As an instructor in the entrepreneurial studies division at Montgomery County Community College, Mike Sisti helps his students to develop marketing plans, hone sales techniques, manage people effectively and foster an entrepreneurial work ethic.

“I ask my students, ‘Do you want to run a business or cut 40 lawns a month?’” says Sisti, who also owns a Weed Man franchise in the Philadelphia area. “I tell them, ‘You need to set goals and step outside your business to grow it.’”

Sisti also instills the notion that sales and marketing professionals are “in charge of their own destinies … a part-time sales job could easily lead to a full-time opportunity.”

Despite the lingering recession, Sisti tells his students to remain optimistic about the future of the industry. “Plenty of businesses, including Microsoft, were launched during recessions,” he says. “You need to have faith and just do it.”

This is one of three stories that ran in Lawn & Landscape's Growing Green e-newsletter. To continue reading about Mike Sisti:

Mike Sisti's passion guides him through the industry

Chain of demand: What suppliers and LCOs can learn from each other.