Christeen Era and Steve Bousquet are the founders of Green Profit Academy. They are two Mastery Level Profit First Professionals who own their own individual businesses and are passionate about supporting other small businesses to scale and grow. In this episode, they talk about who they are, what they do, and how they were inspired to create Green Profit Academy to help industry service-based businesses level up their business and avoid the trying and costly mistakes that most business owners make.
The first 10 subscribers will get a signed Profit First for Lawn Care and Landscape Businesses book sent to them! For your free autographed copy of Profit First for Lawn Care and Landscape Businesses book, email support@greenprofitacademy.com - in the subject title: I subscribed to the podcast, and make sure you include your name and mailing address.
The Green Profit Academy Pros Podcast digs into the challenges in growing a Lawn Care and Landscape business while maximizing your profit. Christeen Era, and Steve Bousquet. are green industry experts in profit, growth, and leadership.
Christeen Era and Steve Bousquet are the founders of Green Profit Academy. They are two Mastery Level Profit First Professionals who own their own individual businesses and are passionate about supporting other small businesses to scale and grow. In this episode, they talk about who they are, what they do, and how they were inspired to create Green Profit Academy to help industry service-based businesses level up their business and avoid the trying and costly mistakes that most business owners make.
The first 10 subscribers will get a signed Profit First for Lawn Care and Landscape Businesses book sent to them! For your free autographed copy of Profit First for Lawn Care and Landscape Businesses book, email support@greenprofitacademy.com - in the subject title: I subscribed to the podcast, and make sure you include your name and mailing address.
The Green Profit Academy Pros Podcast digs into the challenges in growing a Lawn Care and Landscape business while maximizing your profit. Christeen Era, and Steve Bousquet. are green industry experts in profit, growth, and leadership.
yeah
[steven_bousquet]:hi i'm steve busk and i want to welcome you to the first episode of our first podcast or green profit academy prose i'm here today with christ an era she is my partner at green prophet academy and we are recording our first ever green prophet academy prose podcast welcome christine oh
[christeen_era]:thanks i'm excited i know we've been talking about getting this started for a while
[steven_bousquet]:yeah it's been we had a lot to do over the past year or so and we've been super busy developing programs and helping clients so we've got to do this podcast we've got our lots of good content lots of good subjects subjects that talk and share with people so i want to welcome everybody to the green profit academy pros podcast that digs into the challenges in a growing lawn care and landscape business while maximizing profits i'm with christine era i'm steve uske like i said and we are the green industry experts when it comes to profits growth and leadership so we're going to start the podcast off by just telling everyone is sharing about who we are where we come from our background how we got here and what our mission is in serving the lawn and landscape industry so christine why don't you just start off with a little bit of your by your background
[christeen_era]:yeah so before we get started i wanted to make the note that we are going to be sharing some special give away at the end of the podcast so be sure to listen the way through for the details
[steven_bousquet]:yeah
[christeen_era]:because you won't want to miss that
[steven_bousquet]:i almost forgot that special give away for being listeners to the first podcast
[christeen_era]:we want to make sure to get them their goodies so as steve shared i'm christine era i am the author of profit first for lawn caron landscape businesses and i have been an entrepreneur for over twenty five years so small business is something that i've always loved i've you know dived
[steven_bousquet]:yeah
[christeen_era]:into it several times you know in
[steven_bousquet]:yet
[christeen_era]:different industries and i
[steven_bousquet]:okay
[christeen_era]:really kind of found my niche in the trades and lawn care and landscape
[steven_bousquet]:yeah
[christeen_era]:industry i am a mastery profit first professional i am a pumpkin plan strategist to fix this next advisor and a certified accounting fessional so my background is i started off in business consulting and fell into accounting and ever sense i felt both of them really went hand in hand and you can have one without the other
[steven_bousquet]:the
[christeen_era]:and it's been something i've been extremely passionate about um you like i said for over twenty five years now
[steven_bousquet]:yeah that's twenty five years that's quite dedication um so we've met number of years ago we started working together and we'll get into that story a little bit more um
[christeen_era]:yeah
[steven_bousquet]:you know just when we met you were one of the first profit first professionals to be able to help me and my long care landscape business in a way that really needed so you know you being in the industry for twenty five years really benefited me and my company and then eventually led to green profit academy so you
[christeen_era]:yeah
[steven_bousquet]:know your dedication really really has helped a lot of people so my name is steve uske i'm the owner of american landscape in law and science i'm also the partner with christine era in green profit academy and in twenty twenty three i'm celebrating my fortieth year in the lawn and landscape industry i've owned my own company since nineteen eighty three it's a big deal to have a company that's been around for forty years and it was not always s things were not always they were always the best of times you know i really thought that if i knew how to plant trees and fertilize lawns and run a lower and run mowing out and buy the right trucks and do marketing that my business would just be successful and i really learned the hard way that that is not all it takes i really had to become a student of the numbers a student of accounting and understanding what the numbers meant to me and my business and once i understood the numbers and understood the accounting side of the business that's my business really grew and that's my business started to give me the life style that i really needed and wanted to support me and my family and also the team that i have at american landscape in law and science so i am also a profit first professional at the mastery level i'm a certified fix this next advisor i'm also a certified chief quession officer working with dr merely adam and doing work with change your question change your life so i am a dedicated lifelong learner i'm a true believer in coaches and i still get to this day and one of my kind of like professional hacks is to use coaches to move forward faster so i have a big believer in that kind of support
[christeen_era]:and you're also most recently a strength coach correct
[steven_bousquet]:yes i'm also a certified clifton strength coach which is really one of the clifton strength and gallop is really one of the things that is near and dear to my heart no matter where i go i'm always talking about gallop i'm always talking about people's strength their strength test i cannot get away from i have strength tested my family my friends all my my team here the team at green profit academy and it's such a big part of my life and i really have combined the clifton strength with the choice map and some energy work that we do to kind of connect all three of them together and it
