In the AG45 Soul Aligned Strategy Podcast hosted by Katherine Breuss, Patti Beres of Be Green Pro shares her entrepreneurial journey. Motivated by her children and a passion for nature, Patty discusses creating a sustainable lawn care business focused on reconnecting people with nature. Emphasizing the value of self-care, soul alignment, and understanding one's 'why', she recounts overcoming business challenges by raising prices and valuing her work. The episode highlights the importance of joy, efficient time management, and sustainable practices in business.
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Katherine Breuss: Welcome everyone to the AG45 Soul Aligned Strategy podcast. I have Patti Beres here with us from Be Green Pro. So I'm gonna hand it over to Patti. I'm gonna let Patti introduce herself and tell us about who Patti is as a human and then also we'd love to hear about your business. So take it away Patti.
Patti Beres: All right. Thank you. I'm so glad to be here today. So I have always just been a lover of nature and so that has really sparked the passion to start my business. But really the inspiration to start my business started with my children and just having a little bit of knowledge about something that I had a great passion to learn more about and Be Green Pro is a business that really strives to bring people together through nature. So we do lawn and landscaping with the idea of being sustainable, but also just reconnecting people with nature, reconnecting people with themselves, with their pets, with their family, through being able to spend more time outdoors and do it safely, healthy, and enjoyably. So I've been in business now for 15 years, and again, I said my children really were the inspiration. And it happened to be, about a February day, 15 years ago, and we were walking through the neighborhood after school. So the dogs, the kids, me walking through the neighborhood in February, late February afternoon, and the ground is still frozen outside and I see a lawn care company performing lawn services and there's that moment in time you might think this is something you only see on TV, but there's a moment in time where time stops for a second. And you realize that life is still going on around you, but for you it's a second that just stops. And you have to really think and evaluate which decision are you gonna make. And my son, I saw this lawn care company doing services and I said, "You know, if we had a lawn care company, we would do things so much better." And my oldest son said to me, "Well, mom, then why don't we?" And that moment when time stopped, I had to evaluate, well, if I do nothing right now, I teach my kids that we spout off our mouths and we create more of a problem. Or we can take the knowledge that we have and the abilities that we have and we can make a difference. We can do something about it. And so that kind of wraps up the story of why the business started and I guess who I am as a person. So I really do take to heart, you know, the little things that we can do in life to make a big difference. It's not the huge impact that one person makes, but the little drops of water that you do to fill a cup. The cup feels a lot faster when a lot of people put each single drop in. And that's kind of how I run my life and run my business and how it all started.
Katherine Breuss: I love it. I do remember the story when you and I were speaking in the coffee shop, and I really love that. And not only what it says about you and how you show up as a business owner, but also as a person. And a parent and just like that lesson or that teaching, not just through saying it, but by you actually doing it. How you showed your child and your entire family how to be in the world. Like I just think that is so super cool.
Patti Beres: Thank you. I am a really big believer that you just have to try it. You know, there wouldn't be any inventions if we all waited for someone else to learn how to do it. So you don't have to know how to do everything. You just have to have a will and a passion to take one step forward and to get help. I really believe that my success really depends on the people that are around me that help me do things better than I know how to do them. So it's a combination of just being willing to try it and then seeking information from people that might have better knowledge than you do.
Katherine Breuss: Well, it's so clearly, also, you took a bet on yourself. So clearly. There's like this entrepreneurial spirit that's within you because not everybody would, you know, have that conversation with their child or anyone and then be like, "Huh. You know, I'm gonna do it. I'm gonna actually like, not only take betting on yourself, but taking a risk." I mean, there's risk and I actually think there's a little bit of crazy involved with people who are a bit of entrepreneurial spirit. But I mean, hats off. I just think that is really cool. And that leads me into, it sounds like you approach life and your business very soul aligned or as soul aligned as you can. And so how would you define soul aligned?
