January 16, 2025 • 40 mins
DESCRIPTION:
Staying in your comfort zone is the enemy of success. On today's Roots of Success, Tommy dives into a revealing conversation with Jason Cromley, who dishes out the hard-learned lessons from growing Hidden Creek Landscape. They've soared from $12 million to $21 million in revenue but hit a ceiling they couldn't crack. Discover how embracing discomfort, making critical personnel shifts, and prioritizing open feedback loops are transforming their journey towards sustainable growth.
THE BIG IDEA:
Genuine relationships and efficient operations drive profitability.
KEY MOMENTS:
[00:00] Started business unintentionally, approaching 27-year anniversary.
[03:33] Consistently reinvesting profits for business growth.
[08:49] Hosting events boosts company pride and exposure.
[12:38] Networking and learning, open-mindedness required.
[16:35] Growing complexity creates communication challenges as we scale.
[21:45] Open Town Hall; feedback rewarded with cash.
[24:23] Encouraging accountability and feedback enhances success.
[27:36] Executive Coaching catalyzed new personal growth.
[28:50] Supporting and valuing employees as a family.
[32:28] GROW: facility tour, team presentation.
[36:11] Facility is efficient due to thoughtful design.
QUESTIONS WE ANSWER
What are effective strategies for growing a landscaping business?
How can town hall meetings improve company culture and communication?
How do you set and achieve financial goals in a small business?
What are the benefits of attending industry events for small businesses?
What are the key challenges in scaling a landscaping company?
How important is feedback for business growth and development?
What are the best practices for reinvesting profits in a business?
How can middle managers and frontline staff benefit from educational events?
Why is personal and professional growth crucial for business leaders?
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.
Hello, this is Roots of Success podcastand I'm your host Tommy and I have an
awesome, really awesome guest today.
(00:21):
He is my first guest for asecond appearance on our show.
Oh my gosh, you didn'teven know that, did you?
I did not.
I did not.
through a curveball.
We got Jason Cromley, a co owner ofHidden Creek Landscape in Columbus, Ohio.
Jason's a good friend of mine.
(00:41):
We've, spent a lot of timestogether and grow events and peer
groups and sort of bantering backand forth all over social media.
He's a great guy and agreat business owner.
It's a pleasure to have you on Jason.
Thanks so much for the invite.
Super excited to be the first of, youknow, this, this long list of great
interviews that you've been watching anddoing that I've been really enjoying over
(01:05):
the last, you know, year seeing all these.
It's been great.
Well, I got a little surprise for you.
So I know viewers can'tsee, but if you can.
I got my handy dandy HiddenCreek Yeti coffee cup.
And I swear, I text pictures all the timeto Jason and be like, Man, this is it.
Every day, you know, I just gotmy Hidden Creek little gem there.
(01:26):
A little souvenir that I snaggedon a site visit about a year ago.
Yeah, I was proud to give it to you.
I knew you'd use it.
yeah, I'd use it.
I'd use it.
So, Jason, let's talk abouta little bit of a history.
How Hidden Creek got established.
How you got into the business.
You and co owner Matt,both run the business.
(01:46):
Talk about how you got into it.
Give us a story.
Give us the background.
Sure, yeah, and it could be a reallylong story, but in the interest of time,
I'm going to try to give you, you know,kind of the fun highlight moments of it.
You know Matt and I met back at theOhio State University in college.
We were both in landscape architecture.
We both got into bartending and we wereworking for some landscaping companies
(02:08):
and no joke paychecks were bouncing.
We knew more than the owners did.
We had a better work ethic and I'm like.
How hard does can be let's juststart our own landscaping thing
and I had a, I had a pickup truck.
I mean.
I said, buy a couple of wheelbarrels and what else is there?
hard can this be?
Yeah.
How hard can it be?
So we were still in school,decided to start the business.
So we did a little bit of schoolduring the day, bartended a night.
(02:31):
And would landscape between classesnot really knowing where this
thing was going to go by any means.
That was 26 years ago.
Now, believe it or not coming up onour 27 year anniversary this year.
So, really kind of fell into itbecause we saw what bad ownership
look like, you know, again, theydidn't know what they were doing.
They were taking advantage of clients.
(02:51):
It was the patented.
Well, let's get their depositand then we'll see if we show up.
Oh,
And I was like, this isnot what we're about.
And we would get yelledat and screamed at.
And it was just, I hate to say it, it wasa typical landscape story that, you know,
you see, it's not the people come to grow.
I can tell you that much.
It's the truck and atrucks we all talk about.
And right then and there, I knew withour education and I knew with our work
(03:14):
ethic that we could have a great companyand we had huge goals and aspirations,
Tommy, to do 1 million because at amillion dollars, we're going to be rich.
Yeah.
Rich.
at 1, 000, 000.
I think we owed 1, 000,000 in debt, right?
It was
We didn't make a, youmight've made a penny.
Made and no joke, both Lee,you know, luckily, both our
(03:36):
wives were very understandingbecause they were both nurses.
Matt met his wife through my wife.
They were best friends.
And so Matt, I literally had to bartend.
To survive post college.
Because every money we got offa job, we'd buy a trailer, we'd
buy a mower, we'd buy more tools.
So everything that we had justkept going back into the business.
And honestly, that's somethingthat stayed true to us to this day.
(03:58):
We pump money into our businesseach and every single day.
I want the nice equipment.
I want the great brand.
I want the Yetis forpeople who walk through.
Man, I love seeing my logo out there.
And you'll pick up on this at Grow.
For anybody who comes, I liketo show off just a little bit.
And I show off for the team that workshere so they know how proud I am of the
(04:20):
company and that I trust them enoughto keep investing good money back into
it rather than me having three housesand 10 cars and all those things.
I don't have any of that stuff, but butman, our facility looks pretty nice.
it does.
It looks, it looks, it looks awesome.
I'm going to be there in a fewweeks to see it again and see all
the, all the necessary changes.
(04:41):
You mentioned something veryawesome that's coming up next
month and it's called Grow.
it's the annual tradition.
It's in February.
You are hosting grow, andthat's a huge achievement.
Just to say, raise your hand.
We can do it, and we can prepare forhundreds and hundreds of business
(05:03):
owners and entrepreneurs and managersand frontline men and women out there
to attend your facility and learn more.
When you, when we announced we'regoing to Hidden Creek, you raised
your hand and said, I want the biggestand best most attended grow ever.
And I was like, man, that is.
That's something to shoot for.
You don't be shy of your goals.
(05:24):
You're, you're very openand expressing that.
Why hosts grow.
Yeah, you know, if you would askme a year ago, I had 100 answers.
Now, as I'm down to less than45 days, those answers are
not as big as they used to be.
You know, I went to 1 of my 1st grows,I believe was life scapes to Colorado.
(05:45):
I want to say back to maybe 2018 or 17.
I never been to one and, you know, likeanything in our industry, whether I
was at an NALP or some event, someone'slike, you got to go check out grow.
Right?
And I've known Marty.
We bumped into each other.
He's dating.
I'm Columbus.
So we're only an hour apart fromeach other and like anything,
someone challenged me to goand I'm like, you know what?
(06:06):
Let's go because guess what?
I'm going to go skiingwhen I'm in Colorado.
So, you know, perfect right off.
So I go to this event andhonestly, my eyes just kept getting
bigger and bigger and bigger.
And I'm like, one, it was, I met so manygreat people that had tons to share.
I saw a company that I aspired to be.
I saw processes in place.
I saw designs.
(06:26):
They're very similar to who we are,which is high end residential work.
And I'm like, someday,I'm gonna host Grow.
Right?
I was just like, because what I gainedfrom that helped me foresee a better
future than what I'd ever envisioned.
Right.
We were maybe 8 million at the time.
Right.
So we weren't that big.
I don't even know if we were that big.
(06:48):
We were probably close.
Yeah, probably around 5anywhere between 5 to 7 million.
And I was like, I want more, right?
I can do more.
I maybe can't have a church for abuilding, but let me see what I can do.
Right.
And so I saw that and I said, 1 day,that would be the coolest thing.
That would be a feather in my cap.
That would be a bucketlist that I got to do it.
(07:09):
And so it was a, like a pipe dream.
And then, you know, I talked to Vinceabout it and he's like, yeah, we always
stay south because obviously the winterand we can't really travel north.
And I'm like, well, there goesthat it's never going to happen.
And then, sure enough, you know, Martyand Vince come to me when 1 of the
events are like, hey, would you do this?
And I'm like.
Yeah, I would 100 percent dothis, because as we all know,
(07:32):
some of the best things about ourindustry is the give back attitude.
Mm
You see it across the board,and Marty's no, no different.
I mean, he's one of theguys who started this.
He wanted to do this to make theindustry better, not grunder better.
hmm.
Right.
And we want to do the same.
We want to share every failurewe've had, and I've got a record.
(07:52):
You know, we want toshare all of our wins.
We want to try to give back to theindustry what I've gained so much from
and hopefully make everybody better.
Have fun while doing it.
Yeah.
And see what we can do to make again, Iguess for me, I want to kind of protect us
more than sometimes what our clients areor the bad competition that's out there.
So the more educated experience,the knowledge we have, the more
(08:15):
success we're going to be asan industry, not as a company.
Yeah.
The give back attitude, I loveand I think that's the reason
why you, you want to host.
What was it like informing the team?
We're going to host a thousand pluspeople in the matter of a couple of days.
What was the response
You know, so I did itkind of fun to be honest.
