MY STORY

Back in 1996, Ian McCarthy was a partner at an accounting firm on Nantucket Island, providing accounting services for a multitude of small businesses. One of his clients was a small landscaping company that had a deal to sell the business, which was nearly completed. Just prior to the start of the spring season, the deal fell through, and Ian's client offered to sell it for a pittance.

Ian and a couple of friends decided to buy the landscaping business. Ian knew the books and billing, but had to learn the ins and outs of landscaping as the company grew over the next several years. Ian implemented a pioneer CRM for the industry at the time, CLIP Software, and became a CLIP certified trainer. One of Ian's clients was Shayne Newman, who would go on to become the President of the National Association of Landscape Professionals. Ian met several influential people at CLIP conferences, most notably Dave Tucker, Tony Bass, Rick Carver, and Marty Grunder.

Ian’s wife, Tiffany, was from Cape Cod, so Ian began spending more time on the mainland. As a result, he began to consider expanding his landscaping business to Cape Cod. To help make the right decision, Ian hired Marty Grunder to consult with him. Dave Tucker, who founded CLIP Software, taught Ian the relationship between man-hours and job pricing, piecework, routing and scheduling, and numerous other landscape-related financial concepts. He is now retired and is the author of the business book The Beautiful Business.

Tony Bass was a landscape contractor from Warner Robins, Georgia, who developed the revolutionary maintenance vehicle system called the Super Lawn Truck. Ian visited Tony in Georgia and bought several trucks for his company. Tony also taught other contractors and developed that into a consulting company, Tony Bass Consulting, and is the co-author of the E-Myth for Landscape Contractors. He continues to operate Super Lawn Trucks today.

Rick Carver was a landscaper from New Castle, Delaware, who guest spoke at a CLIP conference about a new concept he brought to Dave Tucker's attention. He called it the COMPASS System, which stood for Complete Operations Management Program and Systems Solution. The system revolved around paying employees for the number of hours, or "points" for the work completed, even if it exceeded the hours worked. He received national attention for it (read more here) and began offering workshops, which Ian attended.

After discovering the Dingo mini skid loader at the New England Grows convention in 1999, Ian sought out Bob Maffei, who had implemented a fleet of dingos in his Cape Cod landscaping company, Maffei Landscape Contractors. Ian helped train Bob’s staff on CLIP. Ian and Bob became friends and attended several industry events together over the next several years. Later, Ian subcontracted work from Bob and also competed with him for projects.

In 2003, Ian met Peter Cook, a business developer from The Valleycrest Companies (now Brightview). Peter was looking to downsize from corporate Boston to the Cape and thought he could help Ian's company. From 2004-2006, the company began winning projects from landscape architects, designers, and builders on Cape Cod and Nantucket. The pinnacle project was the Westmoor Club in Nantucket - a $1.5 million landscape that was started in February and completed on July 3rd, just in time for their grand opening.

In 2006, Ian decided to invest in a semi-pro basketball team in Massachusetts. Kobe Bryant’s father, Jellybean Bryant, was the coach. After a year of managing the team and realizing that a change of venue was needed, the team relocated to Manchester, New Hampshire. Ian decided to leave his landscaping business behind and move full-time with the team.

While in New Hampshire, Ian worked on the construction management team at the prestigious design-build firm ZEN Associates Inc. in Woburn, Massachusetts.

In 2010, he received a lucrative sponsorship deal from Rogers, a Canadian media company, to relocate the team to Saint John, New Brunswick. The Saint John Mill Rats were born and were soon playing in front of thousands of fans at Harbour Station arena.

The following summer, Ian and the Halifax team owner, Andre Levingston, announced the formation of the National Basketball League of Canada Inc. For five years, Ian served as the Chief Operating Officer of the NBL Canada and the President and General Manager of the Mill Rats.

After his third child and first daughter, Hazelle, was born in 2014 in Massachusetts, his family elected to remain stateside. Ian spent the next year and a half commuting between Canada and the U.S. In 2016, he informed his fellow board members in the league, his partners in the team, and fans and friends that he would be returning to the United States to join them.

While crabbing for fun that summer on Cape Cod, Ian reconnected with Bob Maffei. Ian joined Maffei Landscape Contractors in the fall of 2016, managing the construction division.

That winter, he held a reunion for former employees of his old company at his home. At the reunion, his former employees urged him to restart a landscape company so they could work together again. It was that expression of loyalty that sparked the idea that would lead to Blue Claw Associates.

After a year at Maffei Landscape Contractors, Ian resigned as the company was being sold to Chenmark Capital, later becoming Outerland. Bob Maffei now operates The Maffei Companies a landscape industry consulting firm.

Ian began planning the launch of Blue Claw Associates in the winter of 2017, building the social media, websites, and marketing. After a snowy spring, the business began working for clients in April of 2018. The first year, the business subsisted on word of mouth while Ian continued to approach landscape architects, designers, and builders as he had been taught by Peter Cook.

After 8 months of operation, the business had achieved $300,000 in completed work and received its first major project opportunity. It was a $600,000 hardscape project on Nantucket through a prominent landscape architect. Ian scaled the company rapidly to staff the project, and at the same time began winning other projects. He leveraged social media to demonstrate corporate credibility to other landscape design professionals, which fueled more growth. He was able to reclaim a number of his former key employees. The first big Nantucket project ended up being $1.8 million in completed work. The company grew to $2.6 million in revenue in 2019 and then doubled again in 2021 to $5 million and had reached $12 million by 2024.

Currently, the company operates Blue Claw Associates, which provides landscape construction and maintenance to Cape Cod, Nantucket, and Metro Boston.

In 2021, he launched Blue Water Pools and Spas, which builds and maintains gunite pools and spas.

In 2022, Ian purchased Boston Tennis Court Construction in Hanover. The company builds and maintains tennis courts, pickleball courts, and basketball courts throughout New England.

In 2019, Ian joined the online Facebook group, The Goat Gang, a private subscription group for landscape company owners. The founder of the group, Tigran Gertz, owns and operates Applewood Landscaping in San Jose, California. The Goat Gang allows company owners to share experiences, wins & losses, learn from each other, and help each other grow. After sharing his project videos on the Goat Gang, Ian received overwhelming interest from members seeking him out to learn more. This led to dozens of visits to Cape Cod, digital communication & calls, and eventually, Ian organized an event.

The event was called Building Better Connections, and the first one was held in September 2021. Over 35 company owners came to Cape Cod and Nantucket to tour Ian’s job sites and attend an all-day conference. The focus was on teaching attendees how to market their business to landscape architects, designers, and builders. Watch the trip highlights video created by Tigran.

After this event, Ian realized the need to make his 30+ years of business experience more available to other company owners. Thus, The Blue Claw Group was created to serve the needs of fellow company owners by helping them achieve success, avoid pitfalls, and make more profit.

Several months later, Ian hosted the first Know Your Numbers workshop in Baltimore, MD. Over the next several years, he would travel the country, holding workshops in dozens of locations and via Zoom. Ian has also consulted with numerous companies from around the US, ranging from single operators to those generating well over $10 million in revenue.

Ian has consulted with several company owners who themselves went on to operate consulting and teaching services, including: TIGRAN GERZ, TYLER LINK, TANIELA FEIFIA, NICK LIPUT, ROBERT MAFFEI

MY STORY

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