Ballooning a Lawn Care Business to $20M+ and Selling It

Welcome back to the Mike Andes Podcast, where we discuss ins and outs of owning a small business. If you're new here, the Mike Andes Podcast is all about taking your business to the next level. We've got a special one today for you guys. Mike has a talk with Corey Ballard, founder of Perfect Cut, a business that he ballooned to tens of millions of dollars in annual revenue. Plus he was able to attract the attention of a lawn care conglomerate and successfully sold the business. Basically, Corey knows a thing or two about buying and selling businesses, especially making your business look attractive to invest. As always, you can find all this and more over at the Mike Andes YouTube channel. But let's get to it. This is Corey and Mike with how to build a 20 million plus lawn care empire.

Today is a very special episode because I'm going to be interviewing Corey Ballard. He started a company called perfectut, built it to tens of millions of dollars in revenue doing lawn care, landscaping and snow services out in Des Moines, Iowa, and has built this thing into a behemoth, and then sold it to a massive conglomerate that has over $600 million of revenue in this industry. It's gonna be a great episode. We talk about buying and selling businesses, how to make your business more profitable, and the things that you need to be looking at to actually move the needle in terms of valuation make your business a business, not just an expensive job. It's gonna be a fantastic interview. I really look forward to it. And what I'm really looking forward to this coming January at Landscape Summit 2023. We're all coming aside for three days, meeting with hundreds of other landscapers that are really passionate about the type of stuff Corey and I are talking about today, like the numbers, the business, building a real company, hiring culture. And we're going to be coming aside and talking about that and I'm really looking forward to them. It looks like Corey's going to be able to make it out for a day or two. I'm really looking forward to seeing his keynote. I'm hoping he can do a live, actual diagnosis of an actual company and bring him up on stage and go right through it. We might do some interview panel type Q and A there as well. So really looking forward to having Corey at Landscape Summit. Make sure you get your tickets. Go to mikeandys.comsummit if you are in lawn care and landscaping and really passionate about business, not just like the next mower or like, you know, what type of string you use on your weed whacker, but like actually building a real business and building systems and having culture and having great employees and employee manual, all the things we talked about today. I really think you'd benefit by coming. It'd be a great event for you, your managers, your spouse. And I think it's just going to be a fantastic event. You will not want to miss it. So without any further delay, let's go ahead and give you a bit of a taste of what's to come by having a next 15, 20 minutes talking with Ori. Ballard now has gone on to build another business doing multiple millions in revenue in terms of Ballard Product that sells all the different supplies and tools that make a lawn care business profitable and efficient. Without any further delay, Corey Ballard from Perfect Cut, here we go. Awesome. Well, thanks for making the time. I appreciate it. Corey.

Yeah, no problem at all. I, you know, I always tend to lean back, lean back to, you know, employees, leadership. How do you get those people? How do you keep those people? How do you build core values? You know, and I think that's such a hot topic. You know, everybody I talk to and probably you, the same Mike is, you know, nobody wants to work these days and everybody's lazy and I can't find anyone. And what I tell guys all the time, and I'm like, well, that's not true. It's certainly more challenging today. But the good companies, the great companies have people. Yep. You know, and what's the difference between your company and their company? And what, what do you got to do to bridge that gap? Because, you know, at Perfect cut, we're at 165 people right now and we're full. Yet I talked to 10 guys in Des Moines, Iowa, who can't find two people, you know, and when Chick Fil A builds a new Chick Fil? A, they don't go, man, we're not going to get anybody. They know that. They program in place. Right. And a recruitment strategy and something that's appealing to people that are going to bring in quality employees. And of course they're going to train them and teach them that, you know, the way.

But, you know, and I, I think, like, I think this winter especially, like, there's gonna be so many, you know, lcos go out of business just because, yeah, the, the labor market, fuel inflation, whatever it might be. So, like, I'm actually starting a website here in the next few weeks, literally just to, for them to buy and sell lawn care businesses, compare, like profit and losses, balance sheet, stuff like that. It's not, it's not like a paid service, but I think there's just gonna be a ton of them. But you're 100% right. It's like, no, you don't have a business if you're still working there. And it's only making what you would be taking out in draws as a salary. Like it's zero. So.

