October 24, 2024 • 43 mins
Could embracing water-conserving technology be the game-changer your landscape business needs? In this episode of "Roots of Success," Tommy Cole and Lex Mason explore how Weathermatic bucked industry norms to revolutionize irrigation with Smartline and Smartlink technology. Uncover the principles behind successful hiring, maintaining a positive company culture, and the incredible efficiency gains that come from investing in remote-access systems. For landscape company owners looking to grow sustainably, this conversation offers valuable lessons on modernizing operations and focusing on what truly matters.
THE BIG IDEA:
Innovation and Culture are keys to Success
KEY MOMENTS:
[06:32] Tailored market strategy drastically increased sales volume.
[09:33] Affordable smart tech now benefits most landscape companies.
[12:56] Largest field service team; efficient, minimal disruption.
[17:18] Weathermatic valued educational leadership and reputation.
[20:05] Focused catalog on quality, pricing, and uniqueness.
[24:03] SmartLink connects and optimizes landscape business operations.
[27:11] Increased billable hours through efficient management strategies.
[31:51] Weathermatic's "three C's.
[37:02] Quality processes are crucial; accountability ensures improvement.
[38:45] Fast growth demands adaptability; overwhelms newcomers sometimes.
QUESTIONS WE ANSWER
How to leverage technology like SmartLink for landscape and irrigation management?
What are the benefits of remote access technology in irrigation systems?
How can landscape companies improve their inspection completion rates?
What are effective strategies for business growth in the irrigation industry?
How to integrate water-conserving technologies into service offerings?
What makes Weathermatic a leader in the irrigation industry?
What are the “three Cs” in hiring and team development?
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
The Roots of Success podcast isfor the landscape professional
who's looking to up their game.
We've got a brain trust of experts tohelp you nurture the roots of a successful
business and grow to the next level.
This is The Roots of Success.
Welcome to another episodeof Roots of Success podcast,
and I'm your host Tommy Cole.
We have an awesome guest todayI'm super excited about as
(00:24):
I do for all of our guests.
They are awesome if you Have no ideawho this person is if you've been
living under a rock for 75 yearsyou might have been but this is Lex
Mason President of Weathermatic.
How are you Lex?
I'm doing great.
And I promise I have not been around for75 years, but yeah, weathermatic has man.
(00:44):
So great to be here.
Thanks, Tommy.
Absolutely.
Absolutely.
Weathermatic is let's give you a quickplug leading provider of water conserving
technology and services for 75 years,servicing landscape professionals with
a full line of products and services.
Oh my gosh.
It's a lot.
I think you guys just startedout as like a little weathermatic
(01:05):
lawn sprinkler system.
I'm looking at this picturewith like suits and top hats and
looking at the sign and I'm like,oh my God, 75 years later, crazy.
I think I've known you sinceabout the 2008 timeframe.
We worked together a lotof previous company and.
Since then, it's just been an awesomerelationship all through the years.
(01:28):
And, and it's been great.
And I've been like, we got to have Lex on.
I think I saw you at NALP last year Andwe're finally, finally come to the moment
Love it, man.
Yeah, the schedule seems to just begetting busier and busier as we go on.
But this is yeah, a ton of fun.
And it's crazy to look back, youknow, we're we're nearing our 80th
year of existence here and thinkingabout where the business started
(01:51):
as a, as a landscaping company,actually, and kind of morphed into
doing an irrigation contracting.
Couldn't get good parts.
And the guy said, well, screw it.
I'm going to go build it myself.
You know, the original foundingthe Snotty family, the original
founding family of, of Weathermatic.
And you know, we were fortunateto buy the business about 30
years ago and I never looked back.
(02:12):
So that's it, that's it.
So if you've got something aroundyou, you think there's an opportunity
there when opportunity knocks,make sure you grab it and run,
jump in, jump in.
It's all about taking risks and andkeeping the foot down and going.
Love it.
So let's start off like what inyour words, what is weathermatic?
(02:33):
It's a nice term but there's allthese components, smart link and
smart system and, these controllersand parts, but like, give me the
elevator pitch of what Weathermaticis, is and what they're about.
Yeah, absolutely.
So, the easiest way to think about itis kind of like how landscape companies
will have a construction divisionand a maintenance division, right?
We're, we're basically the same thing.
(02:55):
We have a construction division wherewe sell things like spray heads and
nozzles and valves and controllersto new construction projects, whether
it's residential, commercial, wecall it our turf business, right?
So, turf.
We don't really do much ag workor golf work, but just commercial
residential landscape irrigation.
(03:17):
We have a traditionalmanufacturing business over there.
That's the 75 years worth of legacy.
That's, that's been around for along time and we'll be, and we'll
be around for, for a long time.
The smart link side of thebusiness really is our maintenance
side of the business, right?
That's the recurring technology sideof the business that was born from.
(03:37):
A vision that we had to go, Hey, it'sone day, this was about 20 years ago.
We had a vision that one day therewill be a need for every commercial
property, for every commercialmaintenance contractor, for every high
end residential maintenance contractoris going to have to have remote access
to the controllers that they manage.
(03:58):
Either due to the cost of water,the cost of labor, the crazy traffic
patterns that we all live in every day.
That that data that that remoteconnection is going to be so
important at some point in the future.
And lucky enough, right?
We built the platform thenand our business today is
pretty simply helping to take.
(04:19):
Landscape maintenancecontractors, irrigation division.
Which is a funny phrase that I callit the redheaded stepchild, right?
It's a, it's a lot of timesout of sight, out of mind.
We'll get to it later.
Like, you know, I don't care that we'relosing a little bit of money on it.
Like
just let's just make it work.
just make it work.
Yeah.
Keep the fires out and don'tlose any customers from it.
(04:42):
And what we found out isthat if you actually dive in.
And we've built a process forit, not just smart link, the
technology, but the actual process.
And we've hired some of the bestpeople in the industry to help really
coach and hold the hands of landscapeprofessionals to implement this system.
And our process and turnirrigation into a major leading
(05:04):
profit center for the business.
So, in a nutshell, I'll, I'll stopat that, but that's that's kind
of the 2 sides of our businessand, and what we're focused on,
yeah, that's, that's great.
You know, what's funny is that Idon't think we would have thought of
20 years ago of having remote access.
And now it has come to like,it's an automatic given deal.
(05:26):
I remember early in my career lookingat controllers and turning the dial
and then running all the way acrossthe building and go, is it running?
Wait, was that zone six or seven?
Crap.
Run all the way back.
Turn it off and start back over.
Right?
And I'm like, so the technology is there.
It's great.
(05:46):
Now everything is on app based,everything is on, you know, iPad, it's
phone, it's laptop, remote access.
What's one thing that hasbasically changed everything
because of remote access?
I think it's the.
It's the accessibility of it and so whatI mean by that, and this might it's it's
(06:07):
a little different answer than probablywhat what people would traditionally
think is it the way in which we priceit to make it now accessible for a
landscape professional to build thisinto their contract to make it a standard
line in the budget of this is justhow we go deliver service instead of.
(06:28):
Trying to train their team on how to godo water savings analysis reports and R.
O.
I.
studies and try to talk people intowhy water matters when they may
or may not actually care about it.
And, hey, this thing will saveus so many trips and make our
team so much more efficient.
And the customer goes well.
Then great for you.
What does that move for me?
Not my problem, right?
I hired you to be out there.
(06:49):
And so it's a little bit of a goto market study that that we did
about seven years ago of something.
Something's not right here.
And so really tailoring our package,not changing the technology,
not changing the product.
But really tailoring the way in whichwe bring the product to market and the
niche that we serve, which we can get intoniching later and things like that, which
(07:10):
I think is one of the most powerful thingsto do, getting the pricing, how to do
it, not just the cost, but physically howto deliver pricing to make it accessible
for our target, for our target clientele,it, I mean, it was 10 X overnight.
We went from selling 100 controlsystems a year to selling
(07:31):
1000 control systems a month.
I mean, it was that level ofradical change that that happened.
Is just making it accessible tothe people that actually benefit
the most from the product.
And now the water savings andthe sustainability is awesome.
I've got a heart for that.
But it's the cherry on top.
It's the whipped cream, right?
(07:51):
It's the bonus on top of thefoundation that it does for a
labor starved landscaping business.
So Lex, you hit on somethingthe pricing structure I really
wanted to dive into that.
Yeah You know talk about we can runaround the building and push buttons and
the in the clients like so cool So whatwhatever what do you mean by pricing?
(08:12):
Like in the line items, so you'resaying like include that in your bid
For maintenance, include it for theinstallation and it's a line item.
Is that correct?
Yeah, absolutely.
So it's an easiest way I can kind ofcompare it is think about when everyone,
you know, the 36 inch push mowers,and then we went to big, you know,
48 inch, you know, ZTRs and the 52s.
(08:34):
And, you know, you runyour equation, right?
When you're estimating a jobon, Hey, what's the biggest,
fastest piece of equipment.
I can, take care performmaintenance on this job.
You're not quoting everything likeyou're pushing 24 inch stand behinds.
You're quoting it withthe appropriate equipment.
You're not going to the client andasking them if they'd like to invest in
(08:54):
a 52 inch CTR so that you can performthe maintenance on the job, right?
Your equipment.
Your people, your overhead areall costed into the project.
And that was the major shift.
