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A cultivated approach to landscaping with Michelle Wangler - Precision Landscaping
63 Plays2 years ago
Attack Speed and Massive Action! Transforming a business isn't only about strategic hires and innovative practices; it's also about igniting a passion that resonates from the core of its culture, a principle Michelle Wangler from Precision Landscape embodies deeply. At the heart of our latest podcast episode lies the compelling "why": cultivating a workplace not merely as a space to work, but a place to belong, grow, and contribute towards something profoundly meaningful. Michelle shared her journey of how focusing on the essence of culture and meticulous talent acquisition isn't just instrumental but transformative for Precision Landscape, elevating the team's performance and catalyzing growth. The idea of fostering a culture where excellence is the norm, and employees are motivated to excel, is something many organizations aspire to achieve.
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Transcript
Introduction with Michelle Wengler
00:00:12
Speaker
Welcome back to another edition of the better contractor. Uh, today we've got Michelle Wengler with precision, kind of a part two podcast, really. So we had Pat on or on last podcast. So that's kind of a part one. We're going to dive a little bit deeper with Michelle on this podcast. So Michelle, welcome to the podcast. Thank you very much. I'm excited to be here. Thank you. Travis are typical. What, what is it we called you last time? Typical dude, normal dude, normal dude. Travis is your normal dude.
Michelle's Career Journey
00:00:40
Speaker
The great beard.
00:00:41
Speaker
So I like to start the podcast out a little bit with just getting to know the guests, you know, personally, if you want to share anything and then also just kind of your background, what you got you into the tree, you know, lawn care, landscape space. Just a little bit about you. Awesome. So, uh, native Minnesota, uh, was born here, um, in 1986, moved down to Nebraska. My dad was relocated for his job, so spent the next 30 plus years down in Nebraska.
00:01:12
Speaker
Went to school down there, got a college degree down there. My degree is in accounting, and I'm a little bit far out from where I started. But degree in accounting, I started doing commercial real estate accounting, commercial real estate in 99. And from there, it morphed into property management for a fairly large commercial real estate firm, and I stayed there for 21 years. I know that's uncommon, but
00:01:42
Speaker
You know, it fit a lot of the things personally where I was at in my life, raising kids, getting married, those things. So it worked really well with me. I transitioned after 21 years. I transitioned. I took a promotion with another company and that was right at the end of 2020, the big 2020. I changed jobs, but really just for the opportunity that, you know, the potential that was there with it.
00:02:09
Speaker
And then in 2021, my dad unexpectedly passed away. And throughout this whole time that my husband and I were married, in the 20 plus years we were married, we came up to Minnesota a lot. My parents had a house up here, a cabin up here. And so we come up here once a year, a couple of times a year. And every time we would leave, he's chirping in my ear when we move him back to Minnesota. And I was like, there's no jobs. There's no, you know, all the, but what if this and what if that? And we had kids and young kids and
00:02:39
Speaker
And so in 21, when my dad passed away, um, you know, came back and he was like, if we're not going to do it now, when are we going to do it? And I said, okay, well, let me, I got to think about this. I, you know, I am a little analyzer vibe, um, in my brain. And so I'm like, I just got to think about this. And, and, um, so we thought about it, I think for a couple of weeks and I have kids in high school and they were like, if we're going to do this, we want to start the school district.
00:03:09
Speaker
wherever we're moving to. We don't want to come in as the new kids. And I said, okay. So we made a quick decision in the middle of the summer of 2021.
Minnesota Real Estate Challenges
00:03:17
Speaker
And, um, so we had moved up here. I moved, I sold our house down there. My husband and kids moved up sooner. And then I moved up a few months later after I sold my house down there and, um, moved out with my mom till we figured out what we were going to, where we were going to move in. During that time, I was still working remotely with the
00:03:37
Speaker
company, the real estate company I had been with. So I was working remotely. I was, you know, working from my house and going back there every couple of weeks, going back down to Nebraska and just kind of touching base and quickly learned that like that trying to do property management remotely, you get disconnected from the community pretty quickly. And so that was a little bit difficult to do. So, um, you know, both the company and I were just kind of like, I think, I think I'm just ready to
00:04:06
Speaker
to not have to come back here anymore. And so I started looking for a job, not super anxious about having to get a job. My husband and I had set us up to be like, okay, if I don't work for a little while, that's not a big deal. We set ourselves up to be able to do that. And we always say in looking back, all these pieces just fell right into place. It was just like even the personal side of it. My husband's job, the house we found literally is four houses for my mom.
00:04:35
Speaker
Um, one of the requirements if we were going to move to Minnesota is we had to be on the lake. And, um, in 21, like we all know the housing market was insane. And so finding something on even something that was for sale on
Joining Precision Landscape
00:04:49
Speaker
the lake was next to impossible. It was very hard. Um, ended up finding something that wasn't even on the market, had a conversation with the person she was renting her house at the time. Nope. I'm not going to sell. And a week later, she's like, well, maybe I'm going to sell.
00:05:03
Speaker
and ended up buying that house, four houses for my mom. So it couldn't have been any better. And so in February of 22, I was like, I'm going to see what's out there in the market, see what I can find. And like I had to share with Travis, my husband's a nurse by trade. So super easy for him to find a job. I mean, I think he had two or three job offers within two weeks of coming up here. I mean, he was no big deal.
