May 22, 2025 • 45 mins
Think marketing is just about flashy ads and social media posts? Think again. In this special two-year anniversary episode of Roots of Success, host Tommy Cole sits down with marketing mastermind John Dalton to celebrate the two year anniversary of the show and expose the real secrets behind building a thriving landscape brand. From their own stories of podcast mishaps and hard-won lessons, to John’s 7 C’s marketing framework, this episode is packed with priceless advice owners and execs can put to work right away. Whether you’re wrestling with a scattered marketing plan or simply looking to refine your company’s image, you’ll hear actionable strategies for clarifying your message, reaching your ideal clients, and fueling long-term growth.
THE BIG IDEA:
Marketing starts with clarity and knowing customers.
KEY MOMENTS:
[08:22] Celebrating Success with Prosecco
[10:36] Understanding Marketing's Complexity
[14:30] Landscaping Marketing Framework Initiative
[19:35] Business Cohesion and Evaluation Framework
[22:18] Brand Consistency Through Visuals
[24:08] Clarifying Business Vision Challenges
[29:25] Enhancing Communication and Strategy Planning
[33:12] Social Media: Time vs. Necessity
[36:03] Team Focus Boosts Landscape Marketing
[38:37] Social Media's Role in Business Relationships
[42:49] Prioritize Expertise and Marketing
QUESTIONS WE ANSWER
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What are the essential steps for creating a marketing plan for a landscaping business?
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How can landscaping companies identify their ideal customer profile?
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What are common marketing mistakes small businesses make?
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How do you build a strong brand identity in the landscaping industry?
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What is a fractional CMO and how can they help small businesses?
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What is the role of social media in recruiting employees for landscaping companies?
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What are the best marketing strategies for service-based businesses?
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How do marketing and sales work together in growing a 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 the Roots of Successpodcast, and I'm your host, Tommy Cole.
And we have an awesome guest.
(00:23):
My awesome friend, John Dalton.
he is the marketing guru,
I've known for the last few years.
It's been a, it's been an awesome ride.
And so we got John joining us.
How are you, John, by the way?
I am great, Tommy.
I'm awesome.
Glad to be here.
John, this is a special episode,and I wanted you on this one almost
(00:49):
to the day, like literally almost.
There we are celebrating ourtwo years of Roots of Success.
I don't know how this happened.
I'm just a landscape architectkind of dude, and, and this has
kept going on for two years.
I'm shocked.
I was ready to parachute outthis thing a few months into
(01:13):
it said This is not my deal.
But somehow, miraculously, a lot ofpeople, have enjoyed this and it's
been great to produce over the years.
Reason why John Dalton is sitting heretoday is I owe a ton of credit to this
gentleman to talk me off the ledgemultiple times of continuing this podcast.
(01:40):
There's a lot of traction, there's a lotof good feedback and there's a lot of
good education as we are working on ourbusiness, working on ourselves driving
the pickup truck to and from job sites.
I think you a lot.
I also a ton of credit to PaulMyers, He does a lot of behind the
scenes editing all these episodes.
(02:01):
John, anything to say about this?
Sure.
I mean, it's been a,it is been a fun ride.
I remember starting from the verybeginning, just kind of working through
some of the technical issues and then,like you said, talking you off the ledge
and working on your resting bitch face andgetting you polished up for the camera.
But I mean, it, it's been a lot of fun.
(02:23):
And I've certainly seen yougrow and, you know, kind of
step into your own as a host.
And, you know, we've had a lot ofreally great episodes along the way
And I'm really proudof what we've created.
So kudos to you for, youknow, sticking with it.
And now we're on, this'll be episodenumber 55, so over halfway to a hundred.
(02:44):
And I think it just keepsgetting better and better.
Yeah, that's great.
here's the thing.
My first few episodes were terrible.
And so let's apologize to like LizHilton, Chris Winkler, Chris Chek Tracy
and Megan you know, maybe Josh Meter,those people that were the first.
(03:05):
Thank you so much for like,believing in me and being on a weird
podcast where Tommy has no idea.
So there's some bloopers, Ithink, John, that you wanna share.
I think there's a fewfunny ones along the way.
Yeah, I was, when it, when we weregetting ready to do this episode, I
was trying to think of some of themore interesting times we've had.
(03:25):
I mean, obviously in the beginning, justkind of wrestling with the tech and the
microphones and getting all that set.
Was sometimes a struggle, butthere was a couple things that
really stuck out in my mind.
Like it took us a while to get MartyGrunder to be on the podcast, you know,
when we really wanted him to be on ata specific time and you know, to help
us promote an event and all this stuff.
(03:47):
We finally got it all lined up, pressrecord, and like two minutes in.
The whole thing just turns offand everybody's disconnected.
And I don't know how long it took.
Yeah, it just, just stopped.
And I don't know how long it tookus to get all, everything all back
connected because I was, I wasdisconnected for maybe 20 minutes.
And you guys had to basically juststart all over and record it again.
(04:09):
that is not, that was not fun.
Marty is a busy man.
It.
a high profile person with lotsof experience and knowledge, and
we've been gearing up for Martyand all of a sudden it just, for
whatever reason, nothing worked.
Yep.
But if I have any adviceon that deal is no panic.
(04:32):
Stay calm.
Mm-hmm.
We'll figure it out.
We just had to extend a little moretime than normal and we figured it
out and we, we worked through it.
It worked.
It worked out great.
Thank you for Marty for, he probablysaid a few curse words along the
way, like, this is ridiculous.
But he was patient
Yeah.
Very gracious.
Yes.
It went well.
(04:52):
Yeah, that, that was stressful.
I mean, the one time when you'relike, this has to go perfect,
that's the one time it's goingto just completely screw up.
So of course that's what happened.
And then I remember, I think this wasjust last year, you banked a bunch of
episodes like right before Christmas, soyou could take some time off and then.
One of 'em was just missing, like it gotlost somewhere in the internet ether,
(05:15):
and it took us a couple days and youknow, some calls to support to find it.
But you were right.
You recorded it, it was there.
You didn't have to callsomebody and do it again, but.
I, I think it was the day after Christmas,you and I were texting back and forth
and I was like, I don't see it, man.
I don't know what happened,
but we ended up finding it.
So, you know, just some of thoselittle things that happened along
(05:35):
the way just kept it interesting.
But it's, it's been, it's been a fun ride.
yeah.
That was, that was stressful.
That's actually Christmas Eve.
I recorded several.
And thank you to those, to those guests.
I recorded several and then all ofa sudden they just were gone and I
Mm-hmm.
out 'cause I worked so hard on those.
(05:55):
It's almost like working on an Excelspreadsheet for, you know, five hours and
all of a sudden you look up and it's gone.
That doesn't happen near as often withAuto save, but I, I really panicked.
I'm like, John, I'm sorry to bother you.
It's literally Christmas.
I have no episodes.
But it, it all, it all worked out.
(06:17):
It, it's been an unbelievable ride andit's been just fascinating to interview
these owners, vendors, managers alongthe way to share their experience.
And at the time, you know, a lot of times.
us landscapers, just look atthese, these great men and women
and say, man, they've got it all.
(06:37):
When really?
Yeah, they have a lot.
But they had to get to a lot.
They had to build their businesses,they had to build their people.
They lost money along the way.
They lost clients, they lost people.
And it's about the journey to gettingto where they are at this point.
So it's, it's been a really good ride.
Yeah, and I think that's one of the thingsthat's really worked, Tommy, with, I know
(06:59):
you're hard on yourself and you've workedreally hard to improve yourself, but
really what people like about you and yourmessage is just how relatable you are.
Right.
If you're one of them, you've runa landscaping company, the division
you know, a company on its own, andyou've worked with all these different
people, like you get it right andthey understand that you, you know,
(07:22):
what it's like to be in their shoes.
And I think that means a lot to people.
And that's, that's whywe've been so successful.
That's why this has lasted for two years.
So I just wanna congratulate you on,you know, putting in the work, doing all
of those things, working on ChristmasEve to get all this stuff done and.
We've never missed an episode.
So
yeah,
(07:42):
been a lot work, but it's been.
yeah.
We have not missed it.
And I go more creditto John and, and Paul.
oh my gosh, we're low on episodes.
What are you doing?
And I'm like, I got it, I got it.
Oh my God.
So you know, accountability, at theend of the day someone was holding
me accountable and to make surethat we had enough in the pipeline.
(08:05):
We never missed a we never misseda a release date in two years.
And so it, it'll keep going that way.
John, I asked you to bringsomething with you to the show
and, and we'll cap this off, but.
if you guys know me, I don't reallydrink much, if any but people know me
(08:26):
as, Prosecco, Tommy, and if you're outthere in the audience I was developed
that name a few years ago in Italy, thegreat game of tennis that I love so much.
And, there were some people out therethat wanted to challenge me in the great
game of tennis, and I kind of let 'emknow who was boss at the end of the day
(08:46):
alongside me in that was a little friendknown as Prosecco, and I enjoyed the ride.
So without further ado, I, I broughtus special guest on with John and I,
and we have topped off with a, witha champagne toast of Prosecco just to
cheers the moment for roots of success.
(09:06):
Thank you for all the listeners.
If it wasn't for you we wouldnot be sitting here today.
And thank you for all the amazingguests we've had on the shows for
the last two years to help spreadthe life hard lessons of building
a business and building yourself.
