Building Systems and Scaling Fast with Michelle Marshall at LLTC 2026 Ep. #531

Summary

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Profits with Pajak Ep. #531: Building Systems and Scaling Fast with Michelle Marshall at LLTC 2026

Release Date: August 3, 2026
Host: John Pajak
Guest: Michelle Marshall, Marshall Lawn Solutions

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Episode Overview

In this live episode from the Lawn and Landscape Technology Conference in Scottsdale, AZ, host John Pajak sits down with Michelle Marshall of Marshall Lawn Solutions (Texas) to explore how building effective business systems fuels rapid and sustainable growth in the green industry. They discuss the importance of leveraging technology, data, and operating systems while sharing firsthand lessons, coaching insights, and stories of overcoming challenges as a small business scales quickly. The episode is packed with actionable advice, real-world examples, and honest talk about what works (and what doesn’t) as you professionalize and expand your lawn and landscape operation.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Embracing Technology & Industry Shifts

• Michelle reflects on her first time at a technology-focused green industry conference, noting the prevalence of AI conversations and the need for tech adoption.

  "There's a lot of excellent information, a lot of really interesting perspectives and a lot of conversations around AI as well." (04:03 – Michelle)

• Both discuss how green industry businesses, often slow to adopt change, benefit immensely from modern CRMs and automation. Michelle describes the "time cost" of sticking with manual processes vs. investing in software early on (Yardbook, Spray, etc.).

  "The cost to you in the amount of time and the way you're presenting yourself to the customer, it's all going to make up for itself." (08:23 – Michelle)

• John and Michelle highlight the CRM evolution: Yardbook for versatility, Spray for chemical tracking, and the ongoing shift from paper and spreadsheets to specialized apps.

2. Data Stewardship & AI Risks

• They dig into the hidden risks of AI and cloud platforms, especially regarding data privacy, vendor relationships, and long-term access.

  “Be really sure that you know where your data is going... if someone starts hooking up and makes a beautiful dashboard for us... I might not own it.” (05:10 – Michelle)

• John underscores real-world data missteps—like losing access after a subscription lapses or a provider gets hacked.

3. Coaching, Mentorship, and Setting Big Goals

• The conversation becomes personal: Michelle recounts working with John as a coach and the visible results from goal-setting and guidance.

  "You gave me a list and you’re like, ‘How long do you think it’s going to take to get this done?’ Oh, three to five years... We knocked that out in nine months!” (15:28–16:03 – John & Michelle)

• They stress the value of an outside perspective. John as “Yoda” or “Sherpa” provides strategic advice and technical troubleshooting, helping the Marshalls “accelerate” growth.

4. Building Operational Systems & Documentation

• Michelle details her project of building a comprehensive digital operating system using SharePoint for workflows, policies, procedures, training logs, and field reference, aiming for both high-level playbooks and SOPs ("Playbook" vs. "just an SOP").

  "I'm moving more towards the playbook format... especially as we’re bringing on somebody new... to make sure our technician... delivers services in a way that's aligned with our company values." (24:21–24:52 – Michelle)

• Importance of readily accessible documentation for training, compliance, and rapid scaling.

  "If you wait till you have that perfect version, it's never going to happen. You have to go out with V1... and just add to it." (31:56 – Michelle)

5. Scaling, Staffing, and Training

• Michelle and John explore standardized truck outfitting, onboarding checklists, inventory control, and robust technician training (“four weeks, one-on-one with Eric”).
• They emphasize building systems BEFORE major scaling, not as an afterthought.

6. Resilience & Bouncing Back from Failure

• Frank talk about business failures, learning from mistakes, and the importance of “failing fast” and bouncing back—a valuable skillset for any entrepreneur.

  "If you're going to fail, fail fast... I've failed slow and it's so much worse. If I can help people avoid some of those big punches in the nose..." (40:35 – John)

  "In golf, I think they call it bounce back rate... your ability to bounce back from a terrible hole directly correlates to your actual performance." (41:41 – Michelle)

7. Marketing: Beyond Ads & Into Community

• They discuss unconventional, relationship-based, and community-engaged marketing:

  • Referral programs with tiered incentives for “superfans”
  • Sponsoring local events/murals
  • Personal touches (e.g., customized gifts to customers based on preference)

  "Marketing is everything. It's your uniforms, your signs, your trucks, the way you communicate—literally everything." (49:27 – Michelle)

• Emphasize that “time” is even more valuable than money in lean marketing, and investment should focus on trusted, high-return activities.

8. Building for the Future: Succession & Sellability

• Both stress documentation—not only helps continuity if something happens to an owner but enhances the business' eventual value for sale:

  “If you lay it out like that... if you decide you’re going to sell, you already have a roadmap.” (36:46 – John)

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Notable Quotes & Moments (with Timestamps)

• On Data Stewardship:

  "You better be really sure that you know where your data is going... or even if you’re going to be able to access it." (05:10 – Michelle)

• On CRM Adoption:

  "Yardbook gave me the structure. It helped me track chemicals, route efficiently, invoice faster, but most importantly, it helped me grow a profitable business." (11:44 – John)

• On Mentorship:

  "Connecting with you has been just tremendously helpful for us, and it certainly helped us get where we're going faster." (17:49 – Michelle)

• On Documentation:

  "The operating system... is where you get started talking about how do we operate our business? What are the things an employee does when they get to a property?" (33:22 – Michelle)

• On Scaling and Standardization:

  "If you're going to add more clientele, you need your technicians to be able to drive out and be like, okay, we're fully equipped." (29:06 – John)

• On Bouncing Back:

  "The metric to look for is how quickly you pick yourself up, dust yourself off and move on to the next thing." (40:32 – Michelle)

• On Marketing:

  "I'd rather give account credits for referrals, or sponsor the local rodeo... They're promoters, they have the microphone and they speak loud and clear when anyone asks for weed control." (51:04–51:52 – Michelle)

• On Goals & Progress:

  "I like to actually categorize my goals... software goals, hiring goals, supply-related goals... We’re always continuously iterating and improving." (59:21 – Michelle)

• On Community & Support:

  "When you find those people that are going to root for you, just stick close to them. You know, that's the type of people you need in your life." (66:44 – John)

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Important Segments (Timestamps)

• 01:04: Introductions, Conference setting
• 03:44: First impressions of the conference, AI, and tech trends
• 07:09 – 11:22: Tech adoption in the green industry, CRMs evolution and impact
• 15:07 – 16:48: Coaching relationship, accelerated goal achievement
• 23:54 – 25:00: Digital operating systems and documentation for growth
• 28:25 – 30:57: Scaling, technician training, and equipment standardization
• 40:14 – 41:44: Failing fast and business resilience
• 49:05 – 53:42: Marketing as a culture, not just ad spend; referral programs, community engagement
• 59:20 – 60:43: Granular goals and continuous process improvement
• 63:46 – end: The importance of mentorship, guardrails, and celebrating progress

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Tone & Takeaways

The tone is candid, supportive, and practical, grounded in real growth pains and triumphs. Both John and Michelle offer a blend of technical expertise, personal experience, and encouragement.

Takeaways for Listeners:

• Proactive documentation and systems thinking are non-negotiable for scaling.
• Mentorship and peer groups dramatically accelerate learning and prevent painful mistakes.
• Adapt technology early; don’t skimp on tools that buy back your time.
• Community-centric marketing beats aimless ad spend—know and reward your superfans.
• Progress comes from setting clear, categorized goals and reviewing them often.
• Fail fast, bounce back faster, and surround yourself with people who root for your success.

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For More

Check out Marshall Lawn Solutions’ website and follow Profits with Pajak for more actionable episodes.

Special Mention:
“Yardbook scales with you. I've grown my entire business using it and still haven't outgrown it.” (09:37 – John)

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End of Summary

Transcript

[Podcast Host]

Today's episode is brought to you by Yardbook, the All in one CRM for your lawn care business. And as an exclusive partner of this podcast, you can get started today and begin simplifying your business and maximizing your profits. Sign up [e-mail] the link is in. The show notes time now for profits with PayJack, an essential podcast for you in the green industry who are looking to unlock the full potential of your business. Hosted by John Pajak, your certified financial coach, the show features in depth discussions with successful entrepreneurs, thought leaders and industry experts, providing practical advice and proven strategies on financial planning, operations, marketing and sales. Profits with Paycheck has valuable insights and action steps that you can implement today for creating long term success. Now here's John Pajek.

[John Pajak]

Welcome to Profits with Paycheck, where we talk about business strategies and financial insights for the green industry. We're here at the Lawn and Landscape Technology Conference here in beautiful Scottsdale, Arizona, where you will probably melt if you stand outside for more than four minutes. This northwestern Indiana boy is definitely melting here. So thank God for air conditioning. And yeah, it's hot. But we're here at the show and I have Michelle Marshall with me. She's a wonderful person, wonderful human being. Unfortunately, her husband Eric isn't here with us today, but she has a lawn care company out in Texas, so she's not. So these temperatures aren't so bad for her per se. But I think, Michelle, you could probably

[Michelle Marshall]

sympathize for all the hype that everyone said, oh, it's gonna be really hot there. I'm like, I don't know, I'm used to Texas. It's okay.

[John Pajak]

Yeah. Today's 115, I think.

[Michelle Marshall]

Yeah. I don't know, but I think they have like swamp coolers or something. Something. It's not the same type of air conditioning.

[John Pajak]

It's different.

[Michelle Marshall]

You know, like, the air conditioning is not cold. It's just.

[John Pajak]

It's not cold here.

[Michelle Marshall]

Yeah. Yeah. You can be inside in the air conditioning and not freezing, which some of these types of events you could just. You need a sweatshirt.

