บทถอดความฉบับเต็มของ Reverse Engineering Business Goals for Growth - Edwyn Kumar - Ultra Team Development

Edwyn (06:05.686) And so when I got into the trades, it was quite funny because, you know, it's just about picking up the language. You know, like you start learning pretty quick, like what is an RFI? You know what mean? And what is a change order? And, you know, all these kind of specific segments, sector type things. Yeah, man. then the sector kind of changed. It blew up in that space. So I started working with landscaping companies, trades, HVAC, plumbing. electrical, general contracting, and companies that have really great ambitious leaders. However, they're specialists. Like they, you know, they did the thing, and now they run a business. And it's totally a different thing. Like that leap is different. So the thing that got them there was this idea, right? Enmanuel (06:56.156) Mmmmm Edwyn (07:02.582) Like, I want freedom. I want to be able to drive my own business. I want to do all these sorts of things. And right out of the gate, became like, how do you bridge those two things? You know, when you've got someone who's led teams and been involved in large companies, like largest team I ever operated was 166 people. You know, that's a lot of people to try to, yeah, like, how do you get that many people moving in the same direction? Enmanuel (07:26.526) of like enterprise that you were coaching. Edwyn (07:32.278) And so, you know, so if you've got a team of six or 12 or 20 or 55 60 70 whatever happens to be How do you how do you maintain that fidelity? Right? Like how do you keep that? Vision and and what you're talking about Translating across the board. So there's lots of moving parts. Yeah Enmanuel (07:47.26) Yeah, that's true. Enmanuel (07:51.708) And I can imagine, yeah, can imagine. a small team, yeah, it's doable. You you have them all in one room, no problem. You know, five, six people, but a hundred plus people, that is a lot of people, a lot of projects. And let me ask you one quick thing, everyone, because what you described there was, you you have like an operator that was, know, like, let's take a landscaper, because that's mostly most of my client base. Let's say there's a landscaper, he was working under somebody and then he's like, you know what, maybe I can do this for myself. So now he goes from landscaping to business owner. Edwyn (08:10.486) Yeah, 100%. Yeah. Enmanuel (08:20.456) and he's still doing the landscaping but he wants to get out. So what you described there is that kind of similar to the book, what is it, the E -Miff, Robert E. Gerber, kind of like where the operator thinks that he can just, because he's good at landscaping, he can now run a landscaping business. Is that kind of what you're saying? Edwyn (08:37.79) Yeah, and some of them can, but it's about the mindset shift. And so there's this core concept of, OK, well, do you want to be a landscaper who owns a landscaping business? Or do you want to be a business owner who owns a landscaping company? And those are different things. I would say one of the biggest traps that I see with ownership when you can do the thing. The benefit is that you get a ton of credibility, you understand what the boots on the ground is, you really get a sense of like, okay, how do I make this happen? Okay, fantastic. The problem is that you overcommit your capacity and your skillset to that thing. So you end up developing a weakness in the company. For example, if you know how to hardscape. Like you're really good at putting down pavers, you understand exactly how to set up a retaining wall, you know how to do grading, you your skid steer skills are like through the roof, right? Like you're like the Lewis Hamilton of skid steers, right? It's like, you're gonna naturally gravitate towards being able to cover that role because you can do it. So you never build in the ability to make sure that that is secure without you. Enmanuel (09:34.909) Right. Enmanuel (09:45.705) you Enmanuel (09:54.738) Right. Edwyn (10:01.866) Because you cannot, you can't... Enmanuel (10:01.908) because they know that they can always go back in and do it themselves. Edwyn (10:05.098) Yeah, you're always the safety chute. So you almost have to remove the safety chute from your own skill set. Like if I owned a landscaping company, right? I'm not a landscaper. I would find someone fast. Like if I lost a key person, first of all, I would never put myself in that position. And second of all, if I lost that key person, I would replace that person really, really quickly. Because what am I going to do? Go out there and try to figure it out? Like, so if I'm the business operator, so the benefit is, is that you understand the requirement of the job. The weakness is, that because you can do the job, you always end up creating this, this fail point in the business. And you got to really prevent that. You got to build that bench. Enmanuel (10:49.145) So let me ask you a question. Let me ask a controversial question here. it kind of like, because it happens a lot too, where there's influencers that all they do is post about being on a job site because they own the business. Like a landscaper that, he calls himself a landscaper, but he doesn't know how to do the job. So he just knows how to sell them and put an image into the internet of like, okay, he knows it all. Are you saying that somebody like that that doesn't actually have expertise at landscaping is a better business owner than the guy that knows how to landscape and goes and does it? Edwyn (11:20.08) No, no, I'm not saying that they're better at it. I'm saying that they're better at the business development side of it. right. And so, so this, so this is an important thing. So I'm going to introduce a concept here. It's called the five pillars of business. So I'm writing a book on this right now. So it's about allocation of time, allocation of skill and where you're developing your ability. So your pillar one of any business is, is what do you actually do? So like if you're, if you're, you know,

Enmanuel (11:24.66) and Edwyn (11:49.65) Adidas, okay, great. Well make good adidas clothing and good adidas runners, right? If you're coca -cola make a good can of cola It's like like like don't don't make a bad product So you have to make sure your pillar one the specialization of what you produce is good So as a landscaper hardscape er, you got to make sure that the end result the impact to the client Like what's the customer actually get is solid? Right Like no one wants mediocre. Mediocre is terrible. Like, how's your landscaping project turned out? it's okay. Okay. Why bother? Like you got to make sure that your actual core product is really good. So that's your first goal. And so this is where someone who's just an influencer, they can't ensure that that happens. Like, you know, they're not going to have the right person, the right expertise to make sure that that happens. So they've got to... Enmanuel (12:27.604) Exactly. Enmanuel (12:44.476) ride. can they can say yes, yes, it's gonna be amazing, but they can actually guarantee it. Edwyn (12:49.076) Yeah, but that's smoke and mirrors and that's not that, you know, that style over substance stuff is garbage. It's got to be, it's got, you got to have the substance of the product because your number one goal as an entrepreneur and as a business owner, any business owner is to serve your customer. And so if your customer wants, you know, really nice driveway or a social area, or