In this episode of Beyond Page One, host Mickey interviews Thomas Rochow, founder of Oasis Landscaping. Thomas shares his journey from a summer job in landscaping to building a successful multi-service landscaping business. He discusses the challenges he faced, the importance of leadership and team development, and how personal growth through Ironman training has influenced his business approach. The conversation also covers marketing strategies, client engagement, and the realities of business ownership, culminating in Thomas’s vision for the future of Oasis Landscaping.

Listen On Spotify- https://open.spotify.com/episode/4teOyyvVdqgfx85QUHQOOC?si=WZKiuXdZSFmLEsOk6psQOg

If you have any questions or would like to connect with Thomas Rochow, visit-

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/thomas-rochow/

Oasis Landscaping : https://oasislandscaping.ca/

• Started landscaping at a young age, which led to entrepreneurship.
• Faced early challenges but managed to grow despite market downturns.
• Leadership is about caring for your team and developing them.
• Finding the right people is crucial for business growth.
• Diversifying services helped adapt to market demands.
• Automation and AI are being explored for efficiency.
• Personal growth is essential for leading a growing team.
• Setting aggressive goals can drive business success.
• The reality of business ownership includes financial struggles.
• Commitment to the business is necessary for long-term success.

Mickey (00:07)

Good morning everybody, my name is Mickey. I’m your host on today’s podcast called Beyond Page One. Today we’re gonna be joined by Thomas. He’s the founder of Oasis Landscaping, a company built not just on the quality of work, but on deep foundation of integrity and personal growth and strong leadership. Thomas turned a high school job into a thriving multi-service landscaping and hardscape business, all while leaving lessons of elite athletes and construction icons around him. He’s here to talk about the leadership that he has and some of his mentors.

how to push limits physically and mentally and sharpen his entrepreneurial edge. Thomas, welcome. How are you?

Thomas Rochow (00:43)

Awesome.

Good. Thanks. Yeah. Thanks for having me.

Mickey (00:45)

So what what originally drew you to landscaping as a summer job and what made you decide to transform take the step to full-fledged business?

Thomas Rochow (00:53)

Yeah, I had actually from when I was probably 10 or 11, I had a couple, a couple of neighborhood houses that I was mowing lawns for. So I was used to being outside, doing a little bit of, a little bit of labor, making a little bit of money. And then I actually had a neighbor across the street ⁓ through high school that owned a landscape company. So mom and dad kind of pushed me, Hey, you should go work for Ken, you know, work hard, you know, sweat and, know, get a tan and get in shape and make some money. So did that for, yeah, three years through high school.

And then, yeah, after first year of college at Mount Royal, I actually had to do a sustainable business plan for Calgary Business as part of a school project. And after I did that, I sort of thought, why would I go back and work for this guy next summer? should just, I should do this myself. So, started out, you know, I was 19, thought I knew everything and had to wing it for a few years until I at least learned something. And then here we are almost, yeah, 18 years later.

Mickey (01:37)

Thank

That’s awesome. So what would you say some of the earlier roadblocks you faced when you know launching in I think it was 2006, correct?

Thomas Rochow (01:53)

Yeah, as I got set up end of 06, I think 2007 was our first summer. The biggest thing would well actually got pretty lucky because normally it would be that I’m just this young kid showing up and people would think I don’t know what I’m doing. And being 2007 going into 2008, the real estate market was and construction market was flying before everything crashed. So we actually got handed checks just for showing up at that point. So that that was a roadblock that we managed to dodge being

you know, you’re here. You know, you’re the only guy that called us back. You’re the only guys that showed up. So here’s a check in advance. Just get it done like he said you would. And then, you know, spent a couple, a couple too many nights on YouTube learning how to do this stuff. I said I could do, but, ⁓ but, but figured it out. So, so that was, ⁓ that was probably a roadblock that we kind of dodged, but then into 2008, ⁓ right. Real estate market just bottomed out. Everything blew out. but we, you know, stayed

stayed pretty lucky in that we had some good jobs. weren’t really a big company then. It was me and a buddy and a couple staff. So we were doing, you know, jobs that we were hands on on everything. Two, three guys we can just plug away and we didn’t really have the lead of jobs that we have now, but we had enough that we knew that we had work next week and then next week we’d sign another job or two that we kind of had enough that we could keep rolling and just kept moving.