(08:37):
So only a select few knew about it.
So there was some, you know, myleadership team knew about it.
So there was some behind the scenes talkof what was really going to be happening,
but I was able to bring 8 people to growat RJ's lawn care last year in Des Moines.
And 6 of the people there had no idea.
So, when I got on stage.
(08:58):
They just found out
Ah,
so.
announced it.
They announced it because one of thegreat things about hosting grow that I've
always heard, but obviously I'm hopefulfor is it's really the pride that will
come out of the company that you workfor when you do get a host an event.
And, you know, when you get to come upon stage, and we got to bring our whole
(09:19):
team up on stage and, you know, theygot to be there and they got, you know.
800 people staring at him, like, so we gotto do this, like, people want to come see
us and they want to know what's going on.
There's just that sense of pride.
Right.
And it's that piece that comes out thatsays, man, we're, we're going to get to
help people or I get to show off somethingthat I do as a process that I brought
(09:40):
to Hidden Creek that I can't wait totell, you know, 500 different companies
and hopefully they use that same thing.
Yeah.
You hit a really good, something reallyinteresting is these managers and
employees, team members, crew members.
office staff, support team, allthese people that help build and grow
(10:00):
and facilitate Hidden Creek today.
Oftentimes they don't get the recognition.
It's it's the it's the grind.
It's the day to day.
It's the hot summers, the cold winters.
There's really true no seasonor off season in landscaping.
It's, it's a grind 12 months a year.
What I like about this is it's anopportunity to recognize our team.
(10:21):
That's what it is.
How fascinating is it for your team tonow stand up on that stage next month
and to be recognized, interviewed, askquestions, tell me more, like this is
a reward, I would say for your team.
Most importantly, because.
It's they only kind of know what'swithin the four walls and the roof
(10:44):
at the facility in Columbus, but noweveryone's coming in and asking questions.
How do you do this and how wecan learn more and be recognized?
And that's what I think thatyou're also trying to achieve
and let people know in your team.
100%.
And I'm a big proponent ofgetting the recognition to them.
You know, as I've been working with thegrow team, you know, Vince, specifically,
(11:04):
I'm like, how do I get my team on stage?
Like, how do I get themto answer questions?
Right?
Is the CEO?
Yeah, I know a little bit of everything,but I know 50 percent of everything.
They know 100 percent ofsomething specific, right?
So when I answer, I'm given the bestgeneralizations possible and they
can answer from the design to theoperational piece to the equipment.
(11:26):
I'm like, yeah, I think we usethis and I heard we did this.
They're able to truly give 100percent of their knowledge to.
Somebody in the room is going to walkthrough who says, I do your same job.
That's exactly what I do.
And I got an owner just likeJason who walks around thinking he
knows everything and he doesn't.
So I want to talk to that guy.
And I think to your point, the pridethat will come out of that, their
(11:49):
chance to share and their chanceto be asked questions and learn
something from somebody else, right?
So it'd be great if I could send myentire team to grow, but I can't afford
to send 40 people every year to grow.
So there's nothing better thana thousand people coming to us.
So everyone gets to experience growthis year and get to see really what
(12:09):
it does to bring everybody together.
love it.
What's what's one thing or multiplethings you're hoping to gain by hosting?
What was the what was the trigger point?
But like, yeah, that'sthat's what I want to learn.
Is it learning more?
Is it?
Yeah.
Exposing us to see certainthings that we're not doing well.
Is it?
What is it?
What are you hoping to gain?
(12:30):
You know, it's funny because at everylevel, and we've mostly tried to
take anywhere from, you know, fourto eight people per year to grow as
once we see it, because Everybodygets something different, right?
Because you guys have such a great,you know, assortment of classes, right?
There's so much diversity.
You know, it's not owner driven.
It's actually probably the leastowner driven thing you can see.
(12:51):
Right?
So, I'd say, you know, betweenyour HR classes, accounting
classes, sales training, right?
That's who I want to go to this.
I mean, honestly, grow for me when Igo is more social than it is anything
hanging out with the other owners,you know, talking about our business,
mostly because we're in peer groupstogether, but I pick up 1 or 2 things.
(13:12):
My teams are coming back with pagesof notes and I'm like, we can't
implement 20 things this year.
So, I think that's probably when itcomes to grow people going, it's really
just the open mindedness you needto have to say, just because you do
it this way doesn't mean it's right.
You have to listen to otherideas, but you can't also come
back with 100 items, right?
(13:34):
It's small bites.
So I think that's probablywhat's so key about it.
And it's not just the tour.
I mean, out of a 3 dayevent, the tour is 1 day.
You got classes before you got thetour and you got classes after.
And my team is, you know,already fighting over.
Well, I want to go to classes.
I want to go to classesbecause they do know.
In the world of landscaping,we never stop in.
(13:56):
We might slow down, but you can'talways get classes in when you want to.
So this is an optimal time of yearfor mostly our industry to get some
knowledge and actually implementit before the season kicks off.
Yeah, you hit something really goodeducation at this event is Really
good and it's not about owners.
It's it's the least amount about owners.
(14:16):
It's more about those middlemanagers Those frontline people,
it's nice to hear it from someoneelse besides Jason Cromley, right?
Or a little bit different take.
It's no different than myson in baseball, right?
I could tell him to do this on hisbaseball swing all day long for years
and years, but the minute he goesand sees a baseball coach, it's like,
it's cause I'm totally different.
(14:36):
Dad, I learned this new thingand I'm like, Oh wow, that's,
I've been saying that for years.
Wow.
So we get bored of the JasonCromley saying things over and
over, or here's a different take.
I will tell you grow is fascinating eventfor management people, how to manage
others, how to do sales, how to do ops,different little tricks in here and
(14:58):
there and a lot of some of this stuff.
Jason, you've been hearing, you'relike bearing in ace peer groups and
and networking with other businessowners all over the country.
You hear a lot of this thing, but for foryour team to hear it from others, yeah.
is a game changer.
They're able to grab notesand execute moving forward.
So, like you said, bring yourteam to this event, and it's
(15:20):
more about them to experience.
There's tons of vendors.
Tons of networking opportunities,a lot of cocktail and dinners.
And it is literally, it'sfinally like a 16 hour day.
But you don't feel likeyou're working 16 hours.
no, no.
But I mean, trust me, we've looked at thesecond day, you know, we start at 7 a.
m.
And we'll go till nineo'clock for the VIP dinner.
(15:42):
If you know, you sign up for it and that'sa really great networking piece, but.
I mean, you're right.
That's a 16 hour day andman, I'm pumped for it.
You know, I might need to do a doublecold plunge that morning to get my body
fired up for it or do one at lunchtime.
But it is the drive that, youknow, everybody wants to share.
And I can tell you, my team, they'vealready got their power points ready.
(16:03):
We've already reviewed them andyou could tell because I've looked
at them how excited they are.
And there's things that I'm learning.
They do.
I'm like, I didn't know youguys are working on that.
This is amazing.
No, and I would say that's, that's thetough thing to, you know, Tommy, as
Hidden Creek has grown to the size we are.
Right, I was just talking about,you know, 1 of the acquisitions we
made, which is, you know, 1 of ourgreat pieces of success, right?
(16:26):
You know, buying a pool company.
You know, 3Million dollar company,we've been able to double the revenue.
The owner stayed on for 4 years,he's staying on for 1 more year
to make it 5 years, but as we'regoing through his task list of all
the stuff he does this morning.
I'm like, I rememberwhen I did everything.
And by the way, our client communicationwas through the roof when I'm
(16:49):
small, because I was the designer.
I was the estimator.
I was the project manager.
I was accounting.
I was also the foreman.
So I can answer everything.
Now you got five layers in there andthe clients are like, who do I talk to?
Do I talk to my salesperson?
Do I talk to the project manager?
The foreman's great.
Can I just ask him to do this?
Accounting's like, why haven't they?
(17:10):
I mean, and that's, that's hard.
And that's one of the things that, youknow, a lot of people come to this and be
like, God, I can't wait to be, you know,20 plus million and be like Hidden Creek.
It's like, well, hang on a second.
Tap the brakes.
Yeah, you want to really understand.
How great it can and cannot be, andwe've got some failures that I'll be
on stage, unhappy to share, or I'd say,not proud to share, but happy to share.
(17:35):
Right, because I want people tounderstand, I've definitely made
some mistakes, and you know, asyou said it, I'm going to get
on stage and say, this better bethe biggest grow you've ever had.
If it's not, I look like a fool,but if it is, man, this guy
can really make things happen.
Yeah.
Why not set the bar really high?
A
Why not?
I mean, so I fail where?
I'm not going to Vegas and putting amillion dollars on black or red here.
(17:56):
I'm just saying, I think wecan make this the biggest grow.
But I've got to make sure I putthe effort and energy into it like
anybody does in any role they have.
Don't say it.
Actually say, look, I didn't try hard.
I worked hard.
I did what I should have do.
It just wasn't the results.
And we all know that.
If a salesperson misses theirgoals, we all know you sell if
they actually made the effort.
(18:18):
Yeah.
What about the journey oftrying to achieve the goal?
Right.
let's talk about this real fast.
When I was there recently.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I'mgoing to get the numbers close.
You set a goal of like 24 million atthe end of 2023, I believe, right?
And you didn't hit the goal.
You came less.
(18:38):
So talk about that experience.
I know the answer, but let letour audience go through that
format and tell me what happened.
So yeah, we had a goal set for 24 million.
We had gone from 12 millionto 17 million to 21 million.
