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You Can't Afford Me
Making the leap from employment to entrepreneurship can be a scary time. The biggest fear people have is the unknown. Here on the “You Can’t Afford Me Podast” we speak with hustlers and innovators on how to make the most of your journey. If you have questions we have answers.
You Can't Afford Me
From Hobby Plants to a 40-Year Brand: Connie Hom on Retention, Culture, and Evolving Your Business
A $20 palm, a New Jersey sunroom, and a bold move to Virginia—Connie Hom traces how a simple love for plants became Buckingham Greenery, a 40-year interior landscaping brand known for retention, reliability, and real wellness at work. We dig into the early days when a tiny Yellow Pages ad landed hospital and retail clients, then follow the playbook that scaled service across cities: local technicians, centralized operations, and a brand promise that facility managers love—hassle-free, consistent, and proactive.
Connie breaks down the systems behind client and employee loyalty, from closing support loops to training field techs as the visible face of the brand. She shares the 100-penny exercise that makes company finances tangible and teaches smart tradeoffs, plus the culture shifts that matter: four-day workweeks most Fridays, clear expectations with clients, and genuine rest that fuels better work. We explore why biophilic design beats plastic decor, how to buffer copy-center emissions with living plants, and the research-backed benefits that make green workplaces calmer, healthier, and more productive.
There’s a powerful throughline here: evolve without losing your core. Hire experts earlier than feels comfortable. Delegate creative ownership to raise the bar. Invest in uniforms, trucks, and social media that make your brand visible and memorable. And define success on your terms—service, wellness, and relationships that outlast market swings. If you’ve wondered how to keep clients for decades, reduce burnout, or build a company people are proud to represent, you’ll leave with a practical blueprint and a fresh respect for living design.
If this conversation moved you, follow the show, share it with a builder who needs it, and leave a quick review—your feedback helps more entrepreneurs find the roadmap.
www.themrpreneur.com
Are you trying to reach decision makers, entrepreneurs, and sales professionals that you can't afford is your next marketing move? With six episodes a month and a growing audience of CEOs and industry leaders, your brand won't just be heard. It'll be remembered. Advertisers can place audio ads on our podcast and even secure visual placements in our full-length YouTube videos. This is where smart brands earn attention. Lock in your ad spot today before your competitor does. Email Sam at NZOMediaFirm.com to receive more information. Welcome to the You Can't Afford Me podcast, where we skip the fluff and dive straight into the ground. Real entrepreneur, real struggle, and the unfiltered journey behind the death. Let's get into it. Hey guys, thanks for joining us on another episode of the You Can't Afford Me podcast. So this young lady really needs no introduction. If you're in the Richmond area and you're in business, you probably know who she is. One of the clients for me in the earlier days that I would consider like one of our first big clients. She has a massive business and a lot of business expertise. Super excited to have her on the podcast today. Today we have Connie on the podcast. How are you doing today?
SPEAKER_00:Great. I'm so excited to be here. As always.
SPEAKER_01:Excited to have you here.
SPEAKER_00:You were one of the first of the social media when I got into social media, and I learned so much from you. And you were just the beginning then. And it's so great to see what you've done in 10 years.
SPEAKER_01:No, I appreciate that. I appreciate that.
SPEAKER_00:But like right here.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, moving into this space was definitely a huge step up for us. Um before we get too far into it, tell everybody who you are and what you do.
SPEAKER_00:Okay. I'm Connie Hamm. I'm the founder of Buckingham Greenery Interior Landscapes, which makes beautiful, healthy environments with live green plants, as we have here today.
SPEAKER_01:She brought in some plants.
SPEAKER_00:And I am blessed every day by God to be able to wake up and make a difference in people's lives by writing healthy work environments. And I get to do what I love to do every day, and I am loving it. So no better than that.
SPEAKER_01:Awesome. Love to hear that. So let's go back, like way back.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:How did you get started in this industry?
SPEAKER_00:I got started as a hobby. I had a seven-room apartment in New Jersey and it had a huge sunroom with glass all around.
SPEAKER_03:Yep.
SPEAKER_00:And at the time I was working for the Bell System in Newark, New Jersey. Oh wow. And when I would get home, the right around on the big roundabout, there was a van that would come from Florida every two weeks. And it just happened to coincide this two weeks that I would get paid. So I would go and buy a plant for my empty sunroom until it became very full.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Uh with this guy. And he would go drive down to Florida, bring up plants, a whole van full of plants.
SPEAKER_03:Wow.
SPEAKER_00:And at the time it was very, very cheap. So I could get plants for five to ten dollars and big plants.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, nice.
SPEAKER_00:So um we got to have a good relationship and understanding, and he would say, Connie, I have a really good specimen palm. Would you be interested in it? It might be like twenty dollars. But it was great because I was getting all kinds of plants in my sunroom. So it got to be a really good hobby. I really learned a lot of plants. Went to a program um and the speaker was somebody who did interior landscaping for offices. And I never really heard about it. So afterwards I talked to her and she was a pioneer at the time and well respected in New York City.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:And I remember the things that she said. She said, Connie, every day I get to do what I love and I am loving what I do. So that's that's like my mantra now.
SPEAKER_03:Yep.
SPEAKER_00:Um, and that was that was 40 some years ago. Moved to Virginia.
SPEAKER_01:So what were you? Were you born in the Jersey, New York area?
SPEAKER_00:I was born in New Jersey, in the Jersey Shore, the home of bot um the boss, Bruce Springsteen, from New Jersey. So I I I I always when he's singing my hometown, I feel like there's some allegiance to Bruce for that. Absolutely. Uh but uh uh yeah, I'm a Jersey girl, and but I've been in Virginia for uh almost 43 years.
SPEAKER_01:Nice. So what brought about the move from Jersey to Virginia?
SPEAKER_00:Well, I um my sister was down here, really loved Virginia. Uh and everyone, even though right now the summer is really hot and humid.
SPEAKER_01:This is one of the hottest summers we've ever had.
SPEAKER_00:I love a hot and humid summer.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Um, but I wasn't crazy about, and at the time, it was real always cold and snowy in New Jersey, and you still see the piles of snow in the parking lot in March and April.
SPEAKER_03:Yep.
SPEAKER_00:Here in Virginia, and I know a lot of people will say, because we're experiencing really hot weather now, but it's really beautiful four seasons. Oh, yeah, absolutely. Um the spring and fall are great, and we have a very, very light winter. We may have snow a weekend, but it's gone, and it doesn't stick around. And uh that's the beauty of being here in Virginia, the four s four good seasons.
SPEAKER_01:Nice. So when you was there a strategy game plan when you picked up and moved from Jersey where you're just like, I need to change and I'm moving. Did you already have a job lined up? Were you already thinking about this business? What was the thought process?
SPEAKER_00:I had a small business in New Jersey, New York, uh, while I was working for corporate America and really loved it. But then when I decided to move to Virginia, there was a game plan. Yeah. Uh we incorporate incorporated Buckingham Greenery was incorporated in October of nineteen eighty-two. And we were I was planning on taking a year to market. I wanted new locations, not to take over something. And um our corporate office is still located in Buckingham County and it was centrally located to Richmond, Charlottesville, Lynchburg, World Road. Lynchburg, your hometown.
SPEAKER_01:My hometown. Nobody nobody sings about Lynchburg though.
