Shownotes
Episode 217 Frederick Dudek | Business Prosperity Advisor
Belgian landscape architect Matthieu Mehuys explains how regenerative land design turns overlooked dirt into measurable revenue: lower construction costs, higher tenant retention, and property value gains reaching into six figures.
Why This Conversation Matters
For real estate developers, property owners, and service entrepreneurs alike, land is too often treated as a cost center instead of an asset. This conversation with landscape architect Matthieu Mehuys reframes site design as a direct lever on construction costs, tenant retention, and long-term property value — the kind of revenue leak most founders never think to audit.
Direct Answer
Regenerative land design increases property value by working with a site's natural terrain instead of against it. Landscape architect Matthieu Mehuys shows how converting overlooked land features into functional assets cuts construction costs, improves tenant retention, and can raise property value by up to 100% over time.
Matthieu Mehuys holds a master's degree in landscape architecture, spent years studying regenerative farming and permaculture systems around the world, and has scaled Pallonia Landscape Architects into a firm managing multi-hectare development projects across five continents — including a current 150-hectare regenerative farm build in Costa Rica — giving him a field-tested view of where land design and business outcomes intersect.
Key Takeaways
- Landscaping is a balance-sheet decision, not a cosmetic one. Treat site design as a line item that affects construction cost, occupancy, and resale value — not an afterthought once the building is done.
- Audit your "unusable" land before writing it off. Slopes, easements, and drainage areas that look like dead space may be your property's biggest untapped amenity.
- Design with the terrain, not against it, to cut construction costs. Working with a site's natural contours can eliminate large chunks of the earthworks and drainage spend standard "cookie-cutter" plans require.
- Curb appeal is a churn lever. If tenant or customer retention is slipping, check the physical environment before assuming it's a pricing or marketing problem.
- Educate prospects on what they're losing before you pitch what you offer. Show a prospect the hidden cost of their current plan first; the sale becomes secondary once they see the gap.
- Show up early to create your own luck. Arriving days ahead of a conference and working a personal network turned into a six-figure client relationship.
- Small environmental investments can return many times their cost. A $20,000 landscaping spend was tied to an estimated $600,000 in retained and new tenant value.
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Key Insights to Share
Selling high-ticket services means educating before pitching. Mehuys uses a Challenger Sale–style approach — surfacing a prospect's hidden costs and missed opportunities before ever proposing his services.
Timestamps
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One Action
This week, walk your own property — or your next project's site plan — and identify one feature you've been treating as "unusable" (a slope, an easement, a drainage area, an awkward corner) and ask what it could become instead of what it costs to remove. If you want a structured way to see where else you're leaving revenue on the table, the free Revenue Reactor Score at RevenueReactor.AI is a useful next step.
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Freddy D’s Take
Matthieu's story is a reminder that the biggest revenue leaks often hide in plain sight — literally, in the dirt. Developers spend enormous energy optimizing the building and almost none optimizing the land it sits on, then wonder why construction costs run high, and tenants don't stay.
What stands out strategically is how Matthieu sells: he doesn't lead with beautiful gardens; he leads with the hidden cost a prospect is already paying. That's a lesson for any service entrepreneur charging a premium — show the client what their current approach is costing them before you ever describe what you offer. It collapses the sales cycle because the prospect discovers the gap themselves.
There's also a retention story here that applies well beyond real estate. Whether it's a rental property, a storefront, or a service experience, the environment a customer walks into is doing quiet, constant work — either building loyalty or eroding it. Matthieu's $600,000 tenant story is a vivid case for treating environment as a retention investment, not an expense.
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Resources
- Pallonia Landscape Architects — Matthieu's regenerative land-design firm, working across five continents.
- 12 Universal Laws of Nature: How to Use Your Land to its Full Potential — Matthieu's book on applying nature's operating principles to land and business.
- The Challenger Sale — the sales book Matthieu credits for his educate-first approach to consultative selling.
- Free Land Potential Assessment — Matthieu's online tool for evaluating a property's untapped value (link: Human review required).
Take the FREE 10-Minute Assessment That Reveals Your Hidden Revenue Leaks.
About the Guest
Matthieu Mehuys is a Belgian landscape architect and founder of Pallonia Landscape Architects, working on regenerative land-design projects across five continents. He's the author of 12 Universal Laws of Nature: How to Use Your Land to its Full Potential and currently leads a 150-hectare regenerative farm redevelopment in Costa Rica. He helps real estate developers, multifamily owners, and property investors turn overlooked land into measurable financial value.
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Guest Offer
Matthieu offers a free, short online assessment that scores whether a property or piece of land is reaching its full potential — and offers a follow-up conversation with him for anyone who wants to dig deeper.
Companies mentioned in this episode:
- Paulownia Landscape Architects
- Alfonso Quadra
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Copyright 2026 Prosperous Ventures, LLC
Mentioned in this episode:
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Most businesses don’t have a sales problem—they have hidden revenue leaks. Revenue Reactor™ helps founders uncover where growth is quietly breaking down before it impacts revenue. In about 10 minutes, you’ll receive your personalized Revenue Leak Score, measuring the seven stages that drive predictable business growth: • Reach • Recognition • Retention • Reputation • Reviews • Referrals • Revenue You’ll also meet Metis™, your AI business mentor, who provides personalized guidance built from the collective wisdom of the experts featured on the Business Superfans® Advantage podcast, Frederick Dudek’s proven business frameworks, and insights that continue to grow with every new episode. Stop guessing where your business is leaking growth. Take the FREE 10-Minute Revenue Leak Assessment and discover your Revenue Leak Score today.
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Transcripts
When you work with landscape and with nature, you can increase the value of the pro of your property by up to a hundred percent.
