Strengthening Roots: Introducing our new CEO – Scott Wallingford

[00:00:00] Because clients don't have one simple need, right? They just don't need an hour of coaching. They have a variety of needs to scale their business. That's actually exciting about the green industry, right? It's large, it's growing, right? But boy is it getting complex. So if you're a really good operator. Uh, it's getting harder and harder to become an excellent operator because you've got all these challenges coming at you that you probably didn't think about six months ago, two years ago, et cetera. Um, it's not easy. Welcome to the Roots of Success, the Premier Landscapers podcast that brings you the latest tips and strategies for successful landscape business. I'm Jim Calli, one of the principles and coaches of McFarlin Stanford. Jason New and I started McFarlin Stanford to coach landscape businesses after years in the industry ourselves, now more than 10 years since we began, McFarlin has a deep bench of coaches and subject matter experts who work with our clients on very specific issues of business. Whether you're struggling with people. Profits or just day-to-day challenges Our coaches and guests have the real world experience and practical advice to help you build a thriving and profitable landscape [00:01:00] business. Welcome to Roots to Success. I'm Jim Calli, co-founder and partner of McFarlin Stanford. With me today is Jason New, also my co-founder and partner, and our new CEO Scott Wallingford. Welcome. Great to be here. I'm glad you both are here. Yeah. Excited to be here. You know, many of our clients are asking, you know, what is going on with McFarlin Stanford? What's happening with the growth? Tell us about your team and what's been going on. And so we're here today to talk more about that and, uh, please introduce yourself, Scott. Alright, thanks Jason. So, hey, I'm Scott Wallingford. I am the new CEO of McFarlin Stanford. Super excited to be here. I'm sure many of you are wondering, well, what does A CEO do at a company like McFarlin Stanford? Look, in my view, it is about the chief execution officer. So I'm here to make sure the business runs smoothly, figure out how we scale smartly. And then make sure all the terrific work we're doing with clients, uh, continues and improves. So it's, uh, an exciting time for McFarlin and Stanford. [00:02:00] Well, we're excited to have you, but it's not certainly a relationship that just started either. Um, I, I think it would be great to talk a little bit about, you know, I, I've known you for a very long time. Um, and honestly, I talk to a coach about this all the time. You meet people along the way that maybe a fit along the way for different roles. But Scott has been a confidant of mine and a friend for many years. We met. Dads and donuts. Um, and uh, that was when our second children were about two. Uh, a gentleman by the name of John Booth was organizing an event and he, he shows up in our world in other parts of our business too, believe it or not. Um, but uh, John was hosting dads and donuts and we just got to know each other while the kids were running around. And, um, our wives were already friends. And, uh, outta that relationship was born. Um, I used the word confident. Confidant earlier, um, of we talked business. Yes. And so, uh, whether it was when I was in the landscaping business every day to the transition out of that, to the, um, role here at McFarlin Stanford to the [00:03:00] founding of McFarlin Stanford. You are a part of all those conversations as well. Conversations as well. Um, your wife actually, Tracy works with us Crazy, isn't it? It is. Um, and, uh, with that, uh. Y you've been a part of McFarlin Stanford and some of our travels, um, that we've done with the ACE peer groups as part of ACE experiences. So you've been familiar with, um, our client base, getting to know them on a social level? Yes. And behind the scenes, truthfully, uh, being somebody that I could bounce some ideas off along the way. So, um, that's how long we've known each other. It has been, yeah, 15 years, 16 years. Yeah. Those, uh, two year olds are now thinking about college. Crazy. Oh, stop. Yep. Um, you know, the. Yeah. That trust that's built out of all those years is exactly one of the reasons that the conversation started. And it's not just about my relationship with Scott. I mean, Jason, you chime in here about how you know Scott. Yeah. Many years ago, and this was many a great events at the [00:04:00] Cal Eye residence as he's throwing a nice hosting of, you know, a dinner with some fun couples. And we go for, you know, at this point, a later night than we anticipated. And we throw out a dance party three with the we. If you guys know what, what that is, you remember this. And so we're dancing with we young ki young children there are dancing. So now we have to participate. And I see Scott over there. I would say not cheating, but winning efficiently. Cheating, cheating, but he was winning efficiently by not fully dancing, but figure it out, the rhythm and the algorithm to be able to complete these dances without moving anything but his rest. So well done. I was like, okay, this guy, this guy's clever. So as I get to know Scott A. Little bit more about his background and throughout the years I just recognize, um, there's so many things that he's done in his career and his business practices over time that we needed in our business. And so what we see the parallels of, of professional services for McFarlin Stanford and what we do today correct. And how we meet the needs of our clients. He was able to do this over several different companies. He's [00:05:00] helped grow scale, but also. The quality gets better, the experience gets better, and the, and the mindset of making sure our clients are getting what they need. And so we just needed someone with the horsepower that Scott had to help us think about what we were doing for our teams and how we did this for our clients. Scott, why don't you tell us about your background? 