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IM Landscape Growth Podcast

Date: May 27, 2024

“It’s not just about labor; it’s about how we can shift the landscape of horticulture not only in the business sense but also in its social and political relevance. That’s where the new generation’s focus on purpose and value systems aligns with our goals.”
– Alan White

TLDL 😉

Alan White, CEO of Turf Systems and a leader in environmental landscaping, explores the evolution of his company, the impact of labor shortages, and the transformative role of landscaping in urban environments.

Here’s what we discuss in today’s episode:

• Introduction of Alan White, President and CEO of Turf Systems, discussing his involvement in landscaping and environmental organizations.
• Alan’s journey from starting a landscape management company focused on nutrient and pest control to leading discussions on environmental sustainability in urban areas.
• The challenge of labor shortages in the landscaping industry and how it presents opportunities for innovation and attracting a purpose-driven younger workforce.
• The significant role of landscaping in improving air quality, mitigating urban heat, and enhancing the well-being of city residents.
• Advice for entrepreneurs on leveraging the functional benefits of landscaping to foster business growth and positively impact urban environments.
• The importance of continuous learning, staying updated with industry trends, and engaging with professional associations to stay at the forefront of the landscape industry.

Actionable Key Takeaways:

• Explore nature-based solutions to integrate into urban landscaping projects.
• Engage with professional landscaping associations to stay informed and connected.
• Leverage educational resources to innovate and adapt to environmental needs in urban settings.
• Focus on the functional benefits of landscaping to appeal to a broader market and attract a purpose-driven workforce.

Resources Mentioned in This Episode:

1. Green City Foundation
2. Landscape Ontario educational programs
3. International Federation of Landscape Architects
4. “Nature in Our Cities” book by Nadina Gelli
5. US Society of Landscape Architects resources on net-zero landscapes

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Episode Summary

Robert
00:03

Hi, everybody. Welcome back to another episode of the I am Landscape Growth podcast. Today I have an amazing guest, Alan White, president, CEO of Turf Systems, also vice president and climate adaptation chair on CNLA. So canadian nursery and Landscape association and more, which we’ll discuss. Alan, thanks so much for being on the show.

Alan
00:25
Awesome. It’s good to hear, Rob.

Robert
00:28
So give the audience a bit of a Cole’s notes, like, you know, the sense of from the audience perspective to, you know, understand who they’re speaking to over the last 1015 years, whatever it might have been, how’d you end up present CEO of Turf systems and then getting involved on this whole, you know, kind of macro level with landscape and turf in the world?

Alan
00:53
I think a big part of it started, it was 33 years ago, I started a landscape management company that specialized in nutrient management, pest control. So the use of pesticides in the urban landscape and all other things within the landscape that affect its overall plant health. So that’s where we started from. It’s evolved. And I was kind of at the forefront of the entire environmental conversation back in the late nineties, early two thousands around environmental impacts of some of our products and services, particularly nutrients and pest control products. So that kind of put us in the forefront. And I had an option to either be, quote unquote, part of this problem or part of the solution. So I opted for part of the solution.

Robert
01:42
And so what does that mean? Like, how did that, how did you get involved and what are you up to now?

Alan
01:49
Originally started again as a plant health practitioner, not really much different than our own health. If things aren’t going well, then obviously problems arise and we need to learn on, lean on knowledge, science and different tools to change the variables. But it all comes back down to plant health. So that’s kind of the cornerstone of where our business was built on, is the plant health side and helping consumers and commercial contractors, municipalities, government institutions manage landscapes in a built environment, being our cities and knowing at the forefront how difficult this balance was, but how important this balance is, not just in the landscape profession, but in the health and well being of our cities. So when a lot of things are being said at public podiums, in the newspaper, print, on media, it kind of begged the question. It needed a response.

Alan
02:43
It needs someone to participate in the conversation that had a broader knowledge than just the emotion. So it’s evolved over the last two decades to now where my position is as the climate adaptation chair for the Canadian Nursery Landscape association, participating not just here domestically with canadian policy around environment and landscapes, but on the international stage as well, through the cops summits and with other partners around the world. From the international Horticulture Producers, the Growers association, based out of the UK, the IGCA, based out of South Africa, which is the Garden center retail group, internationally, and then landscape contractor associations, whether it’s NElP in the United States, ALCA, the European Landscape Contractors association, or here ourselves with our nine provincial association, three sector groups at CNLA. So it’s all connected.