So in two years, we wentfrom 12 to 21 million, right?
The pool acquisition was partof it, but that was only three.
(19:01):
So we were able to kind of parlayall that stuff into, by the way,
that was also post COVID, right?
So, man, through the roof.
And then the next year wego from 21 down to like 20.
6 and I'm like, what the hell happened?
Right?
And I knew what happened and Iknew what we need to do to fix it.
So we come into this year.
Goals, 25M like, I knowthe things we did wrong.
(19:25):
I'm the director of sales.
I'm like, I've got this.
And guess what number we hit this year?
21M dollars.
Tommy, I missed it again by 4M dollars.
I, I, yeah.
Missed it again, right?
I'm director of sales.
Who's this fall on me?
And if you ask my sales team,they're like, this is the most
stressful year we've ever had, right?
Because guess where Jasonwas just on top of everybody
(19:48):
Grinding.
grinding, right?
And at the end of the day, we kind oflooked back and we know what we did wrong.
We still lived in just alittle bit of a comfort world.
Hidden Creek's got a great brand,a great name, a great image.
We did 21 million, almostpurely off referrals.
Right.
We did.
We do SEO.
We do website.
(20:08):
We got those, but wedidn't knock on a door.
We didn't ask for a sale.
came in.
Yeah, it was just whatever was coming in.
It was like, my hands are out.
So, if it lands here, you know,again, if the fish jumps in the
boat, I'm going to eat the fish.
Right, but we were also,
the boat was 21 million.
yeah, it came in the boat.
We barely put a rod in the water.
(20:29):
Right, and so.
We have made some changes.
I got some personnelchanges that happened.
I got some new personnel coming in.
Because I believe at the end ofthe day why the team says, you
know, because you can imagine I'mtaking my goal up again, right?
I'm not going to sit here and suffer.
You know, I talked to the team like,well, you know, why do we have to do this?
I'm like, well, first and foremost,our overhead keeps growing.
(20:51):
So 21 million.
If you guys want to hold, lookto your left, look to your right.
Someone's gonna be gone.
Right.
So if you want to protect thepeople you like working with,
we got to go after the number.
So we use some of those things totry to learn the lessons, right?
Nobody's perfect.
And again, people might walkthrough not hear this podcast.
You're like, God, everythinghidden Creek touches is gold.
Oh, my gosh, man.
(21:11):
I have so much bad product.
So many bad ideas.
I just don't ever let themhold me back and hold me down.
I always think positive.
I'm a unfortunately, I'm anoverly optimistic person.
Love it.
Love it.
So, talk about there was a, there was aneye opening experience, at your facility.
(21:31):
At some point last year whereyou had a a town hall meeting,
sort of open experience.
For everyone in thebusiness field support team.
It was a, it was a meeting for you toget some awareness in our organization,
people to raise their hand andshare what they really, truly mean,
(21:53):
whether it was positive or a negativeor constructive criticism, tell me
about that experience that you had.
yeah, it was a great event.
Mark Bradley actually camein and hosted the event.
I had never done anything like this.
You know, and Mark's like, you know,we need to hear from your team and
see what kind of feedback we get.
And I'm like, you know, Idon't really like feedback.
Sometimes Mark.
I don't like to be told what
(22:14):
I'm a little sensitive, believe it or not.
And he's like, look, he's like, youknow, go get, you know, cash out of
the bank because everybody who answers,you're going to hand them cash because
you want to reward people to say, ifyou're willing to give feedback, it's
this valuable to me, your idea is worth50 bucks is worth a hundred bucks.
Right?
That's a backpack blower, right?
(22:35):
Four, four of those, right?
Gets you an idea that could saveyour company 10, 000 in something.
And, you know, Mark got upthere and just started pushing
questions, pushing questions.
And at the end, he came back, he goes,Jason, I've been to a lot of companies.
Your culture is strong becauseyour team was open with you.
(22:56):
And, and you sat thereand you took it because I,
on the chin
then I'm like, that is not true.
That is, I've done thisand I had to sit there,
You could you didn't havean opportunity to do that.
I know I, oh, I didn't want to, becauseagain, it would have shut it down.
Right.
So I couldn't be the normalsometimes, you know, and, and Marty
and I are great about this, right?
(23:17):
We get a little bit defensive, right?
We worked so hard.
We've done this.
And I just sat there and took it and, andit was all true because if someone says
it, That's actually their experience.
You're not making it up.
I might not feel that it's true orthought I did something, but it doesn't
mean it actually went to the next level.
So that experience was huge and it reallyopened our eyes to do it more often now.
(23:40):
So since then we've kindof done more town halls.
We do them once a month.
It's not the whole company, but we'regetting better feedback at all times.
And that's actually our goalfor this upcoming year, right?
Two way feedback.
Because so many times, you know.
We, we make decisions forour people all the time.
We're like, Hey, we gotthis piece of equipment.
We got this, we got this.
They're like, just so you're clear.
(24:01):
I hate that piece of equipment.
No one likes it.
Why do you keep making decisions for us?
And we all do it.
So we're, we're working on that again.
And again, 26 years later, we'restill trying to figure this out, man.
it's a journey.
It's a journey.
It's a journey I like the one way streetversus the two way Feedback oftentimes.
(24:22):
We're always Pushing or driving onedirection to a person and then that
person is driving the next one tothe But it's less likely to get the
feedback to come the other direction,
Yeah.
right?
And oftentimes as an owner or as amanager, we're like pushing, pushing.
How successful, how great is itfor a company to allow people to
(24:46):
push back up all the way to you?
Like that's, I love that because atthe end of the day, the owner should
be held accountable for a lot ofthings that are going on as well.
And typically what happens or whatalways should happen is when things
fail, it goes back to the owner.
When the football team doesn'twin, it just goes right back to
(25:07):
the ownership and the head coach.
And when the offense can't score, it goesright back to the offensive coordinator.
It's no different.
You've got to look atyourself in the mirror.
And so I think you need to realizehere, like what you're saying
is accept all the feedback.
And take it on the chin.
It's going to be just fine.
That's how you get better.
It is, and it's hard, you know, there'sa lot of owners, you know, we did the,
(25:30):
obviously the strategic, the gallopstrengths, you know, with Megan and
Tracy, which is super eye opening again.
It's like, someone's been watching youyour whole life and tells you who you are.
It really is, you can't hide it by anymeans of the matter, but, you know,
during our 1 town hall, it was funny.
You know, as you see me, you know,and as people walk to grow, they're
going to see, you know, little Jason,five foot five up on the stage, right?
(25:52):
Hopefully you guys put me next to gene.
Yeah, we're going to, we havean elevation little stand for
Yeah, a little stagewould be great for me.
You know, and it's funny if I walkdownstairs, no, 1 says a thing to me.
Right?
My managers be like, God,everyone's down there.
They're frustrated about this.
They're frustrated about this.
I'm like, no, 1 says a word to me.
They're like, well, that'sbecause you're probably 1 of
the most intimidating people.
(26:12):
Jason, you walk down andpeople just shut down.
There's clamp down.
They clamped down and during one of ourtown halls, my wife works for us just
one day a week because we figured thatwould keep the marriage still going.
And during one of the town halls,she's like nothing mean you could
have sent half of this out an email.
Why are you wasting our time?
And I'm like, I just need someone withthe courage to step up and I mean,
(26:34):
I guess you don't need to raise her handand, you know, because she knows she just
has to sometimes get the people going.
right?
Like guys, Jason is, is very approachable.
She actually called me Spinelesswhen we started dating way
back in the day of high school.
'cause I had no backbone.
But Hidden Creek's success, hidden Creek'sname brand made me a different person.
(26:57):
Being a father made me adifferent person, right?
You kind of go from maybe peoplewalking all over you to, you gotta
become a little bit of a protector.
And so I protect things at all time.
And sometimes I do thatthrough intimidation or
through, you know, the wrong.
you know, outlets and I'm still workingon myself and getting my own personal
coaching to be a better person.
And it's not easy for guys like us
(27:19):
It's not easy.
Not easy.
No, it's not.
It's willing to acceptsomeone else coaching you.
That's, that's the hardest part.
I learned that throughMark Bradley the most.
The people at your level orat his level at the end of
the day need coaching as well.
For sure,
Jason doesn't know everything he'she's on a journey to figure things out
(27:41):
and he's willing to admit that and youhave weaknesses and you have streaks.
But you gotta be willing to accept thoseand learn from them how to be better.
yeah, and that'll probably be oneof the cool things that happens
to grow as well to, you know, justgetting, you know, connected with
mark a little over a year ago.
He's totally helped me lookat myself and my life and my
(28:01):
business in a different way.
And I'm like, I'm going to grow to this.
He's like, that's it.
I'm like, I thought that was pretty big.
He's like, I don't think it's that big.
And I'm like.
enough.
Thanks.
You know, and then I talked to anotherowner at grow or at a summit and they're
like, oh, this is my goal next year.
I'm like, that's it.
Yeah.
Like, give me, give me 5 percent more.
(28:22):
I'm not saying double it, butI'm saying if you're 3 million
and your goal is to go to 3.
3, did you just pick 10percent out of random?
What's it going to take toget another 150, 000, right?
Go to 15%.
Move the needle.
Can you find one more big projectthat's out there and grind?
It's not more hours, more efficient.
And they're like, I mean,yeah, I probably can.
(28:43):
I'm like, then that's the goal.
So,
at Hidden Creek?
so if you were to pick probablynumber 1, right off the bat, right?
