Ep 036 – Building Sustainable Teams and Culture with Kyle Cahill

Kyle Cahill ​[00:00:00] The Roots of Success podcast is for the landscape professional who's looking to up their game. 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 another great episode of Roots of Success Podcast. And I'm your host, Tommy Cole. We have it. Awesome guest today. I've got my good friend, Kyle Cahill from Houston, Texas. How are you Kyle? Kyle Cahill: I'm doing great, Tommy. I am really excited too, like, got butterflies. I'm ready to go, man. Tommy Cole: Who knew we'd be here 15 years later, just on a show talking about shop and business and life, like what the. I would have never imagined this in a million years. Kyle and I go way back, back all the way to 2009. We worked for the same company in Dallas and, we shared an office, the size of, I was like 10 by 10, the size of a small bedroom with about, Kyle Cahill: I think the back of our [00:01:00] chairs just used to hit each other every time we tried to stand up. Yep. Tommy Cole: Oh, I was like, wow this is going to be interesting. I remember I was the, we're both project managers. I was the construction kind of project manager that handled mostly subcontractors. Yeah. And, you know, medium to large scale jobs and you handled all the crews and the planting project manager side. And we work hand in hand on hundreds of projects for a long, long time. And so. I don't know, we considered ourselves probably the best dynamic duo there was in Dallas, Fort Worth. I'm, I'm going to put that up there. Kyle Cahill: I will second that. We were, we were a hell of a team. Tommy Cole: Yeah, we were awesome. Kyle Cahill: we had a lot of fun doing it. We learned a lot doing it. So that was a Tommy Cole: Well, I would say we screwed up a lot. I mean, we screwed up a ton and we were like, we got to remember this. We got to add it to our process and system and we just got better and better over the years. About Grow and Co. Tommy Cole: So Kyle is coming from Houston, Texas. [00:02:00] No harm, no foul about the Astros and those crazy maroon things that are in college station. You know, beside all of that, he's a really good dude, good father, a good husband, and a really good business owner. That's why he's on here today. So, so Kyle, tell us about growing co company out of Houston. Kyle Cahill: Well, Tommy, I again, am so excited to be here and talk with you and talk about Grown Company and what we've done and share that with everybody. So Grown Company, we started in December of 2016, about two weeks before my first daughter was born. Tommy Cole: Wow. Kyle Cahill: So my wife and I just decided, Hey, now's the time let's do it. Tommy Cole: Rip the bandaid off and let's go. Kyle Cahill: Yes. So we are a high end residential design build and maintenance firm located within Houston and primarily operate only in Houston. Although we do have design projects as far away as Santa Fe, New [00:03:00] Mexico. but a lot of our work in house stays relatively close to the Houston area. So that's our primary focus. One thing unique about our firm is that we operate primarily on a time and materials basis on, primarily most scopes of work that we do. So I'm excited to talk more about that and explore that. Tommy Cole: This is great. You know, it's, it's funny how we all work together for a number of years and we learn and learn and learn, and then all of a sudden you pull the trigger and say, I think I'm going to start this thing myself, Kyle Cahill: Hmm. Starting the business Tommy Cole: it always sounds easy at first because you're like, I can do this, but when it's your own dime and nickel. It's a little bit different story. So you know, I'm sure there were some hard days getting started with you and probably a crew so to speak. Right. Tell us about just getting the business started before we get into that TNM thing I really want to Kyle Cahill: Yeah. we worked on some pretty high profile [00:04:00] clients, homes and commercial projects. And so, you know, I went from multimillion dollar projects and, and managing a department that was north of 15 million in revenue. To back to the basics to myself and, and going back to all of a sudden, I'm the one who's contracting out 10 flats of seasonal color. I'm installing them myself. I really had that opportunity with in that first year of starting growing company of what I like to always refer back to as getting back to the basics. So learn, getting myself, get my hands dirty being loyal to my soil really, building myself back up from the fundamentals. And that's, that's really how Grown Company was born. It was born out of just getting back to the basics. I worked primarily out of my house and within my neighborhood and my neighbors. And I took one project at a time. did a lot of the, you know, one man show owner [00:05:00] operator. My wife continued to work. She's a PA in the emergency room. So she bankrolled growing company to make sure that we would stay financially viable as we learned our lesson. Tommy Cole: her. Oh, Kyle Cahill: I mean, she's, she's honestly the reason why we were able to stay in business for that first Tommy Cole: Yeah, Kyle Cahill: year to 18 months. Tommy Cole: Good. Time and