Jeffrey Scott

There seems to be a flood of bad news lately. During this election cycle there will be even more.

You need to inoculate your team from any distractions.

Since you can’t block out the negative news–all you can do is offer a better, stronger alternative.

Your team needs a constant source of constructive and believable news.

If you have watched my videos you have heard me talk about becoming a radio station for your employees.

Many of you have told me this advice has been extremely helpful, so here is a replay on why it’s so critical and how to implement it.

Why it’s important:

Social media is full of conspiracy theories, political potshots and fake news that can distract and shake one’s faith.
The news outlets fight for eyeballs by using headlines that scare and create fear.
Your team’s lack of knowledge at work can create additional fear of the unknown.

The good news:

You can solve all this and greatly empower and excite your team.Here is how.

Nine ways to become your employee’s favorite radio station:

Be on the air every day; don’t let a vacuum get filled by nonsense.
Use a variety of ways to communicate video, email, or group text. Get creative by using them all. Mix fun and serious.
Share the communication duties among all the leaders of your team. A good radio station always has different announcers. Too much of one announcer can get boring.
Share facts and figures about how you are doing. People would rather know the truth than have to guess. And their guesses are usually slightly or terribly wrong.
Keep future focused plans on track, and share updates. (Are you experimenting with automowers? Keep on that plan, and tell us how it’s going)
Describe the sacrifices you are making when relevant, in line with what you are asking of your team.
Share the new goals and protocols you have set for productivity, and tell them why it’s important.
After your weekly leader’s meeting, share a few relevant decisions / discussions with your team. They have seen you meet behind closed doors and always wondered and even worried about what you discussed. So tell them!
Emphasize your staff’s most important radio station WIIFM (“What’s in it for me”.) Let them know how all this impacts them, and ultimately helps them. Connect the dots for them.

Your challenge: Communicate more, even when you have less time.When owners and leaders are super busy, they tend to communicate just enough to keep things moving.

Yet poor communication is the biggest issue I am asked to solve by employees, when I am brought in for consulting.

The true proactive leaders out there understand that communication is their main job.

So treat your entire team as your inner circle, and they will begin to step up and act like it.

Of course, you do have to parse out certain information carefully, so have different reports for different groups as you grow larger.

Give out trust and respect to all, and you will get it back in abundance.

Regards, Jeffrey Scott!

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Every year I go to the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival, an extravaganza of food, culture and music.

I look forward to seeing all the up-and-coming talent and big names.

This year I was excited to see Mick Jagger and The Rolling Stones.

That rocker is 80 years old. He could be my father!

The last (and only other) time I saw The Rolling Stones was also in New Orleans, back in 1981.

The Stones were already “old” back then.

(Photo: We listened to the Rolling Stones from the very back so we would not get crushed by the screaming fans.)

Thoughts on Exit PlanningI find it intriguing how artists don’t have to think about exit planning.

Painters keep painting well into their final decades.
Movie actors keep acting.
Bands keep playing as long as people keep paying.

They all love their craft and do it for passion.

They also do it money (even if they don’t need it; ahem Mick.)

Don’t Get Hit by the Beer Truck

Rock-n-roll bands don’t develop succession planning. They only think about replacing a member after he or she kicks the bucket.

You, on the other hand, can’t be so reckless.

What will happen if you (or a key person) suddenly got hit by a beer truck?

It’s incumbent upon you to go through that exercise and put the answers in writing.

Your leadership team wants to know the answers.

Plus it will help you uncover where you are deficient !!

Is Yours a Lifestyle Business?

Some owners run their business as a lifestyle.

They don’t plan to sell, just milk it and then liquidate it at the end.

The problem is many owners start off with that plan, but then change their mind as they get older.

In which case they must work fast to transform their business for exit.

We are working with a couple entrepreneurs right now on that “sprint”.

It Takes 10 years To Plan Your Exit

A well-known book on exit planning (Finish Big) claims you need to plan 10 years ahead to do it right.

It’s a nice luxury but not always needed.

I have worked with many entrepreneurs who come to us with ten-year goals that we are able to achieve in 5-6 years.

We sped up progress with focus, smarts and out-of-the-box thinking.

The one benefit of taking ten years is that it helps you wrap your head around the big changes you need to make.

Why Start Planning Now?

Even if you are young and don’t plan on selling any time soon, it helps to set up both an exit plan and a high-value plan.

Just because God laugh at our plans, it doesn’t mean we should wing it.

In fact it means the opposite. Start planning earlier.

Your Challenge – Implementing Your Long Term Plan NowThe Rolling Stones don’t need an exit plan, but you do!

Even in the busy time of the year, make sure your efforts are being invested in the right activities.

Each and every quarter you should be working on “one thing” to build up the continuity and value of your business.

(Check out the book, The One Thing, for further insight)

A long term plan doesn’t happen magically; it requires quarterly implementation starting today.

Would you like to Retire in Place at some point in the future? Start planning now.

Don’t just be selling the next job, but work on building the business so one day you can sell that, too.

Regards,

Jeffrey Scott!

P.S. We are almost sold out and hotels are almost gone for our Summer Growth Summit. If you still want to attend, its best to sign up now, go here.

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Do you listen to podcasts for business or pleasure?

I didn’t used to, but now I love them.

Podcasts are a great way to gain a new perspective on a current topic – or to take your mind completely off work and recharge.

They are game changers for self-education.

Here Are Seven of My Favorite Business and Personal Podcasts

1. “Founders” with David Senra is one of the all-time great business podcasts.

The speaker reads (and riffs on) a summary he has written of a biography of a great business person or thought leader.

He will read each biography multiple times in prep for the podcast.

Who else voraciously readsbiographies in order to plan out his future?

Answer: Elon Musk.

If Elon does, you should too.

2. “How I Built This” with Guy Roz interviewing entrepreneurs who tell their company’s origination story.

They all share the heartache and grind, almost going broke, constant pivoting, and eventually making the breakthrough.

If you check it out, scroll back a few years (or all the way to the beginning) for some fascinating stories from famous entrepreneurs.

It might be eye-opening to pick one and listen to it as a leadership team.

3. “The Ultimate Landscape CEO” by Jeffrey Scott is of course mine.

If you go back to the very beginning, I have a bunch of short mini-podcasts with just me riffing on a topic.

After the lock down a couple years ago I started doing the “interview” style, while adding a couple “just me” in between.

Sometimes I’ll go back and listen to ones from a few years ago, to remember all the great ideas we have shared.

BTW: I have a new twist coming up soon to this podcast, stay tuned for the announcement.

4. “Thoughts on the Market” is powered by Morgan Stanley.

It has a variety of experts talking about economics, stocks, bonds, politics, the Fed, etc.

It keeps me on my toes, and especially helps me understand macro-economic trends.

This podcast was helpful when things were getting wonky during 2020-22.

Check it out if you are interested in learning more about financial economics.

5. “It’s Not The Car” with 3 racing specialists is a brand new one that teaches racing techniques.

After one episode, I have already applied some new techniques.

For example: They claim you should write down the things you learn and want to do different on any given track. It works!

It helps you:

Internalize the learning.
Remember them next time you go back to that same track.

The same goes for any endeavor, business or pleasure. Keep a journal to write down your experiences and self reflections.

6. “A History of Music in 500 songs” with Andrew Hickey.

This is the most important music project I know.

If you love music and want to know how a certain song (or band) came into existence, you will enjoy this.

I tend to skip around and not go in order. I am less interested in The Temptations or The Monkees, and I am more interested in the history of Jimi Hendrix, The Yardbirds, and The Grateful Dead.

If you listen to this show, tell me your favorite episode.

7. “Rise and Grind” with Daymond John.

This is an older podcast that didn’t last long at all.

But it was fun and you get to know Daymond personally and how humble he is.

One episode he interviewed Barbara Corcoran. Very inspiring to hear how she fought her way to the top as a female entrepreneur in a man’s world.

Your Challenge – Expanding Your Vision of What’s PossibleThe top inventors and visionaries throughout history would often study across multiple fields and become (what is now called) a Renaissance Man or Woman.

Just look at Ben Franklin or Thomas Jefferson, or go back further in time and you can see how broadly people used to educate themselves,.

Or read the book, Undaunted Courage, to learn how widely Lewis and Clark had to study to prepare themselves for their westward journey.

Develop a broader set of knowledge

It’s imperative that we all do the same, if we are going to fulfill our potential and become a leader of interest, inspiration and significance.

In some ways we are all inventors, charting a unique course in this world.

Good luck on your journey!

If you have your own favorite podcast not mentioned here, share it with me.

Regards,

Jeffrey Scott!

P.S. We are almost sold out and hotels are almost gone for our Summer Growth Summit. If you still want to attend, its best to sign up now, go here.

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My guests on this podcast are the real deal: Nag Murty is an aerospace engineer turned serial tech entrepreneur.Jarrett Herold is co-founder and COO of VC-backed startup Electric Sheep, the first large-scale outdoor maintenance company powered by artificial intelligence and robotics.This company is acquiring traditional outdoor service providers and progressively transforming operations by deploying proprietary AI software and robots.Electric Sheep’s approach is designed to automate various physical tasks like mowing and knowledge work like inventory management. Through consolidation and AI-fueled vertical integration, Electric Sheep will become a major player in the $1 Trillion Global Market for outdoor infrastructure services.We speak about all aspects of their business and vision.Fasten your seatbelts and hold on tight.The post The future of landscape maintenance with Electric Sheep: Nag Murty and Jarrett Herold appeared first on Jeffrey Scott.

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What keeps the owner awake at night?

If you are a manager, this is an important to question to ask your boss. It’s key to “managing up.”

If you are the boss, its important to let your team know what’s going on in your head.

It’s a metaphor:

Even if you sleep well, you still have challenges that you would like solved.

We get to the bottom of this question during our consulting projects; solving the big challenges on the owners mind.

We also use this question when helping seconds in command to work better with their owners. A good #2 needs to be able to read their boss’s mind.

So what keeps you awake?

The answers to this question fall into five categories. Some are amusing, but they are all real.

Five Top Challenges That Keep Owners Awake At Night.

1. My Newborn.

Family comes first, especially when it’s a new family. Though I have personally found that older children can take up just as much time. 😉

Moral: Make sure your team or second in command can rise to the occasion, and run the business so you can take care of your personal business.

Don’t wing it, plan for it.

2. Politics.

There is nothing you can do about the Presidential election. Sometimes the economy has a hiccup during an election year, but not always.

History shows that the economy and stock market does well (or not well) under both parties.

Our economy is driven by entrepreneurs and our capitalist spirit, the President controls less of it than you would think.

Moral: Don’t fret about things you can’t control. Pay close attention to your local market and your own company and ambitions.

3. Employees and Culture.

Every leader wants to protect their culture, and sometimes they need to deal with difficult employees.

These two are connected.

Too many companies hold on too long to the wrong employees.

The owner thinks the employee is critical to operations.
Suddenly the pain becomes too great, and the employee gets promoted “to another company.”

In hindsight, the owner will say “our team rallied, and we didn’t skip a beat; we could have done this much earlier.”

Moral: The best route to protecting your culture is actively fixing the broken links.

4. Keeping Momentum.

Many of our clients had a great 2023, and the question that keeps them awake is, “How do we maintain the same level of hunger in our team in 2024?”

There is not a single or simple answer to this question.

(But) it’s key to have a refreshed purpose or new set of goals to keep the team focused.

It can’t be the ‘same old, same old’.

Also, your team will go through walls for you, but don’t let them break their nose while doing so.

Moral: Take care of your team while keeping them inspired by the current challenges and future goals.

5. Handling Growth.

The final item that keeps owners awake is preparing the organization to handle the growth.

Do you have the right team in place to get you to the next level, and to handle it once you arrive?

Because “what got you here won’t get you there.”

It helps to periodically think ahead 3-5 years, and consider the systems, positions and capabilities you need.

As in car racing, you have to plan 3-4 turns ahead (i.e. 3 steps ahead)

Moral: Your success tomorrow is based on moves you made yesterday.

Your Challenge: Find out what keeps your team awake at night as well.It’s not just the owner who thinks about work when they go home.

Any team member with an ownership mentalitywill carry that burden with them.

Find out what keeps your team awake at night, and help them solve the controllable issues and relieve the undo pressure.

Regards, Jeffrey Scott!

P.S. Did you forget to sign up for our Summit? We still have the “early bird” discount in play. But the hotel rooms are selling out fast, so act now.

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Growth is a Challenge.

It’s very challenging to grow and scale one’s business.

Or one’s personal skills.

It looks easy to an outsider, but it can be stressful and tiring.

I was reminded of that recently when I visited a new (to me) motorsports track: Eagles Canyon Raceway south of Dallas.

A Personal Journey

It is a difficult track for the newcomer: very hilly, curvy and long.

It was all the more difficult because I rented a car (Cayman S) and didn’t have my own.

The Emotions of Struggle

I experienced all the emotions of struggle and failure over that two-day weekend.

The driving coach I hired however is the best in the south. So, my learning curve was steep.

(Though even he was growing frustrated by my inability to “get it”.)

Day One

The first day it took all my effort to try to grasp and visualize the track.

There were times when I ended up in a total fog, forgetting where I was on the track.

Unsure if the next turn was to the left or right. I made many mistakes.

(Driving 80mph and turning the wrong direction on a hilly track is not pretty).

I could swear my coach was rolling his eyes, or perhaps my inner voice was just imagining that??

There is a certain amount of shame that rears its head when you fumble terribly and can’t just “pull it together”.

We ended up skidding off the track once: no crashes, no need for spending the insurance deductible.

In my down time (between runs) I studied the video footage.

I pushed myself to memorize each curve and hill, trying to internalize the rhythm of this track.

Over dinner the coach pulled out the video for the day and showed me the recurring errors and the big opportunities for the next day.

It seemed he also enjoyed poking fun of me, but it was all in good spirits. There is no room for being thin-skinned when you hang with the best.

You can’t stop and whine.

(Photo Caption: My favorite photo of my own car.)

Day Two

With each mess up on track my coach would say “Ok, back at it! Get your head back in the game. Go go go!”

By the middle of day 2, I was passing cars and had at least one guy stop by to say thanks for the car-and-mouse chase.

When I passed him towards the end, I lost him. He couldn’t keep up.

The lesson for the weekend.

The struggle is real, and dangerous even.

The shame however is made up, and not real. It’s in your head.

Don’t stop to feel sorry for yourself.

You have to shake off the missteps and just keep going!

Take time to reflect

Yes, take time to reflect with a coach or someone who can guide you, to help you learn and readjust your strategy.

And if you keep at it, soon others will be following you.

The great winners–in business and in personal endeavors–are those who surround themselves with top people and persevere.

Eventually you will “get it” and enjoy being that leader.

It’s hard earned, and worth it.

Spring is here. It’s go time!

Regards, Jeffrey Scott

P.S. You have just two more days to grab our Super Early Bird discount for our Summer Growth Summit!

Come see how a top company plays the game to win.

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Chad Simmons is owner of Playrite, a small but powerful $2M profitable artificial turf company in Knoxville, TNRegarding artificial turf, we discuss his proactive hiring strategy, how he uses competition to drive his business, and how his vendor relationships give him a strategic advantage.Chad is also a BBQ expert, and shares some tips and tricks.You will enjoy our business and personal conversations, and you will be very hungry by the end of this special podcast.The post Artificial Turf & BBQ with Chad Simmons appeared first on Jeffrey Scott.

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Before Kevin Kehoe (Aspire founder) passed away, he was asked “What is the biggest challenge in our industry?”

His answer, “The training of middle management.”

We are in agreement.

Many companies struggle here, but not everyone.

Here are some innovative (and simple) training solutions from my community to inspire you.

Training and Development Best Practices

“We do high-level company trainings every quarter. It has become the fabric of our firm. We share full financials, sales pipeline, production metrics, and economic updates. We refine systems through group discussion, educate staff on the latest innovations, and train soft skills via a book club. It has been absolutely effective!” Doug Taylor, Frontiers, Ontario

“Our most impactful training is our 30 min SOP meeting for each dept, every other week, where we cycle through pre-prepared content – sometimes re-run on the basics, other times complex tasks, other times, addressing issues from identified job cost issues from open book management so that people can adjust their approach.” Mark Hutten, Hutten & Co, Ontario

“We hold training rodeos in the spring and fall. We have 7-9 stations and rotate 5-7 people in groups. We cover technical and non-technical knowledge, based on the season.” Jeff Stroupe, Landscapes By Terra, OH

“We provide one-on-one personal finance coaching for all employees who want it.” Dave Wright, Wright Landscape Services, ON

“We create instructional videos of how to do all the most common services or activities in our company using a cell phone and simple editing software. We then create a test with true, false or multiple choice questions. It usually takes us about 2-7 days of work to create a single video between writing all the content, taking video, editing and dubbing it. We created an entire curriculum” John Denninger, Chesterfield Lawns & Landscapes, MO

“We use forced rankings for plant ID skills, it’s a fun competition.”

“We use a comprehensive career ladder to guide development. It covers everything from equipment maintenance and vehicle inspections to plant layout and specialty equipment proficiency. It was designed by our production managers, horticulturists, designers, and foremen.” Ivan Katz, Great Lakes Landscape Design, MI.

“We do constant QC and when we find a crew doing a nice job, we’ll take a picture and text it with a “great job” to the entire company. Then the messages or memes start rolling in from other crews congratulating the employee. Benjamin Lewis, President, Browder-Hite, Inc. VA

ProTip 1: Quarterly or bi-annual reviews help drive individual training goals, and therefore more ownership and accountability.

Pro Tip 2: Hire someone to oversee your training and development.

Pro Tip 3: Assign training dollars to make this real.

YOUR CHALLENGE: Use Outside Resources to Turbocharge People Development.Your employees need management, people and critical-thinking skills in order to lead people and grow.

Everyone I spoke with uses outside resources: including their vendors, Sandler Training, and HR Consultant Katie Magoon.

It made me proud to hear from my community how they use our Summer Growth Summit for team development.

Two examples:

SAME PAGE LEARNING: “We are bringing 12 team members to the 2024 Summer Growth Summit. I prefer Jeffrey’s format compared to others in the industry because all our team members are hearing the same message, at the same time. It is easier to pick some new things to implement and rally around when your whole team is on the same page.” – Desiree Bouchard, General Manager, Great Lakes Landscape Design, MI

CREATE BUY-IN: “I’m bringing (execs and) middle mgmt. to the Summer Growth Summit. I started in 2021 and it opened their eyes. They saw first-hand that the ideas we were bringing back were real and not BS. Now we can talk higher level with them, and they trickle it down to their teams. Second big win was they met peers in the industry that became friends they can call and talk about issues. – Greg Semmer, Owner, Semmer Landscape, Chicago

Wishing you great luck this year – to develop the strongest team you have ever had!

