#18: From Marine Corps to CEO: Building a Business and Finding Balance with Nolan Gore

“You are ultimately responsible, no matter what. Even if you couldn’t control the thing, it’s your deal to fix.” – Nolan Gore

In this inspiring episode, we sit down with Nolan Gore, a Marine Corps veteran turned CEO of Top Choice Lawn Care. Nolan shares his incredible journey from military life to running a successful landscaping business in Texas.

Discover how he navigated the challenges of entrepreneurship, from managing seasonal business cycles to building a strong company culture and leading a diverse team. Nolan also opens up about the lessons he learned in the Marine Corps and how they shaped his leadership style in business.

This episode is packed with practical insights on:

• Transitioning from the military to entrepreneurship.
• Balancing work and family life with intention.
• Managing partnerships and ownership structures effectively.
• Strategies for scaling a business while staying grounded in your values.

Connect with Nolan: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nolan-gore-a732b317/

Visit Top Choice Lawn Care: https://www.topchoiceaustin.com/

Connect with Mason: https://www.linkedin.com/in/masonbrady/

Visit BradyCFO: https://www.bradycfo.com/

If you enjoyed the episode, please be sure to rate, review, and of course, SUBSCRIBE!

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Have a business growth question you'd like Mason to cover in an upcoming episode? Email: info@bradycfo.com

Transcript

Mason Brady (00:01)
Well, hi everybody. Welcome back to another episode of Brewing Business with Brady. Today on the podcast, we have Nolan Gore and we are super excited to hear from him. He is growing a business here in Texas. So welcome Nolan, that we're super excited to have you on here.

Nolan Gore (00:16)
Yeah, it's gonna be really fun. I'm to have this conversation and hopefully add a little bit of value if nothing else by sharing some of the stupid stuff I've done over the years to get to this point.

Mason Brady (00:27)
Perfect. Yeah. We all learn from mistakes, right? So if we can impart those mistakes upon others, right? So yeah, tell us, tell us where you're, where you're coming from, that, where are you located? Tell us a little bit about your business.

Nolan Gore (00:30)
That's right.

So I'm going to back up even farther. was born and raised in Austin, Texas, the son of an entrepreneur who does service businesses. Didn't realize that was strange. Didn't realize that running around the office shooting employees with rubber bands was a weird thing. That's what I did growing up. Went to Texas A joined the Marine Corps, spent four years in the Marine Corps, married my high school sweetheart just before that came out of the Marine Corps after we had our first kid, a daughter.

Mason Brady (00:53)
You

Nolan Gore (01:08)
and I immediately joined this landscaping company. Now, I didn't, I wasn't looking, I wasn't searching. That's not how I came into this. Someone found this business and ran it for a handful of years and then they wanted to get out of it. We can talk more about that, but they found my dad and then my dad was like, hey, Nolan, do want to put your life savings into this little landscaping business that isn't really making money? And I said, that sounds like a very wise choice.

Mason Brady (01:30)
You

Nolan Gore (01:37)
I don't actually remember much beyond that. remember a couple of spreadsheets that were hilariously unsophisticated. I remember looking at a website one time and other than that, we just did it. And again, we could talk further about that process and everything, but I've been here for almost eight years now. We've grown a lot of bits since then and I'm still in it day to day and it's still hard.

Mason Brady (01:38)
HMM

Nolan Gore (02:05)
And here we are. So where do want to go from there?

Mason Brady (02:09)
That like that entire intro was like the most Texas thing I've ever heard of my life. Yeah, just pull this up by the bootstraps and just get it done type of thing. So awesome. Yeah, we are going to dive in obviously into figuring out what did that look like? You know, if you buy in this business and how you're running today. So that was awesome though that but this is brewing business with Brady, right? And we know that, you know, with some guests we've had on the show that not everybody the coffee had like I am that I

I have coffee running through my veins type of thing that four cups a day later and yeah, 4 p.m. is gonna be shut down time for me. So we'd love to know though, yeah, what's your regular go-to beverage that gets you started in the morning, gets you going throughout the day, what's that look like?

Nolan Gore (02:54)
I drink a tremendous amount of coffee. And I think that's probably at least 80 % of the reason you invited me here, which I respect as a very valid reason. But I am not at all sophisticated or classy in my coffee consumption. can be anything above a six on the scale of one to 10 is almost exactly the same for me. Darker, grittier, the better is kind of the way it's going to roll for me.

Mason Brady (02:57)
Perfect.

Fair enough.

You're good to go. Yep. There you go.

Nolan Gore (03:23)
So I do have some Keurig coffee here, which many people would say is disgusting. I love it. And I am excited about consuming more caffeine today as we go through this.

Mason Brady (03:27)
Yeah, awesome.

Awesome. Good to know. So yeah, one of the coffee heads with us, It must be a Texan thing. Good deal. So I would love to learn a little bit more about that origin story that you bought the business with your dad. Is your dad still involved? What does that whole thing look like in regards to you acquiring your business? We recently had a guest that also acquired a business in a similar format that

came in entrepreneurship through acquisition. And it's a big theme in the United States right now, right? A lot of business owners need to exit and there's a huge opportunity out there. So we'd love to hear more of that origin story from you.

Nolan Gore (04:16)
So I don't how practical... I'm not a deal guy. I'm not gonna be giving you real practical advice about finding... searching for finding something. I can tell you that once you're in the game, more opportunities come. Because that's the biblical principle of the...

Mason Brady (04:28)
All good.

Nolan Gore (04:43)
whom he, he, who has much more will be given. Once you get opportunities, you end up with more opportunities, especially if you can prove that you're competent. So, I mean, I had someone this week call me and ask me if I wanted to buy their business. So it just happens once you're in it. From, started looking at online groups, like Twitter groups and stuff, just as recently as last year, I started seeing ETA and I had no idea what that meant.

Mason Brady (04:55)
Awesome, Yep.

