Ep 047 – People First Philosophy: The Secret behind EMI Landscape’s Growth

Bob Marks 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 another episode of Root Success Podcast and I'm your host Tommy Cole and boy, we've got another great exciting guest today. I've got my really good friend for the last few years. We have sort of, man, we've done a lot together. We've been a lot of peer groups and travel and Probably some fun times in the past of celebrating some of our wins together. It's my good friend, Bob Marks from EMI Landscape out there in the great state of PA. How are you doing, Bob? Bob Marks: I'm doing well, Tommy. Thanks so much for having me. How are you doing? Tommy Cole: I'm doing great. I'm doing great. This is a long time overdue. I've got a lot of respect for this guy. He is, he is a much of a doer. When we, when we meet, we get together and he's like, just tell me how it [00:01:00] is. Let's get things done and let's go. Let's drive. Let's go. Let's go. And. I think that's why we've both hit it off so well. So welcome to the show. He he's going to give us a lot of good points. He is a commercial landscape. Company lot, almost all commercial related maintenance, but also a gigantic part of his business is the white stuff called snow. So he's honestly our snowman in our peer groups. And he has, he's had a lot of life lessons along the way and probably messed up a lot of things, but he's gonna share those experience with us today. And we're super excited. The start of EMI Landscaping Tommy Cole: Bob, here we go. How did EMI get started? Give us a little bit of a background, what the latest is and, and, and how do you got to where we are now, Bob Marks: Yeah. So I am the, I'm second generation. So EMI was started actually the year I was born by. But my stepdad, so he was in construction built his own first house and then got laid off from construction and said, what am I going to do? So started a landscape [00:02:00] company doing just about anything residential, whatever he could get his hands on, grew the company. And then my mom joined the company and she did everything from the books. Invoicing customer relations, picking up trash on sites. And then I worked at the business in high school. So worked there in high school, went away for a few years, became a automotive mechanic for Audi, worked at Audi for a while. And then the business drew me back in. So in 2009. Moved back to Pennsylvania and we were a company of seven people. So we were seven people and Ed and I were leading two teams. There was six of us in the field with, with my mom in the office. And that was the whole company. And that was 2009. And I think the turning point was probably 2015. We started hitting some growth. Ed was very much the execution part of the business. He taught me a lot about how to do a. How to run an efficient job site. And then I was lucky to have [00:03:00] him on one side of me and Cindy, my mom, the relationship side, and I learned from the two of them and I slowly became, as they put a little bit more of the face of the business, I was dealing with the clients, more dealing with vendors. And then Ed and I came to agreement and I purchased the company on January 4th, 2021. So I became sole owner in 2021 and I've been learning a few things since that point. Tommy Cole: So it's been smooth sailing since 2021. Like, no, nothing's been going on. It's been easy breezy, right? Bob Marks: I mean, I figured we're in the middle of a, of a pandemic. I should just buy the family business and go from there. That was the plan. Tommy Cole: Yeah. We love to take risks. I get it. Why Bob wanted to lead EMI Tommy Cole: So what, what drew you to, to this? What, what drew you your interest to? Sort of take over the family business and and sort of not change things up But just maybe run a little bit differently or or grow this business to what you know your stepdad I'm sure did a phenomenal [00:04:00] job, you know probably got it to a certain point, but you you wanted to take over What's the reason behind that? Bob Marks: Well, to touch on that, what, what Ed did, my stepdad, I, I don't think I could have achieved what he did. We are very different people. And I think. That's why the two of us ended up being successful and therefore EMI being successful, that he, he was able to, to grind those early entrepreneur days and see what was the future when there was nothing to look towards. So, and then as we grew, I think the people part of it comes a little more naturally to me. And it was it was almost a natural time to hand off when we got to a point of. 30 employees, 40 employees. It wasn't, it wasn't what he wanted. So, so that kind of worked out well, but what really drew me to it, Tommy, and I don't think I've been able to articulate this until recently is I don't know what it is about me, but I guess I'm a, in some ways, I'm a people pleaser. I'm very much. I want to make sure our clients are successful and it's not that I'm such a great guy and all I care about is other people. I'm [00:05:00] not sure. I think just ingrained from my mom in the business that like I have this innate desire that we're going to be successful because our clients are so well taken care of. And when I got to come back to the business and see us do the level of work we could accomplish that almost no one else in our area could do. One, we were super efficient. I would look back at the end of a. You know, 14 hour day landscaping and what the six of us accomplished in the field was just incredible, let alone the work was top notch. And when I could see what, what we could accomplish and then the results of happy clients and the growth from that I think that was my, my launching point of like, I get the satisfaction of a job well done. And then also. Our clients are happy who want to give us more. It just, it just spiraled from there. Spiraled up. Tommy Cole: Yeah took off like like crazy. That's great You got to give the mad respect to the stepdad and mom to sort of lay the foundation. I mean, that's, that's the most difficult part is just [00:06:00] getting started with some sort of a brand, some sort of just operations. Executing on jobs on maintenance properties, executing on billing, and just be profitable like that, you know, for you to jump in and kind of watch and observe. I think you owe all them the amount of respect. So, so great to them. Wht happens when you lose a major revenue stream? Tommy Cole: Let's talk about something that's really interesting. A few years ago, speaking 2021, right? I feel like it was a. What about the next year, maybe the year that next year, I felt like it's something happened where the winter a couple of years ago, the white stuff did not fall from the sky. And you were thinking, Bob