they're imagining that their house is going to be, you know, the place that, you know, they invite family and friends and have all their life experiences in. You're part of that journey. You got to make sure that what you produce for them is going to be huge. You know, I'm going to segue here really quick. I held a, I held a team meeting with a landscape company that I work with and I asked them all what they did. And, know, there was like nine, nine form in here. Right. And, and they're like, you know what we put in retaining walls and, you know, we, we put in pavers, we built patios. We do back decks. We create tiered backyards in hilly areas so people have more usable square footage. We put in landscape lighting. Okay, great. Awesome. Like, no, you don't. And they're like, I'm like, no, you don't. I'm like, this is what you actually do, you guys. Someone's gonna be holding an engagement party. Their kids went to college. They met each other. You they got engaged, now they're going to hold an engagement party. Where are they going to hold it? Their backyard. You got someone who comes home from work and they just really want to relax, pour a glass of wine and go sit out on their back deck. Like you're not putting in hardscape and you're creating lifestyles. Enmanuel (14:31.38) You're selling experiences. Edwyn (14:32.756) Completely and that's a different mindset. And so then You know, that's your core product. And so can you deliver on that promise? So that's pillar one. You cannot mess that up And so this idea of

of influencers saying yeah, this is what we do and whatever and they're speaking sort of, know, they're just blowing smoke Their goal their objective is not that their objective is to get likes their objective is to get engagement Can they deliver on the promise? Hopefully? Hopefully they have someone who can do that, but it won't last if you don't if you don't have a if you don't have a good product your your your toast Yeah Enmanuel (15:02.333) I'm good. Enmanuel (15:11.904) 100%. And that was a great analogy. Yeah. I love the fact that he said that of selling experiences instead of just selling, you know, a product because it gets the emotion involved with the client, especially at the selling process. Edwyn (15:23.06) Yeah, what are they going to do with it? You know what I mean? And I think that should be something that that landscapers ask straight out of the gate. It's like, OK, hey, you know what? want to I want to change my front yard. OK, what are you going to do with it? Like, is it a showpiece? Are you going to sell the place? Are you planning on it being an area where your grandkids can come over and hang out? Are you going to hold garden parties there? You know, like like like like what's the intent? What's the impact of it? Right. And so. Enmanuel (15:46.483) her. Edwyn (15:52.89) You got to ask that question for sure. And so that's all pillar one stuff. That's all like the specialization. Your pillar two stuff, I really liked the guy that was Chris Verazzi. Yeah, Vizana, phenomenal. Like, okay, that guy's got things dialed, right? Like, you know, very inspirational. You know, the pillar two is the operational side, which is a part that he was talking a lot about in that. Enmanuel (16:03.952) of Wasana from Blight. Enmanuel (16:11.699) Yeah. Edwyn (16:21.576) episode that you had him on. know, pillar two, you've got sort of three facings of this operations. What operational structures do you have that support your core product? Right. And so what I mean by that is, okay, do you like, how do you, how does your team pick up materials for the site? What is your, what are your SOPs for installation? You know, these are all operational structures tied to making sure that the customer gets a really great product. Then you've got operational structure that's internal. No one's going to see it. Like how do you run payroll? How do you update your website? What are your internal processes for accounting? How do you do your bookkeeping? That's all internal operations. Then you've got operations that face business development, which is pillar three. And your business development goals is really where most CEOs and presidents of landscaping companies ought to start spending their time and energy. Because yeah, you can hop back on the tools, but if you want to scale and grow you have to be the face. You got to be selling You know you have to be You have to be the footprint in the market Enmanuel (17:36.562) Yeah, one I cannot agree more. That's

one thing that I always try to explain to my clients on sales posts It's like the personal branding aspect of it and that's one thing that The influencers get right that we were just talking about because they put themselves out there Yes, we do the best work and look at a project that we do and check this out. It's personal They're doing that right where they you know, they're selling themselves or selling the dream outcome of the client They might not be able to fulfill on it Who knows if they can or not, but the aspect of getting the attention from the customer, they're good at that. Edwyn (18:08.15) Yeah, absolutely. You know what I mean? Like, you know, I could tell you I've got the best roast chicken on the planet. If you eat it, it's inedible. Who cares, right? So, yeah, you know, it's like that only lasts so long. You know, we kind of live in this very sort of fast target world. I can't remember what the stat was. I heard about this a number of, you know, years ago, but that the average amount of time someone looks at a particular reel is 1 .2 seconds. Enmanuel (18:15.706) Yeah, exactly. Edwyn (18:38.23) Like, okay, you know, the average, the old school TV commercials used to be 15 to 20 seconds, right? And so now we've like, you have like 1 .2 seconds to grab someone's attention. So the climate has changed around how do you brand your business, but it also comes down to this idea of being scrappy. If you're a small landscaper, you got to be very, very agile. There's a really great book, it's called Marketing Warfare. Enmanuel (18:41.064) That's insane. Enmanuel (18:46.291) Right. Edwyn (19:08.79) and highly recommend it. It basically talks about this idea of are you the market leader? Are you the number one or number two or number three primary contender? And then, or are you, you know, a small player in a larger market? A lot of small landscaping companies are smaller players in a larger market. And their whole approach is somewhat flawed if they are trying to be the market leader. Because what are you doing? You're defending a position that you haven't actually gathered yet. So this idea of guerrilla warfare is what they talk about in this book. It's like, be agile, try something, test it, and own these small open parts of the market. I mean, Chris talked about this in the last one when he talked about Christmas lighting. Man, he just owned this whole idea of Christmas lighting. That's a total guerrilla tactic to just take over market share on this one particular area. I think it's brilliant. Enmanuel (20:05.928) Yeah. Edwyn (20:07.52) You know, and so honing in on the market is really important or you hone in on a geographical location, right? so, this idea of like, I'm going to drive across town and this call came in. I'm going to go over there. This call came in. I'm to go over there and this call came in and I'm going to go over here. I'm going to landscape commercial projects, but I'm also going to do residential. Plus I'm going to do maintenance. Plus