Speaker A:So there's, there's been research done in, in North America that compared neighborhoods where one neighborhood 20 years ago decided, we're going to do what everyone is doing, the normal stuff, and other neighborhoods that decided, hey, let's respect the nature and plant a lot of nice and diverse plants and, and make something really beautiful.
Speaker A:And everything else is the same, like access to schools, locations.
Speaker A:Everything else is the same.
Speaker A:The size of the lots, the size of the homes, everything else was the same.
Speaker A:And over the course of the next 20 years, those properties that had high quality landscaping, they were worth double the amount.
Speaker A:So talk about a business case with nature, that's 100% return.
Speaker B:But I am the world's biggest super fan.
Speaker B:You're like a super fan.
Speaker C:Welcome to the Business Superfans podcast.
Speaker C:We will discuss how establishing business superfans from customers, employees and business partners can elevate your success exponentially.
Speaker C:Learn why these advocates are a key factor to achieving excellence in the world of commerce.
Speaker C:We discuss the invaluable insights of business owners who have successfully implemented the strategies in the book to build their own team of devoted superfans.
Speaker C:Gain insightful knowledge from the experts who create applications that help you create passionate superfans.
Speaker C:This is the Business Superfans Podcast with your host, Freddie Freddy.
Speaker B:Freddy.
Speaker D:Hey, Superfans.
Speaker D:Freddy D. Here.
Speaker D:Many property owners and developers treat landscaping as a finishing touch instead of a business asset.
Speaker D:But when land is designed without respecting its name, natural contours, businesses can face higher construction costs, weaker curb appeal, tenant turnover, and missed revenue opportunities.
Speaker D:In this episode 217, we're joined by Mathieu Mihues, a landscape architect who helps developers, investors and property owners create environments that work with nature while improving financial performance.
Speaker D:Mathieu grew up on a family farm and in Belgium, studied landscape architecture and traveled the world exploring regenerative farms, eco resorts and land development projects.
Speaker D:Today, his company designs regenerative landscapes across five continents.
Speaker D:You'll hear how thoughtful land design can reduce maintenance, improve tenant retention, increase property value, and turn clients, residents, partners and communities into strong advocates, or as I call them, business super fans.
Speaker D:Every episode becomes another blueprint inside revenue reactor, transforming real world wisdom into personalized guidance through Metis.
Speaker B:Welcome, Matthieu, to the Business Superfans Advantage podcast.
Speaker B:Great conversation that we had before we started recording all the way from Belgium.
Speaker B:Welcome to the show.
Speaker A:Thank you, Frederick, for having me.
Speaker A:I have to say, you're the first North American host or podcast I've been on.
Speaker A:Who can say my name 100% perfect.
Speaker B:My French background helps a little bit, so I have a tad of an advantage.
Speaker B:But yes.
Speaker B:So great conversations.
Speaker B:We talked about a little bit about your background and stuff.
Speaker B:Share with our audience your story.
Speaker B:You've got a unique story and you do something that people don't really take the time to appreciate what you do, which is really kind of blending environment with business and creating a win win for everybody.
Speaker A:Yeah, thank you for that question, Frederick.
Speaker A:I'm so excited about that.
Speaker A:Like that I actually live my passion where I can do what I love and I can make a great business out of it.
Speaker A:But to give you my backstory.
Speaker A:So I grew up on a farm, on a family farm.
Speaker A:Both my father and my brother are still active farmers today.
Speaker A:And in that environment, when I was about five years old, pretty much one of my earliest memories was like how crazy it is that if you have a tiny little seed and you put that into the soil, sprouts and it may grow into like a plant that you can eat or even in some cases if it's an oak, for example, it can grow into a huge tree that can live more than a thousand years.
Speaker A:Like the moment I realized as, as a five year old, I was just mind blown.
Speaker A:I was just like, how on earth is this possible?
Speaker A:And then I had a, I had an amazing teacher in school when I was also in that age who taught us how to propagate, how to seed plants.
Speaker A:Like, we had a classroom which was full of plants.
Speaker A:We had even a small backyard garden where we were growing stuff.
Speaker A:And I just loved that.
Speaker A:I was like, this is the coolest thing ever.
Speaker A:And so I came home after school and I told my parents like, hey, I'm going to start my own garden.
Speaker A:Like, at the time, my father was very busy, busy starting his farm.
Speaker A:So he was mostly focused at that time on cash crops like sugar beets and grains and cattle.
Speaker A:So we weren't doing much gardening and my mother was running her own business.
Speaker A:So they would both super busy with, with building their lives, let's say.
Speaker A:And.
Speaker A:But I said to my parents, I want to start gardening.
Speaker A:At first they said, no, we don't have time.
Speaker A:There's no space in the garden.
Speaker A:I persisted and I said, I really want to do that.
Speaker A:And they said, okay, there's a little spot in the back of the yard.
Speaker A:It's kind of hidden.
Speaker A:Here are some seeds.
Speaker A:Just do your thing.
Speaker A:And that's really where my first like magic started because I I had that little patch of, of dirt and I, I started to design it.
Speaker A:I, I made a layout of a garden.
Speaker A:I found some stuff, stones laying around on the farm and I started prepping my soil and putting my seeds and I actually had my first crop that I ever grew, I still remember that clearly was radishes.
Speaker A:So it's very easy if you ever want to start gardening.
Speaker A:Just get a bunch of, a few seeds of radish, put it in the soil, Couple weeks later you can eat some of your own radishes.
Speaker A:And that's what I did.
Speaker A:And I was so proud of myself, like, wow, how cool is it that I can grow something and then eat it?