SPEAKER_00:Well, it's nice for us, it's been a great market for us. It's one of our first clients, and it's still uh one of our clients now, after uh uh 43 almost 43 years, so it's really nice to see Lynchburg as a really good market for us.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, Lynchburg's growing big time now. It does not look like what it did when I grew up there. Yeah. There's there's been a lot of growth there. So you had the you had the strategy, you had this as so it was Buckingham that you had already started in Jersey when you moved to was that the small business that you had or it was.
SPEAKER_00:It was a small interior landscaping company, but then we came I came to uh Rich uh Virginia, uh Buckingham, Virginia, and we had I had a good market of saying, you know, we're we'll do this radius and uh um God has blessed me in many ways. So the whole idea was to do a whole year of marketing so that name could get out there, some branding, yep, uh, and get some opportunities.
SPEAKER_01:Yep. So with that, because let's talk about that transition. I think as entrepreneurs now, and as long as you've been doing this, like we can kind of breeze over that piece. That's a scary thing to number one, just moving from New York to Virginia. I mean, that's a drastic move. And then number two, to come into a community in a market that you're not as familiar with and bet on yourself and start this business. Talk to us about what the transition was like. Or for you, was it just like, hey, this is what makes sense, I'm gonna do it, like there are no qualms about it?
SPEAKER_00:I think one of the entrepreneurs is entrepreneurship, like all of the ones that you know and um people that we know, uh, there's that, first of all, they have a lot of confidence in themselves. So confidence is one of the big things. And we're risk takers. Yes. So we know that we ha if we really want something, we'll make it work. And even if it doesn't work the way we were planning it, something else will come and make it work. I I really feel that uh entrepreneurs that we talk to really have a lot of confidence in themselves first and in their plan. And most of them will have a plan. So I had a plan. Uh I was gonna go into a market and and market what we do. Yeah. It was still new. You had to be thinking, in 1982, interior landscaping was still new.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Um fortunately for us, if you can remember this, you probably don't even know what yellow pages are. But that was our first our company's first marketing. Um at the time, the yellow page was in Charlottesville, which is one of our markets, and they had gone to a new office, and we wanted to be in all of the markets, so it was Richmond, Charlottesville, Lynchburg, and Roanoke initially. And we were just get uh the company was just at a point where um we were getting in all the deadlines.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:So just put a quick ad in there, and the woman said, you know, we just moved here. We need live plants here, and they became our first client in like two weeks. I had our first client. And uh then our the yellow page, which for those of you that don't know what the yellow page is.
SPEAKER_01:Why are they talking about these colored pages?
SPEAKER_00:That was the way he used to advertise 47 years ago.
SPEAKER_01:So back in the day, for everybody that's like 20 years old, there was this big yellow book that used to come, somebody would deliver it to your house. And I know this uh because this is actually now thinking back, I never thought about this. This was my first taste of entrepreneurship. My dad and and myself had a yellow pages route. Oh, okay. At one point, he had me going with them. We'd get up at like 4 a.m. and we were throwing out the yellow pages.
SPEAKER_00:They printed them.
SPEAKER_01:Yep, yep.
SPEAKER_00:And the the the directory advertising was in Charlottesville, but the printing was in Lincoln.
SPEAKER_01:Yep, yep, yeah, because we go to the big facility where they had them printed off and we stack up our car, take them, do our route. Um, so before Google and all this stuff, like you had to actually open up this big book if you want to call somebody, their phone number was listed in there, but that was also an opportunity for businesses to advertise. So, talk about that because I've never talked to somebody about this in advertising in the yellow pages. I'm very curious to understand how that compares to today. So, obviously, like marketing, I think has gotten much easier today. But what were the results you got from marketing in the yellow page? Obviously, just talking to the yellow pages, you ended up closing the client, but well, well, and then we got the printing in Lynchburg. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:And uh Lynchburg General Hospital had a planter, it was a 10-foot planter, and their interior designer indicated to the um at that time the director of the hospital, this is for live green plants. So he went into the yellow pages, the new book that just came out, and there we were for uh interior. Look at God. Look at God. Yeah, right. I I say I am blessed. Because and he called me and and his name was Scott, and he said, I have this planner, and I've been told to put live green plants. Is that something you do? And you're like, yeah. That was in January of 1983. Our the Yellow Pages book just just actually dropped.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Uh they were our first client in Lynchburg, and then we got the printing um of the Yellow Pages. And we are still with them after That's amazing. Um 42 years because they became Sentra.
SPEAKER_01:Yep.
SPEAKER_00:Um, we then got the hospital Virginia Baptist and Centra took both of those over. They have a huge cancer center.
SPEAKER_01:Yep. And uh Oh man, I wish I had known. I was literally in Lynchburg Tuesday, and I have someone that's at the hospital. Like, I wish I had known that you guys were doing the plan seriously, would have been way more attentive. So next time I'm back there, I'll think of that. Let's pause right there for a minute because I don't want people to breeze over that that section of your story right there. I don't want it to sound like, oh, I just came up with the idea to open up, start a yellow page ad, and then all this business started pouring in. What I want people to understand from what you just shared is that you had the intuitiveness to look for these opportunities in terms of like what can I do marketing-wise? How can I get my name out there? And I think that's a big lesson for a lot of entrepreneurs to understand is that you have to put yourself out there in order to put yourself in the right positions. If you're not marketing, if you're not putting yourself out there, if you're not going to talk to businesses and shake hands with people, you can get mad when the business doesn't come your way. So, like what I gathered from that short uh portion of your story is that you were out hustling. You were trying to figure out any way you could to get the name of Buckingham Greenery out there.
SPEAKER_00:Oh yes, oh yes. I mean, it's the same as right now. And I know you've interviewed Susan Quinn with Circle S. Yep and her book. Yep. Right? Stand out. Your brand has to stand out. Absolutely. And when your brand new, how do you stand out? For us as a company, we had to stand out in the yellow pages because no one at that time. Now we have to stand out in our social media and our website, in our branding with our uniforms and our trucks, and uh so Yeah, trucks everywhere. So it's it's one of the things that uh and and I will say God has really blessed me because then uh JCPenney at the time their headquarters was in Dallas, and they had this new initiative of all their stores was going to have uh interior live plants as part of their uh decor. So they were starting in the Mid-Alantic region, which included Roanoke. Yeah. And again, at the time, you just yellow pages, and there was our name, and one of the district managers called and said, We want to trial something, it's coming out of our headquarters, and Roanoke um JCPenney is going to be one of the trials. Would you be interested? Of course, right? Of course.
SPEAKER_01:And uh let's talk again for the 20-somethings that don't know about yellow pages. JCPenney is a major retail, so like JC Penny and Belk, like those were the stores back in the day. When you went back to school shopping, those were the only stores you went to. Yeah, yeah. So that's major.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, it was major for us too.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Because as a company, once they saw what we were able to do in Roanoke, um, we followed them in a different areas, even beyond our um foot geographical footprint. Yeah. We did Charlottesville, we they had a small location in Lynchburg.
SPEAKER_03:Yep.
SPEAKER_00:Um, they had Richmond, a couple of locations in Richmond. They hadn't done the Virginia Beach out yet, um, but then we did Fredericksburg. And so it it allowed us to spread out a little bit more than what our fur initial geographical footprint is. And I'm gonna be using we because uh it became a team. Yeah. Right?
SPEAKER_01:That's where I was about to park it back to. So where where did this go from just being you to starting to develop a team? Talk about the growth of the business and what it started to look like when you started to add people to the team.
