How Granum is Rewriting Landscape Software, Insights from CEO Mark Sedgley

Hi, everyone and welcome to the I Am Landscape Growth podcast, where entrepreneurs help entrepreneurs grow faster, better and stronger in the green industry. From leadership to sales to recruiting and operational excellence, we cover the topics holding entrepreneurs back and share how to get past those bottlenecks with the best in the industry. I'm your host, Rob Murray, co founder and CEO of Intrigue, a digital marketing company focused on helping landscape companies grow. So sit back and enjoy the show. Hey everybody. Welcome back to another episode of the I Am Landscape Growth podcast. Today, amazing guest, Mark Segli. Thank you so much for doing this, man. Your years in the industry have been amazing and what you're up to these days is unbelievable. So I'm pumped to have you share what's going on with the audience. So thanks again for doing this.

Awesome. Super excited to spend time with you today, Rob, and I appreciate very much the opportunity.

Sweet. So, you know, I gotta dig up stuff to make sure I know who I'm talking to. And we've had a chance to meet, you know, once or twice out in, you know, the community or industry, however you want to describe it. You know, it really looks like you kind of kicked off the whole career down leading software companies with member clicks, which then I guess is a personify company and all about connecting members and building community at some level. And it seems like, you know, you can take a lot of those lessons learned into what you're doing now, then single ops and lmn, which is now Granum. And so why don't you just give the Kohl's notes version of how the heck you ended up here in the middle of, you know, a leading landscape, you know, an industry leader in landscaping with, with Granum. Just as, I mean it's, it's a lot to go over. So if you want to keep it quick, go for it. If you want to drag it out, no problem.

I mean, it's a lot to go over because I'm old road. So yeah, like the quick snapshot of how I got here, I helped a startup many years ago called Member Clicks to your point. And the easiest way for your audience members or listeners to wrap their head around member clicks if they've ever been a member of an association, gone online and paid their dues or registered for an event or updated their profile, it was probably number clicks that they used. So you know, their state landscape. Association of Commerce. Yeah, exactly. All of like we actually had 3,500 plus chambers of commerce on our platform. We grew that to many, many to very large thousands of customers across North America. And we took a mid. Kind of midway through our journey, we took on growth equity and one of the investors happened, happens to be an investor in Single Ops. If I were fast forwarding today, we sold member clicks to a strategic. I helped them kind of integrate several companies that they bought and kind of relaunched the brand of Personify and then realized that I couldn't stand working for someone other than myself, you know, on a board, I guess. Right. And I said, it's time for me to go. You know, I'm pretty certain the CEO agreed at the time. He was like, yeah, I don't really enjoy working with you either.

Wise decisions.

Yeah, exactly. It was good. Good all around, right. And so I moved on and took over for several founders in the towing industry. And you know, there's software for everything, Rob. And so we launched a brand called Traxero. I helped build that up, integrate the companies that they had bought and then helped them kind of start the process for merging with another company, which they consummated. Last year, as I was coming to the tail end of like my time, you know, what I could tell was my time there. I got a call from one of the investors in Single Ops. The founder was wanting to move on. Sean McCormick asked if I would take a look. I took a look, fell in love for all the reasons. The very first job I ever had in high school was probably similar to a lot of folks was a mower and a weed whacker and a bungee cord, you know, holding my trunk down, going door to door. And so I went and visited customers and talked to people and, you know, first. I think my first week on the job was Elevate in Dallas two years ago. And it was like obvious, like this is like a great industry. It's an awesome opportunity. Now Single Ops, though, Rob was focused more on tree care, you know, and tree businesses are very different than landscape businesses. And we were trying to build software for landscape and we do have landscape customers on the single apps platform. But in my humble opinion, we weren't doing a very good job. So I refocused just kind of to build software for tree care companies. And then I started to kind of look around and, you know, working with our investors and partners and said like, if we want to go into landscape, if we want to realize the vision of becoming synonymous with the green industry, we need to have a huge footprint in the landscaping, you know, segment the community. And I like small to mid sized businesses. That's where I was born and bred. I have a deep Passion for capitalism and small to mid sized businesses drive the economy of both Canada and America. It's like the overwhelming majority of employers, it's the overwhelming majority of gdp, like all of it, small to mid sized businesses. And Element had such a strong footprint in that small to mid sized space. And so I just reached out to Mark Bradley, which I'm sure folks have heard about, and said, I'm new to the industry. Would you be willing to kind of, you know, teach a new dog some tricks? And he of course agreed. So we did a zoom and then I made a reason to be in Toronto. I said, do you like steak and wine? I've told the story a million times, so people are probably tired of it, but he's like, yeah, I like steak and wine, so let's meet. And so we talked about how we like to run companies and you know, I shared my admiration for what he had built in the landscaping industry. And then fast forward to last summer, he decided to take his company to market and asked if we wanted to participate. And we were very lucky last October to have won and closed the deal. And the rest has kind of been like this full on Sprint to integrate employees and culture and values and customers. And, you know, through that process, it became pretty clear that we were one company, one team, one mission. But we had three different names. So we decided to rebrand under the name of Granum. And the origin of the word granum is seed. And so we really wanted to say to this community, the green industry, that we're planting our seed and, you know, going to drive our roots really deep into the green industry and not build for home services or construction, we're just building software for you. And so, yeah, and that was a long process, you know, took a lot of effort and energy and, you know, we're putting kind of the bow on it now. But it has been a very fun ride. The customers have been amazing. The industry has been just so welcoming and it's just been a joy, to be honest with you.