Materials Success Tommy Cole: So Kyle, we're all dying to hear, and our audience doesn't know much about you. One of the coolest, amazing things about Grow Co is you're known as this guy called the TNM success. And if nobody knows what that is, that's time and materials. Everything you do from a maintenance perspective is time and materials. So whatever it takes to do the time and whatever materials are added, that's how you do the maintenance services. That's a lot different than the norm. 100 percent different than the norm. What made you go into that route? Kyle Cahill: that's a great question because you know I had cut my teeth in this business in the [00:06:00] contracting world, right? You you get a call from a client they request your services You go over you give them a proposal and hey, this is everything that's going to be in this proposal divided by 12 Here's your monthly charge. And that's how I just assumed that work was done and that's when I first started growing company how I did it myself You You know, I took what I had learned and applied it to how I was going to do. After a year in business with Grown Company, I had the opportunity to, I was growing and I needed a place to, park my truck and trailer other than my driveway. Cause my neighbors were like, you gotta get out of here. And so I was fortunate enough to be introduced to two gentlemen, Robert Glauser and Danny McNair, who owned a residential landscape firm in Houston since 1991 called Glauser McNair. And they were looking to retire. They wanted to sell the business. I wasn't sure if that was something I wanted to do to acquire a business. I just needed to get out of my driveway to appease my neighbors. [00:07:00] So I was introduced to them. And I always like to say we moved in together before we got married. And So and Tommy Cole: Okay. Kyle Cahill: they, they were a smaller firm, you know, anywhere from a million and a half to two and a half million kind of fluctuating. And, you know, they were towards the end of their careers and they had gotten past the point of, Oh, I need the big revenue numbers. They wanted to do high quality work and they wanted to be paid. So when I like to say I moved in before we got married, I moved in in. of 2017 and we finalized acquisition in June of 2018. So, at that point I acquired a book of business that was used to this model. They were used to the T and M aspect of it. So I took that and I saw what that really meant. It allowed the crews to deliver a high detail, high touch [00:08:00] service. It allowed the managers to say yes more than, well, let me get you some, a change order. It, it really allowed my team to say yes, as opposed to, well, let me see. and so I understood that, you know, I had to learn this model and I had to learn how to best implement it because I understood that it could be a barrier for growth. And I made the conscious decision that, you know what, I really don't care if it's a barrier for growth because I want to be paid fairly for the services that we're providing. And then in turn, pay my team really well and provide benefits and a work environment that they want to be at. And so, contrary to popular belief, I mean, we have grown substantially within that model and the, the slogan I always tell clients is like, Hey, this is not a checkbook. Okay. I'm going to give you a price and I'm going to give you a budget. We're going to operate on budgets and invoice on actuals. [00:09:00] All right. So I can't go to a scheduling board and, you know, with our software and schedule out these visits with no hours to it. No, our production team needs to know, Hey, you have two hours at the Smith residence. You have one hour at the Johnson residence. We have to schedule it that way. But if that client comes out and says, Hey, Kyle, I definitely, I want you guys to spend another 30 minutes in the backyard where we had this situation. Well, that's 30 minutes times three guys. You've got another hour and a half. Hey, my guys can say yes, as opposed to we can only be here for two hours. So we're going to have to go. So we set all that up on the front end. We let the client know what our hourly rates are, how we're going to bill it. And what we've started doing and it's kind of it's been fun is that we get to show our clients how we are, over delivering for them where we're actually coming in under budget and showing them, Hey, this is what we told you it was going to cost. This is actually what it's costing. And because if it rains all week, guess what? You don't get charged for that visit that week. Tommy Cole: Yeah.