00:05:33
Speaker
I had put a few applications out, talked to a few people, and then I just kind of was like, okay, what's an Otter Tail? And I went on Precision's website and it's like office administrator. And I was like, okay, well, I'll just submit a resume. And I think that was like a Thursday or Friday I submit the resume. And that weekend I'm back down in Lincoln working remotely and like 801 in fashion, he calls me
00:05:57
Speaker
And on a Monday morning was like, Hey, this is Pat Morrison with precision landscape. Want to talk to you about your resume? And I'm like, okay, shifting gears, but, um, you know, and the rest is history. I've been here for three seasons now. Nice. That's awesome timing, knowing Pat's kind of growth and what he was wanting to do from our previous podcast and you reaching out as perfect timing for all of you guys. Absolutely. And I mean, that's just it. It's those pieces of the puzzle that we're like, it's crazy how they fell in place. Yeah.
00:06:27
Speaker
with something that I was like for 20 years saying it's never going to work. It's never going to work. I come from a non linear path in career. It looks like a collection of careers. I mean, there's always three lines. So stories that that don't follow. I grew up in the whatever industry. My dad did it. My dad's dad did it. And I was born into it. And that's what I do. That always resonates with me. So I love hearing the
00:06:55
Speaker
It seems like chaos, but everything kind of works out in the end. And, and to Brent's point is, yeah, just the, all the unknowns that all came together to create this perfect synergy for where you're at now. Um, almost couldn't have been planned, right? Even if you're wanting to plan that, that would have been, yeah, I, you know, I'm my, we're very strong in our faith and it is like, and I
00:07:25
Speaker
I tell people and we said, we should write this whole story down because it was just like, um, just crazy things happened while we're contemplating this move of like, um, from a faith perspective and just crazy things like in the middle of the night at midnight, our doorbell rings. And we lived
Cultural Fit and Company Growth
00:07:45
Speaker
in the country on three acres. So there's, you know, shotgun, so you get up, you figure it out. Nope. Nothing.
00:07:54
Speaker
We go back to bed five minutes later, the doorbell rings again, you know? And so it's like, you start to go, okay, somebody telling us, don't give up. You're like, you know, you're going to, and just, just crazy things along that journey. And so yeah, if we planned it, it wouldn't have worked out, but if we just kind of let the pieces fall in place, it worked out exactly that. I will say going back to your one comment about finding a house and a lake. So.
00:08:21
Speaker
We've done work in Minnesota and I've been to Minnesota a lot. And one time I remember flying to Duluth for a project bid meeting. Is it really hard to find a house on a lake in that state? When I flew over it, there's a lot of lakes below. So the, so COVID, the effect, COVID, and I hate to say that word, but the effect that that had the pandemic had on this was because we're so rural. I mean, you know, Minneapolis is three and a half hours away from us.
00:08:50
Speaker
is everybody went home to work, which means everybody wanted to be somewhere beautiful and nice. And so the market for houses, while the rest of the country was doing the same thing, it was doing triple that here. And so being able to find, there's a ton of lakes, but finding something on the market. And again, you're looking at a price point on average over half a million dollars. I mean, the price point is we're seeing the,
00:09:20
Speaker
market right now here, people were buying those half a million dollar homes and tearing them down and building a million and a half dollar homes. I mean, so that it is difficult because it became a destination for everybody. And so it was like, you know, finding something on, and especially the like, we're at the lake we're on, people were like, how did you even find this? Those like, those homes don't come up on that lake. And you know, I'm like, yeah.
00:09:49
Speaker
making some phone calls, making some connections, networking, figuring out, is there anybody that has a possibility of wanting to sell? Was it the migration of people out of the city or where did the people? For us, we have people from all over the country that have homes up here. We've got people from Texas and California and Arizona and Florida and everything, but we also have a big
00:10:17
Speaker
group of people that had come up from Minneapolis and come in from Fargo that come up to the Lakes area. So in the last podcast with Pat, obviously Precision experienced kind of a exponential growth pattern. So my first question, what was your role in that growth pattern that Precision has had the last few years? So kind of pick up where I ended the story was, so I had this call with Pat, he's like, hey,
00:10:45
Speaker
Really, he has a bunch of standard questions he asks, operational or culturally, things like that, books you're reading and things like that. And so I had been at a company for 21 years and one of what I will say my pain points with the company, it was a culture of complacency. We're doing well enough. We're making enough money. We don't really need to seek other things. Everything's okay.
00:11:11
Speaker
And performing at a high level and performing at a low level was compensated and rewarded the same way. And so that was like, that was in
Attracting and Retaining Talent
00:11:22
Speaker
my head here. Like if I'm going to switch, what does that need to look like for me? And so I'm on this phone call with Pat and I said, well, give me some idea of what the company's looking like. You know, tell me what your revenue is. Tell me what that looks like. And so he starts to go and says, okay, well in 2020, we were like a million dollars and, um, 21, we did
00:11:41
Speaker
$3 million and 22, our projection is $7 million. And I'm like, okay, hold the boat here. How are you getting a company in Otter Tail, Minnesota, a town of 300 people during, you know, full-time residents getting a company like that from one to three and a half to $7 million? And he's like, we have a plan and we have a process. We've been working with a consulting firm. This is how we're going to do it. And this is our growth trajectory. And I was like, bingo.
00:12:10
Speaker
okay, let's stop. You know? And so I was like, Hey, when can you come in? And so I came in for an interview, had a great conversation with Pat and Trista. Um, and he's like, but I don't know where, you know, yeah, you hired for this role, but not really sure what your role is. You know, we have a gal, our friend desk, I was going on maternity leave. We need you to help fill in there, but we're just going to kind of, you know, if you're up for it, you know, we're just going to have to kind of see what that looks like. And I said, sounds great. Let's do it.
00:12:37
Speaker
And so I started out just kind of learning everything. We had our admin assistant go on maternity leave right in the midst of the season, which got crazy in here. And I just consumed everything I can consume. And I'm like, let's learn this. And then we had some transition with project manager. And so it was like, well, can you kind of help take on some of the project management stuff? And I said, yeah, sure. Let's go.
