Morning Meetings: Maximizing Team Performance and Communication - EpX

🎙️Today on the Landscape Talk Morning show🌳 we dive into a crucial aspect of running a successful team – the importance of weekly team meetings! 🗣️💼

Gathering both management and field staff together, these meetings ensure everyone is on the same page with current announcements, targets, and the overall mission. It's an opportunity to celebrate the hard work and successes of our amazing crews, while also identifying areas where we can improve. 🙌📈

But hey, it's not just about us talking! We want to hear YOUR stories too! Share your #youcantmakeitupstories about memorable moments or funny incidents that have happened during team meetings. 😄📢

Embrace the power of collaboration and join the conversation! Let's learn from each other and create an engaging and supportive community. 💪🤝

Learn more about LOS here - https://www.scalingscoresystem.com/los

#teamwork #leadership #LandscapeTalkMorningShow #weeklymeetings #inspiration #success #improvement #collaboration #communityspirit

Do you want to grow your business and your profits? Is your business too dependent on you the owner? Improve or implement processes that help you grow. Eliminate stress while improving cash flow. Interested? If so check out LOS. Landscape Operating System with Peer group is for you.

Learn more here https://www.scalingscoresystem.com/los

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:04

Good morning everyone. Landscape Talk here Just great episode today. Just going to be talking about current things, all spring related. It is Tuesday, I'm here with Brandon and we're going to dive into some good things. Hopefully you've been enjoying the content. We've actually had a couple funny you can't make it up and I really love that. The content. We've actually had a couple of funny you can't make it up and I really love that. So if you're, if you're tuning in for the first time, one of the things that we share a lot of times is the things that we see. You know you can't make it up, so I really love that.

Speaker 1: 0:33

If you're looking to grow your landscape business, the show is sponsored by LOS. It's a peer group combined with a landscape operating system. You can, you know, scan the QR code or check them out, really helping getting processes in your business so you can grow your business and your profits. So check them out. Operating system with a peer group. So it's kind of the best of both worlds Super affordable. So check them out. Let them know if you want to join or get a demo there. But, um, so what's going on today, ray? What do you got? What do you got going on today.

Speaker 2: 1:11

Looks like you're out and about yeah, yeah, out and about. Uh have some meetings and uh got some. We're doing some training, uh guys just making sure they're, you know, up to speed on how we do things and, just, you know, always trying to help our team grow and just get a little bit better each and every day.

Speaker 1: 1:29

So yeah, what, what you know, what does a? You know. Yesterday we actually talked a little bit about, you know, onboarding and bringing new people on and we talked a little bit about the importance of that. You know. I think the other you know today. You know Tuesday morning meeting. You know what is. You know to you what is the importance of meetings and you know, you know why do we do it and you know what was it like maybe before meetings, like a Tuesday morning meeting, who's involved, what do we do? And you know why is it beneficial.

Speaker 2: 2:09

Yeah, so you know, for us, for meetings, you know, usually a Tuesday morning meeting it's, you know, all of our field staff and our office staff and leadership. So you know, we just review, kind of go over a couple of key components for the week. Um, you know what's important. We talk about a key topic. We, you know, we talk about a story, um, and it all links up to, you know, our, our, our keys of our company, our core values, um, and it just tries to help drive home, like why we do some of the things we do, um, why, uh, you know why things are important and why's why we do it. So everyone knows and they can all focus on on the mission and get the work done.

Speaker 1: 3:13

I think one of the things that you know when I think of it, I think of you know actually church and the announcements. One of the things I think we've used that analogy a lot of times is like if you go to a church and if you don't go to a church, you're not familiar with church. Typically, what happens is every time you know, when you go into a church service or it, probably you know a lot of things. They actually the first 10 minutes, sometimes maybe even a little longer, is like the announcements, what's going on, kind of bringing everybody up to date. And I can remember you know the one church that you know I go to. You know they always go over their core pillars and some of those things would be like maybe to serve.

Speaker 1: 3:58

They always talk about you know giving you know, because that's important to make a church go. That's how they make money right, and they always talk about the same things to start off every week, and I think that's a great. I think we've looked at some of those things and said, like, you know, how do we give the announcements and share, say the same things over and over again so that it drives the mission forward? I mean, first you got to get clear on those things. But the more people you know do that you know, the better. So I think that's you know, that's really you know really good. So what, what all are you doing today?

