Hello, welcome to another episode of Roots of Success.
I'm your host Tommy Cole and we've got an awesome episode because
I got my good friend Rob Shreve.
How are you Rob?
I'm doing great.
Thank you.
Tell me.
Rob is a outstanding guy.
It's outstanding family.
He is the owner of Coastal Shores in the Bluffton, South Carolina.
Did I say that right?
That's correct.
Carolina.
go a little bigger.
Hilton Head area, South Carolina.
I'm sure everyone knows where Hilton Head is.
So there you go.
he's the owner of Coastal Shores, an awesome company there.
And we've been together for multiple years in peer groups
and it's good to have him on.
I have seen him progress.
Extensively over the course of many years.
And here we are today, Rob.
So tell us about your company and how it got started.
Tell me what the heck were you thinking getting in the landscape world?
You probably thought it was extremely easy, you know, mow some grass,
putting some few bushes, call it a day.
And and then what it's, what's Coastal Shores about today
Okay.
Well, I didn't really have a desire to be in the landscape business.
So I'm being completely honest.
My wife and I went to college at Ball State University up in Indiana.
Shortly after graduation, we moved down to South Carolina in 2002.
No real reason, we were just young and dumb and wanted to live close
to the ocean, so that's what we did.
And, she had a job in property management, so she went right into that.
I did not have a job, I actually took a job, this will age me a little
bit, but I was door to door cold call sales for copiers and fax machines.
Let's go.
You're as bad at, yeah, like that's like, Yellow pages almost where you can go
door to door and yellow pages selling.
it was rough I, I had to wear, I had to wear a suit every day, and
literally walk up and down the streets going into law offices,
doctor's offices and I was miserable.
And one afternoon, I think my wife and her mom and dad were having lunch and
Make it sense that I was bad at the end of things as far as that career goes.
So, my wife just said, I don't know what you want to do, but you can't continue
to do this cause you're miserable.
Until you figure it out, why don't you cut the grass at these
five properties that I manage?
I said, fine.
So I quit the job.
I had a push mower, a weed eater, and a handheld blower.
I folded down the seats in my Ford Explorer.
And off I went.
A Ford Explorer and just get after it.
So loading the mower into the back,
Yeah,
the SUV.
that's how, that's how it all happened.
And, and my, you know, they said, just do this until you
figure out what you want to do.
So I kind of jokingly, you know, say, I'm still trying to figure it out.
20,
22 years later.
yeah.
Wow.
That's great.
So tell me about Coast to Shores.
What's it all about?
So, Coastal Shores now we have grown up as our community has grown up Bluffton
used to be the little town that you would just happen to kind of drive through
on the way to Hilton Head, and like a lot of these coastal communities, it's
just exploded with especially during COVID, people coming down from the north.
So we've kind of grown up with the community.
We had to really quickly try to define our client because there were so
many different opportunities here.
You just run yourself crazy trying to figure it out.
So we service high end residential, commercial and development properties.
And we're doing complete maintenance.
We're doing new installation and then, of course, enhancement on all that.
So we work in a lot of amazing communities multi million dollar homes and properties.
So it's, it's, it's a lot of fun.
And, we've slowed down a little bit.
Over the last couple of years, but we, we tend to always be kind of
the last 1 to be affected by the economy and the 1st 1 recover from it.
So, so thankfully, we don't feel the real impacts of that a ton.
our business is fairly reliant on new construction that kind
of triggers everything else.
So, when new construction has a little dip or a little slow down, we feel
that, Usually not for very long, but that's kind of how it works.
So yeah, we're about, we're 35 employees right now.
We're building a new building right now.
That's been a long time coming.
So we're excited to get, get, get to move in that.
And honestly, we're just like, I've discussed, we're just, we're in
that transition period where we're, we're making a big jump here and
there's a big, big commitment as far as personnel, trucks, trailers.
Software, all that kind of stuff.
So, basically, we're kind of paying our dues right now to take the next,
Slightly different than loading a mower into a Ford Explorer.
it's a little bit different than that.
Yes.
Okay,
favorite things, you and I've talked about this a lot of times, we did a
little, little video while I was at your,
are.
in, Rob probably has the smallest office and the smallest shop known to man.
And for some reason he has become a per, like the most amazing
person to figure out how to utilize every square inch of that office.