Thanks to the entire team behind reachof success to make it all happen.
(09:27):
And man, let's see what the future holds.
But cheers to everyone that'sout there to help this work
and, and we'll see what's next.
Cheers, Tommy.
Cheers.
Cheers.
All right, here we go.
Woo.
Nice.
Good stuff.
(09:47):
Alright, now that's over withof being, you know, cute and
fun about what's happened.
Let's move on because we'reall about business right here
That's right.
John is the marketing guy, and Isaid earlier, the guru for marketing.
Marketing's such a big word, John.
(10:09):
It, it's like, let, let me, Iheard this the other day and it
was summarized as marketing verywell, especially for us landscapers.
When you say someone, Hey, I dolandscaping, what do you think?
It's.
Landscaping is the broadest term on earth,
(10:30):
Mm-hmm.
right?
It you could what?
What could you do?
could do maintenance.
It could be residential, it couldcommercial, it could be industrial.
You could do snow, you could doinstall, but the install's, residential
maintenance, design, build, commercial.
You could do pools,plumbing, electrical, arbors.
(10:51):
I don't, what am I missing?
Like landscaping is such a gigantic word
Yeah.
to say, well I do landscaping,but this is what I do,
Mm-hmm.
so could I make the argumentand go, what's your marketing?
So what is it?
Don't you feel like that's a similar term?
Marketing and landscaping is the samekind of like broad brushstroke to where.
(11:18):
Landscapers also just don't understandlike what, there's so many branches
within all that, and I think we get soconfused on what, like we have website
and then we have like traffic, andthen we have a marketing plan, and
then we have this thing called socialmedia, and then we have branding.
I'm missing probably 10 things, but meunderstand these regular landscapers
(11:42):
like me that just says, what's marketing?
So we have a. Start real high andthen we'll start needling down.
Yeah.
Well, I mean you're right, itis very broad and nebulous, just
like the term landscaping, right.
And all the things that you said.
Or a hundred percent correct aboutmarketing, you can slice and dice it into
(12:03):
a hundred different things, you know?
But for me it's essentially how doyou communicate with your customer?
And that's as simple as it gets.
Now, you know, I think one of thethings that I think most people, a
lot of landscapers they kind of skipover is who is their customer, right?
(12:25):
Because they make the mistakeof thinking it's everybody.
We're not really dialingin who that person is.
So understanding who you're communicatingwith is definitely the first step.
But then marketing is all ofthose different communications
and, you know, in, in somepeople's mind that includes sales.
You know, some of you may have heardthe term, like Chief Revenue Officer.
(12:45):
A lot of times marketing and saleswill kind of funnel into that
person because marketing and saleshave to be very well coordinated.
If you wanna have those two thingswork together well, because.
Everything that your customer seesis, is a marketing touchpoint, right?
Whether that's social media, the website,your truck uniforms, communications to
somebody on the phone, all of that stufffalls under that marketing umbrella.
(13:09):
So it's a lot.
Yeah.
Yeah.
You know, and, and I just want tosay, it's almost like we just, I
think you hit the nail on the head.
It's like, who's your customer?
'cause I think when you say thatyou're marketing to different people.
And, and, and, and maybe it's nota person, maybe it's a business
or maybe it's a group or maybeit's a certain demographic, maybe
(13:32):
it's a certain zip code, maybe.
And so you gotta narrow on thatand then find out what they like
and then be strategic about that.
Yep.
Right.
That makes, that makes a lot of sense.
Okay.
Talk about your marketing assessmentthat you've been working on, how it
(13:53):
works, how it flows, and if you'relistening in the truck, great.
Kind of build the pictureof what you're, you're doing
with, with a lot of companies.
You kind of start to get on the roadthese landscape companies maybe start to
be an awareness of what marketing you'reevaluating their marketing currently.
Good, bad, and ugly.
(14:15):
then which direction you're probablyidentifying the client customer, and
then you're also giving 'em a gameplan of sort of what's going on.
So tell me about yourmarketing assessment.
Sure.
Yeah.
So, you know, over the past two and ahalf years when with you and I working
together, most of what I've beendoing is focusing on helping McFarland
Stanford find new clients, right?
Let's get some new discovery members, ACEpeer group members, which, which is great.
(14:39):
I I love doing that.
But as a, you know, anentrepreneur myself, I really
like helping business owners.
So I put together this marketing frameworkto, to try to help landscapers do a better
job of communicating with their customers.
So, oh, just over the past month I'vestarted offering this as a service.
(15:01):
I've done three of these already,just in the past few weeks.
Basically it's you know, one to two dayonsite where I sit down with the owner
and their marketing team if they, ifthey have people in-house, and really
just dig in and try to figure out whatthey've been doing, what's working,
what's not working, what are the gaps andreally look at everything through this
(15:22):
framework I created called the Seven Cs.
And basically what we do is we startwith, okay, what do you have, what
do you have in terms of your brand?
So those first two C's areclarity and consistency.
And Tommy, you and I talked aboutbranding, oh, I guess probably
about a year and a half ago.
And that's, that's really what Italk about with branding is clarity
(15:44):
and consistency equals customers.
So that branding is the foundation.
So we really start with that to see,you know, how solid is your branding?
How well defined is that?
And that means.
It's not just logos and colors,it's really more about your
positioning and how you talk aboutyourself to customers, right?
So that's kind of the first step.
(16:04):
And then customers is the next one.
You know, one of the things thatI find that I mentioned earlier is
a lot of these guys really don'tunderstand who their customer is.
They, they say, well, I, I sell highend residential, but if you sell in
like, let's take Dallas for example.
If you sell in different areas of Dallas.
(16:25):
If you're in the park cities versusflower Mound, you're selling to
very different people, right?
And you need to understand whatmotivates them, because at the end of
the day, with your customer, you wannaknow what their problem is so that
you can give them the right solution.
That's really what you're searching for.
And if you can talk to them in that kindof language that, Hey, I understand your
(16:46):
problem and here's how I'm gonna fix it.
It's, it's a much easier,easier yes for them.
So we make sure that you reallyunderstand your customer.
The next thing we lookat is your team, right?
Who do you have in house that'sactually in charge of marketing?
You know, I think one of the,yes, that's the coordination.
(17:07):
Sorry.
Yes.
That's the, that's the fourth c.Thank you for keeping me on track.
So a lot of landscapers, I'll say.
Marketing is kind of at the bottomof the, of, of the priority pile.
Right.
Largely because it's a littlebit nebulous, like you mentioned,
and some of us just don't get it.
So it's like, let's just get outthere and try to sell to people.
(17:27):
I'll worry about this stuff later.
So a lot of times we end uphanding that off to, you know.
My, my wife's son just graduatedfrom college and he's on social
media, so I'll bring him in and seeif he can help us with marketing.
The, the problem with it is, you know, ifyou just have that young, inexperienced
person, they don't necessarily know how tobuild a brand or understand the customers.
(17:53):
They may have a, they may ha know how todo some social media posting, but that.
That is one tactic, and it'squite frankly a very poor tactic
in terms of generating leads.
So what I try to look at iswho do you have in place?
Do you have contractors or maybe youknow, an SEO person outside who is on
(18:13):
that team and, and, and what do we needto kind of bolster that up and fill it in?
And then the next thingwe look at the, the.
The fifth C is cohesiveness,and this is really all about
your strategy and your plan.
So most people don't have a planto be quite honest with you.
Even some, you know, eight, ninefigure businesses are doing a lot of,
you know, throwing shit up againstthe wall and seeing if it sticks.
(18:37):
And occasionally you get lucky, butthat's, that's not really a good strategy.
Right.
So we, we really try to dig inand look at that plan and see.
How can we do this better?
How can we make sure you're trackingmetrics, all of those things that you
talk about with operations or finance.
It's the same here.
You gotta have numbers, right?
And then the last two Cs arecommunication and conversion.
(18:58):
So this is actually about theexecution of your marketing.
Like, how is this working?
Is this converting to sales?
And it, it, if it's not convertingto sales, it's not working.
It doesn't matter to me if you're getting.
A bunch of new followers and you got alot of engagement on your social media.
None of that matters if itdoesn't lead to sales, right?
(19:19):
That's ultimately the job ofmarketing is to generate income or
generate leads to the sales team.
And if it's not doing that, thenthere's, there's work to be done.
So we go through that wholeframework at the end of it.
You know, I'll give them a, a, a prettydetailed report on all seven of those Cs.
And then at the end of it, there's anaction plan of what to do over the next
(19:42):
90 days, six months to a year to tryto prioritize all of those gaps so that
we can really start making progress.
Love it.
So is this like a framework, so to speak,for, for companies and, and this is like
almost a, I'm looking at a you know, sortof a diagram here, but is this something
(20:07):
that, first off, you evaluate, but youalso within your business need to sort
of have an awareness of all of these?
And like, how are we relating tocustomers, It's almost like you gotta
take a step back and have these meetingswithin your own group, within your own
leadership team or something and say,how are we on clarity and consistency?
(20:29):
How do the trucks look?
How do the invoices look?
How does our, you know.
Our uniforms, look, howdo we look at our shop?
How do,
Yep.
all of those things.
And it's almost like a self-report card
Mm-hmm.
kind of, right?
So you kind of like look atthose and cohesiveness, oh my
(20:51):
gosh, that's like a great word.
