In 2021, Landscape Workshop slotted into the LM150 list at No. 47 with $45,305,000 in revenue. After three years of double-digit growth, the Birmingham, Ala., company broke into the top 30 at No. 27 on the 2024 list with a revenue of $106,000,000.
A major driver in Landscape Workshop’s ascent up the LM150 lists in 2023 and 2024 has been a bevy of acquisitions. Supported by Carousel Capital and McKinney Capital, through the first six months of 2024, the company has made six acquisitions.
“We’re very specifically looking for companies that fit our business model. Some of that is culture. Some of that is being focused on commercial maintenance,” says J.T. Price, Landscape Workshop’s CEO. “We’re not a single-family residential company. We’ve tried. We are 80 percent commercial maintenance, 20 percent commercial install.”
Price also says the acquisition must be a geographic fit for the Alabama-based company. So far, its 2024 acquisitions have followed this strategy — the company has added new locations through acquisitions in Florida, Georgia, South Carolina and Tennessee.
“We want to be geographically contiguous. We’re looking at the cities we’re already in and the next city over in every direction,” Price says. “So, the next city over for us in the east would be Orlando or Charlotte. To the west, it would be Dallas or Houston or maybe Little Rock or Oklahoma City.”
The people business
Price also points toward his staff as a reason for that sustained growth. Landscape Workshop, he says, prides itself on a high-performing culture.
“We’ve got a very specific culture, and it’s not everybody’s flavor of ice cream,” says Price. “We want to be the best place in the industry for a high performer to work. And I want it to be a little uncomfortable for a low performer.”
In Price’s mind, that culture has helped Landscape Workshop. He says that the company rarely loses high performers, and, in the landscape business, that’s crucial.
Another avenue for Landscape Workshop to find high-performing employees has been its internship program. Price says strong partnerships with nearby universities like Auburn and Mississippi State help add home-grown employees who buy into the company’s culture.
“We have 16 interns this summer and you hope 10 of those come back after graduation, seven or eight of those become account managers,” he says. “We’re going to get some great people in acquisitions, but we also need to be growing folks who buy into what we’re trying to do here in terms of professionalism and consistency of product.”
Field tripping
Landscape Workshop recently hosted a National Association of Landscape Professionals Field Trip. Price sees the event, which brought nearly 200 association members to the company’s headquarters, as a major win for the company.
“Our guests got something out of it, and I was really proud of our team,” he says. “I tend to be focused on what I’m not happy about, so it was a chance for me to see our business through other people’s eyes and say, ‘Hey, there’s a lot of good stuff going on here.’”
In addition to being a good experience for Price, he hopes the inside look that attendees got at Landscape Workshop’s operations serves as a potential recruiting push for future acquisitions.
“You hope people had a good experience, but you also hope there’s somebody in the room who says, ‘I buy into what these guys are selling at Landscape Workshop. Maybe I should consider selling my business to them when that time comes.’”
