Mountain Biking Leadership & Atmospheric Growth at Good Earth Landscape

Jeff Margulies Jeff Margalies: [00:00:00] we have a couple sayings that we repeat. Not, you know, one of them is we're not gonna be billionaires, but we spend more time at their homes than they do. So we get to appreciate, we get to appreciate the environment that we're in every day. We might be swinging a pick and working hard, but it's worth lifting your head up and, you know, seeing the elk range right in front of you and, and taking a moment to. Feel the gratitude for working in such a spectacular place. Speaker 2: Welcome to the Roots of Success, the Premier Landscapers podcast that brings you the latest tips and strategies for successful landscape business. I'm Jim Calli, one of the principles and coaches of McFarland Stanford. Jason New and I started McFarland Stanford to coach landscape businesses after years in the industry ourselves, now more than 10 years since we began, McFarland has a deep bench of coaches and subject matter experts who work with our clients on very specific issues of business. Whether you're struggling with people. Profits or just day-to-day challenges Our [00:01:00] coaches and guests have the real world experience and practical advice to help you build a thriving and profitable landscape business. Jeff Margalies: Oh, alright. Chris Pscenik: Are you at your house? Where are you, Jeff? Jeff Margalies: Yeah. 'cause I, my office isn't even my office anymore, so I had to, uh, come to the only place where there's silence. Chris Pscenik: I like it. The man caved. Jeff Margalies: Oh, I should have done it in there. In the, in the Jeff Room. I'm in the, uh, the. Kind of upstairs living room next door. Chris Pscenik: Yeah. So. All right, well, we'll go and get started. I'll kick us off and then I'll introduce you still. Uh, all right, cool. All right. Good afternoon. Chris Penick with McFarlin Stanford. I'm one of the partners at McFarlin Stanford. Excited to come to you today with our Roots of Success podcast, where I'd love to introduce my, i, my client and my friend Jeff Margulis with Good Earth Landscape in Aspen, Colorado. Jeff, hello. Welcome, sir. Jeff Margalies: All right. Thanks for having me. Chris Pscenik: Excited for you to be able to join us. I know you and I have known each other for several years now. We've had the unique opportunity of being in a peer group together. I've been at one of your facilitators now for just over three years, and we've got to share some very unique experiences as we've traveled the country and traveled the world together, getting to do a lot of really cool stuff and, and kind of exploring what landscaping looks like. Both in your business and in other business as we've moved about in our travels. But Jeff, today, I really, I'm excited to have you today [00:02:00] because in, in the years I've gotten to know, you know, you you provide so much of an interesting perspective. To what we do and to what landscaping is. And the lens that you view it from is just so different in how you approach your business and why you even came to this business. Jeff's Backgounrd Chris Pscenik: And so I wanted to just first, I guess first introduce you. I know you've got a beautiful wife, you've got two beautiful daughters. Tell us a little about yourself and, and kind of where you reside. Jeff Margalies: Sure. Yeah, so Good Earth Landscaping and maintenance is, is the business. We're in Carbondale, Colorado, which is just outside of Aspen. So our, our primary market, it's our Aspen snow Mass basalt. Carbondale and Glenwood, which is kind of the makeup of the, the Roaring Fork Valley. We've been here for about eight and a half years now. Originally both my wife and I are from the East Coast. We had spent three years in Denver, which kept getting further and [00:03:00] further away from the mountains and, and needed to find our way up here for the, the life we wanted to live and where we wanted to raise a family. But it is a, a really unique market and a unique lifestyle that we get to have here. It's, it's been really special for us, and getting into the green industry is certainly not something I had originally envisioned. My background being mostly in, in finance prior to coming up here. And so that's certainly given a, a different perspective having to become a green industry professional. After I was a green industry business owner, but I think it's been really valuable and it's been helpful working with the McFarlin Stanford team to learn the, the industry side of what we do. Having approached it primarily from the business side initially and, and being able to bring those together, I think is [00:04:00] is something that's been really key to. The success that we've had and, and hopefully what we'll be able to do in the future. Chris Pscenik: Now, Jeff, you, you quickly touched on it. You mentioned you're from the upper Northeast. I know you grew up just outside of Boston or in Boston. Correct me if I'm wrong, you went to Brown University? Yep. Jeff Margalies: Yes. Yep. So my whole, whole, whole life before coming to Colorado was, was in a pretty small radius of New England. Chris Pscenik: Okay. So a lot of the people that are gonna listen to us today are not gonna have your background. They're gonna be very similar to myself and other people in the landscape industry where we started pushing mowers, pushing grass, digging on shovels. That was not your story, right? So when you first got into business and you first. Graduated. You first went into the industry and you first started moving into just your professional career. What was the first