Like are we in unison of whatwe're practicing at the end of
Yeah.
and then how we're communicating.
So let me rephrase these.
It's clarity and consistency, customers,then coordination, then cohesiveness.
And last but not least communicationand conversion, which sales, right,
(21:12):
it's gotta work in its favor,
Yep.
Marketing's gotta make moneyor it's, it's not worth it.
not worth it.
Mm-hmm.
And so if you're, so, John, if you're alistener out there, what do you recommend?
Like, what's a fair budget?
What if you've got a small business?
Do you outsource this?
When do you bring on someone full time orlike, you know, how does that compare to
(21:36):
social media person versus just marketing?
So like, if you're young and Lincoln,you know, I need to do something
finally because I've put thisoff to the side for a long time.
What, what's their steps and what do theyneed to do consistently down the road?
Yeah, I mean, that's a good question.
You know, and unfortunatelythere's not an easy answer to that.
(21:57):
You know, one of the things thatI found in doing these and talking
to different people is everybody'sbusiness is different, right?
And even a business that.
Looks the same.
Like say in Dallas, you have abusiness that does residential
and commercial maintenance.
That same business, you know, inIllinois is gonna be very different
because their commercial maintenancealso includes snow, which is an entirely
(22:21):
different kind of profit margin, right?
So at the end of the day, you have tolook at your business individually.
And you have to understand whothose customers are, right?
I can't stress that enough
that that's really where you should start.
I think.
The other thing that I think peoplecan do, especially for that brand
(22:44):
kind of clarity and consistency andthis is a tip that I give to people
all the time, is gather pictures ofeverything that you put out there.
Pictures of your truck, pictures ofyour uniform, your social media feed,
you know, any kind of sales flyers oranything that you produce like that,
whether it's a postcard or a folder anypiece of communication that has your
(23:07):
logo on it, signs outside the building.
Print 'em all out and stick 'em on a wall.
And if you step back and ask yourself,does this look like it's one company or
does it look like it's like 12 or 13?
If it doesn't clearlylook like one company.
Then you're missing the boat onthat clarity and consistency,
because each one of those thingsshould be supporting each other.
(23:28):
And if they all look different,you're just creating confusion.
You're not creating clarity at all.
So that's a good place to start.
If you just wanna see a snapshot ofmaybe how effective your, you know,
visual communication pieces arethat's a really good place to start.
But if, if you don't havea marketing background.
(23:50):
You know, honestly, the best thingyou can do is, is to find somebody.
Like me, who does have that kindof a background, who can kind of
point you in the right direction.
There is no one size fits all.
Social media is not gonna actthe same for the guy in Dallas
as it is for the guy in Illinois.
And if you don't understand all of thedifferent pieces, you're gonna waste
(24:11):
a ton of time and a lot of money.
And that's what I'm trying to help peopledo is do it in an effective way and spend
their money in a way that it's actuallygonna have some ROI and come back to them.
Yeah.
That's such a great point.
I feel like since I've been around thecountry a lot for many years, when you're
(24:36):
working in the business, you almostkind of have a set of blinders and not
know what's really truly projecting out
Mm-hmm.
of what the company looks like.
So the idea is for you to take picturesof all these things and then put it
on a board and see what makes sense.
You're probably gonna have a lot of.
Not clarity unclarity thoughts becauseit's a broken set of communication.
(25:02):
That's not terrible.
That's not awful.
That's just the way it is.
And
Yeah.
we got into this business because,not because of marketing, we got
in because we wanted to do reallygood things and work outdoors.
And so that's a greatassessment is to understand is.
Figure out where you are currently.
(25:24):
The value of an ICP an idealclient profile is super
viable, not for just marketing.
This is like general business and you,you did this, you've done several of
these presentations where you know,you've got a, a, a, a, a poster board of
the perfect client and the demographicsand where they live and the home values
(25:45):
if you're in residential, et cetera.
Really I 'cause that that like spinsoff into so many directions now.
It spins off to campaigns andmarketing and social media feeds,
also spins off like everyoneknows who we're shooting for.
Everyone knows who we work for.
And there's no clear there's no fogginess.
(26:07):
It's very, very clear.
So, I love the assessment.
So to take pictures of everything, lookhow, see how it is, and go from there.
And define your ICP.
Yeah, and definitely with andwith the customer profile, like.
You mentioned the demographics, right?
And like where they live andthat is absolutely a must have
(26:29):
information, but I always push peopleto take it a little bit further.
Like you wanna understand who thosepeople are, what makes them tick.
So, okay, so I do high endresidential and you know the, the
southern part of Asheville, right?
That's where I live.
So it's an area I'm familiar with.
Great.
Like I have home values and allof that stuff, but what really is
(26:51):
gonna make a difference is if youunderstand who those people are.
So, and what I mean by thatis what really motivates them.
So if most of those peopleare young families, right?
Where maybe you have a, a primarykind of breadwinner and a caregiver.
You have two kids in school, alot of them that part of the of my
(27:13):
town, they go to a private school.
Like you wanna really understand theirlife so that you can be in front of
them in as many places as possible.
You and you want to talk their language.
So it's all about understanding theirvalues and their motivations, not just
their demographics, if that makes sense.
Makes, makes a lot of sense.
(27:35):
you know, it's no different than, ifI was to come into a business and look
at operations or equipment and trainingthe team, an outside observation.
is very well done.
And, and not a better word than,than John, you know, really taking a
stab at that with all his experiencecoming in with no emotions, you know,
(27:56):
coming in with a, with a background.
That's great.
So you also create an action planfor the next seven, six to 12 months.
So it, talk about what that means.
Well gimme some examples, likewhat an action plan would be.
Is that.
John Dalton doing the marketing oris that like helping someone do the
marketing in the, within the business,or maybe it's the local person that
(28:19):
does some marketing or kind of giveus a sense of what people can expect?
I.
Sure.
Yeah.
So, you know, sometimesthat, that can be me.
Sometimes that is part of therecommendation, you know, to have me
come in as a fractional CMO, even ifthat's just a couple hours a month
just to kind of help with the planning.
But it, it really dependson what you have in place.
(28:40):
You know, sometimes it can be justyour mar you have a great marketing
team, but they just need a littlebit of support and maybe a mentor.
You know, we have a client.
In South Dakota, he's gota great marketing manager.
She's just kind of young and, andneeds a little bit of guidance.
I coach her once a month, right?
And I help her with some differentthings, but they don't need me on,
(29:03):
on, on a long-term basis becausethey have a good thing set in place.
I did an assessment just a few weeks ago.
For a, a client up in Minnesota,I have lots of, you know, kind
of recommendations for them.
So like, for example, in the firstthree months they don't have a marketing
person, so I'm helping them witha job description on that, helping
them update some brand elements.
(29:26):
You know, trying to com trying toalign some conversations with the
sales team because one of the thingsI do on those assessments and as is I
interview with the salespeople because.
A lot of times I find there's a big gap incommunication between sales and marketing.
They don't talk to each otherand that's always a problem.
So I always include them in that processto try to understand what the salespeople
(29:48):
need because that's critical to their job.
And then for them, we're gonnado some, some website updates
in that first three months.
Right?
And then in the next six months, youknow, we're gonna go a little bit
deeper on some of their strategy,help 'em build out some metrics.
Sometimes it's me recommending someoutside help, like for these people they
(30:09):
need some help with SEOI have a good kindof stable of vetted marketing specialists
that I can pull in based on, you know,those needs and, and those people.
I, I just introduce 'em to you.
I don't like mark 'em up.
I don't take 20%.
Like I I don't do that.
If you wanna hire me to do thingsgreat, but I have some really
(30:29):
great people that can help you.
Like, I, I wanna helpyou grow your business.
It's not about me.
Pad in my wallet.
So, you know, so for six monthswe're gonna help them do some video
and photography, and then within thenext nine to 12 months, we'll do some
kind of more long term things with.
A content plan, I'm gonna help themupdate some of their design guidelines.
(30:51):
You know, we're trying tofocus on some of those things
that will drive revenue early.
And then down the road we'll getto rebranding their vehicles to
kind of update those a little bit.
Working on some digital ad campaignsand even some trade booth design,
so it's very specific to them.
I try to really, you know, step it outin those kind of three month blocks
(31:14):
so it doesn't seem so overwhelmingthat you have, oh, all of this shit's
broken and you have to fix all of it.
Right?
And my wife, who you mentionedbefore says, overwhelm is
not having too much to do.
It's not knowing where to start.
So I wanna make sure that I give youa place to start and show you, you
know, step by step, how we're gonnaget all of this stuff fixed so that
(31:34):
you have that marketing machine that'sreally, really functioning well.
Yeah.
Love that.
And so it's a framework.
At the end of the day, it's it.
In three month quadrants.
So in quarters, that's easily to digest.
I understand.
All right.
Q1, what?
This is what we gotta do.
We just need to execute on it.
John's there to understand.
It's no different than hiring a coach.
(31:58):
Nothing.
No different than a business person.
No different than a, you knowa financial advisory for your
personal finances, right?
This is what we do.
I, I met with my financial advisor.
Several weeks ago.
He, he goes, this is what the plan isfor the future with the stock market,
how much you're doing for kids' college.
Like, it's a game plan.
(32:18):
Like I, I don't, that'swhat we need in landscape.
