the camera. So the carrot and the stick component of some people operate their safety programs out of fear. And I don't want to get hit, especially if you're a younger organization. Yeah. A hundred grand.
00:13:49
Speaker
If you got hit with four violations, that's probably close and shock for most people. And all the time, effort, blood, sweat, tears, people depending on that organization, that could be a huge motivating factor, just the stick component of that and getting people to operate safely and do the right things just from that regard from the stick. The positive side. Of course, of course.
00:14:17
Speaker
Can I just tell all like all the business owners out there that are listening to this podcast you yourselves like Can I just tell you something when you make a mistake can you just own it like at the end of the day? How hard is that? To comprehend how hard is that to do? We are the leaders of the organizations We everyone makes mistakes, but it seems like from the top down
00:14:47
Speaker
on to someone else. You know, it was the next guy's problem. And at the end of the day, if we have extreme ownership, we've got to own it. And we've got to deal with it. That sounds like a book you've read, Travis. So Jocko willing extreme ownership. I got Jocko lays it down. And the dichotomy of leadership is the follow up book to that in that there's balance between all of it. But the
00:15:15
Speaker
I think one of the main premises of extreme ownership, people can take that to an extreme is where I own everything, but it's really about having the mentality at all levels. I do own it all. In that if you can get everybody to take personal accountability and responsibility for what they're doing in their own actions and what they're working on, you can solve problems. One, you can mitigate problems before they become a problem. But then if they do materialize into something that becomes a problem,
00:15:44
Speaker
you can fix it a lot faster because you've now got buy-in and you've got skill sets, you've got different people from all different aspects working to fix that and resolve whatever that is. And then that the leader ultimately taking ownership to you in the sense that it might have happened down there at that lower level where that person didn't have the glasses on.
00:16:10
Speaker
I do own everything that, that I'm responsible for in my crew. What's happening on the, maybe I didn't do a good enough job articulating why that's important or that that's important. Even the small little thing about having the glasses down. So it's that taking ownership and then the balance piece, but there's, it kind of gets into the other half of that, the safety component of the positive aspects. So you got the carrot component of I want my people to be
00:16:39
Speaker
safe. I want them to not go home missing things or put a burden on them. Maybe they're injured or killed. I want us to be safe and not put the business in jeopardy because we just got three or four OSHA violations and I don't know how I'm going to unburden this organization. We have to close shop and now you're out looking for work or sometimes that'll manifest into well now we've got to catch up and cut corners
00:17:08
Speaker
or build a reputation. So there's all other things. One of the ownership is the owner and the leader of, I want my organization to be safe. I want us to be, have a great reputation, do a good job, but I want to care, or I do care about my crews. I want them to be successful and have a career and I want them to feel that. So they're both aspects of the carrot and the stick for just like the safety component. In a weird way, I'm okay with making mistakes. Like I learned about myself.
00:17:37
Speaker
I learned what to do next time and the whole OSHA story was a major mistake. It was my fault from the leader of the organization. It's like similar to getting told no in sales. If you're a sales arborist or a salesman in your craft, when a potential client tells me no, that fires me up so that I can get better the next time.
00:18:02
Speaker
Can you expand on the OSHA story? Because obviously you didn't go out of business. I was going to say, because one question I do have is obviously that's not the end of your story. And the one thing I want to push with our listeners is that you're going to have
00:18:20
Speaker
poo hit the fan once in a while, but as your response to it is what matters. So can you kind of go through that rebound and the lessons learned? And I'm sure you built like a safety culture as a result of that as well to get that buy-in. Absolutely.
Becoming a Safety-Focused Organization
00:18:33
Speaker
Yeah. Motivation, drive, inspiration, you know, all those things came out of this terrible situation and it's where we decided to become a professional organization.
00:18:47
Speaker
We became members of the Tree Care Industry Association that later became accredited. There's less than a thousand companies that are accredited in the United States with 40,000 that are on file, right? So that makes us the top tier of tree care providers in the country. And so we did those things because I didn't want to go through another event like the OSHA story. So all of these safety programs and policies had to be created.
