In this episode of Green Profit Academy Pros Podcast, lawncare and landscaping business owners can gain invaluable insights from a seasoned veteran of the industry. Hosts Christeen Era and Steve Bousquet, both Profit First coaches and professionals, interview Don Zerby, a successful landscaping business owner with over 30 years of experience. As someone who has been in the industry since the age of 14, Zerby shares his ups and downs as a business owner and describes how Profit First practices elevated his business. His company, Ecolawn now services roughly 2700 lawns in the greater Cleveland area. Listen in on episode 8 of Green Profit Academy Pros podcast to hear Don Zerby's story!
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.
In this episode of Green Profit Academy Pros Podcast, lawncare and landscaping business owners can gain invaluable insights from a seasoned veteran of the industry. Hosts Christeen Era and Steve Bousquet, both Profit First coaches and professionals, interview Don Zerby, a successful landscaping business owner with over 30 years of experience. As someone who has been in the industry since the age of 14, Zerby shares his ups and downs as a business owner and describes how Profit First practices elevated his business. His company, Ecolawn now services roughly 2700 lawns in the greater Cleveland area. Listen in on episode 8 of Green Profit Academy Pros podcast to hear Don Zerby's story!
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.
Hello and welcome to today's Green Profit Academy Pros podcast. Today we have a special guest, one of my close friends and green industry leaders and thought leaders that I've been associated with for about 20 years. His name is Don Zerbe of EcoLawn. He has been in the lawn application business for over 45 years. Today we're going to discuss the challenges that he has faced. and how he has accomplished building the business of his dreams. Welcome to today's show, Don.
[Don Zerby]:Thanks so much, Steve and Christine, for inviting me.
[Christeen Era]:We're glad you're here. You are one of our absolute favorite people and you have been an exceptional student to work with over the years and improving your profit and your business. So I'm really excited to have this conversation with you today, Dawn. Thank you for making the time.
[Don Zerby]:My pleasure.
[Christeen Era]:So, yes. So we're going to jump right in and we're going to ask Dawn to tell us a little bit about himself and his background in the lawn care industry. And I know... Steve and I are very familiar with his story, which makes it one of our favorites, but we're gonna let Don share his story with you today.
[Don Zerby]:Gosh, thanks, you guys. It's really a pleasure, and I can't believe it's been this long. I remember seeing the veterans in our industry and thinking, wow, boy, they've been doing this for a long time. And then somewhere, I guess I blinked, and maybe I've become one of those guys. So I started out as a child. We were probably a lot like a- other people's stars. We didn't have any money. I was 14 years old. My mom was a bus driver. She had trouble paying the monthly bills. And I had a paper out before that. I remember that I loved the way that grass smelled when I would cut it. And so I convinced my mom to let me use her credit card to get a lawnmower. And my brother-in-law built a trailer that went onto the back of my 10-speed bike. I put lettering on the side of that trailer and I would drive around the neighborhood treating maybe 10 or 12 lawns within a few blocks of my house. The local newspaper called and asked if they could put a picture of that trailer and a little article in the paper. Well, that was August. of 1977. I don't remember the date, but at any rate, the phone has not stopped ringing since then. So for the next two years, I would go around the local neighborhood and cut grass for people, and the demand grew. So my older brother, Bob, is five years older than I am. this was a strategic thought process because he could drive and I couldn't. So we had two trucks. I remember having two trucks before I was old enough to drive either of them. But when Bob came into the business, it expanded our horizons and we got to go put in landscapes for people. expand our market area so it was better. Over about the next fifteen years after that I think we we bought seven trucks and maybe I had fourteen employees I got really active in Ohio Landscapers Association I was on the board and somebody nominated me and I said yes to being its vice president. So I remember at age 18, I was vice president of Ohio Landscape Association. Somebody called up and said, we want you to be president. I said, well, that'd be fine, except I don't really know how I'm going to pay the electric bill this month. And if I can't pay the electric bill, maybe I shouldn't be representing myself as a guy to lead this group of several hundred contractors. So I declined. In 1988, we pursued every landscaper's dream of buying a property. So I bought a commercial property, a couple acres on a big road with lots of visibility. And in the next four years, of course, we didn't have a plan. So in the next four years, I remember painting, rebuilding, and putting up shelves. And I thought it was really cool. One day the bank, who was one of my customers, called and said, Don, we're calling the loan. I had no idea what that meant. He had a pretty serious tone in his voice, so I thought, well, it must mean something that I should be paying attention to. I told my brother, hey, the bank's calling their loan, the loan. I called the bank back and said, well, what's that mean? He said, well, that means we don't want you to be our customer anymore. Well, how does that even work? Well, you haven't paid us in six months. And when that happens, we have the ability to tell you that you can't be our customer. So, well, where am I supposed to get the money? I don't know. Maybe an aunt and uncle, a different bank. all of which was completely foreign to me. So that started a chain of events. But at the same time, somebody from the IRS came along and she knocked on the door. She was very mean. She said, you haven't paid your 941s in a long time. And I had no idea what a 941 was. She wasn't. particularly friendly about telling me. She just said, since you haven't paid it, we're gonna do a 100% penalty, which was about as foreign to me as the bank calling the loan, but I knew that things weren't good.