Speaker A:And I, I still remember to the day it was like one of the best days of my life that I had harvested my own radishes.
Speaker A:And then together with my mother and my, my brother and two sisters, we had a salad from the things that I had grown.
Speaker A:I was, that was, that was magical.
Speaker A:And people who garden or grow their own food and are listening, they may be able to relate to that.
Speaker A:But anyways, I thought, oh, gardening is so easy, right?
Speaker A:And I went on and got a bunch more seeds and I prepared my soil.
Speaker A:I put some seeds everywhere, thinking like, oh, this is so easy.
Speaker A:And I came back to my garden a couple weeks later thinking, like, it's going to be full of lush lettuce, tomatoes, amazing crops, like, because my early success was super easy.
Speaker A:And I came to my garden and my whole garden was overgrown by weeds.
Speaker A:And I was devastated because I was like, why is nature not collaborating with me?
Speaker A:Why, like, the weeds were higher than myself.
Speaker A:Imagine a five year old, like, nasty beats.
Speaker A:And I didn't understand it.
Speaker A:I didn't understand, like, why is nature not trying to help me?
Speaker A:And it was only much later in life when I studied economics and modern languages.
Speaker A:And then I decided to go back to my roots and I did a bachelor in garden design.
Speaker A:And still I was like, I don't really want to just design gardens.
Speaker A:And I did a master degree in landscape architecture and actually wrote my thesis about community gardens and, and permaculture and all the more advanced ways of working with nature rather than against it.
Speaker A:And at that time we also started to change our farm in Belgium because as me and my brother saw, like, if we keep doing farming the way we are doing it today, we're going to, like, we're racing towards a wall because our farm had become so industrialized and prices are so volatile for farmers.
Speaker A:Also the climate is changing and, and we're producing food on the world markets.
Speaker A:It's, it's a very dangerous situation.
Speaker A:So we changed our farm and became more regenerative.
Speaker A:Build a marketplace where we sell our own products directly.
Speaker A:We can talk more about that.
Speaker A:But yeah, I went on and did a master in landscape architecture in Germany.
Speaker A:I thought I had made it right.
Speaker A:I graduate as an engineer and I, I get a 9 to 5 job.
Speaker A:Cause that's kind of what people expected from me.
Speaker A:And I do that and I find myself like six months in the job, completely kind of hating my life.
Speaker A:Depressed, not, not necessarily in burnout, more a pour out.
Speaker A:Because I'm like doing so much bureaucracy there in Germany and not actually having an impact.
Speaker A:And I still very thankful for the time in Germany because I learned really to be super structured and well organized.
Speaker A:Like that's something that I'm happy I learned.
Speaker A:But the nine to five thing was definitely not for me.
Speaker A:So after two and a half years, I quit my job.
Speaker A:I said I'm out of here.
Speaker A:And I wanted to travel the world and figure out what projects across the world are doing good in business and are having a positive impact on the environment.
Speaker A:Because I also grew up with the movie Al Gore, the Inconvenient Truth.
Speaker A:We were worried about the future and the climate, right?
Speaker A:So I go, I say I want to find those projects that are doing great.
Speaker A:So I went to eco resorts around the world.
Speaker A:I went to regenerative farms, permaculture projects.
Speaker A:So I visited a bunch of things, I volunteered, I soaked up a lot of knowledge or even more knowledge that I already had.
Speaker A:And then Frederick, something quite astonishing happened.
Speaker A:I went to the Amazon rainforest in Ecuador.
Speaker A:And if you ever have the chance to go there, it's one of the most beautiful places on the planet.
Speaker A:And it, it left a deep impression also on me.
Speaker A:Like, hey, we really have to do everything we can to protect those spaces because it's like, yeah, it's the green lungs of our planet.
Speaker A:And when I went there, I got stung by a certain mosquito and I, I got dengue fever and I became really sick from that.
Speaker A:And actually from that moment.
Speaker A:I can laugh about it now, but my life really went downwards.
Speaker A:Like my girlfriend dumped me after I had lost all my money because I was traveling like a hippie and like everything went down, down, down.
Speaker A:And I find myself kind of rock bottom, moving back in with my parents and in, in that like difficult space.
Speaker A:I don't know if you have had that experience, but I see that many people can relate when they are in that space.
Speaker A:You Ask yourself some deeper questions like why am I here?
Speaker A:What am I doing here?
Speaker A:What's my purpose?
Speaker A:And from that experience I said, okay, I'm, I'm a landscape architect.
Speaker A:I grew up on a farm.
Speaker A:I have all this knowledge and I want to have an impact in the world.
Speaker A:That's why I'm here, to make sure that our generation and future generations can thrive on this planet.
Speaker A:Because the way we're treating the planet right now is like Mother Nature is going to eject us if we keep doing what we're doing.
Speaker A:So I wanted to help reverse that and be part of that movement.
Speaker A:But I also want to build a life and make a business.
Speaker A:I don't want to just like do NGO work.
Speaker A:I want to grow my own family and travel and do all the amazing things that are to be done on this planet.
Speaker A:So I saw like the best way to do that is to start a business.
Speaker A:And this is five years ago I started my company, Paulownia Landscape Architects and I have a bunch of other related businesses around that.
Speaker A:Fast forward today we, we, yeah, we start actually we started more with smaller garden design projects where we focus on how can we create something beautiful, very esthetic, even luxurious if there's the budget for it, but at the same time how can we make it ecological and natural.
Speaker A:Not only because I love doing that and it's good for the planet, but also I found that there are systems if we work with nature rather than against it.
Speaker A:Now a series of beautiful things start to happen, like the maintenance cost to drop the value of your property goes up.
Speaker A:There's so much benefits in working with nature that it also became a really good business case.
