I had an incredible conversation with Justin White, CEO of K&D Landscaping, and it reminded me why I love this industry so much. Justin took his parents' small family business and scaled it from $1.5 million to $20 million in revenue in just nine years. But what really struck me wasn't just the numbers; it was his vision to create generational wealth for his entire team through a potential IPO by 2035. That's the kind of thinking that's going to change the industry forever.

We dove deep into the realities of growing a landscape business in today's market, including why 2025 has been tougher than expected for so many of us. Justin opened up about the adversity he's faced, the importance of leadership mindset, and why he created The Disruptors community to help other contractors accelerate their growth. If you're ready to stop playing small and start building something that outlasts you, this episode is packed with actionable insights you can implement right away.

Timestamps

3:04 - Growing Up in a Family Landscape Business: The Real Story

8:23 - The Turning Point: From $1.5M to $20M in Nine Years

14:19 - Adversity & Leadership: When Your Business Doesn't Love You Back

19:42 - Why 2025 Has Been Challenging for Landscapers Nationwide

26:34 - The Billion-Dollar Vision: Creating Generational Wealth

32:31 - Inside The Disruptors: Building a Community of High Performers

43:08 - Who Thrives in The Disruptors & How to Get Involved

48:07 - Take Action: Set an Unreasonable Goal Before Year-End

Links & Resources

Justin White & K&D Landscaping:

• Website: jwhitegroup.com
• LinkedIn & Instagram: @JustinWhiteKNDLandscaping

The Disruptors Community:

• Learn more at jwhitegroup.com

Landscape Business Growth Lab:

• Website: landscapebusinessgrowthlab.com

Everbearing Services:

• Website: everbearingservices.com

Companies & Organizations Mentioned

Landscape Companies:

• K&D Landscaping - Justin White's company, scaled from $1.5M to $20M in 9 years
• BrightView (formerly ValleyCrest & Brickman merger) - Publicly traded landscape company
• Jensen Landscape - Led by CEO John Vallee, inspiration for Justin's growth vision
• Kachina Landscape - Top landscape company mentioned in industry research

Technology & Software Partners of The Disruptors:

• Aspire - Landscape business management software
• Greenius - Training platform for landscape teams
• Team Engine - Employee engagement and communication tool
• Bob Yard - Landscape business software
• Capsidata - Data and analytics platform
• Cres Software - Landscape management solution

Industry Associations:

• NALP (National Association of Landscape Professionals)
• CLCA (California Landscape Contractors Association)
• ALCA (Associated Landscape Contractors of America)
• WALPOLE - Regional landscape association

Other Peer Groups & Coaches Mentioned:

• Jonathan Goldhill - Justin's business coach who helped spark the transformation
• Jeffrey Scott - Runs landscape peer groups
• Marty Grunder - Industry coach and peer group leader
• Mick Farley - Industry coach
• Stanford - Peer group organization

Key Takeaways

On Growth & Scaling:

• Zero to $1M is brutal, but $1M to $2M requires completely changing how you operate
• Different revenue levels present different challenges—they don't get harder or easier, just different
• You need omnipresence in marketing as you grow larger, not just transactional tactics
• The industry average lead response time is 44 hours. Responding in under 5 minutes stops prospects from shopping around

On Adversity & Mindset:

• Your business won't always love you back, even when you give it everything
• Execution may be perfect, but results often depend on the leader's mindset and presence
• 2025 has been a correction year after unprecedented growth from COVID-era tailwinds
• Consistency and doubling down on fundamentals matter more than constantly changing strategies

On Vision & Legacy:

• Set goals that seem unreasonable. Justin went from $1.5M to targeting $1B by 2035
• Build a sellable company even if you never plan to sell
• Create opportunity for family members in the business, not expectation
• The green industry offers a path to create generational wealth for entire teams

On The Disruptors Community:

• Built for contractors who want to become 8-figure businesses ($10M+ revenue)
• Members get access to industry experts, group buying power, and peer support
• You get the most value by giving more advice than you take
• Self-starters who value technology and want to grow double digits thrive most

On Taking Action:

• Don't wait for January 1st. Set an unreasonable goal to accomplish before year-end
• Surround yourself with people who have already achieved where you want to go
• The more you give to communities and associations, the more you get back
• Think big before you're ready. You don't need to achieve success before thinking about it

Subscribe to Landscape Business Growth Lab for more conversations with industry leaders who are transforming the green industry.

It was just such a clarity moment for me of I don't want to be the small company anymore, I want to grow it and I think we can do it. Truth is, you're not doing anything wrong. This is just business and it never is going to be a consistent uphill or downhill ride.

It's always going to be up and down.

You got to be a self starter and someone who's hungry to learn because we're not going to reach out and be like, hey, you haven't logged in for three days. You know, that's not my style. You're either in it or you're not.

Love to leave the industry better than we found it and really level things up to the next generation.

