This is Rodney with Zebra scapes landscaping. What was it called? Yeah, this is Rodney with landscaping zebra scapes and I have Paula here, our general manager, slash heartbeat of this business. One of the before I started the company, I looked at, talked to several owners, all different industries. What is the most difficult thing of owning a business? I wanted to know, what do I have to solve? Every single one of them said employees. They said, hire an extra one. You're going to be letting one go by the end of the week. Always hire more than you need. It was just all over the place. So I went out and I hired the best, the most experienced, the hardest worker, the most knowledgeable, whatever I could to work. And that's what I did for probably 12 years. And then Paula came on several years ago, and that's all wrong. It's not about what they know. And actually it's probably that's most probably more difficult is dealing with a lot of people that have tons of experience. So Paul what do we learn? And what have what's How do you bring people on that are stop the resolving door. Well, I

think the one most important thing is, when I came on board, I had management experience, but I had zero landscaping experience, and it's just I was hungry to learn, and I wanted to learn, and it was super, super important for me to seek advice and figure out how I can be successful. And I think that's what you have to look for, is somebody that that wants to learn, that wants to be successful, and is hungry for it. And so they may not have landscaping experience, but landscaping can be learned. Yeah? Everything else you have to bring to the table. Yeah?

So in an interview, like, what, like, what do you what are some of the key things you look at?

So I think we look at goals. Like, where are you with your goals six months from now, a year from now, five years from now, where do you see yourself in the company in five years? If you have somebody that says, hey, I want to, I want to be a nurse in five years, that's probably we're not going to bring them up and try to try to help them be successful within the company, because we're a stepping stone. So you get really watch for those kinds of things. You want to bring somebody in that is really wanting to succeed within the company. And I think before that even happens, though, you have to be the company that they want to work for. That's true. So the most important thing is being the company everybody wants to work for. And what does that look like? Stability, growth, ways opportunity, ways that they're going to improve, not only in their work life, but in their personal life. And so you've got to be that face of that company so that you can bring in those people. Yeah,

what I've learned from you. So Paula came on board as working as a bookkeeper and doing books. Very quickly she was doing the general manager position without even saying anything. I asked general management questions. I realized he didn't have the answer. He this guy went to Paula now, then I asked, Paula said, I have no landscaping experience. I go, I got the experience. And Paula knows how to manage people. She when it come, comes to people, I got it. I can handle that. And that's why we're an incredible team. And that opened my eyes huge when it comes to other people. No experience at all in landscaping. She's the best ever out there when it comes to managing this landscape company. So we brought several people on. One came on that our sales guy, zero landscaping experience, yeah, and you were head over heel. This guy's gonna do he's gonna kill it. I was like, Oh man, I have no experience at all. And now you are. He's our

number one sales guy. He's

our number one sales guy, and he's an extremely good close ratio, nine in the 90s, percent.

Incredible. He was very, very, very intelligent. He answered all the questions, right, as far as a salesperson goes. But I always say I'm never threatened by somebody that's smarter than me. I always want to bring somebody in that's smarter than me, because smarter than me, because it they help you succeed. So the minute I met him, I knew, for I knew that he was smarter than me, and he was going to grasp it and take off. And man, has he ever He's He's incredible. He's probably the outside of our last sales guy. He's probably the best we've had in a long time. Yeah,

I agree, and it's a joy working on people. He, like you said, he desires to achieve a lot. He's bright, early in the morning, late. I didn't see it in him. We had through that part of it, and we brought another person on just a. Mean, like, really recently, same thing, zero experience in the landscaping management I spent Pam probably five minutes in an interview, and you were, again, head over heels. I was skeptical, but, I mean, he is incredible, also he

is he's doing an amazing job, but he's quick thinker, and again, he's got some management experience, and that's what I think is important if you're gonna bring a manager and you got to have a little bit of management experience so you know how to manage people and and he's he thinks one step ahead of everybody else, and so that's what made him stand out among everybody else's he had operation experience. May not be in landscaping, but he was able to come in and really spot things and start making things efficient. He's going to go far in the company. And I always say about people like him, like Colt, is you've got to keep teaching them, keep growing them, keep moving them up. Because, you know, always want to bring people up. So if you're ever gone, somebody else can step in and there's, it's a nice, smooth transition. So it's important that I'm bringing training somebody to be my take my position. He's trained somebody to take his position. The leads are taking their somebody to bring in their position. And you're always ready for for somebody to step into the higher positions without without any kind of hiccups or it's a flaw, smooth as transition happens.

Now? We talked about some wins. What happens when, like, we have several times hit one that didn't well.

We've had a couple that have one. We brought them in with a lot of experience, and they come in and they think we're doing everything wrong, yeah. So they start making changes, and it just disrupts the apple cart. When that happens, people start jumping off the apple cart. And so I think sometimes you get somebody with too much experience or a big ego, and then the morale tanks, and you've you've got to cut those ties quickly, because if you don't, then one bad apple just Yeah.