Epic. Well, we're all very much appreciated that there's somebody at the helm that's kind of got that vision for, for servicing the industry. Right. Like, you know, I was talking to Mark Tipton, whatever, a year ago, not quite, and he was saying from Aspire that, you know, they, they built aspire in like 2014 or 15. So it's like the technology being even brought to the space has only happened in the last 10 years. I mean, there was technology before, but it's like it's new, right?

And 60% of the marketplace, Rob, still still hasn't adopted it. Right, I know, right. So it's a huge opportunity.

So I have some selfish, biased conversations maybe we can leave to later about revenue attribution and the implementation integration of CRMs with revenue tracking. But not for right now. I mean, it's just neat though, right? You know, you go from building community based software to then and leading them and then coming into single ops. And now you're coming in with LMN and create this grain and brand which is this idea of, you know, planting roots into the industry to serve, you know, these green entrepreneurs. Over the last whatever, two, three years, probably met hundreds, if not, you know, a thousand plus landscapers. Right. And I think, and your, your sentiment, I echo it in a big way. Like we've, we as a marketing company, 20 years, you know, we tried different niches throughout the years and there's just nothing like the green industry in terms of like openness, you know, work hard, play hard, everybody's in it together, even in local markets. And so with that kind of exposure and your experience growing, what do you see as the, you know, the primary growth constraint holding entrepreneurs back in the green industry?

In the green industry, it's like, I thought about this, it's probably time, and I want to like share a little bit more on that. If I were to like clarify it more. It's the perception of time. Time to develop myself, time to develop my employees, time to upgrade my equipment, time to build my SO SOPs. Time to build out the infrastructure to create more efficiency and reduce waste. Time. Time. And I learned a lesson a long time ago. Someone said to me it was probably more of like a, hey, this is a you issue, not a, not a world issue. It was like, priority creates capacity. And so he said, I want to repeat that what you prioritize in life, you have the capacity for in life. And I was like, well, damn, man, that means it's all on. It's all on me then, you know, it's on me. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah. And so, but I think it's the like that's the hard thing in the green industry. Like if I think about my tree care operators, if I think about my landscape, you know, operators and contractors and my customers and they have a very intense, fast moving, multifaceted business. Right? It's not simple. Most people think of landscaping as simple or tree care is simple. The amount of moving parts, the amount of precision, the amount of expectations, the amount of people management and execution is really intense. And I run a software company with thousands of customers and hundreds of employees. And I can tell you right now, my customers have a much more complicated job than I do. Hands down, not even close. Like, I've gone and sat in facilities and I've met with thousands of landscapers at this point. I've sat in facilities, I've ridden in trucks. I've met with customers, with our, with our customers, you know, and I listen to it all because it helps me shape how we serve the community better. But b, like, I really want to understand our customers. You know, what are they going through? How are they doing it? Why are they doing it? What are the expectations? And I can tell you, our customers have a very difficult job every single day. And so that motivates the hell out of me to help them get that time back. That's one of our number one driving factors at Granum, is how can we create software tools and make their day simpler to give them time back so that they can actually develop more of their people, with like, Greenius as an example, so that they can reduce waste, so that they can build their SOPs so that they can, you know, develop their next generation of leadership. And so time, I think it's really, really important. And how you utilize the time is probably the number one kind of growth inhibitor for the customers that I see. It's not potential, it's not capability, it's none of that stuff at all.

Yeah, yeah, well, it's, it's. Go ahead.

Sorry. Go ahead. Sorry, Rob.

No, no, no. My thought's not going anywhere.

No. So I hear our customers all the time and they always are apologizing for their business. And it' Nothing makes me, like, more angry than that. It's like. And, you know, in like a frustrated for them way, it's like, why are you apologizing to this business? Like, this is an incredible business. Like, you're working incredibly hard. Like, this is a great, successful entrepreneurial story. You know, lean into that. Right. And I just, you know, me and the rest of the folks at Granum are desperate to give them that time to be able to do that, to invest. And so we'll do that.

Awesome. It's interesting on a lot of levels in the way that you mentioned that, because it's. There's been, at least in what I've been following, reading, studying, working through with peers, this idea of signal noise ratio and having the time to focus on the signal stuff that actually is going to have the most impact versus being distracted by the whirlwind of every day and the fires we have to put out, that kind of stuff. But what's kind of interesting in the way that you describe this stuff is, was that when you said time, you said time to develop myself was, like, the first thing you kind of mentioned. So I was just curious, you know, what did you mean by that? And how can people start to maybe do that if they find themselves with some time to focus on developing themselves as a leader?