You're listening to Landscape Business Growth Lab podcast. I'm your host Ron McCabe, founder of Everbearing Services. On this podcast, I uncover the landscaping and outdoor living industry's best kept secrets.

You'll hear exclusive interviews with industry innovators, discover cutting edge strategies from the fastest growing businesses in the green space. We're also going to explore game changing technologies that are at the tip of the shears.

This is where seasoned landscapers and those who are just breaking ground in the industry grow together. Let's roll out the green carpet. Thanks for listening. Welcome to the Landscape Business Growth Lab.

Today I'm joined by Justin White, CEO of K& D Landscaping, founder of the Disruptors and host of the Trades Talk podcast. Justin has skipped scaled K and D from a small family business into a multi million dollar company.

And now with the Disruptors, he is helping high performers across the industry raise the bar in business and in life. Justin, thanks for being here. How did K and D Landscaping get its start and what has this journey looked like for you?

Well, hey Ron, and thanks so much for having me here. Excited to be here. I mean, Growth Lab, that's what we're all about, right? And I'm excited to share a little bit about that. Let me tell you the story.

So he started off doing that in the afternoons mowing lawns, just trying to make some extra side money.

I think a story that so many can relate to at some point, whether they're a founder, whether they're a successor of founders like myself who grew up in the business. That's where we got our start.

We're just a family company, small, operating right here in Santa Cruz, California, on the very far west coast of the United States. And from there, it's grown pretty amazingly, and the last 10 years has just been an incredible journey.

So I could dig into more of that if you guys want.

Well, that's great. What's the journey look like for you?

So, yeah, good question. My perspective is unique, right? So growing up in the landscape industry, I saw a little bit of a different viewpoint on the industry.

My dad was up early. He was working in the field. It was hard work. He was always present.

He made our basketball games and our soccer games and our football games or whatever else sports we were playing. He always helped to make sure that we were doing the things we wanted to do as kids.

But the other part I saw was, you know, kind of the late nights of the invoicing, of the estimating of the sales and getting the jobs, trying to keep the crews busy, or, you know, when it was slow, I'd see all the crews working around the house. And I was like, well, that's weird. Why are. Why are they putting in a new patio? We just put that in two years ago.

And so it was, you know, we had leftover material, and the guys didn't have anything to do. And my dad's the kind of guy, my mom, too.

And my parents, being the people they are, they continue to keep our team on payroll, continue to pay them. And Doug, one heck of a debt hole in the company and almost went out of business.

I'm sorry to hear about that.

Yeah, I mean, luckily it's been almost 20 years now, but luckily they were able to dig out of that. And I got to give it to them. I mean, they really set the foundation for what our core values are today.

You know, taking care of our team, being, I think, number one, we love our clients. We wouldn't be here without our customers and our clients. But if I had to pick between clients and employees is our number one core value.

You know, I always go to the team. I always go to the culture. And with that, I think they'll take care of our clients.

So I watched all this, and I kind of thought to myself, man, I don't really want to be a landscaper. It looks like a lot of hard work, a physically hard work, baby. It seems like my dad's always working.

He's either in the field or he's working on bids and stuff. And c, you know, we didn't go hungry by any means, but we weren't printing money. You know, we weren't making tons and tons of money.

And we grew up in a very affluent area. So I saw some of my other friends had the brand new dirt bike. Every year they'd have the brand new BMX bike.

And, you know, I'm kind of piecing things together.

But my dad, what I want to say is he always gave us an opportunity to work in the business, to make extra money, but never the expectation to work in the business. And I think that's a really clear delineation for any founders out there listening to this.

When it comes to your kids, you know, create the opportunity, not the expectation. That opportunity led me into the business eventually, and it was about my early 20s when I really got focused and fully bought in.

I'm 22 years old, and I figured out, look, I. I've tried some other things, and prevailing wage running tractors is a way I can make like 35, 40 bucks an hour. I'm on the tractor, so I'm having fun. And, you know, there's this sense of pride you get when you're done with a job. And.

And I really found out that was an area I. I really loved and cared about. And so I kind of fell into the more commercial installation side of the business in my early 20s.

And that led me in eventually to the office, because as our team got better and better at installing these commercial projects, we needed more and more projects to install. And so I had to get involved in the sales side and started to do estimates and sales stuff. And I really fell in love with that.

I mean, the ability to get a set of plans, that a general contractor is building this building, and you can put a price to it. And there's this game going on between you and other landscapers and you and the GC and how much information can you get out of the gc?

And are you going to be the low bid? Are you going to be competitive? What can you convince them of that you're going to bring to the table that the other subcontractors won't?

And so I brought my brother, my sister, my cousin in and us four along with my dad. We bought my mom out so she could retire and we took the company to the next level. So I'll tell you this, I'll summarize it raw in here.

And we're still on it here, just continuing to charge forward and continuing to grow and disrupt the industry.

Well, it sounds like it's been quite a ride for you.

Oh yeah, it has.

Yeah, wow.