Regards, Jeffrey Scott

P.S. Super Early Bird ends in 9 days for our Summer Growth Summit! If you plan to bring 5 or more people, email Corine for details.

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Every Spring landscape companies leave money on the table.

They are so busy making the big sale, that they miss important opportunities to make additional sales.

It’s a lose-lose situation

Your client doesn’t receive all the great solutions you offer, and
Your company doesn’t maximize its profit potential.

To help you capture these missed opportunities, here are four examples of better ways.

1. Onboarding The Client

The challenge when selling a new client: whatever you sell them initially often becomes their long-term perception of your company.

For example:

If you sell them mowing, they will think of you as a mowing company.
Or if you sell them a patio, they will think of you as a hardscape company,

And then when they need some other service, they easily turn to your competitor.

It’s a tragedy.

Hence, how you onboard your new client makes all the difference.

Russell Landscape, Atlanta, GA, where we held our first Summer Summit, shared the perfect onboarding strategy.

They set up an initial meeting with their new client — and have all their different service managers visit to do a walk through and assessment.

Russell then proposes a myriad of solutions, that the client can buy right away or put in their budget.

The result is a triple win:

The client is wowed by the attention and service.
The property looks immediately much better.
The client now understands the breadth of your services.

Ca-Ching!

2. Active Cross-Selling

Larry Ryan was a forester and tree guy, but he started his company in lawn care because he knew it had more mass appeal.

If he sold lawn care, he knew he could easily upsell tree work.

Now he upsells: Tree care, PHC, Irrigation, Landscape, Pest Control – and more.

It’s smart.

Ryan will be the host of our Summer Growth Summit. Learn more and buy your tickets here.

3. Lighting and Audio.

I have been coaching my clients this Spring on upselling lighting and audio.

These two services have exceptionally high “Throughput” (gross profit per hour) and can improve the margins of every project.

But many salespeople either don’t make lighting (or audio) a standard proposal, or they are too busy to follow up after proposing.

It’s a shame because light/audio greatly enhances your client’s enjoyment of their property.

Options to increase lighting/audio:

Propose it on every job as standard practice
Allow the project manager to do demonstrations and close the sale, if the salesperson has moved on.
Use incentives to motivate the salesperson or the project mgr.

Note: one of my favorite audio companies is Coastal Source. Their sound systems offer the very highest “throughput” on the market!

4. Drip Marketing

My longtime friends and client, Reder Landscaping in Midland Michigan, use email marketing to stay in front of clients.

They send weekly emails highlighting 2-3 services relevant to the time of year.

Yes, you should use social media of course — but once a client is a client, you can use more direct means as well.

It works!

Your Challenge: Avoid the Tyranny of the Urgent.Most leaders are focused on the urgent: filling backlogs, responding to new prospects, getting weekly production done efficiently.

It keeps bosses and clients happy in the short run.

However, focusing on better upselling, cross-selling and client onboarding will make them happy long term.

And raise the lifetime value of each client.

Go Get ‘Em! Happy Spring!

Regards, Jeffrey Scott

P.S. To teach your entire team about this this key strategy, join us for our Summer Growth Summit.

Save 400 per ticket when you sign up in the next two weeks, by April 18th.

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Servant Leadership is not well-understood – but very valuable.

It was first theorized by Robert Greenleaf in his essay “The Servant as Leader,” published in 1970.

In this essay, Greenleaf challenges the traditional notions of leadership.

He proposed a new model where leaders prioritize serving others over exercising power and authority.

He emphasized ten character traits, including: listening, persuading (vs directing), conceptualizing (larger purpose goals and dreams), committing to the growth of others, and building community.

He also believed in tracking progress and measurable outcomes.

He was no wall flower.

Some think Servant Leadership has a religious basis, but Greenleaf was influenced greatly by his time at AT&T, where he worked 38 years ultimately as Director of Management Development.

It was not until his retirement that he started on his journey of developing this concept.

Servant Leadership in the Green Industry.I became re-acquainted with this concept in preparing for our visit to Ryan Lawn & Tree, Kansas City, KS.

These guys have passion for expanding the industry and building full-time green industry careers for their people.

Larry Ryan says their preferred teaching method of Servant Leadership is to catch their people in the act (of doing things right.)

They also constantly measure productivity and results – to keep their business dream on track.

Larry is no wall flower, either!

I urge to you to come see their company first-hand during our Summer Growth Summit.

Here are other examples from members in our peer group community.

Think of the employee’s budgetWade’ Vugteveen, Co-owner of DeHammer in MI, is a big proponent of people first. (Listen to my podcast with him and his brother to learn more.)

One comment he made that really stuck with me:

They think of their employee’s budgets first, and their own company budgets second.

In difficult times they first think about how any changes (e.g. in hours, benefits, or staffing) will impact their associates.

In fact all their growth goals are viewed through that lens.

Using grace to make decisionsSeth Kehne, Lawn Butler, Knoxville, TN has oft mentioned to me how he teaches his new managers to make people decisions using grace.

In business I take this to mean employing empathy, understanding, and connecting with people to reach the organization’s goals.

The organization as the servantMy old friend Shayne Newman, owner of YardScapes in Milford, CT, has been building his business with the overarching goal of being able to give back to his community.

His company is the vehicle for him to be a community servant leader.

Their keystone give-back event is their annual charity golf tournament, which they created and run.

Walk the talkThis whole a concept is close to my heart because it underlies how we operate as consultants.

We are always trying to figure out what is in the best interest of our clients, and we use many of the approaches outlined by Robert Greenleaf.

Your Challenge: As you articulate your goals, do so with your people in mind.It is important to state your goals in terms of benefits to your people.

When we are consulting with landscape businesses, we are often asked to help solve ownership goals:
• increased earnings,
• fewer work hours for the owner,
• salability of their business,
• etc.

We urge the owner to transform her/his goals from “what’s in it for me” to “what’s in it for the team”

Take time to reframe your goals and articulate them in terms of the benefits to your team.

(And if you need help doing this, give us a call.)

Regards, Jeffrey Scott

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Larry Ryan is founder and owner of Ryan Lawn & Tree, based near Kansas City, KS, a 37 yr old company.Larry and his team have grown their firm organically and through acquisition to approx $75M with more growth planned this year.Jeffrey and Larry discuss the 5 most valuable growth strategies that Ryan undertakes, plus many more facets of the business that everyone can learn from.Ryan Lawn & Tree will be the host company for our upcoming Summer Growth Summit in August. For more info, visit our website, www.JeffreyScott.biz or visit https://jeffreyscott.biz/2024-summer-growth-summit/The post Five Strategies for Growth with Larry Ryan appeared first on Jeffrey Scott.

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Every company that implements Open Book Management (OBM) faces an initial path of uncertainty, doubt and discovery.

There is often underlying skepticisim that you must work though to get buy-in.

It takes a long-term commitment to make it work.

But even after achieving success, you can still face economic setbacks which becomes a challenge to naviagte.

Five Tips

For that reason, I am sharing 5 examples/tips from companies that have dedicated themselves to implementing OBM and Profit Sharing.

Profit Sharing Tips & Challenges

1. Frequent Reviews:

Our long-time client Drost (MI) has done well with profit sharing, showing improved margins year over year.

One of their secrets, they hold twice monthly open book reviews.

This means 24 meetings a year to make sure employees understand the numbers, and the actions they need to take.

2. Start Low and slow:

Our Canadian client, Whispering Pines Landscaping, has worked on this for years.

Their profitability started small and grew each subsequent year.

One of their secrets, they set the profit sharing bar low, to make sure that trust was built and payouts started happening early on.

Another secret, They update the profit pool throughout the year, so each employee understands how it translates to their wallet at year end.

3. Build Trust:

John Puryear, owner of Puryear Farms (TN), a long time peer group member, has proved that profit sharing is possible and effective with a mixed immigrant workforce.

He built trust over the years with transparency and objectivity.

Everyone on his team understands the system he uses to calculate profit sharing, and how they are graded.

There is no guessing.

4. Keep Your Team Informed.

Client X shared with us during a recent Leader’s Edge peer group meeting, that his Q1 results were not keeping up with budget.

His revenue (billable hours) was off to a weak start.

It looked unlikely that he would hit the year end goals they set out for profit sharing.

Do you share the bad news?

Hence the question arose: Do you share the bad news with your team so early in the season? Will it deflate their energy?

After seeking counsel from our peer group, client X decided to share the facts with his team.

He would have a frank discussion, and allow the team to decide next steps.

What happens when billable hours are off?

One option we gave client X:

When billable hours are off, you can determine if there is room to raise “throughput” (profit per hour) for the work you are selling/producing, in order to counter balance the reduced billable hours.

5. Treat Business like a Game.

We work with many contractors who have gamified their business.

There is a whole book written about this, called The Great Game Of Business

Interesting, the host of our upcoming Summer Growth Summit, Ryan Lawn & Tree (Kansas City, KS) follows this approach to profit sharing.

They use about 80% of the program.

When you attend our Summit you can earn how they have adapted it to their business.

Your Challenge: All employees want to know “what’s in it for me”?It’s not enough to promise a payout. You have to show employees what they control, and what KPI’s they can influence.

Do this in group meetings and one on one.

I believe in the benefits of Open Book Management, but every company does it differently, so find the path you are comfortable with and can stick with year over year.

Regards, Jeffrey Scott

P.S. Join us at our Summer Growth Summit, learn more about the Great Game of Business, and save 400 per ticket when you sign up next month before April 18th.

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As a business leader you have the responsibility to stay healthy and inspire others.

People look up to you, and they depend on you for their professional future and financial stability.

Quite a few years ago I was told by my doctor that I needed to go on medication in order to not die young like my grandfather.

It was the quick fix. (Or was it?)

The road less traveled.

Instead, as a family we decided that we would make some shifts in our approach to life.

We took the road less traveled to get healthier — It takes time, the right strategy, and a team effort. (Sound familiar?)

I travel a lot for work — and my clients ask me now how I stay fit?

Here are some of the things that I have incorporated into my lifestyle, to keep me going for the long run.

Six Step To Staying On Top Of Your Game:

1. Stay active every day.

Using a Fitbit, I aim for 10k steps daily (my crazy wife aims for 15k.) Having 3 dogs helps!

I also have a daily goal to burn 2k calories (your goals will vary). On an active day I’ll blow past that mark.

At the end of the day, my wife and I compare Fitbit results. It helps to have a workout partner.

2. Eat the good carbs only.

We eat good carbs and avoid the bad carbs (those that score high on the glycemic index, google it for more info).

It’s similar to Keto I think, but easier to maintain and much healthier for you.

I also don’t eat in the morning, but hey, that’s me.

3. Various workouts weekly.

I’ll see a trainer 3x a week and do a mix of weights, ab workouts, etc.

Plus I mix it up with tennis, biking, hiking, yoga, and walks with dogs in the park.

Gotta keep it interesting and keep the blood flowing!

Btw, all this creates periodic PT for me because I keep pushing myself too hard. But that’s another story.

4. Avoid processed foods.

We only cook with fresh ingredients and always have a lot of green veggies.

Don’t get me wrong, we live in New Orleans and we like to eat out.

Life needs to be fun.

5. Share your approach with your spouse.

It helps to have a partner in crime who is on the same page with you.

It’s hard enough to do this alone.

6. Incorporate down time.

As Arnold will tell you (Austrian accent) “When you work out, your body needs recovery time between efforts.”

And when you work hard in the office, your brain needs recovery time as well.

Include breaks and keep yourself fresh!

Your challenge. Walking-the-talk takes one step at a time.It’s a lot to undertake all this. Pick one area to improve on.

One of these will also help:

Hire people to hold you accountable.
Have a partner in crime. If it’s not your spouse, then maybe a best friend.
Get a dog.

Above all else, keep it enjoyable—otherwise you won’t do it.

Remember what the captain says: put on your own oxygen mask first!

Regards,

P.S. To inspire your team and build your business, you can also take them to our Summer Growth Summit. Details coming soon.

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The following seven landscape professionals were awarded the prestigious 2023 Mighty Oak for their outstanding achievement. This honor is given each year to one member of each of Jeffrey's high-impact peer groups -- based on how they performed the previous year. The Four Achievements

There are four “developmental” areas in which a winner must show outstanding achievement.

Personal development

Professional development

Company development (their team, processes, strategy, etc)

Financial achievement (how their finances have developed over the past couple years)

Here are the winning contractors plus insight to their path to success.

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Matt Hunter is the owner of New Garden Landscaping & Nursery in Greensboro, NC. Matt and his teams run a 12+M highly diversified business with three locations. Jeffrey and Matt discuss Matt’s rise from laborer to salesperson to branch manager to General Manager to Owner. You will learn about personal growth, making big business decisions, […]

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With the passing of Jimmy Buffett, I am inspired to ponder the oft cited “work/life balance” that Jimmy skewers. Jimmy sings about working as little as humanly possible. According to Jimmy, life should be about beach bumming, drinking whenever, and fooling around. And yet, Mr. Buffett passed away a wealthy man based on the incessant hard work he invested into his business.

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Our Summer Growth Summit at Mariani Landscape in Lake Bluff, IL was the HOTTEST landscape event of the year!

Over 3 days, we had 26 speakers covering inspiring and cutting-edge topics to help any attendee grow to their next level of success.

The Summit concluded with a discussion between Jeffrey Scott and Frank Mariani regarding how Mariani Landscape grew from 90k in 1973 to 59 million in 2020.

Then they discussed what has happened since making a private equity deal in 2020 and where the company is headed now.

Frank and Jeffrey were like two old friends talking around the fire pit. They also covered the pitfalls of the 4 day work week, how to solve the labor issue, and how any company could pursue an acquisition growth strategy.

Many companies brought their teams, and the energy was palpable.

Here are 7 takeaways to get your mind thinking:

World class organizations foster a culture of feedback and continuous improvement.It was clear that both Frank and Jeffrey are focused on continuous improvement.

Every company in the industry should be soliciting feedback from customers and using the data to improve customer loyalty and drive additional value.

Dave Richards, Director of Customer Insights at Mariani Premier Group, recommends surveying customers at least once and no more than 2 or 3 times per year.

They use the “Net Promoter Score” where they ask customers “On a scale of 1 to 10, how likely are you to recommend our products or services to a friend or colleague?” followed by “Why?”

Act Immediately

Once you receive the customer feedback, it’s important to act immediately to address any specific complaints or issues.

Share the feedback with the front line and develop specific actions to improve those areas.
Implement training and processes to measure improvement in those areas.
Systematically gather ideas for improvement and implement the best ones.

Bill Blodgett, Chief Operating Officer at Mariani Premier Group, told us that 75% of process improvement should be customer facing, driven by the outcomes of these surveys and employee input.

He stressed the need to recognize and reward the team members who generate the best ideas.

Make more data-driven decisions.At Jeffrey Scott Consulting we teach how to manage by the numbers. It’s important to limit decisions driven by feelings.

Here are two examples how Mariani does this.

Gina Goldberg, HR Director at Mariani Landscape, shared how Mariani uses a headcount analysis to determine the number of team members needed for each month. They know what their target service mix is and how many man hours it will take to reach their target revenue for each service.

Lucas Melograno, Territory Director of Production, and Kevin Engbrecht, Enhancements Production Manager, showed us how production and efficiency are measured on a daily, weekly, and monthly basis:

daily over / under reports on install jobs,
weekly wages, hours, and overtime,
and monthly comparisons of actuals and budgets on revenue, key expenses and wages.

Mariani succeeds because they are making real time decisions using this data.

Budgets should be completed early in Q4.Bob Pagorek, CFO of Mariani Premier Group, stressed the importance of starting the budgeting process early, but waiting for 8 months of current year actuals before doing so.

Before you budget, you first need next year’s goals set and the strategies defined; only then can you set the budget. That’s a lot of proactive planning reminded Jeffrey Scott!

Once the budget is finalized, you should attempt to stick to it at all costs.

Budget re-forecasting could actually be called “re-strategizing” because the budget should ideally never change, but the strategy might.

Successful companies know they won’t hit their budget, they understand why, and they put strategies in place to help get back on track.

Use autonomous mowers to drive profits.Mariani has deployed about 300 autonomous mowers. Tim Blinten, Production Manager, showed us that by using auto mowers, they can increase gross margins by 6% to 20% depending on the market.

Clients are happier because the lawns look (and are) healthier and “every day is Friday” meaning the lawn is always the perfect length.

It’s a triple win: better for the lawn, the company and the client.

The early bird makes more salesTwo different presenters reminded us that speed is critical for sales.

Mariani Business Developers (Eliazar Arebalo and John Kerstein) told us they aim to call back leads within 30 minutes.

Justin Queen, Founder of Sales Engine, told us that because most prospects can talk to you and your closest competitors in under 40 minutes, the longer your “time to first contact” of new leads is, the lower your closing ratio will be.

The slower you are, the more “missed opportunities” you will incur.

Don’t just train your people, develop them.There comes a point where you cannot be intimately involved in everything your company does. You must let go, but first have confidence in your team. (We have a second in command peer group that is helping our clients do just that.)

Jeremy Sabin, Chief Human Resources Officer, taught us the Japanese word ikigai and how it relates to people development: you align people’s passions and inherent skills with the company needs and what brings value to the client.

Sabin stated that many managers don’t develop the people around them because they feel they don’t have time, but it’s important to recognize that by developing your people, you will gain time.

A key tool Sabin uses for developing people is a 360 review. By soliciting anonymous feedback from 8-12 people that work closely with an individual, you can gain a well-rounded assessment of their strengths and areas for improvement.

Growth requires changeThe new President of Mariani, Todd Jones, was very clear, “What worked for Mariani at 30M doesn’t work anymore at 100M.”

The same goes for you (the reader) as you grow your company from one level to the next.

How will you reach your next level of growth?

Your Challenge: Expand your view on what is possible.The following feedback from my good friend, Anthony Olender, founder, Ocean View Landscape, NY, sums it up:

“I was impressed with how Mariani ran things, and what they live by as a company, for being as large as they are. My impression of Frank was that he never forgot what was important, no matter how large they grew.

After deeply reflecting on all I learned, I am inspired to an even larger goal than I’ve ever had! I am very confident that we can get to 50M in the next 10 years.

Our team will likely have a mix of inspiration and disbelief as I share this with them. Some may think I’m crazy, which would fuel me even further. Either way, I can’t wait to tell them!!

I can’t thank you and your team enough for organizing this and opening the Mariani doors to us.”

Personal Thanks!

We would like to say thank you to everyone at Mariani and to our team: Corine Koornhof, Loriena Harrington, and Sean Baxter for making this a spectacular event!

Regards,

Written by Jeffrey Scott and Mitch Katz, Director of Operations

Jeffrey Scott and Frank Mariani closing out the program.

Almost 500 people learning and growing!

Team Jeffrey Scott with Sean Baxter, Mitch Katz, Corine Koornhof, and Loriena Harrington

Walking through the yard at Mariani Landscape; there were 14 learning stations!

