Ep 106. Granum: Mark Sedgley's Merger of SingleOps, LMN, and Greenius

8 Jan 2026 · 57 min

In this episode of the podcast, hosts Jason Lee and Jordan Upkevage interview Mark Sedgley, the founder behind the formation of Granum—a merger of SingleOps, LMN, and Greenius. The conversation traces Sedgley's entrepreneurial journey from his first venture, an English academy in Krakow, through a successful sales career at Cardinal Health and the founding and scaling of MemberClicks. He discusses how private‑equity‑backed acquisitions shaped his approach to growth, the strategic rationale and operational challenges of merging three software companies into Granum, and the integration lessons he learned about culture, technology, and customer focus. Sedgley offers practical advice for landscaping and tree‑care business owners considering growth or acquisition, emphasizing the importance of clear processes, strong leadership, and customer‑centric value. The latter part of the interview shifts to personal motivations: Sedgley talks about his love of creating prosperity for small businesses, his work‑hard ethic, the ripple effect he seeks, and how he balances success with family life, travel, and leisure pursuits like deep‑sea fishing. Throughout, he underscores core operating values—hard work, accountability, and a focus on tangible impact—while also sharing his future vision for community engagement and networking events. The episode blends strategic business insights with personal reflections, providing listeners with both actionable guidance and a glimpse into the mindset of a growth‑focused entrepreneur.

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Welcome to Green side Up, the perfect podcast for small business entrepreneurs looking to cultivate success in the landscaping and tree care industry. Join Jason Lee, a seasoned landscaper, and Jordan Upkavage, a true tree whisperer, as they share their wealth of experience and insights to navigate the challenges of growing your business. Get ready to hear real life stories, practical solutions and invaluable advice that will empower you to thrive amidst the chaos of entrepreneurship. And now, let's keep the Green side Up with your hosts, Jason Lee and Jordan Upkevage.
Jordan, it is great to be here with you.
Yes.
On this week's episode of Green side Up podcast in Louisville, Louisville, Louisville, Louisville, Kentucky. And we have the privilege to sit down with Mr. Mark Sedgley and honor. An honor.
Thank you.
Yeah, good to have have a beer with you again, Mark. Cuz we, we spent some time in Tampa.
Year then.
Yeah, a year and change ago. So appreciate you sitting down, making time and you're scheduled to sit down with us and, and do this deal.
Pleasure's all mine, boys.
Yeah, so give me the rundown on, on what's new in Mark's world here.
Oh, wow. Let's.
For the listeners that don't know, who are you?
Yeah, so I'm Mark Sedgley. I'm the CEO of a company called Granum. Your listeners might be like, what the hell is Granum, man? You know, and so Granum is the combination of lmn. So if you're in landscape, you know, there's a good chance you've probably heard of lmn, Landscape Management Network software and single ops. So if you're a tree care business like Mr. Rock College.
Yep.
There's a good chance you've heard of Single Ops. And then Greenus and Greenius is kind of like spans the entire green industry from, like, equipping and educational development and content and videos and all that stuff. And so we merged all three of those companies together almost a year ago, and we launched a new brand called Granum.
So I remember when we were driving around and we can tell that story later, but we were talking about some of the things that the software, Single Ops was or was not doing and certain goals or things that we would like that software to do. And you said, and maybe coy is not the right word, but with some ambiguity. You said, I'm working on that. And I was like, huh? What, is he just going to rewrite some code and fix it? But you. Your way of fixing it was rather creative.
Yes, yes. And so there's a lot of reasons to do acquisitions in life. Right. I've either had the curse or pleasure of doing nine acquisitions over the last
five years of a business buying another business.
Okay. And that means I've done nine integrations.
Okay. So how does a guy get into knowing how to do acquisitions?
Man, I wish I could tell you.
Like, you're in high school. You graduate high school, and you're like, I want to be a business buyer. Yeah, like what? Tell me that.
No shot. That's what I said when I got out of high school.
Well, what happened when you got out of high school?
So I actually went to. So I've been with my wife since I was 18.
Okay.
Okay. So I wanted to stay close to her. She ran track and field at the University of Tennessee. And so I was like, I'm not going to University of Tennessee. I grew up in Knoxville. My whole life, I couldn't handle orange anymore. I like the green side up orange. But the Tennessee Vols, orange is a little. A little too much. It's a lot. It's a lot.
Especially with the white background.
Yeah, exactly. Now go Vols. For all of our fans out there. And so I went to the school, I thought my dad, Big Rick Sedgley, I'll let your mind wander there.
And I'm the problem.
Yes. He is a dying breed of lawyer. Did you guys ever see Better Call Saul?
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
So Better Call Saul. Did you see Breaking Bad?
No, but I know of it.
Yeah. So Saul is the lawyer for the meth dealers, right?
Defect defense. Lawyer.
Yeah. Criminal defense. Okay. Yeah. So that's my dad. Like, a little bit of everything. Like, if you get a speeding Ticket. Call Big Rick. If you need an estate plan, call Big Rick.
Is he on billboards?
Yeah.
Oh, yeah.
Like, no. Yeah. Like, oh, yeah, yeah. Can you pull one up? No, he's. He's 80 and blind now, so he's not on him anymore, but you need a divorce call.
Big break.
You get my point?
I get it.
Yeah. And so I thought for sure I was gonna go to school, get a law degree, and take over Big Rick's practice.
Yeah.
I'm gonna be Big Mark. Oh, yeah. Right. And then life.
Right, Right.
Life stepped in. And so my wife and I went to Poland. Krakow, Poland. Because that's where my wife's from.
Okay.
And we went to go see her sister get married, and then she had a weird thing in her visa that said she couldn't come back.
Oh, damn.
Yeah. And so I had to stand cracking Poland for two weeks.
You weren't gone for, like, a month or like, three weeks? Three weeks. Wow.
Yeah. And so, like, hey, you can't come back. You got to serve out this two year term based on where you're able to even apply. Yeah, exactly.
But y', all, we already married.