'cause then I think tying it into us and what we saw right. Will match more naturally after you. Give us a little bit about you. Yeah, yeah. If you rewind, uh, quite a few years ago, I started my career as a management consultant. So I was literally there to help clients, uh, figure out their strategy and then translate that into practical results. This was not sort of build a PowerPoint and leave this was roll up your sleeves work hand in hand with the clients and make sure those results that were sort of. Conceived and promised actually came to fruition. So you play a lot of different roles there. Um, since then I've moved into a variety of different, uh, p and l responsibilities for growth oriented technology companies. Uh, again, a lot of fun and you sort of learn as you're running the p and [00:06:00] l. You gotta be very quickly figure out what works, what doesn't. And I guess the overriding thing I've learned is if you stay close to your clients, talk to them about what they need and what their challenges are. Uh, you'll learn a lot and they will actually help shape your roadmap of how your business should grow and how you can add additional services because you're helping solve their problems. Mm-hmm. Well, ironically, you know, the background and talking through our growth at McFarlin Stanford, we hit a point that we coach our clients to all the time. Right. Is that you, you hit a spot where there's not enough hours. I'm not even saying the day in the week. Yep. Like it, it's, it's Sunday through Saturday. And, um, it's really hard for myself, somebody who's definitely has, um, I'd say a servant's heart to wanna make sure that the client is always first and foremost. You are similar. Yes. Um, that being the case, and we actually had a whole team. And McFarlin. Right. So McFarlin Stanford has a outsourced accounting team, a room full of them [00:07:00] downstairs. Yes. We've got a room full of recruiters that are executive recruiters that are fantastic. They need our guidance. I truthfully, I don't think there's anybody better to give guidance than probably us because we know the clients, we know what they're doing. We can help them move it along. But the reality was is our phones never stopped ringing. And so unless our team was willing to work between eight and 10:00 PM at night because we were never not doing what we do every day, we couldn't move the needle forward. And we've known this for. More than 12 months. Agreed. Right. And as we continued, we pushed, I mean, not with a lack of effort and the, and the consideration of taking care of our clients first, what challenges we came across was what we needed to do, work on the business, and really just giving the support to our team that Right. And so our team was suffering as a result. They weren't getting the attention and the, and the guidance and even the growth of, of what we needed internally with our team operations and. And some of the scalability factors weren't there. I mean, I could just, I, I could look at you and you've aged. Yeah. Really. I mean, like, seriously, Jason. Like, I, I [00:08:00] don't know. Like, it, it's hard. And, and just looking at that face, I'm like, oh, we gotta do something. Um, anyway, um, but at the same time, we got, we have such great, um, I think setting the precedent of, we had such a great experience working with our clients, being out and, uh, doing things with our clients and, and creating that service that we wanted to do. We did need someone that was focused on internally what was happening inside the office, what was happening for our team, um, looking at the gaps that we needed to work on, right. And, and putting the time and effort towards, you know, making that better. And I, and I believe that's where we were going. We could see it, we know it needed to happen. We could call it out, but we just couldn't get to it. Well, if you, if you take a step back and, um, you know, I entered the green industry from outside. People know I'm allergic to grass. They've heard that story a bunch. Um, and I stepped in to a landscape company for a period of almost seven years and, uh, was able to do similar. What we're expecting Scott to do here, and we're gonna compare that here in just a second, but taking a moment to look even further into that, the [00:09:00] McFarlin and Steinford started on the backs of who you and I. Yes. Right. Um, the clients know who, they know the entire team, but the reality is. You know, it always came back to how do we step in? How