And you're bursting out the seams.
Probably upsetting a lot of your neighbors just with trucks in and out
and parking and all that, but you've figured it out and you've grown from,
you've grown multiple millions of dollars each year to get to where, so
kudos to that, that hope from the start.
But one of the things that is sets you apart is training.
And it's not, it's not just it's not on a rainy day, Rob.
It's not when you feel like there's an injury or you feel like you need to train.
This is something that happens all the time.
It's consistent.
I believe in consistent training to elevate your team.
Tell me about why was there a need to implement something like that?
And then what is this system that you've built so far?
Yeah, so, well, we first started just, it was Zach and I and . I mean, we actually
found a picture of our first training.
And it was just, we were in our warehouse, a bunch of dudes sitting
on mowers, guys smoking cigarettes.
And,
I mean, Zach and I looked at each other like, what are we doing here?
You know, what is happening?
So, but we stuck with it.
For some reason, we stuck with it.
And every week at seven o'clock on Wednesdays, we just kept showing up.
And through the years, we formalized it more and more and more.
And then, as, as our core values and culture and vision have become more
important to us and not just something we say, but something we do, we've used
our training to really cultivate the core values and the vision and so forth.
we like to say our core values are kind of like the seeds.
And our, our training is water and what grows is the culture.
So our training we've developed over the years, we call it S.A.L.T.
And S.A.L.T.
is an acronym for, sales and safety and then application, life and team.
And we have a 52 week a year calendar.
That we, we sit down and we have an intentional meeting
October of the previous year.
We talk about what went well this year.
We talk about what we want to add next year and we literally fill
in the blanks for every Wednesday morning for the whole year.
We have a lot of guest speakers come in.
That's something we've really, people get sick of hearing me
going on and on about stuff.
So honestly, I probably speak at maybe six a year.
I do some general announcements or whatever, but as far as me leading
the training we brought in a lot of community leaders, lots of
friends of mine who own companies.
And different things like that.
And that's, that's been very impactful for the team.
We've actually gone into the communities that some of our team live in, kind
of on the outskirts of our area and we've, you know, made connections
with leaders in their communities and brought them into our training.
To speak to speak to our team, so that's that's why speakers
has been a big, big thing for us.
But, just going through, like, the safety and the sales, you know,
just we're training on safety.
We're training and the sales aspect is more just a.
Trying to convince or train our team that they're the experts, you know,
become, become a trusted resource to the clients you're servicing.
And on the back end of that, you're also going to be a
salesman out there in the field.
So we're, we're trying to create a, everybody in the company is a salesperson.
And then the application is the actual boots on the ground, how
you fertilize, how you prune, how you, Identify certain things.
So that's that's the real, in the field.
This is what we're doing kind of thing And then the life is usually when we
have like the guest speakers come in and we talk about just real stuff marriage,
kids, finances, you, you name it we're going pretty deep on it and we've gotten
comfortable being uncomfortable, frankly.
And, and it's made a big impact.
I mean, sometimes you don't feel like you're making much of an impact and
then you get that one text or that one email, somebody pulls you aside and
they tell you what a difference that's made with their family because they
did something, they heard a training.
And I mean, that makes it all worthwhile and I didn't want to keep going.
So, and then the T, those are our team days.
We celebrate anniversaries.
We celebrate birthdays.
What we started doing this year is we break out into small groups.
So 1 member of each of the leadership team takes.
2 or 3 guys and kind of just breaks off and we just, we have a conversation
around maybe a book or, or whatever.
And that's been really good just to get 1 on 1, a little more 1 on 1 with the
guys, gives the guys an opportunity to maybe speak to somebody on leadership that
they normally wouldn't get to speak to.
So, and then 4 times a year, when there's a 5th Wednesday of the
month is when we have our all team celebrations and that's just the.
The barbecues, the bounce houses, games, prizes, whatever it might be.
So,
Yeah.
yeah, that's
Wow.
This is amazing.
I love it.
Gosh, I love this.
You know how much I love it because I've told you this a hundred
times, but it's clearly defined.
It's 7 a.
m.
every single Wednesday.
No choice.
No nothing.
It's 52 weeks a year.
End of story.
That's how you get better.
Quite honestly, people want structure and they want to learn, right?