That'S funny because we had three companies, approaches about three weeks ago, local companies, pretty small operations, less than, you know, six, eight employee companies. And they came in and said, hey man, we'd like to sell. And I think you're going to see a lot of these guys that are, you know, the last stat I saw, and you're probably more up on it than I am, the last stat I saw was 86% of the longer companies in the US do less than a million dollars and have less than 10 employees. So it's somewhere in that range. Right. And I think you're going to see a lot of those guys that I don't know if they're, you know, they want to sell, but there's not, you know, they got mowing contact, you know, they got, they move 75 or 100 yards a week, but they don't have contracts in place and they've got some used equipment. But I think there's going to be a lot of people. Gas is obviously coming down a little bit, but this year is really testing people on to your point. I think there's a lot of people that aren't going to make it and then there are going to be a lot of new guys that start up, of course, just like there is every year. But, you know, how do you position yourself to have a company and not a job and then even if you're not going to sell your company. We started building our company about eight years ago. I hired a great CFO who was the actual CFO of the Nashville Airport. And she came in and she was just a ball buster. And she did so much for us. She was fantastic. But she said, we got to make this. You know, we were running personal stuff through the company. And she goes, no, we're not doing it. We're cleaning this company up. And I'm so grateful and glad that we did that because when we weren't for sale, we weren't trying to sell. And Heartland just kept reaching out and reaching out and find that the numbers made sense. But now we were debt free, which, you know, you got to get. You know, that's the other thing companies go to sell. And I asked them and like, I think it's worth X. I'M like, but you owe 300,000, you're going to get. You're going to set 500. You got to pay taxes and you owe 300. You're basically just. You got nothing. But that whole thing is, even if you're not going to sell your company, you should be building it. Like, you're going to sell it at some point. You know, what does it look like? What if you were to get insured? Can it run without you? What are your system, all the things that you've worked, I'm sure, extensively to franchise, which, interesting enough, we thought about a franchise for Perfect years and years ago, and then we said, well, we're just going to start opening up our own branches, but in each branch it's a little easier because we've got good systems in place, and typically we'll move one of our key players from one office to the other, give them an opportunity, you know, an opportunity to expand and grow. But, yeah, so we looked at one point, like, what would it look like to franchise? And then we're like, oh, we got it. We had an attorney reach out. Like, no.

We'Re out. Cool.

Yeah.

Kind of building off of what we were talking about there previously, about just an industry as a whole. Do you feel like there's going to be more consolidation as there is a lot of tightening on the smaller operators and you see venture capital moving into home services and technology and the robots. Do you feel like consolidation is going to keep happening? Obviously, Perfect Cuts been purchased and they become part of something bigger as well. Is that going to become a theme, you think, in the industry?

Well, I think the larger companies are going to continue looking at consolidation. You know, the company that bought Perfect Cut is a great. They've got great people leading that, and they were a part of a lot of the companies that were bought in the early 2000s, and that business model failed. Because what they would do then is they buy a company and they would change the color of the trucks and they changed the name and they would change the culture and the model, and that failed. And so the new model that I'm seeing on a lot of the, you know, consolidation is, at least in our case, especially with the Heartland Group, is they don't change anything. So for us, in our case, Perfect Cut looks exactly like Perfect Cut did. The only difference is they own the stock and I don't. And so they've learned quite a bit of what didn't work in the early 2000s and late 99, 98, when a lot of the Monster companies were buying people up. And so I think that new model is working well where they come in and they buy a company and they say, you know, because I've asked them, what would you like us to do different? They say, we want you to do exactly what you're doing. So they keep the brand that's already strong in that market and then they just add some of their synergies and some of their systems with better software. They have a larger employee pool so you can get a lot of times better employee benefits. As far as healthcare, which continues to rise and rise, especially when you look at family healthcare and, and then of course your buying power, they have a lot of national agreements with Ford Truck and Isuzu and John Deere and Exmark. And so there's a lot of things that I think, you know, these larger companies are looking at when they, when they look at buying companies. But I do think it's going to be tough for the mid sized companies though to make it. Not all of them. I mean, certainly, there's certainly a market there. But that mid sized company is, it seems like where it's struggling. The guys that have maybe 30 to 40 guys where they're trying to compete with maybe the nationals or the big boys.

