Proven Marketing Strategies That Actually Work for Lawn & Landscape Businesses

In this power-packed episode, Mike Stiers of Greenbaum Stiers shares his battle-tested marketing playbook that took his company from startup to multi-million-dollar success using a mix of digital ads, direct mail, referrals, and local domination strategies. Whether you're just starting out or scaling an established lawn care business, you'll walk away with actionable, high-ROI tactics you can implement this week to attract better clients and fill your schedule faster than ever. 📞 CallRail – Track where your leads are coming from: callrail.com https://partners.callrail.com/cc4gs529efdp 🎟️ Equip Expo 👉 Save 50% off Equip Expo Ticket w/ Promo Code PAUL: Register Here https://bit.ly/EQUIPEXPO 📚 Level Up Your Money (New Release) 👉 Get Your Paperback Copy! https://pauljamison.org/book 🎧 Level Up Your Money (Audiobook) 👉 Listen on Audible https://pauljamison.org/audiobook Rehlko Engines - Guiness World Records Attempt https://pauljamison.org/4oUln4C 📲 Connect with Paul - Visit Official Website https://www.thepauljamison.com/ 🛠️ Paul's Recommended Tools & Professionals 📚 The Landscaping Bookkeeper – Know your numbers, stress less: thelandscapingbookkeeper.com https://thelandscapingbookkeeper.com/ 📈 Lawn Care Launch: Click Here https://thelandscapingbookkeeper.com/lawn-care-launch (new program for business owners) 🌐 Footbridge Media – Get a pro lawn care website: footbridgemedia.com https://www.footbridgemedia.com/paul-jamison?ref=pauljamison 💻 Horizon360 – All-in-one contractor business software: gethorizon360.com https://gethorizon360.com/ 📦 Business-Building Resources by Paul Price Increase Letter Template https://www.thepauljamison.com/resource_redirect/landing_pages/2150230978 Contract Templates https://www.thepauljamison.com/resource_redirect/landing_pages/2150230978 📚 Paul's Most Popular Business Books How to Build a Thriving Lawn Care Business: Buy on Amazon https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0D4K835L4 Cut That Grass and Make That Cash: Buy on Amazon https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08SP7MQ13 Level Up Your Money (New Release): Buy Now https://pauljamison.org/book

• 0:00Speaker 00

  This episode is brought to you by Motive. Growing a landscaping company means more trucks, more trailers and more equipment and more revenue doesn't always mean more profit. Motive gives you one platform to see where your vehicles and equipment are, cut idle time and fuel waste and protect your crews with AI dash cams. Motive customers report 20% annual savings on maintenance and fuel. See what it could do for your business at gomotive.com. Again, that's gomotive.com.

• 0:31Speaker 01

  Hello and welcome to the Green Industry Podcast, your go-to guide for building a more profitable and thriving lawn care and landscaping business. Your host, Paul Jameson, is the author of five bestselling books, including Cut That Grass and Make That Cash and his latest, Level Up Your Money, all available on Amazon and Audible. Now get ready for more expert insights and practical strategies to boost your business and level up your life. Here's Paul Jameson.

• 1:08Speaker 00

  Super excited today to talk about marketing, maybe a little AI, and how we can really be making sure that we are optimizing our marketing. Our special guest today is up there, good old Columbus, Ohio area, Mike Stiers. Welcome to the program.

• 1:25Speaker 02

  Thanks for having me, Paul.

• 1:26Speaker 00

  Yeah, one thing that we have in common is we like, we both like the Ohio State Buckeyes. I grew up in Ohio, so I like Ohio State too.

• 1:34Speaker 02

  That's fantastic. Lifelong Buckeye fan here. It was good to sneak the victory out from the team up north, Michigan, of course.

• 1:42Speaker 00

  Oh, yeah. So what's your, what's your prediction for the remainder of the season? In this podcast, I'm not sure what data will be scheduled to come out. So it might come out after the season's over. So we'll see how accurate you are. But what, are the Buckeyes going to be back-to-back national champions?

• 1:56Speaker 02

  Yes, I think that we're going to repeat back-to-back. I don't think there's any doubts at this point. Indiana will probably be our biggest challenge, which they've really surprised me this year.

• 2:07Speaker 00

  Yeah. And video editor, you can cut that out if you want to make this evergreen content, but I love Ohio State, so. I'll have to ask Mike about that. Where did you watch the game at?