[John Pajak]

Yeah. This is not cold to me. This is. I'm still. We're inside. We have barriers up against the windows here that we put our own extra, you know, drapery up against the window so that we could have an extra buffer and still.

[Michelle Marshall]

Yeah. But it's beautiful. I'll tell you. The landscape is definitely different than what we're used to. And it's gorgeous.

[John Pajak]

It absolutely is gorgeous. It's, you know, I brought my family up here. For the first part of the week. Before the whole conference, we went to the Grand Canyon and everything and it is absolutely beautiful and being 7,000, 7,000 square feet, 7,000ft above sea level, you know, we're about 20 degrees cooler easily. So it was only in the 80s when we were up there. Quite pleasant, beautiful. And there's no humidity, so it was absolutely beautiful.

[Michelle Marshall]

Yeah, we dream about a summer day like that in Texas.

[John Pajak]

Yeah, we do too. We, we still get. Now don't get me wrong, you know, I'm in, you know, between Chicago and Gary, up against the lake, but we get 88 humidity.

[Michelle Marshall]

Oh yeah.

[John Pajak]

So it might only be 92 degrees, but with 80% plus humidity, it's not fun at all.

[Michelle Marshall]

Yeah, it can make it unbearable.

[John Pajak]

100%. But I'm glad that you're acclimated to this and it's not too miserable. So while we're talking about this as an attendee here, like, how is this, how have you enjoyed this conference?

[Michelle Marshall]

Yeah, I think this is, it's been great so far. This is the first time I've been at this particular conference and especially the first time I've been at a technology oriented conference for the green industry. And I just, I'm having a really great time. I think there's a lot of excellent information, a lot of really interesting perspectives and a lot of conversations around AI as well.

[John Pajak]

Yeah, there's a lot of like every other dude is talking about AI here

[Michelle Marshall]

and it's so new. I think everyone's still trying to figure it out and there's still a lot of risks and there's some things people are doing that maybe they're not aware of how much they might be putting themselves at risk for data leaks and information that they don't want getting out. Getting out.

[John Pajak]

So yeah, you know, like, you know, with the numbers, with our data that we have for our businesses, you gotta be a steward of that. You have to make sure that when you're tracking all these things, you're tracking your KPIs, the key performance indicators, whatever that might be to you. How many estimates do we put out before we get a yes or a no? We document that. It's actually important for us to protect that information. And hopefully if you're utilizing AI to help you digest that, you know, hopefully it's done safely. But yeah. Have you, has there been like a lot of talk about that, about the privacy and all that stuff?

[Michelle Marshall]

Yeah, definitely. We had one presenter that came kind of from the perspective of, you know, you Just really don't know. And you better be really sure that you know where your data is going when you either give it to another company that's building a product for you or software or, or you're giving your data to someone to even analyze it. Yeah. Like know what they're doing with it or where they're using it or even if you're going to be able to access it. Which also is another angle I didn't really think about. So if someone starts hooking up and makes a beautiful dashboard for us with all of our data and I want to reach in and go grab it out and you know, do something else with it or take it with me, I might not own it. I mean there are those types of questions you really have to ask and wonder like what's going to happen with this data when we're done, our relationship sober. And you know, those, those are really important questions. Ask.

[John Pajak]

Absolutely. Again, there's even work that we've done together.

[Michelle Marshall]

Yeah.

[John Pajak]

Where I'm like, oh, I, I'm not going to develop this anymore. And it's, I don't want you to lose all your information. So I've got to make sure you download everything you can out of that before we close it out. Because that's important. You know, it's, there's other companies that aren't ethical.

[Michelle Marshall]

Right.

[John Pajak]

And they will, you know, dangle something shiny in front of you and then you go ahead and you head, you, you spend all this time and energy to upload your stuff and to, and then you start playing around with it and then you realize, oh, it's gone now because I didn't pay a subscription fee or you know, oh no, they weren't very conscientious and they got hacked and all of a sudden their secure server is now owned by some hacker now. You know, not because they sold it, but because it's just gone because they misused.

[Michelle Marshall]

These are genuine risks.

[John Pajak]

Yeah. But you know, I know that's not usually the bread and butter of our discussions that we have, but since we're here at the landscape tech show, I just figured why not ask?

[Michelle Marshall]

Yeah, no, it's been really interesting because in my, my other job, my full time job outside of the lawn care and green industry, I do application development, SharePoint. It's all basically low code, no code development, but still it's its development and, and so I already have a lot of a huge mental framework for data and how to handle data and how to structure things when you're building them and different Questions you want to ask about how you're going to use the data in the future, and that depends on what you know, what you're going to build. So it's just interesting to see the green industry in this light and hear more about it because. And kind of the nerd in me, like the, the geek, the technology geek and the engineer, architect type that I am it. I'm really enjoying it. Yeah.

[John Pajak]

And of course, you know, like, we're our industry. For the some reason, we're still like the Neanderthals of. We're knuckle dragons.

[Michelle Marshall]

Surprising. Yeah.

[John Pajak]

You know, most people have gone away from like the yellow pad of paper and this is how they schedule and do all the things. But I still have people that come to me and they are just basically using all Excel and it's very messy and it's very easy to miss things.

[Michelle Marshall]

The time, the amount of time that you're spending. I mean. Yeah, okay. When you're getting into CRM, it can be very expensive, especially when you're a new business and you're like, oh, how am I gonna, you know, pay the bills? I only have 12 customers so far, and a 500 CRM seems like a lot. Or maybe even 250 seems like a lot. I mean, but. But the cost to you in the amount of time and the. You're, the way you're presenting yourself to the customer, it's all going to make up for itself.

[John Pajak]

Oh, yeah.

[Michelle Marshall]

Yeah.

[John Pajak]

I mean, you know, again, big shout out to Yardbook for supporting us all these years. You know, they're an excellent CRM, especially for starting out. You can use it for free, but even when you. The, the model that we use, the subscription that we use is 34.99amonth.

[Michelle Marshall]

Yeah. It's nothing.

[John Pajak]

It's nothing. And I know I've, I've, I've had, you know, people in the Facebook group, the Yard Book user Facebook group, complain about spending $34.99 a month. And I'm like, are you serious? Like, this does. I would. I'll pay hundreds of dollars for this.

[Michelle Marshall]

Yeah. Just think about your, Your hourly rate, you know, like, how much as, as a contributor to your business, your value is. Even if it's only $20 an hour. How much are you spending doing all that manual stuff? Likely it's not $20 an hour. Your rate is probably a lot higher.

[Podcast Host]

Right.

[John Pajak]

And I mean, you know, with. Just to give Yardbook, it's roses in a sense. You know, I've been using it since 2015. So it's 11 years now and I've grown my entire business using it and I still haven't outgrown it.

[Michelle Marshall]

Yep.

[John Pajak]

We are servicing like close to a thousand clients, you know.

[Michelle Marshall]

Yeah. It scales with you.

[John Pajak]

It scales with us. And we have, we're fertilization, weed control, just like Marshall Lawn Solutions, you know, that's all we do. And it still has all the capabilities to, you know, schedule those jobs, invoice those jobs, plan them out for the season. It's a wonderful thing. I know you use a different CRM and I really like them too. Yeah, I really do. But as far as, like, they're very specialized in the spray company.

[Michelle Marshall]

Yes.

[John Pajak]

You know, I'm just going to give a little shout out to spray my good friends over there. I want to say hello. Hi.

[Michelle Marshall]

Yeah, we love spray. They're good, they're amazing. And, and they keep rolling out features that keep making us very happy.

[John Pajak]

Exactly. And again, if you're a spray company, you know, that's all. That's really what their strong point is. The reason why I like Yardbook still is because it's still versatile.

[Michelle Marshall]

Yeah.

[John Pajak]

To where if you're a mowing company and you do applications, or if you're landscaper or hardscaper, you could still manage your entire company through it.

[Michelle Marshall]

Yeah. And that's why we went with. Spray is just simply the chemical. The, you know, the chemical side, the tracking and how it automates all of that for us. So before we were using a pretty manual process where we'd have to go and recreate every application. It was, we didn't go too long with that before we were like, no, this needs to be automated. And again, the time savings, you know, it's incredible.

[John Pajak]

And again, that's exactly why, you know, with all the automations that I have in Yardbook, it's just, I, I'm. I'm out here in Arizona, you know.

[Michelle Marshall]

Yeah.

[John Pajak]

And the business is going, business is running everybody's. I could track everything.

[Michelle Marshall]

Would not be able to do this or, I mean, anyone. You wouldn't be able to do hardly any of the half the stuff you do.

[John Pajak]

Right.

[Michelle Marshall]

If you had to spend time doing those kind of stuff.

[John Pajak]

Oh, if I was still locked into Excel sheets and stuff, I forget about it.

[Michelle Marshall]

Yeah.

[John Pajak]

But you know, it's not, this isn't, you know, to try to sell anybody on CRMs or anything, but it's just, it's another one of those components that are part of business and you got to look at it. And, and Again, this even 10 years ago, it I couldn't imagine trying to run my my business without the technology that we have right now. Back when I was getting my lawn care business off the ground, I was juggling routes, invoices and customer notes with paper and prayers. It was chaos. Until I found Yardbook. Yardbook gave me the structure. It helped me track chemicals, route efficiently, invoice faster, and most importantly, it helped me grow a profitable business. If you're tired of duct taping your systems Together, go to yardbook.com and sign up for free. And if you're ready to go premium, Use Promo code Pajak to get your first 30 days on me hey guys, John Pajak here. If you're a lawn care operator, landscaper, hardscaper dealer, or anyone working in the green industry, I want to highly encourage you to take a serious look at Equip Expo this October in Louisville, Kentucky. Because Equip Expo is the largest trade show and educational event in our industry. For three days, you're going to have the opportunity to see the latest equipment, test drive machines, attend educational sessions taught by industry leaders, and network with thousands of contractors from across the country. I've been attending for years and every time I go, I come home with new ideas that make me money, save me time, or help me run a better business. So let's talk numbers. Registration is currently $30, but if you use promo code Paycheck, you're going to save 50% and get your ticket for just $15. And if you wait any longer, prices are going to keep going up. So the question isn't whether Equip Expo is worth the money. The question is whether you can afford to miss the opportunities waiting for you there. So head over to equip expo.com, use promo code PAYCHECK and I'll see you in Louisville this October. Link is in the show notes.