Nolan Gore (05:11)
entrepreneurship through acquisition. I, I, just assumed it meant estimate a time of arrival until it didn't make sense in the context of all these texts or these Twitter threads. And so I realized, I, I did that thing that they've been talking about. so let me really cleanly answer your question. And it goes something like, I grew up in a family that did this. and I.

Mason Brady (05:24)
Yeah, yeah, they put a name to it. Cool.

Nolan Gore (05:38)
Therefore, it wasn't strange or risky to me. I wanted a chance to have a little bit more autonomy. And so when I was given the chance and it wasn't too large of a risk in my, I'm stupidly overly competent, then I decided to try it. And so what that structure looked like is we just assumed the debt on the business. So we didn't actually give the owner

anything except for just wiping out his debt, which was not very well defined at the time, which is not something I recommend. It's just how we did it. We put some additional money in to make sure we could overcome the shortfall in the near term to survive because we were going into the winter season, which is when you struggle. And then we just started moving and I tried to figure out how to make it work.

Now I had a business partner who was already here who was not an owner. When I came in, we gave him ownership or we created a sweat equity deal. We didn't really know each other before I showed up the first week. He and I still work together every day. It worked out really well. We had some real issues in 2020. So we bought year four for us. And I can talk through that story. It's an important part of our story and the ownership structure ultimately. But we...

Mason Brady (06:51)
Awesome. Yeah.

Nolan Gore (07:05)
It was me, my dad, my brother, Golden, who's my business partner, and then a friend of mine named Josh. was five people. now my dad's out. and so it's me, Golden, Josh, and Matt, my brother, and, I'm the majority owner. So I'm now the person who's signing all this stuff and assuming all the risks and someday maybe reaping some rewards. We'll see.

Mason Brady (07:29)
No, keyword there Sunday, right?

Nolan Gore (07:31)
how technical you want to get. Is that technical enough? I can go way more technical if you want to.

Mason Brady (07:35)
Absolutely. That's perfectly fine. I mean, the reality is, yeah, you got some people that are coming with MBAs and put a lot of technical fluff on it. Right. but at end of the day, we had a wonderful guest on the podcast previously. His name was Jayden that, they, they build tooling cabinetry, you know, and, they also do build irrigation pumps. And he gave just some of the wisest business advice that, you know, it's like, you can go, you can pay $150,000 for an MBA program and.

Literally you said the words alongside something along the lines of like, you know, figure out what problems your existing customers have and just keep attacking those. And that's, that's how we grow our business. I was like, wow, you know, like, yeah, that sounds so profound, but so simple. And that's really the truth is just keep uncovering those problems and go attack them and figure it out. And,

you know, there is no perfect strategy going in. It's not, that's not going to be blown up, you know, and that you're going to have to figure out how to, how to pivot. Right. I mean, so many people they talk about don't invest in the business plan, invest in entrepreneur, right. And that's really what matters. And so I, yeah, I, I, so walk us through just again, real quick, you know, that, that ownership structure as it stands today. So you are the majority owner who all else is involved.

Nolan Gore (08:54)
So I own about 60%. My brother owns about 18%. My business partner owns about 15%. And whatever the remainder is, one of my good friends owns that. So just about 7%. Did I do that math right? Something like that. And yeah, that's where it stands today. When we, again, I can talk through how we got to that point, but that is where we're at today.

I'll stop there.

Mason Brady (09:24)
Yeah, I'd love to understand how you got to that point. Cause yeah, for you all, you know, we walk through several instances with some of our, our clients and our CFO practice that, you know, yeah, at some point, a family member or existing partner has to exit. does that mean that the other partner in the business just takes over everything or do they bring in other partners? And so I think your story of how your dad exited and how you arrived at where you're at today, like walk us through that a bit, that there could be a lot of insight for us. I I'd love to learn more.

Nolan Gore (09:55)
Yeah. So the real chunky part of the story is that originally my business partner and I were equal partners, both at 30%. And then the remaining 40 % was put up amongst those other people. I didn't mention the sixth partner because he was only there for a little while. And so we ended up, but basically both of us had a third and then the last third was, amongst the other partners, we ended up having a whole bunch of issues and, and,

COVID. And that was not all my partner's fault. It was just as much my fault from a communication perspective. There was a lot of mommy, daddy tension. Like who's in charge here? And different needs from an economic perspective. He has older children than me. And so where was our vision for what we need to do with the business and reinvest in the business was just divergent. And it was causing a tremendous amount of tension.

If you've run one of these things or you've been around the leadership of these things, the ownership structure doesn't really matter until it really, really matters. And it can really mess with day-to-day operations in a way that people can't understand or put their finger on, but they experience it based on where the focus of the leaders of the business are. For weeks, if not months, we were only focused on trying to defend our turf and fighting, and that was not good for the business.

And by God's grace, we worked through that season. I mean, we came literally, we came to a meeting and same idea, same day being like, I should buy out part of your shares. that way you were set up financially and that way I'm in charge. And he said the opposite or just said the opposite of that, which, Hey, you should buy out some of my shares in that way. I'm set up financially more so, and you are in charge. And that cleared up a lot of leadership issues amongst the rest of the team and helped him.

Mason Brady (11:48)
Awesome.

Nolan Gore (11:53)
be better set for his current state and what he needed to do from a financial perspective with his family. Obviously, this is an oversimplification, but at that moment as well, I took that as an opportunity to buy out part of my dad's shares. And then over the rest of the next several years, I bought him out entirely, or least the group of us bought him out entirely. And that's how we ended up here today. I do not believe that...

That kind scenario would have broken a lot of business partnerships. We are very fortunate to still have the relationships we do. And I'm glad that I work with him. He's very different from me. He thinks about things very different than me. And that's probably the reason we're effective together. And so I'm really grateful to work with him. He's a great partner to me. But man, we just hate, I don't know if we hated each other, but we fought pretty hard there for a little while and that was hard.

