The sky isn’t falling… but we are. Literally every landscape and snow company is having some form of this conversation as we face the uncertainty of this upcoming season. Sure, businesses have highs and lows. Champion a cause long enough and you will live to see, and lead through, true disaster – an equipment malfunction […]
As much as the flurry of opportunity and growth happening in pockets of the industry is exciting, we carry a responsibility as owners and sales teams to make sure we only choose good work out of the pool. “A dollar is a dollar” is nowhere near true in landscape sales! Time crunches can tempt us […]
After speaking with business owners during the winter snow blast that affected much of the Midwest and South, the question came up: “What do we do when there is nothing to do?” The power was out, employees could not make it to work, and (in the South) we simply didn’t have the right tools. (Round […]
The old grill master’s lesson for steaks is this… If you start with average cuts of meat, even if you follow the process flawlessly, you will only end up with an average steak. If instead you start with great cuts, even if you only get the process “mostly right” you will still end up with […]
Consistently repeatable success beats everything. Most of the truly great landscape and snow teams stake their flag at the top of this hill. A company’s ability to accurately price an offered scope of work sets the tone for everything that follows. Price too low and you lose money. Price too high and your competitors win […]
“Spring is coming.” Some of the emotion for those three words is new and exciting. A forecast with no snow. Birds’ songs returning. A twinge of burnt dust coming off sharpened mower blades. Mix gas from the maintenance bay as single stroke handheld engines wake up from winter hibernation. A new year for our brand. […]
We need to face it: The current labor shortage in the landscape and snow industry is here to stay for a while. We have a “perfect storm” of reduced foreign seasonal worker visas, increased unemployment benefits, a recession market, and wariness toward heightened infectious risk at essential service businesses. It all adds up to quite […]
We believe that values-driven leadership teams are redefining success in the industry. While all companies love the journey of mastering our craft, the compass of rising market leaders is guided by a different “true north”, leading from a unique set of core values known as the Evergreen principles. These teams not only have the grit […]
As client partners continue bringing us a phenomenal range of Strategic Planning questions, the underlying consensus is no longer that the world is changing but rather that it already has changed – and we need to be among the first to catch up to it and harness it. Among these recurring themes in assessing life-after-2020 […]
(Welcome back to our blog mini-series, “Not All Dollars Are Created Equal”, where we discuss how a focused investment in specific business areas actually produces multiplied impact in driving your net profit from the industry-average 5-7% up toward the industry-leading 10-12%+. Today we reveal one the industry’s most consistent leaks in company profitability.) … […]