[Steven Bousquet]:How old were you at this point?
[Don Zerby]:mid-twenties. Brand new baby in the little bassinet thingy. Brand new wife.
[Steven Bousquet]:So the IRS shows up, the bank's calling a note, you have a brand new baby, a new wife, and then what?
[Don Zerby]:That was pretty scary. It was really scary. That lady from the IRS said, we'll take the property. All those trucks, we'll just take them. I said, well, what if I give you $50 a week? No, no, no, no, no. You need to give it all to us now. So it was around this time that I was really active in the Ohio Landscape Association. And I knew that we had to take some extreme action. So we had some property there. We could store campers. there. We weren't doing the operation. It wasn't, we weren't doing things right. My brother was handling landscape design build and he was, he's a craftsman so his work was very slow and deliberate but it had nothing to do with profitability. My responsibilities were landscape maintenance and lawn care. Our lawnmowers were old and they needed... to be replaced with expensive new ones, and we couldn't afford that. But you know, this little lawn care thing where I would go out and fertilize somebody's lawn for $28 didn't cost very much to do. So although the dollar amounts were small, I knew that the net dollars were big. So I told Bob, well, all we need to do is just get rid of all these employees, sell the property, sell the skid steers and change house and dump trucks. and be this little lawn care company. And he said, you're out of your mind because you're not gonna do it with $28. You don't pay $100,000 or whatever it was to the IRS with$28 lawn care people. So... I didn't recognize at the time that my dear brother was trying to protect me from... the real world. I thought that it was oblivion and I blamed him for it, which was really wrong on my part. I regret it to this day. So I remember telling him, you know, my half of the thing then is for sale. He didn't want to sell. I told him, well, I'm going to sell my half. And things got ugly for quite a while. So I sent out a letter to all my landscape friends saying that I was having a garage sale. They all came along and said, well, Don, I thought, well, you're going so well. You're doing so good. And one guy come along and bought that dump truck. And I remember taking the money. It was $12,000 that we sold it for. He gave me cash. And I remember taking that money to the big IRS building downtown Cleveland. And I found the lady that had been coming by. to collect money. And we handed her that money. She goes in the back room, and she comes back out a long time later, like 20 minutes, with a receipt that said zero balance. I don't remember any of the dollar amounts anymore, except that the amount Owen was much more than this $12,000. And that was one of the most profound moments of my life, was being handed that zero balance receipt. because I knew somebody had done me a huge favor and I didn't understand it. But the babies in the carrier thing, I'm in this big building downtown Cleveland with this baby. And I thought, you know what? I can never allow this to happen again. I can never put my family in this. I can never jeopardize them like this ever again. I have to get smart. So that became really compelling. My brother Bob and I separated a parted ways. I took the 200 lawn care customers that we had been doing in the landscape business and went out and built a business around this. Heh. Didn't know what I didn't know. but I went and I worked real hard every day.
