Latest / Big Talk About Small Business / Ep. 40 - Cultivating a Culture of Ownership in the Entrepreneurial Field with Ryan Markewich

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Ep. 40 - Cultivating a Culture of Ownership in the Entrepreneurial Field with Ryan Markewich · Big Talk About Small Business

• 0:04
  Mark Zweig: all right, everybody.
• 0:05
  Mark Zweig: Uh, we're back again with another episode of big talk about small business, and I'm here with my buddy, eric howerton, and a very special guest, brian markowicz, and uh, r Ryan is up there in Canada.
• 0:25
  Mark Zweig: How goes it there, eh?
• 0:28
  Ryan Markewich: It goes pretty good sir.
• 0:31
  Mark Zweig: Good job, Mark.
• 0:32
  Mark Zweig: Can we talk about projects today?
• 0:35
  Mark Zweig: I know that's another Canadianism, isn't it?
• 0:38
  Ryan Markewich: We can talk about whatever you'd like.
• 0:40
  Ryan Markewich: I'll just follow along.
• 0:44
  Mark Zweig: Ryan is kind of like Eric and myself.
• 0:47
  Mark Zweig: I think he's done pretty much everything.
• 0:49
  Mark Zweig: He's got many different ventures he's been involved with, and, if he's anything like Eric and myself, we've lived multiple lives, yes.
• 1:01
  Mark Zweig: And so Ryan, though, has has some, some businesses that I think are interesting.
• 1:10
  Mark Zweig: He's a he's a big follower of the great game of business, which is one of the few I don't want to say trendy management programs that I actually have respect for.
• 1:24
  Mark Zweig: You have respect for a program I do, because I, you know Jack Stack was the creator.
• 1:32
  Mark Zweig: He practiced open book management.
• 1:34
  Mark Zweig: That's a really big core tenet of it, and, you know, I feel like that's almost a religion to me, um, but uh.
• 1:42
  Mark Zweig: So Ryan is a consultant, coach, provider of services related to the great game of business, helping other companies.
• 1:52
  Mark Zweig: Uh, he actually came out of the landscaping business, though.
• 1:56
  Mark Zweig: Um has a company called creative roots, and I and I love your, your, uh, your slogan there.
• 2:04
  Mark Zweig: When you open up the webpage page for Creative Roots, why don't you tell everybody what that is?
• 2:09
  Ryan Markewich: again, ryan, that is making neighbors jealous since 1994.
• 2:15
  Mark Zweig: That's awesome.
• 2:16
  Mark Zweig: I do love that.
• 2:18
  Ryan Markewich: It kind of doubles as our brand promise.
• 2:19
  Ryan Markewich: When I went through that branding process with a friend of mine, he said you've got to make your competitors think you're nuts and make you nervous.
• 2:27
  Ryan Markewich: And I said well, that's, that'll do it.
• 2:29
  Ryan Markewich: That's fair.
• 2:30
  Eric Howerton: That's a good.
• 2:30
  Eric Howerton: That's a good advice.
• 2:32
  Mark Zweig: It's funny, I you know, we just moved recently to a new house and and of course, the yard is a disaster and I'm out there working on it.
• 2:40
  Mark Zweig: You know well, you're up there in Canada, ryan.
• 2:42
  Mark Zweig: I can't get you down here, it's just a flight man.
• 2:45
  Mark Zweig: But we need a team, we need an army.
• 2:49
  Mark Zweig: It took six guys several days just to clean all the leaves out of the place.
• 2:55
  Mark Zweig: It was a disaster, but anyway, I'm out there working in my yard and it looks like hell and I see my neighbors go by and I want to say to them hey guys, I'm normally the guy that everybody looks at his yard and says, wow, look at that guy's yard.
• 3:14
  Speaker 4: So give me some time over here, cause I need it.
• 3:15
  Eric Howerton: That's not how they're looking at you right now.
• 3:17
  Mark Zweig: You felt judged, didn't you?
• 3:19
  Mark Zweig: I'm so judged.
• 3:20
  Mark Zweig: I've got these just like terrible beds, with enormous dandelions growing up and dead shrubs of all types planted in the wrong place.
• 3:28
  Mark Zweig: Ryan would have a heart attack.
• 3:29
  Mark Zweig: Sounds like an opportunity.
• 3:31
  Ryan Markewich: Sounds like an opportunity to me Ryan.
• 3:34
  Mark Zweig: So tell us, though, ryan, a little bit about your journey.
• 3:37
  Mark Zweig: How did you get started in business, what were you like as a kid, what was your family situation, and what are you doing now?
• 3:47
  Ryan Markewich: yeah, so yeah, grew up in Kelowna, british Columbia.
• 3:51
  Ryan Markewich: It was a small town, maybe 50,000 people.
• 3:53
  Ryan Markewich: Um, when I was born and raised here, starting in 1969, and, um, yeah, went to high school, played some sports, uh, was a little wild, you know, but I, I I really enjoyed the self-improvement side of things.
• 4:09
  Ryan Markewich: You know, I was always listening to Jim Rohn and Brian Tracy and, you know, dan Kennedy all these guys and reading books and I thought to myself that one day that would be kind of cool to use that in business and stuff like that.
• 4:23
  Ryan Markewich: So, anyways, after high school I moved down to Vancouver, british Columbia, spent a few years down there, came back here for family reasons, needed to get a job, wasn't much, weren't too many people hiring, so I said I'm going to grab a lawnmower and a truck and I'll just knock on some doors until you know, until I can make enough money to pay the rent and, you know, buy beer on the weekends.
• 4:50
  Eric Howerton: Big goals, love it.
• 4:54
  Ryan Markewich: And I've always been, I've always been good with working with my hands and I figured shit out pretty quickly that way.
• 5:00
  Ryan Markewich: And, um, I just saw opportunities and I enjoyed it.
• 5:04
  Ryan Markewich: So it grew and grew and you know, to about 2000 was 1994 is when I started, right in about 2005.
• 5:14
  Ryan Markewich: You know it was getting a little burnt out and probably had made every management mistake in the book and I was introduced to.
• 5:21
  Ryan Markewich: Just you know, hey, you got to do better business.
• 5:23
  Ryan Markewich: You know the businesses got to do better business.
• 5:25
  Ryan Markewich: You know the business is running.
• 5:26
  Ryan Markewich: You, you're not running it.
• 5:28
  Ryan Markewich: And I just stumbled across the Great Game of Business book and I read it and I said, wow, that's for me.
• 5:34
  Ryan Markewich: We hired one of their coaches at the time.
• 5:38
  Ryan Markewich: You might have heard of him, bill Fage, I don't know, no big deal and yeah, we just kind of self-implemented and went on this journey.
• 5:47
  Ryan Markewich: All the just better business practices not all related to OpenBook Mark, as you know Right, it's doing good businesses about building great relationships and having more hands lifting and involving people, being a little more transparent and education, education and working harder and creating a common vision and all that good stuff.
• 6:09
  Ryan Markewich: So, yeah, I did that and I grew the business until about six years ago.
• 6:18
  Ryan Markewich: I decided I was going to bring in some employees as owners.
• 6:22
  Ryan Markewich: So I've brought in four employee owners to date, which has been great and and that's going great.
• 6:29
  Ryan Markewich: I, I, I couldn't imagine exiting any other way and I'm I'm down to 25% of the company now.
• 6:36
  Mark Zweig: So good job.
• 6:38
  Ryan Markewich: I'll hang on.
• 6:38
  Ryan Markewich: I'll hang on to that until you know, until they kicked me out.
• 6:42
  Ryan Markewich: You know they vote me off the Island type thing, or I told him as long as I'm still providing value to you guys, you can keep me.
• 6:49
  Ryan Markewich: If I'm not, there's no point in me holding it back.
• 6:52
  Mark Zweig: So and well, eric and I Eric and I both been through that several times.
• 6:58
  Ryan Markewich: So it's interesting.
• 7:00
  Mark Zweig: It is, it's, it's.
• 7:01
  Mark Zweig: It's not easy, but you've got your son involved in the business.
• 7:05
  Mark Zweig: Is he one of the partners now, or what's the story there?
• 7:08
  Ryan Markewich: Yeah, yeah, I was really looking to exit on a good note and then my son, my youngest son decided he wanted to get in.
• 7:17
  Ryan Markewich: So he came in and bought in just like everyone else at 30% of the company in and bought in just like everyone else at 30% of the company and I felt like I felt like the godfather you know I was just out and they sucked me back in, type thing and but I really enjoy it.
• 7:33
  Ryan Markewich: You know it's, it's really cool to see him take things farther and and he's a much better leader than I ever was by nature Is he running the business now?
• 7:45
  Ryan Markewich: He runs the maintenance end of things.
• 7:47
  Ryan Markewich: Okay, he'll run.
