Celebrating Two Years + Marketing Insights with John Dalton

John Dalton 2 John: [00:00:00] The Roots of Success podcast is for the landscape professional who's looking to up their game. We're not talking lawns or grass here. We're talking about people, process, and profits. The things deep within the business that need focus to scale a successful company from hiring the right people and managing your team to improving your operations and mastering your finances. We've got a brain trust of experts to help you nurture the roots of a successful business and grow to the next level. This is The Roots of Success. Tommy Cole: Welcome to the Roots of Success podcast, and I'm your host, Tommy Cole. And we have an awesome guest. 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? John Dalton: I am great, Tommy. I'm awesome. Glad to be here. Celebrating two years of recording Roots of Success Tommy Cole: John, this is a special episode, and I wanted you on this one almost to the day, like literally almost. There we are celebrating our two years of Roots of Success. I, yeah. Kudos to I guess I survived two years. I, I don't know [00:01:00] how this happened. I'm just a landscape architect kind of dude, and, and this has kept going on for two years. I'm shocked. I was ready to parachute out this thing a few months into it said This is not my deal. But somehow, miraculously, a lot of people, have enjoyed this and it's been great to produce over the years. Reason why John Dalton is sitting here today is I owe a ton of credit to this gentleman to talk me off the ledge multiple times of continuing this podcast. There's a lot of traction, there's a lot of good feedback and there's a lot of good education as we are working on our business, working on ourselves driving the pickup truck to and from job sites. And Truly John's been the behind the scenes guy to help coach and mentor me. His wife, Tanya Dalton is also the firecracker that I sometimes needed, and she just goes, basically, Tommy, that was terrible. You need to do better. And she just kind of tells me how it's so I, both you and Tanya, a lot of credit, and I'll never forget Tanya telling me, she's like, you just have the resting bitch face. You gotta get rid of it. And I have worked on that as much as possible. I'm not perfect, but I feel like it's gotten better John Dalton: I was definitely gotten better. Tommy Cole: yeah, it's gotten a lot better. So that, that's been great, John. And Tanya, I think you a lot. I also a ton of credit to Paul Myers, the young kid from LSU Palo, Palo Myers. If. gonna be listening to this soon. He does a lot of behind the scenes [00:02:00] editing all these episodes. He is sick and tired of listening to me over the course of two years. But he has mad respect for me sitting up here at this stage 'cause it's no easy task. Doing this. John, anything to say about this? John Dalton: Sure. I mean, it's been a, it is been a fun ride. I remember starting from the very beginning, 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 and getting you polished up for the camera. But I mean, it, it's been a lot of fun. And I've certainly seen you grow and, you know, kind of step into your own as a host. And, you know, we've had a lot of really great episodes along the way And I'm really proud of what we've created. So kudos to you for, you know, sticking with it. And now we're on, this'll be episode number 55, so over halfway to a hundred. And I think it just keeps getting better and better. Tommy Cole: Yeah, that's great. You know lemme give you guys and gals a little backstory. So, two and a half years ago, roughly, I had this idea to do a podcast not knowing what the hell it was all about. I just thought. What a better way to record some videos because I felt like there was a little bit of calling, so to speak, people to learn more. And, and sometimes, sometimes it's not enough for just pure groups and private coaching. And more to be relatable to the managers, mid-level managers and the frontline members that can listen to this. That, that was my main, main audience. And. Quite frankly, I said, this is what I wanted to do. And I'll never forget, it was like almost two and a half years ago, and I said, this is what we want to do. And that little birdie sitting on my shoulder that says all the reasons why you shouldn't do it. Right. We have those birdies on our shoulders. Maybe it's not a birdie. Maybe it's like the devil, the devil on our shoulders that sits there and says, no, you're gonna be terrible, Tommy. No, no one's gonna listen. No, you're gonna start something and in six months it's gonna fail and you're gonna have egg on your face. You're not good at public speaking. And so all these things started to like second guess my decision to do this. And the devil got me, John, seriously, the devil said, terrible. And I said. You know what my excuse was? I'm too busy and I, I bailed. I said, no, I don't have time. There's no way. Which I, I didn't have a lot of time, but if you don't make time for it, then it just, it just won't happen. It's not as John Dalton: Right. Mm-hmm. Tommy Cole: And I don't know what happened for like lack of another three, four months go by and I go, you know what? I don't give a flying shit what people think. I'm just gonna go do it and I'm to the best of my ability and I'm gonna learn, and I'm gonna develop as a person, most importantly. And I just wanna spread all the knowledge that we have with all of our guests to