LMN’s New CEO Mark Sedgley Reveals Big Plans for Landscaping Businesses!

Hey, everybody.

Welcome to Kid Contractor. Welcome to the show. Everybody here. I tried to forewarn our guest about my. The intro here, and however that's evolved over the years, and I don't know where that came from, but Mark's probably wondering, what in the world is this about? We have Mark Sedgley here today. I'm super excited to interview Mark here. He is the now owner of lmn, a budgeting software that you folks have heard us talk about ad nauseam here on the show probably. But it's something we believe in wholeheartedly and we know what it did for our business six or seven years ago. We started, we first bought into it and then became. Had the privilege of becoming ambassadors for Element just a. I think six or six months or a year into paying for it. So we've done the full deal. We felt the pain of paying for it, but we also felt the. We've had the sweet joy of what it did for our company so long ago and how it helped us understand our company. And really, Mark, I'm not blowing smoke or just paying lip service here. It really transformed our business. And so now, by the way, I want to mention too, if you know somebody named Mark that owns lmn. Well, actually it used to be Mark Bradley, a business hero of mine, and. And just ironically enough, Mark Sedgley is now the owner. I'll let. And stop rambling here. Mark, how are you? Tell us, I guess that intro here, just basic intro and then we'll dig in a little bit of. And folks, where I want to go with this is like what the new.

The.

Well, not new vision necessarily, but what the vision is for Element moving forward, how Mark's Mark Sedgley sees that happening and just talk background and all sorts of stuff. So it's gonna be fun episode folks,

and I'm looking forward to it.

So, Mark, how are you? Tell us about yourself and we'll go from there, man.

Awesome, man. Thank you, Caleb. Thanks for having me on the show. I've been super excited to have this conversation with you. We chatted once before briefly, and I've learned a lot about you and Brittany and the, you know, the Kid Contractor idea and kind of the whole thing that's going on within your organization. And I love it. And so I feel honored to be on the show and I can't thank you enough for having me on. So. And by the way, I loved your intro. Like that made me psyched to do the conversation. You know, my interest, really simple. I think at the End of the day, I've always been kind of an entrepreneur. It started, which I think is a pretty common story, which is what I think makes landscaping such a powerful kind of communal thing, you know, as I've started to embrace it more and more is. My first job was a lawnmower hanging out the back of my trunk when I was 16 years old with a weed whacker, which is what we called it in East Tennessee, and a blower. And a blower. And I was going door to door around the neighborhoods and asking if I could cut the grass. And ever since then, I've always gravitated to starting things or being part of a startup or, you know, running teams or organizations. And so, you know, many years ago, I helped start a company called MemberClix for your listeners. The way they might be able to connect with memberclicks is if they're ever a member of a state kind of landscaping association or hardscape association or. Or the national association of Landscape Professionals, something along those lines. If you went online and you registered for an event or paid your dues or updated your profile, there was a good chance it was my software. And so we grew that business to thousands and thousands of customers across North America. We had several offices and a couple hundred employees, and then we sold it. And ever since then, I've just basically been on a CEO track where I get to go take over for founders and help take the great company company they've already created, just kind of go to the next level. And back in 23, I came, took over for the founder of Single Ops. And as I started to learn that business, it's much more focused on tree care and the tree care industry, which is an awesome customer base. But one of the things that I kept looking around was trying to figure out, how do we embrace the landscape community? And whenever you're working in software, there's like, you know, just different ways you can go about hitting that strategy. And I did some research and looked around the industry and the community, and one company just popped up, like. And it was like, undeniable. This is the best company. And that was element. And then I started to do research on, you know, the background of lmn, who was running it. And Mark Bradley pops up everywhere when you start Googling, you know, all the stuff. And he's an incredible teacher, and he has a strong desire to impact an entire industry. And that was clear to me. And he was doing it both through his activities and mentorship and teaching, but also through his software. And so I called him up and I said, hey, I'm new to the industry. I'd love to learn more. Would you be willing to spend some time with me and maybe we'll become frenemies? And anybody who knows Mark is not surprised that he said yes. And so we spent an hour, an hour and a half over zoom just chatting about the industry, his background, like how he came to be building an incredible landscaping business and then taking that and leveraging it into building an incredible landscape management software platform. And then fast forward a couple months, I made up a reason to be in Toronto and I called him up and said, hey, do you like steak and wine? Please say yes. Please say yes. And he said yes. And we just kept hitting it off and having great conversations and we think alike on a lot of different key concepts about business and customers. And when he decided to take LMN and, you know, start his, what I think he refers to as V4 of his, you know, career journey in leanscaper, he gave me a seat at the table and an opportunity to win the business. And, you know, back in November, it all came to be. So that's kind of the short 5 cent tour.

Oh, man, this is awesome. I would love to know if you could share what industry giants like you two, because I'm guessing you sold member clicks for a couple shekels, which would make you success. You know, because it's not the money necessarily, but money is the somewhat, if not a true measurement of how successful a business was by just how well it serves its customers or whatever. And what. What would you say? I'd love to know what some key concepts are that you aligned with Mark on, that you folks had singular vision on. If you don't mind sharing.

I think the number one thing, and

by the way, I'll probably refer to Bradley is just Bradley now for.

That's fine.

Yeah, yeah, I'll call you Mark and I'll call Bradley Bradley. How about that?

Okay, awesome. I appreciate that. I'm sure he does, too. The. The easy thing, the easiest thing for me to point to during our conversations was Mark wants to make an impact. He wants to make an impact on his employees, his teammates. Right? He wants to make an impact on his customers. And then the real big one, which is the mission of Element, is they want. We want to impact the entire landscaping industry and community. Right. And one of the things that I talk about all the time as I built businesses and took over businesses and run teams is ripple. How do we create ripple in our employees lives in our Customers lives and in the greater industry. And so I think those two things really align Mark and myself in terms of how we think about building teams, how we think about serving customers, how we think about partnering with stakeholders and vendors and partners, etc. Cause there's that through line of like wanting to make an impact, wanting to create ripple. And that's really important. I think the other thing too is we both kind of believe deeply in serving the community and making them, you know, and helping them unlock their potential to have a greater impact in their own community. Cause that does create, you know, kind of this ripple effect of impact. You know, small to mid sized businesses. Landscaping organizations do so many things in their communities. They hire people, they develop people, they create jobs, they drive economy, they create outdoor spaces that are highly attractive and bring people together. That's creating community. And so I think when you think about all those things and alignment and then you start to think like, hey, am I going to have a company that has a really strong mission and that I can equip the core values that can make a huge impact. Those things I think are what probably aligned Mark and I the closest when we first started having conversations.

