Meet Kyle Gravel

We were lucky to catch up with Kyle Gravel recently and have shared our conversation below.

Kyle , looking forward to learning from your journey. You’ve got an amazing story and before we dive into that, let’s start with an important building block. Where do you get your work ethic from?

Growing up I was fortunate to have many great roll models, not only within my family but outside of it as well within our community, friend groups, etc… I was always around folks that worked long days, multiple jobs especially in blue collar jobs. My parents had two kids to raise, myself and my younger brother. They had to work hard to provide for us and to give us the quality of life they wanted us to have. Getting to experience the fruits of their labor and how they got it really instilled in me that hard work and spending your money smart are a few of the keys to having a successful life. I was always fascinated with making money even at a young age I always had some sort of hustle I was trying to create to make some money to buy stuff I wanted or to save it up towards a larger financial goal. My father told me I’ll provide the roof over your head and all the necessary stuff for school and life but anything else you want that’s up to you. And so began my obsession with doing anything to make a few bucks!

Thanks, so before we move on maybe you can share a bit more about yourself?

My story is a long one but to keep it as brief as I can, I’ll start with my development in high school because I want readers to know that where you start might not be where you’ll end up. I was born and raised in Central Maine, I’m currently 28 years old. In high school in I was mowing some lawns to get some extra cash, my father would drive me around prior to me having my license and I’d cut some lawns and he would do some line trimming or read uncle henrys (a local classifieds publication, like a paper version Facebook marketplace but with no pictures). As things started to get more serious with this lawn cutting venture he started to jump in more and eventually pulled me aside to let me know at this rate we would need to get some insurance and really start doing this by the book. When we started, it was a few select lawns for people we knew or neighbors, etc… but now we have 15-20 accounts. My father offered to re-open his old mowing companies name back up and legitimize it for me, from that point on Evergreen Yard Care was revived after he had shut it down for a good 15 years earlier to pursue other ventures. Originally founded in 1984 as a side hustle for my father “Rocky” who was also a full-time firefighter for 38 years of his almost 40-year career in the fire service. But I was still in high school and although I had a great school system and teachers around me the theme was four-year college, or you will fail. After hearing that enough times you believe it especially when teachers throw lawn care and more blue-collar jobs under the bus all the time. So, I started to find other things I was good at to fit the bill of going to college. I developed and always had a knack for photography & and video production and at the time I had the idea in my head that yeah your right lawn care won’t provide me with a successful life so I signed up jr year of high school to spend half of my day at the tech center or vocational school for the last two years of high school where I could get some college credits and learn a skill. There I developed my skills in videography and applied to some colleges to obtain a degree in that field. While I worked on finishing high school my lawn care company stayed consistent, but we never really grew the company bigger at that time. I went off to college in 2014 to pursue new media communications at SMCC a college in South Portland Maine. Once I started my college career I would come home on the weekends and work with my dad mowing lawns and doing clean ups in the spring and fall. In the winter I would work for local plowing and snow removal companies local to South Portland so I could stay closer to school where I was also starting to get some freelance work in the world of new media and videography. I had some amazing mentors and teachers from SMCC and cannot thank them enough for having faith in me as I grew my skill set. Once I ran out of money for college, I didn’t want to take a loan out, so I decided that because videography doesn’t really require a degree, and I was getting a lot of work from it I was going to drop out and enter the workforce fulltime. But I always kept working with my father mowing and kept working for snow removal companies down in the Portland area when I wasn’t on a set filming. It was at this point I really started to 1. understand that there is money to be made in blue collar work and especially property services and it was rewarding work. and 2. Being in the film world I was traveling a lot which was fine but I was also away from family which I wanted to be closer to, I have some older relatives and I just wanted to be closer and more flexible with my schedule in case something came up. Plus, although I was having fun in the video world to make a good paycheck, I had to work gigs that I wasn’t passionate about or just weren’t artistically meeting my needs for fulfillment. To sum it up I had a chat with my father about going full time into the now family business of mowing, cleanups, plowing, etc… At first, he was reluctant to this but we finally made the call in early 2018 and formed Evergreen Yard Care into an S-Corp and he gave me some percentage of the company. I went to work growing the company in Central Maine and then due to the fact I was still living in Southern Maine and had lots of connections I decided to open up another branch of the company built from scratch down in Saco crashing my uncle and aunts’ property to store my truck, trailer, mower, tools behind their house. In about 2019 I had to stay in Saco all week long instead of my usual work in Winslow 3-4 days a week and then work down in Saco building my new location up pretty much solo the other 3 days of the week bouncing back and forth all the time. (Each location is about 1hr 20min from each other give or take). As I started to develop myself & my leadership style throughout 2018/2019 by lots of reading, finding other mentors, YouTube, and anything else I could use to advance my knowledge, I did so I could better manage the company and people. In the spring of 2019 in front of my uncle’s house I conducted my first interview to hire my first full time team member in Saco, whom I still have on my team today. The whole Saco location for Evergreen was ran out of a 10×10 former chicken coup that had one outlet to run our timeclock and our compressor on and enough storage for some hand tools and all the office stuff was ran out of the cab of my truck 90% of the time. Interviews were informal either in my truck or outside, but we made it all work somehow. As we grew more and more, and I hired another few people to start expanding the company we were running out of space at my uncles. Now having a few trucks, trailers, mowers, etc… We needed more room. So, my cousin who lived about a mile or two down the road said we could keep stuff at his place outside if we needed too. So, my first big challenge rose up how do we be efficient with our trucks in one location and our time clock, hand tools, and mowers in another? Well, it wasn’t going to work long term. In early 2020 amidst the start of COVID pandemic we found a new location more central to my clients and more space for us in the next town over for rent from another landscape company. So, we upgraded from two small parking areas to one large and had the space to put a 45ft conex box for our dry storage and “office”. This really increased our efficiency and helped us and our team stay organized better and we finally had our own space. Unfortunately, after being there for a year almost two years, we were starting to outgrow the space now having a team of 4-6 team members, three trucks, three trailers, a mini loader, and other equipment we started to have the conversation about finding a new home someplace a bit more built out with an office, rest rooms, etc… well, the decision was made for us by our landlord who was selling the property. We were given 30 days’ notice to find someplace else. Thankfully through some connections I was able, during COVID and high property values, to find a place that would be perfect for our growing company! We signed a lease for a property in South Portland which is where we’re located today and continue to grow. We’ve been through it all as a team growing, downsizing due to staffing shortages, growing again and encountering growing pains. Having to rethink how business is done with this ever-changing world to stay out front and everything in between. Long 16-18hrs days and days where I thought we would call it quits, wondering if this was where I’m supposed to be. All those thoughts have gone through my head over the years. But we keep on striving to be the best and provide the highest level of service for our clients, building a solid team around me to help steer the ship, and making inroads with the community around us, I wouldn’t trade it for the world. Managing my team and growing with them has been an amazing experience to look back on. Today we still have both locations, 16 team members, 10 trucks, all the supporting equipment, doing 1 million plus in sales and we keep going higher and higher every year! I attribute a lot of our success to our culture, management style, and the fact that we just plain care about those working with us. You can always follow us on Instagram @evergreenyard or our website www.evergreenyardcare.com.