And somewhat mind numbing numbers. So very humbling. So I relate to what you're doing.

Parents went through then, but also it's great what you've done to kind of take things to the different level. And maybe you've kind of said this, but I'd like you to expand a little bit.

Is what moment made you realize you wanted to level up K and D from being like this family business and turning into the juggernaut it is today.

And I started flipping through that, and I realized, just like you, Ron, here in.

In Santa Cruz, I'm an hour away from the Bay Area in Silicon Valley, and, well, there's five of the top 20 companies in San Francisco Bay Area in general. Right? So I was like, oh, well, perfect. And so I started studying a few of these companies. Like Kachina Gothic was down south.

Valley Crest at that point, they had just become brightview. Jensen Landscape was one I honed in on. So Jensen, at the time, I think they were doing somewhere around 15 to 30 million.

It's a big range because it was a long time ago, but I zeroed in on them. John Vallee is their CEO at this time. And I started to just research as much as I could.

Well, I realized we can make a lot of money doing landscaping. You know, we don't have to live paycheck to paycheck or. And we never really did live paycheck to paycheck, but we don't have to just get by.

Like, we can actually build a business.

And looking at what happened with Valleycrest and Brickman and that merger and them going ipo, I was like, you know, I mean, why couldn't that be us one day? Like, why couldn't we take the next company public in 10 or 20 years? So I started to realize the amount of wealth in the landscape industry.

That November, I went to Hawaii with my parents for a California Landscape Contractors association awards banquet. And at the time, we were very involved with clca.

And it was this really interesting moment where I saw a number of contractors standing around on the lawn at one of the mixers. And I recognized John Vallee from Jensen, Tim Hendricks from Brightview from the magazines. And so I went up and I introduced myself to him.

And, you know, standing in this circle of these giants, at the time, I remember just kind of talking about my company and our numbers, and they were kind of like. They were super polite, super nice, but it was almost kind of like, you know, that's cute. You know, 1 million in revenue. You know, keep.

Keep it up, bud. Keep doing what you're doing. Your dad's company. Great.

I remember walking away from that conversation being like, man, I really want to be a $30 million company. And, you know, Ron, I'll be honest. Like, at this point, I'm 25 years old. A lot of ego, and, hey, I'll still have some ego.

I think you gotta have some of that to do what we're doing.

It's a fun part of Life, the twenties, right?

Oh, man. You just think everything's possible.

That's right.

And it was just such a clarity moment for me of, I don't want to be the small company anymore. I want to grow it, and I think we can do it.

That's a great story. And I've reflected back on life, and there's those turning points in life that they stick out and you Never forget. And zero to a million is.

Zero to 50,000 is brutal. And the first 200,000 is to going kind of hard. And then really from 400 to a million isn't that bad.

And then weirdly, that million to two, you've got to change how you do things. You put the gas on it and headed towards 30 million, which at that time just had to seem completely insane.

Oh, yeah. And I agree with you. There's all these milestones, and it seems like they.

There's a cycle of that milestone of, you know, hitting 1 million and then hitting 2 million and then hitting 5 million. And you have different challenges at different levels. And the challenges, I don't think. I don't think they get harder or easier.

They just get different and they're presented differently. But like, if you're $100,000 a year or a hundred thousand dollars a month contractor, either one.

I mean, you're working just as hard as the CEO of $100 million a year company. It's just a different type of stakes. You're playing a different game, but you're still playing the same game.

You're playing in a different. Really a different role.

Yeah, exactly. And you're dealing with different problems, but hey, we're all. We're all dealing with challenges and issues out there.

So no matter what your size is, I do think there's so much we can learn from each other. No matter how big you are or how small you are, we can always talk and learn from each other. And that's the beauty of this industry.

Yeah, no, no. And you've had a lot of success, but along the way, I'm guessing you've had some adversity at different points.

So can you share a story that taught you an important lesson that you learned through adversity, like something that really sticks out?

Well, I can kind of go to my mental Rolodex and bit of an endless list to pull from here. But here, this is what I'll say. I'll kind of break this out into two parts.

First part is you've got to expect and understand that your business is not always going to love you back. And I think that's where adversity sets in the most, is it's when you're giving it everything you have.

You're sacrificing personal time, maybe even relationships. I mean, I know I've lost some girlfriends over the course of the years in my beginning years, because you just give everything to the business.

And so when you do that, and then at the end of the month, the end of the period, the end of the year, what have you, your business isn't where you want it to be. Maybe you're dealing with some really major problems. Maybe you're not making any money.

And you just kind of ask yourself, like, I've given this business everything and it just doesn't seem to love me back. And I think those are the troughs and the people listening.

You may be going through this as we speak, and you may be wondering, what am I doing wrong? And the truth is, you're not doing anything wrong. This is just business. And it never is going to be a consistent uphill or downhill ride.

It's always going to be up and down. And so I'll just go straight to the point as of today, and we're dealing with some major challenges with our profitability in this year.