[Christeen Era]:And what you're sharing, Dawn, is very common. You know, your story starts out with a need that you needed to help with the family finances, and you stepped up to the plate. And then through that experience in your life, you developed a craft, and you fell in love with this craft, which is in the green industry, the lawn care, the landscape, the maintenance, and this kind of became your way. And it's very common, and Steve and I have worked with, several business owners where this has happened with, where it's very common where, especially in this industry and in the trade industries too, an individual knows their craft. They're really, really good at something. And then all these other big business obligations start rolling in and these business owners get blindsided. And this is a very common and humbling experience. And sometimes I think for these business owners in my experience in working with them, it can be embarrassing as well because they feel like they should have known. And we've had several conversations around this to where you can go to school, you could go to college for this stuff, you can get a master's in business, you can get an associate's degree, whatever it is, and you're still... you still may not know what you need to know to successfully run a business. And, you know, you kind of can get rolled by that and, you know, humbled and just kind of taken by surprise when these things happen.
[Don Zerby]:Is that the truth? So the other component that creeps in there somewhere along the lines is that if the opposite of embarrassed is proud, we don't want anyone to know that we don't know all the stuff that you've got to know. So we hide it. The unintended victims that I've seen a thousand times are the wives and the children. that are trusting you to do the right thing. It doesn't occur to them that you don't know what to do. And so you end up on this. deserted island of where do I go, who do I call? So for me, after going through that IRS experience and the bank experience, I realize, oh my gosh, I've just put my wife and daughter into a completely unacceptable environment that I just can't let ever happen again.
[Steven Bousquet]:So then what was the next step that you took, Don? So you decided, okay, we're gonna do this, we're gonna do the lawn care application thing. And you got the IRS paid off, the banks all settled up, then what was happening and for how long?
[Don Zerby]:After that, so to satisfy those obligations, we sold the commercial property and we sold all of our equipment. I kept this old pickup truck in a little spreader and went out and did lawns. And at this point, I was in all this denial. I thought that it was employees that landed, you know, bad employees that landed me here. It took a long time for me to... you know, look internally and say, hey, you know, it starts here. So I went out and did lots of hard work and put flyers on every door I could find. Then went to a convention one time and they had these ride on spreaders that could go fast and you didn't have to push and lift. So I bought one of those things and then kind of maxed out my ability to produce with that thing. My wife at the time steps in as handling the books. And that was good because it was helpful, bad because it was, because she was my wife, you know, don't, just
[Steven Bousquet]:Was she
[Don Zerby]:FYI.
[Steven Bousquet]:a trade bookkeeper, Donna? Was she a bookkeeper by trade?
[Don Zerby]:Oh no, no, no, no, she was my wife and had a structured brain, but take away from that is think twice before you invite your wife to be your partner in business and then just, you know, don't do it. In 2004, I'd been at a national convention, and I met a guy who was talking about the legalities of lawn care treatments. He asked me, what would I do if I spilled weed killer where it wasn't supposed to be spilled? What legal... you know, coverage do I have or what insurance coverage do I have? And that was another completely foreign concept to me. So I developed a friendship with that guy as we worked through answering that question and several others like it. That friendship ended up where I hired a consultant that had been a long time consultant to small and medium sized companies. And he said, well, by golly, you've got to know your numbers. And I learned that my properties were not priced properly, that I had to charge based on my expenses, my circumstances, not. not the competitor's price sheet that had fallen out of their truck and I picked it up when they weren't looking. So I learned about that and got better and better at that and began to set up systems and the relationship with that coach lasted nearly 20 years and accomplished lots of really good things. The really common problems associated with small business continued during this time, you know, as the business grew, you had to know mechanicals of trucks, what to do when a transmission broke, or I had to go buy a forklift. employees had to come on and be motivated to work and I could never find good employees and I never had enough money. So the business had gotten bigger and bigger, but there were still all of these internal problems that were nearly as terrifying as the IRS agent coming along because the whole thing was so dependent on me. What if I... I don't know, got run over by a truck or got sick or died. What would happen to the thing?
[Steven Bousquet]:So how old are you now in the middle of the story? Are you 40, 45 at this point?
[Don Zerby]:Yeah, I was 40 when I hired the first consultant.
[Steven Bousquet]:Okay. And before you were working with the consultant, how much were you grossing about a year?
[Don Zerby]:Oh, golly. $100,000, $200,000,$300,000.
[Christeen Era]:So your annual revenue was about $300,000. Yeah.
[Don Zerby]:Yeah, I know that in 2009, our annual revenue was $300,000.