Speaker 2: 4:35

I still have a couple of of quotes. I got a quote to to knock out. I got networking to do. I've been meeting with a potential new customer and then I have training to do with a staff member and then also go out and just get some guys going to review a job as well. So pretty busy day.

Speaker 1: 5:01

Yeah, one of the things we talked about previous and again. If you're following along, if you're watching it daily, great, you know. Thanks for tuning in. If you're not, you know, go back and watch some of the episodes. We actually talked about having a balanced diet. I think you said it is like feeding all the you know the cats or something. So if you're interested in learning about that or hearing some of those funny things you know, go back and check those out. You know, what have you found to be successful? I'm going back kind of to the morning, that morning meeting. So, like on a Tuesday, you said we're bringing our staff together, some of the leadership. You know what has been successful in there and you know what impact has it made you know in in the organization or for the people um, I think clarity has been like a big thing, you know.

Speaker 2: 5:54

Um, that's been been really good for people just to kind of know you know what the goals are, um, like really clearly Right, like what would be an example maybe of something that would help a field staff.

Speaker 1: 6:09

Because I think what I think what most people say is I don't have time for that, right, so it goes back to the time. So if they don't understand what the value is of having a staff meeting once a week, I think in the past we were in a similar boat where we would be like, well, we don't have time for that, we got to get out to the job. You're always scrambling or you feel like you are until you get some things in place, but like I don't have time for that, our guys have to deliver, we're behind, we have so much work. You know all those things. So I think you know for people tuning in, you know I don't know if there is a specific example of something that you've seen guys improve or what the value is, because I think at you know most Scott, you know a lot of companies that we see that are interested. I mean, it ranges, but we have a ton of companies that are between that like one and 10 employees. You know that, that, that that tune, and we have organizations that you know are from 10 to 50 or whatever as well, but I think when you're in that like one to 10, one to 20, you know, whatever it is, I think a company that's like 50 starts to realize like they need to do something and they need to bring their people together.

Speaker 1: 7:21

But I think that the idea of like these, this show and some of the things that we're doing we're trying to help your business grow, and not only grow, but grow in profits and just grow in everything, and I think you know some of those meetings get overlooked.

Speaker 1: 7:36

So just, I think, if they can relate and say like hey, this is an area that helped our guys, helped our company grow, maybe they will, you know, pull a couple, you know their team together and, um, you and you know. And I think the other thing too is we use a lot of buzzwords within our, our company, like, I think we know what clarity is, but I think if you could expand on, like what that means for the staff, because I don't know that they always know, like maybe some of our words of like how it got, how it made it more clear for us, what is it for them that you think our staff has like benefited from, which, in turn, served our customers better. Maybe the, you know, the management, everything Is there, anything that kind of comes to mind, that is like helped, help them or they could see it.

Speaker 2: 8:24

Yeah, I think it's. I think it's like this real life. Like you know, we do, we review the numbers from the previous week and we just have open, honest conversations about you know, wow, you guys killed it. You know what went well, you know, oh, we fell short here a little bit and you know we weren't able to hit these goals or the targets. So I think, you know, one of the biggest things for us is just like actually getting the scoreboard up there or knowing the bullseye of what everyone's trying to hit and and, uh, you know we relate to we were able to review that and open it.

Speaker 2: 9:02

One thing I thought in the past of you know, we have training videos that we have everybody on board and watch and do, and we had a crew that was doing mulching and instead of like dumping and spreading the mulch, like dumping a whole wheelbarrow and then spreading it out, they were taking it pitchfork by pitchfork and sprinkling it on and they were using less material, which was great, but they were taking about two to two to three times longer to spread it because they were sprinkling everything on like salt, like salt day was reviewing the scorecard each week and reviewing, like, what was going on with, um, you know what they were hitting their budgets or not hitting their budgets You're like Whoa, something's off here. Like you guys are way over what's going on. Let's talk about it. Let's walk through the process of like why we're not, why we're not being successful, and we are able to figure that out. And we're like, wow, you know, that's a great thing for us to figure out, because if not, if we just let that go, um, and the pot just keeps boiling over and boiling over, we'd come back to the stove and wonder why the stove's a mess, instead of like, you know, there's some key indicators where we heard, you know, the water, we heard it, uh, sizzle a little bit, and we're like whoa, what's that that? And we went out and checked the pot. Um, you know, that's that's what we did in those scenarios.