couple steps you took in your professional career? I know that wasn't in the industry, so where was that? Jeff Margalies: So, you know, I, I studied history of architecture undergrad. My dad was an architect and had a, a business in Boston and always thought that that was gonna be my path. But I went, went to the dark side pretty quickly. So out of college I worked for a, a publicly traded REIT on the investment team as an analyst. So we were. Acquiring portfolios, financing transactions underwriting, new developments. It was a, a very heavy numbers based role. I, I definitely got my 10,000 hours in in Excel very quickly. So I was a, a, a hardcore spreadsheet monkey for a long time, and, and that definitely, influence the perspective that I have on business, being very numbers based, focused on forecasting, focusing on being able to analyze the decisions we were going to make. And that was a really strong foundation for understanding different types of businesses. From there I ended up with kind of a, a boutique private equity firm. That also raised capital as on the investment banking side. And so I was able to take that found analytical foundation and then started applying it to businesses across all sorts of different industries and, and trying to understand the, you know, certainly valuations, but. How you can understand the operations of a business through the numbers. And, and certainly doing a lot of financial modeling to be able to see the impacts of, of, you know, market conditions or, or staffing or decisions. And it also really helped to, because we looked at, we were industry agnostic. Learning how to learn about new businesses and, and how to do that very quickly. And that gave me a lot more comfort stepping into a new industry because I had enough experience trying to understand businesses in industries I'd never seen with pretty high stakes to have to have some confidence in the, the valuations or recommendations that we were coming up with for a business. So once my wife and I decided that we needed to move our life to the mountains, started looking for opportunities to maybe acquire a small business in one of the mountain markets. Ideally one that was successful in spite of itself, where they were doing fine, but with a little more horsepower, a little bit of modernization. Could, you know, really excel, then a unique opportunity came up here in the Roaring Fork Valley, where my now business partner and his former partner owned a portfolio of four companies, four service companies, and were interested in building a back office and some shared services to try and get some efficiencies and synergies across those businesses. If, if you get them on the same platforms, maybe you don't need, you know, four separate bookkeepers and, and four separate controllers. You can consolidate that. And then I had worked on some holding company structuring and, and transactions prior to that. And so the, the plan was to maybe look at building out a platform to acquire more businesses that seemed to have. Similar dynamics and, and find ways to leverage their similarities to, to get some good returns and hopefully build some good businesses. Chris Pscenik: Yeah. Jeff Margalies: did Earth was one of those companies Chris Pscenik: I know we, when you first, and we'll get to the partnerships here in just a second, but, you know, I'd love to know, like, you know, you're a numbers guy. I, I would argue you're still an Excel wizard when it comes to it, and I still see all your Excel sheets and, and I know you're, you're still heavily involved in it. You know, but as you kind of do your evaluation of what a business is, I know at McFarlin Stanford, we do valuations for our clients. We do some mergers and acquisitions. We help with buy, sell agreements. We do a lot of this stuff, and you and I have shared. A lot of off, off-camera conversations about kind of what that looks like and and how that works. And I'd love to pick your brain a little bit to understand, like you've come from the private equity side, you've come from the acquiring businesses side. You've gone through the evaluation of looking what a business looks like and understanding how you can manipulate that to help it do what you need it to do to help make it more profitable and scale it. And now we're seeing you do that at Good Earth. So when you first walk into that business and you start to evaluate, you know, when you went into Good Earth and you started to look at what were some things that stood out to you, what were some things that were important to you from the evaluation and evaluation side that you wanted to see from a healthy business that made it an appealing opportunity for you? Jeff Margalies: And so, you know, good Earth was acquired by the partnership before I got there. So the analysis I was doing was more. Retroactive to understand the business in order to help it be successful. But we're still doing that same exercise on a regular basis, both for good Earth and other companies to understand what we think they're worth. You know, ultimately, and especially with smaller businesses that are going to be more sensitive to people and local market dynamics. Ultimately what we are looking at in any valuation or acquisition is, you know, the certainty of future cash flows and earnings of a business. So most of the time the kind of go-to valuation metric is, is a multiple of EBITDA or a multiple of earning owner discretionary earnings. But really all that is. Is a proxy for what you think the business is going to produce in the future, and how quickly you are going to get your money back and start to