September 26, 2024 • 34 mins
Can standardized training programs and career ladders transform your landscape company overnight? This episode is packed with groundbreaking insights from guest Rob Shrieve, the owner of Coastal Shores. Rob shares his unique approach to training, leadership, and effective team member engagement. From weekly morning meetings to life skills sessions covering personal improvement and finances, Rob illustrates how a disciplined and structured approach can foster extraordinary growth for your landscape company. Understand the critical role of leadership team involvement and uncover actionable strategies to inspire your team and drive your landscape company forward.
THE BIG IDEA:
Action is the key to growth.
KEY MOMENTS:
[03:12] Bluffton transformed, high-end property services now offered.
[08:47] Training employees to be safe, knowledgeable and trustworthy
[09:45] Small gestures and group activities fuel motivation.
[14:50] Creating career paths for field staff: success.
[16:25] Rolling out a landscaping career despite initial challenges.
[21:52[ Seeking ambitious individuals for growth opportunities.
[24:25] Debrief meeting: Assign ownership and action items.
[27:18] Importance of taking notes.
[29:31] Start small; act big to achieve greatness.
QUESTIONS WE ANSWER:
1. What are effective strategies for team building in small businesses?
2. How can consistent training improve company culture and employee performance?
3. How do you implement a structured career path for employees?
4. What are best practices for note-taking and debriefing in business?
5. How can small businesses integrate life skills and financial training for employees?
6. What are the keys to successful business growth and improvement initiatives?
7. How can family involvement in company events strengthen team bonds?
FOR SHOW NOTES & MORE, GO TO:
https://mcfarlinstanford.com/podcast/ep-038-cultivating-success-how-rob-shrieve-engages-and-empowers-his-team/
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:05):
Hello, welcome to anotherepisode of Roots of Success.
I'm your host Tommy Cole and we'vegot an awesome episode because
I got my good friend Rob Shreve.
How are you Rob?
I'm doing great.
Thank you.
Tell me.
Rob is a outstanding guy.
It's outstanding family.
He is the owner of Coastal Shoresin the Bluffton, South Carolina.
(00:29):
Did I say that right?
That's correct.
Carolina.
go a little bigger.
Hilton Head area, South Carolina.
I'm sure everyone knowswhere Hilton Head is.
So there you go.
he's the owner of CoastalShores, an awesome company there.
And we've been together formultiple years in peer groups
and it's good to have him on.
I have seen him progress.
(00:50):
Extensively over the course of many years.
And here we are today, Rob.
So tell us about your companyand how it got started.
Tell me what the heck were you thinkinggetting in the landscape world?
You probably thought it was extremelyeasy, you know, mow some grass,
putting some few bushes, call it a day.
And and then what it's, what'sCoastal Shores about today
(01:12):
Okay.
Well, I didn't really have a desireto be in the landscape business.
So I'm being completely honest.
My wife and I went to college atBall State University up in Indiana.
Shortly after graduation, we moveddown to South Carolina in 2002.
No real reason, we were just youngand dumb and wanted to live close
(01:33):
to the ocean, so that's what we did.
And, she had a job in propertymanagement, so she went right into that.
I did not have a job, I actuallytook a job, this will age me a little
bit, but I was door to door cold callsales for copiers and fax machines.
Let's go.
You're as bad at, yeah, like that's like,Yellow pages almost where you can go
(01:54):
door to door and yellow pages selling.
it was rough I, I had to wear, Ihad to wear a suit every day, and
literally walk up and down thestreets going into law offices,
doctor's offices and I was miserable.
And one afternoon, I think my wife andher mom and dad were having lunch and
(02:15):
Make it sense that I was bad at the endof things as far as that career goes.
So, my wife just said, I don't know whatyou want to do, but you can't continue
to do this cause you're miserable.
Until you figure it out, whydon't you cut the grass at these
five properties that I manage?
I said, fine.
(02:36):
So I quit the job.
I had a push mower, a weedeater, and a handheld blower.
I folded down the seatsin my Ford Explorer.
And off I went.
A Ford Explorer and just get after it.
So loading the mower into the back,
(02:56):
Yeah,
the SUV.
that's how, that's how it all happened.
And, and my, you know, theysaid, just do this until you
figure out what you want to do.
So I kind of jokingly, you know, say,I'm still trying to figure it out.
20,
22 years later.
yeah.
Wow.
That's great.
So tell me about Coast to Shores.
What's it all about?
(03:17):
So, Coastal Shores now we have grown upas our community has grown up Bluffton
used to be the little town that you wouldjust happen to kind of drive through
on the way to Hilton Head, and like alot of these coastal communities, it's
just exploded with especially duringCOVID, people coming down from the north.
So we've kind of grownup with the community.
(03:38):
We had to really quickly try to defineour client because there were so
many different opportunities here.
You just run yourself crazytrying to figure it out.
So we service high end residential,commercial and development properties.
And we're doing complete maintenance.
We're doing new installation and then,of course, enhancement on all that.
(04:00):
So we work in a lot of amazing communitiesmulti million dollar homes and properties.
So it's, it's, it's a lot of fun.
And, we've slowed down a little bit.
Over the last couple of years, butwe, we tend to always be kind of
the last 1 to be affected by theeconomy and the 1st 1 recover from it.
So, so thankfully, we don't feelthe real impacts of that a ton.
(04:23):
our business is fairly relianton new construction that kind
of triggers everything else.
So, when new construction has a littledip or a little slow down, we feel
that, Usually not for very long,but that's kind of how it works.
So yeah, we're about, we're35 employees right now.
We're building a new building right now.
(04:44):
That's been a long time coming.
So we're excited to get,get, get to move in that.
And honestly, we're just like, I'vediscussed, we're just, we're in
that transition period where we're,we're making a big jump here and
there's a big, big commitment asfar as personnel, trucks, trailers.
Software, all that kind of stuff.
So, basically, we're kind of payingour dues right now to take the next,
(05:07):
Slightly different than loadinga mower into a Ford Explorer.
it's a little bit different than that.
Yes.
Yes.
Okay,
favorite things, you and I've talkedabout this a lot of times, we did a
little, little video while I was at your,
are.
in, Rob probably has the smallest officeand the smallest shop known to man.
(05:31):
And for some reason he has becomea per, like the most amazing
person to figure out how to utilizeevery square inch of that office.
And you're bursting out the seams.
Probably upsetting a lot of yourneighbors just with trucks in and out
and parking and all that, but you'vefigured it out and you've grown from,
(05:53):
you've grown multiple millions ofdollars each year to get to where, so
kudos to that, that hope from the start.
But one of the things that issets you apart is training.
And it's not, it's not justit's not on a rainy day, Rob.
It's not when you feel like there's aninjury or you feel like you need to train.
This is something thathappens all the time.
(06:14):
It's consistent.
I believe in consistenttraining to elevate your team.
Tell me about why was there a needto implement something like that?
And then what is this systemthat you've built so far?
Yeah, so, well, we first started just, itwas Zach and I and . I mean, we actually
(06:37):
found a picture of our first training.
