January 30, 2025 • 49 mins
Is your landscape business prepared for the unpredictable? From navigating snowless winters that threatened his company's survival to innovating with heavy machinery and fostering rock-solid vendor relationships, Bob Marks shares his blueprint for turning challenges into triumphs. In this episode, host Tommy Cole uncovers actionable strategies that will not only safeguard your landscaping firm but also propel it to new heights. Don't miss this insider's guide to weathering any storm—both literally and figuratively.
THE BIG IDEA:
People-first approach drives success
KEY MOMENTS:
[04:37] Clients Drives Our Landscape Business
[09:15] Property Enhancement Strategy Overview
[12:19] Consistent Care Builds Client Loyalty
[16:32] Snow Removal Industry Evolution
[21:10] Managing Snow Operations and Growth
[24:24] Snow Equipment Challenges in Landscaping
[26:45] Client Risk-Sharing for Asset Recovery
[32:15] Prioritizing Employee Welfare
[35:59] Vendor Partnerships for Growth
[39:02] True Partnership with Mack Trucks
[42:28] EMI: Building a People-First Team
[43:34] People-First Approach Fuels Success
[46:30] Mind and Body Leadership Essentials
QUESTIONS WE ANSWER
How can landscape companies diversify their revenue streams?
What are the best practices for snow removal businesses?
How to manage seasonal business cycles in the landscaping industry?
How to train a landscape team for both summer and winter operations?
What makes a good vendor relationship in the landscaping industry?
What are effective strategies for landscape enhancement sales?
How to maintain employee morale in a seasonal business?
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 episode ofRoot Success Podcast and I'm your
host Tommy Cole and boy, we've gotanother great exciting guest today.
(00:22):
I've got my really goodfriend for the last few years.
We have sort of, man,we've done a lot together.
We've been a lot of peer groups and traveland Probably some fun times in the past
of celebrating some of our wins together.
It's my good friend, Bob Marksfrom EMI Landscape out there
(00:43):
in the great state of PA.
How are you doing, Bob?
I'm doing well, Tommy.
Thanks so much for having me.
How are you doing?
I'm doing great.
I'm doing great.
This is a long time overdue.
I've got a lot of respect for this guy.
he is a much of a doer.
when we meet, we get together andhe's like, just tell me how it is.
Let's get things done and let's go.
Let's drive.
Let's go.
Let's go.
And.
(01:04):
I think that's why we'veboth hit it off so well.
So welcome to the show.
He is a commercial landscape.
Company lot, almost all commercialrelated maintenance, but also
a gigantic part of his businessis the white stuff called snow.
So he's honestly oursnowman in our peer groups.
(01:25):
And he's had a lot of life lessonsalong the way and probably messed
up a lot of things, but he's gonnashare those experience with us today.
And we're super excited.
Bob, here we go.
How did EMI get started?
Give us a little bit of a background,what the latest is and, and, and
how do you got to where we are now,
Yeah.
So I am the, I'm second generation.
So EMI was started actuallythe year I was born by.
(01:49):
But my stepdad, so he was in constructionbuilt his own first house and then
got laid off from constructionand said, what am I going to do?
So started a landscape company doing justabout anything residential, whatever he
could get his hands on, grew the company.
And then my mom joined the companyand she did everything from the books.
(02:12):
Invoicing customer relations,picking up trash on sites.
And then I worked at thebusiness in high school.
So worked there in high school,went away for a few years, became
a automotive mechanic for Audi,worked at Audi for a while.
And then the business drew me back in.
So in 2009.
Moved back to Pennsylvania and wewere a company of seven people.
(02:36):
So
we were seven people and Edand I were leading two teams.
There was six of us in the fieldwith, with my mom in the office.
And that was the whole company.
And that was 2009.
And I think the turningpoint was probably 2015.
We started hitting some growth.
Ed was very much the executionpart of the business.
He taught me a lot about Howto run an efficient job site.
(02:58):
And then I was lucky to have him onone side of me and Cindy, my mom, the
relationship side, and I learned fromthe two of them and I slowly became, as
they put a little bit more of the faceof the business, I was dealing with
the clients, more dealing with vendors.
And then Ed and I came toagreement and I purchased the
company on January 4th, 2021.
(03:19):
So I became sole owner in2021 and I've been learning a
few things since that point.
So it's been smooth sailing since 2021.
Like, no, nothing's been going on.
It's been easy breezy, right?
I mean, I figured we're in themiddle of a, of a pandemic.
I should just buy the familybusiness and go from there.
That was the plan.
(03:40):
Yeah.
We love to take risks.
I get it.
So what, what drew you to, to this?
What, what drew you your interest to?
Sort of take over the family businessand and sort of not change things up But
just maybe run a little bit differentlyor or grow this business to what you know
your stepdad I'm sure did a phenomenaljob, you know probably got it to a
(04:01):
certain point, but you you wanted totake over What's the reason behind that?
Well, to touch on that, what Eddid, my stepdad, I, I don't think
I could have achieved what he did.
We are very different people.
And I think.
That's why the two of us ended upbeing successful and therefore EMI
being successful, that he, he was ableto, to grind those early entrepreneur
(04:22):
days and see what was the future whenthere was nothing to look towards.
So, and then as we grew, I thinkthe people part of it comes a
little more naturally to me.
And it was it was almost a natural timeto hand off when we got to a point of.
30 employees, 40 employees.
It wasn't, it wasn't what he wanted.
so that kind of worked out well, butwhat really drew me to it, Tommy, and I
(04:45):
don't think I've been able to articulatethis until recently is I don't know
what it is about me, but I guess I'ma, in some ways, I'm a people pleaser.
I'm very much.
I want to make sure our clientsare successful and it's not that
I'm such a great guy and allI care about is other people.
I'm not sure.
I think just ingrained from mymom in the business that like I
have this innate desire that we'regoing to be successful because our
(05:08):
clients are so well taken care of.
And when I got to come back to thebusiness and see us do the level of
work we could accomplish that almostno one else in our area could do.
One, we were super efficient.
I would look back at the end of a.
You know, 14 hour day landscapingand what the six of us accomplished
in the field was just incredible,let alone the work was top notch.
(05:30):
And when I could see what, what we couldaccomplish and then the results of happy
clients and the growth from that I thinkthat was my, my launching point of like,
I get the satisfaction of a job well done.
And then also.
Our clients are happywho want to give us more.
It just, it just spiraled from there.
Spiraled up.
Yeah took off like like crazy.
(05:51):
That's great You got to give themad respect to the stepdad and
mom to sort of lay the foundation.
I mean, that's, that's the mostdifficult part is just getting
started with some sort of a brand,some sort of just operations.
Executing on jobs on maintenanceproperties, executing on billing, and just
be profitable like that, you know, for youto jump in and kind of watch and observe.
(06:13):
I think you owe all themthe amount of respect.
So, so great to them.
Let's talk about somethingthat's really interesting.
A few years ago, speaking 2021, right?
I feel like it was a.
What about the next year, maybe theyear that next year, I felt like it's
something happened where the wintera couple of years ago, the white
stuff did not fall from the sky.
(06:35):
And you were thinking,
no winter Tommy.
There was no
yeah, you're thinking, Oh crap.
Like we are business.
Your business is.
Pretty heavily involved in snowcontracts, snow plowing, et cetera.
And I remember some calls back in theday where it was like, we got no revenue.
I got guys standing around.
(06:56):
I don't, I'm not sure what to do.
And so it led you along to a path.
Now you ended up being okay, butwhat, what drove you to figure
some things out along the wayin case the snow doesn't come
I mean, I learned so much.
So when I, you know, when I purchaseda company, I thought I learned a
couple of things in 2021 because.
The first month I owned the company, wejust, we didn't have any snow in January.
(07:18):
And I'm like, Oh, this is what it'slike not to have a lot of cashflow.
And then February, 2021,we had a ton of snow.
And then I felt like what itwas like to be cash strapped.
When we put out a lot of money toexecute, then the money rolled in.
I'm like, okay, this isactually pretty easy.
You know, you go the next winter, we, weaverage about 35 inches of snow a year.
And we ended up anywhere betweenfour and seven inches of snow
(07:40):
and never actually plowing any
snow.
So we went from a company, we wereeight and a half million in revenue.
In 22 and in 23, we dropped over 2million in revenue because of the lack
of snow and our overhead had builtup to support an 8 million company.
So I learned more that year.
And I know the conversations we hadwas basically, we need to sell the heck
(08:04):
out of some landscape enhancements.
You know, we're a, we're alandscape maintenance contract.
We're not doing new construction, butwe've got clients that are willing to
improve the look of their building.
And we, We always just took it forgranted that yeah, there's some revenue
there when it comes around and we'll doit and they need something we'll fix it.
I knew we were going to, you know, onthe balance sheet, we were going to lose
(08:27):
easily, you know, 800, 000 that yearbecause the lack of revenue, the overhead
and the debt we carry for landscape.
So
It's almost like an enhancementto you as an accident.
Oh, someone, they call,they want to do something.
Cool.
We'll take care of it.
But that, that was theextent of it at that point.
we were just, yeah, 100 percent reactive.
They needed something.
Go do it.
If it got hot and dry, maybewe'll go sell something because
(08:47):
we have maintenance people.
There's no grass to cut.
And then that's, that wasbeing of the transformation.
Like you said, of our, of ourenhancement side that we can be
better, but we're more proactive.
We have, you know, percentage goalsto sell off of maintenance contracts.
You know, how much enhancementsdo we want to sell off that?
That none of that was there before.
So, you know, the lessons I learnedfrom that winner of no snow, carries
(09:09):
over a lot of different ways.
But one of the landscape side wasdefinitely, you know, we're, we're
leaving, we're leaving money on the table.
But at the same time, we're not, we'renot doing our customers any favor by.
Okay.
By seeing problems andnot pointing it out.
So yeah, we, we sold a lot more,a lot more enhancements that year,
happier clients and, and a betterbalance sheet because of it.
(09:29):
Yeah.
I love it.
So tell me a few more little details,Bob, because I think there's a
lot of people out there listening.
That might be in your same situation.
They probably went through the samescenario a couple of years ago that you
did What did you have to do tactical wiseto provide that you you had to identify
enhancements probably on property Sothat took some training you probably had
identified your account manager peoplerunning and going this is how we look
(09:53):
for enhancements Here's the type of workand then we need to put the proposals
together And then we got to go sell itand then we got to do these the ordering
which All those necessary things thatfast forward two years, you've got a
small team that handles that, for themost part for the year round for the most
Right.
talk about some of those technicalthings that you had to work on.
Yeah.
(10:13):
So before we get granular, Imean, in hindsight, I knew nothing
about how we needed to set it up.
It was, I was the account managerbeing, we do industrial work.
There's not as many accounts, right?
We're our revenue is a, is a much.
A much bigger number forthe amount of accounts.
So I could handle keeping our clientshappy, but I didn't have the time
to keep them happy, run a businessand sell, you know, a million
(10:35):
and a half worth of enhancements.
So I thought the last thing I would evergive, give up as account management and.
I think the lesson I'm still learningto this day is that just because I
give up account management doesn'tmean I give up the relationship, right?
That, that was my fear.
So I didn't want to give up thataccount management, but just because
I, we have account managers now thatthat's one of the tactical things
(10:56):
we did doesn't mean I'm, I'm gone.
I'm still a driver of those relationships.
So what did we do?
We, we doubled down on our software.
We worked a lot harder with LMNto make sure, make sure those
things were accurate, that theinputs going in were real numbers.