I feel like, would you agree it was probably awkward at first, sitting
around a bunch of mowers and you don't really know how this is going to work?
Or you probably wanted to give up at some point, multiple times
going, what's the worthless, but now your ROI is exponential, right?
Because when I look on social media and I'd see these guys, you know, These
men and women out there that are just celebrating and having a good time and
in training and learning, they enjoy it.
They want more of this and if you were to stop, they would be pissed.
Yes, I agree.
I mean, they, they come in with an expectation now
expectation to, have a good time.
Because we do, we have an icebreaker game every week.
My wife, Jessie, leads the icebreaker at 6.
50.
And there's always a prize, and there's always snacks and drinks.
So they usually get there as close to 6.
50 as possible because they don't want to miss that out.
And then that sets us up to start right at 7 o'clock and be off and running.
And, another thing we started doing last year as part of, it took
the place of one of our old teams is we were doing a family party.
So that's wives, kids, whatever.
We do it in our house.
We had bounce houses, games, all kinds.
We had everybody got a shirt and the stories that came out of that.
And you can start to see that it means a lot to these families
that like their husband or whatever, or father worked for us.
And you see, you really start to hear the kind of impact.
That our training is making, you know, work.
Yes.
Great.
We're teaching them how to be landscapers, but more importantly, they're, they're
really learning to be better husbands and fathers and community members.
yeah.
I saw that.
I saw your post about the The swimming and the slides and the games and
the activities, the swag gear, the bonding that you guys did at that
party, that's what means a lot.
I am a huge fan of training and as long as it's consistent and you're
always talking about a topic, what I love most about you is that you
got this thing called life skills.
Man, gosh, I wish I had that.
My son's taking a life skills class this year, and it's pretty cool for
him to see like financial, you know, attitude marriage, you know, you name it.
Mortgages, money everything, survivability, change a flat tire.
yeah.
those are real life things that, which is great is that it's more than
just the paycheck at Coastal Shores.
Yeah.
They get a little bit of extra and they want more and more and more of that.
And it's not just a pay, but it's a bit of experience and learning along the way.
Love it.
Yeah.
So we, even about two years ago or so, we, we decided that we were
no longer in new paper paychecks.
Okay, fine.
Of course, the big kickback was a lot of our guys didn't have checking.
They didn't have accounts.
You know, they just went and cashed their checks and had the money, So
we mandated checking accounts and we did a little training about checking
accounts and savings accounts.
We brought in our banker.
And then afterwards, we encourage the team to stick around, meet with our
bank, sign up for a checking account.
And we put, we put a hundred dollars in whoever's account that they signed
up for a checking account that day.
So now a hundred percent of the people that work for us have bank accounts.
That's great.
Great stuff.
Career path for the field staff.
Yeah.
You've worked some time on this.
We've had it in a lot of our meetings in the last, years.
That took some time to, to, to invent and create.
That's always a sensitive subject when you're saying, you know, All right, crew
member versus, you know, a crew leader.
What if some crew member makes more or less?
What if someone has a driver's license or not?
What if someone looks at it from the maintenance side versus the install side?
Pay could be different.
Yeah.
I feel like you fought that at first for a while We're like what I don't
understand a little bit but once you started to understand how that
could impact your team tell us a story about the success of Creating
a career path for your field staff.
Yeah, it's an ongoing thing frankly, and it's it is hard because, you build this
thing out and it's very difficult to implement because you have to your point.
You have.
Team leaders that technically, as far as your new career paths go, might
not qualify to be a team leader.
Or you might have a second guy getting paid like a team leader,
you know, that kind of stuff.
So, we were having meeting after meeting after meeting about
all these different scenarios.
If this, then this, and all this, and I finally just said enough, you know, start.
We're just starting.
There's it's gonna be difficult.
We're gonna find out some stuff We screwed up But we just got to start
because if we don't it's never gonna happen because we're always gonna have
any excuse why this thing's not Perfect.
So, we finally we're rolling this thing out there's there's some
challenges, but we're defining some careers now because I also I just I
got sick and tired of these guys just You know, we started having these 1
quarterly 1 on 1s with our field team.
And a lot of the conversation was around that.
Basically, the landscaping was just getting them to what
they ultimately want to do.