everyone that's out there in this industry. And I said, let's do it. Not knowing how the setup works, the cameras and the internet, and the recording and the prep work. I just did it. It's almost like having your landscape business and you're like. I'm just gonna sell and figure it out. That's just what I did. I just started recording and figuring out, and, so I did it and here we are, you know, two years later and you know, so my, my motivation and, and is, is everyone that's out there, and I travel a lot, but everywhere I go, every place that I see, every speak. Um, every meeting and every onboarding, you name it. There's at least one person that says, I really enjoyed your podcast, and for what it's worth, that's why I'm still doing this today, because that's the motivation that you have. It's no different. If you're working for a landscape company and the client goes, man, John, this, this landscape's just amazing. Thank you for your hard work. That's what gets you to the next one, right? You keep, you just keep going. John Dalton: Yep. Tommy Cole: so I encourage everyone to step out of their comfort zone at any point and do those hard things. They will learn, and it doesn't matter if you fail, it's about the journey along your way to improving yourself. And John Dalton: Yeah Tommy Cole: Lots of John Dalton: absolutely. Tommy Cole: lots of great stuff. I, here's the thing. My first few episodes were terrible. And so let's apologize to like Liz Hilton, Chris Winkler, Chris Chek Tracy and Megan [00:03:00] you know, maybe Josh Meter, those people that were the first. 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, I think, John, that you wanna share. I think there's a few funny ones along the way. John Dalton: Yeah, I was, when it, when we were getting ready to do this episode, I was trying to think of some of the more interesting times we've had. I mean, obviously in the beginning, just kind of wrestling with the tech and the microphones and getting all that set. Was sometimes a struggle, but there was a couple things that really stuck out in my mind. Like it took us a while to get Marty Grunder to be on the podcast, you know, when we really wanted him to be on at a specific time and you know, to help us promote an event and all this stuff. We finally got it all lined up, press record, and like two minutes in. The whole thing just turns off and everybody's disconnected. And I don't know how long it took. Yeah, it just, just stopped. And I don't know how [00:04:00] long it took us to get all, everything all back connected because I was, I was disconnected for maybe 20 minutes. And you guys had to basically just start all over and record it again. Tommy Cole: that is not, that was not fun. Marty is a busy man. John Dalton: It. Tommy Cole: a high profile person with lots of experience and knowledge, and we've been gearing up for Marty and all of a sudden it just, for whatever reason, nothing worked. John Dalton: Yep. Tommy Cole: But if I have any advice on that deal is no panic. Stay calm. John Dalton: Mm-hmm. Tommy Cole: We'll figure it out. We just had to extend a little more time 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 probably said a few curse words along the way, like, this is ridiculous. But he was patient John Dalton: Yeah. Very gracious. Yes. Tommy Cole: It went well. John Dalton: Yeah, that, that was stressful. I mean, the one time when you're like, this has to go perfect, that's the one time it's going to just completely screw up. So of [00:05:00] course that's what happened. And then I remember, I think this was just last year, you banked a bunch of episodes like right before Christmas, so you could take some time off and then. One of 'em was just missing, like it got lost somewhere in the internet ether, and it took us a couple days and you know, some calls to support to find it. But you were right. You recorded it, it was there. You didn't have to call somebody 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 those little things that happened along the way just kept it interesting. But it's, it's been, it's been a fun ride. Tommy Cole: 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 of a sudden they just were gone and I John Dalton: Mm-hmm. Tommy Cole: out 'cause I worked so hard on those. It's almost like working on an Excel spreadsheet for, you know, five [00:06:00] hours and all of a sudden you look up and it's gone. That doesn't happen near as often with Auto 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. It, it's been an unbelievable ride and it's been just fascinating to interview these owners, vendors, managers along the way to share their experience. And at the time, you know, a lot of times. You know, us landscapers, just look at these, these great men and women and say, man, they've got it all. 