And it's really easy to, youknow, Hey, instead of paying,
you know, one time upfront, let'sspread out payment over 36 months.
That wasn't really the ingeniousthing that happened here.
(09:16):
Certainly helped, but it was more soaround coaching, you know, our clients
who are going, we need this technology.
I've got to be more efficient.
I have to turn my irrigation division intoa profit center, not just a loss leader.
And I don't know how to go sellthis thing to my 182 clients, right?
There's zero chance I'm goingto a hundred percent approval
(09:37):
on an enhancement, upgrade.
And so training them on how to, takethat 30, 40, dollar a month cost
and just cost it in as a standardline, I've been in a contract to be
now the way we deliver our service.
Those two things paired together from apricing standpoint changed the whole game
because now it made really this smart,remote connected technology that used
(10:01):
to be only the top 5 or 10 percent oflandscape companies had the competency to
go and sell based on ROI and sell based onunderstanding water bills and budgets only
to their top 10 or 20 percent of clientsthat actually, gave a crap about it.
All the way down now to where, I mean,the 80, 20 year old 80, 90 percent of
landscape companies have the competencyto implement this, execute it and benefit
(10:23):
from it without having any pushbackor kind of any customer required.
This is now a tool for the landscapecompany by the landscape company
that benefits them directly.
And it just so happens to deliveran awesome by product to their
customer, which is compliance, youknow, with local water restrictions.
(10:44):
Moving dollars from Uncle Sam, right?
The Water Authority.
Yeah,
I think it's the craziestthing in the world.
Why on earth do we want to spend as aHOA community or an apartment community?
Why do we want to send so much moneyto Uncle Sam, the utility district,
instead of reclaiming those dollarsand reinvesting into the property?
And so all those things togetherreally took us from being a, you
(11:07):
know, a controller manufacturingcompany now to a trusted advisor to
right at 300 landscape companies thathave implemented this initiative.
So it's It's never one thing.
That's the, you know, the silverbullet, it's a combination of it, but
pricing structure, and then the way inwhich we bring it to market and advise
those three things together, it just.
Tommy man, our, our businesses we'reso blessed, but it's, it's a different
(11:30):
business today than it was 10 years ago.
No, it's great.
So if you're a landscape business,say you've got a hundred maintenance
clients and you got three, four,five different controllers out there
and you're kind of running around.
You know, the Nate, you know, the storyLex, but I have seen it in my own eyes.
Rip the bayonet off, go with Weathermatic.
You guys have such agreat customer service.
(11:54):
Cause I know you guys, you'redown the street from our office.
So, great customer serviceto set up that entire system.
This is, we're going to go all in witha hundred Weathermatic controllers.
So it's consistent across the board.
We train on one controller.
You guys do continuing educationin house, out of house, can
travel, set things up, be remotely.
(12:17):
That, explain why that is such a hugeattribute to Weathermatic because I've
lived through it and I've seen it andit's way different than your competitors.
So explain a little more about that.
I
Yeah.
And I got to give a lot of creditto Mike you know, Mike Mason, my
father who probably, you know, Iwas a little green in the beginning.
He gave me a lot longer ropethan I was anticipating or
(12:40):
frankly, even realized I had.
And so whether it was whether it was trustor luck or just a blissful Yeah, exactly.
It was a, Hey buddy, you know,gave you enough to hang yourself.
Like, let's see what you go get done.
And so right off the bat, right.
You know, we took on all of the salesand marketing responsibility personally,
because I knew that if we were going totry to position ourselves as a consultant,
(13:04):
as a partner with these businesses, I,you know, You can't do it unless you
have the backend, the structure for it.
So yeah, Tommy, I mean, over the pastfour or five years we've built now,
even against our, the mainstream,let's call it construction competitors.
We've built the largest field service,field installation, remote monitoring
(13:26):
and reporting team structure, technicalsupport in field technical support.
Both in regions that were have a lot ofpresence in as well as a ton virtually.
We've built the largestgroup in this industry.
And so, I mean, like right nowwe're implementing for a handful
of clients, we're implementingover 5, 000 controller conversions.
(13:47):
In the Pacific Northwest alone, Imean, just see basically Portland
and and Seattle between just those2 markets causing very limited
disruption to the internal day to dayoperations of those teams and people
on standby monitoring the process.
So it's a, we knew when we wanted topositions ourselves as that partner
(14:10):
and this division of the company.
That we thought was thelargest untapped profit center.
The average landscaper has access tothat doesn't require any new hires.
That doesn't require acrazy capital investment.
They don't have to go recruit newcustomers or buy, a 400, 000 tree
truck or, chemical applicator.
It's simply plug it in, budgetedin and then get to work and we
(14:33):
hold your hand through the process.
And so it's we knew we had tobuild that back end support team.
We call it customer successis the I know you guys do a
lot of work on idle alignment.
We stole that customer success termfrom the, I mean, really just the
technology software industry of our jobis not, to manage a customer, our job.
(14:55):
And we truly like, look at it this way.
Is we're not happy until thecustomer is seeing the results.
And we have some that are happy with,using the first you hear this about some
of the leading business softwares andlandscaping where it's, Oh, we're only
using 10 percent or 20 percent of it.
And, you know, we're happy.
We're really not happy untilthey're at critical mass of using
(15:15):
the system, seeing the full resultsthat we know it's capable for.
And buddy, the thing that has been thenumber one testimony to it, that now
in the past seven years of launching200 clients on this initiative,
we've had, we've had precisely oneturn smart link off out of 200.
Wow.
And unfortunately that was because they,they went out of business and they were
(15:38):
so kind that they actually were able topackage the stuff up and send it back to
us before the bank put a lock on the gate.
I mean, so like, that's thelevel of relationship and,
That's
You know, kind of ability that we haveand I'm just so grateful for our team and
what they've done to really put us in thatworld class state of service and support.
That's great.
(15:58):
Let's talk about some specifics.
That way we can sort ofput everything to rest.
So I hear from some, my clients that,Weathermatic versus the competition
about the spray heads, the nozzles,the, the rotors, the MPs, like they're
a little bit different or it's not,when I go down the street to my local
(16:20):
little little distributor and I pickup, a handful of nozzles, Like I'm just
accustomed to doing that and so they'relike, well Tommy, I don't understand
I'm just going to go down the streetand grab a few things What would you
say to those people that said thatthey're just kind of set in their ways
And they don't really know weathermaticor they've heard like one story.
(16:41):
That's probably not true based onweathermatic type deal, but To have
75 years in the business started outas the sprinkler part and now moving
also to this reoccurring maintenancething, what do you say to those people?
Yeah.
I mean, there's a any 75 80year old business is going
to have some baggage to it.
(17:01):
I mean, we, we bought just, you know,Just so everybody doesn't think this
has just been easy street over here.
I mean we bought Weathermatic whenit was doing 5 million in revenue and
lost a million dollars a year before.
So the word bought is a very glamorousterm for we, we were assigned the debt.
And so we got the, we got the equity.
(17:22):
That was the buying processof Weathermatic 30 years ago.
process, but
Painful.
Painful process a product problem innearly every line of the business.
So, you know, thinking back on it,should we have bought the assets and
rebranded and done something else?
But we had, like, Weathermatic hadsuch a great reputation, even 30 years
(17:42):
ago, for being the leader in education.
We were the first state licensed sponsor.
Actually, the college of irrigationknowledge is what we called it for the for
the old timers out there who remember it.
We were the first licensingorganization who partnered with the
state of Texas to build curriculumto get irrigation into that level of
(18:02):
trade, like plumbing and electrician.
And so there's a lot of brandequity around that, but absolutely.
I mean, 30 years ago, 20 years ago,not the business that we had today.
Today, what I'd tell you is again, goingback simply on that stat of, you know, out
of 200 now, almost 250, you know, clientshaven't precisely one turn the thing off.
(18:24):
I mean, that, thatshould speak for itself.
The, I mean, the individualturf products, I got to give you
guys a ton of credit for that.
You know, we've got our warrantystatistics that I can quote that are.
Frankly better than a handful of thecompetitors and some product lines
are as equal and a couple of the otherproduct lines, I think the real value.
To your audience is this whole new waveof digital e commerce platforms cutting
(18:53):
out the cost of retail, what McFarlandand I mean, the ACE program has brought
to your consumers through cooperativebuying models and things like that.
I mean, it's AVA, I mean, it's happenedin aviation, it's happened in hospitality.
It happens in insurance every day, right?
These co op buying groups that you canleverage the buying power of your entire
(19:16):
institution, your entire group to getaccess to pricing that frankly, the
the publicly traded companies of theworld, you know, have access to or the
top, maybe five on the LM one 50 haveaccess to that crazy level pricing and
it just creates an unfair advantage.
Your group now has access toit because the collaborative
(19:36):
buying power of your team.
Yeah.
so we stand behindeverything with full force.
You can come visit ushere in Dallas anytime
Which I highly recommend,
by the way.
Yeah.
Great facility.
Great learning.
I mean, what a better way to see thetrinkets of how everything works.
Cause then you can goback to your shop and go.
(19:58):
Not that you know how everythingworks, but you just know the
story behind Weathermatic.
It's almost like you're boughtinto that commitment that
the Mason family took over.
That was the dream when you firstbought it, the 5 million company, right?
But it's come a long ways.
I recommend everyone flying to Dallasand seeing that entire operation.
