Inside the Mind of a CEO: Mark Sedgley on Leading Two Companies and Driving Growth

Hey, what's going on, guys? Welcome to another episode of the Fullerton Unfiltered Podcast. It is your host, Brian Fullerton here hanging with you guys. Good morning. Well, super excited about today's podcast guest interview and also for the first time, doing a zoom so we can take this interview and share it with YouTube. So very excited about that. Joining us all the way from over the great pond over there in what neck of the woods are you again, Mark?

I'm in Krakow, Poland, right now.

Poland. All right, there you go. So we've got the. The CEO of Single Ops and LMN, Mr. Mark Sedgley joining us today. So how you doing, brother?

Good, man. It's great to be with you. I can't tell you how much I appreciate you taking the time to rock it out on this podcast. So thank you.

Yeah, you bet. Well, so, funny story, the kids are going crazy behind the scenes here. We've got grandma over. It's two on three. I told my wife, hey, I've got to break off to do a podcast. And you guys know how that goes.

Record scratch.

Yeah. She's like, oh, yeah, okay. And she knows our Thursdays, usually my office day. But funny story, when Mark and I booked this a couple of weeks ago, the date that worked out the best was today. On the 13th or the 12th, I should say. And that's actually when baby was scheduled to be born, which is. Which is great. Our baby actually came a little over, like, 10 or 12 days early, which is the first person with my last name to ever be early to anything, Mark. So. So I'm glad it worked out because if the baby came when it was supposed to, like today, I told Mark, I'm like, we might have to reschedule this. Go figure, right? All. All things being said, I'm glad to have you on. We're going to get into your background, your story. I know you've been a little bit on the speaking circuit at some of the Element events over winter. You've been at some of the local trade shows and big trade shows, which is great. So you've got a rich background. And so without me having a longer further ado, if you want to maybe take a minute or two and get these folks up to speed with your background, and then we'll break some things down tonight.

Yeah, I mean, first of all, super excited to be here. You look way too refreshed to have just had your third child and playing. Going from man to man to go into zone defense. So congratulations. Awesome stuff, Brian.

It's Caffeine chaos over here, brother.

So I'm wearing a Pops Coffee T shirt, you know, so here you go. I'm in support. You know, I love it. Brian, I don't think my story is very much different than anybody else's that is listening to your podcast that started their own business, to be honest with you. I mean, when I was growing up as a kid in East Tennessee, like, first job I ever had was knocking on doors and mowing people's yards and weed whacking, which is what we called it in the south, you know, I went to college, graduated, and my wife is from Krakow, Poland, hence why I'm here. And she and I have been together since I was 18. Um, and we came back to Krakow, Poland, Brian. When? Kind of like right when she graduated college.

Okay.

And we came. We came here to. For my sister in law's wedding. And when we went to go get ready to leave, the American government said, hey, you've got to stay in Poland for two years to kind of, you know, serve out this kind of process. Because she had a special type of visa when she came over, she ran track and field for the University of Tennessee. And long story short, you know, it was like, hey, you're in Krakow for two years. Surprise. You know? And so I think that's where like, my first formal entrepreneurial kind of bone got kicked in, though, you know? And it was really cool. I was in. I was like, well, shit, I gotta get a job. You know, I went to a gym and I saw this guy in a Florida state hat, Home Depot shirt, and I was like, that's my guy, right? He's gotta be American. So I walked up to him and I introduced myself and he was like, hey, I teach at this Berlitz Academy. And Berlitz at the time was like this huge English as a second language company. Nobody's heard of it now because of all these apps that took over the world, but I was like, oh, great, can you get me a job? Because I have an English degree. English and East Asian philosophy, Brian. Completely useless, by the way. Put that in there.

You know, I didn't know that. That one.

Yeah, exactly, right? Yeah, exactly screams fast software CEO, right? And so, right. I was like, I'm. I've got an English degree. And he's like, no, you don't want to work there. It's terrible. I want to start my own school for English. I was like, I'm your huckleberry. You know, let's rock and roll. I'll do it with you, you know, and so, like, over the next 90 days, man, we, you know, by hook or by crook, we launched Atkins Academy. And old, old. This old Jewish section of Krakow called Kujima, which is where Schindler's List was filmed. And, you know, we built out this program. We had 300 students, you know, knocking on doors, like, standing in hypermarkets and, like, handing out, you know, freebies to come, you know, check out the school. And it was a really neat experience, man. And I think right then I realized, like, you know, this is kind of cool, you know, doing your own thing and building something and seeing it come to fruition. So the first thing that I did when I got back to America was go to work for a Fortune 15 corporation. It was so awesome. I ended up hating it, much to nobody's surprise that knows me. And I got a call from a buddy of mine at Wake Forest, and he was like, hey, look, we've got this startup. We're like two to three years in. We can't get it off the ground, really, because we can't sell anything. And I'm really good at selling stuff. Would you be willing to come, like, take a look and join us maybe? I was like, yeah, sure. And so, you know, that was it. The rest is history. Like, that was software for the association industry. So if you've. If you've been a member of the Michigan association of Landscape Professionals or NALP or SIMA or any of those groups, like, if you went online and registered, paid your dues, went to an event, updated your profile, was probably my software.

Wow. No, kid, that's awesome.