• 7:49
  Ryan Markewich: You know 12, 13 employees in there and you know he'll do you know a million, four million five in sales in the maintenance side.
• 7:56
  Mark Zweig: Yeah yeah, now you guys do a lot of installation too, though.
• 8:00
  Ryan Markewich: Yeah, design build, yep, is about two thirds of the business.
• 8:03
  Ryan Markewich: Uh huh, yeah, design built is about two thirds of the business.
• 8:07
  Ryan Markewich: Yeah, so it's still a.
• 8:08
  Ryan Markewich: It's still a small company.
• 8:09
  Ryan Markewich: We're just North of you know, 3 million with some higher aspirations.
• 8:10
  Ryan Markewich: We really wanted to make sure that when we did decide to push for growth, that that we were ready for it If we had the buy-in that's.
• 8:17
  Ryan Markewich: We wanted better problems and not bigger ones, so to speak.
• 8:23
  Mark Zweig: So now you have no business education at all, is that right?
• 8:27
  Ryan Markewich: you just learned it all on the job all the shovel yeah, all on the shovel no, and you know, I I always surrounded myself, um, with some pretty good people and I, I listen, I listen to people that were where their stories resonate with me.
• 8:45
  Ryan Markewich: And even the stuff, you, even the interactions we've had, mark, or you know, they're very meaningful to me because you know, a lot of the stuff you write about in your book was fantastic oh, thanks man I think he's stalking me.
• 8:57
  Ryan Markewich: I think you know like they get.
• 9:00
  Ryan Markewich: Some of those experiences are very similar across people who have, you know, rolled with the punches and built a business.
• 9:08
  Mark Zweig: Well, yeah, and now you got into real estate development as well.
• 9:12
  Mark Zweig: How's that going?
• 9:13
  Ryan Markewich: Yeah, Well, at this point in time it's not the greatest experience.
• 9:19
  Ryan Markewich: I think our city wants us to live in Whoville.
• 9:22
  Ryan Markewich: I mean, everything's got to be so perfect, you know, and I've got a corner lot and I'm only subdividing off one property, so I'll have the two.
• 9:31
  Ryan Markewich: One will have an existing house but you know it's the curbs and the sidewalks and I had to upgrade 300 feet of water main right up the road.
• 9:39
  Ryan Markewich: Oh yeah, fire hydrants, street signs, lamp posts, it's a thing.
• 9:46
  Mark Zweig: Been there, my friend Been there.
• 9:48
  Ryan Markewich: I bet you have.
• 9:49
  Ryan Markewich: I should have called you before I started.
• 9:52
  Mark Zweig: Do they do any cost sharing there with things like water and sewer?
• 9:56
  Ryan Markewich: Well, they have what's called a latecomer thing.
• 10:00
  Ryan Markewich: So for 15 years they'll administer the file, and anybody who joins in will have to pay a portion pro rata to the size of their lot or whatever they're doing.
• 10:11
  Ryan Markewich: So we'll see how that goes.
• 10:13
  Mark Zweig: Well, you got my sympathies on that one.
• 10:18
  Mark Zweig: We've been there and we're out of that now, thank God.
• 10:21
  Mark Zweig: Eric's got a project he's doing right now he's having a tremendous amount of fun with.
• 10:25
  Mark Zweig: He's got six or seven acres on this hillside, yeah I'm getting progress done, though.
• 10:31
  Eric Howerton: Finally are you?
• 10:32
  Eric Howerton: Yeah, I really am, it's looking good it's good.
• 10:34
  Eric Howerton: Yeah, you need to go out there and check it out.
• 10:35
  Eric Howerton: It's ready for seeding now and then.
• 10:38
  Eric Howerton: Then we'll be getting the concrete in the next few weeks and so hopefully it'll turn out well big development project for eric, yeah so.
• 10:49
  Mark Zweig: So tell us now, ryan, um what else are you doing?
• 10:53
  Mark Zweig: What's the how does the coaching business of great game of business work out, and are you specialized in serving other landscape contractors?
• 11:01
  Mark Zweig: I, I did notice that that was one of the thrusts.
• 11:05
  Ryan Markewich: So yeah, it's, you know honestly, you know business is business, is a bunch of people doing stuff and and.
• 11:13
  Ryan Markewich: But I just happen to have some credibility in the landscape, in the green industry, and I have a connection with the Landscape Management Network, lmn, and so you know, I don't know what I'll cross-promote, but this is something I really believe in.
• 11:29
  Ryan Markewich: So I have coached some landscape business owners.
• 11:32
  Ryan Markewich: I've also coached a countertop manufacturer in Atlanta and worked with, you know, a real estate company and development company in Calgary.
• 11:41
  Ryan Markewich: So it's not just that.
• 11:46
  Ryan Markewich: But I find that people kind of want to stick to their industry, even if I'm not teaching them.
• 11:50
  Ryan Markewich: I don't want to talk about the type of lawnmowers we use and stuff much.
• 11:53
  Ryan Markewich: It kind of gets in the way of teaching people how to do open book management.
• 11:59
  Ryan Markewich: But I'm pretty open to that and I don't take on a lot.
• 12:03
  Ryan Markewich: You know a couple of clients every six months for a six-month engagement, I see yeah.
• 12:09
  Mark Zweig: So what do you say to people, small business owners who say, well, open book management wouldn't help me, Our people don't understand that stuff.
• 12:21
  Ryan Markewich: I'd say, yeah, of course they don't understand it.
• 12:23
  Ryan Markewich: They were never taught it, so it's I.
• 12:26
  Ryan Markewich: I.
• 12:26
  Ryan Markewich: Just for me it was all about I don't want my players on the field trying to make plays when they don't understand the game, and they don't understand understand the scorecard of the game, and so you know.
• 12:42
  Ryan Markewich: And of course you get the naysayers and you get the people who think they have something to hide.
• 12:46
  Ryan Markewich: Then you get the other people who think you know well what happens if they find out we're not doing well Right, they already assume all that.
• 12:55
  Mark Zweig: Exactly.
• 12:55
  Mark Zweig: I always say if you're doing well, they think you're doing far better than you are, and if you're not doing well, they think you're ready to go out of business.
• 13:06
  Ryan Markewich: Yeah, it's right.
• 13:07
  Ryan Markewich: So either you train them, you know, either you teach them and they and they leave, or you, you know, you don't teach them and they stay.
• 13:13
  Ryan Markewich: I mean, I don't know what's worse.
• 13:15
  Ryan Markewich: Yeah, actually I do.
• 13:16
  Ryan Markewich: I do know what's worse, but you know, I think the real, the real reward for me is seeing, you know, seeing someone who joined us at 18, right out of high school, and at 26, he becomes a partner.
• 13:29
  Mark Zweig: Yeah.
• 13:31
  Ryan Markewich: And, and he's running the meeting and he's stoked about being there and he's pushing for success and he's starting to save money.
• 13:39
  Ryan Markewich: And you know, these are kids that maybe came from a background that didn't have any of that Right, and so that's always, yeah, background that didn't have any of that Right, and so that's always.
• 13:48
  Mark Zweig: Yeah, I didn't mean to interrupt you, I was just going to say I think a lot of people underestimate, though, how important that is to small business owners seeing their people succeed.
• 13:57
  Mark Zweig: That's one of your greatest feelings of accomplishment.
• 14:01
  Mark Zweig: You know, eric, and I have talked about that.
• 14:04
  Ryan Markewich: Yeah, yeah, no, I agree with you 100% on that one and I see it all the time and even small accomplishments, right?
• 14:12
  Ryan Markewich: We we do have goal setting boards per individual and they're reviewed and and in a way that we're trying to support people to achieve these goals, whether it's save up $1,000 or buy a new car or get a ski pass for the winter.
• 14:30
  Ryan Markewich: It doesn't matter how big or small People like to win, and when they win, it just makes everybody feel good.
• 14:41
  Ryan Markewich: But winning has to be taught.
• 14:43
  Mark Zweig: There's been a lot of losing in life for most people.
• 14:44
  Mark Zweig: That's an interesting point.
• 14:45
  Mark Zweig: Tell us more about that.
• 14:47
  Ryan Markewich: Well, I just think you know life isn't easy for everybody.
• 14:50
  Ryan Markewich: I mean, it's a rocky road sometimes and you know, you're raised and you're told you know, don't talk to strangers or don't touch that, or you can't do that, or depends on who you are.
• 15:03
  Ryan Markewich: I think I was fortunate enough to be told I could do whatever I wanted.
• 15:08
  Ryan Markewich: Then I was influenced by the right crowds and people.
• 15:12
  Ryan Markewich: But that doesn't happen for everybody, and just as much as losing or not winning, I should say, can be addictive, I think winning is on the same thing.
• 15:23
  Ryan Markewich: It's just a different view of what constitutes that.
• 15:29
  Eric Howerton: I really like that a lot actually, ron.