(20:20):
absolutely.
You know, and the one other thingI'll just hit on about that is on the
turf products, like the, the spraysis we went through a catalog of,
frankly, we had kind of taken the bait.
Of well, Hey, our other kind oftraditional competitors are trying
to be everything for everybody.
And they're trying to have, youknow, 1200 SKUs in a catalog.
So that from the beginning of theproject to the end of the project,
(20:43):
they can sell you every single littlething on there, whether they OEM it,
whether they actually manufacture it,whether they're just reselling it from,
you know, some of their purchases.
And so we whittled down ourcatalog to what are the things
that we believe either a, Okay.
We have such a radicalquality advantage on that.
We're willing to be above averagemarket pricing on because of the
(21:05):
integrity and the quality of theproduct to the performance of the
product or be where can we meet orexceed quality standards, but have an
incredible, you know, pricing advantage.
To bring those thing to market orsome other form of intellectual
property that others just don't have.
And everything else in the catalogthat we had tried to me too or, you
know, two step or buy and resell andmake 5% or 10, we just cut it and we
(21:30):
said we don't have to be everything.
And so the, we've got about 50 coreSKUs that we either personally, you
know, engineer, manufacture, and sell.
And a handful of real trusted kind ofOEM partners that we do some products
through as well And we got rid ofeverything else and tommy doing that
(21:50):
right there I think there's probably astory in there somewhere for landscape
companies of getting out of the thingsthat aren't core competency Just
because you think or just because youthink the market tells you you have to
Yeah.
it
like drop
Lex, as landscape guys.
When we start a business, it's nodifferent than what you guys did.
It's like, we're goingto service everything.
And we got to say yes to people.
(22:11):
We'll take care of it.
We'll take care of it.
And then as the years go by, youstart to really tailor the business
to more of a Chick fil A model, right?
It's chicken, God, don'tovercomplicate everything.
Simplify process, the products,the services, all that you guys
have learned truly, truly thehard way, truly the hard way,
(22:35):
You got it.
smart line.
Controllers and smart link technology.
Can you explain like what that means?
So if everyone's any kind ofconfused on what those are.
Yeah.
So smart, smart line is the controllerplatform was really the 1st kind of
(22:55):
heavy residential light commercial,heavy commercial affordable
line of weather based controlcontrollers that hit the market.
This came, they came back out and2004, the 1st year that we released
the platform, we won the irrigationassociation new product of the year.
It was in a bunch of magazines, a bunchof articles, had a bunch of awards for
(23:18):
taking something that had traditionallybeen a, you know, seven to 10 to
15, 000 investment to get a weather.
Scheduling control system we coulddo for a couple hundred bucks.
And so one, a ton of awards.
And that was really our firstjump into the electronics or the
technology side of our business.
(23:39):
Flash forward to 2012, but from the daywe released smart line, the controller
line, we knew that someday this wasgoing to be connected to the internet.
It was going to be remote enabled.
We knew that the.
You know, the thousand propertyowners and management groups.
We knew that the landscape companiesmanaging hundreds or thousands or
tens of thousands of properties, we'regoing to need to have remote access to.
(24:02):
So from 2004, if you thinkabout it before iPhone, right.
We had a vision of people aregoing to need to monitor and
manage this thing remotely.
How insane is that before afreaking Apple got it to market?
We were thinking about that then.
Yeah.
Steve jobs.
yeah, right.
Yeah.
And irrigation, maybe we should have gonea little broader or something but no happy
(24:23):
where we are, but that was that was it.
And then in 2012, we released thefirst version of SmartLink super early.
And so it has, you know, from that port,smart link is your link to the controller.
And so we'll make jokes like, getlinked and, go, go link yourself and
you gotta get linked up and all that.
(24:45):
So those are our smart link isultimately what powers the whole thing
to give you that remote connectionaccess, and then all of the.
kind of business operating tools, allthe integrations with, you know, folks
like, aspire element and boss andQuickBooks and everything kind of stems
from that to go from all of the internaloperations at a landscape company.
(25:07):
From scheduled inspections todocumenting repairs, to pricing out
those repairs, to getting, you knowsending proposals or requests to clients
ultimately to flowing through to yourERP system or your, your BizOps system.
That whole.
Workflow that should happen within theirrigation division, including dashboards
(25:31):
of our techs getting their jobs done.
Are we hitting our inspections goal?
All of those things?
You know, we built thosesystems into smart link.
And so that's kind of the smartline is the physical controller.
Okay.
link is the is really the softwareplatform that powers the whole, the whole
Very good.
What I like about the smart link,what's one of my little isms that
(25:53):
I coached you all the time is.
having constant communicationwith your clients.
And what I mean by constant, is it weekly?
Is it monthly?
Is it quarterly?
Whatever that is in your business.
Okay.
One of the things I always use, causeI love Weathermatic so much, is the
feature of the inspection report.
(26:15):
It is fascinating because you guysare way advanced than anybody else.
And what I mean by that, Ihave, I have seen it off of
multiple landscape companies.
Your tech can go in there, do afull audit, come up with a report,
with itemized zones that areworking or non working, and their,
(26:37):
their, their, their failures ofeach zone, along with pictures.
You can put your company logo on it.
And that document can go straightto the client as a communication
platform to them and say, thisis what we notice in your system.
We're doing the repairs because whathappens, Alex, every month or every
(27:00):
quarter you're doing an inspection.
You're like, well, that's wrong.
And that's wrong.
And we fixed this miss method.
Here's your bill for 800 bucks.
And she's like, Well,I don't understand it
Yeah, I thought you fixed that last month.
Yeah.
you fix that.
I got another invoice for 200.
What happened this time?
Three months later, this, apicture is worth a thousand words.
Am I right or wrong?
(27:21):
Or I'm just crazy.
But that is like game changertechnology for your landscape business.
No, it's a thousand percent.
And the, I mean, and the, to simplifyit, we can geek out about the details
on this thing, but here's the, I mean,here's the quick start guide, right?
When I bought this new microphoneequipment, did I read the whole Cadillac?
No.
I read the three step quick cart, right?
(27:42):
Okay.
You're a landscape company.
You're managing a hundred,200, 500 sites, whatever.
I think Jeffrey johns, a clientof y'all says it so well, right?
His team, his irrigation teamwent from an average daily
billable capacity of about six.
I think it said 5.
5 to 6 hours a day to 9.
(28:03):
5 bill billable hours a day.
Because of all the capacity,all the firefighting, all
the, can you go change this?
The color struggling that wegot to do our overseed program.
The snow is rolling in earlier.
There's a, there's a cool front.
The rain is coming.
There's so many things when you get underthe covers and understand how many non
(28:24):
value add tasks you're not just yourirrigation tax, but your account managers,
your VPs are running around town to tryto, you know, keep from getting fired
on a job when they're sensitive, thatstuff is running when it shouldn't be, or
vice versa should be running and isn't.
All of those things add up to suchan internal distraction that gets
(28:44):
eliminated when this comes in.
And so now, what usually is the firstthing to get cut when life gets busy
and fires come up are your inspections.
And so the vast majority ofcompanies that we work with have 40
percent inspection completion rate.
And so you might think aboutthat and go like, oh, okay.
(29:06):
Well, they're saving money notsaving guys go out there and
they're not getting fired for notmeeting the spec of their contract.
So they're okay Well, aninspection guys is the funnel.
That's your sales funnel And so whenwe're complaining about, that thing,
not being profitable or irrigation, notbeing a very big part of the business.
So why would I spend so much timefocusing on 5 percent of my business?
(29:27):
Well guys, that's the problem.
It shouldn't be 5percent of your business.
It should be 20 to 25percent of your business.
Because every time life gets busy, westopped doing inspections, which means
you stop filling up the sales funnel,which means you're delivering a worse
product, a worse service to your client.
Instead of staying on top of repairs,I had a, I had a wise old guy.
(29:49):
One time we were, we were walkingthrough the deal and he goes, the two
reasons why I ever get fired and I go,what Jim, and he goes, water and weeds.
Yeah.
Yeah.
there's a lot of truth in that.
Yeah.
issue around water,some issue around weeds.
And so we we at least solve half theequation and I'll argue that getting
Well, I think you can solve it all.
(30:09):
So my, my recommendation, here'sit, two reason you always get
fired from a maintenance contract,
Okay.
irrigation and communication.
I love that.
You're not wrong.
I mean,
I'm telling you, and you, if you'rein the South, man, for four to six
months, you better be ready to gowith that in the off season so that
(30:32):
you're prepared for the real truegrowing season, that and communication.
And when you line up with the inspectionreports and you, Get the data and
the reports to them that nips thosetwo things and you keep going and you
keep your clients for a long time.
I'll tell you what, what peak andPacific and seventies and and all those
guys and DeSantis up in the North thePacific Northwest taught me, I had
(30:54):
no idea how dry they were for liketwo, two and a half months a year.
I thought it was, you know, justwet year round and I'm going, why
are you having us come up here?
How does this makes any sense?
Bob goes, you have no idea.
The hair on fire, which I thoughtwas a funny joke coming from Bob the
hair on fire situation that it is fortwo months to keep this stuff green.
(31:15):
And I was like, okay, okay.
He goes, cause all of the judgment comesthose two dry, dry, dry, arid months.