That the gross margin we're drivingfor, what are actual goals there?
We're building templates, you know,we're on big industrial properties.
(11:18):
There's just lots of trees thatdie over time or come down.
How do we estimate that quickly versus,you know, starting from scratch?
So I think the big,the big difference was.
You know, I think a lot of owners and,and managers will agree with this is,
is letting go when you don't think youcan and we've got, you know, we now have
two account managers, Katie and Kendrathey're both great Kendra's new and she's
(11:42):
hitting the ground running, but lettingother people do those tactical things
of monitoring the site monthly, right?
We have site inspection forms.
So we kind of, we have two different ones.
We've got one for internal thatgoes to our maintenance supervisors.
Okay.
And they're grading, you know, they'regrading the work that's done where
account managers, they don't havethat form because if they're on the
(12:02):
site and they see our work is bad,they're throwing up the red flag.
they don't need to fill out thatform because if there's a problem,
you know, which luckily doesn'thappen too often, they're just.
Shooting a flare up in thesky and we're going to fix it.
But as they're on site saying,besides what we can do,
Tommy, we look for everything.
We don't do parking lot striping.
Do our clients need it?
Because that's an, you know, my, mysale philosophy, which I struggled to
(12:26):
communicate once again, and I I've learnedmore is that like, we just want to give
to our clients to such a level thatthey're going to give back to us with us.
Never asking.
And it has to be that, that trulyaltruistic that you're giving to them
because you want to do a good job.
And by having that philosophy, we giveto them 365 days a year, you know?
So on day three 65, when wesay, you've got these dying
(12:48):
trees, you need this work done.
They're not going to anyoneelse, but say, EMI, of course,
we take care of them every day.
they want us to fix it.
They don't want to golook for another price.
They don't want to, they don't wantto see if someone else will do it
cheaper or, or a different design.
So.
I've been so tactical my whole life.
And, and as I'm managing people moreand more, there is a little bit more
of that soft scale side and it's,it's the, why, like, why do we, why
(13:10):
do we treat our clients so well?
And, and what does that really mean?
I think that enabled us to,to tap into our clients.
Needs
Yeah,
once that made sellingthat work a lot easier.
yeah, that's the ability to have thetrust of the client to kind of to go
spend their money and the more often we'rethe professionals at the end of the day.
(13:34):
So it's our recommendation of whatthey need to be done to the property
to keep the enhancements, not just thebare basics of cutting grass every day.
There's a lot of other things.
And so when you provide valueand they trust that equals.
Right.
A great relationship and youget to make money along the way.
So, so service the clientto the full extent.
It's kind of like we do everythingbut the four walls and the roof,
(13:56):
everything outside that we'lltake care of at some point.
Right.
And then you've got a customer forlife and that's the reason why we
do this as the customer for life.
Yep.
Yeah, I agree.
All right.
So let's talk about the most juicytopic on hand and that's snow, baby.
Like,
no man, this, this is,this is the juicy part.
So you do millions ofdollars of revenue in snow.
(14:17):
And, and far as I'm concerned,you're one of our biggest snow
clients to this day, which is great.
I love to learn a lot of stuff,but it was not always that way.
So give us a little backgroundof like plowing snow.
Where you have been and what it waslike back in the day to what it is now.
Yeah.
I mean, way back in the day, weEMI left snow removal when we got
(14:37):
hit with a massive blizzard backin the early to mid nineties.
I was a little young tobe out there at that time.
But I, I don't remember the exactsnowfall total, but you know, between 30
to 40 inches of snow when one, you know,everything was shut down and EMI, we did
not have the equipment to handle that.
So we were begging construction companiesto bring equipment out and bail us out.
(15:01):
And we lost a lot of money.
We lost money becauseof what they charged us.
We couldn't turn around and,and pass it on to clients.
And we left the snow removalindustry for a few years.
And we vowed that when we came back in.
We'd be ready for anything.
So when Ed came back in, you know, we,we plow with heavy equipment and we jump
back in with full size loaders with bigpush boxes, and that was not the norm.
(15:25):
At least in our area, pushboxes were somewhat new.
They didn't gain a lot of traction.
I think until late nineties,early two thousands.
And when 16 foot wide push box.
were confused of what,what even, What is this Um,
piece of machinery?
Right.
and, and honestly we had, we hadcompetitors unhappy with us because
(15:46):
so many people wanted to do workbased off time and material.
They thought we were goingto kill the industry.
Well, I don't like doing anythingbased off time and material.
We're doing it.
We're getting paid for results.
If we can get it done faster, itdoesn't mean you should pay me less.
You should pay me more if I'mgetting it done faster because you're
open and operational even better.
So we, we thought we were ahead ofthe game with snow contracts that way.
(16:09):
You know, by going toa more per inch model.
So when we jump back in heavy equipment,you know, front articulating front end
loaders, compact loaders, skid steers.
And, and we're fine.
We're pretty good at this, and we'rein a great, geographic location for it.
I mean, we're in the Lehigh Valley,Eastern Pennsylvania, and everywhere
you turn, there's another industrialbuilding going up, and that's what we do.
(16:31):
We're 100 percent commercial, and we're95 percent industrial snow removal.
So we manage 30 million squarefeet of pavement, and things
have definitely changed along theway from when we jump back in.
But I still, cool.
I still use the same joke and myteam's probably sick of hearing it.
But when I started back in snow removal,when I came back to the company, even in
2009, it felt like the most important toolfor the Chuck in a truck snowplow guy was
(16:54):
a six pack of beer and a center console.
Like it was that nonchalant, thatdisorganized of an industry that you
know, it's like, you just got yourold pickup truck and put a plow on.
To now, you know, Tommy, I don't, I don'tthink we have three hours for me to talk
to nerd out about snow, about all thetechnology and the advancements in the
industry, but it's, it's advanced somuch in the past five, 10 years that it's
(17:18):
almost not recognizable to what it was.
When I came back in 2009,
Yeah.
They always say you, you manage thelarge snow contracts, the, the large
square footage, the large pavementand what matters to you most.
It's kind of like EMI'stagline is service matters.
Right.
I love this.
This is great.
But the cost of that business notproducing work or the trucks getting
(17:42):
in and out of those facilities.
Is what kind of money that that is?
And so your job is to go in there andyou've got great nice healthy clients and
what they expect during a snowstorm Theyexpect for you to perform and provide
that service No matter what so you haveto be geared up at get at all times
to touch on that.
(18:02):
I mean, we've been told by certainclients that they had certain requests
and I just had to be upfront withthem saying like, that is, that is
going to cost you a lot of money.
And their response is nothing's goingto cost us more than if we have to
shut down this assembly line, or ifour, if our delivery trucks can't
get out, that costs them more than,than I'm ever going to charge them.
Now we're in a competitive market.
(18:24):
So, you know, price absolutely matters.
I have to be realistic,but if we're doing.
If we're doing the job to the top levelfor a place that wants to stay open,
no matter what price is secondary.
Absolutely.
And we really found that our, ourbusiness model for snow and our price
net goes along with it doesn't fitfor the clients that don't want that.
(18:44):
If they just want to be open Mondaythrough Friday from 9 to 5, and if
it snows a bunch, they'll close.
They don't want the dedicatedequipment that we're providing them.
Our price is going to be toohigh and that's fair enough.
If they don't need it, they don't want ourservice, but we're set up for that client.
You know, the phrase that'sreally taken our industry by
storm is critical infrastructure.
That's what we have to work on.
If it's not critical infrastructure,if it doesn't matter, if it stays
(19:07):
open, EMI is not a fit for it.
And we've learned that really,
I love it, Bob, because you hadidentified the ideal client profile,
that ICP that we always talk about.
You've defined it perfectly, like weare that critical client that has to
stay open 24 hours a day or whatever.
And there's no days off in that industry.
(19:27):
Well, if those, you know, 150 trucks don'tget out the gate, we're in big trouble.
Because we have hundreds of people's,you know, demands on the line to get.
to move forward.
That is, that's, that's amazing.
I will tell you this, speak alittle bit about this, this snow,
the type of snow business isalmost a year round type session.
(19:49):
You may not be plowing snow, but I'd bedamn Bob, you're planning way in advance,
like a long time for this because I feellike it's in a lot of our conversations.
Tell me some of the behindthe scenes that are happening.
Like it's 90 degrees in the summer, whatare you guys doing to prepare for this?
Yeah, we, we say we can takethe month of May off from snow.
(20:11):
That's about it.
So
11 months on and one month
yeah, yeah.
And I can't help butthink about it year round.
But yeah, there's, there's a lot, right?
So, you know, there's thesame stuff with landscaping.
You've got contract renewals, you know,what equipment needs to be turned over.
That's gotten older.
But there's, like I said earlier, 1 isjust the advancements in technology.
(20:31):
You might be able to see over my shoulder.
You can barely see it, but there'sa few boxes back there that now
we're putting up weather stations.
On our client site thatwill stay up all year long.
There are cameras or weather stations.
So our year starts.
We say, you know, after May we'relooking at contract renewals.
We're looking at what equipment worked,what didn't work, what sites worked and
(20:52):
how we more efficiently service either.
It's a route based work or do we needmore or less equipment on a certain site?
And then from there, it's, you know, we'realready looking at the year round staff.
We have, you know, our year round staffdoes 1 of 3 jobs are either supervising,
they're running a salt truck, orthey're leading 1 of our sidewalk teams.
(21:13):
And we're identifying those people whenit's 90 degrees, who can do those things,
they each have different challenges.
You know, leading a sidewalk teamis 1 of the most grueling jobs.
I think almost in any industry,you're always in bad weather.
It's you're working at night,you're out for long shifts.
You have to be able to tolerate thatwhile still managing some people.
(21:33):
Then you move from there into asalt truck where our salt truck
drivers are regional managers.
You have to be able to manage.
1, your salt route, which, you know, anassault truck, you're using both hands.
You know, you're looking in front ofyou behind you all over the place while
also managing, you know, 2 or 3 sidewalkteams and, you know, 6 to 10 operators.
And then we have our regionaldirectors that then are managing
(21:55):
all, you know, all our big regions.
So we're identifying those people.
And with the growth we'rehaving, who can move up?
Do we have spots we have to fill anyway?
And then we're looking at what's ourgrowth capacity which frankly often
comes down just to, to money, right?
If we want to self perform snow, whichwe do subcontract work, we're, you
(22:17):
know, the term is maybe a blender wherewe don't get work solely looking to
subcontract it out, but sometimes in ourportfolio, we have buildings that don't
fit in our routes or where we're at.
So, you know, what, what capacity dowe have to grow, when we're, we're
picking up a million square feet, youknow, we need, we need a large loader
with a hydraulic wing plow for every10 acres, and that set up, you know,
(22:39):
the loader is going to cost you 200,000, the plow is going to cost you 50.
just for 10 acres, startmultiplying that out.
It's not, it's not a cheap game to play.
So we're, we're trying to planthat out, you know, and that makes
a lot of vendor relationships.
We're talking, we just made a bigdeal and we're happy to be back with.
Case construction foralmost all of our equipment
(23:01):
Yep.
that we were with themwhen we were early on.
We straight away went to some otherbrands and cases made a big push to
be back with the snow contractor andand we're happy to be back with them.
But that deal started in March.
So, yeah, it's year round and then rightnow, we're trying to finish landscape
and trying to do snow at the same time.
So, we've had deadlines that we'vebeen working on since September
(23:24):
as far as making snow site maps.
Meeting meeting with clients.
So we understand their needsand their wants doing the site
inspections for preseason damage.