Robert
03:38
Yeah, that’s cool. All right, we’ll get into more detail in a minute. Like I mentioned before, theme of this podcast is around the primary growth constraints holding entrepreneurs back in the green industry. So, you know, you’ve had quite an experience in the industry. You’ve seen it from an international perspective. You’re not only with associations, but other companies. So you got a pretty cool perspective and like, a broader view than a lot of entrepreneurs. So what do you see as like, the main thing holding people back from growing their businesses?

Alan
04:11
The main one that’s over and over repeated, not just based on my business or the work that I’m doing, the climate file, but it relates to labor. Labor, labor. Labor is whether you’re a grower, retailer, or landscape design build maintenance contractor. Labor has become a significant issue, not just here in Canada, but around the world as it relates to landscape management. So that comes down to how can you have the best products and services if you can’t deliver, it becomes much more difficult. And if you can’t, passionate workforce, it’s difficult. So I think there’s. It’s not so much. It’s a little bit of a holdback, but it’s also a key opportunity.

Alan
04:47
I see a lot of the work I’m doing actually has the potential to change the stage of landscape horticulture, not just in the business sense, but I believe more importantly on consumer relevance, political relevance, and ultimately on social relevance, which is what young workers today, the new workforce of tomorrow, it’s all about purpose, alignment and value systems. And does your business and what you represent align with what their goals and aspirations are as young people coming into the workforce? And I believe landscape has just such a massive impact on urban well being that goes way beyond how we’ve traditionally viewed the landscape.

Robert
05:30
Yeah, that’s cool. So, I mean, this key challenge. Labor, labor. I mean, this is not news, you bringing it up. You’re not the first person to have mentioned finding people difficult. But then you turn around and say, well, this is a huge opportunity for us to. The industry itself is positioned well to grab these younger folks that want to find purpose and be part of something bigger than themselves when it comes to their work and the meaning they find in it. With like, have you played that out? Have you seen that working for turf systems? Like, has that been pretty helpful so far? Because you are pretty passionate about this whole thing. It’s pretty obvious pretty quickly when you speak to you. So are you seeing that kind of start to pay a little dividends in terms of grabbing really good stuff?

Alan
06:14
We see the trickle effect. What I find more interesting is working with institutions that are really kind of leading our next generation of decision makers, those that are going to have influence in the workplace in the future. Our environmental programs in our colleges and universities are full. It’s hard to get into those programs, whether it’s science or practical application perspective, from an environmental policy, from environmental impact, from environmental measuring. All those programs are essentially in many ways the same programs that would have been offered in a horticulture program, agriculture program, because it has. Your biology is just science, your environment in it, a lot of it, I think, is just positioning of where we are and what young people see as the tools to change the future. So again, that’s a little bit where it’s a chicken or the egg, which one comes first?

Alan
07:09
There’s going to be an evolution, it’s true, on our own side, through our peers that are in the landscape contract for most parts, particularly post Covid. And we’re coming up on half a decade now since that really kind of was a pivotal changer. But the landscape sector is seeing good business growth, but we’re also seeing a little bit of retraction now. And the biggest part we’re seeing retraction on is the workforce. There’s greater and greater pressure on finding people. Just the number of applicants into the space is decreasing rapidly.

Alan
07:42
And we’re also seeing, on the analytics on the retail side, we’re seeing a retraction on how much consumers are spending on landscape investment, particularly on the soft side of it, where it relates to plants and the living side of landscape, the hardscape piece, the stones, the waterfalls, the pools is still seeing moderately strong growth, or at least balanced growth, whereas other sectors are seeing a bit of a decline. So again, I’m more of a problem solver, an opportunist, and looking at all the variables that are in play, why is there certain sectors that don’t have an issue finding workers and there’s other sectors that have extreme difficulty. And as you go back and listen to lots of HR coaches, it all comes down to the new workforce is looking for purpose and relevance in what they’re doing. So.

