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Ep 046 – Inside Hidden Creek Landscaping: Jason Cromley’s Approach to Team and Business

Home / Episode / Ep 046 – Inside Hidden Creek Landscaping: Jason Cromley’s Approach to Team and Business
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Staying in your comfort zone is the enemy of success. On today's Roots of Success, Tommy dives into a revealing conversation with Jason Cromley, who dishes out the hard-learned lessons from growing Hidden Creek Landscape. They've soared from $12 million to $21 million in revenue but hit a ceiling they couldn't crack. Discover how embracing discomfort, making critical personnel shifts, and prioritizing open feedback loops are transforming their journey towards sustainable growth.

THE BIG IDEA:

Genuine relationships and efficient operations drive profitability.

KEY MOMENTS:

[00:00] Started business unintentionally, approaching 27-year anniversary.
[03:33] Consistently reinvesting profits for business growth.
[08:49] Hosting events boosts company pride and exposure.
[12:38] Networking and learning, open-mindedness required.
[16:35] Growing complexity creates communication challenges as we scale.
[21:45] Open Town Hall; feedback rewarded with cash.
[24:23] Encouraging accountability and feedback enhances success.
[27:36] Executive Coaching catalyzed new personal growth.
[28:50] Supporting and valuing employees as a family.
[32:28] GROW: facility tour, team presentation.
[36:11] Facility is efficient due to thoughtful design.

QUESTIONS WE ANSWER:

  1. What are effective strategies for growing a landscaping business?
  2. How can town hall meetings improve company culture and communication?
  3. How do you set and achieve financial goals in a small business?
  4. What are the benefits of attending industry events for small businesses?
  5. What are the key challenges in scaling a landscaping company?
  6. How important is feedback for business growth and development?
  7. What are the best practices for reinvesting profits in a business?
  8. How can middle managers and frontline staff benefit from educational events?
  9. Why is personal and professional growth crucial for business leaders?
Episode Transcript
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Jason Cromley 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: Hello, this is Roots of Success podcast and I'm your host Tommy and I have an awesome, really awesome guest today. He is my first guest for a second appearance on our show. Oh my gosh, you didn't even know that, did you? Jason Cromley: I did not. I did not. Tommy Cole: through a curveball. We got Jason Cromley, a co owner of Hidden Creek Landscape in Columbus, Ohio. Jason's a good friend of mine. We've, we've spent a lot of times together and grow events and peer groups and sort of bantering back and forth all over social media. He's a great guy and a great business owner. It's a pleasure to have you on Jason. Jason Cromley: Thanks so much for the invite. Super excited to be the first of, you know, this, this [00:01:00] long list of great interviews that you've been watching and doing that I've been really enjoying over the last, you know, year seeing all these. Tommy Cole: It's been great. Well, I got a little surprise for you. So I know viewers can't see, but if you can. I got my handy dandy Hidden Creek Yeti coffee cup. And I swear, I text pictures all the time to Jason and be like, Man, this is it. Every day, you know, I just got my Hidden Creek little gem there. A little souvenir that I snagged on a site visit about a year ago. Jason Cromley: Yeah, I was proud to give it to you. I knew you'd use it. Tommy Cole: yeah, I'd use it. I'd use it. History of Hidden Creek Landscaping Tommy Cole: So, Jason, let's talk about a little bit of a history. How Hidden Creek got established. How you got into the business. You and co owner Matt, both run the business. Talk about how you got into it. Give us a story. Give us the background. Jason Cromley: Sure, yeah, and it could be a really long story, but in the interest of time, I'm going to try to give you, you know, kind of the fun highlight moments of it. You know Matt and I met back at [00:02:00] the Ohio State University in college. We were both in landscape architecture. We both got into bartending and we were working for some landscaping companies and no joke paychecks were bouncing. We knew more than the owners did. We had a better work ethic and I'm like. How hard does can be let's just start our own landscaping thing and I had a, I had a pickup truck. I mean. I said, buy a couple of wheel barrels and what else is there? Tommy Cole: hard can this be? Jason Cromley: Yeah. How hard can it be? So we were still in school, decided to start the business. So we did a little bit of school during the day, bartended a night. And would landscape between classes not really knowing where this thing was going to go by any means. That was 26 years ago. Now, believe it or not coming up on our 27 year anniversary this year. So, or yeah, 27 this year. So, really kind of fell into it because we saw what bad ownership look like, you know, again, they didn't know what they were doing. They were taking advantage of clients. It was the patented. Well, let's get their deposit and then we'll see if we show up. Tommy Cole: Oh, Jason Cromley: And I was like, this is not what we're about. And we would get yelled at and [00:03:00] screamed at. And it was just, I hate to say it, it was a typical landscape story that, you know, you see, it's not the people come to grow. I can tell you that much. It's the truck and a trucks we all talk about. And right then and there, I knew with our education and I knew with our work ethic that we