do we train the next level vote coaches, how do you not take that phone call? And, um, we knew we were not gonna be able to do what the likes of Scott could do, but then you questioned and I questioned like, okay, well how does Scott from outside the green industry step into what we are doing? But it was not so different for me stepping in from outside the green industry. Right, right. Yeah. So, um, maybe you could share with us. You're looking at our practice 'cause you've had some time to do that so far. Yeah, so far. Well look, I mean, when you get down to running a business, right? Again, focus on the clients and what they need, right? Um, how do you expand the service portfolio you have? Because clients don't have one simple need, right? They just don't need an hour of coaching. They have a variety of needs to scale their business. That's actually exciting about the green industry, right? It's large, it's growing, right? But boy is it getting complex. So if you're a [00:10:00] really good operator. Uh, it's getting harder and harder to become an excellent operator because you've got all these challenges coming at you that you probably didn't think about six months ago, two years ago, et cetera. Um, it's not easy. The good news, I guess what I saw is McFarlin Stanford actually has not just functional experts. We have people deep in HR and finance and maintenance operations and sales, et cetera. Um, but they've done it in the green industry. So this isn't sort of trying to take a practice from outside and apply it. It's like we've been there, we've done that. So if you think about this industry with a lot of disruption happening and a lot of challenges coming as you try to grow. You actually need advice on kind of how to move forward. Sometimes it's a coaching call. Sometimes it's, can you bring a couple of people to kind of work through this? I actually need you to do it with me or for me, right? As opposed to just give me some counsel periodically. And to me that is really the magic that, look, our clients are growing. They have awesome opportunities. They're disciplined [00:11:00] operators. They want to be better. You just need some help to make sure you're moving that business forward. Uh, so you can grow it and make a, a better business for your teams as well. And to me, that's really exciting. So where you have challenges, McFarlin, Stanford has deep expertise and we're ready to help. And, uh, that's pretty exciting in my book. Well, we're glad you thought so. So, um. First 30 days. Yeah. It's exciting. I mean, what do you, what do you do when you start a new job? I mean, and if you were owners, so you probably started by, you know, with just you, uh, as I enter a new group, right? I actually interviewed everybody on the team, right? We've got part-time people, we've got full-time people, we've had interns. So I've met 'em all to just understand what's going really well. Where would they see opportunities to improve? Uh, for those of you that know the team well, no shock at all. Uh, the culture is terrific. The team is very client focused and just really trying to figure out how can they do more to help the clients. Uh, so that's a great base to build from, but a little [00:12:00] confusion, right? It's hard to get Jim's time, Jason's time, et cetera, because they're on the road, they're dealing with clients, and sometimes there's some time sensitivity on things. So how do we improve that? Uh, and that comes with, I'll call it the operational discipline. I think that's what I bring. I've brought it in several different career stops along the way where you just need the right process, the right discipline, the right focus, uh, the right empowerment of the team because we're all clear on where we're going, right? Uh, and then we can move quicker and we can deliver consistently with high quality and fundamentally, right? If we're doing that, we should be answering your challenges. To help you move, move faster, grow the business, make it more profitable, et cetera. Uh, so it's, you know, it's exciting. But the, the first 30 days have been terrific. Uh, I'm looking forward to the next, I guess, 60, 90. Uh, those are always some great milestone points. Excited to, uh, you know, continue to meet more of our clients. Uh, I know a few of 'em based on some Italy and some other places, but really wanna make sure I, I meet all, what, almost 300 that we have. [00:13:00] Uh, it's terrific. Right. 300 on a daily basis, but another 700. We'll give you that list because right now I think it's like 750 something, but yeah, it's 300. Sounds good. We'll, let's start with, we'll do the first 300 and then we'll keep moving. Right. And I, I need, feel like I need to, to add this into something you just said. You mentioned, um, it's Jim and Jason are busy. Um. Everybody's like, okay, you're talking Chris. We're talking Barrett. We're talking. Kevin, we're talking. Steve, we're talking Liz. We're talking everybody, right? Yep. I know if I left anybody out, I mean, I left a lot of people out just, but I mean, that's the challenge. We were all, yes. Yeah. It gets really hard to have air traffic control on everybody busy, but the priorities keep coming in, and you do need some judgment calls, right? Hey, are we gonna go