Alan
08:30
And then you look at the headlines of just about every meet. If there’s a day goes by where climate’s not in the forefront, how much is carbon tax? Been on the front page in the last couple months will probably be a key cornerstone of the next election. But everything in our products and services, from the farm all the way through to in the backyards of canadian landscapes, is plants. Plants are the only thing that intersect the carbon cycle on this planet. And it’s most important these plants interrupt the carbon cycle in cities.

Alan
08:59
But when I participate on the global climates stage, and even here in Canada, spoke to the Canadian Senate just after Christmas about the importance of soils and landscapes in cities to change this equation and to have a bigger role on the carbon cycle, it’s just a missing component and most that we overlook, but it’s one of the biggest things that landscape and plants differentiate that nothing else does. So why aren’t we in that conversation a much bigger way?

Robert
09:29
Yeah, it’s interesting. I mean, not only from, like, a geopolitical perspective and, like, helping urban centers, you know, be healthier, but also from the idea of, like, going back to the workers wanting to be part of something bigger than them. Right? Like, you must have met Jim Landry, landscape, New Brunswick. Yep. He said this really cool thing about, like, how essentially landscape or the green industry is really the only true green industry. Like everything else is, like, less gray. Like, ev’s are less gray. You’re not driving a fossil fuel car, you’re driving an electric car. Well, they’re still, you know, it’s not necessarily green, but planting plants into the earth is truly a green industry. And if someone’s passionate about environment, there probably isn’t a better industry for someone to be involved with.

Alan
10:13
So I would argue everything within the urban landscape, again, right from the beginning of the farm all the way through to delivery within, to the city within the greenhouse effect. In the urban heat island, where pollution and public health impact is at its greatest, landscapes are the only thing that can truly be net zero and even in many ways be net positive. So I’ve coined the phrase for years. I use it often is the urban landscape is the lungs of our cities. Air pollution is killing more people in more cities on this planet than all natural causes combined. It’s only followed by heat. And landscapes within cities affecting more than 70% of our population are the biggest thing that can differentiate that and bring positive change rapidly.

Robert
10:59
And so the audience of this show is entrepreneurs, like landscape entrepreneurs. So if I am one and learning about this, and it’s not necessarily news, but it’s kind of more specific in the way that you’re explaining it, is there something that I can do to then help position my business if I’m in these urban or densely populated suburban areas? To help people understand that there is like a positive impact to this type of stuff? And like, how can they start to leverage this a little bit more to not only make a contribution towards the cause, but also in terms of, you know, the work that they’re doing and how they can grow their company?

Alan
11:39
Yeah, there’s lots of ways, I think, at the forefront of the conversation from a business and entrepreneur perspective is really kind of pivoting the landscape design and the landscape application from a form to a function. Landscape has historically been about the art or the design of the landscape, but we believe it plays a lot greater functional role while still being aesthetically pleasing, calming, mental health, all the other things that we know landscape attributes to, from color to shape and design. But landscape also, as I started off, the conversation with, has a fundamental impact on air quality and carbon sequestration within cities, and it’s a significant mitigator of urban heat. So those things combined, how do we share that story in our sales narrative, in our cultural positioning within our company, both for our employees and our customers? And then your points well taken.

Alan
12:39
And one that I’ve been working on for more than a decade is how do we communicate this to the public? How do we communicate this through our business and what our impacts and our actions through our delivery of our products and services make a difference. So with the help of the University of Guelph and a vision I had well over a decade ago, I’ve created at CNLA and it resides on the Green City foundation website. As the Green City foundation has a mission of connecting plants and people for greener, healthier urban climate. It has a satellite imagery system built into it that allows you to measure your landscape, both the tree canopy, the landscape function, the garden, or the shrubs and the plants, and then the ground covers. Biggest open green space in most landscapes is turf area.