Mickey (03:15)

That’s awesome. That’s really cool. Can you, is there like a pivotal moment or a certain project or a client that you remember where you’re like, okay, we’re on the right track here and you know, this is what I want to be forever.

Thomas Rochow (03:28)

Yeah, I don’t really know, because sometimes you wake up on your own business going, why the hell am I doing this? Rather than, yep, this is it. But yeah, think for probably, I’d say up until 2017, 18, was just working hard, enjoying what I was doing, building cool stuff, being able to look back at even our Instagram over the last 10 years, sort of how it’s progressed in what we’re doing. That’s sort of been a continual.

Mickey (03:35)

Yeah, I don’t get it.

Thomas Rochow (03:54)

I guess continual boost for me that, you know, we’re pretty good at this and should keep doing it. So I think it was around, yeah, 2015, 16 decided, you know, should I go back to school? Should I keep doing this? And really just decided to double down and go for it. And that’s when I also realized they sort of really just owned my job at that point. We, we peaked in 2015, we had like 13 guys and that was hectic and everything was on fire all the time. And, know, it didn’t really have the structure we needed. So

Now in the last 10 years, we’ve been building structure and systems and trying to just build a lot more of a business than, you know, a summer job for a bunch of people that are just going to work hard. So it’s, ⁓ it’s kind of just been a continual reminder that we’re pretty good at this and we’re always getting better. And even one of our company values that we’re just actually in the process of rewriting is continual improvement. just everything we do, let’s, let’s always keep learning. Let’s keep getting better. you know, then onto the next.

Mickey (04:38)

Yeah.

Thomas Rochow (04:48)

and learn from everything that we do.

Mickey (04:49)

Yeah,

that’s awesome. It’s cool when it comes down from the top down, from the leadership down, right? It shows your employees that, this guy cares. We need to care. Because if you don’t, why would they?

Thomas Rochow (04:59)

Yeah.

I think that’s even despite everything that you deal with in small business. You know, we had that year in 2015, we actually had a guy that didn’t pay us a bill that didn’t pay us, you know, north of 180,000 bucks. That was a big, a big punch in the gut. But we, you know, recovered from that. And I think through everything, it’s just always been that I’ll be, you know, shoulder shoulder with the guys jump in, you know, help where I need to. And they do just see that I really.

you know, actually do care. not just, they’re not just worker bees. They’re, you know, they’re part of a team and that’s what we’ve been working on lately too, is really just developing our leaders from within to, you know, whether it’s battle the workforce of people that don’t want to go into trades or just people that aren’t as skilled as we need them to be, is kind of leveling them up and coaching and supporting them to, you know, grow the people that we need because maybe they, they are harder to come by these days.

Mickey (05:27)

Yeah.

Yeah, 100%. mean, finding good talent is always difficult, ⁓ You guys offer a very wide range of landscaping services. What do you feel that truly differentiates your team in a super competitive industry that’s also ⁓ seasonal, right? There’s only so many months out of the year that you’re making your bread.

Thomas Rochow (06:05)

Mm-hmm.

Yeah,

we for the longest time, we only did design build, mostly residential, did some commercial kind of when it came across our plate, but we never really went looking for it. And probably about six years ago, we sort of started to break off from that a little bit to specialize a bit more. So now a lot of guys do everything and it’s hard to be good at everything. So we started doing, we had a crew dedicated just for artificial turf and putting greens because we were seeing a huge

increase in that market. still do lots of that. We have a dedicated irrigation team, supply, install, service, and they work on that. So now with those and then a maintenance division, we’ve got three different divisions that are pretty specialized that only work on, you know, certain clientele, certain projects. And then we do still have design build as our majority, but we’ve sort of diversified a bit so that, so that we are kind of able to bring in.