So this year started off pretty slow.

And then July at. We thought we were doing everything right. We thought we had the sales operations, everyone in the right place. And then July comes around and we're.

We're back below the goal that we set for July. Not just revenue and profitability, but kind of across the board. You know, sales, customer satisfaction.

Everything seems to be a little bit below where we'd like to see it. And, you know, first off, I mean, it's. Cause we set pretty big goals, so maybe that's a little part of it.

But no, I think our team is better than what we're producing, you know, at the end of July. And so I had to kind of sit back and say, man, we've put all these things into place. We really have a lot of technology.

I think we have the best team in the industry. We're doing a lot of amazing things. And I started to realize, well, you know, it's not always in our control and it's not all about execution.

A lot of what it has to do and a lot of the results are actually based on the mindset of the leader and the mindset of the team. So I started to look internally through this process, and this is all in the last like three weeks.

And what I realized as I looked at my calendar was, well, I did a lot of traveling in July, right. I was in Florida, I was in Texas, I was in all these other states. Yeah, you and I saw each other in Las Vegas just a few weeks ago.

You know, it was just constant travel.

And I realized, man, like, me not being present at the office with the team has an impact and, you know, I need to be able to show up and provide the leadership and honestly mindset the team needs.

So execution may be perfect and you may have a great operational playbook, but even landscaping, so much of it is mental and so much of it is between the ears, and so much of it is mindset based. And so as I came back in and I really got the team rallied up again, here go.

Going into the end of August, I feel great about where we're at today, and I am very confident our numbers and our performance and our execution in September is going to be a lot better. But it just goes to show that adversity can come in different times and different angles.

And even when you think you have everything worked out and you have a great plan, I think that's where adversity hits hardest because you feel like you set it up for success. And then when that success doesn't come, a lot of people I think kind of just give up or say, oh, I guess we're just not good enough.

But sometimes it's just a matter of doubling down and just being consistent at what you're doing, knowing you're doing the right things and the market will eventually come around to you if you're doing the fundamentals of business correctly.

So my company, everbearing, we're a little more in it with our clients than most digital marketing companies.

And we're like asking them about their business and we're not just getting them leads and things like that, so we really intimately understand their struggles.

Yeah.

And you know, from a nationwide perspective, if this makes you feel any better, I've got clients all over the country and the sense I get from them and what they're telling me is it's different this year.

And I'm wondering, you've been around long enough, you may be able to confirm or deny this or comment on it, but is it things are going worse or is it that things are kind of returning to normal before the boom? And maybe, you know, we need to be more on top of things right.

Now, good and bad, to hear it. You know, I want everyone to thrive, but it is good to hear that we're not the only ones struggling a little bit in 25.

And you know, I mean, I saw this coming in in December.

I gave a talk to my entire company and I said, look, guys, we've had the tailwinds of COVID and all this PPP money and everything else over the last four years really pushing us forward. And you know, we have a new president, we have a new cycle, we have all this geopolitics going on. There's a lot of uncertainty in the world.

25 is going to be a really hard year to sell into. So we got to step it up. And I think we met 25 with a lack of preparedness.

And we set it up with 25 thinking that we were going to have just another year like the last four or five years. And I think what we're seeing is a bit of a correction in our market.

And if we're speaking about technology and what we're seeing in AI today, we're seeing a bit of a correction there too, which I think corrections are healthy for fast growing industries like the landscape industry. We're a legacy industry. We've been around for forever, decades on decades on decades with very little change.

And we've had a lot of private equity money, we've had a lot of technology, we've had a lot of change. Multiples have jumped up. Companies have just been on like 5, 10 year growth spurts without any type of decline. 25 was a bit of a correction year.

I think 26 is going to be another soft year. But I do think 27, 28, 29, as we round out this decade are going to be great, great years.

To be a landscaper, you just have to position your company to be in a market leading position. And I will add you need to expand your geographic footprint if you feel like your market density has reached a certain point.

And Ron, I think with digital marketing there's only so much clients that you can get in area until it becomes very expensive to get that next client. You go from spending $50 a lead to $500 a lead because you just have got saturation to such a point in your geo.

You know, a couple different things. What I've seen is as people shift like they're okay, this is the new game we're going to play this way. What I've seen is people succeed.

And so, you know, one of the things is don't give up. Like you said, don't give up. Look at what the situation is and adjust. And then you do have to do, you know, marketing. Sales and marketing side.

One thing I will say is it's really important to focus on the leads you have right now. I don't know if you know, the industry average Response time is 44 hours on a lead.

Really? Oh my gosh.

Yeah. Like only 4.77%. I'm not trying to turn this into a digital marketing thing, but I just, you know, only 4.7% of companies respond within five minutes.

4.7. Wow.

So right now, and this is just a tip for you as well is consumers are just, they know they've got more options so they're going down lists. And so you want to get to people in less than five minutes and stop them from going down that list.