SPEAKER_00:Well, in Roanoke, um, the manager, wife, was looking for a job and taking care of plants. And we got that job, and I said, Is there a conflict of interest if your wife who's interested? And he said, No, it's it's not, it she'd be working for a different company. Yeah. And she was great, so she was our first technician. Yeah, and um the great story is in Richmond uh we were trying to get at the time, it's now Bank of America, and there's a couple of uh different banks that were on the corners. Yeah, uh, and the James Center was being built. And we won the contract with at the time the owners were um Henry Faison, who was part of that building of the James Center complex, which is still one of our clowns after 1985.
SPEAKER_01:We're we're gonna talk about how you're keeping clients as long, because that that is gonna be a major gem to drop today.
SPEAKER_00:Retention, retention, retention to every entrepreneur out there.
SPEAKER_01:Um it's a lot easier to keep them than go out and get new clients.
SPEAKER_00:It is, it is. Uh but you have to still have the services or products that you can provide for them on a continual basis. Yep, no, absolutely. You have to you'll see a word that I love to always talk about to entrepreneurs. It's an E word, and it's entrepreneurs have to evolve.
SPEAKER_03:Yes.
SPEAKER_00:Uh and in some industries you have to evolve constantly and and just know what the trends are. And in a 40 almost 43 year business, our company has definitely evolved based on trends.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Let's go. All right, so the first employee was uh was that the first employee, the story you just shared about that lady? Yeah. So how long was it just you before Well, I was partnered with my husband at the time. Okay.
SPEAKER_00:Uh, and he was also an operations person, so he knew um how to take care of plants. This is still a hobby for me. Yeah. Uh and my expertise was more in the marketing and sales. So I did the marketing and sales, he did the um operations and um service. Yep. So she became our first paid besides ourselves, uh, the technician. And uh as as the company continued to grow, because then we were getting accounts with JCPenney in various locations, uh, you could still service it from ourselves. Yeah, but then as the geographical footprint was changing, uh, we would have to start hiring people. And then the strategy is um you have to have people local. So we had a local group in Roanoke, we had a local group in Lynchburg, we had a local group in Charlottesville, but everything was still coming out of centralized out of gotcha.
SPEAKER_01:I gotcha.
SPEAKER_00:And a lot created a lot of efficiencies. Uh we still have a greenhouse and a warehouse and our central corporate uh in Buckingham, where all the billing, all the um um any calls coming in, we distributed out from there, um all the legal stuff, all the accounting stuff is all still all one.
SPEAKER_01:So in the first let me ask you this and then a follow-up question. Um in the first year, how fast did you grow in terms of like employees? And number two, how did you ensure that you weren't growing too fast?
SPEAKER_00:Well, we were growing quickly because the first year the plan was to just market ourselves.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:And it was happening very quickly. Yeah. It was um in 82, in the end of 82, we already had a couple accounts, and then Lynchburg happened, and then JCPenney happened, and then um the James Center, even though it wasn't gonna be installed into 85, yeah, 1985, um, and then the Omni. So it was happening quickly.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Um but it was good. Yeah. It was like blow that plan of marketing for a year out the window. Um, but then the other thing was um having the financial resources to handle that growth.
SPEAKER_03:Yep.
SPEAKER_00:So um Buckingham County is a very rural county. Um and in 1982 oh interior landscaping and plantscaping and having interior plants was still new.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Um I remember our banker, and I wanted a very small loan just so that we could handle inventory and payroll, which is still always the thing. Inventory and payroll. So entrepreneurs out there, you always need to have enough cash flow for inventory and payroll.
SPEAKER_01:People don't understand how much payroll can drain an entrepreneur work, because I'm sure you've had over the years where it's like, okay, I gotta wait to pay myself another two, three, four weeks so I can take care of my people. Like it's a stressful thing.
SPEAKER_00:It is, but you have reliable payments with uh Mr. Gallagher, and we have on DPS with uh David Gallagher.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. No, they're an amazing company. I got now that you name dropped them, I gotta get him on the podcast here soon, too.
SPEAKER_00:Well, I will say that uh um I met David a long time ago, and it was definitely so much easier. I mean everyone says you have to pay for a payroll service, but the you can sleep at night because they're doing all your taxes and everything else and um things that you're you're maybe you're maybe not sure of of how how to navigate all of that. Yep, but it was really important for us to have that because as we were growing, yeah, we needed to be sure that was taken care of.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, hiring hiring though when I look at like the different levels that I've reached as an entrepreneur, the markers for me where things got a lot better were always when I could afford to uh bring in these other professionals to provide service. Like when I was able to finally hire uh an accountant and CPA, like I mean, it's just so much weight off my shoulder. Because even you know, if you're not trained to do this stuff, you know, as entrepreneurs, we're figuring everything out. But the legal stuff, you don't want Uncle Sam calling you at any given time. So when you're able to bring in these professionals who are trained and know what they're doing and making sure everything's getting taken care of, it just takes the weight off of you, takes the pressure off of you, and you can focus on the other areas of your business where you really need to grow. So I think for entrepreneurs, it's not, you know, a lot of people think like, oh, we're able to get a new company car, we're able to move into a new fancy office, blah, blah, blah. Like that must have been the highlight for you. No, it was when I could hire a janitor to come clean the toilets because I didn't have time anymore to do those things. I hired an accountant, like all those different things.
SPEAKER_00:Well, as an entrepreneur, we are always in the very beginning wearing all the hats. Oh, everything. You wear all the hats. But the hat that fits best for us is the one we should be wearing. And all the other ones that are being piled on the hat, on the top of the hat.
SPEAKER_01:Give them to somebody else.
SPEAKER_00:It really, um I know it's hard to understand that because sometimes you're paying somebody else. But I always tell people the energy and what you bring to a company, um, what it could be the vision, the passion, uh, it could be marketing, it could be the sales part, it could be the operations. If you were vo focusing more on that than wearing all these crazy hats, you'd be so much more productive. Yes. You'd be so have so much more impact on the company. Yes. So whatever it costs, whether you have to barter, I bartered a lot in the very early days. I still do it. Yeah. Um you do those things because you're gonna make your company better in the long run. It's it's really hard to understand that when you're in it. But if you could step out and say, and I always do this, you know, what am I best at? And what am I spending my time on? If I'm spending my time on cleaning the offices and worrying about payroll and all those things, then I've got to say my time is more valuable and will provide more benefit for the company if I spend it on this. Yep. And then all the other stuff doesn't. But I also had to do that for my company. So remember, this is still a hobby for me, even after 40 some years, 46 years of um, so I didn't go and get a horticulture degree. Um, and I remember we had to hire somebody that knew how to take care of a 20-foot palm tree. Yeah. Because my son room was only eight feet tall, and I could take care of six feet to maybe eight feet tall plants, but it was still a hobby. I didn't get to know all the real technical stuff or the horticulture stuff.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:So I had to find somebody. And I realized again, part of the many hats, what do we do and what do we know best and which hat fits the best?
SPEAKER_03:Yep.
SPEAKER_00:It's the same thing in a company as you continue to grow. It's not only the the things that you can outsource, yeah, but the things that you need inside the company. Uh I needed somebody with some horticulture background.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Um, so got that person. She's still with us after 30-something years.