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 getting to where they are at this point. So it's, it's been a really good ride. John Dalton: Yeah, and I think that's one of the things that's really worked, Tommy, with, I know [00:07:00] you're hard on yourself and you've worked really hard to improve yourself, but really what people like about you and your message is just how relatable you are. Right. If you're one of them, you've run a landscaping company, the division you know, a company on its own, and you've worked with all these different people, like you get it right and they understand that you, you know, what it's like to be in their shoes. And I think that means a lot to people. And that's, that's why we'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 Christmas Eve to get all this stuff done and. We've never missed an episode. So Tommy Cole: yeah, John Dalton: been a lot work, but it's been. Tommy Cole: yeah. We have not missed it. And I go more credit to 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 the end of the day [00:08:00] someone was holding me accountable and to make sure that we had enough in the pipeline. We never missed a we never missed a a release date in two years. And so it, it'll keep going that way. John, I asked you to bring something with you to the show and, and we'll cap this off, but. if you guys know me, I don't really drink much, if any but people know me as, Prosecco, Tommy, and if you're out there in the audience I was developed that name a few years ago in Italy, the great game of tennis that I love so much. And, there were some people out there that wanted to challenge me in the great game of tennis, and I kind of let 'em know who was boss at the end of the day alongside me in that was a little friend known as Prosecco, and I enjoyed the ride. So without further ado, I, I brought us special guest on with John and I, and we have topped off with [00:09:00] a, with a champagne toast of Prosecco just to cheers the moment for roots of success. Thank you for all the listeners. If it wasn't for you we would not be sitting here today. And thank you for all the amazing guests we've had on the shows for the last two years to help spread the life hard lessons of building a business and building yourself. Thanks to the entire team behind reach of success to make it all happen. And man, let's see what the future holds. But cheers to everyone that's out there to help this work and, and we'll see what's next. John Dalton: Cheers, Tommy. Tommy Cole: Cheers. Cheers. All right, here we go. Woo. John Dalton: Nice. Tommy Cole: Good stuff. Alright, now that's over with of being, you know, cute and fun about what's happened. Let's move on because we're all about business right here What is Marketing for Landscapers John Dalton: That's right. Tommy Cole: [00:10:00] John is the marketing guy, and I said earlier, the guru for marketing. Marketing's such a big word, John. It, it's like, let, let me, I heard this the other day and it was summarized as marketing very well, especially for us landscapers. When you say someone, Hey, I do landscaping, what do you think? It's. Landscaping is the broadest term on earth, John Dalton: Mm-hmm. Tommy Cole: right? It you could what? What could you do? could do maintenance. It could be residential, it could commercial, it could be industrial. You could do snow, you could do install, but the install's, residential maintenance, design, build, commercial. You could do pools, plumbing, electrical, arbors. I don't, what am I missing? Like landscaping is such a gigantic word John Dalton: Yeah. Tommy Cole: to say, well I do landscaping, but [00:11:00] this is what I do, John Dalton: Mm-hmm. Tommy Cole: so could I make the argument and go, what's your marketing? So what is it? Don't you feel like that's a similar term? Marketing and landscaping is the same kind of like broad brushstroke to where. Landscapers also just don't understand like what, there's so many branches within all that, and I think we get so confused on what, like we have website and then we have like traffic, and then we have a marketing plan, and then we have this thing called social media, and then we have branding. I'm missing probably 10 things, but me understand these regular landscapers like me that just says, what's marketing? So we have a. Start real high and then we'll start needling down. John Dalton: Yeah. Well, I mean you're right, it is very broad and nebulous, just like the term landscaping, right. And all the things that you said. Or [00:12:00] a hundred percent correct about marketing, you can slice and dice it into a hundred different things, you know? But for me it's essentially how do you communicate with your customer? And that's as simple as it gets. Now, you know, I think one of the things that I think most people, a lot of landscapers they kind of skip over is who is their customer, right? Because they make the mistake of thinking it's everybody. We're not really dialing in who that person is. So understanding who you're communicating with is definitely the first step. But then marketing is all of those different communications and, you know, in, in some people's mind that includes sales. You know, some of you may have heard the term, like Chief Revenue Officer. A lot of times marketing and sales will kind of funnel into that person because marketing and sales have to be very well coordinated. If you wanna have those two things work together well, because. Everything that your customer sees is, is a marketing touchpoint, right? [00:13:00] Whether that's social media, the website, your truck uniforms, communications to somebody on the phone, all of that stuff falls under that marketing umbrella. So it's a lot. Tommy Cole: Yeah. Yeah. You know, and, and I just want to say, 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 that you're marketing to different people. And, and, and, and maybe it's not a person, maybe it's a business or maybe it's a group or maybe it's a certain demographic, maybe it's a certain zip code, maybe. And so you gotta narrow on that and then find out what they like and then be strategic about that. John