And she goes. I was like, there's got to be an appeals process. Oh, there is, honey. She handed me the paperwork, and I was like, well, how long does a typical Appeals process take? 18 to 24 months. You just got to call Big Rick. I know Big Rick could not solve this for me. Yeah. And so I stayed in Krakow, Poland. And I was like, well, shit, man. I need a job. Like, I can't just hang out with her.
So how old are you?
I'm 21.
Okay.
Damn.
And so we move there. I go to a gym to work out. I was a much more fit slash muscular guy back in the day. Like, I know it's hard for you to believe.
Do you have shoulders like boulders?
Oh, my God. Curls for the girls, chest for the rest.
We call it chest day. Best day. Yeah.
And then back.
You can't have a front without a back. Legs like kegs.
Oh, geez. Like, you're just gonna keep going. You got into. How many of these do you have?
Buys till you cry, tries till you die.
Is he gonna keep going? No, I'm not.
He's almost out.
He's almost out. And so I saw this guy in the gym. He was wearing a Florida state hat, a Home Depot T shirt. And I was like, gotta be American, right? So I walk up, I introduce myself. I was like, hey, we just started rapping. And I wanted to. So I wanted to try and, like, teach English as a second language. And he worked at this company called Berlitz, which was, like, the biggest company at the time for teaching. Now it's all, you know, tech apps, and, like, they completely got displaced. I was like, oh, I need you. I need you to help me get a job.
So were you fluent in Polish?
Very. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, yeah. And so he said, great. He was like, I work at Bolets. I'm leaving. I was like, oh, I need to, like, can you help me get a job at Burlesque? He's like, no place is terrible. Hard pass. Right? He's like, but I want to start my own school and teach English as a second language. Are you interested? I was like, I don't have anything else better to do, you know? Right. You know, like, and so we literally built from the ground up Atkins Academy together. Together in Krakow, Poland. And we opened up day one, like, nine months later with 300 students.
Holy smokes.
In a brick and mortar building.
So this is my one claim to fame, Jordan, if you've ever seen the movie Schindler's List. Yes. Very famous movie. There's a scene where Liam Neeson looks like he's in a manufacturing plant. He's actually in a monastery in the Jewish section of Krakow. We bought and gutted that monastery and turned it into Atkins Academy.
Do you have to get, like, accreditations, dude?
All kinds of things.
So you did.
Yes. The main. He did most of that because he was, like, really well versed in that. I was the guy going into supermarkets, like, getting people to give me their information. Giving them free stuff, you know, to try and get them to.
So you're like, flyers. Look, hey, do you want to go to school? Learning.
Knocking on doors, too?
Like, was that the shtick? Would you like to speak English?
Yeah. And do you want to speak English the right way?
Okay.
Right.
And was it a. Was there a gimmick of the first week is free or how do you pull them? How do you cold.
Cold.
Walk up to somebody in Polish Publix.
Yeah.
And then get their credit card, right?
Yeah. So you don't get their credit card for one. Like, Europeans are very much cash based, like humans. It's changing now. But I would stand in the middle and I would give away a free set of books or a free semester or a tv, you know, whether or not those things actually existed didn't matter. Right. And so they gave us our information, and then I would go call them, visit them, talk to them. And we had folks in the school that were 40 and 7 in the same class because they spoke the same level of English.
Right, Right.
Super interesting. Did it for almost two years. Served out our penance, you know, for the American government.
So I'm just curious. That sales pitch, would you do it in English to the Polish person or can you do it both? All right.
Yeah.
You ready?
Yeah, I'm at the grocery store.
Jordan.
Hey.
It's nice to meet you. I have no idea what you just said.
Great. You speak English. Awesome. I'm actually starting a school for English in Krakow in the. In Kazim. And Kashima is just like a cool part of town. Okay. Really? What's it called? Atkins Academy. What's your stick? We teach people how to really navigate business language and lingo. Right. And we make sure we guarantee you that you pass the British.
Right.
Yeah. The certification exam. And we can do that in less than a year. Right? Yeah. And so a lot of folks were going to like these really Berlitzi type, like, highly regimented. We taught people English by helping them watch Seinfeld episodes and playing the guitar and singing songs.
Yep.
And so we told them all that stuff and they were like, okay, this is kind of cool. We were way cheaper.
Y.
Right. And so we undercut the market. We were the cool kids in town. Like, we had a lot of college kids that worked out for us, you know, I mean, a lot of females in Krakow were wanting to learn English. Right. And so what we did was, is we just, you know, catered to that. My buddy John was jacked, you know, so we'd put him in the middle of the good looking guy. Yeah. Florida State, you know, you know, don't mind, you know, little o me in the background. But you were, you were swole. Yeah, I mean, for sure. Yeah. I mean, come on.
So from 0 to 300 students registered. And you're doing it.
Yeah, I'm doing it for like two years. And then I had a blast, man. And I literally did. We watched Seinfeld episodes. I played the guitar, I sang songs. I taught them colloquial English. I taught them slang, the whole nine yards. Yeah, right.
They made it fun for them.
Yeah.
And they learned. I have no idea if they passed the exams because I left before that. But in your job. Yeah, yeah. Like, I did, I did. I did what I was supposed to do. Okay. So, no, I didn't come out of college, like, shooting from the hip. Like, I'm going to be a business. Yeah, dude, no shot. I thought that, like, I didn't I didn't take one business course in college. Not one.
What did you study in college?
English and East Asian philosophy. Okay, hold on, hold on. I'm not done with a minor in the Chinese language. Jesus. Totally useless.
What the.
Like, what was I gonna do?
Like, what did you. What did you think you were gonna do?
I thought I was gonna go to law school. Oh, okay.
So why the hell do you study Chinese? Japanese?
Are you ready for this?
Yes.
This is how pea brained I actually am. I spoke German really well and I spoke Polish really well. Okay. My grandmother, there were first generation Germans. When I would stay with them during the summers, they would speak German to me. So. Okay, here we go again. Right?