And it was just, we were in ourwarehouse, a bunch of dudes sitting
on mowers, guys smoking cigarettes.
And,
I mean, Zach and I looked at eachother like, what are we doing here?
You know, what is happening?
So, but we stuck with it.
For some reason, we stuck with it.
And every week at seven o'clock onWednesdays, we just kept showing up.
(07:00):
And through the years, we formalizedit more and more and more.
And then, as, as our core values andculture and vision have become more
important to us and not just somethingwe say, but something we do, we've used
our training to really cultivate thecore values and the vision and so forth.
(07:24):
we like to say our core valuesare kind of like the seeds.
And our, our training is waterand what grows is the culture.
So our training we've developedover the years, we call it S.A.L.T.
And S.A.L.T.
is an acronym for, sales and safetyand then application, life and team.
(07:46):
And we have a 52 week a year calendar.
That we, we sit down and wehave an intentional meeting
October of the previous year.
We talk about what went well this year.
We talk about what we want to addnext year and we literally fill
in the blanks for every Wednesdaymorning for the whole year.
(08:07):
We have a lot of guest speakers come in.
That's something we've really,people get sick of hearing me
going on and on about stuff.
So honestly, I probablyspeak at maybe six a year.
I do some general announcements orwhatever, but as far as me leading
the training we brought in a lotof community leaders, lots of
(08:28):
friends of mine who own companies.
And different things like that.
And that's, that's beenvery impactful for the team.
We've actually gone into the communitiesthat some of our team live in, kind
of on the outskirts of our area andwe've, you know, made connections
with leaders in their communitiesand brought them into our training.
To speak to speak to our team,so that's that's why speakers
(08:50):
has been a big, big thing for us.
But, just going through, like, thesafety and the sales, you know,
just we're training on safety.
We're training and thesales aspect is more just a.
Trying to convince or train our teamthat they're the experts, you know,
become, become a trusted resourceto the clients you're servicing.
(09:10):
And on the back end of that,you're also going to be a
salesman out there in the field.
So we're, we're trying to create a,everybody in the company is a salesperson.
And then the application is theactual boots on the ground, how
you fertilize, how you prune,how you, Identify certain things.
So that's that's the real, in the field.
This is what we're doing kind of thingAnd then the life is usually when we
(09:34):
have like the guest speakers come in andwe talk about just real stuff marriage,
kids, finances, you, you name it we'regoing pretty deep on it and we've gotten
comfortable being uncomfortable, frankly.
And, and it's made a big impact.
I mean, sometimes you don't feel likeyou're making much of an impact and
(09:54):
then you get that one text or that oneemail, somebody pulls you aside and
they tell you what a difference that'smade with their family because they
did something, they heard a training.
And I mean, that makes it all worthwhileand I didn't want to keep going.
So, and then the T,those are our team days.
We celebrate anniversaries.
(10:14):
We celebrate birthdays.
What we started doing this yearis we break out into small groups.
So 1 member of each ofthe leadership team takes.
2 or 3 guys and kind of just breaksoff and we just, we have a conversation
around maybe a book or, or whatever.
And that's been really good just to get1 on 1, a little more 1 on 1 with the
(10:37):
guys, gives the guys an opportunity tomaybe speak to somebody on leadership that
they normally wouldn't get to speak to.
So, and then 4 times a year, whenthere's a 5th Wednesday of the
month is when we have our all teamcelebrations and that's just the.
The barbecues, the bounce houses,games, prizes, whatever it might be.
So,
Yeah.
(10:57):
yeah, that's
Wow.
This is amazing.
I love it.
Gosh, I love this.
You know how much I love it becauseI've told you this a hundred
times, but it's clearly defined.
It's 7 a.
m.
every single Wednesday.
No choice.
No nothing.
It's 52 weeks a year.
End of story.
(11:18):
That's how you get better.
Quite honestly, people want structureand they want to learn, right?
I feel like, would you agree it wasprobably awkward at first, sitting
around a bunch of mowers and you don'treally know how this is going to work?
Or you probably wanted to giveup at some point, multiple times
going, what's the worthless, butnow your ROI is exponential, right?
(11:43):
Because when I look on social mediaand I'd see these guys, you know, These
men and women out there that are justcelebrating and having a good time and
in training and learning, they enjoy it.
They want more of this and if youwere to stop, they would be pissed.
Yes, I agree.
I mean, they, they comein with an expectation now
expectation to, have a good time.
(12:05):
Because we do, we have anicebreaker game every week.
My wife, Jessie, leadsthe icebreaker at 6.
50.
And there's always a prize, andthere's always snacks and drinks.
So they usually get there as close to 6.
50 as possible because theydon't want to miss that out.
And then that sets us up to start rightat 7 o'clock and be off and running.
And, another thing we starteddoing last year as part of, it took
(12:27):
the place of one of our old teamsis we were doing a family party.
So that's wives, kids, whatever.
We do it in our house.
We had bounce houses, games, all kinds.
We had everybody got a shirt andthe stories that came out of that.
And you can start to see thatit means a lot to these families
that like their husband orwhatever, or father worked for us.
(12:50):
And you see, you really startto hear the kind of impact.
That our training ismaking, you know, work.
Yes.
Great.
We're teaching them how to be landscapers,but more importantly, they're, they're
really learning to be better husbandsand fathers and community members.
yeah.
I saw that.
I saw your post about the The swimmingand the slides and the games and
(13:11):
the activities, the swag gear, thebonding that you guys did at that
party, that's what means a lot.
I am a huge fan of training and aslong as it's consistent and you're
always talking about a topic, whatI love most about you is that you
got this thing called life skills.
Man, gosh, I wish I had that.
My son's taking a life skills classthis year, and it's pretty cool for
(13:34):
him to see like financial, you know,attitude marriage, you know, you name it.
Mortgages, money everything,survivability, change a flat tire.
yeah.
those are real life things that,which is great is that it's more than
just the paycheck at Coastal Shores.
(13:54):
Yeah.
They get a little bit of extra and theywant more and more and more of that.
And it's not just a pay, but it's a bitof experience and learning along the way.
Love it.
Yeah.
So we, even about two years agoor so, we, we decided that we were
no longer in new paper paychecks.
Okay, fine.
Of course, the big kickback was alot of our guys didn't have checking.
(14:16):
They didn't have accounts.
You know, they just went and cashedtheir checks and had the money, So
we mandated checking accounts and wedid a little training about checking
accounts and savings accounts.
We brought in our banker.
And then afterwards, we encourage theteam to stick around, meet with our
bank, sign up for a checking account.
(14:37):
And we put, we put a hundred dollarsin whoever's account that they signed
up for a checking account that day.
So now a hundred percent of the peoplethat work for us have bank accounts.
That's great.
That's great.
Great stuff.
Career path for the field staff.
Yeah.
You've worked some time on this.
(14:57):
We've had it in a lot of ourmeetings in the last, years.
That took some time to,to, to invent and create.
That's always a sensitive subject whenyou're saying, you know, All right, crew
member versus, you know, a crew leader.
What if some crew membermakes more or less?
What if someone has adriver's license or not?
What if someone looks at it from themaintenance side versus the install side?