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Sean Baxter, owner, Lawn and Landscape Solutions in Bucyrus, KS, joins Jeffrey Scott to discuss how peer groups have changed both of their lives, and the lives of many of members in Jeffrey Scott’s LEADER’S EDGE peer groups.

Jeffrey shares some history of how the Leader’s Edge to started and the main pain points that the peer group solves.

Sean and Jeffrey then discuss the 8 features/benefits of these high-impact peer groups.

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Announcing our newest Virtual Masterclass: November 1st, 11am to 4pm ET Once your local market is saturated, where do you grow from here?

Growth-minded landscape companies can develop a branch network, offering more growth opportunities to their employees and clients.

Building a branch model is a logical way to expand your business. But it also has many pitfalls and challenges!

Whether you are a commercial or residential company, in this virtual masterclass you will learn from proven landscape entrepreneurs how to successfully launch and expand your branch model.

Three industry leaders will be your guide as guest speakers: Jerry Schill, Kevin McHale and Ben Collinsworth will join us.

GO HERE to learn more and to register.

Save $100, ends October 3rd. Email us about our “4 for 3” ticket special!

Regards,

Jeffrey Scott

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Continuous Improvement sounds like a cliche. Just like apple pie and motherhood (fatherhood), it brings a warm feeling to your heart, but it is much more than a platitude. It has the power to greatly tighten up your operations, whomever is leading it. Here’s a quick definition: It is "the ongoing improvement of products, services or processes through incremental and sometimes breakthrough changes”. It is mostly associated with process improvement. "How to continually improve processes, to give your clients a better experience, while helping your people become more efficient."

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Justin Queen is owner and founder of Sales Engine, a marketing firm for the home services markets. He has 10 employees and is located in Wilmington, NC Jeffrey and Justin discuss how the old marketing model is broken, and how it needs to be addressed with a “results first” approach. Justin explains how he scientifically […]

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Last year I ran a webinar on the topic of Retiring In Place. We covered why owners are going this route, and what it takes to put in place.You can watch the webinar recording on YouTube. Here are some surprising truths about this goal. The future is now. All entrepreneurs are dreamers and doers.We love building businesses and having big goals. A common dream is building a business to run day-to-day without the owner. Often these are the ten-year or someday goals. (I know this to be the case, because when I take on a new peer group client or coaching client, I inquire about their short and long term goals). Here is what I have discovered, after working with close to 350 companies:

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Celebrating your employees. One of my peer groups has been bouncing around the question (and answers) of how companies recognize their employees, especially on their work anniversary? We all like to get presents or cake on our birthdays. (Hint: my favorite is NY Cheesecake, with cherries on top).Same goes for your employees. But I believe even more meaningful is acknowledging their work anniversary.

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Brodie Brunner is the Executive Vice President (and co-owner) of Weathermatic. They are the “World’s leader in smart water technology.” Weathermatic was founded in 1945 and is located in Dallas, TX. They have 150 employees and revenues slightly under $50M. Jeffrey and Brodie discuss how the irrigation industry has changed dramatically over the past couple decades, and […]

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How do you know if you are giving your clients a five-star experience? You can check your google reviews, but that gives very limited info.Here are two stories to illustrate the need for clarifying your customer service vision in today's uncertain economy. I was recently helping a friend of mine (an entrepreneur in another industry) with his 3-year growth plans. Over the past few years his business has scaled nicely, and he was enjoying the sweet spot that he called ELF (Easy, lucrative and fun). He wanted to keep growing, but it was not clear what direction he should take his business. Should he change direction, or do more of the same?

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I am proud to present my latest interview with two movers and shakers in the landscape world: Loriena Harrington and Shanna Scordo.This interview is valuable whether you are a woman or a man! Women will gather ideas, motivation and empowerment. Men will broaden their perspective, and increase their chances of attracting and retaining women in their company.

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Kevin & Tim join Jeffrey to discuss how they are growing their companies by selling pools and/or being part of the pool sale. Kevin Werbrich is owner of Werbrich’s Landscaping in Cincinnati, OH. Tim O’Connor is head of Design/Build at LCI Landscapes in Columbus, MN We discuss all aspects of being in the pool business […]

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Jeffrey talks with Loriena Harrington (Beautiful Blooms Landscapes, WI) and Shanna Scordo (Earthcraft Landscaping, PA), about the future of women in the landscape industry. We cover 3 topics. Turning points in Loriena’s and Shanna’s careers, sharing negative and positive experiences. Barriers to attracting and retaining more women into our industry. What you can do to […]

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After Memorial Day my wife and I flew to Edinburgh (joined by her girlfriend) for a week long drive up into the Highlands.

We had many eye-opening experiences, here a couple that you may find interesting and insightful:

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Did you know that you can use “throughput” to guide your sales team on which sales to go after, and even how to price them?Here is a brief case study, with a resource (podcast) at the bottom for you to learn more. Using Throughput To Your AdvantageI met this spring with a green roof company. (They had been to many of my events and finally pulled the trigger to meet with me.) The two owners brought their team to NOLA where we performed a two-day strategic review of their entire business, top to bottom. When we got to the financial analysis, we uncovered something interesting.

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Chris DiStefano is the CEO of DiStefano Landscaping in Burlington, VT. Founded in 2004, his 65% design/bid-build company has grown to 7M with 55-60 employees. Chris and I explore his company’s steady growth process, starting with his dad and mom impacting his love of landscape as a child. From the time he could walk, he helped out at his family’s ornamental […]

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Landscape professionals are always asking me "What is the best incentive?"

While that answer depends on the company situation, the best overall incentive is to empower your employees with “trust” in the form of more information.

One of the best ways to do that is with Open Book Management.

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In March, I wrote that the common industry expression “100 days of hell” should be changed to “100 days to sell.”

It’s more upbeat and helps your team stay optimistic in tough times.

Here are two quick tips to keep you sane and selling in the 100 days of sales.

1. Chance favors the quick.

Justin Queen from Sales Engine reminded me of the statistic that 70% of clients buy from the first company that responds and makes a favorable connection.

Keep in mind: The grind is harder this year than in the past (according to our 125 peer group members), but the margins are there, and it does seem easier to staff.

So keep smiling and provide undeniable value by committing to responsiveness and “timely” turn-arounds.

Do this and you’ll win the year!

2. Higher costs, higher resale values.

A recent conversation with a coaching client affirmed an important thesis of mine.

“Homes renovated with a beautiful outdoor living environment are easier to sell”

With the 40yr cocooning trend still going strong after all these years, resale home values will be bolstered when a homes’ outdoor living spaces are thoughtfully designed and maintained.

So when your clients are surprised by the higher cost of landscape materials (and labor), you can also educate them on the higher resale value of their landscaped homes.

A beautiful landscape is worth the investment, and will make their family happier.

Costs are up, but so is the value.

It won’t be an easy sale, at least not this year compared to previous years.

Your Challenge: Stay Optimistic and Keep Educating your Sales TeamEasy street may come and go, but smart entrepreneurs are always ready to grind and pivot.

Stay innovative and networked with other smart landscape entrepreneurs, and you will always find a new way to move forward.

Just don’t let go of your integrity and values, they never go out of style.

When you look back at your accomplishments, you will remember the relationships and people you impacted more than anything else.

Happy Memorial Day – Remember those who gave their life so you could live out your dreams.

From my family to yours!

Regards, Jeffrey Scott!

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BrightView, our industry’s largest landscape firm, recently posted poor quarterly results. At the same time their CEO left, with no replacement announced.

Did the CEO suddenly decide to leave or was he fired?

Either way, the company has performed poorly. This begs the question:

Is BrightView’s poor performance due to poor strategy or poor execution?

Here is my view, with some lessons & cautionary tales for you.

The mandate of public companies

Investors in public companies want their stock shares to keep rising and the company to keep growing. It’s BrightView’s (BV) mandate.

BV’s strategy for growth is driven by, among other things: competing on price and consistent acquisitions.

Low price high volume: Competing solely on price can be problematic: But Walmart competes on price you may think, why won’t it work for Brightview?

The difference is: Walmart sells products, and they can squeeze their suppliers to out-compete one another to supply high volume products at low prices.

BV sells services and it’s not possible to beat down the price of your labor – and in this inflationary wage environment you must be able to pivot. The lesson here: compete on the value you provide, do better than your competition.

Acquisitions: Another key part of BV’s strategy is buying market share through acquisition; it’s hard to see in their quarterly reports if this approach is working for them.

Acquisitions can be a good way to grow, but execution is critical for success.

If key management and customers flee after an acquisition, the value immediately drops. When conducting as many acquisitions as BV does, it’s critical that they have a good system that maximizes the full potential value of each acquisition.

I will add: Many great landscape professionals work for BV, some of the best in the industry. But are there enough talented green industry folk leading at BV at the top, or is BV being run by accountant-types?

Poor Strategy or Poor Execution.

We see other large-scale companies in our industry that understand how to grow a service business: strong culture, strong leaders, effective branch management and dominating company brands.

These players must also keep their costs competitive, but that is different from competing on price. These leaders invest in their people and culture to attract top talent and drive value for customers.

(Listen to my two podcasts with Mike Bogan to learn more about the right way to grow,)

Only folks steeped in the service industry get this, and BV might be short on those people and too heavy on financial types who are attempting to steer the ship.

Regardless of who sets the corporate strategy, a CEO’s job is to ensure effective implementation. For that reason, the CEO must be able to identify a losing strategy, push back on the board, generate new ideas for better results, and sell those ideas to the board.

The CEO must ensure alignment between strategy and execution:

Choose the right client niches to target.
Rally the troops around a vision, mission and core set of values.
Staff the company with empowered leadership that “gets the business, and its people”
Ensuring efficiencies of scale, in purchasing, in management systems, in internal services, etc.
When execution stumbles and strategy is faulty, results suffer.

From the outside it appears that BV is doomed for failure, and will eventually be taken private or sold off in pieces, unless is makes changes to its strategy and execution.

As Mike Bogan pointed out on my podcast (The Ultimate Landscape CEO), companies backed by private equity (and public companies) are driven hard by shareholder results, and that can get in the way of the changes that BV needs to make.

What lessons can you take from this?1. Correct strategy: Review both your strategy and implementation as you assess your own results and go-forward plans. Make sure you get fresh eyes on your plans, don’t breathe your own exhaust. (Note: That’s where our peer groups are very helpful Leaders Edge peer groups)

2. Compete on value: Competing on lowest price is hard to sustain in a people/service business, you must have a mix of services that results in a healthy margin. No margin no mission!

3. Careful what you repeatedly ask for: A service business is a people first business. If your drumbeat is on “sales at all cost”, it will cost you. Leadership must be consistent!

4. Development KPI: Retaining and developing your key leaders is critical to healthy scaling. Make that one of your KPIs as your management team level, and make sure you (the owner) are developing your direct reports with equal passion.

A final thought on acquisitions:

Acquisitions can work, as measured by retention and cultural fit. But there are large companies growing without acquisitions, so don’t assume that is the only way. In other words, approach them carefully and thoughtfully.

Be willing to walk away, it’s those near misses that just might be your biggest success.

Regards, Jeffrey Scott!

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The economic winds are changing in different sectors and geographic areas around the country.

Even if the economy remains strong in your neck of the woods, you will appreciate the savvy ideas that Jeffrey shares to tighten down your systems and approach.

Jeffrey Scott (founder, Jeffrey Scott Consulting) discusses what he is seeing and shares specific advice that he has given to his coaching clients recently on how to overcome and address the lack of lead flow and revenue.

He shares marketing and sales ideas, and tips on better managing by the numbers, that will help any business in any economy.

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As I work with landscape business leaders across the continent, I see people who are either “proactive and strategic”, or “reactive and highly tactical”.

However, the proactive ones will have a more-profitable and more-fulfilling year.

We can put these leaders into 3 categories.1. In the weeds: Those who are deep in the details, putting out fires, reactive in their day to day duties. They are sucked into client and employee issues; and doing “the work” themselves.

2. Proactive in nature: These leaders plan ahead each day and week, delegating duties, and developing their leaders to be better at decision making and planning.

These companies are setting up good systems, managing by metrics, and taking time to innovate with new technologies and services.

3. Making the shift: The third category are those leaders who are making the “shift”; pulling themselves out of the reactive cycle, and shifting into a more proactive executive leadership mode.

Which of the three describe you?I am reminded of this theme as I work with a new person on our Jeffrey Scott team. He came from a more reactive environment where his day was filled with a certain amount of chaos and fires.

He now has to re-learn to use his proactive planning skills.

Your challenge: Model proactive behavior, and develop your team to do the same.You (every company) needs crew leaders and supervisors who are proactive planners to some degree. These are skills that can be modeled and taught.

Even more so, you need executive leaders who plan ahead and get in front of problems.

However, if your top leaders are reactive, it’s hard for your front line leaders to learn or practice these skills.

Better planning and smoother execution start at the topRegards, Jeffrey Scott

P.S. Here is a short assessment for you and your executives to determine your strengths and weaknesses in terms of proactivity.

GOOD BUSY VS BAD BUSY.Are you “good” busy or “bad” busy?

Here is a list of four types of good-busy and five types of bad-busy.

Score yourself on each of these (1. In a good spot, 2. Doing better or 3. Not doing well at all.) and figure out where you need to focus.

1. Focused busy

This is means you are going after a goal, and strictly focused on executing that goal. It means your team knows what their goals are, and they know what the important priorities are for hitting those goals.

2. Productive busy

This means you and your leaders are getting a lot done with your time, by following the 20-80 rule. You are doing the work that is most important (the 20 – 30 %) and delegating (or simply not doing) the rest (the 70 – 80%).

3. Planning busy

This means you are getting “ahead” of issues, by daily and weekly “quiet” planning of your time, and quarterly planning with your team to get everyone focused on priorities.

You use meetings to keep people accountable, and you use your peer group to keep you accountable.

4. Innovating busy

This means you are growing in a new direction, adding new services, and busy figuring them out and selling them. This means your team is handling the day to day, so you can focus on the future. This focus drives tomorrow’s profits.

5. Reactive Busy

This means you are reactively responding to emails, phone calls and knocks on the door. You are reacting to the “urgent” agendas of other people. It may also mean your leadership is weak, and you are in a state of followship.

6. Fire-fighting Busy

This means you have complaints and emergencies that are consuming your time, or big quality or contract completion issues. It’s related to “reactive” busy, but worse.

7. Constantly-changing busy

This is the “attention deficit disorder” busy. This is due to not following through on your plans, and constantly creating new plans and new directions. You thrive on chaos, and you may be creating chaos for others.

8. Doing-double-work busy

This means your systems force you to do double administrative work, or even triple work. This is the kind of busy work that stops a company from growing.

9. Too-much-of-a-good thing busy

This means you are simply working on too many projects, unfocused and without great results. You could be productive if you scale back and prioritize.

Everyone is busy: though many people are not the right kind of busy.

So….how do you score? The lower the better. A score of 9 is the best, and 27 is the worst.

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Every year I am blessed to go to the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival, a 13 stage celebration of food and music.

I look forward to seeing the big names and the up-and-coming acts.

This year I was excited to see The Steve Miller Band. I have loved them ever since 6th grade.

Interview with Steve Miller

A few bands each year are interviewed by our local radio station (in a building on the festival grounds.) Their stories are recorded for posterity’s sake.

I was lucky to catch a Q&A with Steve Miller right before he went onstage.

The discussion was eye opening: Steve Miller wasn’t just another pop artist. He had such a rich and bluesy background before he became famous.

Interesting Facts About Steve Miller:

Steve grew up with musical parents, with famous musicians visiting his house, like Les Paul, T-Bone Walker and Charles Mingus.
Les Paul (the famous guitar maker) became Steve’s godfather. He heard Steve banging on a guitar when he was 6 and encouraged him to keep playing.
Steve had a high school band that traveled the deep south playing frat parties.
Boz Scaggs, a high school classmate of his, was a member of his different band incarnations throughout the 60s before starting his own solo career.
Steve moved to Chicago and followed his dream of becoming a blues musician, playing with all the blues greats.
He then moved to San Francisco to become part of the emerging music scene in the late 60’s, where he formed the Steve Miller Blues Band.
Steve hung out and played with many musical greats. Jimi Hendrix became his friend and mentor.

The Steve Miller Blues Band then signed a record deal, and were convinced to drop the word “blues” from their name to attract a wider audience.

In the 70’s “The Steve Miller Band” started putting out hits that we all know and love.

His music became less bluesy, less psychedelic and more mainstream.

But at his roots Steve Miller is a blues guitarist, and still tries to weave the blues into every show.

I am glad I took time away from the music and sun to hear Steve’s story.

Your challenge. Learn from your people’s stories.Take a break from the go-go routine of work and spend one-on-one time with your people.

Find out more about them: their families and histories, their hobbies, and what they do in their spare time.

Find out who inspires them, and you may be inspired by what you uncover.

My client and friend, Ivan Katz, does this with his Mexican workforce.

He spends each winter down south visiting their families, joining in on their celebrations, and getting to know their stories.

Because of this investment, his people have become loyal, and his life is enriched.

That’s a powerful story!

Regards, Jeffrey Scott!

P.S. Join Sean Baxter (Lawn and Landscape Solutions) and myself tomorrow/Wednesday at 12 noon ET, where we dig into The Power of a Peer Group.

Sean and I will share stories of “burden, triumph and inspiration” from our years of experience in our peer group community.

Learn how to grow your business and make friends for life by becoming a member of our peer group, The Leader’s Edge.

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Since we are in the middle of 100 Days to Sell, I want to share a timely sales tip.

This tip will increase your design-sales conversion and improve your margins.

It has to do with how you handle the design-sales process on your design-build projects.

The discussion around this sales tip happened a few weeks back, when a client (who sells projects in the 250-500k range) came to me with an issue:

Beat up on price:

They were having trouble selling their projects at the margins they needed to make a decent profit.

They were afraid of their own price (like being afraid of one’s own shadow) and it showed.

Upfront commitment

Their fear of pricing began with how they asked for an upfront commitment from the client.

Meaning…their design fee was relatively low, at about 1% of total project costs.

This undermined (underplayed) the high value and complexity of their designs, which was quite high.

When you charge a low design fee, you make it easy for the client to say Yes.

However, this can backfire when the selling process is short circuited and critical discussion points are skipped or skimmed over, namely:

Clarifying the budget and the client’s connection to the budget
The scope of the project, what’s included, what’s not.
The timeline and related expectations
The differing needs between the two buyers (spouses, if residential)
Etc, etc.

How much design fee is enough?

As I said, the client in this story charged 1% of the total project cost; it was a loss leader for them.

But did it need to be?

I surveyed a group of clients who design and build large jobs over 250k. I found the following range of design fees (as a per cent of project costs):

Some charged 1/2% to 1%.
A bunch charged 2% and more,
And one charged over 5%.
As you can see, it’s a wide range.

