Noons on the move

 

“We found there’s a niche to offer better service for clients across the country,” said Christopher Noon, who also operates Green Light Consulting. 

 

Noon said he’s been in talks with TruGreen and its former parent company ServiceMaster since he entered the lawn care business in 2007. The pair had been thinking about franchising for a couple of years. When they received a “generous” offer from TruGreen, the two took it and can now concentrate on the franchise. 

 

Noon said it made more sense strategically to start fresh with a franchise instead of not selling and trying to franchise the Noon name.   

 

“It comes down to the opportunity,” he said. “We were in one region and a small territory, and I think our talents will be served better nationally and hopefully internationally one day.  

 

“Our reach will be further and all the experience and training and formulas that we offer will go further and help more people and spread the quality product we want to do faster and more efficiently,” he said.

 

Noon said eight employees from the Noon management team will join the start-up, while the rest of the company’s employees were offered positions with TruGreen. The Noons will be co-CEOs of the new operation with Christopher focusing more on the sales and marketing side and Matthew on the vision and strategy.  Their longtime CFO Stephanie Lee will focus on financial and operations strategies.   

 

While Noon has a non-compete with TruGreen in Noon’s existing territories, which was a couple of counties, the plan right now is to start franchising along the East Coast to as far west as Illinois. 

 

“We’ll focus regionally, then expand to the midwest and south,” he said.

 

Noon said it was a difficult decision to sell the company he and his brother started from scratch at the end of 2007, but he was impressed with the new TruGreen leadership team and vision for the future. 

 

“They were concerned about our employees, and very concerned about our client base and quality we were offering,” he said. “We felt great about the deal. It’s never easy because you are emotionally attached to clients and employees. We stated with nothing and put our heart and soul and life into it. So it was tough to part ways but we knew we had another plan in line, sort of our second act.”

 

This was not the first acquisition overseen by CEO David Alexander, but it was the largest acquisition in terms of revenue and customers since he joined the company in late 2012, according to TruGreen spokesperson, Amy Simpson. She added the company is not focused on one area of the country for acquisitions. 

 

“Rather, we are pursuing acquisitions wherever it makes sense for our business, our associates and our customers,” she said.