I'm going to do this. It's like, man, you can't scale all that. You have such a wide net that. No one really understands your brand. And so that's a really important thing is to really hone in on a particular market right out of the gate. And these are the skills that as a business owner that landscapers are learning and a lot of them do really, really great job at Enmanuel (20:47.688) and how Enmanuel (20:54.024) Right. And how would you capitalize on holding in? it by a specific service that you offer to a white area or is it a lot of services to a specific tight -knit area? Or how would you go about it? Edwyn (21:08.63) Well, I'll tell you some of the most common mistakes that I see and then how we end up addressing those. one of the most common mistakes is spreading yourself too thin geographically. So basically, let's look at it this way. Okay. So, you know, we've got landscaper A who will take jobs anywhere in the region, right? So they're willing to drive 50, 60, 70, 80 miles to go to a job site. Okay. So how are they marketing to that client base? Well, they're probably just getting the scraps because in that 80 mile zone, you've probably got at least a dozen competitors. Now if one of those competitors says, I'm going to focus on this district, this particular set of neighborhoods, and I'm going to market and dominate that area, you're going to lose that fight. You're just going to lose that fight. You're not going to end up having the ability to do that because they're concentrated there. Now let's say that majority of those people are all dominating these little geographical regions and you're just like, I'm just going to pick up whatever. You're going to lose all of those primary fights every single time. So the only thing you're going to get is the cast offs of that market. Like, I couldn't book them because they were booked. And so I didn't have to, they didn't have the capacity or the time to do that. And so then what ends up happening is that you're like, I'm getting business from everywhere. It's like, yeah, you kind of are getting business from everywhere, but you're not really dominating the market. So if the market drops, you're going to lose market share. Cause you don't have a, you don't have a section of it that is consistent. and, so this is strategic. Enmanuel (22:46.452) That makes a lot of. Edwyn (22:49.662) Movements, right? You know, so I was talking about this idea of people strategy and operations. This is a strategic decision operationally You might be doing the same thing Capture the lead do the estimate send out the quote You know put it on the schedule go in start executing on the job submit your change orders Complete do your finishing great all of that operationally is probably the exact same scenario but strategically it's not connected to what it is you're trying to achieve. Enmanuel (23:23.314) Wow, that's insane. And it's funny to think that even if you have a perfect, like a sound

system operationally, if you're not able to bring in the clients in a consistent basis, it doesn't matter how good that is, you know, if the clients are not coming in from like a specific area or just an area in general that's working, whether it's a specific city or a specific area, that's cool to think about the way you just described that there. Edwyn (23:49.846) Yeah, and you got to look at how you operate your business, right? So, you know, are you a maintenance landscaper? Okay, well, that's a different business structure than are you a hardscape with really dynamic projects? You know, are you doing fast turnaround two, three day type work? Or are you doing, you know, longer projects of like 10 to 30 days? You know, what's the scale of that? And are you focusing on residential? Are you focusing on Detached residential or multifamily? Are you focusing on commercial projects? Like, where do you want to really hone in? And a smaller landscaping company, let's say they've got two teams, How much work do you actually need to get those two teams to function? And so I've got this fun little widget that I created. where basically what it is is you put in a target. You say, what do want your gross annual sales to be? And then you say, okay, great. What are your core three or four revenue items that would feed that? So let's say you're like, okay, I wanna do $2 million in revenue, gross revenue, okay, great. What are your two to four core products that would feed that? Okay, well, we're gonna do driveways. We're gonna do patios. We're gonna do full backyard systems and we're gonna do landscape lighting. Okay, great Those are your four what percentage of that would you break down? Like as a forecast how many how many driveways would would make up that two million dollars? And you got to start critically thinking through this and so then you're like, okay Well, let's say that I'm doing 20 % of those are driveways 35 % of those are our full backyards 15 % of those are Enmanuel (25:22.632) Good. Edwyn (25:42.454) You know and you break it down right so you get to 100 points Then you start saying okay great. What's your conversion ratio on each of those items? How many of those leads do you convert? Well, I convert 25 % of full backyards I convert 50 % of patios I convert whatever great so you put in those numbers and suddenly you end up with And then you put in what your profit percentage is and right out of the gate you end up with this with this Dashboard that tells you how much business development do you need to make that true? Enmanuel (26:21.139) Wow, and that's Edwyn (26:22.006) Like I would need this many calls to convert this many of these patios to make this much money based off of this margin, based off of this profit value to create $2 million in gross sales with a 24 % EBITDA. Okay, great. Enmanuel (26:38.236) And so you just reverse engineer the whole process, huh? That's beautiful. Edwyn (26:40.554) Yeah, and that clarity is really what you're looking for. Enmanuel (26:46.504) That's beautiful. And where can people find that widget that you mentioned? Edwyn (26:50.838) I normally do it in a basic call because I can kind guide them through it. So this is one of the things that I do with clients through exploration and whatnot. I should probably transform that into a sign -in version. I'll take a look at it on how I can end up, yeah. Enmanuel (27:11.346) Yeah, maybe, yeah, maybe because that seems like a really good lead magnet for you as well. Like where you submit, you know, some sort of contact info and you get access to it. You're able to calculate what we just discussed there. Your conversion rates and everything. That's like, that's good idea. Awesome. Edwyn (27:25.94) Yeah, yeah, it's great. I love it. But this is the kind of critical thinking type stuff that comes up in the work that I do with my client base. It's like I'm non modular. Like a lot of consultants will be like, OK, what do we do? OK, well, we're going to do A and we're going to complete A1, A2, A3, A4. Great. And we're to go to B and complete B. No, everyone wants to run their business different. They have a different set of values. have a different growth arc. do you like what sector do you want to move into? What's your mindset like? I like this idea of what's the leadership psychology. So who are these business owners? Great. Okay. Well, we end up with an archetype, but underneath there are different people, right? They came from different backgrounds. They came from different value structures. They came from