Leveling up

Branch Manager Marvin Balsoma took over Level Green Landscaping’s most struggling branch in 2021 and has since turned it around to be the $34-million-dollar company’s best performing branches.

This is just one transformative example of how Balsoma is not only changing the trajectory of Level Green’s profits, but its people as well.

After four years in the branch manager role, Balsoma has helped promote three crew leaders to operations managers, an operations manager into an account manager and an account manager into a branch manager — with a similar promotion also on the horizon.

Opportunity knocks

Balsoma joined Level Green in 2017 as an operations manager, but he’s been a part of the green industry for decades.

“At 10-years-old my grandfather told me that nobody lives in the house for free, so I started taking care of the yard. Back then I did some neighbors’ yards as well,” he recalls. “At 11 or 12, I’d make about $30 a week cutting grass around the neighborhood. It felt natural to go into the industry.”

Balsoma admits he tried out some different career paths before coming back to the green industry in his 30s where he settled in at a landscaping company.

“I worked for a small company before I came here and spent 12 years over there,” he says. “I feel like that prepared me for this journey over here at Level Green.”

Balsoma says he credits his longtime mentor, and boss, Joey Schneider, with his rise from operations manager to branch manager.

“Without Joey, I don’t know if I would’ve gotten to where I am,” he says. “He’s always been a believer in me.”

Schneider, a regional manager with Level Green, recalls seeing something special in Balsoma right away. “When I first met him and asked him what he wanted to do he told me how he wanted to move up and keep advancing.

“So, I told him that if he was willing to put in the work, I’d help him get to wherever he wanted to go, and Marvin has a great work ethic,” he says.

That work ethic paid off as Balsoma was promoted to account manager within his first year.

“He did a great job as an operations manager and aspired to be an account manager, so we gave him that role,” Schneider says. “He earned that opportunity. His first year was a lot of work and a big transition. He and I would talk a lot, especially when things weren’t going well. He kept his head up and was determined to succeed. He went from having a bad sales year his first year to being the best in the company his second year because he kept working at it and doing the right things.”

Building up BWI

After proving himself as an account manager, Balsoma was ready to take on his next challenge — running Level Green’s BWI branch.

The journey proved to have many tribulations, but Level Green’s Director of Technology and Marketing, Marion Delano, says Balsoma weathered the storm.

“It was a new branch that had just opened a year or so before he came on board. It was really struggling. There was a lot of turnover and people weren’t staying because the culture wasn’t there,” he explains. “Marvin took over that branch that was not doing well, and it was a massive challenge, but he’s turned it around to be our best branch. Marvin took on the challenge of finding people in a new place and getting the yard and office set up. He really challenged himself, and his team, to make it work.”

Balsoma says he had a sole focus when turning around the BWI branch.

“My motivation has been pretty easy — I always want to be No. 1 — that’s my goal so whatever I have to do to get to that is what I’ll do,” he says. “Year 1 was a very challenging year. There were a lot of unhappy clients, and we lost a lot of clients before I came onboard. I just tried to stay focused and met with a lot of unhappy clients. I explained to them what the plan was to turn things around and that I’d be a visible leader for the branch in making sure we were servicing when we were supposed to be servicing and being proactive with the clients on site.

“Things started turning around toward the end of the first year, and in the second year things really started to look up,” he adds. “We exceeded all of our budget for that year.”

Schneider says that wasn’t without plenty of sacrifice on Balsoma’s part.

“Marvin would work 12 to 16 hours six days a week because he just refused to let his team down,” he recalls. “Slowly, but surely, he turned it around…This year he’ll have the most profitable branch in the company.”

Delano echoes those sentiments saying the BWI branch, and the entire company, would not be at the level they are now at without Balsoma and his leadership. In 2024, Balsoma’s branch made nearly $8 million in revenue.

“Not only is he knocking it out of the park with the cultural piece, but his branch performs,” he says. “It’s our best performing branch in enhancement sales, overall sales, renewal rates and all that. Literally in almost every metric, his branch is our top performer. Before he came in four years ago, that was the exact opposite — and we really do credit a lot of that success to Marvin and what he’s been able to do.”

Balsoma credits this to actively recruiting new employees, and clients; consistent, weekly meetings with all staff; along with open book management and sharing the financials with his team.