Speaker 2: 10:40

Um, and you know I'm a I'm a big guy for like, proponent for, uh, for using like analogies and stuff, so I do that all the time, but to to me, like that was like a big deal because it's just able to like we were able to correct things before they get out of control. And then we we also are by training guys on this. They're able to self-correct a lot of times, which is huge. So, like anytime, someone can you know, handle and do something themselves, rather than us have to do it, it's you know or us to point it out. That's, that's amazing. So you know, anytime those things happen, it's really good.

Speaker 1: 11:11

The other thing I think about is, you know, communication.

Speaker 1: 11:14

So I I really so as a as a leader, as a you know business coach and advisor to you know people across the country, as I hear things like I really get I don't like the buzzwords, so like the buzzwords drive me crazy because they don't mean anything and people don't understand them. So communication they're like we need to improve communication. When a customer says that to us, it drives me bonkers because the first thing I say is like, tell me more. Like what do you mean? Like communication? Was it texting? Was it updates for the service? Was it post stuff, stuff? Was it checking in? Was it bringing you donuts? Was it like what does that mean? I don't know what that means. Like I don't like that because I mean that's a whole nother topic to to dive into. But you know, the idea is we have to communicate with our people and that that weekly check-in is a way to. Hey, we're gonna have a burger day. We're going to have a burger day. We're going to have a team day. Hey, we're off this week because there's a holiday on Monday. Hey, we're remember this. Here's a highlight. Here's some of the work you've done. Here's, here's all these things that are going on, and it's just one time to just, you know, kind of rally together a little bit and and just like, almost like, celebrate, you know, celebrate or just educate, and I think it's really important to try to get them involved and share. I can think of, you know, this morning. So we have a, we have a a text response system. So, again, these are things that we learned through being in peer groups and communicating with other people and and doing these things. So, again, you know, shout out to our friends at LOS and, um, you know, if you're interested in some of these things like this is where it comes from. So, like we, we, we learned in the journey and uh, but one of the things we have is a text response system. So, like we TRS, when our crews go out, they send a message to the people where they're going and then they can interact through a central thing. It's not on their phone, like from their phone number, it's from the company phone number. But we had an example that there was a guy he checked in amazing, great job and the customer actually said hey, you know, could you take care of what was it? Was it tulips or something I think it was, or some tulips or whatever he wanted removed or some things. The guy went and took care of it because it was direct thing. So think about efficiency, saving money. We didn't have to come back and maybe even build a customer or whatever, because we could just handle it on the job. It was that's what retains customers. But as we were looking through the log we didn't see a response. So we reached, we reached out to the person and he said hey, I did take care of that, but I forgot to message the customer. So he messaged the customer then and we used that as an example and the other people could see a real world example of why it's important and where we kind of fell short.

Speaker 1: 14:22

Again, I think another you know, some morning it would be good to talk about like calling balls and strikes, as I call it, but, like you know, really holding people accountable. And I think in the meeting today we asked, like you know, can we share your story? And he was like, yeah, sure. So I think other people learn. I think it's just a way of bringing the team together. So when you think of communication, like, how do you communicate? And then you know, are you meeting and rallying your people? You know, another episode or something to talk about is the format of that, because there's a format that keeps people engaged and efficient. But I would encourage you to meet Any other things that you think would be beneficial to share about, like kind of that weekly meeting that we do weekly, or yeah, I mean, I think, I think it's like you know, obviously we highlight people that are doing a good job.

Speaker 2: 15:19

You know, we try to do a little bit of a mini training in there. It's like you know, here's a couple of things we're seeing or here's a couple of things you might run into. This time of year, we just try to post photos, to just try to bring awareness to some things based on, like, feedback that we're getting from the guys, or maybe quality checks that we're seeing. So it's just like a real, it's a real good time to just highlight, hey, these are some things you might see, these are some things you might run into. Here's are some things you guys should watch out for, cause we're just trying to really support our people, to be them, for them to be as successful as possible, to look to deliver a great product for our customer, um, you know, and for for the, for the guys to be successful, and so, and as well as the company. So, um, it's a really good time.

