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Golden Age of the Green Industry?

March 4, 2021

In this episode of the Green Industry Perspectives Podcast, Ty Deemer welcomes Seth Jones to the show. Seth is the Editor in Chief at Landscape Management Magazine. Seth shares how he ended up reporting on the Green Industry, what he sees as common practices among successful landscape management companies, and what he’s seen happen through the COVID-19 pandemic in the Green Industry.

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IN THIS EPISODE, YOU’LL LEARN:

How passion drives growth.
Why there is widespread optimism in the industry since the COVID-19 shutdowns.
What the industry trends are from 2020.
Highlights from the most recent LM 150 industry survey.

LINKS TO LOVE:

FULL TRANSCRIPT:

Ty Deemer:

You are listening to The Green Industry Perspectives podcast, presented by SingleOps, a podcast created for green industry professionals looking for best practices, tactics, and tips on running their tree care or landscape business.

All right, everyone. Welcome back to Green Industry Perspectives. My name is Ty Deemer. I’m the host of the show and the marketing manager at SingleOps. And today we get the great opportunity to welcome Seth Jones to the show. Seth is the editor-in-chief at Landscape Management Magazine and we’re really excited to have him on. Seth, welcome.

Seth Jones:

Hey, Ty. Thanks for having me. It’s my pleasure to be here.

Ty Deemer:

Absolutely. So Seth, we always like to start off every episode with the same question to provide immediate value for our audience. And it’s pretty simple. As your experience as the editor of Landscape Management over the years, what have been the top three common themes or threads that you have seen in successful landscape businesses?

Seth Jones:

Ty, that’s a great question. For me, I have a smaller window into this industry. I’ve been the editor-in-chief of Landscape Management for a little over two years. But the things that I’ve seen traveling around the industry is just I’d say one is just obviously the folks who are successful are passionate about it. They definitely, we do a section in the magazine every issue called Five Questions where I just ask random questions to a reader. Then I condense it and put it in the magazine. I was talking to Jennifer Chaplin. She’s out in Yuba City, California which is near Sacramento. She’s a CEO of Botanica Landscapes. And she was telling me that she actually came from the restaurant industry and was talking to me about how she kind of got pulled into this industry. And she was a restaurant manager and then she got pulled into her company and worked her way up to CEO. And she kind of laughed and said, I didn’t know anything about this industry. But I do know it’s great to be in this industry because how are you going to argue with beautifying the earth? And not to throw shade on the restaurant industry. Shoot, I spent time working in the restaurant industry myself and I know how tough that row is to hoe. But the folks who find this industry are very, if they’re born into it, they appreciate it and if they’re brought into it, they realize that it’s a noble cause and it’s something that when done right, it really makes a lot of people happy and it brings a lot of joy. So I’d say that’s a commonality I see.

Something that I see is I’ll also say culture is such a big deal I feel like from company to company. You can see in the folks who we’re interacting with, they have like a winning culture. They have down to the reading the self-help books and looking at what Tony Dungy said to his team in the locker room, how do you relate that to a crew? I think that’s really interesting that there’s owners out there, there’s managers out there who are willing to look at this in the same light as trying to win like the Super Bowl. And so they create this winning culture and they realize that there’s times you get involved with someone that might not be a winner. They call them a locker room cancer if you’re playing pro sports. And they make that adjustment because they want to make sure that the folks that they have is the right team. If it’s not the right team, if you have a losing season in this industry, you’re not going to make it very far.

The third thing which I believe and I hope that your listeners believe, I think it’s a willingness to adapt. There’s the old saying that darn it, Dad did it this way. And I laugh because I think that that was the way a lot of folks, there was a generation there that probably really abided by that. And now so much has changed. There’s so much technology like what you guys are doing at SingleOps. I think that the folks who are stubborn and want to still do it the way dad did it, they might be getting by but pretty soon someone’s going to come nipping at their heels. And for me, that’s good because that allows me to have an interesting magazine in the sense that I’m happy to go out there and look for the next, if it’s the next big thing or if it falls flat on its face, I still think it’s something, all things are worthy of consideration at this point. So I think companies that are interested in finding how to build a better mousetrap and how to get from job site to job site and are constantly looking at ways that they didn’t know that they were messing up and now here they’ve found a new way. And that that could mean so much in a calendar year to someone in their bottom line. And I think that’s fun for me to kind of hear those stories and to listen to those stories. Because it can be life-changing for folks when they don’t, they might not know it. It might be something on the news. It might be something on the on a website. It might be a podcast they listen to. But at any moment, there could be that lightning strike moment. And I’ve had a few of those in my business, in just what I’ve done over the years. And I like looking back at those and thinking about the moment that we met this person, the moment that we heard about this technology and how it changed us. And you hope that you have some positive moments like that every year just to keep moving forward and striving and building a better company.