So my grandmother's from Darmstadt, Germany, so I only know like a handful of things and some curse words.
But so my, my family's from Edelweiss, so. And so we. So I learned I knew German pretty well. I didn't. Had zero interest in studying him or they didn't offer Polish. Would have taken that and crushed it. But I was looking at the professors and the Chinese language professor's last name was.
You didn't register it for 100 for that reason.
Patrick Moron was his name. I was like, that's my guy.
I like.
As it turns out, Patrick Moron was not a no. He was considered the foremost expert in teaching Mandarin Chinese in America. Went to Stanford. Had this long, flowy, Lao zoo type, you know, beard. Like, looked like he belonged in like Tibet.
Right.
You know, I was like, oh my God, I've messed up so bad.
What the hell?
It was so hard for a funny joke.
It was so hard. I can't speak a lick of China. Washua yi dindian zhang Hua Hua. That's all I can say.
Well, what does that mean?
I speak a little bit of Chinese.
Oh, there you go.
So, yeah, so that was my useless, you know, time at college.
So when you get, when you get back from your sentence in Poland.
Yeah.
What do you, what do you land in when you come?
So I do like business. My whole life is sales. Atlanta, Georgia.
Okay.
Which is where I am today still. Today. My whole life has been sales, you know, selling door to door for the, you know, the English, you know, academy. I sold books door to door in college. I've been a server, a bartender. I actually, my first job in high school was putting a mower and a weed whacker in my trunk. A little bungee cord. Keeping the trunk.
Yeah.
Close. And going door to door and say like, Hey, 20 bucks, man. I'll weed, whack and blow. And so, yeah, and I came back. I started working for a big pharmaceutical distribution company called Cardinal Health.
Yeah, I've heard of them.
60,000 employees, Fortune 15 company, huge.
So what did your resume say? I half ass, failed Chinese, Mandarin, I speak Polish pretty good. And I started a university. Was that the credential?
That was.
I started a university.
Big standard.
And they're like, oh, shit, this guy's a doer.
Yeah.
All right, so whatever.
I knew somebody that worked. Oh, okay. My resume didn't matter. Okay, well, no, that's a good old fashioned nepotism.
That's real. Yeah, you know, it's. My mom told me. It's not who you know, it's what you know. My mom was a teacher, a public school teacher, but that. That shit's legit.
Yeah, well, it's actually, yeah, the opposite.
Opposite.
Yeah.
Okay, well, the other way around, but you know what I'm saying.
God.
It's not picking on me. What you know is who you know. It's okay.
We got it.
Shove it, guys. Jesus, you gave me espresso martini shots 15 minutes ago.
What do you want from me?
I'm only a man. I'm only a man. God damn. Cut me some slack.
So my job at Cardinal, to sell independent pharmacies. Independent pharmacies are awesome. And this is kind of where I fell in love with small business.
Sell product to an independent pharmacy or
so Cardinal Health, McKesson, AmerisourceBergen. Like, those are the only real three places you can. Like, pharmacies can get their drugs.
Okay.
Right. They're the biggest distributors in the world. But my line was independent pharmacy. So not Walgreens and CVS's, but like
the local family owned pharmacy.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Tallahassee Drug or, you know, Bill's prescriptions.
And.
Yeah.
And we would go in and I would. I would sell them on the Cardinal program, which we had our own generic line, and we would make them a leader store and like, all this good stuff. And that's when I fell in love with small business. Because you're all businesses. Yeah, I'm a small business guy. Like, I absolutely love small business. Yes, it is the heartbeat, the fabric, the kind of economic stitching.
And you got to deal with the family that. Because, of course, a lot of those are family dynamics or family employees. My. Yeah, my neighbor Andrew, his dad had a pharmacy and they did compounding and special eye drops where they get your blood and spin it around and give you eye drops and that whole Bag.
You might not want to do that. Like, I would.
I don't. Yeah, I see.
Pretty good. Okay, cool. Yeah. Just don't do the blood spinning in the eyes. Like, don't do that.
Not for me.
Compounding, though, really good business, by the way. High margin. Like, really good. Yeah, Yeah.
I don't intend to get in on that line of business.
That was probably really good because they sold.
They sold the business. Right, right.
So, yeah.
Yeah.
Okay. So you did that with Cardinal.
Yep.
And you had. You probably had fun doing it too, right? Extroverted.
Talking to people. I rose through the ranks. I was put in their Rising stars program, and I rose to the ranks and I ended up managing all the business development reps in the Southeast out of our Atlanta distribution center, which was one of the biggest distributions.
So how do you learn how to manage people? Because that is way. Not sales.
I got fired.
Okay.
Yeah. Because I did it really badly. Yep, yep.
High salesman thinking that. Okay, well, if you're a great salesperson, you got to be good at managing the salespeople. No.
Totally worst mistake you can ever make. I was great at sales, horrific at management. Yep. I'm still horrific at management. Right. I'm good at leading, not good at managing. And so that was probably one of the most dejected moments of my life. Like, I was like, oh, wow, like, I got fired. I just got fired. And literally that day, I got a call from a buddy of mine that I went to college with, and it was like, hey, we've got a startup. We can't sell the software. Would you come take a look and see if you can help us? Man, Five other dudes.
And is this the towing software?
This is member clicks. And so if you've ever been a member of like a state tree association or a state landscaping association, when you went online and registered for to pay your dues, update your information, or register for an event, it was probably my software.
Okay.
Yeah.
So you. You got into the software world through the soft software world, through sales plan.
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R O.com and your job was to sell that software?
Yeah. Hey buddy, like, can you figure out. Because we really need it. When I got there, they had $80,000 in revenue. And how far in the hole were they? Very millions. And so over a three year period of time, we went from like that $80,000 was like a hundred customers. And we went from 100 customers to a thousand customers in three years. I sold probably like 897 of those. Sweet. Yeah. And funny thing is, is when you can sell, all of a sudden people think you have magic. Like you're like you have something that nobody else has.
Right.