(15:21):
Pay could be different.
Yeah.
I feel like you fought that at firstfor a while We're like what I don't
understand a little bit but onceyou started to understand how that
could impact your team tell us astory about the success of Creating
a career path for your field staff.
Yeah, it's an ongoing thing frankly, andit's it is hard because, you build this
(15:46):
thing out and it's very difficult toimplement because you have to your point.
You have.
Team leaders that technically, as faras your new career paths go, might
not qualify to be a team leader.
Or you might have a second guygetting paid like a team leader,
you know, that kind of stuff.
So, we were having meeting aftermeeting after meeting about
(16:08):
all these different scenarios.
If this, then this, and all this, and Ifinally just said enough, you know, start.
We're just starting.
There's it's gonna be difficult.
We're gonna find out some stuff Wescrewed up But we just got to start
because if we don't it's never gonnahappen because we're always gonna have
any excuse why this thing's not Perfect.
(16:30):
So, we finally we're rolling thisthing out there's there's some
challenges, but we're defining somecareers now because I also I just I
got sick and tired of these guys justYou know, we started having these 1
quarterly 1 on 1s with our field team.
And a lot of theconversation was around that.
(16:51):
Basically, the landscapingwas just getting them to what
they ultimately want to do.
You know, I want to do landscaping until Ican afford to be an electrician, or I want
to do landscaping time to get my, becausethey didn't consider landscaping a career.
They just considered a job that thatcould sustain them until they could
(17:11):
hopefully do whatever they wanted to do.
So our biggest, I guess, the visionof this whole thing is to paint
the picture where you can become alandscaper and it can become a career.
And it doesn't have to, you don'thave to move into leadership or move
into the office for it to be a career.
Here, you can be a landscape professional,have a career at it, and always be
(17:35):
in the field and make a good living.
You know?
So how did you, how didyou paint the picture
So, we're in the process.
We're still in the process.
we're making signage.
We know we love banners and,you know, you know, you know, my
daughter, Liz, she's very creative.
So, we have created study guides,little printed study guides,
(17:57):
and they have all the materialin there and all the criteria.
That it takes to be a tech one,a tech two, a tech three, a
landscape professional and beyond.
So how we decided to implement itthough, is we basically said, all
right, everybody's a tech one.
We don't care how much you make.
We don't care if you're a teamlead or everybody's a tech
(18:19):
one, you're still a team lead.
You're still making what you'remaking, but everybody's a tech one
because we want everybody testingout of tech one into tech two.
And so forth.
And, you know, there's a challengein that because team leads, we want
to fast track them and get them up.
Well, some of them are draggingtheir feet, so we're having to
(18:41):
figure out how to address that, butwe're just figuring it out as we go.
The study guides are pretty cool.
I should share them with you.
and we made it very simple.
I mean, this is like Thisis a picture of a palm tree.
Draw, you know, like match the palmtree, you know, draw a line or whatever.
So, irrigation parts.
we worked in our, you know, partof going from a Tech 1 to a Tech
(19:04):
2 is creating a family budget, youknow, so there's in there literally
identifying what a spade shovel is.
To, what a drip emitter isto creating a family budget.
I mean, so that's how these careerpaths are really tied back to our
training and to our core values.
So it all kind of reallystarts to snowball.
(19:26):
And frankly, we, we have a fireman thatworks for us and this is very similar to
what the, what the fire department does.
And it makes promotion.
It's, it's not personal anymore.
I want to check these six boxes foryou because if I can check these
six boxes for you, I can give youtwo bucks more an hour, go do it.
And then I can give you, it'svery black and white, so I'm not.
(19:49):
I'm not giving you a raise becauseI like it and I'm not not giving you
a raise because I don't like you.
I just need you to do these things.
So,
um,
has there been pushback
no, like I said, we're justgetting this thing rolling.
it's taken longer than we expected,but everything kind of does.
I said, the only realpush pushback is just.
(20:10):
Everybody, people sometimes can'tget past titles, but there was
really no other way to do it.
You know, we don't want to just declaresomebody a tech three without them showing
us they have the skills to do that.
So, so far we're workingthrough those deals.
We might lose a couple peoplethrough this whole thing.
And if we do, It's just
(20:32):
part of it.
Yeah.
You know, my recommendation whenyou're starting a career path,
step one is you have to defineeach role in your organization.
Yeah.
And that's field, that's whereveranything is, you have to define that
if you don't have defined roles, yeah.
Then what's a path?
What's the ladder?
(20:53):
It doesn't make any sense because ifyou're a crew leader and you don't
have a specific role, then what gaugesme that I'm a tech one, two, three,
professional, you name it, whatever.
So you have to kind of like,before you take a forward
step, you got to take two back
Yeah.
clearly define everything.
And then move forward painfully,painfully forward, right?
(21:15):
Because I should have done this years ago.
What was I thinking?
Right.
maybe you should have in the FordExplorer, you know, had a career path
built as you're loading up the mower.
Yeah.
Back in those days, I was justtrying to figure out how long
I was going to have to do this.
yes,
But, but I will, I also tell you the guyswho are really embracing it, love it.
(21:38):
Like, you know, we have ayoung kid working for us
right now who just is awesome.
And he literally has declared that hewants to be the youngest crew leader
in the history of coastal shores.
Cool.
Here's how you do it.
You know, and those arethe kind of people we want.
This kid just kind ofcame out of high school.
(21:59):
He has an opportunity to dowhatever he wants to with us.
The sky's the limit, honestly.
So, and also it gives us the opportunityto your point when, you know, when we have
these defined roles and we can look at ourwork chart and we can look at our growth
and we can say, you know what, we're goingto need another team leader next year, and
we can announce that to the team and say,Hey, all you tech two guys, we're going
(22:25):
to need to promote one of you to teamleading who's going to step up and do it.
it's been difficult, challenging,but we're getting through it.
And I think it's gonna bea really amazing thing.
Once we, once we really get going on it.
Yeah, that's good.
Rob.
One of the things I, I, I've watchedyou over the years, in, in this peer
(22:45):
group and travel and, and learning,learning from others, the, the one
thing that steps that stands out thatyou then a lot of, a lot of people
is, it's what they call get shit done.
You're the, you're the master of, and I, Ithink you know what I'm talking about and.
Honestly, landscapersoverthink everything.
(23:05):
They sort of find areason why they shouldn't.
On accountability calls, you askgood questions, you implement.
And every time we meet three times ayear, you're always saying we did this.
We started it.
You, you've not finished somethings, which is totally okay
because you're figuring things out.
You've mentioned before earlier inthis, that you just got to get started.
(23:28):
What makes you.
Yeah.
Like why do you do that?
And what's the advantage?
Well, one, this is an investment.
I mean, and I wannareturn on my investment.
these are not just while we have,we have a good time when we're
traveling all over the countrytogether and have some great dinners
(23:51):
and conversation and whatever else.
But at the end of the day, it's, it'sa business trip and it's an investment
and I wanna bring something home.
Secondly, if it was just up to me, Idon't know how much stuff would get done.
So, you know, I, I started from thebeginning, my team, my leadership
(24:12):
team is invested in ace peer groups.