We're training our operatorscase case came out to train.
Our operators on the new equipment,our metal plus dealer train.
So there's just so many differentmoving parts that if you don't start
looking at these until the fall.
(23:45):
You've already missed someof the deadlines we wanted to
accomplish, let alone, you know,be ready if it snows in November,
Right.
Love it.
Good stuff.
So I had experience in the dirtworld where we used a lot of iron.
And I was on a show the other dayand it talked about, you know,
iron sitting, you're losing money.
And I learned that the hard way ofstrategizing the next job site in the
(24:09):
next piece of machine that needs to getoff the job, move to the next one and get
after it because when it's in transitionand when it's sitting, that piece of iron
is collecting dust, you're losing money.
And so it's the leastamount of time it sits.
Unfortunately, snow only comesa few months a year, right?
And so that piece of equipmentis sitting and collecting
(24:30):
dust for the remaining months.
So it's a, what we call a sitting asset.
Talk about how you handle sitting assets.
it is, it's the scariestpart of snow removal.
We know our assets are going to sit right.
We can use, we can use compact loadersand skid steers on the landscaping
side, but we're never going to justify,
Not as much.
(24:51):
you know, we're, we're a landscapecompany that does, you know, 3.
5 million in landscape maintenance.
You don't need a lot of heavyequipment to do landscape maintenance.
With a million and a half of enhancements.
Like we could use a track skidsteer and a compact loader.
We'd be good.
We have 50 plus pieces of heavy equipment.
So that's telling you how much iron issitting for nine months of the year.
So I think what we found is, is alot of it comes down to, to be a
(25:15):
sustainable, an enduring snow company.
A lot of it comes down to contract setup.
We have, luckily we have reallygood clients that do look at us
as one of their partners, right?
We're not, we're not in thetransactional snow removal business.
They rely on us, as we said earlier,to stay open and make money.
So I tap into that and explainto them that if you want.
(25:37):
To stick with a snow contractor that'sgoing to come in with new equipment,
come in with good technology,be there every time you need it.
We need to share some risk becauseif there's no, a lot of contracts
are set up with the snow contractortaking 100 percent of the risk.
There's no snow.
There's no bills, right?
We're not invoicing if it's not snowing.
(25:58):
And that's not sustainable, you know,with we've seen the climate change,
our average snowfall still similar.
We're getting less events.
There's more variability, you know, thatwe had 1 of the least snowiest winters
that we just discussed in 22 and 23.
so we've gone to our clients and say,how do we share some of this risk?
And.
(26:18):
It's taken me a while to fullygrasp how it is just a partnership.
It's not me just going tothem saying, would you be nice
to me and share some risk?
They, that, that doesn't make sense.
What I found is that if I can getthem to share some of the risk, I
don't have to take as much of a profit
as I would if I'm takingall the risk, right?
If I'm taking risk, we're in oneyear, I'm going to lose money.
(26:39):
You better believe it, Tommy.
When it snows a lot, I'm making handover fist and it didn't have to be
such high highs and such low lows.
So if they're going to share somerisks, whether it's a seasonal contract,
whether it's a tiered seasonal thatthey kind of pay in increments, we have
some that just pay, you know, equipmentalmost an equipment stipend, but we
(26:59):
need to recover the cost of our assets.
One way or another.
So we've really looked at our clientsand said, Hey, you want this service?
You it's, it's almost easierwith our existing clients because
they know what we've done.
They know what we've done for them.
And when we can spell out, you know, Ithink I actually learned this early on.
I think actually hearing Mark Bradley fromLMN talk, there's times I open my books to
(27:21):
my clients and I, I slide metaphorically,I slide a piece of paper across the
table and say, here are my payments onyour equipment for the next 12 months.
That money I'm payingwhether I plow snow or not.
And if you want me to be here in threeyears, after a couple bad snow seasons,
we got to share some of that risk.
And I've been able tolower their overall cost.
And it's nice that I can say, Hey,you want me to take all the risk?
(27:44):
If we're getting 33 inches of snow,which are average, you're going to pay X.
If you share some of thatrisk and we get 33 inches.
You're going to pay X minus 15percent or whatever that number is.
And then, then they start to see whyit's advantageous to have a partnership.
Yeah, it's not
on those times.
way street all the time.
Yeah,
I feel like that's, that'sthe old, that's the old way.
(28:07):
Because that happenedto you two years ago.
yeah, yeah.
And, and we, at that, when I, when Itook over the business, the, the seasonal
type contracts, they weren't just thatcommon in our area, which I think was
a cop out on my part that didn't pushit harder, but we were very low in the
single digits of fixed price contracts.
We're up this year.
We're up to 16%.
We have a goal in the next threeyears to be 30 percent And that'll
(28:30):
cover our overhead that'll coverthat at those assets and that that'll
get us close to saying, okay, evenif we have Multiple bad winners.
Maybe we're losing a little bit ofmoney, but it's not catastrophic And
if we get to that point where it's50 percent and our assets cost us
somewhere between 40 and 50%, just inowning the assets, do the work, then we
know we're a hundred percent covered.
Worst case scenario, we put in a lotof work in breakeven, which again,
(28:54):
nobody wants, but at least, atleast we're in business next year.
So we, we want those clientsand, you know, it filters back.
We worded a bunch of differentways, the critical infrastructure.
We, we say our ideal client, ourproperty and facility managers
value a partnership with ourvendors and consider service first.
That's what we need.
And if they don't value that, Tommy,we fired a huge client going into
(29:16):
this year because I can tell youthey didn't value our partnership.
And I talked to you aboutthis and it was hard.
It was one of my firstbig sales four years ago.
It was a 1.
4 million square foot facility.
And through multiple times,they've told us they don't care
about us as, as a partner, wherethey were calling for big storm.
We have a million dollars worth ofassets there to plow their snow.
(29:39):
And they said, don'tworry about coming out.
We don't want you to come out.
We'll keep us, we'll keep us open.
And if we need you, we'll let, youknow, and we put in way too much
work and way too much money to haveus turned away at the last minute.
We serviced them for the rest of the year.
We came to somewhat of agreementon how to finish the year.
And we let them go.
And I think, you know, I got advice fromfriends in the industry and it was time.
(30:02):
It was, you know, they basically basicallysaid, Bob, you're going to talk to talk.
You're going to walk the walk.
I wouldn't be able to look my teamin the face to say, this is who
we are and keep them as a client.
You know, Zane is ourregional manager there.
He sleeps on those sites acouple of times a year, because
he wants to keep them open.
And if they're not going to appreciate,you know, appreciates a little soft, but
if they're not going to value what we do,
(30:23):
Right.
we're not going to work for him.
And we moved on.
Well, you got to make the hard decisionand you've been putting this in its role
to make those tough decisions, thosetough phone calls at the end of the day.
Because you're, you're not going tosit there and just plow a bunch of
snow just to make a few bucks andit doesn't value your business and
doesn't stand by and quite frankly,your team's going to hold you
(30:43):
accountable to say what you say, right?
And do that.
I love the fact where you have snowcontracts, which gives you guaranteed
revenue, guaranteed goals, and the mostimportant thing that you probably love
the most is like consistent employment.
Right.
And you just said it a minuteago, you're people first.
(31:05):
So you talked a lot at some point backin your career of people first, but now
you're really putting some good bricksin place to build this house where
you're like, you can be here for a while.
Good, consistent revenue, good,consistent employee employment.
Yes.
that you've been building that for a year.
So kudos to you.
(31:26):
Thank you.
Yeah.
It's something I think is, is peopleask me what I changed when I owned the
business that I didn't change this.
I feel like I just doubled down on whowe were, you know, and it's easy to
talk about, I look outside my windowand not that we're all materialistic,
but like there's a lot of new vehiclesout there and you know, that's,
it's important that to me that ourpeople are taken care of, right?
(31:48):
Like I want them to be able tobuy a new vehicle when needed.
We have people buying homes andstarting families that I don't think.
Our industry supported that 10,15 years ago, especially here
where it was totally seasonal.
When I bought the business, there wasmyself, my mom, my stepdad, and two other
people that were kept on year round.
(32:10):
Now we still, we stillhave some seasonal layoffs.
But we, I think we're up to 20, 25 people.
We keep on year round, no matter what.
And some others get laid off forshort amount of time, just until
the snow starts flying, we get somerevenue in, frankly, Tommy, some
people are looking forward to it.
We work hard.
They're looking for a few weeks off, youknow, let, you know, collect a little
(32:31):
bit of unemployment, recover, see theirfamily, but yeah, we, we put our people
first you know, we do some, I think someunique things that if you're with us for
three years, we're going to cover yourhealth insurance, a hundred percent.
You're part of, you know, you're part ofthe family for, for a lack of a, a lack
of a better term that if you've beenhere for three years in our industry, you
you've been through the ups and downs.
(32:51):
Like you're, you're one of us.
Like I don't health insurance.
I don't want my peopleworried about, can they pay
medical bills?
You know, we pay 75 percent of theemployee after 90 days and after three
years, we're going to pay 100 percentbecause that's the right thing to do.
So, that people first is, is our driver.
You know, our, our 401kprogram, I think is good.
(33:12):
And, and our broker came to us forthe 401k and said, Hey, you could
save some money by not guaranteeingthis contribution, but only matching.
And I looked at it and said, wow,that would save us 25, 000 next year.
And I thought about, and I thoughtabout, and I said, no, you know, I'm
sure we have some people that don'tvalue the 401k we offer for them, but
if we're providing 3 percent of their,of their salary into retirement that
(33:35):
they'd otherwise have no retirement,I'm not taking that away from them.
So.
Yeah, we, we really look at that.
And I think, I think it's what's allowedus to grow and, and keep our people.
We've built this coregroup in our industry.
You're going to have some turnover, right?
But we're not, we're not losingpeople have been with us.
One, once we get people in for sixmonths, they're not going anywhere.
(33:56):
We're not losing them toanother landscape company.
If we're losing people, they'veleft the industry because.
I grew up here, Tommy.
You grew up in the industry.
I grew up in the industry.
I've, I've worked real hardin landscaping and snow.
I know how difficult that is.
So, we'll even do it when, when there'sa forecast and our final forecast
comes in over a foot, we're paying ourpeople an additional 50 percent on top
(34:17):
of their already increased snow rate.
They're basically gettingdouble their landscape rate.
Cause they're going to beout for the next 20 hours.
They may have to sleep in ahotel and be out for another 12,
Yeah.
So pay for it.
deserve.
Everything they get.
So that people first, I thinkis, is our number one driver.
Yeah.
I love it.
If you don't have those peoplefirst, you don't have a business.
(34:40):
And so take care of them first at theend of the day that, that, that is,
that is the true value of a businessis right there as the team, you
know, it's the people on the field,not the people up in the suite.
So I love it.
I got, I got one more thing to talk about.
You're, you're, you're greatat relationships and taking
(35:01):
care of people and all that.
But most importantly, you've also knownto have really good vendor relationships.
And when we were, you hostedthis past year your group,
and it was phenomenal to see.
Just what you've been able toaccomplish with your vendors and you,
it's just an extension of EMI andtalk about why that matters to you.
(35:24):
People in your business matter.
You probably the number one, I'dsay the number, the other thing on
the top five list is your vendorrelationships and taking care.
What, why does that matter so much?
And why do you work so hard for that?
Yeah.
We, when we say people first, we alwayssay that means our team, it means
our clients and it means our vendors.
It, it goes.
It goes every direction.
(35:45):
The vendors, what we have foundis that we, we almost flip the
coin with our ideal client.