[Christeen Era]:Yeah, and it sounds like some of the things that you're sharing is, you know, you, you moved from that, you know, kind of trying to establish the company, not knowing what you didn't know. And then your perspective, you know, was shifted from some pretty hard lessons that happened, which is very common, you know, with business owners. And then you started, you know, working with a coach or a consultant, which is ideal, you know, where you, there was enough. pain, it sounds like in your business journey, where you finally said enough is enough, something's got to give, you know, and when you share that whole story around like, oh, you know, picking up my competitor's price sheet, I could almost picture a business owner doing something like that, which is another common mistake in business is let me price myself as my competitor would price themselves. So I'm competitive and not really realizing what is unique about what you are offering as a business owner and as a service to your community. And I know that, you know, in knowing you over the years and you sharing your story, there was something that you did in your business where you realized there was the way that you serviced your customers and the product that you created for them that was unique. That where you were no longer competition, that the other people in your industry, in your area, were not competition because you stood on your own with the way that you delivered your services.
[Don Zerby]:Boy, that's for sure. That was really not an easy realization. People always said that there was character. The people have always cited my personality as being, I don't know, different than others. And as I learned about grass, I originally began to think that my knowledge of grass with my personality that people seemed to like would be the winning combination. So all the people would just be the path to my door and life would be great. But I didn't realize at that point that you had to steer those. You had to start with... the fundamentals, the fundamental characteristics, and then build on it from there if it was to be a sustainable thing. It was not dependent on you. In other words, I had to identify the characteristics of my own personality. find out what was important to the people that were buying our services, but not all the people, just the right people. Well, what's a right person? Or we call them ideal clients. And that sounded like a really easy question. It turns out it wasn't so easy. It was very easy to figure out who wasn't the right person. client. And as this transpired... Somebody suggested that we write down the specifics of who is our ideal and who is not our ideal. we made it a major priority to find out what our strengths were, both individually as well as my company. So we have 12 people in our company right now and we spend a lot of time helping each other identify our strengths and then looking for opportunities to harvest those strengths in the most... in a predictable way.
[Steven Bousquet]:So tell us about that, Don. How do you find out your strengths? How do you find out your teammate's strengths?
[Don Zerby]:Really, it starts with a curiosity-driven mindset. I read a book called Change Your Question, Change Your Life. On the surface, it sounds like a really simple book, but it introduces a concept called learner living. where the author explains how you can choose to be curious about things that you encounter in life, or conversely to be judgmental about them. It's really a way of accepting responsibility for your own mindset and then steering it. So when you start out from that point of view... And then, Steve, you had asked about strengths. We discovered an organization called the Gallup Organization. And they have a product called 34 Strong. I don't know if it's a product, but it's a line of thinking called 34 Strong. And every human gallop determined has these 34 strengths. Some will be higher than others. And in our top five of those 34 strengths, those are really our, the top three are our genius, surrounded by numbers four and five, which are the pillars that support the genius. In the top 10, are really where we get things done. And at the same time... We explore the ones in the middle and the ones on the bottom, being careful to not think of those as weaknesses, just strengths that we don't have as much proficiency at as the really top ones. So while this is happening, while we're exploring our own strengths from a curiosity-driven mindset, we get to take a closer look at the people around us. And instead of saying, gosh, he's just a big jerk because he did this or did that. this following this logic allows us to think okay I might not understand this part about his personality or hers but look at how they shine, look at how they're the champion at this other task that's required in our business how can we harvest that, how can we show them that that's their superpower and then help them to harvest it so combining this recognition of individual strengths with a curiosity or learner driven mindset. really a life-changing win-win has been created because you help the other person to recognize their own strengths. I'm looking at a sheet on the wall that says in order to harvest our strengths we need to be aware of them and to perfect them we need to focus on them. And when we do that we introduce to the people around us their own superpowers that as you identify them, they'll say, oh, well, that's just what I do. Every single time they say, that's just what I do.
[Steven Bousquet]:So Don, how does that show up in a lawn care company? How does that show up in an application business? Give
[Don Zerby]:You
[Steven Bousquet]:me any, yeah.
