Technology and Growth: Breaking Through the $5M Plateau | Ep. 281 | Toolbox for the Trades

Hello and welcome to Toolbox for the Trades. My name is Amanda Salvatore, and today I spoke with Emily Nickel, Director of Business Applications at Perennial Services Group. As an industry vet, Emily joins us to discuss how data-driven decisions and modern tech can transform your business. Ready to break through the $5 million ceiling? This episode is full of immediate action items for your team and a sneak peek peek at the new technology shaping the future of the trades that will give you an edge. I hope you enjoy this conversation as much as I did. Emily Nickel, you are the Director of Business Application at Perennial Services Group, and today we will be discussing the power of data for business decision-making, as well as how you You too can break through the $4 to $5 million ceiling for your business. Welcome to the show.

Thank you so much for having me. I feel like I am joining a club of very talented and intelligent industry leaders, so I have a little bit of imposter syndrome, but I am just so joyful to be here.

Oh my gosh. Well, I am here to tell you that you belong amongst the ranks for sure, and I'm really excited to talk about this today. You have so much experience, especially when it comes to technology in this industry. You've seen it going from paper to now software and AI. So you, you really have a great understanding and I know everyone listening is going to benefit today. But first and foremost, we always like to start with a little icebreaker. What is your go-to summer song to get ready for the season?

Oh, this is such a fun question, especially since we are just on the cusp of summer. Since I live in Michigan, I am going to stay very loyal to Kid Rock since he is from here. And my song is "All Summer Long." If you don't know that, he references Northern Michigan and he speaks the truth through so much of the song. But one of my favorite lyrics, if I'm gonna get this right, is, "It's the simple things in life, like when and where." And I'm just gonna throw it out there to anyone listening who's in the landscaping or pest control industry and your hair is on fire right now with, you know, just the spring chaos. Like, summer is coming. We all have that moment. Sometimes it's around 4th of July where we know we're gonna be able to take a breather. And I feel like this song, All Summer Long, just, uh, gives us hope that once we reach that point where we can breathe, Then all we'll have to carry about is when and where can we have the summer fun? So that's my anthem for the next month.

I love that. That's a great choice. It's always nice to know there's going to be a moment in the future that you're gonna have to relax.

So excellent, excellent choice.

Well, let's get into it. Tell us who you are, how you found yourself in this industry, and what you're doing today.

Well, you introduced my title, which I know is a longer title, Director of Business Applications. And people may be asking, how the heck did you find yourself in that role? Growing up, I just loved being outside. So we have livestock. So I'd always be helping my dad with our pigs and our cows. And then my farmhouse was surrounded by fields of crops. So I grew up just being outside whenever I could. As I grew up and I got into high school, I got more into 4-H and FFA, and that gave me the exposure of how amazing it can be to work with people and work on teams. So when I went to school and went to Iowa State, I decided I want to pick a major where I can work in the outdoors and work with people. And combine those two things together. So I switched majors over to horticulture with a landscape design minor, probably about a semester in, and never looked back. So fortunate enough to land my first full-time role with Acres Group in Chicagoland area. Did account management, sales management there, and absolutely loved working with the homeowners. And designing their landscapes, selling their maintenance contracts, and making sure we kept their landscaping investment healthy. But what's really cool about working at Acres Group is the ownership there was very transparent with every employee, whether you were on the operations or production teams or sales and account management, and really learned the budgeting and financial side. Mm-hmm. Of how a landscape organization should operate. Let's just say anyone who does snow removal knows how that can just burn a person out. So after 10 great years at Acres Group, I changed industries to software as a service and worked in the mortgage industry for a while with technology. And gosh, I was just missing this industry. Everyone we work with here, and I mean, I'm sure you see it with everyone that you meet and, and speak with just very passionate about the industry. And I really missed that. I was able to blend the software and technology side with the industry and worked at Aspire Software for a while and loved that. Uh, and I was really missing being closer to the feet on the ground. So I very excited to join the Perennial Services Group team. And my role here is— working with various operating platforms, personnel platforms to make sure they all integrate together and provide the most accurate data possible so that we can make really good business decisions that positively affect everyone who works at our organization. Crazy to think that a farm girl who used to be outside just playing with the cows and the cats, you know, made her way to more of a technology-focused role, but it's, this industry allows you to blend, you know, modern technology with the great outdoors and it's, it's really a career dream come true.