different core beliefs. and so exploring where their motivations lie, what's their philosophy on control, for example. Like that's a big one. Like, you know, someone might have a philosophy of control of saying, well, I feel like I should divest control and give it off to my project managers and leaders because they're the ones who really understand it. But okay, well, why are they, do they think that someone else is like, no, I've got to control everything and I'm going to be the stop gap to all these initiatives. Okay. Those are two different philosophies of control. You can have two businesses with the exact same business structure, but because the leadership mindset is different, those two businesses are going to operate very, very differently internally. Yeah. Enmanuel (29:08.008) I agree with Adal. And then PVD actually, which is where we met on that PVD call, he mentioned that, you know, he can give his exact blueprint for how he built PHP, but you may not necessarily achieve what he achieved because you have the framework for it, you have the information, but the heart and the drive and the mindset is not there. It comes separately, it's sold separately. Edwyn (29:32.918) Yeah, and you know, you know this idea of scaling as well for I'm gonna tell you 90 95 % of the businesses that I've seen scale With a lot of success and And by success and scaling I'm not saying you know, like like I had a

client that recently just went to 25 million dollars, It's like okay, you know, you don't have to jump to there Like maybe you want to go from like 500 to $800 ,000 or maybe you want to go 800 ,000 to 2 million or something. So, you know, the scale is relative. So when we're talking scaling, it's not just about like these, you know, blow up numbers, right? But the number one, the commonality amongst all of the business operators that have scaled well is how they form their relationships while building their business. Enmanuel (30:08.67) Mmm. Edwyn (30:33.13) So there's a company that I work with. The president of the company was close friends with his VP in school. They actually went on diversion path later, right? Kind of maintained a little bit of contact. Four years into his business, he brought him in as a VP, okay? That VP was really close friends with a guy that he worked with in trade school. In trade school, So he brought him in, that person's now become a divisional manager. Okay. That divisional manager worked with another guy who's been coming. That guy has just been promoted up into a high level project manager's role and is probably going to become an ops manager. This relationships, you know, trying to go blind and say, I'm just going to go out there and find somebody is really hard to do because all those people that you're trying to find are probably pretty ambitious and have started their own businesses. So how do you build it together? Enmanuel (31:37.302) That's true. So what's that to say that for example that even right now while we you know live our normal lives our current lives You know networking with people and meeting people that we may not know that No later down the line. They might be a perfect fit for us Is that kind of where you're saying like the value of those relationships of having them and then not knowing how they'll come back later on? Edwyn (31:58.998) 100%. Absolutely. Yeah, there's no other way. I mean, if you look back historically on anyone that went through any sort of career growth, right? Like I'm 50 now. I just turned 50, like a few weeks ago, right? So if I look back on anything that I ever did, where I was like, okay, you know, that was a success. you know what? I joined that company because I knew this guy. how did I meet that guy? well, I met that guy because of this person. It's like this networking is so important, right? You know, like someone's like, I can't hire. Okay. How much time are you spending on hiring? like an hour every two weeks. Okay. Well, of course you can't hire, right? you know, I can't find, you know, other companies to... Enmanuel (32:43.923) Yeah. Edwyn (32:51.05) to look at whether we can partner up together and create these vertical or horizontal integrations together. Like, okay, cool. So let's say for example, you've got a landscaper and they don't wanna have a power washing component in their business, but maybe power washing could be a strong lead. Well, could you partner with someone who owns a power washing company for you guys to feed each other? Maybe. Okay, but what if you just never talk to anyone in that sector? You have no relationships and suddenly you're like, I can't, you know, I'm losing out business to this and this. Well, yeah, that's because that landscaper has got a friend who has a power washing company and that guy's got a junk removal company and those guys are all talking together and they're all sending each other business and you're just an island. Enmanuel (33:43.189) trying to like kind of do it all by yourself kind of just figure it out and then taking years to implement the systems when you could have had one conversation and solved everything at once. Edwyn (33:50.699) Totally. Edwyn (33:55.062) 100%. And this idea of like, how do I grow the team? Because like ultra team development, like you need a team to develop in order to grow your business. That's just what has to happen. And how do you build out that team? So here's a really great question for people to either self reflect on or get their coach to ask them about this is to say, right now, if you went and looked at your network, Who could you bring into the business that would help you grow it? Not a cold call, not a, like, who would that be? And if you can't think of more than two names, you're not good at relationships. That's just a fact. Like, you gotta get better at building relationships. Like, right out of the gate, okay, so, all right, we're opening a landscaping company. Who would be the person that I could bring in to really help me grow this business? I should think of about two or three different people who would be ambitious enough to want to do that. If not, you got to do more work. Enmanuel (35:04.478) Wow, I've never heard anybody say that. If you can't think of five people to grow with, then you need a broader network. Edwyn (35:13.11) 100%. I mean, it's like, look, otherwise where are you going to get them from? Right? Like you're going to try to drive loyalty by a recruiter. It's like not at a small scale. At a small scale, you need the momentum. Once you end up with mass, like let's say that you've got six sites, right? Each of those is two to three people. Great. So you've got a team of about 18 or 20, a little bit of office staff, a little bit of mix of, you know, field supervisor, some foreman on site, plus your installers, right? Okay. So, so, so that's your, that's your business structure. You're the president of the company. You're primarily looking at business development, where you are in the market. making sure all the units are working correctly. Your project manager is making sure that all your jobs are going off correctly. On and on and on. Okay, fantastic. Meanwhile, you're busy trying to get good rates on specific product that you have high rotation on. You're solving all these other problems, Where are we losing efficiencies, et cetera, et Great. So you're driving margin, you're driving