SPEAKER_01:All right, we're gonna all right. We're gonna dig into that because like you keep dropping, like you're able to retain employees so well, you're able to retain clients so well. But before I ask you that, let me ask you, where did you get your education for this? So, like, for me, I learned all this, everything you see around us. I learned all this from YouTube. Like, it was just sitting down, we're in the information age, just sitting down, getting on the computer, and retaining as much information as you can. Uh, in the 80s, it wasn't as easy to get access to information. Like, I remember in the early days scrolling through encyclopedias and you know, researching and learning things that way. Um, how did you become so knowledgeable in this space without getting a formal education in it?
SPEAKER_00:So, this is gonna really age me because we didn't have cell phones, we didn't even have emails, didn't have really laptops as per se.
SPEAKER_01:I remember those days.
SPEAKER_00:So your trade associations and organizations were really important. Um we had um one big one, yeah, and uh a lot of our growers were from Florida and we had vendors and we would have a big trade show. We still have a a a pretty good trade show. Um and they would all have educational sessions and everybody was still learning, it was still new. It was something that came around in the early 1970s. So um it had had been uh uh in an industry for about fi a good 15 to 20 years, but people were still getting into it and wanting to learn. So there was a group of us that just were sponges. Uh and some were some that had started in the 70s or in the late 70s and became experts and really had the knowledge uh horticulturally, design standpoint. Um we were fortunate to have um Robert McDuffie, who is has retired, but he was uh uh at Virginia Tech and a professor, and he was a landscape architect, so he helped our industry a lot in just um talking about interior plants. And um so we had that. We had the academia, we had people who were doing that, um, we had our vendors, people who were making containers, and um it was still a learning experience in those early days of an industry. It was a community, yeah, yeah. And it uh and we still are fri we there's beyond friendships of just being professional friends that were established um since then.
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SPEAKER_00:Well, first of all, um, you have to know what your brand is. So our brand was hassle-free. As more people got into facilities management, more things got on their plate. Yeah. So exterior landscaping, interior landscaping, uh, janitorial services, uh, fire and safety, whatever new thing came, a facility manager had to take care of it. So the facility manager at a location, at a corporate location, or if they outsourced it, had to do a lot of things for a building. If we could be at the less happy Hassle for that person.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:That if they said, hey, somebody's complaining about a plant and we took care of it and they could just check it off their list and not worry about it. That's how we we were branded. Hassle free. You could you could come in, we're gonna s do what we say we will do, and we will do it in a professional and quality manner. And one of the things is once we say we're gonna do it, you don't have to worry about it. And that was really important because we were doing it from a perspective of our client. Uh if you were a facility manager and you had twenty things on your things to do list and you knew that Buckingham Greenery Interior Landscaping was gonna do what they said they were gonna do, then you can forget about that.
SPEAKER_03:Absolutely.
SPEAKER_00:Um we also would do this, we still do it, where if you call us, we're gonna within a time frame tell you how we'll take care of it. And then we'll follow up to be sure that that was taken care of. So again, and now we have email, we have texting and all the other things, but if at that time it was a phone call and leaving a message.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:You come you you talked you asked about this, and it could be just a yellow leaf or something that fell um or somebody bumped into it and now there's soil all over the place. Um we would tell you when we got it done.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Uh we would tell you when we would get it done, and then we would also tell you when to find So if they kept were kept in the loop and they would continue to do that because they're representing the whole building.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:And so if if one of their team or associates calls and says, Hey, what's the status of that? Yeah, they can say, It's gonna happen tomorrow.
SPEAKER_01:Yep.
SPEAKER_00:Um, so that they feel like they're they've also been empowered to know.
SPEAKER_01:Makes them look better at their job too. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:So um that has always been our core. Um we do what we say we're gonna do. Uh integrity is one of our core values, and we really feel that um integrity with our clients are is the most important thing.
SPEAKER_01:So what along with that, which that's fabulous, um, do you also feel that you've built up a pretty good personal relationship with these clients? Because when I hear someone say that they've been doing business with you for 40 years, that leads me to believe that there's more of a personal connection there. Whether that's like every now and then you bring lunch by the office or like it's gotten to the point where like this is someone that you see in a social setting or something like that. Like, oftentimes, like when we we sign a new client, uh my wife now will put together these gift baskets, and it's just like you know, that's something that other media firms probably aren't doing. And we're not doing it just to, you know, outshine the competition, but it's like, you know, these are people that we're working with. And the fact that like my wife now, she's been on with us like fairly recently, but the fact that when I told her, hey, this is what I want to do for this client, she instantly came back and said, Okay, well, the two ladies you're telling me about, they like doing this or they like doing that. And I'm like, where did you get all this information? It's like, oh, I went digging through their Facebook and Instagram page, learned about them, and then figured out what the best thing was to give them. And the look on their face, you would have think I thought I gave them a million bucks when I walked in their store the other day and handed that to them. It was just the idea that like you took a moment to think about us and do something so personalized. So is there anything beyond obviously customer service and and doing what you say you're gonna do and following up? That is crucial, and that's what the number one thing I look for in a vendor. But is there anything beyond that that you've done to solidify this 40-year relationship?
SPEAKER_00:Well, a couple of things I will say. Um, retention is is something that goes throughout the whole company. So every one of us, whether it be our install person, the person who answers the phone, the way we we supply to our emails, uh, our technicians who are in there all the time with our clients, they are the ones that are the face-to-face. So we have to make sure that they are part of our brand.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Right? That they're polite, that they're courteous. Um one of our clients, and you're if you're downtown Richmond and you're in one of the taller buildings, um, our shirts, we actually have our company names on the back of our shirts because and the front, but most people will see the back of our people and they'll say, Oh, I saw your people walking down the street. Yep. And they're up in the building. So I'm t I always telling our people, uh, even when you're not inside their locations and you're walking to and fro from your car or down the um Main Street or Broad Street, people are seeing you. And so you're still part of the branding for our company.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Um they'll see you when you're taking a break, they'll see you when you're going into your car. Uh it's just you don't know where people are seeing you because there's windows everywhere.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, absolutely.
SPEAKER_00:So um I think the training for our people that they're part of the brand of their company is really important because we are so visible.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Um, so that's one thing besides the retention. So they have to understand how important retention is to the overall scheme of the company.
SPEAKER_01:How how do you drive that to employees? Because from the business owner perspective, yeah, we know, hey, us maintaining this account with JCPenney is paying your salary. But that's not all, you're not gonna go to the employee and be like, hey, this client's like paying your salary, like you make your. Well, maybe you do.
SPEAKER_00:Okay, so maybe you do. So we have done in in uh we haven't done it recently, but we do it on a periodic period. Um there's this thing that Jack Welsh had with 100 penny exercise. And it's a way that you let the whole company understand um profits, income, uh, on a very simple level. Because they think your company, everybody thinks Sam has this unending pocket of money, right?
SPEAKER_01:Yes, they do, right?
SPEAKER_00:Until you shake it out and there's no more.
SPEAKER_01:Those pockets do not exist, I'm telling you.
SPEAKER_00:So the hundred penny exercise is you take a hundred pennies, and everybody has a hundred pennies. And you say you do it simple. So you know what your payroll is, it's uh maybe it's twenty-three percent, and um your overhead for your rent and stuff is this, and insurance is this, and education and training and marketing. So you do it in pipe percentages, and everybody has like categories. And um you actually ask them to say, okay, we're gonna do people. And I say people are like food in your own budget. So you have to almost relate it to their own personal, like our rents and um buildings is like your mortgage or rent. So that's uh, and I'll just use a number, that's ten pennies. Yeah. So they count out ten pennies and put it for there.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:And then I'll say gas is like just gas like you use for your car. And it might be this many pennies. And then um car. Every in in our business we use company cars and vehicles. It's the same as your own personal car, put it that way. And um, food is people. So whatever you put aside for food, that's you, our people. So labor, uh, and uh education, and then you see what's left over. Yeah. Right?