• 2:19Speaker 02

  So I ended up watching the game out at a spot in Pickerington, Ohio. I don't know if you're familiar with that, but it's called Donnerix Pub. So pretty good place. Friends came out. We watched the game and your best friend, in fact, and we enjoyed that and go Bucks, man. Go Bucks.

• 2:35Speaker 00

  Yeah, my, my Ohio State claimed the fame. I got two. I went to high, well, elementary school, middle school, high school with Brian Hartline, who's now the offensive coordinator, who recruits these amazing wide receivers, but we played bass on the basketball team together and grew up with him. I had no idea when we grew up that he was going to be, you know, the mastermind behind wide receiver U at Ohio State, but he's done a phenomenal job with their wide receivers.

• 3:06Speaker 02

  Oh yeah. He is so impressive and they, everyone says just great things about Brian. He's got a great eye for talent. He's a relationship builder and, and obviously he's helping to develop these kids gifts for the next level.

• 3:18Speaker 00

  Yeah. And he played wide receiver at Ohio State and then the Miami Dolphins and then the Cleveland Browns. So I think the, the players respect him because he's not like some fat football coach, you know, with the whistle and say, hey, you know, do it like this. He's, he can actually go out there with the guys and, and, you know, show them, hey, here, here's how you do it.

• 3:35Speaker 02

  So true. Yeah. He, he lived it. So he's, he's, he was in the trenches once. He can take that and apply it to their game now.

• 3:41Speaker 00

  Yeah. And then my little brother Robbie had a half court basketball shot. I'm not sure if you've ever seen the clips of it, but he was at the Ohio State basketball game and the pretty sideline reporter asked him what his name was. He's like, most people call me Robbie, but you can call me anytime. And then he, he went, he made a half court shot at the Ohio State basketball game and.

• 4:00Speaker 02

  No, I haven't seen that. I'm going to have to look that one up.

• 4:02Speaker 00

  Yeah. It's Ohio State half court shot. And I was, it was epic. He, he made it. It was, it was packed that day. At the game. So that was a lot of fun.

• 4:13Speaker 02

  That's awesome.

• 4:14Speaker 00

  Well, you have about 70 customers, but you're you're helping out with their marketing. So tell us a little bit about your business.

• 4:23Speaker 02

  Yeah, for sure. You know, it's funny because when I get into these discussions, it's always best for me to go in the wayback machine. Just so they understand a little bit about me too. You know, my origin story into the home service and home improvement space really started in 2013. When I went to work for the basement doctor in Columbus, Ohio, they specialize in foundation repair and waterproofing. At that point, I was a digital marketing specialist. They had a marketing and advertising budget that was well over, you know, 13%. And they weren't having much luck with, you know, Google ads or Facebook ads. So I joined their team and, you know, reworked some content, worked with their web company and started

• 5:05Speaker 02

  running some digital ads for them and having great success. Ultimately, you know, that led to a year later becoming the marketing director for the basement doctor, along with my business partner, Ron Greenbaum at the agency to, you know, really get in touch with other companies that he was working with as well. He owned a company called Nash Distribution, which manufactured and distributed products in that waterproofing and foundation repair space throughout the United States. So that led us to opportunities where we would speak at the conferences where they were training people on the, you know, in-home sales tactics with the products. I would give them DIY tactics on promoting their brand, you know, lead response, different ways that they could build out case studies and get testimonials.

• 5:50Speaker 02

  And that led to people saying, hey, can you do what you're doing for the basement doctor for our companies as well? So fast forward to 2017, Ron and I formalized the agency, Greenbaum Stiers Strategic Marketing Group. And, you know, fast forward again to today where we've got over 70 businesses. You know, really predominantly in the foundation repair and waterproofing space, but into interior, exterior remodeling, roofing. We do some HVAC. And then funny enough, you know, on the landscaping side, we recently launched a local website called The Lawn Vikings. So just a little, little small mom and pop operation, but really nice folks and kind of bled into their, their brand. So it was fun to build.

• 6:36Speaker 00

  Okay. And then out of those 70 customers, are they all over the United States or are they Ohio-based businesses?

• 6:44Speaker 02

  They are all over the United States and you know, range from different industries within the home service and the home improvement space. So we really don't have too many within Ohio. You know, when we started out the agency, we were full service across the board. We we had this thought that, hey, you know, we can be anything and everything to everybody. And it wasn't until we really niched down and followed that home service, home improvement trail that we really saw the the agency, you know, take off for us. But we do work with a number of nonprofits, you know, very passionate about that. It's been something that we put out, you know, for our company to really focus on. Our employees enjoy that as well.