make a return on top of it. And so especially with smaller businesses where you know, you're not working with audited financials, you don't even, you don't know the quality of that information, it's really a series of data points to get. Comfort with how you think the business is going to perform in the future so that you know, if it is the, you know, best allocation of your capital compared to everything else you could potentially do with it. And then of course, with any business, and it feels like even more so in the green industry, it's an understanding of the, the people and what you think they are going to be able to do for the business. What the likelihood of the likelihood of repeat business with your clients, growth with your clients. So it's still the backbone of how we look at businesses and, and we can use all sorts of discount factors and, and different scenarios to try and get comfortable with it, but it's, it's really a way of, you know, doing the best that you can to predict the future of that company. Chris Pscenik: Yeah, and so I mean, what I heard is recurring cash flow is super important. Contractual contractual work is super important and the people you know, and I know when we start to look at what it looks like in your market you know, people I know is what is most critical for you. And so as we're constantly looking at how do we help good Earth and, you know, the Roaring Fork Valley grow their business people was a huge component of that. And so in speaking about people, so when you were first brought in Josh is your partner, you know, and I've had the opportunity to spend some time with Josh. Josh is, is, is a phenomenal business entrepreneur that has owned businesses all over different parts of the country and has, you know, made his stamp in the Roaring Fork Valley as well. Tell me a little bit, how did you guys come to know each other? Jeff Margalies: Mm-hmm. Chris Pscenik: partners now, but how did you first meet? How did you guys come Jeff Margalies: Mm-hmm. Sure. So. Where I left off when I started the story was we knew we wanted to move to the mountains, and we're just looking for, for any way to do that. And I, I found a, a, a job posting on Indeed or, or somewhere looking for a portfolio CFO for this group of companies in Aspen. And so, Chris Pscenik: Indeed posts, I would say. Jeff Margalies: yeah, yeah, it, it, it, it definitely, hit the mark. [00:05:00] And so I applied and was asked to come up and interview and I, I, I we were in Denver at the time. It's about a three and a half hour drive to get up here, and I think I had a long day at the office, as I often did and still do. And so I probably left at 10 o'clock at night and. Drove straight up crawled in the back of my truck next to the river and slept in the back of my truck, dipped my head in the river and put on a suit and showed up for an interview. And Josh was Josh and his partner them were, were the guys who interviewed me. And it seemed like the right fit for us to get up here. And so accepted the, the position. Few weeks or months later, ended up moving up here while my wife stayed in Denver for, for a while and I tried to find some housing for us and then started diving into the portfolio just to understand the [00:06:00] businesses, starting working with the various teams to see how we wanted to, to set things up, to execute on that plan of consolidating some of the shared services. And then it was the end of going into the end of 2017 that kind of through that process, we were also introducing a lot of the things that, that McFarlin Stanford preaches for helping to professionalize and, and set businesses up for growth. Looking at, you know, KPIs and. Various, you know, ways of introducing accountability into the organization. Forecasting and for Good Earth previously had been a, a very successful but smaller family run business. And the existing management team, I think was more interested in, in operating the way they always had. [00:07:00] And that led to a, a separation with them. Going into beginning of 2018, found ourselves with a, a company that had a great client base and, and great employees, but nobody to run it. And so at that, I had moved, moved, my wife and I had moved here. Didn't have a family yet, but we had bought a house. We knew this is where we wanted to be, and it seemed that the greatest need was someone to operate. Good earth and, and pull it out a bit from, from a, a distressed point. And a, a lot of the deals I had worked on, on the, the finance side were turning around underperforming businesses. And so even though I didn't know the green industry and I knew a fair amount about turnaround situations and, and. Threw my hat in the ring to become the, the [00:08:00] primary operator at Good Earth. And through that whole process, we kind of decided to abandon the, the shared services dream and focus on, on the quality of operations in the portfolio companies. And so that's when I ended up partnering with Josh on Good Earth, specifically separate from the other businesses. And at the time he was. Also CFO of, of another business that he was an owner in outside of the Roaring Fort Valley. So he didn't have the bandwidth to really be involved in operations, but was someone I, you know, knew, like, and trusted. I knew he was someone that I would like to be in business with, especially because he had been successful with the other service businesses that he owned here in the valley. An understanding of the market dynamics here is, is pretty [00:09:00] important to be successful. It, it, it behaves differently. The employee base is unique. The