Ty Deemer:

Yeah, I love how those three points too, they all actually really intertwine well. Because the people that are passionate about their business are going to want to create a culture that drives growth. And they’re looking into ways and resources to find out how to improve their business. And then once they find those reasons, they’re willing to adapt. They really all do flow well together. And that’s been my favorite part about hosting this show today is that that’s like a very common theme with the leaders that we’ve been asking on the show. It’s constant adaptation to a process to really create a better experience, not only for the owners of a business to improve productivity and revenue but also to create that culture where employees really enjoy working there. So I kind of look forward to diving into those topics with you later. Seth, we always like to have the guests just provide their background and experience in the industry. Now we have to acknowledge that yours will be a little bit different. You haven’t been with a landscape company for 20, 30 plus years. But you do have a very interesting background in journalism and you are the one or someone who gets the opportunity to talk to a lot of landscape professionals pretty much every day. So I’d love for you to just share your background and even though it’s been a shorter time period, what your experience with the green industry so far has been like?

Seth Jones:

Yeah. Absolutely, Ty. And it’s fun to be on the other side of the microphone and you’ll have to tell me how I do because it’s funny. When I do an interview, I can listen to the person talk and I’m always rooting for them. But there’s sometimes people are nervous and they don’t give me a great answer and I’m like, I’ll listen for that sound bite. I might have to ask. And some people just get nervous in interviews. But it’ll be, yeah, you can tell me how horribly I do here to tell you.

Ty Deemer:

You’re doing great so far.

Seth Jones:

And honestly, I love to talk and I enjoy reflecting and talking with folks and that’s part of the reason why I enjoy my job. And hopefully, I’m not too bad at it. I have a long background in journalism now. I started off, went to the University of Kansas, majored in magazine journalism, got a BS in that with maybe the goal of say a Sports Illustrated or a Rolling Stone or something like that. And I’ll tell you this story because it really came true. We had a professional come to our classroom one day and talked about the classroom was dominated by people who want to go into fashion, to the fashion magazine like Vogue or whatever. And here I am, I’m the guy who wants to be the sports writer. And so he came into the classroom and said, hey, everybody in here wants to go right for Vogue, raise your hand. And he just says, well, listen, you have a better likelihood of writing for a magazine that covers maintaining cemeteries than you do have a job going to write for Vogue. And then years later, I kind of thought to myself, I was like, we can maintain some cemeteries in this industry. That’s okay. So that led me to the path of just taking any type of job I could in the magazine business. I wanted to just have that vehicle to tell stories and to dive into an industry.

I actually got my start off in the in the golf side, the golf maintenance side of the business. There’s an association in Lawrence, Kansas called The Golf Course Superintendents Association of America. And I had a professor tell me, hey, Seth, I’ve got a golf magazine I want you to go take an internship for. Sharon Bass. So hooked me up with that. And I said, that’s great. Where is it? Am I going to Florida? And she said no, it’s here in Lawrence, Kansas. And I said, you got to be kidding me. So I went and took the internship and that magazine was about, it was an association publication dedicated to their members but it was about maintaining golf courses at the highest standard. So I started to learn a lot about turf grass and what goes into to that and enjoyed it because in my book, there was a sports connection there. There was an outdoorsy connection there.

So I ended up working for those guys for, the internship turned into a full-time job. Worked for those guys for 12 years. Really enjoyed it. A great group of people. So 10 years ago, one of their competitors called me, a magazine by the name of Golfdom and they served that same market, the golf maintenance. And they hired me to be editor-in-chief of Golfdom 10 years ago. And so I’ve worn that hat and I continue to wear that hat today. That magazine has been, it’s a real pleasure to drive that ship for the last decade. And then a little over two years ago, opportunity opened up with Landscape Management which is our sister publication to Golfdom that’s owned by the same company, North Coast Media which owns six business-to-business magazines. We managed to take a look at it and there was enough symmetry involved that they thought it’d be a good idea to let me dip my toes into this market. I had already been studying the market. I’d already attended several GIE Expos and had some involvement with Landscape Management over the years. But then I dove in head first and became editor-in-chief of that. So now I’ve been just trying to learn this industry. I’ll readily admit that especially with the interruption in my travel schedule last year starting in March with the pandemic, that my education usually comes from hands-on learning, going and visiting folks in person. And so I’ve been on the phone. I’ve been doing a lot of Zooms. And I’m looking forward to going out there and seeing some folks again and seeing some operations and learning more.