[Podcast Host]

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[Michelle Marshall]

Yeah, I couldn't either. And I knew we needed it from day one. That was something that I think set us a little bit apart. I was like, if we're going to do this, we need to have software. I'm not, I'm not going to know that. You know, Mrs. Smith is about to be 45 days past due on a service that we forgot about. I mean, there's just no way we'd be able to keep track of it.

[John Pajak]

Exactly.

[Michelle Marshall]

And I knew that from the on start.

[John Pajak]

And I'm glad because you guys, you know, you're smart about it and you, you know, identified because you've grown. I mean, you know, I'm not gonna divulge any personal information about your business or anything, but I've seen how much you've grown and I'm extremely proud of you and Eric for that.

[Michelle Marshall]

Thank you.

[John Pajak]

First place. You guys have done a lot of hard work. I've seen, you know, you're very focused, you're very goal oriented. And you know, like, I've said this before, you know, you, when you first started working with me. Yeah. You gave me a list and you're like, how long do you think it's going to take to get this done? Oh, three to five years. Oh, well, I think we could accelerate. I don't know. I didn't give you a date.

[Michelle Marshall]

Yeah, no, I thought it was going to take us five years. I think at that point. Yeah. Yeah. And I think we're, we're like two years from that conversation or something, right? Maybe.

[John Pajak]

But that was the first list. We knocked that out in nine months.

[Michelle Marshall]

Oh, yeah, yeah. It was like, it was crazy.

[John Pajak]

It was like April. And then by December, that's when Eric got his, his, his big goal of his truck and his, his new rig and everything. And then after that, we set your goals on. You set your goals on a shop.

[Michelle Marshall]

Yep.

[John Pajak]

And just what was it about two months ago, maybe in June? It was June.

[Michelle Marshall]

June, yeah. First week of June.

[John Pajak]

First week of June, I spent a lovely hot weather again out in Texas to watch your, your ribbon cutting ceremony. And you know.

[Michelle Marshall]

Yeah, that was great that you could come and join us for that. It really means a lot. Yeah, it was wild because we started that process right around the fourth of July. We found a property and got under contract and did our due diligence and we were breaking ground by equip in October.

[John Pajak]

In October.

[Michelle Marshall]

So, yeah, it went. It went really fast, but it was like a million decisions, of course. A million. A million questions, million decisions. I mean, everything. Like picking out doorknobs. I mean, there's all the details.

[John Pajak]

Who thinks that the doorknobs.

[Michelle Marshall]

Yeah, but there comes a point where you're going to have to figure out what doorknobs you want and, like, what esthetic you want and, you know, so, yeah, colors.

[John Pajak]

It's definitely a nice shop. It's very versatile. And you guys still have more land because you, you know, you're forward thinking.

[Michelle Marshall]

Yeah, we. We got a little over an acre and we decided it was actually split into two lots, so technically platted for two. And we really just intentionally decided to build on the first half first, you know, and kind of keep everything on. On one half the property. And so we have all this potential behind us. And I don't know what it's going to be, but we're excited about it. I don't know.

[John Pajak]

I mean, this is like another, you know, goal set that we could work on.

[Michelle Marshall]

Yeah, absolutely.

[John Pajak]

I think you could turn this into more passive income, too, but.

[Michelle Marshall]

No, I know.

[John Pajak]

Let's not jump the gun.

[Michelle Marshall]

I know. But honestly, though, I think connecting with you has been just tremendously helpful for us, and it certainly helped us get where we're going faster. Like, and I'm really a big proponent in having a coach or a guide or a shir. I like to use that, too. But somebody's walked in your footsteps and someone who's been where you've been and where you're trying to go. And honestly, like, it's. It's just been tremendously valuable to have you on our team, basically helping us and growing. Because growing, when you're growing fast and you have goals, it's. You need. You need somebody to talk to.

[John Pajak]

Yeah, I. Thank you. I'm blushing over here. It's been my pleasure to help you with this journey because you and Eric have. You've been very special to me. And I mean that in the. In the most sincere way, because I could feel like when we first met, we were at the Lawn Care Life in Alabama. Yeah, that conference. And you guys were kind of, you know, a little bit sheepish and you were asking the questions, and I could see it. It's like, yeah, yeah, I think you need help.

[Michelle Marshall]

I wanted to know at that point. I was like, are we doing okay? Is this number okay? Like, where are we supposed to be? You know? Right. Wanted to do the, you know, things the best way Possible from the beginning.

[John Pajak]

And again, you. You guys have done so much work, and, you know, it's. It's just. It's. I. I'm not going to do it for you. I want to do it for you, but at the same time, it's like, it's all you guys.

[Michelle Marshall]

Yeah.

[John Pajak]

You know, it's just I like the fact that I was, you know, you're. You're little Yoda, where I could kind of help you avoid some of the.

[Michelle Marshall]

Oh, yeah.

[John Pajak]

Pitfalls. And I know Eric loves the fact that he could give me a call and just be like, hey, I got this problem. What could I do? And I'm like, oh, yeah, here you go. It's like, I ran. Even though you're in warm season turf and I'm in cool season, I'm like, oh, yeah, we had this problem. You could do this.

[Michelle Marshall]

Yeah.

[John Pajak]

You know?

[Michelle Marshall]

Yeah. Oh, and you've helped us out tremendously, even on the technical side of things, too. You know, navigating a weed control and fertilization business isn't the same as mowing. And there's a lot more that can go wrong or that you need to get right. And so for that reason, you know, having your. Your answers to questions that we have at a lot of points was super helpful. We had a really big problem with water.

[John Pajak]

Yeah.

[Michelle Marshall]

When we first started, we were working out of the garage filling with our garden hose, and everybody knows that's really slow. And we went through so many iterations of different things, and finally we have a solution that's working great. You know, we've got a two inch pipe coming into the building, and we're filling in minutes now, and it's amazing, but you really helped us get through, you know, some of those technical challenges as well. Yeah.

[John Pajak]

Again, you know, not. Not on me, but just when you could find somebody that's been where you're at. And yeah, it's like I. As soon as you guys were talking about certain things when Eric came to me and, like, man, it's taking me like an hour to fill this tank, I'm like, you're gonna have to plan because you're growing and we're gonna have to figure out a solution. So, you know, whether it was a temporary band aid, like the reserve tanks and. And things like that, or, you know, getting a hydrant permit or something, you know, it's like, I've been through that and I know. So it's like, here's. Here's some solutions. We could figure this out. Of course, when you're designing your building.

[Michelle Marshall]

Yeah.

[John Pajak]

Get a two. Make sure you got at least two inch line.

[Michelle Marshall]

Like, oh, this is the first thing on the list.

[John Pajak]

Make sure you have at least a 2 inch line. What if you get bigger? That's great. But it's, it's, it's not gonna, it's not going to kill you. If you had a three inch line that you forget about it.

[Michelle Marshall]

Yeah, that'd be a little bit wild. Almost wild.

[John Pajak]

You'd be filling up like 30 seconds.

[Michelle Marshall]

Yeah, you'd be filling up the opposite problem.

[John Pajak]

Right. You'd be like they're gonna be charging you for more water usage, you know, as opposed to what you currently have. But no, that's. Again, thank you for the kind words.

[Michelle Marshall]

Yeah, absolutely.

[John Pajak]

It's. I'm just glad to see that you guys have, you know, both. Yeah, both of you have. I like treating it as a. You both as a couple because you have your inputs.

[Michelle Marshall]

Oh yeah.

[John Pajak]

His.

[Michelle Marshall]

So I know you probably see two totally different sides.

[Podcast Host]

100.

[John Pajak]

It's like, have you ever, you know those, those cameras that do like the 360 view?

[Michelle Marshall]

Yeah.

[John Pajak]

It's like when I talk to both of you, that's kind of like how I feel. I'm like I'm getting the whole picture because. Yeah, because Eric's on the technical side. He's out there actually doing it. And you also have a new, you know, your other techs. You're going to add a new one again. Another. Another achievement that you guys have hit.

[Michelle Marshall]

Yeah. Super excited about that.

[John Pajak]

Just recently got a new truck and another rig set up and a new employee. Coming on board in such a short amount of time is awesome actually.

[Michelle Marshall]

Yeah, you really do get. You get to see it in like 3D.

[John Pajak]

Yeah.

[Michelle Marshall]

Put it on the 3D glasses. You get to see Eric with the technical business operations side of things and, and me with the CEO role and leading the company and doing some other things to, to help, you know, push our goals forward. And yeah.

[John Pajak]

I'm just glad that I'm able to facilitate both sides to where it's not just like, oh, I just, I can only do the technical side or I can only do the office side. It's like I feel like I'm glad. I'm just glad that you find it beneficial for me to help you because both of you, like I said, I get the full.

[Michelle Marshall]

Yeah, no, I never even thought about it that way too. Like John knows us better than anyone.

[John Pajak]

I'm like, wow. I know the inside and out, you know. But the thing is, whatever we talk about. We vault it. You know, it's. It's locked in there. You're gonna. Oh, yeah, you can't pay me.

[Michelle Marshall]

You see that, like, the family perspective, like, our family sees that probably that angle a little bit, but yeah, it's.