Yeah. Name of that company was called Member Clicks. We grew it. We had about 200 employees. We had three offices throughout Canada and the USA. And that's actually kind of where I started. That's where I learned everything I needed to learn about building software for small to midsize organizations. Now, associations are much different than for profit groups, but same things. Not enough time, not enough money, and not enough technology. Know how to really adopt a really complicated platform, you know, so you have to build something that's simple to use and, you know, it just works, right? And that's what we did. We had around 4,000 customers. I took on private equity growth equity kind of like seven years in. And then we ended up selling it to a strategic. And I went to go to go to work for the Strategic as their chief revenue officer. And, you know, one thing I learned really quickly, when you've been used to working for yourself for 16 years and then go to work for somebody else. That stuff doesn't work too well. And so when my penance was paid, I started looking around and I took over for some founders at a towing management software platform. Yes, there is software for towers, actually a lot of it. And in that environment, Brian, we actually bought nine towing management software platforms and put them all together and launched a new brand called Tracks Arrow. Excuse me, sorry. And so built that up, launched the brand, took it to market, and then they ended up getting put together with another larger company. And I got a call from the investors in Single Ops and those investors happen to be the same investors that invested in my original company member clicks. And they said, hey, look, you know, it's time for a transition from the founder. Would you be interested in taking a look? The answer was yes. And so 2023, I took over Single Ops. And when I got there, you know, it was pretty clear that Single Ops was, was a good software platform for tree care professionals, you know, and they were trying to get into the landscape market and you know, by get in, they weren't doing it very well. We weren't doing it very well. And so I was like, hey, let's just focus on tree care and then let me survey the landscape, you know, of other opportunities. And as I started to do research on the landscape market and you know, kind of see what kind of customers, awesome customers, and the similarities between tree care and landscape professionals and how they leverage software, it became pretty obvious to me that I wanted to get into the landscape segment of the marketplace. Much bigger than tree care. Similarly underpenetrated, if you can believe it, over 60% of all businesses that are landscapers still don't have software today, you know, in terms of like leveraging a platform like Jobber or Aspire or Element or Single Ops or anything's along those lines. And so as I was looking around, you know, I was like, I love small to mid sized businesses. They're like the heartbeat of the economy and our culture. And when I was looking around, there was nobody doing it better than Element. And so I called up Mark Bradley cold and I said, hey, you seem to know what you're doing. Would you be willing to teach a, you know, a new guy in the industry, you know, about it? You know, and so we sat down and done a zoom and then did another call. And then I made up a reason to be in Toronto visiting a customer there. You know, I was like, hey, do you, you want to get together for, you know, some drinks and some steak? And the answer was yes. And fast forward six months, he decided to take his company to market and called me up and said, I'd like you to be the first one at the table. And lo and behold, November of last year, we were the winner. And so that's how, how I, you know, came to be the CEO of Single, Single Ops and Element.

That is a, that is a 20 or 30 year history in about four and a half minutes, right?

Yeah, exactly.

Wow. And, you know, it's always funny, I always say when I talk to folks way further down the road than myself, I like, if I can like make a prayer out to the big JC and be like, hey, could you bless me with something? It would be the ability to ask good questions of good people. And you're a good people and I hope I ask good questions today. Right, thanks. Because I know, like, that's the, the secret to so many doors being opened and lessons being learned and experience Right. From other folks that you can glean from it. There's so much along the way of, like, your personal development as a CEO of a founder investor. I mean, that could be an hour discussion right there, right then, then I, I think I probably selfishly want to know a little bit more of like the whole. How did, how did that conversation with Mark Bradley go? Because I've heard, I've heard. Excuse me, I've heard that, you know, Mark has had a lot of folks interested in that platform for a long time. I mean, he built a platform business, as he calls it, and like you said, he was the thousand pound gorilla in that industry. And you know, I'm sure he gets solicitations to sell all the time, but somehow yours made it right? Like, somehow they sold to you guys and your team and like, how did you. If we can spend a few minutes there, I'd love to talk a little bit more probably today about like Element and you're taking over and the growth of that business and platform. Because it's very close to me being involved with onboarding with element the last 16, 14, 15, 16 months.

Yeah.

And I was just on a Zoom Live last night with our private Facebook group called Link, and I said, man, I've got more cash in the bank in Brian's law maintenance account than I've ever had pre building my house in my barn, like, because we emptied out the bank account to do the house in the barn, but I'm like, it's going back up a lot faster than I've ever would have expected. And I literally said, like, I hate to give a Pitch, but I was like, dude, it's got to be because of element and knowing our numbers. And before that, we were just throwing mud up against the wall and sees what sticks, just like so many others. So I think that that conversation is probably the most practical for me. And I know a lot of folks are out there adopting software and getting. Getting involved with all that. But let. Let me. Let me take it back a couple of steps to you wanting to get involved with the. The landscape industry in software in general. Like you said, 60% of folks don't even use software like that. That actually blew my mind. I thought it'd be a lot less, like, in terms of, like, more people would be using something, even a point of sale type program, like square or something. Right. Why is the number only 60% or what? Have you guys noticed the habits of, like, landscapers or tree guys or mo blow guys in general? Like, why. Why are they using software? Why aren't they using software? Why is it not a higher number? I guess.

Yeah. I mean, I think the easy answer to that is just the grind. Right. It's like, you know. Yeah. So the overwhelming majority of the Tree Care marketplace is owner operators. Like, landscape is much different segment. There's like, owner operators and there's kind of like 10 to 15 crew, and then 15 to 30, and then, you know, you just keep getting bigger and bigger and there's big chunks in those segments. Whereas with Tree care, it's like 80% of the marketplace is owner operator, and 20% is like, big, you know.

Right, right.