profit, you're building out profit share systems for your team or bonus structures so that they're incentivized to deliver on their product, all this sort of stuff. Fantastic. Guarantee you that the person who has that business structure has someone that they've known for longer than, hi, I have a business. I'd like to hire you. Guaranteed. Edwyn (36:42.09) It's like, would be a rare case for a bunch of strangers to come together and make an amazing enterprise. It's just like, it's a ridiculous ask, right? Enmanuel (36:53.448) Yeah, you know what, I'm thinking of it, of like businesses that I know, and you're right, I mean, usually it's a friend or like a long time friend. But what do you think about the saying then that like, know, water, I mean, business and family and friends is not a good fit for each other. What do you think about that? Edwyn (37:13.942) You know, I think that those absolute statements are always ripe for a challenge, right? It's like our early bird gets the worm right sir But the second mouse gets the cheese, know what I mean? So it's like there's always a counterbalance to it What goes on right? Don't be the first mouse Don't be the first mouse right it's like Well, the further first mouse got whacked man he hit the trap Enmanuel (37:29.714) I've never heard of this technology, but... What? What does that mean? The second mouse gets the cheese. What does that even mean? Enmanuel (37:42.337) shit! Edwyn (37:44.13) So there's always a counterbalance to every axiom like that or every saying, right? Like there's always the opposite. So this idea of don't work with family. Sure, if you have a family that doesn't work well together, don't work with that family. But it's like at a small scale, okay, I want to start a landscaping company. Okay, fantastic, I've started it, great. I've got two workers, I'm on the tools, I'm running the business, I'm doing all the receipts, I'm running payroll, I'm taking the calls, I'm pulling away from the... Enmanuel (37:57.982) Yeah Edwyn (38:13.472) from the cutter because someone's calling and saying, can you come to this project, et cetera, et cetera, showing up to a residential house. I'm doing the estimate. I'm like, okay, cool. It's going to be this much. I got to fire off that estimate. I got to send off this change order. I got to deal with the supplier. It's like, man, that's a lot. Like that's a lot to manage. Great. But you're only running at this like whatever capacity, but you want to grow. Okay, well we need to decentralize you. We need to get you off of those tasks and which ones are those? Because there's no other way to do it. You can't just keep adding hours to your day. There's this concept I use, it's called integrated development. So effectively, anytime you have a new development in your company, it's gonna be an add -on. So let's say that you got, imagine a circle. So you got a circle and that circle is... 100 % of your available time towards the business. So in a day, what

is it? Eight to 12 hours, okay. In a week, it's 40 to 60 hours, okay, fantastic. So that's your available amount of time. And you now want to add a new initiative into the business. Okay, great. So now imagine a little small circle living outside of it. That is added time. At some point, that has to reabsorb into available time. Just has to. And the only way that's going to happen is that it creates an efficiency somewhere else. It grows the business so that you can scale and hire somebody else into it to start to manage that project. had a mentor. I was always coming up with these wild ideas, right? I had a mentor for a number of years. He ended up passing away a few years ago. And, but we used to have these really long lunches and we're both really into wine. And so we would have these like, start off with a cocktail, two or three bottles of wine, finish off with some great whiskey, right? We'd have these like three, four hour lunches. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It was like, it was pretty debauchery, but we would have these really long lunches, right? And so, we solved all the world's problems in those lunches. And so, but I used to be like, know what, Paul, like this is one of my ideas and this is one of my other ideas. And I think that this initiative is gonna work. And he had this really, really thick... Enmanuel (40:11.486) Two or three bottles at time. Enmanuel (40:17.672) Thank Edwyn (40:36.278) Polish European accent, right? And he had these very thick glasses and he used to smoke like a chimney. And so we sit there and we're having these great lunches. And Paul would look at me in this really kind of like growly, rumbly voice. He'd be like, Edward, does it have legs? And what he meant by this idea of does it have legs is when you start a project, will it walk on its own? Or do you have to maintain it? Edwyn (41:09.854) And if you're creating a project after project and initiative after initiative, and you're doing all these things consistently, and none of them can walk on their own, you're not able to delegate them out, you're not able to create a system to execute on these without you handholding it, you're just making work. And... So you have to build into every project the ability to have it have legs. Enmanuel (41:49.49) Wow, does it have legs? And that's when you say initiative or project, that's what's an example of that. Like you hiring a virtual assistant to do something or like what, how, how, what's an example. Edwyn (41:52.234) Yeah. Edwyn (42:01.908) Yeah, yeah. So for example, okay, so let's say that you've got the owner of the business, okay? So you've got your landscape operator, owner of the business, okay? So they are doing the sales cycle, they're doing your social media management, they are running all your books, they're checking all your margins, they're doing all this work, okay, fantastic. Well, what can you take to help build your bench? All right. So let's say, for example, that you're checking payroll. All right, but you've got a project manager. And can you delegate the project manager to check payroll? Can you train them how to do that? Okay, so now let's say that payroll takes you three hours once every two weeks. You've now freed up three hours. You're not doing it anymore. You've decentralized this case. So now I'll now you're like, I want to start building out the ability to do, gardening consultation. So we're going to do the landscaping, but we're also going to add on a sub package of gardening consultation. And that means that we're going to go through and we're going to look at exactly what type of bushes, trees, flowers, soil composition, all that stuff's going to happen. And we're going to do these multi customer walkthroughs of nurseries. to build out this part of the business that we can sell them onto our projects. Fantastic. But we're to video all of that. That's a totally new initiative. Well, could you do that? Could you do that new initiative now that you're no longer verifying payroll three hours every two weeks? Yeah, you could now spend three hours. Yeah, so could you spend six hours that month and build out what that project looks like? How would this run in your business? How would you sell it? Where would it feed? What does a process map look like between taking a nursery client to a full landscape build project? What does that look like? You could build that initiative, figure it all out, understand the time sinks, understand the margins, build a little sub -segment of the business to feed another part or become its own standalone. But you freed up your ability to start having creative thinking on how do I grow my