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I’ve never run my own business, which might be why I was so interested in the stories we’re telling this month as a part of our Franchise Guide.
Well, that’s not entirely true. During my decade-long run as a newspaper sports reporter — before I took the leap into green industry publishing — a group of friends/colleagues did start what could loosely be described as a business. It was a website dedicated to reporting on high school football in the Kansas City metro area that we cleverly called kcprepfootball.com.
The site never really made any money during our one year in operation. The local football coaches’ association gave us some seed money to buy the domain name and take care of a few technical issues, but that was the only cash that came in the door. Most of the time, we considered it a win when we didn’t get thrown out when approaching an area grocery store or insurance agency about advertising on the site.
To be fair, we probably were a little ahead of our time with the whole thing. Today, there are plenty of websites across the country dedicated to reporting on high school sports. Fans have become conditioned to go to those sites for news and information, and financially, I know most of them do OK for themselves (in KC, for example, the most dominant site of this kind is owned and operated by the city’s largest sports talk radio station). We were never that lucky.
I’d be exaggerating if I said the experience scarred us or anything like that — it was a fun distraction while it lasted, and the small audience that we did build seemed to really like what we did — but it’s also true that so far, none of us involved in kcprepfootball.com have ever taken another swing at business ownership. So maybe the experience cut deeper than I’m willing to admit.
In the landscape and lawn care industries, most have had a much different experience with business ownership. In fact, I’d venture a guess that plenty of regular readers of this magazine only know what it’s like to run their own business. Whether they grew up in a family business or took the leap through a franchise model, charting your own course and running your own operation in this industry isn’t unusual.
We took that into consideration as we planned out this month’s Franchise Guide. Sure, we could’ve gone into the weeds about what franchises are, how they operate and what they can offer budding entrepreneurs interested in the green industry, but in terms of sheer numbers alone — you can see how many franchisors work in this space in the listing we put together that begins on page 24 — we knew we wouldn’t be breaking new ground if we went that direction.
That’s why we pivoted instead to telling the stories of a few select franchise owners who had found a profitable home in landscaping and lawn care. I’ve always found that these kinds of personal and professional stories are particularly effective at teaching lessons for others interested in following a similar path, and I think the three stories in this year’s Franchise Guide are no exception.
You’ll learn about a former U.S. Army medic who has turned his lawn care franchise in North Florida into one of the most profitable in the Lawn Doctor family. You’ll find out why a U.S. Lawns franchise was the right landing spot for a former high-ranking industrial engineer (and how he’s bringing some of his old passions into his new endeavor). And you’ll read about a firefighter and EMT in Oklahoma who has become a first responder for turf as the owner of a Weed Man franchise.
Business ownership isn’t for everyone — never say never, of course, but I guess I fall into that category. But the stories of those who have set out on their own and found success in the green industry can inform others interested in exploring similar opportunities, and I hope that’s what you’ll find in this month’s Franchise Guide.