It's really the people who work here.
The fact that I can employ 150 people.
Those 150 people know what Ifeel is a very strong company.
Right.
We take care of our people.
We really, really do not to generalize.
(29:05):
It's a family here becausenot everyone feels like that.
But when something goes bad here, wecome together and we, we really do
put the effort into the people 1st andmaking sure they're taking care of.
So the fact that I got 150 people herewho have families of anywhere from 2
to 5, you know, I'm taking care of, youknow, anywhere from 400 to 600 people.
(29:28):
Supporting them, making theirlives hopefully better and knowing
that they're respected at theirjob and they're appreciated.
So people first and foremost, it's,it's always number one for me.
That's why I love coming to work.
That's why I never did work fromhome because I need to see the look
on their face when they're thereworking because I'm a people person.
yeah, you're a visual person.
(29:49):
So what's your, what's yourone drive if team is the
something you're most proud of?
What's, what's the one drive or twodrives that like, we got to hit that
every week, month or year to make surewe're executing with our, with our team.
You know, I talked a little bitabout it earlier with regards to,
we're really starting to realize alittle bit more of this feedback.
(30:10):
And, you know, we did go to oneof Mark Bradley's elements summits
up in Detroit, and we all kind ofcame back with, you know, we were
missing feedback and we were missingthis and when you miss sales goals.
Right, and you'd have no backlog, it'samazing how stressed people get right.
Production is stressed because they don'thave anywhere to send the people right.
(30:31):
Design is like, I don't have enoughdesign work to keep people busy.
Sales is like, well, I'm really trying.
And so you kind of take all those thingsand, and that's when your back's against
the wall and you really see where theproblems are if you're looking and you've
got to get out of the trench at thatpoint, kind of look up and realize like
our people are great and I wasn't takingcare of our people and, and I took it
(30:54):
personal, and that's probably where, youknow, as I'm going to sales, I'm like,
I'm going to have to lay off 10 peoplethis week if you guys don't go sell a job.
Right.
And do you want to go lay themoff or do I have to do it?
And of course I have to do it.
And they kind of came back to me.
They're like, that wasn't thebest way to coach us, right?
We don't, the guilt doesn'twork in today's generation.
You know, Tommy and my dad'sgeneration, if I heard I'm disappointed
(31:17):
in you, man, just, just hit me.
Give me the paddle.
Don't give me the word disappointed.
And so it's really this, this coachingthat I've discovered I need more coaching
and my team needs more coaching andI'm not the best coach by the way.
Yeah,
That's what I've really come to recognizethrough all this for me to protect my
people, which is my number one asset.
(31:37):
I've got to get a better education,better training, better mentorship and
better time to actually get focused onthem as a person, not just in the role.
yeah.
Like I said earlier, it's.
We all have our strengths and weaknesses,but if you can be able to this goes
for anyone owner manager You if you canidentify those weak spots in yourself,
(32:00):
and if you can manage those and get alittle bit better Not to say that you're
gonna perfect it It's just who you are,but you are able to team up with another
coach or another peer group member Orsomeone else around you to say, Jason,
you can't talk to people like that.
It's not gonna work.
You're like, all right, you kind ofknow it, but you need someone else
(32:22):
to tell you that that you respectand you have, mutual respect for.
But Be willingness to open yourself up tolearn those types of things along the way.
I get it.
it's tricky.
As we, as we wrap up, this hasbeen, this has been awesome.
I really wanted to focus onI'm really excited for grow.
I am.
(32:42):
It's one of my favoritethings in February to go do.
I have the opportunity to, deep diveinto the, to the team, to the facility.
I get to educate and presenta lot of different topics.
To everyone throughout thecountry and it's awesome.
We, one of the great thingswe get to do also is.
After you do your facility tour the nextmorning, I get to have the Hidden Creek
(33:04):
team up on stage and we get to ask thereal detailed questions and that's a very
highly attended event and, and I get, youknow, you get managers and ops and sales
and HR up onto that stage and they get toask really deep, like, how do you do this?
I, that's one of my mostfavorite things to do is, is
it, is the post facility tour.
(33:26):
Which is great.
So come see us.
It's a fascinating event.
Jason, well, anything else that youwould like to leave behind with?
That you're most excited about anything
You know, so the number 1 thingI'm most proud of, obviously, is
my people, you know, our name, ourrecognition, our brand, those are
all right there and people mostlyknow us by our people who work here.
But I will say the facilitywas a huge game changer for us.
(33:49):
It was really.
You know, put it all on,you know, black, right?
Or button all on red at Vegas.
We said this building isgoing to change the course.
Of our business, right?
For forever.
And it was funny when, you know,Ken, my director of ops was with
us in New Orleans for a summit.
He went to your presentation about whatan award winning facility looks like.
(34:10):
He goes, Jason, thankGod you weren't in there.
He goes, you would have lost it.
He goes, he's taking pictures of allthese things that, that are great.
And you would have been like, Idon't like the way that color looks.
Why is this not done?
Why is this not hanging?
Why is that tilted?
You know, I'm not an OCDperfectionist by nature at home.
I'm not at all.
But at my facility, I am, you know,I'm the guy that's walking out,
(34:31):
picking up trash and wonder knowwhy 100 people pulled in before me.
Why did why did they notsee that piece of trash?
So, but it's that facility thatI think when people see this,
they'll see why we did it.
It not only saved andtook our business further.
It helped me with my marriage.
Right helped me with recruiting, youknow, it helps me close the big deals.
It made us a business,not a landscaping company.
(34:53):
And so I really hope that whenpeople get to see this facility
and, you know, we've done honestly,Tommy, probably hundreds of tours.
Nothing is the biggest this.
But I'm always asking, you know,anything that you think we could
have done better with this.
And, of course, I don't want to hear aword because I want them to say, this
is the coolest thing I've ever seen.
But when someone gets the courage to tellme, they're like, I would have done this.
(35:14):
I'm like.
Yeah, I should have done that too.
I realize that.
Right?
Yeah.
And that'll probably be the funthing is I'm super excited for
the feedback we're going to get.
I'm super excited to inspire, right?
Learn, be educated, all those things.
Not just grow, becausegrow is a three day event.
But I'm telling you, the momentumyou get off of that event for us, for
(35:36):
everybody, gets you through really thatfirst quarter when life kind of is rough.
Right?
And you go back and you remember, like,Man, it's spring, we're getting our butts
kicked and you got to go back and say,I told myself I do 1 thing this year.
Let's do that.
So, I think when people see thefacility, they're going to be blown away.
I think that's going toreally be hopefully some
inspiration for some people.
(35:56):
And I'm super proud to show.
The innovation, the ideas of things wedo that make our company very transparent
for anybody walking through our doors.
Yeah.
Good point.
I've, I've been there a few times.
I'm going to be there in a few more weeks.
I'm very impressed by thefacility and it's, yeah.
I'll say this.
It's not the most fancy place on earth.
It's not, it's literally just,it's, it's a metal building with
(36:20):
a roof that has nice landscaping.
Like, that's it, Jason.
And, and, but what I will say aboutthis facility is there's certain
features about it that make it
Yeah,
There's these little things throughoutthe inside and the outside and I'm
not going to give it away But there'sa little bit of a design studio.
(36:41):
There's a there's a Operations areawhere everyone can come together
and see what people are working onThere's a board of equipment where
you get to see what's being out the onjob sites what's in the repair shop?
But then you move your operationsoutsides I like the sales design
studio area where they can see whereso they're tracking sales I love the
(37:04):
layout of the yard and the trucksand the appearance of everything on
the fleet and the trailers and whatyou've done without giving too much.
I'm very impressed because you gotthis facility when you were a tiny,
tiny little bitty business and youbasically threw every dollar of your
name, what you had mortgage your house.
You did all this stuff andyou will say that during the
(37:26):
speeches that we hear it grow.
But at the end of theday, it works, that's it.
It just works.
So I encourage you to comesee this place because.
I believe he got this facilityat 3 million, just right
around that 3 million mark,
roughly.
Designed it and drew it andsaid, this is what we need.
And then you keep adding andtweaking and adjusting and
(37:47):
buying a little more to make it.
When you buy something,it's not your dream.
It's not going to be end of the road.
You're good for 25 years.
Yeah,
got to evolve along the way, butyou got to take that initial step.
for sure.
And, and again, that's what peopleare going to see, you know, they're
still they'll look at our building.
They're like, well, whydidn't you do this here?
And I'm like, I don't know.
That's that's great.
(38:07):
So I hope we get the feedback.
I hope people are honest.
Right?
Especially if I'm on stage, right?
Hey, Jason, I think youshould have done this.
All right, come up here on stage with me.
Let's do this.
Yeah.
Say it.
Say it.
Well, just as a reminder, thatis February 24th through 26th.
Usually the first day is a awesomeopening entrance by Marty Grunder and
Vince Torchia from the GROW group.
(38:29):
McFarland Stanford will bethere in attendance and doing a
lot of the education seminars.
Day two is the highlyanticipated facility tour.
There's usually two differentgroups, a morning and an afternoon.
Join the VIP list.
It is absolutely a game changer becauseyou get to visit with Jason and his
entire team, have some drinks anddinners you get to sit in the front
(38:51):
of the room and pay way more attentionthan sitting in the back of the room.
And day three is more education alongthe way with a, closeout speech by Marty.
It's super amazing.
Actually, you just got to getchills and goosebumps because
it's one of the biggest.
Shows in our industry in the entire year.