You know, I want to do landscaping until I can afford to be an electrician, or I want
to do landscaping time to get my, because they didn't consider landscaping a career.
They just considered a job that that could sustain them until they could
hopefully do whatever they wanted to do.
So our biggest, I guess, the vision of this whole thing is to paint
the picture where you can become a landscaper and it can become a career.
And it doesn't have to, you don't have to move into leadership or move
into the office for it to be a career.
Here, you can be a landscape professional, have a career at it, and always be
in the field and make a good living.
You know?
So how did you, how did you paint the picture
So, we're in the process.
We're still in the process.
we're making signage.
We know we love banners and, you know, you know, you know, my
daughter, Liz, she's very creative.
So, we have created study guides, little printed study guides,
and they have all the material in there and all the criteria.
That it takes to be a tech one, a tech two, a tech three, a
landscape professional and beyond.
So how we decided to implement it though, is we basically said, all
right, everybody's a tech one.
We don't care how much you make.
We don't care if you're a team lead or everybody's a tech
one, you're still a team lead.
You're still making what you're making, but everybody's a tech one
because we want everybody testing out of tech one into tech two.
And so forth.
And, you know, there's a challenge in that because team leads, we want
to fast track them and get them up.
Well, some of them are dragging their feet, so we're having to
figure out how to address that, but we're just figuring it out as we go.
The study guides are pretty cool.
I should share them with you.
and we made it very simple.
I mean, this is like This is a picture of a palm tree.
Draw, you know, like match the palm tree, you know, draw a line or whatever.
So, irrigation parts.
we worked in our, you know, part of going from a Tech 1 to a Tech
2 is creating a family budget, you know, so there's in there literally
identifying what a spade shovel is.
To, what a drip emitter is to creating a family budget.
I mean, so that's how these career paths are really tied back to our
training and to our core values.
So it all kind of really starts to snowball.
And frankly, we, we have a fireman that works for us and this is very similar to
what the, what the fire department does.
And it makes promotion.
It's, it's not personal anymore.
I want to check these six boxes for you because if I can check these
six boxes for you, I can give you two bucks more an hour, go do it.
And then I can give you, it's very black and white, so I'm not.
I'm not giving you a raise because I like it and I'm not not giving you
a raise because I don't like you.
I just need you to do these things.
So,
um,
has there been pushback
no, like I said, we're just getting this thing rolling.
it's taken longer than we expected, but everything kind of does.
I said, the only real push pushback is just.
Everybody, people sometimes can't get past titles, but there was
really no other way to do it.
You know, we don't want to just declare somebody a tech three without them showing
us they have the skills to do that.
So, so far we're working through those deals.
We might lose a couple people through this whole thing.
And if we do, It's just
part of it.
Yeah.
You know, my recommendation when you're starting a career path,
step one is you have to define each role in your organization.
Yeah.
And that's field, that's wherever anything is, you have to define that
if you don't have defined roles, yeah.
Then what's a path?
What's the ladder?
It doesn't make any sense because if you're a crew leader and you don't
have a specific role, then what gauges me that I'm a tech one, two, three,
professional, you name it, whatever.
So you have to kind of like, before you take a forward
step, you got to take two back
Yeah.
clearly define everything.
And then move forward painfully, painfully forward, right?
Because I should have done this years ago.
What was I thinking?
Right.
maybe you should have in the Ford Explorer, you know, had a career path
built as you're loading up the mower.
Yeah.
Back in those days, I was just trying to figure out how long
I was going to have to do this.
yes,
But, but I will, I also tell you the guys who are really embracing it, love it.
Like, you know, we have a young kid working for us
right now who just is awesome.
And he literally has declared that he wants to be the youngest crew leader
in the history of coastal shores.
Cool.
Here's how you do it.
You know, and those are the kind of people we want.
This kid just kind of came out of high school.
He has an opportunity to do whatever he wants to with us.
The sky's the limit, honestly.
So, and also it gives us the opportunity to your point when, you know, when we have
these defined roles and we can look at our work chart and we can look at our growth
and we can say, you know what, we're going to need another team leader next year, and
we can announce that to the team and say, Hey, all you tech two guys, we're going
to need to promote one of you to team leading who's going to step up and do it.
it's been difficult, challenging, but we're getting through it.
And I think it's gonna be a really amazing thing.
Once we, once we really get going on it.