What story really exemplifies what it was like before technology came to the landscaping world?

I began my time at Acres Group in the era before we had even iPads. It was before I think iPhones even existed. So now I'm really dating myself, but we didn't have an operating system at the time that was cloud-based where we could all access it from the field.

Gosh.

I can still vividly remember the last day of every month. You know, we, we knew we had this sales budget we had to hit. We'd have production managers and account managers all sitting around a table. That evening and we had calculators, like, you know, old school calculators out typing up, adding up the totals from our pieces of paper to figure out what work, what work did we fully complete? Because this was back when schedule boards were all on whiteboards, just totaling up what we did. And while that built a lot of team camaraderie, and I really do miss those days of sitting around that table.

Yeah.

The reality of it is we were giving up dinnertime with our families at home. And this was a repeat occurrence on a, a monthly basis just because we did— the technology didn't really exist in the industry at that time to streamline that for us and, and centralize things within a single system. So, and gosh, I can't imagine if we think of how easy it is to lose paperwork. Think of potentially the missed billing that, that happened back in the day. And at the time you were almost forced on the invoiced revenue methodology. And now our industry has evolved into earned revenue, which just helps us with our financials and getting, you know, reinvestment into our company on a better timely basis. So when I think back to that time, there were a lot of blood, sweat, and tears, and I don't regret any of that. But, but to think of how far we've come. And I just hope every company who hasn't embraced technology yet hears this story and says, hey, I'm sitting around that table at the end of the month. I don't wanna do this anymore. So maybe there'll be a, a spark of inspiration from this conversation that you can have better.

I talk to a lot of owners. And very often their why, why do you do this business? Why own your own company? It boils down to family and providing for their family, creating generational wealth for their family. And the idea that they are losing time because they're not engaging with technology, with the reason why you're doing this in the first place. Yeah. Can probably feel very frustrating. And where do you even begin, especially when you're looking at technology? I would love to know your hot take when it comes to this mid-level ceiling. I think a lot of companies find themselves within this $4 to $5 million range, and it seems like there's just grinding there and, and really almost stalling. Why do you think that ceiling even exists in the first place?

I wish I could introduce you to a grad student that I had met when I was at Iowa State University, because he had the same philosophy and was really trying to get to the bottom of— $4 million is actually the ceiling that he was seeing through his research. And this was 20 years ago. We're still seeing it happen today. And I really believe it's twofold. When it all comes down to it, you need to embrace technology and data because of that story that we just talked about. You should not, as a business owner especially, you should not be spending your time sitting around a table with a calculator to figure out how you are going to make your month's budget, or in some cases, make that week's payroll. So you have to embrace technology and use the data it can provide to make more proactive business decisions. But I, I truly believe the crux of it, of what holds people back from even reaching that point is some business owners just don't wanna let go of their baby. And so it's really hard for them to take a step back and begin delegating and growing out that team that they can trust. If there's one resonating message I would love for those folks who are just, you know, stuck around that $4 million and not sure how to get past it, like one message I would love for you to hear is begin delegating to your team and invest in that operating system today. Even if the financials maybe don't tell the story that you should do it today, I promise you, you will get it. What you put into it is what you're going to get out, and you'll get that return on investment. You will need to, as a business owner, assume a full-time focus on consistent data review on a daily basis. And you can't do that if you are in the field delivering material or adding up, you know, potential invoicing amounts by a calculator. You need to have that reliable technology system that takes you from that ground level view to a 10,000-foot view so that you can make those better business decisions and actually forecast into the future to where you might wanna reinvest back into your business. The lesson to learn here is build a solid team, invest in talent, and invest in that technology to help you get there. Yeah.

I love this idea of talent and technology, and recruiting is so important when it comes to building your team and having a solid process while recruiting so you don't have to keep doing it over and over again and kind of searching for the right teammates for your crew. When you're looking at recruitment and you're looking at these possible leaders who you'll have to delegate to, do you have any advice for what to look for?