Yeah. I think just intentionality is such a big thing in life. That's why that priority creates capacity line sticks with me so hard as most people that are entrepreneurs and start businesses. And I'm guilty of this as well. So maybe I just say it out loud to, like, encourage myself to.

But we're always, always talking to ourselves, too. I get that.

Yeah, 100%. I just think about, you know, creating the space to go from, like, so let's just go through the journey of our customer. Right? It's like, all right, I started off with the company. I probably had one truck, and I was just doing, like, the amount of people I talked to, like, yeah, I was just doing this as a side old hustle. I was a bartender.

It's like, half.

Yeah, exactly.

The industry kind of started, like, right?

Yeah, exactly.

In terms of owners. Yeah.

Yeah, right. And, like, I was, you know, I was working in insurance gig, and I hated it. So I started doing the side hustle, and, like, then it just kind of grew. Well, so I think about that, and it's like, well, that means you were just doing everything you possibly could to serve the customer, to get the work done, to keep the equipment going. Like, you know what I mean? Like, and we've all been there when we're starting a company, and then it goes to, like, from you to a crew. Right? And so now all your time, effort, and energy is like, I got to do all that stuff I was doing before, but I also got to make sure these people are doing it right. And then it goes to two or three crews, and now all of a sudden, you're like, holy cow. I actually have to, like, manage this and execute it, and I need to make sure that what they're doing is profitable and efficient. And it's like, you have to evolve, right? It's the hardest thing to do. Go from, like, single operator to executor to manager to, like, leader to executive. Right. It's like, okay. Like, that's a. That's a process. And. Yes. Do you learn it as you go? Of course you do. Like, you're like, oh, I can't treat people like that, or I can't, you know, like, take out too many, like too much debt in order to run the bit like you learn those lessons, like painful way. But I think the other thing that folks need to do is like, there's lots of great stuff out there. And you know, I don't have to tell you this. Like, there's tons of content, right, that people can consume to say, like, hey, this, these three things, let's practice them this week and it'll, it'll improve your leadership skills. These two things, let's practice this, it'll improve your communication skills. This one thing you can do, it'll help you understand how to like, get more out of your employees. So taking that time to like just kind of develop yourself. And it doesn't have to be anything like super formal or, you know, super involved. It's just carving out that 30, 45 minutes, two hours a week to say, like, yeah, for 30 minutes, I'm going to spend a little bit of time reading, listening, you know, or watching something around HR management. Like what I keep having to have these conversations. There's got to be a better way, you know, and so just taking that time to build yourself. Because if you build yourself, the others around you will see it and they'll grow with you as well.

Yeah, I love that and I think it's very, very true. I am curious because as, as you are describing this idea of shaving out time or carving out time to focus on building myself as a leader. I can imagine some people are like, well, I don't have time. And I think this is this beautiful circle of going back to, you know, priority creates capacity. But I also want to just get your take on this concept of work life balance and, you know, being ever present in every aspect of life and that you can grow a business to, you know, 10 million in three years, working nine to five. And I'm, I'm just curious, like, what's your take on this whole thing about how you grow companies and manage time over weeks, months and years?

I have really strong opinions on this. And these opinions don't necessarily jive with modern, like, I guess, societal views. But the question I always ask, yeah, the question I always ask our employees when they talk about work life balance. And the folks at Granum will tell you this. This is no new news to them. When have you ever felt balanced? Like, when I think of balance, I think of that kind of like seesaw that's like teetering on you Know, the kind of playing. It's like, when have in your life have you ever felt, like, perfectly balanced? And I. And I've. And I've thought about this a lot. I think this idea of work life balance has actually created more stress and anxiety than actual work. Because I'm dead serious about that.

It's like, I'm laughing because I think it's spot on for a lot of reasons.

Yeah. It's like, well. And so I think of life in seasons, and I think about life and ebb and flow. And if you can build a $10 million business in three years, working nine to five, go for it.

I gotta get them on this show. I haven't heard.

Yeah, like, get them on the podcast. I'm gonna listen. This'll be my priority. Creates capacity moment so I tune in. But I can tell you, when I was building member clicks Pre revenue to 10 million, I was working 120 hours a week, every single week, for years and years and years and years grinding, you know, But I wasn't doing it for like to get to 10 million in revenue or to get to 20 million or 30 million in revenue. I was doing it cause I really enjoyed the customers, I really enjoyed the work. I really enjoyed the camaraderie. I really enjoyed the meaning and purpose it gave me. And so I think about when people talk about work life balance, I try and recalibrate it to their seasons in life, right? And those seasons ebb and flow. Like sometimes work absolutely demands more of my time, energy and focus. Sometimes my family, three kids, wife of 30 years, demands my focus and time and energy. Right? And I don't ever feel like those are imbalanced. I'm not trying to balance them out with each other. I'm just trying to be present in that season, that ebb or that flow, right? And I think if people spent more time focused on maximizing where they were in the moment versus trying to figure out this equilibrium of like, well, nine to five, I gotta clock in and clock out and to spend time with, you know, little Johnny Jr. And you know, I gotta do the laundry. And it's like, that's to me, maddening and like, super stressful. It's like. And it also creates this space, Rob, of like, well, you're keeping inventory of everything that's going on in your life. It's like, well, that's a surefire way to drive yourself crazy. And so work life balance is.