business. Edwyn (44:20.854) by removing these other subtasks. So you have to be able to reintegrate those initiatives, 100%. Enmanuel (44:26.668) Freaking love that idea right there. And what do you think about I had a great? one of my recent guests on this podcast was James from affordable patio and he mentioned that the point of it In order for a business to scale it just has to have as much In order for our landscaping business to scale, has to have as much jobs coming in and getting done as possible. So he was like, you know, how can I bring in more jobs? So how can I get more leads? How can I have more people to close those leads? How can I get people to complete those jobs? And that's what a growth business like completing more than all your other competitors. What do you think about that? Edwyn (45:10.418) Well, I mean, this is really, this is a complex question actually. What you're really doing is you're figuring out your, what's called throughput. So, so how long does it take for your pipeline in segments? So for example, how long does it take once you've generated some ads or whatever to get a lead? Okay. And how long does that lead last? Like how many days is the lead in your pipeline? And then how fast does those leads convert? So now it's converted. How fast does that conversion go to the schedule? And once

it's on the schedule, how many days to complete? So it's a pretty complex set of systems on this. And you need to know what your attrition rate is along every single step along that pathway. There's a cost analysis that I helped with. with this one company called Coastal Design Landscaping out here in the Tri -Cities and Vancouver area in B .C. And basically what it is is that, it's a little bit of what Chris talked about, where you're building in all your overhead, you're building in all of your costs, everything into one job analysis sheet. And you know that if this job takes three days, you're gonna make this much profit, but if it takes four days, you're gonna make this much, and at five days, you're break even. So you know that that's a deescalating scale of return. Enmanuel (46:38.952) Thanks Edwyn (46:43.502) And that type of thing of like, what is your turnaround time and how can you build your schedule and what are your gaps? When are you completing one job and starting another? To me, that is the golden ticket for understanding the operational structure of how your business is moving from product to product to product to product, right? Which it could be location to location, location, location. And what are the logistics around that? So all of that is tied towards operations and logistics and being really clean on your completion cycles and how long your phases are in each project, how many days to complete. So yeah, he's totally right. Is it the thing that will make you scale? Yes and no. No, because you could just run like that and never grow. Do you kind of need it to scale? Yes, because you're going to scale with efficiency. So you now know, okay, well, if I can do this and then I build out a team here or I create these overlaps, or I know that when this phase is complete, I've got a sort of a period of waiting. okay, if we do excavation here, I know that I need to let that soil settle before we go back in. Okay, great. Now I can go to this next phase on this. So the ability to have that really clean, clear operational logistics, yeah, 100%, he's right on that side. Enmanuel (48:09.14) And I see, I think I see exactly what you mean by, by saying that yes, it is where you need to grow. And also it's not what you need to grow. Cause when you see that, yes, I need this to grow. The argument there would be, that's just what needs to happen. You need to bring in more jobs than any of your competitors and make sure that it's done right with no issues, no hiccups. But I also see what you mean by it's not what you need because knowing that doesn't necessarily do anything as far as like. I guess an analogy would be meditating and putting in work on something. Because if you meditate forever, nothing is happening. Yes, you're at a peaceful state, but nothing's actually happening. But until you actually go and do the work, which is what's actually going to make it happen, Edwyn (48:45.717) Yes. Enmanuel (48:53.02) Like, I don't know if I lost

myself there, like, just putting in the work on the systems is what's going to grow. But not just saying, okay, I need to, not just understanding that you need to bring in more customers. Like anybody can understand that, but what are you actually doing about it? Edwyn (49:06.846) Yeah, exactly. And there's a caveat here that I would warn to smaller teams, smaller businesses, is, and okay, I'm to use a metaphor here. It's when you're building a bridge, okay, so, or a raised, you know, driving platform of any kind, right? Like it's going through a city or whatever happens to be. But let's imagine this idea of a roadway and the supports that, the pillars that support that roadway, the elevated roadway, right? You're not going to let's you've got a roadway that's like 10 miles long. You're not going to build 10 miles of pillars and then start putting the platform on top. It's useless. You're also not going to build one pillar and then build out way too far without any support underneath it. So your internal structure, the operational needs of your company are only, you only need to build as much as what keeps you moving forward. Like don't overbuild a massive amount of SOPs if you've got four guys. Like it's not worth it, right? Now, can you build an SOP around the things that are the greatest margin with the highest critical failures with the things that have the highest callback ratios? Yes. But can you track those things? 100%. So you're like, hey guys, we're having a massive issue with our glue downs on our capstones. Okay, fantastic. Let's build an SOP on how this is going to operate. Enmanuel (50:15.412) That's true. Edwyn (50:37.78) You've now dealt with it with an issue in your company that is specific to a problem that will matter to you. But if you're going to be like, hey, we're going to build this entire massive SOP playbook and we're only ever going to be four guys. Well, that's a waste of time and effort, right? It would be way better executed on some other thing. And so really understanding where do you prioritize and how is important. Now, if you want to really grow and you're like, okay, we want to go from one site to eight, yeah, you better start building some SOPs. Otherwise, the issue that we talked about in the very beginning, your pillar one's going to suffer. The quality of your sites is going to suffer. You can't have that happen. gauging what's the priority. Every single meeting I have with all my clients, one of the very first things I ask them, Enmanuel (51:22.396) Yeah, we've got that desktop. Edwyn (51:35.294) after we go through the values and a little bit of mindset check, like, where's your mindset at? Okay. As I say, what's your top priority? Edwyn (51:45.95) And if it's a weekly meeting, I want to know what's your top priority right now. And it's like, maybe it's hiring, maybe it's development, maybe it's training, maybe it's margins, maybe it's dealing with your finances on your back end, maybe it's a bank loan, maybe it's acquisition of some new material in trucks. You need to know. If your whole week fell apart, what's that top priority? And then what happens is that you end up with this record. So if you look back on 50 