[christeen_era]:hm
[steven_bousquet]:really supports people in a positive way
[christeen_era]:yeah yeah i
[steven_bousquet]:yeah
[christeen_era]:absolutely love the strength assessment and it's something that you know i've been implementing in my other company core grow strategies for several years now and in itself is a never ending journey you learn about yourself as a leader as an individual and then the individuals that you surround yourself with in you're working with so i feel that the strength
[steven_bousquet]:yeah
[christeen_era]:leadership concept is you know such a valuable tool to have in any business
[steven_bousquet]:oh it's so powerful and you know working with people and seeing how their strength are showing up where they work and then really honoring them and bringing them up into the into the company i see it my own leaders you know that's why we created the emerging leader program because when you have people in your company that have the capacity to lead and if you give them the tools and let them focus on strength they can accomplish amazing things
[christeen_era]:yeah yeah so steve i think it might be fun to kind of share with our audience you know how we got here now they know a little bit about who we are and
[steven_bousquet]:i
[christeen_era]:you know
[steven_bousquet]:yeah
[christeen_era]:you have a background in owning your own lawn and landscape business i own my own you know
[steven_bousquet]:oh
[christeen_era]:accounting company and have worked in the industry for years both of us so it might be fun for us to kunish or you know our background and how did we arrive here
[steven_bousquet]:sure would you like to go first you want me to go
[christeen_era]:yes sure i'll jump in so
[steven_bousquet]:yeah
[christeen_era]:like i said i i am have been an entrepreneur for twenty five years and of course it's been a rocky journey like for a
[steven_bousquet]:yeah
[christeen_era]:period of time i was what they call soul preneuer so that's where it's just me it's just the clients that i worked with and since i started off in business consulting i was kind of doing one off engagements going into businesses re vamping them from front to back looking at their systems and processes and giving them just a really solid foundation then i fell into accounting it was one of the clients that i was working with where they had some fraud in their business from the person that was currently managing their accounting and so i did they were like hey can can you do this accounting stuff and you know of course i was young and i was like sure yeah no problem i could do this fortunately it was you know second
[steven_bousquet]:a
[christeen_era]:you're to me understanding accounting and and it was job costing accounting so it was a heavier type of accounting than just you know adding up your numbers it's it's
[steven_bousquet]:ye
[christeen_era]:tying your expenses to your revenue and making sure that that all kind of works out um and then i went through a period of time where i started to grow my business and it pretty much grew naturally
[steven_bousquet]:i
[christeen_era]:you know we've had a lot of referals that have helped us grow over
[steven_bousquet]:yeah
[christeen_era]:years and we didn't do marketing at all it was up until recently you know with our change in the business structure we just didn't do marketing was organic growth by referal and i eventually got some employees went through the struggle of having employees
[steven_bousquet]:oh
[christeen_era]:and ended up whith what
[steven_bousquet]:oh
[christeen_era]:i call employee p t s d and i'm sure there's plenty of business owners out there that have had that experience of getting emp s growing their business and the employees just driving the mad stressing them out them having their own agenda so then i decided okay i'm going to tear this entire bit is a part which i did and i just didn't love it anymore i fell completely out of love with my business and truly
[steven_bousquet]:yeah
[christeen_era]:understood where my client some of the line i was working with during that time like where they might be because they had shared with me i don't love my business any more and the work that i would do with them would help them fall back in love their business so i got to experience
[steven_bousquet]:so
[christeen_era]:at first
[steven_bousquet]:first
[christeen_era]:hand which you know gave me a lot of knowledge and experience and working with these entreprenursies business owners because
[steven_bousquet]:i
[christeen_era]:i
[steven_bousquet]:and
[christeen_era]:really understood the struggles around employees finally and how miserable it made me because i literally tore that business apart down to the ground d and i felt like i kicked it off the highest cliff i could find
[steven_bousquet]:oh
[christeen_era]:and just walked away from it and then i started another business with
[steven_bousquet]:m
[christeen_era]:just myself which is core grow strategies which we've been i've been doing that business since two thousand twelve and not being that you know that soul perner any more that business grew quickly and again we needed team members to really support
[steven_bousquet]:a
[christeen_era]:the clients that we are working with so that's when i decided i needed to get over my employe ptst if i it's going to grow the business and i really have to come to terms
[steven_bousquet]:a
[christeen_era]:as an entrepreneur and i think several business owners feel this way what am i doing you know where
[steven_bousquet]:you're
[christeen_era]:i'm playing
[steven_bousquet]:a
[christeen_era]:small and have that you know truthful talk with yourself to know
[steven_bousquet]:yeah
[christeen_era]:am i doing everything that i can to help everybody
[steven_bousquet]:yeah
[christeen_era]:i can or to
[steven_bousquet]:a
[christeen_era]:live the life of my dreams or am i playing it safe and you know that's where several things started to change
[steven_bousquet]:say
[christeen_era]:with with core grow strategies and and what connected us you know in that journey because
[steven_bousquet]:oh
[christeen_era]:i decided not to play small
[steven_bousquet]:tex
[christeen_era]:and i decided you know in order for me to help business owners and you know share the knowledge that i had i
[steven_bousquet]:yeah
[christeen_era]:had to get out of my own way and i had to be brave and not play small and happy that i did because here we are today
[steven_bousquet]:a
[christeen_era]:you know we've got the profit
[steven_bousquet]:what
[christeen_era]:first book i've worked with several business owners that it's just been a joy to work with them in their business and i much further along in my professional journey that i ever ever
[steven_bousquet]:yeah
[christeen_era]:could have thought
[steven_bousquet]:all right
[christeen_era]:you know when i started out twenty something years ago so it's
[steven_bousquet]:oh
[christeen_era]:been a great journey and like opened green profit academy two years ago actually i think it's going on three years now
[steven_bousquet]:yeah
[christeen_era]:and and that has been an exciting journey in itself