• 7:24Speaker 00

  Okay. Now, I know off air at the beginning, when we were talking, you had mentioned that you're getting more and more of these 70 customers of yours to use Call Rail. And I think 26 of your customers are using their voice assist feature. Can you share with me how that's helping their business?

• 7:43Speaker 02

  Without a doubt. So a few years ago, we do a end of the year kind of recap where we're very analytics minded. So we're always looking for proof, you know, in the marketing and advertising strategies that we're having success. You know, we look at attribution, mixed marketing strategies. And along with that, you know, about a year and a half ago, we really came into an issue with a few of our clients where we noticed they were missing these phone calls and form fills that were coming during business hours. And it was bad. I mean, like, missing like 30% of calls. So you can imagine what happens. Obviously, the customer service reps say, hey, you know, we're answering those calls and we're getting

• 8:25Speaker 02

  back to these people. We know that that's not the case, especially when you start to look in that that data. So utilizing Call Rail's platform, we were able to identify that, you know, if we could get these folks down to a 10%, you know, answer rate, or I'm sorry, a 90% answer rate where they're only missing, you know, 10% of those those phone calls, they could really get more booked jobs and that turned into more revenue. And the awesome part of that is that Call Rail obviously saw that there was a big need and you know, they put out the AI voice assist. And we kind of think of that as a major upgrade to your voicemail, where we've implemented now to 26 of our clients that have adopted it. Where it's answering the phone calls that are overflow during business hours or even after

• 9:09Speaker 02

  hours and the the phone calls are still averaging, you know, like three and a half minutes. People are actually talking to the AI. The AI is prepping them rather than just getting a voicemail. They're letting them know about the the company, the areas that they service, the services they provide, and then preparing them for a phone call back from a representative when they're available. And so we're seeing great success there. It's probably been one of the most exciting things that we've been able to implement for our clients that we have direct control over because now we're seeing more of our marketing and advertising strategies also pay off.

• 9:44Speaker 00

  Wow. So when you're in Call Rail, what analysis or data are you looking at to to see how those marketing strategies are giving you an ROI or what tweaks you need to make? What what data and info are you looking at within Call Rail?

• 10:03Speaker 02

  Sure. Within Call Rail, you know, we're looking at the unique callers. We're also looking at the reporting tools and then we're looking at any of the like missed call rates and those kind of send off the flags. The great part about the AI voice assist in especially if you can get them to, you know, upgrade even a little bit further into like their transcript analysis. It really gives you a feel and a synopsis of what happened in the call, whether it was positive or negative, the length of the phone call, anything that was mentioned in that. So now it's fast forwarding, obviously for our clients that are in Call Rail as well. And then we utilize a platform called Agency Analytics. And so for our agency, it allows for us to pull all of the platforms together.

• 10:45Speaker 02

  So we're looking at Facebook, Instagram, for some of our folks, you know, LinkedIn, but obviously Google Local Service Ads, standard Google Ads. Then you can bring in your Call Rail data and your GA4 from your analytics. And when we're looking at all of this data, we're able to see that, okay, through our marketing attribution, where we're getting the most opportunities, what their average call length is. And then at the beginning of each month, we do a recap with our clients where now we're looking beyond. On what we can see, you know, and they're telling us, hey, this is what got scheduled. This is where we're seeing the best ROI. And we have shared spreadsheets that we utilize with each of our clients in Google.

• 11:26Speaker 02

  So within those shared Google Sheets, we've got KPIs for raw leads, appointment set, appointments run, what their bid rate is, their close and the average ticket. So, once we marry into what your advertising spend was, we're really able to see where we can get the best return on investments.

• 11:43Speaker 00

  That's great. Whatever ended up happening at the basement doctor, were you able to turn things around for them? Or?

• 11:50Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah. So they turned into a great success story. It was already successful. They were just so heavy into traditional. And this is what, you know, they were doing over $13 million a year just with their Columbus location. And they were just spending more than they needed to. And that was kind of what I was able to show them. And we ultimately, they have now sold twice. So the first time was to one private equity firm. And then they bumped that up over two years, grew it and then sold it again, which obviously is a great success story. But during the first changeover, we've gotten them down to a four and a half percent marketing and advertising spend. And, you know, so that was in 2022.

• 12:34Speaker 02

  So pretty, pretty exciting when you can marry everything together. Obviously, you know, with the basement doctor adopting 100% of the strategies and the tracking and, you know, marketing diversification certainly improves the results.