We want to be the idealclient for our vendors.
So when we say we're looking fora client that values a partnership
with their, with their vendors.
And and consider service.
First, we want, we want to be thatclient for our vendors, right?
(36:07):
Like that.
It would almost be, it would be,it would absolutely be hypocritical
for me to say, I want low priceand I want this and I want that.
And what we found too, is thatwhen we find the right vendor.
It's a good price.
Maybe it's not the best price,but so much of, especially in a
growing company, because we're doingsomething new every year, our vendors
teach us the things we don't know.
(36:29):
So, you know, where we're buying ourchemicals for our lawn care program and
our bed maintenance program, they'reteaching us multiple times a year.
They'll come down, sit downwith half our team and teach us.
You know, what, what's the next thing withplant growth regulators, what's the newest
thing for just broadleaf weed controller,you know, hey, the nutsedge is real bad.
How are we going to do that?
Or, or Brian, you know, we, wewere early on with Brian and snow
(36:51):
removal and, and we partnered upwith VSI and now it's VSI by boss.
And we'd buy two sprayers and the ownerof BSI would be in our shop walking
us through how to use these things.
Could I buy a cheaper sprayer?
I probably could have.
Would the owner be in my shop?
Would he answer the phoneat three in the morning?
I don't know, but that'swho we're looking for.
(37:12):
Because if we're going to be sofanatical about making sure our
clients are taken care of, in turn,basically, I want the same treatment.
Um, you know, and one, one ofour core values is build and
maintain lasting relationships.
And, you know, I sometimes sayit's almost the rule that I don't
want to work with, with jerks.
It's almost selfish in a
way.
of over it.
A
What's that?
(37:32):
lot, there's a lot of jerksin the snow business, right?
And you're over it.
You've been through that.
You've seen it.
Yeah.
And like, I spend a lot of time at workand the winter, so do our employees.
Like there's times where we're atwork for 70, 80 hours a week and.
If, if our vendors aren't good to dealwith, if I got to call a vendor and
they're, they're not good to deal with.
And our team isn't like, what's thepoint, you know, like, I think one
(37:55):
thing I've learned is that, you know,life is short, like I want to, yeah, a
business has to make money and that'salways going to be in the top three
there, but I want to enjoy going to work.
I want to enjoy thepeople I'm working with.
I want to enjoy the clients asmuch as I can, that I work with.
And we've been lucky with our vendors,you know, we're, we're X Mark mowers and.
I think because we've stuck with them forso long and, and we've purchased so much
(38:15):
with them and, and we give them feedback,good or bad, they're open to all of it.
But when we need something, you know, ourdistributor, it's not just the dealer,
the distributors at our door helping us.
And we've got some pretty uniqueones where we have one that's
a vendor and a client, right?
So we work for Mack trucks,they're owned by Volvo.
And that relationship goesreally deep that we've been with
(38:37):
them for more than a decade.
We started just helping them with some oftheir spring cleanup edging and mulching.
We started mowing their places.
We started doing annual flowers.
Then we did all the snow plowing, youknow Now we do pretty much everything
outside their four walls But we also doit with volvo equipment anytime volvo
makes the equipment we can use So wemade the deal with case construction and
(38:58):
that does almost That does pretty muchall our sites except for mac trucks and
those volvo equipment That's some ofthe nicest equipment we've ever used,
but it's pretty cool to be at the Macassembly plant, keeping them running
while we're using Volvo equipment.
And it's
perfect marriage.
it's a true, it's a true partnership.
And I know when I'm talking to the localboots on the ground for Mac trucks,
(39:22):
what it means to them that we're showingup with brand new Volvo equipment.
We have a Mac medium duty pickup truck,a dump truck, salting their lot and.
When they have to go to corporateprocurement to make sure we stay
in, they almost have to sell us.
And it's easy for them because it issuch, such a partnership that it's
a, like you said earlier, it's a twoway street and it makes everybody, it
(39:43):
makes everyone's job that much easier.
Oh man.
It's all about relationships at the day.
It really is.
It really is, you know?
on trust.
And as long as you perform, say what youdo, this business becomes sort of easy.
yes.
In, in, in the right mind, man, lotsof great stuff, Bob, I'm going, I'm
(40:03):
going to run through a few takeaways.
We'll call them Tommy's takeaway.
So, so I love this portion.
So no snow to enhancement division.
That's fascinating to me, right?
So we got to prepare sales, like,we got to identify things that will
produce an enhancement on a property.
We got to train our team.
We got to learn how to estimate those.
We got to know the reason why everythingoutside the 4 walls and a roof.
(40:26):
You know, the A account manager cantake over the reins and run with things.
I love that.
I love that answer back into thesnow business, a hundred percent
people first love snow contracts,help me weigh the cost, the load
of sitting assets along the way.
(40:47):
It's, I learned the things from you.
It's not a yes to every contractand a yes to every client.
So you need to take a step back in yourbusiness and really identify what matters
most to you and these clients and setthe bar at that height and don't involve
more clients that don't fit that modelto keep jumping into your, your space.
(41:08):
And relationships comesdown to relationships.
100%.
It's a two way street.
It's a partnership.
It's a friendship.
It's practically a dangnear marriage, right?
And I've seen photos of youin front of the Mack trucks
looking mighty fine, my friend.
And I've seen your fleet.
It's probably the most impressive fleet.
I also got to throw somethingreally funny out there because.
This is great.
(41:28):
When we visited your place, I couldprobably eat on that floor of the shop.
It was so thick and, and I'm like,this guy's a mechanic, my friend,
like, like showroom floor mechanic.
It, it looked like a NASCAR race full ofmowers getting serviced just constantly.
(41:49):
And I'm like, this is fat.
Like, I got my, my like goosebumpsand my arms were were raised high.
It was just.
Impressive facility, by the way.
You take pride in yourwork, pride in your team.
I really appreciate you sharing that.
What's one sort of little nuggetthat you kind of live by in the Bob
Marks world that this is how, thisis what got me from where I was?
(42:13):
Sort of in the transition period of,of the EMI to where I am now, you
still got some more to go, but whatdo you, what do you live and die by?
Tommy, I got a while ago.
I got a while ago.
You know, two things, one, oneis definitely business related.
You know, I think it's, it's alittle bit repetitive what we talked
about, but it's doubling down onwhat you're, what you're good at.
My, my skill, one of my skills in businessis communicating why EMI is different.
(42:41):
To the clients and why EMI isdifferent to potential team members.
You know, Tommy, we've talkeda lot about building a team and
I've struggled at a little bit,I think, because I didn't know, I
didn't know what I was looking for.
I didn't know where I was going.
I did everything myself.
So we build a team and.
You know, I don't want to, you know,toot my own horn here, but my team has
(43:04):
turned around and said to me, like.
Everyone's willing to run through, youknow, the phrase run through a brick wall.
Nobody, everybody's soinvested in EMI success.
And I think it's because one, Ipreach about why EMI is great, but
because we are a people first company,it's, it's just so reciprocal.
We have an internal, like an internalmotto here and it's, I call it the E
(43:24):
like the EMI inner circle, and it just.
It starts with at the very top whenI hire someone, the old motto was
like the employee had to build,had to earn my trust, right?
That that was the old way, right?
Like I hired you, you know,
You got to earn it, baby.
I've been here for 25 years.
yep.
Well, it's 100 percent flipped on itshead where when I hire someone, I've got
(43:46):
to do some work for them to trust us.
You know, there, there's more jobopenings and employees, you know, but
then team members these past few years.
So, like my job, stepone is you joined us.
How do I get you to trust me thatwe, we are who we say we are and
we're going to do these things.
And when, when we can start to getthe, get a new team member to see
that we're the real deal, as far aswhat we say, we're going to do, we do.
(44:10):
They buy in and theywant to do a good job.
And then as that circle starts to goaround, they buy in and that's the three
o'clock on the circle and going to sixo'clock is they start doing amazing work
and our clients start to recognize that.
And when it comes to enhancementsales and renewals, our clients
are so well taken care of.
They say yes, and there'sincreases and there's profit.
And it goes back up to 12 o'clock whereEMI can give back to that employee
(44:32):
even more than we originally did.
And they start to trust us more.
And that circle justspins faster and faster.
So for us, it was doubling down on, onpeople first, and it's just multiplied
us in ways that I didn't see it coming.
Love it.
That's great.
What about the second one?
I think you're on the same page with me,Tommy, is, is, business health, business
(44:53):
health often goes with physical and mental
health.
knew you were going to say this.
I knew
So I was in the best shape of mylife when I purchased the company.
And you know, all the excuses, Ibought a company, I was stressed
out, and I was living a unhealthylifestyle for the past three years.
And Something clicked recently where I'mlike, this isn't, this isn't good for me.
(45:15):
And I started hitting the gym again.
I started watching what I was eating and,and that's really snowballed as well.
As you know, Tommy, I, I've, I haven'thad a drink now in over five months
and the energy with all three combinedof working out and not drinking any
alcohol and eating properly has.
Has supercharged me and my team hasrecognized it and that spread itself
(45:39):
and you know, not that everything comesdown to the owner, but when they see
me fired out of a cannon every morning,because I feel great and I'm ready to go.
You can inspire people by whatyou say, but I think I've, I've
been able to inspire people justby, by turning a new leaf and
it's, it's propelled our business.
I think it's made.
(45:59):
It's made my mental clarity,see things that I maybe knew, or
maybe I wasn't seeing them at all.
And now I see them and I'm justnot willing to put up with things
that I don't think are good enough.
And it's really.
In the past five months, Ihad to be clear with my team.
We made some changes personnelwise, and it was a big change.
And I, I called a meeting for ourleadership team and they had seen the
(46:21):
change in me so much over the last fivemonths, Tommy, I'm, I'm, I'm healthy.
I'm good.
They thought I was dying becausethey thought I was, I was so intense.
They thought I was, I wasn't goingto be here anymore, but it's like,
no, there's just changes happening.
And I'm so ready to gothat I had to assure them.
No, I'm good.
I'm just ready to go.
And.
And it's really propelled usthat I think 2025 is going to,
(46:42):
it's going to just be awesome.
Yeah.
That's great.
You know, we've been onthis journey for a while.
You know, I went through a few things afew years ago, actually four years ago.
And it's like, well, it's alittle eyeopening experience.
And I'm with you.
It, you know, first off, takecare of this God gifted body that
you have and this God gifted mindthat you've, you've been given.
(47:06):
And don't feed it and feel it with abunch of junk because then it's this,
this sort of sporadic, uncleared person.
And not only that, you're theleader of that group of, of team.
So set the bar high in the examplebecause everyone's watching you, right?
So if you're very sloppyand not communicative and.
(47:28):
Sort of a mess and nottaking care of yourself.
It doesn't, but something wouldbe sad about someone that takes
care of their body physically andmentally is like that dude is sharp.
I will, I want to associate withmy myself, with that person.
He's taking care of himself.
He's taking care of the company,so I'm a huge believer of that.
You and I are on the samesort of track record, baby.
(47:48):
I knew you were going to saythat, and I really appreciate it.
Bob, it's been a super honorto have you on the show.
This is man, we can justgo for three more hours.
Just, just keep, keep,
going.
you told me 30 to 40 minutes.
I'm like, I better talk fast.
Yeah, you better talk fast.
I've always truly, you know, love tolisten to your passion and your energy.
It's just, it's contagious.
(48:10):
Just a great person.
You're right.
Give credit to your wife.
She's an amazing lady.
We visited last week, lastmonth and had a ton of fun.
But thank you so much for being a guest.
