Ep 045 – Culture, Customers, and Efficiency: Insights from Oasis Landscape

Ross Day 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. Ross Day: Oh, Tommy Cole: Ross Day from Oasis Landscape in Atlanta, Georgia. My good friend and super awesome, hilarious, fun dude to be around and socialize. Welcome, Ross. Ross Day: That's how we're going to start this, the better looking version of me. I'm pretty sure at the last event, I was told I was the better looking of the two of us. So way to start this off. Sure. Tommy Cole: we're gonna start this off right. Just kind of jump right into the to the cold water, right? You didn't know that was coming. I didn't tell you that. So surprise. Welcome. Welcome to the show as I kind of Ross Day: for having me. Thank you for having me. I appreciate it. Tommy Cole: Hey, Ross. All right. So. We want to get to know you. You've been involved in Oasis for a long time, over a decade. You, you and Kevin and the entire organization has just done a lot of great stuff. I visited you guys. I kind of snuck into your facility. As long as when I was with somebody else in Atlanta and I was like, I gotta see your [00:01:00] place and you just opened your arms and the doors and said, come on, check us out. How Ross got into landscaping Tommy Cole: And we were there and we had to hurry up to the airport. So, what I want to know most and probably our audience is like, how did you get in the landscape? I know you went to Georgia State, Ross Day: I did, I went to Georgia State. Tommy Cole: Georgia State and got a business degree and all of a sudden now you're landscaping. What do you like? What the heck happened here? Did you get, did you lose a bet or something? Ross Day: No, so the degree at Georgia State was really more to facilitate growing the landscape company. I, like most of the people in our industry, I started at a very young age. I was 14 years old. My dad said, I will not buy your first car. You can buy your first car. I will pay insurance and gasoline into your first wreck. And I got in a wreck 10 days after I got my driver's license. So Tommy Cole: Oh, wow. Good job. Ross Day: So at 14, my dad told me I had to save up money for a car and I didn't want to be broke. I wanted to save up money for a car. So I [00:02:00] was cutting grass in my neighborhood. A guy stopped me. We started doing his house. Like, you know, typical everybody does. And then what really pushed me over to get into the industry is we, my mom's best friend lived in a neighbor down the street. My dad put a little push more in the back of a dodging trepid. He would drive to his house Saturday, their house on Saturday morning, dad would get me out of the car and I would cut the grass while he read the newspaper and drink coffee. He helped me put it back in. He never helped me on the yard. And. That's kind of how it started. So I started cutting his yard and then it was a Saturday morning and this lady stopped and said, my bum husband didn't do our yard. Can you come do it? I have a party tonight. Went over there and cut her yard. And that happened to be one of the largest landscape companies in the city. It was the president of that company's house and he forgot to have his crews do the yard. So at 16 years old, he kind of took me under his wing. He was kind of a mentor of mine. He told me at a very [00:03:00] young age before getting into college, anybody can draw circles like Chris Pencheck, but very few people can run a landscape company, go get a business degree. So that's what I did. I went and got a business degree. I grew my company up. And then I, you know, we talk about. Our successes, but don't talk about our failures. In 2008, when the market crashed I lost some contracts and I was real cocky, young kid who thought, you know, just sell some more and I didn't sell more. I lost contract after contract after contract because Brightview or Brickman at the time came and took everything over. So, I ran a maintenance company. I talked to a consultant who was a friend of ours who happened to be a friend with Oasis and Kevin. And I joined forces with Kevin 10 years ago. I sold half my company to somebody else. The other half to Kevin. I was supposed to hang out and transition everything. And then just never left. And so here I am, 10 years later, [00:04:00] we got over 100 team members and two branches. When I joined there was probably 24 people in the whole company. So we've we've done, we had some great growth over the past 10 years. Tommy Cole: Wow. Just to say, just the story of how things unfolded. I, you know, that's like, that's an interesting story. I got a LA landscape art teacher degree. And then you know did a lot of design work for the last five for five six years and then got on the operations I kind of wish I took your route I wish I got like a four year business degree with a master's in la that would have been Smarter, I think I would have been more advanced at the end of the day Because what they don't teach you a lot or what you learn a lot is business Type things like how to make money, right? Those types of things. And so I'm sure you've learned a few things in school and then that has sort of pushed you forward along the way. Ross Day: Well, part of me going to college was more of just to create, to learn how to have relationships. We're in the relationship industry. And so it wasn't, you know, the schooling at [00:05:00] first, when I was at Georgia state, I went five days a week. And by the time I was done, I was taking night classes because the company got so big that I couldn't go every single day to college. And I enjoyed it. I enjoyed the networking part of it. I. Don't know if I enjoyed the schooling part of it as much, but I did enjoy the networking and it helped me understand that, you know, we run a service business first. It doesn't matter where they're cutting grass or spreading chemicals. It's