Marie started her estate care business when she was in high school. Growing up in an affluent community where her father was essentially the mayor, she was well-connected and had no shortage of potential clients who all needed her services. Over the next 20 years, she grew her business into a large full-service landscape management business, employing over 100 people... read more
Heading into a new year, I’d like to ask you three simple but powerful questions regarding your business plans for 2021. It has been my experience that plans are developed with good intentions and sometimes with significant cost. But often times, these plans are abandoned along the way, fading into the background and then disappearing altogether when we get busy.... read more
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