could have a great company and we had huge goals and aspirations, Tommy, to do 1 million because at a million dollars, we're going to be rich. Tommy Cole: Yeah. Rich. Jason Cromley: at 1, 000, 000. I think we owed 1, 000, 000 in debt, right? It was Tommy Cole: We didn't make a, you might've made a penny. Jason Cromley: Made and no joke, both Lee, you know, luckily, both our wives were very understanding because they were both nurses. Matt met his wife through my wife. They were best friends. And so Matt, I literally had to bartend. To survive post college. Because every money we got off a job, we'd buy a trailer, we'd buy a mower, we'd buy more tools. So everything that we had just kept going back into the business. And honestly, that's something that stayed true to us to this day. We pump money [00:04:00] into our business each and every single day. I want the nice equipment. I want the great brand. I want the Yetis for people who walk through. Man, I love seeing my logo out there. And you'll pick up on this at Grow. For anybody who comes, I like to show off just a little bit. And I show off for the team that works here so they know how proud I am of the company and that I trust them enough to keep investing good money back into it rather than me having three houses and 10 cars and all those things. I don't have any of that stuff, but but man, our facility looks pretty nice. Tommy Cole: it does. It looks, it looks, it looks awesome. I'm going to be there in a a few weeks to see it again and see all the, all the necessary changes. Hosting the GROW Conference Tommy Cole: You mentioned something very awesome that's coming up next month and it's called Grow. It's it's the annual tradition. It's in February. You are hosting grow, and that's a huge achievement. Just to say, raise your hand. We can do it, and we can prepare for [00:05:00] hundreds and hundreds of business owners and entrepreneurs and managers and frontline men and women out there to attend your facility and learn more. When you, when we announced we're going to Hidden Creek, you, you, you raised your hand and said, I want the biggest and best most attended grow ever. And I was like, man, that is. That's something to shoot for. You don't be shy of your goals. You're, you're very open and expressing that. Why hosts grow. Jason Cromley: Yeah, you know, if you would ask me a year ago, I had 100 answers. Now, as I'm down to less than 45 days, those answers are not as big as they used to be. You know, I went to 1 of my 1st grows, I believe was life scapes to Colorado. I want to say back to maybe 2018 or 17. I never been to one and, you know, like anything in our industry, whether I was at an NALP or some event, someone's like, you got to go check out grow. Right? And I've known Marty. We bumped into each other. He's [00:06:00] dating. I'm Columbus. So we're only an hour apart from each other and like anything, someone challenged me to go and I'm like, you know what? Let's go because guess what? I'm going to go skiing when I'm in Colorado. So, you know, perfect right off. So I go to this event and honestly, my eyes just kept getting bigger and bigger and bigger. And I'm like, one, it was, I met so many great people that had tons to share. I saw a company that I aspired to be. I saw processes in place. I saw designs. They're very similar to who we are, which is high end residential work. And I'm like, someday, I'm gonna host Grow. Right? I was just like, because what I gained from that helped me foresee a better future than what I'd ever envisioned. Right. We were maybe 8 million at the time. Right. So we weren't that big. I don't even know if we were that big. We were probably close. Yeah, probably around 5 anywhere between 5 to 7 million. And I was like, I want more, right? I can do more. I maybe can't have a church for a building, but let me see what I can [00:07:00] do. Right. And so I saw that and I said, 1 day, that would be the coolest thing. That would be a feather in my cap. That would be a bucket list that I got to do it. And so it was a, like a pipe dream. And then, you know, I talked to Vince about it and he's like, yeah, we always stay south because obviously the winter and we can't really travel north. And I'm like, well, there goes that it's never going to happen. And then, sure enough, you know, Marty and Vince come to me when 1 of the events are like, hey, would you do this? And I'm like. Yeah, I would 100 percent do this, because as we all know, some of the best things about our industry is the give back attitude. Tommy Cole: Mm Jason Cromley: You see it across the board, and Marty's no, no different. I mean, he's one of the guys who started this. He wanted to do this to make the industry better, not grunder better. Tommy Cole: hmm. Right. Jason Cromley: And we want to do the same. We want to share every failure we've had, and I've got a record. You know, we want to share all of our wins. We want to try to give back to the industry what I've gained so much from and hopefully make [00:08:00] everybody better. Have fun while doing it. Tommy Cole: Yeah. Jason Cromley: And see what we can do to make again, I guess for me, I want to kind of protect us more than sometimes what our clients are or the bad competition that's out there. So the more educated experience, the knowledge we have, the more success we're going to be as an industry, not as a company. Tommy Cole: Yeah. The give back attitude, I love and I think that's the reason why you, you want to host. What was it like informing the team? We're going to host a thousand plus people in the matter of a couple of days. What was the response Jason Cromley: You know, so I did it kind of fun to be honest. So only a select few knew about it. So there was