(39:11):
And so Jason is super proudto have his team prepared.
They've been doing a lot of hoursand a lot of improvement projects and
rehearsing and presenting their topicsand, what they do from their team.
So it's super awesome to have you.
Jason, thanks again forbeing the first guest to have
their second appearance ever.
I'm sure you love that in your,
(39:34):
well, I mean, you know,
world.
from Ohio State, so he's theonly two time Heisman winner.
So I feel like it's very fittinghere to be the Buckeye getting
ready to take on Texas tonight.
Yeah, it should be it should be avery, very enticing and fun game.
But once again, Jason, we'll see ina few weeks and thank you for taking
time out of your busy day to do this.
Always an honor.
(39:54):
Thanks so much for giving us the chance.
Thanks, Tommy.
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
(40:17):
our website at McFarlinStanford.comAnd don't forget to follow us on
LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram.
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.
Hello, this is Roots of Success podcastand I'm your host Tommy and I have an
awesome, really awesome guest today.
(00:21):
He is my first guest for asecond appearance on our show.
Oh my gosh, you didn'teven know that, did you?
I did not.
I did not.
through a curveball.
We got Jason Cromley, a co owner ofHidden Creek Landscape in Columbus, Ohio.
Jason's a good friend of mine.
(00:41):
We've, spent a lot of timestogether and grow events and peer
groups and sort of bantering backand forth all over social media.
He's a great guy and agreat business owner.
It's a pleasure to have you on Jason.
Thanks so much for the invite.
Super excited to be the first of, youknow, this, this long list of great
interviews that you've been watching anddoing that I've been really enjoying over
(01:05):
the last, you know, year seeing all these.
It's been great.
Well, I got a little surprise for you.
So I know viewers can'tsee, but if you can.
I got my handy dandy HiddenCreek Yeti coffee cup.
And I swear, I text pictures all the timeto Jason and be like, Man, this is it.
Every day, you know, I just gotmy Hidden Creek little gem there.
(01:26):
A little souvenir that I snaggedon a site visit about a year ago.
Yeah, I was proud to give it to you.
I knew you'd use it.
yeah, I'd use it.
I'd use it.
So, Jason, let's talk abouta little bit of a history.
How Hidden Creek got established.
How you got into the business.
You and co owner Matt,both run the business.
(01:46):
Talk about how you got into it.
Give us a story.
Give us the background.
Sure, yeah, and it could be a reallylong story, but in the interest of time,
I'm going to try to give you, you know,kind of the fun highlight moments of it.
You know Matt and I met back at theOhio State University in college.
We were both in landscape architecture.
We both got into bartending and we wereworking for some landscaping companies
(02:08):
and no joke paychecks were bouncing.
We knew more than the owners did.
We had a better work ethic and I'm like.
How hard does can be let's juststart our own landscaping thing
and I had a, I had a pickup truck.
I mean.
I said, buy a couple of wheelbarrels and what else is there?
hard can this be?
Yeah.
How hard can it be?
So we were still in school,decided to start the business.
So we did a little bit of schoolduring the day, bartended a night.
(02:31):
And would landscape between classesnot really knowing where this
thing was going to go by any means.
That was 26 years ago.
Now, believe it or not coming up onour 27 year anniversary this year.
So, really kind of fell into itbecause we saw what bad ownership
look like, you know, again, theydidn't know what they were doing.
They were taking advantage of clients.
(02:51):
It was the patented.
Well, let's get their depositand then we'll see if we show up.
Oh,
And I was like, this isnot what we're about.
And we would get yelledat and screamed at.
And it was just, I hate to say it, it wasa typical landscape story that, you know,
you see, it's not the people come to grow.
I can tell you that much.
It's the truck and atrucks we all talk about.
And right then and there, I knew withour education and I knew with our work
(03:14):
ethic that we could have a great companyand we had huge goals and aspirations,
Tommy, to do 1 million because at amillion dollars, we're going to be rich.
Yeah.
Rich.
at 1, 000, 000.
I think we owed 1, 000,000 in debt, right?
It was
We didn't make a, youmight've made a penny.
Made and no joke, both Lee,you know, luckily, both our
(03:36):
wives were very understandingbecause they were both nurses.
Matt met his wife through my wife.
They were best friends.
And so Matt, I literally had to bartend.
To survive post college.
Because every money we got offa job, we'd buy a trailer, we'd
buy a mower, we'd buy more tools.
So everything that we had justkept going back into the business.
And honestly, that's somethingthat stayed true to us to this day.
(03:58):
We pump money into our businesseach and every single day.
I want the nice equipment.
I want the great brand.
I want the Yetis forpeople who walk through.
Man, I love seeing my logo out there.
And you'll pick up on this at Grow.
For anybody who comes, I liketo show off just a little bit.
And I show off for the team that workshere so they know how proud I am of the
(04:20):
company and that I trust them enoughto keep investing good money back into
it rather than me having three housesand 10 cars and all those things.
I don't have any of that stuff, but butman, our facility looks pretty nice.
it does.
It looks, it looks, it looks awesome.
I'm going to be there in a fewweeks to see it again and see all
the, all the necessary changes.
(04:41):
You mentioned something veryawesome that's coming up next
month and it's called Grow.
it's the annual tradition.
It's in February.
You are hosting grow, andthat's a huge achievement.
Just to say, raise your hand.
We can do it, and we can prepare forhundreds and hundreds of business
(05:03):
owners and entrepreneurs and managersand frontline men and women out there
to attend your facility and learn more.
When you, when we announced we'regoing to Hidden Creek, you raised
your hand and said, I want the biggestand best most attended grow ever.
And I was like, man, that is.
That's something to shoot for.
You don't be shy of your goals.
(05:24):
You're, you're very openand expressing that.
Why hosts grow.
Yeah, you know, if you would askme a year ago, I had 100 answers.
Now, as I'm down to less than45 days, those answers are
not as big as they used to be.
You know, I went to 1 of my 1st grows,I believe was life scapes to Colorado.
(05:45):
I want to say back to maybe 2018 or 17.
I never been to one and, you know, likeanything in our industry, whether I
was at an NALP or some event, someone'slike, you got to go check out grow.
Right?
And I've known Marty.
We bumped into each other.
He's dating.
I'm Columbus.
So we're only an hour apart fromeach other and like anything,
someone challenged me to goand I'm like, you know what?
(06:06):
Let's go because guess what?
I'm going to go skiingwhen I'm in Colorado.
So, you know, perfect right off.
So I go to this event andhonestly, my eyes just kept getting
bigger and bigger and bigger.
And I'm like, one, it was, I met so manygreat people that had tons to share.
I saw a company that I aspired to be.
I saw processes in place.
I saw designs.
(06:26):
They're very similar to who we are,which is high end residential work.
And I'm like, someday,I'm gonna host Grow.
Right?
I was just like, because what I gainedfrom that helped me foresee a better
future than what I'd ever envisioned.
Right.
We were maybe 8 million at the time.
Right.
So we weren't that big.
I don't even know if we were that big.
(06:48):
We were probably close.
Yeah, probably around 5anywhere between 5 to 7 million.
And I was like, I want more, right?
I can do more.
I maybe can't have a church for abuilding, but let me see what I can do.
Right.
And so I saw that and I said, 1 day,that would be the coolest thing.
That would be a feather in my cap.
That would be a bucketlist that I got to do it.
(07:09):
And so it was a, like a pipe dream.
And then, you know, I talked to Vinceabout it and he's like, yeah, we always
stay south because obviously the winterand we can't really travel north.
And I'm like, well, there goesthat it's never going to happen.
And then, sure enough, you know, Martyand Vince come to me when 1 of the
events are like, hey, would you do this?
And I'm like.
Yeah, I would 100 percent dothis, because as we all know,
(07:32):
some of the best things about ourindustry is the give back attitude.
Mm
You see it across the board,and Marty's no, no different.
I mean, he's one of theguys who started this.
He wanted to do this to make theindustry better, not grunder better.
hmm.
Right.
And we want to do the same.
We want to share every failurewe've had, and I've got a record.
(07:52):
You know, we want toshare all of our wins.
We want to try to give back to theindustry what I've gained so much from
and hopefully make everybody better.
Have fun while doing it.
Yeah.
And see what we can do to make again, Iguess for me, I want to kind of protect us
more than sometimes what our clients areor the bad competition that's out there.
So the more educated experience,the knowledge we have, the more
(08:15):
success we're going to be asan industry, not as a company.
Yeah.
The give back attitude, I loveand I think that's the reason
why you, you want to host.
What was it like informing the team?
We're going to host a thousand pluspeople in the matter of a couple of days.
What was the response
You know, so I did itkind of fun to be honest.
(08:37):
So only a select few knew about it.
So there was some, you know, myleadership team knew about it.
So there was some behind the scenes talkof what was really going to be happening,
but I was able to bring 8 people to growat RJ's lawn care last year in Des Moines.
And 6 of the people there had no idea.
So, when I got on stage.
(08:58):
They just found out
Ah,
so.
announced it.
They announced it because one of thegreat things about hosting grow that I've
always heard, but obviously I'm hopefulfor is it's really the pride that will
come out of the company that you workfor when you do get a host an event.
And, you know, when you get to come upon stage, and we got to bring our whole
(09:19):
team up on stage and, you know, theygot to be there and they got, you know.
800 people staring at him, like, so we gotto do this, like, people want to come see
us and they want to know what's going on.
There's just that sense of pride.
Right.