right? Are we gonna go left? Right? We can't really punt on this for a week. Till we can get everybody in a room. Well, I think we can do everything. Absolutely. But there's still only so many hours in a week. Right, exactly. That's part of the issue. Yes. Well, and giving the focus to, I mean, we, we run a, a first class ACE peer group program. Yes. But looking at the [00:14:00] outsourced accounting, the way we can help and, and the way that we do recruiting, the way that we can help our clients. Yes. Beyond that additional services and products that come out of the coaching side of things and consulting side, that when people need private attention around what we do to help them, um, it just needed to be. Well, more thought out and how we deliver that and who delivers that, and just get to a point where someone's focused on those things internally. Well, and that's a huge point, Jason, right? If you're kind of in the business every day and dealing with the clients, there's only so far ahead you can look. Mm-hmm. Right? And I think I'll have a bit of the luxury of where do we need to be in two years time, in four years time, and how do we start assembling the pieces to get there? Uh, as we all know, your four year, five year plan doesn't happen in the last 60 days of that five year plan. You have to put the pieces in place right along the way and look. So some things that we've done one way, we're gonna do old things in new ways, and then we're gonna do some new things. And that's just how growth needs to happen. Uh, but we're trying to make sure that we are, as I said before, operating efficiently, scaling thoughtfully, and really making sure that we're [00:15:00] delivering that first class experience to our clients. Mm-hmm. Uh, 'cause I want, anytime a client has a question or a problem, like, what should I do? To me, they should just think McFarlin Stanford, pick up the phone. Right. Look, what have we done this year? Oh, so far this year? I mean, well I've done in 26. Oh yeah. I'm talking in last year. Like last year alone. Oh. You know, besides new age groups, which you talked a little bit about in regards to outsourced accounting, we added a number of clients. Absolutely. You had the recruiting team shifting and executive recruiting team shifting. Yeah. And, and making a lot of things different. Um, bringing themselves back to a, um. A professional level that we're all excited about. We introduced it, introduced a peers app so that we could actually Yes. Um, coordinate communication and have one platform universally we're not IT people. Right. But, but by the way, we became IT people because we knew that was a part of, of the package, right? Yes. Last fall we introduced training and development talks. Well, that's great. But guess who does all the training and development talks? All of us too, right? Yeah. And all those pieces are important because, [00:16:00] um. It's the here and the now and it's the what's live and how do I get that little pearl of information that McFarlin can provide, that they can act on. Right. Right. Um, but we have to get out there and do more Yes. Talking. Right. That's right. Right. And so, um, which these were all things that our clients have asked for Sure. Going, we need some help with our team members. Right. We would like for you to get more informa, you know, more information out there to their, to our team members firsthand to help do some training to help. Us get a better program to where we're not the only ones talking and teaching, right? And so we want our team to hear what you have to say as well. And we have ways to plug in now and, and these team development series are great, but that's terrific, right? That's the peer group members saying. I get a lot out of this. Yes. I wish my team could get as much out of it. Great point. And we kind of took that and ran with it and said, we've got some ideas. Yes. And rather than having the idea and waiting six months Right. It launched in January. Correct. And this ACE Peers app has centralized our communication. Yeah. So people know where, what events are happening, [00:17:00] when they're happening. Communication internally with coaches, with team members, with groups. It's been a great change. I believe it's only gonna get better, so, so since Scott has joined us. I mean, have, have you just been more relaxed and been able to like, you know, get so much more done? I mean, you force multiplying. I mean, talk to me about this. Well, internally, no, internally, internally, I, I find that there's so many things we're excited about working on. We're just, you know, we're, grit is here, so we're going to, we're gonna grind and we're just ready to make some change. And so I'm excited about the positive that will come from this. And maybe the support really is what I see more often as just like, how is this going to happen? How do we make this happen and make it smoother for everyone involved? And getting someone to build structure to that right makes such a big difference. So someone else is thinking about it beyond, uh, a smaller group of us. And so as we start looking at these things internally, we just had our first of many Scott led town hall meetings. Um, which was really well received. So many [00:18:00] of our team members came up to, I think you as well, Jim and, and myself, and said, we're so glad we're, you know, we have Scott on board. Because the communication of what's been happening across all the departments and us coming together to recognize what we did in 2025 was incredible at what we were able to accomplish. But we're also very excited about what we can do in 2026. 