Years of experience working in the field and behind a desk at the lawn care franchise, Lawn Doctor, taught Scott Lauersen a thing or two about delivering quality service and giving customers great, green lawns, he says. Coupled with his time working at a golf course, Lauersen says when the time was right in 2003, he was primed to start his own business, Lauersen Lawn & Landscape.

Here are a few important lessons Lauersen learned that he applies to his business today.

Appearance matters. “On a golf course, it’s about how straight your striping is, how green the grass is,” Lauersen says. “It helped teach a sense of quality, that the lawn has to look a certain way and that it’s important to take the extra time if needed.”

Problem solving. Lauersen spent time working in the field, applying lawn care products and observing (and being held accountable for) the results. From his experience as a technician, he gained a deep understanding of the various lawn care products and what they do. Then, in the golf course world, his problem-solving skills were fine-tuned. “I gained a more heightened ability to recognize issues in the turf, be it grubs, weed growth, disease, and just eliminate it,” he says.

Maintaining consistency. Customers want to know exactly what day you’ll be on their properties, Lauersen says. So he drew from his routing experience and created scheduled days for each client. “People appreciate that,” he says. “Countless times they tell me that they really like that we are on the property when we say we are going to be there, and they can count on it. Plus, the grass growth is controlled because it is getting mowed at the same time each week.”