Alan
13:27
Then it calculates how much carbon that sequesters. It calculates how many people that impacts by how much clean air it produces. We also fund put in there how much an average car is the kilometer offset. But instead we’re doing this for two reasons. One is to better understand and communicate obviously those impacts of clean air on population from a public facing perspective. We focused on clean air because we do believe lungs of a city and what’s in it for me, and why is this important to my family? Clean air is that piece. The back end of it is the carbon sequestration. We’re not sure that most people really connect. They will be more aware of it if we start taxing it heavily. But what is carbon? Most people have no idea.

Robert
14:10
Sure.

Alan
14:10
Yeah.

Robert
14:10
It’s nebulous.

Alan
14:12
It’s nebulous. So we calculated on the back end. So we are capturing across Canada as this calculator goes live. The goal is to measure every single urban backyard in every open green space within a city, because that data is missing from the national data banks. That data will allow us then to be able to start to look at it around whether patterns, look at it where urban heat, island effects, intensity of these weather events are. And we can look at it from a socioeconomic perspective, we can look at it from a health impact. What are the hospital intakes for mental health? What are the hospital intakes for respiratory illness? Are those in areas where you have high population, low green space, high public engagement versus low public engagement, or close proximity to green space, whether it’s trees, open parks, soccer fields, boulevards.

Alan
15:01
So it’s kind of a joint communication piece. But a company, what we’re going to build it out to, so that for businesses within Canada, they can actually calculate their collective impact and what their daily activities are, so they can really get a sense of how much impact they are having, the communities they’re working in on a daily basis, on annual basis, and they can communicate that to their employees and their customers. That’s all in the Green City foundation. It’s in beta testing right now. So the calculator there is functional. We’re working with a scientific platform under Esri, ArcGIS International. They do most of the data mapping for regional, provincial and federal government, and that’s where all our census data, decision making data, all resides.

Alan
15:46
So it’s not as pretty as maybe people would expect, but at the same time, I think it’s going to be highly functional and we hope.

Robert
15:54
I did it this morning. I measured the impact of my property this morning, and I’m offsetting for eight people, which is great because I’ve got five in my house plus a dog. So we’re contributing to somebody more than just us. Yeah, I mean, that’s a huge project that you’ve taken on with this Green City foundation and this clean air calculator. One of the things that’s interesting, too for like, you know, we’re working with, you know, dozens if not hundreds of landscapers on annual basis. And we’re starting to understand that the younger family is definitely more interested in an ecological approach, I dare say sustainable approach, because sustainability is a bit of a weird word and people don’t necessarily know what it means and it gets misused and all that kind of stuff. But definitely more natural in design, landscape design.

Robert
16:41
There’s definitely people looking for gardens that promote pollinators, know, more kind of like natural plant, native plants, that type of thing. And a lot of businesses haven’t necessarily started to cater to these folks yet. So, like, you know, we, when we interview customers before they like clients, before they come on, we’re like, hey, do you have any of this, like, natural approach or sustainability or, you know, ecological stances in terms of the way that you provide services and very few people have it or starting it? Is there anything like, if I’m a business and I’m like, you know what, maybe we really should start to go down this path because the, you know, the next wave of customers looking for landscape design want that?

Robert
17:23
Is there any tips that you can give people or some things they can consider to start down that path?

Alan
17:30
I think that’s a double sided question because there is an opportunity to be, we call it on the international stage, it’s nature based solutions. Nature based solutions are founded in nature, in how nature functions and how nature finds its balance. The interesting part of the equation is when you move into cities, especially higher intensity urban environments, where now the balance, that’s part of the reason for the calculators. Where’s the tipping point? And what we do find is a lot of indigenous or native species don’t actually perform well in built environments, because a city like Toronto is nothing like the natural habitat of the city of Toronto before Toronto was there.

Robert
18:15
Right, right. Not even close.

Alan
18:16
There’s a couple flip sides to it. There’s an opportunity in here, too. So a lot of it’s the right plant in the right place, and you have to understand the habitat. It’s not as important that the tree was native toronto. Is that the tree native to this growing condition?

Robert
18:31
Right.

Alan
18:32
From a temperature or water aspect, the soil compaction, organics, reflective heat, pollution, all these things that happen within a city, is the plant actually suited for that environment naturally? If it’s not, it’s going to be under stress.

