A team that understands what matters most is more capable of being successful.
I’ve long harped on the importance of having a strong platform for your company. By this, I mean a clear vision, mission and core values your entire team can understand and rally around. To be successful, your team must know what a win looks like.
By having clarity in this, teams are more prepared to make good decisions on their own. It enables companies to be scalable, for the owners to delegate big responsibilities and trust that the right decisions are being made by other leaders.
While we’ve had a clear vision, mission, and core values at Grunder Landscaping Co. (GLC) for a long time, our team has made a concerted effort in the past five years to take it a step further by communicating exactly what each of these statements mean for everyone on our team.
There are three rallying cries our president and COO, Seth Pflum, uses to remind our team of what’s important:
Trust the Process
Standardizing the way we work allows our teams to scale up — managers can delegate tasks, team members can be more efficient in their work, and our team can work better together. That being said, Seth reminds the team that 4+5=9, but so does 8+1. It’s okay if people have slightly different ways of accomplishing the same goals; too much rigidity can get in the way of creative thinking and progress.
Keep it Simple
The simpler something is, the easier it is to implement. Complicated, convoluted processes or processes that require certain people to be physically present to work get in the way of the team’s success. A great example of this is the way salespeople prepare a job to be handed over to production.
The complicated way would be for the salesperson to just plan to meet the crew and show them what to do. The better way is to take great notes and prepare detailed drawings so the crew can execute what the client wants without even needing to talk to the salesperson directly.
Sometimes, we end up with complicated processes or bad habits because we try not to burden our team or think something is too difficult to handle on their own. I’ve made this mistake myself, and I’ve found that our team wants to take on responsibilities and is often capable of more than we expect. Often, my team found a way to do it better than I would’ve when I trusted them with a task.
Prioritize and Execute
This is my favorite of our three mantras. A person who is constantly reprioritizing and working to check things off their to-do list gets work done. This year, our top salesperson at GLC will end 2024 with about $3.5 million in sales. The secret to his success isn’t much of a secret at all: he’s focused, and he hustles. He doesn’t work any longer hours than the other salespeople on our team. He manages his book of business by staying focused on what he’s supposed to: sales.
Whether you’re an owner or a salesperson, your wallet is directly affected by your ability to prioritize and execute well. You can’t do everything or be everywhere. You have to find ways to be more efficient with the time you have.
We will host small groups of landscape pros at Grunder Landscaping Co. this fall for our GLC Fall Field Trips. Join us in Dayton, Ohio, this year to see what we’re doing, tour our facility, and learn directly from our team or professionals. Our August Field Trip is sold out: reserve your spot before the remaining trips are full, too!