weeks of meetings and you said, okay, great, let's pull all the lines that were just top priority, were those the things that were gonna help you grow your business? Enmanuel (52:28.693) That is a great fucking question. Edwyn (52:29.846) It's a really simple way of just sort of, none of this stuff is rocket science, right? But it's about the application, it's about getting out of your own way. And again, a lot of it comes back to mindset. Like, are you someone who trusts early, but once you're betrayed, you're like, I'm locked down, I'm never trusting this person again? Or are you someone who trusts late? And you're like, I'm to be kind of guarded around this person until they win my trust. Those are two different leadership mindsets. Okay, well your business is gonna operate differently under those two things. And so the level of self -awareness that an owner operator needs is more. You can't be like, that's just how I am. Okay, great. What is that? Does anyone else know? Enmanuel (53:18.678) Hahaha And I love what you mentioned there too about about focusing on the right things, you know Imagine saying you know watching a video on YouTube and then now you know, okay now I need to systemize and then you go and you start systemizing You know how to Like you mentioned how to glue down bluestone for example when you don't even install bluestone You're focusing on things that yes, you're systemizing which is something good, but you're doing it on the wrong item That's not gonna help you move forward and gain traction. And now that I just mentioned that word traction, and when I want to get your take on this, because I do want to be respectful every time, what do you think about EOS? What do you think about maybe EOS? What do you think about e -MIF? Because there's these companies that will go in and put systems in place, and I guess you will consider them your competitor. So what separates you from them in a way? What's the difference between the two? Edwyn (54:13.6) Yeah, for sure. So I've got mixed thoughts on EOS and a lot of my clients know about this. And from an operational, like how do you run your business, your meeting cadence, how do you deal with some scenarios, all that sort of stuff. There's a lot of really good value in Gino's structure. And for sure, figure out how is this tied to your values. And a lot of that stuff has come from effective leadership and a few other sort of, for me, I'm a big Peter Drucker fan. And so the idea behind EOS, it's better than nothing, right? Like you need to have some sort of structure on how your business operates tied to whatever your business actually is, for sure. The thing that I find that is a struggle is that there's a few missing components. And this is where you need to get an

individualized coach or an individualized mentor or some sort of mastermind of people in that space. I love what you're doing within this space because it's giving people a reflection on parts of the business that they focus on. Like for example, you know, there's a meeting structure in there that's called IDS, right? So it's called Issue, Discuss and Solve. Okay, great. And there's like a little smattering of like, okay, well, if you can't come to a resolution, then table it. And I've gone into five different businesses that have used this format and what they have is just a stack of issues, but nothing on how to do conflict resolution. Like no conflict management development, no conflict management skills, no conflict management framework at all. Like not even an agreement. you know, like, so for example, Manny, you and I working together. But we haven't even agreed on how we're going to navigate a concept. Edwyn (56:13.61) Like we haven't talked about how we're going to do it, let alone when it occurs. Enmanuel (56:13.742) Right Edwyn (56:21.66) And then what's the psychology bias for people? Am I really conflict diverse or am I very conflict approach? I'm like, no, no, no, we need to talk about this. You're like, man, I don't want to talk about it. Let's deal with it later. This kind of stuff shows up all the time. You know what I mean? And so you have to have the ability. Yeah, go ahead. Enmanuel (56:37.682) Well, a quick thing with that, actually. Yeah, on IDS, Edwyn (56:47.477) Discuss. Enmanuel (56:48.889) There's a section there, right? Well, yeah, disgust part of it is kind of like where you would discuss it, right? Until it's fully resolved so it wouldn't stay on that list? Or how does it work? Edwyn (56:57.78) Right. Okay, well here, I'll posit this against a little bit of an example. Okay, so let's say that I am building out a quote. Okay, so I'm your estimator and I'm building out a quote for this one client. And I know that there's a very specific need around this quote because of access, their backyard's really hard to get to. We probably won't be able to get a skid steer back there. but it looks like a really good project, et cetera, et cetera. And then you're the business operator, or, sorry. So, and then you're in finance. So you're helping it with the accounting and bookkeeping. And we're in a team meeting and you're like, hey, Edwin, that estimate that you put out, its margins are totally not in line with what we're accepting for margins. And so that's an issue, because I'm not going to be able to balance this against what I need, et cetera, et And I get defensive. Enmanuel (57:25.608) Mm Edwyn (57:54.71) Because I'm like, man, I'm building contingencies in with the lighting. I've already dealt with that markup elsewhere. And what's happened is that we've created a scenario where something that you actually don't have any decision -making power on, you're allowed to comment on. and you may have no context. Enmanuel (58:15.18)

I see what you mean by they will get defensive because it's like you're attacking me, but you don't really even know what you're talking about in a way. Edwyn (58:18.624) Completely. 100 % and so The number of little examples where this could show up on a weekly basis or on a monthly basis within a team of five six seven people that are all trying to converse and and have input on each other is absolutely massive You know, I'll tell you another really quick example. This is a real case study. There's a Leader that I was working with and they had to deal with a compliance issue, right like it had to do with like permits and they explained the process and what some of the current city logistics were to this project manager. Okay, the project manager delegated it out to their foreman to submit the permit but didn't give them the information. Enmanuel (59:03.655) Okay. Edwyn (59:13.918) And so it got raised as an issue because it delayed the project by two weeks. So that's about two week delay. But when it was raised, the project manager was the one who threw the foreman under the bus and said, well, we weren't aware of these issues. Right? Okay. Now you're dealing with a conflict because one person said, no, no, I told this project manager how that was going to impact their job site. Project manager is now guarding against the owner being aware that they made a mistake and has thrown the foreman under the bus. Okay. This is the problem. How do you solve that problem? You scrap it out? No, you don't just scrap it out. You need to understand the psychology of the people involved. Enmanuel (59:53.417) I'm just kidding. Edwyn (59:59.478) You need to figure out what's going on. You have to have a solid one -to -one structure. You got to have the ability