Mason Brady (12:46)
Yeah. Yeah. I, I mean, you're spending so much time with that person in an office, oftentimes more than your spouse. Right. And I remember, you know, yeah, I did an MBA program and I, you know, teach their own in regards to what you, the value that you get out of that. I learned a lot more, you know, I learned a lot of business principles, but then when you put, when you have to just learn how to put things in practice and roll your sleeves up, that's a different story. Right. And,

But, know, yeah, I remember like I was a part of an entrepreneurship focused MBA where they tell people, yeah, like come up with a business idea and just pick somebody and like just run with it. And I'm like, yeah, don't, I don't feel comfortable doing that. Cause I know what that path looks like that I'm not just going to pick the rando across the room here. Like, you know, this is, we're linked together and I need to, I need to know that I can trust this person. I need to know that, you know, yeah, we may have a good idea, but yeah, you gotta know that you could be in the trenches with that person.

that you're to work through the hard things and it sounds great that you were able to work through those hard things eventually, right? That it, sounded like a difficult journey through that. But like you said, by God's grace, you were able to work through those things and, you know, understand each other's differences and what each other we're looking for. I think that's the thing too, is that, yeah, you know, where are you at in life that, know, business ownership and whether you should be involved in business, et cetera. Like it, it's not, it's not always a.

Yes, you go W2 job versus business owner. Sometimes it's, it the right time for some of this too, right? And where you're at in life and season of life with family, et cetera. And so it sounds, yeah, it's great that it sounds like you guys are in a much better state today.

Nolan Gore (14:24)
And I would just say one more tactical piece of advice there is legal docs aren't needed until they're really needed. So pre-fight is the term we use. Pre-fight about everything. When life is still good and you still expect everything to continue to go well. If things go to shit, what do we do about it? And how do we just make those decisions? How do we split up? How do we... This isn't a marriage.

Mason Brady (14:38)
Yep. Yep.

Nolan Gore (14:54)
Do the money side of it? How do we make decisions? What kind of percentages need precision decisions? There's a lot of good resources out there, but that was super important for us in this whole process so that we had a lot of the answers already written out and agreed to with signatures helped us because there's still a lot of sticky stuff that's in the in the cracks there between those those lines to get the figure out. But if you have the big chunk in that stuff set together, that helps.

Mason Brady (15:23)
Yup. You kind of, you mentioned there a bit too, you know, for, for your team, was a felt impact in regards to your turf war with your partner. Right. and I mean, truly like we, we coach people all the time that, know, financial performance is a basis of the non-financial stuff. Like you have to get some of the core business principles down. It's not just this quick marketing tactic or sales tactic. Like your leadership team has to be rowing in the same direction, have the same vision. Like.

you know, have to have a good team with good accountability, delegation, et cetera. Like these fundamental principles is like John Wooden, like you gotta learn how to tie your shoes before you play basketball. Right. and, so, you know, you talked about that impact it had on your team, like walk us through what that, what that really looked like, because, I think, you know, in, my experience and talking with some business owners, I think they can be blind to some, to that sometimes is that, you know, if,

You don't have things aligned with your business partner or your leadership team, exactly the impact that you have on your team and your employees. Walk us through that a bit.

Nolan Gore (16:30)
Yeah. So just like football businesses, often a game of inches, like any sport, I guess. And so when you, I mean, we work in industries where margins aren't huge. I think that's a common misconception between a lot of people that don't run businesses and how most businesses are run. It's like, these things usually don't bring money. And if they do, it's a unique thing for a pretty short amount of time. and so.

The difference between 5 % is sometimes the difference between making money and not making money. And, and so 5 % is like very small, it's insistent actions in the same direction. So when leadership isn't focused, a lot of those little steps that make the difference between like the 5%, those are the things that get dropped. The attention to detail when it comes to your marketing, that call to action.

the holding someone accountable, the, in a way that they should be held accountable so that they actually go above and beyond deserve that customer. So that either customer wants to come back to you. You just don't do it because you're focused like your energy and emotion or focus somewhere else. And so what often happens is these businesses are just slowly to grade. And oftentimes there are practical things that get dropped, but oftentimes it's just like this kind of feeling everywhere. like, I don't know what's going on, but something just feels darker.

And they're like, we're just not as tight. And don't get me wrong, it's not like I'm on my game all the time. Like people still feel those moments when I'm actually in a pretty good place mentally. But especially in this thing like that where every day I woke up anxious about what the email is going to be or the message is going to be trying to protect myself from myself. All that stuff was hard. And so I wasn't as focused on the day to day in a way that would have been beneficial for everyone down to the bottom of the organization.

Mason Brady (18:28)
I love, yeah, knowing these leadership insights that you're bringing to the table here, just practical leadership advice and, you know, understanding where people's hearts are at and where their mind is at. And I really, yeah, I want to dive down this further because I know your background in the Marine Corps and I actually was just, I went on a guys trip. I'm part of kind of like this Christian, like executive round table group that we get to meet together and

talk about best business practices and stuff like that. And, I met with a guy that he was a special forces in the air force. you know, a ranger and some sort yeah, he, he, you know, he spoke a lot about some of the leadership tactics that he had learned in the military and that he was struggling to apply those same leadership tactics. In the workplace that just that top down leadership approach, it wasn't really applicable as, as he thought it would be once he got into business and.

I'm interested to kind of understand from you, cause we do, you know, especially within our CFO practice, like we work with a lot of construction businesses. We work with a lot of blue collar businesses that you're getting people that yeah, come from an ex military background. Like, so I'd really love to understand your experiences to how, how did what you learn in the Marine Corps, how did that translate to business for you and leading in business?

Nolan Gore (19:50)
I will tell you the language doesn't translate too well. had to, I'm not even talking about like cussing. I actually think I probably cuss more post Marine Corps than I was in the Marine Corps. I'm just talking about like, I still have moments. Like I think I had one last week where I said something and I looked at the person and said, is that a military word or is that a real word? And they were like, I don't know what you said. And I was like, okay, military word, sorry about that. I think I mean to say this.

