Landscape Management, June 2017

doors dropped off enough bids and really just hustled enough that I had maybe 25 30 accounts as a sophomore in high school Id get out of school at 3 00 p m and mow until dark I hired a couple high school buddies to help me out I didnt feel like a real company at that point but we certainly had a lot of work to do When it started feeling real was probably my senior year of high school I had two trucks running and I had three people working for me Id get them mowing in the morning and then go to school School had a work program so I would get out at 11 30 a m or noon Id meet up with one of the crews and work with them all day June 2017 LANDSCAPEMANAGEMENT NET S13 Our city was growing and we had a small local paper I had an ad in there that said Lawn mowing 15 bucks per lawn That was our goal and at the time we could do them for 15 It wasnt like all of a sudden one day we made it I just knew I had a lot of yards to cut and we werent scared to work Once I graduated we were at three mowing crews and had four or five employees At age 18 or 19 you dont know what you dont know so we thought we were a huge company The economy was good Our community was growing I was able to really focus on getting commercial clients We thought we were competing with everybody and the truth is we really werent The truth of it is I didnt think we were smarter than them but I knew we could outwork everybody I was able to recognize talent and identify some strong partners One Matt Boelman is still my business partner today Matt was one year younger than me and he joined in 1995 one year out of high school He joined as an employee but I recognized that he was incredibly good at his job Most of these small companies struggle with help and growth and have a tough time training recognizing talent and giving people opportunity I knew I couldnt do it on my own I didnt want to be in the field forever The only way to grow was to empower some other people and to train them and give them some opportunity The other thing isnt necessarily brilliant but I wasnt scared of anything If I would have done it today I probably would have done it totally different in a way that might not have been as successful I didnt know what I didnt know so failure really wasnt an option I didnt make the best financial decisions If we needed a truck I bought a truck If we needed a mower I bought a mower I didnt sit down and crunch the numbers like How many dollars do we have to earn to get this piece Whats the depreciation the return on investment I was like Weve got the work Lets buy equipment That might have actually been an advantage I didnt overthink the things that were pretty simple We had work We were priced right We were working hard So we bought equipment and made it work Editors note And later that first summer he got the moped Matt Boelman right was an early key hire by Kory Ballard Today hes co owner of Perficut My biggeSt MiStake waS Not making sure that we set up systems Our behind the scenes systems werent in place We were really good at sales and really good at getting work done but we were poor behind the scenes employee reviews safety and training Kory Ballard Photo Perficut