So those owner operators, like, man, I got to tell you, like, when I first got to single ops, the first thing I do is I listen to. I go watch the sales calls because they're typically recorded and it's on video and all that stuff now, which is a blessing, you know, or I'll listen to them, whatever. And I. The first 10 out of 10 deals I watched was an owner operator on his phone in a truck with work happening behind him as he was going through the demo. I was like, whoa, you know, like, that's different. You know what I mean? And so I'm used to selling to people that are, you know, even towers. Like, the person you're selling to is kind of the person that's the office manager that does all the dispatching, you know?

Right, right.

Very rarely are you selling. Selling to a guy in a truck. Right, right, right. And so I think that's part of it. Just the grind. I think part of it, too, is like, you know, the lack of understanding that that technology can actually lift your business. You know, it's, it's kind of that, you know, like initial, it's like working out. It's like, you know, you should do it. But like, man, it takes so long to get into the gym for like two weeks straight, you know.

Sure.

And I do think, I do think onboarding software is arduous. You know, like I said, typically we're dealing with low tech users with not enough time and not enough budget to really throw out, like hey, hey, fly in and train me and all that stuff. Right, right, right. So I think all those kind of factors combined kind of do that, like they create that and then there is a segment of the marketplace, like if I were to take it out, that there's just a language barrier as well. Right. Like there's a lot of owner operators that, you know, the language barrier makes it really difficult for them to adopt SOFTW software in the United States just because most of the platforms aren't bilingual at this point, you know. Well, if, and so I think. Go ahead.

I was just going to interject like I, to, to learn element even it was an on board for me. I mean I, I feel like I'm, yeah, I'm, I'm, I wouldn't say I'm a techie by any means these days, but I know, you know, some of the language of the industry and this and that and it still took me, you know, I guess I'm still onboarding. Right. It's been 15 months. But even the language used in the platform, sometimes I'm like, what does this mean? I'm like, I don't, I don't have any college or I'm not an office manager. I didn't go to like a industry led training in ILT or something, you know, but I'm learning, you know, we're still learning together. So I could see those being real, real pain points and struggles for sure.

Yeah. Really, really barriers to entry. Right. And I always tell people, you're always onboarding software forever, like because we're doing new releases and new functionality is coming out and things change and it's like, you know, all of a sudden the button moves or we screw something up and the product goes down. You know, something, you know, something's always happening. Right. And so.

Right.

And that's hard, you know, when you're also dealing with customers calling and warranty claims and you know, equipment breaking down and then somebody getting in an accident in your truck and it's just like there's this ton of stuff going on, man, you know?

Right.

So I think that's part of it. But I. I also think too, like, we're seeing the same thing that we see a lot amongst a lot of field services businesses. There's this generational handoff that's happening is like, there's a lot of fol that are in an older demographic that are handing the business down to younger folks. And so you are starting to see that kind of, like, adoption gaps really start to accelerate, which is super exciting, right. For somebody like me. That's also part of the reason why I was so excited about joining forces with lmn, which is like, hey, they're in a huge part of the market. Small to midsize businesses, Brian, are the overwhelming majority of the marketplace, you know, and so if we can build a platform that's easy to use, reliable, and does, you know, to the 85th to 90th percentile of everything that a customer really needs it to do, you can really, you know, create a really nice business that grows for a long, sustainable amount of time and serves customers well. And, you know, that's our goal, that's our desire,

and I appreciate that. Let me. Let me ask you this. Like, piggybacking off of that, that's an opportunity that you recognize in the marketplace.

What.

What made you, you know, first court and then hopefully, you know, I guess, fall in love with Element and Mark Bradley and what they were doing, like, their way of doing business or what, what Mark's passion for the industry is, you know, how did that whole evolution go from, hey, we need to get into this space to meeting Mark to eventually inking a deal? Could you. Could you take us through that whole. I don't know if that was six months or 12 months, but, man, that's. That's a. That's a lot there.

I was looking back at it before this, you know, time together, and it took about. It took a year for my first call to him.

Wow, okay.

And so a lot of things have to fall in place to make a deal like this happen. Element was bigger than us. You know, the check was large, so you got to talk your equity partners into the industrial logic as to why you'd want to do this. You have to make sure that Mark is like, yeah, like, you seem like a reasonable person I would sell my baby to. Right, Right. But let's go back to your first question. And then, by the way, you have to think about your teams. There's two different teams, two different cultures, two different software, blah Blah, blah, blah, blah. Like I could keep going on with the list, right? For sure. But like, I think what drew me to it is first and foremost the customers. Like I'm a big SMB guy. I've always worked with SMBs. I really do believe that small to mid sized businesses are the fabric of our society. Like they build communities, they support schools, they hire people in their local area. They're the spirit of entrepreneurialism. You know, God forbid I say it's like super American, like, you know what I mean? And it's like that stuff really resonates with me and I love serving those customers because, you know, what you're doing really matters at the end of the day. Right. And I'm not saying serving big corporations doesn't matter and all that good stuff. I'm not saying that. What I am saying though is like I can see the ripple effect of the work that we put in to make your job easier, Brian, on a day in and day out basis, I can see it firsthand, I can touch it, I can go visit you, you know, and see it happening. I can hear your story about like, hey, my bank account, you know, is growing faster. It's because I know my numbers. I probably, I built my budget and lmn, like all that stuff to me is like magic, like intoxicating, you know. Yeah. And so what led me to Mark and LMN was the customers. And then Mark built the business the same way I built my business. So he was an evangelist, right. And so, you know, he's evangelized, not software, he's evangelized knowing your business. Right. And so when I, when I grew member clicks, I didn't evangelize software, I evangelized efficiency. You know, it's like, hey, you're a non profit organization, you only have so many dollars you can spend. You've got to make them, you know, go as far as far as it can go. And so I spoke, I went around the country, I did road shows, you know, all that stuff very similarly to Mark in this industry. And so that resonated with me. So that told me, Brian, that the culture of element was probably not going to be that much different than the culture of single house because we very much take an evangelistic approach as well. And so that was really nice. And then the third thing was the reach into the marketplace. He had over 3,000 customers. There's a lot you can do with that. You know, there's a lot creatively can do that from a software company. So if you get the core platform. Right. You can start to build out a suite of solutions that those customers will want to adopt over a course of time. And so all that stuff was like really, really attractive to me personally, you know, and then obviously, you know, you got to make Excel files work and you know, returns on investment and all that good stuff. But really at the end of the day it was the customer that was what, what drove everything for us.