[00:10:00] Kyle Cahill: So I always have found it and I found it to be a win win for both the contractor and the client. And the client because if they ask us for anything more, hey, it's understood you're going to get charged for it Just like if you're at a fancy hotel if you call them and say hey, you know what? I want a bottle of champagne The Ritz Carlton is going to send it to your room and it's just understood you're paying for that, right? Tommy Cole: let me see if I can build a change order for that. Kyle Cahill: Yeah, so we've taken that from the the maintenance side. That's how we run the design department That's how we run our construction department. And so Yeah, we we again I always say hey it may at some point be a barrier for growth We haven't reached that ceiling yet, and we've had great responses from from our clients With it so Tommy Cole: So I got some questions. You said something fascinating. Operate on budgets and what? Kyle Cahill: on actuals Tommy Cole: Okay, I love it. So here's my question. Client Feelings on T&M Model Tommy Cole: What's the client's response when you, when you say [00:11:00] this? This is not the normal. Are they really intrigued by it? Do they question it? Kyle Cahill: sure Tommy Cole: like, wow, I've never heard that. Explain more or see how things go. Kyle Cahill: Yeah, every single thing you just said. I've had that response. Tommy Cole: Is your team prepared for that sort of elevator pitch type? Kyle Cahill: right. Yeah. So that's, that's another aspect, right? Is a lot of the people that we're recruiting and bringing on have not operated within this model as well. So it's training them. And in fact, again, it's empowering them to, really satisfy their client's needs and go above and beyond because there's, there's not that barrier, you know, we have that framework to work within. We are going to be our client's biggest advocate and they're trusting us to take care of their landscape. And if that means they need a service to treat a fungus, that's going to go ahead and wipe out their St. Augustine lawn. We're going to take care of it. And we're going to tell you in our contract beforehand, like we're going to take care of this. You know, [00:12:00] otherwise, if I've got to call you, we're talking about replacement. That's a lot more expensive. So we have had all those responses from clients on me. A lot of it has been a, well, let's see how that goes. And, it's been very, very successful so far. Tommy Cole: I love it. I love it. So if a client calls in or referral comes in, there's probably. I don't know what you guys call it, but maybe an intake form or a question or something to say, is this our ideal client that we always talk about? Tell me about that. I'm sure you have something similar to Kyle Cahill: Yeah, absolutely. So anytime that we have an inquiry come across typically it's referral or just seeing our work It always starts off with that phone call because what we want to explain to them is who we are, what kind of a service that we provide, and if you're going to find value in the service that we provide. If you are looking for that, flat rate every month, and somebody to mo blow and come in. That's, that's not going to be for us. If you want that relationship, [00:13:00] if you want that high touch when you find value in that and you find value in a team that knows what they're doing, that shows up when they say they're going to show up, that's important to you, then, then we're going to be the firm, you know, to continue this conversation with. And then at, at that same conversation, we talk about the TNM model, what that looks like and what that means. Because at no time do we want to surprise a client when we put a contract down and say, Oh, by the way, it's tfm. We never want to surprise them Tommy Cole: so true. So How to collect from Clients Tommy Cole: also now we talked about the front end, the expectation, maintaining the property, the install, but I know people are asking, but what about the back end? Like who's collecting all the data to invoice it quick enough to keep cash flow and all that, is that an intense process or you guys have that sort of dialed in that's got to be decent Kyle Cahill: Yeah, we've got, Tommy Cole: curve. Kyle Cahill: we've gotten better. It is still [00:14:00] something. So when we went to six years ago, when I was implementing an operation software, I really had to find something that was not going to let anything hide. Right? So what I mean by that is you can't bury costs. Like if we purchased something, it's the software is telling you where does this cost go? Where does this cost go? Where do these man hours go? We have learned a lot over the years and we've made a lot of mistakes and we've made those mistakes to where Hey, we we tell the client up front. This is tnm But also right if you don't communicate with the client that you are going over budget Well, you got to put yourself in the client's shoes You need to prepare clients that you're spending their money as opposed to just on the back end saying well We told you it was tnm No, we have to have a trust relationship with our clients So we have learned the hard way and we have implemented systems and processes going forward where it's like hey team We know this is new for everybody but just because we say it's tnn doesn't mean you can just do whatever [00:15:00] it hasn't been terrible But we've we've gotten our butts kicked a couple times and had to eat crow and say hey We're going to stand behind this. We should have told you we'll do better next time and then we learn from it and move on. Tommy Cole: Communication is key in any business. Kyle Cahill: Yes, Tommy Cole: Especially landscaping and service industry, especially time and materials, because you can't use TNM as an excuse Kyle Cahill: no. Tommy Cole: to go spend