[John Pajak]

But I tell you, you know, you have to make sure you take enough credit for all the work that you do too, because, like, you know, again, like, before we started going on recording, you're showing me your, you know, the app essentially for your operations, and I think that's genius.

[Michelle Marshall]

Yeah, I'm so excited about that. It's been my project that for this year, after we finished building the building, you know, moving on to the next thing immediately, was to really get our operating system in place. And we already have a ton of content, but we're missing a ton of content. Right. So there's a lot of policies and procedures and just documents that act as guides. And so I've been getting away from the concept of like an SOP because I feel like it's too in. In the weeds.

[John Pajak]

Yeah.

[Michelle Marshall]

Yeah. And sometimes we need to be in the weeds, but sometimes we really don't. And we need the high level. Like, what's the purpose? Like, why are we doing this? Like, spill response. It's a great example. So you gave us a great template to use for that. And it's like, what's the purpose? Like, why are we doing this? It's about risk. Risk, you know, risk management. It's about doing the right thing. And there's all a lot of things that go into it. And then it's like, okay, here's the action steps, like, what do we do if we have a spill? And then what do we do after? And so it's. It's. It's high level, but it walks you through everything we need. And then you also have space to say, like, oh, this is our company policy, or this is our intent with it. And so anyway, so I'm kind of moving more towards the. The playbook format. And especially as we're bringing on somebody new, I'm starting to see, like, where our. Our blind spots, what do we have already? And kind of inventorying it, and what do we need? Especially as I'm setting up, like, the next generation of the training log, which we're going to use as our guide to make sure that our technician, our new technician, has gone through everything he needs to go through to be successful and to deliver services in a way that's aligned with our company values, you know, and so that's pretty rigorous training. We're going to probably have him working, you know, one on one with Eric for probably close to four weeks. And, and there's a lot of gates, like there's, you know, standards he's going to have to make and, you know, abilities he's going to have to demonstrate to do that. But anyway, that kind of brings me back to the operating system, which is like, I want to have a place for this to live. I want to have a place that, you know, okay, great, it's in my OneDrive right now. But can my technician access it? Do they know what to do or how to reference some things? You know, you go through training, you learn something and then, and then what happens six months later or a year later? How do you review information or how do you have it as a reference in the field if you need it? And so the operating system right now, I'm starting to build it on SharePoint using a structure and kind of an architecture where we have those big top level functions. You've got your administration operation, customer service training, and then we have subcomponents of that. And then underneath that we have all of the content. So, and the content is varied, right? We've got videos, I'll record stuff on loom, you know, how to write estimates and things like that. Give people a virtual tour of our website. And so we've got videos, we've got playbooks, we've got resources that I've accumulated along the way. We also have some trackers and some Excel spreadsheets and things. So it's like this is going to help us keep everything in one place and have it be accessible. And with that, having an app, is that something I can give the technicians in the field? And it's all in the Microsoft environment. So it's, it's a closed environment. It's just for people that have our, you know, access information. And the technicians can then have that reference in the field. Like, oh, okay, what do I need to do with the spill response again? Or, you know, here's the incident report form that I fill out. And so instead of just waiting for somebody to fill out a piece of paper, it's like you click a button, you fill out the form, it automated, it automatically goes onto SharePoint because you have automation in the background that does that. And then it automatically notifies somebody and it sends an email or it makes a phone call. I mean, you know, we can set these things up so that way we have less gaps and we have faster, you know, response Times in our business.

[John Pajak]

And again, Michelle Marshall, you are not selling anything.

[Michelle Marshall]

No, not at all. This is my own personal pet project, if you will.

[John Pajak]

Exactly. So, you know, there's no. Again, guys, if you're listening to this and you're hearing this, you're like, what is she selling? She's not selling anything. She's telling you what she's doing in her business to help streamline things and make sure that we cover all the gaps. Because I'm telling you, there's so many. There's so many gaps in our businesses that if you don't know, you don't know.

[Michelle Marshall]

Yeah.

[John Pajak]

But just then something happens, you know,

[Michelle Marshall]

you're gonna find out.

[John Pajak]

You're gonna find out real quick.

[Michelle Marshall]

Yeah.

[John Pajak]

You know, like, again, you know, if it's a spill kit or a spill response, that. That if you don't know what you're doing, it's like, oh, we got a spill kit. Well, what's it for? Why. Why is it even there? How do we use it?

[Michelle Marshall]

And another really good example is just our truck inventory. So. And that's really relevant because we just bought a new truck, we got it outfitted with a new tank, and now we need to get all those other things that go in the truck. Right. There's like 50 of them, from a screwdriver to extra gloves to, you know, the PPE to the fire extinguisher. I mean, you name it, there's all these things. So now we're going through this process of like, oh, wait, what do we need for the truck? Well, why don't we just get a list? And we made a list, and now we have it printed out and stuck on the dashboard. And as we start making sure, you know, we've filled the truck up with everything, we have it. So it's like, next time we do it, it's even easier.

[John Pajak]

Exactly.

[Michelle Marshall]

This becomes not just like a whole thought process, it's just, oh, there's the list. Print it out, put it on the truck. Check it off as we go.

[John Pajak]

Again, like, if you're going to scale your business, if you're going to add more. More 1. If you're going to add more clientele that you're going to be able to service, you need your technicians to be able to drive out and be like, okay, we're fully equipped.

[Michelle Marshall]

Yep.

[John Pajak]

Yeah, you know, it's like our trucks, you know, a similar thing. Yeah, our trucks are very, very similar, where everything on them is pretty standardized. So we know it's like, hey, the spill kit is located here. We grab it out of this box.

[Michelle Marshall]

You know, I don't want to set our technicians up for the best chances of success. I don't want them left out in the field being like, oh, I ripped a pair of gloves and I don't have any more. More like, that's not cool. And then they got to come back to the shop and resupply something. You know, I just really, I want to set them up for success and give them all the tools, literally, that they need to be successful.

[John Pajak]

And as owners, that's our responsibility. That it's not we. You know, anytime I, I have experienced someone complaining about their, their employees. Now, granted, there are some times when it's really out of our control, but, you know, if we don't give them the tools, the resources that they need, we're. It's actually our fault if they fail.

[Michelle Marshall]

Yes. And, and I've actually had a similar conversation apologizing to an employee last week, just saying, like, look, I know, you know, this may seem really simple, but I, I wish that I had given you better guidance. Like, and so that's, that's on me, you know, and I want to be honest about that. And, you know, it's no harm, no foul. Like, it all worked out, but had I had clearer guidance and had, you know, an employee meeting where I was like, okay, just FYI, like, we've talked about this a lot before, but here is the written guidance, like, and this is everything we've already talked about, and now you just have it on paper. So if you ever need to look at it or we're going to retrain on it in next year, you know, we have it.

[John Pajak]

Yeah. And I mean, it's not that you always, this is always going to be the case, but it's not like a one and done thing. But it, if you're starting out with the documentation of your business, get something in place.

[Michelle Marshall]

Yes.

[John Pajak]

It doesn't have to be perfect.

[Michelle Marshall]

It doesn't have to be. Yeah. Massive imperfections.

[John Pajak]

Yeah.

[Michelle Marshall]

You want to just.

[John Pajak]

Exactly. You want just at least get something there and then you could always come back and tweak it.

[Michelle Marshall]

Yes.

[John Pajak]

Because, I mean, I've been doing this for a long time. I worked for other companies and I, you know, when I jumped into construction and everything, some of the more successful companies were the ones that would set you up for success.

[Michelle Marshall]

Yeah.

[John Pajak]

And it's, that's things that I would emulate. You know, I'm like, okay, I learned all this from this company. I'm gonna take that into my Business and repeat it. And the more that I do that, I find that it's success comes easier.

[Michelle Marshall]

Oh, yeah. You can't wait for perfection.

[John Pajak]

No.

[Michelle Marshall]

Like, if you wait till you have that perfect version of something, it's never going to happen. You have to go out with V1, you know, version one, the beta, whatever you want to call it, and then it's going to sit out there for a while and maybe you get to review it and maybe something just happens and you're like, ooh, maybe we need to do that. And then you go back and you just add it in. Like, it's an iterative process. But if you wait till things. You think things are going to be perfect, it's never going to happen.

[John Pajak]

Yeah, absolutely. I agree with you there. I just love the fact that you have, you know, just kind of. I wouldn't say go above and beyond. I think every business really should have this because the framework that you have.

[Michelle Marshall]

Yeah.

[John Pajak]

It's like you in some. In some places, like yours is better than my employee handbook. And you're going even deeper, making it easier to access. And it's like, yeah, well, I should do that myself, you know, so it's always a good thing. But again, making the, you know, the. Everybody talks about an employee handbook, but they don't. It's like, it's like they're not building the real.

[Michelle Marshall]

Well, it's two. I think it's two different things too, right? Like, the employee handbook addresses, like, conduct and mission, vision values and how to request leave and when you get leave and those, you know, policies and things and like the guardrails of, you know, the sort of the rules of engagement for being an employee.

[John Pajak]

I love that.

[Michelle Marshall]

If I call in late, how many times can I call in late before they fire me? No, no, but you know what I'm saying, It gives you those rules of engagement with the company. Do I get benefits? Those are all employee handbook things. An operating system is where you get started talking about how do we operate our business? What are the things that the employee does when they get to a property? What's the checklist look like? What's the incident reporting look like? How do we reorder supplies? All these types of things, like, employees are going to want to know and they're going to feel a lot better if they know the answers to it.

[John Pajak]

Again, you know, as I get a little older, I look at. I joke with my wife a little bit, but I say, it's like, here's my death note. And it's not that it's not. It's not like, oh, it's not a piece of paper. It's literally like a manual. So that's. I was like, even right now, if I were to just say, you know what? Forget it, guys. I'm going to live out here.