Less skilled workers teach them one or two things, build them up where they could graduate to our design build if they wanted to, but that’s where you need to kind of know how to do a bit of everything.

Mickey (07:09)

Yeah.

Yeah, that makes sense. How do you balance the day-to-day operations with growth planning for Oasis? It’s hard to juggle.

Thomas Rochow (07:22)

Yeah, so what I it’s and that was those are my hardest two hires and I found them last year actually I’ve got a guy that came over from another company that was maintenance focused maintenance and condos and strata projects and so he came in to work on my hardscape team to learn that side of the business and then we moved him into the operations role over the winter and I have another my top crew leader from last year we put into our production manager role this year that

like trying to scale and keep my sanity without those two guys. I don’t know if I could have done it again this year. one, Joe is overseeing all of our maintenance. He’s sort of the GM of maintenance, but also operations. So he helps me with a lot of the, you know, longer goal growth planning, making sure all our equipment’s working. And then Steve’s in charge of actually managing that production of hitting, hitting our goals, driving the guys more of the, you know, leader on the ground. So.

Finding those people to help me then build and continue to develop our team so it’s not everything on my plate has been huge in the last six to eight months.

Mickey (08:23)

Yeah, that’s awesome. It’s interesting how I speak to many entrepreneurs about business and they say really it’s the people that they surround themselves with. Sometimes being the smartest person in the room, let’s find a new room. Go find help. ⁓ That’s really cool to hear you say that.

Thomas Rochow (08:36)

Yeah.

If I’m the smartest guy

in the room, we’re in trouble. I’ve been trying to, the last three, four years has even just been like, I just need to be less important. Even client contact, it’s like once I’m still in charge of all of our sales at this point, that’s probably our next hire is some sales help. But once we’re shifting to production, it’s that handoff to our production team. They’re gonna take care of you, they’re gonna stay on top of it because if I’m focusing on sales and trying to deliver your project,

Mickey (08:43)

Hahaha

Yeah.

Thomas Rochow (09:05)

one’s gonna fail. So let’s have somebody that takes the reins on that, which at this point is Steve, and he’s doing a great job of delivering those projects where I can then keep designing and selling the next ones.

Mickey (09:07)

Yeah.

That’s awesome. know, landscaping often relies heavily on, you know, referrals and local visibility. What has worked well for you in terms of, you know, digital marketing or word of mouth growth or both ⁓ that has helped you achieve this growth and your plan to continue to grow it?

Thomas Rochow (09:34)

Yeah, early on we had the Calgary Home and Garden Show end of February had always been a really big jump for us. It’s nice and early that we would then get a whole bunch of estimating and design work done in March and April before most people are calling. that was always a really good start early on. And then we’ve found in the last few years it’s just a different clientele than we’re trying to look for. ⁓

pushing to be closer to the higher end of the contractors in the city. So when you’ve got somebody doing a bit of price shopping and they’re getting 10 different estimates, we’re gonna probably be one of the higher ones anyway. So we’ve just kind of shifted to more, yeah, that referral ⁓ brand recognition where people have seen our trucks and trailers, they’ve seen us work in their neighborhood, and then our online. We’ve rebuilt our website, we’re pushing heavy on Instagram, really just trying to show people what we can build because a lot of the times,

People have ideas that they want a cool space in their yard, but they don’t really know or understand what’s actually possible because they haven’t seen it yet.

Mickey (10:35)

Yeah, have you leveraged any new technologies, AI or anything like that to help you with design or growth or even clients?

Thomas Rochow (10:45)

For design, not really,

not yet. Still exploring, it seems like every day it’s changing. we’ve used a lot of chat GPT and built our own GPTs to kind of start to help us build some of those systems to be able to scale. even just things of standard operating procedures, when we’ve got an issue, it’s like, OK, the guys don’t actually know how to do this properly. Let’s lay it out. Let’s use the AI to help us so that we’re not typing. ⁓

Mickey (10:48)

Yeah

Yeah.