00:19:17
Speaker
We became partners with OSHA, right? Like you were talking about earlier, instead of them being on the other side of the line, why don't you join us? Why don't we be partners so that we can learn from each other? Instead of this being a bad circumstance, it becomes something positive that could affect a life one day on our team, life or death situations, when it comes to PPE.
00:19:48
Speaker
That was a turning point in our business to say the least. And we ended up obviously paying the fines and it all worked out, but we really kind of changed our lens. You know, we were kind of working in this box of, Hey, let's be professional some of the time and try to do the right thing. And then now we're looking at this lens of this box where it's like, okay, here's the job description.
00:20:18
Speaker
Here is what your expectations are if you would like to work here. We're going to take care of you by providing this, this, and this. And we're going to go home every night to our families type of thing. And so nobody's perfect. We still have a long ways to go. But if you were to interview or to talk to anyone on our team or anybody who's worked for us in the last 10 years, this is a very safe place to work. And we care about our people first.
00:20:47
Speaker
We don't care about making money first. We don't care about the trees first. We care about our people. I like that. And I think, you know, one of the things a lot of people miss with doing that is, especially in the tree care industry, it seems like there's a lot of newer startups or people, it's just maybe one or two people, you know, this owner, operator, and a couple of guys. And it seems like they go through, don't take safety seriously. And they underbid the jobs and they,
00:21:13
Speaker
Honestly, it's aggravating for the more legit companies like yourself or us that, you know, we are going to do the safety. We're going to take the time to mitigate the hazards. We're not going to rush into it. We're not going to underbid the job, which means we don't get some jobs, which is totally fine. And some of the listeners, you guys gotta be comfortable that there's going to be someone dirt cheap that may take jobs from you. Let them have them. If that's the customer type that doesn't mind you trimming a tree over the top of their house with little experience and little safety.
00:21:42
Speaker
That's what they want. Let them have it. Um, but they're, but my point with this is we all need to do a good job of marketing this though as well. You know, so everybody likes the buzzwords of, Oh, well this company cares about their people. But then when it comes time to hire a company like an Oak bros or a land or corporate, whatever, they're like, Oh, well you guys are 10% higher. Well, guess what? It takes a little bit of money to be a little bit safer and to hire those better guys. So.
00:22:11
Speaker
I think we all need to do a good job of marketing that as well. But I love your approach to it is, you know, we had this happen. We're all going to have stuff happen. Um, but again, it's your reaction to it, you know, mitigating those hazards, changing the culture. That's the stuff that, you know, will, well, like you said, you wanted the company to be professional. So you joined the TCIA. You did the accreditation. You're doing all of that stuff to take you guys to that next level and it's working. You guys are going to that next level. So it's a real life example.
00:22:40
Speaker
of kind of what we've been preaching Travis of what to do differently. Um, it's a, it's a, it's a great example. So just want to say thank you on that, Travis or Josh is a good job. You bet. No, it's, it all comes back to the whole purpose conversation too. Like what is the purpose of Oakbroughs being business? What is, what is, what is your purpose, Travis and Brent personally?
00:23:04
Speaker
And we like to ask those questions to our people because they're deep. They make you dig down deep and think about who you are, where you've been, where you want to go personally and professionally. And then it really kind of brings those things back around when you're creating your mission statement, your vision statement, your policies and procedures, your safety programs, because that's what they should all revolve around. And if you don't have a mission or a vision,
00:23:34
Speaker
I think that needs to be your first meeting on Monday morning with your team. Because if you don't know where you've been, you don't know where you're at, and you don't know where you're going, you're kind of just in thin air. You're in outer space. And I think that's really helped us. It's helped Jackie and I put all those things on paper. I think she may have talked about her BTO, the vision traction organizer.