One thing is certain, there are 3 benefits of charging a design fee that is more in line with the value of your design:

You are forced to do more selling up front, which benefits everyone.
Your clients have more skin in the game and are less likely to shop you around.
You have a better chance of recovering your design costs.

Your Challenge: Keep your sales team efficient, during up and down economiesIt is easier to sell when the economy is booming: but it’s also easy to get lazy, which I saw happening this past year. Has your team or processes become lazy?

It is harder to sell when the economy has a hiccup. A down economy can throw you off balance. When this happens, some companies become defensive, or short cut their sales process, or they start scrambling.

It may seem counterintuitive to raise design fees in a down economy, but if your design-sales process sets you up for ineffective selling or low margin selling, then that is exactly what you need to consider.

No matter what you do, have the courage of your convictions!

Regards, Jeffrey Scott

Bring Your Team And Finish the 2023 Year Strong!

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Chris O’Bryan is co-owner and President of Limbwalker Tree Service & Lawn Care, based in Louisville, KY.

It’s a 20 year-old, 5M business that is 60% Tree service, with the rest spread over lawn services, PHC and mosquito control.

Chris is a true visionary and thinks outside the box. You will get inspired by the management ideas he has implemented in his firm.

Jeffrey and Chris discuss his 2018 reset, his pandemic reset in 2020, his unique team “pod” structure inside his company, his unique bonus structure and unique definition of leadership.

Chris is a crazy leader, crazy like a fox.

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Last week I shared two things that Mariani does uniquely well.

Here is the third thing they do uniquely well: Selling “premium specialty services” which helps to keep their clients “sticking” around.

Below are 3 examples, plus I explain “what it means for you.”It’s a brilliant strategy, and one that you can copy.

(Note: Today’s the last day to get the super early bird discount for the Summer Growth Summit.)

Mariani’s Premium Specialty Services.It’s not enough to do a great job serving your clients with commoditized landscape services.

It helps to find opportunities for additional services that go above and beyond your competition.

Mariani does this well.

Example 1 is “SPECIALIZED ROSE CARE”Mariani responded to their clients need for this specialty service.

Frank Mariani recognized the need and saw the opportunity to go big in this service.

He purchased the Rose Acres business and merged the service into Mariani, to make it a standard offering for clients.

They now offer a dedicated rose care program (16 visits per season – fertilization, pest control, pruning, dead heading, etc.)

What it means to you.If you were a client of Mariani, and loved your roses, it would be hard to leave them for a cheaper competitor knowing that they are taking good care of your babies i.e. your roses.

<>Your clients need that same kind of deep connection with your company; make it painful for them to leave you and switch companies, and you will enjoy a client for life.

Example 2 is “MARIANI SEASONAL COLOR”This is a nearly 10M business on its own, built by offering clients personalized 4-season solutions expertly designed and installed by Mariani’s Garden team.

While any landscape company can offer this, most do not do this well. Or at least do it on this scale.

What it means to you: <>Give your clients multiple reasons to make it hard to leave you. And boost your profit margins doing so.

Example 3 is “AUTO MOWERS”Mariani has decided to be a pioneer of this technology, which offers clients a great many benefits while being better for the environment.

Mariani has over 300 automowers installed and are adding more to the program each week.

What it means to you: <>Listen intently to your clients’ needs, even when they can’t articulate them.

<>If you can predict what your clients want and need, and then find a way to give it to them, you will prosper.

Learn more…

At our Summer Growth Summit at Mariani, you will learn about these specialty services, and more. You will learn how to be a bold leader in your division or company, and how to scale your business.

Your Challenge: Develop “sticky” services that boost client retentionTo develop sticky services, it is critical that you get out of the day-to-day, and work “on” the business and “on” your client relationships.

A great place to start is by running a client advisory focus group.

I did this back in the day, and it was fantastic for helping me see my business through my clients eyes.

Invite a small group of comprehensive clients and engage them in a conversation of what you do well and where you can improve.

Pick clients who use most all your services, to get the most out of this.

Running a focus group like this will make you a better leader:

As a mentor to your leaders
As a marketer of your company
As a developer of new services

Developing sticky services will allow you to grow faster and stronger!

Regards, Jeffrey Scott

P.S. You have 1 day left to buy tickets for our Summit at the super early bird price and save 300 dollars. Register here.

Make use of our “5 tickets for the price of 4” special. Email Corine for details.

Bring Your Team And Finish the 2023 Year Strong!

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For anyone who watches the show, Shark Tank, you have learned how the Sharks love companies with a unique, hard-to-copy product.

It’s even more important for the Sharks that this uniqueness is translated into strong sales and profits.

In prep for my Summer Growth Summit, I asked the marketing director at Mariani Landscape, Andrew Gross:What does Mariani do uniquely well?

He shared with me 3 eye-opening answers.

Over the next two weeks I am going to share those responses with you, in two parts. Here is Part 1.

Note, I have included my own assessment on “What it means to you.”

Mariani does “People Development” Uniquely well.Mariani has an incredible 49 associates with 25 or more years of experience with the company. That’s very hard to replicate.

It’s a testament to the strength of their clients, culture and commitment to employee development.

Many of these people joined the company as their first job out of school and have progressed through multiple roles to be in leadership positions today.

A great example is Todd Vena, VP of Maintenance Production.

Todd started working summers in the greenhouse and on construction crews during high school and college; and then joined the Mariani construction team full time after college.

He worked in design/build project management, and then shifted into maintenance production.

He started off as a maintenance scheduler, working his way up to leading this 500+ person division. You will get to meet him during our Summer Growth Summit.

What it means to you:

It’s not enough to be a great recruiter, you have to build a Destination Company® where your good employees can plant and grow their career. It takes a relentless focus to both developing employees and to growing their career opportunities for this to work well.

Growth is never for your own ego’ sake. It is for your employee’s sake and to your client’s benefit.

Mariani understands the “magnetic pride of large complex jobs”Mariani has developed the skill to tackle long-term, complex transformational client projects.

It requires all facets of the Mariani company to participate. This results in a thrilling and engaging experience for everyone internally.

Externally, it is great PR, which helps with both marketing and recruiting efforts.

A great example is the “Ravine Restored” project that just received the judges award from ILCA.

This project was originally started by Rocco Fiore and Sons which then merged into Mariani in 2021.

It reflects a 20 year commitment to restore and enhance a Ravine to the way nature intended it to be.

The sheer scope of the project has been enormous and reflects the ability of their combined teams to take on these challenges.

What it means to you:
When you take on a large job for your size company (whatever you consider large relative to your current size), get everyone in the company engaged and let everyone share in the excitement. This will strengthen your culture and get your company poised for the next incremental challenge.

Taking this approach will develop your company’s skill for teamwork and implementation.

Your Challenge: Have a bold five-year vision to keep your eye on the prize.Both of these examples from Mariani require a bold vision.

Don’t be afraid to shoot for the moon, and to engage all your leaders in your high ambitions.

If you don’t have a clear five-year vision, start putting one together this year.

As you build your vision, get everyone adding their two cents to how to implement. Get full buy in!

Fun next step: Ask your team, “what makes us unique?” And see what they say…

Regards, Jeffrey Scott

P.S. You only have seven (7) days left to buy tickets at the super early bird price.

Go here for more info and to purchase tickets.

See for yourself how Mariani operates. Meet their team. Plus, learn from other high-achieving landscape business owners who will also be speaking.

Make use of our “5 tickets for the price of 4” special. Email Corine for details.

Bring Your Team And Finish the 2023 Year Strong!

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In order to succeed in this economy, someone needs to be in charge of building your sales team: Hiring, Motivating, Steering and Managing.

You need a Professional Sales Manager to do all this.

The funny thing about Sales Management: You can’t study it at school, there are not many books about it, and a great many sales managers are really salespeople pretending they enjoy managing.

For those of you who are dedicated to this mysterious trade, here are few practical updated tips from my Sales Symposium, that I held last year:

7 Tips To Improve Your Sales Team’s Performance:

1. Consistent personal lives

Great salespeople have a sense of urgency and are always “on”.

Performing at this high level requires having a very consistent and stable personal life. Therefore, make sure your interview process uncovers the full personal picture of sales prospects.

2. Never cap a salesperson’s upside potential.

Let your salespeople remain delusionally optimistic about how much they can sell and earn. You might just be surprised at what is possible.

3. Balanced sales commissions.

Sales commissions can backfire as often as not, especially when the sales team wins (earns their commission) but the company still loses (misses budget, loses money).

This is why the Sales Manager should have a big incentive tied to the overall sales (revenue) goal.

As for the salespeople, I recommend a balanced approach of incentivizing profit margins together with top line sales goals (along with some fun targeted incentives along the way.)

A simple approach to profit-based commissions is to tie it to gross profit margin. According to my friend and client, Paul Reder, calculating the GPM can include the cost of equipment assuming it is estimated and not part of overhead.

Only for simpler sales can you base commissions on top line numbers.

4. Competitive juices.

Bring out the competitive spirit and desires of your sales team with weekly meetings reviewing key metrics; but keep the meetings short!

Ideally you want at least 3 competitive salespeople on your sales team to keep the juices flowing. Three is the magic number.

5. Participate to buy-in.

Sales meetings should be participatory, with everyone filling in and discussing their own metrics; and adding their own ideas.

It should never be a lecture; even I fall asleep at lectures.

6. Magic in the motivation.

It’s not just money that motivates, it’s much more:

the competitive spirit and celebration of wins,
the acknowledgment of a happy client and beautiful job done,
the sales awards you hand out on a frequent basis.

Don’t confuse money motivation with overall motivation. If you only rely on dollars, your salespeople will lose their focus over time.

7. Great sales managers grease the skids.

Sales Managers develop technological solutions and remove the obstacles of distraction, so their sales team can stay focused on selling.

Every sales person needs different grease to remove different obstacles.

“Grease Grease Grease”….is the sound coming from behind the door of a great sales manager!

Your team will love you if you can constantly remove those obstacles.

Your Challenge: Sales management is an active profession of constantly building and improving.Make sure to track all the metrics of your pipeline: # leads, # of appointments, # of proposals, # of contracts.

Perhaps the most important metric is the “the speed” of your selling process.

Keep track of each salesperson’s “time to sale” and constantly look for ways to “remove # of steps, interactions and days” in the sales process.

Ready, Set, Build the SalesTeam!

Regards,

Jeffrey Scott

P.S. Join us at Mariani to see how they sell, and manage their sales teams of design, install, enhnacements, maintenance and all their other services.

Our Summer Growth Summit super early bird pricing deadline ends April 18th.

Bring or send your team, and get them pumped to finish the year strong with better selling tools and systems.

Bring Your Team And Finish the 2023 Year Strong!

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Mark Smith is the owner of Smith Lawnscapes, a 5.4M business in St. Johns, Michigan.

Mark truly loves to snowmobile, but a snowmobiling accident changed Mark’s life, and his approach to how he managed his business.

Mark and Jeffrey discuss his journey of growth and transformation, with all it’s ups and downs.

Mark is a down-to-earth guy who talks heartfelt about changes and investments he has made in his business.

He promoted his sale manager to the role of second in command, and this has allowed (and forced) Mark to rethink his role yet again.

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There is an expression in our industry, The 100 Days of Hell.

While it is humorous, it sets the wrong tone.

I like the following upbeat expression better: 100 Days To Sell

Spring is here and many of you across the country have already been selling into this year’s goals.

But you can always get better.

Answering the phone and returning calls promptly puts you ahead of 90% of your would-be competitors.

The following ten tips above will help you get ahead of everyone else.

10 Sales Knowledge Bombs to help you up your sales game.1. Be choosy: If you dont “Qualify, qualify, qualify”, you wont be able to sell sell sell. Remember: Sell to prospects who believe what you believe, and want what you sell. 2. Make promises, keep promises: Salespeople should schedule their time tightly and efficiently, so you can make promises of quick response and keep those promises! This requires using technology, outsourcing services (design, take offs, etc.) and employing a defined selling and estimating processes. 3. Selling happens in person: Order taking happens on email. Real salesmanship happens in real time. Especially when discussing questions and dealing with resistance. Note: Zoom and Loom Recordings are the new in person” contract presentation, so give those a try this year. 4. Have a secret weapon: Every sales person should have a secret weapon, something the other competitors don’t have. Perhaps meeting at your facility can be your secret weapon. It shows that you are a real company with a professional approach. It also allows you to plant seeds on upsales opportunities, by showing them more options. What’s your secret weapon? 5. Always set the next step: Always leave a sales meeting with the next step scheduled and client expectations clarified. This is so fundamental, that it bears repeating. It is critical for sales momentum. 6. Build trust, then ask the difficult question: You need to ask a client how much they want to spend, but not until you have built a strong emotional rapport. If your prospect wont answer that difficult question, then you have failed to build trust. Note, you are the professional sales consultant, so if they are stumped be prepared to help them understand the costs. 7. Sell the Sizzle. Uncover the emotional wants and needs, and the ego satisfaction that your clients will achieve by owning and using your product. And then sell that sizzle. Remember: People rationalize with facts, but buy on emotion. 8. Let clients talk among themselves. Create an excuse to leave the room so two clients (e.g. husband and wife) can talk among themselves, then you can re-enter the room, handle objections, and close the sale more quickly. 9. Follow up Fridays. Fridays are the best days to make presentations and to follow up on outstanding residential sales; clients are thinking about the weekend, starting to decompress, and have head space to focus on you and their home. 10. Be professionally persistent. It has been proven that top salespeople achieve higher results by consistently following up on outstanding proposalsin a professional manner.Note there is technology that allows you to automate follow ups. Tech-ify your sales process.

Your Challenge: Selling into a temperamental market.The market is temperamental right now, it is no longer “easy selling.” This year will separate the wannabes from the real sales professionals. Which are you?

A few weeks back I wrote on the art and science of negotiation; make sure to train yourself and your team to be expert negotiators. You will need that this year.

Ready, set, sell!

Regards, Jeffrey Scott!

P.S. You have 3 weeks left to make a smart buying decision.

Our Summer Growth Summit super early bird pricing deadline ends April 18th.

Take or send your team, and get them pumped to run through walls for your company!!

Bring Your Team And Finish the 2023 Year Strong!

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Here is a proven approach to finding golden opportunities in your divisional numbers.

But first, the back story:

I just spent the day in Macon, Georgia, with one of our Leaders Edge peer groups, reviewing everyones 2022 benchmark numbers.

(Thank you, Tommy Thornton, Southern Eco-Scapes, Gray, GA for hosting!)

Benchmarking is one of the highlights of our peer group meetings!

Everyone huddles around studying their numbers and their peers, looking for blind spots, golden nuggets and affirmations.

Its always eye opening, humbling and exciting to watch the aha’s unfold.

Divisional Benchmarking

The easiest way to create divisional numbers is to review direct costs and the gross profit margins they create. Its a critical step to financial mastery.

Here is one of our tricks we use to analyze your maintenance division numbers.

Five Steps to Improved Maintenance Margins

The trick is to divide maintenance into its 2 components and compare those components against each other, as follows:

1. Divide your maintenance” numbers into two (sub) divisions: Recurring Contracted Maintenance Services and Enhancement Revenue (upsales to existing clients).

2. Compare your performance: Review the gross profit margins on these two sub divisional categories; compare them with your peers and against your historical numbers.

Then identify whether you are performing above average, just average or in fact below average.

Note: Enhancement margins should be just as high (if not 6-10 pts higher) than Maintenance margins, despite the higher material component in enhancements.

And…Enhancement throughput numbers should be over twice as high!

3. Enhancements sales ratio need to be high, too. Identify if Enhancements sales are healthy percentage of Recurring Maintenance services.

They should be 100% for high end residential, down to about 33% for lower end commercial maintenance.

This depends on how your contracts are written, some of you will be higher or lower than this range, but most of you will fall in between.

4. Overall performance: If you have run these sub divisions correctly, you should be able to re-combine them and show strong overall financial performance boosted by strong upsales.

5. Client by client analysis: Take this a step further and do this analysis client by client.

Are you making a good return when combining each client’s annual services with their enhancement services.
Does each client buy enough enhancement services?
Is this client a target client or a distraction to your team and growth plans?

Your Challenge – Staying in front of the right clients.If you are under achieving on enhancement sales, its possible your properties look sad.

Or possibly your competitors are also sellling to your clients; that’s not good either.

Dont let the opportunity slip away to make your client happy: by solving more of their problems through upsales.

Make that a priority this Spring.

Regards, Jeffrey!

P.S. Mariani Landscape has always taken a smart approach to this opportunity of maintenance vs. upsales.

When we visit them this August 23-24 for our Summer Growth Summit, you will hear from their Maintenance leaders and their Enhancement leaders how they go about this sales and service approach; how they work separately and together to keep a win-win-win approach.

You don’t get to be the biggest by leaving it to luck!

Bring Your Team And Finish the 2023 Year Strong!

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Do you know how Mariani got to the size they are today?

I am not talking about their acquisitions; I mean before that.

How did they achieve their long standing organic growth?

Seven Steps to Organic Growth

As I prepare for our upcoming Summer Growth Summit at Mariani Landscape this August, I have been contemplating the question of their growth.

Of course, you will get the chance to ask him yourself when you come to our Summit, but I have known Frank for years and here is what I have witnessed.

1. Act professional no matter your size.

When Frank started off all those years ago, he acted like a much larger, more professional firm.

He did strategic planning with his team from the very beginning. Setting goals and reviewing results regularly.

2. Don’t be the only leader.

He surrounded himself with smart, driven people, learning from others and investing in leaders.

He built his team quickly.

3. Work harder and smarter.

Mariani worked both hard and smart. (It can’t be just one, it needs to be both.)

For example, he would price his maintenance core services in a way that the client would say Yes (not too high), and then he could price his enhancement services accordingly so that the client’s total margin made dollars and sense.

But it still takes hussle to make that approach work!

4. Stay glued to your customers.

Mariani has a huge focus on customer service. It’s steeped into their culture.

Knowledgeable and affluent clients want the best, not just the best in landscape, but the best professionalism overall.

I know from my personal experience working in a high-end market that there is no replacement for exceptional service.

5. Service is equal to sales.

Mariani has succeeded in building a structure to provide proactive, high touch service with opportunities for clients to buy extras and buy more solutions.

A buying customer is a happy customer.

And yet, when the economy would soften in Chicago every now and then, Mariani would double down on customer service.

Keep your friends close and your clients closer!

6. Hire above your fighting weight.

Some of Mariani’s great hires are still with Frank decades later.

He didn’t just hire ‘good enough’, rather he hired people that could take him across a further finish line years later.

7. Be scrappy and ever-present.

Growing up in Chicago didn’t hurt Mariani’s opportunities for growth.

The north shore has a great big market. But it’s also a competitive market, so you must fight for your market share.

