Brian Helgoe is the CEO, founder and a member of the board of Monarch Landscape Companies. Before founding his company, Helgoe was the senior vice president of ValleyCrest, where he managed landscape maintenance and construction operations nationwide. Monarch Landscape Companies was founded in 2015 and continues to grow by merging with long-standing businesses in the industry.
How has your background with ValleyCrest helped you with leading Monarch Landscape Companies?
ValleyCrest impacted my life in many positive ways: the culture, the importance of family, the focus of taking care of your customers and your people above all else. ValleyCrest also let me learn the differences in how the landscape industry works regionally. ValleyCrest is where many, many mentors made me better. Thank you, Richard, Roger, Tom, Dave, Dick and many more.
What are some leadership lessons you learned from Burt Sperber?
To trust yourself to make decisions and learn from your mistakes. Burt used to joke with me that he paid far more for my education than my parents (He was right!).
To surround yourself with great people and let them do their jobs; along with the importance of knowing your team and having an invested and impactful personal relationship.
To work hard, be prepared, and have a willingness to be hard on those you care most about.
How would you describe your leadership style?
Every day, I get up excited to put on my boots. The world is a good place; we get to work in the best industry with people who are trying to make better lives for our teams and our communities. We get to work outside in gardens! In any position you hold in the landscape business there are significant challenges and obstacles that come your way every day.
Every day, we get to test our values, our care for people, and our willingness to serve our customers. My leadership style is joy when working with my team through the challenges that make us all better and creating heavy friction on people and processes that aren’t aligned with solutions to make us great.
What’s a strongly held belief you’ve changed your mind on over the years?
I used to believe in the highest quality of landscape at all times. I think of myself as a proud horticulturist (I was trained for nine years in botanic gardens). I now know the level of quality that’s important is in the eyes (and wallet) of the person with whom we work. I am far more attentive to listening quality and service levels.
How do you empower your team to have both accountability and autonomy?
- Start with surrounding yourself with great people who demonstrate great values, work hard, make smart decisions, and are willing to be demanding of themselves, their bosses, and their people.
- Let your team make decisions. In fact, insist that they make decisions. Know that they will make mistakes, those mistakes will cost you customers, employees, and money. Hold them accountable to learn from their mistakes and get better – to lead their teams to honestly discuss the mistakes and come up with solutions. Give them the resources and coaching to keep growing. Make sure new leaders know to let their team be autonomous and make their decisions.
- Provide honest KPIs to help them know the score. Sports and the landscape industry are only fun when you know the score.
- Quickly push people out who can’t do the above three things well.
- Through it all have fun, assume good will, and experience empathy.
How has the business changed since being acquired by Audax Private Equity?
We doubled in size, kept our culture, further embraced our core values, and were having more fun than ever.
What would you tell other owners who are considering getting involved in private equity?
You will accelerate your growth, work harder, and get better at your job.
What has been your biggest challenge leading Monarch Landscape Companies?
Disappointing people. I’ve made mistakes along the way
This article was published in the November/December issue of the magazine. To read more stories from The Edge magazine, click here to subscribe to the digital edition.
