Landscape Disruptors

It's not uncommon for couples to work together. It's not unusual for couples to own and build a business together, particularly in the landscape industry, due to the demands of getting your company up and running with little people and cash investment to get started. 

Together in Trades is a new event brought to you by Caleb and Brittany Auman. And Brian, and Liz Fullerton. The event aims to help landscape business owners who are married and work together. Sharing strategies to set boundaries, balance work and personal life, and create family time.

Throughout this episode of the Landscape Disruptors podcast Brian Fullerton and Stanley Genadek deep dive into some rules of couples that work together and how they stay together. Most importantly, how to conquer the landscape World together and build an empire of your dreams for you and your family.

In the landscaping world, Paver King (Mike Pennington) in Whitby, Ontario, Canada, leads the pack in social media with his creative, Tweets, Instagram, and YouTube content. His sense of humor has inspired many, and his passion for being a skilled trades person sets the bar for the next generation who are motivated to work with their hands in an industry plagued with a skilled labor shortage. 

Mike Pennington, who recently turned 50, has been a longtime self-proclaimed hardscaper and has led the charge inspiring the up-and-coming generation of hardscapers and understands the ups and downs of the industry. He shares his story of the good and the not-so-good moments throughout his career and how he's now in a place that excites him to wake up every single day to go and get the work done. 

Throughout this episode, Mike and Stanley The Dirt Monkey Genadek get into what it means to be a landscaper and the role we all need to start owning within the industry to lead the next generation. Mike goes deep on ending the stigma associated with the skilled trades and how we all need to be more proud to be in the green industry.

Shawn Feurer is a successful entrepreneur, speaker, and mindset consultant. Known for his heartfelt style, high energy, and sincerity, he is loved by clients and audiences all over the United States.

Throughout this episode of Landscape Disruptors, Stanley Genadek Dirt Monkey and Shawn dive deep on mindset in business and how your thoughts can directly impact results. Whether you're in the start-up phase of business or 15 years into building the ultimate landscape incorporation with multiple divisions and monster-sized teams of people, the mindset has everything to do with your results, and it all starts with the leadership teams at the helm of the ship. 

Shawn highlights some key strategies and tactics to get you in the right mindset and encourage everyone on your leadership team to lead with levity, positivity and attract the business outcomes and goals you and the company are trying to achieve.

What do you know about reputation management? As a local service skilled trade company, you probably know it's important to capture good customer reviews, maintain a strong reputation and hopefully, capture more customer referrals. 

In today's world of digital marketing, google my business reviews and reviews matter more than ever. Any new lead does one thing: either google your company name or search your company on Instagram. And if good reviews don't populate or your visibility ranking is low, the chances are that lead will search out another company.

In this episode of the Landscape Disruptors podcast, Stanley Genadek Dirt Monkey and Shawny Hill from NiceJob go deep on what it takes to build an excellent reputation, win more customer reviews, and increase leads and service calls.

Founded in 1933, the Ariens company is a fifth-generation company in the green industry and employs over 1500 people and builds some of the best known zero-turn mowers and snowblowers. Founded in a garage, assembled and developed in America, the company continues to grow year over year with family members at the helm of the ship. 

Landscape Disruptors and host Stanley Genadek Dirt Money were lucky enough to have Steve Ariens on the podcast for a minute and share his story on what it's like working for one of the most extensive equipment manufactures within the landscape and snow industry.

Throughout the podcast, Steve takes us through the ins and outs of operating a generational business and the trials and tribulations along the way. From R & D to organizational structure, management, and what landscape property management companies should expect shortly are just some of the topics covered throughout this episode.

The man, the myth, the legend, Rick Weihl may have started in landscaping, mowing lawns, and plowing snow, but his true passion led him down the road of inventing equipment to help landscape contractors be more efficient.

Rick worked 12 hours a day at his lawn care and snow removal company, but on the side in his free time, he spent countless hours and dollars inventing everything from high-powered leaf blowers, snowplows, rear mount snowplows, and multiple patents.