[Don Zerby]:know, that's a great question because for a long time the mass marketers in the green industry have tried to have done their advertising and saying, oh boy, you can have a green lawn just by one of the companies even had the word chemical in their name. Just by spraying these chemicals on your lawn, you're going to force it to be green. Okay, that might be fine if it's 60 degrees and raining every second day. But if you want a truly healthy lawn... around your home. I mean, look, start at the beginning. Think about your home. Think about all of the things that both of you guys have done to have the homes. You drive your car and maybe you pull up the driveway and then you go into the garage. And the garage opens because you pressed a button on your car to make it open. And then you take the groceries in and you put them on a nice countertop and into the refrigerator and cook dinner on a beautiful stove. Think for a minute deliberately about all of the efforts that got you to that spot. When you're done with dinner, you'll watch TV and then maybe lay down in bed and wake up the next day and go do what you do. really our role and what a privilege it is for these people that have worked that hard to have all that stuff for them to call us and say hey can you help me to enhance the value of my property either the financial financially enhance it or emotionally enhance it so that my kids have soft grass to go out and play ball in so that my neighbors think well of me. We learned a long time ago that these people love their homes, and they've extended us the privilege of asking our help to take care of that home emotionally, physically, financially. What a huge opportunity that is. So there's no cookie cutter approach here. So I spent my lifetime building this program makes it so they'll have the best lawn that they've ever had. They have to take an active role in doing it. But by golly, there's no commodities happening here. It's not the same stuff on this lawn, on that lawn, on the next lawn. I want to know, Christine, what's important to you? Tell me about your kids. Tell me about your husband. How do you use your lawn? What's your... Why did you choose this neighborhood, not that neighborhood? Steve, what do you guys do on the weekends that's so important around your lawn? Of course, these are rhetorical questions, but...
[Steven Bousquet]:And it's a curiosity. I mean, I think that, you know, that's where you're going. Kind of the theme is that staying curious for your customers, for yourself, in your, in that learner living mindset. Um, so share with me one way that you take this like strengths, curiosity and implement it with your team.
[Don Zerby]:So in our team... as you recognize the strength that these people have. you can help them steer themselves into using their superpowers. And the result is this assertive or win-win. We have an individual here that was hired to organize our shop and be an apprentice technician. He's a young guy. The opportunity suddenly presented itself where we needed to fill an office manager position. And as we considered the strengths of all of the people that were already here. I invited this guy to see if he would like to go into the office and use it. He has outstanding organizational skill sets with a high learner. High learner was one of his major strengths. He ends up being my office manager and he fixed things that I didn't know had been broken. The previous office manager who had a financial background, someone with a financial background lots of experience and as it turns out, you know, the A player, which is how we refer to our ideal employees, the A player that got me here wasn't the A player to get me there. I mean, she had become stagnant, complacent, way too comfortable in her position and she was great at lots and lots of things. But this guy that I had... hired to organize the shop and be an apprentice has now been in place for a year and has taken the administrative side of my business and just kind of propelled it way further than I could have imagined.
[Steven Bousquet]:So you lined up his strength.
[Don Zerby]:Same thing. Say that again.
[Steven Bousquet]:He lined up his strengths with a need in the company.
[Don Zerby]:Yeah.
[Christeen Era]:Yeah. Yeah. And from what I'm hearing you say as well, Don is because you implemented this curiosity mindset in your business and you continue to be open to, you know, realizing I don't know what I don't know. What else is there? What else is there that I don't know? And, you know, realizing as well, and I know this from working with you over the years is you have continued to realize that you do not need to be the person to solve the problem, that you do not need to be the champion of that task or that role in your business and that it's okay that you don't understand it, but you will be doing something about it. And I've seen this journey with you and your team over the years to where the course correction is constantly happening. And every time it happens, you guys... gain a new perspective and you gain traction in growing and scaling your business.
