Recently, we had a plumbing issue at the house. I began to research how to make the repair myself but decided to call a local plumbing company instead. A service technician from a local plumbing company showed up at my door. He was on time and seemed like a perfectly nice young man. He even had those little shoe covers.... read more
Rolling the H-2B stone up the Hill again After a 35-day partial government shutdown, Congress passed a temporary three-week spending bill without — you guessed it — H-2B reform language. It was a long shot that H-2B would be included in the temporary spending bill, but advocates for the program, including AmericanHort and the National Association of Landscape Professionals put... read more
I was doing some discovery work with a new client, our first meeting together. She said, “Marketing is difficult.” Marketing used to be easy. You could pay for an ad and recoup its cost plus a profit. This was the power of a full-color Yellow Page ad. The more you paid the more you got back in return. Marketing is... read more
Last week I spent some time with Michael Hommel, president of Designs by Sundown (Denver). He spoke at my third annual “Power of Collaborative Leadership” conference in Atlanta. What gets Michael angry and disappointed? It’s when he visits a competitor’s job site, and sees that they are doing work just as good as his work, or perhaps better than his... read more
As the new year begins, it’s a good time to refocus on our goals for the upcoming year. What do we want to accomplish? What are the big strategic goals? What are the sales goals, production goals and profit goals? What do we want to accomplish in our personal lives this year? Perhaps you worked on your goals for this... read more
A tentative agreement to double the number of H-2B visas and implement other reforms to the guest worker program did not move forward in December, as hoped, with critical federal budget bills. The package of H-2B reforms was slated to be included with a bill to fund the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which has been without a fiscal year... read more
