Getting the Most Value Out of Peer Groups

Speaker A: If you're in a green industry peer group or you've been in one in the past, you know how powerful they can be. You also know that there are a lot of ideas that surface in a single meeting. The real challenge isn't getting insights, it's knowing what to do with them. Today's conversation, it's about how strong leaders use peer groups well, how they turn shared ideas into clarity, confident decisions, and real action. Not by copying everything they hear, but by learning how to think, evaluate, and lead more intentionally. Hey, Jeffrey. It's been a while, man. It's been, wow, too long since I saw you. How have you been?

Speaker B: What's going on? Chad, good to see you.

Speaker A: Hey, um, I. I appreciate you taking some time today. You and I have gotten to know each other a little bit over the years, and, uh, just for the sake of listeners and viewers that haven't met you before, don't know much about you, why don't you give me a little background on you. Like, um, when you think about, you know, like, the landscape industry people that are watching here, give us a little background. Tell us a little bit about what you've done and how you've kind of evolved to the place where you're at today.

Speaker B: How far back do you want me to go? I was born in Lubbock, Texas.

Speaker A: There you go.

Speaker B: There. Nice. No. Okay. Uh, well, I mean, I grew up in the industry, but that was in Connecticut. And after forays into engineering and corporate consulting in Europe, uh, and then I. Another foray back in my family business, helped run it and grow it. I exited from the business and decided to go back into consulting. But instead of corporate consulting, I decided to focus on the green industry. It was really my wife's idea. And that was 18 years ago, Chad.

Speaker A: It's crazy.

Speaker B: Uh, yeah, it is crazy. And we were just, you know, I met that age where we were just sort of reminiscing on all the struggles and hard times. Like, I kicked off during, uh, the Great Recession, which, you know, doesn't really seem that long ago, actually, which means it's been downhill from there, or uphill, depending on how you want to say it. But we grew along with the regrowth of the industry. And we've worked with over 350 companies to either fix their company because they're overworked and underpaid, or scale their company because they've hit a plateau. Like, I got to, uh, two and a half, and I. Or five, and I don't know how to get beyond that, or 10 and then help exit, which it's not what we did early on, but we're doing a lot of that work now. An exit could also mean retire in place, like I'm exiting from the day to day or I'm literally going to sell the business. So there's a continuum there and it's, it's all within that.

Speaker A: So a lot of coaching and I know a big part of that was peer groups and that's one of the reasons I asked you to be on the podcast today, because I, I have a bunch of questions about peer groups. Um, I know some of our listeners, they've had some experiences with other groups. Maybe some of them are good, some of them are bad, maybe they're just not, they're not sure. Maybe they've talked to industry peers and they haven't gotten an accurate portrayal of this. Maybe they were in a peer group, it didn't work out well and maybe they're not sure why it worked didn't work out well. So I want to jump into that today, um, to talk a little bit more about that. So when you think about the leaders that you get to work with.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: The, what are the ones that get the most value from the peer groups? Like what are they doing differently than ones that seem to kind of walk away and say, you know what, I don't really get that much value out of it.

Speaker B: This is going to sound, ah, trite, but you get out of it what you put into it when someone leaves a group. Oh, um, I'm just not getting any more value out of it. It's often because they're bringing the same issue over and over again. And so they're not really bringing new energy or new ideas and they're not taking the feedback from the group and going back and solving their problem. And so that's one form of not getting enough value because you're just coming with the same story over and over. The other way, not that you don't get enough value is just because you don't engage and lean in. You know, I would say 1 out of 3, 30 people, contractors may not be the right fit for you. Maybe one out of 20, maybe you're more of a one on one coaching type person. Uh, but for the rest of you, you've got to lean in and build those relationships within your peer group.

Speaker A: Yeah. So the behaviors would be, is build relationships, come with problems, apply some solutions to those problems so you're not continually just showing up to complain about the same thing over and over again. You're actually taking action on that. We're going to get into that today because I've, you know, I want to do, want to talk about. You get a lot of insights from these groups, but if you don't really apply the action and do the things in a certain way, this is what's going to happen. You're going to keep, keep doing that. Again, like, how do, what do you do with the feedback? What do you do with the insights? So, you know, why do you think that gap exists? Like, where does that come from? Where, where they're getting good information but they're just not putting it into practice and they're not really growing and they're stuck at that same spot over and over.