00:24:04
Speaker
It's, it sounds dumb. It sounds petty. It sounds like just another thing you have to do, but it helps you as the leader of your organization stay aligned with your goals and with where you are taking your business. I took it a step further. I'm the president and CEO. So my purpose is, you know, to, to polish and perfect, you know, professionalism within our industry.
00:24:30
Speaker
while safely, efficiently, and productively advancing the industry. That's kind of like the tagline there. But everybody's like, well, how? So my desire in life as I kind of started off the podcast is just to help people, to help develop their skills, to help them be aligned with their own goals and with our company's goals, you know, right seat,
00:24:56
Speaker
right person or could be wrong seat right person so you got to make some changes and obviously at the end of the day to help them attain their highest potential both personally and professionally so when we do our performance reviews every quarter not only do we hold our staff accountable professionally but we make them write down goals personally completely outside the walls of okra's for their family
00:25:23
Speaker
Because that's one of our core values at Oprah as a family, both while you're on the clock and when you're off the clock. I love the analogy early in a similar, so you said thin air in space, not knowing where you're at and where you're going. So somebody had said years ago about it's like a ship leaving a harbor. If you don't have some sort of tracking system that tells you where you're at and you don't know where you're actually going, you will wander around the oceans aimlessly.
00:25:50
Speaker
You might hit land somewhere. It might not be where you wanted to go. It'll take you twice as many, but it's so important. We don't apply that to anything else moving in our world about not knowing where it's at and where it's going. Why would we think it would be any different about our own personal lives? But for whatever reason, most of us don't do that. And how important is it for you to actually write it down and solidify it? Hey man, I live in a world of documentation.
00:26:20
Speaker
If it's not documented, it never happened. I'm sure you've heard that before.
00:26:24
Speaker
We did a tour yesterday, so I am chair of the board, this local CEO program, so it's for high school seniors that are entrepreneurial, and it's like a, it's an amazing class for high school seniors, I'll leave it at that. Anyway, we did a tour yesterday, end of your tour at a company out of St. Louis, highly respected, big on culture, and one of the things I love that the guy giving the tour had said was, so that company's huge, huge, huge, on core values.
00:26:52
Speaker
Um, but the one thing I loved that he was talking about was, you know what, you should have core values also for yourself, for your family, you know, stuff like that as well, which ties back into like what you were talking about. Like if you can build up and I have a question at the end of this, but if you can build up your employees in your team and your, in your company and build it around those core values, it creates an atmosphere where people want to be like they want to work for a company that cares.
00:27:21
Speaker
they want to be somewhere where they think, you know what, this is different than all these other options I have. This is the company that I need to be working for. So I'm kind of curious as you've taken that approach, have you seen better retention? Have you seen, you know, have you found more of the right people for the seat? Short answer is of course, yes, absolutely. 150%. But why this is important to me, in my opinion,
00:27:50
Speaker
is it's an incredible vetting tool, right? If you believe 100% of your core values and you live it day in and day out, then it's going to be really easy when you are interviewing a new candidate or even reviewing a current employee about alignment. Are they aligned
00:28:22
Speaker
talk about wrong person, wrong seat type of thing. And that has really helped catapult the quality of people that are on our team, the quality of people that are applying to work with us. And I would really encourage everyone to, if they don't have
00:28:49
Speaker
core values to sit down with their leadership team or with the people they care about the most and go over three to five different things that are most important to you and put them in play, see if they work, if they don't. Cool, you're the boss, you can change it any time you want. But it has been a very positive experience
00:29:14
Speaker
for our organization to create core values, live by them, die by them. Yeah, I think that's key. And, you know, talking about the CEO thing yesterday, one of the things I had told the kids at the end of the day was about core values. But it was about, hey, you guys are getting ready to go off to college. This applies to them. It applies to all three of us. It applies to, you know, anybody in business.