I have, tons of energy forsuccess for the next year for you.
And it's gonna be fun.
It's gonna be a fun ride.
So thanks for being on the show.
Thanks for having me, Tommy.
And, and yeah, I think a lotof success going forward.
(48:32):
I, I owe to McFarland Stanfordand the peer group that.
You know, you and Jim have guided and, youknow, we have a big peer group now with,
I think, 13 other members in our group.
And I actually just had a callyesterday unsolicited from Tom, from
our group with a little bit of advice.
So yeah, thanks so much to you as well.
Yeah.
Awesome.
Well, good times.
We'll see you soon.
Thanks, Tommy.
Ready to take the next step?
(48:53):
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
our website at McFarlinStanford.comAnd don't forget to follow us on
(49:16):
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.
Welcome to another episode ofRoot Success Podcast and I'm your
host Tommy Cole and boy, we've gotanother great exciting guest today.
(00:22):
I've got my really goodfriend for the last few years.
We have sort of, man,we've done a lot together.
We've been a lot of peer groups and traveland Probably some fun times in the past
of celebrating some of our wins together.
It's my good friend, Bob Marksfrom EMI Landscape out there
(00:43):
in the great state of PA.
How are you doing, Bob?
I'm doing well, Tommy.
Thanks so much for having me.
How are you doing?
I'm doing great.
I'm doing great.
This is a long time overdue.
I've got a lot of respect for this guy.
he is a much of a doer.
when we meet, we get together andhe's like, just tell me how it is.
Let's get things done and let's go.
Let's drive.
Let's go.
Let's go.
And.
(01:04):
I think that's why we'veboth hit it off so well.
So welcome to the show.
He is a commercial landscape.
Company lot, almost all commercialrelated maintenance, but also
a gigantic part of his businessis the white stuff called snow.
So he's honestly oursnowman in our peer groups.
(01:25):
And he's had a lot of life lessonsalong the way and probably messed
up a lot of things, but he's gonnashare those experience with us today.
And we're super excited.
Bob, here we go.
How did EMI get started?
Give us a little bit of a background,what the latest is and, and, and
how do you got to where we are now,
Yeah.
So I am the, I'm second generation.
So EMI was started actuallythe year I was born by.
(01:49):
But my stepdad, so he was in constructionbuilt his own first house and then
got laid off from constructionand said, what am I going to do?
So started a landscape company doing justabout anything residential, whatever he
could get his hands on, grew the company.
And then my mom joined the companyand she did everything from the books.
(02:12):
Invoicing customer relations,picking up trash on sites.
And then I worked at thebusiness in high school.
So worked there in high school,went away for a few years, became
a automotive mechanic for Audi,worked at Audi for a while.
And then the business drew me back in.
So in 2009.
Moved back to Pennsylvania and wewere a company of seven people.
(02:36):
So
we were seven people and Edand I were leading two teams.
There was six of us in the fieldwith, with my mom in the office.
And that was the whole company.
And that was 2009.
And I think the turningpoint was probably 2015.
We started hitting some growth.
Ed was very much the executionpart of the business.
He taught me a lot about Howto run an efficient job site.
(02:58):
And then I was lucky to have him onone side of me and Cindy, my mom, the
relationship side, and I learned fromthe two of them and I slowly became, as
they put a little bit more of the faceof the business, I was dealing with
the clients, more dealing with vendors.
And then Ed and I came toagreement and I purchased the
company on January 4th, 2021.
(03:19):
So I became sole owner in2021 and I've been learning a
few things since that point.
So it's been smooth sailing since 2021.
Like, no, nothing's been going on.
It's been easy breezy, right?
I mean, I figured we're in themiddle of a, of a pandemic.
I should just buy the familybusiness and go from there.
That was the plan.
(03:40):
Yeah.
We love to take risks.
I get it.
So what, what drew you to, to this?
What, what drew you your interest to?
Sort of take over the family businessand and sort of not change things up But
just maybe run a little bit differentlyor or grow this business to what you know
your stepdad I'm sure did a phenomenaljob, you know probably got it to a
(04:01):
certain point, but you you wanted totake over What's the reason behind that?
Well, to touch on that, what Eddid, my stepdad, I, I don't think
I could have achieved what he did.
We are very different people.
And I think.
That's why the two of us ended upbeing successful and therefore EMI
being successful, that he, he was ableto, to grind those early entrepreneur
(04:22):
days and see what was the future whenthere was nothing to look towards.
So, and then as we grew, I thinkthe people part of it comes a
little more naturally to me.
And it was it was almost a natural timeto hand off when we got to a point of.
30 employees, 40 employees.
It wasn't, it wasn't what he wanted.
so that kind of worked out well, butwhat really drew me to it, Tommy, and I
(04:45):
don't think I've been able to articulatethis until recently is I don't know
what it is about me, but I guess I'ma, in some ways, I'm a people pleaser.
I'm very much.
I want to make sure our clientsare successful and it's not that
I'm such a great guy and allI care about is other people.
I'm not sure.
I think just ingrained from mymom in the business that like I
have this innate desire that we'regoing to be successful because our
(05:08):
clients are so well taken care of.
And when I got to come back to thebusiness and see us do the level of
work we could accomplish that almostno one else in our area could do.
One, we were super efficient.
I would look back at the end of a.
You know, 14 hour day landscapingand what the six of us accomplished
in the field was just incredible,let alone the work was top notch.
(05:30):
And when I could see what, what we couldaccomplish and then the results of happy
clients and the growth from that I thinkthat was my, my launching point of like,
I get the satisfaction of a job well done.
And then also.
Our clients are happywho want to give us more.
It just, it just spiraled from there.
Spiraled up.
Yeah took off like like crazy.
(05:51):
That's great You got to give themad respect to the stepdad and
mom to sort of lay the foundation.
I mean, that's, that's the mostdifficult part is just getting
started with some sort of a brand,some sort of just operations.
Executing on jobs on maintenanceproperties, executing on billing, and just
be profitable like that, you know, for youto jump in and kind of watch and observe.
(06:13):
I think you owe all themthe amount of respect.
So, so great to them.
Let's talk about somethingthat's really interesting.
A few years ago, speaking 2021, right?
I feel like it was a.
What about the next year, maybe theyear that next year, I felt like it's
something happened where the wintera couple of years ago, the white
stuff did not fall from the sky.
(06:35):
And you were thinking,
no winter Tommy.
There was no
yeah, you're thinking, Oh crap.
Like we are business.
Your business is.
Pretty heavily involved in snowcontracts, snow plowing, et cetera.
And I remember some calls back in theday where it was like, we got no revenue.
I got guys standing around.
(06:56):
I don't, I'm not sure what to do.
And so it led you along to a path.
Now you ended up being okay, butwhat, what drove you to figure
some things out along the wayin case the snow doesn't come
I mean, I learned so much.
So when I, you know, when I purchaseda company, I thought I learned a
couple of things in 2021 because.
The first month I owned the company, wejust, we didn't have any snow in January.
(07:18):
And I'm like, Oh, this is what it'slike not to have a lot of cashflow.
And then February, 2021,we had a ton of snow.
And then I felt like what itwas like to be cash strapped.
When we put out a lot of money toexecute, then the money rolled in.
I'm like, okay, this isactually pretty easy.
You know, you go the next winter, we, weaverage about 35 inches of snow a year.
And we ended up anywhere betweenfour and seven inches of snow
(07:40):
and never actually plowing any
snow.
So we went from a company, we wereeight and a half million in revenue.
In 22 and in 23, we dropped over 2million in revenue because of the lack
of snow and our overhead had builtup to support an 8 million company.
So I learned more that year.
And I know the conversations we hadwas basically, we need to sell the heck
(08:04):
out of some landscape enhancements.
You know, we're a, we're alandscape maintenance contract.
We're not doing new construction, butwe've got clients that are willing to
improve the look of their building.
And we, We always just took it forgranted that yeah, there's some revenue
there when it comes around and we'll doit and they need something we'll fix it.
I knew we were going to, you know, onthe balance sheet, we were going to lose
(08:27):
easily, you know, 800, 000 that yearbecause the lack of revenue, the overhead
and the debt we carry for landscape.
So
It's almost like an enhancementto you as an accident.
Oh, someone, they call,they want to do something.
Cool.
We'll take care of it.
But that, that was theextent of it at that point.
we were just, yeah, 100 percent reactive.
They needed something.
Go do it.
If it got hot and dry, maybewe'll go sell something because
(08:47):
we have maintenance people.
There's no grass to cut.
And then that's, that wasbeing of the transformation.
Like you said, of our, of ourenhancement side that we can be
better, but we're more proactive.
We have, you know, percentage goalsto sell off of maintenance contracts.
You know, how much enhancementsdo we want to sell off that?
That none of that was there before.
So, you know, the lessons I learnedfrom that winner of no snow, carries
(09:09):
over a lot of different ways.
But one of the landscape side wasdefinitely, you know, we're, we're
leaving, we're leaving money on the table.
But at the same time, we're not, we'renot doing our customers any favor by.
Okay.
By seeing problems andnot pointing it out.
So yeah, we, we sold a lot more,a lot more enhancements that year,
happier clients and, and a betterbalance sheet because of it.
(09:29):
Yeah.
I love it.
So tell me a few more little details,Bob, because I think there's a
lot of people out there listening.
That might be in your same situation.
They probably went through the samescenario a couple of years ago that you
did What did you have to do tactical wiseto provide that you you had to identify
enhancements probably on property Sothat took some training you probably had
identified your account manager peoplerunning and going this is how we look
(09:53):
for enhancements Here's the type of workand then we need to put the proposals
together And then we got to go sell itand then we got to do these the ordering
which All those necessary things thatfast forward two years, you've got a
small team that handles that, for themost part for the year round for the most
Right.
talk about some of those technicalthings that you had to work on.
Yeah.
(10:13):
So before we get granular, Imean, in hindsight, I knew nothing
about how we needed to set it up.
It was, I was the account managerbeing, we do industrial work.
There's not as many accounts, right?
We're our revenue is a, is a much.
A much bigger number forthe amount of accounts.
So I could handle keeping our clientshappy, but I didn't have the time
to keep them happy, run a businessand sell, you know, a million
(10:35):
and a half worth of enhancements.
So I thought the last thing I would evergive, give up as account management and.
I think the lesson I'm still learningto this day is that just because I
give up account management doesn'tmean I give up the relationship, right?
That, that was my fear.
So I didn't want to give up thataccount management, but just because
I, we have account managers now thatthat's one of the tactical things
(10:56):
we did doesn't mean I'm, I'm gone.
I'm still a driver of those relationships.
So what did we do?
We, we doubled down on our software.
We worked a lot harder with LMNto make sure, make sure those
things were accurate, that theinputs going in were real numbers.
That the gross margin we're drivingfor, what are actual goals there?
We're building templates, you know,we're on big industrial properties.
(11:18):
There's just lots of trees thatdie over time or come down.
How do we estimate that quickly versus,you know, starting from scratch?
So I think the big,the big difference was.
You know, I think a lot of owners and,and managers will agree with this is,
is letting go when you don't think youcan and we've got, you know, we now have
two account managers, Katie and Kendrathey're both great Kendra's new and she's
(11:42):
hitting the ground running, but lettingother people do those tactical things
of monitoring the site monthly, right?
We have site inspection forms.
So we kind of, we have two different ones.
We've got one for internal thatgoes to our maintenance supervisors.
Okay.