And we did learn in hats to you is just cut it quick. Click. That's one thing I learned, is cut cut it quick. As soon as you read writing, you do write ups, you're incredible HR lady, tons of background in the HR and solve it, and sooner, the better. That was quick. And I was against it, and so excited we did, and we had some other ones, and what I'm looking at is the ones we hire experience we have the least amount of success, even though we did have a rock star several years ago that ended up moving on to bigger and better things. But yeah, you can mold and shape them into what you want to be in the company. And it's working out very, very well. Also, a big thing in this management thing is trying to get them to buy into the company, you know,

yeah, having people vested. But going back to hiring somebody, I think the one thing that we've learned along the way, is higher, slow and fire fast, because you need to find the right person for that position. Lot of times in this industry, we work at chaos speed, and so we're just trying to fill those shoes. And I think that's where a lot of times we fail. That's why we've failed in the past, is because we bring those people on quickly, because we need it filled quickly, and then, and then we end up, we let them down, we let ourselves down. And so hiring slow is the most important thing, yeah, and then giving them the tools they need to be successful, yeah? So that's what I feel, is what where we excel, where a lot of companies don't, so they have a lot of revolving door. And we used to, but we've kind of, we're now at a place where our door is not revolving very much, actually, the place people want to work. And it's become a true staying. How many people have left and come back, and how many people have said, I really want to work for you, because everybody says, this is a place to work. Just this week,

we had three people that have left right to yesterday, three people came and asked for a job back. Yeah.

Two people came back. Three, yeah. Three, yeah. We

and we brought two of them back on. They left in great terms. We did bring them back on there. They let you know they didn't burn a bridge. It was well, and we talked it over, and they regret leaving, and that's exciting music to the years for that to happen, to see, hey, it wasn't as good as I thought it was at the other place where they're headed. And so to build that right. I mean, are we hiring the right person comes in a door. We're always looking for someone correct for talent, for talent and skill. But and building a culture is big. Culture is huge. A lot of people say, pay more. Pay more. And I have interviewed multiple people, and I'm sure you have to, yeah, why do you want to? I want to make a lot of money. I want to and and I always, if money is driven, they're always going to cap out and they're gone, right? So. So money, we pay very well, but money can't be the motivator. The motivators got to be bought into the company and their team around them. We thrive on our core values, quality, integrity, efficiency, teamwork, relationship, and that's one of the big checks that we here at zebras gave. We go off of we

and we care about our team. Yeah, definitely care about team. We care about their well being at work, and we care about their well being at home, and we do everything that we possibly can to to help them in both areas. Our job or our philosophy is we want to help everybody shine, and God is our main factor, our driving factor, and so it's important that we give back to them.

Yeah, yeah. I just talked to a guy today that worked for me, like five years ago. He quit, started his own company, and I'm kind of helping him out on helping him get things going, pouring concrete. And I think the best thing ever was I got rid of them, yeah. I mean, so, you know, it's sometimes they have a better opportunity to go somewhere, and they're very successful where they go. So it's not always. Zebra scissors ain't for everybody, exactly.

That's my motto, too. Zebra scapes is not for everybody. But if you come to work for zebra scapes and you are an employee, I can guarantee that we would give you all the tools necessary to help you succeed.

Yeah, for sure. And sometimes I feel like we get two people say we get a lot of people say we get too much involved in our personal but we want to be a light. We want to do what Jesus called us to do. But also they got a desire to help themselves. But anyway, that's, that's what it's like at Zebra scapes. It is a challenge to hire people without a question, how do you get them to buy in? It's, it is teams, it's meetings, it's huddles, it's, you know, some cookout events we do. But the biggest thing is, is vision, where is zebra scapes going to they always see where we're headed. If someone, if they don't know what we're going, we're coming to work on a landscape and do a yard when clean a yard, but they don't understand where we're going to be in three years. We're going to be in five years. I mean, that's discouraging. And I think we are starting. I know Paul and I talked about it is talking about dreaming, like getting our guy. We want our guys to dream, to dream about where are they going? To their own, own house. You know, whatever it is they want to get into is when you're stressed in life. And so many people, Paul, these day and age, don't have great parenting, and so to teach them and parent them to make good decisions. We're all, we're all also Paul has been working on.

Dave Ramsey, Dave grant, yeah, helping them financially, helping them get through, get out of debt and be successful. Yeah, I think that we get vested in our team. Because, like you were saying, We do pay well. But I think if somebody is happy at the place they work, if they get up every single morning and say, I cannot wait to go to work. To go to work and not how can I get out of going to work today? Your team is just, you're going to drive a very successful team. Yeah,

yep. And they got to want to get out of debt, but if they want to get out of debt, we love to help them and put teams together, stop the Maverick, stop gas stations and buying that stuff and start saving money, and then we match it and all that plans we got. But anyway, thanks for joining us. Any questions. Put the comment below on how we can answer questions, and put in your tips on how we can become greater and better, and thanks for listening good. Thank you.