00:29:39
Speaker
but you should have those core values, those moral lenses or whatever you want to call it that you're reviewing things through. But I think the key to it is as you're getting ready to make a decision to view that decision through those lenses. So does this decision, does that actually meet my core values? And if it doesn't, guess what? You probably shouldn't do it. And that's okay, right? It's like, okay, you just have other values. That's great.
00:30:07
Speaker
It's just not going to work out with us. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. So I think it's an excellent hiring tool. And I know talking with Jackie, you guys do this, but just to reiterate to the listener, those core values should be how you are hiring, reviewing, and firing or coaching. So if it's something somebody can be coached with, obviously try to coach, and if they still don't get it, then you probably need to show them the door at some point. So I think there's a lot of companies that don't do that.
00:30:34
Speaker
especially in this labor market where things are tight, you know, guy comes in, can you operate a chainsaw? Yep. Well, it's a handshake. I'll see you tomorrow. That's not how hiring should be done. You know, can you get the job done? You can get the job done, but is it, is he doing it? Is he going to live up to your standard? There's a good chance. It's probably not the case. And just to clarify, we are not perfect at this. We probably have some things we need to review and, uh,
00:31:01
Speaker
take another look at on that topic. But the workforce is another hot topic for everybody. And it is really hard to bring someone in, train them up. And then when they have some issues, you'd normally take them through a performance improvement plan or have a meeting with them and help them understand what they need to do to get better. But when you have to let those people go, that's tough.
00:31:34
Speaker
people we could pull from and that's just not existed anymore. So if someone leaves the team voluntarily or involuntarily, it is a problem. So that the laws of attraction and you're going to attract the type of people and the crew and how they perform based off of what values you project, what standards you hold your company to you. And so if you've got the wrong people,
00:32:04
Speaker
maybe you are so if if i'm just going to hire somebody as a warm body that can operate a piece of machinery you're not even setting a standard there uh in that you're you're hoping you're it's just a gamble that they might work out uh and they might align or conform but in reality you set no expectation and so you have no idea what you're going to get if you're not if you're not projecting
00:32:32
Speaker
core values that are positive and healthy or you are, you're going to attract the type of people. So you're saying, so you set those standards and you push out that we're a winning team. We are high performance. We work hard. We do all these. And we assume, and it's just that most people want to be on a winning team. And we assume we're just going to attract people. No, we're going to attract the people who like those things. Just like the opposite is true as well.
00:33:01
Speaker
what you're putting out into the community, the work that you perform, how you present yourself as a company, you're going to attract those type of people too. So if it's watered down or if it's not core value forward or you're not putting the standards that you want to, you're going to attract those type of people too. It's maybe going to be more of a mix or if you don't have a presence at all, it's rolling the diet versus if you
00:33:30
Speaker
do project, hey, we win. We do things right. We're a safety culture. We're not going to cut corners. Those are the type of people you're going to attract. And then we talked about it on another podcast, Brent, about consistency. So it's one thing to put that out there and be the public facing component. But if you're not holding those true throughout all aspects of your company, your organization, it's going to fall apart pretty quick. You get that high performer that was attracted to the public persona of you, gets in, is like, they don't know
00:34:00
Speaker
Why any of this? So now there's a trust factor and things that they're probably not going to stick around and you're going to have retention issues. Yeah, it is amazing. And once you find some of those people like that, how contagious they are, but it's also amazing how contagious the opposite is too. You know, so it's kind of cutting that cancer out of the organization. But when you find those right guys or right gals and you start promoting them and pushing them and they find someone else and all of a sudden you've got this kind of a team.
00:34:31
Speaker
I don't know what company that you guys toured, but I'm pretty sure I do. So if it's the same company, they have a policy that they don't hire cleaners, and everybody cleans up after themselves. When they're in the bathroom, they wipe the sink out. And people who are visiting that facility for the first time are amazed at how spotless everything is. And that's a total culture. It's an expectation. And nobody complains.