Oh man, fantastic. And I got just, just so far, what, eight, nine minutes in, I got like 85 questions to dig into. So we'll see where we end up. But gosh, I wanted to bring, bring this down to like if you have advice for a startup or. A startup is such a cool sounding way to, you know, you know a lot. It was just such a cool sounding buzzword phrase or whatever. But you know, say that the guy out there that's half ton pickup truck and a mower trying to hire his first guy, like what do you feel like and be it or a software startup, like you're hiring your first guy or gal, whatever that is, you know, helping you with coding or whatever it is. I don't understand the world a lot, so I'm definitely my skis there. But what would what vision or where do you draw vision from? Or is it always just inherent when you're starting something like to create ripple even with that first person? Like how do you convey that of like hey, this is where we. This is my vision of where I want to go with this thing and all that?

Yeah, I mean I think that's, I mean I think you nailed it first, Caleb. This is like do you actually have a vision and a plan? Right? And one of the things I heard you say earlier is like element actually helps you deliver on that vision and plan. Right. And so as I think about a startup, you know, just so you know, startups are not, not like, they sound super cool. They are not. Right? It's every bit as like, you know, painful and like, messy and clunky as. As any other company that starts up is. I. I mean, I remember we were in like a little room and, you know, five us just staring at each other saying, like, now what? You know, and so I think one of the things is, like, you have to start with, like, well, what do I want to be? Like, where do I want to be? Where do I want to go? You gotta have a vision, right? And by the way, your vision doesn't have to be to change the world. Your vision could be like, hey, I want a sustainable business that pays my bills and creates a future for my kids or for me, right? Like, it could be something so simple. Okay, well, now what do we have to do now? Start working your way back from the vision, right? And the first area that I would actually lean into, that I talk about a lot, is like, what are the values that you think you need in order to hit that vision, Right? Like, well, I want a sustainable business. Well, what does that mean? Like, I'm gonna have to work hard, right? I'm gonna have to put in extra hours. I'm gonna have to go above and beyond. I'm gonna have to outwork my competition. Like, that's a core value that I might leverage or think about. So first, start with your vision. When you have that vision, what do you think are the core values that you bring to the table that'll help you accomplish that vision? And then to your direct question of, like, that first person that you hire, you talk to them a lot about your core values. Like, hey, I believe in hard work. You know, I believe in driving for excellence. I believe in putting the customer first. Whatever those core values are for you, they need to share them. And then you need to share the vision with them. Like, hey, I just want to build a sustainable business that can help you provide for your family and my family. It doesn't matter what the vision is, just as long as you have one. And then you share those core values with the first person you bring onto the team, and then the next person and the next person and the next person. And then, by the way, as you grow, your vision might change. It might not be just to build a sustainable business. It might be, I want to build the biggest, you know, design. Build residential, you know, landscaping business in wherever X place, right? But you got to start With a vision, what are the core values that will help you hit that vision and then when you bring people on, make sure they share that with.

And so with that that dovetails nicely into my next thing of building teams. And so when you're what, what advice, what have you seen, what have you learned over the years as you've built many, many, many teams? I'm sure. What advice do you have for everyone, myself included by the way, as we just went from, you know, we're looking to double our company this year which is from 1 million to 2 million in revenue and which by the way made possible with a CPA that we have a fractional CFO service, lmn. Obviously we're using leanscaper on the forms end of things. I gotta pay some, pay some bills here with sponsors real quick. But I mean, but really though those people, that's part of our team we considered, even though they're somewhat ancillary, they're not truly within the team. But you know we've got you know, six, we're gonna have six field guys, seven I guess like that's a lot of people to us. We've never, you know, we had four people last year to do 1 million. We're going to try to do 2 million with seven this year. But we need really cohesive teams. So, so this is very self serving too. I'm just trying to always glean and guard. But what advice do you have for building teams and like how do you make those cohesive and not disintegrate or how do we handle it Seems like there's an ebb and flow like anything. Like any relationship where things will be really great for a while. We'll hit a crescendo of like, man, somebody's had enough of something and we devolve for a while and then we rebuild. Is that inevitable? Always. And so how do we navigate all that stuff?

Yeah, I mean so I think there's some really good like nitty gritty questions in there in terms of like intimate team building, team building in general. And then like are you going to get it right all the time? The answer is no. Right. And so I think the number one key to building a team is somewhat of what I said before. Everybody's got to know the why Caleb. Right? Like why are we doing this? And then the second thing that has to happen is you have to make your people the most important part of your business. And so when they know why they're doing what they're doing and then you've Made them feel like they're the most important people because you're willing to take the time to coach them and tell them this is why this is important. Like hey, clocking in and clocking out allows me to track my time, which allows me to help pay you better, allows profitability to show up into this job, which allows me to kind of keep investing into better equipment. You could keep on going down the line, but telling people why, spending time to coach them, once they understand the why, developing them and then creating a plan for them. Right. That's one of the reasons why I love Dell elements so much is because they have the greeniest platform that is so inherent to like, hey, we really want the folks that are on your teams to develop. Here's a product that allows you to quickly and easily train them, create onboarding plans, allow them to cycle back and really educate them and create a profession for them. Right. Mark Bradley talks that about a lot in terms of like, hey, think about it more as instead of an entry level job as an apprenticeship. Right. I love that. Right. I love the way that he thinks about that type of stuff. And so I think that simple answer to your question is make sure everybody knows the vision. Make sure everybody on your team knows what the core values that we live and die by. Right. You know, so that they know, hey, if I didn't do this or I checked out early, hey, remember when we talked about this like hard work is one of our core values, like we needed to stay later on this job. Right. That's why. And part of the reason why is because we want to be customer first, driven. We promised the customer to deliver it on this time and under this budget. Right. And then sharing that why, coaching them on the areas where they could have gotten better, communicating constantly and then creating pathways for them to continue to build and develop. I think those are the easiest kind of like main areas that you want to focus when you're building a team,