[steven_bousquet]:that definitely has been green profit academy has really transformed into something beyond my expectations not only with how much we've been able to help people and work with them but also in the products we've offered in the needs that we've been able to fill in the green industry so i'm thrilled about green profit academy um so so mine and how did i get here i'm not going to start all the way back at the beginning i will just share if you read profit first for lawrence caron landscape businesses in chapter one the book starts off with me basically trying to figure out how to tell my wife that we were going to be moving to alaska i at that time it was two thousand and one i was about two hundred and fifty thousand dollars in debt and that did not include lawn mower payments skid steer payments truck payments that was just i was basically losing fifty thousand dollars a year and was borrowing fifty grand a year to pay for that loss and it put me about two hundred fifty thousand dollars in debt so i was watching a show on some cable network show and they were talking about these people hiding out in asa so i said oh somehow that came to me as that would be the answer so i was like i'm gonna go tell my wife we're going to go hide out in alaska to get out of this debt situation and i walked up to er tatter and i said i'm gonna go take a shower so i went in the shower and i threw myself a pity party and for about ten minutes cried got a shower and you know i knew i couldn't give up come from a very blue collar background and my mom who had passed three years earlier in two thousand and eight you know one of the things she never let us quit anything if we signed up for it we had to finish it whether it was a course whether it was a team whether it was a project we had to finish it maybe we didn't resign next year but we had to finish that so i was not going to give up fortunately i found a triage business coach someone that really specialized in taking businesses that were on the brink of bankruptcy and helping them get straightened back out and he definitely helped me on the path to recovery but as i found my way to recovery i started making some profits but i still was not that profitable and i just couldn't find someone to help me to figure that out so read in two thousand in my my seasons will be good one year and then not so good the next year
[christeen_era]:m
[steven_bousquet]:so in
[christeen_era]:hm
[steven_bousquet]:two thousand ten i read a book um i had to read a book to help me with the accounting was accounting for the number phobic and that just helped me to understand kind of all the terminology about the business side of accounting not necessarily the tax side because i needed help on the business then i read another book by greg crab tree called simple numbers big profit and that really helped me to understand the importance of managing your business off of your balance sheet and also managing gross profit marge and what your gross profit barges needed to be to be healthy and he had a system for all this but it was so complicated so that was in two thousand and leven it was so complicated i could not implement myself even how hard i tried so when i ran into mike mcallowites prophet
[christeen_era]:i
[steven_bousquet]:first book you know that really helped me to dial in where my profit should be and then we started to grow because i had profits well now i didn't have to manage all the cash flow so i had a tax liability issue we had the most profitable year ever
[christeen_era]:m
[steven_bousquet]:in my countin said congratulations you had a super profitable year by the way you owe forty five thousand dollars
[christeen_era]:yeah
[steven_bousquet]:so i didn't have the money set aside so i had to borrow forty five thousand dollars to pay the tax liability which was like literally a kicking that gut
[christeen_era]:yeah
[steven_bousquet]:best year ever here's your tax so i like something has to change so that's when i instituted profit first in my business and i tried to do it by myself and i just had a coaching call earlier today and he said this is simple but it's not easy and that's exactly how i felt i was like this profit first is so simple but it was not easy getting everything dialed in and getting all the money aligned and it's you know just a matter of getting a little help so because i'm such a big fan of coaching i hired a coach and they were helpful they helped me get my current application percentages and target application candage but they were more of a coach they weren't really profit first accounting side so i kind of limped along a little bit for a couple of years with them and then i met christine and she really helped me dial in my business and getting the actual numbers what they should be and quarter by quarter also taking it from the very basic profit first to an advance level which is really i needed
[christeen_era]:hm
[steven_bousquet]:my company grew a hundred and twenty percent from two thousand eighteen to twenty twenty two and what made that growth possible was having all my accounts set up in profit first because it was just the percentages of i didn't have to constantly figure out where the money was going to come from because our applications were so dialed in as the percentages as the revenue increased the percentages just cut and everything so it was a huge benefit so christine was such a big help to my business in a growth i really believe that in my soul that the hardest working people i know are either farmers or in the green industry
[christeen_era]:hm
[steven_bousquet]:so after christine and i worked together i said we have to help more people in the green industry because it is a hard way to make hard living and there's just there's nothing easy about it you have equipment whether people you're dealing with customers plant material it's just there's always the struggle so i kind of like encourage er to focus on the green industry which she did and she met some really good people and have some great friends who are in london link landscape businesses that i knew she could help and she really has so with some encouragement she focused on the lawn care landscape industry which led to the profit first book and green profit academy
[christeen_era]:yeah and the thing that really you know brought us together stephen is we met steve and i met in a small group coaching setting
[steven_bousquet]:yeah course
[christeen_era]:and you know we
[steven_bousquet]:oh
[christeen_era]:didn't know each other before we wouldn't really cross paths
[steven_bousquet]:yeah
[christeen_era]:so that
[steven_bousquet]:yeah
[christeen_era]:was a great opportunity you know
[steven_bousquet]:oh
[christeen_era]:where we had talked once or twice on a call with other entrepreneurs and then at
[steven_bousquet]:yeah
[christeen_era]:annual
[steven_bousquet]:oh
[christeen_era]:profit first event where profit first professionals
[steven_bousquet]:you
[christeen_era]:go um
[steven_bousquet]:yeah
[christeen_era]:steve and i met in person and i was like hey i know that guy and you know we added it up and got to know each other and then we ended up being in shortly after that the same
[steven_bousquet]:it's
[christeen_era]:small group coaching group which was great and you just kept bringing me challenges you're like
[steven_bousquet]:oh
[christeen_era]:these are the green industry challenges and and when i hear something you know that's really stunting
[steven_bousquet]:kay
[christeen_era]:a businesses growth i can't help myself but you know start talking about it and digging deeper and
[steven_bousquet]:yeah
[christeen_era]:you know then i did a profit or first assessment
[steven_bousquet]:oh
[christeen_era]:on your business which when i do an advanced assessment i really take
[steven_bousquet]:ah
