Our Level Up series shares the strategies that help landscape and lawn care companies get to the next level.
Jeff Rossen’s passion for landscaping was born when he was gifted some unhatched Japanese koi eggs. He built his first pond for these fish, and it progressively got bigger each time he rebuilt it.
Around 13 or 14, he started a pond cleaning business, and by high school, he had started his business, Atlantic Landworks, and was building ponds for friends and family.
Rossen ended up attending a two-year horticulture program at Virginia Tech where he learned a lot. In 2000, when he went to a job fair, he met Phil and Fred Key, who said he needed to come meet Barry Schneider. Rossen ended up touring his company and was offered a job, which he accepted.
Rossen was in a four-year program with Virginia Tech at that time, but ended up not going back to school because he had found his calling.
“Two years after Barry hired me, we’d already gotten acquired by ValleyCrest and they were just going out of residential altogether,” Rossen says. “They wanted to push me into commercial out in Gainesville, Virginia. I was just like, ‘Nah, I’m going to find something else. So, Barry started Surrounds and I started Rossen Landscape.”
In 2003, Rossen changed Atlantic Landworks’ name to Rossen Landscape. He says that Schneider and Charles Owen of Fine Landscapes fed him lots of good maintenance work. Rossen Landscape started out as a maintenance company and evolved into a design/build company.
Rossen says Schneider and Owen are two of his most prized mentors, who have helped him grow into the company he and his team have become.
“One thing I’ve always said is I wanted to learn to ride somebody else’s bike,” Rossen says. “That’s why I decided to just go to work for a big company for a while just to learn the ropes. I didn’t want to crash and burn on my own bike.”
Rossen says he doesn’t have any ideal company size he’s trying to reach. Their current annual revenue is $8.5 million.
“We’re just trying to achieve a 10% net margin at the largest size that we can get to, so we’re not really focused on revenue growth,” Rossen says. “We’re focused on revenue growth with sustained profit.”
Growing and Ever-Evolving
Early on, the Great Falls, Virginia-based company experienced huge jumps of growth at 100 or 200%. Rossen says it has slowed down and now they’re averaging 8-12% growth a year. They had an explosion of growth in late 2020, 2021 and 2022 due to the increased interest in outdoor services.
“Navigating coronavirus was probably the most challenging thing that we ever had to deal with,” Rossen says. “The constant challenge of staffing a team of leaders and professionals is difficult.”
Rossen says they are ramping up their marketing efforts right now to increase their revenue because they have a team that can execute more revenue than they did last year.
“We had a fine year last year, but it would have been a great year if we had more revenue because we built out a team to do more,” Rossen says.
While Rossen isn’t focused on reaching a set company size, his company is regularly evolving. They’ve added in-house irrigation and agro services over the years. The company also recently rebranded in spring 2022.
“We just felt like the old colors didn’t represent who we had grown into,” Rossen says. “It didn’t have a high-end feel to it. It was clip-arty and it was just time for an upgrade. We just wanted to stand out in the marketplace more.”
He says they’ve become more sustainability-minded and pledged three years ago to use at least 20% native species in all their property plans, eliminate the use of invasive plants, plant pollinator species, fertilize responsibly and plant the right plants in the right place.
“It was our duty to do that,” Rossen says.
Keys to Success
Rossen Landscape has a 90% high-end residential customer base. Rossen says the commercial clients they prefer to work with care for their grounds and want their properties to look good, like country clubs and HOAs.
“We don’t take on a ton of commercial, but we know that it’s valuable if we were to get into a sales situation where we were going to sell,” Rossen says. “We focus on really growing maintenance, commercial and residential. Also, we want to be able to provide snow services in the winter. In order to have the commercial snow contracts that we want, we find that controlling the landscape maintenance on those properties provides for that. We’re very picky and choosey about the commercial that we take on.”
He says they are known for the design-build work, but their maintenance services are equally popular.
“Our reputation continues to improve and word of mouth improves with it, which is our best referral source,” Rossen says.
Rossen says their reputation wouldn’t be as strong if they weren’t as involved in the community. He estimates that they probably give $60,000 to $70,000 a year to organizations including the Celebrate Great Falls Foundation and a number of Little League teams.