• 15:32
  Eric Howerton: I mean I think you know we've discussed a little bit in the past too.
• 15:35
  Eric Howerton: I mean you mentioned I mean my upbringing was one of encouragement and positivity as well, for the most part right.
• 15:42
  Eric Howerton: I mean it's positive human beings can be yeah you know, I'd say the same yeah and so, and then you as well, and that's also been stated.
• 15:50
  Eric Howerton: It's kind of interesting.
• 15:51
  Eric Howerton: There's a little bit of a thread going on here.
• 15:53
  Eric Howerton: I think that we're, you know, and I'm trying to think of an entrepreneur that I might know that actually was more in a negative scenario.
• 16:03
  Eric Howerton: I mean, I may or may not know, but I mean, like I've known people that have been in negative scenarios growing up and there's in my experience and knowing those folks, there's a higher sense of security and certainty that they're really after, which is the opposite of entrepreneurship.
• 16:24
  Mark Zweig: Yeah Right, that's stepping out off the ledge.
• 16:28
  Eric Howerton: It is man.
• 16:29
  Eric Howerton: I mean you know and I didn't.
• 16:31
  Eric Howerton: That was funny.
• 16:31
  Eric Howerton: I was talking to my daughter about this this morning.
• 16:33
  Eric Howerton: I was like I don't even remember, Like I always knew that I would land somewhere, as I was in my early entrepreneurial career, Like I mean, I didn't really have a fear of falling because I just kind of understood that I would Not, that I had backup plans, because I didn't have a backup plan, but that's probably why that's part of it.
• 16:54
  Eric Howerton: Yeah, there was no fear of it.
• 16:56
  Eric Howerton: Plan B doesn't always work.
• 16:58
  Mark Zweig: Burn the ships.
• 16:59
  Mark Zweig: Right yeah, when we land on the foreign soil, burn the ships.
• 17:03
  Mark Zweig: That's it.
• 17:03
  Mark Zweig: There's no going back.
• 17:07
  Eric Howerton: I think that might be hard.
• 17:07
  Eric Howerton: I mean, if I consider somebody else's situation, it might be a little bit difficult if I didn't, you know.
• 17:13
  Eric Howerton: I mean like if I've seen a little bit more of a negative thing growing up, maybe More failure.
• 17:23
  Ryan Markewich: I'll finish that story.
• 17:24
  Ryan Markewich: Growing up I don't think the positivity.
• 17:26
  Ryan Markewich: Well, my parents, I know they believed in me, but the household situation was not good growing up at all Not as bad as other people's I've since found out but in that moment you think that's the end of the world.
• 17:41
  Ryan Markewich: And then you get on a life and you realize how bad some people really had it.
• 17:46
  Ryan Markewich: But I think it's the outside influence.
• 17:49
  Ryan Markewich: Like you know, when I got that Phoenix seminar of eight cassette tapes of Brian Tracy's from my dad's shelf, yeah, and I remember that stuck around it would get eaten by the cassette and I'd take the pencil and wind it back up.
• 18:01
  Ryan Markewich: I mean I listened to that thing until I couldn't listen to it anymore, a hundred times at least.
• 18:07
  Ryan Markewich: And then, wow, and then you pick up napoleon hill's book off the shelf or you're just reading stuff, dale carnegie, or it just makes sense to you.
• 18:16
  Ryan Markewich: So that and a couple key people in my life in my late teens really helped me kind of stay the track.
• 18:25
  Ryan Markewich: I've been off track a lot since then, but I always have that North Star Like you're talking about.
• 18:32
  Ryan Markewich: You land on your feet.
• 18:33
  Eric Howerton: Yeah.
• 18:35
  Ryan Markewich: There was no plan B, so it was do or die.
• 18:38
  Eric Howerton: Yeah, I love that you're bringing up those Brian Tracy, dale, carnegie yeah, think and Grow've talked, we bring it up quite a bit, but I mean, I think that there's, I believe, a hundred percent, like I mean, in order to be in business for yourself, you got to have some kind of out of the world confidence and I wouldn't say that like it's necessarily confidence in yourself.
• 19:01
  Eric Howerton: It's more of confidence in the, in the vision, you know, and confidence in the market need, like it's because you're going to be told no a million times.
• 19:09
  Eric Howerton: You know I mean, but I mean it's.
• 19:12
  Eric Howerton: But listening to those types of things like what it has always helped me out with is recognizing, like a other people have are going through doubts potentially, you know, or the roadblocks and barriers and B I have my own power to choose to overcome that.
• 19:31
  Eric Howerton: You know and think through that and I feel like in the beginning there was a lot of blind confidence Like I didn't even know.
• 19:38
  Eric Howerton: You know that.
• 19:39
  Ryan Markewich: I had confidence, but then, as I got older, you have to be a bit oblivious.
• 19:43
  Eric Howerton: That's what I say about that.
• 19:44
  Eric Howerton: There you go.
• 19:44
  Eric Howerton: I agree.
• 19:49
  Eric Howerton: It's like you don't even know all the stuff that could go wrong.
• 19:52
  Mark Zweig: Yeah, yeah, that's so true.
• 19:53
  Mark Zweig: So so, ryan, though back on on on your upbringing, you didn't go to college.
• 19:59
  Mark Zweig: No, did you?
• 20:00
  Mark Zweig: I mean, obviously you're an intelligent guy and I'm sure you knew a lot of people who did.
• 20:05
  Mark Zweig: I'm just curious why didn't you?
• 20:07
  Mark Zweig: What were you thinking?
• 20:10
  Ryan Markewich: I don't know.
• 20:10
  Ryan Markewich: I was going to pursue a career in the photography world and I'm glad I did, because so much has changed in that industry.
• 20:21
  Ryan Markewich: Eric's a big photographer.
• 20:22
  Eric Howerton: I have a degree in photojournalism.
• 20:24
  Eric Howerton: There you go.
• 20:25
  Eric Howerton: Yeah, it changed.
• 20:27
  Ryan Markewich: But I did spend some time down in Vancouver for a few years.
• 20:30
  Ryan Markewich: I was a freelance assistant and we shot small, medium and large format Nice Studio and off-site, off-studio stuff.
• 20:39
  Ryan Markewich: So it was interesting and I still carry that with me today.
• 20:42
  Ryan Markewich: So I like to do my travel photography and it's, it's uh, it's a bit of therapy for me, just me and my camera and the whatever's happening out there.
• 20:51
  Ryan Markewich: When I'm out traveling, I spend with the exception of this last winter I spent the last 10 winters in Mexico, so, um, to escape the Canadian winter and get better tacos.
• 21:08
  Mark Zweig: What could be better than Taco Bell?
• 21:10
  Mark Zweig: I mean really, oh, come on, mark.
• 21:12
  Mark Zweig: I mean, there's a lot better.
• 21:15
  Mark Zweig: Oh man, the double-decker taco is so delicious with Diablo sauce.
• 21:21
  Mark Zweig: No, I'm kidding, I'm kidding.
• 21:23
  Ryan Markewich: I'll give you my address when I'm down there next winter.
• 21:26
  Ryan Markewich: You can come down, I'll show you.
• 21:28
  Mark Zweig: Well, you guys have those great steak frites up there.
• 21:31
  Mark Zweig: I guess that's more over in the eastern part of the country, though I think so.
• 21:35
  Mark Zweig: Yeah, that's always what I like to get when I'm in Montreal or Quebec.
• 21:41
  Ryan Markewich: Another venture you might have seen.
• 21:42
  Ryan Markewich: Mark was a business partner who was a friend turned partner.
• 21:47
  Ryan Markewich: We saw a failing business in town and our goal was to save this business, get it back on, teach them a little bit and then turn it back to the employees.
• 21:56
  Ryan Markewich: And that was a salon and barbershop.
• 21:59
  Ryan Markewich: Yeah, we started that about oh it must be 15 months ago.
• 22:03
  Ryan Markewich: We took it over and it was going to close.
• 22:06
  Ryan Markewich: The doors were going to close.
• 22:07
  Ryan Markewich: It was a 15-year business.
• 22:09
  Ryan Markewich: It had 15 employees.
• 22:10
  Ryan Markewich: Wow, it's in a heritage building in a great part of town, a really up-and-coming part of town.
• 22:16
  Ryan Markewich: And so we did that.
• 22:18
  Ryan Markewich: We started going through the process of open book management and teaching them about the financials.
• 22:23
  Ryan Markewich: Now they're having their weekly financial huddle.
• 22:25
  Ryan Markewich: They and we're going to transition over to the previous manager who has stuck with it all.
• 22:34
  Mark Zweig: Awesome.
• 22:34
  Ryan Markewich: Kind of an experiment.
• 22:35
  Ryan Markewich: Yeah.
• 22:36
  Mark Zweig: Now, most of those businesses, the people are independent contractors and they just rent space.