SPEAKER_01:It's like these five pennies over here.
SPEAKER_00:And if you want, let's say, um, let's just say a company would want uh, we want to put, if there's five pennies left over, we might say we want we want to put eleven pennies over here. Now, where would we take that from?
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Because it do I mean there's there's no more pennies. Right? There's no more pockets, there's there isn't any extra money. And it's good because we'll do it as a group exercise. There might be three to a group, and they might say, Oh, well, let's let's not let's be better on gas. Yeah. So we'll take a penny. Um, let's negotiate the rent. We'll take a penny. Um and then we'll put it all on the board. And some of them we can do and some of them we can't. But it empowers them to see and understand that's genius where the money goes.
SPEAKER_01:That's genius. Because they'll I've that's a struggle I've had over the years where because at a certain level, some employees are gonna learn like what we've signed contracts for. So they hear$10,000. Oh, woo! Bonuses about to come. Well, hold up. Do you know were we in the black or the red for the last quarter? Did this expense go up? Did I have to buy more computers? Like, did a camera break and we had to replace that? Like all these different things. Um, and it did my heart good. I'm definitely using this exercise that you just explained. We're we're doing that this month. Um, but I had one of my staff members uh came in yesterday. We have a new CRM that we just purchased. Um, and I just haven't had the time to sit down and like work through it and build it out the way we need to. Um and I can see it's it's like hurting the process. Um, so I was like, we got to get on top of this. So I called the company and they were like, actually, we have a package where we'll do all the onboarding and build this out for you. Um and it was like a thousand bucks or something like that, which to me is fairly cheap in comparison to like the Salesforce and some of those.
SPEAKER_00:Well, how do you wear it, right? Exactly.
SPEAKER_01:So, yeah, exactly. I don't have time to do this, let me just pay somebody else to do it. Um, and we got on a call with them, they explained everything. Cool, I had one of my team members on the call, and then after the call, um, he ran over to my office. He's like, Hey man, um, hold off on spending that money. He's like, I think you and I can figure this out. Like, um, yeah, like I understand a thousand bucks isn't that much, but give me just a couple more days, let me see if I can figure this out for you. And if we can't, then yeah, we'll go back to them and we'll pay that. And honestly, that is probably the first time in the 10-year history of this company. An employee immediately ran over to me and said, I got a way to save you some money, let's not spend the money. Most people are coming to me and they're like, Hey, can we spend money on this, spend money on that? That was the first employee that came to me and said, No, let's hold off. I want to save you some money. So that mentality that you're talking about.
SPEAKER_00:And you can use that as an example. So um safety is very important for us. Um we have company vehicles, we're in other people's locations, we have a greenhouse, we have warehouses, um, we do a lot of production work for our holiday and the flowers. Um and if we can keep our uh insurance for safety purposes uh down, um the reward is we share whatever we're saving.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:And they have to understand how important that is because um well pe people that understand insurance is, you know, you get an incident, insurance keeps I mean, insurance is gonna come up anyway just because of the um the cost of doing business.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:But if it s escalates because of your your own kind of safety record, uh it can it can cost a lot. Now insurance, who pays for insurance? Right? It's not something that um you that is part of the cost of doing business. Yes. Uh and insurance is not an uh an expensive thing as a line item. Uh you know, we're we're liability insurance is is very big. And so if you can get people to understand their part in safety or insurance purposes and get them to they don't have to understand all the aspects of it.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:But if if they have c they have car insurance, if they have a car, if they have either apartment insurance or house insurance, if they have a uh mortgage or uh they rent. So they have the idea, they understand insurance. Um, not the big picture of a company, yeah, but they understand it on a l on a little level and they're they see when it's their costs are going up. So I always say profit is like when you have enough money on your own to go to a movie or to buy something new, uh whether a piece of a piece of clothing or uh something for yourself. So that's like my little pennies of profit.
SPEAKER_01:That's genius. That's genius. We're definitely doing that. Perfect segue into retention with employees. So the way you just described that and how you communicate with your employees leads me to be believe one thing about how you're retaining employees, but um like specifically my industry. And you can look at like restaurants and different things like that. There are certain industries that have high turnover ratios, um, and not wanting to sound the fear of sounding like an old man, um, kids today just don't work like they did back in my day, right? A lot of these uh 20-somethings like to work for a company for two years and they move on, work for another company for two years and move on. So, how in the world are you retaining people for decades at a time? What is it about Buckingham Greenery and the culture that you've created there that makes people want to stay?
SPEAKER_00:Well, first of all, it is culture, but I think most important is we are dealing with beautiful products. I mean, God-given products, right? Um there are people that are that just love plants.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:And they're like, I can do this. Sort of like me. Yeah. I can do this, I can do what I love and love what I'm doing every day. Um there are things that you have to deal with customers and everything else, but you still the end product is taking care of a plant.
SPEAKER_03:Yep.
SPEAKER_00:So if you're into horticulture and love plants, I mean, and the younger generation are really into nature. I mean, I will hear from people saying, I have like over 200 plants in my apartment. Oh wow. You know, and I'm always saying, Well, would you like a job? You want to work? You want to work for our company? Because that's what we're doing, we're taking care of plants. And um but for a good reason as well. So I'm always stressing the healthy aspect of um our industry. And the other thing is if you love horticulture, there aren't a lot of positions um on a full-time basis. So you know you can go to a garden center, they they're not full-time. Um greenhouse production isn't always all full-time. Um exterior, depending upon if they do snow or what, um, not all of them are full-time. So we offer a full-time inside job. Like right now, everybody loves the fact that we're inside a building. Uh we were maybe outside just to get in and in and out of our vehicles, but for the most part, we're working inside for the job. So um that's also a nice thing if you love horticulture. Um, there aren't a lot of conservatories or um type of arboretums that we have here in um the in our geographical footprint that allow um and because those people love what they do too. So they're staying in their jobs. So we don't have a lot of turnover in that horticulture industry. Um but if you want to continue to grow, you have to grow your team. So anybody out there that knows somebody with a green thumb, you know, I'm always I'm always saying, you know, people say you don't have a green thumb, but you can just put green marker. Everybody has a green thumb out there. So uh if you know somebody who really loves plants, please um call give us a call at 800-322-4711. We're always expanding. Uh and that's part of our continued growth. And also the culture. I mean, we're pretty much our technicians are pretty independent. Um they have to think for themselves. Um they're uh they're going into fabulous office space.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Uh they places that aren't even visible to the public just because of the nature of what they do. Uh there are beautiful furnishings and surroundings, and um we have great clients too. So uh all of them love plants. They know that they they don't have the green thumbs, that's why they hire us.
SPEAKER_03:Yep.