And so I kept taking over more and more of the operation. And then I started still doing sales while overstaying. I was leading sales VP of sales. Like, I built up a sales team. I built up an onboarding team. Like the traditional stuff you expect from software today. Like, none of this stuff existed when I.
And you figured it out by doing. When you just like build.
How do you.
Yeah, let's just build a damn team.
Well, I think too, like listen to the customer. Like, you know, we would sell it. It was supposedly an easy product for them to adopt. Guess what? In 2004, no technology was easy to adopt because nobody was using technology. This is a time, guys, like, when people would like try and get on the Internet, it would be like, yeah, aol. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah, yeah.
My mom was a teacher in the state. Well, your mom was a teacher too. Did you have Fern Edu? We had Fern Edu and it was dial up. And it would take like five minutes to get connected to the Internet.
And then once you were there, you're like, oh great. It's only going to take me another seven minutes to get my email downloaded and then to send one, you know,
and then you're still trying to. Well, at least like the parents. My, my parents. Where the hell is the R on the keyboard? And it, it's still like that hunting pack.
Hell, I remember downloading a George Carlin comedy special and like I would download it and I'D come back. I just leave it and come back like four or five hours later and hope it was done.
Still be there. First of all, I just want you to know that you're a man amongst boys. By the by, telling me you downloaded a George Carlin. He is so good.
Oh, yeah. Back then, I mean. And I didn't even know what standup was back then. Carlin, Richard Prior, Eddie Murphy, Raw.
So good. Yeah, Eddie Murphy, raw. Like, it's so good. Anyways.
Yeah, All I got is Johnny Carson.
Yeah, I like that guy.
Really?
That's your guy? That's the one you're gonna go to?
God, I should.
You want me to leave? I mean, he led with Dan Garland.
I don't know who George Carlin is.
Sorry. George Carlin. I just messed you up. George Carlin. Well, I've never heard Eddie Murphy.
I know that guy. Yeah.
Richard Pryor.
I heard the name, but I don't know.
Oh, my gosh.
I don't know, man. I don't do the TVs. You're asking me about.
This wasn't TV. We're not talking about.
What are you downloading audio?
Yeah, well, back then. Well, that was downloading. They had the video. Videos were somehow made it to the Internet. That would have been around 2004.
I take it back. Look, man, forgiveness is one of my core values. Can you extend a little bit to me right now?
Yeah, if it's sincere, I'll accept it.
No, I'm asking you to forgive me. Oh, yeah.
Oh, for sure.
Thanks. Yeah, appreciate it.
Like water on a duck's back, bro.
So member clicks took over.
Got it.
Got the founder, the founders wanted out. I got private equity backing. When I got private equity backing. By the way, this is the longest answer to how did you get to be acquisition guy on the face of the planet?
Well, we're trying to fill a podcast, so we need a story, right?
Yes. Yeah, I know. I'm pretty good at telling stories. Yeah. And so then when I got my investment backing, I had lined up two acquisitions. I was like, hey, guys, like, if we really want to grow, this is who we should go acquire. And I went and did it.
Did you have money at that point? Did you fill the hole in?
Yeah, the private equity guys came in and put money on the balance sheet. They helped us acquire the companies.
Okay.
And also too, like, they were incredible partners. Like, just really good people. And unbelievably, the reason why I came to the green industry is because one of those folks was invested in single ops. And brought me in, really, to take the place of Sean McCormick, who was the founder of Single Almond, Single Ops. And then when I got there, you know, the, as the story goes, like, I started looking around kind of when we were in the truck together, and I was like, it's going to be really hard to build all this. I need to acquire it and then I need to figure out how we're going to build one software to solve it all. And that's where we are today.
Yeah.
Grantham.
There we go.
So you're.
So your education and acquisition was through those private equity guests, correct?
Yeah. And also just again, just doing it.
Doing it.
Yeah, yeah. Like, I mean, and I, I really asked them, I was like, guys, like, I want to be the lead dog on this. Like, I want to know, like, what are you thinking through? Like, what are the models you're using? Like, what are the questions you're asking? Well, and I wanted to be.
So can you answer that? So I'm, I'm in a position where I think we've about maxed out how much volume we can produce in a gen in an area.
A Geo. Yeah, yeah.
So I don't know what my long term goal is. Keep it the way it is. Have a happy, simple life and live life. Okay. Or if it's grow, grow, grow, I don't know. But I've flirted with the idea of what it would look like to have another office. Okay. If it's, you know, in another city, county in the state of Florida. So I think there's two ways to go about doing that or three ways. You buy a franchise and add that to the mix, or you go to that market space and start it organically cold on your own. Or you find a business that, that mom and pop and you buy that business and implement your process. What's the guidance on me or somebody like me that's flirting with this idea? How would you, what are some of the steps to, to make that real? To avoid the pain of figuring it out on your own. Lessen the pain.
Yeah, yeah. It's such a great question, by the way. It's like, I think you've identified a couple of really good reasons why to do an acquisition, by the way. But like, the first thing I would ask anybody that's thinking about doing an acquisition is why, why do you want to do an acquisition? Right. And get really crystal clear on why you want to do the acquisition? And then the next question, would that
answer be, I want to make more money?
Sure.
That's probably why? Or pride. Yeah, right.
Or all those things are great. Like, all those things are real. Like, you're why. So let's just start with I want to make more money. That's. That's my why. Sure. Okay. So then the reverse engineering of that is, why can't you do that, doing what you're doing right now?
Right.
And then the next question I would ask is, what's the. The goal then, in the acquisition? Is it to do what you said? Is it to, like, get more geographic territory? Is it to diversify into a different business line that I do not do well? Is it to be opportunistic and say, like, I know I can do what they're doing better? Right. And you start going through all those questions to say, like, why am I doing this? And what's the goal? Right. And once you're crystal clear on that, then you make the decision. Because acquiring a company is not easy. And most of them go wrong, by the way. Like, there's a study out. There's a very famous study out there. It's like 67% plus of all mergers are considered a failure one year later. Now, I can categorically tell you this merger has been an unequivocal success. And the reason why is because we were crystal clear on the why. We were crystal clear on what our goal was. But the other thing we were super clear on is we had to buy a company where the employees lived out the same operational core values that we bring to the table. Because you can't change DNA, right? You can train hard skills. You can train people on how to deliver software better. You can train people on how to do support better. You can't train people on forgiveness. You can't train people on putting others before yourself. You can't train yourself people to be more accountable. They either are or they aren't. You can't train people to give the extra 1%. And those were our core operating values. And so I needed to meet with people at LMN to find out, like, hey, is this going to work or not?