when, and, and maybe for us mortals, I'll say at least maybe you've always understood the people thing is so important. So for, for us mortals that, that are just now realizing I always knew like good guys and good team, good, you know, people are important. But just in the last two years with tons of self development I've been working on like I've really learned how critical is and even in the last four months where we've hired on all these people, like what I'm seeing happen with them and then working inter office like my foreman and our sales person right now, I Heard them having like a discussion about how something was going to execute it. That was the coolest thing ever. I've never, like our inter field teams, you know, they talk, make things happen in the field, but this was from a position I just hired out, which is sales and design to, you know, which I don't deal with now, which is weird, but awesome. Scary but awesome. But I heard them talking about how they're going to execute on something and I've never had that feeling before, like, whoa, like this is actually possible. We can actually do this. When did you, when did you learn and what did this journey look like for you? Of like when people were the focus and like, what did that transition look like? I guess of like when you're like, man, we really need to focus on people as opposed to problems, product or whatever.

Maybe, you know, that's a really good question, Caleb. And maybe, I don't know, like the exact moment when the switch hit, but I probably can hone in on the feeling that I had was I remember when I realized that it was more than just me and, you know, the other people who made the commitment to do this and like, put their careers on hold and stop what they were doing and go have the hard conversation with, you know, our wives or partners at the time. Right. Um, the moment I realized that other people were depending on me, I think, is when I started realizing I am just as dependent on you. Right. And I think whenever that switch flipped, I just started pouring into the folks around me, like, coaching them, teaching them. I grew up in sales, so I definitely share your like, kind of like natural scared feeling of like, I'm not doing sales anymore. I have to show somebody else how to do it or trust that they know how to do it. Right. And so I, you know, I remember thinking to myself, like, we're never going to be able to sell as much unless I'm doing it. And then I realized, like when I started seeing like, oh, we're selling three to four times as much because I showed other people, you know, teach a man to fish, right? There was like a kind of like probably a three to six month period of time, Caleb, where it was like, it wasn't one moment. It was just like a bunch of moments coming together when I realized, oh, it's the people. It doesn't. Nothing else matters. Right? And pretty much in every line of business, you can look at the overwhelming majority of the like, wins that you get and the losses that you feel revolve around people. Yeah, man.

Yeah. It's really, it's just funny that the. Like I said, I've always understood how. How important it is to have staff that can cut pavers properly or run equipment or run a job. But it's just been real. I've just. I've just had, like, this epiphany. I don't know if that's the right word or real word, even this epiphany lately of just like, these. These folks are what's going to make this happen. Going from like a thing I'm trying to grow beyond what I can handle in house, which has probably been overdue.

Right.

Is overdue for a while, to that. And so that, you know, so, you know, that being said, moving forward, what do you feel like this is a kind of a weird question to ask. You're never done learning about the importance of people or how to treat people. But, like, what do you think? Some, like a revelation you're on the cusp of yourself maybe, of like, realizing when it comes to, like, people or an acquisition or whatever, like, what's something you're starting to unfold in your head in that regard, maybe.

I mean, like, one thing I just kind of capitulated to a long time ago was like, you have to constantly be learning, right? Like, and my favorite characteristic in any human, which is why I love the fact that we're having this conversation, because you exuded this characteristic to me just by wanting to have this conversation, is curiosity, right? If people are really curious, they tend to ask why questions a lot, and then they'll ask how questions and what and all that stuff. But they tend to get really focused on the why. So one thing that I just continue to learn day in and day out is just ask why. You know, a lot of times, as the organization grows and you're more and more successful, Caleb, like, you're going to start to work on different parts of the business in Brittany, right? You guys are going to just be focused on different segments of the business, not the same things you were focused on before. And so what that's going to require is a growth mindset, right? Your willingness to go places that are uncomfortable for you that you don't necessarily know the answer to, but you've got, like, all this experience and, like, touch points along the way that you can lean into. And so if you just start asking the questions why, it typically leads you back to like, ooh, I know how I can help there. I know how I can develop this person here. I know how I can help them avoid a pitfall that I know they're going to have. And so that curiosity and that growth mindset and that willingness to ask why and then ask why four, five, six more times. It's true at every stage of company that you engage with. Like whether it was zero revenue when we started out to, you know, many, many millions in revenue, you know, and five employees to 200 plus employees, like that, that mentality, like you would think at some point in time you're like, I got this. You know, I'm not going to be surprised. I'm not going to be taken aback, you know, like, I know everything there is to know and I've just learned like, no shot. It's always going to change. Like, people are always going to like, need something different from you. Right? The business is going to demand something that you don't have the skill, experience, or like deep strength set to solve. And so you're just going to have to be willing to learn and ask questions and, you know, lean into like, what can I gain from this? And by asking why? And that'll help you lead people, that'll help you gather a bunch of information, distill it down, and then communicate back to the organization or to a human what you're going to do about it. And so I think the epiphany for me is pretty simple. It's like there is no moment. You just have to keep growing, right? And you just have to keep learning and you just have to keep asking

why are there and. Or were there too that you could share any resources, books, movies, documentaries and tours that, that like helped you understand or that brought this more and more to light. Is there anything that was like super impactful to you that would be applicable to listeners?

Yeah, I mean, a really short, easy book to read that I absolutely love. And it's, you know, one of my favorite quotes is the obstacle is the way. You know, it's a Ryan Holiday book.

Oh, yeah, yeah. Okay.

Yeah, yeah. And so basically he just goes through and details out all these great leaders from the course of history that have just overcome obstacles and how they went about it and like the backstory behind it. It's a short read, it's super easy, it's really fascinating. But the Obstacles Away is one of those books that made me realize, like, oh, it's like it's forever. It's never one moment in time. And I think there's a quote in there that says something like, hey, at the top of every mountain, there's another mountain. Right? And that made me realize, you know, it's like made me realize like, oh, there is no apex. You just keep going. Right. And so I think that book is really a really a good one for folks to read as they think about like leading teams, overcoming problems, falling in love with the problem. Right. And understanding that the job's never done.