Speaker A:And from that we scaled our company and now we're working in five continents, across Central America, North America.
Speaker A:We've done projects in Australia, obviously Europe, where I'm from.
Speaker A:And yeah, that's fast forward to where we are today.
Speaker A:And most recently this year we've, we've added a significant project in Costa rica, which is 150 hectare farm that we're completely redesigning to have a regenerative development.
Speaker A:So yeah, that's kind of in a nutshell, my backstory and where I'm coming from.
Speaker B:Wow, what a story.
Speaker B:I mean, you've gone through several iterations and transformations through that whole process to get to where you are today.
Speaker B:So.
Speaker B:And sometimes we've got to go through that to emerge on the other side as a different person or recognizing that our talents were not what we thought they were, they became something else.
Speaker B:As you progress so quite, quite interesting.
Speaker B:So when we talked before, he talked a little bit about blending a business environment, helping a business maximize the business aspect, which you just talked a little bit about making the property value and stuff going up because you're incorporating regenerative gardening and stuff like that.
Speaker B:So talk about how you've worked with a company, share a story a little bit.
Speaker B:Matthieu, of how did you get a company transformed to where they've got the landscaping and it's also impacting a positive way in their business and they became an advocate and turned you on to more opportunities to spur your growth.
Speaker A:I love that question.
Speaker A:That's a brilliant question.
Speaker A:So I first want to kind of take a step back and explain to you and your audience kind of a little bit more of the theoretical thing, and that will put it into practice.
Speaker A:But what we've seen as like, okay, you have our planet, we have this huge challenge, which is climate change, believe it or not, but it's on a daily basis.
Speaker A:It's affecting so many people across the globe.
Speaker A:People are dying from heat waves, there's fires everywhere, there's floods.
Speaker A:Like, if you still think that there's not something up with our climate, then okay, then I won't be able to help you.
Speaker A:But this is like, if you understand this is the, the current condition of our planet and then what we see as like the solutions to those problems is everything that's around sustainability.
Speaker A:And if you look at sustainability, even the word sustainable, to sustain, it's actually means just keep doing this thing or just do enough to sustain the life that we are.
Speaker A:And if we look into nature and as a universal law, I actually wrote a book about that called 12 Universal Laws of nature, how to use your land to its full potential.
Speaker A:Again, we can talk more about that.
Speaker A:But if you look in, into nature and this is reflected on everything, it's, it's universal.
Speaker A:In nature, we either grow or we decay.
Speaker A:Even us as humans, you either grow in your life or you will decay.
Speaker A:That's, that's how everything works.
Speaker A:So actual sustainability, where we keep doing the same thing, is actually impossible.
Speaker A:It's not even a real goal.
Speaker A:But the whole narrative in sustainability is about let's do less harm and we kind of keep doing the same, but make it less harmful.
Speaker A:And if you look at the statistics, if we do that, that's not going to solve the problem.
Speaker A:It's kind of like you're doing something wrong and instead of changing the way you're doing it, we just do it a little bit less wrong.
Speaker A:And that's the whole narrative and that's the main solution towards climate change.
Speaker A:And what the real solution is, what I believe is a more regenerative approach within the word regeneration is to restore, to, to, to.
Speaker A:Yeah, to, to flourish, to thrive.
Speaker A:These are all aspects of regeneration.
Speaker A:And we, we flip the script where we say, okay, rather than doing less harm, let's do something that is actually good for everything, for society, for nature, for business.
Speaker A:And that's really what regeneration is all about.
Speaker A:It has to have a financial benefit to it, like in sustainability, that's often neglected or it's like, oh, it's not that important.
Speaker A:And that has a series of risks because if you only want to rely on NGO work, it's, it's not going to work.
Speaker A:It's kind of a dangerous thing to only rely on NGOs.
Speaker A:So the work that I do is really about regeneration and I came to learn about it from regenerative farming.
Speaker A:It's quite interesting actually that all the, the biggest innovations in the world often start in agriculture, even like the biggest hue.
Speaker A:At the moment, everyone's talking about AI, but guess what's the biggest user of AI at the moment?
Speaker A:It's farming.
Speaker A:So oftentimes the evolutions in farming are, are, are way ahead of, of all the rest in society.
Speaker B:That's an interesting point, is that I didn't realize that AI is being utilized in farming.
Speaker A:Yeah, big time.
Speaker A:It's the biggest user of, of AI for really.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:Now they, with, with, they fly with drones over land to survey land and then that data gets integrated in AI systems which then give feedback to the, to the machines on the farm on how to spray or how to flow and like this like still in a lot of technology, technological advancement, but a lot of the AI power is, is currently used to advance regenerative agriculture where industrial farming, conventional farming, is very destructive for our planet.
Speaker A:We're using chemicals, we're losing soil, the food is full of pesticide, it's killing people.
Speaker A:I was just reading an article.
Speaker A:In the us, there's still chemicals that, that are allowed to be used in agriculture that have been banned in Europe for 20 years.
Speaker A:And it's, it's like a neurotoxin, it's, it's directly linked to Parkinson's disease.
Speaker A:Yeah, Yeah.
Speaker B:I want to get back to tying what you did with an organization and transform them.
Speaker B:So let's talk about that.
Speaker B:Let's tie this to business a little bit.
Speaker A:Cool.
Speaker A:Yeah, thank you for bringing it back.
Speaker A:But so this regenerative approach I started Because I saw that it had such a good, great power in farming.
Speaker A:It can produce healthy foods, it's better for the environment, you're capturing carbon dioxide.
Speaker A:And I said this is really interesting, let me experiment with that and apply it in land development.