a service business. And you know, I like to think that we are a, a business that happened to provide landscaping, not a landscaper that happens to have a business. And it really doesn't matter what we do as long as we put processes and procedures in place. Tommy Cole: Yeah, I get it. Same for me. You know, I don't know if I was actually the college material. I felt like at some point my family was like, go to school because no one else really did in our family. And that was a huge achievement. I kind of skated along and did the best I could. I was not an A student, barely a B. And [00:06:00] most days, but at the end of the day, I was driven by hard work, and, and a lot of effort and a lot of good attitude along the way to kind of persevere and move on. The Role of Vice President Tommy Cole: So let's talk about your role at Oasis, your vice president. That's a gigantic big title. But talk about kind of, kind of your 10 year journey a little bit along the way, it didn't start out as vice president, I would assume, but. You eventually worked your way, but like, talk about how you got to this role. And then secondly, talk about what does a vice president do at a company? Like it's probably anything and everything, but if you can help our audience, understand what that role is for you, Ross Day: Yes, so originally when I got to Oasis, again, it was just a transition. My company, half the half that Kevin bought the customers that Tommy Cole: did you make, those are your, your clients to start out with at Oasis? Ross Day: No. So we already had when I got to Oasis, there was 5 maintenance crews. They were routed incorrect. I ran a maintenance company. I didn't like installation. I didn't [00:07:00] like chemicals. I liked maintenance. And this was going back to that mentor who said you need recurring revenue. Don't worry about creating. Creating. installations and pretty backyards. It seemed that every time I wanted to do that, when I was running my show, that I would fail at it because I didn't have the landscape background, but I knew the maintenance was rinse and repeat, make a customer happy, do what you say you're going to do. And it ended up being pretty good business at the time split my location. Kevin didn't service the whole area. So I split the company in half, sold half to Kevin, half to somebody else. And when I got there, I was transitioning my clients that he bought over, making sure they didn't jump ship, and then also trying to help build up his enhancement book of business on his current, you know, residential maintenance accounts. I was on a property trying to sell an enhancement, and while I sat on a property, three Oasis trucks drove by me in 35 minutes. So I went back to the office and I said, Kevin, I know you don't really [00:08:00] know how to run a maintenance business, but three trucks and one road and 30 minutes is probably not efficient. Yeah. So we shut the five crews down to two and a half and then rerouted, worked on efficiencies, and now I think we run close to 20. 225 maintenance crews between two branches now. And so, that was my whole deal. I mean, I can do the enhancement sales. I can do the installation sales. I don't, we have some great team members who are sales people and designers who can draw much better circles. And we have one that is the best landscape architect I've ever seen. I just don't have that. I can sell it. I can, I can. Put the processes in place. I can organize it. I can estimate it. I can't do the drawing part of it. So I leaned on our team and then I realized my baby is really the maintenance side. So in the past three years, I've kind of transitioned [00:09:00] to running the maintenance as best as possible between both branches and lots of team members help, but it's how do we guide them? Our main thing mantra now is to manage processes and lead people. And that's all I want to do. So when you ask about vice president, that's really what it is, is to manage processes and lead people. And it's, and it doesn't matter which part of the business it is. It can be in, in finance. It can be in the operations or account managers. It can be I am a great firefighter. It could be putting out fires. It's just managed process and lead people. And that's probably my daily mantra now. Tommy Cole: Yeah. So, all right. Great analogy. You have five crews, reduce them to two and a half. You've eliminated that or reduced dramatically that waste that we always see in landscape companies. Love it. So you streamline that and that's kind of where you, that's your, That's your niche. I get it. Then you all sudden catapulted and fast forward all to 25 crews. That's massive growth in a [00:10:00] decade. What makes landcape maintenance successful? Tommy Cole: Talk about if we're talking about maintenance here, talk about two to three things that made you successful, made the company successful in maintenance. What are those few things that you've learned in a decade at Oasis, but across your career? Ross Day: So, when we talk strictly growth, the 1st thing that happens, we've acquired 2 companies in the past 10 years, both small, very, very small mom and pop owner operated companies. But what that's done is it's giving us. When you buy a company, you're buying some equipment that's pretty, but it's just steel, but what you're really buying is team members that, you know, that are trained and understand what our industry is. It's hard to find those as you know, and then you're buying a book of that, you know, probably eight, 70 to 80 percent of it really. falls in line with your core clients. But what it does is it opens the doors to other property managers, other HOAs, other businesses that you didn't have without [00:11:00] purchasing that. So when we catapult over, we've had some great organic growth, but two acquisitions also helps that in the past 10 years. Tommy Cole: Yeah. And