So being as Ryan Holiday, if I'm, if it's the same Ryan Holiday, I'm thinking of the right person.

He's.

He is like kind of the stoic guy on Instagram. Yeah, he's super into stoicism. So it begs the question as I, I fancy myself an ignorant amateur stoic, probably the most short tempered ignorant stoic ever. What would you. Are you into stoicism? I guess or what do you think that philosophy or whatever?

Yeah, for sure. I mean I love any philosophy that teaches you like fall in love with the situation that you're in because that's what it's where you are. Right. My grandmother used to say to me whenever I complained to her, she goes, well you're here now, so what are you going to do about it? And I think stoicism is a little different than Alfredo Sedgly and probably a little deeper, but it's kind of the same thing. What are you going to do about it? And so you have to fall in love with the problem, you have to fall in love with the obstacle. It's all about you and how you react to the circumstances. It's not the actual circumstances

along the same lines, but different. You mentioned selling and you were in sales and all that kind of stuff. Something I've again had a lot of epiphany over the last 18 months was on. I took a couple sales courses and reading the book, you know, how to Win Friends and influence People years ago helped me understand more so of, you know, be interested, not interesting, all that stuff. But again, to distill quickly because this could be an all afternoon conversation. What advice or points or reading or whatever do you have on selling or what like key tenants, maybe be or mantras or whatever you have or philosophy on selling and what makes effective selling or salesman.

It's funny that you said how to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie. It's an incredible book. Right? It really is. And I read that book when I moved to Krakow, Poland with my wife who's polling.

I was hoping we get the polling because I was going to ask about that.

Yeah, I can check that off my list.

Good deal.

That's right. Exactly. Yeah. So we moved to Krakow, Poland. My wife is from Poland and because of a visa stipulation, you know, she had to serve out kind of like a two year sentence for lack of better terms. She had to stay in Poland for two years. Right.

But she wasn't a criminal, correct?

No, she was. She was.

Just to be clear, she was like, oh, man.

Yeah. No, she came back to America. That's right. Yeah, she. She came to America on a visa. Her father was a professor of architecture at the University of Tennessee and she ran track at the University of Tennessee, actually. But when you do that, when you go back, you have to go back to your home country for two years before you can come back in. At the time, that was the role, right? And so when we went back there, like, we didn't know that. And so then we were kind of like got caught off guard and trapped in Krakow. And I was like, well, you know, I can't stay here for two years and not work. Right. So I decided to, like, kind of network and try and figure it out and ended up starting a school for English with a buddy that I met working out. But the point of the story is I read how to Win Friends and Influence People and I had to start going door to door selling to folks in Krakow, Poland, and standing in supermarkets handing out information about Atkins Academy. And it was like such a real life example, Caleb, of like, what I was reading and what I needed to do, right. And so I think there's a story that you'll resonate with and how to Win Friends and Influence People where there's a guy who goes to a party, he didn't want to go to the party, and, you know, he's a famous kind of scientist and he got paired up in a conversation with somebody else. And during that whole time, he recalls that the person just talked for over an hour, hour and a half about all the things they were doing and their life and yada, yada, yada. And you know, he didn't say very much the, you know, the whole time he was there, right? Fast forward a week later, he bumps into the hostess of the party and she said, like, oh, by the way, I ran into Jim or such and such. And they said you were the best conversationalist they've ever met. Right. And so I think those are the types of lessons you learn about selling is like, it really is like asking people, like, tell me more about your situation. What are the problems that you're facing? Like, what are the implications of those problems and getting them to talk about all those things. And you just listen, right? And That's a famous kind of sales methodology called spin. Situation, problem, implication. And then the needs pay off. Right. And when I hear Mark Bradley talk about how he would go in and make sure that the husband and the wife are together and he would sit them down and walk them through, he talked a lot about that. Like, tell me what your goals are. Tell me what the problems you're trying to solve. Like, what are the, like, implications of the. Your desires. And then bam, you know, he gave them a package that paid off all those needs. Right. And so it's all about listening and making people feel important because, like, people really do love to, you know, share what they're going through.

Man. That's the. The spin thing. That's. And not that. So that would. Not that I've heard at all or think I have, but, like, that's one I'm not familiar with because I'm sure there's tons that I'm not, obviously. Could you talk about that some more? The spin thing, that was interesting.

I've never.

That's interesting.

Yeah, it's. So I've done several sales training methodologies. You know, Challenger, spin, Sandler, you know, all that stuff.

Okay. Sandler, I'm familiar with you.

Yeah, right. Yeah. For me, spend has always just kind of been the most common sensical thing. It's like, at the end of the day, your job when you're selling something is to transfer a sense of enthusiasm to somebody. I think that's the definition of itself. Like, you transferred a sense of enthusiasm for whatever you were bringing to the table. If the buyer is enthusiastic about it, you can pretty much guarantee they're going to buy it. Right. And I think the only way you can transfer enthusiasm is to, like, better understand what you're trying to solve for. Right. And that allows you to build credibility, it allows you to build trust, and it allows you to build enthusiasm, ultimately, and energy for the solution and giving people comfort that your solution is the right one. So spin is that. It's just that framework. And there's actually a super simple book out there called the spin framework. It's situation, problem, implication, and needs payoff. Most people are really good, Caleb, about talking about what's your situation and what's the problem. Right. Where people typically stop the sales process is getting the prospect or the customer to tell you the implications of that problem. Like, how is it hurting you? Like, what is the pain that's causing? Like, what is the opportunity you're missing out on because of that? Right. Because that's the Reason they want to buy something, it's the implications. It's not the actual thing.

That's so good. That's so good. Yeah, I'm gonna actually dig that up here in just a little bit and send it over to my sales guy and see what he thinks of it and what he's heard of that and all that, or his take on it. How do you interpret this is how I'm going to ask that, which is a great thing. I just heard from someone who's like, do you understand this? No, you don't ask the question that way is how do you interpret this?

Right.

And then we get a more, I believe, a little better answer there. Okay, so this is fun.