You know, they still got all the overhead and they're, you know, really trying to keep the big guys and you know, then I think of course the small guys who can keep their overhead down and run very streamlined. I think that's always going to continue to do well, you know, and as we always talk about, you know, this gets beat up a lot is knowing your numbers and, and you know, I talk to a lot of guys that, you know, are constantly, you know, fighting that pricing game, you know, and you know, making sure that they're being profitable. And we continue to talk to guys on our podcast and it seems like a lot of companies are downsizing and by choice, really understanding their numbers, figuring out what is my niche in my market, what are we good at and what do we want to continue to grow versus just let's take everything that comes at us. And so I don't know if that answers your question, but to that point.

For a smaller firm, for example, maybe doing 0 to 2 million, 3 million in revenue, obviously there's kind of like that balance of do you diversify, add more services, upsell, improve the lifetime value of the customer versus really specialization, like, okay, this is the one thing, the one service we're going to do. Have you found a balance for that, for the smaller Operator, obviously, these massive conglomerates typically, or larger companies even in general, have a lot more services that they offer. Is there a balance? Do you prefer you're buying out in Perfect Cut, buying out a smaller operator? Do you prefer someone doing one or two services with a lot more revenue, or do you like to see some diversification in the services offered to be able to maximize the revenue from each customer?

Yeah, a couple of questions there. You know, I think that for most guys, when they talk about I want to add more customers, the first thing I always ask them is, are you maximizing the value for the customers you already have? If you're just mowing, for instance, and you've got 100 customers, could you be offering, you know, the lawn care program, fertilization, weed control, you know, pruning, stick edging, remulching, weeding services, irrigation, startup, shutdown and service? So I always ask them, you know, are you maximizing the customers you already have? So you don't. Maybe you don't need 200 customers. Maybe you can get way more value out of the hundred customers you already have because they're paying somebody to treat their lawn for the most part, maybe they're paying someone to turn the irrigation on and service it. So, you know, first thing is, I always challenge guys to make sure you're maximizing your current customer base. They already trust you, they already know you, and so make sure you're maximizing that value. You know, and then when we look at companies too, we always look at, you know, what services do they offer. And for us, if we're going to take, if we're going to buy them and take them over, we look at, can we get those clients and then can we offer them more services? Because we like for us at Perfect, you know, just speaking from my experiences, we like full service. We want to be one point of contact. And we primarily, 98% commercial. We just have a small residential branch. But we want to, you know, and we're in a snow, in a snow market, so we want to provide all services to them. We don't want anybody else on their property. And then we want them to value us. We really talk a lot about partnerships and, you know, we talk, sit around and we talk about some of our biggest clients and we say, man, what if we lost client X? You know, it would be huge. We want them to be sitting around their board meetings saying, what if we lost Perfect cut? They take care of everything. And so we really spend a lot of time with partnerships and we want to build our client base for long term. You know, and if somebody's just, again, I talk to people about this all the time is if you're just going to throw us in a spreadsheet and you're just looking for price, we're probably not the fit. So we want to meet with you, we want to know what, what's going on at your facility, what concerns do you have and how can we be solution based? What solutions can we offer you to solve your problems? Because we're not going to be the lowest cost. And with that, here's the resources we're going to provide you. You're going to have a dedicated account manager. We're going to provide, you know, monthly photos. We're going to let you know if we do damage on your property and what the rem, you know, how we're going to fix it, what's, what's the corrective action we're going to take. And when you have dead shrubs, dead trees, we're always constantly giving them feedback. So we're always looking to maximize our relationships with our clients and again, looking for long term partnerships. We, we're sitting at a 96% retention rate.

Which is for us really, really good. I think for anybody, they'd be happy with that because again, we do primarily commercial. If you do a lot of residential, you're going to have a little more turnover because that's just kind of the nature of the beast. So again, for us it's partnership. And then, you know, we want to tell our story. We want to get in there and tell them who we are, what our core values are, what we believe in, what kind of expertise we have, what our skill level is on our staff. And we have master arborists, we have certified irrigation techs. And you know, and so that when they get our prices, I always said the last thing we ever give you is our prices. You know, I hate when people just walk in and lay the prices on the table. We want to tell you everything about our company so that you're so excited to do business with us that the prices almost become secondary.