Dalton: Yep. Right. Tommy Cole: That makes, that makes a lot of sense. Okay. Talk about your marketing assessment that you've been working on, how it works, how it flows, and if you're listening in the truck, great. Kind of build the [00:14:00] picture of what you're, you're doing with, with a lot of companies. What is a Marketing Assessment Tommy Cole: You kind of start to get on the road these landscape companies maybe start to be an awareness of what marketing you're evaluating their marketing currently. Good, bad, and ugly. then which direction you're probably identifying the client customer, and then you're also giving 'em a game plan of sort of what's going on. So tell me about your marketing assessment. John Dalton: Sure. Yeah. So, you know, over the past two and a half years when with you and I working together, most of what I've been doing is focusing on helping McFarland Stanford find new clients, right? Let's get some new discovery members, ACE peer group members, which, which is great. I I love doing that. But as a, you know, an entrepreneur myself, I really like helping business owners. So I put together this marketing framework to, to try to help landscapers do a better job of communicating with their customers. So, oh, just over the past month I've started [00:15:00] offering this as a service. I've done three of these already, just in the past few weeks. Basically it's you know, one to two day onsite where I sit down with the owner and their marketing team if they, if they have people in-house, and really just dig in and try to figure out what they've been doing, what's working, what's not working, what are the gaps and really look at everything through this framework I created called the Seven Cs. And basically what we do is we start with, okay, what do you have, what do you have in terms of your brand? So those first two C's are clarity and consistency. And Tommy, you and I talked about branding, oh, I guess probably about a year and a half ago. And that's, that's really what I talk about with branding is clarity 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 [00:16:00] you talk about yourself to customers, right? So that's kind of the first step. And then customers is the next one. You know, one of the things that I find that I mentioned earlier is a lot of these guys really don't understand who their customer is. They, they say, well, I, I sell high end residential, but if you sell in like, let's take Dallas for example. If you sell in different areas of Dallas. If you're in the park cities versus flower Mound, you're selling to very different people, right? And you need to understand what motivates them, because at the end of the day, with your customer, you wanna know 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 kind of language that, Hey, I understand your 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 really understand your customer. The next thing we look at is your team, right? [00:17:00] Who do you have in house that's actually in charge of marketing? You know, I think one of the, yes, that's the coordination. Sorry. Yes. That's the, that's the fourth c. Thank you for keeping me on track. So you know, a lot of people, a lot of landscapers, I'll say. Marketing is kind of at the bottom of the, of, of the priority pile. Right. Largely because it's a little bit nebulous, like you mentioned, and some of us just don't get it. So it's like, let's just get out there and try to sell to people. I'll worry about this stuff later. So a lot of times we end up handing that off to, you know. My, my wife's son just graduated from college and he's on social media, so I'll bring him in and see if he can help us with marketing. The, the problem with it is, you know, if you just have that young, inexperienced person, they don't necessarily know how to build a brand or understand the customers. They may have a, they may ha know how to do some social media posting, but that. That is one tactic, and it's [00:18:00] quite frankly a very poor tactic in terms of generating leads. So what I try to look at is who do you have in place? Do you have contractors or maybe you know, an SEO person outside who is on that team and, and, and what do we need to kind of bolster that up and fill it in? And then the next thing we 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 plan to be quite honest with you. Even some, you know, eight, nine figure businesses are doing a lot of, you know, throwing shit up against the wall and seeing if it sticks. And occasionally you get lucky, but that's, that's not really a good strategy. Tommy Cole: Right. John Dalton: So we, we really try to dig in and look at that plan and see. How can we do this better? How can we make sure you're tracking metrics, 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 are communication and conversion. So this is actually about the [00:19:00] execution of your marketing. Like, how is this working? Is this converting to sales? And it, it, if it's not converting to sales, it's not working. It doesn't matter to me if you're getting. A bunch of new followers and you got a lot of engagement on your social media. None of that matters if it doesn't lead to sales, right? That's ultimately the job of marketing is to generate income or generate leads to the sales team. And if it's not doing that, then there's, there's work to be done. So we go through that whole framework at the end of it. You know, I'll give them a, a, a pretty detailed