I love this.

Okay, you had mentioned a couple things here. You'd mentioned this a couple times, so pattern recognition.

Here we go.

Starting things. You mentioned you like starting things, and you said that another time. Starting things. Tell me about starting things. Why is that interesting to you or why do you like starting things?

I think I've become, like, a change addict. I really like the idea of change. And whenever you start something or optimize something or take something from point A to point B, it involves a ton of change. It involves a ton of energy, it involves a ton of focus. And I really have found that I'm highly motivated to make something into something. And I think that's probably something that all of your listeners could probably resonate with, which is, like, you take something from a current state and you make it into a different state. And at the end, when it's that different state, you're like, look at that. We did that. I did that. I had a part in that. And so I think I definitely love that. I love the idea of change. I love the idea of turning something from one thing into another. I love the idea of, like, creating a vision for how we get there and then bringing people along and convince them that the vision is, like, you know, the right thing and, like, a worthwhile venture to go after and put your effort and energy to. So I think if I, like, just kind of boil it all down, like, I love change. Like, I really do. And so when you're starting something or when you're changing something from, you know, what it is today to what you want to be tomorrow, you know, those. Those types of moments in life and in business require a lot of change. It requires a lot of communication. It requires a lot of focus. And so those things. Whenever I'm. Whenever I'm having to communicate a lot, whenever I'm like, you know, thinking a lot about vision and whenever I'm like collaborating, communicating, you know, throughout an organization or a team and focusing like really deeply on something, I find myself to be the happiest.

So can. And I'll speak to my experience and I'll see if you had similar. Brittany and I, a few years ago we got in this thing of. And Brittany called it the year of execution. It was just like any idea we had, we just did it. And it was like we started this webinar series and we started a thing with our friends, the Fuller Tens called together in a trades and we, we started. Aside from just trying to run our company, then also we started like 80 different things.

It was fun.

But quickly that turned into a year later, like a terrible burden. We had all this stuff starting, committed. It was fun starting it. And then we realized like, we were absolutely buried with all these commitments, all the while starting more stuff. And I have friends that are habitual entrepreneurs just like that too. And we're always starting things to mess with things. And again, for us mortals, explain like how maybe you, you could see the writing on the wall to not do that or things you've learned from starting a lot of things and how you manage all that stuff to where it doesn't become chaos. I'd love your take on that.

You know, again, like another. And also, Caleb, you keep saying mere mortals like you and I are exactly the same. We put our. No, we put our jeans and our boots on exactly the same way, man. But I appreciate it very much. The one of the, like, one of the best, like in person speakers I ever got to see was Jocko Willink, you know, former Navy seal, you know, has his own podcast and all that good stuff. And I had read his book, you know, years before called Extreme, you know, ownership. Yeah, great.

Yeah, great stuff.

There was a line in there that really just stuck with me because, you know, when you're starting things up, you do like to start a lot of different things. And by the way, that's part of it. Like you don't know what's going to stick. And it's. If you have the capacity and the willingness and the curiosity and the energy to do a bunch of things, it allows you to call it down over time to the things that have the biggest impact. So I actually think that's a good thing. I think that's a good like, you know, muscle to have in your body and your, your, you know, kind of like leadership repertoire.

We used to call that entrepreneurial spaghetti around here. So, yeah, so anyway, I apologize for interrupting.

Also, spaghetti is one of my favorite foods. So that was one of the questions you're going to ask me. Like, you got an answer that, that and music.

So, yeah.

Oh, God.

Do we.

How much longer do we have? Like, I can't wait. I've got all the time in the world.

Or I'll make it anyways. Continue.

That's right. Yeah, exactly. And so the book, like, I remember he put something in there and it was, I'm going to paraphrase it, but, like, prioritize and execute you, right? And I started thinking about prioritization, and it was really at a moment in time too, where, you know, in software, the single hardest job in the entire company, in my humble opinion, is the people that are deciding what goes into the product next. Because there's all these competing demands in a software company. It's like, hey, what are the sales team want? What is the customer, this cohort of customers saying? What is this cohort of customers saying? Because we have a big array of customers right, within the LMN framework, and they have demands of the product at every step and juncture. And then what does the support team need? And there's just all these competing demands on the product. And the product manager is the person that's deciding, and the head of product is deciding, well, this is what we should prioritize and this is what we should execute upon, right? And at the moment in time where we had kind of done what you said, which is like, we had built a bunch of features and functionality, right? And now we needed to get really good of like, hey, what are the most important, like, features? What are the most important problems to solve? What are the most important next steps in order for us to be successful? And so just kind of taking that moment and realizing, like, everything can be done but won't be done well, right? Or the. There's a reason why the cliche don't try and boil the ocean exists, right? Because it's just impossible to do it, right? And so I think that moment in time where I learned, like, prioritization really, really matters. And the way you get to really good prioritization is, is going back to that growth mindset and asking lots of questions and then just deciding how do I prioritize these, you know, competing demands on the business to match the vision that I have in place, right? So that's, I think, that moment when I read that and when I heard him talk about it now he obviously talks about it in the context of like saving lives and defending our country, which, like, okay, this feels kind of absurd, jocko, for me to compare that to me, you know, a product manager on a software company. But you get my point. Right?

And so do you have a. For the prioritization part, do you have a set of questions or a process on how you prioritize?

It's a good question. I think the two easy questions that I always ask, whether it's delivering a feature or functionality or making a change within the organization, does this jive with our mission first and foremost? And then I run it through our core values. Right. Like, does this actually, like, as we think about doing this and prioritizing this, like, are we set up as a team? Let me reframe that. Are we set up as a team with the way that we've built the team to actually execute it? Right. And you, theoretically, you've built a team around your core values. And so I think those first two things. Is this in alignment with our mission, and do we have the team to be able to do it? And if we don't. Right. What would it take to get the team to do it? And that probably typically tells you, like, where it needs to fall from a prioritization perspective.

You know, gosh, I've got this. I'm no artist, and I've got this thing on my. On my. In a couple different places, and I actually drew my first version of it, and somebody, somewhere way smarter me, probably figured this out.

And.

