After a 22-year career in pest control, Joe Campbell was introduced to the lawn care and landscape industry when he joined ABC Home and Commercial Services, based in Lewisville, Texas, nine years ago.
“It was very interesting because when I accepted my position with ABC, I knew I was coming on board as vice president of the pest division,” Campbell says. “It was my onboarding day that I realized that also included lawn.”
Campbell says he’s had to do a lot of research to get up to speed, and by bringing on a knowledgeable lawn division manager who reports to him, they’ve been able to grow their number of lawn and landscape crews.
“What was a quarter of a landscape crew and maybe a quarter of a lawn maintenance crew, we’ve grown it in the last few years to be six and three crews that are out in the field doing projects,” Campbell says.
His favorite aspect of working for ABC Home and Commercial Services is the fact they are experiencing tremendous growth in their landscape, lawn and irrigation services.
“Being able to assemble a team of direct managers that report to me, I’ve had the opportunity to craft that and lay out a vision and plan for where we need to go as a company,” Campbell says.
While he’s been self-taught, Campbell admits he doesn’t feel he’s past the point of needing a mentor. He says attending ELEVATE for the first time last year opened his eyes to the expansive industry in which he works.
“I would love to collaborate and connect with people within that particular industry so I can learn more about it in respect to what are some of the benchmarks?” Campbell says. “How does it operate? How do you attract and retain talent? Those are a lot of things that I know on the pest control side, and there’s some similarities, but having a mentor would be great.”
When Campbell first entered the service industry as a pest control technician, he says he saw it as a job before he found a ‘real’ job.
“Never could I envision as my younger self that, ‘Hey, you can actually have a whole career in the landscape industry,’” Campbell says. “So to my younger self, I would not be as close-minded, and I would actually see it as an opportunity.”
Campbell also previously served in the Army Reserves for eight years as a finance specialist. He says this experience has made him well-equipped to work in a team atmosphere in order to accomplish a mission.
“I’ve learned that the people and the team are what matters most,” Campbell says. “The ones who are customer-facing are the ones that really determine the perception and the value of the company. You can have all the structure in the world, you can do all the marketing in the world, and you have the best website in the world, but at the end of the day, the team that shows up and actually are the boots on the ground are the ones that are the most valued. In my opinion, I’ve learned through my career to appreciate that more.”
As the VP of field operations for ABC Home and Commercial Services, Campbell is in charge of all sales and field operations and spends his time focusing on the business instead of working in it.
“My role is to make sure we’re driving top-line revenue and growth, and we’re getting it done through the strategically placed people in teams,” Campbell says.
He is currently working toward improving their overall customer experience from the initial point of contact to the completion of the project.
Campbell’s biggest challenge in the industry is recruiting and retaining experienced people. He says another is always developing leaders.
“One of the challenges is to always make sure that you’re identifying career paths and keeping people moving upward in their skill sets,” Campbell says.
His favorite aspects of working in the landscape industry are the people and seeing the finished product.
“The finished design is what I love the most about it,” Campbell says. “To see a customer’s eyes light up to where you ideally have met and excelled above their wildest dream when it came to what the project was.”
Campbell would like the public’s perception of the industry to change as many don’t understand it is a professional industry. Likewise, he’d like for other companies to stop undervaluing their services.
“Some companies that are smaller tend to try to undercut from a pricing perspective,” Campbell says. “I would like to see them actually appreciate the value of what they’re doing.”
This article was published in the March/April issue of the magazine. To read more stories from The Edge magazine, click here to subscribe to the digital edition.