Speaker A:We started with applying this knowledge in gardens and we saw a lot of amazing things happen where usually people think a garden is something that's super high maintenance and you have to water it nonstop and you have to pull out the weeds.
Speaker A:And so I started to question that and integrate the regenerative approaches, which is more based on how nature works.
Speaker A:And it's quite interesting.
Speaker A:If you look into nature, there's no maintenance in a garden or in, in nature things just coexist and they co develop.
Speaker A:So why on earth are we struggling so hard in our own gardens to constantly be weeding and watering and, and it's, it's because we are constantly working against nature.
Speaker A:And so I developed a system together with a lot of knowledge from permaculture and regenerative farming that when we focus on things about improving the health of the soil, working with, with specific types of plans, at least use that knowledge.
Speaker A:And we, we, we applied that in the projects and we saw like a reduction of 80% in, in garden maintenance, which if I talk about that with my peers in my industry, they say no, that's impossible.
Speaker B:So massive talk, talk about the story specifically if you can, about.
Speaker B:You mentioned the Costa Rica that you just recently did a project there.
Speaker B:So how did you get that project?
Speaker B:What was that project about?
Speaker B:Yeah, and what did you do with that project and what was the outcome?
Speaker A:Yeah, so, so the way I, I got this project is quite fun.
Speaker A:Like I, I love adventures.
Speaker A:So usually when I, I had to go to Costa Rica for a conference and I had a kind of gut feeling that said to me go a couple days early and just drive around the country and meet people and call up my network.
Speaker A:So I actually made a plan together with my business coach and, and mentor.
Speaker A:I went five days early and before going there I called up my whole network.
Speaker A:Hey, who do you know in Costa Rica that is, is in, in farming or development or gardening that that could be an interesting person to talk to?
Speaker A:And I just had like five meetings lined up.
Speaker A:I flew to Costa Rica, I got off the plane, I got like a small little Jeep and I started driving across the country to meet with different people that, that could introduce me to something.
Speaker A:And I met a, a gentleman who's running a eco resort there.
Speaker A:And just about that time when I arrived he said, like, there's a big, there's actually a Hollywood producer who just bought a huge piece of land here.
Speaker A:I can introduce you to the architect who's kind of in, in charge of the project.
Speaker A:And by chance, this architect was from Belgium.
Speaker A:So I met him and we immediately connected really well.
Speaker A:And that's in all the business.
Speaker A:The best business that I have done is always through connections, right?
Speaker A:You go for a coffee or a lunch and it's like, oh, I love what you do.
Speaker B:And you bring up an important point there, Mathieu.
Speaker B:And that's I really want to emphasize that is one you pre planned your trip to extend a few extra days before the conference took place, you looked at where you could make some connections.
Speaker B:So you maximize your time.
Speaker B:That in turn turned into an opportunity that someone connected you to somebody else.
Speaker B:And that's the real secret to really growth is people talk about getting referrals and chasing new opportunities, but really the shortcut to everything is an introduction.
Speaker B:Because an introduction collapses the whole sales cycle because it says, you need to talk to my friend Matthieu, he'll take care of everything.
Speaker B:And boom, I'm just going to go talk to you because I don't need to talk to anybody else because you just came from a trusted source.
Speaker B:So by the fact that you took time to meet with that person ahead of time, enabled that connection.
Speaker B:That would have never happened had you not planned to take time to make connections while you were there.
Speaker A:Yeah, totally.
Speaker A:And it's, it's very funny because I, I still remember I was talking with my business coach and I was saying like, I don't know, can I, like, can I afford to go five days early?
Speaker A:I, I need to rent the car.
Speaker A:And my coach said, what if you meet your next six figure clients?
Speaker A:I was like, yeah, she's right.
Speaker A:So I did and I actually met my, my first figure deal.
Speaker A:And so yeah, I met the architect.
Speaker A:Then he introduced me to the project.
Speaker A:We walked, we walked the farm.
Speaker A:I, we stayed, connected over weeks.
Speaker A:We had meetings and I came up with a proposal and they said, yes, we need you, we need your help.
Speaker A:And six months later, I'm sitting at my desk with all the drawings, like, my floor is full of these drawings with like details that we're making, like how to design the farm.
Speaker A:So because the project is so big, it's 150 hectares, that's 300 acres.
Speaker A:And it's a very diverse topography.
Speaker A:It's like a steep slope.
Speaker A:And we want to make the farm accessible, we want to introduce cattle we want to introduce hospitality events, like make it like a hotspot for people to enjoy nature, eat good food, have a good time.
Speaker A:So we need to build the whole infrastructure, and that's what we're doing.
Speaker A:Like the road systems, the electricity, the.
Speaker A:Like.
Speaker A:We're kind of engineering the whole landscape.
Speaker A:But again, we're doing it in harmony with nature.
Speaker A:So we're.
Speaker A:We're doing it in a way that whatever impact that we have on the landscape, it's not going to have a negative impact, it's going to have a positive impact because, okay, we need to build a road, but let's build the road in such way that it follows the natural contours and that if it rains, we can actually capture water from the road and use that for other systems in our farm.
Speaker A:So that's like a whole different approach than be destructive or build something like a mega project.
Speaker A:Very sensitive of what I believe is the highest potential of the project.
Speaker B:Yeah, that's one of the things they do here in Arizona.
Speaker B:There's a certain.
Speaker B:I think it's the palo verde trees and stuff.
Speaker B:They'll actually dig them out, put them in crates, and then keep them watered.
Speaker B:In other parts of the United States, they'll just bulldoze all the trees and cut everything out.
Speaker B:And everything else here in Arizona, they preserve.
Speaker B:So you'll see there's an expansion of the road.