report on all seven of those Cs. And then at the end of it, there's an action plan of what to do over the next 90 days, six months to a year to try to prioritize all of those gaps so that we can really start making progress. Tommy Cole: Love it. So is this like a framework, so to speak, for, for companies and, [00:20:00] and this is like almost a, I'm looking at a you know, sort of a diagram here, but is this something that, first off, you evaluate, but you also within your business need to sort of have an awareness of all of these? And like, how are we relating to customers, It's almost like you gotta take a step back and have these meetings within your own group, within your own leadership team or something and say, how are we on clarity and consistency? How do the trucks look? How do the invoices look? How does our, you know. Our uniforms, look, how do we look at our shop? How do, John Dalton: Yep. Tommy Cole: all of those things. And it's almost like a self-report card John Dalton: Mm-hmm. Tommy Cole: kind of, right? So you kind of like look at those and cohesiveness, oh my gosh, that's like a great word. Like are we in unison of what we're practicing at the end of John Dalton: Yeah. Tommy Cole: and then how we're communicating. So let [00:21:00] me rephrase these. It's clarity and consistency, customers, then coordination, then cohesiveness. And last but not least communication and conversion, which sales, right, it's gotta work in its favor, John Dalton: Yep. Marketing's gotta make money or it's, it's not worth it. Tommy Cole: not worth it. John Dalton: Mm-hmm. Importance of Marketing for your Unique Business Tommy Cole: And so if you're, so, John, if you're a listener out there, what, what do you recommend? Like, what are some. What's a, 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 or like, you know, how does that compare to 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 this off to the side for a long time. What, what's their steps and what do they need to do consistently down the road? John Dalton: Yeah, I mean, that's a good question. You know, and unfortunately there's not an easy answer to that. You know, one of the things that I found in [00:22:00] doing these and talking to different people is everybody's business is different, right? And even a business that. Looks the same. Like say in Dallas, you have a business that does residential and commercial maintenance. That same business, you know, in Illinois is gonna be very different because their commercial maintenance also includes snow, which is an entirely different kind of profit margin, right? So at the end of the day, you have to look at your business individually. And you have to understand who those 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 people can do, especially for that brand kind of clarity and consistency and this is a tip that I give to people all the time, is gather pictures of everything that you put out there. Pictures of your truck, pictures of your uniform, your social media feed, you know, any kind of sales [00:23:00] flyers or anything that you produce like that, whether it's a postcard or a folder any piece of communication that has your 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 clearly look like one company. Then you're missing the boat on that clarity and consistency, because each one of those things should be supporting each other. 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 of maybe how effective your, you know, visual communication pieces are that's a really good place to start. But if, if you don't have a marketing background. You know, honestly, the best thing you can do is, is to find somebody. Like me, who does have that kind of a background, who can kind of point you in the right direction. There [00:24:00] is no one size fits all. Social media is not gonna act the same for the guy in Dallas as it is for the guy in Illinois. And if you don't understand all of the different pieces, you're gonna waste a ton of time and a lot of money. And that's what I'm trying to help people do is do it in an effective way and spend their money in a way that it's actually gonna have some ROI and come back to them. Tommy Cole: Yeah. That's such a great point. I feel like since I've been around the country a lot for many years, when you're working in the business, you almost kind of have a set of blinders and not know what's really truly projecting out John Dalton: Mm-hmm. Tommy Cole: of what the company looks like. So the idea is for you to take pictures of 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 [00:25:00] thoughts because it's a broken set of communication. That's not terrible. That's not awful. That's just the way it is. And John Dalton: Yeah. Tommy Cole: we got into this business because, not because of marketing, we got in because we wanted to do really good things and work outdoors. And so that's a great assessment is to understand is. Figure out where you are currently. The value of an ICP an ideal client 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 demographics and where they live and the home values if you're in residential, et cetera. Really I 'cause that that like spins off into so many directions now. It spins off to campaigns and marketing and social media feeds, also spins off like [00:26:00] everyone knows who we're shooting for. Everyone knows who we work for. And there's no clear there's no fogginess. It's very, very clear. So, I love the assessment. So