• 12:47Speaker 00

  That's good. Congratulations.

• 12:49Speaker 02

  Thank you.

• 12:49Speaker 00

  What's your strategic marketing advice for lawn maintenance businesses? And in my audience, they do mowing, edging, trimming, blowing, those type of basic lawn mowing services that are, that are, you know, weekly or bi-weekly.

• 13:08Speaker 02

  Absolutely. One of the greatest things I see in the landscaping part, we have some folks that do hardscapes, but on the landscaping front, I feel that it's just so visual and being able to show that like social media is such a fantastic place to be. It's incredible for targeting. If you're showing your before and afters, specifically video because of the engagement, the cost of reach, setting up those in-stream lead forms, all of which is just incredible because it does both. It's a branding utility that increases awareness and you can generate opportunities. Very good there. Google obviously is a great place as well, but everything starts with tracking. And that's why we always go back and we're

• 13:52Speaker 02

  like, man, Colrel gives us this backbone. It's first-party data tracking. We're able to connect it to the platforms and then monitoring all of the attribution and then feeding that back into each of those platforms that optimize is very helpful.

• 14:07Speaker 00

  Okay. And can you walk us through with your 70 customers? Like, what does that kind of look like of when a customer starts working with you and then how those early phases of how you help them with their strategic marketing and then ongoing? Like, what does that look like to be one of those 70 customers?

• 14:26Speaker 02

  For sure. So I mean, we can start it out with someone that maybe met at a conference or listened to our podcast or something like that. And then they end up coming through, they schedule a discovery call with one of our business growth strategists. We do not have a selling mentality. We have a listening and learning and then building a strategy that will help to accomplish goals or overcome some of the challenges that a lot of the home service companies come to us with. So in that initial discovery call, we're going to ask for specific KPIs. We're going to try to understand where you believe that you've had success, maybe areas where you found certain things were challenging, whether

• 15:08Speaker 02

  that was answering the phone calls, getting back to the forums in less than five minutes, being able to get out and provide bids, who are you up Against as far as competition, you know, what's your service area look like? What's your current cost per lead? And from there, we'll begin to look at different strategies, you know, based on competition where we would suggest that you you be involved in. There's typically a deep dive that goes into the website since we feel that that's your hub where you should be driving all of your traffic to. Your Google Business Profile will also be evaluated. And each of our teams, you know, we we're full service. So I've got folks in each department that, you know, work on social media, digital advertising, website optimization, search engine optimization.

• 15:53Speaker 02

  We have a media buyer, you know, we do all the the digital media as well. So we'll just identify areas of opportunity based on, you know, what you're looking to accomplish, the size of your company and the lowest hanging fruit.

• 16:05Speaker 00

  That's so good. So how how many team members do you guys have now?

• 16:09Speaker 02

  So we're 24.

• 16:10Speaker 00

  Wow.

• 16:11Speaker 02

  Twenty twenty four and growing. It's it's interesting. You know, we always we got excited, you know, leading up into like that 2020. I'm sure most people felt that change over. But, you know, we we definitely as a marketing agency, you know, felt that. And we downsized to about 18. And then, but surely we've been adding additional team members as necessary. You know, the recent acquisitions or recent additions to our team have really been focused on the changes in search engine optimization. You know, I hired a senior in our digital advertising area to really get us at the forefront and ahead of things.

• 16:52Speaker 02

  You know, digital advertising was always where I kind of made my name and we got known for lead generation. And I didn't want that ball to be dropped. So we've invested heavily as an agency to ensure that we've got the right people and the platforms in place.

• 17:06Speaker 00

  In those initial conversations where you're doing a deep dive on both the website and the Google Business Profile, what what are some things that you're trying to identify and and and look at when you're looking at both Google Business Profile and the website?

• 17:22Speaker 02

  For sure. We'll start with the Google Business Profile. You know, and it's the same thing when we look at Bing Places or even Apple Maps, all of which are incredibly essential, specifically because people are searching differently on their devices and they might not necessarily make it to your website. So when we're looking at each of those local business profiles, we're ensuring that you've got the appropriate service geography in place. So, you know, we're verifying with you, hey, these are the areas you service? Yes. Okay, great. Ensuring that you've got those and you're not missing opportunities. We're looking at any of the photography that you've put in place. Typically, we ask that you're showing pictures of your team, pictures of your work, pictures of your truck, all of which is familiarity and it just helps with branding. We look at your business hours.