Patti Beres: I think that's really a great question, and you're right, I do often approach life and business much the same way. And I think that is part of being so aligned with your business is that it has to start out with something you're passionate about. And again, it doesn't mean that you have to know how to do everything, but I do think it's important that you have a why and know how that why applies to your business. And for me, it's passion about nature and passion about connection and just that balance between people and nature. We both have needs and I am a really big believer that both people and nature can coexist and still have all of their needs met. It's not about, you know, it not ever taking a resource from nature, it's not about having some of the comforts that, you know, it's not about taking away some of our comforts. It's just about how do we do it with respect for the resources and the nature around us. And so I do really think that's an alignment that sparks my desire to come into work every day, to connect people with nature and to really move that movement forward. And for me it's the bigger picture, I think the bigger passion isn't really just about lawn care. Like I didn't wake up as a child one day and say, "Hey, I'm gonna own a lawn care company." That was never really it for me, but this lawn care company is a way to fulfill my passion of really aligning nature with the spirit of how do we connect better and I had something I was just gonna share with you about that, and it just slipped my mind. But that happens to me all the time on the podcast.
Katherine Breuss: Oh, I know. It was really about how do we live more sustainable lifestyles as people. And sustainable can mean, you know, a lot of different things. It can mean health, it can mean longevity, it can mean better. And I think there's a little bit of all three of those that go along with my passion for what I do. So that really aligns me in so many different ways with, and it's not just about my customers either. It's about how do I help people that are part of the Be Green Pro team to be more live more healthy sustainable lifestyles. How do we connect better with creating better jobs and better employment? And so. Yeah, I think that's a big part of what aligns me and keeps my soul thriving.
Katherine Breuss: And you used the word sustainable, which you're just speaking my language, Patti, because when, I mean from my side in the business that I run and have been doing it in different ways for over 30 years, when people are more soul aligned and they incorporate that into their strategy and their life or their business, it's more sustainable. They're more like the business is more sustainable because they're not burning out and they understand the why. And I love that you said the why. And with that, how would you describe the benefits of the why? Like some people might be like going, "Okay, well, who cares really about the why?" Like what, what do you see are the benefits of really understanding your why?
Patti Beres: Well, at the end of the day, we only have so many days, so many years, so many minutes to spend our lives, and I think we often forget that we spend probably more time with our work family than we do our real family. And so if you think about that aspect of how much time you spend doing the work you do. I hope that you really think about the joy that comes from doing that work. I think the big reason behind the why is how do you fulfill the joy in your life when you're not with your home family. People talk about work life balance and I'm just not a big believer in that. I bring my work into my home life every day. It's part of the fabric of my soul and who I am. And some people go to work and they can leave it behind. It's a job. But I think when you're an entrepreneur. It really is more, it has to be more than a job. Again, it has to be a passion. It has to be a soul alignment reason for why you get up and do what you do every day because it's hard. It's a lot of decisions that are difficult. It's a lot of people circumstances that are difficult. It's designing your marketing, which is difficult. And you have to find joy in at least finding, if it's not, you know, if it's not the exact thing you do every day, you still have to find the joy in finding the clients, the people to do the work. There has to be, there has to be a joy and a spark and a reason to keep doing it. And I loved what you said before. I think there's a little bit of crazy, I definitely think that's true. And along with the crazy goes a little bit of fun. Yes. You know, you have to have a little bit of fun and I think that also leads into having the joy and the passion about what you do.
Katherine Breuss: Yeah. Very. Yes. That's really cool. You're speaking my language, like everything that's coming outta your mouth, I'm like, "This is awesome." And so to that. You know, business is hard. Like there, you know, and it's not, you're not saying I'm, I'm assuming Patti, you're not saying that every single day you're jumping around with joy. Like, you know, like there are times where it's really hard and, and to that, is there a time that you'd like to share with all of us that you look back and you go, "Man, that that was a real challenge or maybe you took a wrong direction or something really, it was hard and you weren't necessarily, you know, going joy."