00:34:59
Speaker
Any of the employee and they've got age groups that work their employees from all different walks of life and ages, everybody, and they take pride in it. So that's something that it just screams culture and it can be created and people take pride in doing that type of thing. So setting those high standards, is it? Yeah, it's unreal visiting this place. So there's hundreds of employees, a hundred and some thousand square foot warehouses, you know, so it's a big, big place.
00:35:29
Speaker
And I've been there a couple of times, but it's one of those visits that you go back to and you're like, you're still in shock at how well that culture is built. Now, was that an overnight culture that he built? Absolutely not. He had to work hard to get it to where it's at. But once it started to connect, my goodness, like, and I know some of the guys that work there, you know, outside of there and the drive, the passion,
00:35:54
Speaker
The culture, the accountability, I think is one of the things that stood out. They hold each other accountable, incredibly well. So like if Travis and I were to go into the bathroom together and we're washing our hands and I just leave and there's drops over the sink and I leave my paper towels or whatever. At that company, Travis is going to say, Hey, Brent, seriously, wipe your stuff up and then leave. You know what I mean? So I mean, it's just, and that's okay. They almost like they have permission to do that to each other, but.
00:36:19
Speaker
you know, and that owner of that company is well known for building culture. And that's what he speaks nationally on, but seeing it in person, it's just, it's crazy. So one thing I, when I was reading over your notes, so to me, business is all about connection and people.
Tree Care Veteran Program and Community Engagement
00:36:36
Speaker
I mean, from the sales aspect to the employee aspect, if you're not helping people, you're probably just not going to be all that successful with business. So one of the things I loved when I was reading over your, your bio here was your,
00:36:49
Speaker
tree care kind of veteran program where you're giving back to the community. Can you tell us a little bit more about that one? That was really cool. Of course. Yeah. So we talked about inspiration and what inspired me or what inspired our team to come up with this program was a current non-for-profit that we support called Saluting Branches. And if you're in the tree care industry, you know about saluting branches. And it was started many, many years ago.
00:37:18
Speaker
by an incredible man that really just cared to give back to veterans. And specifically, this is a program told the day of service that happens every year in the fall, late summer, early fall. And if you're a member of saluting branches or supporter, you go to your nearest federal cemetery.
00:37:44
Speaker
There will be leaders of the organization at every federal cemetery that signed up and welcoming in tree care companies with their team and all their equipment. And they just spend an eight hour day taking care of the trees at their, at their local federal cemetery. And so the reason this is a relevant story is Vermeer corporation, Vermeer manufacturing in Pella, Iowa, they partnered with saluting branches.
00:38:12
Speaker
to create a one-of-a-kind wood chipper that is all decked out in saluting branches, logos, it has all of the military branches, American flies, it's beautiful. And what they decided to do is Vermeer decided to donate that chipper to a, what do you call it, a raffle.
00:38:36
Speaker
And then we're going to raffle it off at the TCIA Expo, which I think, Travis, you had got to meet us or maybe see us there back in November. And this would have been two expos ago. Well, we put our name in the raffle and we won this chipper. Okay? The value did like $150,000. Now we only won it for one year. So we're still in that year period. It's supposed to be up like July 1st.
00:39:06
Speaker
We're working on Vermeer to extend that because of the following story, right? I am a strong believer in Jesus Christ, the center of my marriage, center of my business. And we are called, we're blessings and we're blessed to be a blessing. And so we were blessed with this incredible tool to grow our business. It was completely unexpected.