So, Mark, I. I want you to answer your own questions. When I met you for the first time, you were Mark Sedgley from Single Ops.
Yep.
Okay. You acquired Element Correct.
Three times the size of us.
Okay. So you acquired them. Why?
Yep. So.
So tell me why you. You did that.
So the first things first, the reason why I was brought in was to figure out if I can continue to grow just in tree care.
Okay.
And so I think my first why was growth when private equity Comes in and invests in your business, they're not coming in and investing in it to like just kind of putz around and like do the same thing you've always done. Right. And so their, their vision, their thesis was this can grow and it can grow really fast in the tree care space. And so when I came in, I looked around, I looked at all the research, I went and visited customers, I went on ride alongs and then I started listening to all the sales calls. Right. And it became very clear during the demo.
Sales call.
Yeah, like listening to, hearing how the. I would see a lot of owner operators on their phone doing demos from their phone in their truck and they're.
You're trying to show a computer screen and you can't.
But what it told me was a lot of information about the buyer.
Yes.
And so when I looked at the market analysis, when you're trying to sell software, the most important thing on the face of the planet for software is how many people could actually buy by your software. And so when I looked at the tree care market, there's 70,000 tree care businesses, give or take. Okay.
And we're talking United States only.
Yes. Okay. Yep. If you look at that, you're like, wow, that's actually a pretty good marketplace. I can sell to 70,000 people and most of them are unvended. That is, they don't use software today.
Most of them are pen and paper.
Correct. Right. And so that's like good, like okay, great, there's a buyer for my goods. The way you want a marketplace to shape up those is like, okay, there's a lot of micro like owner, operator, one truck, you know, cutting down trees, all that good stuff. You really want a really strong middle market. And that's that SMB market. That's like folks that have gotten to half a million like have some kind of wherewithal, have a back office, more than one crew. Yep. Typically is where it starts to shake out.
Actually have something to manage and that's Right. And need a software.
Need software to really kind of solve problems. Right. And then. And you really want your software to be able to scale from a half a million to around 10 million to cover almost the majority of the market, except for when it gets to big time enterprise.
So if you the, the business that, let's say they're at 2,3 million for you to get that customer, you are pulling them off of another software sometimes.
But again, remember my marketplace, tree care marketplace and landscape, they're not, they're not on a software. Right. And so that's good. It's like, okay. But the problem with the tree care market, as I started to do more analysis and more research and talking to people, the overwhelming majority of the marketplace in tree care is the one like sub half million dollar operator. Yeah, definitely sub $1 million operator. And so that gets really hard to sell them on a software that's somewhere between 6 and $10,000. Right.
And they're, they're like, well, I write my own notes.
I don't even have time. Yeah, exactly.
Why do I need to put this in the computer? It's just me.
Cheers, boys. All right. And so I mean, heck, like when you and I were together, like you still had some paper proposals and estimates and you know, all that good stuff. Right.
I think I would print them out.
Yeah. Yeah.
I'd email them. Yeah. And then I'd print it out.
I like leaving you like it.
Yeah.
I like leaving something tangible like the little leave behind.
Yeah, right.
Or you can you hit them with the email, hit them with the text, leave paper.
Yeah.
Like I've done everything I can for you.
Right.
And I'll call you in 48 hours.
That's right. And you've got a really good system. Like. And I learned a lot from our ride along. Like I so grateful for that time. But what I realized is like very few people like you. There's a lot of like folks out there that I would have to sell to and really convince and educate them on like why and I would need to lower price even more, you know, and so that told me the market wasn't big enough for the software that I had. So I'm either going to have to re engineer the software, take price down. Not a good.
Don't you as a. You don't like me, don't lower price like that. That's what it is.
Yeah, exactly. And on top of that, it's like now you're also like bringing like a buyer into the marketplaces. Like they don't typically have a lot of technology like know how and understanding or need. Really. Yeah. And so I was like, hey guys, the tree care market's too small. That was my takeaway. And Single Office is already building landscape software. Right.
And, and adding it under the same S features. Like the. I think what you were doing is the satellite measuring of properties. Was that when you were. Were fooling with it?
Yeah. And we have a partnership with Attentive where you can actually do those measurements and like it's going to come into the, the element platform and So I said to my guys, like, hey, we can either try and like bang our heads and build this software, but there's already really well established players like Alamen Aspire, like real green Jobber, like really very well established players. And so I was like, I think we should try and acquire our way into this. And they were like, well, we looked at that already. It's going to be tough not to crack. Right? Great. Can I give it a whirl? And so when I did my research, LMN was squarely focused on the SMB side of the marketplace, which is exactly where single ops is.
And what's the SMB?
Small to mid sized business.
Got it. Okay.
So that said 500.
Yeah, that's a 500 to $10 million. You know, it's like. And a lot of same things, like, I need to be able to do a proposal, I need to be able to do an estimate. It needs to be easy for my staff. Right. Like, I need to be able to bill for it calendar, I need to be able to schedule, manage the job, etc. Now, tree care companies need to be able to do tree inventory. They need to do high velocity estimating. Right. They schedule equipment, not humans. Opposite. For landscapes. Like, no, no, I don't do, I don't do 14 estimates a day. You know, like, I'm not doing that. I. I need to schedule humans, not equipment. Equipment's always the same, you know, and so there's like nuanced differences between the, the two kind of buyers. And the landscape is 10x the size of tree care, of course. Right.