If it's a sickness, like a lot of digital marketing guys won't deal with anybody under a million. I've dealt with guys less than 200,000. I love to grow landscaping companies.

Basically what I've seen on the digital marketing is like you say, once you get to a certain size, if you just do the traditional playbook, it doesn't generate any value for you.

And really digital marketing, as you grow or saturate a market, you can acquire new markets, but you can also look, and this is another tip for you is on your sales process. Look at the steps and the life cycle like a big commercial job. Your lead time could be what, five years, seven years.

It's a long time. Yeah. From when the first budget goes out on the planning phase. Yeah, it could be five years till you're done and get your attention on that job.

Right. So part of marketing in that case is what I call operational marketing, and I think you've talked about this in your podcast.

It's making sure that you're not the guy that screws up or being ready when the other guy screws up to take the work. And branding becomes more important.

And that can be like your trucks and your equipment and things like that, but it could also be digital branding and things like on a commercial landscaping, as dumb as it sounds, is like a newsletter. Smaller landscapers. It's very transactional. And then as you grow, it becomes more strategic.

Yeah. So you almost have to have that like multi, multi, multi pronged marketing. You can't just do digital ads really good and have a good website.

And I agree, as you get bigger, you have to have all these other top of funnel opportunities for people to find you. And. And we're on. All right.

Exactly.

Yeah.

So as you get bigger, you need to have kind of omnipresence.

Yeah.

And then instead of thinking and like, what's my transaction next month? It's like, how do I close this guy in five years when the contract comes up?

And then doing everything to support that, which is like a way different way of thinking.

We've been talking about marketing a lot because of the, you know, the adversity we're going through in terms of our growth goals. I mean, and we want to grow 30% year over year forever like that. It gets really hard when you're 20 million to grow 30% versus 100,000.

Right, exactly.

We're talking, like adding 6 million.

It's way harder. Yeah. I was a weird kid in junior high. I wrote a book called the Swiss Banking Handbook.

And it talks about financial instruments, but it really talks about everything being a tool. And you apply tools in different ways depending on the situation.

And I think the key is, you know, with not just the business, but marketing, all of it is. I think we tend to apply the tools we know at the same level. We know. And we don't, you know, kind of mix it up if we have the situation change. So.

So yeah, yeah. It's like you just try to apply the same tool to the same thing, even though the situation and the world has completely changed.

And I would say as of today, that is the biggest plague hitting the landscape industry is we continue to try to use the same playbook that worked 10 years ago in a market that has radically changed. And you hit on it. How our customers buy. Landscaping has radically changed in 10 years, but we keep doing the same things.

What's your vision for the future? Where are you taking it next?

Well, I love that question. So I got this from Jim Collins. It's called the we've arrived syndrome.

And as you approach a goal, you kind of like imagine a plane coming down to land. You start to slow the plane down and get it into landing configuration so you could land the plane, stop, and get out.

Well, you know, we're not trying to land this plane anytime soon.

And the core belief of the vision is we want to create generational wealth within our employee base.

So I went through and yeah, so I asked myself, I said, all right, where do we need to be in order from an enterprise value perspective, in order for our crew leaders to be able to have some type of an equity percentage and then turn that equity into an exit where they can not retire forever, but have enough money in the bank to maybe live comfortably? I'm talking maybe 250, $300,000 on top of all their other planning.

But I see so many of our team members reaching 65, 70 years old in the field with no real next step in terms of how they're going to support themselves financially for the rest of their life. And there's a few factors. One is historically, you know, the kids always kind of took care of the parents.

Secondly, you didn't need a lot of money to retire 40 years ago. And thirdly, the retirement plan has always been, you know, we'll move to a really low, less expensive area than California and we'll be fine.

Well, we're finding that just to live in, even like a nice retirement community in Florida is still very expensive.

I have a side business where I build entry level homes, like somebody's first home.

Oh, okay. Yeah.

And I'm building a starter home in Coos Bay, Oregon, which is not like a huge town.

I know cucumber, and it's like 4:25. Yeah.

Oh my gosh, it's over. As far as the whole moving to.

A cheaper spot, it's exactly. There's no option. So, you know, some of the guys are like, hey, I'll go back to Mexico.

But I still go, man, you're still going to have to have something to live on.

And when you back the math out, most company, most platform companies allocate, let's say 10 to 15% in an employee pool of equity. So I say, all right, well if we need 150 million at 15%, well then you need $1 billion in enterprise value.

You don't know about my past but I used to run technology startups and I've done consulting for venture capitalists and have been involved with private equity and so I know exactly what you're talking about. Yeah, you don't have much gray hair yet, Justin, but you might soon.

Yeah, you're not wrong on that. It's going to be a ride. But I think we have all the pieces lined up and I think this industry is ready.

I think brightview has done a great job at being this first tip of the spear in the public markets and the public investor has actually showed some favor towards service based businesses, specifically ones like brightview. And I think if we can create a really. And you'll like this Ron.