But in the meantime, it’s been a plenty busy time to have my job and everything that’s going on in the world. And we’re trying to serve our market and report on what’s going on. And our readers have been very responsive and they’re helping us out. They’re taking our phone calls. They’re telling us what’s going on with them even though we’re not able to get out in front of them in person. So that’s the story of how I got to where I’m at. Last year, and I should also mention we have a website called Athletic Turf. It’s not a magazine but it’s dedicated to the sports turf market. So I wear that hat as well. I like to tell my team, in the last two years between the two brands, we’ve printed a million magazines each year. And so it’s a good audience, a strong audience, hungry for information and cooperative and friendly. So I’m not on the road reporting on how the Cubs are doing. I’m not doing rock journalism. I’m not trying to get an exclusive with Axel Rose or anything. But there’s definitely some rock stars in our business and even some of the stories that we’ve managed to hear about it. It’s definitely not exactly what I knew what I was going to, I didn’t know what I was going to do back then. But what I ended up doing now, I couldn’t be any happier with that it turned out to be a real fun career.

Ty Deemer:

Yeah. That’s great. And what an interesting time to come into the industry where you get your feet wet for about a year and then global pandemic hits. And it’s about the most bizarre year in the world, let alone the green industry. But I’d be interested to hear what that transition was like for you as you were talking to people with 2020 being such a bizarre year in so many obvious ways. What is kind of the pulse of the industry right now for you? Has there been—we’ve heard some shifts of optimism. Like people are really gearing up for 2021 and are really excited. As you’re talking to these people every day and hopping on Zoom calls and phone calls, I know you and your team produce a pulse of the industry report. But what are you hearing from people that you talk to regularly about kind of the state of the industry and what’s people’s viewpoint moving forward after the pandemic?

Seth Jones:

Well, in my new column, and I always enjoy writing my column and I try to, sometimes the column comes to me real quickly, sometimes I’m writing it five minutes before we go to press. And it’s always also hard for me to remember because the way we work and the amount of writing we do, sometimes I got to remember what issue is about to come out. And so I think in this last issue, I was writing about how we’re a year, we’re coming up on the year anniversary of being able to say, hey, do you remember last year this time, we went to the X? And it was like when the world was still normal. And now we’re getting to the point where it’s going to be like the one year anniversary of when things shut down. It’s right around the corner. And I think especially compared to March/April where we’re at now, it’s just such a different perspective in the industry. And the short answer is I think the industry is overwhelmingly positive and excited for what the potential of 2021 holds and what has already transpired in 2020. There was a moment there where we thought, are things just going to get shut down? Is it going to be hard to get food? Is it going to be, when are we going to come out from our rabbit holes? Right at the beginning, there was that fear. And then as we started to learn more about it and then companies were able to get back to work and then companies got really busy because the shutdown was actually something that affected our industry in the sense that people got more interested in making sure their outdoor spaces were beautiful. Less money for Disneyland, more money for the backyard and more money for the city park.

When I first got the job and I was at a GIE Expo and I hadn’t had my name on the magazine yet. And I went to the GIE Expo wearing the head of editor-in-chief and then introducing me to folks and looking around that show. That’s a crazy show. I mean there’s a lot of very big companies there. There’s a lot of big spenders there who want to do business. And I looked at that and it was exciting. I said, man, this is a good industry for me to, this was a good move for me to make because I can foresee our magazine being very vibrant based on the way this market’s looking right now. And that’s just, I got a family. I want to have a job security. I don’t want to be a starving artist. And so I think even before the pandemic, I felt really good about this market. And then the pandemic comes and it just skyrockets. And I think we’re going to see, I’m very bullish on what we’re going to see. I was talking to Larry Ryan of Ryan’s up here in the Kansas City area. Very big company. He’s owned that company for 30 years now. And he said something to me about how he thinks that we’re in like basically like a golden age for the industry, like that he hasn’t seen ever. He’s seen it in other markets. But based on the way people are behaving and the opportunities for companies that are good, that have their niche. And that, it kind of gave me a chill when he said that. I’m just like, man, I think he’s right. I hope he’s right. And a lot of people are talking about the vaccine and what’s going to happen in 2021 and all that. And hopefully, it all works out. And I still think that there’s going to be a lot of money invested into these industries. And I mean I think that as far as timing goes, it was super weird in a sense but it was also super good. I mean I think you’re going to see everybody, the people who know what they’re doing and that are focused on growing, I think they’re going to keep growing and they’ll be able to navigate these waters just fine.

