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IM Landscape Growth Podcast

Date: April 21, 2024

“I wish I could find 100 more. That’d be my constraint. And it’s creating that culture, in my opinion, within your organization that people say, I enjoy and love working at Heritage and Company.” – Dean Morales

TLDL 😉

Dean Morales, from Heritage and Company, shares the remarkable journey of scaling his business from a modest two-person operation to nearly 100 employees, emphasizing strategic growth and a strong company culture.

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

• Dean introduces the origins of Heritage and Company, discussing its expansion and the strategic focus on enhancing the maintenance division.
• Challenges of scaling in the landscaping industry, particularly labor force issues, and creating a workplace that attracts top talent.
• How Heritage and Company has built a robust company culture anchored by core values and integrated into daily operations.
• Dean elaborates on operational strategies that have increased profitability and efficiency, including the implementation of the EOS system.
• The episode concludes with insights into Dean’s leadership style, team management, and the importance of strategic planning in creating a positive workplace environment.

Actionable Key Takeaways:

Focus on Cultivating Culture:

Strengthen your company culture by developing and reinforcing core values that resonate with your team.

Strategic Planning:

Engage in regular strategic sessions to align team efforts and clarify company objectives, thereby enhancing performance.

Invest in People:

Commit to the professional growth of your team through regular feedback, recognition, and development opportunities, ensuring they feel valued and integral to the company.

Resources Mentioned in This Episode:

1. EOS (Entrepreneurial Operating System): Utilized by Heritage and Company to manage and strengthen business operations effectively.
2. Quarterly Leadership Retreats: Cited as essential for strategic alignment and operational planning, playing a key role in their success.
3. Local Business Associations: Dean emphasizes the benefits of involvement in various associations for networking and business growth.

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Episode Summary

Robert
00:00
Hi, everyone, and welcome to the I am Landscape Growth podcast, where entrepreneurs help entrepreneurs grow faster, better, and stronger in the green industry, from leadership to sales to recruiting and operational excellence. We cover the topics holding entrepreneurs back and share how to get past those bottlenecks with the best in the industry. I’m your host, Rob Murray, co founder and CEO of Intrigue, a digital marketing company focused on helping landscape companies grow. So sit back and enjoy the show. All right, welcome back to another episode of the I am Landscape Growth podcast. I have the honor of introducing our guest today, Dean Morales. He’s coming to us, founder of Heritage and Company, Inc. Landscape Business. You’ve been running for. This would be 23 years. Amazing. So thank you for being on the show.

Dean
00:50
I appreciate it. Thank you for having me.

Robert
00:52
Dean’s also a part of a number of different associations and types of associations, from chambers of commerce to trade association. So we’ll bring that up and dig into that more as to why you see the value in getting so involved. But maybe you can give the audience just a quick, little close note summary of, like, how you started this business and got to where you are today.

Dean
01:13
All right, so started in zero one freshman year, college, had a, you say a quick one. But long story short, I bought a, my cousin’s stepfather was a retired pipefitter, had a maintenance company. I was going to school ud to play soccer, and I was like, man, I need a job. I need more money. I’m not going pro. And I didn’t want to go work at the mall. So I met this guy. He’s like, I want out of the fitness. I was like, I can do this. I did this in high school and odds and ends jobs. And I was always out hustling, trying to make a dollar throughout my younger years. But long story short, he told me the company had until November of that year to pay off. Our agreed upon price started May 1, which is like three weeks too late.

Dean
01:57
Me and my best bud started it and next thing July of that year, he was paid off. And we doubled the company that summer just by doing a good job, being personable and having good customer service. From a callback conversation side of things to where we are today, we are signatory union landscape company in the state of Michigan. Just under 100 employees overall. So it came from two man in a truck to just under 100 people primarily bid build our focus. Now, our long term strategic thing is definitely our maintenance division. That’s number one on my hit list right now. Is our maintenance division trying to make that at least 40% of our sales for the next three years. That’s very important.

Robert
02:48
So, I mean, from two to 100, that is no small feat. The theme of this podcast is all around the primary growth constraint, holding entrepreneurs back in the green industry. So, from your experience and from what you see today, what do you see as the number one or two thing holding entrepreneurs back from growing to 100 plus?

Dean
03:13
Definitely labor force, and it’s the foundations. What’s your company based on or built on? I’m trying to build a company that people want to come work here.