Thomas Rochow (11:11)

a full page of what we want done, can just give it a prompt and then tweak it. helping us develop a training program, that’s one of the big things we’re working on over the next six to 12 months internally. And just kind of using it for all of that, I guess all that kind of monotonous typing, planning, or when you just, you kind of have an idea, but you don’t really know how to get it out, is you just throw that prompt in there and it’s like, okay, yeah, that’s kind of what I wanted to say. And then you can tweak it from there.

Mickey (11:11)

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah,

that’s awesome. I find that that’s how a lot of people are using it. It’s really a way to help you get a little bit more creative, right? You have an idea, you punch it in, it gives you back all this information, then you can refine it. That’s awesome.

Thomas Rochow (11:49)

Yeah, I think we’re gonna look

at even just like automation of sales process, right? When we’ve got, you know, an incoming lead, here’s our qualifying questions. You know, we do have things linked up where our admin goes back and forth with them a little bit, but they automatically book in our calendar, sets up a discovery call with me before we get to their site, make sure it’s a good fit. So we’ve got some, we’ve made some baby steps in, you know, kind of automation and working with AI and that kind of, you know.

Mickey (12:11)

Yeah.

Thomas Rochow (12:17)

companies like Pipe Drive and Zapier and stuff, it’s mind-blowing to try and wrap your head around everything that it can do and try to figure out what’s the right stuff for us.

Mickey (12:19)

Yeah.

Yeah, it’s hard. I’m in the same boat as you, where it’s, we’re all constantly, you know, getting leads in trying to figure out how to best automate it, what are the qualifying questions. Because you don’t want to waste people’s time or your time, ⁓

Thomas Rochow (12:37)

Yeah, one

of the that’s worked really well for us now is we only implemented that about four months ago is we have a conversation, qualifying questions, and then we book a discovery call if it sounds like it’s a good fit. So it’s 30 minutes on Zoom, easy for everybody, ⁓ easier for schedules, and we just talk through it more. I explain our process. I have somebody basically brain dump to me what you want in your yard. And we talk about budget, we talk about timing, and sometimes from right there, we know it’s not a fit or we just can’t.

Mickey (12:48)

Yeah.

Thomas Rochow (13:06)

meet the timeline or you know, I’ve got a wedding in my yard in two weeks. Well, that’s not happening. And I don’t want to, I don’t want to put my neck out there and then land on my face. So we, but we found that’s a great way to, like you said, not waste their time and not waste ours is everybody’s busy, right? Family, friends, work, summertime. And if we can get the most out of their time, 30 minutes here or there, find that it is a fit or sometimes we can even price things out.

Mickey (13:11)

Yeah.

Thomas Rochow (13:31)

give you a rough ballpark from

Thomas Rochow (13:42)

I think the biggest thing, at least for me when I started it and I found I completed a couple races and just kind of, know, kept setting goals further down the road was I was able to increase my capacity personally. And I’ve talked to a lot of people with bigger companies, more staff, been in it longer. And the biggest thing that they kept telling me was as your company grows and as you have more people, you have to grow as a leader. And

Thomas Rochow (13:45)

are we

Mickey (14:00)

Thomas, I want to also take a step to your personal challenges. You’ve done Ironman training, which is really cool.

Thomas Rochow (14:08)

doesn’t actually really pertain to the business, it’s all for it in a way of increasing your capacity, know, up early, make your bed, do the workout, you know, eat right, all that kind of stuff. Because if you don’t, can’t, if you can’t up for yourself, then it’s that much harder to show up for everybody else. I think we’ve all probably maybe had a little hangover or two showing up and trying to get through the day and everything’s that much harder.

And I feel like that’s comparable to if you stay the same person and everything else is growing, it’s like, how am I going to show up for 30, 40 staff in a couple of years if I don’t have the capacity personally and mentally to handle what’s coming in? So I think that was probably the biggest thing I learned. And then even just setting goals that maybe seem a little crazy. When I started that, I… What would it have been? End of 2022?