Ty Deemer:

Yeah, for sure. And that’s kind of the one of the more interesting parts about the pandemic and the timing of it all. And I think this was across multiple industries but the green industry really was set up to adapt quickly just because they were all based as essential services from the very beginning. So you saw companies going like, we probably wouldn’t have made the jump for this technology solution or this way of doing things but it kind of was born out of necessity because of social distancing and trying to keep their crews safe and staying organized. So you saw companies make extreme strides in the efficiencies of running their business that they probably wouldn’t have made if it wasn’t for the pandemic because like it just forced them to. And that’s kind of like almost the blessing in disguise of it all. And we’ve been hearing similar things. It seems like everyone is really geared up for a strong 2021. And I think that’s a good transition to, I wanted to cover some of the key content pieces that you and your team put together throughout the year just in case the audience isn’t familiar with them or after they listen to this show, if there’s something interesting that pops up, they could go dive into it. I would love for you to touch on your pulse of the industry piece that you put together every year and just talk about what that’s like for you to put together and what were some of the most interesting kind of nuggets that you and your team were able to pull from talking to people about the industry.

Seth Jones:

For sure, Ty. And so, and for the sake of, for a commercial moment, I’ll just tell you too that our magazine is free. So if anyone’s listening and they would like to go to our website, landscapemanagement.net. There’s a click here to subscribe. Just fill it out, tell us who you are, what kind of business you’re in, and what you do. And we’d love to, we do 65,000 print copies a month in this magazine and we’d love to make it 65,001. So please please reach out. And our website also has the magazine if you’re more into reading on your phone or whatever. We’ve adapted to that. We have a mobile friendly magazine online. Back also what we were talking about, just about the timing of this thing. The industry pulse comes with a survey or it comes out in our December issue. But there’s two magazines I want to point out that we did in 2020 because as weird as the year was, it was business as usual at the magazine. We were trying to crank out content and stories and talking to folks. But our May 2020 cover, the headline was the great outdoors. And that’s not a phrase that’s new by any chance, by any means. But when we put that on the cover, I thought that’s a home run cover right there because it’s true. Right now everyone is so happy and thankful that we can be outside and enjoying, back when we’re enjoying the good summer weather and it was safe and that was our market. And it’s like man, I’m glad that we’re in the business of enjoying the great outdoors.

And then in December, for the industry pulse, on that cover, we put the year the world invested in outside. And it felt kind of dramatic. We had a dramatic aerial shot. But at the same time, I thought, there’s a part of you that wants to kind of document the journey month-to-month, year-to-year so you can go back and kind of see what was important. And maybe that’s just me being sentimental or nostalgic or whatever. But that’s kind of the way I think about it when we’re putting a magazine together. I want it to be very timely for that day. And I thought that that was a pretty timely headline and also, to have our industry pulse report. I thought it was, it’s like, man, every year, you do the industry pulse report and you ask similar questions typically. But then this year, you got to ask some questions that you would never, weren’t even on anyone’s radar a year or two ago. So we had some new questions to ask and the answers were going to be very, we knew that whatever we’re going to get, it’s going to be pretty interesting. So that made it pretty exciting. And some of the questions, of course, we always ask like, what’s your outlook for 2021, are you going to make a profit, what was your net profit. But then we also had some other things about the pandemic. But just to give you an idea, the future cast, the industry told us that in 2021, we had 36% say they were very optimistic, 46% said somewhat optimistic. As a journalist, I’m bad at math but I’m pretty sure those two numbers add up to 82% of our readers said that they’re optimistic in one way or the other. And that’s what you want. You want to see, that’s a good sign for us.

And then another thing that I thought was interesting, we had some questions, and some of the stuff, we stash for the rest of the year, just so you know, Ty. Our survey was long but sometimes we stash it just so we can have it ready for a future issue if we want to do something based on, if we ask a question say about battery-powered equipment and it didn’t get into the survey, we’ve got we’ve got it still in our back pocket. But one of the things that we asked and related to the pandemic that was interesting was we said, hey, how to become COVID-19 safe for your company, was it cost prohibitive? Did you lose a lot of money on anything? What did you have to do? And that could be anything from shutting down the breakroom to buying hand sanitizer. I don’t know. You fill in the blank. But 58% of our readers said it was an insignificant cost to make their operations safe and then 38% said moderate and only 4% said significant. So we had other questions like, did you lose employees, did you have folks not make it to work? And that’ll be out later but we have other questions.