But. But it's this thing I have of, like, all these things that have. It's a timeline of life. So, like, there's this horizontal line. It's just life. And then, like, there's like, five or six, like, other lines trying to converge on one point. And this. This just happened to me. The. My epiphany moment. I'm making up the word epiphany. It's official.

I don't know if I actually like it. Yeah.

But I just had the epiphany finally, just literally here. I've heard people say so much, like, why the mission statement is important and why our values are so. Our value statement is so important and all that stuff. And it was like, yeah, this stuff's important. That's our benchmark. But, like, right there, where we tie it to, like, how we prioritize. And, like, it's the framework and the litmus test of what we run everything through the company about. So, like. And so now I realize how much gravity the mission statement has. It's not just like, yeah, that's our rah rah stuff, you know, whatever. No, the mission statement now that I've had this epiphany is like I really have to put thought into how this is written because this is if we do the statement right and all the core values and all this stuff, if we do that right, we can run everything in the company we do or a decision. And by the way, you can do a personal version of this for your personal life of like this is how, this is how we make decisions and move forward. Does it align with these things we say we're going to do and this that we say we're about. So thank you. It just hit, just like hit me. I've understood that a certain way. But back to my art piece. I'm talking about here. There's all the things like there's life and then there's like the idea and then like you have to have your own self reckoning and acceptance, understanding, implementation and like all these things hit the timeline at different points. But then eventually it somehow culminates to like this, the epiphany moment. And like I, I can't figure out how to illustrate this properly. But like that was my epiphany there of like all these things I've heard and then just one day it clicked.

Right, Right.

And so it's like, yeah, so because Mark's been honest, Bradley's been honest to write, you know, through, through all the Mastermind sessions and also stuff like the Vish and Corey Ballard the other day was talking about how important a vision and mission statement and core values is. Like, yeah, I get, I say I get that. How ignorant.

Right?

I don't obviously, you know, isn't that funny? With any level of understanding, you think you understand something and then you understand something. And even now I think I understand this and I probably still don't understand understand it.

Right.

But yeah, that's why that, that is so important. We actually really give that some effort of writing. The core value, mission statement and vision of like this is what the whole company will filter through, man. Okay, thanks. Well, it was a great show. It was a great day. We'll catch you

Mic drop, you know.

Yeah, I gotta go write this. I gotta go writer. I gotta go check our values and stuff and make sure this is correct. Have you always understood that? Or like tell me about your. You're like, yeah, Caleb, you dummy. This is, you know, this is, this is why you're struggling, Caleb. But I mean this is something. You've always had that as an understanding. Like, yeah, this is. This is. That's why. It's how we filter this through. No.

So I learned it when I realized two things. Caleb was. And I learned this in the first company member clicks, which was we were going so fast and building, and we were like 15, 20, 30 people. And I started looking around and I realized, hey, we haven't told our company what our mission is. We haven't told our customers what our mission is. We haven't sat around and been thoughtful around. What are our core values? Not core values like honesty and integrity and respect. Those are kind of what I consider capstone values, table stakes. What are our core operating values? Right. And so I said to my. I said, like, well, what is our mission? Like, and what is. What are our core values? Like, what are the things that are most important to us? And then I decided, I realized, like, wait a second. There's a culture that's. In culture exists. Whatever organization you're running, it just exists. And you can either be intentional about it or you can let it just happen. And typically when you're just letting culture happen and not being intentional about it, it's a bad culture unless you just happen to be like a great guy and a great leader or a great gal and a great leader. Right? But typically the folks that complain about the culture that when they're leaving a place is like, well, it's because the loudest voice was driving the culture, or the culture was never intentionally set to say, like, we need to act and operate like this. So I decided to sit down and write what I think thought our mission was. And I started to sit around and think about, like, well, what are the core operating values that got us here? Like, that made us successful? And then when I started thinking about it, I was like, well, geez, this should be the litmus test that we run all of our decisions through, like hiring, promoting, you know, developing, you know, creating. Like, this should drive all of it. And when I did that, I did it out of simplicity, right? It's like, well, if I can always. If I can always lean back into something that's already written down and like, and codified within the organization, then it makes decision making and prioritization and execution way easier, right? Because everybody's playing from the same sheet of music. And at lmn, a good example of that, the mission is to help landscapers unlock their potential and make an impact on the industry. And we layer into that and help them create customers for life. It starts to become really easy, Caleb, to prioritize things when you sit there and say, well, does this help that? Does this decision that we're making from an operational perspective, does this feature that we're thinking about prioritizing over these other features, does it help that? Does it have the greatest impact on, you know, 4,000 customers or does it only have an impact on 50 customers? Does this only benefit the sales team and nobody else? Right. Because one of our core values is one customer, one team. Right. And so like you can just sit there and say like, does that actually live out that value or not? And that doesn't answer the question. It just starts to create a pecking order for prioritization. Right. But man.

Okay, that's awesome. Yeah. I was just making, making notes while we're talking here of like, I need to really drill into this. We have some. I let. I've messed with it over the years and I think especially as we plan on growing $1 million a year for the next five years, like this, this is becoming more, I mean, well, it's been more important than I have given credence. Holy cow. Okay, well anyways, yeah, real aha moment there.

Geez.

I'm kind of, you know, stuff like that there's embarrassing because it's like, gosh, Caleb, you knucklehead.

Yeah, like totally.

Duh. This should, this should be like.

I mean, I think Caleb, you're, you're, you know, kind of like self awareness and vulnerability is, is going to take you to great places. Like, I love that about you. I don't know, man.

Okay, so what could you. Geez. Mark, 47 minutes deep. Now we better hit some rapid fire stuff here. Can you explain what single ops is and tell, you know, for maybe folks and well, folks in our audience that maybe aren't familiar with what single ops is and how that pairs and what the vision. Oh actually, geez. One of the most important thing is like what is the next. What is the vision for Element moving forward too cool.