00:13:07
Speaker
Then our replacement project manager in the middle of the season just was like, I don't think this is for me and left. And so, um, so Pat Trista, I sales manager, Kelly came in and we're like, Hey, do we look for somebody else? We hire somebody else or we try to just, you know, knuckle down and as a group get through the season. And we just said, let's just, let's kill it through the season. We think we can get it. And so everybody picked up pieces of that.
00:13:37
Speaker
Um, at the end of 22 and then over the winter of 22, 23 patents was to sat down and they said, we want to see you move over to project management and see what you can do on that. You know, and project management and property management aren't too far off. I mean, it's, it's coordinating construction. It's, you know, keeping a group of people on task. It's follow through with clients. So there's not a whole lot of disparity between those. It's just different and different, um, companies.
00:14:07
Speaker
And so pick that up in, in beginning and started that in 23 and just kept our production going and hitting our goals and targets on our production and kept everybody running. And, and, uh, that's what I did and keep doing it and crushing it for this next season. That's awesome. I think one of the, when you brought up Pat hiring you, you brought up like not really knowing for sure what your role would be in the very beginning. So we've had that happen here a couple of times where we've had.
00:14:37
Speaker
Just someone come along three that I think of in our management staff that come to mind where they just happened to be available. I found out they were available. We weren't hiring. We weren't even looking. I'm just like, you know what? That dude, that gal, whatever.
00:14:53
Speaker
they have to be on our team. So let's hire them and then we're going to find a spot for them. They're good enough. They, they, they meet the culture like you talked about. Um, I knew their work ethic. I knew they would deliver. I knew they would follow through. I knew they would hit our core values. They were the perfect candidate. So it's like, you know what, if they're on the market, they will create the value within this organization. Once we make that higher, we just got to find out where we're going to put them. But so I love that Pat did that with
Employee Engagement Strategies
00:15:19
Speaker
you took a little bit of a leap of faith. I'm sure. Yeah. Yeah. It worked out.
00:15:22
Speaker
It did. It absolutely worked out as a leap of faith on both of our parts. I mean, I came in here and from a financial perspective, I took a huge cut in pay and I was very transparent with interest on that. And I'll say I'm recovering very nicely from that. And so it was a leap of faith on both of our parts, but I had to be willing to be like, okay, I don't know really what every day is going to look like for me, but
00:15:50
Speaker
What I can do is bring the knowledge I have and let's just see how they're doing and what they're doing and where can I add the value and help improve maybe the processes or just be support where I need to be. So were you a part of the culture shift then as well? I would say complete change in culture shift. And I shared this with Travis when we talked the other day. Part of that is when I started and we still have some of our production people that were here when I started.
00:16:19
Speaker
And when I started the people that are in production still today, I saw them as the like, Oh my gosh, that that's a really great person. The culture has shifted so much that maybe that person's not the number one anymore. You know, we've, we've hired people up and you know, now people come and apply because they hear the culture change. And when I first applied, it was.
00:16:49
Speaker
a lot of, well Pat's really hard to work for. And I was like, okay, and then I'm a month in, and I'm like, okay, well I can see where people do that, people that don't want to have to be accountable or have expectations, that just want to come in and collect a paycheck. But I'm like, people, that's not what Pat's hiring. Pat is not hiring people that just want to get a paycheck. So part of that culture shift of
00:17:18
Speaker
There's an old adage of everybody loves to be on a winning team. And so in an environment where almost everybody struggles with talent, one, how do we attract the right talent? Then how do we acquire the right talent? And then how do we retain the right talent? And all the three different beasts, they're all intertwined because if you hire the wrong talent to begin with, you're not going to keep them either. But maybe you will, to your own detriment.
00:17:48
Speaker
There's a fear that if you raise the standards, you raise the bar, you make it more difficult that you're going to lose people. And maybe there's a perception of, well, you can't do your business without those people. And maybe that leads to the hesitation of, well, if we change things and we raise the standards, our business isn't going to perform, but that hasn't necessarily been your case. It's been the exact opposite with that, is raising that bar and, you know,
00:18:19
Speaker
Pat had that belief right away and Pat had that belief that we're going to set the bar really high and that's what we're going to stick to. For me, it took a little bit of a mind shift change because I didn't come from that culture. He was like, we're setting the bar, we're hiring for the personality. We'll train the rest, but let's make sure that they're a cultural fit to the company. That was the biggest change for the company.
00:18:48
Speaker
I will tell you it shifted and I can hear it within the community that we're in is just not that Pat's hard to work for anymore. It's like, we hear you guys are doing incredible things and we want to work there. And so it's just, it's just crazy that setting that bar really high has up the level of applicants we get who wants to be here.
00:19:15
Speaker
Those people that don't, you can, I mean, you can mine it out pretty quickly now. I feel like I've gotten substantially better about being able to mine that out. And, you know, wanting to, I'm looking for people that want an opportunity. You talk to people, you know, and some people are just here and you can hear it in their voice. They're here to get a paycheck. Well, that's not necessarily the fit for our culture, you know? But you hear people that are like, maybe they've been working in the factory environment and they're just, I want an opportunity.
00:19:45
Speaker
to make a difference, to make more money for my family, to be able to buy a home, those opportunities, and that's why they're sitting here. And I will hire those people that are looking for an opportunity, as long as they fit all the other culture, I'll hire them all day long. And it's got a compound effect in multiple areas of, because you raise the standards, those who want to be in that environment are raising their standards and performing at different levels, which takes the business to a whole different trajectory.