[Don Zerby]:It's just unbelievable, the potential that happens. I'm glad you brought that up because for all this time, it's really my whole life, I thought that in order to get anything done, I was the one that had to do it. In Cleveland, there's a neighborhood. It's a tiny neighborhood that's extremely affluent. and the riches, if you will, were from the shipping industry, and old industrial Cleveland. Well, I've always been the salesman here. I'm the one that does that stuff. But as one of our people develops, this guy went and spent six months building a relationship with one of those old scum. old-school industrial magnates, I guess they are. Anyways, really high-end property. And just walking in here, my office manager told me that that property has materialized, they're sending a prepayment check. This property is 12 times larger than, financially larger than our average, and I've never seen it. I've never been to the property. I don't know what it looks like. I don't know what's on it. It was a multiple three inch rub lawn care. And the beauty of this is that it's becoming a system. And its success is based on the strengths of others, not me. So I don't have to be the champion, or I'm not the champion. And as we recognize that, so we can recognize the other people's strengths, which is a motivator, so they win, and when you're winning you want to go do it more. Really, where does it end? I don't even know where it ends. But it's finally, after all this time recognizing the talents of the other people around me, and my own talents and limitations too, for that matter, I can get out of the way. of these brilliant people around me. A very cool spot to be in.
[Steven Bousquet]:So Don, we've known each other for a long time and our conversations have changed over the years. So just share with the audience what our conversations used to sound like compared to the conversations that you're having now. Now we're talking about the learner living, we're talking about living in strengths, not being the champion. How did our conversations used to sound? Say seven. 10 years.
[Don Zerby]:bit different. The beatings will continue until morale improves. Why is he so stupid? These people are just idiots, aren't they?
[Steven Bousquet]:And moving from how the conversations that we used to have to the conversations that we have today, watching the growth of your company grow in exponential ways, you know, what's the feeling today when you go to work as opposed to when you had to talk yourself into going to work on Monday morning 10 years ago?
[Don Zerby]:You know, sometimes people say, well, when are you going to retire? What's it going to look like when you're done? Man, this is more fun now. You said to me one time, Steve, it's like you saved all your life to go on a trip to Disney World. And now you just walk through the front door. Why would you want to turn around and go back home? And I just love that analogy, because now I get to see what it's like. I mean, I still worry about stuff, but it's probably my personality. But I have two, we have a general manager, we have my office manager, we're implementing a succession plan that gives them some ownership. And I don't ever have to fully consummate that plan, but it kinda helps to guarantee the continuation. Somebody, one of the private equities. offered us a buyout here maybe a year or so ago that would have been fine except that all of really my life's efforts would have been kind of down the tubes. I went to the website of that company and and it said get your first treatment you know in 29.95 it was just sending out a message that's completely different from the one that I've created and So my general manager, Sean, and David, share the same characters, the same values. And that's really rewarding. So, you know, how does it feel to go to work now? Man, I don't know, I don't think I'm ever really at work. I just get to go look at grass and talk to really smart people all the time. Some guy comes up to us at lunch and said, Hey, are you done? We talked a year ago and I didn't hire you then. Boy, I should have hired you. I just talked to your office here this morning and we got this set up right now. So, we're gonna just have a lunch.
[Christeen Era]:Yeah. Well, I know, Don, you and I were just on a call earlier this week, because you've been a client of ours at, at my other company, Corgro strategies, where we've helped you get your numbers really lined up. And we were, you know, we were kind of chatting it up. And I was chatting with your team and your manager and your office manager, and you were out on a beautiful sunny day. doing the one thing that you love the most. And this is something that we had talked about when we started working together, is as you grew and scaled your company, like what does it look like for you? And you really love that kind of sales role in your company where you could go look at properties and you can sometimes as you wish connect with customers and you were kind of struggling thinking. No, I have to be the numbers guy and I have to run the operations and I have to do this and I have to do that. And our conversation started, well, with what do you love to do? And this was all these years ago. And I loved jumping on a call with you and your team. And there you were on a sunny day surrounded by all this green grass and beautiful, you know, downtown Ohio in that area that you're at. And you were happy doing what you love to do, and it wasn't running the numbers, and it wasn't running the operations, it was being out and connecting with your ideal customers.
[Don Zerby]:What a great example of it. While in the meantime, Sean, our general manager, is this organizational superpower of putting all of the things in order and scheduling and supporting the fixing. And then David is doing all the profit first stuff and just talking with Jamie. And I'm driving around looking at grass. It's just, you know, that's not going to work. It's just really, I guess that, I don't know. Is that going to work? Do I really work?