That's a, that's a very strategic move too. I mean at the end of the day, right, it is still about dollars and cents, especially when you've got investors like you said that you got to answer to and deliver for. Right?

For sure. Yeah.

It's, I can only imagine like those politics and dynamics, I, I, I don't envy that. If I'm, if I'm feeling lazy as a self employed person that day, at least I know it's going to hurt me and my bank account. But at least I don't have to answer to anybody I guess other than my, my wife, you know.

And we all answer to somebody, Brian.

That's what I'm saying, brother. I was always somebody, somebody's brass. We gotta, we gotta answer.

That's right. Yeah, exactly right.

At least I feel less guilty knowing I don't have investors. Right? That's funny. But, well, and it was funny because ironically enough timing was I had just got to meet, I think I met. Did I meet you before it sold or after it sold?

I think after. Yeah, after.

So I think I met. So I think we had lal and Mark Bradley came back very excited. He was like blasting a bunch of stuff out on his Instagram stories. I'm a big fan obviously. So he's like living la vida loca and like the Bahamas or something. And I think he just got engaged obviously to his fiance Liz. And so then he cuts his vacation like a day short, flies back on his halfway on a pj he said, because he said, I said man, it's nice to be. I gotta be rich one day like Mark and fly a jet. He came to LAL and basically, I don't know if you remember this, you guys are probably still dealing with the fallout, but he like basically gave a ridiculous incentive and offer and sale to everybody at our conference. And I like, I was on stage and I looked at the numbers and he's like, it's free for this long, for this little amount a month for this long. And there's a lot of link members and people that went to LAL and took advantage of that basically for signing up with lmn, Mark was in a pretty, pretty solid honeymoon that week, if you will. And right. I was even on stage and I look at some of the Element folks. I'm like, is he allowed to do that? Like, he shouldn't be doing that. Like there's that he's losing money is what I like, I'm like, I'm still, I'm still for profit, if you know what I'm saying. And.

Right.

But Mark, Mark was having a very good week, just got engaged, just sold his company, just got a big check and, and then, you know, cut his vacation short a day to come speak at our conference. And I was just beyond grateful and thankful and just living, you know, vicariously through him and his excitement. And the dude has done a lot, a lot for the industry. And then, and then, you know, to fast forward, he was doing his LMN masterminds, you know, through fall of winter. And that's really where I got to know, my gosh, so many great folks from the single OPS team, you know, and through that last 12 months, I got to meet so many great folks from the LMN team and I probably had a little bit more of a, you know, like VIP experience probably because of like doing some, you know, social media and influencer type stuff. But my gosh, like I've met so, so many great folks from Element. If I started naming one, you'd have to name them all. But like I've got to meet, you know, Michael Poe and the Steven Bennett and then so many other great folks, the, the sales teams, especially through the, through the summits and the masterminds and then through the those as well. I got to start meeting some of the single Ops team and, and it's funny because at first I was like, and, and I'll kick this back over to you. But at first I was like, Mark, come on dude. Like I just signed up with this thing. It wasn't like, it wasn't like Mark was like, hey man, let's sell software together. It was nothing like that. Mark was like, hey dude, I'll help you grow your business. Because I was excited about pivoting to, to grow brands on maintenance into a 5, $10 million company. Mark, one day, when you get some one on one time with Mark, ask him about the dinner he had with me explaining what EBITDA meant to me. And it was a very, very awkward conversation. Of course my peers and my friends, my friends Caleb were there to forever razz me for, for life. Cause at the end of the Dinner. Mark, like, spun the dream. And then I'm like, mark, what's an ebitda? And he just. He just. He just looked at me. He's like, man, we got some work to do. But, but. But long story short, it was like I was like six months in the onboarding with lmn. I'm like, telling everybody, lmn's great. Cause we're. We're knowing our numbers and other folks are learning their numbers. And then, like, one part of me, I was, like, so excited for Mark that he, you know, sold his company and he's going to move on to leanscaper. But then the other side of me, I was like, well, oh, what about me, dude? Like, what about everybody else? Like, what about lmm? And. And I say that for you guys listening in, because I got to meet the Andrews, the Charlie's, the Lens, the Sean's. And a lot of these folks are, you know, the managers and VIPs and execs and C suite or whatever you call it, people with the single ops team. And my gosh, like, they took so much time to get to know me. The folks at the summits, like, it was this really beautiful, like, handoff, I feel, of the baton with the element platform. Can you speak about that, like, transition for a little bit? Because, I mean, what. The investment that you guys are making into the platform and cleaning things up and streamlining things, it's like, been second to none. I. I can rest assured, like, we're in good hands is what I was basically trying to say. And I can't even imagine the effort it takes to. To make that transition as seamless as you guys have and are making it. So can you. Can you speak to that for a few minutes about it?