[christeen_era]:that business and i turn it upside down um so so you got the full gauntlet of you know a profit first assessment which is now the scelable growth business model that we talk
[steven_bousquet]:right
[christeen_era]:about in the book right and it was something that i had been working on and kind of pulling that together
[steven_bousquet]:yeah
[christeen_era]:and seeing well how how can profit first not just be a cash
[steven_bousquet]:yeah
[christeen_era]:management system for your business but also be a system to where you can skill and grow your business while you maximize your profits because i know it can happen i've seen it happen you know and we have been supporting businesses you know since the finishing touches on that thing and even through the process and in growing their business while maximizing their profit so
[steven_bousquet]:but
[christeen_era]:i think it just goes to show right there that you know being open minded and working with other entrepreneurs the
[steven_bousquet]:oh
[christeen_era]:amount of growth and opportunity that really comes to the table and you know how you can move into your zone of genius and and what really if you as a business owner um and and we both have we know really stuffed out of our day to day
[steven_bousquet]:i
[christeen_era]:of our other business and are really wearing those co hats versus you know getting in there and managing all the moving pieces and i know i'm happy to say there are pieces of my business i don't even know know how
[steven_bousquet]:oh
[christeen_era]:to manage or how something works and i stay out of my team's way so i think just that small group coaching you know opportunity and being in a small group and in other business owners that really speaks to those opportunities
[steven_bousquet]:yeah we met at profit can in new jersey and you talked to me and had started the conversation at that point and then it wasn't too long after that we were in a all grouped together
[christeen_era]:m
[steven_bousquet]:and it wasn't
[christeen_era]:m
[steven_bousquet]:too long after that that we were basically kind of running that small group in our you know way of getting things done and moving things forward
[christeen_era]:yeah
[steven_bousquet]:um so the small group was very powerful and made a lot of progress in the small group you know really put me on the path to stepping out of the day to day of my business and creating roles and you know stepping out of one role at a time and i didn't really i knew my hand and a lot of things in my company but when you know taking that rolled chart and then really working my way out of each step and then putting that person uh that needed to be there you know it's a huge huge step so have a lot of experience with you know doing everything in a lawn in landscape business regardless of what it
[christeen_era]:yeah
[steven_bousquet]:is whether it's sharpened blades putting plow blades on at the beginnin of the year putting cotton trollers in in the truck or relay switches or mowing lawns or pulling a hose you now have done it all which gives me an advantage of understanding the operations side of the business very clearly and but i didn't like i said i don't understand the money side completely until got working with profit for so but the small group really for you and i you know even got to the point where we knew each other so well if something was wrong during small group i would email you text you you know that was not right let's talk about this so i don't want to leave this hanging to the next small group so we could work through things so it's really important to rely on people who are in the small group to
[christeen_era]:hm
[steven_bousquet]:to be supportive so
[christeen_era]:yeah and we've gotten really close to that community too so you know as we've gone through our journey there's other business owners and different industries that we've been able to connect with and
[steven_bousquet]:yeah
[christeen_era]:i think has really helped us grow because i know you know from the first time that we've met where we are today we have grown a lot not only our businesses betts leaders individuals it's it's really been you know life changing and uh you know never had i ever said i was going to write a book and i remember you know that conversation where um my original thought was people who write books are crazy like why would they spend all that time writing a book i love reading books but i
[steven_bousquet]:yeah
[christeen_era]:knew that the book writing process i was like why would you commit to something like that and then you know you were like hey you should
[steven_bousquet]:oh
[christeen_era]:write this book you should write this prophet first book and you
[steven_bousquet]:oh
[christeen_era]:know because we have been solving so many problems for the lan caron landscape industry and and every problem that you brought to me or you had one of your business associates bring to me
[steven_bousquet]:oh
[christeen_era]:i was determined to solve you know which i i did to say like we have over sixty tools in our profit first tool box for this industry because
[steven_bousquet]:i
[christeen_era]:of that it was a journey and it was each one each problem were like we're gonna a tool there's you know an easy solution for that so
[steven_bousquet]:oh
[christeen_era]:yeah you never know where you're going to end up when you start really
[steven_bousquet]:oh
[christeen_era]:taking control of your business and you know living the life of your dreams right
[steven_bousquet]:yeah i mean it's amazing and you know one of the things that because i have visited thirty seven different landscape companies and have over two hundred visits because some of them are multiple thirty seven unique you know i've had forty five landscape companies come visit me we i've had so many visits that we have a system in a book for just to visit a process
[christeen_era]:hm
[steven_bousquet]:for that and you know real understanding the challenges that lawn landscape businesses go through what the owner goes through you know would have been consulting for twenty years in these land landscape business is it could be from hiring to marketing to rates of fertilizer you know or what type of sand that is best to sweep in your your favorite joints so i mean i've seen so much change over forty years but the problems are pretty consistent
[christeen_era]:yeah
[steven_bousquet]:especially in the operation and finance side the equipment is a lot more fun the equipment is more fit and but we still have to pay for it and we still have to hire people to operate it so you know those are the two challenges that pretty much remain constant and the book you know up until it up until about chapter five it's pretty much a standard kind of profit first book but once you get into chapter six seven and then eight you know those are totally advanced levels those are advanced profit for ideas and concepts that don't exist in any other profit first book not the original book and not some of the other ones with have been produced is really a higher level of a cat ning and strategy and that's the you know scale book growth model which is
[christeen_era]:yeah
[steven_bousquet]:and we have a conversation one time about won be great to know when to grow when to higher and that's kind of what the scale but growth model puts out
[christeen_era]:yeah