Yes. And also only modernized through media in the last, whatever, 130 years of civilization. Like people, you know, before in 1900 didn't have an idea of like, well, it's five o'. Clock. I'm not going to keep harvesting my fields. Like, I got to stop this now, or I, I've got to make sure that, you know, I, I'm. I'm getting the kids dropped off at school so that, that I can go start my blacksmithing practice. Because it just, I think that's just, it's an artificial view on life. But I also think it comes from an industrial revolution where there were people were taken advantage of by entrepreneurs in a lot of regard, and which is where like, unions came from and all that kind of stuff. But I think it kind of comes back to the idea of the work itself actually being a good thing. And I think this is like a kind of a big. I don't know, it's not like a side hustle, but it's like an ulterior motive to building an organization. For me personally, it's like, how can we create, you know, a human experience that is desired, exciting, fun, tough, you know, builds character, celebrates, wins, you know, reflects on losses as a group, you know, you die together, you win together, all that stuff.

God, that sounds amazing, Rob.

But you know what I mean though, right?

Yeah.

And bring people together in a place where they can experience that, I think that's just something. But I don't think there's a lot of folks necessarily thinking about this. And I think the reason I brought it up, because it all full circle, comes back to this idea of growing ourselves and our. And our people, because you kind of put that in those order. And then time again for creating SOPs and clarity, which I think as you grow through that ladder, I think there was five different leaders you mentioned. There was like the executor, the manager, the leader, the executive. I think I missed one, right?

Operator.

Yeah, operator. And so, like, there's different focuses at different levels. And the reason I'm bringing all this up, though, is because that intentionality around, like, how do I want this human experience to be within this organizational setting has to be. I think it has to be a choice. Cause if it's not a choice, the choice is made. And so, like, when you work with all these people and you see all these different businesses, like, you kind of have a unique view, not only in this industry, but just from your experience working with associations and businesses over the last, say, 20, 25 years from your point of this, like, capacity to grow, to create, clarity, to be a better leader, to help people understand Even the idea that you mentioned about the ebb and flow of life and work life balance is insane. Talking to leaders that small medium businesses, what do you see as like a common pattern or symptom that they're experiencing that they might just have to hear it, you know, maybe in an interview like this, and they're like, oh, that is. I do want to get out of this and start making a move towards something else and carving out the time and that kind of thing. But is there a, a common symptom or mindset or, or something that you, you see repeatedly?

Yeah, I mean, and I think it's been repeated kind of ad nauseam at this point. It's like, just doing more is not going to solve the problem. Right? Like, and, but that is like a natural human thing. It's like, well, it got me this far, so if I just do more of it, it'll, you know, multiply. That's just not true, right? And that there's lots of like, parallels you could draw in life where you'd be like, oh, yeah, that's not true. Like, it doesn't actually work that way. Right. And so I think the biggest thing for people is understanding. It's like, well, taking on more or like working an extra two hours by going to the Smith's project and making sure Jeff's doing his job, just. Okay. Instead, take an hour and just focus on you and focus on the business and focus on how you can actually grow Jeff and grow yourself. Right. Recently at Hidden Creek, Jason Cromley runs the, the business. It's an awesome business. It's been showcased in lots of places. But I was like, Jason, like. Because he brought me in for his company quarterly meeting and his monthly meeting. So there's like, I don't know, 150 people in his bay, his mechanics bay, and he's doing his whole monthly meeting. He's giving away awards and he's like, you know, sharing the values and recognizing people and all that good stuff and anniversaries and birthdays and et cetera, et cetera. And he's having the whole thing translated the whole time in Spanish. He's up there and a Spanish translator's up there, right? And I'm sitting there thinking to myself, like, this is a high level of sophistication, right? Like, he's thought this through. He's done it all.

It's orchestrated.

Yeah, yeah. So, like, immediate question popped in my mind. I was like, wait, did it get the. Cause he's got a big business, right? Did it get this big because of this, or did he do this once it got big? Right. Like, did he start doing all this? Yeah. Which I think gets at the crux of your question, which is. So I asked him, I was like, jason, is Hidden Creek this big? And did you start doing this when it got big and successful, or is it successful because of this? He was like, oh, 100% successful because of this. Like, I started doing this at like 1, 2, 3 million. And I was like, well, what was the big thing is, like, I just stopped. Me and my partner were just running ourselves ragged. And we weren't like, we just kept hitting a wall, you know, and a lot of people hit that wall, like at a million and then at 3 million and at. At 10 million. Like, by the way, so do software companies, so do manufacturing companies, so do every other company on the face of the planet. Unless you're open AI or, you know,

industry agnostic growth constraints.

Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And the moment is, it's like, oh, because it's gotta be bigger than me. And so his thing was, I implemented eos, an EOS system, right? And it was just a framework of like, well, you better have this type of meeting set up. You better have this type of development program in place. You better have this kind of company, like, rhythm that, you know, flows through the organization. And once we did that, then we just kind of riffed on it and grew and like, invested and it created structure where there was none, right? And it created a framework. Now, I'm not advocating EOS or anything else, right? It's like.

But it worked for them at the time and it got them out of doing it all always.

But the point was, is he realized, like, can't just be me anymore and I can't just be my partner. It's like, I've got to stop and create something like that I can lean into that other people can lean into. And I think that's the thing. It's like, if you're not going to create the time for it, then what are you going to do? Right? And so what are you talking about? Just work? Yeah, exactly. Yeah. It's like. And so you can either put an hour into, like going and doing the work, another extra hour, 2 hours, 5 hours, 10 hours in the week, or you can take that and be like, look, the project sold, it's getting done, it's on time. I'm actually going to take the five hours this week, 45 minutes a day, whatever it is, right? And I'm actually just going to either Work on myself or work on the business and identify, like, what are the bottlenecks in the business? What are the pain points in the business? What do I keep coming back to over and over and over again? Change orders, warranty claims, personnel issues, whatever it is. Right? And then say like, well, what, what could solve that? Like, what are some things I can put around that to mitigate it? You know, it doesn't go away. Like, people problems don't go away, equipment problems don't go away, customer issues don't go away. But how can I make them more efficient? And all this is what I know. Every single one of our customers, as long as if they spend enough time on the problem in their business, it gets better every time.

Always. Yeah. And I love the fact that you brought up the idea of a bottleneck, which is like, maybe intuitive to you at this point and maybe others listening, but can you just break down that quick idea so that people listening to this are just clear explicitly on what you mean by bottleneck?

The single greatest book I ever read for business, maybe that's an overexp, but I'm being hyperbolic just to try and encourage people. It's a good one to read it. It's called the Goal by Eli Goldratt. And it's not even a business book. But the reason why I read it is Amazon. Jeff Bezos says, this is the best business book I've ever read. I was like, well, his whole business was Amazon books, so I bet he's read a lot of books. And his business is incredible. So it's like, it's a solid perspective. Yeah, exactly like. And so I read it and it's a. It's a book about a guy whose marriage is falling apart and he's running a manufacturing plant and the manufacturing plant's doing really poorly. And his whole goal is to figure out why. And the book really rolls around. Two questions. What's the goal? Like, always go back to that. What's the goal? Like, what are you trying to accomplish with us? And then identifying bottlenecks, like, typically speaking, whatever the problem is is not what's the problem? It's two clicks before that, like, identifying earlier in the process of like, oh, it's because this machine has to get serviced every two hours. So therefore we're not delivering our widgets on time, which is pissing the customers off, which forced them to stop ordering from us. That's the bottleneck. It's like, okay, in our customers business, like, we keep getting change orders with this particular salesperson. Well, that's not the. That's the problem. That's not the bottleneck. The bottleneck is like three steps before that. Well, it's because the salesperson's not doing a very thorough job of quoting the business and going through and identifying all the keys. Right, Exactly. Yeah, yeah. So get rid of the bottleneck. The bottleneck is the problem. Right. And so, and so what's the goal and what's the bottleneck? Where are the bottlenecks in your business? Like, what is causing the actual frustration? And then what can you do to, like, just make it 10% better? You know, like, if you made it 10% better, how much better would that be over times?

Well, yeah, I mean, we. When we're talking to folks about this, we kind of look at it. We're like, okay, if you just imagine, for the sake of simplicity, your business is four components, right? There's like, demand generation or, you know, customer acquisition. There's onboarding, there's fulfillment, and then there's some sort of maintenance or retention. And it's like, where is the system falling short? And then as a leader, if you. And then the whole idea of the book, right, it's like the throughput of a system is restrained or constrained by the bottleneck of the. Or the component bottleneck of the system. And so it's like, focus on that thing, because if you increase that thing by 10%, you increase the throughput of the entire system by 10%.

All of it. Yeah, it just flows through.

And the reason I wanted to bring it up explicitly is because this idea around taking the time to work on the business, I think has been said so much, but it doesn't always have a lot of clarity associated to it. So when people are like, okay, I got my 45 minutes. I'm ready to go. And then they're like, I don't know what to have to do with myself because I don't know what I'm supposed to be working on. I think you've articulated it well in terms of like, hey, what are the issues that commonly pop up? What are the pain points that commonly pop up? Let's look at this as a system. Where's the bottleneck? And then focus the time on fixing the bottleneck to make the whole system better. I think that can be really, really helpful for people to understand where they should focus their climate energy. And I think the other thing you said about the EOS piece, not to say we're advocating, you know, one system or another, but the idea that there was a System. It kind of hit me like a ton of bricks just recently. And you know, we've been using the EOS system and scaling up hybrid for years. But it was like this organizational rhythm that existed without people. It was just the organization had a rhythm of weekly, monthly, quarterly, annual reporting, communicating, librating. I just think that's really impactful. I really appreciate how much how you framed it all for folks.

There's a good book called Rhythm actually that talks about that. It's like, what is the rhythm of your business?

