No landscape company will ever be completely perfect, but choosing to be proactive by looking for operational inefficiencies and making small improvements can provide massive competitive advantages.
“It’s far better off to be in the fire prevention department than the firefighting department,” says Marty Grunder, founder and CEO of Grunder Landscaping Co. and The Grow Group. “We should go through our businesses, and we should be changing the batteries of the smoke detectors, metaphorically speaking. What’s going on around here that if I don’t address it’s going to turn into a major problem?”
Fred Haskett, principal partner of TrueWinds Consulting, adds that weak points rarely stay isolated. If left unresolved, these issues can compound into problems like customer dissatisfaction, employee burnout and cash flow pressure.
Common Weak Points to Watch For
Haskett says that the companies that scale successfully are often the ones that are constantly asking:
- What’s slowing us down?
- Where are we losing money?
- What frustrates our clients?
- What frustrates our employees?
- What processes no longer scale?
Common areas of inefficiency can include onboarding, routing, job costing, quality control and labor productivity. However, as you grow, your issues will evolve as well.
“In smaller companies, the biggest weaknesses are usually inconsistency, lack of systems, and owner dependence,” Haskett says. “As companies grow, communication breakdowns, middle management development, departmentalization issues, accountability structures, and scalability become much larger issues.”
It’s also important to pay attention to patterns as they appear in the business, rather than isolated incidents.
“If crews are regularly waiting on materials, if the office is constantly handling customer complaints, or if estimates/jobs are consistently missing target margins, those are operational signals,” Haskett says.
Haskett says the best operators regularly track their KPIs, spend time in the field and create a culture where issues surface quickly instead of being buried.
One method Haskett recommends for improving overall accountability with your team is to have crew leaders own the day, production managers own the week, and the owner/general manager owns the month.
When Complaints Can Reveal Operational Issues
While there will always be some level of complaints in any labor-intensive business, it’s also a good idea to listen to your employees’ concerns, especially if it is something that comes up frequently. The key to determining if there is validity to their complaints is to talk to them and understand where they are coming from.
For instance, if an employee says their truck is a piece of junk, ask them what exactly is wrong with it and address those issues if they are easy fixes.
“Sometimes people just want to talk, and sometimes what they say they are frustrated with is not what they’re ultimately frustrated with,” Grunder says. “You’ll never go wrong by talking to one of your team members and hearing them out and staying calm and asking questions.”
Haskett says you should also pay attention if multiple high-performing employees are raising the same concern repeatedly, as they typically complain when something is genuinely making their job harder. Some of the measurable operational consequences of not addressing employee objections include crews losing time, mistakes increasing, rising turnover, frequent callbacks, or managers putting out the same fires repeatedly.
“Complaints without operational impact are usually noise,” Haskett says. “Complaints tied to measurable inefficiency usually indicate a real weakness.”
Getting To the Root Cause
When patterns and employee feedback have flagged a problem in your organization, the next step is to determine the root cause. Otherwise, you will find yourself only treating the symptoms of the issue.
One way to help pinpoint the true cause behind a weak point is to ask the question: ‘Is this a people, process or leadership issue?’ You can determine which of these an issue falls under based on how many people are affected.
“What percentage of the problem is emanating from one area?” Grunder says. “If it’s emanating from a whole bunch of areas, you probably have a process issue or maybe a leadership issue. If it’s emanating from a focused area or one area, it’s probably a people issue.”
Haskett says if an issue continues despite repeated awareness, it is a sign it’s a leadership issue.
“Strong leaders avoid blaming individuals too quickly,” Haskett says. “In many cases, employees are operating inside broken systems with unclear expectations. Leadership’s job is to create clarity, accountability, training, and consistency. When those things are missing, operational weaknesses tend to spread.”
After understanding the true cause of the problem, then you can address it by building a corrective plan with measurable outcomes.
Grunder says one example of a small operational fix that has had a major impact in his own company was making sure each of their trucks is outfitted with toolboxes holding everything their crews need during the day.
In the past, moving equipment on and off the truck every day led to pieces being lost and team leaders looking for the necessary tools in the morning or having to buy gas cans from Lowe’s in order to finish jobs.
“What we want a team leader to be thinking about in the morning is ‘What’s the fastest way I can get to this job and get it done safely, on time, and have the client be ecstatic with our work?” Grunder says. “We don’t want them thinking, ‘Hey, we need a gas can. Don’t forget the wheelbarrow. Somebody took all the wheelbarrows.’”
Grunder says this change helps set their employees up for success both mentally and physically.
Sustaining the Change
The last piece to addressing weak points is ensuring the solutions you implement are sustainable; otherwise, you’ll end up putting out the same fires again down the road.
Haskett notes that if improvements rely entirely on motivation or memory, they usually fail over time.
“Successful companies document processes, train consistently, reinforce expectations, delegate accountability, and track compliance,” Haskett says.
Because teams typically follow the standards that leadership tolerates, be mindful of not slipping back into old habits.
“What helps me the most is I know I’m always being watched, and you only have so much leadership capital,” Grunder says.
When leaders focus on fixing the system instead of simply blaming the symptoms, they create a stronger operation and a better place to work.