[Michelle Marshall]

Yeah. I'm going to live in the desert.

[John Pajak]

I'm going to live in the desert like a weirdo. I'll go live up. I'll go live up in Grand Canyon. That way it's cooler for me. But, you know, I'd be like, hey, Lynn, open up the book.

[Michelle Marshall]

Yeah, yeah. No, 100%. I mean, there's things in the company that, you know, I don't even think Eric would be able to find. Like, if you needed to really know, like, where all the banking information was or, I don't know, some other, like, kind of relatively obscure thing you don't touch very often or, like, who holds our workman's comp. Who holds this insurance. Like, there's just so much that goes into a business. And so part of what I'm doing, too, is like, documenting that so that if the worst case scenario happens, someone could kind of step in and be like, oh, okay, here's where I find banking. Here's where I find insurance. Here's where it says, contact John Pajak, who's this dude? You know?

[John Pajak]

Yeah.

[Michelle Marshall]

Like, basically, here's how to run the company. Or if you want to sell it, I'll let you know who you can contact.

[John Pajak]

Exactly. You know, it's kind of. And I agree. It's like, that's the type of thing that I'm putting in place now.

[Michelle Marshall]

Yeah.

[John Pajak]

To where it's like, if for some reason I. Yeah. Whether it's. Whether it's like, I just want to quit or, you know, something happens to me, it's not just all in my head. It's not. It's. It's actually documented. It's like, again, like, you know, there. There's a segment. It's like an annex, where it's not in the book itself, but it tells you where to get.

[Michelle Marshall]

Like, where to go. Yeah.

[John Pajak]

Where do you. Where do you find. Yeah, where do you. Where do you find the documentation to be able to log into all the banks and stuff? Exactly. You know, like, you don't want to put it all in one spot, but at the same time, it's like, no, you look here, and this is where you find all that login. So I'm essentially. My secret is I'm making this for my wife. Just in case something happens to me. It's like this is how they could still sustain. Sustain the business without me being there.

[Michelle Marshall]

Yeah, because, you know, if you're, if your wife, if that worst case scenario ever happened, I mean, for anyone, and having someone else be able to pick that up and carry it, like, that's amazing. What a gift, you know, and giving someone a better roadmap to actually do that. Even better.

[John Pajak]

Yeah. So again, it's kind of a morbid thing, but at the same time, I think if you almost think like that and I don't care how old you are, you could be listening to this and you're 21.

[Michelle Marshall]

Think about it for a couple minutes and move on. But do the thing.

[John Pajak]

But if you lay it out like that, not only is that peace of mind for me, knowing that, hey, this could survive without me, but again, if you decide that, hey, I'm going to get out of this and I'm going to sell, you already have a roadmap for the next. For the potential buyer of your business and get. I don't care how cool your truck is, I don't care how cool your equipment is when it comes to selling your business. They don't care about that.

[Michelle Marshall]

Yeah, it's the systems.

[John Pajak]

They look at those systems. Yeah, they want to have, you know, the Michelle Marshall way of, you know, filing her. You know, I don't know, it can

[Michelle Marshall]

be really interesting to see if anyone thinks what I'm doing is worthwhile.

[John Pajak]

But. But I'm just saying, like, I don't know if you saw my desktop, but it's. It's a total nightmare.

[Michelle Marshall]

Oh, no. Oh, you just have like a ton of icons on there.

[John Pajak]

Yeah, I actually cleaned it up and a lot of times a lot of these things just, you know, show up.

[Michelle Marshall]

I might have to share my architecture with you because it's the, it's the 30,000 foot view of like how to organize stuff. But yeah, you know, it's like, man, but it's taken a while. It doesn't come naturally to me, you know, to like, what do I call it? Do I call it, you know, fleet or vehicles? I don't know, like, I mean, you can get like really down and nuanced and, and kind of get stuck.

[John Pajak]

It's just like with budgets, break even the bottom lines. You remember that? I had you guys fill out stuff in some of the categories. You're just like, what the hell? I don't know this. It's like, well, you will. Yeah, eventually. It's future.

[Michelle Marshall]

Yeah. And now Eric is even able to pull numbers out and like, wow, okay, this is good. He's really on board with it now.

[John Pajak]

Yeah, but it's. Sometimes it surprises. People are like, I thought you were all squared away. I'm like, I kind of am, but sometimes, depending on what it is, like my desktop, forget about it.

[Michelle Marshall]

You know, everyone's got their strengths. You know, like, if you know your blind spots or your need improvement, you're. You're doing better. Better than most.

[John Pajak]

Oh, yes. It's like, I know. That's exactly why, you know, I know a lot of my, my strengths, but I definitely know my weaknesses too. And that's like, hey, you know what? I'm really good at getting this content done and everything, but I'm terrible at putting it out. That's why I have Mr. Producer.

[Michelle Marshall]

Oh, that's. Yeah, of course.

[John Pajak]

It's like.

[Michelle Marshall]

Yeah.

[John Pajak]

Hey, listen, I. I just, I don't want to put the commercials and the intro and all that stuff. Can you just take care of that for me and make sure it gets out? Oh, yeah, yeah, no problem. Perfect. Take my money.

[Michelle Marshall]

Yeah, that. That is. That is what he is excellent at.

[John Pajak]

Oh, he's.

[Michelle Marshall]

I mean that. He could probably do it in his sleep.

[John Pajak]

Yeah. And, you know, I thought I had a lot of. Of years in this industry and, you know, his expertise, you know, it goes even deeper and he's, you know, been in radio forever, so it's a good thing. So again, seeking out people that do the things that you are not so great at.

[Michelle Marshall]

Exactly.

[John Pajak]

You know, like, it could be employees for your actual service business, or it could just be, hey, I don't want to. I don't want to be a bookkeeper.

[Michelle Marshall]

Yeah, no, yeah, you want to, you want to figure out how you can buy back your time where, where it makes sense and where, where it, where the cost benefit of it's in the positive.

[John Pajak]

Exactly. I mean, there's. There's so many things that we could get wrapped up into. And I know you have experienced it. I've experienced it. Where we're trying to buy back our time.

[Michelle Marshall]

Yes. And it fails.

[John Pajak]

And it fails. And it doesn't matter how good of intentions we have, sometimes we just have to fail.

[Michelle Marshall]

Yeah. You know, I think it's a natural part of business. You know, if. I think if you're trying to grow and you're trying to do better and you're trying to constantly improve or do continuous improvement, you are going to fail, and that's okay. And it's, it's the, the thing that the metric to look for is how quickly you pick yourself up, dust yourself off and move on to the next thing.

[John Pajak]

Exactly.

[Michelle Marshall]

And however quickly you can do that, the better.

[John Pajak]

I'm telling you, if you're going to fail, fail fast.

[Michelle Marshall]

Yeah.

[John Pajak]

I have failed so slow in the past sometimes. This is exactly why, you know, I, I offer the services that I do because I've got, you know, the blood, sweat, tears and years that I've invested in things and I don't want to see people, it's like, if I could help them in any way, avoid some of those big punches in the nose.

[Michelle Marshall]

Yeah. Because there's a lot. And that was something really cautious about in the beginning too, is like, I just don't want to run into really huge problems that I didn't see because I didn't know they existed. Like, I would rather, given the option. Right. Avoid some of those problems and. But you know, at the same time, there are going to be things that you experience and I think in golf they call it bounce back rate. Yeah. And it's like when a, when a golfer has like a really big hole or you know, like a really, like just totally. Yeah. Terrible hole. Just like totally messed everything up. And their ability to bounce back from that, like directly correlates to their actual performance for the rest, you know, their, their capability, like, they're just, they are more capable and can accomplish a lot more. So. Yeah. How quickly we can bounce back.

[John Pajak]

Yeah, exactly. You'd be, you know, hitting birdies and, you know, but then you hit like a triple bogey and then it's like, okay, well, are you going to hit a triple bogey on this one? Are you going to birdie again? You know, it's like, that's, yeah, that's definitely a really. That's, that's an excellent analogy there.

[Michelle Marshall]

Yeah. My husband's probably going to. Analogy. Yeah.

[John Pajak]

It's not the wrong thing.

[Podcast Host]

I know.

[John Pajak]

I didn't correct you because he doesn't care.

[Michelle Marshall]

I'm just, I don't know enough about golf.

[John Pajak]

Me neither.

[Michelle Marshall]

But I do know that quote.

[John Pajak]

I. I just know. Yeah, exactly. You know, I, I don't know. I know that birdie's good. An eagle's even better.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah.

[Michelle Marshall]

Right.

[John Pajak]

Whole one is the best.

[Michelle Marshall]

That's the best. Yeah, but only if other people are there to see it.

[John Pajak]

Right. You can't just say hi, gotta, you

[Michelle Marshall]

know, one out there. Yeah.

[John Pajak]

I still, I was a full 18 and I got 18. That was my score on a par four. Yeah. Mulligan's. I Forgot. It's just lying at that point. But yeah, again with. With business, too. It's. I can't tell you how many. Tell you how many times I've been punched in the face or knocked out in business. And then again, like you said, it's about how fast you get back up.

[Michelle Marshall]

Yeah.

[John Pajak]

Or if you even get back up. You know, my first business, you know, Paul Jameson, my. Since we're talking about golf and everything. Paul's really great at golf. Doesn't have anything to do with it, but the reason I bring it up is because he always laughs at Johnny Boy Lawn Care, which is my first lawn care company that was a failure. And luckily I thought it was the worst thing in the world when it happened.

[Michelle Marshall]

Yeah.

[John Pajak]

But I failed and I failed fast.

[Michelle Marshall]

Yes.