to take pictures of everything, look how, see how it is, and go from there. And define your ICP. John Dalton: Yeah, and definitely with and with the customer profile, like. You mentioned the demographics, right? And like where they live and that is absolutely a must have information, but I always push people to take it a little bit further. Like you wanna understand who those people are, what makes them tick. So, okay, so I do high end residential 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 all of that stuff, but what really is gonna make a difference is if you understand who those people are. So, and what I mean by that is what really motivates them. So if most of those people are young [00:27:00] families, right? Where maybe you have a, a primary kind of breadwinner and a caregiver. You have two kids in school, a lot of them that part of the of my town, they go to a private school. Like you wanna really understand their life 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 their values and their motivations, not just their demographics, if that makes sense. Tommy Cole: Makes, makes a lot of sense. you know, it's no different than, you know, if I was to come into a business and look at operations or equipment and training, training the team, an outside observation, observation. It is very well done. And, and not a better word than, than John, you know, really taking a stab at that with all his experience coming in with no emotions, you know, coming in with a, with a background. That's great. [00:28:00] So you also create an action plan for the next seven, six to 12 months. So it, talk about what that means. Well gimme some examples, like what an action plan would be. Is that. John Dalton doing the marketing or is that like helping someone do the marketing in the, within the business, or maybe it's the local person that does some marketing or kind of give us a sense of what people can expect? I. John Dalton: Sure. Yeah. So, you know, sometimes that, that can be me. Sometimes that is part of the recommendation, you know, to have me come in as a fractional CMO, even if that's just a couple hours a month just to kind of help with the planning. But it, it really depends on what you have in place. You know, sometimes it can be just your mar you have a great marketing team, but they just need a little bit of support and maybe a mentor. You know, we have a client. In South Dakota, he's got a great marketing manager. She's just kind of young and, and needs a little bit of guidance. I coach her once a month, right? And [00:29:00] I help her with some different things, but they don't need me on, on, on a long-term basis because they 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 first three months they don't have a marketing person, so I'm helping them with a job description on that, helping them update some brand elements. You know, trying to com trying to align some conversations with the sales team because one of the things I do on those assessments and as is I interview with the salespeople because. A lot of times I find there's a big gap in communication between sales and marketing. They don't talk to each other and that's always a problem. So I always include them in that process to try to understand what the salespeople need because that's critical to their job. And then for them, we're gonna do some, some website updates in that first three months. Right? And then in the next six months, [00:30:00] you know, we're gonna go a little bit deeper on some of their strategy, help 'em build out some metrics. Sometimes it's me recommending some outside help, like for these people they need some help with SEOI have a good kind of 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 things great, but I have some really great people that can help you. Like, I, I wanna help you grow your business. It's not about me. Pad in my wallet. So, you know, so for six months we're gonna help them do some video and photography, and then within the next nine to 12 months, we'll do some kind of more long term things with. A content plan, I'm gonna help them update some of their design guidelines. You know, we're trying to focus on some of those things that will drive revenue early. And then down the road we'll get to rebranding their vehicles [00:31:00] to kind of update those a little bit. Working on some digital ad campaigns and even some trade booth design, so it's very specific to them. I try to really, you know, step it out in those kind of three month blocks so it doesn't seem so over overwhelming that you have, oh, all of this shit's broken and you have to fix all of it. Right? And my wife, who you mentioned before says, overwhelm is not having too much to do. It's not knowing where to start. So I wanna make sure that I give you a place to start and show you, you know, step by step, how we're gonna get all of this stuff fixed so that you have that marketing machine that's really, really functioning well. Tommy Cole: 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. Nothing. No different than [00:32:00] a business person. No different than a, you know a 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 is for the future with the stock market, how much you're doing for kids' college. Like, it's a game plan. Like I, I don't, that's what we need in landscape. And it's just, John, you're the professional. Tell me what we do in small bite-sized chunks and then we'll get it all done and we'll look back in two