money. So now you're more cautious to the client. Cause I go, yeah, we've got to communicate. Cause I know what's going to happen. If I just get an invoice and send it, they're going to ask questions. Kyle Cahill: Correct. Tommy Cole: you're really having to be methodical and think about that and communicate it because you know, it's going to come with the, you don't Kyle Cahill: Well, and Tommy, I think one important thing to keep in mind too is that really in a contracted business too, right? Say you had two hours at the Smith residence. Well, if, if you're on the high end, high touch client, if they ask you to spend 30 more minutes, typically that garden manager is going to accommodate a client [00:16:00] request. How many times does that 30 minutes get added to that work team doesn't it doesn't and so, Really what I find is that's where I keep saying it's fair to the client It's fair to the contractor because we will absolutely do that for you understand you add time it adds costs. We're going to build that so it has helped with communication a ton And as a matter of fact, it puts the onus more so on that garden manager to make sure they are communicating Tommy Cole: Yes. Kyle Cahill: They know, oh, additional costs are coming. I better let my client know because at Grown Company, we will invoice that. you know, or I'm going to be asked what happened here. Yeah. Tommy Cole: You got to provide an explanation love it the next topic Kyle would love to discuss this is an interesting one I love it a lot. I follow you on social media I listen to you all the time on other you know Presentations and you've done some other podcasts that you're a guest on and I'm watching you behind the scenes as I do all of my [00:17:00] Clients I talk with and meet with every year and every month And I also just watch, I watch and observe what goes on, good, bad, ugly. what are master garndeners Tommy Cole: And what I've observed over time with Grow Co is this thing that I'm going to call it master gardeners. And I love the fact that you're putting so much time and effort into this, because this is essentially a career. It's not mow and blow as fast as you can to make a quick buck. You are literally like professional organization, no different than The NFL football team, no different than a law firm, none of that. And you're, you're sustainable. You take your time. You do the right thing. You're loyal to your soil. Explain that am I right on the right page of where we're going? Because that's what I see from the outside looking in. Kyle Cahill: No, that's a, I'm glad that that's something you see because It's working, So the message is getting across. We want to be. The value in hiring a growing company is our knowledge and [00:18:00] our specialization and our experience. You know, I consider all of our front line to be true trades people, right? They know their craft. They get on a pair of hedge pruners and the way that they are shaping a hedge it's a work of art, you know, and and as you know Promoting from within and having that knowledge work its way up into the management part of the business We really want people to be, excited about horticulture and what we do because that's what our clients are really looking to us for is really being experts in that. And the level of gardens and landscapes that we work in requires that of us as well. Now, we don't know everything and we're learning and that's why we have continuous education. And we trained from within, but that's really important to us. And it's really, really essential for your success working here at Grown Company and the whole, the be loyal to your soil. You know, that was something that, we came [00:19:00] up with and. Actually trademarked it because I loved it so much, Tommy Cole: there you go. Kyle Cahill: That it worked on a lot of levels, right? From the sustainable standpoint, be loyal to your soil. I mean, a lot of the research, a lot of the implementations of big, large landscape projects, it's all about what's going on in the soil, the microbiology, having it be alive because you can't, you, you plant a 1 plant in a 5 hole. That's the slogan. That's what we like to say. So it's from the actual soil, but be loyal to your soil in terms of our community, our company, like we're loyal to each other on the ground that we stand on. You know, we're loyal in that respect as well. So Tommy Cole: Well, it's an attraction. If I'm, if I'm in high school, looking to get into the landscape world, I'm attracted to Grow Co for that reason, because it's an absolute career to come in. You can come in from the ground up and work your way and be very, very, very trained and mentored along the [00:20:00] way as this is a professional career, which we should all take that extremely seriously. I, I hate the word, you know, slamming shrubs in the ground and mow and blow all these terms that are sort of thrown out there in our, our industry. And I think what you're doing, and I know what you're doing is you're, putting this up on a pedestal. That's something that you can set your career on and be there forever. And so you're attracting those types of people. into your organization, which is great. Kyle Cahill: okay. Yeah. Tommy