Mason Brady (19:55)
haha

enough.

Yeah.

Nolan Gore (20:16)
So, I mean, it is real indoctrination and brainwashing, right? Like you just, they get you. But there are some things that I still, like, I still don't realize how much the impact of the Marine Corps was on me and even my family's perspective of these things, right? Like I spent my first four years of marriage being gone a lot. I spent my first six months of marriage being gone, I don't know, 20 days a month, like.

And so that just imprinted on our family. My wife is super self-reliant. She's super grateful when I do get to be home. I am super grateful when I do get to be home. Working to six o'clock almost every day does not feel weird to us. so, and you can get that in a lot of places, not just the military, but from a beginning of our relationship perspective and our family's perspective on what we could be grateful for from a time perspective, super helpful for us. I I deployed.

I did another operation overseas. I, even when I wasn't deployed, I was gone at least 10 nights a month. Like we just have a different perspective than a lot of people do. And I'm really grateful for that. so me getting up and like, I to be at work at six tomorrow, or I'm at work before seven most days. is it totally normal for what our baseline was from a marriage perspective? That's the first framing. The second framing is just how I view work.

it just drills you with, especially as an officer, which is not everyone's experience, but across the military, like you are ultimately responsible in the matter. What, even if you couldn't really control the thing, that's like a weird concept. and I'll tell a quick story. One of the first moments I saw this in the military, we were in school, like the first 10 weeks I was in school and some Marines had a.

give you a little bit more context. guy that runs that school is like a really prestigious role. He's a Colonel. If you run that school, you're going to be a general. Like that's a huge deal. Well, in the school, some of the Marines that he was responsible for probably didn't know their names, probably had not interacted with them very much at all because he's got thousands of people that work for him. They got in a fight because one of them was sleeping with another one and went in and shot to their guy and shot himself. Terrible situation.

The Colonel got fired, lost his career because of that moment. And everyone was like, that makes sense. He's ultimately the one's responsible. Like, no, these people are making bad life choices. And ultimately he's going to be the one's responsible because of this incident. Now that's not like universally there's more context there, but what you should know is ultimately like this idea across the military is you are ultimately responsible.

And therefore you take every action possible to control as much as you can about everything you can in the organization. so even when something bad happens that you couldn't have controlled, you're the one that shows up and says, this is my deal. I'm going to take, I'm going to take responsibility for it. And, so that's not necessarily a character trait of mine. I think I am probably wired that way more than the average person, but it's not, it's not weird or difficult for me to talk to any customer. when any of my guys does something stupid and say,

Mason Brady (23:25)
My phone. Yep.

Nolan Gore (23:43)
This is ultimately a reflection on me and I get it. This is my fault. I'll figure it out. I'm going to fix it for you. Another tactical thing, a little bit lower down than that, a couple other tactical things. One thing I teach you is put yourself at the point of friction. So what's the highest chance of something bad happening in this scenario? Be there so you can react to it. So every time something bad happens, my instinct is go be at that place.

Now, sometimes it gets in the way because I ended up messing with like getting into the mess more than I need to. And my team should be able to handle it. And so I ended up making the problem worse. So I have to be careful there, but, that's not always a normal thought process. Another one is like a very, I was 22 years old and I was in charge of guys that had been in the Marine Corps for 18 years, like day two, right? That's weird and hard. And how do you show them respect while also being having authority that exact same thing happens in business?

Mason Brady (24:21)
Yep.

Nolan Gore (24:41)
I rolled in that guy's been doing this job for 10 years. He clearly knows how to do it better than me. How do I show him respect while I'm still showing him that I'm in charge and taking and showing using my skills in a way that benefits him? So. There's a bunch there. I don't think I think I take for granted the amount of operational experience that you got just like moving 100 trucks or 100 people with a, I don't know, 500 pieces of equipment that I'm responsible for, and I've signed my name to like that was normal.

So like a lot of those kinds of things I take for granted because I just kept trained on it because that's what you do. But I think from a leadership perspective, there's some really big takeaways.

Mason Brady (25:22)
I'd really love to understand more because I feel like I can really relate with you on, you know, just an essence of self sufficiency and work too. Right. And I say this because, yeah, I'd like to go a little bit more personal here. If you're good with it, that I, just, I, you know, the world tells us at least in today in America, right.

you know, hey, you you want to be able to build a business to be able to have work life balance and, know, and do this and this and that. And, you know, you hear a lot of the stories of people's regrets later in life. at the same time, I also see examples where even my own life, like, you know, Hey, my dad worked a lot, traveled a lot. My mom also worked a full time job.

And, yeah, I mean, my brothers and I, had to be self-sufficient that I remember, you know, at eight years old, third grade, I had to figure out how to make my own dinner. And, you know, that's just what life was. Cause my, you know, we, we lived, you know, 45 minutes outside of like a center town where my mom worked. And so when she was done at five, five 30, I was hungry. I got to eat, you know, and, you learn to be self-sufficient and. You know, the idea was to, as my dad, you know, he was busy traveling for his job. And, there was just an expectation that you had to go get straight A's in school. And if you didn't, yeah.

You were, there was going to be a serious sit down talk and you learned self-sufficiency. wasn't the essence of somebody sitting there and doing the homework with you. was, you're going to figure it out. you know, a little bit to this too, right. And, it sounds like, you know, there's some similarities there, in, know, in, in how you've, you know, grown up and, how you operate. And so it's tough cause I, I don't know what your opinion on this, Nolan, that I, know, yes, what I.

like.

I want to make sure that I'm giving appropriate time to my family, right? As a business owner. think many, you know, business owners want to make sure they're given appropriate time to their family at the same time. How do you balance that with, you know, making sure that you are, you're not babying your family. You're not babying your kids. There is a self-sufficiency that, you know, you're helping raise the next generation of adults that, you know, are these people that you, know, in the way that you're training and teaching them, are they going to be able to take over the business too? Right? Are they going to be able to accomplish some of the things that you're, you're accomplished?

and I don't know what's your viewpoint on that? Like how do you operate in that? It sounds like we have some similarities, but I'm interested to understand like how are you operating within that balance or how do you view those things?