Yeah, I'll start there and then work my way back to what is single out. So that sounds good. Awesome. I mean, so the vision for Element is like, I wouldn't say it's easy, it's just we're building off of such a great palette. Right. Like Element already has such a powerful like tool that is in place that gives our customers the power to understand their financial plan through our budgeting platform. Right. And then forcing people to think about that, put a plan in place and then track whether or not they're heading towards that plan. It allows them to kind of like go speed to market with more professional, you know, powerful tools from proposing and estimating and getting that into the customer's hands, but also with the confidence that all the pricing is right, you know, and like I can confidently quote this job and I can do it faster than my competition. It allows owners to take their system out of their head and put it into a, you know, tool that other people can use and leverage, which frees them up to kind of grow and scale with confidence. Our desire, like my vision is how do we make all that simpler, easier and more powerful to use over a course of time? Because like the core functionality of LMN, everybody leverages. We have north of 25, $30 million business and we have million dollar businesses. All of them want a more powerful estimating and proposing tool. All of them want more insights and data into their business. And all of them want the ability to schedule in a prolific way and that's easy to do with fewer clicks. And then all of them want greater visibility and data analytics that help them run their business. Right. And so our job is to make the current platform, which is like an awesome platform, simpler, easier, faster, more powerful and create more visibility to empower our customers to thrive in their own businesses and grow. That creates ripple, right? So like that's the kind of 5 cent tour of like what we're doing next at Element. And so you should start to see all the benefits and values of that starting to come through, you know, over the course of the next several months. What is single Ops? Single Ops is a platform that is a, is what I would consider a tree career management software platform. It helps Arborist do the same thing that Element helps landscapers do. Now what's interesting about that is like some of the things I just said, like, hey, I want a powerful estimating tool that's easy to use. I want to be able to send out professional proposals. I want the ability to schedule and do it in a, you know, an optimized way. Like those are all kind of like shared desires between those two customer bases. I think the real kind of like where the rubber meets the road from a software perspective is tree care. Folks really focus a lot on high velocity estimating. 1214 estimates a day is not unusual for our customers. It is typically for the most part, unless tree care companies are focused on plant healthcare. It's a big, much higher proportionate mix of business of one time. Right. Like they're doing one time jobs, not recovering.

I see what you're saying. Yeah, yeah.

And then the third thing is From a scheduling perspective, they're really focused on scheduling equipment because they have big equipment, you know, that is really valuable and, you know, can only be in one place for a certain amount of days. And so scheduling the equipment and then putting the crew with the equipment is really important. Whereas on the flip side, a lot of time in landscaping, the equipment follows the crew. Right? And so those are kind of like some key differences between the two software platforms and how they operationalize differently.

And two, and credit to the tree guys. And almost the risk tree companies assume

the job is absurd.

Like chainsaws alone. You know, it's funny what you got to have a license to buy in this country sometimes and so much regulations and all this stuff, yet anybody can go to Walmart and buy a chainsaw off the shelf. That's nuts, man. Chainsaws are dangerous.

Dangerous. Which is like one of the, like one of the areas. Sorry, because it just like popped into my mind, like this is like one of those beautiful areas of bridge between single Ops and LMN coming together is because we have this powerful platform called Greenius, which is designed to help equip, empower and develop employees. Reducing risk, reducing liability, reducing injuries, reducing, you know, breakage and all that good stuff within an organization. And like, that's a really powerful tool that we can bring to the tree care market and help them do better within that high risk environment. But also too, like your point about chainsaws just changing the, you know, chain on a chainsaw, like, you really have to train somebody how to do that and do it safely. Right? And there's a. I could give you a million other examples on, you know, rope, you know, rope work and not work and all the other stuff. So.

And not to mention, you know, in the, in the vertical. So shout out tree guys out there. But like, you know, everything you do is destruction, right? You're taking down giant heavy objects that are vertical in the air, 20, 40, 60, 80ft over structures, over power lines, in the public. It's a crazy business, man. I think a lot of the guys take that really for granted. I don't think they realize just for sure. And maybe it's for the best, because maybe it's for the best sometimes too, because nobody do it if they had any sense.

Maybe, I don't know.

But the, but it's a, it's a true arbor culture, bore culture, where you're truly like a tree surgeon and you're caring for trees and doing technical takedowns of trees that. I mean, the guy in the truck with chainsaw and throw a bunch of brush on a trailer, whatever. Been there.

That's a part of the market. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

But like the folks that are really striving to be arborist, officially, on paper or not, I don't care. But if you're striving to understand how to truly properly prune something and trim a tree, and I say trim, I'm not saying shape and all that kind of stuff. I'm talking true corrective pruning and assisting trees.

Right?

That's awesome, Mark.

It is awesome and it's powerful, right?

Yes, A million percent. I. Yeah. Trees are a wonderful thing that I think also super taken advantage for. We had a lady task us one time on a job site. Like, we're planting a bunch of trees on this park project and she's like, what do we need trees for? Like, she literally asked us what we need trees. It was like crazy.

I was like, what?

You know, like your next breath is courtesy of that thing. Mark, what do you, what do you do for fun? What do you. How do you unwind from all this crazy stress that must be induced by, you know, running a giant software company and, and all this kind of stuff? How do you, how do you, how do you relax?

Thank you. Relax is like a different question. I don't know I ever truly relax. Things that I really enjoy. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Things I really enjoy doing, Caleb. I love to hike. I love. I adore spending time with my three kids and my wife. I've been with my wife since I was 18 and we've had a very long and happy marriage. I've three kids, two boys and a girl. And like, I just, I love to cook. I love, I actually love to cook for my kids, you know, and, and so I think there's different seasons in life, right, Caleb? Like, it's like when I was running and gunning and starting a company and we were just kind of like dumb 20 year olds doing what we're supposed to be doing, right? Or not what we're supposed to be doing. I liked doing other things. I find tremendous, like, value and peace in getting outdoors, spending time with my family and like keeping it simple. Right. Like, I don't like trying to. And I do love to read. I am a voracious reader.

What are you reading currently?

The name of, the name of the book I'm not going to get right, but it's the loss of men and boys, you know, in society. Oh, wow.

Awesome.

Yeah, I got inspired because a friend of mine is starting an all Boys School. And he said like, hey, you should read this book. And I'm reading it and I'm like blown away by the statistics and all the stuff that then that's actually like real. And it's like, wow, that's crazy.