Cole: this is a weird one. You ready for this Kyle? This is a great. So we're, we're talking about culture a lot of times and everyone's got a good, everyone's got a culture. Period. End of story. Just depends on what side of the spectrum your culture is. The Four day work week Tommy Cole: The good, the bad, in between, I'm not sure. Depending on the day that I wake up on the wrong side of the bed, that's our culture. You made an interesting, announcement to your team, I think about a year ago, this time last year, roughly, and I witnessed it. And I said, Ooh, that's an interesting one. There's this [00:21:00] thing called the four day work week, nine 80 schedule. Kyle Cahill: Yes. Tommy Cole: You got to tell me what your thoughts behind all this, what is it? And how was the outcome? Kyle Cahill: Sure. So you are correct. We implemented this about a year ago and we trialed it. We told the entire team this 980 schedule. We're going to try it for three months. If we see that it is negatively impacting our ability to generate revenue, our profitability, just the culture in general, then it's going away. But this is important. And here's why it's important. Tommy, you know, from our early days in working in this industry it can be daunting. You can burn out. You've got ups and downs, especially in construction. When it's crazy busy, it's crazy busy. And looking at how the world and people in general are [00:22:00] evolving, I wanted to make sure that we were staying on the forefront of that while we were young as a company. The 980 schedule came out of a conversation with our leadership team about trying to address that. How are we going to address the potential for team members to be overworked? How do we create a culture and an environment where we support the family and we support the life outside of work? I don't like the term work life balance because I don't necessarily buy into the the meaning behind that. I always like to say work life integration because when you are working you are also living. If your wife calls you, you're going to call her back on a workday, right? We aren't just shutting it off and turning it on. We are integrating our work in our life. That's just, if we got to be honest with ourselves about that. Tommy Cole: it. Kyle Cahill: And then, so the 980 schedule came from actually our controller. Her husband works at Shelly and they run off a 980 schedule. So I was like, tell me more. So 980 stands for over a nine [00:23:00] day period. So a typical work week, Monday through Friday, five days. So over nine days, so one week is five days. The next week is four. You work 80 hours. So that gives you one day off every other week. We have decided to give Monday off every other week. So we have two teams. So there was, we had to really figure this out because we're a high end residential company. We need to be able to our clients. We can't just say, Hey, we're closed. Right? Okay. We're not there to help you. We have to always have somebody on call. So we have two teams, blue and white. That's our company colors. We have a team blue. We have a team white. Your counterpart. Is off on that day. So for example, you know, you can't have all garden managers off We have four garden managers two off two on on those mondays that we can handle calls and get responses So what that equates to was an additional 26 days off Tommy Cole: okay. Kyle Cahill: per client. This is middle management You know salaried employees that get this an additional [00:24:00] 26 days off per year Almost a month, no cut in pay and establishing that three day or that, yeah, that three day weekend every other week. For me personally, I partake in this, it has been incredible. I mean, heck, my birthday was on Monday and it was. Tommy Cole: birthday, by the way. Kyle Cahill: Thank you. It was my day off. So I was like, Hey, this is great. I'm not working on my brain. Tommy Cole: year, your day off will be on Tuesdays, right? Like, Kyle Cahill: Yeah. Tommy Cole: you'll switch it. Kyle Cahill: But it has been extremely, extremely impactful and I'm, I'm excited as we continue to develop it because I do feel like it's an additional recruiting tool that we offer that we are understanding that we are ahead of the curve. That we know how to manage it in this respect. And so it, it's been successful so far. You know, it's, it's, we're about to wrap up year one, and I, I feel like the, the feedback we've gotten from the team has been, has been wonderful. So that's how that came about, [00:25:00] and, and I, I'm excited to continue on. Tommy Cole: You know, burnout is real in this industry. It is so real. We're compared to construction. Landscape, I've always said this for years, is really one of the toughest professions to get in because it demands so much 12 months a year. Kyle Cahill: Yep. Tommy Cole: There's really no off season. You know, it's every day, and you're battling weather you know, training, the labor force, materials, sensitive materials, deliveries, everything you could ever imagine is thrown in your face. Other trades. And it's just like, we keep going and going and going, but the beat down is pretty real in our industry. And there's a high turnover ratio in that. So I love, I