Nolan Gore (27:51)
So I prefer the term integration over balance. that's not to correct you at all. It's just a different mindset. Like I spent a lot of my best memories with my dad are work related. and that's not like, like he took me, do I say this? There's a lot of what my dad did that I plan on replicating with my kids.

Mason Brady (28:00)
Yeah, totally.

Nolan Gore (28:20)
I spent hundreds of hours on phone calls with him, which sucked at the time, right? That sucks. But just driving around a world-class, like small business education in retrospect, hearing him, hold people accountable, sell things, yada yada. I remember getting my first button up shirt and going to a meeting in Dallas or Houston, hating it, playing snake on his phone. Cause that's what he did at that point in the corner. But I was like,

Way too young. Like I know these meetings, these people thought it was weird that he brought his son to be at these meetings. I went on the client hunting trips and carried stuff and all the things. Again, probably a little weird for the clients and whatnot, but like really great for my dad and I's relationship and really good for my training from like what am going to do later? like, not even if I was going to do business, but like he would be like, that guy over there, go ask him what he does. I don't want to do that.

go ask my dad, I'm like, what does that mean actually? I remember walking up to this guy on the golf course and being like, what do you do? him being like, I'm an accountant. he'd like, I don't know what that means. And like him explaining it to me. And so I spent a lot of time around the office because that's what we did. And that was his way of spending time and integrating our family into work perspective. My kids come to the office. We just did a camping for my son's birthday party at the office last weekend.

Mason Brady (29:25)
Yeah.

Nolan Gore (29:44)
We have some space in the back that works out great for that The kids like the business and they have like positive impressions about the business and they like seeing the guys in the yard and they do interact with the team And I do plan on putting them in a truck. I don't know how early Probably most appropriately like 13 or something but earlier than you would the nice thing about running something is you get to do those kinds of things and I try to do that with my employees kids too like I try to have a relationship with them

invite them into the office sometimes, let them make phone calls to clients, suck at it, teach them how to do it better, put it in a low risk scenario, like just call them and tell them we're coming. We'll be there in 30 minutes. Like my daughter left a voicemail when she was six, saying we're coming, like she was terrible, but it didn't matter. It was a voicemail, you know?

Mason Brady (30:29)
Yeah. Yup. Yup. But she's cute and nobody's gonna, you know, harp on you because of it, right? So.

Nolan Gore (30:39)
so I mean, that's the way I view it and plan on doing it. now will my perspective on how hard I work and how hard I should work and how important that is for my kids to see me work hard, gonna change by the time I'm old. I'm also self-aware enough to understand that probably I know my dad now thinks he probably worked too much and he should have probably been home. It wouldn't have mattered that much more. And I'm sure I think that, and so trying to

understand that and think through that now and days that I feel like I should be at work and I'm at home I'm trying to remember that and days that I'm at home I feel like I should be at work. You know, it's a constant wrestling match.

Mason Brady (31:22)
Yeah, I think, I went on a trip a couple of weeks ago. Yeah. And I appreciated, my, my personal faith is really important to me. And I, we talked about the concept of, anointing and the idea that you're living out your purpose. they, think whatever stage you're at in life, whether you're in the business and you're trying to prove yourself or you're later in life and potentially have regrets. Like sometimes those are, those are negative things that

They don't belong. know, that as long as you can wake up later in life and say that I did my best every day and I lived out what I felt God was calling me to do in that moment. That's the biggest thing, right? And as long as you're doing that well and living out that purpose each day, it's just, it's critical. And so, yeah, I really appreciate you kind of going a bit personal there with me because yeah, I think you hear a lot of like, you know,

not adult porn, but a lot of porn around the idea of like, yeah, like, you you want to be able to have this work life balance and achieve this and this and that. And to your point, it's, integration. You know, your kids are going to see the example of hard work. And so, yeah, I, cause I think a lot of people are being thrown out a lot of messages that they should have regrets as to, you know, the work that they're doing and you know, what's happening. And so I just appreciate that a whole lot. I would love to understand Nolan that I,

You know, like you said, I've talked with other landscaping companies myself and the biggest thing. we, know, within our CFO practice, we, we target agribusinesses, we target construction firms, we target logistics transportation, but especially in the agribusiness side and in relation to, you know, landscaping that a lot of seasonality, right? A ton of seasonality, how you manage those winter months when you don't have as much going on and, create sustainability through it is incredibly important.

How are you overcoming that? How are you battling that? What does that look like?

Nolan Gore (33:24)
I mean, it's difficult this year. It feels the most difficult we've experienced. frankly, we're slower right now than we should be, which is scary. mean, if I had a really good answer to this, I would tell you, I'll tell you what we have done and where we're going right now. fortunately, we have a relationship with a larger company that uses a lot of visas. When those visas go home, they still have a need for a workforce.

We end up leasing a certain percentage, probably 15 to 30 % of our team over to them during the winter months. That's not something most people can replicate. You have to have a lot of trust, understanding connections in those positions to work that out. So that has been successful for us. We are in the process of starting a visa program for next year. Hopefully that works out for us and helps give us another lever to pull during these things. But a lot of time, it's about understanding

Mason Brady (34:03)
Nope.

Nolan Gore (34:22)
where your work comes from, then how do you manage that? So there are peak times where we run a fair amount of overtime. So we are workforces smaller perhaps than we would like it to be. So that when we start to slow down, we have the optimal workforce. And then when we slow down more, we're overstaffed and we can push them off to another company. Or in some cases, it sucks, but like we let go some people this week even, that really stinks, but it's necessary for the...

health of the rest of the team. I say that it's still.

