Fall seems to be the season for strategic planning retreats in the green industry. These retreats are opportunities to discuss long-term and short-term priorities, plans and goals. I’m always somewhat surprised when profitability is not called out as a priority, which happens frequently. These companies see profits as essential—in that they would not be able to function for very long... read more
In the March 2016 edition, Phil Harwood discussed how to make your strategy relevant. In doing so, Harwood reference best-selling author Patrick Lencioni and his outstanding model for strategy implementation in his book, “The Advantage: Why Organizational Health Trumps Everything Else in Business.” According to Lencioni, “What leaders must do to give employees the clarity they need is agree on the answers to... read more
If you work long enough in customer service you can end up hating people, but that’s if you lose sight of realities of human nature. Ending up a “hater” is not a healthy career path if your job is account manager (AM). You will not have fun and you will burn out quickly. So it might be worthwhile understanding “human... read more
The more production that each crew can bill out each week, the higher your profits will be by year end. Your overhead has already been covered at this point, so every dollar of operational profit you earn goes right to your bottom line! This has a huge multiplying effect. Here are 15 ways to increase your weekly production and thus... read more
AmericanHort will host its NextLevel event Jan. 18-20 in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. NextLevel is an opportunity to focus on company culture, vision, marketing strategy, succession planning and more, AmericanHort said. “[NextLevel is] one of the only conferences that I attend where I disconnect myself from day-to-day business operations to actually work on my business, and not in my business,” said... read more
Ken Thomas of Envisor Consulting discusses why some landscape companies achieve their dreams, while others struggle to get by. The life cycle of a landscape business goes through three main stages that closely replicate the life cycle of people, Thomas says. The big difference is that unlike a person’s life, where he ages from childhood to adolescence to adulthood, businesses... read more