let me jump in here, Ross. This is fascinating because this goes back to what you originally said is you took cruise from five to two and a half by efficiencies eliminating waste. And when you buy a small mom and pop, we'll sort of use that term. That's essentially what you're doing at the same time, right? You said, I can buy this group and I'm going to inherit these great people, great managers, and great clients. But we're going to become efficient and we're going to eliminate the waste. And I feel like that's what you did again Ross Day: Well, yeah. Most of the time when you have a company that's that size, they haven't figured out they need all the processes yet that, you know, they, they still, the, the owner operator, mom and pop, whatever you wanna say, they're still working on going out and putting out fires themselves. They're still turning on and off irrigation clocks. Heck, one of the companies we purchased, the guy was still mowing yards on a [00:12:00] Saturday, has to keep his crews afloat. With us, when they come involved, we can not only offer those team members access to stuff they don't have, whether it's better benefits more time off, better equipment, more the technology that we runs a lot nicer than some of those, cause they just don't have, they can't, they're not, they don't have the access quite yet. And so we're able to offer that to these team members. And then that creates efficiency that they weren't able to see Bye hebing. The growth and that and that helps them quite a bit. Tommy Cole: Yeah, what are a couple more? You got an acquisition that helped you get to 25. Making account managers client relationship managers Tommy Cole: Is there any, any more that you would attribute to or any processes that you, you really say this is, this is, was the key. Ross Day: Yes. So we run 2 branches, which we've mentioned before 2 branches, but they're very different branches. 1 is a strictly commercial maintenance branch. And the other 1 is a heavier residential. How we set them up. Thanks to McFarland Stanford, actually, is we talked [00:13:00] to some of your team members and through our peer groups and realized on our commercial side, we can't have our account managers, we call them CRM's, custom relationship managers, also manage crews. So we give them a book of business. Their main goal is to work on relationships, because again, it's a relationship business working relationships, sell enhancements to those, to that book of business keep client retention high. And make sure that the properties look good enough that when we have our business developers go try to sell, they have something they can go look at. We split their role and a field supervisor. So field supervisors manage efficiency, safety, quality, trucks, and team members. By splitting that their bandwidth makes. everything exponentially faster. Our guys can make sure the properties look better. They perform monthly audits on every single property. Our enhancement goals went out the roof. We find more touches on a property, sells more on the property. So that alone, with a constant line [00:14:00] of communication, Helps quite a bit. And that's driven that, you know, the branches to exponentially grow because our clients understand we're always have their back. It doesn't matter what day it is, what time you have a customer relationship manager who's going to answer any of your questions. Tommy Cole: I love it. That's what we coached you all the time is taking the account manager, making them a relationship expert, the touch point expert, the enhancement sales, all of that managing the client. And then the operations is handed off to the team, the production team. That's. All the training, the hiring, the quality, executing the hours, all those types of operational things. Quite frankly, that's two different types of people. That's like left brain, right Ross Day: It's, it's very different. One has to be understand that relationships are very important. The other one person just needs to get stuff done. And it's and the other thing by doing that, it also gives our, our team members out in the field. They can see [00:15:00] a growth path. I can become a field supervisor and manage teams of eight to ten crews. Then after that we have another level and then you can get up to CRM. So it's a growth path for all of our team members when they land with us. Tommy Cole: Yeah, that's great. That's kind of like, a little bit difference in us. I feel like you're more relationship, right? You're kind of like account manager heavier. On that side a little bit and I feel like I'm a little more dominant on the operation side I feel like you and I would make a great combo. I've got some relationship too, but it's driven through operations more And I think you are driven more like looking out for the client type deal. Balancing operations with relationships Tommy Cole: So have you had to find someone that was? Sort of a little bit different than your ways to sort of counterbalance that sort of off that Operation side a little bit more or how does that work? Ross Day: Yes. So one of our branches, we have a branch manager who does that. He's an operational guy. He's learned how to become relationship. [00:16:00] But we do. We test everybody when they come through. We try to figure out what they're good at. They good in operations. Are they good in relationships? It is a different brain. It is a very different brain. I can do both. I don't like operations. I don't. I have never enjoyed the operations side. But, you know, you need both to get stuff done. And so way I look at this is if I get metrics that are put in place for operations to make sure they're working, I don't have to worry about it. Just make sure you hit your metrics. After that, you know, the rest is I can mess with and spend my time growing relationships. Tommy Cole: Yeah. So what kind of metrics