If this stuff doesn't stay green,if we're not ensuring that stuff is
running when it should be, he goes,and you can kiss that renewal goodbye.
correct.
Love it.
Let's shift gears a little bit, Lex,and talk about the team that has
built over there at Weathermatic.
(31:36):
I've never met anyone grumpy, anyonethat's not a good culture fit.
Not at all, ever, never, never, neverin all the years, since 20, so 2008.
Yeah.
There's things, there's this thingcalled the three C's that I really,
really love and maybe you guys havegot lucky and maybe you really tried
and trued by this, but it's theguiding principles of our people.
(31:59):
You talk about the three C's, you talkabout those three and what it's built
of a team of people at Weathermatic.
Well, Mike and this was really whatBrody championed almost 20 years ago when
him and Mike, I mean, it was them too.
And and a, and a rag tag grouparound here and they were, the kind
of the skunk works group, right?
(32:19):
If we got to turn around thislittle 5 million dollar business,
losing a million dollars a year and.
We need a strategy around people.
And so Mike and Brody got together andthey read a bunch of books and they
talked about it and they came up with thisphilosophy that we call the three C's and
it's the, and it's the screening process,almost like a report card, an evaluation
(32:40):
card, if you will, of, No one enters thesedoors at Weathermatic unless multiple, and
now we have a, which I got to credit ourguy, Anthony Herrera here, who has really
leveled us up on the, on the internalscreening and, and all that process.
But everyone has to come throughthese 3 and so it's character,
competency and chemistry.
(33:01):
None of them are negotiable.
And so to expand a littlebit, so character, right?
I went to a private christian highschool here in north texas attorney
christian academy for any, youknow, pinkies up fans out there.
But they had what theycalled a 24 7 policy, right?
And it was who you are atschool is who you are at home.
As long as you're a paying registeredstudent here and so very much the same
(33:25):
the way that you represent us here.
At the office is what weexpect to be represented.
We're at when we're at trade shows whenwe're at after hours events at trade shows
when we're doing dinners and entertaining.
if you're a, if you're a drinkingcarousing person on the weekends, and
then show up here and want to buttonyour top button and come through the
door and all that stuff goes away.
(33:45):
Doesn't work for us and that's okay.
There's plenty of places outthere where that's encouraged and
not necessarily a bad thing, butjust for here, it doesn't work.
And then we get to chemistry.
Right?
And so chemistry is the, theChick fil a thing, right?
They don't, they don't hire people.
If you don't greet the interviewerwith a smile you can't train
(34:07):
someone to smile instinctively.
And so you're either a smileror you're not a smiler.
And so they don't, they don't acceptthe interview past that unless you
greet the interviewer with a smile.
So is it a pleasure to see you?
When I walk down the hallway, do I smileat you and say, Hey, how's your day going?
Like, are you a good team player?
Are you collaborative?
(34:27):
Are you are you Basically,you're either a culture builder
or you're a culture detractor.
There's really no room in the between togo, Oh, you know, they're, they're fine.
And they're this, and they'renot going to really be a, you
are either a culture contributoror you are a culture detractor.
And then finally is the competency piece.
(34:47):
And this is the one that most peoplespend the most time focused on.
And really from what I'vefound, it is we say all three
on our own level playing fields.
I think that most people are prettygood at figuring out, Hey, can
this person do the job or not?
Do they have, references thatcan do the job, but we take a
little different spin on it.
It's not just about ifthey can do the job.
(35:09):
It's that every hire that wemake has to make the team better.
Right.
And so Anthony shared this, this ideawith me of buddy, do you realize that
every time, let's say that you havefive customer success, managers and,
in, in, in our world, account managers.
Right.
Every time you're hiring one, you'reeither hiring one worse than the
(35:29):
best person on the team or betterthan the best person on the team.
And so are you making a decisionthat you're going to pay somebody,
the same or a little more, a littleless, like whatever it may be, you're
either raising the bar of the teamwith your future hires, or you're
lowering the bar on the team withevery hiring decision that you make.
And so are you the best at your job,or are you working your tail off to
(35:52):
become the best at it, that continualimprovement kind of mentality?
So that's our.
That's our three C'sand do we get it right?
100 percent of the time.
No.
But we have we have a pretty, pretty hardlook, after six months and we got to make
sure that we are on track on those threethings, regardless, frankly, of corporate
(36:12):
gain or impact that they're making.
If, if we can't stack up on the characterand chemistry piece, it's just, it's now
I've painted myself at a corner, right?
It's, we can't proceed if they'renot hitting on those things.
Right.
Love it.
Three C's.
I love the culture you guysare building over there.
It is absolutely contagious.
(36:32):
I can see it when we're atshows and events and even just
walking through the building.
Lex, what's a word of advice?
Anyone out there that is a small,tiny company just getting started
all the way to, The biggest andbaddest, top one 50 across the board.
Is it the work hard, play hard?
Is it the, what's the model thatyou sort of live and die by?
(36:54):
That's a great question.
I am naturally like aninstinctual person where I can
find my way through situations.
I can relate to people pretty easily.
I can find a way to get things done.
And what I've learned more and more overthe past, five years in this position is.
Right?
The team is only as goodas your worst process.
(37:17):
And I'm not naturallya process oriented guy.
I have to force myself to go do it.
And I can look at the divisionsof this company that are winning.
And I can look at the ones thatare struggling or behind that we're
trying to work on and get better.
And it almost always comes down to notjust Process for process sake, but the
quality of the process, the trial anderror that we went through to create
(37:41):
something that we then document and holdpeople accountable for, for following.
And so I've had to really.
Work on myself to become.
A process person almost that maniacallevel of focus of I'm a broken record on,
Hey, well this, this team isn't doing it.
Like what's their process.
Can I see their SOPs?
Like who's holding them accountable?
And if I go ask them a questionabout, Hey, what happens after this?
(38:03):
And if they don't know that, then I'mgoing to the team leader going Hey
buddy, like, what is, what is, whatare they supposed to do after this?
And it's like, Oh, let me look it up.
Or I don't.
Okay.
I see where the breakdown is here.
That's on me.
Let's, we got to dive in and we gotto make sure that our team knows what
our expectations are and go do it.
Is, is one and I think a second one is,I think this is really important to the
(38:26):
different sizes of businesses and wherethey are in landscaping and it applies
directly to us is not only is competencyimportant from do they have the skills
to do accounting or do they have theskills to do to do the manual labor,
to be an irrigation technician or tobe an account manager, they've got to
come out Of previous work experience,that either mimics the environment
(38:49):
that you have from like a pace.
We've hired a lot ofpeople that are on paper.
Excellent character, competency,chemistry, all those things, flying
colors, but they get here and they, theydon't think it's, it's real that the
company's growing, 40, 45 percent a year.
And that's like a hair on fire.
(39:11):
You're doing, you're, you're doingwhatever job pops up, whatever
new problem pops up and like thatflexibility to jump in and solve
problems and build process behind.
So it doesn't break again and go do it.
a, multinational corporation orsomething like that, where they're
aiming for to beat inflation, right?
To get to 5 percent or 6 percent or 3%.
(39:33):
Like it's too, it's so different theenvironment and we see, we see people,
in the past that have come here.
They're like, I really want togo to a fast paced environment.
I really want that.
I really want that.
And then they show up and it's like, Ohmy God, like it really is at fast pace.
And I don't know if I'mready for this or vice versa.
Right.
We'll have someone leave and go, Hey,I want to I want to spread my wings
(39:55):
and go work for this fortune 500 orgo work for this national company.
And we go, awesome.
Great.
And they get over there and they get putin this tiny little box of, the hyper
exaggeration here, but you're going toclick, return on the screen 15 times or
150 times a day on this Excel document.
And they're gone.
Crap.
I miss the autonomy.
I miss the problem solving, gettingto use my brain versus just, my brawn
(40:17):
here and they'll, and we've beenso fortunate to welcome a couple of
those back into the organization.
And so finding, making sure that the,the, the pedigree of what they're
used to, the pace of work is justas important as those other things.
And so we're trying tocome up with another C.
That can help us look for that.
Cause that's been our biggestmiss on personnel lately is
(40:40):
we'll nail the three C's.
I don't think it's three C's and aP for pace, but we got to come up
with something that reflects that.
Cause that's been our,that's been our next.
know, it's, it's a process, it'sa process and you grow, right?
It's never going to be perfect with thethree C's for the, for another 50 years.
Right.
So it's kind of that evolution.
The journey it's a marathon racefor as long as we're on this
(41:03):
earth and that's the beauty of it.
So I got a few Tommy's takeaways.
So bear with me, Lex.
If I, if I'm something up interject,but what I learned about neck Lex
and the weathermatic team is let's go80 years of being in this industry.
Boom.
Check one out of like 200 clientsthat you service and install products.
(41:26):
Went out of business.
That's like a proven trackrecord of your products.
Love it What sets youapart in your competition?
The two things that I lovethe most is Warranty, right?
Actually three things.
I'm gonna make it three things warranty,that's digital e commerce buying power
you've got a simplicity of 50 or more orso skews You've simplified the business
(41:50):
made it tailored to the landscape andirrigation companies out there And the
third thing is the customer support.
Love it.
It's amazing.
The products are great.
Inspections generate revenue.
Like I love that.
That's it's just awesome.
Without geeking out on all the parts,the three C's, character, competency, and
(42:11):
chemistry, you're looking on a fourth.