[John Pajak]

Okay. And at the time, I was. I thought that was the worst thing in the world for me, but the fact that I failed so fast, it was a blessing because instead of taking years of my life and years of losing money constantly, it. It was my litter. My literacy at the time was so bad that it just. I just failed, like, within the first year.

[Michelle Marshall]

Oh, wow.

[John Pajak]

And I just had so many other problems. It was like, oh, forget it. I'm just gonna quit this. And.

[Michelle Marshall]

Yeah.

[John Pajak]

You know, move on. And then.

[Michelle Marshall]

Yeah. And sometimes, too, it's like, it doesn't always happen that you get, like a failure, you know, but, like, you may just get a prompt for a redirection. You know, you may, you may go down one path with one particular, you know, software or one employee or whatever it is. And. And it's just. It's not the right path. It's not working for you. It's not making you money. And you have to be able to identify those as well and just course correct as soon as possible.

[John Pajak]

And again, that's what I. I hope for for most people is that instead of a fall on your face, bankruptcy failure is more of a course correction. You know, it's like, hey, listen, I know you're. You think it's the worst thing in the world right now, but it's really not that bad. All we gotta do is change a couple things.

[Michelle Marshall]

Yeah.

[John Pajak]

Because I know at some point, you know, not saying that you guys were in terrible trouble or anything, you were in good shape, but, you know, there was a point where you were like, a little uncertain. And I'm like, oh, yeah, no, it's okay. We're gonna do. Yeah, let's just change a couple things.

[Michelle Marshall]

Oh, yeah. The fear is real. In the early, early days, there oh, yeah. A lot of fear and uncertainty.

[John Pajak]

And the funny thing. Now look back at that. It's.

[Michelle Marshall]

Oh, gosh.

[John Pajak]

Was it now that you know.

[Michelle Marshall]

Yeah.

[John Pajak]

You could look back at it and go, really? It wasn't that scary.

[Michelle Marshall]

No.

[John Pajak]

You know, at the time it was because you didn't have the. The guidance in a sense, you know?

[Michelle Marshall]

Yeah. The perspective.

[John Pajak]

I like the. I know you've heard me say this before, but I always feel like I'll hold your hand and walk you, you know, like, oh, it's this really dark, scary room and there's a monster in there. I don't know what it looks like. I hear him scratching around and he's really evil sounding. I'm like, hey, I got a flashlight and a baseball bat.

[Michelle Marshall]

Yeah. Oh, yeah, let me, Let me.

[John Pajak]

Come here.

[Michelle Marshall]

Yeah. Like, let's take a look at that monster together. Let's open the door together.

[John Pajak]

You know, since I've been there before, it's like I got this super awesome flashlight that's like megawatts, you know, And I turn it on and it's like, oh, yeah, that thing is kind of creepy looking, but it's not as bad as I thought it was, you know?

[Michelle Marshall]

Yeah.

[John Pajak]

Jaws in the water, like, when you don't see them, when you don't see the. When you don't see Jaws, it's actually scarier than when you actually see them out of the water. You're like, oh, it's a robot. Or it's a rubber. It's a rubber shark. Okay.

[Michelle Marshall]

But the movie terrified me.

[John Pajak]

Yeah, but the movie terrifies you. It's like, no. Oh. Oh, look, that thing's terr.

[Michelle Marshall]

Oh, it's so janky.

[John Pajak]

It's like, that thing's not so bad. I'm like, yeah, I got a baseball bat. Let's go beat the. Out of the thing real quick. Gotta edit that out, but, you know, let's go fix that monster real quick. Quick. We're gonna. We're gonna knock them out and everything's gonna be good. And I. I feel like, you know, that's what I hope for people, like, especially when they work for me. I put their. I put their needs.

[Michelle Marshall]

Yeah.

[John Pajak]

Way ahead of every anything I got because I wanted to make sure. It's like, look, I have been here before. Let's. Let's go. Let's get it. Let's tackle it. It's. I guarantee I know this. I know it's a scary path, but I know where I've been here before. I could walk you through it and I guarantee you, when you get on the other side of this, you're going to be happier. It's going to be a lot less stress.

[Michelle Marshall]

Plus, the community is great, too. You know, like, just having our other group members on calls and having them as a resource. Like, I'll reach out to Mike once in a while with a question or send him something that I think you'll enjoy. Like, it's just nice to extend our community.

[John Pajak]

Yeah. Michelle's talking about. It's a private community that we have, and it's small, but it's. It's by design.

[Michelle Marshall]

Yes.

[John Pajak]

But we. We call that the Genesis group. So it's like, you know, first we're creating something wonderful, and it's definitely worth.

[Michelle Marshall]

Chapter.

[John Pajak]

Yeah, exactly. First chapter. You know, any chapter coming after is not going to be Genesis anymore, but we will. We'll just continue to grow and keep things wonderful. You know, I really. I think I. I don't know. I think I should probably expand that a bit, you know, not. Not your. Our group.

[Michelle Marshall]

Yeah.

[John Pajak]

You know, but, like, have another opportunity for others to.

[Michelle Marshall]

I just think there's a lot of opportunity with marketing, you know, and there's a lot of angles. Like, I think when I first got in the business and even before that, I just thought marketing was paying somebody to run ads for you. I mean, that. That could be part of it, I suppose, but, I mean, there's just a ton to marketing. And so I think as business owners, you know, we don't often know where to go or. Or, you know, we hear about other people, people's experiences where they've hired some marketing company and it doesn't work out great for them. But I think learning about marketing and also sharing your skill in marketing is something a lot of people can benefit from.

[John Pajak]

Yeah. It's actually kind of fun now. Like, it used to be daunting to me.

[Michelle Marshall]

Yeah. No, I love. I love marketing. It's great. It's like I actually get to exercise a creative side that I didn't really think I had. I didn't know I had that part.

[John Pajak]

Yeah. And again, like, once you, like, you know, the. The generic. Know your numbers, you know.

[Michelle Marshall]

Yeah.

[John Pajak]

Once we go through all that and get you in a place to where you know your business inside out, you know, where you should be, not only where you should be spending money, where you shouldn't be spending your money, but you know, how much it costs you to run every single day, that's when. When you get all that out of the way.

[Michelle Marshall]

Yep.

[John Pajak]

That's when the marketing becomes fun because you're like, I can actually spend some money and. And have fun doing it. Because, I mean, it's funny, I've overheard you and Eric talk about, like, oh, yeah, we really didn't do too much marketing or advertising. And I'm like, yeah, you did.

[Michelle Marshall]

We did a lot. You did a lot in, like, not what you would consider. You know, we did a lot of kind of unconventional things.

[Podcast Host]

Right.

[John Pajak]

And look how much paid off.

[Michelle Marshall]

Yeah, but it's. It's so many things. Marketing is not just like. Yeah, it's not just one thing. I mean, it is. It's more things than I think people even realize. You know Joshua Latimer. Right? Everything is marketing. Marketing is everything. Like, honestly, it literally is everything. It's. It's your uniforms, it's your signs, it's the way your trucks look. It's the way you communicate it. I mean, it's your Facebook. It's everything.

[John Pajak]

Everything.

[Michelle Marshall]

And it's all those. I mean, your Google, for gosh. Yeah. The Google business profile. I mean, there's so many things that go into the equation.

[John Pajak]

Yeah. Again, you know, some people are like, oh, I've tried postcards, or I tried my Google, my business. Or it's like, no, no, no, you didn't.

[Michelle Marshall]

Yeah, you.

[John Pajak]

You really didn't because you tried something and did it poorly one time. It didn't work out for you, so you just gave up.

[Michelle Marshall]

Yeah.

[John Pajak]

You know, again, like, you know how it's. It's not even like an onion with multiple layers. It's like sediment in the Grand Canyon of, like, how many layers of. Of what true marketing is, you know?

[Michelle Marshall]

Oh, yeah, yeah. It's deep.

[John Pajak]

It goes deep. It goes really deep. And I. And you guys, again, you've said, like, oh, you didn't do too much. I'm like, yeah, you did. He just did in different ways.

[Michelle Marshall]

We just didn't do conventional paid advertising.

[John Pajak]

He didn't do paid ads. You know, that was one thing that I like. Right now I'm. People are asking me, like, how much should I have in Facebook spend? And I'm like, well, depending on what you're doing, like, maybe nothing.

[Michelle Marshall]

Yeah.

[John Pajak]

Because how do you know?

[Michelle Marshall]

Yeah, well, and part of it, too, is like, our strategy is we want to reinvest in the community or invest in the community. So I'd rather pay our customers or give them account credits for referrals or, you know, sponsor the local rodeo. The Fourth of July, we had a mural painted downtown. We actually did a little bit of extra contribution to our chamber of commerce to contribute towards getting that mural done for the, you know, for our town. So it's like there's a lot of things that you can do and it just filters money back into, into your community. Another thing we were thinking about pretty recently because we have quite a few customers who are actually kind of like they're promoters at this point. Like they, they, they, they have the microphone and they speak loud and clear when anyone asks for weed control and fertilization. So we're looking at doing a program where we kind of, we've already captured the data. Like we have our referral track her and our information. We're going to start gathering like, and looking at where's the line? Like, where's the line of these sort of like super user people who are advocating for us and really promoting us and bump them to a different level. Like they're going to get like gold card status of referrals. And so maybe now instead of being 25, maybe they get $75 per referral, I don't know. Or maybe they can add it up and save it till the end of the year and we'll give them an Amazon gift card or a Visa, I don't know. But we're working on other ideas because again, I'm investing in people who are in the community. They know us, they know our services and, and, and I can reward them for it instead of paying a much larger corporation to take our money.

