A survey released last month by the National Federation of Independent Businesses indicates small business optimism is improving, but the levels are still not high enough to show the economy is expanding. “Small Business Optimism Improves, But Don’t Get Too Excited” NFIB The NFIB Index of Small Business Optimism increased 1.8 points from last month to 95.2. This is the... read more
Immigration reform is a perennial issue for the landscape industry. The promise of Congress passing a comprehensive bill to address the nation’s broken immigration system doesn’t come about very often, but it reared its head again this week. Obama: 2-3 months for immigration reform Politico Earlier this week President Obama said legislators on Capitol Hill have only about two to... read more
Work is well underway for the 2014 LM150 list, to be published in June. It’s our annual report of the industry’s largest companies, ranked by annual revenue. Our theme for this year’s coverage is “lessons learned,” and we’re identifying those lessons by asking CEOs on the list, “Knowing what you know now, what what would you do differently when you... read more
The landscape industry has received some interesting outsider attention over the past week. For starters is The Financial Times article about a potential merger between the industry’s two largest players: ValleyCrest Cos. and the Brickman Group. (Read our follow-up report on this topic with industry members’ reactions here.) Next comes a report from financial information company Sageworks, published by both... read more
It can be tough for anyone to keep up with constant changes to social media platforms, let alone someone who doesn’t outsource this function and whose role also entails, you know, running a business. Just when I think we’ve hit our stride here at LM on our Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Google+ pages, someone changes things up on us. That’s... read more
I like a good question. After all, I get paid to ask questions and report on the answers. That’s probably why this Inc. article grabbed my attention. “100 Great Questions Every Entrepreneur Should Ask” Inc. Last year we published the October Business Planner issue of Landscape Management around a similar inquisitive theme. We commissioned a series of articles answering the... read more