00:20:15
Speaker
which then increases or creates a new brand and reputation for the company. So it attracts talent to resonate with that type of an environment. And then as you get more people into the business that have those higher standards, better cultural fit or all desiring to be on a winning team and perform at higher levels, you produce better quality of work. And then out of both of those, the reputation that's being built
00:20:45
Speaker
and propagated out into the community from a talent perspective, but then the quality of work that raises, it also helps in the marketing and branding and more organic marketing and brand reputation, which that compound effect. As the culture improves, you have more and more employee buy-in, which I think is key.
Building Loyalty through Connections
00:21:04
Speaker
It is. A lot of people will talk about doing training programs or doing this or that, but if an employee is not bought in, they're just checking a box. Once you have that culture built, then they're actually
00:21:15
Speaker
wanting to do, to do what you're saying. So one question I did have, I think a lot of people are probably wondering, it's a little bit of a fear factor. So when you go from not having necessarily that ideal culture into, Hey guys, we're doing this, we're creating this culture. This is who we are. And we're invested in it.
00:21:35
Speaker
I'm curious to see how many people did you have that previously worked there that just did not meet it. So I know a lot of people's fear is if I implement this today and I got, let's say we got 20 employees, I know 15 of them that don't meet my new criteria. I can't work with five. So how do I ever implement this? You know, so that goes back to, you know, uh, in 22 when we saw that, when we had, you know, a couple of people that culturally didn't fit and they decided to, to leave the company, the rest of the people that were like,
00:22:06
Speaker
bought it, you know, bought into this, like we're going to crush it stepped up. And so, you know, this company, again, every year we're setting records, we're setting sales records, we're setting production records because the people that here are at the core are going, I'm going to step up even more. I'm going to crush it even more. I know it may be short lived until we can get some people hired, but I would rather, and we had this conversation when we lost some people that I would rather
00:22:35
Speaker
work really hard and crush it. Then you hire somebody in here that not necessarily fits exactly what we need right now. Yeah. Have those employees that are crushing it? Have you had some of them bring like-minded people? Oh yeah. We've had a handful of referrals and things like that with people that it's, I love that every single day. Yeah. I was going to say, that's really the way to do it. And we've done that over the years as well. And that's then, you know, I know some people don't like, Oh, I'm not hiring friends.
00:23:00
Speaker
But at the same time, you got to love what you do, but if they're a friend because they're like-minded and that employees out there kicking butt, you should probably hire that person. Exactly. Exactly. You know, that's, it's the, it's the comment Dave Ramsey makes on, you know, his, I listen to him pretty religiously. It's like thoroughbreds don't want to run with donkeys, you know? And you know, it is that culture. It's like these, we're, we're out there being thoroughbreds and people will say,
00:23:31
Speaker
Well, this person's not, you know, they're not pulling their weight here, Michelle. And it's like, okay, let's, you know, let's pull them in. Let's have a reset with them. Let's give them an opportunity to correct the behavior. But if they're not going to, then then we're done. You know, let's, let's move them on. Almost like a little bit of like a tornado effect. So you have this, you know, tornadoes pull stuff into them once it, once it gets close. So it's almost kind of like that tornado effect in a way to where you've built this culture to where.
00:23:58
Speaker
maybe you guys have the little bit nicer equipment. You got a standard or, you know, there's culture there that people want to come work there. And then when you have people, I'm sure you've pulled people from like the competition employees. I know we do that some here. I don't necessarily always try to hire from competition sometimes. It depends who the competition is. Um, but it starts to pull those people in as all of a sudden, you know, you have this environment in the last couple of three years since COVID where
00:24:26
Speaker
hiring is a little bit difficult to do for most companies. Most companies, if you talk to the owner, that's just their complaint is you can't find people. But when you're a leader in your industry and you have that culture built, there's still people doing landscape or tree or lawn and they like doing their work. But all of a sudden now they're like, you know what? I want to go work for precision instead. I want to go work for Atlanta corporate, whoever. So all of a sudden, then all of a sudden you're not down, you know, the, the,
00:24:54
Speaker
uh, employee retention or employee hiring issue, they're actually coming to you because you've built this culture and that little tornado effect is pulling those people in. I don't think people realize how important that is. And in today's world, a job's not just a job anymore. Like people want to, to go someplace. They want to be satisfied while they're there. They want to enjoy what they're doing. They want to be treated fairly. And a lot of that comes back to creating this environment, you know, where you talked a little bit about it, like with competition.
00:25:24
Speaker
You've created a competition, whether you wanted to or not, by instilling this culture. You set a new standard, but it's not just you guys saying it. The employees have actually probably upped that standard some because of just that effect of the competition. That's exactly it. Pat and I just went through employee assessments on the production crew with it and spent the last two days doing that. And we just kind of regrouped a little bit this morning after those meetings.
00:25:55
Speaker
as Pat's working more on the company instead of in the company, the one of the resonating things that came out of all those assessments is like the production group. People were like, but Pat, I miss sitting down and talking to you. You know, I used to have a conversation with you once a week, you know, and now I don't get that. And it's just, you know, he, he has extremely high expectations. He holds everybody highly accountable for their actions and everything.
00:26:22
Speaker
And even some of those that we've had to have some corrective actions with, they're like, but Pat, I miss, I miss just having a quick conversation with you because you are so busy working on the company. And I thought, oh my gosh, you know, these people, um, the employees are thriving for that connection. And, um, so I said, you know, we do the PPF meeting one-on-one meetings that we're supposed to be doing on a monthly basis. And I said,
00:26:48
Speaker
We need to set those and those are just non-negotiables for us moving forward because what I heard from everybody in these assessment meetings is I just want that connection. We're so busy every single day and we think we make those connections with them, but they just need that 15 minutes of our undivided attention of how's home going? How's everything? How's the kids doing? How is life going? Is there anything we can help you with on the job? Outside of the meetings is just that touch base with them.