Yeah, that's good.
Rob.
One of the things I, I, I've watched you over the years, in, in this peer
group and travel and, and learning, learning from others, the, the one
thing that steps that stands out that you then a lot of, a lot of people
is, it's what they call get shit done.
You're the, you're the master of, and I, I think you know what I'm talking about and.
Honestly, landscapers overthink everything.
They sort of find a reason why they shouldn't.
On accountability calls, you ask good questions, you implement.
And every time we meet three times a year, you're always saying we did this.
We started it.
You, you've not finished some things, which is totally okay
because you're figuring things out.
You've mentioned before earlier in this, that you just got to get started.
What makes you.
Yeah.
Like why do you do that?
And what's the advantage?
Well, one, this is an investment.
I mean, and I wanna return on my investment.
these are not just while we have, we have a good time when we're
traveling all over the country together and have some great dinners
and conversation and whatever else.
But at the end of the day, it's, it's a business trip and it's an investment
and I wanna bring something home.
Secondly, if it was just up to me, I don't know how much stuff would get done.
So, you know, I, I started from the beginning, my team, my leadership
team is invested in ace peer groups.
Almost as much as I am, you know, they, they want to know where
I'm going, what I've seen, say, send pictures while you're gone.
What do you, you know, what's going on?
And then we have a, as soon as I get back, we have a debrief meeting and I
kind of just dump everything out there.
And everybody just kind of listens for a while.
And then Liz, she's my daughter, but she's also what, what we call a
director of culture and implementation.
So, she kind of oversees and drives this stuff getting done, and we really
drive it by assigning ownership.
And then assigning action items.
And we'll, we don't try to do a hundred different things, even though I might
come home with a hundred different ideas.
We'll kind of pick, through our debrief, our debrief discussion, typically a half
dozen of them kind of come to the surface.
And then we'll, Assign some ownership to that will assign some action
items and then the process begins of developing that that item.
So we actually, I just got a, a reminder from Liz this week that
to leadership, go back and review your action items from our last
Oh boy.
debrief.
You know, where we at, so, it's just that continual.
It's, it's assigning ownership, action items.
And then accountability, you know, as far as the leadership goes, we know
that we assigned this thing to this person and this is their timeline.
And next time we sit down, we're going to ask them about it and ask them how
it's going and that kind of stuff.
So, but the bottom line, like I said, you being in a peer group, there's so
many amazing people, businesses, ideas.
It would just be a shame just to come home with nothing.
Nothing to share, whatever.
So,
I tell you, Rob, Another thing that's fascinating that sort of just popped
in my head, and maybe this is how you interpret things, you're one of the one
people that, that I I've witnessed over years that really takes a lot of notes.
Like a lot.
yeah.
Yep.
What's the advantage of taking notes?
You always travel with an iPad.
You're always taking notes.
And when you travel, it's notes in general.
It could be someone is speaking in a room.
You could be listening to a podcast or a show or YouTube and you're taking notes.
You can listen to other peer group members talk about their update.
And you're still taking notes,
Yeah.
notes when people are speaking and, and then you, and then you
compile that stuff and get it back.
Like, what makes that an advantage for you?
Well, one, I'm just kind of OCD like that, but, so, and I
don't have a great memory, so,
Well,
it's,
we didn't, we're
yeah,
the way, we're, we're not,
yeah,
ship to, to go to space.
So I have to take a lot of notes too.
yeah, well, and I mean, you know, if you mentioned the updates, well, you know,
the guys in our group, they're friends of mine, and I care about what's going on.
So, I want to know that Chris said this.
Tommy said this or whatever it might be so later.
We're out to dinner like hey You mentioned this in your update.
Let me hear more about that or whatever so But you know when
I'm gonna peer group visit.
I'm continuing like kind of First thing in the morning, end of the day, I'm just
kind of filtering through those notes.
And then at the top, I always kind of just, I'll copy and paste.
I'll just pull stuff up.
And that's kind of my big takeaways up there.
Yeah.
really what comes home with me.
And those big takeaways fuel the peer group debrief meeting that we have.
Yeah.
And what's great is that, you know, whatever the costs are per
month, your entire team is getting to take away from this thing.
Yes, you're the one showing up, right?
Your wife, Jesse's always there to showing up, you know once a year at a summit, but
they're like, give me more, give me more.