Speaker B: You know, some of them actually need coaching. So that's some portion. It's um, a bigger problem to solve or it's a bigger problem for them to solve and they really need a coach to work with them to drive through the ops, the goals, back at work and drive home the answer. So for some of them, it's that, for some of them, they maybe got a myriad of feedback from the group and the group leader didn't help them get to a specific direction or they tried to do everything that the group told them to and they didn't, they didn't finish processing the feedback.

Speaker A: Is this a confidence issue? Is it a clarity like you said? Like they haven't been able to take the information, have clarity about it, or is it something else? Like what, what seems to change? Like the difference between people that are taking action based on these insights versus ones that aren't? I mean, is it, which one of those things do you think it boils down to?

Speaker B: Well, clarity for sure, of confidence sometimes, but you've got to have clarity. The person leading the group has got to make sure that clarity gets created. Because either, Chad, I'm going to put this in sort of black and white terms. You either put a problem out there and everybody's giving you the same directional feedback, more or less, or you put a problem out there. Actually, I'll give you three options. Or you put a problem out there and it's like 50%, uh, say go right and 50% say go left, or you put a problem out there and you just get a scattershot of ideas. So if it's the first and all the feedback is very directional, okay, that's easier to have clarity. But the other two scenarios requires the leader, uh, to help you process it further. And often, Chad, the member's not asking a clear enough Question. And so bad questions, bad feedback. Uh, and so what I'll do is I'll say, well what's the underlying problem you want to solve? Like you know that Japanese expression five times why? So I'll start off by saying, well why, why is that your question? Why you know, what's going on underneath that? And so I try to get to the underlying problem or question and then I have the group help solve that underlying item. And that generally helps bring clarity to the feedback given.

Speaker A: Yeah, it's often like the, the problem that you bring doesn't end up actually it, it ends up. If you ask those why questions five times, you end up a very different problem than you first started.

Speaker B: I, you're a marketing guy, so I'm going to give you a marketing example.

Speaker A: Do it.

Speaker B: So you know, sales are down and uh, and I really want to get a, I want to change my marketing company or I really want to improve marketing and I really want to. Guys, I really want your help on, on um, on this or sales are down and think, uh, it's. My incentives are broken. I really, I need help with incentives. But if you don't have the group ask a lot of questions first, they'll end up solving the wrong problem. Yeah, those are both different problems I gave you. But we don't really know what the actual underlying problem is until we ask more questions first and get down to the underlying problem and then give the advice. So I like question asking as the first step and then give feedback on um, whatever we get to, whatever is the underlying problem. And what I just told you was it could have been a marketing problem or a sales problem. Yeah. And yet I didn't give you enough information for you to know which it was.

Speaker A: Yeah, I mean a lot of times we run into that too. I mean this is something that's near and dear to my heart where you know, like we have a marketing problem, we're getting all these leads and we're not converting these leads. And they're saying, well maybe the way that we're getting these leads, Google Ads or whatever you call it, that's not working, that's not good. Maybe it is good, but maybe you have too many leads, you're not getting back to them soon enough. Maybe you have no follow up process because you have the volume problem. And then maybe sometimes you're like, no, I mean like we do have a volume problem but like it just turns out we're getting a ton of like one type of lead. Like we're getting all these landscape Design leads, and we sell irrigation, sod install, and all that stuff. But the person that is handling the landscape design leads, maybe you need another designer. Like, maybe. You know, a lot of times it's not. It's not even a sales issue. It's staffing. It's. It's other things. So I really like that.

Speaker B: So, and. And when you, when you first start working with landscape leadership or whomever, uh, and you're gonna get an influx or an increase of leads, it will absolutely. A hundred percent. It'll challenge your sales process and it'll probably break your sales process.

Speaker A: Oh, yeah, it's true.

Speaker B: Your sales process was already broken. And so when you start paying for marketing, you gotta really work on the back end. We're gonna be running a sales symposium, a virtual one. March 10th. If you go to my website at jeffreescott biz, you can sign up for. We're gonna do a sales management symposium and help people become better sales managers. And so when they invest in marketing, the sales manager or the owner with the sales management hat has to look at the sales process and say, all right, guys and gals, how are we gonna handle this influx? What do I need to fix in my own sales process?

Speaker A: Yeah, let's talk about influx. You had talked about it like, there's an influx of ideas when you have a lot of really sharp people in a room and they might say, oh, maybe you should hire a new marketing agency, or, oh, you should add another designer or, oh, you should try this, this vehicle for marketing, all those different things. So not every good idea is great for specific companies, though, because it has to meet the context of that company. So how does a, uh, strong leader assess whether something actually fits their business?