Yeah. I mean, first of all, I appreciate the kind words, Brian, very much. And, like, there's one thing that I've learned. I've done, you know, nine acquisitions in six years of integrations.

Geez,

I never sought out to do that, but it's just like, I've become that person. I don't know why, but the one thing that I've learned, like, super quick, is the easiest way to make these transitions seamless is go hug the customer as fast as you can and make sure you talk a ton about your core values to your team and then radiate that to the customer base as fast as you possibly can. Right. And so we had a very intentional kind of design to, you know, go to the summits, meet people in person, engage with the community. My product Team. Yes. You do get a VIP experience because you're an amazing customer and you say and do a ton of things for us, and we thank you for that.

Yeah.

But we interview my product team. Like, we live and die by this. You have to go meet customers where they are. Go, go, go talk to them, Go see how they're using the platform. I go visit two customers a month every month. I go to their sites, walk the facility with them, do ride alongs with their crew. The only way you can build software that will meaningfully change a person's business is to understand their business. Business. Right. And so going to those masterminds was, you know, it was very serendipitous. The timing of the acquisition and then having six of them, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang. That was awesome for me, like, meeting all the customers, you know, building and forging those relationships. Literally. Two weeks ago, I was in Banff with Steve Wheatcroft, you know, for three days, and I met him at a Mastermind, you know, and so we went hiking for, you know, two days up and Canada. And so.

That guy's awesome. That guy, that guy. I need to get him on the podcast. He's wild.

Oh, he's wild. And he's got incredible stories, and he's super transparent, and he's like a human amongst humans. And, like, I can't say enough good stuff about Weedy.

When I saw him at Miami leanscapers event, he told the funniest effing story for 30 minutes, and I died laughing. I'm like, I hope to be a mix between Steve and Mike Mark Bradley. I want to be rich. Like, both of them guys, and funny and smart. Like, those are. Those are like the parents for me, you know, the to aspire to. And that Steve guy, I'm like, I had a bunch of people saying, can you get him to speak at lal? I'm like, I don't. I don't know Stephen that well, but Steven's got. Steven's got the fu. Money. He doesn't need anything, but. But maybe. Maybe one day. So he loves.

He loves opportunity like that. Like, really. And that's what I mean. Like, he's a human amongst humans. You know, Steve's done exceptionally well in his life, but, you know, he picks you up in a Ford F150 and, you know, totally, you know, unassuming. And, you know, it never makes you feel once like, look, dude, I don't have to do this. You're wasting my time. Like, he's not that guy, man.

That's awesome. That's awesome.

So just meeting with customers, like engaging in conversations, listening to what they had to say. Like, we got a lot of feedback at those Mastermind events of like, man, it would be great if one of the things he said, like, hey, make it easier for a card on file. Like, that was like a big deal. And we're, and that's what we're doing, man. Like, we're just listening to the customer. Where are the biggest pain points, what's causing them not to adopt the software, what's elongating, onboarding, times, like all that stuff, like that's what we're really good at is just figuring that stuff out. And the only reason we're good at it is because we force our, you know, engineers and our product people to go talk to customers because there's no, there's no telephones, you know, there's no, like, you know, and the customer will tell you everything that they need in the platform. It's up to us to synthesize. That's not really what you need because you really want X, Y and Z, you know, you know, more. But I, I, that transition for me was like an amazing introduction to the marketplace and to the industry. And Mark was incredibly gracious in that process and welcoming me into the, you know, the Mastermind community, the LMN community and the landscaping community. And so I thought, I thought it was great. But the two things had to happen at once, Brian. We had to embrace our internal team and embrace our core values and share those core values and what our mission and vision was for, you know, the new combined company. And then we also had to go hug the customer and just shake their hands and slap their backs and, you know, hear what they had to say.

What do you, what do you see, like the long term vision for Element then with, I don't know if like single ops, is that its own software, its own app? Forgive me.

Yes, it's its own platform. Yeah.

What do you see, like the, the vision for the two platforms long term, Will they, will they become one? Are they going to be standalone and then like either or Right or wrong answer. But like, where do you see the vision for Element over the next five years, for example, now that you're at the helm?

Yeah, yeah. I think the way that I would think about it is our company wants to be synonymous with the green industry.

Okay.

And it's just that simple. It's like if you're in the green industry, if you're a landscaper or a tree professional, if you're a design build if you're a commercial maintenance, residential maintenance if you're a large design build, small design build if you're doing tree work, if you're doing, you know, green industry work and you think of the tools that you need to run your business. If you think software, the first thing we want you to think of a single option element, okay, one, and we are going through a rebranding process and we'll combine under one name and all that good stuff. And. But I really don't think about it distinctly as what, what will the product be? What I really think about it is, is what are the problems we're going to solve. Right. And so my hope is that we become synonymous with the green industry when we're done. Right. It's just like it's a no brainer, you know, if you're a small to mid sized green industry professional and you're doing estimating, billing, invoicing, proposing scheduling and you want to sell customers, you want to manage leads like we're the transactional system of record for you. Like you don't need to look anywhere else. Right. And then if we do that. Well, Brian, like most small to mid sized businesses don't want 10 different software platforms to manage their, you know, business. You know, I do ride alongs, I've done right alongs, you know, recently where they have 60 or 70 trucks in their fleet. It's like, okay, cool. Like they have a fleet maintenance software platform. It's like, well tell me what you actually use it for. And there's only like 8 to 9 things that have 150 things the platform provides them that they really use. It's like, okay, well we can build a tool for that and you don't have to use that software anymore. Or we can partner with that, that tool or we can acquire a tool like that. And so then we can just start to build an ecosystem of solutions that allows our customers to keep their one customer service to call like one software platform to use when you're onboarding new employees. One platform to train your new folks on. Right. It just makes your business streamlined and more easy to operate. And that's our sole goal, is we want you to be concentrated on creating customers for life. And if our software platform can do that, then we've won.