some, you know, my leadership team knew about it. So there was some behind the scenes talk of what was really going to be happening, but I was able to bring 8 people to grow at RJ's lawn care last year in Des Moines. And 6 of the people there had no idea. So, when I got on stage. They just found out[00:09:00] Tommy Cole: Ah, Jason Cromley: so. Tommy Cole: announced it. Jason Cromley: They announced it because one of the great things about hosting grow that I've always heard, but obviously I'm hopeful for is it's really the pride that will come out of the company that you work for when you do get a host an event. And, you know, when you get to come up on stage, and we got to bring our whole team up on stage and, you know, they got to be there and they got, you know. 800 people staring at him, like, so we got to do this, like, people want to come see us and they want to know what's going on. There's just that sense of pride. Right. And it's that piece that comes out that says, man, we're, we're going to get to help people or I get to show off something that I do as a process that I brought to Hidden Creek that I can't wait to tell, you know, 500 different companies and hopefully they use that same thing. Team Recognition Tommy Cole: Yeah. You hit a really good, something really interesting is these managers and employees, team members, crew members. office staff, support team, all these people that help [00:10:00] build and grow and facilitate Hidden Creek today. Oftentimes they don't get the recognition. It's it's the it's the grind. It's the day to day. It's the hot summers, the cold winters. There's really true no season or off season in landscaping. It's, it's a grind 12 months a year. What I like about this is it's an opportunity to recognize our team. That's what it is. How fascinating is it for your team to now stand up on that stage next month and to be recognized, interviewed, ask questions, tell me more, like this is a reward, I would say for your team. Most importantly, because. It's they only kind of know what's within the four walls and the roof at the facility in Columbus, but now everyone's coming in and asking questions. How do you do this and how we can learn more and be recognized? And that's what I think that you're also trying to achieve and let people know in your team. Jason Cromley: 100%. And I'm a big proponent of getting the [00:11:00] recognition to them. You know, as I've been working with the grow team, you know, Vince, specifically, I'm like, how do I get my team on stage? Like, how do I get them to answer questions? Right? Is the CEO? Yeah, I know a little bit of everything, but I know 50 percent of everything. They know 100 percent of something specific, right? So when I answer, I'm given the best generalizations possible and they can answer from the design to the operational piece to the equipment. I'm like, yeah, I think we use this and I heard we did this. They're able to truly give 100 percent of their knowledge to. Somebody in the room is going to walk through who says, I do your same job. That's exactly what I do. And I got an owner just like Jason who walks around thinking he knows everything and he doesn't. So I want to talk to that guy. And I think to your point, the pride that will come out of that, their chance to share and their chance to be asked questions and learn something from somebody else, right? So it'd be great if I could send my entire team to grow, but I can't afford to [00:12:00] send 40 people every year to grow. So there's nothing better than a thousand people coming to us. So everyone gets to experience grow this year and get to see really what it does to bring everybody together. What Hidden Creek is looking to gain out of hosting Grow Tommy Cole: love it. What's what's one thing or multiple things you're hoping to gain by hosting? What was the what was the trigger point? But like, yeah, that's that's what I want to learn. Is it learning more? Is it? Yeah. Exposing us to see certain things that we're not doing well. Is it? What is it? What are you hoping to gain? Jason Cromley: You know, it's funny because at every level, and we've mostly tried to take anywhere from, you know, four to eight people per year to grow as once we see it, because Everybody gets something different, right? Because you guys have such a great, you know, assortment of classes, right? There's so much diversity. You know, it's not owner driven. It's actually probably the least owner driven thing you can see. Right? So, I'd say, you know, between your HR classes, accounting classes, sales training, right? That's who I want to go to [00:13:00] this. I mean, honestly, grow for me when I go is more social than it is anything hanging out with the other owners, you know, talking about our business, mostly because we're in peer groups together, but I pick up 1 or 2 things. My teams are coming back with pages of notes and I'm like, we can't implement 20 things this year. So, I think that's probably when it comes to grow people going, it's really just the open mindedness you need to have to say, just because you do it this way doesn't mean it's right. You have to listen to other ideas, but you can't also come back with 100 items, right? It's small bites. So I think that's probably what's so key about it. And it's not just the tour. I mean, out of a 3 day event, the tour is 1 day. You got classes before you got the tour and you got classes after. And my team is, you know, already fighting over. Well, I want to go to classes. I want to go to classes because they do know. In the world of landscaping, we never stop in. We might slow down, but you can't always get classes in when you want to. So [00:14:00] this is an optimal time of year for mostly our