“We get people all the time coming up to us and thanking us for doing it,” Rossen says. “We know it’s been impactful.”
Rossen says they can’t track the exact number of leads they get from giving back, but the appreciation alone makes it worthwhile.
He says the company’s processes and cohesive team of professionals have also been key to allowing them to scale. Rossen says when their COO, Jason Navon, who’d moonlighted for the company for years, joined the company full-time, he also put them in a position to be successful.
“I brought Jason in because I knew I needed Jason,” Rossen says. “He brings an entirely different skill set to the table than what I bring. He’s organized. He’s extremely disciplined. He’s process-oriented. He’s all of the things I’m not and I’m pretty much all the thing things he’s not. That’s why we make such a good team.”
One of Rossen Landscape’s ‘uniques’ is their commitment to providing a boutique experience. Rossen says it is their processes that guide them in delivering this.
“What the boutique experience really is, is anticipating the client’s needs and doing what’s right by the client proactively,” Rossen says. “We don’t want them calling us to point things out. We want them calling us to ask for additional services. Maintenance-wise, we really need to anticipate the client’s needs and call out the issues before the client does. On the design-build side, the biggest thing that goes into the boutique experience is clear communication.”
Rossen says clients are happier when they know what to expect and are well-informed. On the sales side, they will seek face-to-face communication whenever they can. Their client relationship managers aim to meet with their clients in person at least twice a year.
“A lot of our clients desire more out of the yard and they want to improve their properties,” Rossen says. “We’re just so much better at closing when we’re in person and we can explain our expertise and truly show our value to the client through more than a proposal.”
Rossen says that as an NALP member, networking has helped motivate him to be better.
“They’ve not given me a tip or a secret or anything other than just a glimpse as to what we’re capable of as landscapers,” Rossens says. “That’s why I go to the events. More than anything, I go and it gives me energy to aspire to be better.”
He also says the education and friendships he’s gained are super valuable.
“I’ve got so many friends in NALP that I can just pick up the phone and call any time to me solve some complex business problem because they’ve done it before,” Rossen says. “That’s priceless, but really the motivation, for me, is what I need and what I get out of it this.”
Recruiting and Retention
Rossen Landscape has 45 employees and while they used H-2B in the past, he says it was becoming increasingly difficult to get enough people with consistency.
Rossen says their employees recruit for them, especially their operations field team. They offer a referral bonus at the three-month mark to the referrer and give a signing bonus to the new hire. Six months later, they receive the other half of the bonus.
“We do have surge pricing we call it when we’re really desperate for some help,” Rossen says. “We’ll double and sometimes even triple the bonuses. When it’s $250 normally, and we’re paying $750 bonuses to the guy who brings someone in and then another $750 to the new employee. That’s 1,500 bucks, but sometimes we just got to have guys.”
When looking for middle management and leaders, they use a variety of methods including job boards, ZipRecruiter, Indeed and LinkedIn. He says NCLC is a great place to find entry-level managers.
He says their high pay and strong benefits package help them retain their employees.
“Our mission statement is to create an environment that nurtures our team, our clients and our community,” Rossen says. “Basically, we try and just treat people the way they expect to be treated.”
One notable benefit they offer is tuition reimbursement. Rossen estimates probably six employees a year take advantage of the program.
“Whenever anybody is looking to improve themselves as a professional through continuing education, we felt like we need to just fully support that,” Rossen says. “If they pass, we pay, and if they don’t pass, we make them split it with us. We just do that because we don’t want people just to go to class. We want them to go to class to pay attention and get the most out of it so they can hopefully bring it back to work with them.”
Rossen says he tries to stay close to the action to keep his finger on the pulse of what the company’s needs are as their company culture is constantly evolving. He says being personally involved with the lives of his employees helps him know what’s going on and when they need to make adjustments.
“There’s always some sort of rub where they’re not happy about one thing or another,” Rossen says. “Being involved means knowing what’s going on and whether it’s just a gripe or it’s truly something going on that needs to be fixed.”
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