When you look in the mirror, do you see yourself or the others who made you who you are today?
Jeff Rossen, CEO of Rossen Landscape, based in Great Falls, Virginia, recently reflected on some of the individuals who made a tangible impact in his life.
Rossen’s Role Models
As a kid, Rossen always had aquariums in his room. One day, he was introduced to a family friend, Doc Schoenfeld, who raised koi fish.
“I was totally just enamored by this guy,” Rossen says. “He just had ponds everywhere. He had indoor ponds, outdoor ponds, and big holding tanks for these fish he bred. Some of these fish were 30 years old and 24 inches long.”
When Rossen first visited, Schoenfeld gave him a group of koi fry. Rossen raised these baby fish in a 10-gallon tank, which they outgrew in six months.
“Then my mom, who was always so supportive of my hobby, she bought me a larger tank, and then that went on to another larger tank,” Rossen says. “Finally, it was time to pop these fish into a pond, so I went out to the backyard and I dug a hole and put a liner in it.”
Rossen admits this first pond was horrible, and he rebuilt it several times, but this was his first step into the landscape industry.
“As soon as I built that pond my backyard, I immediately started doing water garden maintenance for people,” Rossen says.
He would drain homeowners’ ponds, clean them, refill them and acclimate their fish to the new water.
“From there, as I was providing this pond maintenance service, people started wanting more, like, ‘Hey, can you do my mulch?’” Rossen says. “I’m like, ‘Sure, I can do your mulch.’ So I started not just cleaning the pond, but mulching and next thing you know I’m doing little planting jobs, and I enjoyed landscape design as well.”
From the time he was 13, Rossen knew he wanted to be a landscaper. Rossen had a love for the outdoors and working with his hands from an early age. He would often help his grandfather in the garden.
“I don’t sit well,” Rossen says. “I crafted a career for myself that accommodated my ADD.”
Rossen says Schoenfeld taught him a lot about how to care for koi fish.
“The thing that he taught me most was really just patience and the interest that he took as an 85-year-old man in a 12-year-old,” Rossen says. “That’s what really what I took away was that he just invested a ton of time in me, teaching me about the fish, and letting me work with him on his tanks and his fish, and that’s how I was able to grow into what I’ve become.”
Rossen says his mother’s support was also crucial.
“It was financial support, but also her recognizing that I wasn’t on a traditional path, and that she needed to encourage me to follow this passion in order to lead me to a career,” he says.
He says his mother, Marlene, always worked hard and made sure Rossen knew she believed in him.
Some of the other influences in Rossen’s life are his mentors, Barry Schneider with Surrounds, based in Sterling, Virginia, and Charles Owen, owner of Fine Landscapes, based in Sterling, Virginia.
“He (Schneider) saw something in me as a college kid,” Rossen says. “He recruited me from Virginia Tech, and I came here, and he basically gave me the opportunity to start Rossen Landscape.”
Rossen says Schneider did everything he could to ensure Rossen’s success, despite the two being direct competitors.
Meanwhile, Owen provided Rossen with lots of design inspiration and business leads.
“I just admired his work, and he just would handfeed me maintenance work from his clients,” Rossen says. “He did install and no maintenance, and he sent me so much maintenance work to give me just a huge shot in the arm to start my company. Without the two of them giving me their advice and the lead source that they were for me; it was instrumental in our growth. I started my company with nothing, and through the two of them, I had a million dollars in maintenance within a couple of years.”
Rossen admits he probably hasn’t done a great job telling these individuals how much they mean to him, but they’re on the lunch for life plan.
“Anytime we go to lunch, I always pay,” Rossen says. “They don’t like it, but I’m like, ‘Without you, I wouldn’t be where I’m at.’”
Paying It Forward
Now as an industry leader himself, Rossen has also made a point of mentoring others starting their landscaping business. He says there are several competitors in the area who he talks shop with and provides advice. He has also volunteered as a trailblazer mentor in NALP’s Navigate business mentoring program.
He says one piece of advice he shares with younger owners is to watch their numbers and to understand sometimes less is more.
“Don’t go for revenue,” Rossen says. “Go for profit. Bigger is not always better when it comes to the size of your company.”
For instance, having a 10% profit margin at $10 million is the same as having a 5% profit margin at $20 million.
Rossen says if he had to go back and do it all over again, he’d take more risks.
“What you’re afraid of usually isn’t what you should be afraid of,” Rossen says. “At first, I never wanted to take on any debt because I didn’t like having debt. If I had taken on debt earlier, I might be a lot bigger than I am now. For instance, I wouldn’t buy a new truck. I’d buy a used truck. Now I’m like, if I bought a new truck I could have financed it at 0% and still made the same amount of payments.”
Rossen says success for him is to grow the business to where he is proud to sell it or hand off to his kids one day.
“I’m far beyond where I thought I would ever get honestly,” Rossen says. “I’m grateful for a lot of things that have happened that have gotten me here, and one of those things was having the right support system in place as a kid that understood what I needed, and then having great mentors to help me get to where I am. I had hundreds of years of knowledge assisting me.”
Just as Rossen was shaped by those who believed in him early on, the next generation is shaped by those who invest in them. Which mentors are you thankful for in your life and how might you offer that same support to someone else?