00:27:18
Speaker
No, I think that's so important is those touch points we talked about with Pat a little bit as well. And that's something so many companies do not, they don't do that. You know, well, like you said, it's a time constraint, you're busy. Ideally, that's to me, technically, that is a non billable hour. Every company owner does not want non billable hours, right? But that 15 to 30 minutes of investment time
00:27:41
Speaker
Equasis so much more than you paid that employee for. Yeah. Just like you said, you're, you know, there should be an aspect of that touch point that is a little bit personal because you don't want them to just be a robot. Nope. They want to know you care about them a little bit of it needs to be personal, but then also it's that feedback, the positive, the negative. How can I get you help you get to your goals? So wherever your goals need to be, we talked a little bit with Pat that as owners and managers,
00:28:10
Speaker
The companies have a big enough vision that the employees' visions can fit inside of that vision. And that's an excellent opportunity in that moment right there to say, Hey, where do you want to be? And how can I help you get there? So, you know, I think one of the key takeaways in this podcast with you guys is those touch points and not, not skipping those, not being afraid to say, Hey, we're going to do this every month. Like you said, it's a non-negotiable. We're not skipping this. No matter how busy we are, we're doing this touch point.
00:28:37
Speaker
And I think that's key to that culture is that remembering is that additional thing of just saying, hey, once a month.
Addressing Client Pricing Concerns
00:28:45
Speaker
Well, and you guys do KPIs and bonuses off that as well, right? Yeah. And that's key to it as well. You know, not that money is everything, but people do have jobs because they want to make money. That's just a fact. But that is an excellent opportunity for them to say, hey,
00:29:01
Speaker
I, I would like that bonus that helps me pay for whatever this little thing is in my life that, you know, my truck payment or whatever. Yeah. It allows him to do that, but it allows you guys also touch base with him. So I think it's awesome. Yeah. Yeah. The one thing you guys may not notice in these podcasts is Travis has a very much a thinking face. So like I can tell when he wants to ask a question. So everyone wants to, I gotta Travis go ahead. It's more of a thought out loud. So, so there was something I was looking at.
00:29:30
Speaker
months back, but it was looking at buying trends of different generations. And one of the things that they had found was that, especially the younger generations, like 30 and below, they'll spend, they're spending less and less on things, but they'll spend almost endlessly on experiences. So they, if they can go feel or experience to be a part of something, yeah, they'll open up whatever money they have.
00:29:58
Speaker
And I know there's a lot of things that are attributing to that, but I think there might be a lesson learned in that in the business side as far as creating cultures too. And if that's present in the younger generations, and I don't think it's, I don't think it's limited to the younger generations. We're just watching that from a market and purchasing standpoint, but in a world where everything's artificial and where we have less and less connections deep
00:30:27
Speaker
relationships to people. We feel lost and we want to be a part of something. That's kind of a human trait. And that's where you see where they want to have those conversations beyond just my monthly touch point where I'm working down my 16 bullets of what I did. But that human interaction, that connection, it's probably a carryover from
00:30:56
Speaker
the marketing and the purchasing standpoint in, they'll gravitate to companies and organizations and teams where they feel like they're a part of something bigger than themselves, where they feel like they've got connection. It's an experience. The money part has to be there. They're not going to, it's just a hobby if they show up and don't get paid. But creating that family environment where we care about each other, we've got each other's backs.
00:31:26
Speaker
will sacrifice for each other is very much an experience and that can't be created artificially. And I think one, if you started to develop that culture and you got those people in there, it's going to be way more powerful of a team because you see, and you're fighting for each other and you're fighting for the same goals and you want to see each other win and you'll go to hell and back for those people. And so you got that,
00:31:53
Speaker
creating a very positive and powerful force but then the other piece of people are starving for that more now than ever as we've become a society that's veered away from that and it's sound bites and TikTok views where people got an artificial persona online and I think our culture feels that shift and we want to so that's why it makes it
00:32:21
Speaker
so much more special and powerful when you do find those organizations that have that family presence, who have that connection, who can create that experience that you care about each other and you're working towards something bigger. And so again, it's more of a thought thinking out loud, but. That's a good point. I mean, humans are built to connect and I think
00:32:45
Speaker
One of the, even the introverts, even the introverts have a little bit of human connections. Um, but it's key, you know, and I think since social media, I think kind of started it, which allowed for more connection, technically, as far as number of connections, you can stay in contact with people way easier, but there's not a depth of connection. Right. You know, it's a 10 second video. It's, it's the highlight reel of your life. Yeah.
00:33:13
Speaker
And people still want that deeper connection. And I noticed even in like the business coaching world online, you go back two or three years and everybody was just doing these little motivational things on Instagram or whatever. Now you're starting to see that transition more to, well, let's do in-person events.
00:33:31
Speaker
because people want a little bit more than just that little snippet of you online. They want to actually know you and actually see you in person. So I, I love seeing that shift. I love what social media is doing as far as like, there's so much content and so much knowledge that everything's providing us, but at the same time you've got to have that depth of connection. And I think that actually is a business principle as well too. You know, so I, so like what you're talking about with culture, with employees, that's one aspect.
00:34:00
Speaker
And you can have, like Travis said, that family connection inside of your culture, which is absolutely key. Um, but you can also do it with customers, you know, as well. So that's one thing we strive to do here is a customer is not really just like we want to get to know you, like we'll send gifts when allowed. Some of our customers don't allow us to send gifts.