I love that because, you know, through the element events, you know, there's tons of and then the shop tours that we've been able to do. And then I went to grow with Marty Grunder, who's a fantastic dude, you Know, there's, you know, GPS track and GPS insight, then you got Fleetio, then you've got Slack, you know, and all these different communication tools. And my gosh, like, you know, when people say tech enabled business, right? Like, where do you, where do you start and when do you finish? You know, And I can see with the horsepower that you guys have now and then the, the team behind everything consolidating, you know, not just green industry softwares, right. But also the, the supplementals to go with it.

Yeah, 100. And like, sometimes you don't want to touch the supplemental, so we'll partner with them, you know, or sometimes we'll look at supplementals and be like, hey, we should just acquire that, you know, like, we're not going to build something better than that, you know, like, and then sometimes it's like, you don't need all that and you're paying $10,000 a year for them. So here, have this for 200 bucks a month more, and let's save you some money and make your team more efficient. Right?

I love it.

And then on top of that, we have a greenist platform, which I think is like this beautiful ray of sunshine that allows our customers to train and develop and empower our. Their teams to be better at their jobs. There's so many other things that we can do with that platform over a course of time that could make it really powerful for our customers as well. And so there's a lot of opportunities to build a very powerful platform that allows our customers to grow efficiently. And to me, that's my goal, is to help this industry get better at what they're doing so they can focus on the things that they love to do, which is building awesome outdoor spaces, you know, making dreams come true, putting friends and family together outside, making sure that, you know, commercial businesses and organizations are safe and reduce liability. Like, all the things that our customers do day in and day out, like, I just want to make it easy for them and they can just kind of forget that they're using software.

Yeah, I love that. I love that. It's. I don't say like it's a lifestyle, but it can be, you know, and it's a philosophy of doing business, you know, And I remember you saying the exact same thing about that with Mark a minute ago.

Right.

It's the way he evangelized the industry, you know, about budgeting and knowing your numbers, and that's what got me. You know, it's funny that you say that. My brain just fired off and thought that's exactly what got me quote unquote with Mark 18 months ago when I went to an element mastermind two year, two winners ago. And I've told this story before, but if you guys haven't heard before, I told Liz I came back from the two day event and Liz goes, I think it's after the first day actually. She goes, so what'd you think about Mark? And I said, pretty cool, dude, you know. No, she goes, she goes, what do you think about lmn? And I go, I mean, pretty cool. I said, I don't even know if they talked about lmn, but the dude talked about helping people. Paying frontline workers like, you know, livable wages, changing the industry, changing, changing it so people make profit. And I was giving stats about how little big companies really make sometimes and all this stuff. And I came and just the passion for the people, right? And I came back and I said, I said, yeah, I don't, I don't really remember anything about lmn. I said, I think we're going to use it. I think, I think we don't know what we don't know. And I was like, this marquee is awesome. And then, you know, it's funny in your own way. I see like that same philosophy that matches and mirrors up and your passion and you're pretty humble and pretty, pretty chill. But I've seen, I've seen the way not only you work in, in, you know, in different environments, but the way your folks respect you and listen to you and how you guys are all on the same team and the same sheet of music. Like there's a lot there. It's not just, oh, I did nine mergers and I've done this for 20 years. Like, you know, you know what you're doing or at least you're really good at BS and everyone. Right, so.

Right, exactly. I've hoodwinked everybody.

That's right. I always say the same thing. Either we're, what do they say? Like baffle them with BS or something. If you can't dazzle.

That's right, whatever till you make it. Right.

Yeah, exactly. Right. Well, let's wind up, wind down the, the convo right now and we'll, we'll kind of land the plane. What? One thing I was going to ask, like a lot of us listening in, like you said, we're SMBs, right? Small to mid sized businesses. We're, we're CEOs of our own company. Right. And you're a C, C, C level, you know, individual yourself. You have been for a long time. Multiple different roles obviously, too, and multiple different companies. I know one of your tenants was, hey, you gotta really talk about core values with your team and really understand the customer. And I, I love that. Just to wrap up with any final thoughts, like what, what else maybe has driven you as a CEO, that some of the guys listening in, whether they're, you know, doing 100 grand and they're the CEO of their, their small business or, you know, a guy listening in who's got a $4 million company, he's got 37 employees, he's struggling and running to do it. All right? And, and you've got two to 450 probably team members, you know, plus or minus whatever you got going on. I, if I did some simple, simple math, like, what are some ways that, that you've, like, stay focused or, you know, got the ability to stay productive or, or some, some tenets of principle that when you're having a tough day, you just remind yourself, like, any, any lessons learned along the way that are like core principles for you that you could pass on to these guys.