Speaker B:So they'll first put the trees in crates, move them aside, keep them watered, and then when they're done redoing the road and stuff, improvements, they'll put the trees back in.
Speaker B:And so they've maximized nature.
Speaker B:And that's one of the things that the state has incorporated.
Speaker B:There'll be a shopping center or a store, but you won't see it because it's all surrounded by shrubbery and the natural environment.
Speaker A:I love that.
Speaker B:And that's what really what you're talking about is being able to build a new facility into virgin territory and respecting that territory and maximizing its beauty for everybody's benefit, for the environment benefit, and for the business benefit.
Speaker A:Yeah, totally.
Speaker A:You hit a point there.
Speaker A:That.
Speaker A:That we are now working on also with developers in North America.
Speaker A:Is that not only the beautification, obviously that's important, but for most real estate investors, that may be like an afterthought.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:They just want to build and maximize profit.
Speaker A:And to be honest, I don't blame it.
Speaker A:Like, it's a business.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:But the beauty is that we now found a lot of ways that the construction industry is extremely unresourceful in North America, like when a, when a, let's say a big development happens, I'm looking at a project in Canada, 40 unit homes on certain amount of land.
Speaker A:And what is the standard in North America?
Speaker A:We take the plan.
Speaker A:It's kind of like the landscape goes in all directions and we just completely ignore that.
Speaker A:We take the plan and we start drawing straight lines, what they call the cookie cutter designs.
Speaker A:And then you just project that on a landscape that's completely irregular or has other conditions that are useful.
Speaker A:Then you go into construction, you have to do so much earthworks, you have to bulldoze so much land to be able to build that cookie cutter design.
Speaker A:Because it may, on paper it may look like it's, it's efficient, but if you then go into construction, you have to build extra drainage systems, sewer systems, you need retention walls.
Speaker A:You have to bulldoze so much land.
Speaker A:So already, before they even built the houses, they already spent hundreds of thousands, if not millions on bulldozing.
Speaker A:And I find a way, and I have found a way that we can actually work with the existing landscape so that we don't have to bulldoze as much and we can keep most of the shape of the land.
Speaker A:On top of that, it adds other benefits because the user experience is much nicer because everything is more organic.
Speaker A:And so imagine you're going through this new neighborhood.
Speaker A:It's not just everything straight, straight, straight.
Speaker A:It's more organic.
Speaker A:Right in that project in Canada, also in the center of that plot, there is an easement area.
Speaker A:It's a swampy area.
Speaker A:And so the owner told, like, oh, we can't really use it to build, so we're just going to like, build a fence around it and leave it.
Speaker A:And I said, why?
Speaker A:Why are you doing that?
Speaker A:That's like your biggest asset of the, of the neighborhood.
Speaker A:It's, we can create something beautiful.
Speaker A:Let's, let's make a lakeside out of it that all the houses are actually directed to.
Speaker A:And now we can sell lakefront houses.
Speaker A:And he was like, I never thought of that.
Speaker A:So we can actually leverage the natural value.
Speaker A:Because I've done a lot of research and I do speeches about that at real estate conferences, that when you work with landscape and with nature, you can increase the value of the, of your property by up to 100%.
Speaker A:So there's, there's been research done in North America that compared neighborhoods where one neighborhood 20 years ago decided, we're going to do what everyone is doing, the normal stuff, and other neighborhoods that decided, hey, let's respect the nature and plant a lot of nice and diverse plants and, and make something really beautiful.
Speaker A:And everything else is the same, like access to schools, locations.
Speaker A:Everything else is the same.
Speaker A:The size of the lots, the size of the homes.
Speaker A:And over the course of the next 20 years, those properties that had high quality landscaping, they were worth double the amount.
Speaker A:So talk about a business case with nature.
Speaker A:That's a hundred percent return if you just invest a little bit and are a little bit more smarter on working with nature.
Speaker A:And that's the numbers.
Speaker A:But even if you think about it on a human perspective, we come from nature and we're always drawn to nature.
Speaker A:Who doesn't love to spend time in a forest or in a beautiful meadow full of flowers like it?
Speaker A:It always gives us a peace of mind.
Speaker A:So then in the real estate market, if you have two neighborhoods next to each other, one is kind of boring and the other one is green and lush and cool spaces.
Speaker A:And obviously everyone's going to attract.
Speaker B:It's going to attract the people.
Speaker D:Correct.
Speaker B:It's going to attract to people.
Speaker B:And I'm going to go back to the place where you told them about turning it into a lake and stuff.
Speaker B:That's how you trans transform that developer into a super fan of you because you found a way to maximize that property that they didn't even think of.
Speaker B:And now they've just increased the value of that subdivision that you're working with up in Canada.
Speaker B:And so now because of the tweaks that you made that he didn't see or they didn't see, but you saw it, that completely transformed that whole value of that property.
Speaker B:And that person's got to be a super fan of how you've completely added revenue to his project that he never would have seen without your help.
Speaker A:Yeah, totally.
Speaker A:And that's a big part of that.
Speaker A:I learned actually now from a book called the Challenger Sale, for people that are.
Speaker A:If you're listening and want to learn more about being better in sales, it's a really incredible book because it talks about that.
Speaker A:You have to also educate your clients at the beginning.
Speaker A:So I go into sales meetings not saying like, hey, you should work with me because I can make beautiful plans and make nice gardens.
Speaker A:No, I go into, into the meetings and ask them, okay, share me your plans.
Speaker A:Let's look at it.
Speaker A:And then I educate them in showing them like, hey, look at the, the plan that's currently on the table.
Speaker A:Did you that you'll have very high engineering costs to build that they're going oh, no, I didn't know.