SPEAKER_00:Uh and I think one of the things is we listen. We listen to our people. So um this is one of the things that became which we didn't know would become, but we're a green company. We try to do as much green as possible. Um cotton shirts, uh a lot of recyclable things, a lot of uh sustainable th items that we try to use. Um we try to use eco-friendly containers wherever we can. And so part of the green aspect was how else can we be green? And you have to remember that our company is um it's gonna be 43 years old, so it has different stages. You know, in the 80s, 90s, green was very big. Yeah, uh when gas was expensive, there are lots of things that everybody was trying to do. So we decided um on Fridays to do half days to try to be a little bit more green. Uh then we decided four hours really wasn't making much of a difference. Yeah. What if we went to four ten hour weeks? This is about twenty-five years ago. And if you wanted to work four ten hour days, fine. If you wanted to work four or nine, whatever was really good from your home standpoint. Um, but we were gonna try to do having Fridays off, and not just during the summer. We tried it during the summer, and of course everybody loved it. And how much could we do that? Um that became a big turning point. And I know a lot of people have been talking about why don't we do four, ten hour weeks? So we did it from a green standpoint. Yeah. You know, we were at that time I had several offices. So all the offices would be not open on a Friday. And what were you saving in electricity, lighting, you know, all the computers being on?
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Uh and then we realized people were coming in early, somebody was coming in early anyway, on on a during the rest of the week. Yeah. So you're still having lights on early. Yeah. Um so we looked at it and from a gas consumption, uh, company cars, and then personal cars, we'd have a lot of these cars off the road. I mean, you can still be using it for your personal, but from the company standpoint, we'd have. Uh so we looked at it from a green standpoint, and we were we were saving all not only money but um from a company standpoint, but then we were also being green and our carbon footprint was less.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Well, it's always something when you do an idea and then it blows up.
SPEAKER_04:Right?
SPEAKER_00:It's it's everybody loves it during the summer. Let's see what we can do. It now we do holiday and we do special events, and so we sometimes can't do it every um Friday. But I would say out of 52 weeks, we probably can do 40 weeks of everybody being off on a Friday.
SPEAKER_01:I was gonna say, so how today? Today's Friday. Yeah, right? How does that how does that work in terms of that's amazing because somebody may have heard you say that off cuff and then want and then think like, well, you may not be retaining clients as well. So here the fact that you're retaining employees for 40 years, you're retaining clients for 40 years, and you're still able to work in a model like that, uh, that fascinates me. But what issues popped up when you implemented that in terms of like if a client had a need on a Friday, were you getting emergency calls?
SPEAKER_00:So um, this is how I feel we are taking care of plants, we're not um saving somebody's lives.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, you're not brain surgeons.
SPEAKER_00:We're not brain surgeons.
SPEAKER_01:So I tell my guys that all the time.
SPEAKER_00:So um, from a client standpoint, if a client calls us and we need to do something, and it happens to be a Friday, Saturday, or Sunday, uh could be something got knocked down, then we have to pick it up right away. Our managers know that there may be a time when we have to call them. Okay, in twenty five years that we've been doing this, I think I've had three calls.
SPEAKER_01:Wow.
SPEAKER_00:Because our clients all know we're off on Friday.
SPEAKER_01:You set the expectation.
SPEAKER_00:Um if there is something, they know that they can call and we'll take care of it.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. But that makes them rethink is this really a serious issue or is this something I can wait till Monday?
SPEAKER_00:And there are a few people that will call and we have the uh an answering service, and they'll say, Oh yeah, they're off on Friday. It can wait. You know, it could be a billing question, it could be something that they're looking at for the f uh next week or whatever.
SPEAKER_03:Yep.
SPEAKER_00:It's uh or they'll email and um then all we respond to it on Monday. Uh and I've made everyone put on their emails that we are off on Fridays, and if this is an emergency, this is a number of contact, yeah. But I think it's important that we as entrepreneurs create the balance that we want for our people. If we say that we want you to be off on a Friday, um we also have to say we're going to help facilitate that.
SPEAKER_03:Yep.
SPEAKER_00:You know, the um because people can say, ooh, what what if a client calls or something? Because it's clients have some of our managers' direct numbers. Um and we have to say, um, is this something that can wait till Monday?
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:If not, we'll take care of it.
SPEAKER_03:Yep.
SPEAKER_00:But most people will say, Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. We we we realize. And a lot of companies do take Fridays off or during the summer or every other Friday, or so they're their the expectation is oh we're doing it too. So we'll respect the fact.
SPEAKER_01:And I can't tell you how much I love this. Like, you got my mind racing now because also for me as the leader of the organization, I hear that. I love the idea of my staff having off on Fridays, but I also love the quiet time that I could get. So I would still come in the office on a Friday, but just having that time to think. And like when I just talked to you about the CRM system, I haven't had time to go through it. If my team's off on Friday and I know every two seconds someone's not gonna be knocking on my door, asking me a question or having to jump on the call, I have the wherewithal to be able to focus on that. And then I can get back to golfing every Friday too. Like coming here and work for a couple hours. Yeah, coming here and work for a couple hours, take off by 12, go golf. Like, sounds like the right week.
SPEAKER_00:Like it's become one of the benefits, yeah. One of the top benefits of our company. Uh now, other people have done it differently where you have uh you know, some people are off Friday and some people off Mondays. Yes. Um it is best to do it where it's a longer weekend so that they have that flexibility. Yeah. Uh yet it works for us on a Friday because we've been doing it so long, the expectation is there from our clients. Yeah. But we will, if somebody wants something, we will take care of it. Yeah. Um so I I also find that um your team, uh, and that's part this is part of the culture, will s see the benefit of that. They'll it takes a while to get used to whether it be a nine or ten hour day. But for a lot of them, they they value that. I mean people who have they go to the river or they go to the beach, they're out by five, six on a Thursday night.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:And they have all day Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. And then they come back come back Sunday night.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. They're fully getting the recharge.
SPEAKER_00:Right, they are. And that's we forget. The other thing is a lot of our people will do all the things that they normally would do on Saturday, Friday morning. They'll still get up early and they do their grocery shopping, cleaning the house, laundry, whatever things that they usually do. And then even time for themselves. So we've created some rest time for themselves without family, um, whether they have children, spouses, significant others, or extended family.
SPEAKER_03:Yep.
SPEAKER_00:They have like maybe two or three hours on a Friday that they can go to lunch with their friends, they can see their family because they can.
SPEAKER_03:Yep.
SPEAKER_00:Uh they have one-on-ones, they can have lunch with themselves. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Going to a movie on Friday at one o'clock and go to a c and nobody's there. Like, yeah.
SPEAKER_00:It's it's a different reset for them.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:And they're better people for it. And so they're refreshed. They're and on a weekend where your kids aren't old enough yet, but once they do, you're going everywhere with them. So some of our people, I mean, their whole Saturday is driving kids everywhere, doing different things. But they've already done all the other stuff beforehand and they've rested so they can give their full capacity for that Saturday or Sunday, because some people are very active in their churches.
SPEAKER_01:I love this so much. You're gonna see an announcement coming from Enzo Media Firm on social media soon.
SPEAKER_00:We're you can try it.
SPEAKER_01:We we may be shutting down. I think it's definitely something worth trying. I had the guys from uh the owner of uh the two owners of Cocky Rooster run the podcast, and they have a three and a half uh work week for all their employees. So they have two different sets of like a manager and his staff, another manager and his staff, and then the first team comes in and they work three and a half uh day weeks, and then they're off the other four, four days a week. Um, and then the cycle will just continually rotate. So, like, yeah, this crew, you guys are gonna have like from Wednesday to Sunday off, and then oververt the other way, so like people feel like you know they're working 10, 12 hour days, but um, it's worked out well. And he said what that's done for their company culture, like people are spending more time together outside of work because of the camaraderie and the time that they're getting. Like, everything I've heard between you and those guys like just leads me to believe like that's the way to go. And you see, even after COVID, once everybody started working remote and doing those different things, how that changed company culture, and a lot of businesses realize, like, yeah, maybe we don't have to have people coming in the office or X, Y, and Z. But like, I tell my people all the time, like, luckily I have a crew right now that has a good temperament. Um, I've had people in the past that would just get super stressed out about stuff, and I pull them aside. I'm like, look, man, we're not brain surgeons. No one's gonna die because they didn't get this or the music wasn't this way, dude. You can wait, relax. Like, we're all good here.
