Most landscaping companies wait until they're desperate to hire before they think about their sales structure. You realize you need another salesperson when your current team is overwhelmed, when a team member leaves, or you add someone without clarity on what they'll actually be responsible for selling.

I frequently joke that when I was in my 30s and 40s, I'd come back from conferences all excited with new ideas for my team at Grunder Landscaping Co. I'm sure the seasoned members would whisper to new recruits: "Just wait. He'll be at a different conference next week with a totally different list of initiatives."

Over the past few years, I've had the privilege of visiting some of the best-run landscaping companies in North America as we've hosted GROW! Conferences.

I've seen a lot of trendy "quick fixes" come and go. With every new technology, garden pest, or machinery release there's always either panic or excitement: will this make my life easier? Am I going to be able to figure out how to use it? What can we do next to stay ahead of our competition? Here's the thing: many of.

When everything is a priority, nothing actually is.

Ten years ago, I met Gene Freeman and Chris Strempek in Dallas, TX, right before we brought our group of GROW! 2016 attendees to their company, Complete Landsculpture. We were introduced by Jim Cali and Jason New, our partners in running our ACE Peer Group Program. Gene and Chris have become good friends since that.

This week Emily, Kennedy, and I were at McHale Landscape Design for the annual NALP Field Trip. It was a fast-paced 24 hours onsite with our fellow landscape professionals, but I'm back home now with a ton of notes in my OneNote and a lot of new ideas to make Grunder Landscaping Co. better. Here were my top takeaways:.

Earlier this year, we did an exercise with the entire Grunder Landscaping Team to talk about profitability and explain where all the cash goes in our operation. To simplify the conversation and put it into terms that are easy to understand, we used the trusted "Penny Exercise" or the "Where does $1.00 Go" method..

I've been selling landscaping for 40+ years now, and in that time, I've worked with all kinds of clients. I've sold to the engineers who want to talk about the specifics of the plan and see detailed drawings, the business owner who is worried about not having to worry about the landscaping, and the stay-at-home parent.

Being able to say you're an "Award-Winning Landscaping Company" is a nice feather in your cap, right? McHale Landscape Design uses the awards they win to drive their marketing efforts, and truthfully it's something we could do a better job of at Grunder Landscaping Co. so I've taken a special interest in studying how.