Almost as much as I am, you know,they, they want to know where
I'm going, what I've seen, say,send pictures while you're gone.
What do you, you know, what's going on?
And then we have a, as soon as I getback, we have a debrief meeting and I
kind of just dump everything out there.
(24:34):
And everybody just kindof listens for a while.
And then Liz, she's my daughter,but she's also what, what we call a
director of culture and implementation.
So, she kind of oversees and drivesthis stuff getting done, and we really
drive it by assigning ownership.
And then assigning action items.
(24:54):
And we'll, we don't try to do a hundreddifferent things, even though I might
come home with a hundred different ideas.
We'll kind of pick, through our debrief,our debrief discussion, typically a half
dozen of them kind of come to the surface.
And then we'll, Assign some ownershipto that will assign some action
(25:16):
items and then the process beginsof developing that that item.
So we actually, I just got a, areminder from Liz this week that
to leadership, go back and reviewyour action items from our last
Oh boy.
debrief.
You know, where we at, so,it's just that continual.
(25:39):
It's, it's assigningownership, action items.
And then accountability, you know, asfar as the leadership goes, we know
that we assigned this thing to thisperson and this is their timeline.
And next time we sit down, we're goingto ask them about it and ask them how
it's going and that kind of stuff.
So, but the bottom line, like I said,you being in a peer group, there's so
(26:01):
many amazing people, businesses, ideas.
It would just be a shame justto come home with nothing.
Nothing to share, whatever.
So,
I tell you, Rob, Another thing that'sfascinating that sort of just popped
in my head, and maybe this is how youinterpret things, you're one of the one
(26:22):
people that, that I I've witnessed overyears that really takes a lot of notes.
Like a lot.
yeah.
Yep.
What's the advantage of taking notes?
You always travel with an iPad.
You're always taking notes.
And when you travel,it's notes in general.
It could be someone is speaking in a room.
(26:45):
You could be listening to a podcast or ashow or YouTube and you're taking notes.
You can listen to other peer groupmembers talk about their update.
And you're still taking notes,
Yeah.
notes when people are speakingand, and then you, and then you
compile that stuff and get it back.
Like, what makes thatan advantage for you?
Well, one, I'm just kind ofOCD like that, but, so, and I
(27:08):
don't have a great memory, so,
Well,
it's,
we didn't, we're
yeah,
the way, we're, we're not,
yeah,
ship to, to go to space.
So I have to take a lot of notes too.
yeah, well, and I mean, you know, if youmentioned the updates, well, you know,
the guys in our group, they're friends ofmine, and I care about what's going on.
So, I want to know that Chris said this.
(27:32):
Tommy said this or whateverit might be so later.
We're out to dinner like hey Youmentioned this in your update.
Let me hear more about that orwhatever so But you know when
I'm gonna peer group visit.
I'm continuing like kind of First thingin the morning, end of the day, I'm just
kind of filtering through those notes.
And then at the top, I alwayskind of just, I'll copy and paste.
(27:56):
I'll just pull stuff up.
And that's kind of mybig takeaways up there.
Yeah.
really what comes home with me.
And those big takeaways fuel the peergroup debrief meeting that we have.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And what's great is that, youknow, whatever the costs are per
month, your entire team is gettingto take away from this thing.
Yes, you're the one showing up, right?
(28:17):
Your wife, Jesse's always there to showingup, you know once a year at a summit, but
they're like, give me more, give me more.
What happened?
How did it go?
How was the site visit?
What'd you see?
Right?
That comes from a good leader.
And when a good leader can come backand do a debrief to the team and then
take action items and run with it.
No wonder you're getting stuff done.
(28:38):
yeah, I just want to feel like, yeah, youknow, they're invested in this thing too.
And I mean, like I said, whenI'm on a site visit, I'm always
pretty intentional about sendingsome pictures back to the team.
Or just any kind of tidbit that I hearsometimes I'll say, hey, I'm going
to go visit this landscape company.
I'll send a link to their website.
Let me know anything.
You guys are thinking about that.
(29:00):
You want me to try to find outor take a picture of or whatever.
So, even though I'm the 1 there, they'restill kind of participating remotely.
Yeah, that's great.
Rob what kind of advice would yougive anyone out there that you,
listen, this is what when I, you know,during the tough times of building
a business during you know, youcoaching your middle managers coaching
(29:23):
crew guys, crew women, you name it.
What, what's something thatyou just, is it a certain book?
Is it a quote?
Is it something just hard work pays off?
What is it?
Well, you know, I think sometimes.
You got to be, even in the peer groups,we go to a lot of amazing companies
doing amazing things, amazing facilities,millions and millions of dollars.
(29:45):
And it's easy to kind of say, well,if I would ever be that big of a
company or whatever, I could do Xor I can't do X until I'm that big.
And, you know, I would argue thatyou're never going to be that
company unless you start doing this.
You know, you, you, you haveto start before you become
whatever that company might be.
(30:07):
You know, my first, grow was at Melosiand it was like, I don't need to me.
Because it literally was like, holy cow,there, there's the business that I've been
had in my vision right in front of it.
Torrential downpour,freezing cold weather.
Yeah.
So, but you, you know, earlieryou mentioned, you know, humility.
(30:30):
You know, I could have gone intothat like, oh, well these guys are
this or that, or whatever, and, butI literally just kind of absorbed it
like they have painted the pictureof what I envision our company being.
so I, I think just again, we'vekeep saying it, just, just
start, you don't have to be acertain size to start training.
(30:52):
You don't have to be a certain size tohave a vision and live out core values.
You don't have to be a certainsize to love on your team.
Well, those things are all theingredients to become whatever
your vision for your company is.
And if your vision for your companyis to say the same exact size it is, I
still believe you need to do all thesethings to maintain that and to have
(31:14):
a healthy, know, company at any size.
Love it.
That's great stuff.
So here we go.
I took a bunch of notes, you know, asyou can see, I'm a big note taker is
just like you, I put this in a file.
I actually do debrief these, these,every one of these episodes I debrief.
So after this is over, I'm goingto debrief, put some takeaways.
The famous Tommy takeaways.
(31:36):
Here we go.
Training.
God, I love training.
When you said 52 weeks, I want to giveyou the biggest hug through the screen.
52 week training, 7am on Wednesdays.
It's salt.
It's sales, safety,application, life, and team.
I mean, training equals corevalues, water, the seeds.
(32:01):
Do it, do it, do it, doit, do it, and don't stop.
I, gosh, I just can't get enough of that.
Career path, once again, just start it.
You got to start somewhere, but probablydefine the roles, understand what that is.
I love the family budgets.
I love the, the spade shovels andthe how to do a five gallon shrub and
(32:23):
how to mulch pine straw, how to, youknow, power wash and it, you name it.
All those, all those great things.
The master of getting things done.
I say get shit done at the end of the day.
'cause that's my favorite quote.
But first off, you've gotta aleader leadership team that wants.
To get stuff done You got a debriefwhen you come back from an event.