There's two. So the tough days will always come. The obstacle is the way. Like, don't think of the obstacle as a, you know, an impediment. Think of it as a opportunity. Right? So like, when you're growing businesses, I've been in a, I've grown a business from sub $50,000 in revenue to north of 30 million revenue. That's not easy to do. Very, very hard. Right? So for those of you that are going through that, the obstacle is the way. Don't ever look at it any other way. The only way forward is through. Okay. And so I think that's always something that I've kind of lived and died by. Can you. The next.

Can you quantify that? Like, give me, give me a for instance, if you don't mind.

Yeah, I mean, so there's a lot of times when people see. So for example, a customer calls you up and says, like, hey, you know, the, the poll you guys put in is cracked the basin. It's like the water's flowing everywhere. Like, what's, what's happening, you know, it's like, oh, that's the end of the. The world needs, like, as opposed to looking at it as the end of the world. Like, hey, we're going to look at this obstacle as an opportunity, right? We're going to. I'm gonna. As opposed to me running over to the customer and like, just figuring out what went wrong. And then lay into everybody that did this. I'm actually gonna. I'm gonna take the time to call two or three people that did this work with me. They're gonna go with me. We're gonna use this as a teachable moment, and we're all going to learn together. We're gonna listen to this customer, and they're gonna feel that pain with me so that they know exactly how this is going to make us better tomorrow. Right? And so that's a simple example. Like, I've had a million examples left in my own, you know, time frame. But I think the, like, the real advice I give anybody that's trying to grow a business is just go do the hard thing. There is something that you're not doing today that's because it's hard. You don't want to do it. Like, you don't want to tackle it. Like, it's just. It's. It's either. It's outside of your skill set. It's a terrible conversation you don't want to have with somebody who's been in your business for 10 years. Like, just anytime you're having a conversation in your mind, like, on your commute to work, you know, or drinking your cup of coffee, if you're having a conversation with somebody in your head or you're having a conversation with yourself about, like, oh, I do not want to do this. I don't want to have this conversation, or you're having the conversation, and you should be having it with the person. Just go do it. Go do it. Just go punch through it. Don't delay it. Just go knock it out. Like, do the hard thing. It's the only way, you know? And so I constantly look for all the hard things in the business. Like, I. I see it as my job to go find what are the hard things that nobody wants to, like, deal with. And I go shoulder to shoulder with them and go deal with it, you know? And so those two things, the obstacle is the way and just go do the hard thing is, like, two things. Like, if you can just fall in love with that, you know, you're gonna do. You're gonna do just fine. You're gonna build a business.

How do you remind yourself that this is what you want to do when it is the hard thing, and this is what you. Like, like you said, this is the hard thing, and this is what you need to do. How do you keep yourself in love with the process? As things grow and the headaches get

bigger, though, the number one thing I remind Myself of is, who is this hurting? So, like, when I'm thinking about, like, do the hard thing and I'm not doing it, the first thing that I decide on, okay, why is this hard? Okay, who all does it involved and who is it hurting by me not doing it? You always typically think about the hurt that'll be involved when you do do it. You never really instinctively think about all the hurt that's happening for not doing it right. And hurt can be quantified in a lot of different ways, Brian. It could be missed opportunities, it could be culture degradation because of a bad egg. From an employee perspective, you could have a customer that keeps demoralizing your team. And I've had all those, by the

way, unintended consequences, kind of.

Yeah. And so by you not doing the hard thing, who are you hurting? Because whenever you're focused on the hard thing, you're just looking at that thing like, well, that's going to hurt this. It's going to hurt the customer. It's going to hurt our revenue. It's going to hurt. It's going to hurt this employee's feelings. But you're not taking a wide enough aperture. And so whenever I think about not doing something or, oh, wow, that's going to be hurtful to this or harmful to this or degrading to this, you know, I always take a step back and that's a trigger for me. Immediately take a step back and say, like, who, who, who is this hurting? Or what is this hurting by me not doing it right? And typically when you take the wider aperture, you start to see like, oh, this is, this is having a bigger way bigger wake than just the one on one thing that I gotta do. It's having a much larger impact, you know, and so I just, I've just found, like, you know, whenever I'm, there's something really hard and I don't want to do it. It's like, well, take a step back and say, well, who is this hurting? Outside of that, you know, So I also. It sounds so tried at this point because everybody seems to do it. But like, I. I journal, like, religiously every single day. Like, I read and I journal every single day. And one of the things that I started journaling like seven years ago, this was like, not forever, like recent. And it happened when I hurt my back. One of the suggestions that somebody made to me is like, mark, every morning when you get up, write down at least three things that you're afraid of, you know, And I don't mean snakes and like heights. You know what I mean? What I mean is, like, what, what are you really afraid of? Like, think about it. Like, what's. What are you afraid of? I was like, man, this is stupid. He's like, and then I want you to write it down on a piece of paper. And when you get done writing it down, that day, you take it and you crumple it up and you throw it away. And that physical act of writing down what you're afraid of. And by the way, when I started doing it, I was like, I don't know what's right here? And then I was like, I am kind of afraid of this. So I wrote it down. And then every day, it's easy for me to write three things that I'm afraid of. You know what I mean? And I got to tell you, it's incredibly satisfying to pick that and crumple it up and throw it away. But that trigger. Brian, a lot of the things that I write that I'm afraid of have something to do in my personal life, my professional life, obviously. And a lot of times that professional life stuff is like, oh, my God, that's the hard thing. And then when I take it and crumple it up and throw it away, it, it tells me just how much opportunity, you know, that I have if I just go tackle that thing that I'm afraid of.

As your driver. Yeah.