And they're grading, you know, they'regrading the work that's done where
account managers, they don't havethat form because if they're on the
(12:02):
site and they see our work is bad,they're throwing up the red flag.
they don't need to fill out thatform because if there's a problem,
you know, which luckily doesn'thappen too often, they're just.
Shooting a flare up in thesky and we're going to fix it.
But as they're on site saying,besides what we can do,
Tommy, we look for everything.
We don't do parking lot striping.
Do our clients need it?
Because that's an, you know, my, mysale philosophy, which I struggled to
(12:26):
communicate once again, and I I've learnedmore is that like, we just want to give
to our clients to such a level thatthey're going to give back to us with us.
Never asking.
And it has to be that, that trulyaltruistic that you're giving to them
because you want to do a good job.
And by having that philosophy, we giveto them 365 days a year, you know?
So on day three 65, when wesay, you've got these dying
(12:48):
trees, you need this work done.
They're not going to anyoneelse, but say, EMI, of course,
we take care of them every day.
they want us to fix it.
They don't want to golook for another price.
They don't want to, they don't wantto see if someone else will do it
cheaper or, or a different design.
So.
I've been so tactical my whole life.
And, and as I'm managing people moreand more, there is a little bit more
of that soft scale side and it's,it's the, why, like, why do we, why
(13:10):
do we treat our clients so well?
And, and what does that really mean?
I think that enabled us to,to tap into our clients.
Needs
Yeah,
once that made sellingthat work a lot easier.
yeah, that's the ability to have thetrust of the client to kind of to go
spend their money and the more often we'rethe professionals at the end of the day.
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So it's our recommendation of whatthey need to be done to the property
to keep the enhancements, not just thebare basics of cutting grass every day.
There's a lot of other things.
And so when you provide valueand they trust that equals.
Right.
A great relationship and youget to make money along the way.
So, so service the clientto the full extent.
It's kind of like we do everythingbut the four walls and the roof,
(13:56):
everything outside that we'lltake care of at some point.
Right.
And then you've got a customer forlife and that's the reason why we
do this as the customer for life.
Yep.
Yeah, I agree.
All right.
So let's talk about the most juicytopic on hand and that's snow, baby.
Like,
no man, this, this is,this is the juicy part.
So you do millions ofdollars of revenue in snow.
(14:17):
And, and far as I'm concerned,you're one of our biggest snow
clients to this day, which is great.
I love to learn a lot of stuff,but it was not always that way.
So give us a little backgroundof like plowing snow.
Where you have been and what it waslike back in the day to what it is now.
Yeah.
I mean, way back in the day, weEMI left snow removal when we got
(14:37):
hit with a massive blizzard backin the early to mid nineties.
I was a little young tobe out there at that time.
But I, I don't remember the exactsnowfall total, but you know, between 30
to 40 inches of snow when one, you know,everything was shut down and EMI, we did
not have the equipment to handle that.
So we were begging construction companiesto bring equipment out and bail us out.
(15:01):
And we lost a lot of money.
We lost money becauseof what they charged us.
We couldn't turn around and,and pass it on to clients.
And we left the snow removalindustry for a few years.
And we vowed that when we came back in.
We'd be ready for anything.
So when Ed came back in, you know, we,we plow with heavy equipment and we jump
back in with full size loaders with bigpush boxes, and that was not the norm.
(15:25):
At least in our area, pushboxes were somewhat new.
They didn't gain a lot of traction.
I think until late nineties,early two thousands.
And when 16 foot wide push box.
were confused of what,what even, What is this Um,
piece of machinery?
Right.
and, and honestly we had, we hadcompetitors unhappy with us because
(15:46):
so many people wanted to do workbased off time and material.
They thought we were goingto kill the industry.
Well, I don't like doing anythingbased off time and material.
We're doing it.
We're getting paid for results.
If we can get it done faster, itdoesn't mean you should pay me less.
You should pay me more if I'mgetting it done faster because you're
open and operational even better.
So we, we thought we were ahead ofthe game with snow contracts that way.
(16:09):
You know, by going toa more per inch model.
So when we jump back in heavy equipment,you know, front articulating front end
loaders, compact loaders, skid steers.
And, and we're fine.
We're pretty good at this, and we'rein a great, geographic location for it.
I mean, we're in the Lehigh Valley,Eastern Pennsylvania, and everywhere
you turn, there's another industrialbuilding going up, and that's what we do.
(16:31):
We're 100 percent commercial, and we're95 percent industrial snow removal.
So we manage 30 million squarefeet of pavement, and things
have definitely changed along theway from when we jump back in.
But I still, cool.
I still use the same joke and myteam's probably sick of hearing it.
But when I started back in snow removal,when I came back to the company, even in
2009, it felt like the most important toolfor the Chuck in a truck snowplow guy was
(16:54):
a six pack of beer and a center console.
Like it was that nonchalant, thatdisorganized of an industry that you
know, it's like, you just got yourold pickup truck and put a plow on.
To now, you know, Tommy, I don't, I don'tthink we have three hours for me to talk
to nerd out about snow, about all thetechnology and the advancements in the
industry, but it's, it's advanced somuch in the past five, 10 years that it's
(17:18):
almost not recognizable to what it was.
When I came back in 2009,
Yeah.
They always say you, you manage thelarge snow contracts, the, the large
square footage, the large pavementand what matters to you most.
It's kind of like EMI'stagline is service matters.
Right.
I love this.
This is great.
But the cost of that business notproducing work or the trucks getting
(17:42):
in and out of those facilities.
Is what kind of money that that is?
And so your job is to go in there andyou've got great nice healthy clients and
what they expect during a snowstorm Theyexpect for you to perform and provide
that service No matter what so you haveto be geared up at get at all times
to touch on that.
(18:02):
I mean, we've been told by certainclients that they had certain requests
and I just had to be upfront withthem saying like, that is, that is
going to cost you a lot of money.
And their response is nothing's goingto cost us more than if we have to
shut down this assembly line, or ifour, if our delivery trucks can't
get out, that costs them more than,than I'm ever going to charge them.
Now we're in a competitive market.
(18:24):
So, you know, price absolutely matters.
I have to be realistic,but if we're doing.
If we're doing the job to the top levelfor a place that wants to stay open,
no matter what price is secondary.
Absolutely.
And we really found that our, ourbusiness model for snow and our price
net goes along with it doesn't fitfor the clients that don't want that.
(18:44):
If they just want to be open Mondaythrough Friday from 9 to 5, and if
it snows a bunch, they'll close.
They don't want the dedicatedequipment that we're providing them.
Our price is going to be toohigh and that's fair enough.
If they don't need it, they don't want ourservice, but we're set up for that client.
You know, the phrase that'sreally taken our industry by
storm is critical infrastructure.
That's what we have to work on.
If it's not critical infrastructure,if it doesn't matter, if it stays
(19:07):
open, EMI is not a fit for it.
And we've learned that really,
I love it, Bob, because you hadidentified the ideal client profile,
that ICP that we always talk about.
You've defined it perfectly, like weare that critical client that has to
stay open 24 hours a day or whatever.
And there's no days off in that industry.
(19:27):
Well, if those, you know, 150 trucks don'tget out the gate, we're in big trouble.
Because we have hundreds of people's,you know, demands on the line to get.
to move forward.
That is, that's, that's amazing.
I will tell you this, speak alittle bit about this, this snow,
the type of snow business isalmost a year round type session.
(19:49):
You may not be plowing snow, but I'd bedamn Bob, you're planning way in advance,
like a long time for this because I feellike it's in a lot of our conversations.
Tell me some of the behindthe scenes that are happening.
Like it's 90 degrees in the summer, whatare you guys doing to prepare for this?
Yeah, we, we say we can takethe month of May off from snow.
(20:11):
That's about it.
So
11 months on and one month
yeah, yeah.
And I can't help butthink about it year round.
But yeah, there's, there's a lot, right?
So, you know, there's thesame stuff with landscaping.
You've got contract renewals, you know,what equipment needs to be turned over.
That's gotten older.
But there's, like I said earlier, 1 isjust the advancements in technology.
(20:31):
You might be able to see over my shoulder.
You can barely see it, but there'sa few boxes back there that now
we're putting up weather stations.
On our client site thatwill stay up all year long.
There are cameras or weather stations.
So our year starts.
We say, you know, after May we'relooking at contract renewals.
We're looking at what equipment worked,what didn't work, what sites worked and
(20:52):
how we more efficiently service either.
It's a route based work or do we needmore or less equipment on a certain site?
And then from there, it's, you know, we'realready looking at the year round staff.
We have, you know, our year round staffdoes 1 of 3 jobs are either supervising,
they're running a salt truck, orthey're leading 1 of our sidewalk teams.
(21:13):
And we're identifying those people whenit's 90 degrees, who can do those things,
they each have different challenges.
You know, leading a sidewalk teamis 1 of the most grueling jobs.
I think almost in any industry,you're always in bad weather.
It's you're working at night,you're out for long shifts.
You have to be able to tolerate thatwhile still managing some people.
(21:33):
Then you move from there into asalt truck where our salt truck
drivers are regional managers.
You have to be able to manage.
1, your salt route, which, you know, anassault truck, you're using both hands.
You know, you're looking in front ofyou behind you all over the place while
also managing, you know, 2 or 3 sidewalkteams and, you know, 6 to 10 operators.
And then we have our regionaldirectors that then are managing
(21:55):
all, you know, all our big regions.
So we're identifying those people.
And with the growth we'rehaving, who can move up?
Do we have spots we have to fill anyway?
And then we're looking at what's ourgrowth capacity which frankly often
comes down just to, to money, right?
If we want to self perform snow, whichwe do subcontract work, we're, you
(22:17):
know, the term is maybe a blender wherewe don't get work solely looking to
subcontract it out, but sometimes in ourportfolio, we have buildings that don't
fit in our routes or where we're at.
So, you know, what, what capacity dowe have to grow, when we're, we're
picking up a million square feet, youknow, we need, we need a large loader
with a hydraulic wing plow for every10 acres, and that set up, you know,
(22:39):
the loader is going to cost you 200,000, the plow is going to cost you 50.
just for 10 acres, startmultiplying that out.
It's not, it's not a cheap game to play.
So we're, we're trying to planthat out, you know, and that makes
a lot of vendor relationships.
We're talking, we just made a bigdeal and we're happy to be back with.
Case construction foralmost all of our equipment
(23:01):
Yep.
that we were with themwhen we were early on.
We straight away went to some otherbrands and cases made a big push to
be back with the snow contractor andand we're happy to be back with them.
But that deal started in March.
So, yeah, it's year round and then rightnow, we're trying to finish landscape
and trying to do snow at the same time.
So, we've had deadlines that we'vebeen working on since September
(23:24):
as far as making snow site maps.
Meeting meeting with clients.
So we understand their needsand their wants doing the site
inspections for preseason damage.
We're training our operatorscase case came out to train.
Our operators on the new equipment,our metal plus dealer train.
So there's just so many differentmoving parts that if you don't start
looking at these until the fall.
(23:45):
You've already missed someof the deadlines we wanted to
accomplish, let alone, you know,be ready if it snows in November,
Right.
Love it.
Good stuff.
So I had experience in the dirtworld where we used a lot of iron.
And I was on a show the other dayand it talked about, you know,
iron sitting, you're losing money.
And I learned that the hard way ofstrategizing the next job site in the
(24:09):
next piece of machine that needs to getoff the job, move to the next one and get
after it because when it's in transitionand when it's sitting, that piece of iron
is collecting dust, you're losing money.
And so it's the leastamount of time it sits.
Unfortunately, snow only comesa few months a year, right?