are you looking at in maintenance? Ross Day: So obviously budgeted versus actual, that's the main thing. Everybody knows that if you're in the landscape industry. It's how many hours did you sell and how long did it take you to perform those hours? We have a quality metric. We look, we have an auditing system that we use for all of our account managers. They go out, they audit the properties once a month, that gets sent down to the field supervisor. So if they see anything that has to [00:17:00] be done the, they can handle it with the crews. We also, we're not shy about it. We actually send that audit to the customer. And it doesn't matter if it calls us out. If we have a weed that's four foot tall behind the juniper bed, that picture gets sent to the customer because that way they know we're out there. We don't, we don't, we're not shy about it. We'll let you know when we mess up. And then the idea is by the time the next audit runs around, you'll take the same picture and that one's well taken care, that area is taken care of. So that's it. We look at efficiency. Of course, we look at enhancement sales penetration on your book of business. Each account manager has a, a, a ratio they have to hit based on the accounts they have. Retention is extremely high. Enhancement goals. So you have an enhancement goal to sell, then we have to perform them. We look at how much we're performing on enhancements per month, on the maintenance side. And we do the same thing with design build. So it's, you know, we're, it's more of just making sure [00:18:00] material over and under that's important, but you really can't control that. You hope you hit it most of the time, you're not overbuying. It's, you know, Labor is 40 percent of our business. So if we can save 3%, it goes right to the bottom line. And when you're a maintenance company, it's the biggest part of the business. And so how do you manage labor effectively? Tommy Cole: Love it. Got a couple little Detailed questions with what you just mentioned here Establishing enhancment sales goals and metrics Tommy Cole: Enhancement sales, how many enhancements, dollar value, what do you guys strive for? Is it sort of seasonal base, like depending on spring, summer, fall, winter, you sell enhancements? Is there a goal for each account manager? How do you monitor that along the way to hit goals? Like what do you, what are enhancement sales like in your organization? Ross Day: So Atlanta is a little different market. We don't get to include flowers, mulch, or pine straw in the contracts. That's all after. So we consider that an ancillary enhancement. That is an enhancement. It's usually going to happen on the [00:19:00] property, whether our account manager talks to them or not. Most of the time, whether we had an account manager or not, they're going to call, they're going to do pine straw twice a year, they're going to do flowers twice a year, and they might do some mulch. So we have two buckets. We look at ancillary. Okay. And we look at true enhancements. We budget for 2025 to say what months we know ancillaries are going to happen. We know that in May, or well right after Easter is usually when flowers go in. We know October is when flowers go in. Those two budget numbers get put in there. And we expect our team to sell those. July's pine straw, December's pine straw, we expect that. Then we go back and we look at our true enhancements, which are things that are safety concerns on a property. aesthetic concerns or, almost quality concerns, whether you have some sod that's bare, some drainage areas, those are considered true enhancements. And each account manager or CRM has [00:20:00] a ratio for their book of business they're supposed to hit. We try to say that we're going to do this month every single month. It doesn't always happen. We really look and go on average, we need this per month, much per month to hit our goals. You might have an account manager as a whale of a month and the other four are struggling and then they pick it up the next month. It's just for the entire year. How are we trending? And we average about 40 to 50 percent penetration on the book of business. Tommy Cole: Wow. Love it. I, I have never heard of that. I love the fact that you said these are like necessities. That have to happen on our properties, which is really Anywhere in the country you can imagine it's essential to for your property It's not just like mowing grass and call it a day and then you got another bucket that are truly enhancements and I like have you break it all down between safety aesthetic quality type Things it's fascinating stuff How to navigate opening a second branch Tommy Cole: You mentioned the second branch. We have to cover this thing that this second branch, I think a lot of [00:21:00] organizations really struggle, you know, for a lot of reasons. Why is like, why a second branch? Right. So I want to learn about why you came to the conclusion. Does it make sense? Is it not? At some point you had to say, oh my god, that's enough. Something's got to change at some point. And talk us through that sort of transition into another branch. The one thing that is extremely difficult, Ross, is to continue the culture of the second, third, and fourth branch, the same as the mothership, I'll call it, in Atlanta. That's the trickiest part. How did you guys navigate through that? Ross Day: So the second branch was almost out of happenstance. We purchased a company that was, it was. Right before all these M& A's were really happening. So we're talking six or seven years ago, we bought a company out there, owner operator, we found out after the fact, we bought it on March 28th. We found that after the fact, if we had not purchased it, he was shutting the place down on April 1st. So we [00:22:00] bought. For lack of a better word, a turd. And it just, so not only were the customers not