If we can create a company that's very tech enabled, a high utilization of robots, a high utilization of AI backend synergies and a employee first culture practice within that technology enabled company.

I think the public markets are going to trade favorably with that mindset and I think in 10 years from today you're going to see investors wanting to diversify outside of the Mag 7 and outside of the big tech companies that hold 85% of their wealth today. It's just going to become too volatile.

I think with the AI race that we're in and people are going to look to diversify into and they already are into service based companies like Landscaping, plumbing, H vac, electrical.

Exactly. Yeah. No, it's kind of cliche, so I don't play that game. It's pretty hard, stressful game, the private equity side.

But my friends, so kind of the, the deal in Silicon Valley is guys, that started when I did, you kind of graduate and one of the stages is your venture capital or private equity. So a lot of my friends that I came up with are in private equity.

And it's almost like a cliche on the checklist is green industry investment, but yet they can't find any place to put the money.

And so I tell my clients that are in more of the growth stage, much smaller than you, that look, this is the time the next 10 years for landscaping businesses, you're going to have really high valuation. So I really like that vision and I'm really impressed with where you're going on.

Thank you.

So I want to take it off of what we've talked about because I'm really curious about it, selfishly. So, yeah, is you recently launched the Disruptors. Can you tell me what it is and kind of why you created it?

Well, it was a creation built out of necessity to communicate as an industry within a private confidential group. And we have these amazing conferences we go to.

You and I went to Lana Landscape Tech conference and we had a Disruptor Social which was such a fun night. And what the Disruptors group is, is it's actually an online community and there's a lot of these popping up.

But ours is focused primarily around the idea of becoming a eight figure contractor. So $10 million in revenue or above, it doesn't mean you have to be there to join. You can join with 500,000 in annual revenue or even smaller.

We'll talk and see if you can get in.

But the idea is companies focused on growth and it's landscape companies within the peer group or community, not just open to anyone, not open to suppliers or to vendors.

Because we wanted to be able to have a place where you can go and have an honest conversation of should I go with this software or that software and get feedback from your peers on which one they think is better based on their experience. We ask questions all the time in our forum around operational needs, like how are you handling uniforms for your employees?

Well, we provide shirts and jackets and safety vests, but we don't provide pants. Someone else provides a full, full thing Pants, shirts, hats, everything and a laundry service.

And so we're kind of comparing different things or comparing insurance, we're comparing 401k plans, health insurance. And there's 65 of us in the group right now. And we all get to kind of play off each other and ask each other questions.

So that's really the core of why I created it, is to create a communication portal where you can go and get advice from truly people in the field, people working and running their companies day to day that are a little bit larger mindset where they want to be that eight figure contractor. They. The other side of that beyond the community forum is the classroom.

And the classroom is where I've assembled a, what I would say is your toolbox of strategic tools to build and grow your business into a 10 million or more enterprise. Your software tools, your culture, your financial side, your sales side, it goes down, the whole thing, your operations.

So I've interviewed some of the who I believe some of the best in the business at what they do. For example, we're talking about M and A. So I went and I found Jeff Harkness.

And Jeff Harkness is probably the number one thought leader in M and A in the landscape industry today. He's on every panel, he's in every magazine, he's at every conference. So I flew him out here to Atlanta. Well actually Jeff, he flew himself out.

So thank you for coming out and I don't want to misspeak.

And he and I interviewed in the studio for three hours around M and A and then we put that in our classroom and I went out and financial, I found Greg Herring who again, huge thought leader, such an amazing person. And we did a two hour interview on profit and loss and how to structure your P and L and why you should do this and not that.

All that stuff is available to our members in the classroom. And then beyond that, we do a lot of events, we do our socials at a lot of these big networking events and big conferences.

And we just want to be a place where contractors can come in, they can be around like minded people and they can push themselves to grow bigger and go for gold than you know, maybe they ever thought possible.

That's great. That's great.

You know, one of the frustrations I've had, and it sounds like you're addressing, is as landscapers grow, they have to kind of go with their gut or just make their best guess. There's like no guideline. And so really what you guys are potentially from my point of view, it sounds like you're an accelerator.

It's like somebody that wants to, instead of pounding their head against the wall for, like, years, they can, you know, cut to the head of the line and just get the list of what they've got to do. Is that kind of what you're trying to create?

A hundred percent. I mean, you said it better than I could.

It's an accelerator for business owners and leaders and CEOs who want to take their business to the next level, but maybe aren't sure that next step. And if you can surround yourself with people who have already achieved where you want to go. So for me, I brought Andrew Kraft into the group.

He's 40 million in revenue. Well, I want to be 40 million in the next 18 months.

So I'm looking at what Andrew's doing and trying to copy him and maybe a little better is what I tell him. And I tell the same people who are 5 million or 3 million or 10 million who want to be 20 million.

I say, ask me all your questions you're not sure about, and I'll tell you my mistakes. And then you can learn from my mistakes without having to repeat them and accelerate it.