Marks: no winter Tommy. There was no Tommy Cole: yeah, you're thinking, Oh crap. Like we are business. Your business is. Pretty heavily involved in snow contracts, snow plowing, et cetera. And I remember some calls back in the day where it was like, we got no revenue. I got guys standing around. I don't, I'm not sure what to do. And so it led you along to a path. Now [00:07:00] you ended up being okay, but what, what drove you to figure some things out along the way in case the snow doesn't come Bob Marks: I mean, I learned so much. So when I, you know, when I purchased a company, I thought I learned a couple of things in 2021 because. The first month I owned the company, we just, we didn't have any snow in January. And I'm like, Oh, this is what it's like not to have a lot of cashflow. And then February, 2021, we had a ton of snow. And then I felt like what it was like to be cash strapped. When we put out a lot of money to execute, then the money rolled in. I'm like, okay, this is actually pretty easy. You know, you go the next winter, we, we average about 35 inches of snow a year. And we ended up anywhere between four and seven inches of snow and never actually plowing any snow. So we went from a company, we were eight and a half million in revenue. In 22 and in 23, we dropped over 2 million in revenue because of the lack of snow and our overhead had built up to support an 8 million company. So I learned more that year. And I know the [00:08:00] conversations we had was basically, we need to sell the heck out of some landscape enhancements. You know, we're a, we're a landscape maintenance contract. We're not doing new construction, but we've got clients that are willing to improve the look of their building. And we, We always just took it for granted that yeah, there's some revenue there when it comes around and we'll do it and they need something we'll fix it. I knew we were going to, you know, on the balance sheet, we were going to lose easily, you know, 800, 000 that year because the lack of revenue, the overhead and the debt we carry for landscape. So Tommy Cole: It's almost like an enhancement to you as an accident. Oh, someone, they call, they want to do something. Cool. We'll take care of it. But that, that was the extent of it at that point. Bob Marks: we were just, yeah, 100 percent reactive. They needed something. Go do it. If it got hot and dry, maybe we'll go sell something because we have maintenance people. There's no grass to cut. And then that's, that was being of the transformation. Like you said, of our, of our enhancement side that We're, you know, we are now we can be better, but we're more proactive. We have, you know, percentage goals to [00:09:00] sell off of maintenance contracts. You know, how much enhancements do we want to sell off that? That none of that was there before. So, you know, the lessons I learned from that winner of no snow, carries over a lot of different ways. But one of the landscape side was definitely, you know, we're, we're leaving, we're leaving money on the table. But at the same time, we're not, we're not doing our customers any favor by. Okay. By seeing problems and not pointing it out. So yeah, we, we sold a lot more, a lot more enhancements that year, happier clients and, and a better balance sheet because of it. Tommy Cole: Yeah. I love it. So tell, tell, tell me a few more little details, Bob, because I think there's a lot of people out there listening. That might be in your same situation. They probably went through the same scenario a couple of years ago that you did What did you have to do tactical wise to provide that you you had to identify enhancements probably on property So that took some training you probably had identified your account manager people running and going this is how we look for enhancements Here's the type of work and then we need to put the proposals together And then we got to go sell it and then we got to do these the [00:10:00] ordering which All those necessary things that fast forward two years, you've got a small team that handles that, for the most part for the year round for the most Bob Marks: Right. Tommy Cole: talk about some of those technical things that you had to work on. Bob Marks: Yeah. So before we get granular, I mean, in hindsight, I knew, I knew nothing about how we needed to set it up. It was, I was the account manager being, we do industrial work. There's not as many accounts, right? We're our revenue is a, is a much. A much bigger number for the amount of accounts. So I could handle keeping our clients happy, but I didn't have the time to keep them happy, run a business and sell, you know, a million and a half worth of enhancements. So I thought the last thing I would ever give, give up as account management and. I think the lesson I'm still learning to this day is that just because I give up account management doesn't mean I give up the relationship, right? That, that was my fear. So I didn't want to give up that account management, but just because I, we have account managers now that that's one of the tactical things we did doesn't mean I'm, I'm gone. I'm still a [00:11:00] driver of those relationships. So what did we do? We, we doubled down on our software. We worked a lot harder with LMN to make sure, make sure those things were accurate, that the inputs going in were real numbers. That the gross margin we're driving for, what are actual goals there? We're building templates, you know, we're on big industrial properties. There's just lots of trees that die over time or come down. How do we estimate that quickly versus, you know, starting from scratch? So I think the big, the big difference was. You know, I think a lot of owners and, and managers will agree with this is, is letting go when you don't think you can and we've got, you know, we now have two account managers, Katie and Kendra they're both great Kendra's new and she's hitting the ground running, but letting, letting other people do those tactical things of monitoring the site monthly, right? We have site inspection forms. So we kind of, we have two different ones. We've got one for internal that goes to our maintenance supervisors. Okay. And they're grading, you know, they're grading the work that's done where account managers, they don't [00:12:00] have that form because if they're on the site and they see our work is bad, they're throwing up the red flag. They're, they're, they don't need to fill out that form because if there's a problem, you know, which luckily doesn't happen too often, they're just. Shooting a flare up in the sky and we're going to fix it. But as they're on site saying, you know, besides what we can do, Tommy, we look for everything. We don't do parking lot striping. Do our clients need it? Because