years and go, oh my God, look at where we are now. Here's the results, here's what we've accomplished. I love that. John Dalton: I mean, that's what I really wanna do is give them a, a playbook, right? Like with almost, with like a checklist of things. Like, okay, here's how we're gonna start. We're gonna do this, we're gonna do this, we're gonna do this. Because if you just dump on a, you know, dump a big deck on their, on their desk and they're like, this is all the shit you need 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 [00:33:00] playbook and the, and the checklist to go with it, and that makes a big difference. Tommy Cole: For sure. What, there any hot trends, marketing in 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 working for businesses right now. It, it's taking off. Is there anything that's kind of like, Ooh, that's juicy. John Dalton: Yeah, a couple things that just come up recently. You know, I always talk a lot, people ask me a lot of questions about social media. And to me it's one of those things that you can spend way too much time on and it doesn't have a really good ROI. But it's necessary and I still think everybody should do it. Just be careful how much time you spend on it. But I've had some really interesting conversations with some people lately who social media is totally their life, and one of [00:34:00] the things that we've started to see is even in the landscaping world itself, like there's some good examples of this even within our peer groups, is it's, it's a great window into the people of your business to kind of put a face behind the brand, right? To have a relationship with people. And I've always known it's a good tool for that, right? To just kind of put some reality and some humanity into your brand. But one of the side bonuses of that that we're finding out is it doesn't 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 because when you're trying to hire somebody. They wanna work for a good company. They wanna see they want to go to a place that's gonna be, they're gonna feel welcomed. It's gonna be fun, it's gonna be challenging. And social media is where they go to see what kind of a [00:35:00] company. It's, and if your social media sucks or you barely have anything there. They're gonna move on. And I've, I've had conversations and that, that definitely happens with people in our own peer groups. And I, I'm actually hoping to put on a webinar in the next couple months with this company to help show people how to showcase your company and its culture on social media for your customers and for your employees and your potential employees. So that was kind of an eye-opening thing for me recently. Is that kind of hidden benefit of social media with recruiting. And it, it just hadn't, it's not something that I've ever thought about before, but there's real evidence that that works. Tommy Cole: Yeah. Wow, that's powerful. Like I circled the word clarity John Dalton: Mm-hmm. Tommy Cole: back on your seven Cs. That clarity is not just the client or, or just general marketing. clarity within the [00:36:00] organization. And so if you take like your example, you take all these pictures of all these objects within your business and put it on a wall, and if it's confusing. It's probably really confusing for your own team John Dalton: A hundred percent. Tommy Cole: and so that is so fascinating. What a, what a great answer. And I would suspect that's most landscape companies, because marketing's an afterthought. One of the things I've learned recently was your social media posts almost are more about the team. So to speak, the collaboration, the cohesiveness to get a job project done. the scenes to come together and pre-plan a job before it gets installed. So like if you talk about the team and what it makes to build or maintain these properties. [00:37:00] That's what people are attracted to the client and potential people to hire, right? John Dalton: Yeah. Tommy Cole: if I'm a client looking at the social 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 this work just to maintain my property. Like I had no idea. I thought that'd show up in just mode, and it just is what it is. But if you had a team behind it to collaborate and that was documented along the way, talk about a recruiting tool and talk about a tool for clients to go. That's what they like about, it's not necessarily 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 of a team that goes into to do the product. Can get showcase. I don't know. I kind of learned that here, recent last six, 12 months. [00:38:00] And if you could feature that, wow, then you're doing this recruiting, you're attracting this talent because they're watching you, but yet you're also doing the same for your clients. And, and John and, and his team can produce something like that. I. D Darren, you wanted to show me a social media feed that focuses a lot on the team and what's behind the scenes. 