[steven_bousquet]:there what your pay should be at under a million a million to two million two to three you know three to five million over five and how much staff you should have and how much you to spend on marketing equipment and there's just so many different things that the scale growth model can help you with but how do you get there in the tools that you mentioned the green profit tool box is such a powerful toolbox answers so many different questions all these financial questions that we've wondered about but haven't had the resources and the way you've created those tools where they are to popular and that we only need to fill in a certain amount of information and the tool you created then autopopulates and figures out the percentages and ratios
[christeen_era]:hm
[steven_bousquet]:so it's quite an opportunity for the green industry to take that and use at as a stepping stepping stone oh
[christeen_era]:yeah and i think it would be fun to
[steven_bousquet]:kay
[christeen_era]:you dive into the skillable growth business model in a later podcast and you know start unpacking some of these tools and talking about them because i think really serve the challenges that this industry experiences and
[steven_bousquet]:i
[christeen_era]:it gives an easy solution you know to where they know you're not alone there's
[steven_bousquet]:yeah
[christeen_era]:other people that have had this problem get you there faster
[steven_bousquet]:yeah yeah
[christeen_era]:you know and and i think with that
[steven_bousquet]:oh
[christeen_era]:we should talk more about grain profit academy and
[steven_bousquet]:yeah
[christeen_era]:you know the services like what we do over a
[steven_bousquet]:oh
[christeen_era]:green profit academy so people can have a better understanding of you know
[steven_bousquet]:yeah
[christeen_era]:now they know who we are and how we got here and then you know with the books stephen um decided
[steven_bousquet]:no
[christeen_era]:we need to open a new business right because one wasn't enough right
[steven_bousquet]:yeah we had to open a business that really would support green profit academy and support the lawn landscape businesses we were going to work with so opening another business it's a big deal because we do not do anything like half way you know so we have a really professional website we have a learning platform on thencific we have multiple facebook pages with support group profit first for lawn care and landscape professionals on facebook there's a group for that with over two hundred members in that group um as
[christeen_era]:and growing
[steven_bousquet]:of today and growing i mean it's growing every every day it grows a little bit so you know we have stepped into not only having the book that was written christine also did the o book which is available
[christeen_era]:yeah
[steven_bousquet]:and audible and in you know an apple so what do we do at green private academy go over some of the programs christine
[christeen_era]:yeah so i want to talk about who we serve for you know first of course and just kind of unpack that a little bit so we work with the
[steven_bousquet]:oh
[christeen_era]:green industry so it is lawn care landscape you know doing line application maintanneso anything in the green industry weather you are providing one service or multiple services some of our clients have snow irrigation you know these different services in this industry so we work with ness is um that are in that industry that are you know they're starting up they're trying to grow their business and we have clients that have been in you know the industry for gosh like over you know forty years even and you know which they do an amazing job at writing their business
[steven_bousquet]:oh
[christeen_era]:and getting profit first tiled in so we are focused on the green industry and we're here primarily you know just to support them we have offering so where do we start so when the book came out we had the tool box
[steven_bousquet]:oh
[christeen_era]:right so we started with the tool box and then
[steven_bousquet]:right
[christeen_era]:we also have we developed three different levels of web an art so for the profit first profit first is something that you can go try you know trying to implement yourself the more
[steven_bousquet]:ah
[christeen_era]:complicated your business is the more complicated it's going be you know to implement this system which you may need to work with our professional so we
[steven_bousquet]:ah
[christeen_era]:have three levels of profit first webinars we have a basic level a foundational level and then ended vance level and you can move through this web on our self paste once you sign up for it you never lose it and it's a great tool to to get profit first implemented in you business you know our start down that avenue to gain a better understanding is this something i can do on my own or is it something i need to work with a professional on
[steven_bousquet]:oh
[christeen_era]:and an like that because
[steven_bousquet]:yeah
[christeen_era]:you know it's a journey and even if you work with a professional you still
[steven_bousquet]:h
[christeen_era]:need to understand the basic methodologies of profit first and why and the opportunities within there so the web and our helps anybody and everybody who takes it whether it's your internal bookkeeper
[steven_bousquet]:you
[christeen_era]:or it's your partner are you to understand how to implement profit first
[steven_bousquet]:and one of the reasons why we have this courses is because when i was first trying to implement profit first i would tell my bookkeeper in my office man should do this this and this
[christeen_era]:uh
[steven_bousquet]:and then you know two cortes would go by and it would be wrong and i would be like oh this is wrong but they did exactly what i told them to do
[christeen_era]:yeah
[steven_bousquet]:i had not given them the exact details so with the basic and the foundational course is you know that is where your bookkeeper or your office manager they can tune in to that watch it over again go back and
[christeen_era]:hm
[steven_bousquet]:if they have questions and see so the owner instructing the accounting people on how to do accounting in profit first they can watch those courses and christine has done videos on that and there's walk through
[christeen_era]:hm
[steven_bousquet]:so that has is kind of one of the things i was like we got to have something where the owner because we don't always do the best job explaining accounting processes and procedures to people as owners of line care landscape businesses i was as guilty as as you can be in that so she has christina is taken the time to make sure that our team can implement it we don't have to be the one you know
[christeen_era]:ah
[steven_bousquet]:at quick books keyboard
[christeen_era]:yeah and owners don't really have time to teach their
[steven_bousquet]:oh
[christeen_era]:team right it's we want to mentor them we want to lead them um and there's other things in the business
[steven_bousquet]:i
[christeen_era]:we need to work on but it's it's extremely difficult to try to teach team members
[steven_bousquet]:oh
[christeen_era]:what we may not know how to do exactly so if there's a quick way to get them there and give them a now support system i am all for that because they're going to learn first hand and they might even teach me a thing
[steven_bousquet]:yeah
[christeen_era]:or two when we set down for a conversation so
[steven_bousquet]:yeah
[christeen_era]:so we have our profit first webinars that's kind of our entry level along with
[steven_bousquet]:oh
[christeen_era]:our tool box that we have that has over sixty tool and our membership tool box
[steven_bousquet]:oh
[christeen_era]:has sixty tools in growing because it's you know i'm always finding solutions and creating tools
[steven_bousquet]:so
[christeen_era]:for things
[steven_bousquet]:ah