I love the screening process.
And my, my biggest other takeawayis the most amazing person out
there that I've met in a long time,Brody Bruner, may him rest in peace.
This episode is 100 percent dedicatedto that awesome, amazing person.
(42:32):
I think he's built such a greatlaw of attraction of culture
coming into Weathermatic.
I love the guy a lot and we'lldedicate this thing to him.
Love that.
you're amazing.
Keep doing awesome work andwe'll see you on the road.
Love
All right, buddy.
Appreciate you.
Thanks, Tommy.
Thanks everybody.
This was a lot of fun.
(42:54):
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(43:14):
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See you next time on the Roots of Success.
The Roots of Success podcast isfor the landscape professional
who's looking to up their game.
We've got a brain trust of experts tohelp you nurture the roots of a successful
business and grow to the next level.
This is The Roots of Success.
Welcome to another episodeof Roots of Success podcast,
and I'm your host Tommy Cole.
We have an awesome guest todayI'm super excited about as
(00:24):
I do for all of our guests.
They are awesome if you Have no ideawho this person is if you've been
living under a rock for 75 yearsyou might have been but this is Lex
Mason President of Weathermatic.
How are you Lex?
I'm doing great.
And I promise I have not been around for75 years, but yeah, weathermatic has man.
(00:44):
So great to be here.
Thanks, Tommy.
Absolutely.
Absolutely.
Weathermatic is let's give you a quickplug leading provider of water conserving
technology and services for 75 years,servicing landscape professionals with
a full line of products and services.
Oh my gosh.
It's a lot.
I think you guys just startedout as like a little weathermatic
(01:05):
lawn sprinkler system.
I'm looking at this picturewith like suits and top hats and
looking at the sign and I'm like,oh my God, 75 years later, crazy.
I think I've known you sinceabout the 2008 timeframe.
We worked together a lotof previous company and.
Since then, it's just been an awesomerelationship all through the years.
(01:28):
And, and it's been great.
And I've been like, we got to have Lex on.
I think I saw you at NALP last year Andwe're finally, finally come to the moment
Love it, man.
Yeah, the schedule seems to just begetting busier and busier as we go on.
But this is yeah, a ton of fun.
And it's crazy to look back, youknow, we're we're nearing our 80th
year of existence here and thinkingabout where the business started
(01:51):
as a, as a landscaping company,actually, and kind of morphed into
doing an irrigation contracting.
Couldn't get good parts.
And the guy said, well, screw it.
I'm going to go build it myself.
You know, the original foundingthe Snotty family, the original
founding family of, of Weathermatic.
And you know, we were fortunateto buy the business about 30
years ago and I never looked back.
(02:12):
So that's it, that's it.
So if you've got something aroundyou, you think there's an opportunity
there when opportunity knocks,make sure you grab it and run,
jump in, jump in.
It's all about taking risks and andkeeping the foot down and going.
Love it.
So let's start off like what inyour words, what is weathermatic?
(02:33):
It's a nice term but there's allthese components, smart link and
smart system and, these controllersand parts, but like, give me the
elevator pitch of what Weathermaticis, is and what they're about.
Yeah, absolutely.
So, the easiest way to think about itis kind of like how landscape companies
will have a construction divisionand a maintenance division, right?
We're, we're basically the same thing.
(02:55):
We have a construction division wherewe sell things like spray heads and
nozzles and valves and controllersto new construction projects, whether
it's residential, commercial, wecall it our turf business, right?
So, turf.
We don't really do much ag workor golf work, but just commercial
residential landscape irrigation.
(03:17):
We have a traditionalmanufacturing business over there.
That's the 75 years worth of legacy.
That's, that's been around for along time and we'll be, and we'll
be around for, for a long time.
The smart link side of thebusiness really is our maintenance
side of the business, right?
That's the recurring technology sideof the business that was born from.
(03:37):
A vision that we had to go, Hey, it'sone day, this was about 20 years ago.
We had a vision that one day therewill be a need for every commercial
property, for every commercialmaintenance contractor, for every high
end residential maintenance contractoris going to have to have remote access
to the controllers that they manage.
(03:58):
Either due to the cost of water,the cost of labor, the crazy traffic
patterns that we all live in every day.
That that data that that remoteconnection is going to be so
important at some point in the future.
And lucky enough, right?
We built the platform thenand our business today is
pretty simply helping to take.
(04:19):
Landscape maintenancecontractors, irrigation division.
Which is a funny phrase that I callit the redheaded stepchild, right?
It's a, it's a lot of timesout of sight, out of mind.
We'll get to it later.
Like, you know, I don't care that we'relosing a little bit of money on it.
Like
just let's just make it work.
just make it work.
Yeah.
Keep the fires out and don'tlose any customers from it.
(04:42):
And what we found out isthat if you actually dive in.
And we've built a process forit, not just smart link, the
technology, but the actual process.
And we've hired some of the bestpeople in the industry to help really
coach and hold the hands of landscapeprofessionals to implement this system.
And our process and turnirrigation into a major leading
(05:04):
profit center for the business.
So, in a nutshell, I'll, I'll stopat that, but that's that's kind
of the 2 sides of our businessand, and what we're focused on,
yeah, that's, that's great.
You know, what's funny is that Idon't think we would have thought of
20 years ago of having remote access.
And now it has come to like,it's an automatic given deal.
(05:26):
I remember early in my career lookingat controllers and turning the dial
and then running all the way acrossthe building and go, is it running?
Wait, was that zone six or seven?
Crap.
Run all the way back.
Turn it off and start back over.
Right?
And I'm like, so the technology is there.
It's great.
(05:46):
Now everything is on app based,everything is on, you know, iPad, it's
phone, it's laptop, remote access.
What's one thing that hasbasically changed everything
because of remote access?
I think it's the.
It's the accessibility of it and so whatI mean by that, and this might it's it's
(06:07):
a little different answer than probablywhat what people would traditionally
think is it the way in which we priceit to make it now accessible for a
landscape professional to build thisinto their contract to make it a standard
line in the budget of this is justhow we go deliver service instead of.
(06:28):
Trying to train their team on how to godo water savings analysis reports and R.
O.
I.
studies and try to talk people intowhy water matters when they may
or may not actually care about it.
And, hey, this thing will saveus so many trips and make our
team so much more efficient.
And the customer goes well.
Then great for you.
What does that move for me?
Not my problem, right?
I hired you to be out there.
(06:49):
And so it's a little bit of a goto market study that that we did
about seven years ago of something.
Something's not right here.
And so really tailoring our package,not changing the technology,
not changing the product.
But really tailoring the way in whichwe bring the product to market and the
niche that we serve, which we can get intoniching later and things like that, which
(07:10):
I think is one of the most powerful thingsto do, getting the pricing, how to do
it, not just the cost, but physically howto deliver pricing to make it accessible
for our target, for our target clientele,it, I mean, it was 10 X overnight.
We went from selling 100 controlsystems a year to selling
(07:31):
1000 control systems a month.
I mean, it was that level ofradical change that that happened.
Is just making it accessible tothe people that actually benefit
the most from the product.
And now the water savings andthe sustainability is awesome.
I've got a heart for that.
But it's the cherry on top.
It's the whipped cream, right?
(07:51):
It's the bonus on top of thefoundation that it does for a
labor starved landscaping business.
So Lex, you hit on somethingthe pricing structure I really
wanted to dive into that.
Yeah You know talk about we can runaround the building and push buttons and
the in the clients like so cool So whatwhatever what do you mean by pricing?
(08:12):
Like in the line items, so you'resaying like include that in your bid
For maintenance, include it for theinstallation and it's a line item.
Is that correct?
Yeah, absolutely.
So it's an easiest way I can kind ofcompare it is think about when everyone,
you know, the 36 inch push mowers,and then we went to big, you know,
48 inch, you know, ZTRs and the 52s.
(08:34):
And, you know, you runyour equation, right?
When you're estimating a jobon, Hey, what's the biggest,
fastest piece of equipment.
I can, take care performmaintenance on this job.
You're not quoting everything likeyou're pushing 24 inch stand behinds.
You're quoting it withthe appropriate equipment.
You're not going to the client andasking them if they'd like to invest in
(08:54):
a 52 inch CTR so that you can performthe maintenance on the job, right?
Your equipment.
Your people, your overhead areall costed into the project.
And that was the major shift.
And it's really easy to, youknow, Hey, instead of paying,
you know, one time upfront, let'sspread out payment over 36 months.
That wasn't really the ingeniousthing that happened here.
(09:16):
Certainly helped, but it was more soaround coaching, you know, our clients
who are going, we need this technology.
I've got to be more efficient.
I have to turn my irrigation division intoa profit center, not just a loss leader.
And I don't know how to go sellthis thing to my 182 clients, right?
There's zero chance I'm goingto a hundred percent approval
(09:37):
on an enhancement, upgrade.
And so training them on how to, takethat 30, 40, dollar a month cost
and just cost it in as a standardline, I've been in a contract to be
now the way we deliver our service.
Those two things paired together from apricing standpoint changed the whole game
because now it made really this smart,remote connected technology that used
(10:01):
to be only the top 5 or 10 percent oflandscape companies had the competency to
go and sell based on ROI and sell based onunderstanding water bills and budgets only
to their top 10 or 20 percent of clientsthat actually, gave a crap about it.
