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Learning from professional peers is an invaluable resource, which is something that has helped Bradley Brennan, owner of Turf Doctor in Melvindale, Mich., grow and improve his company.
How willing everyone is to help is his favorite part about the green industry. Having businesses in different industries, Brennan says this one is by far the most helpful.
“Your direct competitors will discuss important details in regard to how they run their business, and they may literally have customers on the same street you do,” he says.
Three years into the business, he says they’re trying to catch up quickly and grow a solid company. One way they do that is by going to industry events to learn new techniques and best practices that will help them pass their competitors.
This past December, Brennan attended Landscape Management’s Growth Summit in Orlando, Fla. The three-day event brought together lawn care professionals from across the country to network with other owners, learn from leading supplier partners and demo new equipment and products.
The Growth Summit was also the perfect example of professionals coming together to help one another. From the one-on-one conversations to the educational sessions, they were all open and honest about what has worked for their companies — and that’s what Brennan says he enjoyed the most. He was paired with another Michigan fertilizer owner, Steve VanNoord, which he says was the most valuable aspect of the event for him.
“We learned a lot from Steve. We already have some things we’ve changed in terms of process, and it drove home the idea of density and efficiency,” Brennan says. “He’s very Six-Sigma in how he runs his business, and his results aren’t normal.”
Since the Growth Summit, Brennan has taken five of his team members across the state to visit VanNoord and his team. From what they learned during the visit, Brennan says they plan to focus more on neighbors going forward, as well as charging difficult customers more money or dropping them.
Being able to pick the brains of all his fellow participants was helpful and something that will continue to impact his business for the months and years to come. Another takeaway he had from the Growth Summit was to hammer fungus with nitrogen instead of using a dedicated fungus program. He also hired an employee out of Nicaragua to answer their phones, which is like the business model of another attendee.
For anyone who attends the Growth Summit in the future, he recommends they take advantage of the time with other participants.
“I’m introverted, and I don’t like networking,” Brennan says. “But when there are only like 30 of us, it’s easier to make a good relationship and open up with someone who may be doing things different or better.”
One of the equipment suppliers that stood out to him at the Growth Summit was Turfco. Brennan says he was impressed with their suspension set up, which reduces the chance of rollovers — which happened to his team last year with a different brand. He says he also liked that Stinger Equipment showcased a smaller ride-on aerator.
“We want to get away from manually pushing an aerator,” Brennan says. “We want to either move to liquid or get a stand on.”
For any lawn care professional thinking about attending the event, Brennan encourages them to apply and says they are likely to come away with good insight.
“It’s a different set up than other events, and different is good,” Brennan says. “It’s good to change the way you look at things or experience things.”