Robert
18:47
So how do I figure, how do I conversation? How do I start to learn that as an entrepreneur, to set myself up to position the business so we can help people that way.

Alan
18:56
Well, part of it is to have the stage so we can start to have intelligent conversations about right plant in the right place. So it’s not good enough to just follow trends. It’s important to lead trends. And we know a lot as professionals about what lives, what doesn’t live. Again, my main reason for being in this space is because I’ve spent my whole life on plant health. So I see that the downside to a plant in the wrong place and in participating on these global conversations around nature based solutions, and just there’s this wall that comes in. The conversation kind of stops when we get to cities because landscapes don’t do well in cities. So let’s stop people from living in natural habitat, and let’s move the people tighter and let’s take up less natural space.

Alan
19:39
Let’s protect more of the natural space as the offset. There’s a flip side to that argument. Is there the opportunity to put more plants in the city? Can we be smarter, more intelligent, and is there a value to it? Where’s the tipping point where a population, like you just said, eight people in your backyard? So you’re on the positive side of that balance. But we don’t know what that balance is in a city of 2 million. But there’s also another piece that we’re learning from doing mapping. The city of Toronto actually has an opportunity. It has more physical space than it had before. Toronto was a major metropolitan area for plant space and others because we’ve gone vertically on a massive footprint. So the actual usable footprint is actually increased by how much? We don’t know exactly. But anecdotally, we’re figuring probably by at.

Robert
20:30
Least twofold because of the walls and.

Alan
20:34
The walls, the balconies, the roofs, all the aspects within a city that aren’t being utilized. Now, how do we create utilization of those spaces?

Robert
20:44
And so if I’m an entrepreneur, how do I start the learning? Like, I appreciate the perspective, it is true what you’re talking about, but if I want to do it, how do I start?

Alan
20:53
I think the biggest part is to understand the building equation, understand the impact and how plants, regardless where the space is, if you’re going to adapt to balconies, then how do you grow plants on balconies? How do you grow plants in containers?

Robert
21:06
And where do you learn about this stuff? Like where do you have some good resources that you could give people an idea to go?

Alan
21:11
There’s lots of online courses too. The universities are all pivoting. That’s part of our exercise is how, in our conversations with academia, how do we move some of our environmental science programs into horticulture space? How do we start having these environmental conversations within the school of landscape architecture? How do we have these conversations within the design build world and even on the nursery and delivery and through things like this. The podcast that you’re doing, landscape Ontario has immense courses. There’s fusion garden, there’s water smart or smart water courses at Landscape Ontario here if you’re in Ontario, but across North America there’s similar things online. I only suspect it’s going to get better as again, the conversation increases and people start to see the opportunities out of having a relevant conversation with what the market is needing.

Alan
22:03
We also see a big trend in environmental, which hasn’t been here for the last two decades. A lot of people are kind of disenfranchised with the environmental movement because it’s all about the sky is falling, it’s all about the pain point. We have a real opportunity here to provide hopefully and solutions that are as big as you want to make them or small as you want to make them.

Robert
22:26
Right. And so one of the things, but one of the things that’s really important about our conversation today, and I feel like we need to just get this conversation kind of more poignant. You’ve got entrepreneurs that are landscapers listening to this. We’re not trying to convince them that they need to be part of a smarter conversation. This is not a government audience. And so what I’m trying to pull out of you to help these folks is if they’re interested in starting down this path of, you know, nature based solutions, right plant, right place, what do they start to do? Like, is there somebody that you think is really good leading the charge on this outside, or do you have any talks coming up? Or like, how does someone get educated?

Robert
23:05
Because as much as we want to infuse this type of thought leadership into landscape architecture, it’s not there right now. So as an entrepreneur, am I supposed to wait for kids ten years from now to go through a program that doesn’t seem like what we want to do? So where do I go? There’s got to be some cool spots, you know of, because you’re in space better than anybody.

Alan
23:24
It gives a new and emerging space. It’s every month there’s going to be new material, whether it’s in this form of a podcast, just information sharing, get on as many forums that are related to this. The International Federation of Landscape Architects is a pretty forward thinker in this space.