Mickey (14:47)

Yeah. ⁓

Thomas Rochow (14:59)

Just had a shitty year, stressful. We were through winter and I realized, I threw on like 15 pounds and just wasn’t taking care of myself and I was like, what is going on here? And so I did the 75 hard program and worked through that program and it’s just under three months. But then at that point I was like, well now what? So then I had some friends that did a little local triathlon. So I did that and then from there I had some buddies that did Ironmans and they were like, well now you’ve gotta do one of those.

And so setting something sort of six months down the road that seemed a little crazy gave you something to work towards. then you just, you know, right, reverse engineer, figure out how you’re going to get there. And next thing know, you’re at the starting line of an Ironman and you’re like, what have I done? But yeah.

Mickey (15:46)

soon. ⁓

Thomas Rochow (15:47)

Even if, like I find even people are, know, lot of Ironman, during Ironman, you’re not allowed any headphones or any communication devices. So people are like, how do you do that for, you know, six or seven hours without some music or something? And it’s like, well, one, you’re just focused on surviving. but two, it’s, mean, you’re just, focused. So, you know, swimming for 45 minutes and, you know, you’re not, your mind doesn’t really wander. It’s like, you’re focused. You just clear everything.

Mickey (16:09)

⁓ That’s crazy.

Thomas Rochow (16:13)

and I think it’s, one those things that kind of, once you do, whether it’s, whether it’s an iron man or it’s just, I don’t know, going to the gym or, know, just getting a win in whatever you’re trying to do. I think it then shows you that you can do something and then.

to set that next goal, whatever it is, it’s like, hey, well I did that when I didn’t think I could, so maybe I can do that. just, yeah, pushing yourself and again, like we said earlier, just that continual improvement of just trying to be better than you were yesterday.

Mickey (16:30)

Yeah. Yeah, you’re… Yeah. Hey, you’re focused on don’t drown.

Thomas Rochow (16:37)

Yeah.

Mickey (16:38)

You’re a brave man.

Thomas Rochow (16:44)

The people that are paying your bills are the ones calling the shots. I can tell you how many times we’ve had clients that it’s like, I gotta seriously go deal with this right now, but you gotta walk them through it, you gotta figure something out, you gotta find a solution if you wanna get paid. At the end of the day, everybody’s got a boss and it’s somewhere. So I think.

Mickey (16:48)

Don’t. ⁓

Thomas Rochow (17:05)

I think it’s kind of over glamorized a little bit and people don’t realize what it actually takes. Like, there’s a handful of years where I couldn’t even pay myself. Or, you you’re living off credit because the business and the people you need, you know, need to do the work are the ones that need the resources. think I’ve talked, every other business owner I’ve talked to has definitely had a night before payroll where they didn’t know if or how they were gonna make it.

Mickey (17:26)

you

Thomas Rochow (17:32)

that stress keeps you up at night. mean, if you can’t handle a lot of stress and you don’t have a network around you of whether it’s support or mentors or a partner or family, you’re probably not gonna make it. And that’s why all the percentages are so high of businesses that don’t is because it’s way more than people think. So do your homework, make sure you got a credit line and that you’re prepared to probably,

Mickey (17:37)

Yeah.

Thomas Rochow (18:00)

take it on the chin for at least a handful of years before, you know, we’re not flying private and we’re not on the boat all the time. ⁓ No, we’re still, I was still bailing at my house here. It’s been raining in Calgary like crazy. My window was filling up the other day. I’m just like shoveling a trench. was like, I gotta get my guys over here. I don’t like this. This is hard work, you know? Yeah, yeah, I gotta think I got a business that can fix this for me. you know, so it’s it’s way more than people think and it takes and.

Mickey (18:27)

Yeah.

Thomas Rochow (18:27)

you

know, instant gratification, everything seems to be immediate these days. It’s like, you know, it’s not three months, it’s 10 years. It’s get in, grind, keep grinding, and when you think you’re doing all right, something’s gonna slap you in the face, the truck’s gonna blow up, know, someone’s gonna quit on ya, or a client’s not gonna pay, and you just roll with it. You’re the one that loses the most until, you know, maybe eventually one day you

Mickey (18:40)

Yeah.