Yeah.

Robert
03:26
Well, I mean, people tell me that labor force answer when they’re 15 people and you’re 100.

Yep.

Robert
03:34
So you found 85 more people, and.

Dean
03:37
I wish I could find 100 more. That that’d be my constraint.

Right.

Dean
03:40
And it’s creating that culture, in my opinion, within your organization that people say, I enjoy and love working at heritage and company. So it’s building that destination company that, you know is out there. We want to be known as not just a landscape company.

It’s.

Dean
03:57
This is the place to have a career at. That’s very important. In order to do that, you got to eat, breathe, and, you know what your core values, if you don’t have them and you don’t have someone, or if the team doesn’t quite understand what that means, then it’s just a place to go to work.

Yeah.

Robert
04:12
So this is interesting, right? Like, because culture and core values are, at the best of times, ambiguous terms. Some people will do core value work, and, you know, they’ll work with a strategic planner and take two days off site at some sort of beautiful, you know, cottage setting in some lake in Michigan or whatever, and they come back and they’ve etched into stone and place on a wall some core values, and they’re done their work.

Yeah.

Robert
04:36
And then those core values are supposed to some way shape a culture.

Yeah.

Robert
04:41
So help us understand, how do you bring that to life and eat, breathe, and poop core values?

Dean
04:47
I would say everything. Everything that you just said, but then seven to eleven more times throughout the year, that’s real important. So it’s easy to. You’re right. We have our annual retreat this year. We were in New Orleans for our two day retreat, but there’s also three other quarterly sessions that we have as a leadership team that we compile between every division and or facet within our accountability chart to iron out the issues and details, but then reroll out eos. So we’re an EOS company.

Right.

Dean
05:16
So I’ve kind of mentioned that before. It’s really about being consistent and always rerolling up and rerolling out what your core values are and having state of the companies addressing where you’ve spent. We’ve invested. I hate to use the word spent. We invest so much time and effort into company parties, state of the companies, really letting the team know where we are, where were, where we are, where we’re going. So they understand the vision, and it’s not understanding. Oh, it’s just Dean, as the owner, just having fun with this company. No, it’s. Everyone is invested from the day when they start to, you know, the integrator of our company. So there’s no one can ever ask a question. I wonder what we’re doing next year. How are we doing this quarter? You know, we. Everyone has a number every week.

Dean
06:04
Every employee knows what winning looks like.

Robert
06:07
Okay, wait, wait. You’re speaking in words that make me excited, but for someone who isn’t necessarily practicing what you’re talking about, you mentioned a couple of things there, and I don’t want to lose sight of culture and core values, but we’re going to swing back to it because I think it’s almost ingrained in the other components that you mentioned, or at least some of them. You meant. You said accountability chart.

Yeah.

Robert
06:28
And then you said, everyone’s got a number and they know how to win the week. So just start back with the accountability chart. I know you said you’re an EOS, so entrepreneurial operating system. We’re talking about the framework that was designed by Gina Wickman, and now there’s a worldwide network of coaches that help people implement and then other people self implement said system. But a core part of that system is what you mentioned, this idea of accountability chart. So you just help us understand how you brought that to life and what it does for your business.

Dean
06:56
Well, accountability chart, I want to make it be known. It’s not an.org chart, it’s not an importance chart. It’s literally just an accountability chart. So if you don’t build the structure around the person, you build the structure and interview for the seat itself. The accountability chart all has seats. So when I first. That might put on a rabbit’s hole. When I first implemented eos, I thought I had to have it all filled out. I had to go to this meeting with, oh, I already have all that, and I wish I would have never done that because I really didn’t know what the heck I was doing. It was. It made sense.

Oh, yeah.

Dean
07:29
Rachel’s in our marketing, and so is our elite estimator. But really, he was just an estimator. I thought I had to go there with this thing already filled out. But long story short, you build the accountability chart from top to bottom to top, irrelevant, but at least that’s the way I look at it.

It’s. It’s.

Dean
07:45
What do you need to be successful? What is. What is healthy and smart? You know, do you have a. You know, typically your visionary in your company is typically in your estimating your integrators more, your operations. So you build this accountability chart of who’s responsible for what by function and.

Robert
08:00
Role, not by human.

Right.

Robert
08:03
And then you place humans into those functions and roles. And then based on those functions and roles, everybody has a number. So what does that mean? What’s the number?

