IM Landscape Growth Podcast

00:30 Rob welcomes back Neal Glatt and they talk about the referral partnership between their two companies.01:59 Why the middle of the design-build market has dried up, and why residential growth needs marketing while commercial growth needs strong salespeople.03:27 The big question: sales planning. Why calling about your marketing budget in February is already too late.04:15 Assess before you train. A landscape company with nine account managers learned only five had the sales DNA to benefit from training.06:57 The real hiring timeline. Why great industry salespeople are rarely available, why HVAC, janitorial and paving reps make good recruits, and why it takes 10 to 16 weeks to get a new hire prospecting.09:44 The only three ways to grow sales: bigger average sale, more selling time, or a better close rate.12:12 Raising the floor and adding offerings like lighting, seating walls and plunge pools to lift average ticket size.12:55 From $20 lawn cuts door to door in Detroit to a $5M+ per year retail portfolio, with the exact same objections.14:16 The California turf law and why it's a rare example of a real reason a rep's numbers should jump.15:51 When your team is already maxed out: add headcount, and time hires four months before your buying window (commercial, design-build and snow each have different seasons).17:26 Territory management: splitting by geography vs. specializing by customer type, like hospitals vs. HOAs.20:02 Why sales is usually the last thing owners fix, and the "do we take this job just to keep crews busy" trap.24:55 Sales is an operation too. Why ops work comes to you but a sales day starts empty, and how a fuel-gauge dashboard drives accountability.29:52 Ending the sales vs. ops war. Ops defines what the company serves best, sales only chases that, and why nobody owns even 3% of their market.33:36 Metrics nobody tracks: true cost per sales call, activities to appointments, and proposal age.36:10 Pipedrive's "deal rot," why deal stages matter, and how modern CRMs make tracking easy.37:44 Customer acquisition cost, the 92% retention standard for account managers, and lifetime customer value.41:25 How to get your team assessed for sales DNA.42:35 Neal's recommended resource: Cassidy Gutter on LinkedIn. 

00:29 Jay returns to the show, this time as the author of The Green Talent Playbook01:27 Why Jay wrote the book, and why money alone doesn't fix retention03:24 Rob on the "law of the mirror": your team either copies you or you're tolerating it04:35 The three leaders who shaped Jay, plus the owner whose approval depended on his mood07:20 Jay's eight pillars of recruiting and retention08:20 Signs your culture is off: blame, finger pointing, and protecting toxic high performers10:00 Culture defined as what you encourage, discourage, permit, or frown upon11:43 How Rob's team turned a weekly wins huddle into a weekly fails huddle12:52 Building culture on purpose, with lessons from Amy Nakai of Rooted Tree Specialists14:24 Writing your company's "eulogy" and why culture needs new systems as you scale15:33 Core values that actually work: the rock through the window example17:14 Culture vs. strategy, and core values as the petri dish18:24 Why "anyone" is the wrong hire and how to build an ideal candidate profile19:42 Find your rock stars and look for what they have in common20:45 Founders who can't let go: if five sales directors failed, the problem isn't them24:28 Candidate experience and the CareerPlug data on why people accept or decline offers25:49 What a good job posting looks like: lead with purpose, not "can lift 50 lbs"28:20 Respond within 24 hours, skip the four interview rounds, make an offer within a week29:27 Why you're losing workers to other trades that pay $4 to $7 more per hour31:12 Career paths and the SHRM and McKinsey numbers on why people leave32:24 How a 20 person company can build objective promotion standards34:47 Scott Lesak's training program at Kasel Rocks, with a 25% pay bump in week one35:46 Matching your org chart to your growth plan, and founders who outrun their teams37:06 How to get the book, where Jay is speaking, and how to reach him 