love the fact that you've figured out a way to say, here's a few extra days off. Here's a good amount of extra days off, but make sure you put in the work. Right. So you're not sacrificing your client's time and the business's time. You're still putting it, but you're [00:26:00] making sure that you're, you're forcing people take the PTO Kyle Cahill: correct, and I'll tell you one unintended consequence that we've learned from this that I was not planning on Was when you have your Monday off, you don't want to be bothered So you are preparing and you are communicating so that you are not bothered So I find that people are actually the team members are actually communicating and preparing better So that they don't have to bother their counterpart when they're off Tommy Cole: Yes. Kyle Cahill: know, it's kind of like you scratch my back. I'll scratch yours. Tommy Cole: Yes. Kyle Cahill: if anything comes up I'm going to take care of it for you, but make sure you've got all your stuff in order So i'm not picking up the pieces. Tommy Cole: Yeah. Very team oriented. Right. So if someone was to leave. You could observe that or handle the issues, but you could also get it from a different manager's perspective. But if you had to go meet or resolve a problem, you know, Hey, I had to deal with this, you know, this is what I saw on the property and this is what I'm seeing in the [00:27:00] communication. You can kind of feed off of each other. Very team oriented dynamic in that, that aspect. Love it. So let me ask you this, what happens to PTO? Kyle Cahill: so that remains the same Tommy Cole: Okay, Kyle Cahill: that that all remains the same so our pto, program So this yes, you know you reference pto. This is not considered pto. This is just schedule Tommy Cole: it's very interesting. Is anyone else doing the same thing? Is that Kyle Cahill: I mean other company. I don't know. Tommy Cole: Shale? Kyle Cahill: Yeah, I don't know about landscape firms and i'm sure there are I just, you know, I don't know of them. I think maybe in the South, because to your point, like in landscaping in the South, it doesn't stop. Tommy Cole: Never. Kyle Cahill: no snow season. It's just, there's hurricane season. But, so I don't know if I'm in the South. Tommy Cole: Good stuff. Good stuff. When to aquire a new facility Tommy Cole: All right, next big topic. This thing called a facility. Everyone's doing it. Oh my [00:28:00] gosh. I have heard it. I'm gonna build a new facility, Tommy. I'm cash strapped. What do I do? Is it a two bay? Is it a three bay? Do I cover the vehicles? Do I not? How much office space, it's too small, it's too big, drainage, I mean, it is like Kyle Cahill: Mm hmm. Tommy Cole: And we're not even, we're not even good at that. We good. We're good at doing the landscape, let alone being the owner of a general contractor building, you know, something that you can envision. It's hard. Tell me about what you've done there. I think there's some good attributes to that very sustainable, Kyle Cahill: yeah, Tommy Cole: eco friendly type building, but tell me some of the lessons learned so our audience can understand and maybe get a few nuggets out of this. Kyle Cahill: right. So, I mean, first things first is the location. So, I spent about two years finding the right piece of property. Because it had to be of size, I had to have a certain size, had to be affordable, and it had to have the right location in terms of [00:29:00] getting to our job site. Because going to our TMM, all of our drive time is billed to the clients. And so it was my responsibility to find a piece of property that wasn't going to double that And still have quick access to our clients. So I think Looking back at it. There's two main things I would have done one the bank told me the next time I do this hire a general contractor. Don't do so Spend the extra money. To have somebody be your general contractor on this We all, business owners, think that we can do it all ourselves, and hey, we contract these big construction landscape projects, I can do my own. You can, but you don't have the time to do that. And that's the wrong place to have your focus. Tommy Cole: So focus on the business, right? And manage the, the, Kyle Cahill: Yes, Tommy Cole: team to build it. Kyle Cahill: correct. So I would, that would be my priority. Like I would redo that. Because it burned [00:30:00] me out. By the time we moved in, I needed a break and, and, it burned me out. And then the second is hire movers to move you. Tommy Cole: Ah, Kyle Cahill: Your team does not need to be moving of anything other than their stuff on their desk. And that goes for the frontline team and your management team. You know, we, we all like to think, okay, I have, we have all of these employees that can, we don't have to pay to move. Well, when I look at, okay, what it costs me 5, 000 to hire movers to get us all over here versus how much I spent in our own labor and missed opportunity. It was stupid. So I would say those two things, get a general contractor, hire movers, focus on the business and keep the business going. Tommy Cole: love it. So tell me about the building and the layout Kyle Cahill: Yeah, Tommy Cole: and the, land, Kyle Cahill: yeah, Tommy Cole: little more detail on that. Kyle Cahill: sure. So, we have a master plan for [00:31:00] the facility. Currently we have four buildings planned, and, Now that we've moved in, it's great because I'm glad I didn't build them all at once Tommy Cole: Yeah, well, that's, that's interesting, Kyle, because you, you're taking it like a phase by phase. So like live in it, it, smell it, understand it, Kyle Cahill: Right. Tommy Cole: another building. Kyle Cahill: Yes. Tommy Cole: okay. Kyle Cahill: Yep. And so that's one of the biggest things is that had I just gone whole hog and built everything I thought I needed, I would have way overbuilt and been out a lot more capital than we currently are. And now that we've lived in it now for a year. It's completely changed. I need one other building for office and then we need to build focus more on our shop and expanding that out so We had the the capabilities to be able to move into basically a smaller footprint and see how we live in it and build from there. So You know our property we've moved from [00:32:00] like an acre and a half to three acres And really as we're developing the campus, this is kind of fun. You a lot of our native and sustainably and regionally appropriate plant material, about half of our lot is unused. And so we are treating that as, you know, native coastal prairie here in Houston and seeing what's coming up. We're identifying plant material we're knocking out invasives. We're trying to see how we can implement this. In a residential setting so that we can start, you know, our mission is how do we, how do we reduce the coverage of, of lawns in the landscape and the residential? What are we supplementing that with? How can we be the leader in our market to do that? Because if somebody wants to do that, they're going to call their own company. And then how do we get clients and potential clients out to our facility to see what we need to see how we can do it and also make it a great place for. For the employees to [00:33:00] work and have it be aesthetically pleasing. We're building a we just finished the design of what's grown co fields. So we're going to have a community garden. That we all partake in and we all grow from the frontline to the management and we get to take home fresh produce. But that's also something you could, you could pick some produce and bring it to your client. Organically grown you know, just kind of have that whole approach to what we do. It just goes back to like, we are horticulture nerds. That's what we love. Tommy Cole: Yeah, yeah, that's that. That's great. So the next couple of buildings are going to be based off of what your need is along with a learning and growing development. That's what we talked about earlier was just the sustainability, you know, take your time, understand the horticulture side of the business, a big training ground for your employees, onboarding two new team members about the importance of this facility. [00:34:00] It's not just. About asphalt and, and, and four walls and a roof and you go crazy. Right? So, yeah. And the idea, tell me about the experience of bringing a client there. What's your vision? Is something more of like a design build client maintenance thing to show and tell and understand, maybe get to know the feeling of the team, but that's very impressive. Kyle Cahill: Yeah, so typically the clients that we invite out here are going to be more of our design build type of clients. And, you know, we have a design area of our building. We have our conference room. And we can show them when we're talking about, hey, we want to implement some native areas. of your landscape, some raised planters, some more native type of plant materials. I mean, we have complete pollinator beds that are planted out here. And seeing the different textures and the insects that live within those and really get clients excited on the front end. Because a lot of times they hear that and they think just sticks and weeds. You know but it's, it's really [00:35:00] not and we can show them that tangibly rather than just tell them that it's important. Tommy Cole: So tell me about your three daughters. I think I'm just going to run the ship when you go away. Kyle Cahill: Hopefully, hopefully Tommy Cole: You're involved with them a lot. I love to see the videos and the footage of the pollinators and the Kyle Cahill: Yeah. Tommy Cole: and Getting the Family involved Tommy Cole: the, it's the community action with the kids, not just your kids, but all the family's kids, right? And everyone just being involved. It truly is a little, you know, community within a community. Kyle Cahill: Yeah. So I have three daughters Annie, Olivia, and Amelie, and they have two, five, and seven. And, of course they're inspiring to me and I want them to be really involved as much as they can in the fun part of the business right now, which is that gardening, which is the pollinator, which are the pollinators. And we started this publication called Grown Co. Kids. It's a quarterly mailer, you know, that they're a big part of in terms of, what kind of content do we want to put in this mailer? And [00:36:00] we send it out to all of our clients, kids, grandkids. For