Dean
08:10
So, well, we have these 90 minutes meetings called l ten s. Every week. Everyone has a scorecard that they have. We’ve all determined as a team if we’re winning or losing. Every week we have an opportunity. If we’re off track, whether it’s a sales goal, unbillable hours ahead of schedule, marketing budgets, ar over 45 has to below this threshold. Green means you’re good, and red means you’re off track. If you’re off track. Yeah, we make it an issue. And it’s funny, we kind of changed it to an opportunity because I hate the word issue. It’s like, oh, it’s given opportunity. I just hate being negative, even though I get it. It’s not always peaches and cream, but, yeah. So everyone has something on the scorecard to fill out, and it’s just sometimes those change. To me, it’s better to act than not act.

Dean
09:05
And if someone. If we add a new seat to the accountability chart where we don’t have a good measurable, we allow that individual to help put what he thinks is important or she. What makes him feel, or her feel like it’s winning or losing value to the organization. Yeah, 100%. So, from that perspective, we keep going, and sometimes we, like, we’ll fill this whole scorecard out. For six to nine months, I was like, I’m not getting any more value out of that now. It’s just second nature. And we just kind of scrap it and be like, okay, this one now makes sense, but it totally keeps us in line.

Robert
09:39
I love that, too, because a lot of people get caught up on the right number. You know, I don’t know what the right number is, so I have no number.

Yeah.

Robert
09:46
It’s like, well, why don’t we just start with the number you think it should be and run with it for six months and if it’s on track and off track and that feeds you value, keep it. If it doesn’t, get rid of it or something like that, but, you know, make the decision and move with it.

Yeah.

Robert
09:58
So then we heard a stat recently around how companies that have, you know, formal plans in place and management frameworks that they’re running, kind of similar to what you’re referring to, on average, are at least 6% more profitable than ones that dont. Can you share, from a financial performance perspective, without getting into any specifics, the impact of having a live and well EOS management framework running through the company with an accountability chart and everybody having a number and a scorecard and yada?

Dean
10:26
Well, were a single digit net profit company and went to double digit within those three years, and Weve had the most success from a profitability perspective in the last two years. And I contribute that solely to accountability and sharing. We’re getting better at open book management, but giving everyone a winning number, winning scorecard. And what does success look like? Because we’re trying to feed that entrepreneurial attitude. Treat it like it’s yours. Someone has said, I’m so busy, I’m slammed. Okay, what does that mean? Do we need to hire someone? Well, no, because it’s gonna take away from my profit at the end of the year. Okay. You’re just kind of, you’re kind of hitting the ceiling right now. So what can we. Is this a one month, two month? Is this a couple week?

Dean
11:15
No, I just needed to talk and vent, and I just think I should help for a couple weeks.

Sweet.

Dean
11:18
I got you. I get in the trenches with you. That’s no problem. You know, that’s. Otherwise, in the past, prior to 2019, it was. I was like, oh, no. Like, this person’s drowning and we should hire someone, and then your overhead just goes through the roof. But really, it’s just about listening and communicating. But I would say listening more than communicating. I think we became a better company if we listen more versus talk so much.

Okay.

Robert
11:43
Two years, one mouth. Use accordingly. I get that from a sales perspective, we talk about all the time, but you’re kind of talking about an organizational leadership point of view. So what does that look like from your point? Like, your perspective?

Dean
11:57
What? Define that a little more.

Robert
11:58
You’re saying you listen more, you’re better listening. Like the company’s a better listening company. What does that mean?

Dean
12:06
Man, I guess I hire people that are better than me and get out of their way. And from that perspective, I don’t wanna know everything. Don’t want. Don’t need to know everything. But I definitely know the direction I wanna take the company. I whiteboard everything, throw things up on the wall. My guy, Matt, the integrator, he’s like, okay, yes, that’s us. That’s our VTO. Makes sense. This is our current structure. We got room for that. But not everyone wants to be told what to do. Sometimes they just want to just be listened to, and usually when they’re listened to, they already know the answer. But it just kind of felt good to, like, bounce something off somebody, because to me, that’s what happens a lot. Often.

Robert
12:52
So, do you have, like, semi formal or formal kind of coaching moments that are happening throughout the organization? Like, one ones and reviews and stuff? Like, how do you guys set that up?