Patti Beres: Right. Absolutely. And I think joy does play into those decisions. I think when you evaluate yourself at the end of a day or an end of a month or an end of a quarter, and you have to really look at, you know, where is the joy leaving you? And there are times where you can really pick that up, and then that's time for some changes. That's time for really looking at your business and figuring out where am I going, what am I doing? How can I do it different? How can I do it more efficient? How can I do it better? And I think for me, one of those times that I really remember, because it is a bigger picture thing, right? Like you're saying, it's not joy every day. It's hard work, but at the end of the day or the month or the quarter or the year, it should be, the times that you can remember are better than the times that you are finding not joy in what you do. And I think for me, one of those big realizations, I think it was 2018 and it was a moment in time where I started really saying, "Boy, the work is longer and harder than what is paying off for me." I know that I was working, you know, probably 80-hour weeks. And I really wasn't even taking a paycheck home at the time. I was making sure everybody else got paid, but when it came to me, there just wasn't enough. There wasn't enough dollars left at the end of the month to pay myself. And I had to really look and evaluate and say, "Why am I doing this anymore? Am I getting joy out of it? Yes, I was helping people. That's great. But at some point you also have to make sure that you're helping yourself." And so that was a big turning point for me that I really realized that it wasn't sustainable anymore. I wasn't having fun. I wasn't doing justice to my family when I did leave work. And I really realized that I needed help. I needed help from more than I could get from my team and more than I could do for myself. And that's when I actually got a business coach and for the first time, I really wish I had done that sooner. Was it a mistake? No. 'cause I think I had to really learn for myself what my boundaries were and what couldn't I go past. And so that was when somebody gave me this analogy that, you know, even the best athletes, you know, your favorite football player or basketball player, they have a number of coaches that support them on a daily basis for different things. So if that's true of one of the most talented people that you know, then why wouldn't it be true for a business owner as well? And I really took that to heart. And a lot of those players have more than one coach. You know, they have one for conditioning, they have one for strength, they have one for playing. So sometimes with a business you need that too. Sometimes you know, a smaller business might just need initial coaching that kind of moves you to through a point or to a point that you're getting to go, but as you grow, you might need financial coaching, you might need you might need strategy coaching, you might need all different kinds of things. And to say that you have all of that talent bottled up inside you, well that's a pretty talented person. I wanna meet that person. So I think humility in that is really something that you have to come to that point where you humble yourself enough to say, "This isn't working for me anymore, and I need help."
Katherine Breuss: Well, again, continuing to speak my language. Now I'm really curious because I know there are a lot of business owners out there who have experienced or are currently experiencing not paying themselves enough. So how did you get out of that? Like, what would be like one piece of advice or two pieces, you know, two pieces of advice to shift so that you can pay yourself?
Patti Beres: Well, I think I learned to flip some things around for myself and my strategies. There's a strategy that says you have to pay yourself first. And I always thought that you really had to pay yourself last. And when you start flipping your strategies around that you are an important part of your business. I think we forget that. I think we think, you know, the customers are the most important, or your product or your, even your team members or just you think of everything before yourself. But you started this business for a reason and it was about passion and it was about maybe helping people. We all start businesses for different reasons, but they're all very important reasons that catapulted you to take on this experience. And so you have to put yourself back in that equation and make sure that the reason the business started, which is you, really is taken care of and stays in a position where you are joyful and passionate and it goes back to that whole analogy that you can't take care of anybody unless you start taking care of yourself. You can't serve customers unless you can take care of yourself. So really how do you do that better? And one of the ways, another thing that I really learned about that, one of the ways that I really started to turn this around was I had to realize my value. You can't always cater. Well, it depends on the structure of your business. I mean, some businesses are based on low pricing and you do that by giving up some other aspect of serving people. But my business was really about giving better service, giving quality, product quality service, and you can't do that at the cheapest price. And so I really learned a lot about that value does not mean low price. Value is really a compilation of what you offer for the price that you can give it at. And so I really, one of the things I learned is that I had to raise my prices and that gave me. You think that you're going to have a big fallout from that, but really you find that if you have great value and you're offering people what they want at a price that is going to, I don't wanna say it's competitive with with what's out there, but it's a value that's different and it gives them a solution to what they want. I think you have to have to give people what they need at a price that's fair, but that doesn't mean cheap. And so in order to, in order to give people what they needed and sustain my business and my employees and myself, I really had to raise prices. And I found that the few people that did leave me, they probably weren't my best customers. They were not in alignment with what I offered. And so the customers that stayed with me, I could do better work for for maybe a few less customers, but then we also had to work a little less, right? So we're raising our prices, we're getting the right customers who are in alignment with what we do, and we're working a little less. Hard to get that. So it's, it's all a trickle down effect. And then when you start thinking like that, what is the values that my service offers that my customers not value as far as cheap, but what are the values that they want from a company like me? And so we started getting better customers that were willing to pay the prices that we needed. And, and just really thinking about that on a yearly. Yearly level. And I think one more thing to add about that with pricing is, I think this is something that a lot of companies struggle with is how do we raise our pricing every year? Do we raise our pricing at all? And I wanna say the worst year that I've ever had as a business owner was the year that I decided not to raise pricing. And how crazy is it to think that all the pricing around us is going up and yet we shouldn't raise our pricing? You're not making any friends by doing that. You can't serve people better by shortchanging yourself. And in the end, your business is gonna suffer. And then again, that trickles down to your employees are suffering and your clients are going to suffer. And again, if your employees don't stay with you because they can't get raises and, you know, all of their costs are going up to, you're going to have to figure out how to pay a new employee and trust me, you're gonna have to pay them more. People coming into the business that you're hiring new, they're not gonna be hired at the same price that you hired someone three years ago. So it, and you have, there's the cost to having to retrain them. So just paying your people right, charging the right prices, and serving your customers well, they will be willing to pay the price increase that you have to do every year.
