Improving Lives Through Landscaping

Overview

In this episode of SYNKD On Air, host Angelique Robb welcomes Bruce Allentuck, founder of Allentuck Landscaping in Maryland. The two reminisce about their initial meeting at the Elevate Conference in Orlando, Florida. Bruce opens up about how he started his journey in the landscaping industry, initially through mowing lawns in the neighborhood and later on studying landscape design and horticulture at North Carolina State. He shares about his early years in business, the evolution of his company and how he transitioned from commercial landscaping to residential to create a bigger impact on people's lives. Bruce also highlights how training and investing in staff are crucial to business growth and improved customer satisfaction.

Continuing the conversation, Angelique and Bruce delve into how the landscaping industry brings together science, art, nature, and sustainability. Bruce emphasizes the importance of training and knowledge transfer to ensure a company's growth and longevity. As a testament to this, he talks about the development of 'My Landscape Academy', a digital platform he created initially for internal training at Allentuck Landscaping, but later extended to other companies in the landscaping industry. Towards the end of the podcast, Bruce also speaks about another venture of his, 'Right Plantz', a gardening website created with his daughter that offers a vast plant database and various gardening blogs.

Transcript

Angelique
Welcome to SYNKD On Air brought to you by Turfs Up Radio. I'm your host, Angelique Robb. And today I have a special guest with me. Bruce Allentuck from Maryland. Hi, Bruce, how are you?

Bruce
Great. Angelique. How are you doing? Thank you for having me on.

Angelique
You're welcome. Yes, I'm doing great. It's great to see you again. It's been a little while. We first met it, I guess it was Elevate. The Elevate Conference in Orlando, Florida last year, trying to think when that was.

Bruce
October, I think?

Angelique
I think it was or September or somewhere around then. But yeah, we had a great time at the concert and chatting throughout the day. I got to learn a little bit about the new things you were launching, but maybe we want to start with, you know how you started in the industry? Because it looks like you started your company before graduating university. Is that right?

Bruce
I did. Like so many other people in this industry, this great industry of ours. It all started with mowing lawns in the neighborhood with my friend. And I took a real liking to the industry or to what I thought was the industry at the time and the outdoors. And went to college. Got a degree in landscape design and horticulture from NC State [North Carolina State University].

Angelique
Now, were you already in that before you started mowing grass and stuff? Or did you have a different major?

Bruce
So we started mowing grass and stuff at 15. We couldn't get a good job anywhere else. So we, you know, took the lawn mowers around the neighborhood and actually made a decent amount of money every week. I started at NC State in forestry, interested in the environment and saving the world. And I soon learned that my idealism didn't really match up with what forestry really was. It's a great profession, but just a little different than what I anticipated. And found they had a landscape horticulture program and transferred over there after my first semester, and started Allentuck Landscaping. The summer of my junior year in college back here in Maryland, US school in North Carolina, of course, did a little bit of work down in North Carolina while I was in school. And then, upon graduation, my dad handed me a box of business cards and said, Allentuck Landscaping on it.

Angelique
Really? Oh, that's cool present.

Bruce
Well, he was a printer. You know he made them himself and design them. And off we went, you know, just started working

Angelique
Did you want to do that? Or were you kind of pushed into it, then?

Bruce
No, no, he never pushed me into it. In fact, they might. My mom and dad were my greatest supporters. Because at that time in our area, and maybe their group of friends, people were like, What is he going to do in the winter? How can you actually make a living at this? You know, all of their kids were going off to be accountants and lawyers and things and I wanted to get dirty.

Angelique
Yeah. And good for you. Yeah.

Bruce
They were extremely supportive. Yeah, you know, worked out pretty well. And I love what I'm doing. And my parents were really supportive of me. And I'm really grateful for that.

Angelique
Awesome. So you know, you started in Maryland, after university full time and started with a few employees, or just by yourself for a little while?