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And in terms of, you know, growing the business, when you're looking at size of company, like say zero to a million versus what it takes to take that million dollar company, make it 10 million, obviously yourself with perfect cut now doing many tens of millions in revenue, what does that look like for the different skill set that's going to be required from the owner? What is that? Not only their roles and responsibilities, but what do they as an owner need to develop for maybe someone who's at 8, 9 million, 8, 900,000 revenue, 1 million marker. What's going to be the thing that they need to work on themselves and skills they need to get to take 10 million in revenue?

Yeah, good question. I think it first starts off with being really honest with yourself.

For me, I know what I'm really good at, I know what I'm bad at. So I continue to try to surround myself with people. I'm kind of chaos, I create chaos. I'm a driver, right? So if you ever do those disc assessments which you've probably done, it says I'm a driver. And it just, when I read it, it looked like I must have wrote it myself. It was exactly who I am. So I think it's important for business owners to really understand what are you best at. And then what skill set would you need to surround yourself or skill sets in people to surround yourself with to take you from a million to 3 million, 3 million to 5 million, what does that look like? And I think a lot of business owners, maybe pride and ego certainly has happened for me, get in the way. And I, I'm not the smartest guy at my company, not even close. And I think some people have fear of hiring people that are better than them. My entire goal is to hire people better than me and all my companies. I want people that are smarter, better dedicated and focused. And that also comes at a cost. And I hear people say I can't afford that, you know, production manager, I can't afford that office assistant, I can't afford that foreman. And I always challenge him, like what if they, how do you get to the next level if you, you know. And so I think it starts with honesty. And I'm still old school. I've Got pads of paper on my right here and I've got notes for today. But, you know, you write down what are you best at in your company? Where do you want to be? What obstacles are going to get in the way? And then if you're going to hire somebody, what skill sets would they have that you don't have to offset that? And then you know what you're looking for. Because I had a, you know, I have a business partner at Perfect Cut and, and people used to say, you guys are so different. I said, that's why it works because we don't need two of me and we don't need two of him. And. And very early on we defined our roles and responsibilities and said, hey, this is what I'm best at. I'm best at operations and I'll deal with the people. You're a better sale. You're great at sales, you're great at the systems. So I'll focus on what I'm best at. You focus on what you're best at. And so I guess to answer your question, I think it's just, you know, you've got to surround yourself with great people. You've got to pay them what they're worth, and you've got to communicate. We're constantly communicating with people about, where are you today? Where do you see yourself in 1, 3 and 5 years? And can we build a career path for you if you're looking for a job and just a paycheck on Friday, we all need those guys, right? We all need guys and gals that can do that. Labor. But when you get an all star on your team, somebody that's an A player that stands out, do you recognize that and do you take action to make sure that you give that person a career path and communicate with them and do what you say you're going to do? I'm huge on that. If you tell somebody something, you got to do it and you got it. Because if you don't do that, as you know, Mike, they leave. And so you've got to recognize those A players on your team, and then you've got to be communicating with them and, and building out a career path for them. I'm a big fan of honest employee reviews. I don't believe anybody should ever be fired that didn't know it was coming. I believe. You know, I just saw a post on one of the Facebook pages and it's like, what do you do when employees don't do this, this, and this? And I'm like, you talk to them, you sit them down and have an honest conversation and say, joe, you're not meeting expectations because I take ownership in it, too. And I say, what can we do better? What can I do better as a business owner or what can we do better as a company to help you get to the next level? You know, every time somebody quits, we try to do an exit interview. And I assume you probably do the same or have over the years. I want to know what we did wrong. And sometimes it just isn't a good fit. Right. Sometimes somebody just. They found out that they don't want to do the work, and it's hard and it's hot. But, you know, anytime somebody leaves our company, I want to know, what could we have done different?

Absolutely.

So long answer to your question. I don't know if that answers it for sure.