Speaker A:And are you seeing that you're missing the opportunity on.
Speaker A:On using that, that lake site as an asset for your.
Speaker A:For your project?
Speaker A:Wow, that's interesting.
Speaker A:So I'm educating my clients before they become clients because there's a lot of problems that my clients have, but they don't know they have them.
Speaker D:Right.
Speaker B:And that's where questions come into place.
Speaker B:And because I've spent decades in sales and, you know, my success in sales was asking questions and then more questions on the questions.
Speaker B:And just like you're mentioning, Matthieu is helping people realize that they're leaving money on a table or they're squandering money on something because of the fact that they're not maximizing technology, tools, processes, methodologies, and etc.
Speaker B:So that's how you really get people to buy.
Speaker B:And that's really what I want to go to.
Speaker B:People don't like to be sold that, but people love to buy.
Speaker B:And when you are working with them to get them to visualize where this could go, they're starting to buy.
Speaker B:And when someone buys, that's it, they're done.
Speaker A:Yeah, yeah, the money's on your account.
Speaker A:No problem.
Speaker A:Yeah, I love that.
Speaker B:And price becomes secondary at that point because they're seeing the bigger picture and they're seeing return on their investment.
Speaker B:So whether it's a hundred thousand dollar, I mean, I was selling technology for decades, and some of the sales were a couple hundred thousand dollars back in the day, but the return on their investment was within two years, they would be not only paid for that investment, they would be making significantly three, four times that investment because of the throughput that they could do.
Speaker A:Yeah, totally.
Speaker A:That's so interesting that you mentioned that, because with another client in Canada that I'm working with these, Alfonso Quadra, they call him the godfather of real estate.
Speaker A:He's very much into multifamily homes.
Speaker A:And so I made an agreement to work with him to look at one of his multifamily developments where they had just built a beautiful new building, everything up to date.
Speaker A:But they didn't really care about the land, the surroundings.
Speaker A:Most people in multifamily, they will just like put grass or something and then it starts to look messy because dogs shit on the grass.
Speaker A:And he didn't realize that he was leaving money.
Speaker A:I made a speech called how to Get Money out of the Dirt, but he wasn't realizing that he's leaving money in the dirt.
Speaker A:So I enrolled him as a client and it was a dollar investment.
Speaker A:And he was like, wow.
Speaker A:Just for the landscaping.
Speaker A:That's.
Speaker A:And just to do my work right.
Speaker A:It's not even to build it, but I got him to, to get to an agreement because I knew there's, there's a lot of money that he's dealing in the ground because if I improve the landscaping, they had a lot of issues with, with what they call renter or retention in real estate.
Speaker A:So they had people that would come to the building, they like it because it's new, but then they would also leave relatively fast in a couple of months.
Speaker A:And I realized it's because the landscaping is shitty.
Speaker A:Nobody wants to come home to something that doesn't.
Speaker A:That looks messy.
Speaker A:And they actually had one tenant that was an important tenant because she could bring in a lot of other people because she had done that already.
Speaker A:And she started to complain, like, hey, if you don't fix this landscape because it's ugly and dirty, I'm going to leave.
Speaker A:And so that was the situation that they were in.
Speaker A:And they're real estate investors.
Speaker A:So I came in and we started working.
Speaker A:We started making plans and starting to change.
Speaker A:And as we were actually rebuilding the garden on the site, they had two potential tenants that came to the building and we were still like, arranging plans and everything was put into place and, and everyone was kind of happy.
Speaker A:Tenant was like, oh, wow, that looks amazing.
Speaker A:We're changing.
Speaker A:And if you, if you want to know, in Canada, most of North America, I think a lot of the real estate is not doing too well.
Speaker A:Like, there's a bit of an oversaturation at the market.
Speaker A:So whereas three years ago you put something on the market for rent, you would have 20 people show up to a listing and you have to, like, handpick whoever you want.
Speaker A:Nowadays, it's, it's the other way around.
Speaker A:You have one or two people showing up for a listing, and they go to five to ten different other properties.
Speaker A:And so you're never really sure.
Speaker A:It's almost like a 20% chance that if they come, that they will sign up.
Speaker A:And as they had a listing, potential tenants showed up, as we were doing, and they both signed up then and there, which he said it has never happened in, in the current market.
Speaker A:And I asked him after we had done all the work, like, what is the value of, of what I created and, and having those two new tenants?
Speaker A:He said, it's $300,000 each.
Speaker A:So 600,000 is, is the value that you created for those two new tenants?
Speaker A:Of course, it's not only my Work, it's the building.
Speaker A:It's.
Speaker A:But it's, it's a key moment.
Speaker A:If the, the landscape would have still looked bad, maybe they wouldn't have signed up, but the chances would have been way, way lower.
Speaker B:So he told me the churn, what you're talking about is also the churn of the rentals.
Speaker B:So if someone's there for just one year, you got to go through and find somebody else and go through the application process and there's a cost to that, then that person comes in.
Speaker B:And then if you don't have longevity because they're not enjoying the ambiance of the place, you come home, you're happy.
Speaker B:This is a nice place.
Speaker B:You don't want to leave if it's a crappy place.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:So you're going like, I don't want to come here.
Speaker B:I'm looking for another place.
Speaker B:This doesn't lift me up, doesn't give me energy.
Speaker B:It's flat.
Speaker B:And so that's in itself.
Speaker B:The fact that you can create long term tenants for that multifamily facility is a game changer.
Speaker A:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker A:And it's very interesting because that client is super passionate and they're super fan.
Speaker A:Yeah, they're a super fan.
Speaker A:And so we're also building with AI now we're going to build a metric system that we can show how much the landscaping has influenced their deal flow and the value of their building.
