Ten reasons to visit Great Lakes Landscape Design at Jeffrey Scott’s Summer Growth Summit

Jeffrey Scott’s upcoming Summer Growth Summit, held Aug. 18-20, in Detroit, is a three-day event aiming to bring together landscape business owners and leadership teams from across North America and Canada.

Great Lakes Landscape Design Owner Ivan Katz is co-hosting the event and has been a long-time member of the Jeffrey Scott community. He has spoken at past summits, and he hosted the Leader’s Edge peer group at his company last year. This makes him exceptionally well positioned to give attendees an unforgettable educational experience.

By the way, to get to know Katz even better, we recently produced a 30-minute interview with him last week, on the “Ultimate Landscape CEO” podcast. He shares some raw truths about the challenges he faced growing his business and the lessons he has learned along the way.

Here are the 10 compelling reasons to visit Great Lakes Landscape Design, located just outside of Detroit:

1. See what real leadership depth looks like. You’ll get a first-hand look at a company that has built unusual leadership depth. Katz’s visionary/integrator structure (with Desiree Bouchard, Great Lakes’ integrator and general manager) goes a step further, with strong support beneath the integrator position. If you want to build a company that relies less on one person, this alone will be worth seeing.
2. Learn how innovation drives a growth engine. Great Lakes does not just talk about innovation; it consistently tests and develops new services, including hydrology and Bloom Bar. You will learn how they think about new opportunities, how they evaluate them and how innovation can become a more systematic part of growth.
3. Improve your business development thinking. Katz has developed uncommon skills in residential (and commercial) business development. You will hear how he built that strength and what he does so you can sharpen your own approach to winning more work.
4. Make major leadership changes without major damage. Most companies struggle to change leadership structure without creating disruption, confusion or turnover. Great Lakes has gone through significant leadership change while retaining all their people. That is a rare and valuable lesson.
5. Build a stronger sales bench. If you are too dependent on one owner or one veteran salesperson, pay attention here. Great Lakes has been challenged by both and thus have been rebuilding their sales team quickly and intentionally. You will hear how they are approaching recruitment, transition and management.
6. Pick up practical operational ideas from a big facility move. They recently moved into a much larger facility and did it fast. You will get to see how they set it up, what operational improvements came from the move and what ideas you may want to borrow for your own company.
7. Use repeat business can drive long-term growth. After 35 years in business, about 70 percent of their revenue and growth comes from existing client relationships. That gives you a chance to learn what it really takes to build loyalty, retention and expansion over time.
8. See the advantage of a broad, high-end service mix. Great Lakes has built a wide range of services that allows them to serve clients in more ways and capture more opportunity. You will see how breadth, when done well, can strengthen both revenue and strategic positioning.
9. Balance residential strength with commercial growth. They have a strong residential foundation while building a growing commercial maintenance segment. That makes them a useful case study in how to expand without losing your core identity.
10.  Spend time around an inspiring founder who keeps evolving. Katz is the kind of founder who keeps stretching himself. He is an Ironman competitor, avid reader and world traveler. That personal growth mindset carries into the business, and being around leaders like that tends to spark better thinking in all of us.

Register now for the Summer Growth Summit to save $400 per ticket; our Super Early Bird pricing ends May 8.

We hope to see you in Detroit this August. But if you can’t attend, we will be publishing more podcasts this spring so you can still learn from key leaders at both host companies.