No, for sure. Definitely the people side of things. I know it's something you're going to talk more about potentially at Landscape Summit, that people side of the business, when it comes down to selling a business. We were talking about this prior to the interview, and that is, you know, how many people look at the valuation, they come up with a number that want to sell the business. And then really, you step back as a consultant or someone who's just been in the industry for a long time, like, look, your business is not worth anything. And something, even at Augusta, we talk a lot about is like, what is the enterprise value of your company? And knowing that even if it's a matter of, like, I'm building an asset, what is that asset worth? Even if I'm not going to sell it, what are the things that you look for at Perpetut? As someone who is now part of a conglomerate that is writing checks and buying out and doing acquisitions, what are you looking at? Obviously, from a larger scale, but what are you specifically, when you go into business looking for that makes them worth buying and something that's attractive to you as an investor?

Yeah, I mean, we always look at. First we look at, you know, the people, you know, we weren't interested in the people. We're never interested in the equipment. And, you know, everybody thinks their equipment's worth a bunch of money. And what we'll buy the equipment sometimes that most acquisitions that we've done even before we were part of the Heartland Group, is the equipment comes secondary. We'll buy your equipment potentially, but we're going to offer you like, 40 cents on the dollar, and you're not going to be very happy with that. So you maybe should just sell your equipment separately. But we look at, you know, what's. What kind of people do you have on your team? What's the longevity? What skill sets do they have? And then we also start with the client base. What type of clients do you have? Do you have contracts in place? You know, what is your pricing structure? Obviously, we want to look at how the business is ran from a systems, you know, employee handbooks, safety records, you know, and then obviously profit and loss. I mean, are you profitable? And, you know, in our industry, if you. I'm sure you've seen most companies don't make bottom line, net 4 to 6%, 4 to 8%. I mean, you know, they're doing a lot of work for very little money. And I talked to guys that are doing several million dollars, and I'm like, man, you netted 4% last year. I'm like, you're not bringing home much money and you've got a lot of risk there. So, you know, we're looking at every aspect of it, you know, what is their reputation in the market. But really, for us, a lot of times it's people and clients. We don't as much care about the profitability because we feel like if we can bring it onto our platform and get some synergies within it logistically, maybe there's, you know, clients that make sense. We do three here. Maybe this one fits into our portfolio very well. And then, of course, it's kind of sounds crude, but can we buy it out of. We need to buy it at a value. We're not in the business of overpaying for other companies. And then sometimes we've had some very good success with buying companies and bringing the owner on. And they've been great assets for us because they might be a great leader. They're just not a business owner. We bought a floral company, and she was with us 15 years. She just retired. She's amazing at her job, but was terrible with billing, terrible with paperwork, terrible with payroll. And we said, we'll handle all the back end stuff. You just go, do you run your team of 12 or 15 people? And you just do what you're really, really good at. Let us handle all the BS on the back end. And she was a fantastic acquisition for us, and we grew our floor, floral department, exterior and interior. Just tremendously with her skillset and really depends on, you know, why is the company selling? Does the owner want to stay on in any capacity and, you know, what does their team look like? And most of the time, we find that, you know, that we can keep a lot of their people on because we can offer them maybe more stability, you know, better benefits for a 1k. We keep all of our people on in the winter. So a lot of times, you know, when people say, well, if you sell the company, I'm leaving. But we have those interviews, it's kind of a tough one because you can't, as an owner, you typically can't tell your people you're gonna sell. But before we write that final check, we typically meet with their staff and say, here's what we're doing. We really hope you stay on. We think you're gonna be so much happier here. Here's our growth plan, and here's our strategy, and here's how we think we can take really good care of you, and you're gonna be a part of something special. And here's our core values, and we kind of have a big kickoff. And so we just. I just think communication and understanding what. What you're getting into. And, you know, of course, there's always that tough conversation about what somebody thinks it's worth and what it's actually worth. And, you know, it's typically some multiple of ebitda and are their books correct? And I encourage guys always to have their books correct. And we've looked at a lot of companies and like, well, I know my numbers don't look good, but I've got my boat ran through there, and I got a corporate. I pay my wife, but she doesn't work here. And I'm like, I'm sorry, but your books are a mess, and we can't make heads or tails of your books. And, well, I'd like to add all those back. I'm like, yeah, I don't know that we can do that. So I encourage you guys always to clean up your books, run it right. Don't be ramrod in your family vacations and your cars and your boats and your camper and all that stuff through your business. I know it feels good sometimes, and it's easy. And, guys, well, you can write it off. I know. But if you ever want to sell that company, it's certainly hard to explain to the next guy that the reason your books don't look good is because you've got $200,000 in discretionary spending going on, and I'm not going to pay you value for that.