[christeen_era]:that get brought to us and needing solutions so then we have our per group and
[steven_bousquet]:ah
[christeen_era]:our per group is either for those smaller businesses that are just getting started in profit first um or they're a business owner who who just doesn't have the time and capacity to maybe
[steven_bousquet]:i
[christeen_era]:dedicate as much time
[steven_bousquet]:do
[christeen_era]:or like the structure of like a small group coaching program so steve did you want talk about our
[steven_bousquet]:yeah
[christeen_era]:pure group a little bit
[steven_bousquet]:yeah the pure group is you know kind of i like to refer to as our march to a million so if you're if it's for the company that's under a million dollars that wants to get to a million dollars they might not know all the key performance indicators they might not know um about how to like what to track when to track how to try get what reports to get so is really that the peer group is to set people up as kind of a foundational financial basis
[christeen_era]:hm
[steven_bousquet]:and it's so it's a group that meets once a month and we'll go into details on another podcast but basically you meet once a month there's accountability their support includes you know the prof first webinar and so it's really for that guy to the woman who wants to get their business to the million dollar mark
[christeen_era]:yeah
[steven_bousquet]:or at least wants to grow their business and but doesn't have the resources they don't have a full time bookkeeper a full time office manager but this is a way they can get support monthly with me christine in there in their peer group just to help them move forward
[christeen_era]:yeah yeah and
[steven_bousquet]:yeah
[christeen_era]:i love the pair group because
[steven_bousquet]:oh
[christeen_era]:you know we have some younger entrepreneurs in the group and they bring some great challenges that we have solved from you know some price ing issues
[steven_bousquet]:ah
[christeen_era]:getting you know a better understanding of their pricing issues talking about their equipment implementing profit first even some marketing conversations have up in there and you can just see like the lights go on and the enthusiasm that they share when you know one guy who knows more about marketing
[steven_bousquet]:yeah
[christeen_era]:star it's talking and the other person you know listening and going oh yeah that's great like let's get together so there's some great collaboration there and just finding solutions faster so i really of you know the pair group for you know those new entrepreneurs then we have small group coaching so our small group coaching i i love the small
[steven_bousquet]:this
[christeen_era]:group coach it's one of my absolute favorites i think because we've
[steven_bousquet]:thank
[christeen_era]:been doing it the longest and i've really grown a connection to some of of our ruknowcoaching clients
[steven_bousquet]:i
[christeen_era]:in there on we don't have more than three people per group so we can support more on individual basis which i love and i think the other thing i love about it is that we give enough time
[steven_bousquet]:to
[christeen_era]:for people to have that comatery that that can occur and
[steven_bousquet]:he
[christeen_era]:they'll give each other hard time or they'll joke around or you know it's there's times where we've had small group coaching calls and i think i was honestly laughing from the start to finish with some of you know
[steven_bousquet]:oh
[christeen_era]:the joking around that goes in there or how these guys approaching their challenges and it was just so positive and and you know fun to work with these
[steven_bousquet]:yeah
[christeen_era]:individuals
[steven_bousquet]:yeah the small group coaching is a lot of fun and that that small group meets once a month and then also they once a month they can bring their team to the mastery meeting
[christeen_era]:hm
[steven_bousquet]:and and they can bring their like office manager you can bring your manager you can bring your bookkeeper depending on the subject or the topic we're going over that month sometimes it's really account accounting kind of focus and other times
[christeen_era]:eight
[steven_bousquet]:its team engagement its strength base focus so it's a kind of personal or team building so depending on who you have your team and what topic would you know would would determine who you're going to bring and but so you get to meet and develop the relationship with people in your small group include your team it includes the advance profit first webanar
[christeen_era]:yep
[steven_bousquet]:the small group coaching also includes the tool box and includes the basic webanar for your office manager bookkeeper for it first so it's a pretty comprehensive um program that really support you all year around and your team and also there's also office hours that you can that are available
[christeen_era]:yeah
[steven_bousquet]:so if your team has a question they can pop in on office hours or if you have a question you can pop in on office hours or if you get really stuck on something christine and i are available to help and you throw um you know a big challenge or major issue either in the tool box or that you're having with your business because you know it can be lonely running a business and getting really sound advice based on your goals and our numbers are it's much more valuable than
[christeen_era]:yeah
[steven_bousquet]:just getting general random input from people
[christeen_era]:and i think you can relate with this steve i know i do when i talk with my team is just as lonely as it gets as an entrepreneur and small business are main people who are driving our business they feel like they're in a silo as well and they have challenges and questions and you know they're unsure
[steven_bousquet]:oh
[christeen_era]:and they don't want to put things back on us and so i you know when the team master mind that we have because we're teaching
[steven_bousquet]:do you
[christeen_era]:them
[steven_bousquet]:take
[christeen_era]:and they're connecting with other team members you know from other companies and realizing like wow i'm not and like they're feeling the same thing or they have the same challenge so i think you know in that way it's empowering and then the office hours that we have which we have twice a month you know
[steven_bousquet]:i
[christeen_era]:an hour to where anybody can show up they can post some questions we will address them you know with the implementation of profit first so i love that too because it gives that space
[steven_bousquet]:oh
[christeen_era]:for their internal office manager or bookkeeper who is really trying to do their best show up and ask some great questions on insuring that profit first is getting implemented in the business and there not putting it back
[steven_bousquet]:ye
[christeen_era]:on the business owner because that i know can be challenging and frustrating when we hand something off to one of our team members
[steven_bousquet]:ah
[christeen_era]:and we're saying
[steven_bousquet]:ah
[christeen_era]:here own this
[steven_bousquet]:yes
[christeen_era]:then they come back to us when they ask us questions because
[steven_bousquet]:yea
[christeen_era]:were their main support system so it really gives them that space to own it and to implement it and to insure its successful so they can show up is there self so i love that we have those that time for them to come to us with those questions and
[steven_bousquet]:m
[christeen_era]:teaching them
[steven_bousquet]:yeah people really enjoy the team master mind they really do