free as part of them being a client of Grown Company and it's, it's coloring pages. It's, it's word searches, but it's also teaching them. So we've had our spring and our summer go out focusing on pollinators, focusing on Texas wildflowers because we want, our mission is to get the kids outside. Go outside, go look at this stuff, go find these things. There's native areas and parks around Houston to really get out and explore. So we're trying to encourage that next generation, to be interested in the green industry and what it is we can offer so that in 15 years we have more people interested in what we're doing so that we can all benefit and grow our businesses. Tommy Cole: Love it. Love it. Wow. There's so many takeaways. I think we'll have to have another episode of just the Tommy's takeaways, but I'm going to try to do my best to sort of condense [00:37:00] this, the Tommy takeaways. are fascinating. I have a bunch of circles on this. We talked about TNM success. You sort of set the bar pretty high, unintentionally because you acquired the business. But my takeaway is Is we operate on budgets and invoice on actuals. Love it. You, you have a specific defined client and when they call in or get a referral, you're sort of sort of kind of figuring out if they're the right person and the right client. You have a sort of intake form you go through and my biggest thing is communicating about the budget on the front end. I love it. So if you're going to go to the TNM route. Those are some really good nuggets for your business. Kyle Cahill: Yeah. Tommy Cole: I love the fact that you've defined your team. It's no different in football and baseball and sports and businesses, whatever you say, like what defines you, you're, you guys are defined as [00:38:00] master gardeners, horticulturists professionals in the, in the landscape industry, because you, you know, I'm looking at a picture of your team, rather old. So you need a new one, Kyle. So heads up, very uniformed, very family environment. Very accountable team. They love their job. I love the loyal to your soil. You're all about the traits people. You're all about growing within. That's what creates the whole master gardening. The four day work week is unbelievable. I love it. God, I think I need to integrate that into my business. Seriously, that I could use an extra day to make a doctor's appointment or, or you know, go mow some grass for a couple hours and get my mind off things. But I love it because you have this great culture that you're committed to your team and you're figuring out a ways of not to be. Burned out in the landscape industry. So my, my tuition is figure out ways to become creative and inviting as an [00:39:00] organization, because it's, it's, it's tough. The new office, you've learned everything, all the what not to do's but I love the fact that you are building this in phases and more of a compound community type atmosphere, sort of live and learn it a little bit. and. You'll be cognizant of your time and your money spent on that because you're understanding it versus looking in the back and go, I should have done this. Great takeaways. Kyle, always look for some last minute advice from our hosts. I love the fact that I just love to work hard and put and grind and love what you do and your passion. That's why we're both sitting here today. What do you live and die by? Any sort of last minute suggestions and advice for audience? Love Kyle Cahill: I have a lot of it. But I would say, one of the biggest things that here recently is that it takes time to build something great. It doesn't happen overnight and it's incremental and you have to look for those [00:40:00] little wins. And you have to build on those little wins, build a strong foundation. And by the time you, you know it you'll be doing something great but build one step at a time. One step at a time. Tommy Cole: it. It's a marathon. It's a journey. You're not going to figure it out day one. Don't get, don't overthink it. I learned something new the other day and it's done versus perfection. Kyle Cahill: Yep, Tommy Cole: Just, just got to get it done, right? It doesn't have to be perfect. You're going to live and learn at the end of the day. Man, Kyle, it's been great. We've got a lot of history together. I'll never forget our tiny little office with five project managers. You and I were awesome, you know, just pounding it hard. And. We'd sneak in a water burger every now and then. Fast food. I think those days are long gone for me and you, especially your family. Those days are long gone, but we had Kyle Cahill: John's, it was Jimmy. John's Tommy Cole: at Jimmy John's around the corner. You would grab it Kyle Cahill: yep, Tommy Cole: super freaky fast, right? Because you didn't, you had no time to eat lunch. It was Kyle Cahill: No, we Tommy Cole: the [00:41:00] go. Yeah. Kyle Cahill: to do. Tommy Cole: Good stuff, Kyle. It's been a pleasure. We're gonna have to do this again. Maybe like a yearly Grow Co update. Kyle Cahill: Yeah, Tommy Cole: would be kind of fun. And we'll go from there. Kyle Cahill: Alright, Tommy, it was great catching up with you buddy. Tommy Cole: Thank you. 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.