What happened?
How did it go?
How was the site visit?
What'd you see?
Right?
That comes from a good leader.
And when a good leader can come back and do a debrief to the team and then
take action items and run with it.
No wonder you're getting stuff done.
yeah, I just want to feel like, yeah, you know, they're invested in this thing too.
And I mean, like I said, when I'm on a site visit, I'm always
pretty intentional about sending some pictures back to the team.
Or just any kind of tidbit that I hear sometimes I'll say, hey, I'm going
to go visit this landscape company.
I'll send a link to their website.
Let me know anything.
You guys are thinking about that.
You want me to try to find out or take a picture of or whatever.
So, even though I'm the 1 there, they're still kind of participating remotely.
Yeah, that's great.
Rob what kind of advice would you give anyone out there that you,
listen, this is what when I, you know, during the tough times of building
a business during you know, you coaching your middle managers coaching
crew guys, crew women, you name it.
What, what's something that you just, is it a certain book?
Is it a quote?
Is it something just hard work pays off?
What is it?
Well, you know, I think sometimes.
You got to be, even in the peer groups, we go to a lot of amazing companies
doing amazing things, amazing facilities, millions and millions of dollars.
And it's easy to kind of say, well, if I would ever be that big of a
company or whatever, I could do X or I can't do X until I'm that big.
And, you know, I would argue that you're never going to be that
company unless you start doing this.
You know, you, you, you have to start before you become
whatever that company might be.
You know, my first, grow was at Melosi and it was like, I don't need to me.
Because it literally was like, holy cow, there, there's the business that I've been
had in my vision right in front of it.
Torrential downpour, freezing cold weather.
Yeah.
So, but you, you know, earlier you mentioned, you know, humility.
You know, I could have gone into that like, oh, well these guys are
this or that, or whatever, and, but I literally just kind of absorbed it
like they have painted the picture of what I envision our company being.
so I, I think just again, we've keep saying it, just, just
start, you don't have to be a certain size to start training.
You don't have to be a certain size to have a vision and live out core values.
You don't have to be a certain size to love on your team.
Well, those things are all the ingredients to become whatever
your vision for your company is.
And if your vision for your company is to say the same exact size it is, I
still believe you need to do all these things to maintain that and to have
a healthy, know, company at any size.
Love it.
That's great stuff.
So here we go.
I took a bunch of notes, you know, as you can see, I'm a big note taker is
just like you, I put this in a file.
I actually do debrief these, these, every one of these episodes I debrief.
So after this is over, I'm going to debrief, put some takeaways.
The famous Tommy takeaways.
Here we go.
Training.
God, I love training.
When you said 52 weeks, I want to give you the biggest hug through the screen.
52 week training, 7am on Wednesdays.
It's salt.
It's sales, safety, application, life, and team.
I mean, training equals core values, water, the seeds.
Do it, do it, do it, do it, do it, and don't stop.
I, gosh, I just can't get enough of that.
Career path, once again, just start it.
You got to start somewhere, but probably define the roles, understand what that is.
I love the family budgets.
I love the, the spade shovels and the how to do a five gallon shrub and
how to mulch pine straw, how to, you know, power wash and it, you name it.
All those, all those great things.
The master of getting things done.
I say get shit done at the end of the day.
'cause that's my favorite quote.
But first off, you've gotta a leader leadership team that wants.
To get stuff done You got a debrief when you come back from an event.
It could be whatever it could be a vacation It could be anything you come
back grow peer groups Conferences every everything but the most important things
of getting things done is assign an owner
Yeah.
And create action items And check them off the box and move on.
That's it's it's not that hard.
We just over complicate everything
Yep.
I wrote just do it the Nike logo, right?
just start just
Yep.
way any last minute bits of information Rob?
No, I just, I really appreciate you, Jason and the whole McFarland
team and it's just been amazing.
I think we're, we're on year three now or so.
So it's been awesome.
Looking forward to seeing y'all in September.
Absolutely, Rob Shreve.
It's a pleasure with Coastal Shores out of Hilton Head, South
Carolina area It's been a pleasure.
You're a rock star.
I appreciate you taking the time and your busy schedule to share
some inside information with us.
Absolutely.
It's a pleasure.
Thank
you.
ya.