What's, what's the biggest book you've ever read or longest or whatever, like War and Peace kind of thing or what? What's a book you read that you really had to think your way through? Which like the ABC does that for me. But you know what?

You know, I recently read a book that was pretty dense called the Wager and the Wagers. I was probably like 600 pages. But how's that all? It's a, it's a historical fiction book and it's about a captain and his crew that like, that have the most incredible survival story you could ever read. But it's, it's written like, you know, end the times and so like the things like there's terminology and vernacular that's being used that you're like, oh God, I gotta stop and go look up what the hell that means, you know.

Yeah.

And that took me a long, long time to get through. But it was like a really powerful book of like survival and human nature and like, and it's just, I mean frankly just an incredible story. But. But yeah, like that one's probably like the densest one I've readily. 600 pages. Yeehaw.

Maybe, maybe our last question here. What is. I normally ask this with like people own companies, but I like this question a lot. But I don't know how to frame it to let me do this. I don't know how many companies you've bought or sold or started, but when you were younger maybe let's go with this and startups or like a company. What's a fallacy or something you thought was true about building big companies or people or growing organizations or selling organizations? Just something like I thought it would be like this, but it actually turned out to be like this instead. Is there any kind of thing that comes to mind quick of like, I

mean like the first thing that I would say is I thought you'd have to be really smart and like be exceptional and you don't, you know, Like I think I'm proof of that. Right? Like, I actually think it's the opposite. I think if you, if you have an incredible like resilience, if you have patience, if you have a great sense of like energy and can transfer enthusiasm and you have a work ethic that is better than Everybody else, then I actually think you're gonna win. Right? There's very few like just exceptionally bright people in the world that just win because they have different thoughts than everybody else. Right. And so I think that was probably one of the biggest mistakes I like had in my mind is like I needed to, when I, I needed to go work for a company and just work for 25 years and just build up a career and like go up the ladder. And you know, like that was kind of like the vision I had. And then when I got out I was like, no, you don't, you don't have to do any of that stuff. And also too, you don't have to be Steve Jobs or Elon Musk or any of these like really great. Like that's why I love so small and mid sized businesses. Like people have built incredible businesses all over America and Canada and the world and those businesses. You know, like I bet if you were to interview the people, like, hey, I wasn't exceptional. Like I was just willing to get up at 4am in the morning and I was willing to kind of keep working until 11pm I was willing to make sacrifices in my life. Right. I was willing to keep pushing to a vision because I believed in the vision. It's not because I had 140 IQ, right. Or the college that you go to or any of that stuff. Right. And so I think that was probably like when I was younger, the biggest fallacy that I had in mind, what it takes to be successful. And it's also part of the reason why I love this industry so much. Caleb is like, I've met tree guys, I've met landscaping guys, I've met design build guys, I've met irrigation guys. In my last gig I met towers. I met truck drivers, I met. And they all have built businesses that are very successful and profitable and they've made meaningful impact in their kids and their family's lives and their own lives. And it just continues to blow me away. Industry and like people's ability to succeed if they just put their mind to it. I think if like I could say anything to my kids, it's like, hey, whatever you think it has to be, it does not. Right?

Yeah, that's, that's probably a great, great quote to end on there. Mark. What a pleasure man. Thank you for being on Pleasure an hour and it's worth four seconds from an hour. So we did okay there.

Good job.

What's your official title? With Element or at Element or.

Yeah, CEO. Okay.

Your CEO. The big Cheese there. So awesome, man. Well, on. Do you have anywhere folks can reach out to you or see what you're up to? LinkedIn, LinkedIn or any of that stuff? Instagram.

I'm on LinkedIn. I post once, you know, once or twice a week. You know, I kind of share some of the same things that I share with the company. So if you're interested in getting an insight to how I lead LMN and Single Ops and Greenhouse, that you can kind of get a sense of it there. I'm on Instagram, but I'm probably like the least exciting person on Instagram you could ever imagine. Especially like, if you're talking about Brian Fullerton or, you know, some of the other guys that are in the industry, like Mark Bradley's Instagram posts are like. I'm like, geez, that's incredible. I want to do that. And so I think the majority of the time you can find me as mark@LinkedIn. You can email me at marketinglops.com or Mark Sedgley@lmn.com awesome, man.

Thank you. What's a Friday afternoon for a CEO of a giant awesome company you got to do on a Friday afternoon here today?

Every Friday afternoon, I review all the data from the week. And then I write a Triple M, which is like, I call it the Triple M. It's Mark's Monday mashup. And so I put together all the things that I think are really important that are happening in the company, and I send that out to all the important stakeholders that are interested in the business. And then I also write something called the Captain's Log, because it goes out on purchasing Monday morning. And the Captain's Log is just things that are on my mind that I think the company should know and understand, and shout outs to folks that are in the business or a quote or something that I've read or anything along those lines is kind of like a potpourri of thoughts that go out. So I spend a lot of times on Friday afternoons synthesizing the business and writing my thoughts down.

Interesting. You send that out just via email?

Yeah, so via email. And Slack, like a lot of our company interacts mostly on Slack. Slack's kind of like a inner messaging tool within a company because a lot of all of our folks are pretty much distributed, so they're working from home. You know, a few people go into a couple of offices that we have. But Slack is like a really good tool to where you can instantly message everybody. Interesting.

I might start doing that. That's interesting. Just in our little, tiny, tiny team here.

Yeah.

Interesting. Captain's log.

I like it.

All right, Mark, I'll let you go. Thank you so much, man. It's such a pleasure and a privilege, and I'm really excited for what Element has to store moving forward, and we're ever so proud to wave that flag or Element there. So thanks so much, man. I appreciate your time today.

Thank you. And I really appreciate you having me on and your support of Element and your support of me personally. Like you, we reached out kind of pretty immediately, and we connected, so thank you. And it was my privilege and my honor to be on your show, so thank you very much.

He hasn't heard any of those shows, folks. All right, from the. From the kid contractor podcast company, Cam Studios here in beautiful Fairfield County, Ohio, folks. That was. That was solid. We got a lot of great. A lot of great quotes out of this one we put out on Instagram.

Can't wait.

We'll catch you on the next one, folks. We'll see.