• 22:42
  Mark Zweig: I take it that's not the case in this situation.
• 22:45
  Ryan Markewich: No, they're commission based.
• 22:46
  Ryan Markewich: Okay, yeah, so it's a little different model.
• 22:49
  Ryan Markewich: Yeah, yeah, so it's a little different model.
• 22:50
  Ryan Markewich: Yeah.
• 22:52
  Mark Zweig: Well, it's fun seeing how these businesses that normally don't have good processes, good information, allow for employee participation and this kind of stuff.
• 23:06
  Mark Zweig: When you do that and they blossom.
• 23:15
  Ryan Markewich: I just see it it over and over again.
• 23:15
  Ryan Markewich: It's such a differentiator.
• 23:16
  Ryan Markewich: So I think people support what they help create it.
• 23:19
  Ryan Markewich: I think that kind of says a lot of it.
• 23:21
  Ryan Markewich: So when you have people involved and you're actually appealing to their, to their intelligence, yes as, yeah, that you're just going to get more out of people.
• 23:30
  Ryan Markewich: Yeah.
• 23:31
  Eric Howerton: You brought up financial huddle.
• 23:33
  Eric Howerton: I think yeah, and then we said what is that Like?
• 23:37
  Eric Howerton: What does that mean?
• 23:47
  Ryan Markewich: Well, I mean, at the core of what open book management means to a lot of people is that you involve and you educate and you share financial information with everybody.
• 23:58
  Ryan Markewich: And so we send the financial literacy formally and informally right to the front line.
• 24:04
  Ryan Markewich: Or you've been with us 10 years, you'll join us in that monthly meeting company-wide and we'll look at the modified P&L in our case and we'll talk about that.
• 24:22
  Ryan Markewich: We'll forecast out the balance of the month or the quarter and we'll look at where it sits relative to a potential profit share and we'll have discussions on how we're going to move the needle.
• 24:32
  Ryan Markewich: It's just like a huddle, just like a huddle on the field, right, you call the guys in and shit, we're down by four guys, or or ahead by four, or whatever it is it's.
• 24:40
  Ryan Markewich: You know you get these discussions going and you don't tell them the answers.
• 24:46
  Mark Zweig: So so at back on the barbershop, a hair salon.
• 24:49
  Mark Zweig: What kind of results have you gotten in the last 15 months with this 15-person business doing this?
• 24:56
  Mark Zweig: I'm just curious, can you give us some specifics?
• 24:59
  Ryan Markewich: Yeah, well, I think the buy-in and the level of acumen relative to where they were, where they are still actually, I mean, things have slowed down quite a bit and there's been a number.
• 25:13
  Ryan Markewich: There's so many places opening.
• 25:15
  Ryan Markewich: I think we're the fastest growing city in Canada so it's exploding, so you get a lot of.
• 25:21
  Ryan Markewich: We've had a lot of competition, so the financial upside has not been big yet and I'm okay, we're okay exiting before that.
• 25:29
  Ryan Markewich: That'll be left for the other people.
• 25:32
  Ryan Markewich: But yeah, I think just the culture has changed so much.
• 25:38
  Ryan Markewich: We weeded out some of the people who were great at their job, probably as good or better than anybody in the salon at this point, with exception of a few, of course with exception of a few, of course, but they just didn't fit the mold and they weren't team players.
• 25:55
  Ryan Markewich: I think they belonged in that chair rental environment.
• 26:00
  Mark Zweig: Yeah sure, solopreneur I hate that term, by the way.
• 26:05
  Mark Zweig: I absolutely hate that, because to me, entrepreneurship is all about building value in the business that you can extract on exit, and if you're a one-person business, you ain't got a lot of value.
• 26:17
  Ryan Markewich: No, that's right, unless you've created some sort of super widget.
• 26:21
  Mark Zweig: Yeah, some kind of proprietary technology Something, yeah, so where do you go from here?
• 26:30
  Mark Zweig: What are you going to do now?
• 26:31
  Mark Zweig: You got your son in the business.
• 26:33
  Mark Zweig: You got four partners over there in the creative landscaping yeah, creative roots business.
• 26:41
  Mark Zweig: You're doing your coaching with a couple companies every six months and six months contracts.
• 26:48
  Mark Zweig: You're going to get out of the barbershop business at some point.
• 26:51
  Mark Zweig: Where do you go next?
• 26:54
  Ryan Markewich: interesting.
• 26:55
  Ryan Markewich: I think I want to because our the creative roots landscaping is is, in essence, our living lab for how we've done business.
• 27:04
  Ryan Markewich: Yeah, I want to include more of our people in helping other businesses better their outcome.
• 27:11
  Ryan Markewich: And you know, because you know Matt, who's been with me for I don't think either one of us knows the exact number of years, but it's like 17 or 18.
• 27:20
  Ryan Markewich: And you know, zach's been with us for six and Colette's been with us for six and my son's been with us well, since he was in diapers.
• 27:27
  Ryan Markewich: And I think we have using, you know, the system of great game, or even our own modified version of that.
• 27:38
  Ryan Markewich: We can help a lot of businesses.
• 27:39
  Ryan Markewich: So we'll probably ramp up the coaching side and, um, I'm going to slow down on the development for now and just put this lot on the market and enjoy myself for a little bit, but there's also lots to be done within creative roots and so I can help with the business development and and and add value without having an actual job there, you know.
• 28:05
  Mark Zweig: So you run in the coaching stuff through there.
• 28:08
  Ryan Markewich: No, okay, it's a separate business, I see.
• 28:10
  Ryan Markewich: But and I argue, I wondered about that, you, you know I probably could have got some counsel, but some, some way we'll find a way to involve them and compensate everybody fairly so I'm curious as far as your internal stock sale or ownership interest I don't know what your legal form is there.
• 28:30
  Mark Zweig: How are are you handling that?
• 28:31
  Mark Zweig: Are you financing that to these people through payroll deduction?
• 28:35
  Ryan Markewich: or Okay, yeah, that's a good one, that's a good question.
• 28:38
  Ryan Markewich: What do you do?
• 28:39
  Ryan Markewich: And I thought it took me a long time to figure it out.
• 28:42
  Ryan Markewich: Well, actually I probably didn't figure it out, you know, just talking to people and working out the details.
• 28:47
  Ryan Markewich: But basically we valued the company at we found a valuation and it.
• 28:50
  Ryan Markewich: But basically we valued the company at we found a valuation and it's not a market value at all.
• 28:54
  Ryan Markewich: We wanted to make it easy going in, so discount for internal transition typical.
• 29:00
  Ryan Markewich: Yeah, yeah, it's like two times earnings weighted three years earnings weighted to last year 50%, 30% and 20%.
• 29:10
  Ryan Markewich: That does sound low.
• 29:11
  Ryan Markewich: Yeah, it was just too, and then we added on the book value of our assets, okay, so it's really low, okay, and it was okay for me.
• 29:19
  Ryan Markewich: I was really the only.
• 29:19
  Ryan Markewich: You can correct me if I'm wrong here, mark, but I was told, as long as it's the same going in as it is going out, you can't.
• 29:27
  Ryan Markewich: There's no really right or can't.
• 29:31
  Ryan Markewich: There's no really right or real right or wrong.
• 29:32
  Ryan Markewich: No one's really going to win or lose.
• 29:33
  Ryan Markewich: In my case, that would.
• 29:34
  Ryan Markewich: The only person that could have lost financially would be the first guy, right.
• 29:37
  Ryan Markewich: So, but I didn't care about that.
• 29:41
  Ryan Markewich: I love the company.
• 29:41
  Ryan Markewich: It operates off of my farm.
• 29:44
  Ryan Markewich: I have six acres next door.
• 29:45
  Ryan Markewich: We have, you know, a tree nursery, stuff like that on there.
• 29:48
  Ryan Markewich: So, anyways, we valued that.
• 29:53
  Ryan Markewich: I got to decide who was eligible for what percentage of the company and I kind of used the DEF CON countdown who's going to be the last man standing to decide who was going to get the most eligibility?
• 30:10
  Ryan Markewich: And then they had to come up with 25% of the payment themselves.
• 30:15
  Ryan Markewich: Okay, I would finance the rest and I did it at prime plus 2.5% Awesome.
• 30:21
  Ryan Markewich: And they only paid that out of their dividends annually, so it didn't their yeah.
• 30:27
  Mark Zweig: Okay.
• 30:29
  Ryan Markewich: We don't have enough, to you know, on a monthly basis, to you know, to make the.
• 30:34
  Ryan Markewich: We could do it that way, but I figured the dividends would be better.
• 30:39
  Mark Zweig: Well, the only problem with that and I've seen that model used in a lot of companies and I can certainly understand why you did it, but the problem with it?
• 30:49
  Mark Zweig: Well, there's two issues that I've run into.