Speaker B: First off, not every idea is a good idea.

Speaker A: That's true.

Speaker B: And not every good idea is a good fit. And not every good fit is still the right idea at the right time. Like, it's not the right. It's not the priority good idea. But I gotta really work on this other issue. First. A company itself needs to have good strategic direction. Like within our peer groups, we use OKRs, objectives and key results. And if you want to learn about that, you can read the book Measure what matters. It basically takes EOS to a higher level. EOS is great, but it's not strategic. And you'll know what I mean when you read the book. And so the owner, the company should have good strategic objectives. Here's what we're trying to do in the next two to three years. And then all the feedback and advice can be then filtered through that kind of prism. Uh, I would say if we're talking more nuanced, like I just don't know which way to go with this, then you have to workshop it some more. Right. You have to either in that meeting later, uh, in that day, or in a breakout or over lunch, you've got to be willing to be vulnerable to say, I've got three ideas here, but I still am stuck on the priority and which one I should really do. I think it takes a lot of vulnerability. But vulnerability, uh, combined with good listening skills, like, you gotta be open to the ideas and then be willing to process them.

Speaker A: How important is context? Like the stage of your business, the team that you have, the market you're in, the leadership capacity? I mean, I would think that a lot of those things are going to really impact which of those choices you're actually going to take.

Speaker B: Oh yeah, for sure.

Speaker A: What can following like the wrong example, even a successful one, like, create problems? Like, do you have any, like, hypothetical, semi hypothetical examples, uh, where like, it was a wrong example, um, applied for this company that, that someone was seeking advice, but it worked well over here. What's, what's an example, like that happened, someone took that advice and then it created problems in their business.

Speaker B: Well, there's, you have to think about that to give you a real life one. I can make up an example, for example, do it. Making one up, an incentive program. It worked great in my company. Well, my company has different people. I have a different culture than you have. And some people say, oh, I'm going to take that and just use it in my business. And it just doesn't fit culturally. I mean, if you want real explicit, we're going to do profit sharing, whereas in your company culture it might be more specific incentives, or we're going to layer that incentive on top of the incentives we have, you know, and it just causes chaos. So more isn't better. And you get a lot of great ideas from your peer group, but you still have to filter and prioritize them and decide which one's going to move the needle the furthest.

Speaker A: Yeah. So is there any specific steps in that example that you just explained that would have helped that business owner to evaluate that more on the front end before they decided to enact like the incentive plans or profit sharing? What's some things they could have done to get the feedback, have more information to make that decision better?

Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, now we're just sort of talking in theory here, but in the end you can only have so many, uh, objectives in a given year or a given three year period. You can only work on so many rocks. You can't come back and just flood your company with a lot of new ideas. If you're doing the OKR strategy, then ideas can fit within that. Uh, and so really, uh, workshopping the couple actions you're going to take, um, is most important. Maybe I'm repeating myself here, but you just can't grab the idea and run with it.

Speaker A: Yeah, I mean like, I'm a change person. I like everything to be different. I see something that needs to be fixed and I all of a sudden want to start doing it. And like you said, sometimes it's too much too soon. So how do you help slow down the conversation? When a business owner has like 10 really great ideas, how do you slow that down? How does a peer group fit into that? How does a coach, uh, work into that with taking that conversation and kind of whittling down that list of things to change for which ones you should focus on first?

Speaker B: You know, I would go back and ask what's the big problem we're trying to solve here? I think throwing that back into the conversation not just in the beginning, but in the middle and maybe towards the end, okay, let's just step back and remind ourselves what's the problem we're trying to solve? Uh, oh, okay, that's the problem. So if that's the problem, here's the couple things we should look at. And so I think reminding and refocusing through the conversation really helps.

Speaker A: You know, there's a lot of great industry ideas floating around. There's a lot of really great companies. I think even like when I look at us as a marketing agency, like there's other marketing agencies, I'll pay attention to things they're doing and some of them I like. Or you'd be like, wow, I want to be like that agency in some respects. But that happens a lot within the landscape industry because there's such this huge profile of like companies that are winning, that are doing really big, that do, doing great stuff, they're spreading and all that, um, you know, more geographic footprint or they're just doing some really amazing things and so it's easy to borrow ideas. So why do certain ideas kind of lend themselves to industry people in the green industry copying? And how, how would be a better way to look at another company and say I want to do that, but an analyze to figure out that's not actually a good idea for my company? Like why do you think there's so much copying going on?