Yeah, I haven't read this one. I'll have to check it out.

Yeah, something you said triggered me when people say like, I've got my 45 minutes, what do I work on? I think your point's well made. It's like, whoa, there's a lot of ways you can do this. So for example, like if I were open my calendar right now, Rob, there's like 45 minute chunks on each day set aside for specific things. 45 minutes to review the website and all my competitors websites because it changes all the time. So all I do is spend 45 minutes looking at Jobber's website and looking at Aspire's website and looking at other competitors websites. You know, Real Green and Explorer and all those guys, right? I'm like, what are they doing? What are they saying? How are they saying it? And then how does that compare to what we're doing and what we're saying? And how are we differentiating ourselves? Right? 45 minutes. And then the next one was on Tuesday. 45 minutes to review sales calls. So we record all of our sales calls. I go in and listen to the sales calls. Not because I'm going to go train the salespeople. I have leaders that do that, right? I've got directors and VPs that do all that. I want to hear what the customers are saying, like what are they asking for and how are our salespeople responding?

How are they.

Yeah, exactly. And how are we packaging up our message? Because that to me is like where I need to lean in. It's like, hey, are we saying what we want to say to the marketplace? And then there's like 45 minutes for just skip levels. So I don't care if you're a 10 person landscaping company, there's probably one or two people you work with regularly, but there's two or three people down lower that you don't work with regularly. Like go spend 45 minutes, have a conversation with them. Now you might say to yourself, like, well, how is that Working on me. Because you're teaching yourself things every step of the way. And you're like, oh, I think we can make this tweak to the website. I think Jose is not getting treated too well, and he's really good. And I want to make sure I address that with Jeff. Right. Because I need to talk to Jeff about that. And then you could just keep on going down the line. It's like, okay. And then that 45 minutes a day, for example, like, I have an AI agent, for lack of better terms, that goes through my inbox. It's like. And it identifies like, themes and like, it identifies problems for me. It's like this theme keeps coming up in your inbox this week. And I'm like, okay, well that's a problem. Like, I need to go address that. Right? So that. That's potentially leads me to a bottleneck, right?

Yeah. Well, it's like, it's like you're doing like this infield on the job research and like this feedback system you're giving yourself to, like, what's the business and the market telling you?

Yeah. And then all of a sudden, after six weeks of that, it's like, okay, well, I've talked to Jeff six times. All of a sudden, Jeff's a lot better or he's fired. Right. And I've brought in somebody else. But the great thing is I know what to interview for now, because Jeff wasn't good at these four things. I need Jeff to be really good at this. Jeff's role, to be really good at these four things. Because I've taken a few notes, I've talked to folks, it's like, okay, cool. But the great news is, if Jeff got better, you just got way more time back. There's probably less personal issues you had to deal with. There's like less bubble up. There was probably more efficiency on the projects from that particular crew. Right. And so all of a sudden you start to compound goodness in the business, right? And it's like, okay, we gotta use

that for like the description compound.

Yeah, exactly. Right. And so I think people tend to overcomplicate this. Well, what does it mean to work on me? I was like, well, just do those five things and do that for a month and see how it shakes out. Right. And so I wish I could tell you, Rob, I was. I went to school and I was an English and East Asian studies major. Like the, the single most worthless combo you could ever imagine. Like, you know, like add a minor of like music history on top of that, and you could just be like, whoa, cool. What are you going to do in life? There's a great commercial with that guy from Severance and he was like, the guy was like, well, what are you majoring in? He's like, oh, art history and music theory. And he's like, oh, you'll make a great barista one day.

Yeah.

And so, you know, it's like, that's me, by the way. Like, I feel the pain of that, the sting of that joke. I took zero business classes. None. Not, not a single one. And I had to learn like on the fly too. Like, what does it mean to run a team and like build a business and like understand financials and. But it just took, I think people over complicate and this point, it's like, it just took me spending like, I just identified 45 minutes a day of like, I really need to focus on this. And that's carried through for 20 years now. It's like I need to focus on these now. The things change, of course, but that's indicative of growth. It's like the things that you're focusing on change, right?

Sure, yeah, yeah.

As, as you grow and the business grows. But it's still, I keep it really simple, 45 minutes every day I'm going to focus on these five things and I'm going to work it until it gets better. And then when it gets better, I focus on something different.

Well, and I mean the idea, right. When you break the bottleneck, then something else shows up as a bottleneck. Right. It's kind of this evolutionary process. But even, even in the way that you've picked your 45 minutes, and I'm not suggesting by any means that you are doing it this way on purpose, but it sounds like market, customers, team.

So the three most important in my business software is customer. Right. Which I would log as market. Like market. Right. Like, because the customer operates in the ether of our competitors, the industry. Like all that stuff. Right? Yeah. So market. Yeah, yeah. Market and customer I would lump together. Right. Like the community. And then I would talk about how we show up, how we market to that. Right. Like how are we measuring? Yeah, correct. And then the third area where I spend the most amount of time is are we delivering the products that we said we would to solve all those problems? That's the reason why I go on the facility tours. That's why I go visit customers in the field. You just can't get the real time feedback that you need over a zoom meeting. Right. You got to go see it. You got to see the person who's sending out the invoice do it and, like, click nine times when they should only have to click once. Right. You have to see a crew member using the crew app and being like, why doesn't it work better? I don't know. We're going to go figure it out. You know, it's like. But like, on a zoom meeting, you're typically just asking a bunch of questions that make you feel good, unlike, you know, what you're trying to accomplish.