• 18:07Speaker 02

  The great thing about the AI, you know, voice assist with Call Rail is that for some of our clients, we're experimenting with 24 hours and that's starting to push them up in the map pack. It pushes them up in the local service ads because they have increased availability and now those calls are being answered. So, and that's something I wouldn't suggest for everyone. I think that it's on a business by business, you know, example. But then outside of that, you know, we look at the URL that's tied into your local business profile to ensure that your site's getting full credit. You know, you want it to have the HTTPS, which is a security feature. A lot of folks, we find if they haven't paid much attention to their local service business profile, that they're not, they haven't actually updated that.

• 18:49Speaker 02

  Obviously, the telephone number is a major component to that. And then just looking at the reviews, you know, what kind of company are we dealing with? What are people saying about them? Are they responding to the reviews appropriately? And then from there, you know, once we move off of the business profiles, we look at the website and our web team dives in and they look at it from a different, totally different angle. In our, our web development, we've got our web development, we've got website optimization and website designers. So you've got your front end that wants to make sure it looks nice and that it navigates appropriately. We call that conversion rate optimization. Then the next piece is that we look at your content. So that would be like our SEO team.

• 19:32Speaker 02

  They're ensuring that you're talking about the areas that you service, the services that you provide, talking with authority, things that are unique to you, looking for customer testimonials. And then that next piece is what's your page load speed? You know, is your site updated or is it out of date? Are there errors? Are there broken images, broken links? I mean, they do a full evaluation with like three different platform utilities. But you know, it gives us a good look into the visibility, you know, before you get into the next conversation of like, well, how are you managing your, your lead generation and even the leads that are coming into your company?

• 20:09Speaker 00

  That's so good. What are some success stories with some of those 70 customers then of you guys coming in and helping the market and get to that next level?

• 20:18Speaker 02

  Sure. So, you know, admittedly, a lot of the folks that we meet are typically, you know, listeners to our podcast. So I'll give a little plug for the Contractor's Edge. So that's a podcast that we created as a request from some of our clients even. So we don't always get all that time together that we would like and, and you know, they always like it. So we started putting different messages out there, talking about KPIs and different things that you can do within your business. But for success stories, most of the, the companies that come to us, they, you know, either have a really high, you know, marketing and advertising spend. And it's because they, maybe their website's out of date or they didn't have a diversified marketing and advertising strategy.

• 21:02Speaker 02

  Their brand messaging wasn't clear. You know, all of these are different things that we can immediately jump in and make a difference with. You know, I know my team is really proud, you know, on the digital advertising piece and I am as well. They are very, very detailed. And in fact, you know, we We certainly take great pride in the granular detail of our optimizations, both on a daily, weekly, and monthly level. But our success stories, one of my favorites is a company on the Gulf Coast. They were working with a well-known agency who, they thought they were doing pretty good,

• 21:43Speaker 02

  but they knew that they needed a new website and they felt like they kind of just needed a fresh start. They had been in business for well over 20 years and they did incredible work. And you could see that in their testimonials, but the website didn't reflect it. Their marketing and advertising strategy wasn't really well thought out. It was kind of like, yeah, we'll buy TV this month and then we're going to run Google Ads here. But then they didn't believe in Google Ads. And I'm like, man, if you don't believe in Google Ads, I think that we can certainly help you. So we went down, my senior business growth strategist and I went down into Alabama, met with them for a few days and kind of went over everything with them. And by the time we left, it was a handshake and we were off to the races.

• 22:27Speaker 02

  And now several years later, we're at this point where they're spending less to get more. They're seeing over 30% growth year over year. They're one of the clients where we were able to see that they were missing over 30% of their phone calls during business hours. And through tweaks within their business, transparency and reporting from us, it gave them visibility and they were able to overcome that challenge. So now they put more business opportunities on their schedule. Obviously, it turns into revenue. So that's probably one of our favorite stories to talk about. But most of our clients come in with similar challenges and we get excited to help overcome those.

• 23:06Speaker 00

  That's so good. I like the name of your podcast, Contractor's Edge. That's epic.

• 23:10Speaker 02

  Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, we were tossing around a bunch of different ideas. And really that was the one that stuck with us because we didn't want to be too boxed in, but we wanted to be kind of obvious what we do.

• 23:22Speaker 00

  That's so good. Well, if you were to start a lawn care business today, And you had somewhat of a limited budget. What would be your order of operations from website to Google Business Profile to whatever ads you would decide to run? Social media profiles you would build out? Like, how would you kind of piece that together as you're building a lawn care business for the strategic marketing? This is a newer business.