being taken care of, the equipment wasn't taken care of, the team members were struggling to figure out what their direction was. When we bought it, I think we lost. 45 percent of the book of business because customers were just so mad about a transition. They weren't happy in the first place. They sure as crap didn't want us on it. And so we threw everything we could heart soul dollars time. So it wouldn't fail because we were on the hook for the money. It didn't matter. We had to spend the money exactly. So we did. And so we lost 40 percent of the book of business the first year. And now it's It'll do about half the revenue. It'll split about right, right about half of what the other branch does in revenue. So between the two companies, it does about half the revenue, which is great, but it's strictly maintenance, which the other branch is not. The other branch is heavy in design build. Bringing culture there was [00:23:00] difficult. Culture is something that you can't, It's a, it's one of those terms everybody uses. You can have great. It is. And so it's how do you turn it around? And the other thing is, you got to figure out who you have. We realized real quickly. The team members up there are not the same nationality as the team members at our other branch. They think differently. They party differently. They pray every morning. It's a very different atmosphere than the other. And if you go in guns a blazing, you're not going to get any buy in. So we really sat around for three to six months and just observed, just to see what they were doing right, what we considered they were doing wrong, and then started showing them why with us there can be more reach and And of the, I think at the time there was 12 team members, I think seven of them are still with us. The rest have gone on to other things. Two of them started their own companies, which we completely promote. I mean, that's the American dream. So go do it. And for that matter, we send them business that is not in our ideal customer. They were great in, [00:24:00] in, in helping us get to the next level. Having a second branch spreads you thin. I spend 60 percent of my week at one branch and it depends on which branch it is during which week. So it's a lot. It's, it spreads you very thin. What's, what the best thing we did was get the right team members there. We brought people from the main branch up there, And they, between account managers, the branch manager, we showed them that all of a sudden you have another platform to grow faster, because if you're in the main branch, you have a couple of people you've got to jump over to get to where you want to be. This is ground level and you showed, we believed in some few key team members and they've, they really shined for us. And that branch, that branch is on track to do really well in the next five years. Tommy Cole: No, I love it. I love it. So it's all about the culture at the end of the day is getting it right. And I love your, your point about observe and [00:25:00] why that's, that's like, can we also do that in our own one business or our one location, right? Observe. What's going on? I use this analogy all the time that the general manager that the gym I attend uses the four corners of The gym and he's always observing the four corners at any given part of the day night evening You know because he has a an awareness of what is going on at any given point. He can see things that are not going well bottlenecks with certain equipment here who's using what who's not That observe and figure out the reasons why we're here because you got to continue this culture. Across multiple Ross Day: Um. Um. Tommy Cole: out of there makes a lot of sense. I love it. Ross Day: Well, what you do there is you're also taking the team members that you, you know, have invested time with you and understand your culture. And that way, you're not the dictator. You've got other people that are have the [00:26:00] buy in and they're spreading the buy in without you having to be there, which is, you know, what happens. At a branch when you're not there is truly what's going on. And so to have other people there that had the same culture, the same drive, drive the same mantra of manage people in a managed process, lead people. It's really, really important. So everybody's on the same page and having extra people who understand that put into the other branch really helps. We did buy a 3rd or 2nd company or 2 years ago. And we took that branch and we moved it over. So we had three branches for about a year which that's even more, and the branch wasn't big enough to sustain itself, so we combined them. How to establish SOPs to run a branch from afar Tommy Cole: So I would think, are you there or do you need to get there as far as managing the home base location versus the branch? There's a lot of same metrics that have to be watched. Like you mentioned budget versus intellectual and all that. Can you see those metrics afar? So say you're you're at [00:27:00] your home base office. Are you aware what's going on remotely? Or do you got to physically go there to see how things are doing? Ross Day: No, we can, I mean, we use aspire. So everybody and a lot of people in the green industry is aspire. We've got metrics put in place that we can manage both branches. I mean, I hop off the call with you today. I can see how the branch is doing. It's again, just putting stuff in place that you don't have to be physically on site to But there are still we have a status meeting every Monday that for the entire branch, everybody's everybody gets in there. Everybody explains what's going on their life. We still have one on ones, which McFarland Stanford coaches. We do all that, but you can still remotely see how the branch is going. What you can't do is you can't remotely. feel how culture is. And so you still have to get there, walk around, see what's