[John Pajak]

See, the way that you just explained that, that is a much better way of saying, well, we just do word of mouth because it is, it is, it is word of mouth. But you know the way that, because you explained it more in depth. Yes, you're using word of mouth, but there's a whole plan behind it.

[Michelle Marshall]

Yes.

[John Pajak]

You know, there, you're still encouraging people. There's so many guys that are in this industry right now that they're all word of mouth. Well, what does that entail? Like, do you incentivize your clients? Do you tell them, you know, are you gonna, are they gonna become a super fan? Because it's like, hey, you know, we have, we give out 50 referral fees if they become a client, you know, that we get them gift cards or whatever they want, you know. Yeah, we have a. I, I just literally sweet lady. Love her. She likes Albanese candy. Ah. So, yeah, and that's, that's local to us. It's, you know, northwest Indiana, the Albanese

[Michelle Marshall]

candy factory in your community. I mean, the money's going, you know, right back.

[John Pajak]

So she has, she has, has a list of like her favorite things. So she's not interested in the gift cards. She says she loses gift cards all the time. So instead what I do is I go get her a huge Albanese candy factory basket with her favorite stuff. And she loves the, she loves the chocolate covered raisins. She loves the chocolate covered pecans, the gummy bears. And then there's this certain sour one that she likes. And then she likes having they have like these misfit ones where it's like you get a giant bag of for like five bucks. Oh, and I just dump that in the basket too.

[Michelle Marshall]

She's just like, I love you, John.

[John Pajak]

You're the best. Like that. You're the best.

[Michelle Marshall]

Who doesn't love that? Like, you know, to have that reaction with somebody.

[John Pajak]

Exactly. And you know, again, this is when you know your clients.

[Michelle Marshall]

Yeah.

[John Pajak]

You know, again you're building in the community and yes, you are doing word of mouth, but at the same time.

[Michelle Marshall]

But yeah, but like we gave our rodeo tickets, you know, last year and this year we got like an entire family got to go to the rodeo that's never been to the rodeo before. Like their kids got to go to the rodeo and experience that. And how amazing is that? Like they're going to remember that. That's so cool. And I help that happen like, you know, of course, all day long.

[John Pajak]

Right. I mean, you guys have done a lot of stuff with your community to be, you know, essentially, you know, I say you don't use it enough. But the Martial lawn solutions mascot that you have that looks like Eric. I think we need to get some more poses. I think we're gonna do, you know, I think there's a few more things we should do with that to really take advantage of it. Because it's such a cool logo and it's, it's a cool.

[Michelle Marshall]

Yeah. You know, I love it. It's unbelievable.

[John Pajak]

Fantastic. You know, I made cards for you guys to like, you know, to use as template. You know, it's like, try this. You know, I think I wanna, I'm excited about it. I love this marketing and let's try it. You know, it's, it's fun and creative. But yeah, again, there's so many different ways to market and I think a lot of people underutilize it and they just think like, oh, I gotta pay somebody to do this or sometimes.

[Michelle Marshall]

Yeah.

[John Pajak]

We do spend a considerable amount of money. Like my company, we spend a considerable amount of money to convert people. But it's Sometimes it's not necessary. You know, it's like, sometimes you have time, sometimes you have money, sometimes you have a little bit of both. And depending on where you're at, you can find ways to market using one of those currencies. It's either time or money. Like you said, sometimes it's a little both. And.

[Michelle Marshall]

And time is infinitely more valuable than money.

[John Pajak]

Yeah. When people say time is money, I'm like, you're so wrong. You're, like, on crack.

[Michelle Marshall]

I can't.

[John Pajak]

Hey, can I give you five minutes? Can I give you five more minutes of your life? Sure.

[Michelle Marshall]

Yeah.

[John Pajak]

I would love to, but I can't. I. I don't know how to absorb it from the.

[Michelle Marshall]

Yeah, it's like when you see those emails that come through, like, oh, you know, respond to this survey. We'll give you five dollars. I'm like, that's not even meeting the threshold for my time.

[John Pajak]

Like, I. I can't. I. I'm not even gonna open. I don't. I don't care if they're giving me money. I'm like, I just don't want to open this one. I have, you know, an abundance of unopened emails and certain accounts, and I'm like, I. I just want to kill it. I don't even want to waste my time going back to try to sift through it, you know, but, you know, ultimately, we talked about a lot of stuff today.

[Michelle Marshall]

Yeah.

[John Pajak]

You know, but again, it's. It's almost just like the tip of the iceberg of your journey so far. And I'm so glad that, you know, with Marshall on Solutions, you and Eric have, you know, come so far so quick, and, you know, super proud of you guys.

[Michelle Marshall]

Oh, thank you. We just. We absolutely love what we do. Like, it literally brings us joy. And if you've ever seen. If you could ever see Eric driving through a neighborhood that we service, he's, like, rubbernecking all the lawns. Like, just like, oh, have you seen. Did you see that lawn right there? Like, oh, check it out. And he's, like, looking. I'm like, pay attention to the root. Like, I mean, but he. You know, like, we love it.

[John Pajak]

Yeah.

[Michelle Marshall]

Like, this is. This is our passion. And, you know, like, they say, like, when you find something you love, you'll never work a day again in your life. I mean, we do. We work a lot, but. But we just absolutely love it. We love being able to. To serve our. Our community and our customers and see people so happy, like, when they pull in that driveway and they're like, wow, look at my lawn. Or when they get the custom. The comment from a neighbor or somebody walking by, like, like, is that real grass? Like, yeah, it's real grass. And Marshall Lawn Solutions help me, you know, but we, we just, we love everything that we do.

[John Pajak]

Yeah. And again, you know, when we first started working together, that's what some of the goals that I needed to know about. Like, hey, Eric, do you want to get a new technician? He's like, no, I want to be in the field. I don't care what I'm doing. I need to be in the the field all the time. So it's like, it's when you identify that when you. Again, I think goals are one of the most important things. If you guys didn't have such clear defined goals.

[Michelle Marshall]

Yeah.

[John Pajak]

I don't think you would have gotten to where you're at right now.

[Michelle Marshall]

Oh, yeah. And there's. I agree. And, and there's actually a couple presenters this week that have talked about that very same thing. But you really have to have your goals and you have to have a vision and yeah, you got to break it down just to get where you're going. But it's really, really important. And I like to actually categorize my goals. And some people would probably really disagree with this when they say you maybe only need a couple of goals, but I tend to categorize them.

[John Pajak]

I know.

[Michelle Marshall]

So, yeah, I know. I've seen your goal list. It's like a million pages. But it does get really specific. So I'll have like software goals, I'll have hiring or people goals and, and, you know, supply related goals. And each of them maybe only has two or three, but they're all things that we've identified in the business that we want to make more efficient. We're always continuously iterating and improving. We're huge on process improvement. So those goals are helping us track. And honestly, at the end of the year or whenever you decide to do it, it's great to look back and be like, oh, my goodness, I set this goal and we passed it.

[John Pajak]

Dang.

[Michelle Marshall]

Like, that feels really good. You know, it feels good to kind of go and like, check the boxes. And then when you set up your next year's goal, you have that to reflect back on and you can be like, okay, all right. We made a really big move in this one area this year. Maybe we're not going to do anything big in that area.

[John Pajak]

Right.

[Michelle Marshall]

Or maybe we're pushing through to the next step. So I really like Categorizing those goals, because you can have maybe three or five goals, but kind of getting a little bit more granularity where you get really specific about those different categories for your business, I think really helps give you more direction.

[John Pajak]

Oh, yeah, absolutely. And, you know, it made. It made our journey together.

[Michelle Marshall]

Yeah.

[John Pajak]

A joy, because it's like some people don't even know what they want.

[Michelle Marshall]

Yeah.

[John Pajak]

And when you do know, again, I don't think you could have too many goals. Maybe you can't. You can't focus on all of them at one time. But when you do, when you do break them down, then it's like, okay, we got this, this, and this done. Now we could look and get this one over here done. You know, so there's. There are levels to it and there's steps, but, yeah, I'm glad that you had enough foresight to look into the future.

[Michelle Marshall]

And they don't have to be complicated. No. Like, you could just say, like, we want to get a phone system this year.

[John Pajak]

Right.

[Michelle Marshall]

Like, that's not. I mean, yeah, it's going to take you time, it's going to take you energy. You have to implement it. Like, there's things with it, but it's a simple goal. Like, okay, this is the year we need a phone system. Yeah.

[John Pajak]

I mean, and the thing is, really, it could take a lot of time and energy on your part if you're trying to do it from scratch. There's stuff out there where it's like, we do that, you know, like. But I'm just saying, this is where

[Michelle Marshall]

you find a service or you find.

[John Pajak]

Yeah, it's like, oh, that's so easy. We can get you set up in 25 minutes.

[Michelle Marshall]

Yep.

[John Pajak]

Okay, great.

[Michelle Marshall]

And look, they already have the reporting and the data and all the fun stuff that goes with it.

[John Pajak]

You know, you insert the blank on whatever it might be. It's like, again, finding people that can. That have either be. That have either been there, or it's like, hey, you know what? This is actually worth a little bit of that money that we make to just make life easier for us and streamline things, you know, So I. I'm glad we had to start again. Absolutely.

[Michelle Marshall]

This is great. We got to catch up.

[John Pajak]

Yeah, we get to catch up. We get to talk about, you know, the conference. We get to talk about, you know, what's going on in your world. And again, Marshall Lawn Solutions is really, really picking up the.

[Michelle Marshall]

Yeah. You guys are so excited. We. We love it.

[John Pajak]

The future's so bright for you, too. I'M not kidding you. It's. I, I see where you're going. I'm, you know, I, I told you I love that.

[Michelle Marshall]

I love when you're like, I can see into your future.

