The Ultimate Landscape CEO - Jeffrey Scott

Jeffrey Scott speaks with these two landscape entrepreneurs about their experiences hiring a Human Resource manager. Arnie Arsenault is managing partner of A. Arsenault and Sons, and Dustin Wolfe is owner of Artistic Grounds, both located in Massachusetts. Arnie and Dustin are interesting examples of this challenge given their relatively small size, and yet they both have implemented the HR role i...

Blair Walton runs a large, fast-growing, technology-forward design-build maintain company in Wilmington, NC. He shares his experience as “the host” of a recent Leader’s Edge peer group run by Jeffrey Scott, where over a dozen landscape business owners descended on his company to review it and learn from it. You will hear him talk about his experiences, his learning points, and the implicatio...

Dale Drier is the General Manager for Drost Landscape (MI), a multi decade, multi division company where he started as a laborer, and grew into this position of GM to help grow and transform the company. Jeff and Dale talk about many the facets of being a second in command and we also discuss how it has allowed the owner, Bob Drost, to transform his own role and regain his free time. The post Epis...

Joshua Gámez is the founder of East Coast Facilities, based in Allentown, PA. It is merely 5+ years old, already 20 million and growing super fast. Joshua is turning the industry on its head by creating a front-line focused company. The business is uniquely diversified with multiple branches spread between northern snow country states and southern full season mowing states. Jeffrey and Joshua talk...

Jeffrey Scott invites two of his clients and excellent landscape entrepreneurs, Chris Vedrani (Planted Earth Landscaping, MD) and Ted Lucia (Lucia Landscaping, MI) to share their experiences in fully staffing and growing their businesses in such a tight labor market. These two guests share unique strategies and techniques for managing a successful year; with ideas you can make use of immediately i...

Krisjan Berzins is CEO of Kingstowne Lawn & Landscape in Alexandria, VA. He runs an 8M fully residential business serving 3500 active clients. The business was started with another partner whom he bought out, and now is run by his leadership team fully. Jeffrey and Krisjan discuss how he almost sold his business, how it has grown since he decided to keep it, how he has focused on work-life bal...

Matt Hiner is the “Chief Yardist” at Hiner Outdoor Living in Colorado Springs, CO. He runs a 3M+ residential design build and water feature business that he started 13 years ago. Jeffrey and Matt discuss what makes his business unique, namely his extraordinary success on social media, his unique niche with water features and a retail outlet, how he really had to search to find his footing and his...

In this 2nd episode with Dr. Charlie Hall , you will learn more about the economics of landscaping, with both global and national issues impacting the industry. Dr. Hall grew up working on a nursery in Western North Carolina. He is currently is a professor in the Department of Horticultural Science at Texas A&M University. Dr. Hall has degrees in landscape design, economics and horticulture, a...

Lisa Fiore is Founder & CEO of LandscapeHub, a B2B online marketplace she created and launched in July 2017. A fourth-generation nursery professional, Ms. Fiore realized there was an opportunity to digitize the entire procurement process for the green industry.  Ms. Fiore was previously President of Fiore Landscape and Nursery Supply (FLNS), a century-old nursery company. During her sixteen-ye...

Heather Dirksen is President of the $35M Arbor Masters, with 9 branches in five states. Heather is driven, with many careers: First in the military, then as a civilian air traffic controller, then at the age of 29 she started a flight school to subsidize the cost of flying and earn her commercial rating. After flying professionally, she joined her husband to grow his landscape maintenance company...

Mike Haynes founded The Loving Companies and has a unique niche in growing sod and landscaping for builder homes. He has 9 branches in the south east. Mike’s simple and humble start as a middle schooler with a dream and a push-mower in the early 2000’s has led to what has become one of the fastest growing and largest landscaping and sod farming organizations in the US. Jeffrey and Mike discuss wha...

John Puryear, President of Puryear Farms, a commercial and residential landscape firm with over seventy full time employees servicing the Nashville Metropolitan Area since 1991. Their base is a 100-acre nursery located on the banks of the Cumberland River. Jeffrey and John discuss his courageous change of company culture from paternalistic to leadership team, and how it gave him much more profit a...