Frank is a fighter, and he doesn’t seem to sleep nights or on the weekend. He is always networking, meeting people and relationship building.

It’s like the expression “last man standing”, except its “last person networking” that wins.

The good news for you: Everything Frank did is copy-able.

You can do this too.

It just takes inspiration and knowing where to begin.

I hope this spurs you to action

Regards, Jeffrey !

P.S. To get a peek DEEP under the covers at Mariani, and hear from 20 of Mariani leaders, managers and executives – Join us on August 23-24 for our Summer Growth Summit.

Bring Your Team And Finish the 2023 Year Strong!

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Mike Bogan returns for a follow up podcast to dive deeper into the nuts and bolts of Landcare.

Mike shares with Jeffrey the business philosophy of People First that drives their growth.

Jeffrey and Mike discuss Landcare’s core values, purpose and systems, high lighting what makes the business different. They discuss profit sharing vs incentives and commissions. They end with a discussion about making work as enjoyable as life.

Mike Bogan is President and Co-Owner of Landcare, based in Frederick, MD. It’s a 24-year-old company that Mike joined 8 years ago as CEO. He and his leadership team have transformed Landcare into a profitable, fast-growth company.

Landcare has 70 locations and 3800 employees.

Mike is a veteran of the industry yet with the enthusiasm of a startup.

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Last week I traveled to Ontario for a snowmobiling & skiing weekend with my clients Mark and Ken Hutten, owners of Hutten & Co.

We were joined by spouses and Corine my business partner. (fun photos below).

The entire trip was Mark and Ken’s treat.

I Bet He Would Make More Money

A few years back we made a bet with them “If you re-invest in coaching with us, we bet you will do even better financially within 12 months. If you don’t, we will take you and your spouses on a resort snowmobiling trip.

But if you do better, you will treat us.”

We won that bet. 😉

This Trip Had Many Firsts

Driving from Boston to Mt Washington, and then via Montreal and Algonquin park to Deerhurst Resort, Ontario.
Snowmobiling at over 100 kph on the frozen lakes. What a blast!
Intimate dinners with fine wine getting to know their spouses better, and vice versa.
Ice hiking and cross country skiing in the vast Canadian forests.
Eating chocolate eclairs for breakfast.

The trip felt like a capstone to our partnership and friendship.

Many Proud Moments

According to Mark and Ken, here are a few proud moments from the past 7 years working together:

Tripled their revenue (Note: very hard to do in their rural part of the country.)
Building a hugely tight culture and super strong vision, with everyone rowing in the same direction.
Profound personal growth for both owners, plus professionally they both emerged clear and strong in their role as CEO and COO.
Hit way above-industry average net profits, using cutting edge financial tools, profit sharing and open book management
Buying new property, starting new divisions, developing news services; overall completely transforming the business.

They sent me a huge list of over 35 tools, habits and learning points they garnered along the way.

I was so proud to partner with these two faithful owners, and watch and help them develop their company into a world-class operation.

Reflective Insights

Mark and Ken reflected on the following after our fun event.

Mark Hutten, ”We’ll keep taking time to appreciate each other. Being in business is an opportunity to bless others in a special way. To support family and engage in community. It’s not just a responsibility, but a gift to steward well.

Our inspiration is to share tools and resources with others. To be an encourager. To give back!”

Ken Hutten “I’ve put a lot of work into my own personal growth, and Jeffrey’s help and direction has been impactful. Being pushed to read more has been very valuable.

…Over the last 7 years I’ve read more than 110 business and personal books, and this has helped build new habits in business and personal life.”

Looking Forward Is Inspiring.

We agreed that our time together was not just a celebration of the past, but also a reigniting of their future.

In Mark’s words “Looking forward, we’re inspired to keep our vision alive. To keep innovating and thriving, to be bold. To do what excites us. To lean into our instinct, and not worry about what everyone else is doing.”

He added, “We’ll focus on keeping our own story unique and memorable. That’s fun for us. Plus, clients and employees love a good story – one they can trust.”

Your Challenge: Enjoy The Moment, It Won’t Last Forever.At our last breakfast together, we shared parting throughts.

In Mark’s words: As a result of this trip, we’re inspired to keep stepping back and enjoying the moment. Not always being too serious with each other. It’s great fun to just share, laugh, have a nice bottle of wine, and savor the experience and the relationships.

In Jeffrey Scott’s (my) words: Growth looks easy from the outside, but it’s not all chocolate eclairs and rainbows. It is very difficult, there are plenty of tears shed along the way. It’s because of the grit required that success feels special.

Make sure you like who you are working for, working with, and coaching with. The journey is as important as the goal.

Wishing you great moments this year!

Regards, Jeffrey

Enjoy the photos!

Corine and I with Mt Washington (NH) in our background, it was freezing cold! We visited my “oldest” friend who is now quasi retired and skis every day.

What a great experience following these real experts who like to drive fast. I found snowmobiling a lot like racing cars. Look far ahead, lean in, and keep things steady. I am hooked!

A bit of cross country skiing to make us feel like we exercised.

We drove down to Detroit to drop off the car (too expensive to drop it off in Toronto.) We spent our last night at the Hockney Resort (Ontario) and did more snow hiking with Greg Wildeboer and his wife Sherry from Whispering Pines Landscape.

Don’t Miss the Super Early Bird special!

Go here for details.

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Paul is the CEO of Sun Valley Landscaping based in Omaha, NE. The company is 27 years old, has 62 employees, and is roughly 7.5M in revenue.

Paul’s firm does a large mix of services, commercial, residential, snow, supply yard, etc.

Paul has personally done it all, run his company remotely, merged with another company, and he has constantly pushed himself to be a better leader.

Paul and I have known each other for many years, and we get deep, talking about personal things, hobbies, as well as business.

As CEO of Sun Valley Landscaping, Paul Fraynd leads the company’s growth and strategy while maintaining its core values and operating in a way that would make his Mom proud. Starting his business while completing his business degree at Creighton University, Paul purchased a $50 garage sale mower and employed his Mother as one of his first part-time employees. He takes these early lessons and now applies them to grow his team of 60+ landscape professionals.

Paul was recognized as Midlands Business Journal’s 40 under 40 and currently serves on the Board of Directors for the National Association of Landscape Professionals.

From the beginning, Paul has looked for ways to help the community while being a role model for his industry and the city he loves – Omaha.

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Ron Edmonds (founder of Principium Group) was a guest speaker at one of my peer groups recently, and shared some valuable tips for buyers and sellers of landscape firms.

Here are some of the takeaways, as shared (to me) by some of my clients who attended this peer group meeting.

Doug Taylor (Frontier’s, Ontario) reported: De-risking the business as it pertains to the weight of relationship-based marketing versus active lead generation … I can see need to build the marketing engine outside of my (the owners’) direct relationships and word-of-mouth.

Dennis Evans (Quiet Village, St Louis) stated: Being proactive looking for acquisitions is a way to grow the business, but just like in marketing, be ready for tire kickers.

Martin Silverman (Martin John Company, Chicago) learned that a typical brokers fee could be in the 8-10% range, and that business are even more valuable once they reach 10 million in sales typically.

Brandon Lair (The Site Group, Ohio) observed that some of the “same things that make your business more profitable creates more value for investors.” Hoo ya!

Will Seiler (Seiler’s Landscape, Ohio) shared five personal takeaways from Ron’s talk on how to de-risk his business (with some comments from me)

Quality accrual-based data. Keep it clean! (which is what we teach in The Leader’s Edge; true accrual based accounting. Always have a set of books that shows the true performance of the business, not laden down with owners perks.)
Continue to grow and consistently break through barriers and plateaus (which we preach and show how to do in every meeting)
Have a true 2IC/Second in command in place (a common topic we address: how to develop a Relationship Contract between owner and their 2IC.)
Systemize the business, document the process! (a recurring topic of our meetings is sharing best practices and proven systems)
Make your DB Business “look” recurring. (easy to do when you see the value of doing so.)

Rob Morel (Morel’s Landscape, Cleveland) learned “the importance of clean data, plus knowing the reasons someone is selling their business; find out these reasons early in the process.”

Traven Pelletier (Lotus Gardenscapes, Michigan) summed it up nicely, “It was helpful to hear from the business buyer’s perspective. It was particularly reassuring to learn that what we are doing (in our peer group) to become top tier is also creating that solid foundation that an investor is looking for!”

There were many other topic takeaways, including the importance of steady growth on percevied value. Hopefully you can take one from this list above to start working on, to make your business more valuable.

Your Challenge: Look at your business as an investmentEven if you plan to “retire in place” (a topic I have written on and spoken about here), you still want to make your business eminently valuable.

With value in mind, consider these two questions.

How fast is the value of your business growing?
Is your business set up so that your team can run it without you in the day to day?

Happy Valentine’s Day! Remember who has supported you in your success!

Regards, Jeffrey!

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This month was my fifteen year anniversary as a coach and consultant in the lawn and landscape industry.

I received “congrats” over LinkedIn, and it inspired me to jot down 15 powerful business lessons that steered my success.

Here they are, with applications to you and your business.

“Find your niche and double down”. Don’t be a generalist. This has worked tremendously for me, and it can work for you too (unless your company is in a small population area.)
“Be willing to pivot.” If your niche changes dramatically or doesn’t work anymore, be willing to pivot and focus on another niche. I have made two big pivots, each time helping me get more focused until I found the “right” niche. Don’t be afraid to make a change if a niche is not working for you.
“Become the best.” Don’t just become pretty good at something, but be freaking awesome. Become the best at something that your clients really need. I have a few specialties that I am constantly reinvesting in and getting better, and thus my clients are constantly benefiting from this. All companies in any industry need to think this way.
“Always be marketing.” In good times and bad. Be in the marketing game for the long haul. My clients tell me “they see me everywhere.” Your clients should tell you the same thing.
“What’s in the client’s best interest?” When I have an important decision, big or small, I ask myself this question. You can use this to guide your growth and decision making. It will keep you client centric and client friendly.
“Sell with leadership.” Don’t be afraid to tell your prospects “that’s a bad idea” or “Here is the issue I see.” As my friend used to say, “poke ’em in the eye” when discussing their situation. For you this means “be a leader when selling.” Good clients want to buy from leaders.
“Walk the talk.” I follow my own advice I give my clients. Unfortunately, not every consultant does. I do this because its sound advice. “Teaching by showing” makes it real. Do you follow the advice you give your employees and clients?
“Listen and grow.” Your clients will tell you what new products and services they want, if you engage closely with them. But don’t do every idea. Just the ones that make sense in the long view.
“Be generous and quality focused.” Don’t be cheap, it makes you look weak; instead be generous. And charge enough so your clients will take you seriously, so you can do high quality work. Clients get more value from their relationship with you when you are a worthy partner.
“Don’t dumb down.” Educate up. If you have concepts, and tools that will help your employees and clients, stick with them and people up. But don’t be complex either. You need to “make smart things look simple.”
“Everything is a system”. Make systems out of the simple repeatable actions you do internally and with your clients. Build these up over time, not as a one-time project. This has helped me greatly, and it can help you too.
“Name it.” Brand and name the things important to your business, that you want your team to remember and never take for granted. Brand your values, name your key internal processes, etc., and extend this to your clients where it makes sense.
“Work for people you like and respect”. Don’t build a company where you complain about every other client. That way work doesn’t feel like work. This also means never work for people who don’t respect you. Your clients should buy into your vision and mission.
“What’s next?” Always be asking this, with yourself, with your clients and with your team. It will keep everyone young, engaged and delivering more value.
“Rub shoulders with leading edge peers.” Not only do I offer peer group services in the green industry, but I am also part of a peer group with other professional consultants (in other niches). It keeps me sharp. I walk the talk!

Your challenge: Pick one of these that resonate with you to implement as a team.Review this list with your leadership team, find where you excel, and where you need to put more effort.

The Louisiana French have a word “lagniappe”, something given as a bonus, like a baker’s dozen. Here is my lagniappe for you, one more lesson that’s helped me greatly.

#16: “Never stop studying.” Ever. Read books, newspapers and magazines, both in your niche and outside of it. Be a perennial student and you will become a master. Read fiction and non fiction to really broaden your worldview.

Thank you for the fifteen years of support.

Here is to you, and fifteen more years of success for you, your family and your company!

Regards, Jeffrey!

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Do you know if you are winning the GPM (gross profit margin) game?

This was a question I posed at my Jan 2023 “Financial Master Class.”

We collected the financial numbers from almost 200 participants, and looked at both their overall company margins, as well as their divisional GPM numbers.

How Do You Compare?

I am a big fan of looking at divisional GPMs, because it is easy to confuse the score of your company’s overall performance, when you combine bad results with good results.

For example, If you have two divisions and one is strong and one is weak, then when you only look at company wide numbers you are not getting a clear picture.

I am also a big fan of comparing your results against the “high achievers”, the top 20% of companies achieving the highest GPM.

Let’s Look at Design Build (DB).

The average GPM for the entire Financial Master Class study was 49%** before misc expenses (and 54% net of subs)

( Note: We calculated Gross Profit as follows: Revenue – Cost of field labor [no burden], subs, materials)

In our study, the DB division average GPM (47%, 53% net of subs) was just a few points below the company wide averages.

However the DB high performers (top 20%) were doing much better than average, at a GPM of 60% (63% net of subs).

Do The math!

in DB, the high performers GPM was a full 13 percentage points above the average (60% – 47% = 13 points.)

Let’s take a minute to let that sink in.

That’s a world of difference!

To underscore that point, imagine if all DB companies in this study had the same overhead, this would mean that the high performers were earning 13 pts of Net Profit more than the average company.

Translating to net profit

The average net profit of all companies in our study was 8%.

If the high performers had the same overhead as the average, that would mean their DB net profit would be 13 points higher, at 21% NP.

That’s a sizeable gap.

But wait, there’s more

The “enhancements” division benchmarks had an even larger gap of 17 points. The average GPM was 56%, and the high achievers was 73%.

This begs the question: Where do you land, and how can you become a high performer?

Your Challenge – Compare yourself to your high scoring peers.Too much accepted wisdom on the street is just heresay and rumor.

For example, “I heard that so-and-so is making a lot of money.”

Or, company owners start their own rumors by telling people “we are making a lot of money”, but they don’t really have a handle on their numbers.

It gets confusing who to believe, and who to compare yourself with.

This is why it is imperative to manage your company divisions by the numbers, and to compare yourself with the true high performers.

After you have a handle on what the numbers are telling you, then (and only then) can you “rob and duplicate” other companies best practices with confidence.

Regards, Jeffrey Scott!

P.S. The biggest value of my high impact peer groups is the industry-leading benchmarking we do. We dive into everything discussed here, and then some!

Today is the final day of our January White Sale – A thousand dollars off membership in my high-impact Leader’s Edge Peer Group if you apply before tomorrow, February 1st.

Apply here. before January ends.

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Mark Ables is the owner of 48-year-old Ables Landscapes in Charleston, SC.

The company has 55 employees and does around $7M in residential design-build-maintenance.Mark bought the business from his father and modernized its approach to management and growth, but first, he had to transform from owner-operator to CEO of his business.Jeff and Mark discuss two key hires that helped him grow, his innovative “dream manager” position in his business and other unique employee benefits.We discuss his faith-based approach to business and a faith-based peer group of which he is a member.We end with some great predictions for the industry and a short discussion of surfing.The post Helping Employees Achieve Their Dreams with Mark Ables appeared first on Jeffrey Scott.

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Last week we held our annual “Executive Retreat”, a client-exclusive event in NOLA for owners and their managers.

It was very HIGH energy, and the idea sharing was way beyond what you get at a typical landscape conference.

Here are 10 useful ideas that you can “rob and duplicate”:

1. The Grace Advantage.

Using Grace when you fire someone or when they quit, dramatically increases their chances of returning to you once they have figured out their life.

Kevin Werbrich (Werbrich Landscaping, OH) shared his grace-based approach to building up a backlog of employees who want to return even after they quit for greener pastures.

Be as nice to them when they leave as when they started, and they will return!

2. Manager vs Boss.

The industry is made up of 80% bosses, but only 20% true managers.

This is why our industry is seen as non professional and we lose so many good people.

Your managers need guidance on how to develop their team to their full potential.

Our speaker, Jose Andres Genal, the bilingual Director of Culture at Landscape Renovations (MN). showed everyone exactly how to transform a technical boss into a proficient manager.

It was eye opening.

3. Best in Class is Reachable.

Our keynoter, Keith Freeman, founder of the Green Group, NC, discussed the systems and attitude he used to building up his company to over 100M in just a few short years.

After decades working for some of the big name ‘profit-first’ companies, he decided to focus on creating a true best-in-class organization.

He noted that best-in-class companies do not make their focus about their product, e.g. landscape, rather they make it about their “why”.

He shared examples like Disney, Taylor Swift and finally, Chic Fil A,

Chic-fil-A’s success is not based on their chicken! Rather its about their leadership development program.

Keith’s secret sauce is to focus more on his employees than his clients. He spends more $ on employee benefits, and this allows him to spend less $ on marketing and sales, while still growing dramatically.

4. Become Better.

I kicked off the retreat with 10 proven ways to get better, because getting better is the sure fire path to growth.

“If you want to get bigger, get better!”

I asked around and a few attendees shared with me their takeaways.

Dennis Evans, from Quiet Village in St Louis shared his personal takeaways:

5. Stop running two companies: Office Staff and Field staff.

From the presentations, he saw that he was running two separate companies.

How do we meld them better, so that we have one single company and culture?

6. Appreciation isn’t simple:

It was clear to Dennis that “Getting pizza and donuts for the guys doesn’t count as appreciation.” We can go so much deeper.

7. The mentality of a manager is much different from a boss.

A manager coaches, is flexible, and is a mentor. A boss is technical expert but not much else.

Dennis noted, “We have all had bosses and they suck!”

Loriena Harrington, owner of Beautiful Blooms (WI), and Associate at Jeffrey Scott Consulting, shared the following:

8. Best in class can start small.

No need to be the largest to be the best in class, and you don’t need to be best for everything all at once.

You can start with a division, or targeted aspect within the company.

9. Identify and close the gaps.

Use surveys and meetings to identify blindspots/gaps.

Make plans for addressing them before we move on to creating anything new.

10. Focus attention on our strongest employees, clients, and company divisions.

Growth does not come from a remedial focus. Let your strongest people know they are appreciated and find ways to double down on the best areas of your firm in order to 100X your ROI.

Strong “Women In Lawn and Landscaping” (Strong WiLL)We held our first “Strong WILL” event, and invited our female landscape clients and their employees to a work lunch, where they discussed current issues and created solutions.

25 women attended!

They all came away pumped (!) with actions they could implement back in their companies and communities.

This idea was the brainchild of Shanna Scordo, from EarthCrafter Landscaping in PA and led by Loriena Harrington and Corine Koornhof.