I love this question for so many reasons. First and foremost, I would encourage everyone not to label generationally. I think it's sometimes human nature for us to think that only the youngest generation is going to be able to pick up technology and, you know, take it and run quickly. And that's just not the truth. We have a partner who the best mobile app user is actually the oldest age crew leader. So not to sound redundant there, but really look for that open-minded individual who wants to brainstorm better processes. I would even venture to say in your interviews, kind of the, the new thing is becoming that you interview in place or active interviews is another. Term I'd heard for it where actually bring them into your office, show them if you have operating systems or different technology, show them, give them a demo of your processes. And if you have someone who lights up and either can share past experiences where technology has helped them or seems very open-minded, that's your cue that they're— it's all about mindset. You wanna find someone who is coachable. You don't necessarily need to find someone who already has that expertise. But I will say, it was kind of a talking out of both sides of my mouth, the landscaping industry has been embracing technology now for 10 to 15 years. I, I personally believe in a very strong way. So at this time, there are candidates out there who have experience with whether it's specific operating systems, or maybe they've even been a part of implementing new technology in a company, they don't always put it on their resume. I have seen it so many times, and we should all encourage them to put it on their resume, but ask the question. And I think this goes not just for experienced candidates who have been working in the industry, but you're going to find that there are a bunch of students who have gone to school for, whether it's landscape design or— Yeah. Plant healthcare, and there are a lot of universities who have embraced introducing specific technology in the classroom. So just ask the questions, try and immerse them during the interview, and you are going to sense where there is that technological spirit that you could— they can embrace with you.

So we talked talent, let's talk technology. Can you walk us through a real story where the data told you something that completely changed a business decision?

For those who use operating systems where work tickets or work orders drive the lifecycle of the job, this story is for you. So we had a scenario where a company was, you know, it was through the winter months, and I think there's just this, there's a fable out there where it's just totally false, where you can't, just can't do a lot of work during the winter months. Gosh darn it, you can, and you should be maximizing that cash flow in the winter months. There were a lot of, you know, winter services or time and material, holiday decor, snow removal tickets. So the hard work was done. The job had been sold in the fall. Guess what? The work for the most part had also been done during the winter months, but the team had fallen behind in managing and completing those, those tickets. So they never made it to the point of invoicing. Where we first noticed it is it was causing some differences in, you know, our earned revenue financial reporting versus the invoice revenue and those variances. And so we started digging in because we had all of our sold work routed through our operating system. We were able to very quickly identify the work that had you know, actual hours or actual costs on them, but had never been completed for that invoice. And we found $40,000 worth of opportunities that we could invoice in March that the work had been done over the last 4 months. And $40,000 can be literally life-changing for a company. In this case, it could help you invest in hiring. Yeah. That next account manager for that spring. So that was one opportunity. But here's where using your data and technology gets really cool, is we found that that just opened the door to analyzing the winter work that had been done. And we decided, okay, now that we've completed all these work tickets, let's go a little bit deeper and see what we want to invest in for the next winter. We were able to use the data to analyze it by service offering or by service line. One example that I have for you is we thought, like, late fall mulch actually looks like it was very profitable for us, so maybe we want to do a huge sales incentive, plan for that next year so that we can really boost this profitable mulch service for next year. And then as we started going into the data, We found that probably half the jobs had missed allocating the mulch material to that specific job. So sounds like a problem initially.

Yes.

We're able to course correct it. We're able to figure out what the allocation should have been and get those onto the job so that we had accurate job cost data. The good news is we uncovered mulch is not where we should be offering an incentive next year. There are actually other service offerings that were more profitable for us. But we would not have known that if we didn't have that technology and that data to give us that real-time data, because having that real-time data helps you uncover when certain processes maybe aren't being followed, um, or you're leaving money on the table. So gosh, $40,000 we were able to invoice, but then I think of, um, maybe some of the better business decisions ultimately we made by uncovering that other layer of data. I'm sold.

I'm sold on technology and data. I love that this is several layers of discovery and business decisions. From looking at the discrepancy in these invoices, you were able to open the lid on so many things within the organization. I can imagine that your advice to anyone who may be debating or flip-flopping on if this is the right decision, I, I feel like that story alone would say, invest. You might be missing something that's left on the table. You can make smarter decisions. It feels initially like a very painful band-aid to pull off, but the reward is— tenfold.