'cause it's not just pushing a mower, guys. John Dalton: Yeah. Tommy Cole: That's, that's what the clients think sometimes and, and rightfully so. John Dalton: Yeah, it is. And you know. That's at the end of the day, there's a, there's a thousand landscapers, right? And regardless of where you live, there's hundreds of choices. If you're a homeowner or you're a business, 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 a relationship with those people. And that's a good way to, to give them a peek behind the curtain of what that relationship is gonna [00:39:00] be like. And that can help. That can help separate you. You know, I think I said in the beginning 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 gonna go look at your social media feed to see what it's all about, and they might follow you for a couple weeks before they decide to give you a phone call. And if they can see not just pictures of your great work, which you should have on there as well, but also all of these different things about your employees and that, hey, this looks like a fun place to work. They take care of people. I can see the faces of the guys that are actually gonna come work on my yard or build my deck. That's gonna, that's gonna make them feel at ease and that's gonna help separate you from the other guy who just posts twice 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 [00:40:00] it better, right. And, and feature your people. And it will, it will make a difference for sure. Tommy Cole: 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, a stellar product at the end of the day. I think that'll help convert, uh. John, anything else to add that we may have missed? Reach out to Experts to improve Marketing Tommy Cole: And any advice for anyone out there marketing or not? You've got a pile of books behind your head 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. John Dalton: 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 [00:41:00] start anywhere, start with your, with your brand and that foundation, Tommy Cole: Yeah. John Dalton: And figure out is. Is my stuff clear and consistent across the board. If you do nothing else, do that and make sure you understand your customers that's gonna make the rest of your decisions much, much easier. And if you need help, don't just go ask chat GPT, reach out to somebody like me or get 'em a recommendation from somebody else, you know, in landscaping and have a conversation with people you know. I. I, I will say there's a lot of great marketing people, but there's just as many bad marketing people, right? Another parallel with landscaping, right? So, you know, talk to people, but get recommendations, check references, do all of that stuff so you don't get burned because a lot of people stop doing marketing because they hire someone who's terrible and they get a bad taste in their mouth, [00:42:00] but. Marketing can work. You know, it can generate a significant amount of income for you and it can separate you from your competition if you do it right. You just have to talk to the right people. And I, I'm happy to help anybody if, if they're looking for help. Tommy Cole: Yeah, good. How did they get in touch with you, John? John Dalton: Well, they can, they can reach out to me via email. At, at McFarland Stanford, it's. My email's just john.Dalton@mcfarlandstanford.com. I'm sure we'll include that in the show notes and on YouTube if you guys are watching it there. So I'll make sure there's a link to that, that's the best place to reach me. Or, you know, if, if you want to just reach 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 text me or, or call me anytime. And I'm happy to have, you know, a 10 or 15 minute conversation you know, at no charge, just to kind [00:43:00] of talk to you about what your problems are and, and see if it'd be a good fit for me to help you. Tommy Cole: Yeah. Very, very good. Well, if anything that's learned throughout my journey is, is getting help in the sense of, you don't know finances, get someone that knows finances in this industry or service industry. I don't know finances that well, but I know how to do a stellar install check if you don't know marketing. Then sign. Get someone that knows marketing like John and just get them involved. Because listen, you want to go do the work. You got a team to manage. So when you partner or, and use resources externally to help build your 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 marketing as an afterthought, or I'll get to it at some point. It should, it should be right up [00:44:00] in line with revenue and install and maintenance in your team and your finances. It's gotta be right there at the 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 man behind the scenes and all these episodes. Happy two years. It's been a awesome ride. I enjoyed most of it along the way. I've, we've all gotten a little bit better. And most importantly, I can't stress this a most important. It's about the audience, about the listeners, just getting a 1% better every day, when you get 1% better. Each and every day you improve on yourself and also on your business. And I'll leave it at that. John, thanks again for being, a great friend and a great behind the scenes host and sharing all your marketing advice on this episode. John Dalton: Yeah, thanks for having me. And congratulations on the two years it's been. It's been a lot of fun.[00:45:00] Tommy Cole: Yeah, awesome. See you soon my friend. John Dalton: All right, thanks. John: Ready to take the next step? Download our free Profitability Scorecard to quickly create your own baseline financial assessment and uncover the fastest ways to improve your business. Just go to McFarlinStanford.com/scorecard to get yours today To learn more about McFarlin Stanford our best in class peer groups and other services go to our website at McFarlinStanford.com And don't forget to follow us on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram. See you next time on the Roots of Success.