The other cool thing that I'll add that I really love is we've gotten so many industry vendors, software leaders, everybody who have reached out wanting to be a part of it. And so we have some partners that I'll name off real quick. Greenius is a great training module, Team Engine, Bob Yard, Aspire, Capsidata, and cres.

All these companies have official partnerships where they asked, hey, can we sponsor the group? Can we pay you to be a part of the group? I'm like, I don't want your money, so why don't you just give a discount to our members?

And that's how we created these discounts for our members. So they can take on the, I think, best in the industry technology that we use at K and D Landscaping.

They could use it in their business, and they get a discount for being part of their disruptors. So we kind of are almost like leveraging our group as a large buying group and getting discounts from those people at those large sizes.

That's great, though. I mean, you know, kind of pulling your purchasing power. And then also, you know, for them, it's a way they can.

Actually a lot of the different applications you just mentioned is training and education and awareness. And so you kind of provide a portal for them to do that. So it really lowers their marketing and also their overhead, their training, overhead, cost.

Because you're streamlining it for them.

Yeah. And maybe you couldn't make it out to that conference at the tech conference.

Well, there's probably 12 of us out there from the disruptors in the group and we're all commenting and chatting and sharing our takeaways.

So even if you didn't get a go, at least you get raw contractor feedback of what we saw at the show versus maybe a marketing recap from the company that threw the show on which, you know, they're always going to make things, view it in one perspective that they want to kind of drive that, that narrative versus well, this is what we saw as contractors.

Right. Right now that makes sense. And personally, my company's active and a little over the top, but we're active in Olka Walpole and CLCA and nalp.

So yeah, I'm a big fan of associations and the reason for that is I know how important those off to the side relationships and the mentoring, like I've seen it totally change people's lives and so kind of creating a mastermind for people that want to level up and be the complete leaders in the industry. Pretty helpful and great idea. So.

Yeah, and that's kind of where a lot of this came from.

You know, we've been members of nalp, clca, a lot of those same organizations and they are such a great value add, but sometimes it's hard, you kind of get lost in, you know, they're big associations. And I was like, well, what if we created a little community where just. I think I'm going to cap it at about 150 members.

You know, we're early on, but I think that still gives you that connectivity where you kind of know everybody and I think they all have their place. I think there's other ones like Jeffrey Scott, Marty Grunder, Mick Farley and Stanford.

They all run these bigger peer groups and I think those have their place too. I think you almost need, you know, you mentioned a multi pronged approach in marketing.

As you get bigger, you need the same thing for your personal development and your development as a CEO and as a leader of the company.

Absolutely.

And appreciate what you guys do for those organizations too. Ron, thank you for, for getting back to the industry.

Oh, gosh.

Anyway, long story short, I decided to go after the landscaping in the green industry and you know, before I did some cool things and I Dealt with a lot of interesting people, but none of them I'd have to my house.

And one thing I'll say about the landscaping industry, I can't think of anybody that if they showed up at my house, I wouldn't be, you know, might be a little embarrassed about it being disheveled, but other than that, you know, would welcome them in. And I'm guessing that's been your experience as well.

You couldn't have said it better.

I think with the, you know, in that venture capital world and that tech world, I mean, it's such a abrasive community and there's so many great people in there. I've got a lot of friends, too, but the landscape industry is different. And you know what's interesting?

I've been welcomed into a lot of homes of landscapers that I had just met, and they're in, you know, I'm in the area and I post something on LinkedIn like, oh, I'm here in Naples, Florida, and someone messaged me like, hey, we should go to dinner. And I'm like, yeah, sounds good. They're like, why don't you just come over, we'll cook for you.

And you get that more in the south, like Georgia, Tennessee, you know, South Carolina, you're going to get the let's cook for you kind of welcome in. And it's an amazing industry of really incredible people who really want the best for the industry. They want the best for society.

We're very lucky to have fallen into this industry.

I couldn't agree more. Like, I'm pretty much going to end my career here because it's just, you know, what a great group people were in.

So on the disruptors, I look at them as people that, you know, on a scale of 1 to 10, they want to live at 11.

Yeah.

And so who's going to fit into that group of disruptors and really benefit?

Like, I mean, there's a lot of people out there that are great and their businesses are growing, but they're not going to get the benefit from the resources you've provided. But there's certain people that are going to latch in and contribute to the group and really engage.

Yeah, great question. I think there's an avatar I think we can just kind of describe that really thrives in the disruptors.

I think, number one, someone who has the ability to create change at the company they're in.

If you're an account manager at a big company, it's going to be really hard because you're going to get all These ideas and you're not going to actually create meaningful change at your company. So someone who has the ability to create change within the company.

Number two, someone who values technology and wants to become a more tech enabled business business. Most of our discussions are around technology because it's just such a value add going into this next generation of landscaping.

And there's a lot of pitfalls in technology. A lot of bad companies out there, you got to watch out for that don't help.