Return on investment cannot be beat when it comes to technology in our industry. If you're not investing and using the technology that you've invested in, you are getting left behind by your competitors and where this industry is going. So, and to bring this full circle to a prior conversation we had, it— having this technology and that example we had of the missed $40,000 and the readjusting service line investment, our leadership and our company was the first, because of the dashboards they had, and since they are focusing on those on a daily basis, they were able to say, this analysis is not adding up. We need, we need you to dig in. So leadership stays focused there so our company can keep growing and making better decisions. And then we have the team who was hands-on. Mm-hmm. In the day-to-day with the system that was able to make that course correction and adapt their processes. So I just wanna emphasize that, that gotta keep trying to find ways to break through that ceiling. Technology helps you get there, but then you have to keep that model going to maximize the technology output that you have.

Let's talk about the future of technology since I think staying informed about what's coming down the pipeline can also give you that edge when it comes to breaking through the ceiling. You recently made the decision to go all in on AI cameras and GPS for your entire fleet. Walk us through that call. What pushed you over the edge? What's getting you excited?

GPS has been a thing in the industry for a while, and I think we've been used to it, you know, through mobile devices, and that data can integrate into other technology or systems we have. We're recognizing swiftly that AI cameras AI is becoming an expectation, not just in our industry, but others. So I should start with why we started exploring AI cameras in our vehicles is because insurance. You know, we had heard that there's a national average of, it's either 15 or 16% savings on your insurance premiums if you invest in AI cameras and GPS. And so that sparked our interest. And I, I will admit our two largest fears, leaping from just GPS all the way to AI cameras, the first one was the fear of the driver-facing cameras. We knew that we were going to have pushback from our drivers who are already very hardworking individuals, Let's face it, labor force can be hard to find sometimes. So we were fearful, could we drive, no pun intended, drive some of our, you know, crew leaders away because of having these cameras? And the second was the investment. Not gonna lie, it's not cheap to invest in these AI cameras for every single one of your vehicles. But then we swiftly realized as we were doing the research behind it, Those fears were just excuses. And so doing the research was incredibly helpful, not only for us to make the best business decision, but also to share the why to everyone who's going to be interacting with this new technology, because then they can understand that this is there to protect them, not just to protect our business. And first, I would encourage everyone to talk to your specific insurance provider. They were more than happy to hop on a Zoom call with us, and we said what our initiative was, and they explained the underwriting process, and at what point our fleet management investment into these AI cameras was going to start giving us return on investment from the insurance perspective. And they shared it was twofold. The first is they encouraged us You must keep us up to date on how your implementation with these AI cameras goes, because every year we'll take that into consideration in the underwriting process. And that's where you might see some savings. The other side of this, and this comes into overcoming the objection with the drivers pushing back on having the driver-facing cameras, 70% of the accidents that happen with work vehicles are not your employee's fault. And if you have the dual-facing camera, it is going to capture that. And our insurance company said, it's not just a myth, it actually is fact that you can save hundreds of thousands of dollars per accident because you can get cases immediately thrown out when you show that it's not the driver's fault. In speaking to them and taking the time to have that partnered, you know, collaborative conversation before we made the investment, they showed us that our fears were just excuses and we were able to overcome both of those. I will fast forward to, I was on a webinar, I think just a couple weeks ago, it was Lawn and Landscapes webinar that was about fleet management technology. And it was so fascinating because all of the vendors who presented Of course they all talked about AI cameras, but then they were talking about the next thing for that industry. And the new technology is small equipment trackers, trailer rear-facing cameras. And I emailed my manager after I got off the call and I'm like, okay, two things I learned. We made the right decision by deciding that we're gonna just rip that Band-Aid off and do the AI cameras. But second of all, we were gonna be behind the times and might already be behind the times by not having AI cameras because everyone on that call had them and it was actually like the old news on that call. So fascinating. When you think you're ahead of the times for investing, sometimes you're not. That's just how technology works. But the key is do your research, have someone in your organization that is really dedicated to focusing on researching the benefits and the risks behind the technology so that you can find the best solution for you.