that's an, you know, my, my sale philosophy, which I struggled to communicate once again, and I I've learned more is that like, we just want to give to our clients to such a level that they're going to give back to us with us. Never asking. And it has to be that, that truly altruistic that you're giving to them because you want to do a good job. And by having that philosophy, we give to them 365 days a year, you know? So on day three 65, when we say, you've got these dying trees, you need this work done. They're not going to anyone else, but say, EMI, of course, we take care of them every day. They, they, they want us to fix it. They don't want to go look for another price. They don't want to, they don't want to see if someone else will do it cheaper [00:13:00] or, or a different design. So. You know, I think, you know, tactical, I've been so tactical my whole life. And, and as I, as I'm managing people more and more, there is a little bit more of that soft scale side and it's, it's the, why, like, why do we, why do we treat our clients so well? And, and what does that really mean? I think that was able to, that enabled us to, to tap into our clients. Needs Tommy Cole: Yeah, Bob Marks: once that made selling that work a lot easier. Tommy Cole: yeah, that's the ability to, to, to have the trust of the client to kind of to go spend their money and the more often we're the professionals at the end of the day. So it's our recommendation of what they need to be done to the property to keep the enhancements, not just the bare basics of cutting grass every day. There's a lot of other things. And so when you provide value and they trust that equals. Right. A great relationship and you get to make money along the way. So, so service the client to the full extent. It's kind of like we do everything but the four walls and the roof, everything outside that we'll take care of at some point. Right. And then you've got [00:14:00] a customer for life and that's the reason why we do this as the customer for life. Yep. Yeah, I agree. Snow Revenue Tommy Cole: All right. So let's talk about the most juicy topic on hand and that's snow, baby. Like, no man, this, this is, this is the juicy part. So you do millions of dollars of revenue in snow. And, and far as I'm concerned, you're one of our biggest snow clients to this day, which is great. I love to learn a lot of stuff, but it was not always that way. So give us a little background of like plowing snow. Where you have been and what it was like back in the day to what it is now. Bob Marks: Yeah. I mean, way back in the day, we EMI left snow removal when we got hit with a massive blizzard back in the early to mid nineties. I was a little young to be out there at that time. But I, I don't remember the exact snowfall total, but you know, between 30 to 40 inches of snow when one, you know, everything was shut down and EMI, we did not have the equipment to handle that. So we were begging construction companies to bring equipment out and [00:15:00] bail us out. And we lost a lot of money. We lost money because of what they charged us. We couldn't turn around and, and pass it on to clients. And we left the snow removal industry for a few years. And we vowed that when we came back in. We'd be ready for anything. So when Ed came back in, you know, we, we plow with heavy equipment and we jump back in with full size loaders with big push boxes, and that was not the norm. At least in our area, push boxes were somewhat new. They didn't gain a lot of traction. I think until late nineties, early two thousands. And when 16 foot wide push box. were confused of what, what even, What is this Um, Tommy Cole: piece of machinery? Right. Bob Marks: and, and honestly we had, we had competitors unhappy with us because so many people wanted to do work based off time and material. They thought we were going to kill the industry. Well, I don't like doing anything based off time and material. We're doing it. We're getting paid for results. If we can get it done faster, it doesn't mean [00:16:00] you should pay me less. You should pay me more if I'm getting it done faster because you're open and operational even better. So we, we thought we were ahead of the game with snow contracts that way. You know, by going to a more per inch model. So when we jump back in heavy equipment, you know, front articulating front end loaders, compact loaders, skid steers. And, and we're fine. We're pretty good at this, and we're in a great, geographic location for it. I mean, we're in the Lehigh Valley, Eastern Pennsylvania, and everywhere you turn, there's another industrial building going up, and that's what we do. We're 100 percent commercial, and we're 95 percent industrial snow removal. So we manage 30 million square feet of pavement, and things have definitely changed along the way from when we jump back in. But I still, cool. I still use the same joke and my team's probably sick of hearing it. But when I started back in snow removal, when I came back to the company, even in 2009, it felt like the most important tool for the Chuck in a truck snowplow guy was a six pack of beer and a center console. Like it was that nonchalant, that disorganized of [00:17:00] an industry that you know, it's like, you just got your old pickup truck and put a plow on. To now, you know, Tommy, I don't, I don't think we have three hours for me to talk to nerd out about snow, about all the technology and the advancements in the industry, but it's, it's advanced so much in the past five, 10 years that it's almost not recognizable to what it was. When I came back in 2009, Tommy Cole: Yeah. They always say you, you manage the large snow contracts, the, the large square footage, the large pavement and what matters to you most. It's kind of like EMI's tagline is service matters. Right. I love this. This is great. But the cost of that business not producing work or the trucks getting in and out of those facilities. Is what kind of money that that is? And so your job is to go in there and you've got great nice healthy clients and what they expect during a snowstorm They expect for you to perform and provide that service No matter what so you have to be [00:18:00] geared up at get at all times Bob Marks: for sure. Tommy to touch on that. I mean, we've been told by certain clients that they had certain requests and I just had to be upfront with them saying like, that is, that is going to cost you a lot of money. And their response is nothing's going to cost us more than if we have to shut down this assembly line, or if our, if our delivery trucks can't get out, that costs them more than, than I'm ever going to charge them. Now we're in a competitive market. So, you know, price absolutely matters. I have to be realistic, but