industry to get some knowledge and actually implement it before the season kicks off. Tommy Cole: Yeah, you hit something really good education at this event is Really good and it's not about owners. It's it's the least amount about owners. It's more about those middle managers Those frontline people, it's nice to hear it from someone else besides Jason Cromley, right? Or a little bit different take. It's no different than my son in baseball, right? I could tell him to do this on his baseball swing all day long for years and years, but the minute he goes and sees a baseball coach, it's like, it's cause I'm totally different. Dad, I learned this new thing and I'm like, Oh wow, that's, I've been saying that for years. Wow. So we get bored of the Jason Cromley saying things over and over, or here's a different take. I will tell you grow is fascinating event for management people, how to manage others, how to do sales, how to do ops, different little tricks in here and there and a lot of some of this [00:15:00] stuff. Jason, you've been hearing, you're like bearing in ace peer groups and and networking with other business owners all over the country. You hear a lot of this thing, but for for your team to hear it from others, yeah. is a game changer. They're able to grab notes and execute moving forward. So, like you said, bring your team to this event, and it's more about them to experience. There's tons of vendors. Tons of networking opportunities, a lot of cocktail and dinners. And it is literally, it's finally like a 16 hour day. But you don't feel like you're working 16 hours. Jason Cromley: no, no. But I mean, trust me, we've looked at the second day, you know, we start at 7 a. m. And we'll go till nine o'clock for the VIP dinner. If you know, you sign up for it and that's a really great networking piece, but. I mean, you're right. That's a 16 hour day and man, I'm pumped for it. You know, I might need to do a double cold plunge that morning to get my body fired up for it or do one at lunchtime. But it is the drive that, you know, everybody wants [00:16:00] to share. And I can tell you, my team, they've already got their power points ready. We've already reviewed them and you could tell because I've looked at them how excited they are. And there's things that I'm learning. They do. I'm like, I didn't know you guys are working on that. This is amazing. No, and I would say that's, that's the tough thing to, you know, Tommy, as Hidden Creek has grown to the size we are. Right, I was just talking about, you know, 1 of the acquisitions we made, which is, you know, 1 of our great pieces of success, right? You know, buying a pool company. You know, 3Million dollar company, we've been able to double the revenue. The owner stayed on for 4 years, he's staying on for 1 more year to make it 5 years, but as we're going through his task list of all the stuff he does this morning. I'm like, I remember when I did everything. And by the way, our client communication was through the roof when I'm small, because I was the designer. I was the estimator. I was the project manager. I was accounting. I was also the foreman. So I can answer everything. Now you got five [00:17:00] layers in there and the clients are like, who do I talk to? Do I talk to my salesperson? Do I talk to the project manager? The foreman's great. Can I just ask him to do this? Accounting's like, why haven't they? I mean, and that's, that's hard. And that's one of the things that, you know, a lot of people come to this and be like, God, I can't wait to be, you know, 20 plus million and be like Hidden Creek. It's like, well, hang on a second. Tommy Cole: Tap the brakes. Jason Cromley: Yeah, you want to really understand. How great it can and cannot be, and we've got some failures that I'll be on stage, unhappy to share, or I'd say, not proud to share, but happy to share. Right, because I want people to understand, I've definitely made some mistakes, and you know, as you said it, I'm going to get on stage and say, this better be the biggest grow you've ever had. If it's not, I look like a fool, but if it is, man, this guy can really make things happen. Tommy Cole: Yeah. Why not set the bar really high? A Jason Cromley: Why not? I mean, so I fail where? I'm not going to Vegas and putting a million dollars on black or red here. I'm just saying, I think we can make this the biggest grow. But [00:18:00] I've got to make sure I put the effort and energy into it like anybody does in any role they have. Don't say it. Actually say, look, I didn't try hard. I worked hard. I did what I should have do. It just wasn't the results. And we all know that. If a salesperson misses their goals, we all know you sell if they actually made the effort. Tommy Cole: Yeah. The Journey of Acheiving Goals Tommy Cole: What about the journey of trying to achieve the goal? Yeah. Right. I want to, let's talk about this real fast. When I was there recently. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm going to get the numbers close. You set a goal of like 24 million at the end of 2023, I believe, right? And you didn't hit the goal. You came less. So talk about that experience. I know the answer, but let let our audience go through that format and tell me what happened. Jason Cromley: So yeah, we had a goal set for 24 million. We had gone from 12 million to 17 million to 21 million. So in two years, we went from 12 to 21 million, right? The pool acquisition was part of it, but [00:19:00] that was only three. So we were able to kind of parlay all that stuff into, by the way, that was also post COVID, right? So, man, through the roof. And then the next year we go from 21 down to like 20. 