The real story in this podcast with Stanley Genadek Dirt Monkey is that Rick ran a successful property management business with over 40 employees and sub-contractors while financing his inventions.

It all finally paid off when he sold his invention to some big equipment companies within the industry, and later this summer, he has the new snowplow that will change the snow removal world as we know it. Throughout the podcast, Rick shares some hard lessons learned in business and life that are invaluable and could hopefully help you fast track your company's success.

Building a successful business could be summarized as multiple different business functions coming together and working as efficiently and effectively to generate revenue from a product or service. It sounds simple, but the complexities to overcome as a business owner in the start-up phase are endless.

Everything from hiring people, leading people, managing cash flow, managing the business, working on the company, and the list goes on. However, Weston Nicholas' success story as an arborist didn't start out as smooth as you'd think. Like many, he's learned from his experiences and mistakes to build better systems and fill his team gaps as his company continues to grow.

Admittedly, he doesn't have it all figured out, but throughout this episode of Landscape Disruptors with Stanley Genadek, the Dirt Monkey. They discuss everything related to finding a trustworthy partner, not letting your ego get in the way, being singularly focused, hiring slow, managing cash flow, and so much more.

Most landscape business owners in the start-up phase go through many growing pains. Initially, everything revolves around the business owner. When the owner reaches their work capacity limit, both in time and energy, they typically need to hire more staff to meet the demand for work to continue growing the company, all while streamlining systems and processes to accommodate more people and more volume.

As an owner goes through this process of business growing pains, it's relatively common to get caught up in the day-to-day operations - communications, managing people, meeting with customers, capturing more work, and the list goes on. But often, left off the list through this growing process is business development - building better financial systems to eliminate waste, utilizing software to manage the company, creating hiring processes, building company culture, incentivizing your team, just to name a few. It's walking a line of working in the business and working on the business, and Kory Ballard certainly experienced the same as he grew his company, Perficut Landscaping.

Throughout this episode, Kory and Stanley Genadek Dirt Monkey discuss everything related to growing a landscape business and the common pitfalls owners experience as they scale their company. From cash flow problems to ego getting in how you manage your team and not having the suitable systems and processes before growing the business.

From getting her education, living in Asia, and soul searching while holding down a day job, Anne Briggs knows what it means to trial and error and recalibrate along the way until she figures it out.

Over the past ten years, Anne has worked exceptionally hard at acquiring the experience needed to chase her passion for building, woodworking, farming, and every other skilled trade you can imagine. Her vast skill set has led to paving the path for the next generation of skilled tradesmen and women. An ever-growing online and in-person audience has enabled her to chase her dreams and generate a living from her hard-earned skills.

Throughout this episode of Landscape Disruptors, Anne and Stanley Dirt Monkey Genadek go deep on how Anne essentially created something significant from chasing her passion and dreams in the skilled trade world. The relatable trials and tribulation stories shine through during this podcast episode with lessons learned that you will undoubtedly fast-track your business or career in meaningful and valuable ways.

Finding the right people in Landscaping or the skilled trades that are the best fit for your company can be challenging. Do you seek out those with the skills that match up for your hiring role, or do you seek out that rockstar personality who's motivated, wants to work hard, and learn and grow alongside the company?

The answer is frequently both when speaking with the thought leaders in today's green industry, but it's typically not such a simple process to source both skill and the right company culture fit people. Frequently companies attract both the right people and the wrong people. The culture you create within your company can significantly impact productivity and your teams' ability to get the work done on time and budget.

Ryan Markewich spent over 20 years building his Landscape Company, constantly turning the dials, and now has a rock-solid 20+ staff that make up his dream team. Today's generation of landscapers wants more than a paycheque. They want to feel like they contribute to something larger than themselves and belong to a group that means something. Throughout this episode, Ryan and LMN CEO Mark Bradley cover everything from finding the right people, addressing the millennium workforce struggles, and the higher processes that not only attract the people you want but ultimately create a winning elite team of landscape workers.