clients are very unique and so even for the time period that he was more of an advisor than anything, he was incredibly valuable to our success and growth and, and. Being able to leverage the relationships he had and just his understanding of how things work here. So we start, started operating and primarily we're focused on staying alive as a business and then slowly stabilizing operations, bringing things to a healthy point, and then growing from there. Chris Pscenik: So, so for context, for everybody that's listening to us today, gimme an idea of how, what was the size of good Earth when you came into the business and when Josh had the business. And let's talk a little bit, where are you today? Jeff Margalies: So I can tell you the first year, 2018, [00:10:00] first year I was in charge of operations. We did 1.7 million. I think that was a, a bit of a contraction from. When it was acquired, it's like I said, during that transitional period, there's definitely some distress. So yeah, 2018 was 1.7. This past year we were just south of 9 million in revenue. So it, it is been a, a lot of growth and, and the growth initially was. Out of necessity. That was kind of part of the turnaround plan to make sure the business was going to stabilize and survive, but it created enough momentum that we continued to grow at a really fast pace and certainly experienced a lot of the problems that come from that. So, [00:11:00] and, and still are. But it, it is exciting 'cause I think it, it's a demonstration of how we're perceived in the market of what our teams are capable of. But I would say executing on that type of growth curve in a, in this type of business is, is difficult and definitely, hard, a lot more work than if you are able to you know, have your processes in place. Whereas every, it felt like every time we finally established a process to be able to do things consistently and, and repeat things and, and not have to reinvent the wheel for every single part of the business. We would outgrow that process and have to reinvent again. And so that, that's been one of the challenges of that type of growth. But, but [00:12:00] it's also something we're really proud of, mm-hmm. Chris Pscenik: you mentioned some of the challenges with the turnaround, you know, and in some of the other industries you've worked in. know, what, what made those easier? What has made moving into the landscape world a little bit more difficult that you, that you've encountered? Jeff Margalies: I, I do think that the landscape world operates like any other service business at its core. Chris Pscenik: Mm-hmm. Jeff Margalies: I think there is a level of sensitivity that is unique to it and that our product can die so that, you know, there's a level of expertise required to be successful and a level of. Horticultural knowledge and process in order to be consistently vigilant of potential risks to your [00:13:00] projects or your properties or your inventory. So I think that that's definitely a challenging part, and I think all of those are amplified in our market specifically with our. Short growing season extreme weather conditions, altitude, and very discerning clients. So, you know, as a whole, I think the business dynamics aren't that different from other service businesses, but it, but it definitely has some, some sensitivities that are, are unique. And then as well, I think the. Broadly speaking, so many people in the industry are, are career technicians and fantastic at what they do and might have the, the landscaping expertise. But trying to [00:14:00] create the culture and environment of high performance as a business isn't. There a lot of the, the folks that we work with here don't necessarily have those reference points. And so there are certain things that for both Josh and myself coming from corporate backgrounds that, you know, we take for granted in terms of how we operate or how we communicate how we behave, whatever it is, things that have just been absorbed are not necessarily. Common knowledge across all of our, our team members. And so trying to strike that balance between the, you know, the labor side, but also wanting to have a, a high performing business environment. It has created some challenges that [00:15:00] don't surprise me, but it wasn't necessarily something I had really. Thought about when you're used to looking at most businesses on paper and, and expecting them, the the day to the day to day is very different from what it looks like on paper. Chris Pscenik: Yeah, I think I tell people all the time, I said it's, it's a thing. I, I have a love hate relationship with landscaping and the fact of I know it's never going away because as long as we're here, plants will continue to grow and they'll continue to need people to mow the grass. And put new stuff in, which means that's job security you can't replace with AI and technology. But with that comes the challenges of it's getting harder to find people and people is the number one name of the game. And I know, I mean, you touched on so much there with the regards to the variables from, from what we do and how we do it to the people side of it. And I know as you run into these struggles, everybody would love to be where you are. I mean, I'm looking at the [00:16:00] picture behind you and Jeff. I know that is not too far away from the office window and what you look out on on a day-to-day basis. And it's, it's very different than what I look out on, on Interstate 75 out my window. And so I'm always attracted to where you are and, and what you do and the opportunity you get to have here. You and I have had the opportunity to