And it's just, John,you're the professional.
Tell me what we do in small bite-sizedchunks and then we'll get it all done
and we'll look back in two years andgo, oh my God, look at where we are now.
Here's the results, here'swhat we've accomplished.
I love that.
(32:39):
I mean, that's what I really wannado is give them a, a playbook, right?
Like with almost, withlike a checklist of things.
Like, okay, here's how we're gonna start.
We're gonna do this, we're gonnado this, we're gonna do this.
Because if you just dump a big deckon their, on their desk and they're
like, this is all the shit youneed to fix a lot of that, a lot
of times that's not gonna get done.
So you, you have to have the,the, the playbook and the, and
(33:00):
the checklist to go with it,
and that makes a big difference.
For sure.
What, there any hot trends, marketingin general that is either trends,
meaning it, it is just a hot subject,not sure it's working, there needs
to be more time, or there's things,John, that you go, yeah, this is really
(33:21):
working for businesses right now.
It, it's taking off.
Is there anything that's kindof like, Ooh, that's juicy.
Yeah, a couple things thatjust come up recently.
You know, I always talk a lot, people askme a lot of questions about social media.
And to me it's one of those thingsthat you can spend way too much time on
and it doesn't have a really good ROI.
(33:44):
But it's necessary and I stillthink everybody should do it.
Just be careful how muchtime you spend on it.
But I've had some really interestingconversations with some people lately
who social media is totally their life,and one of the things that we've started
to see is even in the landscaping worlditself, like there's some good examples
(34:05):
of this even within our peer groups,is it's, it's a great window into the
people of your business to kind ofput a face behind the brand, right?
To have a relationship with people.
And I've always known it'sa good tool for that, right?
To just kind of put some realityand some humanity into your brand.
But one of the side bonuses of thatthat we're finding out is it doesn't
(34:30):
just help with your customers, right?
It also helps with employees.
It, it's also a window into your culture,and people are seeing that It helps,
it helps them recruit people becausewhen you're trying to hire somebody.
They wanna work for a good company.
They wanna see they want togo to a place that's gonna be,
(34:52):
they're gonna feel welcomed.
It's gonna be fun, it'sgonna be challenging.
And social media is where theygo to see what kind of a company.
It's,
and if your social media sucks oryou barely have anything there.
They're gonna move on.
And I've, I've had conversationsand that, that definitely happens
with people in our own peer groups.
(35:15):
And I, I'm actually hoping to put ona webinar in the next couple months
with this company to help show peoplehow to showcase your company and
its culture on social media for yourcustomers and for your employees
and your potential employees.
So that was kind of aneye-opening thing for me recently.
Is that kind of hidden benefitof social media with recruiting.
(35:38):
And it, it just hadn't, it's not somethingthat I've ever thought about before, but
there's real evidence that that works.
Yeah.
Wow, that's powerful.
Like I circled the word clarity
Mm-hmm.
back on your seven Cs.
That clarity is not just the clientor, or just general marketing.
(35:58):
clarity within the organization.
And so if you take like your example,you take all these pictures of all these
objects within your business and putit on a wall, and if it's confusing.
It's probably reallyconfusing for your own team
A hundred percent.
and so that is so fascinating.
What a, what a great answer.
(36:19):
And I would suspect that's mostlandscape companies, because
marketing's an afterthought.
One of the things I've learnedrecently was your social media posts
almost are more about the team.
So to speak, the collaboration, thecohesiveness to get a job project done.
(36:46):
the scenes to come together andpre-plan a job before it gets installed.
So like if you talk about theteam and what it makes to build
or maintain these properties.
That's what people areattracted to the client and
potential people to hire, right?
(37:07):
Yeah.
if I'm a client looking at thesocial media feed and going,
wow, it's team building.
They're prepping jobs, they're,they're working together, they're
collaborating, they're doing all thiswork just to maintain my property.
Like I had no idea.
I thought that'd show up in justmode, and it just is what it is.
(37:29):
But if you had a team behind it tocollaborate and that was documented along
the way, talk about a recruiting tooland talk about a tool for clients to go.
That's what they like about, it's notnecessarily like the product, right?
Mowing grass or, or putting in shrubs.
It's, I think that's not all of it.
It's about the collaborative effort ofa team that goes into to do the product.
(37:55):
Can get showcase.
I don't know.
I kind of learned that here,recent last six, 12 months.
And if you could feature that, wow,then you're doing this recruiting,
you're attracting this talent becausethey're watching you, but yet you're
also doing the same for your clients.
And, and John and, and his teamcan produce something like that.
(38:16):
I. D Darren, you wanted to show me asocial media feed that focuses a lot on
the team and what's behind the scenes.
'cause it's not justpushing a mower, guys.
Yeah.
That's, that's what the clients thinksometimes and, and rightfully so.
Yeah, it is.
And you know.
That's at the end of the day, there's a,there's a thousand landscapers, right?
(38:38):
And regardless of where you live,there's hundreds of choices.
If you're a homeowner or you're abusiness, you can call 20 people
this afternoon and get a bid.
But what, at the end of the day,people wanna buy from people, right?
They don't wanna buy just from a company.
They want to have arelationship with those people.
And that's a good way to, to givethem a peek behind the curtain of what
(38:58):
that relationship is gonna be like.
And that can help.
That can help separate you.
You know, I think I said in thebeginning that social media is
not a good generator of leads.
It isn't.
But when you do have a lead, let's,let's say they see your truck driving
by or they get a postcard, they're gonnago look at your social media feed to
(39:20):
see what it's all about, and they mightfollow you for a couple weeks before
they decide to give you a phone call.
And if they can see not just picturesof your great work, which you should
have on there as well, but alsoall of these different things about
your employees and that, hey, thislooks like a fun place to work.
They take care of people.
I can see the faces of the guysthat are actually gonna come
work on my yard or build my deck.
(39:43):
That's gonna, that's gonna make them feelat ease and that's gonna help separate
you from the other guy who just poststwice a week with some, some random
drone shot of a house that they just,that they just mowed the, the yard at.
Like,
anybody can do that.
So just do it better, right.
And, and feature your people.
And it will, it will makea difference for sure.
(40:04):
Yeah.
Love that.
That that is the
focusing on the team.
You know, whether it be management,the, the awesome field staff that
you have or whatever, focus on that.
And then that you've delivering a, astellar product at the end of the day.
I think that'll help convert, uh.
John, anything else to addthat we may have missed?
(40:27):
And any advice for anyoneout there marketing or not?
You've got a pile of books behind yourhead right now that you've probably have
read or at least thrown into some chat,GPT, but anything professional advice,
personal advice that you wanna share.
So I'll leave you with those two.
(40:47):
Yeah, I mean for, for the landscapers,my best advice is don't overlook it and
don't let market marketing frustrate you.
Right?
Start, start somewhere.
And if you're gonna startanywhere, start with your, with
your brand and that foundation,
Yeah.
And figure out is.
Is my stuff clear andconsistent across the board.
(41:09):
If you do nothing else, do thatand make sure you understand your
customers that's gonna make the restof your decisions much, much easier.
And if you need help, don't just goask chat GPT, reach out to somebody
like me or get 'em a recommendationfrom somebody else, you know,
(41:30):
in landscaping and have aconversation with people you know.
I will say there's a lot of greatmarketing people, but there's just
as many bad marketing people, right?
Another parallel with landscaping,
right?
So, you know, talk to people, but getrecommendations, check references,
do all of that stuff so you don'tget burned because a lot of people
(41:53):
stop doing marketing because theyhire someone who's terrible and they
get a bad taste in their mouth, but.
Marketing can work.
You know, it can generate asignificant amount of income for
you and it can separate you fromyour competition if you do it right.
You just have to talk to the right people.
And I, I'm happy to help anybodyif, if they're looking for help.
(42:16):
Yeah, good.
How did they get in touch with you, John?
Well, they can, they canreach out to me via email.
At, at McFarland Stanford, it's.
My email's justjohn.Dalton@mcfarlandstanford.com.
I'm sure we'll include that inthe show notes and on YouTube if
you guys are watching it there.
So I'll make sure there's a link tothat, that's the best place to reach me.
(42:39):
Or, you know, if, if you want to justreach out to me directly via text or
phone, I'll give you my phone number.
It's (828) 782-1651.
And you can, you can textme or, or call me anytime.
And I'm happy to have, you know, a 10 or15 minute conversation you know, at no
charge, just to kind of talk to you aboutwhat your problems are and, and see if
(43:02):
it'd be a good fit for me to help you.
Yeah.
Very, very good.
Well, if anything that's learnedthroughout my journey is, is getting
help in the sense of, you don't knowfinances, get someone that knows finances
in this industry or service industry.
(43:23):
I don't know finances that well, butI know how to do a stellar install
check if you don't know marketing.
Then sign.
Get someone that knows marketinglike John and just get them involved.
Because listen, youwant to go do the work.
You got a team to manage.
So when you partner or, and useresources externally to help build your
(43:44):
business, always say, hire a mentor.
Hire someone smarter than you to do this.
Help me get better in this business.
Don't think of marketingas an afterthought, or I'll
get to it at some point.
It should, it should be right up in linewith revenue and install and maintenance
in your team and your finances.
(44:05):
It's gotta be right there atthe same level as all of those.