But all these things came out and looking at it, there was nothing in the survey that really was a red flag for us that said, wow, this is going to be the smoking gun of this report where people are going to, it’s like, oh my God, this happened, can you believe it. Most of it was we adapted, we moved on, and we had a heck of a year. And so that for us was just a glowing review of the year and that was very strange. And obviously, the news reports of 500,000 marked dead is just tragic and mind-boggling. But in terms of our magazine and the industry we serve, the folks are able to look at that, step back and look and say, this pandemic did not doom us. As a matter of fact, it may have been a boon for us. And I’ve also said in the magazine that we don’t have to apologize for that. That’s just a matter of life and I think all of us know people at this point who’ve gotten sick and a lot of people know folks who’ve passed away. But our business life goes on and we’re all in the business of getting busy living with this thing and trying to move on. And so for us, the industry pulse report in 2020 was, even with my short window and looking back at other issues, we knew that this was going to be a really interesting report for us. And I think 2021 will be equally interesting and I think covering the industry in 2021 will continue to be interesting based on everything that’s going on.

Ty Deemer:

Yeah, I think that’s a great point because I think there’s a lot of build up to this year. Because I think there’s that like moment where you look back at 2020 and kind of take a deep sigh and go, wow, that was it was gutty there for a minute but it worked out. And now it’s like, oh, what’s to come? Like what might happen if the world starts going back to normal and people start budgeting for vacations again? And will there be as much of a work backlog that we’ve seen present in the previous year? I’m interested to see what next year’s pulse looks like just because this year was such an enigma and if you would base everything off of this past year, like what is to be expected?

Seth Jones:

Yeah, it’s hard to say too and you’re right. People are going to eventually start, I mean I think it’s happening right now. People are feeling comfortable to go places and whatnot. But then there’s also that same, the waitlist that everyone experienced on getting work done and stuff like that. So I mean I can tell you at our house, we had two hammocks arrive yesterday from Amazon or whatever. And I was like, what’s this? And she’s like, oh, it’s a hammock. I’m like, that’s great. Let’s sit outside this summer. I want to do that. So I think a lot of folks are going to be in that boat even if they do sneak in a little vacation somewhere.

Ty Deemer:

Yeah, absolutely. So the next kind of content piece that Landscape Management puts together that I wanted to discuss is y’all’s well-known LM Top 150 list that you all put together each year. We’ve had a few team members of companies that are on that list on our podcast. But for listeners that might not be as familiar with your list, could you just talk about kind of what is the Top 150 and why do you all put it together and just give a little background about what that list is?

Seth Jones:

Sure. So any good magazine should have some type of list. Right? You should have either your People’s Magazine’s sexiest man alive or your Sports Illustrated’s greatest team of all time or Rolling Stone’s top 100 rock bands. I mean these are things that we do in the magazine business. So unapologetically, we want to have something in our market that really celebrates the industry and people who are striving to be bigger. For us, it’s the LM 150. It’s our list of the landscaping companies ranked by revenue across the nation just so. And if anyone is, typically about $10 million dollars in revenue is about the low point on the list. So if you’re a company out there that’s in that neighborhood, I’d encourage you to visit our website at landscapemanagement.net and fill out our paperwork because it’s something. It’s a feather in the cap for folks to be recognized. It’s something to share with your employees and your local market, with your customers. Every year we kind of just look at it as a way, I mean it’s a business magazine and we want to look and kind of track and see what is the dollar amount for the top companies, what’s number one, what’s number 150, what’s the combined list. And it’s just a fun way for us to really dig in and get our hands dirty talking about the dollars these companies are generating. And then from there, what we do is we usually try and find a theme for this section and reach out to a few of the companies on the list and just talk business just kind of see what their year was like and kind of learn from them and then share that with our readers.

And I think in a sense, it’s like you know how you go to the convention and they got the phony cover of say like Time Magazine and his times person of the year. In a sense, this is our person of the year. You can take the people who are in this issue and it’s a way to recognize them and to say, hey, job well done. Tell us a little bit about your secret sauce. Tell us how you got there. And can our readers learn more from you in any way possible, something about the industry where it does seem like when we pick up the phone and do these interviews, people are willing to share their recipes for success and it typically makes for pretty compelling content. And so each year has become, it’s a fun section. It’s a lot of numbers to wrangle. The word I use is a beast. It’s a beast. It’s a lot of pages. It’s a lot of different folks working on the project together. And by no means is it just me doing these interviews and whatnot. Our whole magazine staff gets involved with this. It’s like hosting a big old party. We’ve got to make sure everybody, the table’s set and the food’s ordered and the drinks are on ice. And we can try and button it up as good as we can because every year this magazine gets more looks than any other issue. It generates a lot of attention for us.