SPEAKER_00:Um but we're more productive when we have a I mean, I you never have a true balance of uh walk and play. But if you're respected for the time you're working and the time that you're playing, um it's it's good because we all need a break.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Um we we have all kinds of responsibilities in our play life. Um and that can be whatever.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:But we want I I feel like we're respecting them because they can have some rest. Yeah. Well, I love this end up doing.
SPEAKER_01:I absolutely love this. Because I I tell people all the time if I wasn't married, I'm not sure I'd ever vacation. Like my wife has to force me to go on vacation. So we're we're taking the family to be a little bit. Yeah, I we got I gotta unplug a little bit more. We're we're taking the family to Myrtle Beach for a week uh on Sundays, I'll be unplugged for a week, but my team knows. Like, I'm I just can't, I'm not built that way. Two or three days of doing nothing, I go stir crazy. Like, I just can't take it. Like, I have to do something product.
SPEAKER_00:Okay, so I have brought a book for you.
SPEAKER_01:Okay, beautiful. That's my love language.
SPEAKER_00:I don't know if you've read this one. Have not read them all, the fox and the horse.
SPEAKER_01:Okay.
SPEAKER_00:All right, there are a couple things that you've talked about that are in here.
SPEAKER_03:Okay.
SPEAKER_00:Uh what you call gems. Yep. There's a lot of gems in here that we just talked about. Beautiful. And um, one of them is are you really doing nothing when you're doing nothing?
SPEAKER_03:Mmm.
SPEAKER_00:Right? You just said uh I'm gonna be doing nothing.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:But um doing nothing isn't really nothing.
SPEAKER_01:So you're about to change my whole mental mindscape here.
SPEAKER_00:So this is a great book. So I don't know if anybody has seen this. This is the boy, the mole, the fox, and the horse. It's so well illustrated. That's the beauty of this book.
SPEAKER_01:Nice.
SPEAKER_00:But it has all these different gems about um what's important. And as an entrepreneur, sometimes we forget what's important. Yes. Um, sometimes we let our fears um overs overcome our confidence. And um from an entrepreneur standpoint, um, the reason why we are entrepreneurs is because we have confidence in our idea or our plan. Uh and I and I agree, like I said before, sometimes it doesn't always pan out, but it allows you to reset and readjust and um and uh there's a this is a good one. And isn't it odd we can only see our outsides, but nearly everything happens on the inside.
SPEAKER_01:So I I give you a thank you so much. I tell people my love language is when people give me knowledge. Like to me, there's nothing greater than when somebody looks at you and says, I think I have a piece of information that I think will help you in your journey. So when someone takes the time out to think about something specifically for an individual when it comes to a book, like this is the greatest compliment in the world to me. Extremely grateful. Thank you so much.
SPEAKER_00:Well, for those of us, those of uh those out there, um uh I am social media savvy because of Sam. Um when I went into this social media world of um LinkedIn, Instagram, and well I was on Facebook before, but um from a company standpoint, not a big presence. Uh I have not been on TikTok. Uh but we'll get you there. We hired Sam's company with um Holly Byrd and um part of the branding of for our company, and I learned a lot from just the understanding of social media and uh the content importance and how it really is a branding, the consistency uh and what people are looking for. Like it's it's it is as it's a way you're marketing yourself, but I I really feel more it's uh um a way of having a relationship with people that are. You're connecting with people. And connecting, yeah. Yeah. Um it's it's both of us are very involved. I you're you're involved in boards now and on product boards. And I think part of all of us as entrepreneurs, uh, if you have an opportunity or or ask to be on a board or an advisory, um we as entrepreneurs offer skills and talents that we can help impact uh especially nonprofit organizations, but also corporate um boards uh or advisories. Uh some of them call them advisories. And we should serve. We should be part of our community. Absolutely. And don't overstay our terms, you know, even if they ask you. Uh make sure that you have impact in your three or four-year term and um make sure you bring their skills. Yes. And so I know you've you've gotten on a couple of boards. Uh I've been on several boards.
SPEAKER_01:No, every time I I can't remember the n it's escaping me right now, but like there are a bunch of nonprofits I've been involved with in the past, and they're like, oh yeah, Kanye did this for us and Kanye did that for us. And like you've been an inspiration to me on that end, where I think what a lot of people don't see when you attain a certain level of success is all the stuff that you do on the on the back end. Like, and we're not supposed to be, you know, braggadocious about this stuff. Like, I don't need to post every time like I did something for a nonprofit. Um, you're doing it out of the kindness of your heart, but I also feel that you know, from a spiritual perspective, when God blesses you with something, that that's not your gift hoard. You're supposed to share that with other people. Um, and these organizations need our help, and it's a lot bigger than making money and growing the business, biggest business in the world. Like oftentimes I challenge entrepreneurs to sit back and think, why was it that you really started this business or this brand? Um, because oftentimes I think we find ourselves we get in these points where we're working for the business instead of allowing the business to work for us. There's a certain period of time you put in where it's grunt work, and yeah, it's gonna be not it's gonna be a 24-7 type thing, but once you get to a certain level, being able to sit back and um realize what what's been built and how you can utilize that for for the advancement of others. Um, like a financial advisor podcast, I'll listen to this guy Remet Sate is like one of my favorite financial influencers. He talks about like he'll go through people's budgets and break it down. He has this uh CRM system for this, and oftentimes when he's working with couples, he'll ask them, like, well, what's your number? Like, what's the number you're trying to attain where you're like, okay, I've made it financially. And oftentimes like 60% of the guests that come on, it's like, oh, well, if I had a net worth of two million dollars, like we're good. And then he actually goes through their numbers and like, well, actually, you're worth$3.5 million right now. How do you feel? And they're like, uh, well, actually, I don't think that's enough. Maybe it should be six million. And it's like, see, the number doesn't matter. Whatever I tell you, it's it's the feeling and the motion behind that. So, like, and I think as entrepreneurs, like, we're always trying to achieve and and do certain things. Like, I don't think it'll ever be enough. Um, I think that's part of being an entrepreneur where like we kind of have this tapeworm where it's like no matter how much you eat, there's always like, yeah, could I be doing more? And I think that's just the mentality of a winner.
SPEAKER_00:Um, I think it's also how you define success. You say success. So my dad um was a farmer, that's where I got the green thumb, and uh just an all-around great guy. And he said in the very beginning that success is how you define it. Yeah. Right? And so don't let other people define success for you. And it could be just happiness. Yeah. Um for me, it's the fact that I'm having impact on people's health. Um, there's so much about uh having live green plants in a warp environment. Yeah, and especially when we're dealing with so much um petroleum products that are we're just breathing in and eight to ten hour days, depending upon what you where you are.
SPEAKER_01:But it also changes your mood.