And it's that piece that comes out thatsays, man, we're, we're going to get to
help people or I get to show off somethingthat I do as a process that I brought
(09:40):
to Hidden Creek that I can't wait totell, you know, 500 different companies
and hopefully they use that same thing.
Yeah.
You hit a really good, something reallyinteresting is these managers and
employees, team members, crew members.
office staff, support team, allthese people that help build and grow
(10:00):
and facilitate Hidden Creek today.
Oftentimes they don't get the recognition.
It's it's the it's the grind.
It's the day to day.
It's the hot summers, the cold winters.
There's really true no seasonor off season in landscaping.
It's, it's a grind 12 months a year.
What I like about this is it's anopportunity to recognize our team.
(10:21):
That's what it is.
How fascinating is it for your team tonow stand up on that stage next month
and to be recognized, interviewed, askquestions, tell me more, like this is
a reward, I would say for your team.
Most importantly, because.
It's they only kind of know what'swithin the four walls and the roof
(10:44):
at the facility in Columbus, but noweveryone's coming in and asking questions.
How do you do this and how wecan learn more and be recognized?
And that's what I think thatyou're also trying to achieve
and let people know in your team.
100%.
And I'm a big proponent ofgetting the recognition to them.
You know, as I've been working with thegrow team, you know, Vince, specifically,
(11:04):
I'm like, how do I get my team on stage?
Like, how do I get themto answer questions?
Right?
Is the CEO?
Yeah, I know a little bit of everything,but I know 50 percent of everything.
They know 100 percent ofsomething specific, right?
So when I answer, I'm given the bestgeneralizations possible and they
can answer from the design to theoperational piece to the equipment.
(11:26):
I'm like, yeah, I think we usethis and I heard we did this.
They're able to truly give 100percent of their knowledge to.
Somebody in the room is going to walkthrough who says, I do your same job.
That's exactly what I do.
And I got an owner just likeJason who walks around thinking he
knows everything and he doesn't.
So I want to talk to that guy.
And I think to your point, the pridethat will come out of that, their
(11:49):
chance to share and their chanceto be asked questions and learn
something from somebody else, right?
So it'd be great if I could send myentire team to grow, but I can't afford
to send 40 people every year to grow.
So there's nothing better thana thousand people coming to us.
So everyone gets to experience growthis year and get to see really what
(12:09):
it does to bring everybody together.
love it.
What's what's one thing or multiplethings you're hoping to gain by hosting?
What was the what was the trigger point?
But like, yeah, that'sthat's what I want to learn.
Is it learning more?
Is it?
Yeah.
Exposing us to see certainthings that we're not doing well.
Is it?
What is it?
What are you hoping to gain?
(12:30):
You know, it's funny because at everylevel, and we've mostly tried to
take anywhere from, you know, fourto eight people per year to grow as
once we see it, because Everybodygets something different, right?
Because you guys have such a great,you know, assortment of classes, right?
There's so much diversity.
You know, it's not owner driven.
It's actually probably the leastowner driven thing you can see.
(12:51):
Right?
So, I'd say, you know, betweenyour HR classes, accounting
classes, sales training, right?
That's who I want to go to this.
I mean, honestly, grow for me when Igo is more social than it is anything
hanging out with the other owners,you know, talking about our business,
mostly because we're in peer groupstogether, but I pick up 1 or 2 things.
(13:12):
My teams are coming back with pagesof notes and I'm like, we can't
implement 20 things this year.
So, I think that's probably when itcomes to grow people going, it's really
just the open mindedness you needto have to say, just because you do
it this way doesn't mean it's right.
You have to listen to otherideas, but you can't also come
back with 100 items, right?
(13:34):
It's small bites.
So I think that's probablywhat's so key about it.
And it's not just the tour.
I mean, out of a 3 dayevent, the tour is 1 day.
You got classes before you got thetour and you got classes after.
And my team is, you know,already fighting over.
Well, I want to go to classes.
I want to go to classesbecause they do know.
In the world of landscaping,we never stop in.
(13:56):
We might slow down, but you can'talways get classes in when you want to.
So this is an optimal time of yearfor mostly our industry to get some
knowledge and actually implementit before the season kicks off.
Yeah, you hit something really goodeducation at this event is Really
good and it's not about owners.
It's it's the least amount about owners.
(14:16):
It's more about those middlemanagers Those frontline people,
it's nice to hear it from someoneelse besides Jason Cromley, right?
Or a little bit different take.
It's no different than myson in baseball, right?
I could tell him to do this on hisbaseball swing all day long for years
and years, but the minute he goesand sees a baseball coach, it's like,
it's cause I'm totally different.
(14:36):
Dad, I learned this new thingand I'm like, Oh wow, that's,
I've been saying that for years.
Wow.
So we get bored of the JasonCromley saying things over and
over, or here's a different take.
I will tell you grow is fascinating eventfor management people, how to manage
others, how to do sales, how to do ops,different little tricks in here and
(14:58):
there and a lot of some of this stuff.
Jason, you've been hearing, you'relike bearing in ace peer groups and
and networking with other businessowners all over the country.
You hear a lot of this thing, but for foryour team to hear it from others, yeah.
is a game changer.
They're able to grab notesand execute moving forward.
So, like you said, bring yourteam to this event, and it's
(15:20):
more about them to experience.
There's tons of vendors.
Tons of networking opportunities,a lot of cocktail and dinners.
And it is literally, it'sfinally like a 16 hour day.
But you don't feel likeyou're working 16 hours.
no, no.
But I mean, trust me, we've looked at thesecond day, you know, we start at 7 a.
m.
And we'll go till nineo'clock for the VIP dinner.
(15:42):
If you know, you sign up for it and that'sa really great networking piece, but.
I mean, you're right.
That's a 16 hour day andman, I'm pumped for it.
You know, I might need to do a doublecold plunge that morning to get my body
fired up for it or do one at lunchtime.
But it is the drive that, youknow, everybody wants to share.
And I can tell you, my team, they'vealready got their power points ready.
(16:03):
We've already reviewed them andyou could tell because I've looked
at them how excited they are.
And there's things that I'm learning.
They do.
I'm like, I didn't know youguys are working on that.
This is amazing.
No, and I would say that's, that's thetough thing to, you know, Tommy, as
Hidden Creek has grown to the size we are.
Right, I was just talking about,you know, 1 of the acquisitions we
made, which is, you know, 1 of ourgreat pieces of success, right?
(16:26):
You know, buying a pool company.
You know, 3Million dollar company,we've been able to double the revenue.
The owner stayed on for 4 years,he's staying on for 1 more year
to make it 5 years, but as we'regoing through his task list of all
the stuff he does this morning.
I'm like, I rememberwhen I did everything.
And by the way, our client communicationwas through the roof when I'm
(16:49):
small, because I was the designer.
I was the estimator.
I was the project manager.
I was accounting.
I was also the foreman.
So I can answer everything.
Now you got five layers in there andthe clients are like, who do I talk to?
Do I talk to my salesperson?
Do I talk to the project manager?
The foreman's great.
Can I just ask him to do this?
Accounting's like, why haven't they?
(17:10):
I mean, and that's, that's hard.
And that's one of the things that, youknow, a lot of people come to this and be
like, God, I can't wait to be, you know,20 plus million and be like Hidden Creek.
It's like, well, hang on a second.
Tap the brakes.
Yeah, you want to really understand.
How great it can and cannot be, andwe've got some failures that I'll be
on stage, unhappy to share, or I'd say,not proud to share, but happy to share.
(17:35):
Right, because I want people tounderstand, I've definitely made
some mistakes, and you know, asyou said it, I'm going to get
on stage and say, this better bethe biggest grow you've ever had.
If it's not, I look like a fool,but if it is, man, this guy
can really make things happen.
Yeah.
Why not set the bar really high?
A
Why not?
I mean, so I fail where?
I'm not going to Vegas and putting amillion dollars on black or red here.
(17:56):
I'm just saying, I think wecan make this the biggest grow.
But I've got to make sure I putthe effort and energy into it like
anybody does in any role they have.
Don't say it.
Actually say, look, I didn't try hard.
I worked hard.
I did what I should have do.
It just wasn't the results.
And we all know that.
If a salesperson misses theirgoals, we all know you sell if
they actually made the effort.
(18:18):
Yeah.
What about the journey oftrying to achieve the goal?
Right.
let's talk about this real fast.
When I was there recently.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I'mgoing to get the numbers close.
You set a goal of like 24 million atthe end of 2023, I believe, right?
And you didn't hit the goal.
You came less.
(18:38):
So talk about that experience.
I know the answer, but let letour audience go through that
format and tell me what happened.
So yeah, we had a goal set for 24 million.
We had gone from 12 millionto 17 million to 21 million.
So in two years, we wentfrom 12 to 21 million, right?
The pool acquisition was partof it, but that was only three.
(19:01):
So we were able to kind of parlayall that stuff into, by the way,
that was also post COVID, right?
So, man, through the roof.
And then the next year wego from 21 down to like 20.
6 and I'm like, what the hell happened?
Right?
And I knew what happened and Iknew what we need to do to fix it.
So we come into this year.
Goals, 25M like, I knowthe things we did wrong.
(19:25):
I'm the director of sales.
I'm like, I've got this.
And guess what number we hit this year?
21M dollars.
Tommy, I missed it again by 4M dollars.
I, I, yeah.
Missed it again, right?
I'm director of sales.
Who's this fall on me?
And if you ask my sales team,they're like, this is the most
stressful year we've ever had, right?