Robert
23:43
Yeah, that’s cool.

Alan
23:44
A lot. There’s a few here. In doing exactly what you’re doing in the podcast space, Nadia Gelli is doing. She does a book on. She has a thing about nature based in cities.

Robert
23:57
Who’s that? Sorry.

Alan
24:00
I can put it so you. Maybe you can share it on the chat. Nadina. She does a regular column at Landscape Ontario. She’s releasing a book coming up, nature in our cities.

Robert
24:09
Nice.

Alan
24:10
Coming this summer. And it speaks about this, too. Pamela Conrad with the US Society of Landscape Architect is a big leader in the conversation around net zero landscapes. Very cool in how to kind of design, build, but it’s at a pretty high level still, right? Big landscapes, big urban environments. It’s a slow change. And so what’s it for? Years?

Robert
24:35
So, no, I know, I know.

Alan
24:37
It’s going to accelerate and there will be more and more information, I would suspect, in the next three to five years. Like everything, if you. If you want to get involved, there are ways to do it. Reach out to you. Reach out to myself. Participate with the Green City foundation. Participate at Landscape Ontario or any of the provincial associations across Canada that are part of CNLA. Again, my committee with the climate adaptation folks across Canada has grown substantially in its work and its participation. So it’s just something that’s evolving rapidly again. I’ve only been to three cop summits with the UN and the first one was in Glasgow three years ago and nobody was even talking about plants. Last year in Dubai, it was all about oceans and plants. There wasn’t a stage where our products and services weren’t the backdrop.

Alan
25:26
There was a stage where weren’t talking about cities and people and nature based solutions to go. We weren’t talking about it at all.

Robert
25:33
How cool. So then, so we’re looking at different landscape shows to attend because we’re doing speaking all that kind of stuff. And we see one of the largest ones is going to be in Germany, I think, in September or something like that. Are the Europeans. Yeah, the Europeans, like kind of ahead of this a little bit, or is everybody kind of in the same boat trying to figure out what’s the best approach?

Alan
25:54
I think the Europeans are probably a little more ahead of it, maybe not so much from a business perspective, except where it was legislated. They have a lot more environmental policy around business in Europe.

Robert
26:04
Right.

Alan
26:04
So there’s innovation in that space, but we’re seeing a significant social change there. Again, you’re dealing with countries and cities with one age to significant population intensity. They’re also innovative leaders in some of their transportation corridor greening projects, green roof projects, farming practice projects. So it is a little bit progressive, but I don’t know if the conversation. It’s no further ahead on the global stage as far as how it relates to climate adaptation. I just think it was just progressive policy around environmental protection. But Canada is probably the leader right now at the national and international table. And with all of our global partners on climate, were the first ones to attend climate summit in Glasgow, as I said. And we’ve now participated in bringing other partners to that stage to strengthen Canada’s position.

Alan
27:00
But we’re also in a position of leadership because we saw an opportunity five years ago to start getting involved in this way. And the learning curve to participate at that level is low. So the fact that we’re already there and that it’s always promising when you shake someone’s hand and they say, who are you and why are you here? And you kind of look at them and go, because we grow the plants and put the plants in every city that’s in every window you look out of. That’s why we’re here. So it’s good to be talking about our oceans and our natural forests, but what are we doing in the cities where people live?

Robert
27:33
Yeah. And where the most pollution is intense. Like the most intense. I mean, everything. I think the lungs of cities are the lungs of, like, our countries and that kind of thing. Like, that’s a cool position for people to understand, like, well, I’m a big.

Alan
27:46
Believer if we don’t fix our cities and don’t give opportunity to 7 billion people on this planet, we can’t fix the plan if we don’t fix the cities. Yeah, and if fixing the cities actually changes the conversation, I don’t see how anybody that grows the plant and designs where these right plants in the right place or installs services and maintains so these plants live their full lifetime. It’s all contributes to the well being of our cities.