'cause of what we can do. Yeah. That's also a great example of things that you coach your clients to do. A hundred percent. Which at the end of the day, it just, those are not where you had any hours left to do that. With the internal teams, it's like, it's important. Let's do it. We, we, we launched you the right way. So, so we, we did kick off the first town. How Town Hall of Schwartz was, is everybody coming together, um, making an announcement? Um, confidentially we. Teed that up appropriately. Um, and, uh, everybody was told at the exact same time, Scott then walked in the room wasn't that big of a, you know, it was a lifeguard failure here and here. Um, no, it, it, it was, you know, and we talked about everything that we've just discussed [00:19:00] here. Yeah. With our audience. Um, and everything that we talked about with the audience here is exactly how internally they were feeling too. And Scott, you stepped in and introduced yourself. And I think that's step number one. Yep. Step two, doing what you said you were gonna do, which is spend time with all of them in the first 30 days. Right. Step three, being in the office every day, every day. Open. I don't think I've been open office four days this month. I've been on the road. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah. I, I have not stopped. January was full before we hired you for myself. Mm-hmm. Um, I think April that for you, or something like that. But it, it's funny how it, it comes in waves, but that appreciation tied with what you just explained, which was the town hall. Mm-hmm. And then guess what? The second towns hall's already scheduled. Two, of course it's ready to go. Right, exactly. It's communication. Yes, it's communication. It was kind of more of like the do as I say, not as I do. I'm just gonna fess up to all of my clients. Um, and, and and that's because there was just no way. It was, it was, it was good when it was Jim. Jason and Chris. Right. Yeah. And, [00:20:00] and it was manageable at that time. We could deliver what we could deliver. It was easy to conversate between the three of us, and we were able to execute and we all had plans. When you start building a larger team, right. The needs of our audience got larger and our client base got larger. And so we just found, you know, we needed to, we needed to step it up. We need to do what we do well, right. But also get some help in the things that we weren't doing well. Well, and some of your facilitators are not in Dallas, so they're not in the office. Right, right. Which just adds another level of complexity. How do you communicate? Get everybody on the same page? We're not. Physically in the same room. Not the first company to go through that transition, but Right. We know what to do. We're now doing it and you know we're not gonna stop. Right? Mm-hmm. It's now like, what else do we need to do? Just get everyone focused on the same definition of success. We know what good looks like, let's make sure we're delivering, let's make sure we're engaging with our clients. And for me, it's like, and let's listen. If we ask them what help they need, right? They will tell us. Mm-hmm. We had a couple of groups in town. What, a week or two ago, right. And just meeting with them [00:21:00] over a, a cocktail, right? They would tell you like, oh, I'm struggling with X, Y, and Z. And for some of 'em, like, you know, we help with that. They're like, you do. Did you close 'em? Uh, I don't think so, but I referred them to the right person to close. Always be closing. Always be closing. Okay. Um, eyeopening, right? People have been with us for a long time. Still didn't realize everything that we do. Mm-hmm. But it, on top of that, so yeah. Not realizing everything we do well now what happens? Right? We're we expect to have more bandwidth? Absolutely. So, so what does that, what does that mean? And Chris will have, Chris, you and I, and Chris will have more bandwidth completely for this. And where's that gonna put us? Um. I know this will surprise you, but I like people. I like being with teams and I, frankly, I enjoy the onsites as much as I a teams call and being involved in people's teams on a daily basis and helping leaders lead and do all the things that we just described here and we know how to do. Yeah. Um, and holding our teams, excuse me, our [00:22:00] clients accountable, um, is what I'm good at. And, um, I'm really good. I can be good at a lot of things. I just can't be good at everything. Right. And I will tie this back to a conversation. That we had right when you started it. I told Scott at our holiday party, I said, it's been two days since we told the team, um, or two days since I knew you were joining the team. And I said, I, I've really slept well the last two nights. And I, I really did. Um, and I told Scott that, and your reply was, I haven't, I know there's a lot to do. Yeah. Not because of