• 23:50Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, it was a newer business and I knew that they were limited. I would have to say that the thought process and investment would certainly be on a lot of awareness. So, kind of like what I had mentioned with Facebook, I would look at that twofold. So, we would start with a website, even if you did a single-page scroller, just ensuring that you've got all the information on there, good photography, clarity into the services you provide and the service area, easy to communicate with you either through phone call or through form fill. We'd carry that, hopefully a memorable brand if we were involved in that. We've got a great graphic design team.

• 24:34Speaker 02

  My art director is just outstanding. They love a good creative challenge. You can see that in the Lawn Vikings, if you check out that website. Their little icon that they created looks like their owner. So, it's a lot of fun things that they like to do, but I would carry that over into the Google Business Profile. And then I would prioritize probably Facebook and Google in really a twofold way. So, I would look at Facebook and probably do a page-like campaign, maybe $5 a day, through maybe a targeted area where we knew that there was opportunity. And then put some boosted posts out showing the team in action, if you're out there, transforming spaces.

• 25:19Speaker 02

  Some of my favorite videos right now on social media are actually the guys that go out and find the biggest challenges and then they just transform these properties for free. And I think that that kind of shows what you can do. So, I get excited about that because that's a great opportunity. To kind of just do the pebble in the pond approach where you're making this great content. You're putting it out there. It didn't take you much to develop it. Now you put a small, you know, boost, maybe $10 a day for $7 a day. Or I'm sorry, $10 a day for seven days. And now that investment is targeting these homeowners within a specific geography that would have interest in your services. So now you get that whole ripple effect. You get the engagement on your boosted post.

• 26:03Speaker 02

  You can invite those people to follow your page. And ultimately, you're building a bigger organic following with the opportunity to get some business from that. You know, early on, we always talk to clients, you know, make sure that you've got good leave behinds, whether it be a door hanger or, you know, maybe like a little tri-fold. Getting out boots on the ground. If you're working in a specific area and you have a few lawns that you're doing, do that work, take some great photos, post it on social, tag it. And then the low hanging fruit is really Google and Microsoft. These days, I bet you if I did an evaluation in most areas, you're not going to see all that many landscaping companies that are advertising heavily on Microsoft. But this is an older demographic that you would want to target and they have the money for your services.

• 26:47Speaker 02

  So that might actually be a better cheat code than even Google Ads at the early start.

• 26:53Speaker 00

  That's so good. Mike, I'm curious your thoughts on AI. I know we've talked about voice assist, which is definitely cutting edge. Is there any other ways that your strategic marketing group is seeing ways that AI is helping with marketing?

• 27:08Speaker 02

  Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, the constant evolution. And, you know, if you were watching the games this weekend, you know, football games, Google is investing heavily in their advertising and they're trying to help people understand how effective the AI mode can be. So, you know, when you go to a standard search in Google, you know, it was always simple. You know, one to five words, maybe to get the results that you were after. And now it's a full engaged conversation. And so you can start with your problem and work all the way down to what contractors or businesses are available in your area. That's where we're seeing the advancements in AI. And you know, I think that Google's continuing to evolve this.

• 27:51Speaker 02

  Obviously, you know, Microsoft, OpenAI with ChatGPT, you know, Google's Gemini. There are so many different ways that we see AI evolving. You know, we utilize AI and a lot of our tracking and reporting features. It helps us analyze data and specifically visualize it. So, you know, on our side, we're able to, and obviously, you know, your listeners can do this as well. You know, you can go into Gemini, and as long as you've got an Excel spreadsheet that shows what you spent, you know, your, your leads, your appointments, your bids, your closes, what your recurring revenue is, you can actually visualize this and begin to see, okay, you know, where am I seeing these different cyclical trends? Or what opportunities do I have? And you can break it off and break it out by service type.

• 28:35Speaker 02

  And, you know, I tell my team all the time, AI made me really smarter. It gave me almost like the, the easy way to see so many opportunities that I didn't realize were present. And so we do implement AI, you know, throughout our organization.

• 28:54Speaker 00

  That's so good. I'm curious, Mike, you're, you're a small business owner, you know, 24 employees. You had mentioned, and so many, well, pretty much everyone listening is a small business owner, running a lawn care business. Our greatest challenge in the lawn care industry is, is finding labor and keeping them motivated to continue to show up for work. So what kind of leadership tips can you share with us? That you're, you're leading a team of 24 human beings that are all unique and different. What have you kind of learned as you've grown this business since 2017? To, to get your tribe, you know, excited to come to work and things of that nature?