Because guess where Jasonwas just on top of everybody
(19:48):
Grinding.
grinding, right?
And at the end of the day, we kind oflooked back and we know what we did wrong.
We still lived in just alittle bit of a comfort world.
Hidden Creek's got a great brand,a great name, a great image.
We did 21 million, almostpurely off referrals.
Right.
We did.
We do SEO.
We do website.
(20:08):
We got those, but wedidn't knock on a door.
We didn't ask for a sale.
came in.
Yeah, it was just whatever was coming in.
It was like, my hands are out.
So, if it lands here, you know,again, if the fish jumps in the
boat, I'm going to eat the fish.
Right, but we were also,
the boat was 21 million.
yeah, it came in the boat.
We barely put a rod in the water.
(20:29):
Right, and so.
We have made some changes.
I got some personnelchanges that happened.
I got some new personnel coming in.
Because I believe at the end ofthe day why the team says, you
know, because you can imagine I'mtaking my goal up again, right?
I'm not going to sit here and suffer.
You know, I talked to the team like,well, you know, why do we have to do this?
I'm like, well, first and foremost,our overhead keeps growing.
(20:51):
So 21 million.
If you guys want to hold, lookto your left, look to your right.
Someone's gonna be gone.
Right.
So if you want to protect thepeople you like working with,
we got to go after the number.
So we use some of those things totry to learn the lessons, right?
Nobody's perfect.
And again, people might walkthrough not hear this podcast.
You're like, God, everythinghidden Creek touches is gold.
Oh, my gosh, man.
(21:11):
I have so much bad product.
So many bad ideas.
I just don't ever let themhold me back and hold me down.
I always think positive.
I'm a unfortunately, I'm anoverly optimistic person.
Love it.
Love it.
So, talk about there was a, there was aneye opening experience, at your facility.
(21:31):
At some point last year whereyou had a a town hall meeting,
sort of open experience.
For everyone in thebusiness field support team.
It was a, it was a meeting for you toget some awareness in our organization,
people to raise their hand andshare what they really, truly mean,
(21:53):
whether it was positive or a negativeor constructive criticism, tell me
about that experience that you had.
yeah, it was a great event.
Mark Bradley actually camein and hosted the event.
I had never done anything like this.
You know, and Mark's like, you know,we need to hear from your team and
see what kind of feedback we get.
And I'm like, you know, Idon't really like feedback.
Sometimes Mark.
I don't like to be told what
(22:14):
I'm a little sensitive, believe it or not.
And he's like, look, he's like, youknow, go get, you know, cash out of
the bank because everybody who answers,you're going to hand them cash because
you want to reward people to say, ifyou're willing to give feedback, it's
this valuable to me, your idea is worth50 bucks is worth a hundred bucks.
Right?
That's a backpack blower, right?
(22:35):
Four, four of those, right?
Gets you an idea that could saveyour company 10, 000 in something.
And, you know, Mark got upthere and just started pushing
questions, pushing questions.
And at the end, he came back, he goes,Jason, I've been to a lot of companies.
Your culture is strong becauseyour team was open with you.
(22:56):
And, and you sat thereand you took it because I,
on the chin
then I'm like, that is not true.
That is, I've done thisand I had to sit there,
You could you didn't havean opportunity to do that.
I know I, oh, I didn't want to, becauseagain, it would have shut it down.
Right.
So I couldn't be the normalsometimes, you know, and, and Marty
and I are great about this, right?
(23:17):
We get a little bit defensive, right?
We worked so hard.
We've done this.
And I just sat there and took it and, andit was all true because if someone says
it, That's actually their experience.
You're not making it up.
I might not feel that it's true orthought I did something, but it doesn't
mean it actually went to the next level.
So that experience was huge and it reallyopened our eyes to do it more often now.
(23:40):
So since then we've kindof done more town halls.
We do them once a month.
It's not the whole company, but we'regetting better feedback at all times.
And that's actually our goalfor this upcoming year, right?
Two way feedback.
Because so many times, you know.
We, we make decisions forour people all the time.
We're like, Hey, we gotthis piece of equipment.
We got this, we got this.
They're like, just so you're clear.
(24:01):
I hate that piece of equipment.
No one likes it.
Why do you keep making decisions for us?
And we all do it.
So we're, we're working on that again.
And again, 26 years later, we'restill trying to figure this out, man.
it's a journey.
It's a journey.
It's a journey I like the one way streetversus the two way Feedback oftentimes.
(24:22):
We're always Pushing or driving onedirection to a person and then that
person is driving the next one tothe But it's less likely to get the
feedback to come the other direction,
Yeah.
right?
And oftentimes as an owner or as amanager, we're like pushing, pushing.
How successful, how great is itfor a company to allow people to
(24:46):
push back up all the way to you?
Like that's, I love that because atthe end of the day, the owner should
be held accountable for a lot ofthings that are going on as well.
And typically what happens or whatalways should happen is when things
fail, it goes back to the owner.
When the football team doesn'twin, it just goes right back to
(25:07):
the ownership and the head coach.
And when the offense can't score, it goesright back to the offensive coordinator.
It's no different.
You've got to look atyourself in the mirror.
And so I think you need to realizehere, like what you're saying
is accept all the feedback.
And take it on the chin.
It's going to be just fine.
That's how you get better.
It is, and it's hard, you know, there'sa lot of owners, you know, we did the,
(25:30):
obviously the strategic, the gallopstrengths, you know, with Megan and
Tracy, which is super eye opening again.
It's like, someone's been watching youyour whole life and tells you who you are.
It really is, you can't hide it by anymeans of the matter, but, you know,
during our 1 town hall, it was funny.
You know, as you see me, you know,and as people walk to grow, they're
going to see, you know, little Jason,five foot five up on the stage, right?
(25:52):
Hopefully you guys put me next to gene.
Yeah, we're going to, we havean elevation little stand for
Yeah, a little stagewould be great for me.
You know, and it's funny if I walkdownstairs, no, 1 says a thing to me.
Right?
My managers be like, God,everyone's down there.
They're frustrated about this.
They're frustrated about this.
I'm like, no, 1 says a word to me.
They're like, well, that'sbecause you're probably 1 of
the most intimidating people.
(26:12):
Jason, you walk down andpeople just shut down.
There's clamp down.
They clamped down and during one of ourtown halls, my wife works for us just
one day a week because we figured thatwould keep the marriage still going.
And during one of the town halls,she's like nothing mean you could
have sent half of this out an email.
Why are you wasting our time?
And I'm like, I just need someone withthe courage to step up and I mean,
(26:34):
I guess you don't need to raise her handand, you know, because she knows she just
has to sometimes get the people going.
right?
Like guys, Jason is, is very approachable.
She actually called me Spinelesswhen we started dating way
back in the day of high school.
'cause I had no backbone.
But Hidden Creek's success, hidden Creek'sname brand made me a different person.
(26:57):
Being a father made me adifferent person, right?
You kind of go from maybe peoplewalking all over you to, you gotta
become a little bit of a protector.
And so I protect things at all time.
And sometimes I do thatthrough intimidation or
through, you know, the wrong.
you know, outlets and I'm still workingon myself and getting my own personal
coaching to be a better person.
And it's not easy for guys like us
(27:19):
It's not easy.
Not easy.
No, it's not.
It's willing to acceptsomeone else coaching you.
That's, that's the hardest part.
I learned that throughMark Bradley the most.
The people at your level orat his level at the end of
the day need coaching as well.
For sure,
Jason doesn't know everything he'she's on a journey to figure things out
(27:41):
and he's willing to admit that and youhave weaknesses and you have streaks.
But you gotta be willing to accept thoseand learn from them how to be better.
yeah, and that'll probably be oneof the cool things that happens
to grow as well to, you know, justgetting, you know, connected with
mark a little over a year ago.
He's totally helped me lookat myself and my life and my
(28:01):
business in a different way.
And I'm like, I'm going to grow to this.
He's like, that's it.
I'm like, I thought that was pretty big.
He's like, I don't think it's that big.
And I'm like.
enough.
Thanks.
You know, and then I talked to anotherowner at grow or at a summit and they're
like, oh, this is my goal next year.
I'm like, that's it.
Yeah.
Like, give me, give me 5 percent more.
(28:22):
I'm not saying double it, butI'm saying if you're 3 million
and your goal is to go to 3.
3, did you just pick 10percent out of random?
What's it going to take toget another 150, 000, right?
Go to 15%.
Move the needle.
Can you find one more big projectthat's out there and grind?
It's not more hours, more efficient.
And they're like, I mean,yeah, I probably can.
(28:43):
I'm like, then that's the goal.
So,
at Hidden Creek?
so if you were to pick probablynumber 1, right off the bat, right?
It's really the people who work here.
The fact that I can employ 150 people.
Those 150 people know what Ifeel is a very strong company.
Right.
We take care of our people.
We really, really do not to generalize.
(29:05):
It's a family here becausenot everyone feels like that.
But when something goes bad here, wecome together and we, we really do
put the effort into the people 1st andmaking sure they're taking care of.
So the fact that I got 150 people herewho have families of anywhere from 2
to 5, you know, I'm taking care of, youknow, anywhere from 400 to 600 people.
(29:28):
Supporting them, making theirlives hopefully better and knowing
that they're respected at theirjob and they're appreciated.
So people first and foremost, it's,it's always number one for me.
That's why I love coming to work.
That's why I never did work fromhome because I need to see the look
on their face when they're thereworking because I'm a people person.
yeah, you're a visual person.