And so that piece of equipmentis sitting and collecting
(24:30):
dust for the remaining months.
So it's a, what we call a sitting asset.
Talk about how you handle sitting assets.
it is, it's the scariestpart of snow removal.
We know our assets are going to sit right.
We can use, we can use compact loadersand skid steers on the landscaping
side, but we're never going to justify,
Not as much.
(24:51):
you know, we're, we're a landscapecompany that does, you know, 3.
5 million in landscape maintenance.
You don't need a lot of heavyequipment to do landscape maintenance.
With a million and a half of enhancements.
Like we could use a track skidsteer and a compact loader.
We'd be good.
We have 50 plus pieces of heavy equipment.
So that's telling you how much iron issitting for nine months of the year.
So I think what we found is, is alot of it comes down to, to be a
(25:15):
sustainable, an enduring snow company.
A lot of it comes down to contract setup.
We have, luckily we have reallygood clients that do look at us
as one of their partners, right?
We're not, we're not in thetransactional snow removal business.
They rely on us, as we said earlier,to stay open and make money.
So I tap into that and explainto them that if you want.
(25:37):
To stick with a snow contractor that'sgoing to come in with new equipment,
come in with good technology,be there every time you need it.
We need to share some risk becauseif there's no, a lot of contracts
are set up with the snow contractortaking 100 percent of the risk.
There's no snow.
There's no bills, right?
We're not invoicing if it's not snowing.
(25:58):
And that's not sustainable, you know,with we've seen the climate change,
our average snowfall still similar.
We're getting less events.
There's more variability, you know, thatwe had 1 of the least snowiest winters
that we just discussed in 22 and 23.
so we've gone to our clients and say,how do we share some of this risk?
And.
(26:18):
It's taken me a while to fullygrasp how it is just a partnership.
It's not me just going tothem saying, would you be nice
to me and share some risk?
They, that, that doesn't make sense.
What I found is that if I can getthem to share some of the risk, I
don't have to take as much of a profit
as I would if I'm takingall the risk, right?
If I'm taking risk, we're in oneyear, I'm going to lose money.
(26:39):
You better believe it, Tommy.
When it snows a lot, I'm making handover fist and it didn't have to be
such high highs and such low lows.
So if they're going to share somerisks, whether it's a seasonal contract,
whether it's a tiered seasonal thatthey kind of pay in increments, we have
some that just pay, you know, equipmentalmost an equipment stipend, but we
(26:59):
need to recover the cost of our assets.
One way or another.
So we've really looked at our clientsand said, Hey, you want this service?
You it's, it's almost easierwith our existing clients because
they know what we've done.
They know what we've done for them.
And when we can spell out, you know, Ithink I actually learned this early on.
I think actually hearing Mark Bradley fromLMN talk, there's times I open my books to
(27:21):
my clients and I, I slide metaphorically,I slide a piece of paper across the
table and say, here are my payments onyour equipment for the next 12 months.
That money I'm payingwhether I plow snow or not.
And if you want me to be here in threeyears, after a couple bad snow seasons,
we got to share some of that risk.
And I've been able tolower their overall cost.
And it's nice that I can say, Hey,you want me to take all the risk?
(27:44):
If we're getting 33 inches of snow,which are average, you're going to pay X.
If you share some of thatrisk and we get 33 inches.
You're going to pay X minus 15percent or whatever that number is.
And then, then they start to see whyit's advantageous to have a partnership.
Yeah, it's not
on those times.
way street all the time.
Yeah,
I feel like that's, that'sthe old, that's the old way.
(28:07):
Because that happenedto you two years ago.
yeah, yeah.
And, and we, at that, when I, when Itook over the business, the, the seasonal
type contracts, they weren't just thatcommon in our area, which I think was
a cop out on my part that didn't pushit harder, but we were very low in the
single digits of fixed price contracts.
We're up this year.
We're up to 16%.
We have a goal in the next threeyears to be 30 percent And that'll
(28:30):
cover our overhead that'll coverthat at those assets and that that'll
get us close to saying, okay, evenif we have Multiple bad winners.
Maybe we're losing a little bit ofmoney, but it's not catastrophic And
if we get to that point where it's50 percent and our assets cost us
somewhere between 40 and 50%, just inowning the assets, do the work, then we
know we're a hundred percent covered.
Worst case scenario, we put in a lotof work in breakeven, which again,
(28:54):
nobody wants, but at least, atleast we're in business next year.
So we, we want those clientsand, you know, it filters back.
We worded a bunch of differentways, the critical infrastructure.
We, we say our ideal client, ourproperty and facility managers
value a partnership with ourvendors and consider service first.
That's what we need.
And if they don't value that, Tommy,we fired a huge client going into
(29:16):
this year because I can tell youthey didn't value our partnership.
And I talked to you aboutthis and it was hard.
It was one of my firstbig sales four years ago.
It was a 1.
4 million square foot facility.
And through multiple times,they've told us they don't care
about us as, as a partner, wherethey were calling for big storm.
We have a million dollars worth ofassets there to plow their snow.
(29:39):
And they said, don'tworry about coming out.
We don't want you to come out.
We'll keep us, we'll keep us open.
And if we need you, we'll let, youknow, and we put in way too much
work and way too much money to haveus turned away at the last minute.
We serviced them for the rest of the year.
We came to somewhat of agreementon how to finish the year.
And we let them go.
And I think, you know, I got advice fromfriends in the industry and it was time.
(30:02):
It was, you know, they basically basicallysaid, Bob, you're going to talk to talk.
You're going to walk the walk.
I wouldn't be able to look my teamin the face to say, this is who
we are and keep them as a client.
You know, Zane is ourregional manager there.
He sleeps on those sites acouple of times a year, because
he wants to keep them open.
And if they're not going to appreciate,you know, appreciates a little soft, but
if they're not going to value what we do,
(30:23):
Right.
we're not going to work for him.
And we moved on.
Well, you got to make the hard decisionand you've been putting this in its role
to make those tough decisions, thosetough phone calls at the end of the day.
Because you're, you're not going tosit there and just plow a bunch of
snow just to make a few bucks andit doesn't value your business and
doesn't stand by and quite frankly,your team's going to hold you
(30:43):
accountable to say what you say, right?
And do that.
I love the fact where you have snowcontracts, which gives you guaranteed
revenue, guaranteed goals, and the mostimportant thing that you probably love
the most is like consistent employment.
Right.
And you just said it a minuteago, you're people first.
(31:05):
So you talked a lot at some point backin your career of people first, but now
you're really putting some good bricksin place to build this house where
you're like, you can be here for a while.
Good, consistent revenue, good,consistent employee employment.
Yes.
that you've been building that for a year.
So kudos to you.
(31:26):
Thank you.
Yeah.
It's something I think is, is peopleask me what I changed when I owned the
business that I didn't change this.
I feel like I just doubled down on whowe were, you know, and it's easy to
talk about, I look outside my windowand not that we're all materialistic,
but like there's a lot of new vehiclesout there and you know, that's,
it's important that to me that ourpeople are taken care of, right?
(31:48):
Like I want them to be able tobuy a new vehicle when needed.
We have people buying homes andstarting families that I don't think.
Our industry supported that 10,15 years ago, especially here
where it was totally seasonal.
When I bought the business, there wasmyself, my mom, my stepdad, and two other
people that were kept on year round.
(32:10):
Now we still, we stillhave some seasonal layoffs.
But we, I think we're up to 20, 25 people.
We keep on year round, no matter what.
And some others get laid off forshort amount of time, just until
the snow starts flying, we get somerevenue in, frankly, Tommy, some
people are looking forward to it.
We work hard.
They're looking for a few weeks off, youknow, let, you know, collect a little
(32:31):
bit of unemployment, recover, see theirfamily, but yeah, we, we put our people
first you know, we do some, I think someunique things that if you're with us for
three years, we're going to cover yourhealth insurance, a hundred percent.
You're part of, you know, you're part ofthe family for, for a lack of a, a lack
of a better term that if you've beenhere for three years in our industry, you
you've been through the ups and downs.
(32:51):
Like you're, you're one of us.
Like I don't health insurance.
I don't want my peopleworried about, can they pay
medical bills?
You know, we pay 75 percent of theemployee after 90 days and after three
years, we're going to pay 100 percentbecause that's the right thing to do.
So, that people first is, is our driver.
You know, our, our 401kprogram, I think is good.
(33:12):
And, and our broker came to us forthe 401k and said, Hey, you could
save some money by not guaranteeingthis contribution, but only matching.
And I looked at it and said, wow,that would save us 25, 000 next year.
And I thought about, and I thoughtabout, and I said, no, you know, I'm
sure we have some people that don'tvalue the 401k we offer for them, but
if we're providing 3 percent of their,of their salary into retirement that
(33:35):
they'd otherwise have no retirement,I'm not taking that away from them.
So.
Yeah, we, we really look at that.
And I think, I think it's what's allowedus to grow and, and keep our people.
We've built this coregroup in our industry.
You're going to have some turnover, right?
But we're not, we're not losingpeople have been with us.
One, once we get people in for sixmonths, they're not going anywhere.
(33:56):
We're not losing them toanother landscape company.
If we're losing people, they'veleft the industry because.
I grew up here, Tommy.
You grew up in the industry.
I grew up in the industry.
I've, I've worked real hardin landscaping and snow.
I know how difficult that is.
So, we'll even do it when, when there'sa forecast and our final forecast
comes in over a foot, we're paying ourpeople an additional 50 percent on top
(34:17):
of their already increased snow rate.
They're basically gettingdouble their landscape rate.
Cause they're going to beout for the next 20 hours.
They may have to sleep in ahotel and be out for another 12,
Yeah.
So pay for it.
deserve.
Everything they get.
So that people first, I thinkis, is our number one driver.
Yeah.
I love it.
If you don't have those peoplefirst, you don't have a business.
(34:40):
And so take care of them first at theend of the day that, that, that is,
that is the true value of a businessis right there as the team, you
know, it's the people on the field,not the people up in the suite.
So I love it.
I got, I got one more thing to talk about.
You're, you're, you're greatat relationships and taking
(35:01):
care of people and all that.
But most importantly, you've also knownto have really good vendor relationships.
And when we were, you hostedthis past year your group,
and it was phenomenal to see.
Just what you've been able toaccomplish with your vendors and you,
it's just an extension of EMI andtalk about why that matters to you.
(35:24):
People in your business matter.
You probably the number one, I'dsay the number, the other thing on
the top five list is your vendorrelationships and taking care.
What, why does that matter so much?
And why do you work so hard for that?
Yeah.
We, when we say people first, we alwayssay that means our team, it means
our clients and it means our vendors.
It, it goes.
It goes every direction.
(35:45):
The vendors, what we have foundis that we, we almost flip the
coin with our ideal client.
We want to be the idealclient for our vendors.
So when we say we're looking fora client that values a partnership
with their, with their vendors.
And and consider service.
First, we want, we want to be thatclient for our vendors, right?
(36:07):
Like that.
It would almost be, it would be,it would absolutely be hypocritical
for me to say, I want low priceand I want this and I want that.
And what we found too, is thatwhen we find the right vendor.
It's a good price.
Maybe it's not the best price,but so much of, especially in a
growing company, because we're doingsomething new every year, our vendors
teach us the things we don't know.
(36:29):
So, you know, where we're buying ourchemicals for our lawn care program and
our bed maintenance program, they'reteaching us multiple times a year.
They'll come down, sit downwith half our team and teach us.
You know, what, what's the next thing withplant growth regulators, what's the newest
thing for just broadleaf weed controller,you know, hey, the nutsedge is real bad.