• 29:32Speaker 02

  Sure. No, that's a great question. Yeah, it's interesting for, for our side. You know, Ron Greenbaum, my business partner at the agency, you know, he is retired and, you know, obviously a fantastic supporter of our, our business periodically, you know, drops in when he's up in Ohio, or we'll have him, you know, visit and Zoom. But our, our team is throughout the United And we actually have one of our developers overseas that I've worked with since 2013. So I kind of like brought him into the fold. But we focus so heavily on our culture and communication. I would suggest that businesses do the same. At this point, you know, you have to understand that your team means everything to you. And for us, it's it's communication. It's flexibility.

• 30:17Speaker 02

  It's clarity. You know, for the the business owners out there, one of the big things that we've been sharing at these the conferences, make sure that the job descriptions are clear, you know, for for your employees. And contractors are always like, what do I need a job description for, you know, my landscapers? You do. You need clarity. They need to understand why they're getting paid. You know, we were just at this conference in Indianapolis and Dave Bany was there. And he was talking about the three by five index card. And for you to understand, these are the elements that you're responsible for. And this is how you get paid. So when there's clarity and people understand, oh, this is what I need to focus on so that I can get paid. Obviously, that works its way back up to the company.

• 30:58Speaker 02

  And then from there, you know that you have different ways that you can celebrate, you know, great achievements. You know, we suggest a lot of pay for performance as well. And I think that when there's clarity and there's established KPIs, you can reward people for performing beyond what was required from them.

• 31:16Speaker 00

  That's so good. In regards to the communication, Mike, I'm curious what, you know, states these folks are in? And how how are you communicating being, you know, being most? It sounds like most of your employees are remote. What does that communication look like?

• 31:31Speaker 02

  Yeah, so we've got, what, two employees in Texas. I'm trying to think of where everyone is at. Florida, majority are in Ohio, one overseas. But what we do, we utilize Slack. So Slack is our means of communication. We can jump into a huddle very easily. We can instantly exchange files, you know, look for clarity, celebrate wins. So everyone's always in these constant communications. And then beyond that, we utilize ClickUp for our project management. So tying those two together has been very helpful for us as well.

• 32:08Speaker 00

  Okay, that's good. Was there anything we're leaving out here that needs addressed? Or did you like to share with lawn care business owners about their marketing?

• 32:18Speaker 02

  I think the biggest piece is just be authentic. You know, it's often we get into these conversations and everyone always wants to be like their competitor. But you know, when you think about your own brand, it's like a fingerprint and it's unique to you. So if you lean into that, and some people have really quirky brands. Some people have very sophisticated brands. Some people are very relaxed in their communication. And so as long as you're being authentic and you're being yourself and then all of your, like you were saying, your tribe. So the people that are joining your team that believe in you and they're motivated and you're establishing that culture. Being authentic is what's going to, you know, really help your team drive. You're going to be able to, you know, set those goals and, and celebrate together.

• 33:03Speaker 02

  That's like our, our biggest thing. And we tell all of our, our clients, do the same thing. Be clear with your team. Make sure that you're communicating well, celebrating those victories, you know, and then ensuring that you're planning. That's the, the piece that's often lost. You know, the, the last few episodes that we've done in the podcast have been like, what's working in 2025? What are contractors doing wrong? And trying to help them to be aware of what platforms are working right now? What ones are having their challenges? What are some mistakes that we're seeing contractors doing on a pretty regular basis? And, you know, with over 70, and then we also have a lot of industry affiliates that we communicate with as well. You get a good idea of, okay, this is your low hanging fruit.

• 33:46Speaker 02

  This is something that's going to be, you know, maybe a year off from now. But as long as you've got it on your radar and you're planning, you know, it's something that's certainly achievable.

• 33:56Speaker 00

  Okay, you mentioned what platforms are working now. I'm curious what the answer is.

• 34:01Speaker 02

  Yeah, it depends on what the business is. For us, you know, we're, we're definitely seeing local service ads through Google be very good as long as you are listening to each phone call and then scoring those appropriately. So if you're using LSAs, you know, without actually going in and scoring those, you're not giving feedback to the algorithm and it can't improve. And Google's inserting all sorts of AI into this now. So essentially, what we always say is if you're getting leads for a service that you're not listed under, then you actually need to be very clear and give that information back and you'll see that the quality in those local service ads begin to improve. You know,

• 34:40Speaker 02

  Google standard ads, still very good. I'm always leery of Performance Max and AI Max, Demand Gen. I know that those are essential, but you know, if you're talking about a smaller organization, standard search ads still work very well. And I'm a huge fan of Facebook. Instagram's pretty cool as long as you've got, you know, video content that you're putting out on a regular basis, but Facebook is likely where your, you know, ideal demographic is that you want to do business with. And that's where we focus too.