Ty Deemer:

Yeah, for sure. It’s one of those pieces that anyone that I’ve ever talked to in the green industry knows what it is. People look forward to it. And I have it pulled up right now and it’s just really impressive at the end of the day. Because not only do you get to see these companies’ revenue but more so for me, what I find interesting is the percent revenue change from the year before. So you can go in and see like, oh wow, this company had a 14% increase in revenue and that’s a lot of money when you see the size of these businesses. So that’s got to be a really cool thing to track for you as well.

Seth Jones:

It is. Do you play fantasy football, Ty?

Ty Deemer:

Yeah, I do.

Seth Jones:

It’s kind of like playing fantasy football and looking to see which running back had the most rushing yards, which wide receiver had the most receiving yards. And it’s like the industry’s version of fantasy football and being able to look at these numbers and seeing like wow, what did this company do that had a 14% revenue jump and what market are they in, what are they doing and just kind of analyzing it. Because there’s a little bit of gamesmanship in any of this to look and say, wow, if they’re doing that, what am I supposed to be doing right now?

Ty Deemer:

So I am curious, we are kind of in the middle of lists. Right? So the 2021 version of the list is still probably too far out to really talk about. But for last year’s list, what were some of like the cooler stories or was there any certain like change that a company made that really stood out to you or which of the companies or stories did you and your team end up deciding to kind of dive a little bit deeper on?

Seth Jones:

So that’s a good question. A lot of times when the folks are filling out these forms, there’s like kind of an empty field where they can just write in, hey, tell us your story. What were your big successes that you had? What did you do that made it such a successful year? And we sift through all of it and sometimes, I’ll be honest, sometimes we just pick a number and we call up and see if we can get our phone call answered and we do a story that way and hope that they have a good story. Then sometimes the company leads us down the path and talks to us about what they’re doing and we know like hey, that’s a company we should probably call. It’s tough because at this point, it’s shameless self-promotion. Right? If you really want us to do a story on you and you tell us you got a good story, we’re probably going to call and investigate and see what’s going on. And so in this issue, I had Sarah Webb, our managing editor, Abby Hart, our senior editor, myself, all reached out to companies and we got interesting stories and there were some common themes. I mean just looking at it right now, going back to the beginning. Culture, companies talking about the culture that they had brought into their company. Another one was about relationships and it was a family business, father and two sons. And heck, I’m a sucker for those stories to see something like that grow from when dad started it with a truck to what the boys have brought to the business by now. And then I talked to Hittle Landscaping in Indiana and they’ve got a new, basically a new CEO who comes in from a different industry. They’ve already got the recipe for success there and now they’ve got a big mind in Scott DeNardin who can crunch numbers and analyze efficiencies and things like that. And at the same time while he’s doing that, they’re instituting a winning culture in the company and they’re vibrant in their community. They’re like supporting the community with the charitable work and things like that. It’s easy to get going on something like that because when someone like Scott starts telling me those things, there’s a saying in journalism school, if it bleeds, it leads. And it’s somewhat similar here in the sense that when you get these interesting nuggets from people, when they start telling you about the success they’ve had in their community and they’ve had the success with the company, it’s a hero story. Any good movie has a hero in it and all of a sudden, they’re telling their story and they’re doing my job for me because you can’t help but get excited for the success that they’ve had and looking at the jobs they’ve done and things like that. And at that point, the section, that’s probably the most fun part of it for us is—looking at the numbers and all that, that’s exciting but it can be a little stressful making sure you got everything in the right order. But then just telling the stories and celebrating those companies. It’s just a great part of the job. It’s just a happy formula for everybody.

Ty Deemer:

Yeah. And that’s somewhat why the list is valuable. Right? The list for a lot of people, it is a way to gauge like what companies are doing what amount of revenue and where they’re tracking. But the stories are like where the material behind how they did it lives. I mean I think that’s why any list like this is compelling whether you’re part of a huge company like BrightView or you’re starting your mom and pop shop in your town, it’s what you can aspire to. And then you can look at it and go like, man, I wonder what processes they implemented to get there and you can kind of read a story like the ones you’re talking about and implement some changes to probably achieve some success.

Seth Jones:

Yeah. The thing I like to tell people about the magazine is it’s a diverse readership. There’s the folks from the top 150 and then there’s the mom and pops that are just getting started and then everybody in between. And we want to make sure that the magazine is readable for everybody. So you got to have a little bit of something for everybody. And the LM 150 is definitely the case of success stories. And we get a chance to really beat the drum for those guys that issue. And then at the same time, we want the reader to be able to flip the page and find something that maybe they can apply to their business, their small business or large business, that they didn’t know about or just something that they could learn. And it makes for a fun combination because you got that big, my biggest concern with every issue is I don’t want someone to see the magazine and think, yeah, this issue wasn’t for me. Maybe next month, they’ll do something for me. I want every issue to be for everybody. Something in there should be for everybody and I think that LM 150 is definitely for everybody even though it’s just about the top 150. And then there’s the other stuff that supports it too that we try to make it, if it was a buffet line, we start off with the appetizers but there’s going to be some dessert in there too.