if we're doing. If we're doing the job to the top level for a place that wants to stay open, no matter what price is secondary. Ideal Client Profile Bob Marks: Absolutely. And we really found that our, our business model for snow and our price net goes along with it doesn't fit for the clients that don't want that. If they just want to be open Monday through Friday from 9 to 5, and if it snows a bunch, they'll close. They don't want the dedicated equipment that we're providing them. Our price is going to be too high and that's fair enough. If they don't need it, they don't want our service, but we're set up for that client. You know, the [00:19:00] phrase that's really taken our industry by storm is critical infrastructure. That's what we have to work on. If it's not critical infrastructure, if it doesn't matter, if it stays open, EMI is not a fit for it. And we've learned that really, Tommy Cole: I love it, Bob, because you had identified the ideal client profile, that ICP that we always talk about. You've defined it perfectly, like we are that critical client that has to stay open 24 hours a day or whatever. And there's no days off in that industry. Well, if those, you know, 150 trucks don't get out the gate, we're in big trouble. Because we have hundreds of people's, you know, demands on the line to get. to move forward. That is, that's, that's amazing. How to plan around volitle services Tommy Cole: I will tell you this, speak a little bit about this, this snow, the type of snow business is almost a year round type session. You may not be plowing snow, but I'd be damn Bob, you're planning way in advance, like a long time for this because I feel like it's in a lot of our [00:20:00] conversations. Tell me some of the behind the scenes that are happening. Like it's 90 degrees in the summer, what are you guys doing to prepare for this? Bob Marks: Yeah, we, we say we can take the month of May off from snow. That's about it. So Tommy Cole: 11 months on and one month Bob Marks: yeah, yeah. And I can't help but think about it year round. But yeah, there's, there's a lot, right? So, you know, there's the same stuff with landscaping. You've got contract renewals, you know, what equipment needs to be turned over. That's gotten older. But there's, like I said earlier, 1 is just the advancements in technology. You might be able to see over my shoulder. You can barely see it, but there's a few boxes back there that now we're putting up weather stations. On our client site that will stay up all year long. There are cameras or weather stations. So it really starts our year starts. We say, you know, after May we're looking at contract renewals. We're looking at what equipment worked, what didn't work, what sites worked and how we more efficiently service either. It's a route based work or do we need more or less equipment on a certain site?[00:21:00] And then from there, it's, you know, we're already looking at the year round staff. We have, you know, our year round staff does 1 of 3 jobs are either supervising, they're running a salt truck, or they're leading 1 of our sidewalk teams. And we're identifying those people when it's 90 degrees, who can do those things, they each have different challenges. You know, leading a sidewalk team is 1 of the most grueling jobs. I think almost in any industry, you're always in bad weather. It's you're working at night, you're out for long shifts. You have to be able to tolerate that while still managing some people. Then you move from there into a salt truck where our salt truck drivers are regional managers. You have to be able to manage. 1, your salt route, which, you know, an assault truck, you're using both hands. You know, you're looking in front of you behind you all over the place while also managing, you know, 2 or 3 sidewalk teams and, you know, 6 to 10 operators. And then we have our regional directors that then are managing all, you know, all our big regions. So we're identifying [00:22:00] those people. And with the growth we're having, who can move up? Do we have spots we have to fill anyway? And then we're looking at what's our growth capacity which frankly often comes down just to, to money, right? If we want to self perform snow, which we do subcontract work, we're We're, we're, you know, the term is maybe a blender where we don't get work solely looking to subcontract it out, but sometimes in our portfolio, we have buildings that don't fit in our routes or where we're at. So, you know, what, what capacity do we have to grow, you know, when we're, we're picking up a million square feet, you know, we need, we need a large loader with a hydraulic wing plow for every 10 acres, you know, and that set up, you know, the loader is going to cost you 200, 000, the plow is going to cost you 50. You know, just for 10 acres, you know, start multiplying that out. It's not, it's not a cheap game to play. So we're, we're trying to plan that out, you know, and that makes a lot of vendor relationships. We're talking, you know, we just made a big deal and we're happy to be back with. Case construction for [00:23:00] almost all of our equipment Tommy Cole: Yep. Bob Marks: that we were with them when we were early on. We straight away went to some other brands and cases made a big push to be back with the snow contractor and and we're happy to be back with them. But that deal started in March. So, yeah, it's year round and then right now, you know, we're trying to finish landscape and trying to do snow at the same time. So, you know, we've had deadlines that we've been working on since September as far as making snow site maps. Meeting meeting with clients. So we understand their needs and their wants doing the site inspections for preseason damage. We're training our operators case case came out to train. Our operators on the new equipment, our metal plus dealer train. So there's just so many different moving parts that if you don't start looking at these until the fall. You've already missed some of the deadlines we wanted to accomplish, let alone, you know, be ready if it snows in November, Tommy Cole: Right. Love it. Good stuff. How to handle sitting assets Tommy Cole: So talk about, I had experience in the dirt world where we used a lot of iron. And I was on a show the other day and it talked [00:24:00] about, you know, iron sitting, you're losing money. And I learned that the hard way of strategizing the next job site in the next piece of machine that needs to get off the job, move to the next one and get after it because when it's in transition and when it's sitting, that piece of iron is collecting dust, you're losing money. And so it's, it's, it's the least amount of time it sits. Unfortunately, snow only comes a few months a year, right? And so that piece of equipment is sitting and collecting dust for the remaining months. So it's a, what we call a sitting asset. Talk about how you handle sitting assets. Bob Marks: it is, it's the scariest part of snow removal. We know our assets are going to sit right. We can use, we can use compact loaders and skid steers on the landscaping side, but we're never going to justify, Tommy Cole: Not as much. Bob Marks: you know, we're, we're a landscape company that does, you know, 3. 