This is an example of that. I mean, I'm on a podcast. I just got to ask all these questions.

You're doing a great job. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Well, same thing with product managers, right? Like, they just. They tee up a zoom meeting with a customer. They just want to ask a bunch of questions. But when you go sit in the office, you don't get like, you can ask questions, but you're gonna be like, well, why do you do it that way? It's a different type of question. It's organic. It's like observational. It's like, oh, real world. This is how they're. Yeah, this is actually how they're using the product. And so my product managers, my product leaders, me, engineer, like, all of us have a requirement to go get out in the field and see how our customers are utilizing the platform.

That's a big deal. Well, and it's interesting, too, like, you know, the market and customers to help you figure out what promise to make and then make sure you're keeping your promise to deliver. You know, like, I think that's just beautifully simple, and I think that's like one of the biggest things that a leader that doesn't get talked about a lot, but, like, the idea of creating simplicity and clarity in a world of complexity and kind of coming back to your whole thing about, you know, they do these landscapers, you know, tree businesses, whatever. They are complex businesses. There's so many moving parts to these things. And as a leader, I think they. They probably see it more clearly than they think they do. You know, I hear a lot people, like, why people. Why don't people understand? Well, it's because you probably have this unique perspective that very few people in the world have about how clear everything should run, but then going out there and making sure it's happening and helping people, you know, orient towards it, but not staying behind a desk or, you know, in an ivory tower, that's a big deal, right?

Huge deal.

Especially real world experience is where it all happens.

And especially when you're working with customers that use their hands every single day to build greatness. So you better get out there.

Love that. All right, so then what's in store? Everybody's asking, right? You know, Granum's good to go. You got single Ops and Element and Greenist. There's some technology behemoths all joining forces. What, what are people. What could people expect?

Well, I mean, I think for me, when we rebranded under Granum and we unified under one mission, which is to help our customers unlock their potential and create customers for life, that's kind of the thing that motivates us. Our vision is to become synonymous in the green industry. That requires a tremendous amount of investment, and so we're pouring a ton of investment in. So for the last 10 months, we've been hiring a ton of folks, mainly engineers and product people and customer support, customer experience people, because we're going to kind of rebuild the platform of the future. And there's a lot of technological advents that have happened over the last 12 months that have accelerated. Like AI's acceleration. Yeah, exactly. Acceleration into the world. Yeah. And everybody's kind of consumer experience of AI now has ratcheted up everybody's expectations. And so that requires a lot of investment. You got to build out the infrastructure to leverage it in a really material. You need to look at our customer's journey, how they interact with you from a CRM perspective. Like that point of acquisition, to use your term, to writing in the estimate, to converting it to a proposal, scheduling and managing the job, to billing and invoicing for it. That's our customer's customer journey. And so we've built team structures around that to make that experience awesome. Because that's kind of 90% of the feedback that I get when I travel around. It's like most people think of Element Granum, Single Ops as an internal tool, like, oh, this is where we manage our data. This is kind of only for us.

And that's true. I mean, I talk to people all the time about that.

Yeah, yeah. But most people, when they talk about that. Yeah, most people, when they talk about what they want from the system, it's a long. They want to look great for their customer. I want to be able to get back to the customer as soon as they like, you know, fill out a form on their website. I want to create an awesome, simple to consume estimate because that'll make it easier for them to sign on the line that is dotted. I want to be able to schedule easily and communicate to the customers exactly what Their experience is going to be. And then I want paying me to be as simple as humanly possible. That's nothing internal. It's all outward facing to their customers. Like, everything you just said you want is like how you show up for your customer. And so if I were to simplify, what's to come is like, that entire journey is going to get tremendously better for our customer's customer. And as a byproduct, the system itself is gonna be way easier to use for our customers.

Yeah, I love it. Well, I was like, we always talk about this idea of, like, how can you make it easy to buy. I think Amazon going back to Bezos reference probably is the best at it in the world in terms of like having twin babies in my hands and three in the morning, being able to buy a Batman comforter for my brother with a swipe of a finger. And that was it. And deliver the next day. I'm taking friction out of the system. I think that's amazing and people are going to love it as it starts to unfold. So going into 2026, is there anything people should be checking out when it wants? If they're looking at granum and either exploring, moving to you guys or leveraging you more?

I say the same thing. So a lot of sales folks, a lot of times bring me into sales conversations like, hey, this customer, like this prospect really wants to talk to the CEO. I love that. By the way, my whole background was sales. That's how I came to exist.

I think CRO was on there at some point.

