The Summer Growth Summit, presented by Jeffrey Scott, was held on Aug. 24-26 in Des Moines, Iowa, and included a facility tour at A+ Lawn and Landscape. I’ll share a brief recap with you if you couldn’t attend:
On Aug. 24, I held a “pre-event” for clients. This group heard Frank Mariani Jr. and Sr. share how they proactively develop their internal leadership teams, which allowed them to scale and become the largest residential landscape firm in the country. The group then enjoyed a private rooftop reception with unlimited food and drinks and fresh air.
On Aug. 25, about 80 landscape professionals gathered in the morning to hear me speak on how to develop and grow “profit centers” and Shawn Edwards, owner of A+ Lawn and Landscape, speak on his entrepreneurial journey and all the businesses he started and sold before he started A+ and grew it to become a 20 percent net profit service leader in Iowa. He also shared his unique partnership with four minority partners.
In the afternoon of Aug. 25, four of Shawn’s leadership team — co-owners who each manage a division of A+ Lawn and Landscape — shared how they built their careers at the company and became owners and what makes their partnership and divisions so successful. Frank Mariani, owner of Mariani Landscape in Chicago, Ill., then spoke about building a diversified multidivision company, vertically integrated with a growing operation. I ended the day with a talk on how to live the warrior life. The highlight of the day was when Mark Smith of Smith Lawnscapes from Saint Johns, Mich., got up to share how he broke his back and how it changed his role and approach to growing his business.
On Aug. 26, everyone went to the A+ facilities, where we toured the operations, watched the rollout, heard eight different managers/owners speak about sales, marketing, onboarding, customer service, culture and much more. Everyone learned the behind-the-scenes secret sauce of how they grow so fast at such a high-profit level.
This event was live-streamed to companies in Canada and the U.S.