Second in Command Peer GroupWe also started our first ever peer group for second-in-command leaders.

It took place right after the Executive Retreat.

The companies that participated enjoyed an immediate boost of ideas, accountability, attitude and professionalization of their business.

Interesting to note that over a third of the ’seconds in command’ are women!

Regards, Jeffrey Scott

P.S. If you want to learn how to join our community, ping me and we can start a conversation.

We are having a January White Sale – a thousand bucks off membership in my high-impact Leader’s Edge Peer Group if you apply before February 1st.

Apply now in January.

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Brian and Brad are co-owners of New Castle Lawn & Landscape, based in Birdsboro, PA.

The company is 28 years old and revenues $10M.

Brian founded the firm and then hired Brad, and ultimately invited him to become a 50% partner in the business.

In this podcast, we discuss their roles, their journey, and how they make it work.

They have done an excellent job building a culture and have become a Destination Company® where they do not have a problem recruiting or hiring and their turnover is low. This has lead to almost 100% client retention as well.

Jeffrey, Brian and Brad also discuss their future plans, along with the innovations they have implemented along the way.

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As I reflect on the year ahead, I like to make sure we bring along the important lessons from the previous year.

Because “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” – George Santayana, The Life of Reason, 1905.

The year was tough enough, lets learn from the experience.

HERE ARE MY SIX IMPORTANT LESSONS FROM 2022

Which one speaks to you?

1. Nothing Goes Up Forever.

I know this from the many recessions and stock market hiccups I have personally experienced over the decades.

The same lesson was learnt yet again this past year.

Nothing goes on forever — good or bad.

It’s never as good as it seems (or as bad as it seems, for that matter).

So don’t get lazy only trying to exploit the “easy” growth: Take advantage of the good times to make larger strategic decisions and difficult moves.

Be proactive. Don’t let external growth trump internal growth!

2. Clients Are Forever, Employees Are Not.

While that is not literally true, it was the sentiment of 2022, and we can learn from this.

You can always market for another client. But a great employee that you have invested time and money in, you don’t want to lose.

Protect your people by protecting your culture.

Promote the bad-fit employees (to another company), even when its hard to hire replacements.

Let go of one bad employee and two good ones will present themselves.

Close the window, and the door will open.

When you do this, the great ones will want to stick around to go on the journey with you.

3. Be Proactive, Even If It’s Costly.

I just wrote about this, don’t make the same mistake as Southwest Airlines.

Don’t put off the big decisions (of upgrading systems) just because its costly and intrusive to do so.

If it’s important, be proactive and take care of it.

It helps to play the Beer Truck game, and identify your weak people and systems that will be exposed if you lost a key leader.

4. Don’t Take On Clients That Cause You Grief.

You don’t need them, your people don’t need them, and the universe will reward you.

This was easier to do last year, and the value of doing so was immediately evident.

Walk away from bad-fit clients, and you will grow stronger because of it.

5. Check Your Pricing and Budgets Quarterly.

As we learned last year, your labor and material costs can change dramatically in-season, so make sure you are prepared to update your budgets and pricing throughout the year.

I advise reviewing them once a quarter.

You can combine this with your leadership team having their quarterly offsite meeting, where you update of your initiatives for the next quarter.

While doing this, it also doesn’t hurt to review your billable hours, and make sure you are on track.

If you are off track, you can re-set your urgency and even your budget and pricing based on billable hour variances.

Keep everyone’s eye on the prize!

6. Become a Marketing Expert.

With the economy being uncertain, don’t just delegate marketing and think that your marketing person will handle it.

You have to become an expert yourself at marketing concepts.

You can’t depend on a 10 year market rise to continue forever.

Shop around the marketing firm you are using, and get personally involved.

It’s time to expand and strengthen your lead sources.

Your Challenge: Engage your team so all their 2022 lessons are captured, too.Don’t let the rush of the New Year distract you.

As you solidify your plans, make sure to include everyone’s lessons from 2022.

Besides the six I have written about here, survey your own team to ensure that the lessons they personally learned are also captured in your go-forward plans.

Good luck!

Regards, Jeffrey Scott

P.S. We are having a January White Sale – a thousand bucks off membership in my high-impact Leader’s Edge Peer Group if you apply before February 1st.

Apply now in January.

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Troy R. Clogg, CSP is the owner of Troy Clogg Landscape Associates, in Wixom, MI. Troy started Troy Clogg Landscape Associates in the early 80’s with a mower & a dream

With more than 30 years of knowledge and experience in snow and ice management practices, Troy is recognized as an industry expert.

Jeffrey and Troy dive deep into snow, helpful for those of you who are experts and for those who want to learn more.

Troy is a serial entrepreneur, and on this podcast, you learn about more than just snow: landscape, tree services, deicer, and his supply business.

Troy is also a fervent believer in philanthropy; we discuss that as well in the end, along with some predictions for the industry.

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Christmas celebrates the birth of Christ.

Hanukkah is in remembrance of a past miraculous event, when Jews reclaimed their temple after Syrians forced them to worship false gods.

Both are defining holidays for Christians and Jews and both have a miracle at their core.

Interesting fact, Hanukkah is celebrated on the 25th of Kislev on the Hebrew calendar which falls around December every year; because its based on the lunar calendar, it’s timing changes each year.

Everyone celebrates these holidays in their own personal way, with loved ones, colleagues or friends.

I would like to wish you JOY over the holidays, and AWE at Gods creation.

My personal celebrationWith my wife out of town, this year I took my daughter to a holiday gala, a fund raiser for our family’s favorite non-profit, Son Of A Saint.

This was her first formal; she never went to senior prom, and neither did I.

This was also our first father-daughter dance. A little miracle in itself, for those who keep tabs.

Here are some fun photos from the evening.

And in case you are wondering, yes, James Bond and I are brothers…

Dressed to the nines, entering the lobby of the Ritz-Carlton hotel, where the gala was held.

Fun with selfies…

OMG. This one needs no caption…

After the dinner and auction, we hit the dance floor.

From my family to yours!

Happy Holidays, Jeffrey and Corine

P.S. Remember to help the neediest during the holiday season

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Recently, I took a group of 18 landscape business owners from my Leader’s Edge peer groups to Kansas City to learn the unique growth strategy of Ryan Lawn & Tree (RLT).

RLT is number 44 on the LM150 of top companies in our industry.

As we entered their corporate head quarters, the founder, Larry Ryan, was sprinting ahead of us like a man on a mission. I wondered where the fire was, but this guy is always moving!

We walked past a huge bull pen of customer service people on phones and computers, and we were led into a large (!) training room.

Larry kicked off the meeting sharing his philosophy and showing us his favorite business books of all time.

The RLT leadership team spent the morning opening up their operations, finances and strategy to us.

(To learn more about Larry Ryan, I interviewed him earlier this year on my podcast, The Ultimate Landscape CEO.)

What Makes Ryan Lawn & Tree So Unique?I took plenty of notes. Here is a condensed list:

They are an ESOP, and do profit sharing plus incentives, so there are many ways for employees to feel ownership and build up their wealth.
Each employee is offered Full Time employment. With this in mind, they plan to continue growing in the states that will allow for longer work seasons.
Fluctuating Work Week (sometimes colloquially called Chinese Overtime) is how they underpin their Full Time strategy. This is a legal way to put front line employees on a type of salary.
Blue collar to white collar. Larry Ryan is on a mission to transform our blue collar industry into white collar jobs. Let’s treat ourselves like professionals and offer professional jobs.
People First strategy. This is not unique per se, but Larry Ryan truly means it when he discusses how they implement it. Their training and development program aims at creating and retaining a higher performing employee to whom they can pay above market wages. They showed us their career ladders: little booklets that they use for internal promotion.
“Tell your story” is their motto, they train employees in the off season on public speaking, Larry’s goal is to teach his employees to “tell our story better”” and to present our industry as a proud profession doing God’s work.
Celebrate (front line) people. Larry has his office team spend time in the field, closer to the work, the client and the employee. He also spoke about how they use “little gifts to make big recognitions.” with their people.
The list goes on..
Final night of our visit at an Austrian Restaurant downtown Kansas City

Growth Is An End-ResultAs you have heard me say, “Getting bigger doesn’t make you better.”

I smiled when Larry Ryan quoted Samuel Truett Cathy, founder of Chick-fil-A in 1946. “Get better and your clients will demand that you get bigger.”

Your Challenge: Pick a purpose and hustle towards it.What made this trip memorable was in the little things, like Larry Ryan’s hustle, sprinting ahead of us down the half way.

It was also in Ryan’s grand purpose that continues to drive this company forward.

Larry may be past traditional retirement age, but don’t let that fool you. His executive team is young, vibrant, and first class leaders in their positions.

Question for you: How compelling is your company purpose? Does it drive your leaders every day to show up with excitement and new ideas?

Happy Holidays!

Regards, Jeffrey Scott!

P.S. To learn the best-in-class Gross Profit Margins (of the sectors that Ryan Lawn and Tree compete in), join us at our Financial Master Class, Jan 5/6

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What kind of mindset and lifestyle does it take to be uniquely successful?

You read a lot from me about the economy, business, and building great companies, yada, yada, yada.

But if that doesn’t make you happy, then don’t do it.

Or said differently…What will it take for you to be personally fulfilled as well as professionally successful?

Today at 1pm ET I will be holding a webinar on this very topic, that I call: The Warrior Mindset.

Listeners will learn of my own personal journey and life experiences that I have used to develop a winning formula for self-growth, self-awareness and my version of self-actualization.

It’s a unique journey, and I would like to share it with you.

Even if you can’t make it, register here and you will get the recording.

The Nine Warrior MindsetsWe will explore these mindsets, and how you can apply them to your life and business.

Stay healthy above all else – the science and art.
Keep your mind sharp – it requires time you don’t have, doing things you may not want to do.
Don’t be a tourist when you travel.
Meet people outside your community to unlock your perspective.
Spiritual growth starts with yourself.
BHAG’s are empowered with daily goals and habits.
Make other lives better: its easier than you think and grows the pie for everyone.
Light your youthful fire, and keep your passions burning.
Avoid regrets by making bold moves.

Join us today, 1pm ET, by signing up here.

These webinars are part of my give-back program, complimentary quarterly deep dives into key topics of interest for you.

Regards, Jeffrey Scott!

The post The Warrior Mindset: A Unique Lifestyle Approach for Entrepreneurial Success appeared first on Jeffrey Scott.

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Landcare has 70 locations and 3800 employees.

Mike shares with Jeffrey how he and his team turned around the company, and why they took it privately (bought the company) and why they will never sell it.

Mike started at Brickman and saw all the changes to that company and the industry. He is very passionate and tells all, sharing great insights into the history of our industry and how to grow oneself and one’s business.

Mike is both a veteran of the industry with the enthusiasm of a startup.

The post The Organic Growth Method with Mike Bogan appeared first on Jeffrey Scott.

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How you budget in 2023 will look much different from this year.

The goldrush is over!

You need a savvier approach to managing expenses and revenues.

This was a crazy year for both demand and inflation. As long as you didn’t get caught unawares, you did well.

My peer group clients did excellent this year (the power of a peer group!)

Next year will be different. Are you ready?You know what they say on Wall Street, “Past results are no guarantee of future performance.”

As I sat down this weekend to plan for my upcoming Financial Master Class, I put together five forward-thinking approaches you can use right now as you plan for 2023.

(Note: You have 1.5 more days left to get early bird tickets for the Masterclass.)

Keep a fluid approach to cost adjustmentsYou can’t just plug costs into your budget and hit cruise control.

You have to watch costs on-goingly. Be prepared to change cost assumptions monthly, or every other month, or at most every quarter.

Stay ahead of the cost wave.Delegate responsibilities for tracking and updating costs into your estimating tools. This will allow for better purchasing and negotiating as well.

(If you are understaffed, use overseas freelancers to do this.)

Use value-based pricing.You can’t just push up prices non-stop. Clients will balk, in fact they already are!

However, when you do raise prices, you should be raising value concurrently.

To do this you must understand how clients perceive your value.

Make no assumptions.Engage clients in conversations about their needs and wants. Listen for their pain points and what they appreciate about your services.

What they wanted earlier may be different now.

Be ready to tweak your products/service so your offering is on point.

Ironically, just by engaging more with your clients, you will raise value in their eyes.

Ask your team to get L-E-A-NEven if you can pass on costs adjustments, your profits will stagnate or go backwards in “real economic” terms. You need to do more.

Putt your teams on notice.

Fight for EfficiencyInform your people that the boom is over, and they have to now fight for cost and time savings in every nook and cranny.

Make this your mantra in 2023.

Support them with accurate and exacting monthly budgets. Hold every manager accountable (includingyour mechanics) to their monthly budget.

This requires more proactivity from your team:

How they plan for their expenses
How they set up complex install

Ask your team to start planning a month ahead on both.

Restrict excess cashPut your team on notice that the company needs to operate with less cash going forward.

Put a cap on the amount of cash you keep in the business accounts.

Tighten up your contract terms and your systems for collections and warranty prevention and management.

Ensure your sales team has accurate monthly sales goals and is accountable weekly.

Remove any residual complacency on your team.

Maintain a backlog and whitespaceFortify pricing pressure by maintaining a backlog, yet also leave room (whitespace) for opportunistic sales.

It’s easy to say, harder to do. Here are four tips.

Be more strategic in what you grow, don’t over extend yourself.
Flex your capacity between your divisions, use all your people to address peak needs without over hiring.
Use more OT to manage peak demands as well.
Grow sales to existing clients. You hardly had time last year; this year become experts at upselling and cross selling.
Don’t forget to recover replacement costs.Savvy budgeters recover all their equipment replacement costs in their pricing.

But what happens when the replacement costs goes up dramatically? You are already late if you didn’t catch this over the past couple years.

How do you make sure you can afford to replace your equipment?

YOUR CHALLENGE: Remove complacency when building next year’s plans.Use data and convictions when setting up your strategies and operational tactics for 2023.

Make efficiency your watch word.

Engage your team and engage your clients. The more they are engaged and on board, the better chances of winning in 2023.

Regards, Jeffrey Scott!

P.S. Join us for our Financial Master Class where we will explore “budgeting and planning in inflationary and deflationary times.”

Save $250 per ticket with the early bird – it ends tomorrow!

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Thanksgiving is a tradition built on hope, survival, and appreciation. But its history is not fully understood. The Pilgrims (a word meaning traveler) were actually English separatists who originally called themselves “Saints”. They fled first to the Netherlands but were not allowed to have decent jobs. And their children were assimilating the bad habits of […]

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I recently got a text from a member of my peer group community, asking how to incentivize a new Operations Manager. The same question could be asked about any Second In Command (2IC) position, e.g. how to set up an incentive for your Ops Mgr, GM or COO? Incentives are meant to create motivation to pursue and […]

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To achieve a good net profit, how much gross profit should you earn in each of your divisions? I have written on this topic before, and with my upcoming Financial Master Class, I am revisiting this pivotal financial discussion on gross profits to drive home key insights. Net profit is not (only) driven by gross […]

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As you plan for 2023 (whether starting or finalizing your 2023 budget), you will need to address the uncertainty of the current economic and market conditions. There are many things still up in the air – with both supply and demand. Some things have settled, while other components remain in flux. How will you make […]

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I enjoy traveling to new countries, experiencing the different cultures, food, language and norms. It gives me a fresh outlook on my own life and helps me get out of my comfort zone and lose the routine of life for a while. This weekend I flew to Rotterdam (The Netherlands) for my 30-year business school […]

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Jerry runs Schill Grounds Management, a 29 years old firm with 74M in revenue and 18 locations. He started with his brother as a small mixed-service business in Cleveland, OH, then in 2012, he started to shift to commercial landscape and snow. Recently, he decided he would bring in financial backing, and in the last […]

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As you have seen, I am on a kick lately, writing about how to up your customer service game. Providing best-in-class customer service goes a long way to maximizing your customer “Retention, Repeat and Referral” business. These “3 Rs” are the lifeblood of your business. But they are outcomes. To achieve these stellar results, you […]

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I had the most amazing experience in Asheville, NC. The landscape entrepreneur, John Phillips (President, Gardens for Living, NC) hosted our “high-achievers peer group” at his new facility in Asheville. As part of that event, we had dinner at one of his client’s homes (See photos below.) The Client (Mrs) is a chef; she and her team prepped all day and […]

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There is a recent movement happening across our industry: Owners are stepping up to “shake the trees.” It’s due to two separate trends. Let me explain. Earlier this year, everyone focused on “increasing recruiting” and “maximizing production.” Many contractors in my community had achieved such high levels (of both staffing and producing) that they had […]

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On this special edition we turn the tables, and you hear Jeffrey Scott interviewed by longtime landscape client Sean Baxter. Sean and Jeffrey discuss Jeffery’s origin story, how he got his first job at 7 years old, and his next job at 13 years old in the green industry. You learn about the role of his family […]

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If you decide to hold onto your landscape business for the medium or longer-term, you may want to set it up to run without you day-to-day. I call this “Retiring in Place.” This is the second of a three-part series I am writing for Landscape Management Magazine. The first article highlighted the benefits of not selling one’s […]

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The famous mafia quote “it’s not personal, it’s just business” is quite memorable. And it’s wrong. If you want to make a difference, then you have to make it personal. This is true in negotiations, mentoring, business development, and so many aspects of business and life. Here are three illustrations: Make Negotiations Personal My partner, […]

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Winter is a time for planning, but Summer is a time for reflection, on both your business and your personal life. Earlier this month I wrote about “reforecasting” your budget for the second half of the year. While that’s critical, this is also the time to engage in reflective planning for next year. Here are insights on both […]

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Every August we take off for a few weeks of vacation, generally overseas. We have visited many new places over the years––meeting great people, exploring old cultures and trying inspiring food. One thing we have come to enjoy is working with local tour guides who take you to the historic sites and add their own […]

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Larry founded Ryan Lawn and Tree (Merriam, KS) 35 years ago. It has 10 locations producing over $55 Million with around 500 employees. It is a faith-forward business that he sold to his employees (ESOP) and operates using the Great Game Of Business (open book management.) His employees enjoy full-time careers, and he shares his […]

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With your books closed on the first half of the year, it’s time to reforecast your budget. I bet you wish you had a crystal ball, so you could see what the second half brings?? Show Me Your History, And I’ll Show You The Future At the beginning of the year you (hopefully) set an […]

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In July 2022, Jeffrey held a webinar on the topic of Navigating an Uncertain Economy, where he shared 8 proactive strategies for attaining financial resilience and staying on top of your game in your market. These eight strategies are helpful to hear regardless of how the economy is doing, good for all seasons and all […]

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Selling your business can be a bad investment, if you do it for the wrong reasons. Many people are selling right now and the industry is jumping on the bandwagon. No one in the industry is standing up and saying, “Hold on! Maybe don’t sell yet.” Selling Sounds Sexy After you pay taxes and pay off […]