Speaker B: Uh, these are great questions. Maybe, and maybe when we're done with the podcast, you'll tell me who, who you like to follow. But, uh, uh, these are great questions. So I was talking to a past client last week, true story, big company, $10 million. And he discovered that whenever he looked at a larger company, he would beat himself up and self flagellate himself. You know, kind of whip himself on the back about why he wasn't already succeeding. Like it looked like that other company was. And that other company could have been a hundred million dollar company. And he would beat himself up, why aren't I doing that? Uh, but he would also beat himself up over a $10 million company that was doing one thing better. So, you know, and he's getting some work and some help for that because that's, that's a real psychological issue that will kill you. Comparison of that sort will absolutely kill you and your mojo. You've got to be, you know the concept schadenfreude, where you feel good at somebody else's problem. Well, this is the reverse of Schadenfreude, where you feel bad about someone else's success. You have to be able to look at all other people's success and be happy for them and not just compare yourself automatically to them. So that's number one. You gotta be able to be inspired. That's so cool. What a great idea. Without layering a judgment onto it. And so I think that is a good kind of comparison. Um, I think robbing and duplicating is important. I've done it even in my business all the time. But I'm very clear, like we started off as a peer group company and I did that because I was in Vistage. It actually was called tech way back in the day, but now it's known as Vistage. And there were a lot of things I liked about Vistage when I was running my landscape business, but there are things that it didn't have that I wished it had, like better financial benchmarking and better benchmarking of how do you pay your people? And you know, even marketing, right. And so I opted to focus on peer groups and then I opted to expand and do consulting and then coaching. It went in that specific order. And if we have time, I can tell you why. Uh, but then when other ideas came up, I'm like, no, I'm not doing that. No, I'm not doing that. So I did rob and duplicate, but I had a Very clear strategic direction. And I said no a lot. And I kept at it. And that really helped me be a big success. I did a podcast with Jim Palouch, God bless his soul, when I was growing up in the industry. He was one of the guys we looked up to. You probably remember him. Yeah, uh, JP Horizons. And he admitted to me on the podcast that guy had brilliant ideas every year or two, like brilliant. And he said, you know, and I followed them. So I would stop one great thing I was doing and I would build this new great thing. And he said, if I had just stuck with one of my great ideas and seen it through, I would have been ruling the world. I would have had a business. He said on the podcast, to hand down to my kids. But I just kept adding different ideas and we never got strategic momentum. And so you landscape company, any of us who own a company, we've got to know who we are. We got to be able to say no more often than we say yes. And we've gotta be able to have the patience and the perseverance to go deeper and deeper and deeper and deeper and deeper and deeper into our niche. And within that, we should be robbing and duplicating and taking ideas. And still you have to filter and prioritize. Um, but knowing who you are and who you want to be is very important.

Speaker A: Yeah, like it's almost as important. The things that it is, like the things that you say no to versus the things that you say yes to in business are just as important. And like we often say, yes, I'm going to do this. And then you just imagine that big vision, uh, the dream of things transforming or adding things. And that seems to be, you know, like this positive, warm, fuzzy feeling. But if you say no to something, there's. That's often layered with regret and fear of missing out instead of viewing it of like, if I say no to this, this is going to some make some unexpected outcome that's going to be positive on the other side, like, I'm actually going to get a surprise, a pleasant surprise from this if I say no. I, I've seen that happen a bunch of times. You know, to your point about going deeper, one of the questions, actually my personal life, it's, it's kind of funny. I wonder. And one question I have for you then too, you can respond to this too, is how is coaching and counseling? Uh, kind of, uh, almost the same sometimes. But one of the questions that I've found to be the most profound when I'm making decisions is what would that give you? Because a lot of times, like I say, I want this, I'm trying to accomplish this, or I want this to happen. And that's one of those five layer questions. Like if you ask yourself, okay, well, if that happened, what would that give you? And you'll find out that you'll end up at a different place at the end of that conversation because you realize, well, I already have this and that, and I don't need this to get that. Or, um, or ew, I don't want this because that means I'm going to get this other stuff to this. So do you ever find yourself, like, as, as a coach, like, feeling like you're an unlicensed counselor, like, unpacking that stuff or what kind of info, what kind of resources do you recommend to people, like business leaders that need to explore their motivations and more, like, core person issues?