(32:45):
It could be whatever it could be avacation It could be anything you come
back grow peer groups Conferences everyeverything but the most important things
of getting things done is assign an owner
Yeah.
And create action items And checkthem off the box and move on.
That's it's it's not that hard.
(33:06):
We just over complicate everything
Yep.
I wrote just do it the Nike logo, right?
just start just
Yep.
Yep.
Yep.
way any last minutebits of information Rob?
(33:31):
No, I just, I really appreciateyou, Jason and the whole McFarland
team and it's just been amazing.
I think we're, we're onyear three now or so.
So it's been awesome.
Looking forward to seeingy'all in September.
Absolutely, Rob Shreve.
It's a pleasure with CoastalShores out of Hilton Head, South
Carolina area It's been a pleasure.
You're a rock star.
I appreciate you taking the timeand your busy schedule to share
(33:55):
some inside information with us.
Absolutely.
It's a pleasure.
Thank
you.
ya.
Hello, welcome to anotherepisode of Roots of Success.
I'm your host Tommy Cole and we'vegot an awesome episode because
I got my good friend Rob Shreve.
How are you Rob?
I'm doing great.
Thank you.
Tell me.
Rob is a outstanding guy.
It's outstanding family.
He is the owner of Coastal Shoresin the Bluffton, South Carolina.
(00:29):
Did I say that right?
That's correct.
Carolina.
go a little bigger.
Hilton Head area, South Carolina.
I'm sure everyone knowswhere Hilton Head is.
So there you go.
he's the owner of CoastalShores, an awesome company there.
And we've been together formultiple years in peer groups
and it's good to have him on.
I have seen him progress.
(00:50):
Extensively over the course of many years.
And here we are today, Rob.
So tell us about your companyand how it got started.
Tell me what the heck were you thinkinggetting in the landscape world?
You probably thought it was extremelyeasy, you know, mow some grass,
putting some few bushes, call it a day.
And and then what it's, what'sCoastal Shores about today
(01:12):
Okay.
Well, I didn't really have a desireto be in the landscape business.
So I'm being completely honest.
My wife and I went to college atBall State University up in Indiana.
Shortly after graduation, we moveddown to South Carolina in 2002.
No real reason, we were just youngand dumb and wanted to live close
(01:33):
to the ocean, so that's what we did.
And, she had a job in propertymanagement, so she went right into that.
I did not have a job, I actuallytook a job, this will age me a little
bit, but I was door to door cold callsales for copiers and fax machines.
Let's go.
You're as bad at, yeah, like that's like,Yellow pages almost where you can go
(01:54):
door to door and yellow pages selling.
it was rough I, I had to wear, Ihad to wear a suit every day, and
literally walk up and down thestreets going into law offices,
doctor's offices and I was miserable.
And one afternoon, I think my wife andher mom and dad were having lunch and
(02:15):
Make it sense that I was bad at the endof things as far as that career goes.
So, my wife just said, I don't know whatyou want to do, but you can't continue
to do this cause you're miserable.
Until you figure it out, whydon't you cut the grass at these
five properties that I manage?
I said, fine.
(02:36):
So I quit the job.
I had a push mower, a weedeater, and a handheld blower.
I folded down the seatsin my Ford Explorer.
And off I went.
A Ford Explorer and just get after it.
So loading the mower into the back,
(02:56):
Yeah,
the SUV.
that's how, that's how it all happened.
And, and my, you know, theysaid, just do this until you
figure out what you want to do.
So I kind of jokingly, you know, say,I'm still trying to figure it out.
20,
22 years later.
yeah.
Wow.
That's great.
So tell me about Coast to Shores.
What's it all about?
(03:17):
So, Coastal Shores now we have grown upas our community has grown up Bluffton
used to be the little town that you wouldjust happen to kind of drive through
on the way to Hilton Head, and like alot of these coastal communities, it's
just exploded with especially duringCOVID, people coming down from the north.
So we've kind of grownup with the community.
(03:38):
We had to really quickly try to defineour client because there were so
many different opportunities here.
You just run yourself crazytrying to figure it out.
So we service high end residential,commercial and development properties.
And we're doing complete maintenance.
We're doing new installation and then,of course, enhancement on all that.
(04:00):
So we work in a lot of amazing communitiesmulti million dollar homes and properties.
So it's, it's, it's a lot of fun.
And, we've slowed down a little bit.
Over the last couple of years, butwe, we tend to always be kind of
the last 1 to be affected by theeconomy and the 1st 1 recover from it.
So, so thankfully, we don't feelthe real impacts of that a ton.
(04:23):
our business is fairly relianton new construction that kind
of triggers everything else.
So, when new construction has a littledip or a little slow down, we feel
that, Usually not for very long,but that's kind of how it works.
So yeah, we're about, we're35 employees right now.
We're building a new building right now.
(04:44):
That's been a long time coming.
So we're excited to get,get, get to move in that.
And honestly, we're just like, I'vediscussed, we're just, we're in
that transition period where we're,we're making a big jump here and
there's a big, big commitment asfar as personnel, trucks, trailers.
Software, all that kind of stuff.
So, basically, we're kind of payingour dues right now to take the next,
(05:07):
Slightly different than loadinga mower into a Ford Explorer.
it's a little bit different than that.
Yes.
Yes.
Okay,
favorite things, you and I've talkedabout this a lot of times, we did a
little, little video while I was at your,
are.
in, Rob probably has the smallest officeand the smallest shop known to man.
(05:31):
And for some reason he has becomea per, like the most amazing
person to figure out how to utilizeevery square inch of that office.
And you're bursting out the seams.
Probably upsetting a lot of yourneighbors just with trucks in and out
and parking and all that, but you'vefigured it out and you've grown from,
(05:53):
you've grown multiple millions ofdollars each year to get to where, so
kudos to that, that hope from the start.
But one of the things that issets you apart is training.
And it's not, it's not justit's not on a rainy day, Rob.
It's not when you feel like there's aninjury or you feel like you need to train.
This is something thathappens all the time.
(06:14):
It's consistent.
I believe in consistenttraining to elevate your team.
Tell me about why was there a needto implement something like that?
And then what is this systemthat you've built so far?
Yeah, so, well, we first started just, itwas Zach and I and . I mean, we actually
(06:37):
found a picture of our first training.
And it was just, we were in ourwarehouse, a bunch of dudes sitting
on mowers, guys smoking cigarettes.
And,
I mean, Zach and I looked at eachother like, what are we doing here?
You know, what is happening?
So, but we stuck with it.
For some reason, we stuck with it.
And every week at seven o'clock onWednesdays, we just kept showing up.
(07:00):
And through the years, we formalizedit more and more and more.
And then, as, as our core values andculture and vision have become more
important to us and not just somethingwe say, but something we do, we've used
our training to really cultivate thecore values and the vision and so forth.
(07:24):
we like to say our core valuesare kind of like the seeds.
And our, our training is waterand what grows is the culture.
So our training we've developedover the years, we call it S.A.L.T.
And S.A.L.T.
is an acronym for, sales and safetyand then application, life and team.
(07:46):
And we have a 52 week a year calendar.
That we, we sit down and wehave an intentional meeting
October of the previous year.