Speaker 2: 16:06

It's not a huge long meeting, um, you know, I think we keep it probably about 20 minutes, 15 minutes, something like that, um, but it's just a good time to just, um, you know, check in with everyone, kind of highlight some things, and if the guys are seeing something, they're absolutely able to bring that up. They're like, hey, this is something I've seen. And then, you know, if we think it's something good for the group, we'll discuss it right at that point and we'll say, hey, that's kind of like an individual thing, maybe just related to your property. You know, right after we wrap the meeting up, I'll talk to you about that directly and we can, you know, solve it for them.

Speaker 1: 16:42

So yeah, yeah. So ton of ton of value in meeting. You know you want to create a culture of you know getting feedback. You know I know you know we'll probably talk about our. You know you know profit sharing. You know that we implemented for our team, but you know we'll probably talk about our. You know you know profit sharing. You know that we implemented for our team, but you know I can think of in that meeting even today.

Speaker 1: 17:05

You know one of the one of the members said something about hey, you know we might be able to like improve a route, and I just love that because you know, when you have your people starting to think like owners, or you know they start to care because there's a there, you know, if they get a little bit more efficient, they can actually get paid more, make more. So I really love that. You know we struggled a lot of years to figure out like what you know what would work and something that was simple. Again, that doesn't mean we have it all figured out and that's why we do this. We just talk about you know, talk about things openly. But or I'm going to pay attention to the route to see if it could be adjusted better, and I just think that that's, that's awesome and uh, you know, when you do that, that allows it to grow. And I think, like silos, I mean, people are meant to be together and to like talk and interact and and do those things and so many times you have a a one person, a two person, a three person crew and to get everybody together just in that morning is just a checklist and connection. I mean there's, you know I think you shared it before too but you know, there's times where they just don't see, you know you, they don't see me, they don't see. So you know I, you know, as a, as an owner leader, I try to make sure that I'm there, you know, most of the times, so that I can at least just say, hey, how you doing and do that, and that I think that you know, hopefully that means something to the people that you're trying to build a culture and show that it's important to be there and get to see where they might not. So if they know you're going to be there, it just is just a good thing or they're just like what do these people do? You know, we have that friction of the office versus the field that we see in a lot of companies. So, anything else about the meeting, hey, what, what is? Uh, I mean, I know I have one, maybe I'll start. Uh, you know, you just can't make it up. Um, you know, again, this is things that you see throughout the day, things that you've seen in other companies or whatever, and you're just like are you kidding me? You just can't make this up. So I'll start today. I have a good one.

Speaker 1: 19:37

We were actually actually at the shop yesterday and we were selling a mower. So a lot of times we'll, you know, sell old equipment or equipment that we don't use anymore or we upgrade. So one of the things that I would love to do probably do a demo on one of these. But just, you know, got another brand new multi-force, which you know is a great machine, so we could do a review on that coming up. But we were selling another mower and we were looking at our. You know there was this. The person that was getting it actually drove to the lane and then they looked at the lane and they're like now, let me just clarify, they came first to look at the mower and test it out. So it's the same person. I got to be very clear about this. Came first, came to our facility. Now we have tractor trailers. I want to paint the picture Tractor trailers coming in, sometimes one or two times a day, dropping off mulch, and they can turn around and do everything. So I just want to paint the picture of the facility. We can get tractor trailers in. They can do what they need to do.

Speaker 1: 20:44

This guy's in a pickup truck Came and looked at it, looked at the motor, said I want it, I'll take it. Great, he comes back with the money. So that's good. He brought the money. We like that, gave it to our fleet mechanic and that was good.

Speaker 1: 20:53

But he comes back and he decides you what, this time I'm gonna back in the driveway with a trailer. So it took him 20 minutes because it has just a little bit of a curve to it and we have like some drainage stuff and he's in the ditch. He's, you know, for 20 minutes he's backing up and finally he gets back to get up the mower and I'm like, are you kidding me? Like you just can't make it up. You were there before. You can see that there's plenty of room to navigate. He decides to back up the driveway and he can't back up the driveway. He's terrible. It takes him 20 minutes.