You’re like, own a business that can

Thomas Rochow (18:56)

Yeah, so we actually just went through a bit of like a 10 year vision for me trying to figure out, again, as an owner, it’s like, why the hell am I doing this still? What does ideal 10 years from now look like if we set that? What does five look like? What does three look like? And what do I have to do between now and Christmas to do that? And so I’ve got some pretty aggressive plans for growth, ⁓ what that really looks like.

Mickey (19:18)

There you go. I like that. I like that.

So looking ahead, what’s next for Oasis? Any new services, markets, you know, or goals on the horizon that you guys have set?

Thomas Rochow (19:24)

in services or markets I don’t really know yet, but know what we have to put in place to be able to

add more people, build our team, build our systems, because one thing I’ve learned, and it’s kind of been pounded in my head over even just this year, is if we stop growing as a company, the thing is we’re gonna have people that have nowhere else to grow here. That I don’t need to have a $100 million landscape company.

Mickey (19:40)

Yeah. ⁓

Thomas Rochow (19:50)

But if I’ve got 50 people that are awesome leaders and they wanna grow, well, if we stop and we’re like, no, we’re big enough, then they’re gonna leave and they’re gonna go somewhere else where they can grow. So I wanna keep building my people, building up teams, and then keep growing the company to a point where those people can keep growing here rather than looking somewhere else or feeling like they’ve kinda tapped out their potential here.

So yeah, so I think the biggest thing short term is I’m kind of working in the background on developing an internal, you know, five year training program. It’s like what, my initial goal is if you’re with me for five years, I want to pay you at least a hundred grand. Here’s your roadmap to get there. Here’s all the skills you’re going to learn in the process. Here’s what you can do. And really just, I’m working to develop that over the last, over the next six months to roll out in the winter for the people that we’ve got and then onboard all of our new staff next year with.

Mickey (20:34)

Hope for seven.

Thomas Rochow (20:43)

bit of a roadmap right here’s here’s what the trades can do and here’s how we’re gonna get you there

Mickey (20:47)

Well said. That’s

Thomas Rochow (20:48)

But yeah, it’s, ChatGPT’s helped me with that one a little bit.

I think if you’re gonna do it, you gotta be all in. For probably six years, I still bartended in the winter and snowboarded and was just kind of working in the summer, laid my guys off, because no one wanted to do snow. But then I realized I was bartending to pay for skids, steers, and trucks. I was like, well, that’s not very smart. I should just use those things to pay for themselves. We’ve now been, I think, 13 years into snow removal.

Mickey (21:05)

Yeah, here’s a step-by-step guide and you follow it and that’s the recipe to success. That’s Very cool. There you go. Last, I really got one last question for you. For our listeners, a takeaway,

just one principle that guided your journey from the side hustle to the full scale business model that you’re at. What would it be?

Thomas Rochow (21:25)

And really part of that too was even just for me, I had this fallback. was like, no, I’ve worked industry. can bartend, I can make some

money. But that’s half in, half out. So once we committed to snow, it was year round. It’s like, let’s turn this into a business. Let’s keep people year round. And so I think really just being all in. The side hustle is good if you’ve got some stability, but when you’re ready to take it to the next level, can’t keep that office job while you’re doing your side hustle. You just gotta.

Got to dive right in or else that safety net is just going to hold you back.

Yeah, no worries. Yeah. ⁓

Yeah, hey, we’re always looking for good people, right? So yeah, you bet. Well, thanks for having me, Mickey. This has been fun.

Mickey (22:05)

100%.

100 % well said Awesome Thomas. Well, thank you so much for coming down today. I really appreciate it I’ll we’ll be posting this on LinkedIn Spotify Apple podcast as well I’ll be linking your LinkedIn and any other socials that you have so for anybody that has any questions To Thomas directly or about the landscaping service, please reach out I’m sure you’ll be happy to chat with you and maybe hire you who knows

Awesome. Thank you so much. Of course.