For those who missed our blockbuster 7th annual Summer Growth Summit, here are a few nuggets for you to chew on and implement in your business.

1. #1 Priority. Until your #1 priority is recruiting, developing and retaining employees, you don’t have a #2.

This quote was relayed by the host, Larry Ryan, who has successfully scaled to over 80M without outside investment.

2. Profits Lift Up Society. But profits are not your goal, rather, it is your report card.

It tells you how well you run your company. And how well you invest in your people.

3. 70% of Your Results Are Due to Leadership. Therefore you can’t just rely on internal leadership development, you must utilize outside sources to grow your people:

• formal training,
• involvement on local boards, community engagement,
• coaching firms and peer groups, (Ask us about our peer groups, including our second-in-command group.)
• industry organizations and events like our Summer Growth Summit

Even Toastmasters will help your team step up, says Larry Ryan.

Note, we shared lot of photos on social media, here is one our leadership team: Meredith, Loriena, Jeffrey, Mitch, Sean and Anna our video intern.

4. Use Broad-Based Incentives. “80% of employees say they would stay with their current employer if they felt appreciated and recognized” according to Sparkplug.

To that end, Ryan provides twice annual performance bonuses, recognition programs, and leadership training for their supervisors.

Ryan has also implemented “learning coaches” that are embedded in each division to help employees earn their promotions and raises.

These coaches remain mostly chargeable, working in the field alongside their internal clients. It’s win win.

5. The Rule of 72. According to this rule, you divide 72 by your annual growth rate and you get the number of years it will take to double.

So if your growth rate is 15%, it will take you just under 5 years to double.

While five years may sound slow when you are quite small, once you are sizeable (e.g. 80M), doubling becomes quite a challenge and quite a reward.

6. Before & After You Acquire. Successful acquisitions take time to develop, just like successful hires.

An acquisition needs to be a good cultural fit as well as fill a strategic purpose.

To exploit the acquisition you need a marketing strategy with a greatly increased spend, especially if it’s a new market or a new service.

Add fuel to the fire for a stronger ROI.

7. Be Authentic. When you are emotionally open and vulnerable, it builds trust and rapport within your team and client community.

After the Summit, many attendees told me they appreciated my personal stories about how I got started, and the challenges I personally overcame to grow our coaching business.

It feels good to share the details and everyone appreciates it.

8. Tell More Stories. As an owner or leader, don’t let those defining culture-building moments slip away.

Identify the stories that define your culture and make sure they get passed down to every new employee!

A good story bears repeating, over and over, to employees new and old.

9. In-house Marketing is Key. Even if you hire an outside firm, someone internally needs to be committed to marketing. i.e. someone who knows your story, and is in touch with employees and initiatives.

This will help you leverage all your employees as walking, talking billboards.

Every employee is in marketing and sales.

10. Take a Break From Your Business. Intentionally take time away from the business, so you can see it with fresh eyes.

Will Seiler (Seiler’s Landscaping, Ohio) shared how he spends most of his time physically away from his business, and this gives him the clarity to make the right decisions for growth after each visit.

Will consistently hires “ahead of revenue” to reduce key-man risk and to stabilize his team.

This allows him to “sleep like a baby” while also fueling growth.

11. Smart leaders support rather than control. Only hire people with a growth mindset, and then support them in their growth.

Mark Bradley (founder, LMN) shared that it was how he built his landscape firm into a 50M behemoth.

12. Business Outcomes. All training should be tied to a business outcome.

Never train for the sake of training or just to fill the schedule on a rainy day.

Start with the end in mind.

This goes not only for training, but for every business initiative.

13. Autonomy speeds growth. Delegation is important. But real growth happens when you create systems that allow team members to make decisions on their own.

If you remove the decision-making bottlenecks, your people will rise to their full potential.

Final Thought:

Here’s a pithy phrase from Ryan’s operational team: “Nail it before you scale it”. It protects your reputation and keeps you from falling backwards.

Note: We have some great ideas for next year’s Summit, everyone is already looking forward it! Stay tuned and we will share more soon.

REGARDS, JEFFREY SCOTT!

P.S. Join our Livestream tomorrow, Aug 28th, 1pm ET:

From Projects to Partnerships: Converting Design Build to Maintenance

Converting design-build projects into maintenance clients ensures long-term stability and growth for your business. Yet, many contractors struggle with this transition, often missing opportunities to secure ongoing revenue streams.

We will hold this livestream on various social media channels, with LinkedIn being the main one.

This link will take you to LinkedIn to sign up.