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Episode #180: What would happen if you let another landscaping company owner run your company? We launched this new part of our ACE Peer Group Program earlier this year with the ownership of Coastal Greenery switching places with ownership of Malone's Landscaping. In this episode, the group that swapped places talks about what they learned from getting fresh eyes on their company and also spending a week running another landscaping company. They talk about all the hot button issues: managing teams, technology, branding, overhead costs, and much more.

BOBYARD is an AI-powered takeoff and estimating platform that automates the most time-consuming parts of bidding work. Contractors report up to 65% reduction in takeoff time and 3-5x more bids submitted per estimator.

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Guests:

• Jim Cali - Founding Principal at McFarlin Stanford, ACE Peer Group Facilitator, Grow Group Strategic Partner
• Jeffrey Johns - Owner, Coastal Greenery (Brunswick, GA)
• Jacob Johns - Controller, Coastal Greenery
• Jim Malone - Founder, Malone's (Seattle, WA)
• Ryan Malone - President, Malone's
• Jake Malone - Branch Manager, Malone's

Resources Mentioned:

• Coastal Greenery (Brunswick, GA)
• Malone's Landscape (Seattle, WA)
• ACE Peer Groups (via The Grow Group)
• McFarlin Stanford
• Clancy's Restaurant, New Orleans

Key Learnings

You Cannot See Your Own Business Clearly From Inside Your Own Business: No matter how sharp you are, you walk past things every day. An outside set of eyes will see in 15 minutes what you have missed for years.

Peer-to-Peer Learning Beats Zoom Every Time: The value of the CEO Swap wasn't in the ideas exchanged, it was in the one-on-one meetings with each other's team members. There's no hiding, no deferring, and no shortcut when you're on site.

Sense of Urgency Is Often the Missing Ingredi