Bruce
So no business plan, no capital. No story. No real idea. But two of my buddies had just graduated, didn't have jobs. And my brother, my next youngest brother, that summer, we probably had the most fun I've ever had in business. We just flew by the seat of our pants. We worked really hard during the day, played hard at night, and just had a great time being together and trying to learn how to make it in this industry. And of course, they went off to their own careers. After a while I started hiring people. And here we are.

Angelique
Awesome. And so did you say 37 years?

Bruce
Yeah, that was 1986. You know, I started when I was 12. So that's been a great career and I don't feel like I've got a lot left to give and a lot left to go and there's so many things I want to do and it's just been real fun. And I can't believe how much time has flown by, of course. I was talking with my uncle last night who just turned 80. And he's like, you know, where did the years go? And I don't know where your years went, but I have a feeling I know where mine went. And not that I am that old. I love this industry. I love the people in this industry. I love what we do. I love our missions. And I think that we're a real important industry for what we bring to the table.

Angelique
I totally agree. I mean, you know, you said earlier about how you wanted to change the world, save the world. And I feel like COVID and, you know, the effects of climate change are all coming really, really into the forefront. And the fact that I've always loved architecture, but I didn't know there was something in between nature and architecture, and that bridge to include nature based solutions in architecture and the built environment be more sustainable. I think there's so many things that we can do in our industry. I mean, and I don't know, if you saw ASLA just reported that landscape architecture has been designated a STEM curriculum. And that's very new. My daughter and my son are both at a STEM middle and high school. And I was like, Why isn't Landscape Architecture part of this? Because, you know, it should be. And so here it is. So that's, that's elevating the industry. And we can I mean, the floods, the drainage, the water management can can save the world, save for so many communities. And water is something that we need, it's like, we need it, but yet we have too much of it when we don't want it. Where we don't want it. And I think we can save the world.

Bruce
This industry and the people in it make a difference. My personal mission and the mission of Allentuck Landscaping are one in the same, we improve lives through landscaping.

Angelique
Oh I like that.

Bruce
Well I trademarked it.

Angelique
Oh did you? Okay!

Bruce
And I truly believe that I believe we improve the mental and the physical being of people. And I think that really, right COVID Yeah. And you know, outdoors is extremely important to me and my family. And we live outdoors, and to improve it and bring it to other people and let them experience it. People are just are so busy and caught up in their careers, their jobs, they're going ons. I felt that during COVID, we really made a difference in people's lives. It's one of the reason. Eight years ago, we moved from commercial to only residential because I felt we can make a bigger impact on people's lives. And that's where I got really excited.

Angelique
Oh, really? So what was the split before you did that?

Bruce
We were we were about 60%, residential and 40% commercial at that time, and I just was not enjoying it. And I went away for three days to think. Which is always positive and dangerous at the same time. You know, what is it that I get excited about? Can my work? You know, what, what do I really enjoy? And at the end of the day, it was impacting someone's lives on a one on one basis. Now, I'm certainly not saying that. Commercial landscaping doesn't have a place and improving lives. I believe it does. But I didn't believe it.

Angelique
But your company? Yeah. Well, you know, at SYNKD Live 2023, earlier this year, Jim McCutcheon spoke to that. And he said he believes that each person that is running a company is really either residential or commercial at heart.

Bruce
I agree.

Angelique
And, you have to figure that out for yourself. You know, like you said, your approach to your business or you're figuring things out, you know, you might not figure it out your first year business, but How long was it when you said eight years ago?

Bruce
Yeah about eight years ago.

Angelique
Okay, so that's still 20 something years into business.

Bruce
Life takes a wind And path.

Angelique
Did you think that you'd knew it? But didn't really stop and think about it? Because you said you took some time out to think about it.