Speaker B: Yeah, it was. That's such a good question. Because for so many reasons, um, when I'm working with a new client and they either don't trust me or, or they don't trust the process, which means they don't really trust themselves, then I've really got to use those therapy type questions to get them off the dime. You, uh, know, let's just think this through. What you'll achieve when you go down this road. Or, hey, if you stay here and the flame gets hotter and hotter and your water starts to boil, what other problems are you going to have?

Speaker A: Right?

Speaker B: So you, you amplify not moving. And then if you do move, um, and I find with clients, like I said, that lack trust in themselves and me in the process. Uh, but once we start getting momentum, then it's off to the races. And me as a coach and the contractor, we can move really, really, really quickly. Uh, but still, you're going to hit hiccups, you're going to hit problems where you, where you're like, all right, let's take a beat and let's just talk about this. Some of my clients say you're like a business therapist. That's it. You know, uh, you meet people where they're at. If they need solid financial information, give it to them. If they just want to be told, hey, I believe you, I trust you. What do you think? We just go right there. If they need some discussion around, uh, for example, I've worked with people where I'm like, your number two is killing your company. That person that you have in that role as sales manager or whatever, they're killing your company. And I'll have to use therapy and psychology to get them to, to move on somebody who could be an old friend. They've been in with the company forever. Yeah. But now they're killing, literally killing the company. And so you have to have those psychological tools as a coach. And uh, I've been through a lot of it myself in my family business. We did family business consulting with a therapist who literally was a specialist in business. And so I've been on the receiving end. My daughter, who we've had a lot of troubles with over the years, I've had to be in therapy with her, well, to help her go through her journey and you know, being on the receiving end of some of these things, I think just as a coach, I'm um, a professional coach and I'm practiced and I've studied it. But you know, you gotta have, gotta have more tools in the toolbox to deal with more situations as they pop up.

Speaker A: Yeah. So you guys explore these things deeper. You come up with plans like the, you outline some clear objectives, you might get some pieces of a plan together. I mean like what does a good plan look like just from a high level. I mean it can be, you can, you can apply this to a specific example. What does a good plan look like? How do you make sure accountability is built into this? How do you reevaluate the plan to see once it's going to see if it needs modifications or if it isn't working?

Speaker B: I'll uh, let's start with what a bad plan looks like. A bad plan is a goal that's not attached to a larger goal. In other words, here's what we're going to do this year. Well, it's a lot different from last year and it's not really attached to where we're trying to get to three years from now. And so it's probably going to change next year. Uh, that creates a very reactive situation. So that's. So a bad plan is unattached or detached to this long larger vision. Um, so to flip that around, a good plan is going to be attached to a very clear objective that the company needs to hit in the next two to three years. You might have two objectives, you might have three, but no more than that might be one, two or three objectives that we're going to hit in the next three years and then we're going to have clear measurables on what we need to do or uh, what metrics we need to hit in order to achieve that three year vision. And then from that we're going to have actions. And so as you're coming up with a plan, those specific actions. Who's going to do what by when, who does what by when, and who's going to support you? So those might be the four things. Who's the quarterback, what are they going to do by when, and who's going to support you? That's a good plan. And sometimes that needs to get broken down into five steps. Okay, even that's a big deal. Um, I'll just make something up here. We're going to create a training plan. Okay, great. Who's going to do that? Frank. Who's going to support Frank? Susie, When's it due by? September 1st. That's still too generic. All right, let's break that down into five steps. So even the action steps should be broken into five steps or milestones, uh, that are all very measurable. And so a good plan has that type of, uh, cascading attachment. And if you read the book I mentioned, there's even more ways to do cascading attachment. But that, for sake of conversation here, that's. That's a straightforward way to look at it.

Speaker A: Yeah. So if someone's looking to join a peer group for the first time, or they're in a peer group where they just feel like it's not working, they have applied themselves, they've tried to invest, they've tried to put things in action. What is one mindset shift or a practical step that you would recommend? Whether someone's getting ready to kind of find a new peer group network or they're just wanting to do it for the first time?

Speaker B: Well, if they want to do it for the first time. The biggest obstacle, uh, if you will, is no matter how much I tell you about it, it's sort of conceptual. And so you really have to trust the person you're talking to, uh, and be willing to take, uh, the first step and give it a try. You know, this is. Now, some people are very quick to take action. Right. They're the D in disc, I suppose. Right. And those that are high, I in disc, will love the interaction within the peer group. But if somebody is super detailed, has to line everything out, they'll have trouble making decisions. And so, uh, a bit of trust will help. You know, talk to a couple people within the group and, uh, understand from their perspective. So you're not just being sold, but, you know, you're talking to an actual peer about the peer experience. The way we run our groups, uh, we're very.