We talk about what went well this year.
We talk about what we want to addnext year and we literally fill
in the blanks for every Wednesdaymorning for the whole year.
(08:07):
We have a lot of guest speakers come in.
That's something we've really,people get sick of hearing me
going on and on about stuff.
So honestly, I probablyspeak at maybe six a year.
I do some general announcements orwhatever, but as far as me leading
the training we brought in a lotof community leaders, lots of
(08:28):
friends of mine who own companies.
And different things like that.
And that's, that's beenvery impactful for the team.
We've actually gone into the communitiesthat some of our team live in, kind
of on the outskirts of our area andwe've, you know, made connections
with leaders in their communitiesand brought them into our training.
To speak to speak to our team,so that's that's why speakers
(08:50):
has been a big, big thing for us.
But, just going through, like, thesafety and the sales, you know,
just we're training on safety.
We're training and thesales aspect is more just a.
Trying to convince or train our teamthat they're the experts, you know,
become, become a trusted resourceto the clients you're servicing.
(09:10):
And on the back end of that,you're also going to be a
salesman out there in the field.
So we're, we're trying to create a,everybody in the company is a salesperson.
And then the application is theactual boots on the ground, how
you fertilize, how you prune,how you, Identify certain things.
So that's that's the real, in the field.
This is what we're doing kind of thingAnd then the life is usually when we
(09:34):
have like the guest speakers come in andwe talk about just real stuff marriage,
kids, finances, you, you name it we'regoing pretty deep on it and we've gotten
comfortable being uncomfortable, frankly.
And, and it's made a big impact.
I mean, sometimes you don't feel likeyou're making much of an impact and
(09:54):
then you get that one text or that oneemail, somebody pulls you aside and
they tell you what a difference that'smade with their family because they
did something, they heard a training.
And I mean, that makes it all worthwhileand I didn't want to keep going.
So, and then the T,those are our team days.
We celebrate anniversaries.
(10:14):
We celebrate birthdays.
What we started doing this yearis we break out into small groups.
So 1 member of each ofthe leadership team takes.
2 or 3 guys and kind of just breaksoff and we just, we have a conversation
around maybe a book or, or whatever.
And that's been really good just to get1 on 1, a little more 1 on 1 with the
(10:37):
guys, gives the guys an opportunity tomaybe speak to somebody on leadership that
they normally wouldn't get to speak to.
So, and then 4 times a year, whenthere's a 5th Wednesday of the
month is when we have our all teamcelebrations and that's just the.
The barbecues, the bounce houses,games, prizes, whatever it might be.
So,
Yeah.
(10:57):
yeah, that's
Wow.
This is amazing.
I love it.
Gosh, I love this.
You know how much I love it becauseI've told you this a hundred
times, but it's clearly defined.
It's 7 a.
m.
every single Wednesday.
No choice.
No nothing.
It's 52 weeks a year.
End of story.
(11:18):
That's how you get better.
Quite honestly, people want structureand they want to learn, right?
I feel like, would you agree it wasprobably awkward at first, sitting
around a bunch of mowers and you don'treally know how this is going to work?
Or you probably wanted to giveup at some point, multiple times
going, what's the worthless, butnow your ROI is exponential, right?
(11:43):
Because when I look on social mediaand I'd see these guys, you know, These
men and women out there that are justcelebrating and having a good time and
in training and learning, they enjoy it.
They want more of this and if youwere to stop, they would be pissed.
Yes, I agree.
I mean, they, they comein with an expectation now
expectation to, have a good time.
(12:05):
Because we do, we have anicebreaker game every week.
My wife, Jessie, leadsthe icebreaker at 6.
50.
And there's always a prize, andthere's always snacks and drinks.
So they usually get there as close to 6.
50 as possible because theydon't want to miss that out.
And then that sets us up to start rightat 7 o'clock and be off and running.
And, another thing we starteddoing last year as part of, it took
(12:27):
the place of one of our old teamsis we were doing a family party.
So that's wives, kids, whatever.
We do it in our house.
We had bounce houses, games, all kinds.
We had everybody got a shirt andthe stories that came out of that.
And you can start to see thatit means a lot to these families
that like their husband orwhatever, or father worked for us.
(12:50):
And you see, you really startto hear the kind of impact.
That our training ismaking, you know, work.
Yes.
Great.
We're teaching them how to be landscapers,but more importantly, they're, they're
really learning to be better husbandsand fathers and community members.
yeah.
I saw that.
I saw your post about the The swimmingand the slides and the games and
(13:11):
the activities, the swag gear, thebonding that you guys did at that
party, that's what means a lot.
I am a huge fan of training and aslong as it's consistent and you're
always talking about a topic, whatI love most about you is that you
got this thing called life skills.
Man, gosh, I wish I had that.
My son's taking a life skills classthis year, and it's pretty cool for
(13:34):
him to see like financial, you know,attitude marriage, you know, you name it.
Mortgages, money everything,survivability, change a flat tire.
yeah.
those are real life things that,which is great is that it's more than
just the paycheck at Coastal Shores.
(13:54):
Yeah.
They get a little bit of extra and theywant more and more and more of that.
And it's not just a pay, but it's a bitof experience and learning along the way.
Love it.
Yeah.
So we, even about two years agoor so, we, we decided that we were
no longer in new paper paychecks.
Okay, fine.
Of course, the big kickback was alot of our guys didn't have checking.
(14:16):
They didn't have accounts.
You know, they just went and cashedtheir checks and had the money, So
we mandated checking accounts and wedid a little training about checking
accounts and savings accounts.
We brought in our banker.
And then afterwards, we encourage theteam to stick around, meet with our
bank, sign up for a checking account.
(14:37):
And we put, we put a hundred dollarsin whoever's account that they signed
up for a checking account that day.
So now a hundred percent of the peoplethat work for us have bank accounts.
That's great.
That's great.
Great stuff.
Career path for the field staff.
Yeah.
You've worked some time on this.
(14:57):
We've had it in a lot of ourmeetings in the last, years.
That took some time to,to, to invent and create.
That's always a sensitive subject whenyou're saying, you know, All right, crew
member versus, you know, a crew leader.
What if some crew membermakes more or less?
What if someone has adriver's license or not?
What if someone looks at it from themaintenance side versus the install side?
(15:21):
Pay could be different.
Yeah.
I feel like you fought that at firstfor a while We're like what I don't
understand a little bit but onceyou started to understand how that
could impact your team tell us astory about the success of Creating
a career path for your field staff.
Yeah, it's an ongoing thing frankly, andit's it is hard because, you build this
(15:46):
thing out and it's very difficult toimplement because you have to your point.
You have.
Team leaders that technically, as faras your new career paths go, might
not qualify to be a team leader.
Or you might have a second guygetting paid like a team leader,
you know, that kind of stuff.
So, we were having meeting aftermeeting after meeting about
(16:08):
all these different scenarios.
If this, then this, and all this, and Ifinally just said enough, you know, start.
We're just starting.
There's it's gonna be difficult.
We're gonna find out some stuff Wescrewed up But we just got to start
because if we don't it's never gonnahappen because we're always gonna have
any excuse why this thing's not Perfect.