00:30 Host Rob Murray welcomes Derek Wells (Wells Lawn Care & Landscaping) and Sean Baxter (Lawn & Landscape Solutions), both coaches with Jeffrey Scott Group and both dads of four.02:04 Rob asks for the backstory. Derek shares 20 years in business and why he pulled back from “everything to everyone” in 2018 to focus on maintenance.03:21 Sean’s story: 26 years, design-build plus maintenance plus in-house pools, and a company mission to build people as much as landscapes.06:44 Rob digs into focus. Derek on finding what you’re actually good at and The One Thing’s idea of giving your priority four hours a day. Rob adds the Stephen King example and a Bruce Lee line.09:04 Rob asks what sparked Sean’s people-first approach. Sean tells the auctioneer story: everything he built could be liquidated in four days.11:17 Rob plays skeptic on landscape turnover. Sean explains hiring only from the bottom and why people stay where they can pull themselves up.12:22 Rob asks for a day-to-day example. Sean shares radical candor on skill gaps and his rule that new hires’ hours don’t count against job hours for up to six months.14:03 Rob poses the big question: what’s the primary growth constraint in the green industry?15:02 Derek’s answer: leadership capacity, and the danger of promoting your best producer before they can develop people.16:15 Sean’s answer: systems and processes. Revenue is the outcome; growth is increasing the capability of the organization. Rob notes IM grew faster once it focused on getting better instead of bigger.17:38 Derek’s roadmap exercise: list what drives 20 to 30% growth, list what drives 20 to 30% profit, and focus only where they overlap.18:41 Rob challenges the “we have a process” claim: it isn’t a process until it’s written down. Sean responds that if it only works when the owner is watching, it’s not a system, and lays out stage one (write it down) and stage two (visible accountability via tools like Teams Planner and EOS platforms).21:50 “Software light”: most companies use 20 to 30% of their platform. Rob plays the “my business is unique” card, and Sean explains why your systems go stale every 20% of growth.24:10 Rob shares that he scored 71 on IM’s new Claude-built sales AI coach and immediately booked another call to chase a 90.24:43 Responsible vs. accountable: Derek on using a RACI chart so delegation actually transfers ownership.26:04 Rob asks how to tangibly build leadership capacity in someone willing but not ready. Derek walks through leading with questions: what’s the problem, what’s your solution, what else, and why.29:22 Derek points to IM’s data showing roughly 30% of calls go unanswered. Sean shares that after hearing Rob mention it at the summit, he added an after-hours answering service and got his answer rate back to 90%.31:10 Sean on what he looks for in future leaders (humble, coachable, accountable) and the “bring me two solutions” approach, which Rob highlights as push plus support.34:00 Level two leadership: crew leads running their own one-on-ones and practicing servant leadership.36:01 Derek breaks down radical candor’s quadrants: why new production managers drift into obnoxious aggression and owners drift into ruinous empathy.37:53 Rob ties it back to “clarity is kindness” and asks why owners hold back straight feedback. Sean points to tribal knowledge; a written process makes expectations easier to hold.39:24 Building a culture that challenges upstream. Rob shares his annual anonymous company survey, and Sean explains the confidential feedback built into Jeffrey Scott roadmaps.41:11 Rob asks how to decide what to focus on. Derek recommends thinking time from The Road Less Stupid and explains how constraints rotate from leadership to sales to production.43:27 Sean on niching by customer, not service: serving homeowners “where they sleep.”44:51 The one thing for owners: learn your P&L, balance sheet, and budgeting, or you won’t get to $10M.46:46 Rob invites Sean to share details on Jeffrey Scott Group’s Financial Master Class: benchmarking against roughly 300 landscape companies, a two-day virtual format, and new AI tools for deeper financial questions. Rob compares avoiding financials to skipping the exercises that expose your weak spots.50:49 Rob wraps up and thanks Derek and Sean.

00:29 Rob welcomes Scott Budreau, the brains, sweat and tears behind Intrigue’s Landscape CRM.01:10 Scott’s background: building and implementing CRMs for companies, plus running his own home services business.01:41 What the Landscape CRM is: the only sales and marketing CRM built for landscapers, with about 100 clients and just under 500 active monthly users.02:10 The big question: what’s the primary growth constraint holding green industry entrepreneurs back?03:24 Why adoption has to come from the top down, connecting with tools like LMN and Aspire, automating the five minute rule, and the sales process that comes built in.05:53 The mindset of the most successful clients: tie the CRM to revenue goals, get the whole team on it, and live by “if it’s not in the CRM, it didn’t happen.”07:20 Rob’s observation: 99 out of 100 companies track job costing and profitability, but sales and marketing get no visibility at all.08:42 Operational tools vs. a true CRM, and why capturing every lead (website, phone, ads, referrals, a neighbor’s info on a napkin) keeps deals from slipping through the cracks.10:14 The reverse math: tying your revenue goal to close rate, quotes, leads and ultimately your marketing budget.11:47 How hard is it to get started? Scott explains why your process is probably not as unique as you think.12:38 The biggest surprise of the last two years: how much changes when owners simply start tracking what they’re doing.13:45 Beyond sales: email marketing, social media, Google reviews, and replacing tools like MailChimp.14:29 Ian from Terraforma builds a mulch email drip campaign that generates $75K, then $115K.15:54 Hormozi’s “black box that prints money” concept from the Acquisition.com workshop, and how Ian built one.17:23 Voice AI explained: an AI agent that answers when you can’t, after hours, weekends, or during busy season.20:02 How many calls are you missing? Rob puts the number at 33%, and nobody leaves voicemails.21:21 John from Enviroscape goes from pen and paper calendar to “AI rockstar” with Mary, his voice AI receptionist.22:51 Teaching Mary to pronounce Enviroscape, and the $8K after hours project she captured in the first 30 days.24:27 What’s next: a mobile app, AI sales coaching features planned for 2027, better email campaign insights, and bi-weekly training and open office hours (open to non-customers too).26:46 How to reach Scott and learn more about the Landscape CRM.27:13 Scott’s recommended read: Who Moved My Cheese by Dr. Spencer Johnson.

Insurance specialist Greg Botson from Higginbotham, explains how landscape and snow contractors can avoid audit surprises, survive non-renewals, close dangerous coverage gaps, and lower their cost of risk by becoming a better risk. Rob Murray even admits he's excited to host an insurance episode, which may be a podcast first.