There’s always value in learning life lessons from business owners who managed to grow successfully. During LANDSCAPES 2017, five industry CEOs of companies that perform landscape management jobs shared their stories and advice to other business owners and managers in a panel discussion.
Ken Taylor, general sales manager at John Deere, led the LANDSCAPES 2017 panel discussion. The panel included five CEOs of landscape management companies: Ivan Giraldo of Clean Scapes Landscaping, Ron Kujawa of Kujawa Enterprises Incorporated, Brian Helgoe of Monarch Landscape Holdings, Joe Munie of Munie Greencare Professionals and Todd Pugh of Enviroscapes.
The following is a portion of their discussion:
Ken Taylor: What is the best advice you ever received?
Ron Kujawa: There are a number of things. The best advice I received was to learn to pay yourself first. By that I don’t mean pay yourself and don’t pay the people. But when you do get paid, take some of that money and invest it. I know you’ll invest in your company, but you also have to invest outside the company, be it a mutual fund or life insurance. Whatever it is, it can be difficult in the beginning, but the sooner you get started the better. People today don’t delay instant gratification. But having been brought up in the Great Depression, I learned that you have to have something to fall back on. I’ve been very fortunate in my investments.
Ken Taylor: What do you wish you knew earlier in your career?
Joe Munie: The thing I wish I knew when I started in the business was that I didn’t realize how great the opportunities were. Lawn care was a new business. We got involved with irrigation. But I wish I would have marketed a lot more aggressively and been more aggressive about dominating those markets. I also wish I wouldn’t have diversified as much as I did when I started in business. It seemed opportunistic then, but as things got bigger, had we just focused on a few disciplines, I think we would be a lot further ahead.
Ken Taylor: Todd, what do you foresee for our industry’s future? What do you see as an opportunity and what do you see as a challenge?
Todd Pugh: I think we measure things in man hours – our industry has been sloppy with that. Sometimes, a company won’t know where its fleet is at or where equipment is at. We must be more innovative as an industry. With labor, we often say, “No one is out there to work.” Yet we have to create an environment where people want to work for you. There are potential hires. There’s probably a reason people aren’t working for you when you say that. There’s tons of people to work – just create a destination workplace environment that’s different. I see we have great opportunity there.
Ken Taylor: How do you view your roles as leaders today compared to what it was like 15 years ago?
Ivan Giraldo: You need to be able to adjust to the circumstances and changes. If you’re not willing to change and adapt and realize what’s going on around you, you will start dying off as a company and business. I bring my team to this show every year to make sure they realize how big of an industry this is. We are a big part of the U.S. economy. Think about the size of our business and industry. There is a lot of change coming to our industry: technology, challenges with relations, with manpower. So, we need to be able to compete with that and overcome those challenges. We always have to prepare for what is coming up.
Ken Taylor: Joe, what things do you wish you knew for your role 15 years ago?
Joe Munie: I’m entrepreneurial. One of the things I’ve gotten better at is planning and sticking to business plans. I think a lot of the secret is in when you get a plan together, it’s about executing that plan. I’m really strong on process systems and making sure we have good standardization in our organizations. Those were things I really didn’t pay attention to early in my career.
Audience: Do you think we need to raise the barriers for people to enter the industry? If you think that’s important, what types of things could we do in order to do that?
Ivan Giraldo: That’s a very important question, as it’s been a concern for a while. NALP is fully aware. Everybody in our industry is truly aware. Unfortunately, our industry has a low reputation. People don’t see it as a career. They don’t want to work in landscape and retire pushing a mower. Of course not. But it’s changing that image. We all need to work on that. Everybody needs to act professionally and raise awareness of the business we are in so newcomers can see this as a career.
Ken Taylor: Is there anything you would like to do to change the industry?
Todd Pugh: We have to do a better job of going to school districts, sharing with guidance counselors what we do. Farmers are terrible at this, too. We let PETA tell our story; we let environmentalists tell our story. So, I share with guidance counselors what our guys and gals can accomplish. Tell our story and that will be a big deal.
Audience: What are you doing today to make your company a “destination workplace” and to educate employees to stay in the business longer?
Joe Munie: Treat trade people with respect. Give people the proper tools and information to see what they do. If you focus on having quality people, I think that draws the people you want. When you have situations where there are problems or poor performers, it’s important to correct those because that creates a different environment in your organization.
Todd Pugh: I don’t like that a lot of companies charge workers for their uniforms while managers get them for free. Treat people equally. I’m a worker man and I like to get to know the guys in the field. Managers tend to get treated pretty damn good. So I look to programs to help the guys working in the field every day.
Brian Helgoe: You have to grow your business off the table and promote from within. You have to pay people a percentage of what they make at the company so they can significantly outperform. I make sure all the guys are treated with a ton of respect and have good, safe tools. From a field point of view, get nice new equipment as a draw.
Ron Kujawa: We offer 401Ks, tuition reimbursements. Try to provide opportunity and to communicate so everyone knows what’s happening. People need to know when times are good and when times are bad so they can trust you.
Ivan Giraldo: Create a good, safe work environment, and keep it so that you’ll have people who are happy and excited to be there. Make it so they’ll bring their friends and family. They’ll recommend new people, just like our clients. The best way to get a new client is to warm them up. It’s the same with employees. At the same time, we are working hard to bring new employees, we need to make sure we have a good base for the employees we already have. Also speak a lot about how good of a company you have within your community. Make your company known for what it does in your neighborhoods.