Katherine Breuss: Yeah. Oh, again, I hear so many business owners who struggle with this and you use the word worth, the words worth and value and you, you started with you and you know, you said it has to start with you first and actually understanding your own value and your own worth. And then it's, you know, then looking at the business and aligning that, because it does, like you said, it has such a huge trickle effect. If you aren't attracting the right customers, you know, that's no fun. Like, no, that's no fun. And then the employees, if you're attracting the wrong employees, that's no fun. And so that is really great. And you used also time, which I think you know, a lot of people complaint, or I shouldn't say complaint, but maybe, you know, they are, they struggle with time, you know? Have you ever heard anyone unless maybe they're retired, go "I have so much time, I don't know what to do with it." It's normally the opposite. So you made some great points earlier about you might as well be spending your time in more joy than not, because you're right, we spend most of our time at work. So time is a limited commodity and we all know that intellectually, but unfortunately so many of us don't align how we spend our time with what's important to us.
Patti Beres: There's a really old cliche about cutting down a tree. I'm not gonna remember it exactly, but would you rather use a dull axe and spend an hour cutting down the tree or would you rather sharpen the axe for 10 minutes and spend 10 minutes cutting down the tree? And I love trees. In fact, I'm one of those crazy things about me is that I really think I can talk to trees and I know anybody can talk to trees, but I really think trees talk back to me. So call me a little crazy. That's true. And I don't love cutting down trees. But, you know, that analogy really works well in a business situation. And time is money. Another old cliche, which is totally true. Time is money. So would you rather spend your time in inefficiently and doing things that you don't love to do, or would you rather take a look at how do you do them better and more efficiently and enjoy what you do more?
Katherine Breuss: Hmm. I love it. This is the perfect spot to end the podcast, even though I could sit and talk with you for a very long time on this. One thing I do, I just wanna reemphasize what your business does, which I do love. Is, it is all pet friendly and it's organic and it's good. It's this coexisting. So, you know, you, you don't want to, I guess kill everything in sight to make our lives better. And so you found a way to, for us to coexist with nature through the products and, and the way that you landscape, the way that you do the winter and the shoveling and all of that, that I saw. And so I think that's really important to point out. What do you wanna add on that? 'cause I think it's really important.
Patti Beres: Yeah. Thank you. You really hit on something that is part of our philosophy is that we focus on growing rather than killing. And everything we do here is based on being either organic, all natural, or low environmental impact. So, we really do produce results and it's really is more about how do we do that with the least negative effect on the environment. We wanna produce results and I think there's a really bad stereotype about organic not being as effective. And it's actually really the opposite in this industry, at least if you think about like your body for in example. Because all living things need certain things to thrive. And if you think about your own body, your own body thrives when you eat well, you sleep well, you build your immune system, you get some exercise. And it's the same with lawn care. It's your body doesn't love it when you dose, douse it with a bunch of chemicals and think, you know, you're gonna be super healthy. It's a combination of the care that you provide. And so that's really, we combine science with nature and we really provide the most, the greenest results on the block using the most effective and natural products possible.
Katherine Breuss: Love it. Oh my God. That's so cool. Do you come out to the Milwaukee area?
Patti Beres: Absolutely. We sure do.
Katherine Breuss: Very cool. I am one that needs, uh. Some help with my lawn and I would like to do it in a sustainable, coexisting way.
Patti Beres: Absolutely.
Katherine Breuss: Patty, thank you so much for joining us. This has been such a wonderful conversation and I really appreciate your time.
Patti Beres: Thank you so much for having me on the show.