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Kyle Cahill is founder and chief horticulturist of Grow and Company, a Houston TX based, multi-service residential landscape firm with 50 employees and almost $5M in revenue. Jeffrey and Kyle discuss the dynamics of charging time and material (the basis for Kyle’s company) and we also discuss his unique slow-growth strategy which involves two acquisitions. […]

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Why Go It Alone? Twenty+ years ago when I took over the helm of my family’s business, I searched for a group of peers to help me make better decisions and give me support. Not just because it’s lonely at the top. But also because I needed better ideas and critical feedback. I joined a […]

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Some of my clients are concerned about the weathering of an upcoming storm. With hints of recession, the common advice is to “save up cash and grow your maintenance.” But the advice doesn’t make sense! You can’t pivot suddenly and pretend that you are making a quick significant change in your business. Do you think God […]

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As a “give back” to everyone who is signed up for this newsletter, I am holding a free Deep Dive Quarterly Webinar Series on trending topics impacting you and your business. We will dig deep into a timely topic for 45 minutes, then have 15 min of Q&A, and then 30 minutes of networking in breakout rooms. […]

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There is more than one way to make a first impression. With economy in a state of flux, I am advising all of the landscape professionals to re-energize their customer service focus, and ensure they are not taking clients or prospects for granted. In the past, you could write your proposal on a napkin and […]

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Jeff McManus is the Director of Landscape Services at the Univ. of Mississippi with 70 direct reports. He owns his own landscape business and is the author of the best-selling book “Growing Weeders Into Leaders”. Currently he teaches leadership development to companies across the green industry and beyond. We discuss in this podcast how he […]

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How Is Your Lead Flow? According to a recent poll I conducted with over eighty people, around 40% are feeling a softening in the market, yet another 44% are having their best year ever. Is This A Tale Of Two Cities? What Are You Experiencing? Even if you are having your best year ever, your […]

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With the economy being shaky, I urge you to take Jack Welch’s Advice on how to prepare. But first, let’s deal with some recent negative press about Jack Welch and his legacy as the CEO of General Electric. Some say he cheated by manipulating the profit numbers and didn’t really do as well as he would […]

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Over Memorial Day weekend I had the opportunity to travel with 2 of my siblings to the Indy 500. It’s a dream we have had for a long time: the experience of sharing time together, as well as attending one of the most historical racing events in the world. Both my siblings like myself are […]

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Chase Mullin is founder of $18M Mullin Landscape based in New Orleans, LA with a branch in Baton Rouge. Chase got into business to help clean up after Hurricane Katrina 15 years ago, and his growth has been like a hurricane, picking up strength and momentum as he grows. He and I dive into the […]

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The past few years has been very tough on staffing. But not everyone is doing poorly. There are green industry companies out there that are fully staffed. How do they do it? They take both a strategic and a tactical approach. The #1 Staffing Strategy: Become A Destination Company® Develop your business to where good […]

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My son (a professional musician, and leader of his band) shared with me the secrets to building a band that will stick and grows together. It sounded a lot like how to build a leadership team. Now I am sharing his advice with you! (Note: There is also a photo of my son and I […]

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Take time to celebrate the important milestones in your business and life. My wife and I celebrated our 25th wedding anniversary in early May. Friends and family flew in from 4 countries and from across the USA to help us mark this milestone. At our party, there was live music, Creole and Cajun cooking, wonderful […]

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Matthew Gramer is the founder and majority owner of NatureWorks Landscape Services in Walpole MA. He has honed the focus of his business on the high-end residential client, and proactively staffs the business with key employees. This including a General Manager from when his business was still small. Matthew is an industry veteran who started […]

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You can prevent employee burnout, but only if you are aware of the causes. Given our current go-go economy, I see an early trend of burnout already happening. When teams get super busy, unresolved issues become major disruptors. With no solution in sight, workers, and even key leaders, may leave for more stable and less […]

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There is a catchy phrase in business: Revenue is vanity, profits are sanity, and cash is king. In other words, bigger is not better. I agree with this in theory BUT did you know that there are companies in the landscape industry that have become much more profitable as they got bigger? Drost Landscape from Petoskey, MI, (host of my Summer Growth Summit) […]

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What do you get from your team members, in exchange for a raise? This question may come across as small thinking or reactionary, because your team members work so hard as is. But with inflation you have to give raises just to help them stay even. You probably feel like you are handing out money left and right. […]

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Jeffrey Scott shares with you 9 kick butt tools and strategies you can use to increase your team’s performance right now, whether it is spring, summer or fall. Jeffrey cuts right to the chase, and shares actionable ideas you can put to use right away. Need we say more? It’s short, so take a listen!

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Keeping clients happy during the busy season takes both good systems and the right company culture and training. Right now with strong consumer confidence, it is hard to stay on top of everything. But now it matters more than ever. As soon as there is a slow down, the companies that give the best client […]

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Stop selling from your own wallet; here is a case in point. I am renovating my front landscape (new second driveway, fencing and auto gates, walkway, and foundation plantings). We are getting this work done before our upcoming wedding anniversary celebration. In redoing the second driveway, we have to deal with a nasty sinkhole that […]

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Here is a quick idea I have developed to help you supercharge employee referrals. Many of you incentivize employees to refer their friends. I am all for that! I have clients paying as much as a “dollar per hour” raise for up to 12 months when a key position is filled through an employee referral. […]

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Sean Baxter is the founder of Lawn and Landscape Solutions, in Kansas City, MO. Sean shares his personal journey of surviving family challenges when he was a teenager, how he found horticulture and mentors, and how he transformed his passion for life into a growing landscape empire. He reveals how he first focused on surviving […]

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Announcing The Summer Growth Summit, With “Super” Early-Bird Pricing You are invited to our 2022 Summer Growth Summit on August 30-31st. As part of this Summit, you will enjoy a behind-the-scenes tour of Drost Landscape, one of Michigan’s top landscape firms, located in beautiful Petoskey, Michigan. (Take note of the “super” early-bird pricing) Highlights Of The […]

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Brian Ham is the previous owner of Santa Rita Landscaping, Tucson, AZ. He built the business with his brother, got crushed in the great recession, and then rebuilt the business and took on a partner, and finally sold the 20M business one week before the pandemic hit.

Brian was a member of Jeffrey’s Peer Group, and together they discussed sheep hunting around the world, the tools their business used to survive the great recession after dropping from 14M down to 4M, and the 3 secrets to their longevity and success, plus much more.

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As a leader, you have three powerful tools (pronouns) that you can use to motivate your employees, build your team, and bring effective correction to a situation.

Three Leadership Pronouns Are: You, I, And We When these pronouns are used correctly, they can build the business. However, when used incorrectly they will bring cynicism, distrust, and apathy to your team.

Leaders beware; use these pronouns with care!

Using “You” To Motivate (And Not Demoralize) “You” can be used when giving credit and praise (i.e. talking about someone else’s successes). When singling out an individual for public praise, it is more honoring to use the person’s name.

Dale Carnegie taught us that Nothing sounds sweeter than the sound of hearing one’s own name.

When talking one-on-one, leader’s should use “you” when assigning responsibilities and delegating authority.

Loaded Language Remember that “you” can also be a loaded word. It should not be used to berate or diminish a valued employee. Phrases like, “You always…”, or, “You never…”, can get you into trouble (unless you are giving credit or thanks).

In our life experiences, “you” too often has preceded a personal label or a perceived attack on our character, perhaps by a parent, teacher, coach or other authority figure. So give praise where it is deserved, and avoid the sandwich of adding on a critique.

Give praise where it is deserved, and avoid the sandwich of adding on a critique.
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Frightening Experience One of the most frustrating or frightening things for an employee is to have someone in authority (over them) use the term “you” as a finger pointer (especially in a group setting). Be careful not to use “you” in combination with saying something negative, less than 100% correct, or embarrassing about them.

Effective leaders are careful in group meetings to keep their employees feeling safe, not feeling exposed.

Effective leaders are careful in group meetings to keep their employees feeling safe, not feeling exposed.
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Using “I” To Focus Attention (Not Steal Attention) When does a leader use “I”?

One place to use “I” is when bringing correction or needed criticism. If a leader will admit one’s own mistakes or weaknesses this could be a way of making it safe to talk about situations that need to be corrected. Leaders should also talk about their own feelings, hopes and goals; (i.e. things “I” believe in).

Leaders should have no problem speaking about their personal values that they will expect to be shared by those they lead.

Give, Don’t Take, Credit “I” can be misused to take credit for someone else’s work. It can damage your effectiveness if you make someone else’s success about you. They need to feel and get credit for their work (you personally may not feel the need for credit; but others do).

Using “We” To Build Up (Not Water Down) When does a leader use “We”?

Use “we” when talking about big hurdles and changes the company has to make; anything that affects “us” as a group. When a leader says “we” it needs to be genuine and not just for show.

“We” is sometimes incorrectly used to spread around blame. Effective leaders will take the blame and say “It was my fault”.

Your Challenge – Become A Student Of Language And Prepare For Success Next time you hold a meeting that is meant to persuade or motivate, think it through and script it with these three forms of speech. You (and they) will be happy you did!

Crush it this spring!

Regards, Jeffrey!

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How do you get your foremen, project managers and supervisors to drive revenue and profitability? There is more than one way to skin this cat.

One of the many topics I touch upon at my annual virtual Financial Master Class is managing and maximizing billable hours.

It’s a foundational concept that needs to be understood by everyone who can significantly impact your production results.

Last week, I met with a smart client who owns a fast growing four-division landscape firm.

He was looking for guidance on getting his staff to buy-in to his 30% growth plans.

He ran the budget numbers and knew it was doable, but his staff couldn’t see the forest for the trees.

So we went through the following exercise.

Autopsy The Previous Year’s Billable Hours Answer the following questions…

How much non-billable time was avoidable, due to waste and other reasons? Be realistic, not hopeful.
Which jobs went over on hours, and how many hours did that add up to?
How many of those hours were due to poor planning (vs poor estimating)?
Which jobs took an extra day because you didn’t spend an extra 30-60 minutes wrapping up the job, or a phase of the job?

How Many Extra Billable Hours? This analysis leads to calculate two key numbers:

How many extra billable hours could be produced with the same people and same hours?
How many extra hours would it take (the extra 30-60 minutes) to free up new days that would produce even more billable hours/days?

This gives you the frame work for a frank discussion on what better planing looks like, and to help individuals develop better habits.

The coaching client I mention in this example has a plan to grow revenue by 30%, and grow his profitability by a significant amount.

Your Challenge – Maximizing Billable Hours With Better Planning And Systems Maximizing billable hours is not a secret, but there is a secret sauce to getting your team on plan.

Maximizing billable hours is not a secret, but there is a secret sauce to getting your team on plan.
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It starts with your grasping these concepts yourself. Then it requires the transparency and respect to discuss previous year’s results with your team, and then having a plan to develop your team into better planners and do’ers.

It ends with having the passion to go that extra mile on any job, to wrap up the billable hours, bill the job (or phase), and move on to the next one.

Now just imagine all that you could gain by doing this AND enjoying the tenure of a seasoned team.

This year should be better than the last!

Regards, Jeffrey!

P.S. Check out my coaching page if you want help transforming your company into a high profit enterprise. The post The Secret to Maximizing Billable Hours appeared first on Jeffrey Scott.

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As I prepare for my Sales Symposium next week, I have been reflecting on the many processes I have helped my clients (owners) put in place to scale their lawn and landscape companies.

The ability to implement simple processes is acritical skill for sales managers, too.

A common mistake many sales managers make is that they “under” manage their sales team.

This can happen especially when a salesperson is promoted into the role of sales manager. Because they were the best at what they did, they got promoted, but now they have a brand new job to master.

A common mistake many sales managers make is that they “under” manage their sales team.
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To Succeed You Need A Simple, Scalable Structure Many of these promotions fail because the new sales manager doesn’t have the structure and processes to follow, nor the skills for managing and supporting others.

They lack a coherent plan!

On the other hand, I have seen some sales managers go overboard trying to prove their value by “over” managing their team. They get in the way and slow down the sales velocity.

It’s all about removing barriers!

Some sales managers go overboard trying to prove their value by over managing their team. They get in the way and slow down the sales velocity.
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Being a great sales manager requires knowing exactly what to focus on; which is why I’ve designed “Five P’s of Sales Management” to give you a good footing on where to start. (See visual)

Your challenge: Get All Five Of These P’s In Place * Keep your approach straightforward: simple commission plans, simple processes, simple pricing models, etc. * Remove the obstacles to selling and increase the speed of the sales process. * Make “winning” a contagious habit at your firm. Build momentum and keep it fun!

Regards, Jeffrey!

P.S. This is your last chance to register. To learn more about the 5 P’s of Sales Management, join me next Monday for our Sales Symposium, and blow your sales targets out of the water!

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Dr. Charlie Hall is the “Ellison Chair in International Floriculture” at Texas A&M University. He is the foremost economist in the green industry.

Jeffrey and Dr. Hall discuss supply chain outlook, inflationary outlook, workforce development and consumer spending.

They also grade the Fed, talk policies and politics, with a focus to doing your best work and taking advantage of the economy in 2022.

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Running a design/bid-build business or division is a double-edged sword.

(Note: I wrote this 2 years ago, and updated the message. It is more relevant today than ever!)

There are big pluses and equally big minuses to focusing on design-build or bid-build. The pros are growth and opportunity, and the cons will kill your fortunes if you aren’t careful.

Keep your eyes wide open.

First the Pros: The timing is perfect for growth. From the residential perspective, many people are working from home and want their property to be upgraded into a paradise that only a design-build specialist can visualize and bring to life.

The “cocooning” trend – which was first coined in 1981 by Faith Popcorn, a futurist and marketing guru – will continue as our population shifts even more towards working from home. I predict this will be a multi-year trend that will buoy the entire residential landscaping market for years.

The demand is large and will also bring a steady flow of new potential maintenance clients.

From the commercial/municipal perspective, there are a large supply of projects.

And done right, this niche can make you a lot of money and bring satisfaction to your community and your employees.

The Cons are Insidious The fatal flaw, which I see repeat over and over, is when a landscape business owner over-dedicates his or her energy into the installation side of the business, and thereby ignores the maintenance side, running it on autopilot or just assuming that it will do just fine by itself.

Why do owners spend so much time on design and bid-build?

It is the hardest to coordinate
Has the highest client expectations
Has the most potential for costly problems
Plus it is where all the sexy work happens and is full of instant gratification of a job well done

When this over-dedication happens, the maintenance side never grows to its full potential, and sometimes it even atrophies.

Ironically, when the owner is personally dedicated to installation, the profits can be overstated because they don’t account for the owner’s full overhead in that division.

The ultimate “con” is when the maintenance division(s) don’t maximize their growth, the salability and enterprise value of the business are diminished.

The ultimate “con” is when the maintenance division(s) don’t maximize their growth, the salability and enterprise value of the business is diminished.
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Your Challenge: Be More Strategic Here are five ways to build your company more strategically:

Give maintenance, irrigation service, lawn care, etc. the time it deserves. For example, if it represents 50% of your revenue, give it 50% of your time. You will be happily surprised at the outcome.
Don’t make design or bid-build so complex that someone else can’t design it, sell it, build it, and run it.
Treat design-build as a “mass customization” effort. What this means is don’t make every project fully and utterly customized, instead build repeatable processes into your business model, and develop underlying “mass production” techniques into your projects and offerings.
Ensure your installation clients are not left hanging, but rather, are embraced towards the end of their project with a maintenance program and dedicated leaders to keep satisfaction peaking.
Measure your legacy not by just how beautiful your projects turn out, but by how beautifully valuable your business becomes.

Every one wants a business that is a triple win: A win for your clients and community, a win for your employees, and a win for your investment of time and money.

Everyone wants a business that is a triple win: A win for your clients and community, a win for your employees, and a win for your investment of time and money.
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Ask yourself: What can you do differently to maximize the value of your business, while still having fun?

Regards, Jeffrey Scott

P.S. My Sales Symposium will help you grow and have fun, and show you how to sell more of everything, including how to cross-sell between divisions.

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In the non-profit world of hospital care, the phrase “No Margin, No Mission” is used to remind those in charge that it is ok for a hospital to be fiscally responsible and make decent margins.

I feel the same message needs to be embraced by our industry, the world of lawn and landscape.

Once in a while, I will peruse some landscape Facebook groups, and see questions asked about margins. The advice given makes me cringe because it never fully explains how to make money and scale a profitable business. In fact, much of the advice will keep your business small and keep you stuck.

No Margin, No Mission, is used to remind those in charge that it is ok for a hospital to be fiscally responsible and make decent margins.
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Some Words To Live By: * Profit is not a dirty word; it is the result of a well-run business with a focus on people, efficiency, and marketing savvy. * Making ample money (where there is plenty leftover) does not mean you are greedy; it means you are planning for the future. * Earning 5% profit (the oft-quoted industry average) is not great, it means you are not making enough money to grow your business and reward your people.

In January during my Financial Master Class, I measured the net profit and the balance sheets of over 150 landscape firms and found that on average, balance sheet equity rose up, but profitability did not. Especially when I made attendees remove PPP from their profit and loss statements, but not their balance sheets.

These heavier balance sheets give people a false sense of security.

Profit is not a dirty word; it is the result of a well-run business with a focus on people, efficiency, and marketing savvy.
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Numbers Do Lie Case in point, I have a new landscape firm (around 7M in bid build) that just joined my high-impact peer groups, and when the gentleman put together his numbers removing his PPP money, his P/L shifted from a profit of 250,000 to a loss of 150,000. His reaction was, “But I made money!”. My response was, “Only because the government gave you money”.

We have to do a better job as an industry, learning how to earn a good (if not great) margin.

It’s not rocket science, but luckily it is a science that everyone can learn.

Commercial Businesses Can Make Money, Too A friend of mine just sold his business, and the valuation he received was sky high! How did he pull this off?

The timing was right but even more than that:

His margins were higher than many residential firms.
His people and systems were extra ordinary.
He was able to combine growth and profitability, not giving up one for the other.

With his buyout, he earned enough money to buy a small island and retire.

Instead, he rewarded his employees and gave them money, and he is soldering on.

Your Challenge: Become Financially Savvy * Make sure your team leaders at all levels are numbers-savvy. Everyone needs to know their number. Maybe not the dollars, but definitely the numbers. * Become a marketing and sales expert so you can sell to the market with savvy. * Become efficiency experts, because your clients appreciate it and so does your bottom line. * Give everyone a scorecard, empower them, and make it fun.

You got into this industry because of your personal passion, but that’s not enough. You need a healthy margin to keep your mission alive.

You got this!

Regards, Jeffrey!

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Keith Freeman, co-founder, and CEO of Green Group Companies in Raleigh, NC, joins in on Jeffrey’s podcast. In this episode, we discuss his unique business model of buying lawn care companies but leaving the original brand intact.