Dean
13:04
So, every 90 days, we have a quarterly conversation with. So, I’m the visionary, but I’m also the sales lead. So I’ve got quarterly conversations with everyone in the estimating and marketing department. We also do quarter. Also, we do quarterly conversations, which we also run our eos in 90. So all the good, bad, or indifferent gets rolled up, and we review the last, the previous quarter metrics, and then we plan for the next 90 days. That’s also an opportunity to understand what who I’m managing their loving greats are. I ask those questions, you know, do you still GWC or see?

Yeah.

Dean
13:42
Heck, yeah, I sure do. And I’ve had moments like, not right now.

I don’t.

Dean
13:46
It’s like, well, what’s going on?

Okay.

Robert
13:47
GWC, though, you gotta tell people what that is.

Dean
13:50
Get it, want it, have capacity to do your roles. If, in the accountability chart. And part of my best question is there is, do I understand the love and grades of who I’m managing? And I have always thought, yes, but I do ask the question every time. Do you still love what you’re doing here? Sometimes I’ve had answers say, no, I don’t. That’s why. That’s where the lending year comes into play. Because sometimes it’s not professional. Maybe it’s personal. The individual’s just not having a bad moment on the personal life, which then is affecting the professional, and that’s where the lending year comes into play, in my opinion.

Robert
14:30
What a great question. Do you still love what you do here?

Yeah.

Robert
14:33
And if the answer is yes, great. What’s making you so jazz? And the answer is no. Tell me more. Yeah, that’s cool, man.

Yeah.

Robert
14:39
So, coming back to this core values and culture. What are the core values of the company?

Dean
14:44
Oh, boy. So we’ve got some. We’ve got some awesome. We have seven of them. You know, you’re not supposed to have that many, but it’s. We fight with it, and, I mean, honestly, it’s. It’s crazy. So, obviously, we have, you know, integrity, passionate execution, quality, being a team player, and communication. Those seven is what we lead, manage, hold accountable, hire, fire, reprimand. What’s been the most powerful part of those seven core values is. Our foreman. Now only speak in that language.

Robert
15:20
Oh, so good.

Dean
15:21
It’s amazing. Like, we had a. It was interesting when I. When we implemented eos and talked about our core values and why we’re in business, I lost ten to 12% of the entire company, office and field because a lot of them didn’t want to be judged and or graded based on what others, their peers thought about. They were upholding the core values. That scared the crap out of me. I was like, oh, my. I lost some amazing people. At least what I thought were amazing, right?

Yep.

Dean
15:50
And then once that happened, we gained 40% recruitment. As soon as they left, my whole team rallied. Really understood that day. And Dean’s not messing around. This is serious. And then we grew by 40% between office and field, all because it was incredible. It was, like, the most empowering thing you gotta be, you know, it’s called letting go of the vine in the OS. I freaking let go.

Right?

Dean
16:14
Free fell, and I was like, let’s go. And they. They made us who we are. It’s, again, quarterly conversation. I love getting to know our team’s family.

That’s.

Dean
16:25
So we had family picnics, Christmas parties, and quarterly thing. The next Tuesday, we’re having everyone to the office just doing a state of the company, just kind of rolling out what this year’s looking like, introducing some new seats on the accountability chart we created. We love to hire and promote within, so that’s exciting. We had some people kind of mention about their loving grades that they were currently not loving what they’re doing. They wanted to go try something else within the company.

So.

Dean
16:53
That’s frickin a no brainer. That’s easy. Let’s go try that.

Cool. So this.

Robert
16:58
I mean, you wrap all this stuff up. Like, you create clarity. I think one of the things that are often overlooked when it comes to the role of leadership in organization is to make things clear. Where are we going and how are we going to get there accountability around the clarity. And then, you know, all these things that you’re doing in terms of helping people hire from within, know if they’re loving what they’re doing great at work or what they’re doing at work and listening more. You know, that really does seem to be a lot of the layers that are starting to make you a destination company, because I was going to ask, like, how do you become a destination company? You mentioned that before, and it seems like it’s just, you know, it’s all these little disciplines that stack on each other.

Robert
17:38
It’s not just, like, one big thing where it’s like, hey, there’s a ping pong table in the lunch room.

