How do your employees know they have done a good job? This is a question I started and ended a recent peer group retreat for landscape entrepreneurs (photos below). I wanted them to think about it before we began our meeting, and to think about it right before they...
Do you know how many people you should have in your overhead for ideal growth? Last week I was in Detroit leading one of my high-impact peer group meetings. In the peer group meeting, I was asked, “Do I have too many or too few people in overhead?" I know the answer...
As Jack Nicholson barked at Tom Cruise in the movie A Few Good Men, “You can’t handle the truth!!" Or can you? My Summer Growth Summit During my Summer Growth Summit in August, I asked for feedback from attendees. And I got it. (Gulp.) (BTW, this Summit was my largest...
If you are middle aged, this is the strongest economy you will ever experience in your working lifetime. And if you are younger, this great economy will subside at some point… Either way—do not let it slip by. Take advantage, not just by adding more clients, but by...
Last week, during one of my Leader’s Edge Peer Group meetings, a longtime member (Scott Frampton, Landscape Renovations, MN) raised the question of how others are dealing with wage inflation? He asked if others were seeing employees threatening to leave for more...
The world seems to be lowering expectations in all corners - and only you can raise them. Your company can become a bulwark against complacency, where higher expectations become the celebrated norm. My sister Rebekah is a minister and consultant to the church. She...
I was asked recently to give feedback to Landscape Management Magazine on how to ensure that culture is more than a buzzword. Even though I wrote the book on this topic, Become A Destination Company ®, I wanted to gather fresh anecdotes from my clients on how they...
A single culture killer can disrupt the performance of everyone on your team, if you let that person's behavior persist. A culture killer is a person who's strong personality plus bad behavior combine to form a poison that slowly (or quickly) infects the output and...
Hiring in a hot economy is the key to growth this year. Any edge you can get, in both recruiting and retaining employees, is worth exploring. To this end, I am currently reading about Netflix’s explosive success in Reed Hasting’s new book, No Rules Rules. It outlines...
Do all your employees write clear and proper emails to clients? Do they represent your company at its best? It’s a generational thing. People don’t write letters any more, not even cards (Christmas cards are often pre-printed with messages, and often the signatures...