00:39:33
Speaker
unexpected to give back for what we had received. And so we developed this local tree care grant program. I know there's a couple other companies around the US that are doing things similar. So we didn't want to copy off of them by any means. But what we did is we created an application process that can be found on our website. And if you qualify as a veteran for this application,
00:39:58
Speaker
You get enrolled into a drawing and we picked 12 veteran families. The 12 represents the 12 months out of the year and each month we're going to go to one of those families and provide free tree care for up to eight hours. At the end of the
00:40:22
Speaker
invite them to a large banquet dinner with our entire Oak Rose team, right? So our entire team isn't going to be able to interact with these veterans families when they go to do the job because it could be crew one, crew two, crew three, you know, not everybody gets to be involved. And so we were like, well, we really want the whole team to be involved. So we're going to have this banquet dinner. It's going to occur this summer for the first time. And we're really excited just to
00:40:49
Speaker
show our appreciation at a local community level and give back. I like it. We do have a few veterans on our team, um, one active military, uh, on our team. And so I've always had a major interest in the military. I'm really surprised. I didn't join to be honest with you. Um, but the stories
00:41:17
Speaker
that I get to hear personally of what some veterans endure through their time serving our country is incredible and all at the same time extremely painful and I resonate with that a little bit for being a fireman and I just have the most modest respect for veterans and so
00:41:45
Speaker
If I can use my business to be a tool to help in just a small way, then that's what I'm going to do. And that's what we're going to do. And so we're really looking forward to being able to build on this program and maybe even offer some different things through the years. So that is kind of in a nutshell, the program, why it got started, how it got started, and hopefully Vermeer listens to this because we're hoping they just give it to us.
00:42:16
Speaker
Now I love that program. I'm just hearing you about it. You know, here you talk about it, but then in general, just those giving back type of things are just so important, I think for a business to do. And even, I think it's important for your culture inside your company to know that, Hey, the owner, the management, we ourselves, we're all involved in this giving back to the community. It's, I don't, it's what we're called to do. Period. Yeah. If you're, if you're a business owner,
00:42:43
Speaker
and you're not giving back to your community in some form or fashion, you're really missing a lot of incredible opportunities to, and the opportunities aren't necessarily to make more money or to get more jobs. Those come organically, but you're missing the chance to positively influence or affect lives
00:43:11
Speaker
and we're on this this earth a very very short time and we don't have a lot of time to do that and so I would like to you know take advantage of every opportunity and so if I can encourage other business owners to to think about something they're very passionate about and to go and help serve with their team
00:43:32
Speaker
That's going to be extremely. Yeah, I agree. And I think as business owners, I think there's a certain duty, I believe, or a calling that we should have. And that is to impact others. So impact. So we're in leadership positions, whether we want to be or not. If you're a business owner, you are in a leadership position. And I think when you aren't impacting purposely, intentionally impacting others in your community, on your team, your company,
00:44:01
Speaker
I think you're missing the whole point. I mean, if you think about it in a small town or a community, if every business owner took this approach, it's like, I want to pick something I'm good at or I'm passionate about, and I'm going to impact other people's lives in that area. So for you, you guys are doing this. For myself, it was the entrepreneurship program for the high school seniors. I love seeing their passion and their hunger.
00:44:25
Speaker
to build a business or just to be better. A lot of them just, it's not even business related. They just want to be better people and they want to learn and just be the best version of themselves. And to me, that's awesome. And whatever I can do to help them, you know, am I perfect? No. But do I have 20 years of experience in life ahead of them? Yeah. So, you know, to me, it's important for us to give back in whatever capacity or whatever passions that we have. So it's awesome that you're doing that. Thank you. Yeah.
00:44:55
Speaker
It's very moving, very important to us, and we're excited to continue to explore new opportunities of serving our community, but also being able to serve veterans.
00:45:08
Speaker
Travis, you have any follow-up questions? We start to wrap things up. I've loved getting to know you and your wife, Josh, and what you guys are doing with Oak Bros. I will sometimes make fun of some copies on this podcast, not by name, but just how they conduct business, because it just aggravates me, because we bid against them.
00:45:26
Speaker
I just hate that business model. So when I come across companies like yours or, you know, some of the other ones we've interviewed in the past, it's so refreshing to see other business owners trying to do things differently. Um, it's very refreshing, but Travis, you have any closing thoughts or questions? I love the giving back
The Role of Business in Cultural Improvement
00:45:42
Speaker
piece. I mean, it's, I think you'd be hard pressed to find anybody that didn't say that we're culturally in a different place over the past couple of decades in that most people think that it has not gotten better.