in the air, talk to people, see how their week's going, see what's hurting them. And half the time it's me, I'm bottlenecking something and I don't even realize I'm [00:28:00] doing it. But trying to, metrics are one thing, but you still have to spend the time to, Tommy Cole: love it. That's great stuff How to manage relationships with both residential and commercial clients Tommy Cole: I noticed you guys do residential commercial clients A little tricky. I would imagine, you know, it's, it's not been like the most easiest process talk about I've got plenty of clients are like maybe heavily in residential or heavily in commercial and they want to dabble in it. They're just not sure. Tell me about that experience and how you guys have been able to build a company with both. Ross Day: started off as residential. That 2nd branch that we bought, they had a church and that was the 1st foray into commercial. It was a very large mega church. They were doing. We lost the church right after covid. Or right coming out about COVID. And I was, I cried. I physically cried. I was so, it was the biggest account we had. And if I was honest with you, we were losing our butt on it, but it was, it was something to say that we did that church in that area and we could [00:29:00] put on our resume, we had that church, losing that. What happened shortly thereafter was we had a HOA. It was a gentleman who was on HOA board. He stopped us and said, I can't do this. I thought I could. Can you bail us out? We went over there. We bailed him out. The property manager had didn't want anything to do with us. He hated us. And then we won him over and a year's time. Of his 15 properties, we were managing 13 of them and then got into it and blew it up and got bigger and bigger and bigger based on relationships and doing a good job. And doing that got us the commercial side built up relatively quickly. Residential we try to turn every one of our because we have a heavy design building residential. We try to turn 1 of those every 1 of those into a maintenance customer and then just word of mouth. If I was honest, we are not promoting residential maintenance because we find the enhancements are too difficult [00:30:00] at a certain level. tier. When you get a certain point, you know, that, that can ends up being a little better. So we are transitioning the book of business to be more of a state homes and commercial projects as we get larger. But we also know we got to pay bills. And so we keep these customers happy. We've had customers for 10, 15, 20 years. We will continue to do the yards. We will never say goodbye to them as long as they stay, you know, happy with us. It's just a different, it's different managed. Our Atlanta branch, the crews are managed by their account manager. So there's, they manage the crew and the, and a property, but they manage a smaller book of business. So it's about a third of the size and, but it's a lot more hands on and it's decisions are quicker. You get paid faster in residential but the dollars and the longevity in the commercial world makes sense. I think as we, as COVID shows you, the service sector is not [00:31:00] going anywhere. People will still always have to have their yard cut. It's just making sure that they fit in with us as a company. Our margins are very small in maintenance, which most people understand. It's how much other extras they're going to pay to have us do. And we make sure that that margin is the right level for us as a company. Tommy Cole: Yeah. So there's a myth out there. You hit it earlier. You can't make money on maintenance. What are you doing? Right? That's that whole, like you're not going to make money on mowing grass. That is a load of BS. I'm tired of hearing about it. Residential or commercial. Okay. So tell me about this. You became profitable. Oasis is profitable. Maintenance. Along with enhancements, but you gotta make money in maintenance you can also make lots more money in enhancements. Tell me about that. Ross Day: Yeah, so it goes back to budget versus actual. We manage that with our team. We have to, every team member knows every single month. January one shows up. Here's how many hours you have for the [00:32:00] year. Here's how you're trending per month. And our team knows to look at that. You know, if it's, if we get halfway through the year and we realize we're not going to hit it, we'll go back to the customer and say, this is why we're not doing it, it can be that it was bid with a large lawnmower and Miss Sally comes out and says, I hate the large lawnmower where you do a push more, where our teams out there. We'll make the customer happy. They will start cutting the R with a push mark. What they won't understand is that will blow our budgeted hours. And so, so we'll go back and say we have no problem doing that, but it's going to cost you X, Y, Z. We analyze, we make sure that the properties are profitable. Our margins are small. We, we, oh, and the maintenance world margins are relatively smaller. You can't be competitive. So it's making sure that we understand our margins, understand how we're bidding and then track what we bid and we do that on residential and commercial. And then we make sure that we have an enhancement pot and that's a separate budgeted versus actual, you've got to watch and make sure, cause it can bleed [00:33:00] from both. Tommy Cole: yes. Love it Okay, Why relationships matter Tommy Cole: I got something for you You're a relationship guy through and throughout Kind of funny story This is gonna get a little little weird, but it's a great story. I think how I got introduced to you I think we were like at the same place our wives were together Drinking some wine and having fun and the story goes like this I had a procedure done at the end of a year. Ross Day: Yeah, you did. Tommy Cole: Yeah. And let's say that procedure was going to happen