fly fish 10 minutes from your office. You know, we've had the opportunity. To get to see and explore out there and hike and, and it's just such a unique opportunity and that attracted you to the Roaring Fork value initially. But there's challenges that come with that. And so I know the biggest challenge is, is cost. You know, I know, you know, you've worked a lot with our recruiting team. We, we've helped you a lot over the years with trying to find talented people in this market. But there are hurdles that you encounter. So tell us a little about what are some of the challenges that you have with hiring strong team members in your market? It. Jeff Margalies: Yeah, it, it, it's definitely a challenge. This is [00:17:00] an unbelievable place to live. You know, we reflect on it all the time that. People come from all over the world to vacation here, and we get to experience that every single day. We can be the things that I used to wait, you know, all year long for one vacation to take a trip I'm doing out the door after work, after the girls are asleep. So it, it's an unbelievable lifestyle, but it, it, it comes at a cost for sure. For us, we, we prioritize that over everything else and, and knew there would be sacrifices we'd have to make. But because it's such a desirable destination, the cost of living is, is exceptionally high. You know, nobody lives in Aspen. Who outside of the, the, if you're lucky with employee housing who are not, you know, [00:18:00] vacationing or, or visiting there, you know. Third, fourth or fifth home that they have, we most of us live down valley from there, which is, we love the Mid-Valley. It's, it's awesome, but especially post COVID when, when a lot of folks were starting to work remotely and, and discovering places like this, it really dramatically increase the cost of housing. And we're in a. A geographically constrained area. We're in a valley, there's only so much land to build and certainly you know, people who are protective of, of the environment they have. And so there, there's very little low cost housing available, if any. So that's, that's a, a huge challenge. You know, the same for years has been that the, the billionaires are pushing the millionaires down valley, so the rest of the market at one point. From [00:19:00] once you got outside of Aspen, it was farmland and ranches and, you know, lower cost living for a lot of the, the folks who, who work in the tourist industry and restaurants and service businesses that, that serve the Aspen market. But as it's grown, it's become desirable on its own. We have employees now coming from as, as far as Grand Junction, which is about an hour and a half to get to our office in Carbondale, which without traffic is still 25 or 30 minutes from Aspen where we're doing the work. And so certainly my hope has been to, I know there are other folks out there like me who would prioritize the, the quality of life here. Over everything else and be willing to make those sacrifices. And we're lucky that we happened to move here in 2017 [00:20:00] when it was just expensive and not outrageous. And so we've, we're, we're trying to explore some employee housing options that we might be able to provide and it's, it's a well-known problem in our market and in other similar markets. So there's certainly a lot of efforts locally. Through our municipalities to, to create more housing options. But that's been a huge challenge. At the same time, I, I keep holding out hope that there's someone who is interest, you know, has a, maybe a professional background or a, a landscaping background elsewhere, who is willing to take the leap and say, okay, my, my cost of housing's gonna be really high, but. That's, that's worth it for the lifestyle we can live here and, and for the quality of work that we get to do. So we're, we're, we're still holding out hope and maybe someone listening to this will, will be interested in, [00:21:00] in exploring those options. 'cause it's, I can't imagine going back, I don't think we could live anywhere else at this point, but it's, it was a big leap to, to make it happen. Chris Pscenik: Yeah, and I, I, it's, it's interesting 'cause as I know, if you and I have talked about it and as we talk with many of our other ACE peer group members and other people that are listening today. Some of the most successful businesses that we come across are in off markets. They're in markets that are not on the common path, right. And people always say, you know, in Dallas it must be easy to find people. And I would say, yeah, it's easier than it is to find in the Rory Port Valley, but it also means that people have a lot more options and they're willing to bounce a lot more. Right. So hearing that, knowing that, I know you and I talk a lot about how, how critical culture is, how critical communication is. Jeff, I've had the unique opportunity of getting to see you in action multiple times. Over our years together where you lead your teams and you lead your meetings and you're there on the daily, in the morning getting guys in the door and out the door and rolling through things. And I'll be honest, I don't know if I've met somebody that can roll out Spanish as fluidly and as, as seamlessly as what you do. So I mean, I know I've had to ask this question before. How in the world did you learn Spanish as well as what you do? And how are you able to just step in just like that? Because. God, that plays such a huge role in creating the growth that you've seen. And I know you don't get the perspective of seeing that as much as I do, but like you as an owner stepping in the business and being able