All the way down now to where, I mean,the 80, 20 year old 80, 90 percent of
landscape companies have the competencyto implement this, execute it and benefit
(10:23):
from it without having any pushbackor kind of any customer required.
This is now a tool for the landscapecompany by the landscape company
that benefits them directly.
And it just so happens to deliveran awesome by product to their
customer, which is compliance, youknow, with local water restrictions.
(10:44):
Moving dollars from Uncle Sam, right?
The Water Authority.
Yeah,
I think it's the craziestthing in the world.
Why on earth do we want to spend as aHOA community or an apartment community?
Why do we want to send so much moneyto Uncle Sam, the utility district,
instead of reclaiming those dollarsand reinvesting into the property?
And so all those things togetherreally took us from being a, you
(11:07):
know, a controller manufacturingcompany now to a trusted advisor to
right at 300 landscape companies thathave implemented this initiative.
So it's It's never one thing.
That's the, you know, the silverbullet, it's a combination of it, but
pricing structure, and then the way inwhich we bring it to market and advise
those three things together, it just.
Tommy man, our, our businesses we'reso blessed, but it's, it's a different
(11:30):
business today than it was 10 years ago.
No, it's great.
So if you're a landscape business,say you've got a hundred maintenance
clients and you got three, four,five different controllers out there
and you're kind of running around.
You know, the Nate, you know, the storyLex, but I have seen it in my own eyes.
Rip the bayonet off, go with Weathermatic.
You guys have such agreat customer service.
(11:54):
Cause I know you guys, you'redown the street from our office.
So, great customer serviceto set up that entire system.
This is, we're going to go all in witha hundred Weathermatic controllers.
So it's consistent across the board.
We train on one controller.
You guys do continuing educationin house, out of house, can
travel, set things up, be remotely.
(12:17):
That, explain why that is such a hugeattribute to Weathermatic because I've
lived through it and I've seen it andit's way different than your competitors.
So explain a little more about that.
I
Yeah.
And I got to give a lot of creditto Mike you know, Mike Mason, my
father who probably, you know, Iwas a little green in the beginning.
He gave me a lot longer ropethan I was anticipating or
(12:40):
frankly, even realized I had.
And so whether it was whether it was trustor luck or just a blissful Yeah, exactly.
It was a, Hey buddy, you know,gave you enough to hang yourself.
Like, let's see what you go get done.
And so right off the bat, right.
You know, we took on all of the salesand marketing responsibility personally,
because I knew that if we were going totry to position ourselves as a consultant,
(13:04):
as a partner with these businesses, I,you know, You can't do it unless you
have the backend, the structure for it.
So yeah, Tommy, I mean, over the pastfour or five years we've built now,
even against our, the mainstream,let's call it construction competitors.
We've built the largest field service,field installation, remote monitoring
(13:26):
and reporting team structure, technicalsupport in field technical support.
Both in regions that were have a lot ofpresence in as well as a ton virtually.
We've built the largestgroup in this industry.
And so, I mean, like right nowwe're implementing for a handful
of clients, we're implementingover 5, 000 controller conversions.
(13:47):
In the Pacific Northwest alone, Imean, just see basically Portland
and and Seattle between just those2 markets causing very limited
disruption to the internal day to dayoperations of those teams and people
on standby monitoring the process.
So it's a, we knew when we wanted topositions ourselves as that partner
(14:10):
and this division of the company.
That we thought was thelargest untapped profit center.
The average landscaper has access tothat doesn't require any new hires.
That doesn't require acrazy capital investment.
They don't have to go recruit newcustomers or buy, a 400, 000 tree
truck or, chemical applicator.
It's simply plug it in, budgetedin and then get to work and we
(14:33):
hold your hand through the process.
And so it's we knew we had tobuild that back end support team.
We call it customer successis the I know you guys do a
lot of work on idle alignment.
We stole that customer success termfrom the, I mean, really just the
technology software industry of our jobis not, to manage a customer, our job.
(14:55):
And we truly like, look at it this way.
Is we're not happy until thecustomer is seeing the results.
And we have some that are happy with,using the first you hear this about some
of the leading business softwares andlandscaping where it's, Oh, we're only
using 10 percent or 20 percent of it.
And, you know, we're happy.
We're really not happy untilthey're at critical mass of using
(15:15):
the system, seeing the full resultsthat we know it's capable for.
And buddy, the thing that has been thenumber one testimony to it, that now
in the past seven years of launching200 clients on this initiative,
we've had, we've had precisely oneturn smart link off out of 200.
Wow.
And unfortunately that was because they,they went out of business and they were
(15:38):
so kind that they actually were able topackage the stuff up and send it back to
us before the bank put a lock on the gate.
I mean, so like, that's thelevel of relationship and,
That's
You know, kind of ability that we haveand I'm just so grateful for our team and
what they've done to really put us in thatworld class state of service and support.
That's great.
(15:58):
Let's talk about some specifics.
That way we can sort ofput everything to rest.
So I hear from some, my clients that,Weathermatic versus the competition
about the spray heads, the nozzles,the, the rotors, the MPs, like they're
a little bit different or it's not,when I go down the street to my local
(16:20):
little little distributor and I pickup, a handful of nozzles, Like I'm just
accustomed to doing that and so they'relike, well Tommy, I don't understand
I'm just going to go down the streetand grab a few things What would you
say to those people that said thatthey're just kind of set in their ways
And they don't really know weathermaticor they've heard like one story.
(16:41):
That's probably not true based onweathermatic type deal, but To have
75 years in the business started outas the sprinkler part and now moving
also to this reoccurring maintenancething, what do you say to those people?
Yeah.
I mean, there's a any 75 80year old business is going
to have some baggage to it.
(17:01):
I mean, we, we bought just, you know,Just so everybody doesn't think this
has just been easy street over here.
I mean we bought Weathermatic whenit was doing 5 million in revenue and
lost a million dollars a year before.
So the word bought is a very glamorousterm for we, we were assigned the debt.
And so we got the, we got the equity.
(17:22):
That was the buying processof Weathermatic 30 years ago.
process, but
Painful.
Painful process a product problem innearly every line of the business.
So, you know, thinking back on it,should we have bought the assets and
rebranded and done something else?
But we had, like, Weathermatic hadsuch a great reputation, even 30 years
(17:42):
ago, for being the leader in education.
We were the first state licensed sponsor.
Actually, the college of irrigationknowledge is what we called it for the for
the old timers out there who remember it.
We were the first licensingorganization who partnered with the
state of Texas to build curriculumto get irrigation into that level of
(18:02):
trade, like plumbing and electrician.
And so there's a lot of brandequity around that, but absolutely.
I mean, 30 years ago, 20 years ago,not the business that we had today.
Today, what I'd tell you is again, goingback simply on that stat of, you know, out
of 200 now, almost 250, you know, clientshaven't precisely one turn the thing off.
(18:24):
I mean, that, thatshould speak for itself.
The, I mean, the individualturf products, I got to give you
guys a ton of credit for that.
You know, we've got our warrantystatistics that I can quote that are.
Frankly better than a handful of thecompetitors and some product lines
are as equal and a couple of the otherproduct lines, I think the real value.
To your audience is this whole new waveof digital e commerce platforms cutting
(18:53):
out the cost of retail, what McFarlandand I mean, the ACE program has brought
to your consumers through cooperativebuying models and things like that.
I mean, it's AVA, I mean, it's happenedin aviation, it's happened in hospitality.
It happens in insurance every day, right?
These co op buying groups that you canleverage the buying power of your entire
(19:16):
institution, your entire group to getaccess to pricing that frankly, the
the publicly traded companies of theworld, you know, have access to or the
top, maybe five on the LM one 50 haveaccess to that crazy level pricing and
it just creates an unfair advantage.
Your group now has access toit because the collaborative
(19:36):
buying power of your team.
Yeah.
so we stand behindeverything with full force.
You can come visit ushere in Dallas anytime
Which I highly recommend,
by the way.
Yeah.
Great facility.
Great learning.
I mean, what a better way to see thetrinkets of how everything works.
Cause then you can goback to your shop and go.
(19:58):
Not that you know how everythingworks, but you just know the
story behind Weathermatic.
It's almost like you're boughtinto that commitment that
the Mason family took over.
That was the dream when you firstbought it, the 5 million company, right?
But it's come a long ways.
I recommend everyone flying to Dallasand seeing that entire operation.
(20:20):
absolutely.
You know, and the one other thingI'll just hit on about that is on the
turf products, like the, the spraysis we went through a catalog of,
frankly, we had kind of taken the bait.
Of well, Hey, our other kind oftraditional competitors are trying
to be everything for everybody.
And they're trying to have, youknow, 1200 SKUs in a catalog.
So that from the beginning of theproject to the end of the project,
(20:43):
they can sell you every single littlething on there, whether they OEM it,
whether they actually manufacture it,whether they're just reselling it from,
you know, some of their purchases.
And so we whittled down ourcatalog to what are the things
that we believe either a, Okay.
We have such a radicalquality advantage on that.
We're willing to be above averagemarket pricing on because of the
(21:05):
integrity and the quality of theproduct to the performance of the
product or be where can we meet orexceed quality standards, but have an
incredible, you know, pricing advantage.
To bring those thing to market orsome other form of intellectual
property that others just don't have.