SPEAKER_00:It changes moods, is aesthetic, green is calming. There's so many benefits. I mean, uh I've been in this industry and part of it has been making sure we have research, facts. It's not like an emotional thing that I love plants and you're gonna love them too. Yeah. Um we have really worked in in lots of years, some have been working on it for 50 years, of making sure we have factual driven um numbers and research on what plants do for people in the workplace. Um and even with remote working, uh people want people coming back into the office. Yeah. They want to have natural surroundings, they want to have um it's all about wellness now. Yeah. You know, there's this mental health and plants do create this environment of natural settings, yeah. Um calming.
SPEAKER_01:Uh as humans, we're meant to be around nature, we're meant to be outside.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. So we're bringing nature inside. I've always say that. Um it it does a lot of things. Uh it does why God put them on the planet is so that they take out all the oxy uh take all the bad air and give off oxygen.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Um, without them, we wouldn't be breathing as well. So we need to have that in our sterile work environments. Um we can't have fake plants. Fake is petroleum, plastic.
SPEAKER_01:So Alright, I'm throwing them out of here today, Ghani.
SPEAKER_00:And uh also look at these beautiful fresh flowers. Yeah. Um I have a great team that does special events of fresh flowers. Oh, it's and we do holiday decorating. I mean, we we have decorated, we're we've gotten several awards for holida national awards for holiday decorating and um creative team. So that's another one of the hats. I was doing in the early days I was doing all the Christmas and part of the decorating. And uh I was at a trade association and talking to one of the people who was really teaching people how to do holiday decorating, pricing, buying stuff. And I remember sitting next to her and saying, Hey, when's the time when I should have bring somebody on and do it full time? Yeah. And I she looked at me and she said, When you're asking. I went back and talked to my team and said, Anybody know somebody? And that was uh twenty-nine years ago, and James Boykes is still with us. And this is what happens when you bring on people that have more expertise. Yeah. They look at it with a different perspective and more efficient. I mean, they James came in and said, You're doing what? You know, like I mean, just him coming in from a buying standpoint, from a creativity standpoint, from an efficiency standpoint, we became a better company.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:And um so that's and then you retain your clients. I mean, it's like this cycle, right? Uh, because he's doing fabulous stuff, creative stuff, and um it's it's good.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. No, you've given us a masterclass on this today. Last question I ask every entrepreneur on this podcast. Um, share with us a moment that was your lowest as an entrepreneur and how you overcame it. Something that just rocked you to your core, but you got out on the other side.
SPEAKER_00:I and that's hard to say the the lowest because I've been through three recessions. I've been through a pandemic, uh, I've been through chaos this past couple of months.
SPEAKER_03:No.
SPEAKER_00:Um, and they all are different types of lows. Um so I don't know if there's a lowest that I can say, because um our company and our team, our clients are all resilient. I mean, we have this um big circle, it's um people, which includes your all your clients, and I'm thankful for every single one of them, some that aren't and some that are. Um the relationships, because a lot of them have retired, uh, because I've had them that long. Um and but the new people that come in, we establish new relationships, uh, our vendors and suppliers who have also had to evolve. Um so I think any low point you know because you've gone through one, you've gone through two, you've gone through three, you've gone through um, you know that there's a high point after it. I mean it's just it's um and it's knowing that you're gonna be resilient and get to that next high point.
SPEAKER_03:Yep.
SPEAKER_00:Um so I don't know if there's ever a lowest one uh because at some point they're all low.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:And it ends up even and out between the peaks and the valleys, like it ends up um so I say not so much um the lowest, it's the resilience that all these low points have created.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Um and as an entrepreneur, we have to be resilient. We know we're gonna get on the other side. We listen. Um we listen to God and we listen to experts, we listen to people who have gone through it.
SPEAKER_03:Yep.
SPEAKER_00:Um it's never going to be easy even when you're at the high point. Yeah, no.
SPEAKER_01:And the second you you're at the top of the mountain, you're like, I'm the greatest entrepreneur that ever lived, something comes and kicks you in your butt.
SPEAKER_00:And and I always have this vision when you're going up uh uh the high point, there are people pushing you. There's always somebody in the back. You may be leading or part of the group, um, but I always can see somebody else on the back pushing you.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, nobody gets to the top of the mountain by themselves.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, right. So um that's part of the resilience and believing in who you are. I mean, uh, you know, I really stress what our mission is. Yeah, we we are creating healthy work environments. And um the whole idea is to have people that are in these work environments being more productive, yeah, but healthy and well. Um I'll put one side bar. You know, everybody has these big copy machines. And the idea was we were gonna take all these copy machines from people at their desk and make them these big centers so that they would have to walk.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:That was part of the wellness. They would walk to get their copies. Well, the worst thing that gives off the worst emissions are copy machines.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Right? So they would put these big copy machines, a bunch of them, in these areas, and then they would have people sitting in rows, like not far from them.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, right next to them, yep.
SPEAKER_00:Right. So before they were sitting with a small one, which was bad enough.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Uh but now they have these huge ones that are giving off all these toxins, and I would say, that's terrible. Either put 'em in a separate room where people we can put some plants in there so we absorb some of the toxins.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Or put a row of plants so that there's some barrier. Because you're creating wellness for them to walk.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:But these people are breathing these terrible toxins for eight hours. Yeah. More than they were when so yeah, they're walking.
SPEAKER_01:It's like doing cardio for twenty minutes and then you smoke a pack of cigarettes.
SPEAKER_00:Like So we want people to understand in the workplace, you have to have some wellness and um the air that you're breathing, the carpet, um, the paints, the bodies themselves. I mean, we give off a lot of toxins and and just having a lot of live green plants to absorb that is and to give off oxygen is really important for overall health. I mean, there have been so many studies on what your computer skills have increased when just surrounded by plants.
SPEAKER_01:Um, it's um I'm convinced we're getting rid of all the fake stuff. I need all plants in here.
SPEAKER_00:Well, at least in here. Yeah. Look how nice it looks too.
SPEAKER_01:I can literally, I felt myself as I was taking deeper breaths. Yeah. Like the air just feels cleaner right now. It is cleaner.
SPEAKER_00:Put these in. Yeah. I'll show Anise how to take care of them. All right, perfect. Perfect. So that you keep them alive. Yes. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Well, Connie, this is awesome. Thank you so much. Like, this is well overdue. I should have had you on the podcast a long time ago. Um, if people want to go to the best and they need greenery in their workspace, tell us how they get in touch with Buckingham.
SPEAKER_00:We have an 800 number, 800-322-4711. You can on our website, you can email, you can always email us at greenery at buckinghamgreenery.com. Um, I'm everywhere in Richmond.
SPEAKER_01:She literally is everywhere.
SPEAKER_00:I do a lot of networking. Yes. Um, I believe in giving back to our communities as much as we can. And I'm passionate. I'm passionate about what I do. Uh, and the thing is, I can still say I love what I do and and doing what I love.
SPEAKER_01:So that's amazing. That's amazing. Thank you so much for being on here today.
SPEAKER_00:Yes, it's been great.
SPEAKER_01:Absolutely. And we'll see you guys on the next episode. Are you an aspiring entrepreneur? Our one-on-one coaching tailored strategies to your unique business goals. Dive into interactive workshops, offering skills, essential for success. Looking for an inspirational speaker for your next event, book Mr. Preneur to elevate your gathering. Visit www.demistrpreneur.com to learn more and embark on your path to entrepreneurial success. Mr. Pranur, empowering your entrepreneurial spirit.