How are we going to do that?
Or, or Brian, you know, we, wewere early on with Brian and snow
(36:51):
removal and, and we partnered upwith VSI and now it's VSI by boss.
And we'd buy two sprayers and the ownerof BSI would be in our shop walking
us through how to use these things.
Could I buy a cheaper sprayer?
I probably could have.
Would the owner be in my shop?
Would he answer the phoneat three in the morning?
I don't know, but that'swho we're looking for.
(37:12):
Because if we're going to be sofanatical about making sure our
clients are taken care of, in turn,basically, I want the same treatment.
Um, you know, and one, one ofour core values is build and
maintain lasting relationships.
And, you know, I sometimes sayit's almost the rule that I don't
want to work with, with jerks.
It's almost selfish in a
way.
of over it.
A
What's that?
(37:32):
lot, there's a lot of jerksin the snow business, right?
And you're over it.
You've been through that.
You've seen it.
Yeah.
And like, I spend a lot of time at workand the winter, so do our employees.
Like there's times where we're atwork for 70, 80 hours a week and.
If, if our vendors aren't good to dealwith, if I got to call a vendor and
they're, they're not good to deal with.
And our team isn't like, what's thepoint, you know, like, I think one
(37:55):
thing I've learned is that, you know,life is short, like I want to, yeah, a
business has to make money and that'salways going to be in the top three
there, but I want to enjoy going to work.
I want to enjoy thepeople I'm working with.
I want to enjoy the clients asmuch as I can, that I work with.
And we've been lucky with our vendors,you know, we're, we're X Mark mowers and.
I think because we've stuck with them forso long and, and we've purchased so much
(38:15):
with them and, and we give them feedback,good or bad, they're open to all of it.
But when we need something, you know, ourdistributor, it's not just the dealer,
the distributors at our door helping us.
And we've got some pretty uniqueones where we have one that's
a vendor and a client, right?
So we work for Mack trucks,they're owned by Volvo.
And that relationship goesreally deep that we've been with
(38:37):
them for more than a decade.
We started just helping them with some oftheir spring cleanup edging and mulching.
We started mowing their places.
We started doing annual flowers.
Then we did all the snow plowing, youknow Now we do pretty much everything
outside their four walls But we also doit with volvo equipment anytime volvo
makes the equipment we can use So wemade the deal with case construction and
(38:58):
that does almost That does pretty muchall our sites except for mac trucks and
those volvo equipment That's some ofthe nicest equipment we've ever used,
but it's pretty cool to be at the Macassembly plant, keeping them running
while we're using Volvo equipment.
And it's
perfect marriage.
it's a true, it's a true partnership.
And I know when I'm talking to the localboots on the ground for Mac trucks,
(39:22):
what it means to them that we're showingup with brand new Volvo equipment.
We have a Mac medium duty pickup truck,a dump truck, salting their lot and.
When they have to go to corporateprocurement to make sure we stay
in, they almost have to sell us.
And it's easy for them because it issuch, such a partnership that it's
a, like you said earlier, it's a twoway street and it makes everybody, it
(39:43):
makes everyone's job that much easier.
Oh man.
It's all about relationships at the day.
It really is.
It really is, you know?
on trust.
And as long as you perform, say what youdo, this business becomes sort of easy.
yes.
In, in, in the right mind, man, lotsof great stuff, Bob, I'm going, I'm
(40:03):
going to run through a few takeaways.
We'll call them Tommy's takeaway.
So, so I love this portion.
So no snow to enhancement division.
That's fascinating to me, right?
So we got to prepare sales, like,we got to identify things that will
produce an enhancement on a property.
We got to train our team.
We got to learn how to estimate those.
We got to know the reason why everythingoutside the 4 walls and a roof.
(40:26):
You know, the A account manager cantake over the reins and run with things.
I love that.
I love that answer back into thesnow business, a hundred percent
people first love snow contracts,help me weigh the cost, the load
of sitting assets along the way.
(40:47):
It's, I learned the things from you.
It's not a yes to every contractand a yes to every client.
So you need to take a step back in yourbusiness and really identify what matters
most to you and these clients and setthe bar at that height and don't involve
more clients that don't fit that modelto keep jumping into your, your space.
(41:08):
And relationships comesdown to relationships.
100%.
It's a two way street.
It's a partnership.
It's a friendship.
It's practically a dangnear marriage, right?
And I've seen photos of youin front of the Mack trucks
looking mighty fine, my friend.
And I've seen your fleet.
It's probably the most impressive fleet.
I also got to throw somethingreally funny out there because.
This is great.
(41:28):
When we visited your place, I couldprobably eat on that floor of the shop.
It was so thick and, and I'm like,this guy's a mechanic, my friend,
like, like showroom floor mechanic.
It, it looked like a NASCAR race full ofmowers getting serviced just constantly.
(41:49):
And I'm like, this is fat.
Like, I got my, my like goosebumpsand my arms were were raised high.
It was just.
Impressive facility, by the way.
You take pride in yourwork, pride in your team.
I really appreciate you sharing that.
What's one sort of little nuggetthat you kind of live by in the Bob
Marks world that this is how, thisis what got me from where I was?
(42:13):
Sort of in the transition period of,of the EMI to where I am now, you
still got some more to go, but whatdo you, what do you live and die by?
Tommy, I got a while ago.
I got a while ago.
You know, two things, one, oneis definitely business related.
You know, I think it's, it's alittle bit repetitive what we talked
about, but it's doubling down onwhat you're, what you're good at.
My, my skill, one of my skills in businessis communicating why EMI is different.
(42:41):
To the clients and why EMI isdifferent to potential team members.
You know, Tommy, we've talkeda lot about building a team and
I've struggled at a little bit,I think, because I didn't know, I
didn't know what I was looking for.
I didn't know where I was going.
I did everything myself.
So we build a team and.
You know, I don't want to, you know,toot my own horn here, but my team has
(43:04):
turned around and said to me, like.
Everyone's willing to run through, youknow, the phrase run through a brick wall.
Nobody, everybody's soinvested in EMI success.
And I think it's because one, Ipreach about why EMI is great, but
because we are a people first company,it's, it's just so reciprocal.
We have an internal, like an internalmotto here and it's, I call it the E
(43:24):
like the EMI inner circle, and it just.
It starts with at the very top whenI hire someone, the old motto was
like the employee had to build,had to earn my trust, right?
That that was the old way, right?
Like I hired you, you know,
You got to earn it, baby.
I've been here for 25 years.
yep.
Well, it's 100 percent flipped on itshead where when I hire someone, I've got
(43:46):
to do some work for them to trust us.
You know, there, there's more jobopenings and employees, you know, but
then team members these past few years.
So, like my job, stepone is you joined us.
How do I get you to trust me thatwe, we are who we say we are and
we're going to do these things.
And when, when we can start to getthe, get a new team member to see
that we're the real deal, as far aswhat we say, we're going to do, we do.
(44:10):
They buy in and theywant to do a good job.
And then as that circle starts to goaround, they buy in and that's the three
o'clock on the circle and going to sixo'clock is they start doing amazing work
and our clients start to recognize that.
And when it comes to enhancementsales and renewals, our clients
are so well taken care of.
They say yes, and there'sincreases and there's profit.
And it goes back up to 12 o'clock whereEMI can give back to that employee
(44:32):
even more than we originally did.
And they start to trust us more.
And that circle justspins faster and faster.
So for us, it was doubling down on, onpeople first, and it's just multiplied
us in ways that I didn't see it coming.
Love it.
That's great.
What about the second one?
I think you're on the same page with me,Tommy, is, is, business health, business
(44:53):
health often goes with physical and mental
health.
knew you were going to say this.
I knew
So I was in the best shape of mylife when I purchased the company.
And you know, all the excuses, Ibought a company, I was stressed
out, and I was living a unhealthylifestyle for the past three years.
And Something clicked recently where I'mlike, this isn't, this isn't good for me.
(45:15):
And I started hitting the gym again.
I started watching what I was eating and,and that's really snowballed as well.
As you know, Tommy, I, I've, I haven'thad a drink now in over five months
and the energy with all three combinedof working out and not drinking any
alcohol and eating properly has.
Has supercharged me and my team hasrecognized it and that spread itself
(45:39):
and you know, not that everything comesdown to the owner, but when they see
me fired out of a cannon every morning,because I feel great and I'm ready to go.
You can inspire people by whatyou say, but I think I've, I've
been able to inspire people justby, by turning a new leaf and
it's, it's propelled our business.
I think it's made.
(45:59):
It's made my mental clarity,see things that I maybe knew, or
maybe I wasn't seeing them at all.
And now I see them and I'm justnot willing to put up with things
that I don't think are good enough.
And it's really.
In the past five months, Ihad to be clear with my team.
We made some changes personnelwise, and it was a big change.
And I, I called a meeting for ourleadership team and they had seen the
(46:21):
change in me so much over the last fivemonths, Tommy, I'm, I'm, I'm healthy.
I'm good.
They thought I was dying becausethey thought I was, I was so intense.
They thought I was, I wasn't goingto be here anymore, but it's like,
no, there's just changes happening.
And I'm so ready to gothat I had to assure them.
No, I'm good.
I'm just ready to go.
And.
And it's really propelled usthat I think 2025 is going to,
(46:42):
it's going to just be awesome.
Yeah.
That's great.
You know, we've been onthis journey for a while.
You know, I went through a few things afew years ago, actually four years ago.
And it's like, well, it's alittle eyeopening experience.
And I'm with you.
It, you know, first off, takecare of this God gifted body that
you have and this God gifted mindthat you've, you've been given.
(47:06):
And don't feed it and feel it with abunch of junk because then it's this,
this sort of sporadic, uncleared person.
And not only that, you're theleader of that group of, of team.
So set the bar high in the examplebecause everyone's watching you, right?
So if you're very sloppyand not communicative and.
(47:28):
Sort of a mess and nottaking care of yourself.
It doesn't, but something wouldbe sad about someone that takes
care of their body physically andmentally is like that dude is sharp.
I will, I want to associate withmy myself, with that person.
He's taking care of himself.
He's taking care of the company,so I'm a huge believer of that.
You and I are on the samesort of track record, baby.
(47:48):
I knew you were going to saythat, and I really appreciate it.
Bob, it's been a super honorto have you on the show.
This is man, we can justgo for three more hours.
Just, just keep, keep,
going.
you told me 30 to 40 minutes.
I'm like, I better talk fast.
Yeah, you better talk fast.
I've always truly, you know, love tolisten to your passion and your energy.
It's just, it's contagious.
(48:10):
Just a great person.
You're right.
Give credit to your wife.
She's an amazing lady.
We visited last week, lastmonth and had a ton of fun.
But thank you so much for being a guest.
I have, tons of energy forsuccess for the next year for you.
And it's gonna be fun.
It's gonna be a fun ride.
So thanks for being on the show.
Thanks for having me, Tommy.
And, and yeah, I think a lotof success going forward.
(48:32):
I, I owe to McFarland Stanfordand the peer group that.
You know, you and Jim have guided and, youknow, we have a big peer group now with,
I think, 13 other members in our group.
And I actually just had a callyesterday unsolicited from Tom, from
our group with a little bit of advice.
So yeah, thanks so much to you as well.
Yeah.
Awesome.
Well, good times.
We'll see you soon.
Thanks, Tommy.
Ready to take the next step?
(48:53):
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
our website at McFarlinStanford.comAnd don't forget to follow us on
(49:16):
LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram.
See you next time on the Roots of Success.
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