Operationally, for maybe a smaller LCO landscaper that is maybe only doing 3, 400,000 annual revenue, they're 40, 50, maybe looking to retire get out of the business. They're just beat up and wore out physically. What's that value look like? Can they create something that they actually go sell it for beyond just the value of the equipment? And if they are only doing 3, 400, 500,000 annual revenue, what should they be doing to optimize that business and make it something that is hopefully going to be a nest egg for them in their future?

Well, I mean, obviously I think it's important to not have a lot of debt so that if you are at a point of selling that you can, you know, hopefully there's something to be left over there. But, you know, again, I think it's, you know, is your pricing structure in line? Do you have contracts even if you're doing residential? Do you have agreements with your clients? And what guarantee is there going to be for the next guy that buys you that? Because even when good companies sell, there's always going to be some attrition. There just is. People just, they just leave. And that's. We've seen that with some of the best companies and they just do. They like, now's a good time to get some quotes, maybe we'll make a change. And, you know, so I think it's important just to have good systems in place and then also have it to. Where does it run without you? Do you have people in place? Because if you're the, if you're wearing every hat in that company, you, you do the, you're the sales guy, you do the billing, you do the payables, you're doing payroll on Friday, you're the mechanic. If you're doing all those things and you want to retire, how does that fit? And so I always encourage guys to make sure, you know, build a company that runs without you, it doesn't have to run completely without you. But, you know, what's that work life balance look like? Can you go camping for a week? Because if you can't, I go back to do you have a company or do you just have a job? And so I think it's important to make sure you've got some good key players on the team that it runs well without you. Because if you want to sell something, nobody's going to buy a company that won't run without the owner. And if you're the only person that the clients have ever talked to and if they only do work with Bill and Bill wants to sell, it's tough.

Absolutely.

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Last question I wanted to ask Corey to wrap it up is is something you sort of mentioned there about really the culture side of business hiring. We talked previously about just the current labor market, how difficult it is. But then you looking at from perspective like hey, there's people that are do have jobs, that companies that do have positions that they are able to fill. And the difference is, you know, showing the upper mobility, having the employee handbook, et cetera. For someone who's just getting started or maybe has three to five employees, maybe they don't feel like they have a culture, maybe they have a couple good employees. But it's not like where you can go there and like see a place to grow up inside the company. It's not like a massively growing business. What would you say to that operator that is trying to hire people right now where they don't have the highest wages, they also don't have like this growing company or place to grow into. Like there's no management positions, there's no like that's not there. What are you seeing them be able to come up with? Because I see that as the excuse right now is and I've seen it across even our franchise, the larger companies are in getting the talent because they're able to show that upper mobility, show the options, they're able to be more flexible with benefits, etc. Whereas it's the 2, 3, 4 person operations that are struggling to keep and find employees. What's some of the things that they as smaller operators can do to keep employees in this current labor market?