because I've already met my quota. And it needs to happen and you caught wind and said, yeah, I got it. I've done that too. Cool. Sounds good. And a little care package showed up at my doorstep one day because you were a little sneaky behind the scenes, contacted my wife. I got a care package. Listen, I don't receive anything like that from anyone ever. But I thought it was the most hilarious thing that I had ever seen in my [00:34:00] life. And I've shared that story to probably no less than a dozen people across the, my travels. Mind you being so funny about you sending me this care package, but most importantly, Ross, it was like something to do with a relationship. Like we connected, we have a lot in common. We're goofballs. You know, we like to have a good time. We work really hard. You're very relationship driven. Expand on some of that, why you do this and why it's part of you. It's just your natural tone. You're always saying happy birthday to the Ross Day: case the Tommy Cole: what the hell's going on? Why does that mean so much to you? Ross Day: It goes back to how I was raised my mom and dad. My dad was from the Jersey shore. My mom was from a farm and Cochran, Georgia. Yeah, you're telling me so. Very, very, very good. Tommy Cole: show. Ross Day: Yeah, no, it wasn't. It was, it was the nicer part of the Jersey Shore. [00:35:00] And then my mom was, you know, cow tipping and farms in Cochran, Georgia. So very different upbringing between the two of them. My dad was a sales guy. My mom was a Sales guy for international shipping companies. So it was always relationship based with him. I always saw that growing up. My mom actually sold for Oxford, which is a clothing line. And she's, she was shipping stuff in my dad's containers across the country, across the ocean. And they basically taught me it's not who you are. It's who, you know, and, and learning that, as long as you're genuine in what you're doing, building relationships is. It's almost easy. You just got to say hello and be nice to people. And once a while, catch him off guard with some funny gifts. It make I remember learning when I was younger, receiving a gift is fun, but giving it and seeing somebody's smile is even better. And whether it's a. You know, just paying a tab. I was, we, and junior year of prom, there was [00:36:00] a, we were, there were 10 people and there was a couple sitting in the room and they were all dressed to the nines, I mean, full and they were in their late eighties and she was wearing a gown and he was wearing a tux. The guy comes over to give us the bill and he says that couple over there took care of your bill. They come in here every year and they take care of a bill for somebody because somebody did it for them. And I remember in junior year thinking I want to be able to do that because that's the type of giving that's unforeseen that We had no idea was coming and has lasted a lifetime. I mean, I still talk about that story to this day. So creating an impact like that on somebody's life, a little dumb care package with some bananas and ding dongs has become a funny story. Tommy Cole: Yeah. Ross Day: And it, it goes a long way and it makes it so you're memorable without being memorable. And I like that. And I always have. And it makes people feel good. I mean, this world is so messed up in so many ways. And I let, let somebody feel good for 30 [00:37:00] seconds for, what, 42 I think I spent on you? Tommy Cole: Yeah. Yeah. Ross Day: it's fun to Tommy Cole: It's an appreciation at the end of the day. That's what we've done. You know, we were picking up a tab a couple years ago for our crossing guard lady at our elementary school that my kids go to. And she's out there 150 degrees. or one degree rain, sleet, snow, you name it. Making sure the safety of those kids get across the street to school every day. We saw her at a restaurant. Wife's like, we're going to come to the tab and we're going to walk away. That's it. Like, she's so appreciative to take care of our kids like that. That those types of things just kind of like are expected now these days. It's just an expectation. But later we did tell her that was us, you know, at some point, but that that's the level of care and tradition that I really believe in. And it's not just personal, but it's in business along the ways. Those relationships go on forever and ever and ever. Ross Day: I just think that if I take care of the people around [00:38:00] me, even if it's given this and an old cliche, give the shirt off your back, it doesn't have to do that. Just listening, give us some time. And I remember when my. I, I had, I haven't through a really rough patch of my life and one of my best friends got up and I know you're a gym rat and he got up with me every morning at five 30 and we worked out from five 30 to seven and as I came out of that rough patch, I said to him, I was like, I really appreciate you getting up with me and he goes, I hate it. Getting up in the morning. I couldn't stand it, but you needed somebody for you and I was there for you. And then a year and a half goes by and he went through a rough patch and I was there. And it's one of those that you, if you surround yourself with people who will do that for you, life becomes a lot easier. And you know, whether it's a small gift or a phone call or, you know, a peer or a peer group member, or even a competitor in the industry. If you need something i've got it i'm [00:39:00] going to help you because there's going to be a day when I call and you'll answer The phone for me and that if you can live by that the doors seem to open a lot easier for you Tommy Cole: I love it. Good stuff. So I got, I got, as we sort of wrap up here, I got a couple more things for you. Ross Day: Yeah, Tommy's Takeaways Tommy Cole: Tons of notes tons of notes. I'm going to do a few Tommy's takeaways a little little tease here, right? So Ross Day: Yeah Tommy Cole: involved in and translating your business into Oasis. So love that side. Your idea of eliminating waste in maintenance is awesome because it comes down to budget versus actual. I like the small acquisitions of the small guys inheriting good team members. And I love this enhancement type deal. More touches equal more sales. So it's a once a month property audit with an [00:40:00] accountability checklist that the entire company sees and the client sees to hold each other accountable and see the progress of that maintenance client. 