Robert
28:13
Okay, cool. So let me with this in mind and, like, the amount of time that you’ve put into furthering this conversation from a national to international and then global level is math, and it’s considerable, all whilst running a landscape business. So there’s got to be something that you’ve done to make it so you have the time to go do this type of stuff. Can you share with the audience a little bit of what you’ve done with your team to make it so that you can step away and start to put your time into something like this?

Alan
28:46
Well, a little bit. Again, I have a luxury of being in business for 33 years now. That comes with its own negatives in the fact that I have bad habits, but also good habits that have been learned from it. So this participation and looking at things at the 30, 40, 50,000 foot level as it relates to my business and as it relates to the market that I operate in. So there’s always been two business models. One is how do you grow your market share wherever you are? Or there’s the other way of looking at it. How do you grow the market share versus your piece of it? So part of my passion has been both, and I’ve taken years to learn how to work on your business, not in it.

Alan
29:32
So how do I get out of the weeds of the day to day, no pun intended, the week, the month, and just focus on the quarter, the year and the decade?

Robert
29:43
So what have you done?

Alan
29:44
This helps do, it helps. Give me a French. It’s the old example of, do you sit at the back of the class or the front of the class? But as a kid, nervous and afraid, you sit at the back of the class. Well, you can’t win and you can’t get ahead at the back. So how do you see at the front? And if even more important, if you sitting at the front, how can we. Part of the new conversation, not the old conversation, the conversation that hasn’t happened yet.

Robert
30:05
So how did you elevate yourself to get to a position where you didn’t have to focus on the day to day? Like, what kind of decisions do you make in your mind? We hear this all the time. I want to work on my business. I just don’t have time. People are stuck in the field. They’re putting out fires, all this type of stuff. So what was one or two of the main things that you did to get yourself out of that day to day and started focusing on the quarter and the year?

Alan
30:29
A big part of it, state of mind. So taking inventory every day of what am I doing and why am I, if this task is a daily task, why am I doing it? If someone, if I’m doing it, who should be doing it? And then if who should be doing it? Have I trained them to do that? Do they know that one can do it? Do they know how to do it or should be doing it? So you have to put that person in play. It doesn’t just happen. So that’s intentional behavior. Easy. Again, our business, I always find it’s a little bit easier because we have seasonal shifts. These seasonal shifts is a great place to start. That versus trying to change the game in the flow of it.

Alan
31:09
So a lot of businesses, a lot of my friends run businesses in completely other segments of the market, they don’t have the luxury of these seasonal ups and downs. Sometimes we look at it as our achilles heel of a sudden we’re swamped and then we’re not swamped. So it takes a bit of discipline, but a good entrepreneur and a good business leader, the reason they are good at it is they manage these fluctuations in time and schedule and in business better than most. And they know how to create opportunity. They know how to walk through doors. When those doors present themselves, they know how to be competitive. They know how to tell a story. They know how to build their culture. The hardest part is to essentially get out of the way.

Robert
31:53
Yeah.

Alan
31:54
And to learn how to literally, it’s a simple. The best book I ever read was the Emuth by Michael Gerber. So it all talks about how to go from technician to owner. A lot of it’s to get, it’s the getting out of the way piece. A lot of it is understanding what got you to the, again, super rad numbers, what got you to your first million will stop you from getting to your second million. Literally, like you’re on a hamster wheel. You need to get off the hamster wheel, which is unrelated conversation, but surround yourself with other business leaders. Surround yourself with people that have gotten off the wheel or who have made the leap to create the time to work on the right things, which is so cool.

Robert
32:36
And that almost segues to the idea of, like, your involvement in association, not only from like this, you know, climate adaptation perspective and right plants, right place and urban environments, but just in terms of, you know, the success of the business. Can you just share a little bit of, like, how being part of, you know, local landscape and international or national landscape associations has helped you grow as a leader and the business as a result?

Alan
33:02
Well, I started 25 years ago, showing up at one landscape Ontario turf management sector group meeting just as a business owner, getting invited to come talk about my story and what I was experiencing from a municipal perspective around the environment and pesticides that just evolved. I found myself sitting at a table with all my competitors. We shared important information and we learned from each other, many of them now, today, still 25 years later, I still have lunch with them on a regular basis or dinner just to understand business. And then that opens the door to others in other markets across Canada or the US through trade shows and other stuff like you participated in, Rob. And then again, once you understand how surrounding yourself with like minded leadership thinkers, it just keeps growing.