Yeah, that's a tough question, right? Because that's where I think, I even think if I was in that position, like what would, what could I offer if I've got three guys, right? Or four guys. And so I think as an owner you've got to be very connected to the business. If you've got three guys, five guys, are you there in the mornings, are you communicating with your guys, are you treating them with Respect. I like. I like open books, too. I like to show guys, because I think so many employees think we're getting rich, right? I like to show them, hey, guys, we had a great month, but here's what. Here's what the bottom line was, or here's what repairs cost us last month. You know, could we avoid some of these things? And if we can't avoid some of them, I can share back in that. So, you know, I think, you know, some small level of profit sharing on some level where you have some incentive program with your guys again, communicating, maybe you again bringing in once a month, you bring in pizza on Friday. Just trying to create a culture. It's very hard as a small guy, you're right. To compete with the big guys, right? You know, they. Are you putting them in clean and safe trucks? Are you doing uniforms? You know, I hear guys. Well, you know, it doesn't really matter. I'm small. I think it matters. I think all of it matters. So are they in. You know, they don't have to be new trucks, but when you open the doors, a bunch of pop cans falling out and McDonald's bags, like, what is, you know, from a very. It's easy from the beginning. Like, what are your core values and how do you carry them throughout the company? Is. Is your small facility clean? When you interview a guy and he comes in, are you there? Are you. Do you spend time with him? And you can be 100% ready and willing to have a good interview with him as your desk a disaster. Are you taking two phone calls? Did a guy knock on the door and ask you a question and you told them, I mean, what kind of chaos? And nobody wants to work for a company with chaos. So I just encourage you guys, you know, when they're interviewing, take the time, do proper interviews. And if you don't have a fancy shop or office, that's totally fine. Maybe you meet a guy at a coffee shop. But be prepared. What questions are you going to ask him? Take notes. Don't be answering your cell phone when you're doing that. You know, I just think that you've got to. They've got to feel like they're going to be a part of something special. And I think it's important to tell your story like, this is who we are today. I plan, you know, if you plan on growing the company, we plan on growing the company. We're looking for great people to be a part of this. There's going to be a lot of opportunity here. We like to tell Stories of guys that have started from, you know, a labor position to a mid manager, you know, to a foreman to a mid manager, to a branch manager. We like to tell some success stories so that they know that there's a career path for them. Now, if you're a small guy, you maybe don't have that just yet. But as the leader, you've got to be excited. You've got to be excited about your business. You can't be running around kicking gas cans and cussing and throwing tools. And somebody walks in interview, and they're like, I'm not working here. This is chaos. And if you do get guys that want to work in that, those are the guys that you're going to turn and burn. And. And I see that with a lot of guys like, you know, their hiring practices are poor. So the people that hire are poor. Right? Poor quality, you know, and again, they say. A lot of times they say, you know, I just can't compete with the big guys. We can't pay as much. And I go, no, but you can be incredibly personable, and you can. They can feel like they're a part of something special. And is the owner involved? Are you there in the morning? Are you there at night? Are you knuckle bumping guys? If you see a guy in the corner, he's got his head down, do you go over and say, hey, Joe, what's going on, man? Can I help you today? Yeah, I had some trouble at home. All right, man, let's. I mean, we still do that today. We talk to guys, we're out there knuckle bumping, and we're talking to people. If I see a guy with his head down, I want to know what's going on, man. Can I shake his hand and can I talk to him about what's going on a little bit? Say, hey, I know you're having a tough time right now, but let's go out today and kick butt. And, man, I'll meet you when you get back today, and I'd love to talk to you. And so just. I think it's important as a leader, you just. You've got to be there. And I talk to a lot of guys that aren't there in the morning, and I'm like, man, you're missing an incredible opportunity to have an impact on their day. You can decide how their day starts. Positively or negatively. Negatively. And, man, I want them to start positive, you know, I want. I want it to be positive. So I just think you got to create a culture and an atmosphere that people want to be a part of because there's so many jobs out there that you're not. They're just going to go work for somebody else, whether it's in our industry. We just got a new Amazon they just built right here and they're offering 20 some bucks an hour to drive a forklift with full benefits. You want to dig holes and cut grass or you can just go work for Amazon. So we've got to be pretty creative all the time and we have to create an atmosphere that people want to be a part of. And that's what we work hard on every day. And, and making them feel like they're important and recognizing talent when talent's there. Are you doing company reviews? Are you paying them what they're worth? And so I hope that answers your question.

Absolutely. Last, last thing I want to say right now. You've made this switch the past few years to really focusing on valid products and the things that you're selling there. You alluded to me off camera about people that complain about the products, et cetera, whether it be in person or online. Obviously as longer providers, we also have people who complain online, Facebook Reviews, Google reviews, etc. How do you deal with that? Especially when it's people that you care about, the industry itself, the business owners using valid products. But then also, what can a business owner learn from that in their own business where they have someone next door flying off the handle about their business? How have you handled it on a product side? And what can be Learned from the LCOs out there that also have those same type of reviews or negative feedback being given by customers?