Bruce
I wasn't I don't think I had clear vision. Until that time. I literally sat in a hotel lobby up in Boston for for three days. My wife was attending a conference. And just said, I need to figure out what I like and don't like, started making lists and thoughts and listening to motivational speeches, and just really trying to come to grips with it. And it was a lightbulb moment. I came back and I told our board, we have a board of advisors that were selling the commercial division, and they said, You can't sell 40% of your company off. Watch me. And I've enjoyed it. I love getting up in the morning. I love what it's done for our staff, our team, they have a very long tenured staff. Our crew leaders average over 16 years with me. And I say with me, because I think it's because they believe in me and trust me, and I'm grateful for that. And we've grown tremendously since then. And just enjoyed the day a lot more.

Angelique
That's amazing. What a great journey. And I think, you know, if you're open to it, to listen to what you like, and what you don't, your path will come with time home. Yeah, so. Wow. And you mentioned your family liking to be outside a lot, because you're also a triathlete is that? Did I say that? Right?

Bruce
I've done lots of triathlons, and marathons, adventure racing. And my three grown daughters, they take part in some of this craziness too. Our vacations or, you know, when when we're together or spread around the country now a little bit are generally spent in the outdoors and our life here, our house borders a 1200 acre State Forest, if you looked out the window behind me, all you're gonna see is trees.

Angelique
Good placement.

Bruce
It's intentional.

Angelique
Well, awesome. How long ago did you start building your training program internally?

Bruce
My Landscape Academy evolved from an internal training program that we started building, little over two years ago. And really, the intention was, we needed a training program to make sure we're putting the best people out there as quickly as possible. To eliminate headaches to improve customer satisfaction, job quality, all the all the stuff you hear about the training programs can bring. And literally, I showed it to some friends of mine in the industry. And they're like, well, we want to use it too. What can we do about that? And I had a digital experience, experience building a digital brand with right plans. I said, Well, we can we can bring it to the market. And that's what we set out to do. We started designing it and putting the content into it. It's been a lot of fun. It's been a lot of trial and error, as I'm sure you can understand building a publication. But we're helping a lot of companies. And the one thing that's really taught me is that the industry is starved for training. Companies have a real hard time figuring out how to get their people up and running safely, quickly, so that they can start making money for the company and become valuable.

Angelique
Yep, yep. And I think it's in turnover. Some companies do have a high turnover. And so I mean, if you factor in how much it costs the company to stop and train somebody, especially if you have to travel, especially, you know, if it's hotels and other things, but yeah, just just the timeout cost the company, not including the travel. And if you if you have turnover, which I think every company has a bit of turnover. We've had a lot of turmoil, you know, during COVID and stuff, you know, so I'm sure a lot of companies are seeing a lot of turnover. It makes it so expensive to hire new people because of they're not going to be earning you money from the start, but you need to pay them.

Bruce
I would bet I mean, I don't even need to but I know this that the companies are doing a good job of training their staff are showing that they value their staff and they value their people, and that there's far less turnover.

Angelique
One, I think that's a good point.

Bruce
The investment it is worth it.

Angelique
And if you invest, and then maybe if you're not investing, that's why you're seeing the turnover. So that can be the repercussion.

Bruce
People want to feel valued. People want to feel like they have an opportunity to grow. And their employers care about them becoming better at what they do become, you know, we have to become experts in what we do. And our employees need to become experts at what we do as well. And the only way that happens is through training, it doesn't happen through osmosis. And if you know, if a young person starting a company, or has a small company, or even a medium sized company, wants to grow, the only way to do that is to pass knowledge on up on every job. So you can't be everywhere.

Angelique
And you as the owner, can't train every person. When did for Allentuck Landscaping did you notice that you needed something more than just one on one training? How many employees I guess, is it? Is it 20? Is it 10? Is it 30?