Sometimes that feels super emotional to me. Sometimes I understand practically what I have to do. I don't think that there's, I think as long as you are struggling with that, then you're probably living in the right zone there. but it's not, that is easier for me to say while being recorded here than two days ago when I was staring at the spreadsheet saying, okay, who are we going to let go? That guy? God, Lee, I like that guy. Like we don't have anyone worse than that guy.

Mason Brady (35:26)
Yep.

Nolan Gore (35:28)
Like, man, our team is strong right now, you know? and then taking that guy home after we let him go just sucks, you know? So, so we, we do gimmicks. We do holiday lights during the winter. we're like, okay, we know winter cutbacks are going to be like tactical things, right? We know winter cutbacks. We're going to try to push those out. We're going to try to stack this specific service during this time.

this specific service in this time and then what kind of marketing campaign can edge us out this time. We're going to accept a rate and the less efficiency during this time again to carry us through so that we are primed with excellent team members for when things pick up. If they don't pick up, it's going to really painful and you're going to look really stupid. So we're just trying to figure all that out one day at time.

Mason Brady (36:18)
Got a lot of labor management there, right? Like you said, it's a day by day aspect and a lot of labor management. I think it's great that you all are leasing the employees, obviously. Yeah, there's a lot of risk in there. So I'm originally from California, so whenever I hear of stuff like that, it's like, what's all the liability risk? Like doing this and, but yeah.

Nolan Gore (36:39)
Well, there is, there absolutely is, and we have to work that out and prepare for it, and then there's still got to be a level of trust.

Mason Brady (36:45)
Yep. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it does sound like, yeah, that you understand those labor cycles, right? And it's key that everything does come down to the people management that we actually, we were talking with somebody earlier today that a lot does have to do with people management that as much as you want to talk about these, you know, fancy sales and marketing tactics that a lot does come down to people management.

Nolan Gore (37:06)
yeah. Totally.

Mason Brady (37:10)
Yeah, I would love to understand. mean, yeah, you're talking about a little bit of where your business is at, you know, in this current season, but, know, from, from on a grander perspective, like where do you want top choice lawn care to go? Like, and what are you focused on to begin achieving that? Like what are some of the key things that you and your team are prepping for, over the next three to five years of where you want this business to grow?

Sorry, I think the internet just, yeah, the internet just went out on me bad. So let me, yeah.

Nolan Gore (37:50)
You did. Ask that question again, we'll just jump to it.

Mason Brady (37:54)
Yep. So yeah, I'd love to understand Nolan. Yeah. What's, what's your growth plan for top choice lawn care that you talked a little bit about where you're at, you know, currently and what you're experiencing in this little microcosm of the season. But, you know, over the next two to five years that, you know, I mean, that's the thing that I found is, is really the key of success is that like that 10 X versus two X vision, right? That you have to be focused on the bigger stuff, knowing that, yeah, you got to handle the day to day. But if you keep focusing on that stuff ahead that, you know,

a lot tends to work itself out that you got to keep going towards that vision. And, you know, what do you see over the next three to five years for top choice lawn care and what are you planning to do to get there?

Nolan Gore (38:32)
Totally. So I'll go farther than that. I'll say that we will, our plan, our vision is to become the largest residential landscaping business in Texas. How big does that need to be? It's kind of hard to define honestly, because a lot of company, landscaping companies, once they get bigger, they start to go into commercial. And so it's kind of hard. I don't even know where that number is right now, but that is the goal. And you ask anybody on the leadership team and that's what it'll be.

what that means is that by six or seven years from now, we need to be in at least another city, not two, which means that in about two or three years, we need to start finding the person to go to the next city and start figuring that out. I don't believe the next over in October of 24, I don't believe that the next six months is going to be rip roaring. I would love for it to be, but I think the next six months is a lot of shoring up things.

executing really well, preparing for opportunities. And so our goal, we did an acquisition almost a full year ago. This year has been about making that acquisition work. We're still digesting that there's opportunities, which another BS word for just bad stuff that we're still working through after, after those things happen, right? But we're almost done with that digestion, if you will. so.

Next year needs to be about making money and continuing to feel our way towards the ultimate business model and a marketing gas pedal. What I mean by that is when you're growing up to, so we're at about seven, seven and a half million this year, we're almost to the point that our like structure will is like, we get it. This is how you make money. We need for every thousand customers we need.

two of these people, one of these people, this many trucks, yada yada. Up until this point, it's always been like, you do two thirds of that job, 20 % of that job, and 10 % of that job, and then whatever else we need you to do. You do, so we're starting to get more and more into everyone's got a clearly defined role, it's one job, you're responsible for that thing, right? So we're almost there, but we're still, we need to fill our way that direction. Secondarily, it's hard.

to really figure out the customer acquisition play. And that's always shifting, especially in a seasonal market and in a economic shift. I don't think we've got that figured out. So I need to figure that out or at least get closer to it so that I know more closely how to replicate that both here in Austin and elsewhere. So, and then the last thing I'd say that I know we need to do is we're in the process of implementing a

like a pay for performance type thing. So it's like an incentive program for people that produce more like to the bottom, the very bottom guy. When they produce more and they're more efficient and they think smarter and work smarter and work harder, when they make more money for the business, they personally make more money. That is three problems in one. You have to find a system that works. You have to.

communicate and get by into that system and then you have to administrate that system. All of those are like interweave it open with each other and are really hard to do. And so we started this several months ago. We're getting closer and closer. We are nowhere near. I think we've got to give ourselves a year, maybe two years to really figure that thing out. But I think that's going to be a key part to a long term success is that people understand. That system is part of the culture.

Mason Brady (42:05)
Mm-hmm.

Nolan Gore (42:24)
And that drives increased profitability and increased retention and increased wages for our team. If we can do that and then begin to find the marketing gas pedal, then I think we have the opportunity to really grow over the next several years. I think we should be probably 20, 25 million in Austin. And then we should go do another in two other cities in Texas being San Antonio, Houston or Dallas.