I mean, it only makes sense. You get your trees trimmed, you live in a house, you own trucks. Right. How often do you get your trees trimmed?
Well, I've been there for five years, not none yet.
Exactly.
Yeah.
Okay, so between zero and maybe once every five years, grass has to be
mowed 34 to 38 times a year.
Correct. So yep, yep.
Makes sense.
Yeah. And then irrigation and design, build, and, and that is one thing that I've noticed about landscaping versus tree care. Landscaping businesses tend to be more diversified tree care businesses, very specialized, very specialized, more education. Arborists, like very highly focused, more regulated, etc. So it forces you to be more specialized. Landscaping. You know, the world is kind of your oyster. It's like, okay, I can do irrigation, I can do design, build, I can do commercial, I can do residential, I can do all kinds of things to kind of like, I can do tree if I want to. Yeah, right. And they do. Right. And so that got my Juices flowing is like, okay, we should be able to build a software platform. We should be able to like consolidate this marketplace from a software consumption perspective. And I want to build a platform that's easy to use for both. I want to build a platform that's the most powerful green industry platform on the face of the planet. I don't care about home services, I don't care about construction. Those are great contractors. They're good people, they're hardworking. I'm building software for the green industry.
So you had your eye on lmn and why did you pick Element? So Jobber. They. Let's just throw that aside because they're, you know, less services, less construction, roof, less special.
Yeah. Horizontal.
And so why not Aspire? What made you go Element? Because my assumption is. Or just the Persona is like high accolades to Aspire. They probably got to go and offer. Maybe that's because it's the price tag that makes me lead to that assumption.
Well, they were acquired by Service Titan.
Right.
So they're tripling down on home services and just leaving the green industry in the back burner.
Correct. Yeah. And so you said that. I did not. Which is. Thank you.
So that's why you went to Element.
Element. And also Aspire serves the enterprise space. So think about that. 25 million and up. 30 million and up.
Yep.
Like they have very few. Like we have over 5,000 customers, guys in our business today. Aspire has way less customers than that. They just a lot of revenue. Right. And so they were owned by Service Titan, to answer your question.
I got it.
It's a publicly traded business. And then on top of that, I'm not interested in the enterprise space. I'm interested in. I fell in love with small to mid sized businesses.
Yeah. So, Mark, I'm going to go to Canada and I'm going to buy lmn. Do you have. You got to get some ammunition for that.
Yeah.
You can't go knocking on LMN's door.
And I literally got knocked on his door. I.
Without a bucket of money, financial start there. Okay, how did it start?
It started with, hey, Mark. Mark Bradley's his name. Yeah. And so like, hey, you're prolific in the space. You're teaching people how to run good businesses. You're educating people on how to build budgets and build profitable jobs. You serve the SMB space. I love the SMB space. I'm new to the industry. Would you be willing to kind of like teach me about it? Can we have an hour conversation? I'd love to just introduce myself and let's be frenemies. He said yes. So I did a webinar with him. We hit it off and then I made up a reason to be in Toronto visiting a customer and I said, hey, Mark, I'm actually in town. Would you. Do you like steak and red wine? I was like, please say yes. Please say yes.
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yeah, man. It's like, so let's meet. So we had a dinner and we talked about employee values. We talked about like how we think about business and that kind of, remember that core operating values kind of jive. And then fast forward, you know, we stayed in contact with each other fast forward three or four months. He decided he wanted to take his company to market and we were the first in line. And so we won. And I did have a bucket of cash that I had to fork over.
Yeah.
Because my investors believed what I said when I said, like, hey, tree care is small, landscape's big. We should be able to build a software that serves them both very well over time. We should make this investment now. And now I've made the investment and I'm pouring in a bunch of engineering resources to build that singular platform to solve them all.
And then how did Greenius come into play there?
So Elemented acquired Greeniest.
Okay.
That came with a couple years before. Yeah. But I love Greenies, by the way. Like, I actually think it's, it's. We're making a huge investment in Greenius. So let me quickly tell you what Greenius is. You go online, you, you want to put field checklists, you want to equip it with videos just like, hey, this is how you change the chain on a chainsaw. This is how you sharpen a blade. This is where you get the actual diesel fuel, not the regular gas on your yard. Like, I'm serious. Like, and we have tons and tons and tons of video content to help our customers train new employees that come into that environment. And our customers can upload their own videos. Like, hey, by the way, your first day, this is where you go pick up your uniform. This is where you so what?
When earlier this morning, we were the first place that we stopped, we were talking to some people.
That's leanscaper.
Leanscaper. So is this a competitor of leanscaper?
So leanscaper. And so that's Mark Bradley's new business.
Yes.
Yep. So leanscaper and Granum are partners. And so what they do is they use AI to help generate SOPs, because. Yeah. And so, but then you got to take it and actually train people on it. And so what they would tell you, and this has been true, is like, you need to go to Greeniest if you want to take this to the next level. Okay. So they constantly send us Greenius is the implementation. Yeah. Like this is, and leanscapers is like, this is like codifying your SOPs, making it easy, allowing AI to generate it for you. It reduces time, it creates workflow, efficiency. That's their whole thing. How do I get leaner? How do I reduce waste? How do I take the business out of an owner operator's head and put it into, you know, a repository? Sure. So that's what that is.
So across your tenure of life and doing this, you did a lot of things, but you've put a lot of people in positions to do tasks. Okay. From scaling the cardinal sales deal and then buying businesses and now there's a pile of employees and you're making new positions. How does, what, Is there any wisdom that you have to the business owner or business manager of how to let others lead or delegate or how to take something off of your plate that keeps me up at night? And why the hell am I doing this exercise on the computer at 1:30 in the morning? Because I'm a committee of one. Okay. Is there any wisdom or guidance on how to delegate that or teach it to somebody to then be able to delegate them to do it?
You've got.
Because that's what I, I, I struggle with that.