There was a bunch of new technology that you had mentioned that was a part of this webinar and a part of the discussion. What are you most excited about and where do you think people should look to next for what's coming down the pipeline so they can feel more prepared?

I think AI, when it comes to data analysis, is going to be massive and industry-changing for us. A lot of us already have integrations between operation— operating systems and our different platforms that puts all this data in one spot. And we all have very smart analysts that, that work on our teams. We're finding that AI, and some examples are Claude, Other AI platforms are light years ahead the rest, and they, they can give you instant analytics, anything from proactive churn analysis, so you know which of your customers are at risk, so you can have your account managers instantly focus on them. They can use the different data points that you already have existing from your, your different platforms, and they will feed you the recommendations. And not gonna lie, they also put 'em in a very pretty chart and very pretty visuals that, let's face it, could take you a day to prepare, but it can do within 15 minutes. So from the data analysis side of things, definitely don't shortchange AI, but also don't settle for less. Sometimes the more you invest in AI is going to serve you better. I also believe for the landscape design world, I've heard a lot about virtual reality so that when you're trying to sell a really cool new landscape renovation to one of your clients or maybe a brand new prospect, that virtual reality will allow them to better immerse themselves into a 3D experience or beyond. And I think that, that's a great example. Find the technology that's going to help you differentiate yourself from a customer point of view as well. Because sometimes even if your proposal is 10% more than your competitors, if you can show this really cool technology, it gives them a lot of confidence that your company has it together. You're gonna take good care of them, and it helps them visualize what it is going to be like to work with you. So between this virtual reality and drones to aerially manage your different properties, I think those are gonna be huge in the future.

And also give you an edge to break through that ceiling, right? Being able to focus and see what's coming down the pipeline and getting on board even quicker and using that to your advantage. This is something that we offer. I love this idea of the virtual reality. A lot of people might have a hard time understanding what something might look like or picture it, But with that, you're able to really get an understanding with your client and what they're looking for. I think that is so cool.

I should make a plug for some of the, what we would now consider maybe basic technology that some companies are not embracing yet. I'm reading the Steve Jobs biography right now, and this is probably why it's so fresh in my mind, but so the iPad was invented and first released in 2010. That wasn't actually that long ago, but 16 years. And I speak to so many companies who have not invested in iPads for their account managers or in-the-field operations managers. And the huge difference I see in just recognizing the return on investment for something that we consider as basic as an iPad right now is is massive. So if you imagine your account manager is in the field with a clipboard and a piece of paper writing 5 pages worth of notes of plants that need to be removed and replaced, and then they have to take that back to the office or at home when they're eating dinner, they've got their laptop up and then they're retyping what they had already written out. That could very much limit to them to say, let's say, 2 property walks and bids that go out a day. Not to mention it's very inefficient and probably frustrating for that account manager. If you invest in an iPad for them, and especially if you have a cloud-based operating software, as they do the property walk, they can build that estimate on the fly. If their customer's there with them, they can actually electronically deliver it to that customer and have them electronically sign right on the spot while they're really excited about what you've been talking about. And let's say theoretically that boosts that account manager's output to getting out 4 proposals a day instead of 2. Now, taking a very minimal— this is probably very conservative proposal— dollar amount of $5,000. If you upped that $10,000 a day that you're getting proposals you're getting out on the street just by the increase of embracing an iPad for your account managers to be more efficient. It's not only going to help potentially your top line sales, but as an account manager, would you rather work at a company that equips you with the technology and the iPad to do your job more easily, potentially make more money if you're on commission, or would you rather work for a company who hasn't quite made those investments yet and you're carrying around that clipboard? I think if you put yourself in that account manager's shoes, you know which company you choose. And I'm not dogging any companies who haven't invested in iPads yet. It's just, that was just one basic example that maybe is a little bit more realistic than the virtual reality is today for most folks. But try and think about your technology stack investment in bite-sized chunks, just like we did with that iPad example, and it might help you make more confident decisions in where you want to go with your tech stack.

Emily Nickel, that is incredible advice. This is action items that people can start today. I want to thank you so much for all of the great advice for technology and where you can start and where it is headed. Thank you so much for coming on Toolbox for the Trades. [FOREIGN LANGUAGE]