[Steven Bousquet]:So, Don, and that's interesting, because I remember one time you were struggling, you were off like 11 bags of fertilizer. You're like, this inventory thing, and I've been trying to figure this out for five years, and I have 11 bags off, and this is ridiculous. And I'm like, Don, why are you trying to figure out inventory? Let me introduce you, or budget. Then you were trying to put a budget together, and you couldn't put the budget together. I said, Don, let me introduce you to someone that does budgets. Let me introduce you. someone that can help you set up your inventory system. And I introduced you to Christine, and that was a few years ago. And you've been working with their team since then. And I know David and Jamie have really been knocking it out of the park as far as financial statements and predictive statements and accuracy and everything. And just getting the right strengths and the right seats and having your business. where you're focusing on what you enjoy and letting other people be the champion has led to a lot of your growth. And I don't wanna get into whole numbers, but I know that you have, back when you were doing $300,000 in 2009, how many customers did you have about?
[Don Zerby]:Oh, man, I don't know, probably 600-ish. I don't
[Steven Bousquet]:600
[Don Zerby]:remember exactly.
[Steven Bousquet]:and I would get I would estimate you're over 2,500 customers today All
[Don Zerby]:Yeah.
[Steven Bousquet]:right, so you went from 600 to over 2,500 and and this is where the rubber, you know meets the road Right because a lot of people will you can't take care of your people you can't train and they can't work on your strengths You know, you can't do all the people stuff and be and be profitable and grow but you have really demonstrated the case study model of taking care of your people, aiming their strengths, matching up your customers' needs and wants is the exact growth pattern that you took and to scale your business. So it kind of goes in not being the cheapest person in the market and not doing the 29.95. And so, you're a really great example of doing what resonates with your team, your people and your community. and living that every day. You know, you exemplify that. And I know you're kind of a humble guy, but I just want to point out what you have accomplished in the last 14 years is quite amazing and unique, not just in lawn care, but all of small business.
[Don Zerby]:Thanks Steve for saying that. We undervalue our strengths and we overvalue our weaknesses. Humble vulnerability is a good thing. So yeah, I suppose I've got some skills and I've certainly had outstanding teachers. And when you combine the two, so not just the professional teachers, but my employees teach me stuff every day. That's what's so profound about the learner living or curiosity driven mindset combined with strength is that somebody that was hired as a lawn care technician or so they thought is handling that inventory system that you just mentioned. that I fought with for 10 years and couldn't figure out. And now one of my law guys manages it, hands it to Sean, and I'm not even aware that it's been done, which gives me the space, mental space. to chart a better course, find and solve a different challenge. As far as professional help is concerned, Christina, I met you in either 2017 or 2018.
[Christeen Era]:It was 2018,
[Don Zerby]:18.
[Christeen Era]:yeah.
[Don Zerby]:And I remember in our initial conversation, I thought that I had it all figured out and was going to tell you that, well, I might let you do a little of this or a little of that. Well, that was before I started learning the value of curiosity. And as I've learned that, when you find somebody with these amazing strengths, or you uncover these amazing strengths, I don't remember what the numbers are in 2018 versus now. But how about till we doubled? in growth and that was under your guidance. getting us there.
[Christeen Era]:Yeah, I see your profitability has increased. One of the game changers that I remember from our first conversation is you are really struggling with trying to understand the rhythm of your cash flow in your business. And what we uncovered was how the cash was being managed in your business. And your company was living off of your prepays before they were being delivered. And once we corrected that and got in front of it and then really implemented the profit first system, that was a game changer for your business. And not only how stable it was and how the cashflow, you know, and the rhythm of the cashflow balanced out, but the growth that followed that naturally and also with intention based off of the conversations we had around implementing profit first. and even pumpkin plan strategies, you know, in our calls and really getting the numbers dialed in. Your business is a completely different business today, not just with the financial structure, the organizational structure, structure, but the leadership structure. And this is just, you know, over the past three to four years, the changes that have taken place in your business is, is just phenomenal to see.
[Don Zerby]:It really is, and I get to see it every day. A couple hours ago, our insurance agent was in. It was a conversation, and by adjusting the dial on how we pay insurance premiums, we were able to save about $1,500. Just by making a little adjustment that... I couldn't have done it before. Under the previous scenario, we're living on prepays and not understanding cash flow. Well, you know, here comes David with his organizational mindset and his ability to zero in, in other words, use his strengths, his superpowers. Just, and that's just one little thing that happened. So, yeah, gosh, it's... It's a lot of fun now and it's really, really fun.