Oh, that's a tough one. I've gotten much, much better. You know, I realized that when you put yourself out there, you know, speaking on the Ballard products side, you know, we had almost 26 million views last year on all of our social media platforms. So that comes with a lot of hate. Right. And I used to take it really, really personal and I would go on sometimes and I'd be arguing with somebody on Facebook or Instagram and, and I realized that, you know, that's what they, they, they want me to engage. And so, you know, I've just learned that, you know, we're going to continue. Can I know what our core values are? We have a great team of people. Our products aren't for everybody. Certainly people are going to be disappointed in something or frustrated and there's a lot of hate still floating around out there. The social media thing has been great from a Promotional standpoint, but it also can be very negative. And you know, from a small company doing lawn care, you know, Google reviews can be very powerful, you know, so I encourage guys to get Google reviews. You can meet with clients if you do a great job and say, hey, Mr. Smith, I did a, you know, are you happy with everything? We'd love to get a Google review from you. I've even told guys that you landscape construction or landscape install, like, hey, we'll take $100 off your invoice if, if you'll give us a five star or four star review, like right now, here's my iPad, like right now. Not like, yeah, I'll get to it later, like, here it is. And so, and then if you get a negative review, I think it's important to try to be as professional as you can be and go on there and say, you know, sorry, we didn't fulfill your needs. How can we make it better? How can we make it right? You know, unfortunately for us, you know, we, we're going to ship almost 200,000 products this year, which is pretty crazy. And there's just people that don't like our stuff or don't like me. And that's okay. I get all that. Your shirts too tight. You're this.

Why don't you buy shirt that fits and you're a midget. I mean, like, you know, unfortunately with social media there's jealousy and hate and there's a lot of that going around. And so, you know, as Joe Rogan says, he just posts and ghosts. He's like, I just post and ghost. Well, we're in the business of taking care of people, so we do our best to say, hey, sorry you're disappointed in the product. How can we help you? Do we need to get you a warranty unit? Do we need to. Whatever that may be. And in the lawn care side is how can we make it right? You know, do we. Do we need to come back out? You know, and I think if you do the right thing, it always pays dividends. And even if you got to do it for free, sometimes, you know, in the lawn care world, you just go out, you make it right. You might be frustrated and, you know, the customer's not always right, but their perception is their perception, right? And if you make it right, they're less likely to go tell their neighbor and the HOA group. And when they're sitting around with their friends, they're like, you know what, they didn't do a great job, but man, they went out of Their way to try to fix it. So I don't get too involved in the hate anymore. I used to, I'm actually too busy to care that much anymore, which is good. But I do get tagged in a lot of stuff where guys are like destroying me on some Facebook page and I'm like, I don't understand the personal attack if you don't like the product. Like if I don't like Dodge trucks, I just don't buy one. I don't go on their Facebook page.

I just don't buy one. It's not a big deal. But you know, that just kind of comes with the territory and I'm sure you guys deal with it on some level as well. And I don't like to see it, you know, as a guy that takes pride in what we do and, and my name's out there and my face is out there. I hate seeing negative stuff. But I've come to the realization that kind of the, you know, the nature of the beast. And I talked to Brian and a lot of other guys do a lot of social media and they've somehow figured a way to not really care. And I'm still inside, I still care a little. I don't like to see it.

Oh man. I hope that interview was beneficial for you and your business. If you would like to come to Landscape Summit, hear Corey in person, ask him questions and see some very in depth business knowledge being shared. Check out mikeandys.com summit. See all the different speakers are coming. People like Corey are going to be there. People that love this industry, love business and building a real company with team members. It's going to be a great event to bring your managers and your spouse to because we're having what we call a support track where for two of the days in the afternoon it's going to be a separate room where it's going to be for managers, employees and spouses. How do you get your spouse on the same page? How do your managers pull you in the same direction? How do your employees to be able to actually buy into the concepts of that you believe in the business and what those core values are. It's gonna be a great event. I really look forward to it. Check out mikeandy.com summit.

I'll see you there.

This has been the Mike Candies podcast. Now you have some ideas on how to take your business to the next level and if you liked what you heard. We have tons of lectures, interviews and more over at the Mike Andes YouTube channel. That'll be right up your alley. That's all we have for you today. We'll see you in the next time.