You need to have a plan,you need to execute on it.
John, it's always a pleasure the manbehind the scenes and all these episodes.
Happy two years.
It's been a awesome ride.
I enjoyed most of it along the way.
(44:26):
I've, we've all gottena little bit better.
And most importantly, I can'tstress this a most important.
It's about the audience, about thelisteners, just getting a 1% better
every day, when you get 1% better.
Each and every day you improve onyourself and also on your business.
And I'll leave it at that.
(44:47):
John, thanks again for being, agreat friend and a great behind the
scenes host and sharing all yourmarketing advice on this episode.
Yeah, thanks for having me.
And congratulations onthe two years it's been.
It's been a lot of fun.
Yeah, awesome.
See you soon my friend.
All right, thanks.
Ready to take the next step?
Download our free Profitability Scorecardto quickly create your own baseline
(45:09):
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
LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram.
(45:30):
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 the Roots of Successpodcast, and I'm your host, Tommy Cole.
And we have an awesome guest.
(00:23):
My awesome friend, John Dalton.
he is the marketing guru,
I've known for the last few years.
It's been a, it's been an awesome ride.
And so we got John joining us.
How are you, John, by the way?
I am great, Tommy.
I'm awesome.
Glad to be here.
John, this is a special episode,and I wanted you on this one almost
(00:49):
to the day, like literally almost.
There we are celebrating ourtwo years of Roots of Success.
I don't know how this happened.
I'm just a landscape architectkind of dude, and, and this has
kept going on for two years.
I'm shocked.
I was ready to parachute outthis thing a few months into
(01:13):
it said This is not my deal.
But somehow, miraculously, a lot ofpeople, have enjoyed this and it's
been great to produce over the years.
Reason why John Dalton is sitting heretoday is I owe a ton of credit to this
gentleman to talk me off the ledgemultiple times of continuing this podcast.
(01:40):
There's a lot of traction, there's a lotof good feedback and there's a lot of
good education as we are working on ourbusiness, working on ourselves driving
the pickup truck to and from job sites.
I think you a lot.
I also a ton of credit to PaulMyers, He does a lot of behind the
scenes editing all these episodes.
(02:01):
John, anything to say about this?
Sure.
I mean, it's been a,it is been a fun ride.
I remember starting from the verybeginning, just kind of working through
some of the technical issues and then,like you said, talking you off the ledge
and working on your resting bitch face andgetting you polished up for the camera.
But I mean, it, it's been a lot of fun.
(02:23):
And I've certainly seen yougrow and, you know, kind of
step into your own as a host.
And, you know, we've had a lot ofreally great episodes along the way
And I'm really proudof what we've created.
So kudos to you for, youknow, sticking with it.
And now we're on, this'll be episodenumber 55, so over halfway to a hundred.
(02:44):
And I think it just keepsgetting better and better.
Yeah, that's great.
here's the thing.
My first few episodes were terrible.
And so let's apologize to like LizHilton, Chris Winkler, Chris Chek Tracy
and Megan you know, maybe Josh Meter,those people that were the first.
(03:05):
Thank you so much for like,believing in me and being on a weird
podcast where Tommy has no idea.
So there's some bloopers, Ithink, John, that you wanna share.
I think there's a fewfunny ones along the way.
Yeah, I was, when it, when we weregetting ready to do this episode, I
was trying to think of some of themore interesting times we've had.
(03:25):
I mean, obviously in the beginning, justkind of wrestling with the tech and the
microphones and getting all that set.
Was sometimes a struggle, butthere was a couple things that
really stuck out in my mind.
Like it took us a while to get MartyGrunder to be on the podcast, you know,
when we really wanted him to be on ata specific time and you know, to help
us promote an event and all this stuff.
(03:47):
We finally got it all lined up, pressrecord, and like two minutes in.
The whole thing just turns offand everybody's disconnected.
And I don't know how long it took.
Yeah, it just, just stopped.
And I don't know how long it tookus to get all, everything all back
connected because I was, I wasdisconnected for maybe 20 minutes.
And you guys had to basically juststart all over and record it again.
(04:09):
that is not, that was not fun.
Marty is a busy man.
It.
a high profile person with lotsof experience and knowledge, and
we've been gearing up for Martyand all of a sudden it just, for
whatever reason, nothing worked.
Yep.
But if I have any adviceon that deal is no panic.
(04:32):
Stay calm.
Mm-hmm.
We'll figure it out.
We just had to extend a little moretime than normal and we figured it
out and we, we worked through it.
It worked.
It worked out great.
Thank you for Marty for, he probablysaid a few curse words along the
way, like, this is ridiculous.
But he was patient
Yeah.
Very gracious.
Yes.
It went well.
(04:52):
Yeah, that, that was stressful.
I mean, the one time when you'relike, this has to go perfect,
that's the one time it's goingto just completely screw up.
So of course that's what happened.
And then I remember, I think this wasjust last year, you banked a bunch of
episodes like right before Christmas, soyou could take some time off and then.
One of 'em was just missing, like it gotlost somewhere in the internet ether,
(05:15):
and it took us a couple days and youknow, some calls to support to find it.
But you were right.
You recorded it, it was there.
You didn't have to callsomebody and do it again, but.
I, I think it was the day after Christmas,you and I were texting back and forth
and I was like, I don't see it, man.
I don't know what happened,
but we ended up finding it.
So, you know, just some of thoselittle things that happened along
(05:35):
the way just kept it interesting.
But it's, it's been, it's been a fun ride.
yeah.
That was, that was stressful.
That's actually Christmas Eve.
I recorded several.
And thank you to those, to those guests.
I recorded several and then all ofa sudden they just were gone and I
Mm-hmm.
out 'cause I worked so hard on those.
(05:55):
It's almost like working on an Excelspreadsheet for, you know, five hours and
all of a sudden you look up and it's gone.
That doesn't happen near as often withAuto save, but I, I really panicked.
I'm like, John, I'm sorry to bother you.
It's literally Christmas.
I have no episodes.
But it, it all, it all worked out.
(06:17):
It, it's been an unbelievable ride andit's been just fascinating to interview
these owners, vendors, managers alongthe way to share their experience.
And at the time, you know, a lot of times.
us landscapers, just look atthese, these great men and women
and say, man, they've got it all.
(06:37):
When really?
Yeah, they have a lot.
But they had to get to a lot.
They had to build their businesses,they had to build their people.
They lost money along the way.
They lost clients, they lost people.
And it's about the journey to gettingto where they are at this point.
So it's, it's been a really good ride.
Yeah, and I think that's one of the thingsthat's really worked, Tommy, with, I know
(06:59):
you're hard on yourself and you've workedreally hard to improve yourself, but
really what people like about you and yourmessage is just how relatable you are.
Right.
If you're one of them, you've runa landscaping company, the division
you know, a company on its own, andyou've worked with all these different
people, like you get it right andthey understand that you, you know,
(07:22):
what it's like to be in their shoes.
And I think that means a lot to people.
And that's, that's whywe've been so successful.
That's why this has lasted for two years.
So I just wanna congratulate you on,you know, putting in the work, doing all
of those things, working on ChristmasEve to get all this stuff done and.
We've never missed an episode.
So
yeah,
(07:42):
been a lot work, but it's been.
yeah.
We have not missed it.
And I go more creditto John and, and Paul.
oh my gosh, we're low on episodes.
What are you doing?
And I'm like, I got it, I got it.
Oh my God.
So you know, accountability, at theend of the day someone was holding
me accountable and to make surethat we had enough in the pipeline.
(08:05):
We never missed a we never misseda a release date in two years.
And so it, it'll keep going that way.
John, I asked you to bringsomething with you to the show
and, and we'll cap this off, but.
if you guys know me, I don't reallydrink much, if any but people know me
(08:26):
as, Prosecco, Tommy, and if you're outthere in the audience I was developed
that name a few years ago in Italy, thegreat game of tennis that I love so much.
And, there were some people out therethat wanted to challenge me in the great
game of tennis, and I kind of let 'emknow who was boss at the end of the day
(08:46):
alongside me in that was a little friendknown as Prosecco, and I enjoyed the ride.
So without further ado, I, I broughtus special guest on with John and I,
and we have topped off with a, witha champagne toast of Prosecco just to
cheers the moment for roots of success.
(09:06):
Thank you for all the listeners.
If it wasn't for you we wouldnot be sitting here today.
And thank you for all the amazingguests we've had on the shows for
the last two years to help spreadthe life hard lessons of building
a business and building yourself.
Thanks to the entire team behind reachof success to make it all happen.
(09:27):
And man, let's see what the future holds.
But cheers to everyone that'sout there to help this work
and, and we'll see what's next.
Cheers, Tommy.
Cheers.
Cheers.
All right, here we go.
Woo.
Nice.
Good stuff.
(09:47):
Alright, now that's over withof being, you know, cute and
fun about what's happened.
Let's move on because we'reall about business right here
That's right.
John is the marketing guy, and Isaid earlier, the guru for marketing.
Marketing's such a big word, John.
(10:09):
It, it's like, let, let me, Iheard this the other day and it
was summarized as marketing verywell, especially for us landscapers.
When you say someone, Hey, I dolandscaping, what do you think?
It's.
Landscaping is the broadest term on earth,
(10:30):
Mm-hmm.
right?
It you could what?
What could you do?
could do maintenance.