Mason Brady (42:54)
Awesome. I love your really thoughtful approach to that, that, you know, you spoke about that you kind of in this method, or this moment where you're having to put these systems in place to then catapult, right? Like, I mean, you got to figure some of these elements out to then you can move to the next phase and it's gonna, you know, it's going to be rapid fire and you can catapult once you hit this, but you know, to your whole point that there's this leadership team where people have clearly defined roles and,

I love to say, I, you know, I, I always bring this up. Have you ever read the book, predictable success? Man, it is, it's a really good book. it talks about, I just say, cause so much of what you're talking about, what I love on the back of the book, gives a life cycle stage of a business concept. And what you're talking about sounds so much like the whitewater phase where you have all this different business complexity and you're having to put in.

Nolan Gore (43:29)
No. He's good.

Mason Brady (43:48)
Your leadership team would clearly define roles, systems and processes to reach the state of predictable success. Now you can overdo it with too many systems and processes that completely take out innovation altogether out of your company, which you don't want to do right. But sounds like you're kind of in that whitewater phase right now, but sounds like you understand that you're there and that you're leading through it well of, yeah, we've got to come up with a good comp plan. right. And I would even encourage, I, from our experience that

So NEMS, yeah, like you can think of a comp plan and that it will work well, but you also have to understand like your existing employees may not like it, right? And it may attract a...

Nolan Gore (44:25)
That's why I say it's going to take two years. I think it's going to wash through the group. We're have a lot of people that don't like it and ultimately phase out. And we're going to have some people that come in from a cultural perspective that do like it. I think that's going to happen.

Mason Brady (44:36)
Yup. Yeah. mean, I think of examples where, yeah, a lot of people think giving ownership stakes in their companies, it sounds like a very wonderful concept, but that may not motivate somebody appropriately for their stage of life that I know, like some people, they need more cash in their life at that moment in time. And they would appreciate a salary and a bonus structure versus, you know, a deferred type of equity type of program. so I,

It just sounds like you're being so thoughtful in regards to, I'm just encouraging you, so thoughtful in regards to, okay, we're in this process of, we're having to figure out these systems and, you know, this leadership team and what this looks like to then catapult to the next level. So I'm just, yeah, it's great to hear that plan. I love that, you know, like when you said you want to be the largest, you know, company of your kind within the state of Texas, like it just boom, like this is our vision. Like that was so cool to hear that.

That is the goal. Everybody can resonate with that and everybody knows that. But then you were able to quickly come back and say, okay, just like you're looking down a golf course that you know you gotta shoot the ball all the way down there, but what's the next couple hits you have to make in order to get there? And so what do you gotta do in the next two to three years? And then what happens after that? And then what's that long-term vision? so loved your approach. Sounds like you got a good plan going. So just really encourage you, brother. Yeah.

Nolan Gore (46:00)
It's easier to say than do. We'll see if we can do it.

Mason Brady (46:01)
Yeah, totally ideas are, ideas are a diamond dozen executions, everything. Right. well yeah, as we're kind of beginning to wrap up here, what I'm just gathering from you, Nolan, that I've just really enjoyed in this episode is your thoughtful approach. especially it sounds like you've been through many experiences too with ownership, but even how you approach, you know, what you're thinking about comp plans for your team.

And you know, what you mentioned that, you know, sometimes you do have to let good team members go. And that's never, that never gets easier for good people, right? Like that, that never feels good. unless you are, like you said, your heart positions in a totally wrong place as an employer, right? but I get the feeling like there's this team culture that's very important to top choice lawn care that you want to build something in regards to the people and how people interact with each other. That's incredibly important. And.

and good and yeah, what are some things that you feel like we should know in regards to just, yeah, kind of no brainers that you never thought would be a concern. What are some things you feel like we should know in regard that you've learned about building a great team culture and a people focus in an organization?

Nolan Gore (47:22)
I man, I don't know. think.

I don't think you need to over process this. think it's building trust takes time and consistent actions in the same direction for a long time. Now there are lots of little moments that build that. The cliche, to build trust takes a lifetime to lose it to the moment, right? And that's just true. I think it's really, really good.

Mason Brady (47:54)
Yeah. Yep.

Nolan Gore (48:00)
But like I've worked with a lot of these people for years and years now, and they've generally seen me be very consistently the same person making the same types of decisions for better or worse for the company for the longterm, hopefully with a high level of integrity and a high level of emotional intelligence. And even when I, I a lot of our teams speak Spanish and I speak pretty good Spanish, but not perfect Spanish. A lot of what they see is how do I respond when their paycheck's wrong?

Do I consider, like am I gonna blow a gasket or am I gonna chat like there's this very fine line between challenging someone to be their best selves and being an asshole. It's actually this much space between those two, very little space. Like I'm gonna be hard on you because I believe you can do it versus I wanna be hard on you because I'm pissed that you didn't quite do it right. And so, and then you have to hold your,

your leaders to do the same thing and make sure that the right kind of leaders are doing those things and I don't know. We try to be generous and we try to actually run a really good business and a lot of my job is just to continue to run a business really well because like you said, a lot of what my team wants, they don't really care about culture. They just care about working honorably, right? Like most people don't actually, they'll say they do. I actually just think they want a job that they

believe in, that they know will show up and they know that they can keep doing and that they know that someone's going to treat them with respect. And so I just try to rep that out for a long time and see what happens.