Speaker A: We.

Speaker B: They're very structured. So the peer group is not like networking at NALP or networking at your state association, hanging around the bar, sharing ideas. But a peer group experience is going to be very, uh, there's going to be a very specific agenda on what we do and when we do it, plus a lot of free time to go hang out during dinner and during breaks and at the bar. But it should have, it should be a balance of that. But when we're together, working together as peers, there should be, um, a well thought out agenda that keeps everybody on track and accountable time wise. Because from that you'll get a lot more value out of your time and money invested.

Speaker A: Yeah. All right, couple rapid fire questions for you. What's a hill you would die on when it comes to peer groups?

Speaker B: What's the hill I would die on? Uh, I got it. So when I, I'm gonna go back to when I first started my peer groups, I came out of Vistage. My chair, my Vistage chair was like, top 10 in the world, best of the best. And he gave me advice that I used to found our peer groups on the better. CEOs want to be challenged. They don't want you to back down. They want to be held accountable. What this means as well is sharing financial information. So when you join one of our groups, we demand, you've got to be transparent. And that's a hill I would die on. And that can be very challenging for people. And so here's the numbers I want. You got to put them together, get your accountant to help you. Uh, and we're going to do a sort of full disclosure. And if somebody's like, well, I don't really know people. I don't want to go there yet. Uh, what I found is it's actually the opposite. By you willing to do full disclosure upfront, you'll actually get to know people better or quickly because of that vulnerability that you're sort of forced to have. When you join one of our groups, we'll make sure you're in the right group and you're a good fit. Uh, and then the rest will take care of itself.

Speaker A: All right, finish this sentence. A great peer group helps leaders blank.

Speaker B: A great peer group helps leaders make decisions, make the right decisions and keep moving forward.

Speaker A: All right, if you could leave others with one thought about peer groups, what would it be?

Speaker B: Peer groups will change your life. Not just your business, but your enjoyment of your business and your relationship to your business and therefore your life.

Speaker A: Awesome. Well, Jeff, I appreciate it. Before we wrap up, I Want to give people an opportunity to be able to get in touch with you. You had referenced an event that you guys have coming up. Tell, um, us a little bit about how the audience can get in touch with you.

Speaker B: My cell phone is. No, I'm just kidding. Well, I'll tell you anyways. It's on my emails. Email signature. Uh, but Jeff Jeffriescott Biz is my email. The website is jeffreescott Biz. That's the Northeastern spelling of Jeffrey. J, E, F, F, R, E, Y, S, C, O, T, T, B, I, Z. It's my name. But we really have a team, uh, a curated, small, very impactful team that does all the work with me. It's not just me. Otherwise we wouldn't have grown. And so that website's a great way to make first contact. We have our sales symposium, which you'll find under Events on our website. And that will be March 10th. And we'll have an early bird discount, I think, till the end of February. Uh, and we're going to have not just me, but two other sales management experts. And sales experts. We have one presenter who manages a team of 20 salespeople. He knows what he's doing. Yeah, he's been a longtime client. Uh, he knows what he's doing. Uh, and so you will learn a ton from it.

Speaker A: So, um, just real quick, for people that might be listening, they can be ranging in all different types of company sizes. Do you feel like your peer groups and coaching is best suited for. Is it a certain type of company within the green industry? Like, certain size?

Speaker B: Well, I look at it as a bullseye. You know, we'll take anybody from a million to, uh, 25 million or 28, maybe even 30 million within our peer groups. But then, you know, if you want to do coaching and you're wondering, am I big enough? Well, you probably should be 2 or 3 million to go beyond peer groups into coaching. Uh, and generally, like, the average size of our company is around. Last year was around 6 or 7, so it's been like 7 or 8 million. That's sort of the median, uh, size. But we have groups that are, that have combinate, that have a collection of peer group members that are on the larger size and groups with combinations of members that are on the smaller size. So from a peer group, we can fit you in anywhere. And from a coaching perspective, you know, you probably need to be 2 to 3 million to afford the coaching and to make use of the coaching. Yeah, great.

Speaker A: Well, thanks so much, Jeff. It's good to see your smiling face again. Hope to bump into you in person sometime here in the future. Thanks so much for coming on the show today.

Speaker B: I really appreciate you as well, Chad. Thank you.