Speaker A:And I believe it's going to be very significant because in real estate, if your occupancy is for example, 70% and your building is worth 5 million, if you can go from 70 to 90%, your building is now is worth like I'm, I'm just making estimates, but it's now worth 7 million.
Speaker A:So you just correct.
Speaker B:Because I used to own a 14 unit apartment building in, in Chicago.
Speaker B:It's Chicago proper.
Speaker B:And I made some renovations, I cleaned it up, I changed some windowing in the basement and just really leveled it up.
Speaker B:I was able to increase the rents by about a hundred dollars, which was quite reasonable back in the day.
Speaker A:Nice.
Speaker B:But that building increased in value by about $150,000.
Speaker B:This is back in the 80s, so wasn't millions of dollars.
Speaker B:Today it's millions of dollars.
Speaker B:But still within a 12 month period, I increased the value of that property by about $150,000.
Speaker A:That's incredible.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:That's so cool that you have that same experience.
Speaker A:And it's interesting when I work with the people, it's a moment.
Speaker A:At some point it clicked, click they kind of understand it and then they go, okay, we need more, we need you to do this.
Speaker A:Like, it's, it's very cool to see and I'm very happy because I'm growing my business, I'm making money.
Speaker A:But most importantly for me, it's about that, recreating these ecological environments.
Speaker A:And even my clients, they don't have to know or they don't care too much.
Speaker A:Eventually they will be like, oh, it's beautiful, there's butterflies, it looks amazing.
Speaker A:But everyone wins.
Speaker A:And that's what really.
Speaker B:You're creating super fans out of the land developer.
Speaker B:Yeah, you're creating super fans out of the tenants that live there, whether they're rental tenants or whether they're people buying properties and that becomes their home.
Speaker B:So they're a super fan of the builder.
Speaker B:So it's really, you're creating a multi part advocacy aspect of it because you're helping the builder develop something that they become a super fan of you because of how you've transformed them and increased the value of the property.
Speaker B:The people that buy the property or rent from the property, they become a super fan of the builder because they've created a great environment that they want to stay at.
Speaker B:And that is a trifecta win.
Speaker A:Yeah, yeah, it's incredible.
Speaker A:It's like an abundance mindset.
Speaker A:And that's what I also believe.
Speaker A:Like too many people are stuck, especially with climate change and the world is going bad and wars left and right and it seems like everyone the solution to that, oh, we have to put more taxes and we shouldn't fly airplanes and all that shit.
Speaker A:Whereas, no, we just have to like do more, but do way better and then we can reverse climate change and have all the luxuries in life.
Speaker A:I've strongly believed that.
Speaker B:Yep, yep.
Speaker B:So as we kind of come to the end here, Mathieu, how can people find you?
Speaker A:Yeah, great question.
Speaker A:So the easiest one is to just Google my name, Mathieu Mihais.
Speaker A:Then you'll find my personal website, which is www.matube.
Speaker A:Altogether from there you'll, you'll find all my links.
Speaker A:But I'm also active on most social media platforms.
Speaker A:Instagram, TikTok, LinkedIn.
Speaker A:If you're listening and you're like, oh, I have land and I, I want to know if I could get more potential out of my land, my garden, my property.
Speaker A:We also have a small assessment.
Speaker A:It's a very simple tool.
Speaker A:Like you click through a bunch of questions and it'll give you a score at the end of, of the assessment.
Speaker A:Whether or not you are getting the full potential out of your land.
Speaker A:And then from there you can also book a meeting with me.
Speaker A:So that's usually what I recommend people to do, is to take that assessment and we can give you that link.
Speaker A:It's also on my website.
Speaker A:So yeah, that's.
Speaker A:That's the best way to get in touch.
Speaker B:Okay, we'll make sure that that's in the show.
Speaker B:Notes.
Speaker B:Thank you so much for your time.
Speaker B:Great conversation and definitely would love to have you on the show down the road.
Speaker A:Thank you very much, Fredrik.
Speaker A:You asked some really cool questions and I'm very happy we got in a lot of details.
Speaker A:Yeah, thank you.
Speaker B:Thank you.
Speaker D:One thing that really stood out to me is this growth often happens when you stop forcing a solution and start paying closer attention to what is already there.
Speaker D:Matthieu applies that idea to land and.
Speaker B:Development, but it works just as well in business.
Speaker D:When you understand the environment, ask better questions and look for overlooked value, you can create stronger outcomes for everyone involved.
Speaker D:That is what turns a service provider.
Speaker B:Into a trusted advisor.
Speaker D:Mathieu did not simply offer landscaping.
Speaker D:He helped clients see opportunities they had missed.
Speaker D:Lower cost, stronger tenant retention, higher property value, and better experiences for the people using those spaces.
Speaker D:That kind of insight strengthened relationships because it proves you are invested in a client's success, not just a transaction.
Speaker D:Here's your challenge.
Speaker D:Look at one client property processor relationship this week and ask what value is already here that we are failing to use?
Speaker D:Then start a conversation around what you discover.
Speaker D:Revenue is often the result of helping people see a better path forward.
Speaker D:And if someone in your network could benefit from this conversation, share this episode with them.
Speaker D:Until next time.
Speaker D:Remember, every relationship you strengthen brings you one superfan closer.
Speaker D:Cultivate relationships.
Speaker D:Create business superfans Grow predictable revenue.
Speaker D:I'm Freddie D. Thanks for listening and I'll talk to you in the next episode.
Speaker C:We hope you took away some useful knowledge from today's episode of the Business Superfans podcast.
Speaker C:Join us on the next episode as we continue guiding you on your journey to achieve flourishing success in business.