100 percent agree with that. Also love your idea of enhancement sales between the must have ancillary type sales And the awesome like enhancement sales that are needed throughout the year for safety concerns quality control It can be drainage issues. It could be party prep those types of things Budget versus actual and maintenance has to happen There's not enough said there the second branch my summary of the second branch is culture and metrics Ross Day: That's it. Tommy Cole: culture, a good culture, and you've got to have metrics. Otherwise, you can't have that remote or second or third location. Ross Day: No, we haven't figured it all out. Trust me. I got an email yesterday about something that we're still working on that is a metric and it is about culture. And, you know, [00:41:00] it's we, we are still struggle on day to day stuff. But at least if you have a core that, you know, that we're going to take care of each other and we know we have to have these metrics to figure out what we're doing. You can build on that again. It's managing processes and leading people and leading people as culture and processes as metrics. If you manage process and lead people, you can figure that out. Tommy Cole: Culture, metrics, and processes. Just give me that all day long and I'm going to sign up. I love it. Ross, any sort of lessons learned, takeaways? There's a lot of good at the very end of that. It's about relationship based. Anything I'm forgetting, any words of wisdom, advice in your long career? I think we're like the same age, which is kind of ironic because you graduate in 03. Ross Day: I'm still better looking by Tommy Cole: That's very, very debatable. But anyway, Ross Day: metric. It's a good metric we can look at, Tommy Cole: it's, you know, we'll just, we'll let you have this platform. And then when this platform is over, You can go on your way, right? We'll leave you right now. Ross Day: Yeah. Tommy Cole: What is the worst? The banter you and I can go back and forth, we can last here for hours. great. What's something that you live and die by? Ross Day: Again, it's all about people. We are in a relationship business, and the relationships aren't just with our customers, it's with our team members. At our Atlanta branch, there are four landscape companies within a half a mile. Four. And so anybody can leave our office and go [00:42:00] left or right, And go work at a different company. Why do they keep coming back to us? And so there was an old our wedding photographer owns a very large camera company. And he used to say, if you took care of your customers and you take care of your team members, the profit will come. If you lose sight on those two, and then we got even more granular. We decided customers choose to come to you, but team members choose to come to you. So you better have your team members, right? So they understand to make the customer, right? And in that way, the more customers come. So if you focus back on culture and it's not gimmicks, it's true. You know, how do they feel when they show up? It's not, Oh, we have a prettier shirt or a nicer hat or, or a bag clip. We put on, on You know tortilla chips. It's what do we do that they want to come hang out with us instead of the three other companies down the street. Tommy Cole: yeah, Ross Day: If you're true to that, everything becomes a lot easier. So it's just [00:43:00] excuse me. It's just taking care of the team members and then making sure they understand that they have a voice. They have area to grow. And then the rest just kind of falls in place and you're going to make mistakes. And, you know, You know, our biggest thing is every one of us makes mistakes is how fast we get up and fix them. And whether that's a customer or a team member Hell i've got so much crap. I got to figure out in the next 10 days. And so it's but it's You know, if you're not making mistakes, you're not trying and and I and we keep learning We have good years. We've had bad years. Koba was great and kovat stunk at the same time. Tommy Cole: yeah, Ross Day: We're excited to see what the next 10 years show for oasis Tommy Cole: that's great. I people, people, people. It's your number one asset. It's not the piece of equipment. It's not the facility. It's not. It is the people, the team that you have built, take care of them. And what a better situation. Put yourself in Ross's shoes at Oasis and go. I'm within minutes of four [00:44:00] competitors left or right as you exact if you manage your business to that level. I mean, they have to be good at culture and good at building teams and taking care of people along the way. Otherwise they don't have anything. So it's a mandatory item in their business. So think about your business and going, if I go left or right, within a couple of minutes, they can go anywhere they would ever want to. So keep them from leaving. We got to build a great team that everyone rose in the same direction. Good stuff. Good stuff. Ross Day: man. I appreciate the Tommy Cole: Yeah. Ross. It's been a pleasure, bud. You're a good friend of mine. Thank you so much for joining us on this great morning. Lots of great content and we'll see you soon, buddy. Ross Day: great time. See you soon, man 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. 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