that, but, uh, yay. I'm glad about that. No, but, um, but that's true. It, it, it helps. Me, it helps, uh, me, right? But it helps all of us. It, it gains confidence in where we want to go, and we're going, and Jim and Jason and Chris are going nowhere. It allows us to be where we're best, right? It allows us to work with our client base and doing what we do well. Uh, but I, we get [00:23:00] confidence of what's happening with steering. Yes. And guiding the team when we're not around. Yeah, things are happening even if you're not there, right? And that lets you spend more time with clients. Not one hour Zoom calls, but on site. Let's really work through how to, how to do this. Not just what you should do. And to me, that's really the exciting part, right? For people that are really trying to transform their business. It doesn't have to be a, a one hour call each week. It's like we can bring our resources to kind of help you. Right. Figure out where you are. Figure out where you want to go, what those levers look like, and how do you go execute that. I mean, I can't tell you how many clients I've heard say, yeah, I know I need to get into, expand into maintenance. I think that's just an operations thing. And then you realize like. Well, no, it's an HR thing and it's a finance thing, and it's a sales thing, and it's an operations thing. They, you have to bring all of that together, right? They're like, yeah, and that's why I haven't done it. Well, we actually have all those resources. Mm-hmm. Like, we can help you do that. Uh, because we have the experts right across all these functions that have done it in the green industry. They're [00:24:00] not applying it from a fundamentally different industry and trying to say, I think this connects, they're like, Nope, been there, done that. Here's what you need to watch out for. Right. Let's, I have a saying about let's make new mistakes. Hey, let's make sure that we learned what somebody else did. Uh, and didn't do well. So you don't repeat that. You kind of leverage their experience and move forward. And if we can help clients do that, that's fantastic. You have lots of sayings. I do. Yes. I am a sayings machine. You are? What? What, what's the one about? Surprises. Oh, no surprises. Unless it's your birthday. There you go. Mm-hmm. Love that one. Marty. Add that to your words because he has no surprises everywhere. But you need to add if it's not your birthday, right? Yep. So, uh, that, that's a good one. Um, and uh, I'm also big on land the planes, which you are, you've never thought of that, right? We all launch like a hundred initiatives and then we wonder why not everything's moving forward or nothing gets done. It's because we've got a hundred planes in the air, right? You need to land a few and then launch the next ones. And so you get this rolling cadence of success. People get confident in what good looks like, what results are, [00:25:00] how the impact is to clients, and then we start moving a bit faster. Uh, so it's not about doing a hundred things at once. It's about maybe a hundred things in the year, but let's bite 'em off four or five at a time. For those of you that know anything about me, the minute he gave me the, the analogy about planes, it was the whole travel thing. You got me on that. I'm like, Jason. We got this. Yeah. Right. We're talking the same language. I think I've used the word puppeteering. I like landing the planes much better. Yes. It's, it's good for that. So, well, and, and, and going after this, I'm, I will say, I'd be remiss, we, we speak to our clients about this when we see an opportunity for growth, we see our clients go through this. The reality is they have a chance to either hold back and do this organically and do this the way that will, you know, slow trickles and it's painful. Or you can bring the right team members on. Yes, you can. You can build this cohesion and this growth mindset with people that are capable of helping you run. Yes. Uh, and get outta the way. Don't be the bottleneck. And so I find that [00:26:00] there is a place in that for every company, uh, and we talk about this, don't be the bottleneck and find the people that can help you run. Yeah. And so ultimately, that's a big part of why you're here and why we're excited about that. At the end of the day, you and I were landscapers. Um, we took a team from under 4 million to 28 million in a short period of time. Mm-hmm. Less than eight years. That's right. Um, and it, that's exactly what our clients are doing. Right? Right. And look, when our team is, uh, well positioned and moving forward, right. That just allows the team to execute on behalf of the clients as well, right? Whether it's outsourced accounting or recruiting or coaching or consulting, right. It, you know, we can actually build out that scale and make sure that the, the team is always pushing forward and that's. Really healthy. So what does that look like, Mr. CEO? Right. And and, and the reason I'm asking it in that way is I know people have asked me, well that's great. Now you've got, got to give you guys relief. This is not about relief. No, no. It's about aiming your. [00:27:00] Remaining hours are freed up hours differently. Right. But what does that mean for the organization? What, what