It could be residential, it couldcommercial, it could be industrial.
You could do snow, you could doinstall, but the install's, residential
maintenance, design, build, commercial.
You could do pools,plumbing, electrical, arbors.
(10:51):
I don't, what am I missing?
Like landscaping is such a gigantic word
Yeah.
to say, well I do landscaping,but this is what I do,
Mm-hmm.
so could I make the argumentand go, what's your marketing?
So what is it?
Don't you feel like that's a similar term?
Marketing and landscaping is the samekind of like broad brushstroke to where.
(11:18):
Landscapers also just don't understandlike what, there's so many branches
within all that, and I think we get soconfused on what, like we have website
and then we have like traffic, andthen we have a marketing plan, and
then we have this thing called socialmedia, and then we have branding.
I'm missing probably 10 things, but meunderstand these regular landscapers
(11:42):
like me that just says, what's marketing?
So we have a. Start real high andthen we'll start needling down.
Yeah.
Well, I mean you're right, itis very broad and nebulous, just
like the term landscaping, right.
And all the things that you said.
Or a hundred percent correct aboutmarketing, you can slice and dice it into
(12:03):
a hundred different things, you know?
But for me it's essentially how doyou communicate with your customer?
And that's as simple as it gets.
Now, you know, I think one of thethings that I think most people, a
lot of landscapers they kind of skipover is who is their customer, right?
(12:25):
Because they make the mistakeof thinking it's everybody.
We're not really dialingin who that person is.
So understanding who you're communicatingwith is definitely the first step.
But then marketing is all ofthose different communications
and, you know, in, in somepeople's mind that includes sales.
You know, some of you may have heardthe term, like Chief Revenue Officer.
(12:45):
A lot of times marketing and saleswill kind of funnel into that
person because marketing and saleshave to be very well coordinated.
If you wanna have those two thingswork together well, because.
Everything that your customer seesis, is a marketing touchpoint, right?
Whether that's social media, the website,your truck uniforms, communications to
somebody on the phone, all of that stufffalls under that marketing umbrella.
(13:09):
So it's a lot.
Yeah.
Yeah.
You know, and, and I just want tosay, it's almost like we just, I
think you hit the nail on the head.
It's like, who's your customer?
'cause I think when you say thatyou're marketing to different people.
And, and, and, and maybe it's nota person, maybe it's a business
or maybe it's a group or maybeit's a certain demographic, maybe
(13:32):
it's a certain zip code, maybe.
And so you gotta narrow on thatand then find out what they like
and then be strategic about that.
Yep.
Right.
That makes, that makes a lot of sense.
Okay.
Talk about your marketing assessmentthat you've been working on, how it
(13:53):
works, how it flows, and if you'relistening in the truck, great.
Kind of build the pictureof what you're, you're doing
with, with a lot of companies.
You kind of start to get on the roadthese landscape companies maybe start to
be an awareness of what marketing you'reevaluating their marketing currently.
Good, bad, and ugly.
(14:15):
then which direction you're probablyidentifying the client customer, and
then you're also giving 'em a gameplan of sort of what's going on.
So tell me about yourmarketing assessment.
Sure.
Yeah.
So, you know, over the past two and ahalf years when with you and I working
together, most of what I've beendoing is focusing on helping McFarland
Stanford find new clients, right?
Let's get some new discovery members, ACEpeer group members, which, which is great.
(14:39):
I I love doing that.
But as a, you know, anentrepreneur myself, I really
like helping business owners.
So I put together this marketing frameworkto, to try to help landscapers do a better
job of communicating with their customers.
So, oh, just over the past month I'vestarted offering this as a service.
(15:01):
I've done three of these already,just in the past few weeks.
Basically it's you know, one to two dayonsite where I sit down with the owner
and their marketing team if they, ifthey have people in-house, and really
just dig in and try to figure out whatthey've been doing, what's working,
what's not working, what are the gaps andreally look at everything through this
(15:22):
framework I created called the Seven Cs.
And basically what we do is we startwith, okay, what do you have, what
do you have in terms of your brand?
So those first two C's areclarity and consistency.
And Tommy, you and I talked aboutbranding, oh, I guess probably
about a year and a half ago.
And that's, that's really what Italk about with branding is clarity
(15:44):
and consistency equals customers.
So that branding is the foundation.
So we really start with that to see,you know, how solid is your branding?
How well defined is that?
And that means.
It's not just logos and colors,it's really more about your
positioning and how you talk aboutyourself to customers, right?
So that's kind of the first step.
(16:04):
And then customers is the next one.
You know, one of the things thatI find that I mentioned earlier is
a lot of these guys really don'tunderstand who their customer is.
They, they say, well, I, I sell highend residential, but if you sell in
like, let's take Dallas for example.
If you sell in different areas of Dallas.
(16:25):
If you're in the park cities versusflower Mound, you're selling to
very different people, right?
And you need to understand whatmotivates them, because at the end of
the day, with your customer, you wannaknow what their problem is so that
you can give them the right solution.
That's really what you're searching for.
And if you can talk to them in that kindof language that, Hey, I understand your
(16:46):
problem and here's how I'm gonna fix it.
It's, it's a much easier,easier yes for them.
So we make sure that you reallyunderstand your customer.
The next thing we lookat is your team, right?
Who do you have in house that'sactually in charge of marketing?
You know, I think one of the,yes, that's the coordination.
(17:07):
Sorry.
Yes.
That's the, that's the fourth c.Thank you for keeping me on track.
So a lot of landscapers, I'll say.
Marketing is kind of at the bottomof the, of, of the priority pile.
Right.
Largely because it's a littlebit nebulous, like you mentioned,
and some of us just don't get it.
So it's like, let's just get outthere and try to sell to people.
(17:27):
I'll worry about this stuff later.
So a lot of times we end uphanding that off to, you know.
My, my wife's son just graduatedfrom college and he's on social
media, so I'll bring him in and seeif he can help us with marketing.
The, the problem with it is, you know, ifyou just have that young, inexperienced
person, they don't necessarily know how tobuild a brand or understand the customers.
(17:53):
They may have a, they may ha know how todo some social media posting, but that.
That is one tactic, and it'squite frankly a very poor tactic
in terms of generating leads.
So what I try to look at iswho do you have in place?
Do you have contractors or maybe youknow, an SEO person outside who is on
(18:13):
that team and, and, and what do we needto kind of bolster that up and fill it in?
And then the next thingwe look at the, the.
The fifth C is cohesiveness,and this is really all about
your strategy and your plan.
So most people don't have a planto be quite honest with you.
Even some, you know, eight, ninefigure businesses are doing a lot of,
you know, throwing shit up againstthe wall and seeing if it sticks.
(18:37):
And occasionally you get lucky, butthat's, that's not really a good strategy.
Right.
So we, we really try to dig inand look at that plan and see.
How can we do this better?
How can we make sure you're trackingmetrics, all of those things that you
talk about with operations or finance.
It's the same here.
You gotta have numbers, right?
And then the last two Cs arecommunication and conversion.
(18:58):
So this is actually about theexecution of your marketing.
Like, how is this working?
Is this converting to sales?
And it, it, if it's not convertingto sales, it's not working.
It doesn't matter to me if you're getting.
A bunch of new followers and you got alot of engagement on your social media.
None of that matters if itdoesn't lead to sales, right?
(19:19):
That's ultimately the job ofmarketing is to generate income or
generate leads to the sales team.
And if it's not doing that, thenthere's, there's work to be done.
So we go through that wholeframework at the end of it.
You know, I'll give them a, a, a prettydetailed report on all seven of those Cs.
And then at the end of it, there's anaction plan of what to do over the next
(19:42):
90 days, six months to a year to tryto prioritize all of those gaps so that
we can really start making progress.
Love it.
So is this like a framework, so to speak,for, for companies and, and this is like
almost a, I'm looking at a you know, sortof a diagram here, but is this something
(20:07):
that, first off, you evaluate, but youalso within your business need to sort
of have an awareness of all of these?
And like, how are we relating tocustomers, It's almost like you gotta
take a step back and have these meetingswithin your own group, within your own
leadership team or something and say,how are we on clarity and consistency?
(20:29):
How do the trucks look?
How do the invoices look?
How does our, you know.
Our uniforms, look, howdo we look at our shop?
How do,
Yep.
all of those things.
And it's almost like a self-report card
Mm-hmm.
kind of, right?
So you kind of like look atthose and cohesiveness, oh my
(20:51):
gosh, that's like a great word.
Like are we in unison of whatwe're practicing at the end of
Yeah.
and then how we're communicating.
So let me rephrase these.
It's clarity and consistency, customers,then coordination, then cohesiveness.
And last but not least communicationand conversion, which sales, right,
(21:12):
it's gotta work in its favor,
Yep.
Marketing's gotta make moneyor it's, it's not worth it.
not worth it.
Mm-hmm.
And so if you're, so, John, if you're alistener out there, what do you recommend?
Like, what's a fair budget?
What if you've got a small business?
Do you outsource this?
When do you bring on someone full time orlike, you know, how does that compare to
(21:36):
social media person versus just marketing?
So like, if you're young and Lincoln,you know, I need to do something
finally because I've put thisoff to the side for a long time.
What, what's their steps and what do theyneed to do consistently down the road?
Yeah, I mean, that's a good question.
