Focal Pointe — No. 87 on the 2024 LM150 list — has been a steady riser over the last three years.
The Caseyville, Ill.-based operation made its LM150 debut in 2022, ranking No. 123 with revenue of $21,003,054. Fast forward two years and the company, led by founder and CEO John Munie, has grown its revenue to $38,890,000 and vaulted into the ranks of the top 100 revenue-generating firms in the country.
How has Focal Pointe done this? If you ask Munie, it starts with his people and their commitment to being more than a landscaping company.
Humble beginnings
Munie launched Focal Pointe in December 1997, with a borrowed lawn mower and a dream.
“I was thinking, ‘How is this going to work?’ I didn’t have that fully thought out,” Munie says. “I remember talking to Bishop (Wilton) Gregory from the Diocese of Belleville (Ill.) about the idea of starting my own business. And he said, ‘Give me a price to mow my lawn.’ I can still remember it was $95 to cut his yard, and he said, ‘You’ve got the job.’”
From there, Munie canvassed the surrounding neighborhood for new leads, promising a full-service landscaping option to potential clients.
“I said, ‘I’ll do everything for you. I’ll mow, do lawn and shrub care, take care of your pool, mulch and irrigation,’” Munie remembers.
From there, Focal Pointe grew by word of mouth, picking up steam until the mid-2000s when more commercial opportunities presented themselves — including Busch Stadium, home to Munie’s boyhood team, the St. Louis Cardinals.
For Focal Pointe, Busch Stadium was a launch pad into the commercial landscaping space.
“It gave us the credibility to expand further into the commercial market,” Munie says. “And, when you take that high-end residential, white-glove approach to the commercial market, it is different for them.”
In the years after taking over at Busch Stadium, the company added two outdoor shopping malls in the St. Louis area, a corporate campus and universities (Editor’s note: For more on the day-to-day services that Focal Pointe provides at Busch Stadium, check it out here).
Building a lifestyle company
Munie takes pride in his company’s position as an independently owned and operated business. The company has nearly doubled its revenue in recent years, and it has done so without private equity investments.
“We’re not under any demands from outside investors for financial performance. Our motivation is the idea of building a great company,” he says. “So, we don’t have to acquire anybody. We’re under no demand to hit certain growth projections or EBITDA projections or anything like that.”
That hasn’t stopped Focal Pointe from entering the acquisition market over the last year. In 2023, the company added three privately owned companies — Landworks in Kansas City, Kan., Rite-A-Way Lawn Care in Cottleville, Mo., and Signature Landscape of Oklahoma City.
“It’s funny, we had zero acquisitions in 25 years of being in business and somehow three collapsed into place within two months,” Munie says. “Who does that? I mean, goodness gracious.”
The acquisitions, Munie continues, all had several things in common, starting with a cultural alignment with what he wants Focal Pointe to be — a lifestyle company.
“For better or worse, I look for cultural alignment and where I think we can be impactful in the community. Where that takes us, it takes us,” he says. “We want people who want to do right for others. And with that spirit, we can do anything. If we have employees who care, we can train them how to be efficient, how to improve in safety, how to improve quality and how to delight your customers.”
Building a community
As it works to retain and reward its employees, Focal Pointe, No. 87 on the 2024 LM150 list, has several initiatives it uses to maintain a healthy culture.
The first is what founder and CEO John Munie calls the “Founder’s Wall of Gratitude,” a wall in Focal Pointe’s headquarters that honors employees who have been with the company for more than 10 years. According to Munie, the employees that currently adorn the wall represent more than half of its staff from a decade ago.
“In our industry, that’s pretty unusual. That’s one of the things I’m most proud of,” he says. “Ten years ago, we were a $4 million company, and we were not much different than anybody else. And to have people that said, ‘Yeah, I’ll hitch my wagon to this,’ it’s just super cool.”
What’s next?
Where does Focal Pointe go from here? Munie says he doesn’t foresee his company’s strategy changing too much, and he doesn’t expect the company to go on an acquisition spree. Instead, he wants Focal Pointe to provide a blueprint for making landscaping companies a career, not just a job.
“I think more important to us, rather than being recognized for size or EBITDA, is building a company that demonstrates that the landscape industry is a destination industry, not something you settle for,” he says. “What industry gives people the ability to be impactful in communities like ours? Not many.”
Editor’s Note: The 2024 LM150 list is sponsored by Aspire Software, John Deere and Weathermatic.
Read more LM150:
- LM150 2024 rankings: The industry’s top 150 revenue-generating firms
- LM150: 2024 Top 25
- LM150: 2024 list by region
- 2024 LM150: Onward and upward
- 2024 LM150: Ready for liftoff, this year’s biggest risers
- 2024 LM150: How Ethoscapes is rocketing up the list
- 2024 LM150: Designscapes Colorado continues a steady rise up the rankings
To view the complete list, breakdowns and company profiles, check out a PDF version here.