[christeen_era]:as
[steven_bousquet]:and then our next speaking of other people leaders in our business working at sylowar next program is leadership program and we have two different paths for the leadership program we
[christeen_era]:oh
[steven_bousquet]:have owning leadership and we have the emerging leader program once you
[christeen_era]:yep
[steven_bousquet]:talk a little bit about that
[christeen_era]:yeah so this is a program that steve and i developed you know
[steven_bousquet]:oh
[christeen_era]:over this last year and i remember we were actually on a plane flying to do in site visits and steve was like hey i have this great idea like you know when he had the idea about me writing the book
[steven_bousquet]:oh
[christeen_era]:and he's like you know these companies really need leadership port and we
[steven_bousquet]:yeah
[christeen_era]:need to figure out how to get you know their emerging leaders up you know to the front and feeling supported like we're supporting the owners and um so you know i ope up a word document on my lap top on this airplane you
[steven_bousquet]:oh
[christeen_era]:know tray and just started getting to work and by the time we landed we had our art owning leadership and our emerging leader program designed and because that's where my strength are as steve has an idea and then i'm like yeah let
[steven_bousquet]:yeah
[christeen_era]:me get to that i am going to put some thing together and it just happens like magic so i think that's one of the things that makes us a really good team and the owning leadership it's a path for the owners to get their mission vision and purpose and immunitable laws so their core values really dialed in so they can hand those over to their emerging leaders which are in the emerging leaders program and then we dive into learner leadership so you know how we can keep that open positive mind and ask questions powerful questions you know to not only are maybe our business partner
[steven_bousquet]:yeah
[christeen_era]:but the people that are in our business from our team members are vendors or stamer is anything like that and we unpack the leading from your strength so the basics around leading from your strength and we have the owners on emerging leaders on a similar half
[steven_bousquet]:yeah
[christeen_era]:hand but we're giving them their own space to where we're working with a group of emerging leaders who can connect to other emerging leaders and other businesses and really are challenges so we're giving them that network you know to connect
[steven_bousquet]:yeah
[christeen_era]:with and feel supported and then are owning you know leadership it's just the owners coming togeth and kind of having that same experience um and i think the other thing i love about that owning leadership program is we have the mind your own business retreat that
[steven_bousquet]:okay
[christeen_era]:we hold annually to bring them all together in person
[steven_bousquet]:yeah that's a super powerful retreat and it kind of really supports the whole concept behind staying curious as a leader always learning asking questions and not being the answer guy one of the reasons that we wanted to develop the leadership program was because as a business owner you know anyone who is the person where everything has to go through them or you know there team can't make any decisions without them so they can't really grow the company or if they have really good people who can make decisions they want to have a way to support them that is structured and they don't have to train person because the owner is already
[christeen_era]:yeah
[steven_bousquet]:so busy the emergent leader program is a way to
[christeen_era]:i
[steven_bousquet]:help support and train the emerging leader so they can step in and up into those roles give the owner some more time to focus on other things in the business other things in their life you know i worked during the green season i worked seven days a week for twenty years and it just became such a habit to do that even when i didn't need to do it any longer
[christeen_era]:hm
[steven_bousquet]:you know i was still doing it and i know had to break up with my business and like i shared with people we'll get to a podcast on this about how i had a breakup song because i was so used to that seven days a week
[christeen_era]:yeah
[steven_bousquet]:so just getting out of the way of our emerging leaders giving them the tools so the owner leadership program in the emerging leader program worked together to give the business the strength and leadership and the staying curious it gives them the tools in the path to do that just i'm so excited about it because that's the one thing that really allows owner personally to grow and a business to grow is by strengthening
[christeen_era]:yeah
[steven_bousquet]:and developing the leaders
[christeen_era]:yeah and that's what i'm hearing
[steven_bousquet]:i
[christeen_era]:you know from the people that we work with is it's really hard to push the boulder up the mountain yourself right where you the only one in the business talking the
[steven_bousquet]:a
[christeen_era]:talk you feel like you're walking the walk you know but then you're going why does nobody else get this why aren't they helping me you know and it's not that they don't want to help the intention is there it's we're not doing a good enough job unicating it though we assume that we are and you know thinking i talk about this stuff all the time and we really don't as business owners were thinking it and we may drop subtle hints here and there you know and communication is a strength of mind but i even find that i have weaknesses when it comes to communication because i'm not
[steven_bousquet]:it
[christeen_era]:communicating enough to my team and
[steven_bousquet]:yeah
[christeen_era]:that's where i
[steven_bousquet]:yeah
[christeen_era]:have seen
[steven_bousquet]:i
[christeen_era]:the business owners that we work i say like hey they're starting to get on the same page or this is shifting and my team is better understanding or what of my favorites as you know i was telling my internal bookkeeper this for years and they had one call with you guys and now they get it what was i not saying and kind of you know that pomp of forehead moment so i think that the support that we're providing is giving that clarity on the company's knee to the team teaching the team members you know what the business needs and how the owner needs to be supported and then the owners being able to understand how the team needs to be supported you know where their blind spots are so those
[steven_bousquet]:yeah
[christeen_era]:are some great feed backs that i've gotten you know
[steven_bousquet]:oh
[christeen_era]:from the program so i know like we're doing something right which was the whole point to begin with
[steven_bousquet]:oh yeah i mean this mission vision and purpose was something either people didn't have at all or if they had i it wasn't meaningful and it wasn't like based on their very existence or purpose for being business so when we're working with them on their mission vision of purpose it's so meaningful and so impactful that they don't rush through it there's just no way to rush through it they have to take the time and give it really the effort in space that it needs and deserves so when they're pushing and sharing this with their team it's so meaningful it's much easier to rally around and in understand the conceptions behind that so
[christeen_era]:hm
[steven_bousquet]:yeah i'm really proud of that program and already the progress that people have had and the vision talk and the clarity round the vision and the immutable laws