The success he and his branch have been met with isn’t a testament to him but to the entire team, Balsoma stresses.

“We’ve continued to grow the team and got the right people in the right seats. All of my people in the branch share the same goals that I do. We’re all competitive. Even though we’re all Level Green, we still want to be the No. 1 branch at Level Green whether it’s in sales, in production or anything else,” he says. “I get a lot of feedback from upper management about how good our branch is doing, but I don’t take the credit. My team is out there working their tails off on a daily basis. I don’t believe in micromanaging people, so we have a really friendly atmosphere where everyone knows their role and knows their job.”

Room at the table

That mentality of bringing everyone up with him is what so many at Level Green think sets Balsoma apart from the herd.

“For us, Marvin represents the best part of Level Green and what we aim to see in our company, which is the ability for people to grow and grow in their roles,” Delano says. “We want them to accomplish their life’s dreams, and I think Marvin really exemplifies that…One of our newest branch managers was an account manager under Marvin, and for two years Marvin trained him every day to be a branch manager. Under his tutelage, he’d allow him to run meetings and run the branch when he was gone — it really gave him the leadership skills needed, and he was really a huge mentor and advocate for him to advance.”

Tyler Kreft, an account manager at Level Green, is yet another example of Balsoma leveling up his staff.

“I’ve been working with Marvin for five years now,” Kreft says. “I’m an account manager in Marvin’s branch. I started as an operations manager for one year and have spent the past four years as an account manager. Marvin actually helped me get promoted…That’s what Marvin wants to be known for — bringing people up with him and helping his team grow as well.”

Balsoma says he’s incredibly thankful for all the opportunities he’s had in life and hopes to pass that feeling onto as many as possible.

“That’s something that warms my heart — to give people the same opportunities that were given to me,’ he says. “I do a lot of training with my guys and have conversations to find out what their career goals are. When I find somebody that I feel is going to be a rockstar, then I want to build a plan to get them up into a higher position.”

What a leader looks like

But leadership is about more than lifting people up and helping to promote them Balsoma sets the standard when it comes to being a dedicated leader.

“My phone is always on, my office is always open, and I greet my crew people at the gate every morning with a handshake,” Balsoma says. “My goal is to send everybody out with a smile. It just seems to set the tone for the day to get everybody feeling good about themselves and where they’re working at the beginning of the day.”

Kreft is just one of many who truly appreciates Balsoma’s guidance.

“Marvin has a very approachable demeanor,” Kreft says. “You can come to him and talk with him about anything. He makes time for you no matter what. He shares his past experiences with you and tries to help any way he can. He also makes it a point to get to know everyone on a personal level. He cares about what’s going on with your life even outside of work.

“He does all this in a way that’s not overbearing or where you’re feeling micromanaged,” he adds. “He’s just a natural, very diplomatic leader.”

Balsoma says he leads this way to bolster a culture of trust and not fear.

“I don’t want people to tiptoe around me or try to keep secrets from me because I might get mad,” he says. “Nobody’s perfect and we’re all going to make mistakes. It’s about how we perform after we acknowledge we’ve made a mistake that matters to me. I never persecute my people — we have open discussions about mistakes and problems.”

In addition to spreading positivity and ambition on a daily basis, Delano says Balsoma has been known to show his gratitude toward his team in some special ways a few times a year.

“Every year he has a pool party at his house for the entire branch,” Delano says.

“All the managers, crew leaders and everyone join at his house. This year, his branch was co-located with another branch — so he invited all their people too. He had like 50 people from Level Green over for a pool party.”

And it’s not just for show, Delano says anyone that knows Balsoma knows how genuine his love for Level Green and his crew is.

“He treats everybody in his branch like family, and while that may be a cliché term — I think he really sees it that way,” he says.

His future is clear

Nowadays, the 54-year-old father of three and grandfather of five has his sights set on one more promotion before his career comes to a close.

“My ultimate goal is to move up one more position before my career is over,” he says. “I’d like an opportunity to become a regional manager. My other goal is to promote as many people as I can along the way.” Delano says he should have no problem achieving that. “I don’t see any reason why he couldn’t be a regional manager,” he says.

The author is senior editor with Lawn & Landscape.