• 30:51
  Mark Zweig: If the problem with it is, well, there's two issues that I've run into.
• 30:54
  Mark Zweig: One is if the company doesn't make any money, then the thing the plan craters, it stops.
• 30:58
  Mark Zweig: And then the other one is that equity doesn't show on the balance sheet because it's considered contingent equity.
• 31:07
  Mark Zweig: If it was just strict payments every month, then you can show all of it, whether they bought it or not, and it beefs up the balance sheet.
• 31:15
  Mark Zweig: But that may not be an issue for you.
• 31:16
  Mark Zweig: Anyway, as long as you've been in business, you know you're not necessarily got a thin balance sheet at this point or undercapitalized.
• 31:26
  Ryan Markewich: We.
• 31:26
  Ryan Markewich: You're not going to like this Mark, but we didn't invest much in marketing over the years.
• 31:31
  Ryan Markewich: You're right, and which was fine.
• 31:36
  Ryan Markewich: It's just the way we did business.
• 31:38
  Ryan Markewich: We have actually really mostly conservative owners, but we were always profitable.
• 31:46
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 31:46
  Ryan Markewich: So we were always north of 10% in operating profit, and that was really using inputs that really using all the inputs to make sure the business was operating properly, and I wasn't desperate for the cash.
• 32:03
  Ryan Markewich: I didn't have any big grand ideas of building a 7,000 square foot house or something like that.
• 32:08
  Ryan Markewich: So I did it that way and it was good, or something like that.
• 32:11
  Ryan Markewich: So I did it that way and it was good.
• 32:12
  Ryan Markewich: It's been very good for my soul to see those younger people be able to afford it.
• 32:17
  Ryan Markewich: It's hard to get ahead these days with everything costing so much, and so they have to pay me.
• 32:25
  Ryan Markewich: The last part of that is they have to pay me 80% of their dividends annually until it's paid for.
• 32:32
  Ryan Markewich: I see, then it's theirs.
• 32:36
  Mark Zweig: So in Canada, what is the legal form of organization?
• 32:39
  Mark Zweig: Is it similar to the US?
• 32:42
  Ryan Markewich: It's a partnership.
• 32:44
  Mark Zweig: Okay.
• 32:44
  Ryan Markewich: Like limited company.
• 32:45
  Ryan Markewich: Yeah, I mean it's operated and I think I'll use all the right terms here but it's operated in such a consensus-based way that, you know, I don't even feel like we have partners.
• 32:58
  Ryan Markewich: It just feels like we're all just one, which, you know, maybe sound a little dreamy.
• 33:03
  Ryan Markewich: I mean, we're all different but we're on the same page and I really think the open book management and the processes we go through annually to relook at the vision and rethink about what's important to Boston and look at that long-term strategic objective and involve people in finding out how we're going to capitalize and execute on those and make plans for achievement, yeah, I think we stay close enough that the partnership has just been.
• 33:32
  Ryan Markewich: To me it's been a.
• 33:33
  Ryan Markewich: It's not perfect, but it's been very good.
• 33:39
  Mark Zweig: So does your long-term vision mean growing the business?
• 33:42
  Mark Zweig: And growing the value of the ownership stake that these individuals have.
• 33:48
  Ryan Markewich: Yeah, that's the only way that.
• 33:50
  Ryan Markewich: Uh like, I don't mind having a smaller piece of pie myself because I'm just, I've got other things going and you know I've been out at 30 years.
• 33:57
  Ryan Markewich: This is our 30th year.
• 33:58
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 34:00
  Ryan Markewich: But the other ones are young and you know the average.
• 34:02
  Ryan Markewich: The median price of a house in our town is a million dollars.
• 34:07
  Mark Zweig: That's a lot.
• 34:07
  Mark Zweig: Wow, that's even higher than here.
• 34:10
  Mark Zweig: It's only like $1,000 American?
• 34:17
  Mark Zweig: I don't think so.
• 34:17
  Mark Zweig: The exchange rates, it's a lot, but it is a lot, you're right.
• 34:22
  Ryan Markewich: And so I don't mind having a smaller piece of the pie, but the other ones they need more.
• 34:26
  Ryan Markewich: So the only way to get more people involved and keep our business model going is to have more hands lifting.
• 34:31
  Ryan Markewich: You have to build the pie and then dilute, dilute the, the stock, and I I think if we keep a one owner to five employee ratio as we go through this give or take yeah, you know that's just as a rule of thumb that that would that'll work well for us very good, you know a lot about this stuff no
• 34:53
  Mark Zweig: I mean, everybody's got their idea about what that ratio of owners to employees should be.
• 35:00
  Mark Zweig: Yeah, um, I'm not wedded to any particular number.
• 35:04
  Mark Zweig: I do think it matters like what kind of business you have, too, right and um.
• 35:09
  Mark Zweig: But I am a big fan of growth and if you do really want to, if you're, if you're serious about creating value for these people over time, then the only way that's going to happen is to grow this business yeah, yeah, we have.
• 35:25
  Ryan Markewich: we have, uh, built a a forward-looking org chart for 2028 and 2030.
• 35:32
  Ryan Markewich: Okay, and we have sales north of about 9 million for 2030.
• 35:37
  Ryan Markewich: So there is a pretty good growth plan in place at this point.
• 35:41
  Speaker 4: Yep.
• 35:41
  Ryan Markewich: And we're looking at it and it was interesting as we really focused on building people and development and leadership this last couple years, when we went through that you know, pin the tail on the org chart exercise with our entire team last year, we had a big one you know, the 2030 one there and he said, okay, where are you going to be next year?
• 36:04
  Ryan Markewich: And then go over to the other one.
• 36:05
  Ryan Markewich: Where are you going to be that year?
• 36:06
  Ryan Markewich: And the only people we needed to hire this year were entry level.
• 36:15
  Mark Zweig: And I was like that was the first time in 30 years.
• 36:18
  Ryan Markewich: That's great.
• 36:18
  Ryan Markewich: That's the way it should be.
• 36:19
  Ryan Markewich: Yeah, and I didn't put my name up there, mm-hmm, so I'm just letting them learn and take it.
• 36:30
  Mark Zweig: Well.
• 36:31
  Mark Zweig: That's awesome.
• 36:31
  Mark Zweig: That's such a great story.
• 36:33
  Mark Zweig: I love it.
• 36:33
  Eric Howerton: So, ron, I don't want to get you in trouble with Mark but are you investing in marketing?
• 36:42
  Ryan Markewich: now, we have not invested in marketing.
• 36:44
  Ryan Markewich: I don't know if it's just a unique town, but there's a people crisis.
• 36:47
  Ryan Markewich: We know this, it's out there.
• 36:49
  Ryan Markewich: There's people, people crisis.
• 36:50
  Ryan Markewich: We know this, it's out there.
• 36:53
  Ryan Markewich: There's people out there.
• 36:54
  Ryan Markewich: But even just getting the people to deliver on the level of what we do we work in the luxury residential market lakefront estate, stuff like that we have clients in the maintenance that spend $4,000, $5,000, $6,000 a month on their maintenance one property.
• 37:12
  Ryan Markewich: We do projects north of $750,000 for an install, design, build.
• 37:19
  Ryan Markewich: Is that commercial or is that residential?
• 37:23
  Ryan Markewich: All luxury?
• 37:24
  Eric Howerton: residential Wow.
• 37:26
  Ryan Markewich: Yeah, so this is highly accurate work and we're okay growing at a pace that doesn't get us in trouble and, like I said, we're a bit conservative, so I I get where you're coming from here, mark, I can see through those glasses what was the company in california that was the largest design build landscape contractor?
• 37:52
  Ryan Markewich: Do you remember the name Well, valleycrest, valleycrest.
• 37:57
  Mark Zweig: And.
• 37:57
  Ryan Markewich: Brickman.
• 37:58
  Ryan Markewich: They amalgamated right Valleycrest 3.2 billion last year or something.
• 38:02
  Mark Zweig: Yeah, one of our former junior partners.
• 38:05
  Mark Zweig: The first time we sold the company he went to Valleycrest and rose to the top of it.
• 38:10
  Mark Zweig: I think he's still there actually, whatever the successor company is called now.
• 38:20
  Speaker 4: Yeah, that's an amazing company.
• 38:22
  Ryan Markewich: It's time for us to ramp things up, and we felt that we would, as our leadership could handle it and we were getting.
• 38:30
  Ryan Markewich: We're not a burst to having some problems.
• 38:32
  Ryan Markewich: We just don't want a bunch of bigger ones, we want better ones, and so I think we're there.
• 38:38
  Ryan Markewich: I think we've got some really good people on board right now.
• 38:40
  Ryan Markewich: We've got the four four plus me owners and it just it.
• 38:45
  Ryan Markewich: It's a different vibe when people want to be part of the company.