6 and I'm like, what the hell happened? Right? And I knew what happened and I knew what we need to do to fix it. So we come into this year. Goals, 25M like, I know the things we did wrong. I'm the director of sales. I'm like, I've got this. And guess what number we hit this year? 21M dollars. Tommy, I missed it again by 4M dollars. I, I, yeah. Missed it again, right? I'm director of sales. Who's this fall on me? And if you ask my sales team, they're like, this is the most stressful year we've ever had, right? Because guess where Jason was just on top of everybody Tommy Cole: Grinding. Jason Cromley: grinding, right? And at the end of the day, we kind of looked back and we know what we did wrong. We still lived in just a little bit of a comfort world. Hidden Creek's got a great brand, a great name, a [00:20:00] great image. We did 21 million, almost purely off referrals. Right. We did. We do SEO. We do website. We got those, but we didn't knock on a door. We didn't ask for a sale. Tommy Cole: came in. Jason Cromley: Yeah, it was just whatever was coming in. It was like, my hands are out. So, if it lands here, you know, again, if the fish jumps in the boat, I'm going to eat the fish. Right, but we were also, Tommy Cole: the boat was 21 million. Jason Cromley: yeah, it came in the boat. We barely put a rod in the water. Right, and so. We have made some changes. I got some personnel changes that happened. I got some new personnel coming in. Because I believe at the end of the day why the team says, you know, because you can imagine I'm taking my goal up again, right? I'm not going to sit here and suffer. You know, I talked to the team like, well, you know, why do we have to do this? I'm like, well, first and foremost, our overhead keeps growing. So 21 million. If you guys want to hold, look to your left, look to your right. Someone's gonna be gone. Right. So if you want to protect the people you like working with, we got to [00:21:00] go after the number. So we use some of those things to try to learn the lessons, right? Nobody's perfect. And again, people might walk through not hear this podcast. You're like, God, everything hidden Creek touches is gold. Oh, my gosh, man. I have so much bad product. So many bad ideas. I just don't ever let them hold me back and hold me down. I always think positive. I'm a unfortunately, I'm an overly optimistic person. Tommy Cole: Love it. Love it. So, talk about there was a, there was an eye opening experience, at your facility. Having a town hall company meeting Tommy Cole: At some point last year where you had a like a town hall meeting, sort of open experience. For everyone in the business field support team. It was a, it was a meeting for you to get some awareness in our organization, people to raise their hand and share what they really, truly mean, whether it was positive or a negative or constructive criticism, tell me about that experience that you had. Jason Cromley: [00:22:00] yeah, it was a great event. Mark Bradley actually came in and hosted the event. I had never done anything like this. You know, and Mark's like, you know, we need to hear from your team and see what kind of feedback we get. And I'm like, you know, I don't really like feedback. Sometimes Mark. Tommy Cole: I don't like to be told what Jason Cromley: I'm a little sensitive, believe it or not. And he's like, look, he's like, you know, go get, you know, cash out of the bank because everybody who answers, you're going to hand them cash because you want to reward people to say, if you're willing to give feedback, it's this valuable to me, your idea is worth 50 bucks is worth a hundred bucks. Right? That's a backpack blower, right? Four, four of those, right? Gets you an idea that could save your company 10, 000 in something. And, you know, Mark got up there and just started pushing questions, pushing questions. And at the end, he came back, he goes, Jason, I've been to a lot of companies. Your culture is strong because your team was open with you. And, and you sat there and you took it because I, Tommy Cole: on the chin[00:23:00] Jason Cromley: then I'm like, that is not true. That is, I've done this and I had to sit there, Tommy Cole: You could you didn't have an opportunity to do that. Jason Cromley: I know I, oh, I didn't want to, because again, it would have shut it down. Right. So I couldn't be the normal sometimes, you know, and, and Marty and I are great about this, right? We get a little bit defensive, right? We worked so hard. We've done this. And I just sat there and took it and, and it was all true because if someone says it, That's actually their experience. You're not making it up. I might not feel that it's true or thought I did something, but it doesn't mean it actually went to the next level. So that experience was huge and it really opened our eyes to do it more often now. So since then we've kind of done more town halls. We do them once a month. It's not the whole company, but we're getting better feedback at all times. And that's actually our goal for this upcoming year, right? Two way feedback. Because so many times, you know. We, we make decisions for our people all the time. We're like, Hey, we got this piece of equipment. We got this, we got this. They're like, [00:24:00] just so you're clear. I hate that piece of equipment. No one likes it. Why do you keep making decisions for us? And we all do it. So we're, we're working on that again. And again, 26 years later, we're still trying to figure this out, man. Tommy Cole: it's a journey. Jason Cromley: It's a journey. Tommy Cole: It's a journey I like the one way street versus the two way Feedback oftentimes. We're always Pushing or driving one direction to a person and then that person is driving the next one to the But how it's rarely, it's less