Jeff Rossen is the majority owner of Rossen Landscape, an $8 million firm specializing in high-end residential design, construction and maintenance. It is 100% focused on developing a culture and processes that result in loyal clients in the affluent Great Falls, Virginia, market, a short drive from Washington D.C. Jeff Rossen, President, and CEO, drives the long-term vision and business developme...

Strong business values and ethics have enabled Enviroscapes to grow from its first $5.00 per week mowing client into a multi-million dollar landscape company that ranks in the top 2% of all landscape companies nationwide. At fourteen, owner Todd E. Pugh began mowing lawns to earn spending money and begin saving for college. After graduating from Ohio State University in 1996, he incorporated his g...

Mike Hommel (President) of Designs By Sundown.   Under his leadership, Designs By Sundown in Denver Colorado has grown from 2 employees in 1985 to reach revenues of $31,000,000. To this day, Michael is still the driving force behind the day to day operations of the company; he has built a leadership team from the brightest landscape minds across the country. His leadership team is poised to grow h...

Making high profit requires more than achieving solid gross profit margins, it means gaining the most profit you can from each hour of your production staff’s labor. Jeffrey has been a student of this concept for years and has brought together two high-performing clients to discuss this approach: Doug Taylor (Owner of Frontiers Design & Build, Ontario) and Chris DiStefano (Owner of DiStefano L...

As President and CEO of Bland Landscaping Company in Apex, NC. Kurt Bland has seen and experienced many sides of the landscape Industry since he first joined his family business at 15years old. Kurt and I discuss what it means running a Private Equity backed company and how he and his brother Matt stay involved and engaged as second-generation owners and leaders of a private-equity platformed land...

Traven Pelletier is the Owner of Lotus Gardenscapes. Lotus Gardenscapes is an award-winning design/build, maintenance and tree company located in Dexter, MI. Traven is an artist at heart, and a highly creative hardscape designer who has built a hugely successful firm that attains high profits with its highly customized, artistic design build work. Lotus Gardenscapes also offers maintenance and tre...

George Tucker is owner of LanDesign in MO. Founded in 2002, it is one of the most progressive, well-known green industry businesses in the St. Louis region specializing in commercial and residential landscape projects with a services arm and a new irrigation division. George has hired a CEO and a COO to run the business, and with a deep leadership bench they are capable of complex projects like re...

Dr. Charlie Hall is the top economist in the Green Industry. He is a passionate speaker on all things green (money and plants.) Growing up in the industry on a nursery in Western North Carolina, Dr. Hall currently is a professor in the Department of Horticultural Science at Texas A&M University. He has degrees in landscape design, economics and horticulture, and is the single most influential...

This is the second pillar from Jeffrey Scott’s book, Become a Destination Company® . A Roadmap to Attract, Motivate, and Retain Great Employees. Live a Culture of Excellence In this episode, Jeffrey will show you what you need to do as a company to create a Culture of Excellence. To attract and retain great people, you must give them ample evidence of your high standards and of the quality-driven...

Kevin McHale is the President and co-owner of McHale Landscape Design, MD. He started the business with his brother 40 years ago. Now, it is a $30M residential business with 300 employees spread over 6 locations. McHale’s business is  unique for three reasons: A strong branch network all focused on residential work Ample in-house crews in carpentry and hardscape including home building A ver...

This is the first pillar from Jeffrey Scott’s book, Become a Destination Company®. A Roadmap to Attract, Motivate and Retain Great Employees. Nurture Your Company By Making Vision an Action Verb.  In this episode, Jeffrey explains why attracting, motivating, focusing, and retaining great employees starts and ends with a concrete and compelling vision.  If you do not flesh out your vision, and if y...

Teddy Russell, owner, and CEO of Russell Landscape Group, based in Atlanta, runs a $40M company with 8 locations and 465 employees. He is the second-generation owner of a fabulous, southeastern enterprise growing with the growth goal of $100M. Teddy has made growth look easy, with his highly attuned relationship selling approach, and understanding of superb customer service and the systems that su...

Jason Craven has built a mega-successful company (Southern Botanical) in the heart of Texas. At 12 years old, he started mowing lawns to earn money for a new bicycle. In 1995, he turned this endeavor into a company that includes 280+ team members who share the same devotion to quality that the company was founded on. Jason is unique in his inspiring vision for the green industry, his dedication to...