to communicate to your team like you do as seamless as you do, mean you connect with people so fast in a way that most business owners that are on this call today, I can tell you, have not been able to do, who've been doing this for 25, 30 years. So like, where did that come from? How did you, how did you come about that? Jeff Margalies: Sure. Yeah. I mean, it's, it's been invaluable being able to speak Spanish and, and really rewarding. It's a lot more fun to be able to connect with the crews and, and get to know their, their families get to know what's going on in their life at, at a, at a level. And I think it's valuable for the culture of the business because they feel connected to the leadership. Chris Pscenik: Yeah. Jeff Margalies: I mean, it's a double-edged sword as well, because it also means that a lot of, when, whenever anything needs to be communicated, I'm probably the, the one who has to do it. So it takes me away from a lot of other things, but I, I certainly wouldn't trade it. So I, you know, I studied Spanish in, you know, high school, very casually. And then I, I studied one semester in Spain. In 2004, I think two thou. Yeah. So it, and really didn't speak much Spanish after that. It, I think it, I think studying abroad was enough to have a little bit of comfort and familiarity with the language. And, you know, Castilian Spanish is very different from what most of our employees speak, but it was enough to have comfort with. Trying it and making mistakes in front of people, having been forced to do my best in a Spanish speaking environment for at least a period of time. And so most of my Spanish language facility at this point comes from practicing it every day with the guys and, and listening and learning and, and just continuing to, to try and it, you know, I get home at the end of the day. Sometimes can't think of the word I need to say in English because it's more at the forefront after a day of, of being out with the guys all day. So for anybody who wants to speak Spanish, I, I can't stress enough. You just, you just gotta do it and try and the, the really appreciate the effort and tell them, you know, to correct you and help you work on it. But it's really just taking it. Skin pieces every single day. And you know, I, I try to speak Spanish at home occasionally with our kids. I want them to grow up speaking it more easily than I did. But I think now it's such a huge part of our life and it, and like I said, a value to the business because there are certainly, there are plenty of crew members who have more to offer than I think was recognized. By managers who couldn't communicate with 'em. And, and likewise, you can recognize guys who are, are, are not performing and address issues with them and communicate directly in, in a way that I, I, there are plenty of tools to be able to communicate well enough. That, that people can be very effective with. But I think the personal connection you get from being able to speak the same language, even if it's poorly, just showing that effort being face to face has, is awesome. And I'm, I'm really happy that moving to this industry gave, gave me that opportunity. 'cause it's become a, a huge part of our life here. Chris Pscenik: And and seeing you do it, I mean, I, I, I just, man, I, I, it's, it's another level that you're able to connect with team members that I just, in all my travels I don't get to see very often. There. There's a handful of people I think that do it as well as you do, and it, it's pretty awesome to see how the, the, the guys and the ladies on your team respond to you. So Jeff, I know you guys do a ton of cultural stuff, you know, like, so tell me a little bit. What is it you try and do that sets good earth apart from a cultural side of things that, that really tries to create that family at good Earth that, that you want to see. That really helps not just grow your [00:22:00] team by just Jeff Margalies: Mm-hmm. Chris Pscenik: to the mix, but really helps retain the people that you want to keep so that you can grow those individuals in your organization. Tell us how, how do you go about that? What does a, a seasonal calendar look like from a cultural perspective for you? Jeff Margalies: Sure. So, I mean, I think a, a huge part of it I said is, is. Building those connections with the field staff so that they feel like they are connected to the organization, like they are part of something and that they're valued because ultimately they are the most important part of the business. They're the ones who are performing the work that we get paid to do and you know, they're having good earth be a part of their identity, a place they're proud to work. We always say the work is always hard, but doing hard things with people you care about is rewarding. Doing hard things with a team that that doesn't [00:23:00] respect you or you don't respect built resentment. And so we really try to instill in our crews the importance of being a teammate of hiring people and. Continually reinforcing with the teams that you know, we're here to help each other be successful, to lead by example and make sure that ultimately individual success comes from the success of the team and your ability to help others be successful. And you know, a rising tide re was it rising? Tide lifts all ships. That's, that's very real. And we've seen that. And when the teams are successful, the company's successful. We're able to, it puts us in a position to reward people for their contributions. And so that having that as the backbone is really important. And then trying to build connections in the teams [00:24:00] outside of the