This information came from a session during the 2024 ELEVATE conference and expo. Don’t miss ELEVATE in Phoenix, Arizona, on Nov. 2-5, 2025.
Growing your landscape business can sometimes feel like building a plane while flying it. This is why it’s important to think about what you want your company to look like in five to 10 years; then, you can go about scaling it strategically.
Taylor Milliken, owner and president of Milosi, based in Hendersonville, Tennessee, explains there are four steps to scaling your business.
Culture First
He says that your culture should come first because culture eats everything, including strategy, profits and people. It serves as the DNA of your company. Milliken says he has reinvented his company multiple times so don’t be afraid to do a culture reset if you don’t currently have a business you would want to work for.
He says in the past he would make policies as quick fixes, but the true issues were coming from hiring the wrong person.
Culture cannot be delegated and it is not the managers’ responsibility to keep it alive.
“If we have a bad culture, guess whose fault that is?” Milliken says. “It’s mine.”
Set the Strategy
Once you have a strong culture in place, you need to pick your path for your business. Milliken says starting out Milosi would cut anything that grows, but now they have a plan to create a branching structure throughout Tennessee and serve both residential and commercial clients.
Knowing your ‘nos’ is more important than knowing your ‘yeses.’ Milliken says he was guilty of not following his own rules when he still participated in the sales side of the business. Now, they have a scorecard of 25 points for leads so they can easily identify their ideal clients.
You also need to set your goals, as people work better when they know what the goal is and why you are working toward it.
At Milosi, they set goals when they create their annual budget. Every employee has an annual performance review and goal-setting meeting. The quarterly goals are reverse-engineered to reach the yearly goal.
Additionally, you should always be reviewing your processes to see if there are ways to simplify them. Simplification often takes time, but don’t let perfectionism prevent you from making progress.
Find the Team
If you want to scale up, you need to hire people who fit with your organization first and seek aptitude second. Ask whether this is a person you’d love to work with and if they’d love to work at your organization.
Milliken says that if someone is complacent when they’re hired, they aren’t going to stay at Milosi because they make people grow.
“Great culture will drive the people who don’t fit out,” Milliken says.
It is also advised to create an org chart for years beyond where you currently are, as it allows you to budget for these roles and gives you a runway to hire them. Milliken encourages companies to always be recruiting.
“If you’re hiring for who you need today, you’ll miss the boat for where you need to be in 12 months,” Milliken says.
If you want high-performing employees who are aligned with your goals, you have to build a destination company where they want to be a part of something special.
Master Change Management
As you evolve and grow, you need to make sure you’re not surrounding yourself with only yes men.
“When was the last time that someone who reports to you told you that you had a bad idea?” Milliken says.
You also need to understand that what got you to where you are won’t always get you to where you want to be. Something that may have worked fine in years past may no longer be a viable option. It could also be you may not have the right person executing it.
Milliken stresses that timing is important. Your off-season can end up busier than the busy season at times, so you need to evaluate how many changes you’re trying to implement at one time and put it in the queue.
Ask the question if you are working on the most important thing right now. Sometimes, you may realize that initiatives you’ve started are not adding value and you need to change gears. He says as the CEO, you serve as the ‘chief elimination officer’ and can decide what to get rid of to be more efficient.
For more content like this, register for next year’s ELEVATE in Phoenix, Arizona, on Nov. 2-5.