Dean
17:42
No. Yeah, we don’t. We’re not a Google company, that’s for sure. We have the work hard, play hard mentality, but it’s. We just. We help each other across the finish line. That’s the team player part. There’s no offense. There’s not one person here that’s gonna sink or, you know, sink the ship or get us across the. It’s a complete team atmosphere. There’s so much constructive conflict that’s like, that’s the exciting part. I love it when someone says, no, we’re not going to do that. And this is why it’s not. We’re not going to do that because I said so.

It’s.

Dean
18:17
They’re all teaching moments, which I think are incredible. That’s why I love just throwing something out there. The team’s like, nope, we’re not doing that. Dude, you’re crazy. Like, that’s not who we are. And it’s like, yep.

Thank you.

Dean
18:28
Appreciate that. That was gold. I kind of got a good intuition on some things where I think that’s going to happen, but it’s amazing when both your operator, your visionary integrator, because usually there’s always a contention between estimating an ops. You got to sell it while doing. You got to do it. I don’t have enough work. There’s. There’s always that weird. Just tension.

Robert
18:53
Yeah, it’s tension in the dynamic.

Right.

Robert
18:55
I need to get this thing sold, so I’m going to try to get it done as lean as possible, and I need more time to go do the work properly.

Exactly.

Dean
19:02
So I think from that perspective. So we made everything a game. This is something cool. This year we’re bonusing out every job. We used to bonus out at the end of every year. Now we’re bonusing out at the end of every job. To really get the buy in. It all starts with our foreman and our, in our laborers, right. If they don’t get it, want it, and have the capacity to do it or teach us, because there’s so many times a job will be going on, or I’m bidding a job and we call a foreman, like, hey, I’m looking at this job. What do you think? They’re already telling me how to do the job. Now I got to somehow creatively come up with the estimating the glass half full, because I think, like, estimating is half full and operations is half empty.

Dean
19:42
So I’m trying to find that blend, you know? And now we’re just making it a goal. Now we have now the game. So now every, there’s a certain level within the company. We get bonus stuff on every job now versus waiting to the end of the year to hope that we have enough to hit our trigger to have profit sharing.

Robert
19:59
Yeah, that’s cool. So have you studied or been exposed to the great game of business?

Yes.

Dean
20:04
Yeah, that’s kind of exactly.

Yeah.

Robert
20:07
Okay, cool. And anybody who hasn’t, check out Google. The great game of business. It’s an amazing organization that created an organization to help people implement the great game of business. So this is just a quick one for you and for the audience that are listening. So one of the things that you said there, I think is really powerful. And a lot of people don’t necessarily live it, so they don’t necessarily understand it. But when you’re foreman and your leaders inside the organization, not you, not founders, but leaders, are using core values as language in terms of coaching people, whether it’s coaching them well or coaching them reprimand, whatever. But coaching, it really brings core values to life. And one of the things we’ve done ourselves and helped a couple people with is, have you heard of the Gallup poll?

Robert
20:54
There’s these twelve questions that essentially give you an indication of the health of the organization from staff’s perspective. So they did this big global study. It was, you know, whatever, thousands of people and hundreds of organizations and across the study, universally across the globe. One of the statements that never ranked well was, I’ve received recognition or praise for doing good work. So it’s the lowest scoring response across the globe in all organizations. We learned about this many years ago and started giving. We scheduled who we would give. Hey, way to go, pat in the back. High five, whatever. And then we redid the survey and the score didn’t move. And were like, this is crazy. We’ve significantly increased the behavior of giving people praise, and it didn’t change the score. So then we gave people awesome citations.

Robert
21:40
These little pieces of paper that are like sticky pads, but you can order them on Amazon, they’re like $3. And we would say, hey, great work. You exemplified the core value of, in our case, maybe it was team and action, whatever it was. And what was really neat when we started doing that is they started saving them, and then they started giving them to each other. And the score on that metric went way, went through the roof. But what it led to was probably one of the most impactful core values exercises that we’ve ever done. We have a c flat award, so our core values as an acronym are C flat. So it’s CF, L A T T, client fund, leadership, learning, action team, and trust.

Robert
22:19
And so once a year for the Christmas party, you know, whatever, 60 days before we send out a poll, everybody votes anonymously on how well people live out the core values. On a scale of one to six, what’s. What’s crazy is two things happen. One is we get to give out awards for people that lived out those core values in a really great way. The people that are like that don’t get the awards, have to give out the award. So it’s kind of like an oscars, you know, award ceremony type of environment. But then when you’re done, you have a stack ranking of how the whole company feels about everybody. And then we do top two, bottom two. So the top two get put into mentorship with, like, the senior leadership, and the bottom two get questions.