Speaker 1: 21:33

Then, on top of that and I know you love this one, because when you get on a new piece of equipment, nobody just should just take it super slow you want to go full throttle as fast as you can because you've never used the equipment before. It makes no sense. So he gets it. He's going to load in his trailer this was actually was a you know a hydro walk behind. He throws it in high. You know a hydro walk behind. He throws it in high. Now throws it in high. He's not familiar with the controls and almost crashes it into his new truck.

Speaker 1: 22:06

You just can't make it up. How about this idea? You're not used to using a piece of equipment. Put it in one or low and get the feel of it first, maybe ask a question. But no, I want to back up the driveway, make it as difficult as possible, look like a goofball, and then a new piece of equipment that I've never operated before. I'm going to throw it in high and load on my trailer and almost crash into my truck. You can't make it up every day. I love it. You can't make it up every day. I love it. Share your best story. Do you have one for today?

Speaker 2: 22:41

Yeah, I mean it's funny. Again, you know, kind of on the same scheme of things, you know, I heard someone before saying about that they were going to. They were, you know, asking about a mower another mower that we sold before, and they're a little different. Again, it was another walk behind type a mower another mower that we sold before, and, uh, they're a little different. Again, it was another walk behind type of mower. And the guy mentioned that he, um, he has a property that's like further away, um, instead of like servicing the customer regularly on a weekly basis, just like everyone else, and cutting at a normal height, he wasn't sure how to adjust the deck, because this deck's a little bit different with a the hydro walk behind, and he wanted to. He wasn't quite sure and we're like, yeah, you just adjust it by pulling the pins and you lift it up or down. And he said, oh well, we gotta, we gotta put it all the way down because we gotta cut it short, so we don't have to go there as much, so we don't have to worry there as much, so we don't have to worry about traveling.

Speaker 2: 23:37

So again, there's there's there's a lot of good, um landscapers out there and there's a lot of bad landscapers out there. Um, and it that's a, that's a thing where he was going to go um, you know we talk about a wind triangle but he was going to go out and make it better for him but make it way worse for his customer by scalping the grass. More than likely he'll probably end up killing it or at the very least it's going to look awful. And then you know all kinds of things that come into that, because you know he just wanted to make sure he could minimize the driving out to that property, so he was basically going to scalp it. So, you know, you hear all kinds of crazy theories out there and wild thoughts.

Speaker 2: 24:20

Um, and unfortunately you know there's some out there that give, you know, give some of the other guys a bad name and a bad rap. So, um, that's the kind of stuff here. You know, like you said, you're fighting against in that low, low bid. You know it's usually those guys are, the are the low bid ones, and then those are the results you get. So, um, you know it's usually those guys that are the low bid ones and then those are the results you get. So you know, low bid more often than not, is not going to work out for you. Maybe you get lucky every once in a while, but usually you know, with low bid people out, there you're going to get shoddy work.

Speaker 2: 24:52

So that's a, that's a case for me that you can't make it up. I mean, it was just like one of those things you just shake your head to because this guy's, you know he's going to go out and just scalp someone's yard, just because he's like, oh, that'll, that'll, that'll make it easier, and it just thought it would be a okay.

Speaker 1: 25:08

So you just sometimes you can't make it up you can't make it up, if you have yours, send it in. We're actually gonna compile them together. Do a try to get a champion of your story, so submit it to us. We'd love to hear it. Tag us like share, subscribe to our show so you get the latest content. We put out something pretty much every day. It's real stuff.

Speaker 1: 25:27

We want to help you grow and grow your business by sharing good, real content, learning from our mistakes, sharing some of the things that we do well and some of the things that we've learned over the years some of the things that we do well and some of the things that we've learned over the years. And also, if you're interested in getting in a peer group or getting some more better processes for you to scale, to grow not only your business but your profits. Reduce some weight on you as your owners, your leaders, power, your team. Check out ILS, a great peer group and operating system, super affordable, and yeah, so we'll see you tomorrow. Thanks for tuning in and have a great day.