And everything else in the catalogthat we had tried to me too or, you
know, two step or buy and resell andmake 5% or 10, we just cut it and we
(21:30):
said we don't have to be everything.
And so the, we've got about 50 coreSKUs that we either personally, you
know, engineer, manufacture, and sell.
And a handful of real trusted kind ofOEM partners that we do some products
through as well And we got rid ofeverything else and tommy doing that
(21:50):
right there I think there's probably astory in there somewhere for landscape
companies of getting out of the thingsthat aren't core competency Just
because you think or just because youthink the market tells you you have to
Yeah.
it
like drop
Lex, as landscape guys.
When we start a business, it's nodifferent than what you guys did.
It's like, we're goingto service everything.
And we got to say yes to people.
(22:11):
We'll take care of it.
We'll take care of it.
And then as the years go by, youstart to really tailor the business
to more of a Chick fil A model, right?
It's chicken, God, don'tovercomplicate everything.
Simplify process, the products,the services, all that you guys
have learned truly, truly thehard way, truly the hard way,
(22:35):
You got it.
smart line.
Controllers and smart link technology.
Can you explain like what that means?
So if everyone's any kind ofconfused on what those are.
Yeah.
So smart, smart line is the controllerplatform was really the 1st kind of
(22:55):
heavy residential light commercial,heavy commercial affordable
line of weather based controlcontrollers that hit the market.
This came, they came back out and2004, the 1st year that we released
the platform, we won the irrigationassociation new product of the year.
It was in a bunch of magazines, a bunchof articles, had a bunch of awards for
(23:18):
taking something that had traditionallybeen a, you know, seven to 10 to
15, 000 investment to get a weather.
Scheduling control system we coulddo for a couple hundred bucks.
And so one, a ton of awards.
And that was really our firstjump into the electronics or the
technology side of our business.
(23:39):
Flash forward to 2012, but from the daywe released smart line, the controller
line, we knew that someday this wasgoing to be connected to the internet.
It was going to be remote enabled.
We knew that the.
You know, the thousand propertyowners and management groups.
We knew that the landscape companiesmanaging hundreds or thousands or
tens of thousands of properties, we'regoing to need to have remote access to.
(24:02):
So from 2004, if you thinkabout it before iPhone, right.
We had a vision of people aregoing to need to monitor and
manage this thing remotely.
How insane is that before afreaking Apple got it to market?
We were thinking about that then.
Yeah.
Steve jobs.
yeah, right.
Yeah.
And irrigation, maybe we should have gonea little broader or something but no happy
(24:23):
where we are, but that was that was it.
And then in 2012, we released thefirst version of SmartLink super early.
And so it has, you know, from that port,smart link is your link to the controller.
And so we'll make jokes like, getlinked and, go, go link yourself and
you gotta get linked up and all that.
(24:45):
So those are our smart link isultimately what powers the whole thing
to give you that remote connectionaccess, and then all of the.
kind of business operating tools, allthe integrations with, you know, folks
like, aspire element and boss andQuickBooks and everything kind of stems
from that to go from all of the internaloperations at a landscape company.
(25:07):
From scheduled inspections todocumenting repairs, to pricing out
those repairs, to getting, you knowsending proposals or requests to clients
ultimately to flowing through to yourERP system or your, your BizOps system.
That whole.
Workflow that should happen within theirrigation division, including dashboards
(25:31):
of our techs getting their jobs done.
Are we hitting our inspections goal?
All of those things?
You know, we built thosesystems into smart link.
And so that's kind of the smartline is the physical controller.
Okay.
link is the is really the softwareplatform that powers the whole, the whole
Very good.
What I like about the smart link,what's one of my little isms that
(25:53):
I coached you all the time is.
having constant communicationwith your clients.
And what I mean by constant, is it weekly?
Is it monthly?
Is it quarterly?
Whatever that is in your business.
Okay.
One of the things I always use, causeI love Weathermatic so much, is the
feature of the inspection report.
(26:15):
It is fascinating because you guysare way advanced than anybody else.
And what I mean by that, Ihave, I have seen it off of
multiple landscape companies.
Your tech can go in there, do afull audit, come up with a report,
with itemized zones that areworking or non working, and their,
(26:37):
their, their, their failures ofeach zone, along with pictures.
You can put your company logo on it.
And that document can go straightto the client as a communication
platform to them and say, thisis what we notice in your system.
We're doing the repairs because whathappens, Alex, every month or every
(27:00):
quarter you're doing an inspection.
You're like, well, that's wrong.
And that's wrong.
And we fixed this miss method.
Here's your bill for 800 bucks.
And she's like, Well,I don't understand it
Yeah, I thought you fixed that last month.
Yeah.
you fix that.
I got another invoice for 200.
What happened this time?
Three months later, this, apicture is worth a thousand words.
Am I right or wrong?
(27:21):
Or I'm just crazy.
But that is like game changertechnology for your landscape business.
No, it's a thousand percent.
And the, I mean, and the, to simplifyit, we can geek out about the details
on this thing, but here's the, I mean,here's the quick start guide, right?
When I bought this new microphoneequipment, did I read the whole Cadillac?
No.
I read the three step quick cart, right?
(27:42):
Okay.
You're a landscape company.
You're managing a hundred,200, 500 sites, whatever.
I think Jeffrey johns, a clientof y'all says it so well, right?
His team, his irrigation teamwent from an average daily
billable capacity of about six.
I think it said 5.
5 to 6 hours a day to 9.
(28:03):
5 bill billable hours a day.
Because of all the capacity,all the firefighting, all
the, can you go change this?
The color struggling that wegot to do our overseed program.
The snow is rolling in earlier.
There's a, there's a cool front.
The rain is coming.
There's so many things when you get underthe covers and understand how many non
(28:24):
value add tasks you're not just yourirrigation tax, but your account managers,
your VPs are running around town to tryto, you know, keep from getting fired
on a job when they're sensitive, thatstuff is running when it shouldn't be, or
vice versa should be running and isn't.
All of those things add up to suchan internal distraction that gets
(28:44):
eliminated when this comes in.
And so now, what usually is the firstthing to get cut when life gets busy
and fires come up are your inspections.
And so the vast majority ofcompanies that we work with have 40
percent inspection completion rate.
And so you might think aboutthat and go like, oh, okay.
(29:06):
Well, they're saving money notsaving guys go out there and
they're not getting fired for notmeeting the spec of their contract.
So they're okay Well, aninspection guys is the funnel.
That's your sales funnel And so whenwe're complaining about, that thing,
not being profitable or irrigation, notbeing a very big part of the business.
So why would I spend so much timefocusing on 5 percent of my business?
(29:27):
Well guys, that's the problem.
It shouldn't be 5percent of your business.
It should be 20 to 25percent of your business.
Because every time life gets busy, westopped doing inspections, which means
you stop filling up the sales funnel,which means you're delivering a worse
product, a worse service to your client.
Instead of staying on top of repairs,I had a, I had a wise old guy.
(29:49):
One time we were, we were walkingthrough the deal and he goes, the two
reasons why I ever get fired and I go,what Jim, and he goes, water and weeds.
Yeah.
Yeah.
there's a lot of truth in that.
Yeah.
issue around water,some issue around weeds.
And so we we at least solve half theequation and I'll argue that getting
Well, I think you can solve it all.
(30:09):
So my, my recommendation, here'sit, two reason you always get
fired from a maintenance contract,
Okay.
irrigation and communication.
I love that.
You're not wrong.
I mean,
I'm telling you, and you, if you'rein the South, man, for four to six
months, you better be ready to gowith that in the off season so that
(30:32):
you're prepared for the real truegrowing season, that and communication.
And when you line up with the inspectionreports and you, Get the data and
the reports to them that nips thosetwo things and you keep going and you
keep your clients for a long time.
I'll tell you what, what peak andPacific and seventies and and all those
guys and DeSantis up in the North thePacific Northwest taught me, I had
(30:54):
no idea how dry they were for liketwo, two and a half months a year.
I thought it was, you know, justwet year round and I'm going, why
are you having us come up here?
How does this makes any sense?
Bob goes, you have no idea.
The hair on fire, which I thoughtwas a funny joke coming from Bob the
hair on fire situation that it is fortwo months to keep this stuff green.
(31:15):
And I was like, okay, okay.
He goes, cause all of the judgment comesthose two dry, dry, dry, arid months.
If this stuff doesn't stay green,if we're not ensuring that stuff is
running when it should be, he goes,and you can kiss that renewal goodbye.
correct.
Love it.
Let's shift gears a little bit, Lex,and talk about the team that has
built over there at Weathermatic.
(31:36):
I've never met anyone grumpy, anyonethat's not a good culture fit.
Not at all, ever, never, never, neverin all the years, since 20, so 2008.
Yeah.
There's things, there's this thingcalled the three C's that I really,
really love and maybe you guys havegot lucky and maybe you really tried
and trued by this, but it's theguiding principles of our people.
(31:59):
You talk about the three C's, you talkabout those three and what it's built
of a team of people at Weathermatic.
Well, Mike and this was really whatBrody championed almost 20 years ago when
him and Mike, I mean, it was them too.
And and a, and a rag tag grouparound here and they were, the kind
of the skunk works group, right?
(32:19):
If we got to turn around thislittle 5 million dollar business,
losing a million dollars a year and.
We need a strategy around people.
