I think every landscaper in America has probably encountered clients who are wary and distrustful of us from the get-go. There's something Marty often says when doing sales training, that people are "always looking for proof that you aren't who you say you are." We have to consistently prove who we are and earning.

As a facilitator in our ACE Peer Group Program, I get to see up close landscaping companies across the country. I help owners work through the issues they're facing, and I also celebrate their successes alongside them. Through the program, I've gotten to know Jason Cromley, owner at Hidden Creek Landscaping, since he.

The best landscaping companies I've seen in my 40 years in the industry all have something in common: they're super intentional in the decisions they make. The way intentionality takes shape varies from company to company, but successful companies aren't that way by accident or dumb luck. A company I admire for the.

Our team puts together a lot of content each year in our quest to help landscape professionals like you with their businesses, and each year as we look back on it, all there are usually a few pieces that stand out as our favorites and yours. As we mark the final Sunday of 2024, I thought I'd share a short list of the.

Every year this Great Idea ends up following a similar theme: this is the time of year to celebrate with the people we love, reflect back on the year behind us, and spend a little time unwinding before the calendar turns over. All four of my kids are grown and scattered around the country now, and with them rarely all.

I have been selling landscaping for more than 40 years now, and I've found that the more things change the more they also stay the same. In many ways selling is much easier now than it was when I started out, in a time when dinosaurs still roamed the earth. I'm kidding, but we didn't have the technology that makes our.

GROW! 2025 will feature Hidden Creek Landscaping as our tour host, and as part of the event we'll learn directly from their talented team, find out the ins-and-outs of how they operate, and also walk through their facility to understand how they set themselves up for success. Without a doubt, one of Hidden Creek.

At our most recent ACE Summit in New Orleans, LA held with our partners at McFarlin Stanford, we hosted more than 225 of our ACE Peer Group Members and their spouses for three days of networking, learning, and a lot of fun, too. My favorite parts of the event were the annual awards dinner, our VIP tour of the National.

To grow a business it's important to always keep your focus on sales. Sales are the fuel for your organization, folks, without them the business can't go anywhere. Having sales targets helps us stay focused and motivated. We set goals that are larger than what each salesperson managed in 2024 but still numbers we.

Effective teams are effective because they have the right people in the right roles. This happens by being intentional and aware of teams' strengths and weaknesses, and then allowing team members to be in roles that let them play to their strengths. We have continued to learn new and different ways to leverage this.