work that we do. And it's something that we don't do enough of. We wanna do a lot more. But it is something that's really important to us, and we all recognize that all of us live here for, to enjoy this place that we live to, and we want to be able to share that and make sure that the work that we do is contributing to our quality of life. Always recognizing that it's still work, it's still gonna be hard, but there there's some unique parts of it. So we have a couple sayings that we repeat. Not, you know, one of them is we're not gonna be billionaires, but we spend more time at their homes than they do. So we get to appreciate, we get to appreciate the environment that we're in every day. We might be swinging a pick and working hard, but it's worth lifting your head up and, you know, seeing the elk range right in front of you and, and taking a moment to. [00:25:00] Feel the gratitude for working in such a spectacular place. We, we try to do carne auto cookouts with some regularity. Again, as the, with our short season, we, we find the pressure of deadlines and don't do it as much as we should, but we're doing one tomorrow. So we usually, a lot of our staff in the off season works in, you know, some of the best restaurants in the country up in Aspen, and so. We usually hold back a couple guys for a day and they, they do food prep at our office, and then as the crews roll, roll back, we'll, we'll have a big cookout and enjoy some of that time together. And we also try to, we, we recognize that there's, there's a, a number of trail networks right around our office for, for mountain biking. And I'm a, you know, passionate mountain biker. A lot of our, our folks are, and we started to realize that. More of the, the Spanish speaking guys [00:26:00] were also into mountain biking than, than we'd realized. And so we, we started a, called our Puente Rides. So bridge or bridge rides, where we will a, a good, good friend of mine and riding and skiing partner owns a, a bike shop here and they've very generously, let us donated rental bikes for us to use when we do our print, our, our Puente rides. And so we will usually separate into groups based on experience and have a, a rotating trip leader. And the kind of the rule is you have to plan the ride so there's, and explain it to everybody in both languages and we'll prep for that and, and help so that. Help them feel comfortable explaining it. But it's kind of some, some sneaky leadership training for whoever the trip leader is. And ultimately it's a, a way to connect, again, especially cross-culturally over a shared [00:27:00] passion for, for riding bikes in the mountains. And so that's been a lot of fun as well. And we have a long list of other things we, we really wanna do and if we can ever find the time to. Stop working and, and do that together. But those, those, it's been a really good start for, for creating the culture that we want to have in the future and seeing those glimpses of, of people who may not have otherwise been able to connect outside of work, really enjoying each other's company. Chris Pscenik: And Jeff, I can tell you, I've, I've learned as, as much as I know you feel like you've learned from McFarlin, Stanford and from us, and I can tell you I've, I've taken so much from what you've taught me as well. I mean just from taking kind of what you're doing there. We do a Friday workout with our team where we get in the gym and get after it. And it, it's a lot of fun where we, we made it a team building exercise. And I had the chickens. You gave me the chicken idea. I've now got three chickens. Unfortunately, yours got eaten by bears. Jeff Margalies: You have three. Three more than we do. We started with [00:28:00] 16, but they only made it a season. Chris Pscenik: Yeah. Unfortunately, you have other variables that I don't have to contend with here in the city of Dallas, but so we still have chickens, but unfortunately, maybe one day we'll see some at your place again. But well, Jeff, what is, I guess as you've, you've now been in the industry now for, for several years. I can't call you new to this anymore. But now you've done it long enough. What is it that that really stands out to you? Like, how have you fallen in love with this? I you're still in it, you're still very much engaged in it. You've got a, a career ahead of you in front of you. And now as a business owner in the landscape industry, you know, if you could hang your hat on one thing that you're, you're most proud of and, and what you love most about the landscape industry, what would you say that is? Jeff Margalies: You know, I, I really, really, you know, initially getting into it and approaching it strictly from the business perspective, it was that we. [00:29:00] Want to, you know, we, we want to create a high performing business and we happen to provide landscaping services, but we're gonna be focused on the business dynamics and the work that we do is secondary to the things we need to just. Due to be successful. And I mentioned earlier I started the history of architecture undergrad. I thought I was gonna be an architect. So I, I have always enjoyed and appreciated design and the built environment and for our work to be creating and enhancing the beauty of. And already beautiful place is, is is really satisfying. So seeing the, the physical and artistic improvements that we can make to a natural environment is something that I have really, really grown to appreciate. And I think initially [00:30:00] I was agnostic to the work that we were actually performing. It was just. How do we do whatever we're doing well, but I've really grown