Robert
22:58
They’re not quarterly conversations, but it’s critical conversations about how we need to level up or level out. I haven’t heard anybody else do that yet, but it is by far the most impactful exercise with so many benefits and so easy to do. Anybody who’s listening, if you ever want to try it, I wanted to share because you mentioned that some.

That’s right, yeah.

Dean
23:18
Well, that sounds amazing. I’d like to learn a little more in depth in that.

Yeah.

Robert
23:21
Well, when we’re done, I can show you a tool. I can even show you in the form, whatever, if you want. okay, sweet. So, you know, recruiting, you know, I love way you’re talking about it, too, because it’s not about just getting new people and the being the destination company, but it’s also keeping your current staff that you want to keep letting people go, that you need to let go. Is there anything else, then, when it comes to people that you see holding people back right now.

Dean
23:43
You know, there was a weird mindset for a long time about some of the foreman not wanting to train other foremans in fear of losing their job, or if I teach them too much, then what am I going to do? And so what we did was a week, we implemented an apprenticeship program here at heritage, right. And in order to do that, we really needed our foreman to get vulnerable. There are some of our foremen that want to teach and some of our foremen did not want to teach. You should know this already. So then you know, again, that’s what they’ll say. You should already. You should know this already. Why are you here? You’re not a hard worker, you’re not this.

Dean
24:22
But to me, it’s like if someone shows up at 07:00 every day, ready to go, they’re freaking ready to go, they want to learn. It’s just everyone has different learning styles and how they’re going to pick things up. Like, I’m a seven to eleven guy, my integrators a one.

I can tell them.

Dean
24:37
I call them right now, hey, Matt, this is what we think we got to do. It’s done. He’s going to tell me seven to eleven times in a healthy and smart way.

Robert
24:43
Right?

Dean
24:44
That’s just the reality of it. But what’s cool is all our foreman now, and I’d say the entire company are going to be. Get used to being uncomfortable, be vulnerable, make mistakes, be open and honest about it. Don’t have the mentality of, oh, it’s because I said, that’s not going to work here. If someone says, oh, we’re doing this because I said, get out of here, I’m sorry, that just doesn’t work. You know, if we’re not in the fifties where that’s going to work, you’re.

Robert
25:11
Not talking to five year olds 100%.

Dean
25:13
Yeah, I guess I’m an 1113 year old. I get it.

Yeah.

Dean
25:18
But no, so from that perspective, again, it’s, once we get them here, it’s up to us to keep them here.

Right?

Dean
25:24
That’s, you know, understanding the culture, showing them the path of progression, how they’re going to make more money, and what’s the next advancement? How to become a foreman. How to get a company truck, how to, you know, have a lifelong, fulfilling career at heritage. And that’s also done by having our quarterly meetings, our summer parties, our Christmas parties, really getting their whole family involved. Because it’s happened.

Right?

Dean
25:48
We’ve lost. We’ve almost lost some. We’ve lost some good people. But we’ve also almost lost people. And if it wasn’t for the family saying, wow, heritage. Look what he’s done for. Like, they told me this. The wife just came to me and said, man, you know, x, y, and z was, you know, had a really good offer, you know, making, you know, during COVID there was people paying way above scale out of beer.

Right.

Dean
26:10
And I get it. But they said, I told. She was, like, I told, you know, x, y, and z that you can, like, look what they’ve done. Look what. You’re part of the family. How can you leave them? And so that’s done with, period. Like, it’s a family. That’s why I called it heritage. Like, I’m all about the heritage, the family, who were, where we are.

That’s.

Dean
26:29
That’s really important to me. So I want the families to share this success, too. So I.

Robert
26:36
Well, they’re the ones that support the people in the company, supporting the clients and the whole thing.

Right.

Robert
26:40
So you’ve been in business partnership for 20 years plus.

Yeah.

Robert
26:45
What’s one or two tips you’d give to somebody who’s either entering a business partnership or maybe midway, and it’s not necessarily going the way they want to be able to maintain such a healthy relationship?

Dean
26:58
Be open and honest. I think every issue is about communication, lack of communication. Never assume when something’s not going to trust your gut and your instinct, but don’t be afraid to be vulnerable and to ask the question with the partner, hey, if this isn’t working out, why, I bet you there’s probably just a misunderstanding or misalignment of where each of the partners want the company to go.

