If I asked five people in your company who owns pricing, would I get the same answer?
Probably not.
Pricing tends to evolve in different directions as a company grows:
Different salespeople start setting their own negotiation.
Perhaps an estimator builds the proposal to their own standard.
Account managers may make their own exceptions.
And operations has to deal with all the consequences.
Once his wife, Sonya (MBA), joined four years ago as General Manager, they made several big moves together:
Raised pricing and expanded Google-based marketing, Expanded crews and hired production managers, Implemented Aspire, Built a state-of-the-art facility, Developed a leadership team that is helping the owners regain balance
Kevin jokes that he is now able to work part-time: 35 to 40 hours a week.
The team has worked quite hard to get where they are. Kevin is now able to play golf weekly, so things are on the upswing.
Last week I held a 1.5-day roadmap session with their team and then took a wonderful vacation on Vancouver Island with my wife and partner, Corine.
During the roadmap session, we reviewed department and company-wide strategy and refined their Objectives and Key Results (OKRs). We set a much stronger course for the future.
Here are five lessons every owner and leader can learn from.
What should an owner pay themselves? You may have heard the rule of thumb: pay yourself 5% of revenue. But that falls apart quickly. It does not work for small businesses or very large ones. There is a better way.
There has been a lot of discussion about how to build a valuable business.
You know the usual advice: build strong systems, teams, earnings, and recurring revenue.
Many owners miss a fundamental value-driver hiding in plain sight: brand equity.
It may start with a new logo, website, truck wrap, or color scheme. But it goes deeper.
I know from my family’s business—where I always kept a focus on building brand equity. When it finally sold, our loyal client base, reputation, and market position were a large part of the value.
That is why your brand equity matters. It affects the economics of the business in ways many owners underestimate.
This is a common financial problem I see with landscape firms of all sizes.
You’re making important decisions about staffing, equipment purchases, and pricing, and you hope your accountant can guide you through the financial implications.
But the advice you get often comes back to cost cutting and tax minimization. It’s frustrating.
Everyone understands how to handle a win. You track your successes and celebrate your gains.
Whether it’s a promotion, a strong month, or a beautiful project, wins are shared at the dinner table and reinforce who you believe you are.
But loss is different.
At a recent peer group meeting, one member shared news that caught everyone’s attention.
If you could only achieve profit or revenue growth next year, which would you choose to focus on?
It’s just a theoretical question, but one to consider as you lock down your plans (for growth and profit) for the coming year.
How much do you plan to grow in 2026?
Join Jeffrey Scott for an insightful conversation with two leaders from Aspire: Mark Tipton, co-founder and former CEO, and Eli Zevin, the current General Manager. Mark shares his 12-year journey building Aspire from a skunkworks project into the leading landscape...
👉 Register for our Financial Masterclass In this episode, Jeffrey Scott breaks down the complete roadmap to financial mastery for landscape entrepreneurs. Whether you're running a $1 million or $50 million operation, Jeffrey guides you through ten progressive steps...
As year-end approaches, it’s tempting to glance at your bank balance and declare victory. (It sure beats the opposite)
But in today’s world of rising labor costs, tighter margins, and unpredictable demand, the simple approach won’t cut it.
To steer confidently into 2026, you need a deeper analysis of your numbers.
Go Beyond the Obvious