likely to get the feedback to come the other direction, Jason Cromley: Yeah. Tommy Cole: right? And oftentimes as an owner or as a manager, we're like pushing, pushing. How successful, how great is it for a company to allow people to push back up all the way to you? Like that's, I love that because at the end of the day, the owner should be held accountable for a lot of things that are going on as well. And typically what [00:25:00] happens or what always should happen is when things fail, it goes back to the owner. When the football team doesn't win, it just goes right back to the ownership and the head coach. And when the offense can't score, it goes right back to the offensive coordinator. It's no different. You've got to look at yourself in the mirror. And so I think you need to realize here, like what you're saying is accept all the feedback. And take it on the chin. It's going to be just fine. That's how you get better. Jason Cromley: It is, and it's hard, you know, there's a lot of owners, you know, we did the, obviously the strategic, the gallop strengths, you know, with Megan and Tracy, which is super eye opening again. It's like, someone's been watching you your whole life and tells you who you are. It really is, you can't hide it by any means of the matter, but, you know, during our 1 town hall, it was funny. You know, as you see me, you know, and as people walk to grow, they're going to see, you know, little Jason, five foot five up on the stage, right? Hopefully you guys put me next to gene. Tommy Cole: Yeah, we're going to, we have an elevation little stand for Jason Cromley: Yeah, a little stage would be great for me. You know, and it's [00:26:00] funny if I walk downstairs, no, 1 says a thing to me. Right? My managers be like, God, everyone's down there. They're frustrated about this. They're frustrated about this. I'm like, no, 1 says a word to me. They're like, well, that's because you're probably 1 of the most intimidating people. Jason, you walk down and people just shut down. Tommy Cole: There's clamp down. Jason Cromley: They clamped down and during one of our town halls, my wife works for us just one day a week because we figured that would keep the marriage still going. And during one of the town halls, she's like nothing mean you could have sent half of this out an email. Why are you wasting our time? And I'm like, I just need someone with the courage to step up and I mean, I guess you don't need to raise her hand and, you know, because she knows she just has to sometimes get the people going. right? Like guys, Jason is, is very approachable. She actually called me Spineless when we started dating way back in the day of high school. 'cause I had no backbone. But Hidden Creek's success, hidden Creek's name brand made me a different person. Being a father made me a different person, right? You kind of [00:27:00] go from maybe people walking all over you to, you gotta become a little bit of a protector. And so I protect things at all time. And sometimes I do that through intimidation or through, you know, the wrong. you know, outlets and I'm still working on myself and getting my own personal coaching to be a better person. And it's not easy for guys like us Tommy Cole: It's not easy. Not easy. No, it's not. It's willing to accept someone else coaching you. That's, that's the hardest part. I learned that through Mark Bradley the most. The people at your level or at his level at the end of the day need coaching as well. Jason Cromley: For sure, Tommy Cole: Jason doesn't know everything he's he's on a journey to figure things out and he's willing to admit that and you have weaknesses and you have streaks. But you gotta be willing to accept those and learn from them how to be better. Jason Cromley: yeah, and that'll probably be one of the cool things that happens to grow as well to, you know, just getting, you know, connected with mark a little over a year ago. He's totally helped me look [00:28:00] at myself and my life and my business in a different way. And I'm like, I'm going to grow to this. He's like, that's it. I'm like, I thought that was pretty big. He's like, I don't think it's that big. And I'm like. Tommy Cole: enough. Jason Cromley: Thanks. You know, and then I talked to another owner at grow or at a summit and they're like, oh, this is my goal next year. I'm like, that's it. Tommy Cole: Yeah. Jason Cromley: Like, give me, give me 5 percent more. I'm not saying double it, but I'm saying if you're 3 million and your goal is to go to 3. 3, did you just pick 10 percent out of random? What's it going to take to get another 150, 000, right? Go to 15%. Tommy Cole: Move the needle. Jason Cromley: Can you find one more big project that's out there and grind? It's not more hours, more efficient. And they're like, I mean, yeah, I probably can. I'm like, then that's the goal. What Hidden Creek is Proud of Jason Cromley: So, Tommy Cole: at Hidden Creek? Jason Cromley: so if you were to pick probably number 1, right off the bat, right? It's really the people who work here. The fact that I can employ 150 people. Those 150 people know what I feel is a very strong [00:29:00] company. Right. We take care of our people. We really, really do not to generalize. It's a family here because not everyone feels like that. But when something goes bad here, we come together and we, we really do put the effort into the people 1st and making sure they're taking care of. So the fact that I got 150 people here who have families of anywhere from 2 to 5, you know, I'm taking care of, you know, anywhere from 400 to 600 people. Supporting them, making their lives hopefully better and knowing that they're respected at their job and they're appreciated. So people first and