5 million in landscape maintenance. You don't need a lot of heavy equipment to do landscape maintenance. With a million and a half of enhancements. [00:25:00] Like we could use a track skid steer and a compact loader. We'd be good. We have 50 plus pieces of heavy equipment. So that's telling you how much iron is sitting for nine months of the year. So I think what we found is, is a lot of it comes down to, to be a sustainable, an enduring snow company. A lot of it comes down to contract setup. We have, luckily we have really good clients that do look at us as one of their partners, right? We're not, we're not in the transactional snow removal business. They rely on us, as we said earlier, to stay open and make money. So I tap into that and explain to them that if you want. To stick with a snow contractor that's going to come in with new equipment, come in with good technology, be there every time you need it. We need to share some risk because if there's no, a lot of contracts are set up with the snow contractor taking 100 percent of the risk. There's no snow. There's no bills, right? We're not invoicing if it's not snowing. And that's not [00:26:00] sustainable, you know, with we've seen the climate change, our average snowfall still similar. We're getting less events. There's more variability, you know, that we had 1 of the least snowiest winters that we just discussed in 22 and 23. so we've gone to our clients and say, how do we share some of this risk? And. It's taken me a while to fully grasp how it is just a partnership. It's not me just going to them saying, would you be nice to me and share some risk? They, that, that doesn't make sense. What I found is that if I can get them to share some of the risk, I don't have to take as much of a profit as I would if I'm taking all the risk, right? If I'm taking risk, we're in one year, I'm going to lose money. You better believe it, Tommy. When it snows a lot, I'm making hand over fist and it didn't have to be such high highs and such low lows. So if they're going to share some risks, whether it's a seasonal contract, whether it's a tiered seasonal that they kind of pay in increments, we have some that just pay, you know, equipment almost an equipment stipend, but we [00:27:00] need to recover the cost of our assets. One way or another. So we've really looked at our clients and said, Hey, you want this service? You it's, it's almost easier with our existing clients because they know what we've done. They know what we've done for them. And when we can spell out, you know, I think I actually learned this early on. I think actually hearing Mark Bradley from LMN talk, there's times I open my books to my clients and I, I slide metaphorically, I slide a piece of paper across the table and say, here are my payments on your equipment for the next 12 months. That money I'm paying whether I plow snow or not. And if you want me to be here in three years, after a couple bad snow seasons, we got to share some of that risk. And I've been able to lower their overall cost. And it's nice that I can say, Hey, you want me to take all the risk? If we're getting 33 inches of snow, which are average, you're going to pay X. If you share some of that risk and we get 33 inches. You're going to pay X minus 15 percent or whatever that number is. And then, then they start to see why it's advantageous to have a [00:28:00] partnership. Tommy Cole: Yeah, it's not Bob Marks: on those times. Tommy Cole: way street all the time. Bob Marks: Yeah, Tommy Cole: I feel like that's, that's the old, that's the old way. Because that happened to you two years ago. Bob Marks: yeah, yeah. And, and we, at that, when I, when I took over the business, the, the seasonal type contracts, they weren't just that common in our area, which I think was a cop out on my part that didn't push it harder, but we were very low in the single digits of fixed price contracts. We're up this year. We're up to 16%. We have a goal in the next three years to be 30 percent And that'll cover our overhead that'll cover that at those assets and that that'll get us close to saying, okay, even if we have Multiple bad winners. Maybe we're losing a little bit of money, but it's not catastrophic And if we get to that point where it's 50 percent and our assets cost us somewhere between 40 and 50%, just in owning the assets, do the work, then we know we're a hundred percent covered. Worst case scenario, we put in a lot of work in breakeven, which again, nobody wants, but at least, at least we're in business next year. So we, we want those clients and, you [00:29:00] know, it filters back. We worded a bunch of different ways, the critical infrastructure. We, we say our ideal client, our property and facility managers value a partnership with our vendors and consider service first. That's what we need. And if they don't value that, Tommy, we fired a huge client going into this year because I can tell you they didn't value our partnership. And I talked to you about this and it was hard. It was one of my first big sales four years ago. It was a 1. 4 million square foot facility. And through multiple times, they've told us they don't care about us as, as a partner, where they were calling for big storm. We have a million dollars worth of assets there to plow their snow. And they said, don't worry about coming out. We don't want you to come out. We'll keep us, we'll keep us open. And if we need you, we'll let, you know, and we put in way too much work and way too much money to have us turned away at the last minute. We serviced them for the rest of the year. We came to somewhat of agreement on how to finish the year. And we let them go. And I think, [00:30:00] you know, I got advice from friends in the industry and it was time. It was, you know, they basically basically said, Bob, you're going to talk to talk. You're going to walk the walk. I wouldn't be able to look my team in the face to say, this is who we are and keep them as a client. You know, Zane is our regional manager there. He sleeps on those sites a couple of times a year, because he wants to keep them open. And if they're not going to appreciate, you know, appreciates a little soft, but if they're not going to value what we do, Tommy Cole: Right. Bob Marks: we're not going to work for him. And we