Robert
27:25
So, one of the things I hear a lot is that the partner isn’t holding their weight. How do you address that? Because it might not be true, but that’s how they feel. So, when you talk about being open and honest, do you have any tricks or whatever you might be able to share with somebody about how to engage a conversation like that?

Dean
27:42
Start with an accountability chart. I’m really looking forward to being fired from being a sales lead. You know, I tell the team all the time, fire. I need to be fired, and I’m okay with that.

Right.

Dean
27:56
So, yeah, start out with accountability charter. You know, you might have two visionary, non quick starters as partners, and no one’s really executing and come up with the process. So until they figure out their learning styles. I took a Colby score, a weed like Colby around here, and it makes complete sense. You can do in a Colby analysis.

Robert
28:17
So self awareness, though, regardless, like, you know, understand yourself before you start to leave anybody else.

Yeah.

Robert
28:24
So you’ve done Colby and you guys brought that in, and then accountability chart makes it more clear if everybody has a number, if the numbers being hit, then, yeah, there’s no questions.

Yeah.

Dean
28:32
And now what happens is someone’s gonna hit a ceiling. Right. And then it’s like, well, you can only grow so much. Like, when I first started out, I was in the field. Well, if I’m in the field, I’m going to die in the field. I can’t really grow in the company by being in the field all day. So you got to find someone that complements who you’re not and or who you are if you’re trying to multiply. So I think that’s important.

Right.

Dean
28:53
You build the accountability chart, come up with the key roles, and then you place the person in the seat and not the seat around the person. Otherwise, you’ll just fail miserably. And you’re going to be in the trenches, in my opinion, for a while, and then you’re going to get out of the trenches and you’re going to just skyrocket and you’re going to hit the ceiling again. And it’s just ever evolving, going up and down. But I think it’s about being open and honest and telling your team when you’re hitting the ceiling. Otherwise, you’re both personal and professional. Like, will probably hit a ceiling often, and they’re not going to help each other.

Robert
29:25
Not in a good way. Yeah. So maybe can you speak to a little bit about, like, how your involvement in association has helped you grow personally as a leader?

Dean
29:33
Oh, absolutely. So, obviously, the MNLA, the Michigan Nursery Landscape association, it’s who we are. I do wish were more involved in MNLA. We’ve been heavily involved in the MITA, which is the Michigan Infrastructure Transportation Authority. We’re a union landscape company. So they help with my collective bargaining with the laborers, but I can tell you both and the MHCC, the Michigan Hispanic Chamber of Commerce.

Right.

Dean
30:02
So I look at our niche and who our customer base is, and that’s who we go get involved.

Yeah.

Dean
30:09
So we want to grow our maintenance division and Boma building owner manager association makes complete sense. So I’m not a. I am a quick starter, but I also do my research, so I don’t want to half ass anything. So if we’re going to be a part of an organization, we got to plant someone in the organization.

Yeah.

Robert
30:26
And get involved.

Right.

Robert
30:27
Not just have a badge on your website, right?

Right.

Dean
30:31
Yeah, absolutely. So I think it’s. It’s the famous, you know, coin phrases. It’s like a gym membership. If you don’t use it, you ain’t going to benefit from it. So if you’re going to invest in the time and money, something’s got to give.

Right.

Dean
30:43
It’s time. And whatever time you’re going to be giving to the organization is something else isn’t going to be getting that time. So to me, it’s about being healthy and smart and having someone that can gw, see the ownership. Like, I’m not going to be involved in boma. I’m going to go to the fun events, outside sales on our biz dev. They’re the ones that got to go there and really put the gym time in.

Right.

Dean
31:04
Get to know you.

Robert
31:05
So has there been any opportunities for you involved in associations that made an impact on you as a leader specifically?

Dean
31:12
I’d say Mida. Absolutely. It was kind of fun. Last started their future leaders program six years ago. Got to know the big players in the road work, per se, here in Michigan. And in October, I was asked and invited to be part of the board of directors, which is. It’s called the director at large, which I think was like, I’m the smallest fish in the biggest pond. And that was kind of cool.

Robert
31:36
That’s kind of where you want to be if you want to grow, right?

Yeah.

Dean
31:39
It’s like being the least expensive house on the most expensive neighborhood.