to have a transparent communication inside the business. These are all the things that need to happen. And there's just a gap in how do you make that true? And so then you end up with these arguments in these level 10 meetings that just kind of go round and round and round and round and round. It's okay, great. Let's table it guys. Everyone's and then someone raises something else and the counter attack happens and all this infighting starts to take place. And so normally when I get called. It's like, man, we're growing our business, but we are fighting. It's like, okay, great, let's get in there. Enmanuel (01:00:37.844) So, wow, that's, so what, aside from the conflict management side of it, what else do you think is flawed with EOS? Or is that pretty much it, the only addition you would - Edwyn (01:00:48.368) I just think that you've to be able to pull it apart. You have to use the parts that are going to work for you and your business. And the scorecarding, that's a lot of work. That's a lot of hours. You've already got people that are time -starved. Right? I mean, that's just how it is. Like you're going to be time starved. You've got leads coming in, you've got quotes to get done. You've got orders to place. You got change orders to modify. You've got payroll to run. You've got job sites to go check on quality. You're time starved. So how do you get the must maximize thing? And so I'm a bigger fan of frameworks than modular do A, B, C, Cause a framework for me, like for example, the five pillars, like I talked about earlier, Enmanuel (01:01:08.882) Right. Right. Edwyn (01:01:37.002) I'm like, okay, cool. Let's just color code your schedule according to where you're spending your time on your five pillars. So pillar one is yellow. Pillar two is red. Pillar three or yellow, know, green. Pillar three is blue. Okay. Let's just go in your schedule, go on your calendar and let's color code everything according to that. Does that make sense now? You basically heat mapped your calendar. That's a framework that you can now make decisions that you're not bound. business owners, operators started their business because they want some freedom. And then we're going to put these constraints on them and say, wow, you got to follow this and it's got to be followed exactly like this. It's like, man, that's tough. I find that really, really hard. Enmanuel (01:02:22.316) Stuff and you just lit up a light bulb in my head like I've never thought of no like he mapping my calendar like that That's pretty and then knowing that like okay. I'm spending this much time on this task Maybe I should start focus on on delegating here for example That's a great. That's a great framework. And what's the difference between the two like a framework is something that is? Edwyn (01:02:45.726) It applies to multiple things. Enmanuel (01:02:47.656) But either way you're telling them what to do. Not telling them what to do, but giving them a direction. But what separates the two? Edwyn (01:02:54.836) Yeah. So, so for example, like I've got, I've got a framework called the leadership Trinity, right? So it's basically the balance of responsibility, which is effectively the actions that you take, your authority, which is how much, control do you have over, a set of actions and, know, decision -making power, capital expenditure, et cetera, et cetera. And then accountability. Okay. Well, okay. That's a framework. Once you really understand that framework. and someone is chiming in on something and saying, well, you know what? I think that we should probably do this phase first before that phase and whatever, whatever. You can say, hey, listen, you're responsible for the actions here. Do you have the authority to make a decision on this area? Yes or no? Well, I feel like I do. Okay, great. Are you accountable if it goes well or not? No. Okay. So you have 50 % responsibility, no accountability, and you want 100 % authority. Does that make sense? That's a framework you can put to anything. Enmanuel (01:03:53.597) It does not. Wow. Edwyn (01:03:58.164) And you just plot it on the, you just plot it. You just go, okay, great. Hey, you're heavily responsible for this. You're heavily

accountable for this, but we haven't given you enough authority here. Okay, well, let's start giving you more authority. Enmanuel (01:04:12.306) Wow. And this is a framework that you came up with or like, how do you, how does one even come up with a framework? Edwyn (01:04:18.888) Yeah, I mean, that's just one of the things that I do. So it's like, you know, I'm just constantly developing new intellectual property around around these frameworks, right? So five players of business, leadership, Trinity, you know, decision making matrix, like, like, how do those things all apply? So now it's like, hey, great. In a meeting, we've got a new initiative, we will designate these five levels of decision making now. Like right out of the gate, because we're going to critically think through what this actually means. Enmanuel (01:04:22.738) Holy shit. Edwyn (01:04:48.158) Now you've removed all of the downstream issues that might show up or someone said, I thought I was deciding on this. No, man, we decided in the meeting, this is who's deciding this. This is, this is you, this is them. Here's who's actioning all this stuff. Who's the verifier and the steps who needs to be actively told what's going on and what updates are required and where's the passive information health. That's all a framework that you can apply to any project, any initiative, any site, any strategic initiative. doesn't matter. Enmanuel (01:05:19.508) That's beautiful right there. That is beautiful. And Edward, you know what? do want to be respectful of your time. Dude, you've been an amazing guest. Much more amazing. Edwyn (01:05:26.004) Yeah, yeah, yeah, we went right through this. Enmanuel (01:05:28.904) much more amazing holy shit that I I get a lot of value like this whole time even though you know the advice is for like you know a home service contractor or anybody listening in I'm thinking of like how do I do that for my own business it's got me thinking a lot so everyone I really appreciate you how can the audience get in contact with you if they want to access the the knowledge that you have in your mind and get coaching from you perhaps well be the best way to reach you Edwyn (01:05:41.738) Yeah, great. Edwyn (01:05:52.906) Yeah, for sure. I mean, on LinkedIn, I'm Edwin Kumar. But my website is ultra team dev .ca. And I made it dev because I was really afraid of people misspelling development all the time. So it's ultra team dev .ca is the easiest way to get a hold of me. And Edwin at ultra team dev .ca is my email address. And it's Edwin with a Y. I've been blessed with a cool spelling and cursed with having to return all my government ID the first time it gets issued to me. Because they spell it with an I all the time. Enmanuel (01:06:33.901) Wow, that's funny But yeah, when did you been an amazing guest? I hope that you know the listeners in here got a lot of value out of it If you guys didn't get value, we'll go on YouTube like it if you're listening on Instagram Follow me follow Edwin And when you've been an amazing guest, I'll put all your information in the bio. I appreciate you being a guest man. Have an amazing day Edwyn (01:06:54.674) Awesome, Manny Looking forward to seeing you in a few weeks. Enmanuel (01:06:57.266) Yes, sir. See you there. TBD. Validating, Edwyn (01:06:59.275) Ciao ciao. That's right.