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
Every business has skeletons 💀 in the closet — important issues that leaders know about but no one wants to bring to light.
October is the perfect month to deal with them before they spook your 2026 planning. Just like in horror movies, what you ignore always comes back to haunt you.
Here are four scary situations that we see when coaching owners and conducting roadmaps with leadership teams.
If you asked your crews how much profit your company makes, what would they say?
Our research shows they’d guess a lot more than you actually do.
Most leaders are surprised when they hear their troops give the common answer of 50% net profit. That’s clever in a way — because it’s close to your gross margin — but it reveals a major disconnect.
Your team understands the cost of materials and labor in the field. But they don’t see the other costs that eat away at profits.
You and I know the truth: landscaping runs on high volatility and thin margins. Until your people understand that, you’ll never get them fully protecting the bottom line.
Re: Our 6th annual virtual Financial Master Class®
This 2-day masterclass will give you the landscaping industry’s most powerful financial and operational benchmarks — plus cutting-edge tools to help you make smarter decisions, improve performance, and plan confidently for 2026.
Each day is 4 hours of high-impact learning, with built-in breaks to keep you fresh and optional breakout rooms to connect with peers from similarly sized companies.
You send us your financials (Nov ’24–Oct ’25) using our simple benchmarking template. We’ll plug your data into our powerful benchmarking system and send it back to you — so you show up ready to learn, analyze, and act.
This year’s Summer Growth Summit was hosted by Schill Grounds Management, and the visit left our entire community impressed and inspired.
What stood out most wasn’t their size, but how they’ve scaled while keeping a small-company feel. The have a true clarity of vision and alignment of their team.
It’s the dog days of summer, and lead flow for many companies is lagging.
For some of you, leads are lagging in quantity and quality, or both. It mostly has to do with the current uncertainty in the marketplace.
Regardless of the reason, what’s a company leader to do?
It’s important to track the profitability of your services, whether it’s a one-time project or recurring maintenance like mowing. Â
But looking at services in isolation does not tell the full story. A lower-margin service might be offset by more profitable work over the year.Â
That’s why you should evaluate each customer’s total revenue and gross profitacross all 12 months—treating every account like its own profit and loss statement. Â
Many landscape companies miss this by focusing too narrowly on individual jobs instead of understanding a property/customer’s total contribution over all four seasons.Â
This broader view is critical: Though it can become challenging in a soft market, where homeowners and property managers are cautious about approving extra spending. Â
If upgrades and enhancements are a tougher sell, don’t give up. Â
This year will separate the sales wannabes from the true professionals. Spring has arrived, no matter how strong (or weak) your start, there’s always room to level up your skills. Here’s the truth: simply answering your phone and returning emails promptly puts you ahead of 90% of your competition.
But if you want to rise even higher, these ten sales knowledge bombs will give you the edge.
10 Sales Knowledge Bombs to Dominate This Season
The selling race is on. Now is the time to make hay.
This newsletter: “100 Days to Sell, Part 1” focuses on essential sales management techniques.
Here are 10 actionable strategies to help your team close more deals in today’s economic climate.
Use this as a check list, which ones are you doing well, and where can you improve?
Derek Wells is CEO of Wells Lawncare and Landscaping in Bloomington, IN. They do 3M in revenue of a mix of commercial and residential, and are growing over 30%. For more information on Derek Wells and Wells Lawncare and Landscaping in Bloomington, Indiana, visit their...