00:34:20
Speaker
But like we really, really, really try to actually get to know this customer personally and professionally both. And people are starving for that. So I think as business owners listening to this podcast, managers, if you can harness that human depth and connection with employees and with customers, man, that's a golden ticket to me. Yeah, exactly. That's the culture of creating. And you're exactly right, Brent. It's what we're hitting with with our clients is we want to
00:34:49
Speaker
We don't even want them to question who to call. They just know, okay, this is, I work with precision because I know, I, you know, they know me, they know my expectation levels. You know, they know when I'm here, when I leave for the season, you know, what's important to me and things like that. That that's exactly it. We want that to be echoed through our employees, our customers, just the company as a whole, you know, that is high standard, a high bar. And I think that's one thing too. A lot of companies don't do is a,
00:35:19
Speaker
Almost are afraid to say, Hey, this is the precision standard here. This is the land court standard here. And we're going to deliver it. Whether you want to or not, we're going to deliver it somehow. And what that does is like you just said, it creates a huge level of trust with your customers or potential customers. Um, well, they're not afraid to do business with you because they know if you show up, the job's going to get done. It's going to get done well.
00:35:44
Speaker
If something messes up, they'll fess up and they'll make it right. You know what I mean? So that's, that's huge in this world. I believe it is. I mean, I have so many examples of it, you know, I mean, coming into this, when I started the comment from the community was, you know, precision's really expensive. We get that from clients when they come in. That's, that's a lot of money. We absolutely agree, but this is why.
00:36:12
Speaker
This is what you're getting when you're getting precision. We're going to show up when we tell you you're going to show up. We're going to perform the task. We're going to be there from start to finish. We're not going to show up on day one and be gone for 10 days. We're going to be there day one and work until that project is completed. And so that's a huge shift. I mean, I saw it. We had a client that we didn't win the bid on and we know that we're not going to win everything and we'd love to, but we're not.
00:36:37
Speaker
You know, and, uh, they had hired another contractor and this goes back a couple of years and they hired another contractor. And, um, last year they hired us to redo the work with their contract, you know? And so it goes into that because, you know, they knew, okay, you guys were more, but they, you know, unfortunately ended up costing almost twice because they had to pay their first contractor to not perform. And then for us to come in and.
00:37:06
Speaker
And to do it, you know, the there's a little bit of an issue. So you guys are more landscape. We're so land or corporate, more like industrial contracts. So there's actually a procurement team behind the scenes. And one of my biggest pet peeves in my world are is procurement teams. And the reason being, there's two different types. One, they're low bid. They don't really care about anything else. They just want a low bid. They say that usually they say they care about other stuff, but at the end of the day, I know who they picked and I know they don't actually care.
00:37:36
Speaker
or two, their best value. And we've talked about this before in previous podcasts, but even with like your space and landscape, you want the customers that are picking best value, not the ones that are low bid. And do you guys listening, like run far, far from the ones that are like, what's your lowest price? Because they don't care about all this stuff. And I know like our procurement model internally, I don't really even look at the price. It's not the first thing I look for. All of our major vendors,
00:38:06
Speaker
I want them to be aligned with us culturally, at least a little bit in this day and age, response time. If I send you an email, I really, really want to response in 24 hours. I really do. If I text or call you, I really expected to respond to the same day. And that's who we work with is those things. Because if, if you can't deliver, give me an answer, then I can't deliver in the timeframe. I want to, but then their, their culture, their core values need to be in line. The response time needs to be in line. Um,
00:38:36
Speaker
You know, it depends on what the product or services, but all these different things need to be in line for what I need for Lanark Corp. We don't do business. And then lastly, I look at your price and all I really care about is, is it in line? Is it reasonable? Yeah. Is it reasonable? Are you waiting? And honestly, we've had some where the price is cheap enough. I'm like, I think you missed something because I don't know how you're going to deliver this at this standard for that price. Um, but anyway, so I thought that was interesting. You brought pricing up. Um,
00:39:04
Speaker
How have you guys worked around that some with customers? Like, have you done a different marketing take or just kind of went after different customers? You know what? We attack it exactly like it is. Boy, you're expensive. I know we are. Yeah. But let's just break it down. You know what? And, you know, we're never like, we don't go back and go, well, we'll negotiate the price down. It's okay. Let's just rate on your scale of like, what's most important for you. You said, you know, you needed ABC and D.
00:39:32
Speaker
But maybe we can take D off to get into that budget that you were thinking. We don't discount ourselves because we know the value that we can bring in. It takes that one interaction with a new client for them to see the value that we bring. And it's opened up other avenues for us because people are like, I can't even get a subcontractor in this other world to even give me a call back. Is that something you can do?
00:39:59
Speaker
let's go find this up, you know? And so, you know, we've teamed up with contractors that are on different verticals with us just to be able to support our clients. And that has just become an invaluable thing. Yeah. And as a result, I'm willing to bet your customer retention rate is high. Yeah. Yeah. That same here. Ours is super high. So we may not win a lot of the bids because we are a little bit, we're probably a little bit higher than the competition, but once we land it, we typically keep it.