• 38:49
  Ryan Markewich: You know ownership has be taught.
• 38:50
  Ryan Markewich: The company's not worth anything if no one wants to own it.
• 38:54
  Mark Zweig: Amen to that.
• 38:55
  Ryan Markewich: You got people knocking at the door saying, hey, can I buy in next year?
• 39:00
  Ryan Markewich: I said, well, the opportunity is going to go to the people that help grow the company.
• 39:04
  Ryan Markewich: It's logic.
• 39:06
  Ryan Markewich: You have to play hard.
• 39:07
  Ryan Markewich: You have to be one of those leaders.
• 39:09
  Ryan Markewich: If that's the case, then certainly let's grow the pie.
• 39:12
  Ryan Markewich: Let's get you involved.
• 39:14
  Mark Zweig: You know you say you don't do any marketing, but I'm you know marketing is is much more than promotion.
• 39:21
  Mark Zweig: So maybe it's not the promotion, but I'd be willing to bet I mean the product slash service and having that be exceptional.
• 39:29
  Mark Zweig: That's part of marketing.
• 39:31
  Mark Zweig: And I would also be willing to bet that you know, just looking at your website, that you also do a lot of working visibility type stuff, like your vehicles.
• 39:44
  Mark Zweig: Are they all branded?
• 39:45
  Mark Zweig: Yes there you go do you have.
• 39:47
  Ryan Markewich: So yeah, we're not.
• 39:48
  Ryan Markewich: Yeah, I'm driving around and you know multicolored trucks here with different panels on them and stuff.
• 39:55
  Ryan Markewich: Yeah, we are branded.
• 39:57
  Ryan Markewich: We could do a better job on all fronts, sure.
• 39:59
  Ryan Markewich: There's no question about it Matching shirts, it's just there.
• 40:04
  Mark Zweig: Matching shirts for all?
• 40:06
  Mark Zweig: Oh, absolutely yeah, we just got our 30th anniversary shirts.
• 40:10
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 40:11
  Ryan Markewich: Yeah, we all have matching jackets, of course, and we have can wear jean cutoffs or surf shorts to work project signage.
• 40:20
  Mark Zweig: Do you have that for your installs?
• 40:22
  Mark Zweig: Oh, there you go, see you're doing stuff.
• 40:24
  Mark Zweig: It's just not, sounds like, you're just not advertising yeah, you're just not advertising yeah, that's right.
• 40:32
  Ryan Markewich: Yeah, you know so I'd never been good at it.
• 40:35
  Ryan Markewich: I was always good at, you know, put my head down, ass up and do the work and show people that we could do really good work and we cared a lot about what we did and we were innovative and we were creative and just put the best product out there.
• 40:52
  Mark Zweig: Right and um there's a lot to be said for that in a crowded mature industry.
• 40:57
  Mark Zweig: Yeah, Just be good.
• 41:00
  Mark Zweig: I mean, we keep coming back to this thing, don't we?
• 41:03
  Eric Howerton: Yeah, it's not all about it.
• 41:05
  Eric Howerton: What you say you're going to do, yeah and do it on, I mean I'm yeah, yes, do it well.
• 41:11
  Mark Zweig: Yes, you know, I got a friend of mine.
• 41:14
  Mark Zweig: He sold his HVAC contracting business I don't know maybe five or six or seven years ago, and he had a product that he invented and he really wanted to take, you know, spend time with that.
• 41:27
  Mark Zweig: Ultimately that didn't go where he wanted it to go.
• 41:30
  Mark Zweig: So after his non-compete was up for the company you know, the HVAC business, he went right back in it and in two years he's bigger than he ever was before and their business practices are so tight.
• 41:45
  Mark Zweig: I just love dealing with these guys.
• 41:47
  Mark Zweig: I've dealt with a lot of HVAC contractors, but it doesn't matter what time a day I text them with a problem.
• 41:54
  Mark Zweig: I get a response immediately and the schedule of when they're going to deal with it, and then they come out and they execute and then within an hour or two I get the bill which I pay.
• 42:06
  Mark Zweig: Okay, and it's just like they're just done.
• 42:09
  Mark Zweig: They're so, so tight, love it.
• 42:12
  Ryan Markewich: How, like, how easy is that?
• 42:13
  Ryan Markewich: You go out, you make a promise, you deliver on the promise.
• 42:17
  Ryan Markewich: That's what a business is.
• 42:18
  Ryan Markewich: It's a promise delivery system.
• 42:19
  Ryan Markewich: Yeah, do the work, you get paid.
• 42:21
  Ryan Markewich: You repeat it.
• 42:22
  Ryan Markewich: You know we have on each one of our invoices.
• 42:26
  Ryan Markewich: It says to the clients that said that for years you'll be happy or or don't pay.
• 42:30
  Ryan Markewich: All we ask is for a chance to make it right.
• 42:33
  Ryan Markewich: Wow, I love that.
• 42:35
  Ryan Markewich: And we tell that to the employees too You'll be happy or you won't stay.
• 42:38
  Ryan Markewich: Give us a chance to make it right, right, so that's part of the onboarding process.
• 42:43
  Ryan Markewich: That just means that we have to communicate.
• 42:45
  Ryan Markewich: You can't wait three months and say oh, I didn't, like someone missed a strip of grass when they were mowing it.
• 42:51
  Mark Zweig: Well, that's always been my problem with conventional performance appraisal systems.
• 42:55
  Mark Zweig: I mean, I think they're idiocy.
• 42:56
  Mark Zweig: I'm going to sit down once a year and say, well, no, let's see, bob, you know, last March, eric, you really pissed me off.
• 43:05
  Mark Zweig: You know at that meeting when you like.
• 43:07
  Mark Zweig: For God's sakes, you're going to say it right away.
• 43:11
  Mark Zweig: It's just ridiculous.
• 43:12
  Mark Zweig: Yeah, that's right.
• 43:15
  Mark Zweig: So yeah, I love that.
• 43:16
  Mark Zweig: You've got some good sayings there, ryan.
• 43:18
  Mark Zweig: Where do you come up with these things?
• 43:20
  Ryan Markewich: I don't know, just been collecting them, you know.
• 43:25
  Ryan Markewich: The other one is uh, you got a free hand with every set of hands, you got a free brain.
• 43:28
  Ryan Markewich: So I like that one.
• 43:30
  Mark Zweig: I always love that's good, I don't make this shit up with every set of hands, you get a free brain.
• 43:36
  Mark Zweig: I love that.
• 43:37
  Ryan Markewich: Don't waste it, just just your people are way smarter and you know what the problem is.
• 43:42
  Ryan Markewich: I think with a lot of the, even some of the systems I'm not going to put down eos, or scaling up or or e-myth mastery, all that stuff they're great.
• 43:52
  Ryan Markewich: For everything they do is, I think they don't drive.
• 43:56
  Ryan Markewich: They don't drive that involvement right to the front line.
• 43:59
  Ryan Markewich: And what I see now is when I treat the person who walks through the door and I have these conversations, I talk business with the people I'm in business with, right Even the brand new person, like that level of belief in them gets a different result.
• 44:17
  Ryan Markewich: It's, it's, it's unbelievable.
• 44:20
  Ryan Markewich: You just don't know who can pick this stuff up fast.
• 44:23
  Ryan Markewich: You can't look at a person and and understand if they'll get it or not.
• 44:29
  Mark Zweig: Well, you know it.
• 44:30
  Mark Zweig: It to me it's.
• 44:31
  Mark Zweig: It's not even talking about.
• 44:32
  Mark Zweig: Yeah, just talking to the people and treating them like they're humans gets a totally different response, because then they're like oh, you know, ryan actually cares about me.
• 44:49
  Mark Zweig: Ryan's a good guy.
• 44:50
  Mark Zweig: I don't want to let him down here.
• 44:52
  Mark Zweig: I don't want to screw him.
• 44:53
  Mark Zweig: You know, as opposed to boy, ryan's an asshole.
• 44:56
  Mark Zweig: Every time he comes through to the job site, he never says anything to us or he acts like he's pissed off.
• 45:02
  Ryan Markewich: Oh, I've been that guy.
• 45:03
  Ryan Markewich: You know, A lot of years being that guy.
• 45:07
  Mark Zweig: Oh, I did that too.
• 45:10
  Ryan Markewich: If that's the top, then you know I'm lonely at the top saying it's just, it isn't, it isn't right, right.
• 45:18
  Eric Howerton: Yeah, it seems like, brian, like you really like, when did you have this?
• 45:24
  Eric Howerton: You know, if that's the way you used to be, when did you start having this kind of conversion type thinking right about getting you know, really seeing the free brain like you're talking about right, because it sounds like maybe you were.
• 45:37
  Eric Howerton: You know, if you're like what I was and sometimes I'm still very guilty of it is like I'm just charging ahead and like I'm just, you know, I see it, I see the answers and I'm all taking consideration.