[Christeen Era]:And I think the biggest thing I hear from you, and I want to acknowledge, because I know it's not just you, but it's a team mindset, is you're not carrying the business on your back up the mountain on your own. It is you and your team really working from their strengths. And it is a team effort. And I see it, I know I've talked to your team. My team has talked to your team. Steve has talked to your team. And I think I could speak for all of us where I am just as confident talking to one of your team and executing something or sharing an idea as I am with you.
[Don Zerby]:Netany.
[Steven Bousquet]:So Don, what do you see as the future of your business and how do you plan to keep evolving?
[Don Zerby]:There's a group called Small Giants. And one of the teachers said that the common denominator in this group is that they've chosen to be great rather than big. And I really love that because there's all kinds of great big lawn care operators. They seem to measure their worth, lawn care operators. by how many trucks or how many customers and how big, you know, how many branches. And I don't care about any of that stuff. You know, in our business we have... the original customer had children and those children have children. We have three generations of families whose properties we service. When somebody moves away, Many times we continue servicing that property for the new owner, as well as receiving the property that they move into. So multi-million dollar properties people have entrusted in our care. Big highly visible places. That's what I want to do. So I don't want it to be great big, but I want it to be really great. And I want to be able to keep doing that until I don't feel like doing that anymore. So I want the freedom to go home and paint something on a Tuesday afternoon if I feel like it, or hop in the car with my dear wife and go to. see our daughter in New York or go over to my daughter's house and plant a tree for her. That freedom means a lot. At the same time, I love what I do. So I want the people around me to have the opportunity to keep doing what they're doing. The profitability, the financial end of things, it's fine. It doesn't need to do anything a whole lot different than what it's doing already. I want it to provide security for character-driven, like-minded individuals that choose to put their energies here. That's where it's going. It doesn't need to produce some big financial benchmark. It can, I mean, it can grow, that's fine.
[Christeen Era]:And I think that's important, Dawn, is that people understand, you know, business owners can understand when we say scale and grow, scaling and growing your company is going to be something different for you than it is for someone else. Someone might want to scale and grow and increase that revenue and grow their business bigger, or they can scale and grow their company by improving the, you know, the operations and the size that they have. and implementing systems and training a better team and just leveling up a business. So I think that's a great point is that as business owners, we need to understand what does scaling and growing our business means to us? What does that mean? And also make sure that we are scaling and growing our business for our dream and not based off of somebody else's goal, whether it be at. you know, another professional peer or somebody in the area being true to ourself and what we want with our goals.
[Don Zerby]:Take complete ownership of who you are. Be unapologetically you. Mike McAlwitt said it to me.
[Steven Bousquet]:So Don, as we're wrapping up, what advice would you give to that 20, no, the 18 year old Don Zerbe that was asked to be the president of the Ohio State Landscape Association? If you could have whispered in his ear, what would you have said?
[Don Zerby]:It's not about the grass. You have to find teachers that you trust. and then be willing to listen to their advice. They know more than you do. And when you find the ones with character. It's all about character, man. Those people love you. they want what's best for you because... because it'll be better that way. And you won't have some lady from the IRS saying that she's going to put chains on your doors. Maybe you won't have to worry as much about your young child or your nieces and nephews being homeless. because you're too busy managing your own ego to listen to real advice. We gotta work hard, man.
[Steven Bousquet]:Thank you very much, Don. Christine, would you like to ask a final question?
[Christeen Era]:Well, I think we covered some great topics today. So I want to thank you, Dawn, for being vulnerable, sharing your stories with your challenges and your mistakes, the decisions that swayed you into a new direction and gave you a different focus. And I just I love the story that you share of where you started off in your business and the journey that you made. And I love seeing that you have built a beautiful business. with a team that loves to come to work every day and clients that are over the moon with your services.
[Don Zerby]:I'm very fortunate. Thank you so much for having me. It's been a real pleasure. You guys have a great day today.
[Steven Bousquet]:Thanks so much, Don. We'll talk soon.
[Don Zerby]:Okay, goodbye.