00:40:27
Speaker
Yeah, there's even a couple of customers we've even fired because their response time was so terrible. It made me look bad. So anyway, you know, and that, that component is something I've had throughout my entire career, you know, in the property management where I'm hiring subcontractors all the time, I always tell people, cause people would do the same thing to me. Well, I don't want to bid it if you're just looking for the lowest bid. And I said, I'm looking for the best contractor. I'm not looking for the lowest contractor, you know? And if you turn out to be both,
00:40:54
Speaker
That's incredible. That's awesome. Yeah. And so it mean that I had that mindset for the last 20 plus years on, I want the best contractor, not the cheapest contractor. Yeah. Well, the beauty of that is if, you know, that's what we tell our guys a lot too, is I'm sure you guys do as well. So if you're priced a little bit on the higher side,
00:41:17
Speaker
then you have to consistently deliver in the field though. Like you got to consistently deliver that customer because if you ever don't, everybody's going to know about it at that point. Right. Right. Exactly. That, and again, that goes to the culture and, and making sure we're all aligned on what we're going to do and how we do it and you know, why we do it, what, you know, what, uh, what, where, why we do things or what, how, and why we do things is, is the key components of that is just reminding that
00:41:43
Speaker
And, you know, I have a sticky note that says that on my desk because, you know, when you do have to have some of those conversations, the more difficult conversations, I have it in there. Or, you know, when people, when employees come back and are like, well, I think we should do it this way. It's just reiterating. This is what we do. This is why we do it. This is how we do it. I appreciate your feedback, but we're going to go back to, you know, our mission, vision, and core values, you know,
00:42:11
Speaker
The what, why, and how we do it is, is, is the critical component of it. And, you know, it reminds me when I'm maybe in that emotional state of conversation is like, okay, circle back to the mission, vision, value, core values of the company. Yeah. I think that's awesome. I think that goes back to just following through and being consistent, which we talked a little bit with Pat as well. Those two things are, it makes me think of a story with us, not necessarily a good story, but just a story of keeping your word. We had a contract.
00:42:41
Speaker
That was a hard bid. I think it was four years ago. And in that contract, there was no scope changes, but it just, we miss bid it somehow. And it was going to be about 90,000 over. You know, so, so we were going to lose 90 grand to finish that work. And I remember having the conversation internally, like, how do we go about that? And the answer was there was no scope change. It was our mistake. We said we would do it for that.
00:43:06
Speaker
So we're going to do it for that. And we're not going to ask for more money from, from them because it was our mistake, you know, and we ended up finishing that. And, uh, again, that goes back to doing what you're saying you're going to do. Even sometimes it may hurt, you know, most of the time that's not how it is, you know, most of the time there's lessons learned. Um, but huge, huge, hugely important. Yeah, it is. And that, and that's just it. And so it's, uh, making sure everybody's aligned on a, on a regular basis, so that that's why we're doing it, you know,
00:43:37
Speaker
And we talked in our annual meeting and I said, you know, for the people that are on production side with me, you're going to hear our mission statement every week. I want you guys to be able to read it back word for word, what the mission statement is, because that's going to help you remember what we're doing, you know, where we do it, how we do it. That that's going to read. And I said, so I said, the goal for everybody in here is I want you to be able to restate. You know, we all kind of know, you know, we know what it says, but now I want it
00:44:07
Speaker
You know, I want you guys to be able to go and say word for word what the mission statement is. And so you're going to hear that every week and every week you're going to be like, why is she's telling me that the mission statement again? Because it's, it's just making sure that alignment's there a hundred percent. Yeah.
Cultural Transformation Reflection
00:44:22
Speaker
How many years do you think it took for you guys to get three, I guess two or three to get from like, Hey, we're changing core values. We're, we're going all in on this too. Yeah, probably three. I would say, you know, three years.
00:44:34
Speaker
I know a lot of companies that have tried to do stuff like this and I don't think they realize it's actually not an overnight deal. It's not. I mean, and I would say three years in our, are we, are we a hundred percent there? No, you know, it's, it's still, you know, there's still some things we need to do and refine, but it's always going to be that work in progress. But I had told this to Travis is like our culture,
00:45:00
Speaker
is something you feel in here. You know, you come in here and it's just something you feel. It's this energy that you feel and people love to be here and come in and it's not easy. It's long hours during the season and you know, there's, you know, it can be six 30 in the morning, even earlier and six, seven, eight o'clock at night sometimes. And that's for our crews as well. And so, but they're all out there doing that every single day.
00:45:27
Speaker
And if I'm like, okay guys, we're going to just maybe limit over time for the next couple of weeks, you know, just kind of get some regroup here with you guys. I have people chirping in my ear and they're like, no, we want to be out there. What can we do? Can we come in Saturday? What do we have going on? You know? And so it's, it's just, it's, it's something we can say, but you can feel it in here. And that's, that's the fun part about is you can feel that culture.
00:45:52
Speaker
Yeah, I like different ways it has been explained or resonated. But I like the the analogy of metal working and putting putting metal into fire to structurally change it and change the molecules and taking it out and then you're pounding it and shaping it and quenching it and back in and it's through the fire and through the adversity that you shape it into something magnificent. And
00:46:19
Speaker
you can take a raw piece of metal and change everything about it and completely transform it. And it's through adversity and through teams, teams that end up becoming high performing teams have typically gone through that together in that if you want to create a strong bond within that team is you go do hard things together. You go struggle together, you go solve things together. And if you're, you're taking,
00:46:48
Speaker
multiple things and putting it into the fire and changing it and melding it together. And then it's all coming back out and being reformed together to create something more powerful, more beautiful, something completely altogether different and creating those strong teams. It's the protectionist versus the adversity. And how do we, how do we get these teams to come together, these individuals to come together as a team?
00:47:16
Speaker
and really bond together, go get them to do hard things. Go get them to struggle together and figure it out together. And that's been kind of the pattern for most high performing teams, especially those who are doing great things or being required to do great things. They need to go into the fire together and they need to come out and transform together and they'll be stronger and they'll be bonded.