Ty Deemer:

Yeah, that’s awesome. And it’s a great piece. I commend you and your team for putting it together each year. I imagine it takes a lot of front loaded work to put it all together. But I do know it’s something that everyone enjoys. My next kind of question, and it’s a little open-ended but hopefully it makes sense, is you and your team produce magazines that cover a wide array of topics from success stories with management to talking about lists like the LM 150 to talking about topics like technology and then acquisitions and different things within the market. I’m curious what topics do get the best response or best feedback? Like what stories do you see the industry engage with the most?

Seth Jones:

That’s a hard one to answer because it is so diverse. But I think generally speaking, I had a good example of something like that that just happened. We got a company in Cedar Rapids I believe is where they’re located. But it was a guy by the name of Jason Downing, for 30 years, he’s had a lawn and irrigation company. And he decides that he gets frustrated with how long it takes him to blow out the irrigation system. And over the years, he says, there’s got to be a better way to do this. And he just invents his own products. He just like starts drawing it out on a cocktail napkin. I don’t know how he did it but he builds his own better mouse trap. And then he’s like, you know what? I’m going to start selling this to the industry. So I talked to him about it. And then just super charming guy, salt of the earth type guy. And then we put the story out. And then he sends me a text and it says, when’s the magazine, he said something like, is the magazine out yet? And sometimes based on, like I interviewed this guy, like let’s say I interviewed him six weeks ago and he still hasn’t seen the magazine yet. He’s like, man, you got a monthly magazine. Where’s this story at? Well, that’s because it takes a while for us to write it, put it together and then you get the postal service and whatnot. Sometimes, it’s a little bit vague on when the—So I thought he was like saying, man, when is this magazine going to come out? I’m excited. But that wasn’t the case. He started getting blown up by folks who were wanting to know more about his product. And he’s like, is your magazine out? And I’m like, clearly, it must be because people are seeing your story right now. So I think folks see stuff like that and they’re instantly intrigued by it.

The other thing that, so I love those like winning stories of a guy just overcoming a challenge. The other thing I think that people really enjoy is we on Landscape Management, because we’re not the experts and because there’s so many companies out there who do it their own way, what we’ve started to do is we’ve gone to the companies themselves and we’ve asked them for their insights. Because if they’re creating these products, they clearly are studying what’s going on, whether it’s mowing, whether it’s chemical and fertilizer guys, irrigation guys, design/build. And we’re asking the actual, the brains behind these brands, hey, just talk to us. What are you working on right now? What’s going on? Because the good news is these guys don’t take our calls. They like talking to us. It’s not like we’re really nagging them. They trust us and they’ll be like, yeah, let’s talk about, you want to know my insights on this? I’ll tell you my insights. And here’s what I think people should be doing. So I’ve enjoyed that we’ve given these people who are kind of behind the scenes in the industry, we’ve given them a voice now and to the point to where if they’re a good interview, we’ll come back to them again in a couple issues and say, hey, man, that was a great interview. What about this? And they’ll say, hey, let me tell you more about track loaders. Let me tell you exactly what I think about it and what we’re seeing and why we’re doing this. So I enjoy those stories and I think the reader sees that and realizes that if you went to a trade show, that guy’s probably busy over here in a meeting. But if you pick up LM, you’re going to be able to talk to him. You’re going to be able to see exactly what he thinks.

And then beyond that, we try to celebrate the industry with those stories of just what’s going on out there with folks who have had some success. Like maybe it’s something timely. We had a Super Bowl commercial recently that had a landscaping company in it. I mean it’s stuff like that to where it’s like we want to be the voice of the industry and if there’s something like that, we’re going to get on it because it’s our full-time job. It’s 40 hours a week for us and we’re dedicated to it and we want to be like the news source for it. And we’ll make that phone call and we’ll check it out. And in that sense, I feel like we’ve got the industries back. We’re like, hey, you saw something about this, you probably wondered about it. Well, guess what? Your friends at Landscape Management were wondering about it too. Here’s an interview. Here’s the story. Here’s the background. And hopefully, it comes out in our e-newsletter. We have a weekly e-newsletter. Then we’ll put in the magazine too just so we can cover all our bases. So I think there’s a lot of different ways that we can please our readers if we are able to stay on top of the pile of the constant onslaught of emails.