(29:49):
So what's your, what's yourone drive if team is the
something you're most proud of?
What's, what's the one drive or twodrives that like, we got to hit that
every week, month or year to make surewe're executing with our, with our team.
You know, I talked a little bitabout it earlier with regards to,
we're really starting to realize alittle bit more of this feedback.
(30:10):
And, you know, we did go to oneof Mark Bradley's elements summits
up in Detroit, and we all kind ofcame back with, you know, we were
missing feedback and we were missingthis and when you miss sales goals.
Right, and you'd have no backlog, it'samazing how stressed people get right.
Production is stressed because they don'thave anywhere to send the people right.
(30:31):
Design is like, I don't have enoughdesign work to keep people busy.
Sales is like, well, I'm really trying.
And so you kind of take all those thingsand, and that's when your back's against
the wall and you really see where theproblems are if you're looking and you've
got to get out of the trench at thatpoint, kind of look up and realize like
our people are great and I wasn't takingcare of our people and, and I took it
(30:54):
personal, and that's probably where, youknow, as I'm going to sales, I'm like,
I'm going to have to lay off 10 peoplethis week if you guys don't go sell a job.
Right.
And do you want to go lay themoff or do I have to do it?
And of course I have to do it.
And they kind of came back to me.
They're like, that wasn't thebest way to coach us, right?
We don't, the guilt doesn'twork in today's generation.
You know, Tommy and my dad'sgeneration, if I heard I'm disappointed
(31:17):
in you, man, just, just hit me.
Give me the paddle.
Don't give me the word disappointed.
And so it's really this, this coachingthat I've discovered I need more coaching
and my team needs more coaching andI'm not the best coach by the way.
Yeah,
That's what I've really come to recognizethrough all this for me to protect my
people, which is my number one asset.
(31:37):
I've got to get a better education,better training, better mentorship and
better time to actually get focused onthem as a person, not just in the role.
yeah.
Like I said earlier, it's.
We all have our strengths and weaknesses,but if you can be able to this goes
for anyone owner manager You if you canidentify those weak spots in yourself,
(32:00):
and if you can manage those and get alittle bit better Not to say that you're
gonna perfect it It's just who you are,but you are able to team up with another
coach or another peer group member Orsomeone else around you to say, Jason,
you can't talk to people like that.
It's not gonna work.
You're like, all right, you kind ofknow it, but you need someone else
(32:22):
to tell you that that you respectand you have, mutual respect for.
But Be willingness to open yourself up tolearn those types of things along the way.
I get it.
it's tricky.
As we, as we wrap up, this hasbeen, this has been awesome.
I really wanted to focus onI'm really excited for grow.
I am.
(32:42):
It's one of my favoritethings in February to go do.
I have the opportunity to, deep diveinto the, to the team, to the facility.
I get to educate and presenta lot of different topics.
To everyone throughout thecountry and it's awesome.
We, one of the great thingswe get to do also is.
After you do your facility tour the nextmorning, I get to have the Hidden Creek
(33:04):
team up on stage and we get to ask thereal detailed questions and that's a very
highly attended event and, and I get, youknow, you get managers and ops and sales
and HR up onto that stage and they get toask really deep, like, how do you do this?
I, that's one of my mostfavorite things to do is, is
it, is the post facility tour.
(33:26):
Which is great.
So come see us.
It's a fascinating event.
Jason, well, anything else that youwould like to leave behind with?
That you're most excited about anything
You know, so the number 1 thingI'm most proud of, obviously, is
my people, you know, our name, ourrecognition, our brand, those are
all right there and people mostlyknow us by our people who work here.
But I will say the facilitywas a huge game changer for us.
(33:49):
It was really.
You know, put it all on,you know, black, right?
Or button all on red at Vegas.
We said this building isgoing to change the course.
Of our business, right?
For forever.
And it was funny when, you know,Ken, my director of ops was with
us in New Orleans for a summit.
He went to your presentation about whatan award winning facility looks like.
(34:10):
He goes, Jason, thankGod you weren't in there.
He goes, you would have lost it.
He goes, he's taking pictures of allthese things that, that are great.
And you would have been like, Idon't like the way that color looks.
Why is this not done?
Why is this not hanging?
Why is that tilted?
You know, I'm not an OCDperfectionist by nature at home.
I'm not at all.
But at my facility, I am, you know,I'm the guy that's walking out,
(34:31):
picking up trash and wonder knowwhy 100 people pulled in before me.
Why did why did they notsee that piece of trash?
So, but it's that facility thatI think when people see this,
they'll see why we did it.
It not only saved andtook our business further.
It helped me with my marriage.
Right helped me with recruiting, youknow, it helps me close the big deals.
It made us a business,not a landscaping company.
(34:53):
And so I really hope that whenpeople get to see this facility
and, you know, we've done honestly,Tommy, probably hundreds of tours.
Nothing is the biggest this.
But I'm always asking, you know,anything that you think we could
have done better with this.
And, of course, I don't want to hear aword because I want them to say, this
is the coolest thing I've ever seen.
But when someone gets the courage to tellme, they're like, I would have done this.
(35:14):
I'm like.
Yeah, I should have done that too.
I realize that.
Right?
Yeah.
And that'll probably be the funthing is I'm super excited for
the feedback we're going to get.
I'm super excited to inspire, right?
Learn, be educated, all those things.
Not just grow, becausegrow is a three day event.
But I'm telling you, the momentumyou get off of that event for us, for
(35:36):
everybody, gets you through really thatfirst quarter when life kind of is rough.
Right?
And you go back and you remember, like,Man, it's spring, we're getting our butts
kicked and you got to go back and say,I told myself I do 1 thing this year.
Let's do that.
So, I think when people see thefacility, they're going to be blown away.
I think that's going toreally be hopefully some
inspiration for some people.
(35:56):
And I'm super proud to show.
The innovation, the ideas of things wedo that make our company very transparent
for anybody walking through our doors.
Yeah.
Good point.
I've, I've been there a few times.
I'm going to be there in a few more weeks.
I'm very impressed by thefacility and it's, yeah.
I'll say this.
It's not the most fancy place on earth.
It's not, it's literally just,it's, it's a metal building with
(36:20):
a roof that has nice landscaping.
Like, that's it, Jason.
And, and, but what I will say aboutthis facility is there's certain
features about it that make it
Yeah,
There's these little things throughoutthe inside and the outside and I'm
not going to give it away But there'sa little bit of a design studio.
(36:41):
There's a there's a Operations areawhere everyone can come together
and see what people are working onThere's a board of equipment where
you get to see what's being out the onjob sites what's in the repair shop?
But then you move your operationsoutsides I like the sales design
studio area where they can see whereso they're tracking sales I love the
(37:04):
layout of the yard and the trucksand the appearance of everything on
the fleet and the trailers and whatyou've done without giving too much.
I'm very impressed because you gotthis facility when you were a tiny,
tiny little bitty business and youbasically threw every dollar of your
name, what you had mortgage your house.
You did all this stuff andyou will say that during the
(37:26):
speeches that we hear it grow.
But at the end of theday, it works, that's it.
It just works.
So I encourage you to comesee this place because.
I believe he got this facilityat 3 million, just right
around that 3 million mark,
roughly.
Designed it and drew it andsaid, this is what we need.
And then you keep adding andtweaking and adjusting and
(37:47):
buying a little more to make it.
When you buy something,it's not your dream.
It's not going to be end of the road.
You're good for 25 years.
Yeah,
got to evolve along the way, butyou got to take that initial step.
for sure.
And, and again, that's what peopleare going to see, you know, they're
still they'll look at our building.
They're like, well, whydidn't you do this here?
And I'm like, I don't know.
That's that's great.
(38:07):
So I hope we get the feedback.
I hope people are honest.
Right?
Especially if I'm on stage, right?
Hey, Jason, I think youshould have done this.
All right, come up here on stage with me.
Let's do this.
Yeah.
Say it.
Say it.
Well, just as a reminder, thatis February 24th through 26th.
Usually the first day is a awesomeopening entrance by Marty Grunder and
Vince Torchia from the GROW group.
(38:29):
McFarland Stanford will bethere in attendance and doing a
lot of the education seminars.
Day two is the highlyanticipated facility tour.
There's usually two differentgroups, a morning and an afternoon.
Join the VIP list.
It is absolutely a game changer becauseyou get to visit with Jason and his
entire team, have some drinks anddinners you get to sit in the front
(38:51):
of the room and pay way more attentionthan sitting in the back of the room.
And day three is more education alongthe way with a, closeout speech by Marty.
It's super amazing.
Actually, you just got to getchills and goosebumps because
it's one of the biggest.
Shows in our industry in the entire year.
(39:11):
And so Jason is super proudto have his team prepared.
They've been doing a lot of hoursand a lot of improvement projects and
rehearsing and presenting their topicsand, what they do from their team.
So it's super awesome to have you.
Jason, thanks again forbeing the first guest to have
their second appearance ever.
I'm sure you love that in your,
(39:34):
well, I mean, you know,
world.
from Ohio State, so he's theonly two time Heisman winner.
So I feel like it's very fittinghere to be the Buckeye getting
ready to take on Texas tonight.
Yeah, it should be it should be avery, very enticing and fun game.
But once again, Jason, we'll see ina few weeks and thank you for taking
time out of your busy day to do this.
Always an honor.
(39:54):
Thanks so much for giving us the chance.
Thanks, Tommy.
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
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(40:17):
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See you next time on the Roots of Success.
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