And number three is someone who really does want to grow their company double digits and create a, I don't want to say like seller company, but create a meaningful exit. At some point, I think we all need some type of off ramp.

You want to sell to your employees, you want to sell to your kids, you want to sell to your, you know, a management team. I do think it's someone who has a vision in mind of a finish line that they want to take the company to. Hey, will they exit at that point?

It's up to them. But I think it's so important to build a company that's sellable. And then number four, it's someone who enjoys giving back.

People who are selfish and just want to take, take, take. You know, they can come in and they can observe.

But I've noticed it's the people who engage and give more advice than they take are the people who get the most value. And I think this tracks with NALP and CLCA and any other nonprofit. I mean, I've sat on a lot of boards. The more we give, the more we get.

So if you're a person who is inherently not selfish with information and experiences and you like to share your story and be very open, that is going to go very far for you inside a group like the Disruptors And Ron fifth, I'll finish it off here.

You got to be a self starter and someone who's hungry to learn because we're not going to reach out and be like, hey, you haven't logged in for three days. You know, that's not my style. You're either in it or you're not. And that's really on you.

That makes 100% sense.

And you know, you've just started this and so this is maybe a premature question, but you know, what's the legacy that you want for the Disruptors on the industry? Like, what's your long term vision?

Such a great, great question to ponder. You know, I would just have to, I have to kind of like macro the response here a little bit because it really is.

The Disruptors is just part of our entire mission to raise the bar in the landscape industry. And I could leave it there, but I feel like it's too vague. So I'll go one layer down.

I also love the idea of when people are growing up saying, hey, I want to run a landscape company one day. I don't think any kid is thinking that in fifth grade or sixth grade, it's all becoming a fireman, going to the moon, being an astronaut. I love that.

But it would be cool to start to inspire some of the kids out there to start thinking, hey, maybe the landscape industry is a place I can create a great life and I could accomplish my goals in there. So, you know, there's a lot to unpack.

But overall, love to leave the industry better than we found it and really level things up to the next generation.

So for everyone listening, what is the one piece of advice you would give them? To stop playing small and start thinking bigger.

So I believe you have to have a vision of where you want to take your company and your life. So before you can play big, you got to think big.

And a lot of people think they have to attain some level of success before they're able to think about attaining that level of success. And I'll be honest, guys. Like, I still don't look in the mirror and be like, you're successful. Like, I don't think like that.

And I don't even think like Jeff Bezos, maybe Jeff Bezos.

But, you know, most of those guys who are super wealthy that we look up to, like Warren Buffett, they don't think that they just put their jeans on one leg at a time like us. So, you know, create a vision. Believe in that vision. Believe in yourself even when others won't, even when that business doesn't love you back.

Keep believing in yourself, because if you have that vision and you give it your all, you're going to go great places.

If a listener takes one action after hearing this, what should it be?

Yeah, and that's a good question, because you shouldn't take too many actions. I think one action is a great takeaway. So if you're listening to this, it's probably October. Here's what I want you guys to think of.

What is an unreasonable goal to set that you can accomplish before the end of the year? Because I would love everyone to not wait for New Year's resolution.

I would love for you to not wait for January 1st to come around to take massive action in your life.

When you're listening to this, write that goal down and make that your number one focus for the rest of the year and create a massive amount of momentum going into January 1st.

It's the amount of progress you made that's a true measurement of success. So I think that's the one thing I'll say to take away from this.

Set a big goal before the end of the year and see how much progress you can make on that goal.

Well, that seems like pretty solid advice to me. So what's the best way for people to reach you?

Few different ways. You could get me on LinkedIn or Instagram. Just search Justin White KND Landscaping. I'll come right up.

You can find my website@jwhite group.com so that's J White group.com and you can send me an email too. You can send me an email atjustin white group.com just like that. So few ways to get in touch with me. Follow me on socials.

I try to stay active and document the journey to a billion dollars in revenue.

So if you want to watch that journey, check us out on Instagram or LinkedIn, TikTok, YouTube, all the things we're out there posting content pretty much daily.

Cool, man. That's great. Well, Justin, thank you for sharing your insights with us today. So that's it for today's episode of Landscape Business Growth Lab.

Big thank you to Justin White for sharing his story and his vision. If you enjoyed this conversation, be sure to subscribe and share it with another green industry professional who is ready to grow.

Thanks for listening and we'll see you next time. That's a wrap on today's episode of Landscape Business Growth Lab podcast. I hope you picked up some fresh ideas to help your business grow.

Remember, growth doesn't happen overnight. It takes the right tools, strategies and consistent cultivation. If you found value in today's show, subscribe. Leave us a five star review.

Share this episode with a fellow green industry professional who's ready to level up.

For more resources, show notes and exclusive content, Visit us@landscapebusinessgrowthlab.com and if you want to connect directly directly, you can find me at Everbearing Services. Until next time, I'm Ron McCabe, reminding you to keep your tools sharp and your mindset sharper. Now get out there and grow something great.