Ty Deemer:

Yeah, for sure. That’s all really cool stuff. And what you’re touching on really resonates with me because if there’s anything that’s stood out to me about the green industry since I’ve been involved with it—I’m at the same time as you, about two years—is just how collaborative it is as an industry. People really feel comfortable going to each other with their success stories or just with questions or advice. And the fact that you as a publication are in tune with that and letting really the people that are out in the field every day be the champions of your stories, it just makes a lot of sense.

Seth Jones:

There’s some people who have the attitude that it’s never good to see your name in the newspaper and obviously we disagree with that. We think that’s an old school philosophy. Any press is good press. And we also like to think that we’re professional enough and we’re easy enough to work with that we’re going to make it sing, we’re going to make it look good. We work hard enough on the publication that when someone’s featured in there, we want them to see it and realize that that it was a good representation of what they did. And we made a lot of friends by working like that. So we just hope to keep it up. And man, the other thing, I’m ready to get back in person with some folks too because that makes my job so much easier. It is harder to do our job based on Zooms and phone calls. It’s easier to see things in person and shake someone’s hand and it just makes my life—I’m not as good as reading people over a Zoom call as I am over a handshake and a cold beer.

Ty Deemer:

Yeah, you and me both and probably a bunch of other people in the industry. We’re ready to be able to go back to things like GIE later this year. So Seth, to wrap up, I typically always like to finish with a question that really just is a little bit more forward thinking and it’s pretty simple. Like what comes next for you in Landscape Management and what are you most excited about right now with you and your team’s efforts on the magazine?

Seth Jones:

So North Coast Media owns Landscape Management and thankfully, it’s a successful magazine. Our team is growing, our website’s growing, our magazine’s growing. We want to be able to do more in the industry. We have big goals. We have big dreams. At the GIE expo, we host a party for our friends every year just so we can see the people who support us. We have an event called the LM Grow Summit that we’ve been hosting every year for several years now and that’s growing. And that gives us a chance to get our readers exposed to some of our most valued partners. So in terms of what’s next, I do hope that if people have been getting Landscape Management for a long time, I hope that they realize the magazine is doing well right now. You can tell the health of a magazine based on the advertising in it. And without our advertisers, we don’t have a magazine because obviously you know how much money I’m making off of subscriptions. That’s zero. So when the magazine comes out and we got say like someone like Vermeer sponsored our LM 150 last year and that’s something that we’re able to do it because of that support. SingleOps, shout out to you guys, thank you guys for supporting us. We want to see this magazine continue to thrive. We want it to be around for a very long time. And I do want it to get even bigger. I do want our e-newsletter to get out to more people. The sky is the limit and especially based on the support that the upper management, North Coast Media give us and the support that the industry gives us. I think that there’s a lot of potential that we’re just going to continue this upward trend and, knock on wood, Lord willing, we’re going to keep doing it and getting after it each month. And now will the LM 150 ever become the LM 200? God, I hope not. It’s already big enough as it is. I do think that beyond, we’ll continue to serve the industry with ways that they want to see the industry reported on and hopefully that also includes our magazine continuing on an upward trend and just being able to serve a whole bunch of people.

Ty Deemer:

Yeah, for sure. And we’re excited to see you all do that and continue to do that. And I’d encourage anyone listening to this show, like Seth mentioned earlier, it’s free to subscribe to the magazine. You can go to their website, landscapemanagement.net and consume all their content online. But again, would really encourage people to check in and see all the great work Seth and his team are doing. Seth, I can’t thank you enough for taking the time to join us on the show. Love the context that you provided on all the great pieces you and your team are putting together and we’re really excited to see the year Landscape Management has in 2021.

Seth Jones:

Thank you, Ty. I appreciate you. Appreciate the time. It’s been fun talking to you. And just one more thing. Let me say that when my name’s at the top of the masthead when it comes to the emails come out, they say my name on it, I get to write the column. But there’s a big team in Cleveland who supports me and does all this all the stuff. I mean it’s a lot of us to get it all together and any one of them could have been on this call with you today and they would have done great because they all know this industry very well and they all appreciate the industry with me. So I want to say thank you to them as well. But thanks, Ty. I really do appreciate it.

Ty Deemer:

Yeah, absolutely. And you did a great job for someone that typically is the one asking all the questions. Really enjoyed the time and I’m sure we’ll be talking soon.

Seth Jones:

That sounds great, Ty. Thank you.

Conclusion:

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