moved on. Tommy Cole: Well, you got to make the hard decision and you've been putting this in its role to make those tough decisions, those tough phone calls at the end of the day. Because you're, you're not going to sit there and just plow a bunch of snow just to make a few bucks and it doesn't value your business and doesn't stand by and quite frankly, your team's going to hold you accountable to say what you say, right? And do that. I love the fact where you have snow contracts, which gives you guaranteed revenue, guaranteed goals, and the most important thing that you probably love the most is like [00:31:00] consistent employment. Why the team comes first Tommy Cole: Right. And you just said it a minute ago, you're people first. So you talked a lot at some point back in your career of people first, but now you're really putting some good bricks in place to build this house where you're like, you can be here for a while. Good, consistent revenue, good, consistent employee employment. Bob Marks: Yes. Tommy Cole: that you've been building that for a year. So kudos to you. Bob Marks: Thank you. Yeah. It's something I think is, is people ask me what I changed when I owned the business that I didn't change this. I feel like I just doubled down on who we were, you know, and it's easy to talk about, I look outside my window and not that we're all materialistic, but like there's a lot of new vehicles out there and you know, that's, it's important that to me that our people are taken care of, right? Like I want them to be able to buy a new vehicle when needed. We have people buying homes and starting families that I don't think. Our industry supported that 10, 15 years [00:32:00] ago, especially here where it was totally seasonal. When I bought the business, there was myself, my mom, my stepdad, and two other people that were kept on year round. Now we still, we still have some seasonal layoffs. But we, I think we're up to 20, 25 people. We keep on year round, no matter what. And some others get laid off for short amount of time, just until the snow starts flying, we get some revenue in, frankly, Tommy, some people are looking forward to it. We work hard. They're looking for a few weeks off, you know, let, you know, collect a little bit of unemployment, recover, see their family, but yeah, we, we put our people first you know, we do some, I think some unique things that if you're with us for three years, we're going to cover your health insurance, a hundred percent. You're part of, you know, you're part of the family for, for a lack of a, a lack of a better term that if you've been here for three years in our industry, you you've been through the ups and downs. Like you're, you're one of us. Like I don't health insurance. I don't want my people worried about, can they pay medical bills? You know, we pay 75 percent of the [00:33:00] employee after 90 days and after three years, we're going to pay 100 percent because that's the right thing to do. So, that people first is, is our driver. You know, our, our 401k program, I think is good. And, and our broker came to us for the 401k and said, Hey, you could save some money by not guaranteeing this contribution, but only matching. And I looked at it and said, wow, that would save us 25, 000 next year. And I thought about, and I thought about, and I said, no, you know, I'm sure we have some people that don't value the 401k we offer for them, but if we're providing 3 percent of their, of their salary into retirement that they'd otherwise have no retirement, I'm not taking that away from them. So. Yeah, we, we really look at that. And I think, I think it's what's allowed us to grow and, and keep our people. We've built this core group in our industry. You're going to have some turnover, right? But we're not, we're not losing people have been with us. One, once we get people in for six months, they're not going anywhere. We're not losing them to another landscape company. If we're losing people, [00:34:00] they've left the industry because. I grew up here, Tommy. You grew up in the industry. I grew up in the industry. I've, I've worked real hard in landscaping and snow. I know how difficult that is. So, you know, we'll even do it when, when there's a forecast and our final forecast comes in over a foot, we're paying our people an additional 50 percent on top of their already increased snow rate. They're basically getting double their landscape rate. Cause they're going to be out for the next 20 hours. They may have to sleep in a hotel and be out for another 12, Tommy Cole: Yeah. So pay for it. Bob Marks: deserve. Everything they get. So that people first, I think is, is our number one driver. Tommy Cole: Yeah. I love it. If you don't have those people first, you don't have a business. And so take care of them first at the end of the day that, that, that is, that is the true value of a business is right there as the team, you know, it's the people on the field, not the people up in the suite. So I love it. I got, I got one more thing to talk about. You're, you're, you're great at [00:35:00] relationships and taking care of people and all that. But most importantly, you've also known to have really good vendor relationships. And when we were, you hosted this past year your group, and it was phenomenal to see. Just what you've been able to accomplish with your vendors and you, it's just an extension of EMI and talk about why that matters to you. People in your business matter. How to build good vendor relationships Tommy Cole: You probably the number one, I'd say the number, the other thing on the top five list is your vendor relationships and taking care. What, why does that matter so much? And why do you work so hard for that? Bob Marks: Yeah. We, when we say people first, we always say that means our team, it means our clients and it means our vendors. It, it goes. It goes every direction. The vendors, what we have found is that we, we almost flip the coin with our ideal client. We want to be the ideal client for our vendors. So when we say we're looking for a client that values a partnership with their, [00:36:00] with their vendors. And and consider service. First, we want, we want to be that client for our vendors, right? Like that. It would almost be, it would be, it would absolutely be hypocritical for me to say, I want low price and I want this and I want that. And what we found too, is that when we find the right vendor. It's a good price. Maybe it's not the best price, but so much of, especially in a growing company, because we're doing something new every year, our vendors teach us the things we don't know. So, you know, where we're buying our chemicals for our lawn care program and our bed maintenance program, they're teaching us multiple times