• 45:50
  Eric Howerton: When did you really start?
• 45:51
  Eric Howerton: Because it seems like you're on the other side of the spectrum now with what you're doing.
• 45:55
  Ryan Markewich: I still catch myself daily, especially if I'm working unnaturally, like I have been the last few months.
• 46:03
  Ryan Markewich: Just I've been putting in a lot and, and so you get a little burnt out, you get a little tired.
• 46:06
  Ryan Markewich: You know you're a little short on patience, um, but I had a great, great week with the guys this.
• 46:10
  Ryan Markewich: This week I went out twice and did some plant layouts and worked with them on on the field, um, which is great.
• 46:17
  Ryan Markewich: But sometimes I catch myself not being there.
• 46:19
  Ryan Markewich: But I think it's just been a progression.
• 46:22
  Ryan Markewich: Eric, to answer your question, a big influence in my life was Ari Weinswig of Zingerman's in Ann Arbor, michigan.
• 46:33
  Ryan Markewich: His four books are life-changing.
• 46:35
  Ryan Markewich: His Power of Beliefs book is off the charts.
• 46:39
  Ryan Markewich: Good.
• 46:43
  Ryan Markewich: And so just listen to Jack Stack and just you know.
• 46:46
  Ryan Markewich: And using the score, I'll give you a good example of how you can try to.
• 46:51
  Ryan Markewich: I remember one good one where I was emotional about something and I looked at the scoreboards as I passed by.
• 47:01
  Ryan Markewich: I'll tell you this.
• 47:01
  Ryan Markewich: So Fridays has always been a big day for us.
• 47:04
  Ryan Markewich: Luxury residential market in a vacation town.
• 47:09
  Mark Zweig: Yeah.
• 47:09
  Ryan Markewich: You know, fridays I would landscape until the headlights had to go on if I had to, because everything had to be perfect for the weekends.
• 47:16
  Ryan Markewich: And one day I wasn't out.
• 47:19
  Ryan Markewich: My teams were rolling in about three o'clock and I saw three trucks rolling into the compound.
• 47:24
  Ryan Markewich: How can that be?
• 47:25
  Ryan Markewich: How could that be what?
• 47:27
  Ryan Markewich: You can't find any more work, what the hell's going on here?
• 47:30
  Ryan Markewich: But I just happened to be walking down the stairs and I glanced over at the scoreboard Like we have big visual scoreboards that that team meets around and forecasts out and reports the actuals and and I saw they were ahead, they were ahead and it was.
• 47:45
  Ryan Markewich: It gets hot here.
• 47:46
  Ryan Markewich: We were like we were north of 100 degrees that day it was friday.
• 47:51
  Ryan Markewich: I know they had been pushing and I said to myself after seeing the scoreboard well they, they know the score, they're ahead, they're ahead of plan.
• 48:00
  Ryan Markewich: Well, they, they know the score, they're ahead, they're ahead of plan, they need a break.
• 48:04
  Ryan Markewich: And I I just giggled to myself and say I took it out of there.
• 48:06
  Ryan Markewich: So there's a lot of reminders and books and this type of thing and talking to others and sometimes my son's got to pull me aside and say dad, you can't act that way it's, it's, all it's all that stuff right like I'm a typical.
• 48:20
  Eric Howerton: You know, dad, you can't act that way, it's, it's all, it's all that stuff.
• 48:23
  Eric Howerton: Right, like I'm a typical, you know charge forward type guy the best thing about this is that.
• 48:29
  Eric Howerton: It gives me a little hope for myself, I think, you know, because I'm like, yeah, I mean it's just it's you know, I think it's good.
• 48:32
  Eric Howerton: Though I think it's good, the audience has got to understand it too, right.
• 48:35
  Eric Howerton: I mean, like you know, we're there's just, business is so complex and it's so.
• 48:42
  Eric Howerton: There's so much variables to it.
• 48:44
  Mark Zweig: Because there's people, and people are complex, yeah, and they bring their whole selves to work, yeah, man.
• 48:51
  Eric Howerton: And then you're just a team of collection of people in their own selves, right, you know, I mean.
• 48:56
  Eric Howerton: And then, like, everybody has their level of stress.
• 48:58
  Eric Howerton: And then what you bring from home yeah, what you're dealing with with everybody has their level of stress.
• 49:01
  Eric Howerton: And then what you bring from home what you're dealing with with all that kind of stuff.
• 49:04
  Eric Howerton: I mean, you know, or if you're just eager and ambitious, you know like I get pretty hasty.
• 49:11
  Eric Howerton: You know like I want to be where I want to be.
• 49:14
  Eric Howerton: It's probably going to take 10 years to develop it, but I want to be there right.
• 49:19
  Eric Howerton: Freaking, I have zero patience.
• 49:21
  Eric Howerton: I understand for the whole, like I find myself just being honest about myself, but I've been catching myself lately in and recognizing how freaking frustrated I stay at like things like not happening.
• 49:39
  Eric Howerton: You know fast enough.
• 49:42
  Mark Zweig: Oh, I share that with you, are you, do you?
• 49:44
  Mark Zweig: Of course you know that I mean it's all about speed everything.
• 49:49
  Mark Zweig: Speed everything up.
• 49:50
  Mark Zweig: Okay, speed up.
• 49:52
  Mark Zweig: How to making speed up everything?
• 49:55
  Eric Howerton: everything goes better the faster you go but then I like, when I stay so frustrated, so frustrated constantly, I don't even like my.
• 50:01
  Eric Howerton: I get on my own nerves.
• 50:03
  Eric Howerton: I'm like, dude, you're getting on your, I'm like you're getting on my own nerves.
• 50:08
  Mark Zweig: I understand that I do.
• 50:12
  Ryan Markewich: You're going to like the book I'm going to write here.
• 50:14
  Ryan Markewich: Soon I'll send you a copy.
• 50:16
  Eric Howerton: Oh cool.
• 50:17
  Ryan Markewich: It's called.
• 50:17
  Ryan Markewich: It's you right?
• 50:18
  Ryan Markewich: Yeah, I'm going to send it to you.
• 50:19
  Ryan Markewich: You're just going to open up.
• 50:20
  Ryan Markewich: It's going to be a mirror on the first page.
• 50:22
  Ryan Markewich: That's it.
• 50:25
  Speaker 4: That's it man, it's you.
• 50:29
  Ryan Markewich: Yeah, it's so true it is.
• 50:31
  Ryan Markewich: I do have to slow down.
• 50:32
  Ryan Markewich: That's why I'm going fishing with three high school buddies right now.
• 50:37
  Eric Howerton: Oh yeah, what kind of fishing you down northern pike fishing for rainbow trout.
• 50:41
  Eric Howerton: Yes, do you.
• 50:43
  Eric Howerton: Do you know?
• 50:43
  Eric Howerton: Are you able to do pike fish up there?
• 50:46
  Ryan Markewich: yeah, yeah, not in, not where we are.
• 50:48
  Ryan Markewich: Yeah, yeah, but um, we could do salmon and and and rainbow and kokanee and stuff like that but and lake trout, but you know, the ocean's just four hours and if you go north you can do pike fish.
• 51:01
  Eric Howerton: Yeah, yeah.
• 51:02
  Eric Howerton: I went up there and did some pike fishing a couple years ago, Did you yeah?
• 51:05
  Eric Howerton: With a group of guys.
• 51:06
  Eric Howerton: It was freaking.
• 51:09
  Ryan Markewich: Northern Alberta.
• 51:11
  Eric Howerton: No, saskatchewan, saskatchewan, yeah, saskatchewan, yeah, it was awesome, but my favorite was catching walleye.
• 51:21
  Eric Howerton: Oh yeah, yeah, it was awesome, but my favorite was was ketchum walleye.
• 51:25
  Mark Zweig: Oh yeah, oh man, beautiful dude, we used to get those up in wisconsin.
• 51:27
  Eric Howerton: They had northern and walleye up there lee and northern wisconsin cooking it right on the bank an hour and a half later.
• 51:32
  Eric Howerton: It was freaking, unbelievable, I mean.
• 51:34
  Eric Howerton: But like, like after four days of eating fried fish and fried taters, though like you start kind of like you're like, okay, I'm ready eating fried fish and fried taters.
• 51:41
  Eric Howerton: Though like you start kind of like you're like, okay, this is.
• 51:43
  Mark Zweig: I'm ready for some steak and fried taters.
• 51:45
  Speaker 4: That's right.
• 51:45
  Eric Howerton: I mean, I never get tired of those things Like is there a piece of broccoli around anywhere?
• 51:48
  Eric Howerton: You know, just to kind of scrub this out.
• 51:50
  Eric Howerton: But man, it was so beautiful it was awesome.
