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.
A while back, I showed up to a formal party wearing a tuxedo. I thought it was a “black tie” event. Boy was I embarrassed when I showed up and saw everyone wearing simple cocktail attire.
My friend and I stood out, like two penguins. We scrambled to his car to take off our bowties and tried to dress down.
That experience taught me something about degrees of overdressing. While wearing a tuxedo may be too much, at work it’s important to be slightly over dressed than looking ragged or overly casual.
Our industry needs more owners who think the same way. Whether it’s for a networking event, or for your company dress code.
Because you can’t put lipstick on a pig, and you also can’t show up looking like one.
As your landscape company grows, your people challenges evolve. In this episode, Mitch Katz sits down with Katie Magoon, owner of People Solutions Center, to discuss how HR can become a strategic advantage instead of just a compliance function. Katie and Mitch discuss...
Here is a behind the scenes look at Jeffrey Scott Consulting: How we do our own strategic planning.
As we enter Q3, it is time for all companies to think about planning the next 12–18 months, before year end sneaks up on you.
We just held our roadmap session a few weeks ago in New Orleans.
As you can imagine, a productive retreat requires more than a good agenda. It needs preparation, team chemistry and enough time for honest conversations.
Here is how we did it.
Scott Hollister, Editor-in-Chief of Landscape Management Magazine (published by North Coast Media, headquartered in Cleveland, Ohio), joins Jeffrey Scott to break down the 2026 LM150 — the industry's ranking of the 150 largest landscaping companies. This year's list...
What would your business look like if you suddenly had to operate with 55% less revenue?
What if that was not even the most difficult challenge you would face?
We have added Kurt LaButte, co-founder of Todd’s Services Inc. (Hamburg, MI), to the speaker lineup for our Summer Growth Summit.
His presentation, “Growing Through Every Season,” is a story of entrepreneurship, devastating setbacks, rebuilding, leadership development, scaling to new heights, and succession.
Long before anyone called it a “daily huddle,” John D. Rockefeller had stumbled upon the value of the short daily meeting.
Rockefeller would walk to work with his brother and three key leaders every morning. During that walk, they discussed what was happening across the business, what decisions needed to be made, and where problems were beginning to surface.
He then walked home with the same group.
It was simple, consistent, and powerful.
My wife and I recently spent two weeks traveling around Vancouver Island, including several days in Tofino, a remote community on the island’s rugged west coast.
Tofino is known for its expansive surfing beaches, old-growth forests and laid-back atmosphere—it was like no place I had ever visited.
We had a thrilling time. We helped deliver mail by seaplane to a nearby First Nations community on a neighboring island.
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.