Alan
33:53
So 25 years later, here I now find myself sitting on a stage at the United nations, presenting urban landscapes at a climate summit to the world leaders that are deciding on policy for not just here in Canada, but around the world.

Robert
34:08
That’s so cool, man.

Alan
34:09
But it’s just, it’s one. One stage at a time. One. One front seat in the classroom at a time.

Robert
34:16
So then what do you say to.

Alan
34:17
The person when they’re moving people through the leadership chain? Because that’s the fastest way to get Voluntold, no doubt, right?

Robert
34:25
Oh, yeah. How’d that go? Well, we just. You’re the vice president now. That’s great.

Alan
34:29
You’re the vice president now. Yeah.

Robert
34:30
So what do you say to somebody who says they don’t have time to join an association?

Alan
34:34
From my experience, you don’t have time not to. There’s no other way to learn it. There’s so many books written. If you want to. If you want to be successful, surround yourself with successful people. Surround yourself with the people who you want to be. Not the people that are behind you, but the people at the end of the day, and again, another great quote is success at the end of the day in leadership is to be sitting at a boardroom table and you’re the dumbest guy in the room. You surround yourself with the smartest people. That itself is a learning process.

Robert
35:03
Yeah, it’s cool.

Alan
35:04
It’s a learning process in your own leadership and your own alpha personality. Sometimes it’s a learning process and what it means. And you hear so often, great leaders are humble. How do you do that and still remain focused on your team? So a lot of the conversations here at Mike, can you come back? Especially the excitement you can imagine I bring when the story comes back as to what our brand and what we represent is on a bigger stage or a headline newspaper. Nothing’s more empowering to my team than to see our company name the place they work for on a headline somewhere.

Robert
35:41
That’s cool. So if someone wanted to participate with this stuff, you’ve got the Green City foundation, like, so.

Alan
35:52
I’m the chair of the Green City foundation on the executive project. Everywhere in the US, they’re both charitable foundations to bring green your greater understanding of green space to cities and the resources to help those less fortunate green their community. So those are two foundations they participate in, Canada and the US. I think you do have a us audience as well. And then here, obviously at the local level, it’s the same across Canada. We are very fortunate in the world. Canada did it right way before my time and our founders. So all of our provincial association were the only places in the world where nationwide all of our associations represent the entire value chain. So growers, retailers and design build maintenance contractors all sit at the same table.

Alan
36:38
So it doesn’t matter which province you’re in, get involved at your chapter level, which is in Ontario, your local business market at the provincial level, which is pretty easy to do. And then those associations are all structured the exact same way through the Canadian Nursery Landscape association as a federation. So all of our provincial associations, if you’re a member of them, you’re automatically a national member.

Robert
36:59
Yeah, that’s cool.

Alan
37:00
And then that breeds up and you can sit or participate in human resource committee meetings, which gives you a front seat in what’s happening in the labor world, from employment Canada to temporary foreign workers, to all the channels of labor workforce. And what are we doing in our school system and others to generate opportunities for new people coming into the marketplace, even immigrants. Or you can sit in the government relations committee, you can sit in the market development, you can sit on, there’s just so sector groups.

Robert
37:30
And then if somebody wants to get a hold of you, what’s the best way to do that?

Alan
37:34
Easiest way is just through any of the associations that can be found at Landscape Ontario. I can be found at CNLA, the Green City foundation project Evergreen, or my company, turf Systems here in Burlington, Ontario. But my personal email is easy. It’s the same as my name and what’s on the bottom of the screen here? Allen Whiterfsystems dot ca.

Robert
37:54
Allen dot Whiterfsystems dot ca. So if you want to send an email and start having the conversation around healthier cities and right plants in the right place, then that’s a good place to start. Thank you so much for doing this, Alan. It’s amazing.

Alan
38:07
It was a pleasure to be here today, Rob.

Robert
38:09
Okay, cheers. Thanks everyone for listening.