[John Pajak]

And of course I, you know, I've told you this a hundred percent. I said I also have ulterior motives for you. I know where you're going. And I'm like, I am secretly sliding the sauce into you right now. Like you're, it's like the marinade, you know, like the meat's gonna be, it takes a long time, but we're not gonna just like, oh, we're gonna put in the, in the marinade for five minutes and whatever. It's like I'm secretly putting that in there. So like when you realize what's gonna happen, it's like it's already there. You're already, you're already on the path.

[Michelle Marshall]

Yeah, I love that. I love that. Because I think, you know, you do get caught up in the day to day, right? Like when, when you're doing the thing, it's, it's hard to sometimes see the big picture and you have to be intentional about it. Like you have to really take time and sit, stand back and be like, wow, okay, we've done a lot. Like, we've accomplished a lot or we've come a long way or we've made a lot of improvements or you know, just to be able to reflect on like, like, you know, dang. We have a really good program. Like, I'm really happy with it but, but it's nice when, when other people can see it too. And it kind of gives you like a little glimpse of the future. Yeah. So that, that's a really nice reflection. I love when you say that.

[John Pajak]

I'm like, oh, yeah, yeah, it's, it's gonna happen.

[Michelle Marshall]

Yeah, it's gonna happen. But you do, you get, you get a little bit lost in the day to day and it's hard to see that, you know, it's gonna be the sum of all the parts.

[John Pajak]

Right. And that's why like, you don't, you may not see it right now, but I' I've been putting like not what's. The guard rails in place as you're going. And I'm like, let's just stay here.

[Michelle Marshall]

Let's just stay here.

[John Pajak]

Stay here.

[Michelle Marshall]

Let's stay here.

[John Pajak]

Okay, you spent a bajillion dollars right now.

[Michelle Marshall]

Let's, let's call back, let's call, let's call this down real quick.

[John Pajak]

And we're gonna. I'm gonna. You know, it's. I'm kind of guiding you in a way, and I. I want to make sure that it's for your.

[Michelle Marshall]

Yeah. No, and.

[John Pajak]

And the best for you.

[Michelle Marshall]

You know, it's good to know when you need to, like, throttle a little bit and when you need to be like, okay, we just, like, let's calm down. Like, I. I like your analogy of literally, like we were saying Sherpa, right. Like, you're climbing Mount Everest. You don't just go straight from, you know, the airport to the top. Like, there's the, the, you know, getting into town, there's the base camp. There's all these different camps along the way. And each opportunity or each place you stop is like an opportunity to resupply. You know, kind of like get your bearings, get your altitude adjusted, get your supplies, whatever. And so, like, we were kind of doing something similar in the business where we've, like, we clearly have just made a very big leap. We, you know, with the building, with a new truck and. And now we're gonna kind of like, you know, chill out for a little bit. I hope at least get, Get. Get some time to get comfortable where we are and strengthen where we are too. Yeah.

[John Pajak]

It's like you gotta. You get it to the top of Mount Everest, you gotta come back down a little bit. You know, you can't stay there forever.

[Michelle Marshall]

Yeah.

[John Pajak]

But, yeah, we're not. We're. We're just pretend you can stay at that level and you're still gonna be okay. We're. We're at like, the next base camp. We're. Yeah, that's. That's where you're at. You know, you're just getting resupplied, refueled, re. Energized, reinvigorated. You know, a lot of re's.

[Michelle Marshall]

It's. I'll take them all.

[John Pajak]

Take them all. But yeah, I, I really, truly for you and Eric, I. I see where you're going and I. It's. It's awesome.

[Michelle Marshall]

Yeah. And I. I like that. You're like a proud parent with that. I am.

[Podcast Host]

I am.

[John Pajak]

You know, again, you guys did all the work.

[Michelle Marshall]

Yeah.

[John Pajak]

You know, but it's just makes me so. It's just very thrilling. I. I talk about you guys quite a bit, you know, with my family, you know, because I'm sitting there, I'm like, you know, here's. They did this. They.

[Michelle Marshall]

They just did this.

[John Pajak]

And I'm so happy for them. And, you know, it's. It's small things you know it. And my wife's like, that's great, John.

[Michelle Marshall]

You know, it's. Yeah, it's good. It's good to have people to reflect on that stuff with. And if you don't have it, I think in your family or something, I mean, I know you do. I do. We really do. But, you know, find it out in, in the community or find it in. In the green industry with like one of your buddies down the road or something. But, like, it is. It's really nice to have that.

[John Pajak]

Absolutely. I mean, you know, we could. Some guys don't have the ability or, you know, they don't have the, the blessing of having someone else rooting for them, you know, and when you find those people that are going to root for you, just stick close to them. You know, that's the type of people you need in your life. You know, even if sometimes they have like that, you know, they. They might not be the yes man all the time. And they're like, I don't know, man, that's kind of. That might not be the best idea. It's like, well, take it with a grain of salt. But maybe they're speaking from experience and they're like, maybe you should avoid that one. I don't know.

[Michelle Marshall]

Yeah.

[John Pajak]

Not trying to tell you how to do your Life, but like, 40 people tried doing it and all 40 of them didn't. Yeah.

[Michelle Marshall]

It's like, okay, thanks for telling me, like, noted.

[John Pajak]

It's like, this is a brand new idea. No, it's not.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah.

[John Pajak]

Better ways.

[Michelle Marshall]

Gotta have good friends.

[John Pajak]

Exactly. You're, you know, again, like somebody that's been there before and. Yeah, it's like, yeah, go for it. Okay. I, I'm telling you, go for it. But it's really risky, you know, Just have those expectations. But it's. It's again, I don't think I've ever told you or anyone else that I've worked with that they shouldn't pursue something unless it's been something absolutely ridiculous. You know, like, we're going to start a llama farm on the moon.

[Michelle Marshall]

It's like, well, unless you're good friends with Elon, how do you get the

[John Pajak]

llama to get in the spacesuit? That's my first question, you know, but anyway. But again, thank you for spending so much time with me. It's again, great to catch up, but it's also awesome that you made the trip all the way out here.

[Michelle Marshall]

I'll definitely do this again.

[John Pajak]

Yeah, this is, you know.

[Michelle Marshall]

Yeah.

[John Pajak]

When we were. We did the first one in Vegas or the.

[Michelle Marshall]

Well, actually, the one you went to first.

[John Pajak]

The one that I went to first. This was a pretty good experience for us, so.

[Michelle Marshall]

Yeah, we're actually already signed up for Lawn and Landscape in Orlando in February. Yeah, we like. I like this event so much. I've signed us up. And Art, you know, Eric's not going to argue because he's gonna play golf. Yeah.

[John Pajak]

Because it's in Florida.

[Michelle Marshall]

Yeah.

[John Pajak]

You know, that's. And it's probably a better time of the year for him as well, so. But yeah, if you guys kind of, you know, if you ever want to keep an eye on the show notes. And I always mention, like, upcoming events if you ever want to, you know, partake in these things. Just like a quip expo. Hey, Shameless Plug. If you want to save big money on them right now, you get half off your tickets.

[Michelle Marshall]

Oh, yeah, we always do the. We always use your code.

[John Pajak]

The promo code. Paycheck. Yeah, yeah, you get it like, right now. If you get them before September 10th, I think it is. It will. You'll get them for 15.

[Michelle Marshall]

Yeah, that's.

[John Pajak]

Yes. So you can't even buy lunch for 15 bucks. So. Anyway, Michelle, it was great having you on the show.

[Michelle Marshall]

Yep. Thank you.

[John Pajak]

And for all those of you that are listening, hey, you know what? Go ahead and check out Marshall Lawn Solutions. They got a. A pretty cool website. And then you'll see the logo that I love. It's. It's based off of. It's a caricature based off of Eric, and it really does match him. Yeah, you know, it's. It looks just like them, so. And also, your employees are lawn deputy or lawyer?

[Michelle Marshall]

Lawn marshals. Yeah, We've got our automated text that says, like, your lawn marshal is on the way. Yeah, yeah. And one of our employees loves wearing the cowboy hat. Like, that is his go to now. And so half the time, people will say, hey, Marshall, you know, not knowing that that's our last name and not a first name, but also they'll. They call our employees Marshall sometimes, too, I think, just because they're not sure which ones.

[John Pajak]

Yeah.

[Michelle Marshall]

If it's Eric or not.

[John Pajak]

But hey, you know what? It works. You know, they're all lawn Marshalls, so.

[Michelle Marshall]

But I'm. It works. Yeah, yeah.

[John Pajak]

But anyway, just for some creative influence and just to support my people here, you know, check out Marshallawnsolutions.com and that's with three L's, right?

[Michelle Marshall]

Oh, yeah. Right in the middle there.

[John Pajak]

Right in the middle is three L's, words. Yeah, so it's a lot I want to what I'm emailing you is if it doesn't start auto populating, I'm like 1, 2, 3. Okay,

[Michelle Marshall]

probably just google us and find us too because yeah, we rank pretty good.

[John Pajak]

Yeah, they rank very well. So we've done some good work. But as far as today goes, thank you for listening today. As always, God bless. Keep pushing through and we'll catch you on the next one. Thank you once again for listening. If you've enjoyed the show, please leave a review and share it with fellow business owners. Your support means the world to me and helps keep the show going strong. I want to give a special shout out to our friends at Yardbook. Their continued support has been instrumental in bringing this podcast to you week after week. If you haven't checked them out yet, visit yardbook.com and see how they can give you the tools to streamline and manage your lawn care business. Also, don't forget to explore the resources and other upcoming events that I've collected just for you in the show Notes. These are curated to help you stay ahead in your business with the latest tips, tools and networking opportunities. Whether it's a new tool, an insightful article, or an event you don't want to miss, I've got you covered. Until next time, keep pushing through and God bless.