There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?

Perseverance: is a big one when starting a company or a business. Learning how to deal with it and work around it will help you keep on moving the needle in the right direction. Don’t let setbacks own you find ways to overcome.

Honesty: Always be honest and transparent with your clients or people around you. Don’t oversell and don’t trash talk other competitors in the market. I’ve always maintained honest talks with everyone even when it could make me look bad. But people value that more than ever in a world of lies, and deception.

Educate: Always be educating yourself on expanding your knowledge in your industry but also your knowledge in sharpening your management, mindset, organizational skills, etc… And always try to provide your team members or clients with education. Let them decide after you educate them if they want to proceed, don’t be pushy. From my experience free education has always led me to closing more deals.

Take the time out of your day to reflect on where you’ve been and where you want to go. Make time to take care of yourself and those around you. Keep cultivating new relationships but also enhance those you already have. It can be easy to get caught up in the day to day stuff and time goes by very fast. You only get one shot to experience this, I’ve learned to give up financial gains to have experiences with those I care about. And that will add to your overall quality of life. Don’t focus on your losses find out why it happened and improve moving forward. Just keep moving and do what makes you happy.

Awesome, really appreciate you opening up with us today and before we close maybe you can share a book recommendation with us. Has there been a book that’s been impactful in your growth and development?

A book/podcast I find a lot of value in is anything Jocko Willink writes or talks about. I connect with his mission and his leadership style. Extreme Ownership I’ve read 2-3 times, along with The Dichotomy of Leadership. In the book he talks about taking ownership for your actions and decisions no matter the outcome to better yourself and your team. Giving clear, simple objectives to guide your team on a new mission so each member understands his or hers roll and objective for that task you’re having them do. Have a WHY behind what you do and make it clear and simple. I think his stuff is a great read and his podcasts are very eye opening.

Traction by Gino Wickman is another key book that has helped shape my organization and my leadership style also and this book is a MUST read for any new entrepreneur to jumpstart your vision. This is a book my father and I read at the same time so we could work though some of the exercises in the book. Shaping the vision for the organization we were creating.

Rise and Grind & The Power of Broke by Daymond John are two books I also recommend from a very inspirational figure in the world of entrepreneurship. Growing up watching Shark Tank is what kickstarted a lot of my drive in high school around starting a business.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.evergreenyardcare.com
• Instagram: @evergreenyard
• Linkedin: Kyle Gravel
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@evergreenyardcare6001