You know, and unfortunatelythere's not an easy answer to that.
(21:57):
You know, one of the things thatI found in doing these and talking
to different people is everybody'sbusiness is different, right?
And even a business that.
Looks the same.
Like say in Dallas, you have abusiness that does residential
and commercial maintenance.
That same business, you know, inIllinois is gonna be very different
because their commercial maintenancealso includes snow, which is an entirely
(22:21):
different kind of profit margin, right?
So at the end of the day, you have tolook at your business individually.
And you have to understand whothose customers are, right?
I can't stress that enough
that that's really where you should start.
I think.
The other thing that I think peoplecan do, especially for that brand
(22:44):
kind of clarity and consistency andthis is a tip that I give to people
all the time, is gather pictures ofeverything that you put out there.
Pictures of your truck, pictures ofyour uniform, your social media feed,
you know, any kind of sales flyers oranything that you produce like that,
whether it's a postcard or a folder anypiece of communication that has your
(23:07):
logo on it, signs outside the building.
Print 'em all out and stick 'em on a wall.
And if you step back and ask yourself,does this look like it's one company or
does it look like it's like 12 or 13?
If it doesn't clearlylook like one company.
Then you're missing the boat onthat clarity and consistency,
because each one of those thingsshould be supporting each other.
(23:28):
And if they all look different,you're just creating confusion.
You're not creating clarity at all.
So that's a good place to start.
If you just wanna see a snapshot ofmaybe how effective your, you know,
visual communication pieces arethat's a really good place to start.
But if, if you don't havea marketing background.
(23:50):
You know, honestly, the best thingyou can do is, is to find somebody.
Like me, who does have that kindof a background, who can kind of
point you in the right direction.
There is no one size fits all.
Social media is not gonna actthe same for the guy in Dallas
as it is for the guy in Illinois.
And if you don't understand all of thedifferent pieces, you're gonna waste
(24:11):
a ton of time and a lot of money.
And that's what I'm trying to help peopledo is do it in an effective way and spend
their money in a way that it's actuallygonna have some ROI and come back to them.
Yeah.
That's such a great point.
I feel like since I've been around thecountry a lot for many years, when you're
(24:36):
working in the business, you almostkind of have a set of blinders and not
know what's really truly projecting out
Mm-hmm.
of what the company looks like.
So the idea is for you to take picturesof all these things and then put it
on a board and see what makes sense.
You're probably gonna have a lot of.
Not clarity unclarity thoughts becauseit's a broken set of communication.
(25:02):
That's not terrible.
That's not awful.
That's just the way it is.
And
Yeah.
we got into this business because,not because of marketing, we got
in because we wanted to do reallygood things and work outdoors.
And so that's a greatassessment is to understand is.
Figure out where you are currently.
(25:24):
The value of an ICP an idealclient profile is super
viable, not for just marketing.
This is like general business and you,you did this, you've done several of
these presentations where you know,you've got a, a, a, a, a poster board of
the perfect client and the demographicsand where they live and the home values
(25:45):
if you're in residential, et cetera.
Really I 'cause that that like spinsoff into so many directions now.
It spins off to campaigns andmarketing and social media feeds,
also spins off like everyoneknows who we're shooting for.
Everyone knows who we work for.
And there's no clear there's no fogginess.
(26:07):
It's very, very clear.
So, I love the assessment.
So to take pictures of everything, lookhow, see how it is, and go from there.
And define your ICP.
Yeah, and definitely with andwith the customer profile, like.
You mentioned the demographics, right?
And like where they live andthat is absolutely a must have
(26:29):
information, but I always push peopleto take it a little bit further.
Like you wanna understand who thosepeople are, what makes them tick.
So, okay, so I do high endresidential and you know the, the
southern part of Asheville, right?
That's where I live.
So it's an area I'm familiar with.
Great.
Like I have home values and allof that stuff, but what really is
(26:51):
gonna make a difference is if youunderstand who those people are.
So, and what I mean by thatis what really motivates them.
So if most of those peopleare young families, right?
Where maybe you have a, a primarykind of breadwinner and a caregiver.
You have two kids in school, alot of them that part of the of my
(27:13):
town, they go to a private school.
Like you wanna really understand theirlife so that you can be in front of
them in as many places as possible.
You and you want to talk their language.
So it's all about understanding theirvalues and their motivations, not just
their demographics, if that makes sense.
Makes, makes a lot of sense.
(27:35):
you know, it's no different than, ifI was to come into a business and look
at operations or equipment and trainingthe team, an outside observation.
is very well done.
And, and not a better word than,than John, you know, really taking a
stab at that with all his experiencecoming in with no emotions, you know,
(27:56):
coming in with a, with a background.
That's great.
So you also create an action planfor the next seven, six to 12 months.
So it, talk about what that means.
Well gimme some examples, likewhat an action plan would be.
Is that.
John Dalton doing the marketing oris that like helping someone do the
marketing in the, within the business,or maybe it's the local person that
(28:19):
does some marketing or kind of giveus a sense of what people can expect?
I.
Sure.
Yeah.
So, you know, sometimesthat, that can be me.
Sometimes that is part of therecommendation, you know, to have me
come in as a fractional CMO, even ifthat's just a couple hours a month
just to kind of help with the planning.
But it, it really dependson what you have in place.
(28:40):
You know, sometimes it can be justyour mar you have a great marketing
team, but they just need a littlebit of support and maybe a mentor.
You know, we have a client.
In South Dakota, he's gota great marketing manager.
She's just kind of young and, andneeds a little bit of guidance.
I coach her once a month, right?
And I help her with some differentthings, but they don't need me on,
(29:03):
on, on a long-term basis becausethey have a good thing set in place.
I did an assessment just a few weeks ago.
For a, a client up in Minnesota,I have lots of, you know, kind
of recommendations for them.
So like, for example, in the firstthree months they don't have a marketing
person, so I'm helping them witha job description on that, helping
them update some brand elements.
(29:26):
You know, trying to com trying toalign some conversations with the
sales team because one of the thingsI do on those assessments and as is I
interview with the salespeople because.
A lot of times I find there's a big gap incommunication between sales and marketing.
They don't talk to each otherand that's always a problem.
So I always include them in that processto try to understand what the salespeople
(29:48):
need because that's critical to their job.
And then for them, we're gonnado some, some website updates
in that first three months.
Right?
And then in the next six months, youknow, we're gonna go a little bit
deeper on some of their strategy,help 'em build out some metrics.
Sometimes it's me recommending someoutside help, like for these people they
(30:09):
need some help with SEOI have a good kindof stable of vetted marketing specialists
that I can pull in based on, you know,those needs and, and those people.
I, I just introduce 'em to you.
I don't like mark 'em up.
I don't take 20%.
Like I I don't do that.
If you wanna hire me to do thingsgreat, but I have some really
(30:29):
great people that can help you.
Like, I, I wanna helpyou grow your business.
It's not about me.
Pad in my wallet.
So, you know, so for six monthswe're gonna help them do some video
and photography, and then within thenext nine to 12 months, we'll do some
kind of more long term things with.
A content plan, I'm gonna help themupdate some of their design guidelines.
(30:51):
You know, we're trying tofocus on some of those things
that will drive revenue early.
And then down the road we'll getto rebranding their vehicles to
kind of update those a little bit.
Working on some digital ad campaignsand even some trade booth design,
so it's very specific to them.
I try to really, you know, step it outin those kind of three month blocks
(31:14):
so it doesn't seem so overwhelmingthat you have, oh, all of this shit's
broken and you have to fix all of it.
Right?
And my wife, who you mentionedbefore says, overwhelm is
not having too much to do.
It's not knowing where to start.
So I wanna make sure that I give youa place to start and show you, you
know, step by step, how we're gonnaget all of this stuff fixed so that
(31:34):
you have that marketing machine that'sreally, really functioning well.
Yeah.
Love that.
And so it's a framework.
At the end of the day, it's it.
In three month quadrants.
So in quarters, that's easily to digest.
I understand.
All right.
Q1, what?
This is what we gotta do.
We just need to execute on it.
John's there to understand.
It's no different than hiring a coach.
(31:58):
Nothing.
No different than a business person.
No different than a, you knowa financial advisory for your
personal finances, right?
This is what we do.
I, I met with my financial advisor.
Several weeks ago.
He, he goes, this is what the plan isfor the future with the stock market,
how much you're doing for kids' college.
Like, it's a game plan.
(32:18):
Like I, I don't, that'swhat we need in landscape.
And it's just, John,you're the professional.
Tell me what we do in small bite-sizedchunks and then we'll get it all done
and we'll look back in two years andgo, oh my God, look at where we are now.
Here's the results, here'swhat we've accomplished.
I love that.
(32:39):
I mean, that's what I really wannado is give them a, a playbook, right?
Like with almost, withlike a checklist of things.
Like, okay, here's how we're gonna start.
We're gonna do this, we're gonnado this, we're gonna do this.
Because if you just dump a big deckon their, on their desk and they're
like, this is all the shit youneed to fix a lot of that, a lot
of times that's not gonna get done.
So you, you have to have the,the, the playbook and the, and
(33:00):
the checklist to go with it,
and that makes a big difference.
For sure.
What, there any hot trends, marketingin general that is either trends,
meaning it, it is just a hot subject,not sure it's working, there needs
to be more time, or there's things,John, that you go, yeah, this is really
(33:21):
working for businesses right now.