is gonna, what is new? What's coming? I mean, you can't tell 'em everything. Fair enough. Right. I mean, there's certain people we have to call and run that by. I won't take that as I'm joking. Yeah. Um, but you know, how do you see our take on the industry, our breadth of services? Yeah. You've alluded to a couple things. You've gotten some short conversations you've had along the way. Yeah. I know you're gonna be polling some clients to ask them some of their opinions. Yes. Yeah. Look, big things. I see, um, when you talk to clients, right? There are some areas that they don't feel like they have expertise on. And candidly, we may not have the expertise today. Uh, I've heard social media come up like, do you have a social media guru? It's like, probably need to beef up our capability there, right? Um, and so I, you can expect us to add some additional expertise on areas that really matter to the clients. The other thing I. I do believe you'll see is us putting together the pieces we have together for clients that say, I really want to transform my business. Can you [00:28:00] help me take it from X to Y over some period of time? I need a roadmap on how to do that. Not a me just thinking about random things. Uh, and look what I've learned from both of you, uh, and others on the team, right? When you look at what we've done, right, we've done five year plans, we've done leadership team assessments, we've done valuations of a business, we've done health assessments, right? We've done all of these things that when you then apply it in the right sequence, right, can take you from X to two x or three x, uh, depending on what your objective is. And look, no two operators are gonna have the same exact goal, and you're not gonna get there the same exact way. That's why you want experts that have been there and done that in the green industry, right? All of this expertise, we can bring it together, that cross-functional team, as we talked about before, right? Just adding a new line of business, it's not one thing, right? It rarely sits in one little box, right? It's cutting across everything and you really have to have a plan on how to deal with this. We want to be there to help you. So putting that in a package of [00:29:00] sorts, right? Yeah. Yeah. And, and, and one of the things I've spent some time. Uh, given you the background on, as you know, McFarlin Stanford was built on the premise of whatever you're doing, it should be building value in your company. Yes. And I'm not talking about value to sell. No, no. I'm talking about if that happens, that's great because you've been doing everything right to build the value. Right, right. And that story inside your team as you're building together to make sure you're doing the most valuable, have the most valuable, uh, programs in place, systems in place, and driving that inside your company means you're making the right decisions as an owner. Yes. Yes. Right. Um, and otherwise it's just pulling something outta a tree thinking, Hey, you know, squirrel, I'm gonna go do that. Right? No, but we'll, we'll tell you why. You should pick this over that. Yes, let's go get this now and let's make it happen. Yeah. And there's a sequence to those too, right? Even if you pick X, how you get there, right there, there is a thoughtful sequence that people have been in the industry for a long time. They know why you do step one, then step two, then step three, as opposed to [00:30:00] three of them in parallel or in a reverse order. All of which can sound rational. But if you've been there and done that, you say, yeah, that doesn't work. If you follow this game plan, we can get you there. And it's not that the answer will be the same, but there's some thematics in there. Uh, you know, get the right team in place. Make sure you know where you're going, design thoughtfully and execute the hell out of it. Well, that sounds great. Well, can't I just put this in chat and it'll just tell me those, that that steps and that path. I mean, I'm being serious when I ask that question 'cause people have asked me that question. No, no. I. Look, I've been doing AI since AI was, uh, machine learning and natural language processing, which was when, yeah, back it's 15 years. So we've software development doing ai, but when it was not a large language model, um, look, the what sometimes looks really easy, the how is really hard. This goes all the way back to my consulting days. You know, saying the, what somebody wants to be is the easy part that becomes the, the PowerPoint that sits on a shelf somewhere and nobody [00:31:00] ever goes back to it. Right? The, well, how do we do that in order to get the results? And can you work alongside with us to make sure that the, the promise actually becomes a reality? That's the hard part. Chachi, BT can't tell you that it can spit out a few generic sequences. Guess what? Every one of your competitors is getting the same set of generic sequences. So what makes you different, right? And the way you win in business is to do something. Different that matters to clients. And when you can do that, that's differentiation. That's why our operators, our owners, that's why they have clients that love them because they are doing something special. They're making their