[christeen_era]:yeah
[steven_bousquet]:really narrowing that down and their teams like oh that's what we stand for i can get behind that and talk about a recruiting tool and
[christeen_era]:yeah
[steven_bousquet]:a retention tool team i mean they want to know why weren't work what we stand for and why why we're here every day so
[christeen_era]:yeah and
[steven_bousquet]:it's
[christeen_era]:i'm sure we'll we'll do some future podcasts on you know what that looks like
[steven_bousquet]:yeah
[christeen_era]:right because
[steven_bousquet]:yeah
[christeen_era]:i know there is a point in my entrepreneural you know journey where i was like miss vision and purpose what like what you
[steven_bousquet]:oh
[christeen_era]:know what do you call talking about here so i would love to you know to just talk about that have a whole podcast talking about that because such a great topic and just getting idea of like what does that mean and what does that look like in your business i think some of the other things that that has been shared and you bring this up steve because you've worked with with some of
[steven_bousquet]:ah
[christeen_era]:these people on um you know
[steven_bousquet]:ah
[christeen_era]:kind of ironing out the implementation of profit firs as they come in and understanding like where where you know what percentages should be allocated to what in
[steven_bousquet]:what
[christeen_era]:the business um and you know you shared with me plenty of times like have the right money and the right accounts now like and
[steven_bousquet]:oh
[christeen_era]:we've
[steven_bousquet]:yeah
[christeen_era]:heard it in our
[steven_bousquet]:yeah
[christeen_era]:groups too is the right moneys and the right accounts and i can see it clearly and i know what the business needs and i think that's just a huge win
[steven_bousquet]:at
[christeen_era]:and shows that you know this is what profit first is for
[steven_bousquet]:yeah and
[christeen_era]:oh
[steven_bousquet]:when they say oh this is the first winter i ever had enough money to make it through the whole winter without dipping into my pre pays
[christeen_era]:yeah
[steven_bousquet]:you know i don't have to worry this winter about home going to make my bills or you know i've already had my tax account was fully funded i don't have to worry about where am i going to come up with the money and just the clarity and also sharing that clarity with her team like oh this is how much we get to spend on equipment i know my team you know it's never enough equipment we never have enough equipment but now with it first they have a really clear vision of what the company can spend on equipment they stop asking me for it when we buy something it's strategic it's purposeful and it's serving our mission so private first i'm such a big fan of it and you know one of my biggest things is like i love tools and i love them when they're in the right place so the sockets the standards are in their draws the metrics are in there draws and that's what profit first allows that the money for the pay rolls in the pay roll account the money for the material and subs is in that account the profits in the account the taxes an account so in all that up and i have other things to focus on we all do you know hiring sales
[christeen_era]:yeah
[steven_bousquet]:marketing equipment living in life and we have systems for so many other things we really need to mak sure we have a system for how the cash moves in and out the cash flows in our business
[christeen_era]:yeah and i love how it empowers a internal person to manage that versus the owner so that that
[steven_bousquet]:yeah
[christeen_era]:is a huge game changer in a business to where you know you can leave and guess what the bills are going to get paid and pay role is going to be funded and you're all good so that's a game changer alone in a business
[steven_bousquet]:oh it is a huge game changer and i'm a huge fan of vacation i have taken multiple four weekfications even in the during the season not just in the winter and my team now exactly where to put the money when to put the money where and where it needs to go when it needs to go there so that's
[christeen_era]:yeah
[steven_bousquet]:what profit first it's a freedom tool i call it my freedom tool
[christeen_era]:yeah
[steven_bousquet]:because it just gives me my mind freedom to think of other things and i don't have to stay and do pay role every week myself or my wife i don't have to worry about how or when the vendors are going to get paid it's all set up a head of time which is to me it's just one of the smartest things i've ever done in business
[christeen_era]:yeah so it reminds me of one of the quotes that i share in the later chapter of if you want to go fast go alone if you want to go far go together on
[steven_bousquet]:right
[christeen_era]:you know and that really makes me think that quote has always reminded me of the importance
[steven_bousquet]:yeah
[christeen_era]:of team work in a business not living in a silo implementing systems like profit first and even connecting with other business owners you know in other avenues like working with the coach working with a professional you know having a sounding board because it can be very lonely place and an yeah you might go fast and you get there but did you end up in the right place that you wanted to
[steven_bousquet]:right right absolutely yet one of my favorite quotes to right if you want to go far if you want to go fast go alone if you want to go far go together
[christeen_era]:yeah
[steven_bousquet]:absolutely
[christeen_era]:that's
[steven_bousquet]:all right so we're kind of coming to the d of our first podcast for green profit academy prose and we went over about who we are how we got here you know what some of the that we do some of the products we offer in some ways we've helped the land care and landscape industry and you know stick to the end there's going to be a free there's gonna be some free gifts at the end the podcast will put those down in the show notes and i want to thank you for joining us and do you have a closing mark christine
[christeen_era]:yeah so in chapter one of the book as you
[steven_bousquet]:yeah
[christeen_era]:know i share your story steve so in our next episode
[steven_bousquet]:m
[christeen_era]:i am going to be interviewing steve boske a deeper level to talk about his business journey we're going to unpack his challenges his pain points and understanding his business and how he really dug himself out of two hundred and fifty thous and dollars in debt so we're gonna you know be putting steve here in the hot seat and
[steven_bousquet]:i mean
[christeen_era]:he's going to share his story
[steven_bousquet]:ye
[christeen_era]:so i'm excited to interview him on our next episode um so what are we going to be doing for our listener steve
[steven_bousquet]:okay for the first ten people that subscribed to the podcast we're going to be sending them a autographed profit first for long care and landscape professionals book from christine era she's going to sign it and so subscribe to the podcast and we will make sure that you get that book if you and after you subscribe we'll get your information we'll contact you if you can leave your email or we'll get your information somehow make sure we get you the book
[christeen_era]:excellent
[steven_bousquet]:all right well that was a great first podcast christine and i look forward to many more
[christeen_era]:great i will see you on our next episode
[steven_bousquet]:thanks okay
[christeen_era]:yeah yeah
[steven_bousquet]:okay