That's right. Yeah. And so the number one thing I always say to folks is, like, if you're thinking about Grantham, the only reason you should really come to us is because, you know, you're partnering with a company that has, like, got you in line with for our mission. And all we're doing is building and investing in an infrastructure that's going to make your business better. Like, if I, if somebody could say to me, if you just buy the software, Grantham's business will get better over time because it'll get easier, there'll be less friction, you'll get more insight, and you'll be able to deliver better to your customers. I'm buying that software. Right. And so that's really the message that I want our, the marketplace to hear from me is like, is the software perfect today? Absolutely not. Is the software that you're using or not using perfect? Probably not. Are you partnered with a company that is investing in you, period? Right. I don't like to talk about features I don't like to talk about. You know what I mean? Like, it's like, are you partnered with a company that is pouring every ounce of energy and dollars because both matter into making your experience better. Because if you're not and you don't believe that, then you should come join.

I think Buffett said, I've never seen a customer obsessed business go out of business.

Yeah, exactly, right.

Turns out that what businesses are all about, they're all about serving customers. Sometimes people forget about this.

Well, I think, I think a lot of ways though, Rob. Like, I actually think businesses in their heart of hearts, like, do always think about their customers, but it's like math gets in the way, you know what I mean?

Yeah.

Because I think about our competitors who are building for home services and construction, and I think about it, I'm like, well, yeah, I get it. That makes sense. Because you have to, like, you're so big and you have to grow so fast because you're required to. Construction is a $1.3 trillion total addressable market. Home Services is a $780 million total addressable market. But I can tell you one thing. A commercial construction company and a H vac company are very different than a landscape and tree care company. And so if you want a software that's again, singularly devoted to you and what you're trying to accomplish and your goals and your mission, then, you know, granite is the only partner for you to choose.

Yeah, it's so cool, man. It's. I mean, it's the exact reason why we niche into landscaping. Like 20 years. We, we went from jack of all trades, master of none, local agency, we went down to home services and kind of home construction, renovation. And then we were just like, no, we gotta just go into one so that we can be dedicated to. Everything we do just gets better for everybody every time we do it. And it, and it was, I've been saying it a lot like that quote Bruce Lee, right. I fear not the man that practices 10,000 kicks. I fear the man that practices one kick 10,000 times.

Because that one's gonna get you.

Yeah, it is. It's gonna hurt, you know, and I just, I just really appreciate the fact that you guys have brought that dedication and focus to the industry. And I know everybody that, you know, ends up experiencing granum at one point or the other is gonna feel the same way in terms of anything coming up in the next six months that someone should go check out in terms of register an event, some they're gonna see somebody they. With you guys. Like, how do they do that?

Yeah, I mean, so we go to a ton of events and we also host 26 boot camps throughout the year, which some of our kind of folks that are interested in our business and joining up go to and attend. But you can go to, you know, grantham.com and go to our events page and you'll see all the events we're attending to where we can meet in person. And so we have a lot of really cool things in 2026 on, like, facility tours all throughout the year, boot camps all throughout the year, of course, all industry events throughout the. And then we have an awesome partnership with Techoblock where we're going to be partnered up with our 10 biggest events all throughout the country and, you know, interacting with the entire community, the hardscape community there. So we're excited about all that stuff.

Yeah, it sounds like you're going to have a lot of fun and be really busy for the next 12 months.

Super busy.

Yeah, probably more busy.

Yeah. Right. Hopefully longer.

You mentioned the goal Eli goal rat, and you mentioned rhythm, but that was just through conversation. Is there kind of a must on the top of your mind that you might want to share with people to go check out Podcast, author, speaker, book.

Whenever somebody asks me this, maybe my brain is like, super simple. The Obstacle is the Way by Ryan Holiday. To me, it's like, filled with so much practical, like, day to day, like, goodness. I go back to it all the time. So I journal every day. Like, I just spend 30 minutes. Whatever I read, I just kind of like write about it. Every week I send out a note to the company called the Captain Vlog

and tell me there's a star date.

Yeah, for exactly. Right. Most people don't get the Star Trek reference, but yeah. And so for me, when I go back and read the Captain's logs, it's like, wow, there's lots. So many quotes from the obstacles away. It's like. And they're not Ryan. Some of them are Ryan Holiday's quotes. No.

Yeah, Most of them are back in the day. The Stoics, right?

Correct. Well, and also like Thomas Edison and yeah. Like Theodore Roosevelt. It's like there's so much practical goodness in that book about, like, running a company and doing life that I just always go back to. It's like, there's one book I'm always going to recommend. It's going to be the Obstacle Epic.

Appreciate it, man. And if somebody wants to reach out bestwaysgratum.com LinkedIn Is there Instagram? What? Like, if someone ever wanted to.

Yeah. So I'm the worst Instagram. I'm the worst grammar in the world. I am on LinkedIn marketgranom.com Email me. I'm totally cool with that. M A r k@granum.com G R A n u M com and I'd love to engage in chat.

Awesome, man. We appreciate you for doing this and the time to an awesome kickoff 2025 and an epic 2026, my friend. Thanks for doing this, Mark.

Awesome. Thank you, Rob. I really appreciate the time.