a year. They'll come down, sit down with half our team and teach us. You know, what, what's the next thing with plant growth regulators, what's the newest thing for just broadleaf weed controller, you know, hey, the nutsedge is real bad. How are we going to do that? Or, or Brian, you know, we, we were early on with Brian and snow removal and, and we partnered up with VSI and now it's VSI by boss. And we'd buy two sprayers and the owner of BSI would [00:37:00] be in our shop walking us through how to use these things. Could I buy a cheaper sprayer? I probably could have. Would the owner be in my shop? Would he answer the phone at three in the morning? I don't know, but that's who we're looking for. Because if we're going to be so fanatical about making sure our clients are taken care of, in turn, basically, I want the same treatment. Um, you know, and one, one of our core values is build and maintain lasting relationships. And, you know, I sometimes say it's almost the rule that I don't want to work with, with jerks. It's almost selfish in a way. Tommy Cole: of over it. A Bob Marks: What's that? Tommy Cole: lot, there's a lot of jerks in the snow business, right? And you're over it. You've been through that. You've seen it. Bob Marks: Yeah. And like, I spend a lot of time at work and the winter, so do our employees. Like there's times where we're at work for 70, 80 hours a week and. If, if our vendors aren't good to deal with, if I got to call a vendor and they're, they're not good to deal with. And our team isn't like, what's the point, you know, like, I think one thing I've learned is that, you know, life is short, like I want to, yeah, a business has to make money and that's [00:38:00] always going to be in the top three there, but I want to enjoy going to work. I want to enjoy the people I'm working with. I want to enjoy the clients as much as I can, that I work with. And we've been lucky with our vendors, you know, we're, we're X Mark mowers and. I think because we've stuck with them for so long and, and we've purchased so much with them and, and we give them feedback, good or bad, they're open to all of it. But when we need something, you know, our distributor, it's not just the dealer, the distributors at our door helping us. And we've got some pretty unique ones where we have one that's a vendor and a client, right? So we work for Mack trucks, they're owned by Volvo. And that relationship goes really deep that we've been with them for more than a decade. We started just helping them with some of their spring cleanup edging and mulching. We started mowing their places. We started doing annual flowers. Then we did all the snow plowing, you know Now we do pretty much everything outside their four walls But we also do it with volvo equipment anytime volvo makes the equipment we can use So we made the deal with case construction and that does [00:39:00] almost That does pretty much all our sites except for mac trucks and those volvo equipment That's some of the nicest equipment we've ever used, but it's pretty cool to be at the Mac assembly plant, keeping them running while we're using Volvo equipment. And it's Tommy Cole: perfect marriage. Bob Marks: it's a true, it's a true partnership. And I know when I'm talking to the local boots on the ground for Mac trucks, what it means to them that we're showing up with brand new Volvo equipment. We have a Mac medium duty pickup truck, a dump truck, salting their lot and. When they have to go to corporate procurement to make sure we stay in, they almost have to sell us. And it's easy for them because it is such, such a partnership that it's a, like you said earlier, it's a two way street and it makes everybody, it makes everyone's job that much easier. Tommy Cole: Oh man. It's all about relationships at the day. Bob Marks: It really is. It really is, you know? Tommy Cole: on trust. And as long as you perform, say what you do, this business becomes sort of easy. Bob Marks: yes. Tommy Cole: In, [00:40:00] in, in the right mind, man, lots of great stuff, Bob, I'm going, I'm going to run through a few takeaways. We'll call them Tommy's takeaway. So, so I love this portion. So no snow to enhancement division. That's fascinating to me, right? So we got to prepare sales, like, we got to identify things that will produce an enhancement on a property. We got to train our team. We got to learn how to estimate those. We got to know the reason why everything outside the 4 walls and a roof. You know, the A account manager can take over the reins and run with things. I love that. I love that answer back into the snow business, a hundred percent people first love snow contracts, help me weigh the cost, the load of sitting assets along the way. It's, I learned the things from you. It's not a yes to every contract and a yes to every client. So you need to take a step back in your business and really identify what matters most to you and these clients [00:41:00] and set the bar at that height and don't involve more clients that don't fit that model to keep jumping into your, your space. And relationships comes down to relationships. 100%. It's a two way street. It's a partnership. It's a friendship. It's practically a dang near marriage, right? And I've seen photos of you in front of the Mack trucks looking mighty fine, my friend. And I've seen your fleet. It's probably the most impressive fleet. I also got to throw something really funny out there because. This is great. When we visited your place, I could probably eat on that floor of the shop. It was so thick and, and I'm like, this guy's a mechanic, my friend, like, like showroom floor mechanic. It, it looked like a NASCAR race full of mowers getting serviced just constantly. And I'm like, this is fat. Like, I got my, my like goosebumps and my arms were were raised high. It was just. Impressive facility, by the way. You take pride in your [00:42:00] work, pride in your team. I really appreciate you sharing that. What's one sort of little nugget that you kind of live by in the Bob Marks world that this is how, this is what got me from where I was? Sort of in the transition period of, of the EMI to where I am now, you still got some more to go, but what do you, what do you live and die by? Bob Marks: Tommy, I got a while ago. I got a while ago. You know, two things, one, one is definitely business related. You know, I think it's, it's a little bit repetitive what we talked about, but it's doubling down on what you're, what you're good at. My, my skill, one of my skills in business is communicating why EMI is different. To the clients and why EMI is different to potential team members. You know, Tommy, we've talked a lot about building a team and I've struggled at a little bit, I think, because I didn't