Policy Changes and Communication
00:47:39
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. And that is, you know, that's the part that
00:47:43
Speaker
The only way that works for us is that we have an open door and come have a conversation with us. You know, we, we made a policy change that was not a favorable policy change over the winter. And, um, I, I feel like I always have a really unique approach and I talked to the employees about this is like, I'm an employee at Pat and Trista's overall. I'm an employee. I do not own a part of the company. I'm an employee for Pat and Trista. So remember that I'm still an employee, but I also am looking up for the best interest of the company.
00:48:11
Speaker
And we made this policy change and we've had a lot of, a lot of people like, I don't necessarily agree with that policy change. I really don't want to, you know, that, and I said, what you don't see and what you have, what you don't have the privilege of seeing is this wasn't just a rash decision that we made. This was something that we talked about between Pat, Trista, myself, HR over the course of three or four months. And then we were like, okay.
00:48:41
Speaker
We got to look at the profits of the company, what we're legally required to do, and what's best for both the company and the employees. How do we meld all three of those? Because you guys don't see all of that, but understand that's what we did with this. I understand you may not agree with it, and that's okay, but understand we put a lot of thought into this policy and we feel it's the best way. Now we're open to hear conversation about it, but understand this is our policy and this is what
00:49:11
Speaker
And I'm like, okay, you know, okay. That's what we're going to do. You know? And so we got the buy-in and it's going to be a little bit slower, but it's, you know, we, we get that first one and then it's all like, okay, well we understand what that policy is now. Yeah. I think that communication is key. I think a lot of companies don't do that well enough where they're saying, Hey, we're doing this policy change and just pre-framing it and saying, Hey, you're probably not going to like it initially, but
00:49:41
Speaker
This is the reasons we're doing it. So my job as owner, my job as project manager is that this company makes money. Well, guess what happens when this company makes money? I have more money to share with you and bonuses and raises and stuff like that. So your job may be to lead a crew. Your job may be to do whatever landscape, you know, specific project, my jobs at the company is profitable. And my job is to make you guys profitable as well. You know, we're all here for is a page digitally. Um, but I think.
00:50:11
Speaker
telling that message is so key. I think enough people just lay the new law out. This is what it is. Take it or leave it. And they move on without actually kind of reminding and pre-framing, hey, this is why we're doing it. This is how it would be beneficial long-term and moving forward that
Conclusion: Consistent Execution of Values
00:50:27
Speaker
way. So I think that's a good point. We'll start kind of wrapping stuff up. We're at the, we're in the forties. One thing I had is kind of a little bit of a takeaway I thought was basically not having buzzwords.
00:50:41
Speaker
So I see so many companies, the culture, the family, all that stuff is a buzzword to them. You know, so in our industry, safety is a big thing for a lot of our clients. And I see so much of our competition will have these safety policies that have all these safety things out there. And it looks great on their website. Right. I've been by their job sites. The job site don't look like the website or like the training manual. And that goes back to like some of the procurement teams. They'll look at just the highlight reel.
00:51:09
Speaker
They don't go to the job site and look at the actual performance. So you guys listen to this girls listen to this that, that won't change within your companies. You got to do away with the buzzwords and actually put the work in and actually do this hard stuff. And it is hard. It sounds easy.
00:51:26
Speaker
Culture sounds easy. It is not easy. So we're kind of with you guys. We're about three or four years in was really trying to make that change. And I just told our staff of their day, like this is as good as I can ever remember it being. And we're year 16, 17 right now, but you know, we really started focusing this four or five years ago. And I wish I had done it 16 years ago.
00:51:46
Speaker
because we would be way bigger now than we are today if I had done this back then. But this is kind of a newer thing that's been talked about more in the business world is the idea of culture and stuff like that.
00:51:57
Speaker
But gosh, is it powerful? It's so powerful. But you got to stop doing the buzzwords and actually doing this stuff. Like you said, repetitively, consistently, every day, thorough conversations, hire, fire, bonus, you know, raise off of these core values so that people know, hey, we're actually serious about this stuff. And it's how our company makes decisions too. Like we're not just, these aren't just for our employees. This is how I live. This is how I make decisions for our company as well.
00:52:26
Speaker
100%. That's exactly it is, is the actions behind it. Massive actions, doing it every day, consistently doing it, coming in, and being consistent with the decisions we're making, and then attack speed, massive action behind it. Did you say attack speed? And massive actions? Attack speed. My language. And massive action. Throw a crushing things in there, like we're gonna crush it.
00:52:56
Speaker
at the trifecta. Oh, I do that. I say, yeah, let's go crush the day. You know, let's go to the cave, kill it, and drag it home. You know, let's do that today. You know, let's go crush the day. But you have to. You can't use the buzzwords. You have to just, you have to implement it. You have to be consistent with it. And that consistency is the thing that everybody sees is it's not
00:53:25
Speaker
I say this a lot when we have some of these tougher conversations. It's not that I don't love you and not that I don't like you. We're consistent. This is consistently how we behave in this company. That's kind of one of our goals here is that some of these core values and stuff like that is actually, well, number one is who you are, but that you take some of these safety and other principles home with you. And I have seen some of our guys do some of the stuff we do here, like, you know, on the side or at home. And I'm always happy when I say, Hey, you actually have your safety gear on. Look at you guys.
00:53:55
Speaker
after you listened, you actually bought in. Right. Exactly. Well, Michelle, thank you so much for joining. It was a pleasure talking to you and Pat both. That's probably one of my favorite two podcasts is with you guys. So well, that's incredible. We appreciate you guys's time as well.
00:54:11
Speaker
Awesome. Well, thank you, Travis. Thank you as always. For those of you listening, obviously this is a free podcast. So what does that mean? We want you to share it. Please share it. If you don't like it, turn it off. Talk to you guys later. Thank you.