Employee Retention Archives

Learn from the Best: Building a Winning Culture

Mar 11, 2025 | Employee Retention, Employees, Growth Tips, Leadership, Management

Culture is shaped by the trade-offs you make in what you communicate with your team.

As a leader, you only have so much time in the day to create a winning atmosphere.

The topics you consistently discuss leave a lasting imprint on your organization. Equally important, the topics you don’t discuss also shape your culture—sometimes positively, sometimes negatively.

Here are four “dead ends” to avoid when building your culture – with a case study at the end from a company building a winning culture.

Seven Key Trends Shaping 2025: Insights from 2024

Jan 7, 2025 | Employee Retention, Growth Tips, Income, Leadership, Management, Planning, Strategy

Happy New Year, My Friends! As we step into 2025, it’s crucial to keep an eye on the transformative trends that gained momentum in 2024. These developments will continue to impact us and present new opportunities for growth.

Here are seven pivotal trends to watch: Sustainability, Technological Integration, Workforce Development, Savvy Financial Management, The Leadership Advantage, Acquisition Momentum, and Retire-in-Place.

Keeping Your Team Hungry

Aug 6, 2024 | Employee Retention, Employees, Growth Tips, Leadership, Management, Productivity

While a third of our business is focused on fixing landscape firms (profit, efficiency, focus), a full third is focused on helping companies scale. Either breaking through a glass ceiling. Or smoothing out their growth to the next level.

I often see a dichotomy that owners face as they scale. They either ask me, “How do I keep my business growing to satisfy my hungry leaders?”

Or they ask, “How do I keep my team hungry after they have already achieved a level of success?

These questions are critical, and a growing company will ultimately face both in their quest to maintain momentum.

The Challenge with Superstar Employees

Jul 30, 2024 | Employee Retention, Employees, Growth Tips, Leadership, Management, Productivity, Training

Much of the industry has similar challenges with their new employees. Too many are inconsistent, unreliable, or worse.

If only you could attract a superstar instead?

Careful what you wish for.

I see an “equal but opposite” challenge with superstar employees.

Last week I wrote about the virtues of investing (paying) more for the right employee. This week I have some important insights into managing them,

Avoid “Epic Fails” When Hiring: Use These Five Tips

Jul 23, 2024 | Employee Retention, Employees, Growth Tips, Leadership, Management, Peer Groups

Mis-hires are the biggest cost to an organization.

They cost you significant time, money and organizational momentum – which I believe is the biggest cost of all.

An epic fail.

Last week a peer group member shared with us an “epic fail”…

WEBINAR: Why Incentives and Bonus Plans Backfire… and How to Fix Them

Jul 2, 2024 | Employee Retention, Growth Tips, Management, Pricing, Webinar

Happy 4th of July! This holiday commemorates our original colonies coming together (in congress) to declare independence. Together is the key word. Our power as a nation comes from our grit, industriousness, innovation, spirit and ultimately our working together to overcome our differences. Hope you have plans to enjoy this holiday together with those you love. Webinar: Next week, July 10th at 12 noon EST, I will be holding a free webinar (sponsored by Team Engine) on the topic of improving your commission, bonus, profit sharing and incentive plans.

Where Profit Sharing Backfires & How to Avoid that Trap

Jun 25, 2024 | Employee Retention, Employees, Growth Tips, Leadership, Management, Strategy

Over the years we have helped hundreds of landscape firms set up incentive programs. Profit Sharing systems are some that I am most proud of. Interestingly, not all company cultures “accept” profits sharing. But is it the company, or how it is implemented? I explore some common challenges and fixes with Profit Sharing – Lessons from Real Life.

What If Your Employees Acted Like Owners?

Jun 18, 2024 | Employee Retention, Employees, Growth Tips, Leadership, Management

Employees that are treated (and act) like owners will go above and beyond, especially when it counts. Starbucks employees are a great example of this phenomenon.

I recently listened to an inspiring podcast (“Acquired”) on Howard Schultz, the innovator behind Starbucks. He shared all his big decisions and challenges. One of his most impactful was giving ownership to his employees before the company went public. It was a gutsy move, and it paid off.

While Starbucks is known for their coffee, their success comes from being obsessed with their culture and employee/customer experience. And it all starts with every Starbucks employee being treated like an owner.

(This is not much different from how Ryan Lawn & Tree treats their employees. Listen to my podcast “The Ultimate Landscape CEO” where I interview the founder, Larry Ryan.)

Ensure a Better 2024 by Managing Internal & External Uncertainty

Nov 28, 2023 | Employee Retention, Employees, Exit Planning, Financial, Growth Tips, Income, Management, Planning, Pricing, Strategy

I recently spoke with Ron Edmonds, President of the Principium Group, a leading mergers and acquisitions firm serving the Green Industry. Ron and I were prepping for his talk at my Financial Master Class, chatting about how a company’s “value” is driven in part by removing the uncertainties in the business. The lower the uncertainties, the higher the value. Business Uncertainties can be split into two groups: internal and external. Our conversation on uncertainties reminded me of the Serenity Prayer: Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference. My version: Know what you can control internally and externally, and focus intently on those elements in your business; don’t stress on the rest. With that in mind, here are a couple examples to get your mind turning:

Profit Sharing Is Not A Quick Fix – But It Works!

Oct 31, 2023 | client, Employee Retention, Employees, Financial, Growth Tips, Incentives, Income, Leadership, Management, Peer Groups

A few weeks back I was honored to speak at the Kentucky Expo / Equip. It was a great show, seeing so many cutting edge technologies coming to market. I gave two presentations (to standing room only). One was on Open Book Management. To add some spice to my presentation, I included a case study from the highly successful Whispering Pines Landscape (“WPL”) in Ontario, owned by my good friend and client, Greg Wildeboer. When he and I started collaborating together in Dec 2015, he was under $4M, with a need to greatly improve cash flow and remove himself from the center of everything.He dreamt of implementing an effective profit sharing. (He had one in place, but it was not working great.)A PROFIT SHARING CASE STUDY: We proved that for Profit Sharing to be effective, you need “two shares”Gains: a fair and motivating way to share the financial gains. Numbers: a simple way to open the books and share the numbers.

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