foremost, it's, it's always number one for me. That's why I love coming to work. That's why I never did work from home because I need to see the look on their face when they're there working because I'm a people person. Tommy Cole: yeah, you're a visual person. What drives Jason to execute Tommy Cole: So what's your, what's your one drive if team is the something you're most proud of? What's, what's the one drive or two drives that like, we got to hit that [00:30:00] every week, month or year to make sure we're executing with our, with our team. Jason Cromley: You know, I talked a little bit about it earlier with regards to, we're really starting to realize a little bit more of this feedback. And, you know, we did go to one of Mark Bradley's elements summits up in Detroit, and we all kind of came back with, you know, we were missing feedback and we were missing this and when you miss sales goals. Right, and you'd have no backlog, it's amazing how stressed people get right. Production is stressed because they don't have anywhere to send the people right. Design is like, I don't have enough design work to keep people busy. Sales is like, well, I'm really trying. And so you kind of take all those things and, and that's when your back's against the wall and you really see where the problems are if you're looking and you've got to get out of the trench at that point, kind of look up and realize like our people are great and I wasn't taking care of our people and, and I took it personal, you know, and that's probably where, you know, as I'm going to sales, I'm like, I'm going to have to lay off 10 people this week if you guys [00:31:00] don't go sell a job. Right. And do you want to go lay them off or do I have to do it? And of course I have to do it. And they kind of came back to me. They're like, that wasn't the best way to coach us, right? We don't, the guilt doesn't work in today's generation. You know, Tommy and my dad's generation, if I heard I'm disappointed in you, man, just, just hit me. Give me the paddle. Don't give me the word disappointed. And so it's really this, this coaching that I've discovered I need more coaching and my team needs more coaching and I'm not the best coach by the way. Tommy Cole: Yeah, Jason Cromley: That's what I've really come to recognize through all this for me to protect my people, which is my number one asset. I've got to get a better education, better training, better mentorship and better time to actually get focused on them as a person, not just in the role. Tommy Cole: yeah. Like I said earlier, it's. We all have our strengths and weaknesses, but if you can be able to this goes for anyone owner manager You if you can identify those weak spots in yourself, [00:32:00] and if you can manage those and get a little bit better Not to say that you're gonna perfect it It's just who you are, but you are able to team up with another coach or another peer group member Or someone else around you to say, Jason, you can't talk to people like that. It's not gonna work. You're like, all right, you kind of know it, but you need someone else to tell you that that you respect and you have, mutual respect for. But Be willingness to open yourself up to learn those types of things along the way. I get it. It's, it's, it's tricky. As we, as we wrap up, this has been, this has been awesome. I really wanted to focus on I'm really excited for grow. I am. It's one of my favorite things in February to go do. I have the opportunity to, deep dive into the, to the team, to the facility. I get to educate and present a lot of different topics. To everyone throughout the country and it's awesome. We, one of the great things we get to do also is. [00:33:00] After you do your facility tour the next morning, I get to have the Hidden Creek team up on stage and we get to ask the real detailed questions and that's a very highly attended event and, and I get, you know, you get managers and ops and sales and HR up onto that stage and they get to ask really deep, like, how do you do this? I, that's one of my most favorite things to do is, is it, is the post facility tour. Which is great. So come see us. It's a fascinating event. Jason, well, anything else that you would like to leave behind with? That you're most excited about anything Jason Cromley: You know, so the number 1 thing I'm most proud of, obviously, is my people, you know, our name, our recognition, our brand, those are all right there and people mostly know us by our people who work here. But I will say the facility was a huge game changer for us. It was really. You know, put it all on, you know, black, right? Or button all on red at Vegas. We said this building is going to change the course. Of our business, [00:34:00] right? For forever. And it was funny when, you know, Ken, my director of ops was with us in New Orleans for a summit. He went to your presentation about what an award winning facility looks like. He goes, Jason, thank God you weren't in there. He goes, you would have lost it. He goes, he's taking pictures of all these things that, that are great. And you would have been like, I don't like the way that color looks. Why is this not done? Why is this not hanging? Why is that tilted? You know, I'm not an OCD perfectionist by nature at home. I'm not at all. But at my facility, I am, you know, I'm the guy that's walking out, picking up trash and wonder know why 100 people pulled in before me. Why did why did they not see that piece of trash? So, but it's that facility that I think when people see this, they'll see why we did it. It not only saved and took our business further. It helped me with my marriage. Right helped me with recruiting, you know, it helps me close the big deals. It made us a business, not