(16:30):
So, we finally we're rolling thisthing out there's there's some
challenges, but we're defining somecareers now because I also I just I
got sick and tired of these guys justYou know, we started having these 1
quarterly 1 on 1s with our field team.
And a lot of theconversation was around that.
(16:51):
Basically, the landscapingwas just getting them to what
they ultimately want to do.
You know, I want to do landscaping until Ican afford to be an electrician, or I want
to do landscaping time to get my, becausethey didn't consider landscaping a career.
They just considered a job that thatcould sustain them until they could
(17:11):
hopefully do whatever they wanted to do.
So our biggest, I guess, the visionof this whole thing is to paint
the picture where you can become alandscaper and it can become a career.
And it doesn't have to, you don'thave to move into leadership or move
into the office for it to be a career.
Here, you can be a landscape professional,have a career at it, and always be
(17:35):
in the field and make a good living.
You know?
So how did you, how didyou paint the picture
So, we're in the process.
We're still in the process.
we're making signage.
We know we love banners and,you know, you know, you know, my
daughter, Liz, she's very creative.
So, we have created study guides,little printed study guides,
(17:57):
and they have all the materialin there and all the criteria.
That it takes to be a tech one,a tech two, a tech three, a
landscape professional and beyond.
So how we decided to implement itthough, is we basically said, all
right, everybody's a tech one.
We don't care how much you make.
We don't care if you're a teamlead or everybody's a tech
(18:19):
one, you're still a team lead.
You're still making what you'remaking, but everybody's a tech one
because we want everybody testingout of tech one into tech two.
And so forth.
And, you know, there's a challengein that because team leads, we want
to fast track them and get them up.
Well, some of them are draggingtheir feet, so we're having to
(18:41):
figure out how to address that, butwe're just figuring it out as we go.
The study guides are pretty cool.
I should share them with you.
and we made it very simple.
I mean, this is like Thisis a picture of a palm tree.
Draw, you know, like match the palmtree, you know, draw a line or whatever.
So, irrigation parts.
we worked in our, you know, partof going from a Tech 1 to a Tech
(19:04):
2 is creating a family budget, youknow, so there's in there literally
identifying what a spade shovel is.
To, what a drip emitter isto creating a family budget.
I mean, so that's how these careerpaths are really tied back to our
training and to our core values.
So it all kind of reallystarts to snowball.
(19:26):
And frankly, we, we have a fireman thatworks for us and this is very similar to
what the, what the fire department does.
And it makes promotion.
It's, it's not personal anymore.
I want to check these six boxes foryou because if I can check these
six boxes for you, I can give youtwo bucks more an hour, go do it.
And then I can give you, it'svery black and white, so I'm not.
(19:49):
I'm not giving you a raise becauseI like it and I'm not not giving you
a raise because I don't like you.
I just need you to do these things.
So,
um,
has there been pushback
no, like I said, we're justgetting this thing rolling.
it's taken longer than we expected,but everything kind of does.
I said, the only realpush pushback is just.
(20:10):
Everybody, people sometimes can'tget past titles, but there was
really no other way to do it.
You know, we don't want to just declaresomebody a tech three without them showing
us they have the skills to do that.
So, so far we're workingthrough those deals.
We might lose a couple peoplethrough this whole thing.
And if we do, It's just
(20:32):
part of it.
Yeah.
You know, my recommendation whenyou're starting a career path,
step one is you have to defineeach role in your organization.
Yeah.
And that's field, that's whereveranything is, you have to define that
if you don't have defined roles, yeah.
Then what's a path?
What's the ladder?
(20:53):
It doesn't make any sense because ifyou're a crew leader and you don't
have a specific role, then what gaugesme that I'm a tech one, two, three,
professional, you name it, whatever.
So you have to kind of like,before you take a forward
step, you got to take two back
Yeah.
clearly define everything.
And then move forward painfully,painfully forward, right?
(21:15):
Because I should have done this years ago.
What was I thinking?
Right.
maybe you should have in the FordExplorer, you know, had a career path
built as you're loading up the mower.
Yeah.
Back in those days, I was justtrying to figure out how long
I was going to have to do this.
yes,
But, but I will, I also tell you the guyswho are really embracing it, love it.
(21:38):
Like, you know, we have ayoung kid working for us
right now who just is awesome.
And he literally has declared that hewants to be the youngest crew leader
in the history of coastal shores.
Cool.
Here's how you do it.
You know, and those arethe kind of people we want.
This kid just kind ofcame out of high school.
(21:59):
He has an opportunity to dowhatever he wants to with us.
The sky's the limit, honestly.
So, and also it gives us the opportunityto your point when, you know, when we have
these defined roles and we can look at ourwork chart and we can look at our growth
and we can say, you know what, we're goingto need another team leader next year, and
we can announce that to the team and say,Hey, all you tech two guys, we're going
(22:25):
to need to promote one of you to teamleading who's going to step up and do it.
it's been difficult, challenging,but we're getting through it.
And I think it's gonna bea really amazing thing.
Once we, once we really get going on it.
Yeah, that's good.
Rob.
One of the things I, I, I've watchedyou over the years, in, in this peer
(22:45):
group and travel and, and learning,learning from others, the, the one
thing that steps that stands out thatyou then a lot of, a lot of people
is, it's what they call get shit done.
You're the, you're the master of, and I, Ithink you know what I'm talking about and.
Honestly, landscapersoverthink everything.
(23:05):
They sort of find areason why they shouldn't.
On accountability calls, you askgood questions, you implement.
And every time we meet three times ayear, you're always saying we did this.
We started it.
You, you've not finished somethings, which is totally okay
because you're figuring things out.
You've mentioned before earlier inthis, that you just got to get started.
(23:28):
What makes you.
Yeah.
Like why do you do that?
And what's the advantage?
Well, one, this is an investment.
I mean, and I wannareturn on my investment.
these are not just while we have,we have a good time when we're
traveling all over the countrytogether and have some great dinners
(23:51):
and conversation and whatever else.
But at the end of the day, it's, it'sa business trip and it's an investment
and I wanna bring something home.
Secondly, if it was just up to me, Idon't know how much stuff would get done.
So, you know, I, I started from thebeginning, my team, my leadership
(24:12):
team is invested in ace peer groups.
Almost as much as I am, you know,they, they want to know where
I'm going, what I've seen, say,send pictures while you're gone.
What do you, you know, what's going on?
And then we have a, as soon as I getback, we have a debrief meeting and I
kind of just dump everything out there.
(24:34):
And everybody just kindof listens for a while.
And then Liz, she's my daughter,but she's also what, what we call a
director of culture and implementation.
So, she kind of oversees and drivesthis stuff getting done, and we really
drive it by assigning ownership.
And then assigning action items.
(24:54):
And we'll, we don't try to do a hundreddifferent things, even though I might
come home with a hundred different ideas.
We'll kind of pick, through our debrief,our debrief discussion, typically a half
dozen of them kind of come to the surface.
And then we'll, Assign some ownershipto that will assign some action
(25:16):
items and then the process beginsof developing that that item.
