“I saw very clearly that this industry was the last bastion of this non-digitized space. I wanted to be the one that brought us into the new technological era.” ~Lisa Fiore, Landscape Hub

Lisa Fiore left the family business behind to transform an industry. In this episode, Jason speaks with Lisa, founder and CEO of Landscape Hub, about the challenges that have shaped her management style and the tech she’s created to revolutionize a stodgy wholesale vertical.

“Their version of the story is that I grabbed the business and took it from them. My version is they gave it to me,” Lisa laughs, recalling the series of events that ultimately lead to her taking over the family’s century-old landscape supply business in 2010 - at the height of the Great Recession. 

Throughout that crisis, Lisa maintained an honest dialogue with her staff and her family about the painful adjustments to come. Fostering that level transparency taught her a great deal about the value of vulnerability, an attribute that has prepared her for the current pandemic. “We all have deep scars from the recession and I guarantee you we're all gonna have deep scars of living through this…[but] it's informed my instincts.” 

Challenges should beget meaningful change. That’s a takeaway Lisa has run with throughout her career. After shoring up the family business, she left the company to realize her dream: the creation of an online marketplace connecting buyers and quality suppliers across the country. 

But optimizing a fragmented ecosystem is not an easy task - or a quick one.

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Distribution Talk is produced by The Distribution Team, a consulting services firm dedicated to helping wholesale distribution clients remove barriers to profitability, generate wealth and achieve personal goals.   

http://www.distributionteam.com

This episode was edited & mixed by The Creative Impostor Studios. Find out if creating a podcast is right for your business at their upcoming Launch Your Podcast online class: http://www.thecreativeimpostor.com/DTLaunch

Connect with Jason on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jasonbader

Connect with Lisa Fiore on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lisa-fiore-69a6752a

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Imagine an industry in which the established common names for products change from region to region, where orders are often taken via pencil and pad. That’s what Landscape Hub is up against.

Three years in, however, Lisa is as enthusiastic about her tech as she was the first time she pitched it to venture capitalists. “This is the future of the industry and I have to be a part of it and I have to see this thing through.” 

Under her guidance, Lisa and her team will no doubt do just that. An entrepreneur at heart, she’s happiest laying the foundation for future innovations.

“We are doing something that is genuinely going to change this industry. We don't know necessarily what role we'll play in terms of the finished product, but I guarantee you, what we're doing today will make a difference.”

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Special thanks to our sponsor for this episode: INxSQL Distribution Software.