00:45:56
Speaker
Look at our grandparents' era. There was much more community involvement. There was less government or bureaucracy involvement in the daily lives and communities took care of themselves. If a family was in need, the church came out. The neighbors cared about each other and looked after each other. Not only did it highlight that there's things that are more important in this life and bigger picture things,
00:46:23
Speaker
But you also got to know the human side of the people around you and you felt connected to them, giving and receiving and improving and strengthening and knowing people from a deeper perspective, a human perspective. We've lost a lot of that. And so I think there's two components where the business, I love, you are showing your employees taking their eyes up out of the work and giving back into something that there is something bigger than
00:46:53
Speaker
just us and just the work that we're doing but getting them back involved in the communities to you and having that human connection on both sides I think is so powerful not only for oak bros and the team to be able to do that and give back and connect with back the way we used to and potentially helping improve and fix some of the cultural things that that we've let degrade but then too is those that are out in the community
00:47:21
Speaker
seeing help and receiving help and not expecting anything in return the human health and improvement and connection that they're receiving to you. They're so important and I love seeing companies that are truly doing it and it's different too when you're doing that human connection where you're going out and you're helping those and then you'd have that follow-on kind of banquet where they can interconnect
00:47:47
Speaker
I've been part of organizations that did the, I would call it checking the box and we're giving back into the community and we're doing some random thing that we never get to actually go meet the people. And not that it completely falls hollow, but it does mean you get that I'm putting this package together. That's going to go off and help some family with some hygiene stuff or food or things, but to be able to connect them back to the humans and to see them.
00:48:16
Speaker
and the impact is so much more powerful. And I love that you're doing that. Thanks. Yeah, it's got to be attainable. It's got to be achievable. And it has to be repeatable. And so that's the way we look at giving back. That's the way that we look at growing our business. And it's worked well for us. All right, guys. What are your final thoughts or questions as we wrap stuff up? I don't think so. I just wanted to say thank you very much for the opportunity.
00:48:45
Speaker
Hopefully we were able to, uh, I don't know, maybe drill some new ideas into some listeners heads today and people think him at the end of the day, we just want to become better leaders. Um, I really appreciate, you know, the topic of Jackie and bringing us in. This is going to be great.
00:49:04
Speaker
Yeah, no, I appreciate it. Josh, uh, you and your wife, Jackie were both great. Look forward to having you guys back on. You guys dropped several little nuggets of wisdom that people should be able to take and do something with Travis. You're always dropping nuggets of wisdom and memorable quotes and lines master. Um, I, I didn't drop on this one, but we did manage. No, we've always got books that end up popping up. We, we got two books in this one, extreme ownership and dichotomy. Um,
00:49:31
Speaker
I'm kind of bummed because I really wanted to talk about like the number one and the number two a little bit when you're dealing with this leadership style of pain and why you need to rely on your number two, which in our business, the way we have our org chart is you have the visionary and you have the integrator and the integrator is your director of ops, your COO, whatever you might call it, and how the number one and the number two need and should work together.
00:50:01
Speaker
and that is the entire book of rocket fuel that you have purchased. It's in the stack, it's number two on the list. You know, it's hard to do it on your own, right? And so when you can rely on that number two person, it makes things much easier. That'd be a good one to talk about if we have you guys back on with you and Jackie both, maybe that one and just, you know, some work life. I don't like the term balance, but work life. We're working through that. Yeah.
00:50:31
Speaker
trying to make everything work. You go through a storm and a plane, here's my wings. Yes, yes.
00:50:38
Speaker
But Josh, thank you for your time today. Awesome time speaking with you, Travis, as always. Thank you. To those listening, give Josh a follow. Give Jackie a follow. If you like what you heard today, please share it. If you don't, I guess don't tell nobody about it. But we don't do this for money. There's no ads run. So please share us if you like us. And we'll see you next time. Thank you.