know, I didn't know what I was looking for. I didn't know where I was going. I did everything myself. So we build a team and. You know, [00:43:00] I don't want to, you know, toot my own horn here, but my team has turned around and said to me, like. Everyone's willing to run through, you know, the phrase run through a brick wall. Nobody, everybody's so invested in EMI success. And I think it's because one, I preach about why EMI is great, but because we are a people first company, it's, it's just so reciprocal. We have an internal, like an internal motto here and it's, I call it the E like the EMI inner circle, and it just. It starts with at the very top when I hire someone, the old motto was like the employee had to build, had to earn my trust, right? That that was the old way, right? Like I hired you, you know, Tommy Cole: You got to earn it, baby. I've been here for 25 years. Bob Marks: yep. Well, it's 100 percent flipped on its head where when I hire someone, I've got to do some work for them to trust us. You know, there, there's more job openings and employees, you know, but then team members these past few years. So, like my job, step one is you joined us. How do I get you to trust me that we, we are who we say we are [00:44:00] and we're going to do these things. And when, when we can start to get the, get a new team member to see that we're the real deal, as far as what we say, we're going to do, we do. They buy in and they want to do a good job. And then as that circle starts to go around, they buy in and that's the three o'clock on the circle and going to six o'clock is they start doing amazing work and our clients start to recognize that. And when it comes to enhancement sales and renewals, our clients are so well taken care of. They say yes, and there's increases and there's profit. And it goes back up to 12 o'clock where EMI can give back to that employee even more than we originally did. And they start to trust us more. And that circle just spins faster and faster. So for us, it was doubling down on, on people first, and it's just multiplied us in ways that I didn't see it coming. Tommy Cole: Love it. That's great. What about the second one? Bob Marks: I think you're on the same page with me, Tommy, is, is, business health, business health often goes with physical and mental health. Tommy Cole: knew you were going to say this. I knew Bob Marks: So I [00:45:00] was in the best shape of my life when I purchased the company. And you know, all the excuses, I bought a company, I was stressed out, and I was living a unhealthy lifestyle for the past three years. And Something clicked recently where I'm like, this isn't, this isn't good for me. And I started hitting the gym again. I started watching what I was eating and, and that's really snowballed as well. As you know, Tommy, I, I've, I haven't had a drink now in over five months and the energy with all three combined of working out and not drinking any alcohol and eating properly has. Has supercharged me and my team has recognized it and that spread itself and you know, not that everything comes down to the owner, but when they see me fired out of a cannon every morning, because I feel great and I'm ready to go. You can inspire people by what you say, but I think I've, I've been able to inspire people just by, by turning a new leaf and it's, it's propelled our business. I think it's made. [00:46:00] It's made my mental clarity, see things that I maybe knew, or maybe I wasn't seeing them at all. And now I see them and I'm just not willing to put up with things that I don't think are good enough. And it's really. In the past five months, I had to be clear with my team. We made some changes personnel wise, and it was a big change. And I, I called a meeting for our leadership team and they had seen the change in me so much over the last five months, Tommy, I'm, I'm, I'm healthy. I'm good. They thought I was dying because they thought I was, I was so intense. They thought I was, I wasn't going to be here anymore, but it's like, no, there's just changes happening. And I'm so ready to go that I had to assure them. No, I'm good. I'm just ready to go. And. And it's really propelled us that I think 2025 is going to, it's going to just be awesome. Tommy Cole: Yeah. That's great. You know, we've been on this journey for a while. You know, I went through a few things a few years ago, actually four years ago. And it's like, well, it's a little eyeopening experience. And I'm with you. It, you know, first off, take care of this [00:47:00] God gifted body that you have and this God gifted mind that you've, you've been given. And don't feed it and feel it with a bunch of junk because then it's this, this sort of sporadic, uncleared person. And not only that, you're the leader of that group of, of team. So set the bar high in the example because everyone's watching you, right? So if you're very sloppy and not communicative and. Sort of a mess and not taking care of yourself. It doesn't, but something would be sad about someone that takes care of their body physically and mentally is like that dude is sharp. I will, I want to associate with my myself, with that person. He's taking care of himself. He's taking care of the company, so I'm a huge believer of that. You and I are on the same sort of track record, baby. I knew you were going to say that, and I really appreciate it. Bob, it's been a super honor to have you on the show. This is man, we can just go for three more hours. Just, just keep, keep, going. Bob Marks: you told me 30 to [00:48:00] 40 minutes. I'm like, I better talk fast. Tommy Cole: Yeah, you better talk fast. I've always truly, you know, love to listen to your passion and your energy. It's just, it's contagious. Just a great person. You're right. Give credit to your wife. She's an amazing lady. We visited last week, last month and had a ton of fun. But thank you so much for being a guest. I have, tons of energy for success for the next year for you. And it's gonna be fun. It's gonna be a fun ride. So thanks for being on the show. Bob Marks: Thanks for having me, Tommy. And, and yeah, I think a lot of success going forward. I, I owe to McFarland Stanford and the peer group that. You know, you and Jim have guided and, you know, we have a big peer group now with, I think, 13 other members in our group. And I actually just had a call yesterday unsolicited from Tom, from our group with a little bit of advice. So yeah, thanks so much to you as well. Tommy Cole: Yeah. Awesome. Well, good times. We'll see you soon. Bob Marks: Thanks, Tommy. John: Ready to take the next step? Download our free Profitability Scorecard to quickly create your own baseline financial assessment and [00:49:00] 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.