Yeah. So Jordan, like, you're actually a really good kind of like person for people to like, hear this from, because I rode with you Your domain expertise is deep, your competence is high. It's a family business. It runs in your blood. Right. And it's growing. And it's a good business. Like, you have a very good business. And so it's going to be harder for you than any other human being. But there's a lot of people that are listening today, tonight, later, that are going to say, like, that feels like me. You know what I mean? And so the first thing that you have to do is you have to define very clearly what are the core values that motivate you, like, define you. And if you're not doing a good job of like articulating to your team and your company and your customers, here are the core values of our business. Here's what my expectations are and living up to that. And core value operating values are not integrity, honesty, respect. It's not that stuff. Okay. It's like, no, no. When you come here, I expect you to be like, quality first. When you come here, you have to be really educated on what the customer is facing. Like, what are the municipality rules, what are the things that we do to help solve these problems in their space to keep these trees beautiful? How do we approach building an estimate to make it really digestible for them? Right. Like, and those are core operating values. So, like, hey, if you, if you're coming here to clock in and clock out 40 hours a week, not the right place for you. I'm suggesting, like, that might. Yeah, yeah, right. And then if you're coming here and you don't put customers before yourself, it's just not going to work. If you think that educating a customer on the right thing to do versus what they want to do is like optional. You're not going to work here. Right. And I, I, I observe those things about you. It's like, no, no, no, I'm going to, I'm going to educate this guy. Like every time.
Oh, it was the, I remember, remember the houses on the east side of the road? The truck was facing south, parked on the right side.
Yeah. He, I want to cut down this tree. Why?
Yeah, it was the front yard tree.
Yeah, exactly. Yeah.
And I told you as I fought him, I was like, I, I can't cut your tree down. And I was like, here's why, here's why we shouldn't cut it down. I'm not going to get a permit it to fall over and hit your house. Even if we get a hurricane, it's still not going to fall. Look at all these woods right here. And then we we do the deal and I had to like, force. I'm going to write you a proposal for something.
Yes.
Okay. So it was pruning or something.
Yeah.
But you did go down. It's like, okay, cool. But you asked him questions like, why, why do you want to cut it down? Of course. Yeah. I was like, well, it's hanging over my daughter's window, right. And it, like, it does like the limbs were closed. Like it was causing a leaf issue in the gutters and all that stuff. It's like, okay, well, that's not a reason to kind of tell me. Like, I'm worried about it. Right. He was super worried about it. But that means you've got to hire for that. That means you've got to interview for that. That means you have to celebrate that in your operation. If you expect somebody to do that.
Sure.
And that's it.
And I think, Jordan, with you, I mean, so we've gone through the process with Sky Frog of, you know, now that I'm thinking about our core values that we've defined. It's kind of a mix of operational versus the touch a feeling ones.
Yeah.
But like, I still have a hard time with. I guess you just have to talk, talk about it more.
All the time.
All the time.
Well, not only talk about it. So, like, one of the things is like, a lot of people will come up with a core value. Like, work hard. Okay, great. What do you mean? Like, no, write it down. Like, write it like, we expect you to be here 25 minutes early to make sure your shit's put together and that you're ready to do a roll up. What do you mean when you say educate the customer first, that means you better know the municipal rules in the GEO that you're going to the zip code you're going to visit. That means you've got to understand, like, hey, that blade's dull. Yeah. And you're, you're creating a really negative experience for our customers. Like, you have to be that thorough and exact about it. You have to say, like. Because otherwise they don't know what you expect and then you'll never be able to delegate.
So let me, let me ask the question and answer it at the same time. I'm. So here's the for instance, Mark, I'm so busy, I don't have time to teach somebody how to do that. I would just do it by myself. I'm so busy, I never have time. How do you make time? And here's my answer. Do you in your calendar devote one hour a week, 30 minutes a day, and you put it in the schedule and you eat this elephant one bite at a time, and you diligently work on it. Or how do I go from that easy excuse? Too busy, Mark. I don't have time into creating time and actually making it happen.
So here's what I would. I think. I think your answer is yes. Okay. You have to actually, and I would tweak it a little bit, is like, you have to figure out what's going to work for you, for one. But I would take you back to when you started, right? So I know you, like, came into the business and, like, you've grown it, like, significantly, but, like, there was a moment in time where you took it from X million to X million, and it was like, well, here's what it's going to take. And you didn't say, I don't have enough time to do that. You didn't say that. Like, you didn't say, like, I don't have enough time to go do those two extra estimates. You didn't say that. Right. You didn't say I didn't have enough time to go send out the invoices and get my ar. You didn't say that. This one's the easiest thing to sleep on because somewhere in you, you don't want to do it. And a lot of. So I think this is the transition of going from owner, operator to leader and, like, executive, right? This is like, my value is not defined by that anymore. My value is defined by this other thing. And if my value is defined by that, you will never make another. Because I know, I've seen it. Like you said, my value is defined by, like, I'll get estimates done. I'll be the best salesperson. I'll get the revenue in. I'll get the municipal contract. That's my value. You defined it by that.
And I think, Jordan, with you, I think that your operational values are already there, and you just have to identify them. I think that your operational values are there from you personally watching the way that you interact with the guys and everything's laid out and hell and Jerry's values are instilled in independent tree service from 47 years. Like, you just have to identify them
and, you know, well, identify them, codify them, recruit for them, review for them, celebrate them, and articulate them over and over and over again. But I'm getting. I want to make sure that I'm answering your question. Like, stop defining your value as those things or else you'll never get somebody to do it. Define your value as taking it to the next level, giving it to somebody else, creating a business that can run itself. The best advice I ever got from a business mentor of mine, because a lot of, A lot of guys in my space were like, oh, I just want to grow this thing and get a huge exit. You know, it's like. And you can.
That's the money answer.
Yeah, yeah, that's it. That is it.
Right?
But I, I remember a guy, look, a very successful guy worth hundreds of millions of dollars looking at me and said, mark, just build a business you want to own forever or else you will. And when I heard that, I was like, God, that makes so much sense to me. Because if I build a business that I want to own forever, that means it's going to be super valuable. It's going to be super valuable, right? And it's going to be valuable to you. It's going to be valuable other people. It's going to be systemized. It's going to be professional. You will have delegated stuff. Like you'll want to own it forever because it's like, God, on. I'm barely doing so what.
