Stand out from the crowd

Liza Lightfoot was gardening on the side while attending University of Wisconsin Madison, feeding a longtime fascination for plants by getting her hands dirty with side jobs around town. The plan, before landscaping took center stage, was to become a jazz singer.

“But I realized that was probably not the best career choice if I wanted to survive,” Lightfoot says with a hint of a British accent. She was born in Johannesburg, South Africa, and came to the U.S. in 1974. “I was starting to get my jazz vocal degree and about two-thirds of the way through, I decided that if I worked half as hard at something else, I might actually make money.”

She was already drumming up business with a partner, and an aptitude test indicated that landscape architecture would suit her talents and personality. So she switched majors. That was 30 years ago, and now Avant Gardening and Landscaping is celebrating that landmark anniversary, serving high-end clients in a market that has been generous to Lightfoot’s business over the years, she says.

Avant Gardening and Landscaping employs 21 people, seven of whom are full-time. Seventy percent of its customer base is residential, though Lightfoot is hoping to grow the commercial end this year and into the future.

The operation has expanded and grown more sophisticated over the years, and honed a client base with a taste for creative results. But what has always stayed the same at Avant is the firm’s focus on interesting design and its balance of maintenance services to ensure recurring revenue and to strike a healthy work balance.

Lightfoot has done far more than survive in this career; she is preparing to one day leave a legacy to dedicated employees. The company is now entering a new phase in its development where the focus is on giving people an opportunity to not just execute the vision but to help shape it. “We are at a growth phase now that I’m really excited about,” Lightfoot says.

Room to grow.

When Lightfoot first started her business, she was operating out of her home like many small business owners. And at the time, licensing was not required for landscape architects in the state of Wisconsin, which was a good thing since her college adviser suggested focusing on her business and she left the university 21 credit hours short of a degree.

“When the law came into effect, I had enough years of experience that I passed the test and was given my licensing,” Lightfoot says.

Right away, Lightfoot reached her target high-end residential market with the help of a client with whom she traded landscaping services for mailing lists. “He would print out mailing labels for me with people’s names on it in high-end neighborhoods, and I would send out flyers, so I was getting a lot of business,” she says.

Meanwhile, the initial partnership was dissolved, and Lightfoot moved on with the company name since she had personally invested in the business. Avant Gardening and Landscaping continued on with two new partners in the construction and maintenance divisions, while Lightfoot managed design, sales and other operations. “We had a good person in the office who was doing the bookkeeping,” she says.

During that time, Avant Gardening and Landscaping grew from a facility with a simple warehouse in town they had been renting. The city of Madison approached Lightfoot, letting her know it bought the property and she would be compensated with moving costs and five years of rent in a new location.

“They gave me the money in a lump sum, so I was able to pay off a lot of debt, buy equipment to grow and take on a higher rent for the next five years,” says Lightfoot of the move in 1990 to a larger space in town.

But Lightfoot always had her mind on property. So when an opportunity cropped up to purchase a lovely 52-acre farm on the outskirts of town, she jumped on it and signed the contract in 1997. The plan was to open a retail nursery site there, but the zoning battle that ensued with neighbors was stressful and resulted in five years of back-and-forth so Lightfoot eventually deciding to rent out the land to organic and traditional farmers.

While Plan A didn’t work out, Lightfoot says that a promising part of the company’s future growth is the bounty of perennials thriving on the property now. “We are doing some nice work there, and I think we need to find a way to market our product because we have a sizeable inventory now,” she says.

Avant Gardening and Landscaping has a nursery division but Lightfoot would like to focus on growing that department and improving its profitability as “more of a stand-alone entity,” she says.

People & partnerships.

People come and go—but when good people have been on board (like now), the business has always expanded and notably improved, whether in customer retention or sales, Lightfoot says. “If I look back, every time we have good people working in the business we have a growth spurt,” she says, specifically referring to a period of about 18 years of solid growth.

“We brainstormed and developed ideas and designs together—and we took on bigger jobs,” says Lightfoot, relating that the commercial side of the business also grew during that time. The type of commercial work Avant Gardening and Landscaping does includes multi-housing residential sites like condominium communities that want landscaping upgrades, and some business properties.

But good people leave, and that’s what happened at Avant. An employee recruited one of Lightfoot’s other employees and started her own business. “We have spawned a lot of businesses here,” Lightfoot quips – perhaps a result of her relatively hands-off management style. “I try to let people do their jobs and stay out of their hair.” She looks at the experience as a challenge that she overcame and the business goes on.

One of her most valuable employees left five years ago, and Lightfoot says business did slump a bit for a year or two. She began to recruit a replacement but that’s not so easy. “I hired one guy who was brilliant, but he had a temper and that didn’t work out so well,” she relates.

What did work was bringing on a landscape design graduate from University of Wisconsin and training him to eventually take on a management role. “He grew into the position, and he has exceeded anything I ever expected,” Lightfoot says.

She has found other talented employees by recruiting through the university, and others came in the door when a larger firm downsized and good people were looking for a new home.

The strong team operating Avant Gardening and Landscaping today has made for smooth running the last five years, and stability, Lightfoot says. And now, Lightfoot feels she has flexibility to step out of the rigorous operations and design role, a 24/7 pursuit, and work on other aspects of the business like the nursery and commercial sales.

“I am really excited about the team I have and moving the business to a higher level,” she says.

Leading & letting go.

The next level for Lightfoot is one where she’s not working in the business constantly, and where she steps aside, lets others lead and is even absent for some time. She has been testing this hands-off approach during winters she spends running a micro-business, Travel Learners LLC (see Growing Experiences), which involves taking students on trips to South Africa where they build playgrounds and food gardens.

While she’s away during the bitter Wisconsin months, a strong snow business is running at Avant and her team is calling the shots. Lightfoot is completely comfortable with this.

“I really like the decisions that others have made for the most part,” Lightfoot says of letting out some rope and trying new things like upgrading the company’s brand (see Polishing the Brand). “It’s great to see others take the helm and make those plans and have a vision.”

Lightfoot wants to see the business live on, even when she’s ready to step out of it – which is not anytime soon. But she recognizes that this next phase of Avant is one where she’ll focus on growing new areas of the operation, letting others take care of the core business and seeing what happens from there.

Of the team, the market and opportunities for expansion, Lightfoot says: “We are in a position where the business is healthy and we are in a good place.”