clients feel special, they're executing consistently. They have high service levels, you know, but chat GPT can tell you to do that doesn't tell you how to do it. Uh, that comes from, you know, people that have been there and done that. Alright, Jason, our friend Marty always says, people, you know, clients in the landscape industry do business with people they no like and trust. Exactly. Bingo. No. Like, and trust. That's not something that's gonna be spit out of any generated program that you just discussed. It's, it's that personality that you're bringing to the table. [00:32:00] Yes. Um, through process. Yeah. Course and place that will build those relationships because what we do is hands-on. Yes. Um, and that's what clients are looking for. And I think that sequence is important, right? I know you, I like you. I trust you because the guidance you've given me has been smart, right? And I've seen the value of it, and I've seen other people try a different thing and it didn't work. And you've been there for easy problems and hard problems and that trust, right? It doesn't happen overnight. But that's why we have client relationships that are, you know, some of 'em measured in decades. That's fantastic. Right? And that's what we want to keep going. Or late nights. Yes, that too. Yes. So some of the feedback already from our close friends are excited for us already. They understand what's going on and the need, they've seen the sleepless nights from Jim, Jason, Chris, and some of our team members along the way. So we know we've got a lot to look forward to. Um. And just sharing, I think along the journey, [00:33:00] you know, this Roots of Success podcast is a part of getting to know our team better. Yes. That's why we're doing this. So you get to make Scott and see how we're building this and where we're going. We're gonna see more of our team members come on this and we're gonna rotate through this pro, this podcast. And so, um, I know as you're working through things, Scott, you're gonna Yeah. You're gonna see a lot of changes. Oh, absolutely. You'll be back on this to talk about the journey, no question. Mm-hmm. And I think that's important, right? The McFarlin Stanford team is much bigger than you might realize, right? Because any one client may only deal with one or two or three people. Uh, but the team is huge, right? Pretty large. It can always, yeah. You know, continue to grow, but unique expertise, and again, bringing that together is really powerful. So roots of success, you'll get to meet more of the team, be like, oh, that person's really sharp. Maybe we should engage them for this. Um, and, and, and that was by design. Yeah. Our goal was, is that when we were in the day to day. Of landscaping. There were really, there was very few people to reach out to. Yeah. There certainly wasn't anybody from a financial perspective that understood the books. Right. That we understood the [00:34:00] books, um, whether it be recruiting, um, things like that. And that's, that's where we started and that's been our dream since 2014. Mm-hmm. Right. Is to be that, I hate to use the words, one stop shop, but that's the goal. Yeah. And so whereas you positioned it earlier, you know, we're listening to our clients and that's how the prioritization's gonna be put in place for us to do what. Yes. Fulfill what we talked about from day one. Yes. Right. It's just what got you on the first several hundred clients is not gonna continue to scale. Right? Right. There's not enough hours in the week to double the business because you don't have that many hours to double your, your time spent. Uh, so we have to be smarter about it and that's, I think where all of this comes together. Well, I'm gonna speak for myself and Jason certainly chime in here. I'm flattered that you would consider entering the green industry to be a part of us. Um. For those of you that know me, I mean, I've gone from drinking bourbon to red wine and that's a joke, but that's, that's not really, it's the truth and Scott's a big part of that. Um, but I [00:35:00] know where we're headed. Um, and we're excited for our clients because as excited as we are, it's only gonna tra translate into their excitement. Yes. As we continue to push the envelope on the consultative side of the green industry and be able to make a difference to all of our clients every day. Yes. Exciting times. We're gonna do a lot more for clients. And all of this is really done with right. The best client experience in mind. Alright. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Thank you for joining us. Did we hug it out? I think we hug it out. Was there. Thank you for listening to this episode of Roots of Success, brought to you by the subject matter Experts at McFarlin Stanford have a question you want our coaches to tackle in a future episode. You could submit that@McFarlinstanford.com slash podcast. And to find more helpful content from McFarlin Stanford, follow us on X, LinkedIn, Instagram, and Facebook. If this or any of our episodes have piqued your interest in ACE Peer Group. [00:36:00] We encourage you to join us at Ace Discovery. Just check out the events tab@McFarlinstanford.com. This is Jason New co-founder and principal at McFarlin Stanford. We'll see you next time.