Mason Brady (49:41)
Yeah.

base complete sense that yeah, I, think some of greatest business principles are also some of the simplest, but as we both talked about that sometimes the most difficult to, to really be consistent and to put in place, we're all looking for these little tactics and we're all looking for like what's new. And yeah, there's not a whole lot new under the sun, right? That, yeah, there's not a whole lot of new business concepts out there that there may be different channels and mediums, how you do your marketing and all that. But at the end of day, you know, you just got to know who your ideal customer is.

understand what's important to them and hit that. And, but at the same time, that's harder said than done, generally treating people well, having good levels of customer service, caring for people. And, those things tend to win. Like those things tend to work, work out and how you value your relationships and how you communicate with people. Right. And so, yeah, I just, I've loved having you on, on the show today, knowing that, you've just imparted a lot of practical.

very heart oriented wisdom. and I just really appreciate your insights of, you know, you, you've, you've obviously been through some difficult business challenges and I just really appreciate your, your insight here. And so for our audience, would really love for you to tell us, yeah, where, for our audience, tell us where they can find out more information. you know, that especially those in Austin and then I'm in Houston here. So yeah, at some point when you finally make it over here, Hey, you guys got to be my, my new long care of choice that I'm not happy with my current.

on service. yeah, you guys will be my one of choice. So yeah, tell us where they can figure out more information about you.

Nolan Gore (51:15)
I spend the most of my online time on Twitter, so you can find me on there and just search my name. Although I don't think that's my handle. You find me. I think if you don't, then I don't deserve to be on there. Or you can go to like nolangor.com and then can send me a little message through that. Otherwise, if you're in Austin, top choice lawn care. Search us. We have a lot of good Google reviews. And even if you don't want to use this, you should write a good Google review because you heard me talk and.

Mason Brady (51:24)
Okay.

Hahaha

There we

Yes.

Nolan Gore (51:44)
Maybe there was something on there, you You should write a good Google review, Mason. I'm just thinking about it.

Mason Brady (51:47)
Absolutely.

I will be happy to do that. yeah. And to our audience, to celebrate today's episode, we're doing this new little fun thing, Nolan, where we're doing a giveaway. The first listener to comment top choice and in our YouTube comments will win a special Brady CFO coffee mug. So for all the other coffee heads out there, yeah. And Nolan, one of these is coming your way too. But if, if the first person that will comment top choice will win one of these mugs. So comment, comment below.

Nolan Gore (52:10)
OOOOH

us.

Mason Brady (52:21)
Thank you, Nolan, for joining us today. This was absolutely excellent. So really, really, yeah, it was a pleasure having you on.

Nolan Gore (52:25)
Super fun.

You know, thank you very much. Good to see you.

Mason Brady (52:29)
Awesome. Thanks. Well, till the next time everybody. Okay. So, that was it. that was great, man. That, yeah, I wasn't expecting it to go that direction, but I find that, yeah, do you have a lot of just personal wisdom, that I wanted to dive in a little bit deeper as I was exploring with you initially. And so, yeah, hopefully that was good for you that I just appreciated. Yeah. You, you kind of, yeah, I I could tell that there was a lot of personal wisdom in there beyond just.

We could talk about business strategies and tactics all day, but, yeah, this, I felt like this went a much better direction. and so that was great. Yeah.

Nolan Gore (53:06)
was fun. appreciate it very much, man. So how do I help you more?

Mason Brady (53:10)
the big thing, from here, yeah, I'm going to record the intro, then after this brother, yeah, we're going to send you a gift and I'd like to follow up that, yeah, I would like to stay in touch. so, let's, let's make a plan to do that. I, I got to run cause I, I do have to pick up my kids here from school pretty soon, but, and then, once the Mark, the episode assets are ready, that, we'll reach back out to you and your team and you're able to, yeah, put, you know,

market this, put this on Instagram, whatever social media you want to put this on. We do a little video short so people can see you. yeah, by all means, happy to do a Google review. But yeah, I would love to stay in touch. And so let's make a plan that we just check in. yeah, we just like, I mean, I love making business connections with other business owners like yourself, man, that are trying to do good things. Regardless, there's no sales pitch here. I just appreciate making these business connections. So it's great that, yeah, so awesome, man.

Nolan Gore (54:08)
Well, I hope you have a good weekend and I appreciate your time very much and let me know. to you soon.

Mason Brady (54:12)
Yeah. Are you a, so are you an A fan or a Longhorns fan? There we go. There we go. Yeah. A you're playing LSU this weekend, right? There we go. Yeah. Hopefully, hopefully you guys can pull it off that, yeah. I will say that.

Nolan Gore (54:24)
Right. Yeah, big game. It's at A so I think there's a chance. We'll see.

Mason Brady (54:31)
Yeah, yeah, we'll see. yeah, sounds good man. Yep, yeah, appreciate it thanks.

Nolan Gore (54:34)
We'll see. All right, man, I'm going to sign out. appreciate you very much and I'll talk to you later.

Mason Brady (54:49)
All right, Cindy, I'm gonna go ahead and do the hook. And I actually like this one by comparison to Perrin's a little bit better that, you rather than kind of going into welcome and brewing business with Brady that we actually do the little teaser hook a little bit more. So I'm gonna go ahead and record this, okay?

Hi everyone. So tell me, are you struggling to grow your business and trying to overcome challenges of seasonality, differentiation and employee engagement? You're not alone. Many business owners face these challenges, right? Many business owners face the exact same challenges, but here's the truth. There are strategies to help you thrive and overcome these issues. That's why we brought on Nolan Gore, General Manager at Top Choice Lawn Care based out of Austin, Texas.

to help us understand how he turned his passion for landscaping to a successful company. There's a lot of practical advice in this episode, y'all, that especially how to lead your people, how to lead through difficult issues, that this episode was amazing in regards to, you know, just how to overcome these challenges and balance and integrate life and making sure that you're taking care of your people and you're being very mindful about your growth and setting the right systems and team in place. And so...

We're so excited for Nolan and this episode and really just want to welcome our guests to another episode of Brewing Business with Brady. We focus here on tactical strategies to grow smaller mid-sized businesses. And I'm your host Mason Brady and so excited for Nolan Gore on this episode. So let's dive in. But first, before we do that, remember to listen all the way throughout the entire episode, because we're actually doing a giveaway where you will get one of these beautiful Brady CFO coffee mugs.

but you gotta do something to earn the giveaway. listen through the episode and you will be given the insight on how to earn one of these free coffee mugs. So appreciate you all and get ready to dive in.

All right, Sydney, there we go. catch you later.