Bruce
Well, I'm thinking back to the days of me and my brother buddies, trying to build retaining walls. How do we do this? And I was the only one that knew. But to grow and grow quickly and become an enterprise, it became pretty obvious a long time ago. I don't know exactly what point that and we've tried different things, different methods of training over the time, you know, and scheduling it and whatnot. What we needed was something that when an employee, somebody signs on to work for our company, we could text them the links to our training program, and they could start studying before they even showed up for day one.

Angelique
Oh, that's great.

Bruce
And start studying on the way to the job. So I think we assigned them modules to learn before we ever get anywhere.

Angelique
And so you said at the time that we interviewed you for the publication that just came out, it's in the mail right now. But you said you had launched it nine months before that. So how many people or companies do you have signed on to date?

Bruce
Sure. Well, I'd rather not give the exact numbers, but we have a lot more than I expected. And it's growing. You know, how hard it is to get companies to try something new. So a lot of what the work we've done has been unsustainable up till now, and probably will be for a while. Yeah, it'd be nice to hit that flywheel at some point that people are just finding and signing up because they see the value in it. But the more people we can get signed on, the closer we'll get to that flywheel. It's just open, you know, build it. I never expected to have light bulb moments when I built this. But the light bulb moment is that is companies are starved for training for a way that works away this sustainable to time and effort. And I'm hoping that's what we've given them.

Angelique
Yeah. Well, I also think that we're seeing a lot of companies. And I wish I knew the statistics. I mean, you know, being a part of NALP, you might not know, but how many new companies start up each year. But it does feel like in the last three or four years that a lot of new companies have started. And just from what you're saying, because they love the outdoors, people don't want to be indoors as much they want to be out moving, it's better for your health. If you do love the outdoors, it's a natural progression. So it feels like a lot more new companies. But I don't know if you have a better sense on that.

Bruce
I don't have any data on that. I saw some numbers recently. They said there's 360,000 landscape companies in this country. Now that can range from very small amount of money to what we see on the 150 list and 100 list. That 92 percent are under a million dollars.

Angelique
92 percent? Oh my goodness.

Bruce
So, you know, I think that we see a lot of people joining the industry because, one there's a low barrier to entry. There's very little licensure across the country. People want to control their own destiny, especially coming out of COVID. Where they were on Zoom 24 hours a day.I think the perception of our industry has improved so much. If you look at the equity companies that are investing in it, the roll ups. This is an industry where people can make a good living and have quality of life things like the outdoors and working with people.

Angelique
And good people.

Bruce
Great people.

Angelique
I also think, you know, sorry, I lost my train of thought there. But, um, you know, that under a million. There's probably a lot of things like My Landscape Academy that can help get people over that barrier. It sounds like, you know, how there's, like, barriers in company growth. And I didn't realize it was 92 percent of them are under a million dollars.

Bruce
That's a stat that I saw recently, you know, put your value and stats I you know, I can't validate it.

Angelique
Depends on who's replied. And yeah, it can be skewed a little bit. But, but still, the I mean, a high percent, under a million is interesting.

Bruce
There are very few companies that have much market share at all in this industry.

Angelique
Well, and you know, we've interviewed a lot of people that have started in the industry in the last five to 10 years. And I find that really encouraging. And, you know, just like what you said, like the, what the industry looks like, to people that aren't in the industry, obviously, you know, we have tech people coming in, we have engineers coming in and building things. And we have I think of a husband and wife team out of Lake Charles, Louisiana that they launched. Oh, I can't remember exactly. But when I interviewed them, it was probably a year or two ago, and I think they'd launched a few years before that. The wife was in a pharmacist and her husband was in alcohol distribution of some sort. I mean, I can't tell you exactly what the you know, the details of jobs. Okay. Yeah. Rock and roll. That's funny, I never put that together. Good one. But they were considering lots of different industries. And they picked, you know, construction and maintenance, of build and maintain landscape company, and they're loving it, and they're doing well. And they're part of the community. You know, Lake Charles, in particular, had hurricanes hit, it's like, in their first year business, and hit the town, and they just went out volunteering, and really built up quite a community. So yeah, I get really excited hearing about people just coming into the industry, brand new, because that means we are doing a better job of saying how great this industry is and what it entails. You know, it's not just lawn mowing, it's not just construction. It's not just landscape architecture. It's not just commercial, you know, it's just all these different parts. There's a lot of lot of science to it, a lot of engineering and the retaining walls.