What dry. Not what drives you, but why did you want to grow from tree guy? Space isn't big enough. Isn't big enough for what? Is it money? Because we have ripple. Okay, explain.
I am singularly motivated by creating as much ripple as I humanly possibly can in other people's lives. I am motivated for my employees to be able to grow. I'm motivated to help our customers grow. I'm motivated to see my effort and energy extend like a ripple throughout a large ecosystem. And for me, I wanted to create that opportunity in a much bigger state.
Does that come all the way back to when you're in Poland and you're taking teaching English 100%? It's. You want to affect people and make them better.
Make them better.
And, and, and that's just in. That's your mantra. You're not. You don't try to do it. You just.
It's just the way I'm wired. It's just.
That's all you can do.
That's all.
And it was extremely evident when you had us come up. So what's it been?
Not last July, but July before employee summit.
Summit.
Yeah.
You had us come up to the employee summit. It was evident the way that you interacted with the team and talking with values and I mean, having us to come up and, and talk about the pros and cons, the Good and the bad of what was going on with Single Ops.
I wanted you to just share the ugly. Jason, we brought you up there because you're like, I've tried it. I can't use it. It needs to improve in all these areas. Jordan, you're like, I've tried it. I use it. I leverage the hell out of it. Right. And it's like, that's our customers. And what I wanted from our employees is like, founder run businesses tend to be a little bit more sensitive about the feedback to the platform. Like their product, they're baked. Oh.
They get emotional. They can get hurt.
I felt the same way. Yeah. And so, but my whole thing, one of our core values is unconditional transparency. That's one of our core operating values. Like, and so I tell the company everything, everything we're going through, how we're doing, how we're performing. I show them the P and L, all of it. Right. And so the same is true for our customers. Like, I want you to know, like, I know where our products stinks. We're working on it. I also know where my competitors products stink. I don't know if they're working on it or not. I don't know if they care as much as I do and my team does. And I want people to be totally bought into this because it's an awesome opportunity. We're staring down the barrel, guys, of hundreds of thousands of small business owners that need to adopt technology over the next three years. Like, if that doesn't get you fired up about, like, I am a capitalist, by the way. I love money. Like, I'm totally fine with saying that. I like capitalism. I like employing people. I like creating opportunity. I like investing money, I like spending money.
I like going on vacation.
Yeah, I love all that. I love experience. The main thing I spend my money on is creating experiences. Right.
Vacations.
Vacations with family. My son's turning 18. He's a huge Patriots fan. I'm taking him to go watch the Patriots play the Falcons. I hope he's not listening to this because it's a surprise. You've taken him to see the page. Birthday, November 6th.
Well, makes this one. He's not. Why would he? With his dad. Yeah, right on there. It'll come after that.
But yeah, like, things like that are like, we went. We went to like, we go to Europe every other year to go visit my wife's family, but we always go to another country in Europe and we hang out there for like three or four weeks. That's expensive. And it's like we sacrifice to do that. But I also have been blessed to be successful to where I can do that. Sure. I love that stuff. I love prosperity. I like creating prosperity for people. I love extending ripple into an ecosystem. I like being able to make a splash. That's why I love small businesses. You can see the impact you have on the small businesses you serve. It's really hard to see it in big enterprise businesses. Really hard.
Yeah, I could see that. It gets too diluted.
Yeah. You're dealing with an IT too many executive procurement. You're dealing with all that stuff. It's like, no, no, no. I want to deal with Jordan and Jason.
Yeah.
I want to see how it's impacting their day to day business and life. Like, I want to see the ripple. Like, I'm just highly motivated.
Well, damn it, man, you've. You've crushed this podcast. But no, that's insightful, man. And like hearing you say that, you know, you like money, that makes you normal. Because if you're not somehow motivated by it, you're lying. Like, I like to spend money and go on vacation and catch fish and fish.
I was about to say deep sea fishing, you know.
Yeah. Because if, if that's not, I bet
you've got a nice truck. You know, it's like all this stuff, it's like all this stuff's kind of cool. You know, it's like. And then now is it the be all, end all? No, but damn, it makes it nice along the way.
Yeah.
Right.
And I've kind of adopted, like, not to go into personal finance, but just mindset. I was very save heavy minded before I had kids. And then recently after kids save, save, like the, like the world's gonna end and I better stuff all these acorns in the hole. And then I'm over here, I'm like, wait a minute, I'm approaching 40. My kids are getting older.
Damn, you look good for your age.
Thanks. Like, it's gonna be gone soon, you know, kids and that whole deal. So now I'm like, you know what, let me be responsible with saving, but let me not miss out on right now and have some fun.
100. You know, also, you work really hard. We work really hard. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. Like, that's what I mean.
Like, yeah, most good people do work really hard.
Yeah.
And I don't really associate with people that don't work hard because, yeah, not enough common interest.
That's a core operating value. Then.
Oh, how about it?
I'm learning a lot about myself, so.
All right, well, let's. We've taken enough of your time, Mark, but I really appreciate you making time in your day.
I love you guys. Thank you.
After you were holding a mic, giving a spiel here on the trade show floor, you picked up another mic.
There you go.
So. But you're hosting a thing tonight.
Hopefully I'll see you there. Yeah. Louisville Slugger Museum. Yeah, it's.
I can't not go now. Yeah. Hurt your feelings because you're owner operator. You carry that pride there.
I get it. All right, so the Green side Up
to Granum to Grantham.
Yes. Thank you, sir.
All right, man.
We'll see you. Thanks.
As you continue your journey toward entrepreneurial success, let Jason and Jordan be your trusted companions on this uphill climb. Don't miss out on future episodes of the Green side Up podcast. Make sure to hit that follow button to stay updated. For more ways to connect with the guys, check out the podcast description. Thank you for tuning in. And remember, keep working hard so you can play even harder and keep the green side up.