So we actually, I just got a, areminder from Liz this week that
to leadership, go back and reviewyour action items from our last
Oh boy.
debrief.
You know, where we at, so,it's just that continual.
(25:39):
It's, it's assigningownership, action items.
And then accountability, you know, asfar as the leadership goes, we know
that we assigned this thing to thisperson and this is their timeline.
And next time we sit down, we're goingto ask them about it and ask them how
it's going and that kind of stuff.
So, but the bottom line, like I said,you being in a peer group, there's so
(26:01):
many amazing people, businesses, ideas.
It would just be a shame justto come home with nothing.
Nothing to share, whatever.
So,
I tell you, Rob, Another thing that'sfascinating that sort of just popped
in my head, and maybe this is how youinterpret things, you're one of the one
(26:22):
people that, that I I've witnessed overyears that really takes a lot of notes.
Like a lot.
yeah.
Yep.
What's the advantage of taking notes?
You always travel with an iPad.
You're always taking notes.
And when you travel,it's notes in general.
It could be someone is speaking in a room.
(26:45):
You could be listening to a podcast or ashow or YouTube and you're taking notes.
You can listen to other peer groupmembers talk about their update.
And you're still taking notes,
Yeah.
notes when people are speakingand, and then you, and then you
compile that stuff and get it back.
Like, what makes thatan advantage for you?
Well, one, I'm just kind ofOCD like that, but, so, and I
(27:08):
don't have a great memory, so,
Well,
it's,
we didn't, we're
yeah,
the way, we're, we're not,
yeah,
ship to, to go to space.
So I have to take a lot of notes too.
yeah, well, and I mean, you know, if youmentioned the updates, well, you know,
the guys in our group, they're friends ofmine, and I care about what's going on.
So, I want to know that Chris said this.
(27:32):
Tommy said this or whateverit might be so later.
We're out to dinner like hey Youmentioned this in your update.
Let me hear more about that orwhatever so But you know when
I'm gonna peer group visit.
I'm continuing like kind of First thingin the morning, end of the day, I'm just
kind of filtering through those notes.
And then at the top, I alwayskind of just, I'll copy and paste.
(27:56):
I'll just pull stuff up.
And that's kind of mybig takeaways up there.
Yeah.
really what comes home with me.
And those big takeaways fuel the peergroup debrief meeting that we have.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And what's great is that, youknow, whatever the costs are per
month, your entire team is gettingto take away from this thing.
Yes, you're the one showing up, right?
(28:17):
Your wife, Jesse's always there to showingup, you know once a year at a summit, but
they're like, give me more, give me more.
What happened?
How did it go?
How was the site visit?
What'd you see?
Right?
That comes from a good leader.
And when a good leader can come backand do a debrief to the team and then
take action items and run with it.
No wonder you're getting stuff done.
(28:38):
yeah, I just want to feel like, yeah, youknow, they're invested in this thing too.
And I mean, like I said, whenI'm on a site visit, I'm always
pretty intentional about sendingsome pictures back to the team.
Or just any kind of tidbit that I hearsometimes I'll say, hey, I'm going
to go visit this landscape company.
I'll send a link to their website.
Let me know anything.
You guys are thinking about that.
(29:00):
You want me to try to find outor take a picture of or whatever.
So, even though I'm the 1 there, they'restill kind of participating remotely.
Yeah, that's great.
Rob what kind of advice would yougive anyone out there that you,
listen, this is what when I, you know,during the tough times of building
a business during you know, youcoaching your middle managers coaching
(29:23):
crew guys, crew women, you name it.
What, what's something thatyou just, is it a certain book?
Is it a quote?
Is it something just hard work pays off?
What is it?
Well, you know, I think sometimes.
You got to be, even in the peer groups,we go to a lot of amazing companies
doing amazing things, amazing facilities,millions and millions of dollars.
(29:45):
And it's easy to kind of say, well,if I would ever be that big of a
company or whatever, I could do Xor I can't do X until I'm that big.
And, you know, I would argue thatyou're never going to be that
company unless you start doing this.
You know, you, you, you haveto start before you become
whatever that company might be.
(30:07):
You know, my first, grow was at Melosiand it was like, I don't need to me.
Because it literally was like, holy cow,there, there's the business that I've been
had in my vision right in front of it.
Torrential downpour,freezing cold weather.
Yeah.
So, but you, you know, earlieryou mentioned, you know, humility.
(30:30):
You know, I could have gone intothat like, oh, well these guys are
this or that, or whatever, and, butI literally just kind of absorbed it
like they have painted the pictureof what I envision our company being.
so I, I think just again, we'vekeep saying it, just, just
start, you don't have to be acertain size to start training.
(30:52):
You don't have to be a certain size tohave a vision and live out core values.
You don't have to be a certainsize to love on your team.
Well, those things are all theingredients to become whatever
your vision for your company is.
And if your vision for your companyis to say the same exact size it is, I
still believe you need to do all thesethings to maintain that and to have
(31:14):
a healthy, know, company at any size.
Love it.
That's great stuff.
So here we go.
I took a bunch of notes, you know, asyou can see, I'm a big note taker is
just like you, I put this in a file.
I actually do debrief these, these,every one of these episodes I debrief.
So after this is over, I'm goingto debrief, put some takeaways.
The famous Tommy takeaways.
(31:36):
Here we go.
Training.
God, I love training.
When you said 52 weeks, I want to giveyou the biggest hug through the screen.
52 week training, 7am on Wednesdays.
It's salt.
It's sales, safety,application, life, and team.
I mean, training equals corevalues, water, the seeds.
(32:01):
Do it, do it, do it, doit, do it, and don't stop.
I, gosh, I just can't get enough of that.
Career path, once again, just start it.
You got to start somewhere, but probablydefine the roles, understand what that is.
I love the family budgets.
I love the, the spade shovels andthe how to do a five gallon shrub and
(32:23):
how to mulch pine straw, how to, youknow, power wash and it, you name it.
All those, all those great things.
The master of getting things done.
I say get shit done at the end of the day.
'cause that's my favorite quote.
But first off, you've gotta aleader leadership team that wants.
To get stuff done You got a debriefwhen you come back from an event.
(32:45):
It could be whatever it could be avacation It could be anything you come
back grow peer groups Conferences everyeverything but the most important things
of getting things done is assign an owner
Yeah.
And create action items And checkthem off the box and move on.
That's it's it's not that hard.
(33:06):
We just over complicate everything
Yep.
I wrote just do it the Nike logo, right?
just start just
Yep.
Yep.
Yep.
way any last minutebits of information Rob?
(33:31):
No, I just, I really appreciateyou, Jason and the whole McFarland
team and it's just been amazing.
I think we're, we're onyear three now or so.
So it's been awesome.
Looking forward to seeingy'all in September.
Absolutely, Rob Shreve.
It's a pleasure with CoastalShores out of Hilton Head, South
Carolina area It's been a pleasure.
You're a rock star.
I appreciate you taking the timeand your busy schedule to share
(33:55):
some inside information with us.
Absolutely.
It's a pleasure.
Thank
you.
ya.
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