Yeah. Correct.

That's why you're saying, I was doing a mental checklist. I'm like, boom, boom, boom. Like, I got work to do, you know, so. But I'll.

We all do.

I'll throw those in for the three point myself, you know, so that's good stuff. I, I, I really appreciate it, the, the, the candidness, too, because I know a lot of guys, it's tough, man. It's tough running a business that's tough at 100 grand and you and a guy that you can't get the show up to trim, and you. When you got 40 guys and two trucks are sitting that day because you have to let two guys go because they're smoking weed or something, you know, so it's, it's always tough. But you're not exclusive, right, to these pains or sufferings or disappointments. We're all, we all go through it. I think that's where we're all going through it. Yeah. Yeah. And again, you're, you're at the helm of one of the aircraft carriers where I'm the dinghy, you know, I always say, so we can, we can turn On a dime. But you, you've managed so far to successfully navigate both and just I'm impressed. It was awesome getting to meet you at I think Novi and then again at Boston maybe, and then I think I saw you grow. So you're all over the place and I'm sure even more to come. So I'll, I'll give you the last thought. Anything you want to share with anybody or just kind of open mic or anything exciting in the future or people can go Register@go out.com with code. Brian.

Right? No, I'm just kidding. You know, please. Yeah.

Hey, we're we're both uh, we're trying to get new customers all the time and you, you guys will benefit, uh, big time with uh, knowing your numbers. Like, like we have, but I had to get that in there. But anything else that you got coming up exciting or want to share or maybe where you're going to be or Equip Expo and all that or anything

coming up in the future, I'll be a lot of the events obviously going into the fall, like I'll be at the overwhelming majority of them. I think the thing that I want to say, you know, is to you, Brian, specifically, but I think it applies to everybody in your audience, which is I hear a lot of customers that are small in size and I don't know what your actual revenues are, but like that one to $10 million range, it's like, yeah, I'm just trying to like, you know, get to this, you know, and like, I, like, I'm so impressed by people that are there. I'm impressed by you. Right? And that's, you guys are my motivation. Right. And so I, I want everybody, you, your audience to take a step back and just take a breath and look around and say like, wow, I'm building something here. Because like you don't get to do that very often. Right. Like it's, you know, manage this, put this fire out, like talk to this customer. Like, were you smoking weed? Conversations. Like I get all that and like, and I, and I understand that we're, when we go to these events, we're surrounded by people. It's like, well yeah, I've got a 30 million dollar business, I got a 40 million dollar business. 95 of the marketplace is sub $10 million.

Sure.

And so bread and butter, the like pride and joy of the industry is you, what you're doing, right. And what your audience members are doing. And so I just asked, don't, don't shoot yourself short and actually just look at how much you've already accomplished and take pride in that because you're building, you know, the economy of our country. And that to me is like incredibly noble and it's something to be complimented and I think it's something to be appreciated. So that's my fun.

That's awesome. That's awesome. Well, thank you. I mean, well said. And shout out. I mean that's, I say exactly. To all the guys too. I'm like, dude, don't, don't shoot yourself. You know, short. We're, we're not all going to be Navy tree or Yellowstone, you know, so

it's like, don't have to be.

Right, right. I mean you can chisel out a couple million dollar company, good payroll, good profit and, and have a decent little lifestyle at 3 million dollar business, you know, so.

And change lives.

Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. That's awesome. I love it. Then if you guys are just getting to know Mark, you can see where the, the passion is. You can see that we're all rolling it together. He's one of us, you know. And again, I don't envy your job or position, Mark. You gotta, you got a lot going on but you got a great team that's helping you do it, man. I, I can't, I can't thank you enough for just, just, even if it's just good, good people skills and good politics to be a listening ear, I just literally don't take it for granted because you and the rest of your team and the element team have always listened. I mean, it's just, it's crazy. And I've, and as a, as I always say, I've got a lot to say and a lot of, a lot of passion as we call it in quotes, you know, so complaining, but passion, you know, and so the element team and the single ops team, they've, they've, they're hearing, they're listening, they're awesome, they're, and they're doing. And so I think we're all in good hands. So I think that's, that's what, we'll just land it today. But thanks so much for the time, brother. I can't thank you enough. Are you, are you on social or where can people find you or.

Yeah, I'm on LinkedIn. I'm on Instagram. Gosh, I don't know my Instagram handle, but Mark Sedgeley on LinkedIn is my LinkedIn profile. If you want to email me mark@singleops.com just M A R K@singleops.com There you go. And then goallmn.com and www.singleops.com.

there you go. Promo. Cobra.

Promo code, Brian. Like, use it.

We'll get you. We'll get you the hookup, you know, so there you go. But. All right, brother. Well. Well, I. I know. What. What time is it, by the way? I know it's got to be 12 hours.

It's 8:00pm Yeah, 8:00pm okay.

Oh, and that's not too bad. Okay.

There you go.

So how long are you. How long are you over overseas, then? A couple weeks.

Couple months? Yeah, no, the next seven to eight days. Oh, cool.

Super cool. Well, hope to have you safe travels back, and I'm sure we'll be seeing you here at some event before you know it. So appreciate the time today, brother.

On the fall circuit, right?

Yeah, that's right. I. I try to match your schedule and marks. I don't know if I can keep up with that, so we'll. We'll see. But. All right, well, we'll appreciate you, brother. Thanks again and look forward to catching up with you on the next one.

All right, thanks, brother.

There you go.

Keep well.

Yep. See you, brother.

Bye.