to love the work that we do, and I also think that in approaching it from that business perspective, we have an opportunity to create opportunity for people that might not otherwise have it. And the, the folks that work here. I'm blown away every day by how hard they work, how dedicated they are, and if we're able to really invest in them and create the infrastructure and the growth in a business that is gonna give them stability in their lives and professional skills, the ability to support their family and. Ideally elevate within the organization so that we can create careers instead of [00:31:00] jobs for, for people who absolutely deserve it, but may not otherwise have the chance to, to move within an organization, especially if, if, you know, they have only ever had the expectation of doing labor to, to support their families. I think by, by trying to create a, a quality company and experience, hopefully we can really affect our employees' lives and getting to know them. Especially if they're, they've had a history of, of language barriers within the organizations they've worked. I think we have a, a really cool opportunity to, to change some lives for folks who work here and hope to do more and more of that. Chris Pscenik: Yeah, I, I don't think I could have said anything better than what you just did. I know, I know you currently, you're always looking for talented team members, so I know if there's anybody out there that's listening, certainly reach out [00:32:00] to myself or reach out to Jeff. We certainly love to make that connection. Jeff, last question I have is, you know, as we wrap up our time together. What's next for you? What's next for good Earth? What's on the horizon for you guys? Jeff Margalies: You know, we're I, we're trying to figure it out right now. I think we, we've seen. The potential that exists here. And I feel confident that we have a, a very deep understanding of this market. The, the biggest challenge is we can see opportunity everywhere and deciding exactly where we want to focus it. It, we've had to learn a, a lot of hard lessons to get where we are, but we can see. A lot of opportunity in terms of how the things we've learned could apply to, you know, parallel industries where we could do the same thing. We've seen [00:33:00] that we might be able to leverage those lessons in other similar markets. There are other services we'd like to offer, so I would, it's hard to say what is next on the horizon other than. I think spending some time to really analyze all those opportunities and try to make a educated decision about where we wanna spend our time and whether it's continuing to expand within the services that we're offering or, or look at some other ones and then. Again, so much of that is, is driven by the, the constraints of the people that we have to do that successfully. So it's an answer I, I would love to have for you and I at, at the very least. It's, it's a good position to be in that we can see so much opportunity. We don't know which one to choose [00:34:00] then. Then it would be if we're struggling to. Find ways to continue to, to grow and expand. So we'll have to, you'll have to have, have me back when I have the answer, and hopefully we'll have something exciting to share. Chris Pscenik: No, man. I know. I, I'm just so excited for what you're doing and what your company's been able to do, providing for all those different families. I have so enjoyed getting to get know you, your wife and your daughters, and as an ACE member, you know, all the time you've spent with us as an ACE member. You know, the time we got to spend where you got to be the fly fishing guy teaching, you know, helping me hook some brown trout. You know, it's, it's just so special getting to spend all this time with you and just getting to walk through all this with you. Jeff, thank you so much for being with us today and just kind of walking us through your story and, and kind of how you came from Boston out to the Roaring Fort Valley and how you've taken on and become. Really the powerhouse in the Roaring Fork Valley and, and what you've been able to do for the market there and, and helping the [00:35:00] landscape industry grow as a whole. So Jeff, thank you so much and certainly it, we will continue to help you and if we can find help you recruit some talent, we're gonna certainly try and help you do that as well. If you're looking for more information, like I said, reach out to us. We'd love to be able to help Jeff out as he's continued to grow some, some pretty awesome stuff out there in the Aspen market. So Jeff, thank you again and I appreciate your time today. Jeff Margalies: Yeah. Well tha thanks for having me. And you know, the McFarlin Stanford team has been critical to everything we've done and we'll continue to do and there are a lot of trout that need chu. So hope we can get you back out here soon. Chris Pscenik: Looking forward to it, man. Awesome. Thank you so much, Jeff. Jeff Margalies: I. Speaker: Thank you for listening to this episode of Roots of Success, brought to you by the subject matter Experts at McFarland Stanford have a question you want our coaches to tackle in a future episode. You could submit that@mcfarlandstanford.com slash podcast. And to find more helpful content from McFarland Stanford, follow us on X, LinkedIn, Instagram, and [00:36:00] Facebook. If this or any of our episodes have piqued your interest in ACE Peer Group. We encourage you to join us at Ace Discovery. Just check out the events tab@mcfarlandstanford.com. This is Jason New co-founder and principal at McFarland Stanford. We'll see you next time.