Bruce
Yeah, that's true. So think about what it all combines. I mean, its science, its art, its its nature, its sustainability. There's so many boxes that it can check that in so many directions, you can go in it that you can find your passion and live it out and grow a nice company provide for your employees have, you know, a decent life and you know, we're a testimony that we have a decent life that they love.

Angelique
Tell me your your catchphrase again for Allentuck.

Bruce
Improving Lives Through Landscaping, it's not a catchphrase. It's our mission.

Angelique
Didn't mean offend.

Bruce
No offense taken, but it's how I feel about what we do.

Angelique
I love that. I love that. Well, um, tell us how tell our audience how they can reach out to you if their interested in My Landscape Academy?

Bruce
Sure. So the easiest way is at hello@mylandscapeacademy.com Just how it's spelled behind me. At Allentuck Landscaping, you can be reach me at BruceA@allentucklandscaping.com. Like I was worried about another Bruce joining the company. And rightplantz.com It's also Hello@rightplantz.com.

Angelique
So what is Right Plantz? Give us a little summary. Sorry, we didn't go into that much.

Bruce
That's okay. My pleasure. So Right Plantz, one of my daughters and I started about five and a half years ago, the day she graduated Virginia Tech in landscape architecture. She lives in New York City now doing low income housing, which I'm really proud of her for that. Basically, we're both plant nuts. Plant idiots as my wife says.

Angelique
No plants nuts. It sounds better.

Bruce
We will go with plant idiots. Perfectly fine. When you walk around and talk about the plants, I mean, that's kind of weird. But we were commenting on how we've never found a gardening website that we really liked. And just on a whim, we said, let's start our own. And there's a lot of great gardening websites out there. It's just, you know, we're odd. So we started with a plant database. So we have 2000 plants on it that you can search by zone, flower, color, season, deer. You know deer don't like it. It attracts pollinators, whatever you want. And it'll populate those plants. We have pictures, we have data on those plants. So that's a real handy thing for landscapers to use is to show customers plants and also to narrow down choices if they get stuck on you know what plant is going to work for this. So that's been a lot of fun. We wrote a ton of blogs, and we continue to create about two blogs a week on everything from vegetable gardening through, top five hedge plants or whatever. And every month we put out a monthly Right Platz Guide, which gets a lot of attention. So creating that content has been a lot of fun with her and working with her has been a ton of fun.

Angelique
Is it more for landscapers? So your audience for that is landscapers or homeowners or both?

Bruce
You know, I think it's both depending upon what somebody is interested in definitely home gardeners. I mean, that's most of the people that see our site, but I've heard from landscape peers that they're finding it to be a great resource and using it on weekly basis. It's free. You know, our model, there's advertising. We're still working on the kinks on that. But it's a labor of love that I get to do with my daughter and that's the important thing. I have three daughters, and she happens to share that passion with me along with running. They're all runners now. But the other team couldn't care less about plants.

Angelique
Well, I was just at Cultivate recently. So we are going to be putting out some editorial in our next issue about the newest plant varieties that are being launched and being grown ready to design with and by so maybe we can do some collaboration there.

Bruce
Absolutely. Sounds great.

Angelique
Awesome. Well, good. I had just say all your website stuff, and then we kept talking. But this has been great to catch up with you, Bruce. And maybe we'll even see you for SYNKD Live next year. Let's let's talk about that as it gets closer to a lot of fun having you there. And yeah, we'll catch up soon. Thanks for joining us on SYNKD On Air.

Bruce
Thank you for your time. I appreciate it. Take care.