• 35:12Speaker 00

  Yeah, I agree 100% on Facebook. That's for, for our industry.

• 35:17Speaker 02

  Yep, it's massive.

• 35:19Speaker 00

  Yeah, absolutely. Well, how can people listen to your podcast, get ahold of you? You know, let us know how we can connect with you.

• 35:27Speaker 02

  Absolutely. No, I appreciate it. You know, we've, we've got our agency, Greenbaum Stiers Strategic Marketing Group. So you can go to greenbaumstires.com. Or, you know, if you'd like to listen to, you know, The Contractor's Edge, that URL is yourcontractorsedge.com. And you can find me on LinkedIn. So Michael Stiers is how I'm there. And I'd love to connect with you. You know, discovery call is always free with myself or our team.

• 35:55Speaker 00

  Awesome. And I'm not sure what my video editor will do because I don't know what, we, we have a lot of podcasting queue, so I don't know when this will come out, but your, your prediction again for the Ohio State Buckeyes.

• 36:09Speaker 02

  Yeah, my prediction for the Buckeyes, I think that we're gonna repeat as national champions again.

• 36:14Speaker 00

  And for context, we're recording this after they had just beaten Michigan last weekend for a first time since 2019, I believe.

• 36:21Speaker 02

  Yeah, you're right. It was, it was too, way too long. But you know, it's, I'm, I'm riding that high. You know, I had that Kool-Aid, so I really think we're gonna get in there and repeat.

• 36:32Speaker 00

  Yeah, they might even get a bye at the beginning of the playoff.

• 36:35Speaker 02

  I think you're right.

• 36:37Speaker 00

  So, well, go Buckeyes. I immediately saw you're from Ohio and I was like, oh, we got a, we got a fellow Buckeye fan because I lived in Atlanta, Georgia, most of my life, and now Florida. So I've, I've been around all these SCC delusional, well, I can't, I can't alienate my audience, but people in the SCC think the SCC's superior to the Big Ten. And I've, I've been, I've been fighting for the Big Ten down here, but no one really listens.

• 37:03Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's, I hear the same. I hear there's some great places in Florida, though, for, you know, LSU backer bars and everything from what people have been telling me. I personally haven't had the opportunity to, but I'm looking forward to it. But yeah, it's always a, always a challenge.

• 37:19Speaker 00

  Yeah, when I lived in Sarasota, like, literally across the street was the Michigan backers bars, called Rafferty's. So every Saturday, I'd hear the Michigan fight song. They'd be playing it all day long. And then I actually watched the Ohio State Michigan game there last year when they won and planted their flag. And I, I was watching it with all Michigan fans. And so that was, that was very, very humbling. And for my safety, I had to leave right after they, Will Howard threw that incomplete pass on fourth down to Travion Henderson. I had to get out of there before I got heckled. But that was, that was a unique experience.

• 37:58Speaker 02

  Yeah, I don't blame you. That, I'd probably be running out of there pretty quick, too. So I, I'm hoping that, you know, Buckeyes fans.

• 38:07Speaker 02

  Took this victory graciously, you know, didn't cause too many issues. I've got a number of Michigan fans and hey, I didn't say anything. They were like, man, you guys played great. And they even commented that their best defense was protecting that 50 yard line from getting the flag planted.

• 38:23Speaker 00

  Yeah, I always got to be careful with the podcast. That's because I got a ton of folks, they show us our stats. I got a ton of people listening to Michigan. I got a ton of Alabama Crimson Tide fans that listen to Alabama, the Georgia Bulldog fans. So I I used to alienate everyone and now I got to be a little more sensitive. But at the end of the day, it's a great, great to be Ohio State Buckeye.

• 38:42Speaker 02

  It is, absolutely.

• 38:44Speaker 00

  All right, Mike. Well, I really appreciate your time and we'll put all your information in the, in the show notes there. And thank you for sharing your expertise with us.

• 38:53Speaker 02

  Fantastic. Paul, thank you very much for having me on.

• 39:11Speaker 01

  Hey, it's Marty, producer of the Green Industry Podcast. This episode is over, but check the episode notes for links to products and services that you heard about during the episode. And thanks for listening.