And so Mike and Brody got together andthey read a bunch of books and they
talked about it and they came up with thisphilosophy that we call the three C's and
it's the, and it's the screening process,almost like a report card, an evaluation
(32:40):
card, if you will, of, No one enters thesedoors at Weathermatic unless multiple, and
now we have a, which I got to credit ourguy, Anthony Herrera here, who has really
leveled us up on the, on the internalscreening and, and all that process.
But everyone has to come throughthese 3 and so it's character,
competency and chemistry.
(33:01):
None of them are negotiable.
And so to expand a littlebit, so character, right?
I went to a private christian highschool here in north texas attorney
christian academy for any, youknow, pinkies up fans out there.
But they had what theycalled a 24 7 policy, right?
And it was who you are atschool is who you are at home.
As long as you're a paying registeredstudent here and so very much the same
(33:25):
the way that you represent us here.
At the office is what weexpect to be represented.
We're at when we're at trade shows whenwe're at after hours events at trade shows
when we're doing dinners and entertaining.
if you're a, if you're a drinkingcarousing person on the weekends, and
then show up here and want to buttonyour top button and come through the
door and all that stuff goes away.
(33:45):
Doesn't work for us and that's okay.
There's plenty of places outthere where that's encouraged and
not necessarily a bad thing, butjust for here, it doesn't work.
And then we get to chemistry.
Right?
And so chemistry is the, theChick fil a thing, right?
They don't, they don't hire people.
If you don't greet the interviewerwith a smile you can't train
(34:07):
someone to smile instinctively.
And so you're either a smileror you're not a smiler.
And so they don't, they don't acceptthe interview past that unless you
greet the interviewer with a smile.
So is it a pleasure to see you?
When I walk down the hallway, do I smileat you and say, Hey, how's your day going?
Like, are you a good team player?
Are you collaborative?
(34:27):
Are you are you Basically,you're either a culture builder
or you're a culture detractor.
There's really no room in the between togo, Oh, you know, they're, they're fine.
And they're this, and they'renot going to really be a, you
are either a culture contributoror you are a culture detractor.
And then finally is the competency piece.
(34:47):
And this is the one that most peoplespend the most time focused on.
And really from what I'vefound, it is we say all three
on our own level playing fields.
I think that most people are prettygood at figuring out, Hey, can
this person do the job or not?
Do they have, references thatcan do the job, but we take a
little different spin on it.
It's not just about ifthey can do the job.
(35:09):
It's that every hire that wemake has to make the team better.
Right.
And so Anthony shared this, this ideawith me of buddy, do you realize that
every time, let's say that you havefive customer success, managers and,
in, in, in our world, account managers.
Right.
Every time you're hiring one, you'reeither hiring one worse than the
(35:29):
best person on the team or betterthan the best person on the team.
And so are you making a decisionthat you're going to pay somebody,
the same or a little more, a littleless, like whatever it may be, you're
either raising the bar of the teamwith your future hires, or you're
lowering the bar on the team withevery hiring decision that you make.
And so are you the best at your job,or are you working your tail off to
(35:52):
become the best at it, that continualimprovement kind of mentality?
So that's our.
That's our three C'sand do we get it right?
100 percent of the time.
No.
But we have we have a pretty, pretty hardlook, after six months and we got to make
sure that we are on track on those threethings, regardless, frankly, of corporate
(36:12):
gain or impact that they're making.
If, if we can't stack up on the characterand chemistry piece, it's just, it's now
I've painted myself at a corner, right?
It's, we can't proceed if they'renot hitting on those things.
Right.
Love it.
Three C's.
I love the culture you guysare building over there.
It is absolutely contagious.
(36:32):
I can see it when we're atshows and events and even just
walking through the building.
Lex, what's a word of advice?
Anyone out there that is a small,tiny company just getting started
all the way to, The biggest andbaddest, top one 50 across the board.
Is it the work hard, play hard?
Is it the, what's the model thatyou sort of live and die by?
(36:54):
That's a great question.
I am naturally like aninstinctual person where I can
find my way through situations.
I can relate to people pretty easily.
I can find a way to get things done.
And what I've learned more and more overthe past, five years in this position is.
Right?
The team is only as goodas your worst process.
(37:17):
And I'm not naturallya process oriented guy.
I have to force myself to go do it.
And I can look at the divisionsof this company that are winning.
And I can look at the ones thatare struggling or behind that we're
trying to work on and get better.
And it almost always comes down to notjust Process for process sake, but the
quality of the process, the trial anderror that we went through to create
(37:41):
something that we then document and holdpeople accountable for, for following.
And so I've had to really.
Work on myself to become.
A process person almost that maniacallevel of focus of I'm a broken record on,
Hey, well this, this team isn't doing it.
Like what's their process.
Can I see their SOPs?
Like who's holding them accountable?
And if I go ask them a questionabout, Hey, what happens after this?
(38:03):
And if they don't know that, then I'mgoing to the team leader going Hey
buddy, like, what is, what is, whatare they supposed to do after this?
And it's like, Oh, let me look it up.
Or I don't.
Okay.
I see where the breakdown is here.
That's on me.
Let's, we got to dive in and we gotto make sure that our team knows what
our expectations are and go do it.
Is, is one and I think a second one is,I think this is really important to the
(38:26):
different sizes of businesses and wherethey are in landscaping and it applies
directly to us is not only is competencyimportant from do they have the skills
to do accounting or do they have theskills to do to do the manual labor,
to be an irrigation technician or tobe an account manager, they've got to
come out Of previous work experience,that either mimics the environment
(38:49):
that you have from like a pace.
We've hired a lot ofpeople that are on paper.
Excellent character, competency,chemistry, all those things, flying
colors, but they get here and they, theydon't think it's, it's real that the
company's growing, 40, 45 percent a year.
And that's like a hair on fire.
(39:11):
You're doing, you're, you're doingwhatever job pops up, whatever
new problem pops up and like thatflexibility to jump in and solve
problems and build process behind.
So it doesn't break again and go do it.
a, multinational corporation orsomething like that, where they're
aiming for to beat inflation, right?
To get to 5 percent or 6 percent or 3%.
(39:33):
Like it's too, it's so different theenvironment and we see, we see people,
in the past that have come here.
They're like, I really want togo to a fast paced environment.
I really want that.
I really want that.
And then they show up and it's like, Ohmy God, like it really is at fast pace.
And I don't know if I'mready for this or vice versa.
Right.
We'll have someone leave and go, Hey,I want to I want to spread my wings
(39:55):
and go work for this fortune 500 orgo work for this national company.
And we go, awesome.
Great.
And they get over there and they get putin this tiny little box of, the hyper
exaggeration here, but you're going toclick, return on the screen 15 times or
150 times a day on this Excel document.
And they're gone.
Crap.
I miss the autonomy.
I miss the problem solving, gettingto use my brain versus just, my brawn
(40:17):
here and they'll, and we've beenso fortunate to welcome a couple of
those back into the organization.
And so finding, making sure that the,the, the pedigree of what they're
used to, the pace of work is justas important as those other things.
And so we're trying tocome up with another C.
That can help us look for that.
Cause that's been our biggestmiss on personnel lately is
(40:40):
we'll nail the three C's.
I don't think it's three C's and aP for pace, but we got to come up
with something that reflects that.
Cause that's been our,that's been our next.
know, it's, it's a process, it'sa process and you grow, right?
It's never going to be perfect with thethree C's for the, for another 50 years.
Right.
So it's kind of that evolution.
The journey it's a marathon racefor as long as we're on this
(41:03):
earth and that's the beauty of it.
So I got a few Tommy's takeaways.
So bear with me, Lex.
If I, if I'm something up interject,but what I learned about neck Lex
and the weathermatic team is let's go80 years of being in this industry.
Boom.
Check one out of like 200 clientsthat you service and install products.
(41:26):
Went out of business.
That's like a proven trackrecord of your products.
Love it What sets youapart in your competition?
The two things that I lovethe most is Warranty, right?
Actually three things.
I'm gonna make it three things warranty,that's digital e commerce buying power
you've got a simplicity of 50 or more orso skews You've simplified the business
(41:50):
made it tailored to the landscape andirrigation companies out there And the
third thing is the customer support.
Love it.
It's amazing.
The products are great.
Inspections generate revenue.
Like I love that.
That's it's just awesome.
Without geeking out on all the parts,the three C's, character, competency, and
(42:11):
chemistry, you're looking on a fourth.
I love the screening process.
And my, my biggest other takeawayis the most amazing person out
there that I've met in a long time,Brody Bruner, may him rest in peace.
This episode is 100 percent dedicatedto that awesome, amazing person.
(42:32):
I think he's built such a greatlaw of attraction of culture
coming into Weathermatic.
I love the guy a lot and we'lldedicate this thing to him.
Love that.
you're amazing.
Keep doing awesome work andwe'll see you on the road.
Love
All right, buddy.
Appreciate you.
Thanks, Tommy.
Thanks everybody.
This was a lot of fun.
(42:54):
Ready to take the next step?
Download our free Profitability Scorecardto quickly create your own baseline
financial assessment and uncover thefastest ways to improve your business.
Just go to McFarlinStanford.com/scorecardto get yours today To learn more about
McFarlin Stanford our best in classpeer groups and other services go to
(43:14):
our website at McFarlinStanford.comAnd don't forget to follow us on
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See you next time on the Roots of Success.
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