Right.

Dean
31:44
I can only go up from there, but, yeah, it’s being involved in those organizations and not being afraid to go and shake someone’s hand, introduce yourself and give them their 92nd elevator pitch.

Robert
32:00
Have you met anybody that’s kind of led to a bit of like a mentor relationship, even if it’s, like, quasi formal and you just get a chance to bounce some ideas off somebody’s been there.

Dean
32:07
Yeah, 100%. So I’ve zero seven. Met a gentleman named Doug Walls. He’s an eagle excavation. Been a great mentor for. Gosh, I’m. That’s scary. 14 years now ish. He was heavy on the site work side of things.

He’s.

Dean
32:24
He was a great mentor. Is a great mentor who kind of helped me get into the whole Mida, and really, it’s kind of like he was the guy that. The gentleman that said, you know, there’s a pond, now you’re going to go drink it or not. You know, it wasn’t like, this is what you got to do he just, you know, you got to be receptive to opportunities that are in front of you and not assume that everything’s going to be handed fed, you know, spoon fed you. So that’s.

That’s.

Dean
32:49
Doug Walls has been an ample part to our growth. Rob coppersmith at mid. I used to, you know, the main man over there is incredible. He’s always the one where I’m kind of venting about something. He’s like, oh, here it is. And it’s like, there it goes. Makes sense. And actually, my whole team, my team outside of this company, I’m going to give them a really interesting thing. So, my banker, right, if I want Kyle Cesina with. She’s incredible. She’s our number one fan. So you got to have the finance backing. I’ve got an attorney, Jacqueline Colt, who’s just. They’re all part of the leadership team, per se.

Robert
33:22
Yeah, that’s cool, right? They’re like the scaffolding that helps you.

Dean
33:25
Grow kind of, you know, and then, obviously, the support at home.

Right.

Dean
33:30
I’m lucky enough to have, you know, my wife, Michelle. She doesn’t know anything about my company. Nothing. When I’m driving home, like, it shuts off from, you know, work mode to husband slash dad mode. And she knows when things.

Okay. Yep.

Dean
33:46
It’s all right, you know, but I’ll bet when I need to vent, other than that, she’s like, she totally supports it. We do five year increments.

Right.

Dean
33:53
She’s like, I’m like, every five years, I reevaluate my life and that work. And are we gonna keep going, or are we gonna do something different? So that’s kind of what it’s been like for the last 23 years.

Robert
34:04
Amazing.

Yeah.

Dean
34:05
So really surround yourself with people that are congratulate your wins and not only point out your losses. I think that’s important.

Yeah.

Robert
34:13
Shoot you straight.

Yep.

Robert
34:15
Both ways.

Dean
34:17
Yes.

Robert
34:18
So, then, outside of these mentors and eos and great game business, I mean, you’ve mentioned a couple of big, awesome resources. Is there another, like, maybe author, leader, speaker that you think would be worth sharing with the group that you’ve kind of drawn inspiration from?

Dean
34:33
You know, we’ve been flirting with. It’s always a podcast. I don’t listen to radio anymore.

Right.

Dean
34:42
Except for if I’m on a boat or on vacation. But other than that, like, to and from work. I love the Jeffrey Scott stuff.

Yeah. Yeah.

Dean
34:48
You know, I was, you know, flirted with, you know, potentially, you know, using him as a coach. There’s a strategic coach is something else. Yeah, definitely been going back and forth on, so I’d say that probably been the most non pulling of the trigger is another coach. So I want to make sure we’re healthy and smart. I like a couple years of consistent data before I change things up, per se. But no, I love Jeffrey Scott’s material. I love this podcast. Like this, you know, I love the Gina Wickman. I like the, you know, this. Yeah, there’s always one. It’s always a podcast.

Yeah.

Robert
35:30
That’s all good, man.

Yeah.

Robert
35:33
All right.

Sweet.

Robert
35:33
Well, I really do appreciate you coming on this show and everybody for listening. So thanks for doing this, Dean.

Dean
35:38
I appreciate it. Thank you much.

Robert
35:39
All right, rock on. Thanks, everybody. The I am landscape growth podcast is brought to you by intrigue, where passionate marketing meets predictable results for entrepreneurs. Remember to like and subscribe the podcast so you don’t miss the next episode. And if you would like to be a guest on the podcast, please visit intriguemedia.com and click on podcasts.