• 51:53
  Mark Zweig: So, other than the fishing, though, ryan, what do you do like personally to keep yourself sane and so calm, as you clearly are, okay?
• 52:03
  Eric Howerton: What do?
• 52:04
  Mark Zweig: you do?
• 52:04
  Mark Zweig: We need to know.
• 52:05
  Mark Zweig: Is it like you smoke weed every night?
• 52:09
  Mark Zweig: What is it you do?
• 52:11
  Mark Zweig: Gave that up a long time ago.
• 52:13
  Ryan Markewich: That's great Lord.
• 52:14
  Mark Zweig: Well, I'm just curious, I couldn't be.
• 52:17
  Mark Zweig: If I did that, I'd get nothing done.
• 52:19
  Mark Zweig: But I mean I, there are people who do it.
• 52:22
  Mark Zweig: I'm just saying.
• 52:23
  Ryan Markewich: I thought he was just poking at me being a Canadian there.
• 52:29
  Mark Zweig: No, I'm not poking at you.
• 52:30
  Eric Howerton: What do?
• 52:30
  Mark Zweig: Canadians smoke weed.
• 52:31
  Mark Zweig: I love Canadians, oh, I'm sure, I'm sure Listen a lot of well, go on, I'm sorry.
• 52:38
  Ryan Markewich: What do you do?
• 52:39
  Ryan Markewich: I don't, you know.
• 52:41
  Ryan Markewich: I'm always on a project, I'm always renovating something.
• 52:47
  Ryan Markewich: I'm always, you know, hanging out I don't mind having a beer with my neighbor, you know and hanging out, and I love Mexico.
• 52:54
  Ryan Markewich: So it's three months a year for the last 10 years.
• 53:00
  Mark Zweig: That's a long time to take.
• 53:02
  Mark Zweig: Everett, do you do that in the summer or would you do it in the winter?
• 53:04
  Mark Zweig: Set, miss winter yeah.
• 53:05
  Ryan Markewich: So this last uh in 2024 was the first January, february, march.
• 53:09
  Ryan Markewich: I saw one day in Canada in 10 years, wow.
• 53:13
  Ryan Markewich: So so do you have a place down there?
• 53:14
  Ryan Markewich: No, I was always renting and I'm kicking myself now, you know.
• 53:20
  Mark Zweig: Yeah, I've got friends that have places down in Mexico and they're always telling me you're going to come down.
• 53:25
  Eric Howerton: but where do you go in Mexico?
• 53:26
  Eric Howerton: We never do.
• 53:28
  Ryan Markewich: So I mean I've seen a lot.
• 53:30
  Ryan Markewich: I've seen a lot of the country, more of that country than I've seen Canada.
• 53:34
  Ryan Markewich: But I was based out of Puerto Vallarta mostly, but I've been all across the country and inland and I've got a lot of favorite experiences.
• 53:42
  Ryan Markewich: Nice, it's fun.
• 53:44
  Ryan Markewich: I love the insanity and the food and just the way it is.
• 53:48
  Mark Zweig: I'm trying.
• 53:49
  Ryan Markewich: You know what I like about it and this is what goes back to my comment about I think our city wants us to live in Whoville here.
• 53:56
  Ryan Markewich: Yeah, like it doesn't have to be freaking perfect.
• 53:59
  Ryan Markewich: Yeah, like I mean I get it.
• 54:00
  Ryan Markewich: You don't you got to have certain compaction under the roads and sidewalks and stuff.
• 54:04
  Ryan Markewich: There's standards yeah it's got to be deeper than six inches, you know, and all that stuff and uh, but it it's um, I think.
• 54:13
  Ryan Markewich: I think in some respects we're moving too fast for for where we're at and as a race, as people like there's, it's very hard for people to keep up.
• 54:24
  Ryan Markewich: Yeah and uh, does that make sense?
• 54:26
  Eric Howerton: yeah, no, totally I, I totally get what you're saying.
• 54:30
  Eric Howerton: Like we've made it so complex in simplicity.
• 54:34
  Ryan Markewich: There's freedom in simplicity and there's life in that, in that yeah, so I mean, I love that about mexico and yeah, you know, not that they don't have any safety standards yeah, what, depending on where you go but my old boss at one of the engineering firms I worked at when I was very young used to tell me when he goes to mexico, he goes never stay above the second floor.
• 54:59
  Mark Zweig: He goes in any building.
• 55:00
  Mark Zweig: He goes because you may need to get out.
• 55:02
  Mark Zweig: The fire standards are very low and he goes just be ready to escape.
• 55:08
  Mark Zweig: But anyway, I guess it depends on where you are there, but yeah, I could see that.
• 55:13
  Ryan Markewich: I could see that for sure.
• 55:14
  Ryan Markewich: I don't know.
• 55:15
  Ryan Markewich: There's a certain freedom and insanity in it, and I don't mind the cowboy days.
• 55:19
  Ryan Markewich: That's one good thing about the landscaping.
• 55:22
  Ryan Markewich: We're not governed like like you are on everything else with civil and construction stuff like that.
• 55:28
  Ryan Markewich: We haven't reached that, yeah.
• 55:29
  Ryan Markewich: So we have a lot of freedom, yeah, which I love well, that's good.
• 55:34
  Mark Zweig: Well, listen, ryan, we've run out of time.
• 55:37
  Mark Zweig: We could sit here and talk all day, but you've got to go fishing and we have to go back to our jobs, eric and myself.
• 55:47
  Eric Howerton: There's a lot to get done, not enough time.
• 55:50
  Mark Zweig: I've got a lot to do today, buddy.
• 55:52
  Mark Zweig: I'm hanging art today, oh man, which is always fun.
• 56:08
  Ryan Markewich: Yeah, you should post some pictures of the place you've been working on Mark.
• 56:16
  Mark Zweig: Post them on LinkedIn or something.
• 56:17
  Mark Zweig: I'd like to see that and I'm really so appreciative're applying it now in other contexts, which I think is going to be very gratifying for you.
• 56:27
  Mark Zweig: You know, when I see that it works in other settings besides your own traditional business.
• 56:34
  Ryan Markewich: Yeah, yeah.
• 56:34
  Ryan Markewich: Well, you know, mark, I mean that's, I read your.
• 56:38
  Ryan Markewich: I read a column that you had written or an article on open book management and I said well, open book that you had written, or an article on open book management and I said, well, open book management is not proprietary to great game.
• 56:45
  Ryan Markewich: They packaged it.
• 56:46
  Ryan Markewich: I mean, they're kind of the pioneers of it.
• 56:48
  Ryan Markewich: I get it, and so that's why I jumped on board there, and so I didn't have to rebuild all that.
• 56:55
  Mark Zweig: Sure.
• 56:57
  Ryan Markewich: I'm not an expert teacher, but having the tools and the body of work behind me as I do, that is really good, and there's some great people in that organization, so I'd love being part of it?
• 57:11
  Mark Zweig: Yep, Well, we're glad to have you on the show, and if anybody wants to reach you, how should they best contact you?
• 57:21
  Mark Zweig: Ryan, Do you have an email address?
• 57:22
  Mark Zweig: Website?
• 57:23
  Ryan Markewich: Yeah email's great.
• 57:24
  Ryan Markewich: It's ryan at rmarkca.
• 57:27
  Ryan Markewich: That's R-M-A-R-K dot C-A.
• 57:31
  Mark Zweig: Okay.
• 57:32
  Ryan Markewich: And then go to my website, rmarkca, and see a little bit about that.
• 57:37
  Ryan Markewich: Or, if you're into the landscaping, check out creative roots landscapingcom.
• 57:41
  Ryan Markewich: And yeah, I'd love to hear from anybody who's interested in doing what we're doing here.
• 57:47
  Mark Zweig: Great, great Well, thanks so much.
• 57:49
  Mark Zweig: And uh we really appreciate you being on the show, and until uh next week.
• 57:57
  Ryan Markewich: This has been another episode of big talk about small business job ron, did I get that right.
• 58:07
  Eric Howerton: Yeah, man you might be an official outro for us now yeah, that was good, we had a troika going there.
• 58:15
  Mark Zweig: All right, everybody, we'll see you next week.
• 58:17
  Mark Zweig: Thanks, thanks again.
• 58:18
  Eric Howerton: Thanks a lot, Ron.
• 58:19
  Eric Howerton: Good to meet you, man.
• 58:27
  Speaker 4: Thanks for tuning into this episode of Big Talk about Small Business.
• 58:30
  Speaker 4: If you have any questions or ideas for upcoming shows, be sure to head over to our website, wwwbigtalkaboutsmallbusinesscom and click on the Ask the host button for the chance to have your questions answered on the show.
• 58:44
  Speaker 4: Stay connected with us on LinkedIn at Big Talk About Small Business and be sure to head over to our website to read articles, browse episodes and ask questions about upcoming shows.