a landscaping company. And so I really hope that when people get to see this facility and, you know, we've done honestly, Tommy, probably [00:35:00] hundreds of tours. Nothing is the biggest this. But I'm always asking, you know, anything that you think we could have done better with this. And, of course, I don't want to hear a word because I want them to say, this is the coolest thing I've ever seen. But when someone gets the courage to tell me, they're like, I would have done this. I'm like. Yeah, I should have done that too. I realize that. Right? Tommy Cole: Yeah. Jason Cromley: And that'll probably be the fun thing is I'm super excited for the feedback we're going to get. I'm super excited to inspire, right? Learn, be educated, all those things. Not just grow, because grow is a three day event. But I'm telling you, the momentum you get off of that event for us, for everybody, gets you through really that first quarter when life kind of is rough. Right? And you go back and you remember, like, Man, it's spring, we're getting our butts kicked and you got to go back and say, I told myself I do 1 thing this year. Let's do that. So, I think when people see the facility, they're going to be blown away. I think that's going to really be hopefully some inspiration for some people. And I'm super proud to show. The innovation, the ideas of things [00:36:00] we do that make our company very transparent for anybody walking through our doors. Tommy Cole: Yeah. Good point. I've, I've been there a few times. I'm going to be there in a few more weeks. I'm very impressed by the facility and it's, yeah. I'll say this. It's not the most fancy place on earth. It's not, it's literally just, it's, it's a metal building with a roof that has nice landscaping. Like, that's it, Jason. And, and, but what I will say about this facility is there's certain features about it that make it Jason Cromley: Yeah, Tommy Cole: There's these little things throughout the inside and the outside and I'm not going to give it away But there's a little bit of a design studio. There's a there's a Operations area where everyone can come together and see what people are working on There's a board of equipment where you get to see what's being out the on job sites what's in the repair shop? But then you move your operations outsides I like the sales design [00:37:00] studio area where they can see where so they're tracking sales I love the layout of the yard and the trucks and the The, the appearance of everything on the fleet and the trailers and what you've done without giving too much. I'm very impressed because you got this facility when you were a tiny, tiny little bitty business and you basically threw every dollar of your name, what you had mortgage your house. You did all this stuff and you will say that during the speeches that we hear it grow. But at the end of the day, it works, that's it. It just works. So I encourage you to come see this place because. I believe he got this facility at 3 million, just right around that 3 million mark, roughly. Jason Cromley: Designed it and drew it and said, this is what we need. Tommy Cole: And then you keep adding and tweaking and adjusting and buying a little more to make it. When you buy something, it's not your dream. It's not going to be end of the road. You're good for 25 years. Jason Cromley: Yeah, Tommy Cole: got to evolve along the way, but you got to take that initial step. Jason Cromley: for sure. [00:38:00] And, and again, that's what people are going to see, you know, they're still they'll look at our building. They're like, well, why didn't you do this here? And I'm like, I don't know. That's that's great. So I hope we get the feedback. I hope people are honest. Right? Especially if I'm on stage, right? Hey, Jason, I think you should have done this. All right, come up here on stage with me. Let's do this. Tommy Cole: Yeah. Say it. Say it. Well, just as a reminder, that is February 24th through 26th. Usually the first day is a awesome opening entrance by Marty Grunder and Vince Torchia from the GROW group. McFarland Stanford will be there in attendance and doing a lot of the education seminars. Day two is the highly anticipated facility tour. There's usually two different groups, a morning and an afternoon. Join the VIP list. It is absolutely a game changer because you get to visit with Jason and his entire team, have some drinks and dinners you get to sit in the front of the room and pay way more attention than sitting in the back of the room. And day three is more education along the [00:39:00] way with a, with a, with a closeout speech by Marty. It's super amazing. Actually, you just got to get chills and goosebumps because it's one of the biggest. Shows in our industry in the entire year. And so Jason is super proud to have his team prepared. They've been doing a lot of hours and a lot of improvement projects and rehearsing and presenting their topics and, what they do from their team. So it's super awesome to have you. Jason, thanks again for being the first guest to have their second appearance ever. I'm sure you love that in your, Jason Cromley: well, I mean, you know, Tommy Cole: world. Jason Cromley: from Ohio State, so he's the only two time Heisman winner. So I feel like it's very fitting here to be the Buckeye getting ready to take on Texas tonight. Tommy Cole: Yeah, it should be it should be a very, very enticing and fun game. But once again, Jason, we'll see in a few weeks and thank you for taking time out of your busy day to do this. Jason Cromley: Always an honor. Thanks so much for giving us the chance. Thanks, Tommy. John: Ready to take the next step? Download our [00:40:00] 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.