It, it's taking off.
Is there anything that's kindof like, Ooh, that's juicy.
Yeah, a couple things thatjust come up recently.
You know, I always talk a lot, people askme a lot of questions about social media.
And to me it's one of those thingsthat you can spend way too much time on
and it doesn't have a really good ROI.
(33:44):
But it's necessary and I stillthink everybody should do it.
Just be careful how muchtime you spend on it.
But I've had some really interestingconversations with some people lately
who social media is totally their life,and one of the things that we've started
to see is even in the landscaping worlditself, like there's some good examples
(34:05):
of this even within our peer groups,is it's, it's a great window into the
people of your business to kind ofput a face behind the brand, right?
To have a relationship with people.
And I've always known it'sa good tool for that, right?
To just kind of put some realityand some humanity into your brand.
But one of the side bonuses of thatthat we're finding out is it doesn't
(34:30):
just help with your customers, right?
It also helps with employees.
It, it's also a window into your culture,and people are seeing that It helps,
it helps them recruit people becausewhen you're trying to hire somebody.
They wanna work for a good company.
They wanna see they want togo to a place that's gonna be,
(34:52):
they're gonna feel welcomed.
It's gonna be fun, it'sgonna be challenging.
And social media is where theygo to see what kind of a company.
It's,
and if your social media sucks oryou barely have anything there.
They're gonna move on.
And I've, I've had conversationsand that, that definitely happens
with people in our own peer groups.
(35:15):
And I, I'm actually hoping to put ona webinar in the next couple months
with this company to help show peoplehow to showcase your company and
its culture on social media for yourcustomers and for your employees
and your potential employees.
So that was kind of aneye-opening thing for me recently.
Is that kind of hidden benefitof social media with recruiting.
(35:38):
And it, it just hadn't, it's not somethingthat I've ever thought about before, but
there's real evidence that that works.
Yeah.
Wow, that's powerful.
Like I circled the word clarity
Mm-hmm.
back on your seven Cs.
That clarity is not just the clientor, or just general marketing.
(35:58):
clarity within the organization.
And so if you take like your example,you take all these pictures of all these
objects within your business and putit on a wall, and if it's confusing.
It's probably reallyconfusing for your own team
A hundred percent.
and so that is so fascinating.
What a, what a great answer.
(36:19):
And I would suspect that's mostlandscape companies, because
marketing's an afterthought.
One of the things I've learnedrecently was your social media posts
almost are more about the team.
So to speak, the collaboration, thecohesiveness to get a job project done.
(36:46):
the scenes to come together andpre-plan a job before it gets installed.
So like if you talk about theteam and what it makes to build
or maintain these properties.
That's what people areattracted to the client and
potential people to hire, right?
(37:07):
Yeah.
if I'm a client looking at thesocial media feed and going,
wow, it's team building.
They're prepping jobs, they're,they're working together, they're
collaborating, they're doing all thiswork just to maintain my property.
Like I had no idea.
I thought that'd show up in justmode, and it just is what it is.
(37:29):
But if you had a team behind it tocollaborate and that was documented along
the way, talk about a recruiting tooland talk about a tool for clients to go.
That's what they like about, it's notnecessarily like the product, right?
Mowing grass or, or putting in shrubs.
It's, I think that's not all of it.
It's about the collaborative effort ofa team that goes into to do the product.
(37:55):
Can get showcase.
I don't know.
I kind of learned that here,recent last six, 12 months.
And if you could feature that, wow,then you're doing this recruiting,
you're attracting this talent becausethey're watching you, but yet you're
also doing the same for your clients.
And, and John and, and his teamcan produce something like that.
(38:16):
I. D Darren, you wanted to show me asocial media feed that focuses a lot on
the team and what's behind the scenes.
'cause it's not justpushing a mower, guys.
Yeah.
That's, that's what the clients thinksometimes and, and rightfully so.
Yeah, it is.
And you know.
That's at the end of the day, there's a,there's a thousand landscapers, right?
(38:38):
And regardless of where you live,there's hundreds of choices.
If you're a homeowner or you're abusiness, you can call 20 people
this afternoon and get a bid.
But what, at the end of the day,people wanna buy from people, right?
They don't wanna buy just from a company.
They want to have arelationship with those people.
And that's a good way to, to givethem a peek behind the curtain of what
(38:58):
that relationship is gonna be like.
And that can help.
That can help separate you.
You know, I think I said in thebeginning that social media is
not a good generator of leads.
It isn't.
But when you do have a lead, let's,let's say they see your truck driving
by or they get a postcard, they're gonnago look at your social media feed to
(39:20):
see what it's all about, and they mightfollow you for a couple weeks before
they decide to give you a phone call.
And if they can see not just picturesof your great work, which you should
have on there as well, but alsoall of these different things about
your employees and that, hey, thislooks like a fun place to work.
They take care of people.
I can see the faces of the guysthat are actually gonna come
work on my yard or build my deck.
(39:43):
That's gonna, that's gonna make them feelat ease and that's gonna help separate
you from the other guy who just poststwice a week with some, some random
drone shot of a house that they just,that they just mowed the, the yard at.
Like,
anybody can do that.
So just do it better, right.
And, and feature your people.
And it will, it will makea difference for sure.
(40:04):
Yeah.
Love that.
That that is the
focusing on the team.
You know, whether it be management,the, the awesome field staff that
you have or whatever, focus on that.
And then that you've delivering a, astellar product at the end of the day.
I think that'll help convert, uh.
John, anything else to addthat we may have missed?
(40:27):
And any advice for anyoneout there marketing or not?
You've got a pile of books behind yourhead right now that you've probably have
read or at least thrown into some chat,GPT, but anything professional advice,
personal advice that you wanna share.
So I'll leave you with those two.
(40:47):
Yeah, I mean for, for the landscapers,my best advice is don't overlook it and
don't let market marketing frustrate you.
Right?
Start, start somewhere.
And if you're gonna startanywhere, start with your, with
your brand and that foundation,
Yeah.
And figure out is.
Is my stuff clear andconsistent across the board.
(41:09):
If you do nothing else, do thatand make sure you understand your
customers that's gonna make the restof your decisions much, much easier.
And if you need help, don't just goask chat GPT, reach out to somebody
like me or get 'em a recommendationfrom somebody else, you know,
(41:30):
in landscaping and have aconversation with people you know.
I will say there's a lot of greatmarketing people, but there's just
as many bad marketing people, right?
Another parallel with landscaping,
right?
So, you know, talk to people, but getrecommendations, check references,
do all of that stuff so you don'tget burned because a lot of people
(41:53):
stop doing marketing because theyhire someone who's terrible and they
get a bad taste in their mouth, but.
Marketing can work.
You know, it can generate asignificant amount of income for
you and it can separate you fromyour competition if you do it right.
You just have to talk to the right people.
And I, I'm happy to help anybodyif, if they're looking for help.
(42:16):
Yeah, good.
How did they get in touch with you, John?
Well, they can, they canreach out to me via email.
At, at McFarland Stanford, it's.
My email's justjohn.Dalton@mcfarlandstanford.com.
I'm sure we'll include that inthe show notes and on YouTube if
you guys are watching it there.
So I'll make sure there's a link tothat, that's the best place to reach me.
(42:39):
Or, you know, if, if you want to justreach out to me directly via text or
phone, I'll give you my phone number.
It's (828) 782-1651.
And you can, you can textme or, or call me anytime.
And I'm happy to have, you know, a 10 or15 minute conversation you know, at no
charge, just to kind of talk to you aboutwhat your problems are and, and see if
(43:02):
it'd be a good fit for me to help you.
Yeah.
Very, very good.
Well, if anything that's learnedthroughout my journey is, is getting
help in the sense of, you don't knowfinances, get someone that knows finances
in this industry or service industry.
(43:23):
I don't know finances that well, butI know how to do a stellar install
check if you don't know marketing.
Then sign.
Get someone that knows marketinglike John and just get them involved.
Because listen, youwant to go do the work.
You got a team to manage.
So when you partner or, and useresources externally to help build your
(43:44):
business, always say, hire a mentor.
Hire someone smarter than you to do this.
Help me get better in this business.
Don't think of marketingas an afterthought, or I'll
get to it at some point.
It should, it should be right up in linewith revenue and install and maintenance
in your team and your finances.
(44:05):
It's gotta be right there atthe same level as all of those.
You need to have a plan,you need to execute on it.
John, it's always a pleasure the manbehind the scenes and all these episodes.
Happy two years.
It's been a awesome ride.
I enjoyed most of it along the way.
(44:26):
I've, we've all gottena little bit better.
And most importantly, I can'tstress this a most important.
It's about the audience, about thelisteners, just getting a 1% better
every day, when you get 1% better.
Each and every day you improve onyourself and also on your business.
And I'll leave it at that.
(44:47):
John, thanks again for being, agreat friend and a great behind the
scenes host and sharing all yourmarketing advice on this episode.
Yeah, thanks for having me.
And congratulations onthe two years it's been.
It's been a lot of fun.
Yeah, awesome.
See you soon my friend.
All right, thanks.
Ready to take the next step?
Download our free Profitability Scorecardto quickly create your own baseline
(45:09):
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
LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram.
(45:30):
See you next time on the Roots of Success.
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