Keith and his partner have developed a “loose-tight” approach to binding these firms together with technology, marketing/sales, and a human resource strategy. All while allowing them to retain their original brand, employees, and community relationship.

Jeffrey and Keith discuss many cutting-edge facets driving the green industry that you can apply to any lawn or landscape firm.

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If you truly want to scale your lawn and landscape business, you must grow an effective sales team. And to do that, you must become quite good at both marketing and sales management.

Are you?

They don’t teach Sales Management at school or university – almost nowhere, really.

So, how do you learn to be a great sales manager?

If you truly want to scale your lawn and landscape business, you must grow an effective sales team.Click To Tweet

Seven Sales Management Techniques – That I Have Gathered in My Time as a Landscape Business Consultant 1. Become an encourager. Being a transactional manager won’t cut it. You have to shift to being more of an encouraging coach to make your sales team grow and flourish.

Use Incentives to Break Through Your Own Thinking. If you want your salespeople to hit even higher goals, be creative with incentives.
Data is Your Friend. Tie your commission plan into profitability of the work as built. Back it up with data so your sales team can agree with any changes to payouts. This way you tie sales people and production people together.
High Earners DON’T Want Ceilings. To attract the very best salespeople, show them how to earn large payouts, with no ceilings to what they can earn. The sky is the limit for the very best.
Salespeople Like to Sell. Do not detract your salespeople with production, but instead keep them focused on initiatives that will build marketing and sales. Not every company can do this, but it is an interesting concept.
Become a Marketing Expert. If you want to grow your sales, you must provide branding support and name recognition, and lead flow (if you are doing residential work). Great salespeople want to work for great companies with great branding and marketing.
Operations Must Keep Up. To scale your business with great salespeople you need scalable operations. Great salespeople must believe in your operations.

To scale your business with great salespeople you need scalable operations.
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Your Challenge: If You Want To Scale Your Business, You Must Become A Very Good (If Not Great) Sales Manager. * Someone needs to be the sales manager in your firm; not just a note-taker, but have good analytics, bring accountability as well as support, encouragement, and sales strategy. * It takes personal effort and drive to learn sales management skills. Make it a personal learning goal. * It requires the entire company to support and stand behind your salespeople. They need to “believe” in your operations 100% and if they do they will run through walls for you.

Regards, Jeffrey Scott

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As the owner you have to decide if your feedback to your team is a personal preference (a mere suggestion) or an actual priority that you want them to focus on.

Let me explain…

Last week I held my inaugural event for my clients. It was an exclusive “retreat” for my peer group members to mingle, enjoy a unique experience, and learn out-of-the-box ideas that aren’t being shared in the general landscape industry. (See bottom for some fun photos)

Out-of-the-box example: One of my landscape clients spoke about how they have hired 18 remote workers (off shore) to run their front and back office, for a surprisingly low cost. This allows their onsite employees to focus on higher value work.

A second example came from our keynoter, Mike Haynes. He is founder of The Loving Companies. He shared behind-the-scenes secrets how he has scaled to 100M in such a short time.

One of his secrets that caught my attention was “preference over priority”.

As a leader you have to decide if your feedback to your team is a personal preference (a mere suggestion) or an actual priority that you want them to focus on.
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Not All Your Ideas Are Equally Important As entrepreneurs we all have many ideas on how to fulfill our vision and grow the business. But our ideas can be overwhelming.

When you try to implement every detail of your vision, that bogs down the growth process of your team and disempowers the leaders you have hired.

Mike Haynes advocates that you must decide what you truly want to be a priority, versus what is simply a preference.

When you try to implement every detail of your vision, that bogs down the growth process of your team and disempowers the leaders you have hired.
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Immediate Application: In Your Strategic Planning The day after this client retreat, Ivan Katz (Great Lakes Landscape Design, MI) brought his leadership team (GM, Controller, Key Leaders) to my home office (set up for strategic planning) and we laid out the company’s vision for the next three years.

As Ivan would mention an idea, I would ask him, is that a preference or a priority?

We both smiled.

Only 1 out of 5 items was an actual priority for him, and the rest were suggestions that his GM and leadership team could decide for themselves (if and) how to implement.

It was freeing for Ivan and his team.

Your Challenge: Speed Up The Decision Making Process In Your Business. Speed up the growth by getting out of the way.

Remove yourself from 4 out of 5 final decisions being discussed at your leadership level
Develop a second in command, so you can focus on your role as owner and investor in your business.

Don’t be stopped by size, it’s never too early to develop “seconds” in command.

Regards, Jeffrey Scott

P.S. You can save $200 by signing up before Jan 31 for my Develop Your Second In Command learning event. It will allow you to free up your time as owner, and scale your business even faster and more smoothly.

Preservation Hall Jazz Band private concert. Preference and priority.

Drinks behind preservation hall (that building is from 1750s)

Mike Haynes and Jeffrey Scott taking questions and sharing ideas.

Announcing Loriena Harrington as our new peer group facilitator.

The post As Owner, Decide What’s Your “Preference” And What’s Your “Priority” appeared first on Jeffrey Scott.

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Jennifer Lemcke is the CEO of Weedman, a lawn care franchise system that has franchisees across the USA and Canada. They are the second-largest lawn care company in North America with their sights on being #1.

Jeffrey and Jennifer discuss Weedman’s history, management style, and their new venture in robotic mowing. They also discuss Weedman’s philosophy to growth which has helped them steadily grow and add customers from 1970 to 260M today.

The post Episode #189 From Lawn Care to Robotic Mowing with Jennifer Lemcke appeared first on Jeffrey Scott.

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Three big names made announcements this past week. I am sharing my thoughts on them, and then tying it back to what it means for you as a business owner.

Last Week Sean Peyton (Saints Coach) Announced That He Was Retiring. Very bittersweet.

He was the hero along with Drew Brees for shepherding the Saints to win their first championship.

We loved what they did for the team. Turning the Saints from a never-winner to an always-hopeful.

That Same Week David Ortiz Was Inducted Into The Baseball Hall Of Fame. He helped my childhood favorite team (Boston Red Sox) win their first championship in many decades.

I suffered my whole childhood clinging onto the hope that they would one day win. And thanks to David and others, they did.

And Then Suddenly Tom Brady Announces His Retirement. I used to dislike the guy, but I have come to respect him. He is very likeable and hardworking, it doesn’t come easy to him.

For us fans who lose the big names (Brady, Payton, Brees) it seems like they can never be replaced.

Initially, our hopes are crushed. But then other stars do step up, like Joe Burrows of the Cincinnati Bengals who beat The Kansas City Chiefs and Patrick Mahomes.

And hopefully, someone good will replace the Saints’ Sean Peyton and Drew Brees (I hope!)

Your Challenge: Don’t Get Star-Struck, Mesmerized By The Big Names In Your Market. Don’t think the big-name leaders are invincible. There is always room for a new upstart to rise up and take their place.

The same goes for you if you are a leader in your market, don’t rest on your laurels.

That’s why I love this country. It allows for anyone to innovate and go after the leader.

Don’t think the big-name leaders are invincible. There is always room for a new upstart to rise up and take their place.
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This Is Not The Passing Of An Era, It Is The Start Of A New One. To prepare for the future: How will you be inspiring your new talent to stay at your firm? How will you be developing them into leaders?

Regards, Jeffrey Scott!

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Do your direct reports make you (their boss) happier and more productive?

If owning your business is not as fun as you want it to be, or if you are not as productive as you want to be…look around you.

Have you assembled the right team, those that report directly to you?

A superior leader should make your life easier and more fun.

This is true for all your direct reports, whether this person is a Division Leader, Office Manager, or Second in Command.

Generally, a good leader (one that you have hired, promoted, or developed) should be improving their area of operation.

But is that enough?

If owning your business is not as fun as you want it to be, or if you are not as productive as you want to be...look around you.
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Is Your Direct Report Doing Their Job? Interestingly, many owners are on the fence on how some of their key people are performing.

Maybe the person is new to the job, or their team underneath them is new, or you have grown by leaps and bounds and your systems have not kept up.

In your mind, there may be extenuating circumstances…

Still, you wonder if you have the right person in that position?

For this reason, I am supplying you with a “reverse” set of criteria to help you take a fresh look at your direct reports, by looking closer at yourself.

Ask Yourself These Questions, Regarding Each Leader In Their Role… * Do you feel more confident (or less confident) in letting go and chasing new opportunities? * Is this person taking tasks and responsibilities off your plate (or putting more on your plate)? * Are you able to focus on the bigger picture (or are you sucked back into the present-day issues)? * When you interact with this person, does it help you sharpen your own ideas (or do things become more cloudy)? * Do you find yourself with more free time on your hands (or are you spending too much time pulled into their orbit of duties)?

Your Challenge: As you grow your inner circle––add leaders who not only make their own areas more productive, but they also make you a better leader.

A good direct report gets their own job done, a great one will also manage “up”, ensuring their relationship with you is just as productive.

Regards, Jeffrey Scott!

A good direct report gets their own job done, a great one will also manage “up”, ensuring their relationship with you is just as productive.
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P.S. You have 6 days left to take advantage of our early bird offer. To learn how to ensure you have the right people on your team, whether it is your Second in Command, or a Division- or Office Manager, join us on Feb. 15th for Develop Your Second In Command.

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Jeffrey Scott shares with you 7 lessons he learned working with landscape professionals from around the US and Canada over the past year. He touched on these in his newsletter and elaborates here, giving extra insight.

You will also hear 7 questions to ponder in 2022 to make yourself more successful and relevant in this new year.

The post Episode 188 – 7 Lessons from 2021, 7 Questions for 2022, with Jeffrey Scott appeared first on Jeffrey Scott.

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Return on Equity (ROE) is the one metric that you can use to compare your business to any other business or investment you might own.

It measures the profit you make as a percentage of the investment (equity) you leave in your business.

All other business metrics can’t be compared apples to apples. For example, Net Profit will look different for different niches (e.g. commercial maintenance vs general contractor vs fertilizer company).

ROE is a metric you can use to compare and contrast all your investments e.g. in the stock market, in real estate, etc.

You can also use that metric to compare you to your peers.

How Do You Compare? Last week I held my second annual Financial Master Class (a huge success with 205 attendees) and one metric we looked at is ROE.

in 2020 (two years ago) the average ROE was 41%, and the top 20 percent of participating companies achieved an average ROE of 75% (and the very top company hit 108%.)

This past year in 2021, the average ROE fell to 29%, and yet the top 20 percent of companies grew, achieving an astounding 119% ROE.

We found that while sales and equity rose dramatically year over year, the net profit fell slightly on average. This could be due to inflation, manpower issues, or simply production got outstripped.

Having said that, the top performers (top 20 percent of companies) did substantially better in 2021 than the year before.

For the best in our industry, this was their best year ever! I raise up the issue of ROE because right now many people are thinking of selling their companies.

They are thinking, “Let’s get out while the going is good”, or “Let’s get out because I want to go do something else.”

Let's get out while the going is good, or Let's get out because I want to go do something else.
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Is It Time To Sell? Ultimately you have to decide the right timing. But I want to discuss what you will do with your “winnings”.

Once you sell, you have to take your proceeds and invest them somewhere else.

Where will you put them?

Ironically, the best investment you probably ever had (or should have ever had!) is your own business. (If it’s not, call me!)

You won’t get a steady high ROE in the stock market. Not even close. You might get it in another business like real estate.

You might get it in another business like real estate. But either way, you need to put your winnings somewhere.
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But either way, you need to put your winnings somewhere.

Your Challenge: Is Twofold. 1. As you develop your exit plan, you also need to develop an “entrance” plan for what you plan to do with not only your time but also your money. 2. If you decide to stay in your business, you have to embrace the challenge to continue to reinvest money back into your business and continue to gain a high ROE.

Some of you have the former challenge, most of you have the latter challenge!

Make this investment in your own business the best investment you have ever made.

Regards, Jeffrey!

P.S. Related to scaling your business, especially if you are looking for freedom as an owner, consider joining me in my upcoming virtual event, Develop Your Second In Command.

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Happy New Year Everyone,

At this time of the year I like to do a quick look back: What did I learn and what did my clients learn from 2021….?

Here are seven lessons that you can take advantage of if you have not already.

PPP Doesn’t Fix Your Mistakes The government gave you a cash infusion to either survive or to fix your mistakes. Some of you only survived but left mistakes in play.

I saw this from my recent Financial Master Class. Equity in landscape firms was up greatly year over year, and sales were up greatly as well, but profitability margins on average were down slightly.

As an aside, if you are looking to buy companies, some of them may feel flush from last year but run thin on money again later in the year or next year. Keep your eyes open.

The government gave you a cash infusion to either survive or to fix your mistakes. Some of you only survived but left mistakes in play.
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Residential Is Valuable, Too Multiple residential clients of mine were made offers to be bought. Even companies with heavy design-build or bid-build.

I predicted this would happen a couple years back, and it did more quickly than I imagined. Private equity has taken notice.

This means you don’t necessarily need to convert your client base to commercial to have a valuable business, (but you still need to refine your strategy to build business value.)

Manpower Is Solveable If You Look Outside The Industry There are many talented people out in the world that would like to work in your company. Training them (or them learning the business) is not as hard as you think. These people will fill roles such as:
Second in command.
Operations managers
Sales people
Supervisors

There are also laborers who want to switch careers from working in-doors to working outside, as long as you have the training figured out.

Training Must Be Solved Like Any Other Issue If You Want To Grow My recent podcast with Dustin Wolfe touches on this topic and how to solve it.

Dustin hired a part time trainer to build a training plan and then run the plan. Word got out and more and more people want to work for his firm because he invests so much in his people. In a year+ time he dramatically grew his business, from a smaller player to a big player. It’s not the only reason he grew but without it he would not have doubled so quickly.

Another client, Sean Baxter brought in a full time account manager to do part time training, spending a few days a week in the field on the crews training.

It’s time to start thinking bigger, in order to become bigger.

25% Is The New 20% What I realized in 2021 is that my tactics and strategies to get you to 20% net profit (15% if you are commercial) will also take a residentially focused company up towards 25% in a booming economy.

Of course if you are reinvesting in “dramatic scaling” your profit won’t be as high, but in this economy it doesn’t have to be low either. Don’t leave money on the table!

My point is, once you figure out the strategy how to get to 20% it’s a matter of tactical changes that can drive you further.

Investing In People Comes Before Strong Growth Which comes first, the chicken or the egg? The answer: You need better chickens if you want more eggs.

You either need to be more resourceful with your good people, and put them into positions where they can better succeed.

Or you need to find better people to take your company to the next level.

But if you do neither, you won’t miraculously grow to the next level..

For many of you that means stepping up and hiring a key (more expensive) person that you can’t afford in your budget, someone that is out of your normal pay ranges. But hiring this person will make your budget and make your year if you do.

So do it.

In other words, you aren’t over paying if you are hiring potential superstars.

(I find the same with my coaching services or my high impact peer groups; some owners will tell me “its not in the budget”, and my response is “of course not, it’s never in the budget, but it pays for itself and then pays dividends after that, so what are you waiting for?”)

It’s the risk takers who reap the rewards!

Think And Plan In Quarters With all the changes we are seeing coming quickly, like inflation, supply problems, opportunities for acquisition, technology changes, etc, you need to be on your toes and be willing to change strategies and tactics from quarter to quarter.

You should be meeting with your team quarterly and treating those meetings with the seriousness of annual planning.

What got you here, won’t get you to the next level, or even to the end of the year, if you are not on your toes.

With all the changes we are seeing coming quickly, like inflation, supply problems, opportunities for acquisition, technology changes, etc, you need to be on your toes and be willing to change strategies and tactics from quarter to quarter.
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Your Challenge: Build A Nimble And Adaptable Leadership Team, In Order To Take On The Surprising Changes In 2022 And Beyond. The times they are a-changing….and that was back in the 1960s. They are still changing today, now more than ever.

Regards, Jeffrey

P.S. Take advantage of my upcoming “Develop Your Second In Command” on Feb 15th, to help you build your foundation for growth.

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As entrepreneurs and leaders, we all change people’s lives in profound ways, even though we are not always aware.

Let me explain…

During the holiday season I take time with my coaching clients (landscape business owners) to ask them some deep questions, so they understand where they are coming from, and where they are going.

I will ask them…

What are you proudest of achieving this past year? Even if it was a tough year, dig deep…
What are your most important couple objectives for the coming year? Think big. Stretch yourself.

Look Back, Look Forward Some people need help acknowledging where they have come from, because they are so busy rushing forward.

Others need help thinking bigger about what they can achieve. They need help focusing on the bigger picture.

During these conversations, one long-time client from the Mid West reminded me of the dramatic changes we have made together.

Some people need help acknowledging where they have come from because they are so busy rushing forward. Others need help thinking bigger about what they can achieve.
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Ten Years Ago He Was “Off the Wagon” I don’t know if he fell off, or if he had been there a long time, but either way he had just gotten sober and found his business was close to broken and bankrupt.

He came to me by referral, someone from his church gave my name.

He took a flyer and hired me ten years ago, even though he could barely afford my service. But he knew it was now or never.

Change Directions and Change Your Life Over the many years he stuck with it.

He rebuilt his cash position, his financial health and acumen, his leadership skills and the strength of this team.

He switched the company into growth mode with new acquisitions, equipment, facilities and great talent finds.

His family is truly blessed.

And to this day he remains sober, thank God, and his team is one of the best in the West.

This Week “Your Challenge” is “My Challenge”, Too Our challenge is to remember why we got started in such a wonderful industry: to get close to God/nature and to change lives.

When you make personal changes to how you run your business and your life, your positivity ripples far and wide, and touches many.

It feels great to be part of something bigger.

I wish you luck this year, good health for you and your family, and the spirit to make the wise decisions when needed.

Many Regards, Jeffrey Scott!

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Brandon Lair is managing partner of the Site Group in Dayton, OH, a 26 year old company doing $5M in revenue.

Jeffrey and Brandon discuss balancing out his partnerships, and focus the majority of our time diving into the role of the Super Foremen who are able to act like project managers of their own jobs.

You will learn how the Super Foremen concept drives client satisfaction, employee empowerment and profitability, and so much more.

The post Episode 187 – Building a Team of Super Foremen, with Brandon Lair appeared first on Jeffrey Scott.

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You have done well this year.

As an owner, there is no one to pat you on the back.

So, pat yourself, and congratulate your partner, and let them congratulate you.

And don’t just move on to the next goal…

Take time from your busy schedule to stop and celebrate all you have achieved, for yourself and your people, and your community.

May your Christmas sparkle with moments of love, laughter, and goodwill. And may the year ahead be full of contentment and joy.

From our home to yours,

–Jeffrey Scott and Corine Koornhof

P.S. Remember the neediest on this holiday season, acts of kindness and generosity will mean a lot to those who have little.

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