The GROW! Show

Join Us for a GLC Field Trip (Dayton, OH) Connect with Fellow ACE Members at ACE Connect (Tucson, AZ - November 17-20, 2026) Master Aspire Software at the GLC Aspire Workshop (Dayton, OH - August TBD & December 2-3, 2026) Register for GROW! 2027 Annual Conference (Savannah, GA - February 17-19, 2027) Episode #195: In this episode of The GROW! Show, Vince Torchia shares a simple but powerful way to set your landscape business up for success in the year ahead: Get your calendar organized before the busy season begins. BOBYARD is an AI-powered takeoff and estimating platform that automates the most time-consuming parts of bidding work. Contractors report up to 65% reduction in takeoff time and 3-5x more bids submitted per estimator. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Leave a Review for the Grow Show! ️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️  Subscribe to Our Youtube Channel! Key Learnings Don’t Wait Until January 1st. Great leaders plan in November and December so January can be operating mode, not planning mode. Start With Team Events. Kickoffs, summer picnic, family party, team-building, monthly town halls. Block them month by month now. You can always tweak later. Birthdays and Anniversaries Belong on the Calendar. Set them as recurring. It’s the easiest way to show people they matter. Community and Industry Events Next. Chamber events, charity golf outings, ACE Connect, ACE Discovery, Grow, NALP, Louisville, state association events, local sponsorships. Run through the whole list and block it now. Check Your Recurring Meetings. It happens: you set the occurrence for 50 weeks, the meeting falls off, and suddenly your Monday morning is wide open with no plan. Audit every recurring team meeting, huddle, and monthly for 2027. Build a 52-Week Training Schedule. Grunder follows one every year, updated based on prior-year lessons. Who presents what, when. Removes the “what are we covering this week?” scramble. Flag Your Check-In Dates. Q1 by Q1, Q2 by Q2. H2B arrival, maintenance renewals, spring kickoff. Flag May 1st to confirm the majority of the year is sold by Memorial Day. Flag early June to start July 4th communication. Don’t Wait Until the End of the Month to Check on It. If you need to have a majority of the year sold by May 31st, put the flag on May 1st, not May 30th. Thirty days to course-correct beats thirty hours. Hiring Starts 60 Days Before You Need the People. Put that flag on the calendar now. Family Calendar Counts Too. Vacation, spring break, school start. Yours and your team’s. Personal and professional intersect in everything we do. Awareness Is the Goal. The calendar flag isn’t the solution, it’s the trigger. It makes you pause, think, and take action before the problem becomes a fire. Two Hours, One Sitting. Quiet desk, cup of coffee or a Celsius if you’re feeling crazy. The whole calendar for the year gets done in a focused block, and you thank yourself all year. Reflection Questions If you checked your... Chapters (00:00:00) - Start(00:00:35) - Welcome to the GROW Show(00:01:26) - Start With Team Events(00:02:54) - Community Events Schedule(00:03:28) - Recurring Meetings and the 52-Week Training(00:05:00) - Check Out NALP Today!(00:05:45) - Flag Your Quarterly Check-In Dates(00:08:55) - Thank You to Aspire!(00:09:36) - Personal & Family Calendar(00:10:06) - Two-Hour Block, Ops Mode

Join Us for a GLC Field Trip (Dayton, OH) Connect with Fellow ACE Members at ACE Connect (Tucson, AZ - November 17-20, 2026) Master Aspire Software at the GLC Aspire Workshop (Dayton, OH - August TBD & December 2-3, 2026) Register for GROW! 2027 Annual Conference (Savannah, GA - February 17-19, 2027) Episode #193: You’ve built your plan for 2027. You’ve set your goals, established your budget, and mapped out where you want your business to go. But how do you make sure that plan actually happens? In this bonus episode of The GROW! Show, Vince Torchia shares how to track progress, keep your team aligned, and make adjustments when things aren’t going according to plan. BOBYARD is an AI-powered takeoff and estimating platform that automates the most time-consuming parts of bidding work. Contractors report up to 65% reduction in takeoff time and 3-5x more bids submitted per estimator. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Leave a Review for the Grow Show! ️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️  Subscribe to Our Youtube Channel! Key Learnings Unique Abilities Over Rugged Individualism. You can't be the person who does it all. Find your God-given skills and talents, spend as much time as you can there, and build a team of people who are also in their unique abilities. The 80/20 Rule Applies to Everything. If 20% of what you do gives you 80% of your results, doing it 40% of the time theoretically gives you 160% results. Same framework applies to joy and happiness. Relentless Preparation Beats Winging It. Most people wing it and get away with it because they're good at what they do. The great ones pre-brief, practice, and debrief every event so they don't replicate mistakes. Growth Without Profit Is Chaos. More employees, more trucks, more complexity. If growth doesn't carry recurring profit and increased firm value, you're creating problems, not building a business. The Owner Is the Bottleneck. 100% of the time, according to Roger. The best ones start by understanding their unique abilities and building teams around them. A Coach Is a Catalyst, Not a Substitute. No webinar or speech fixes leadership. The best learning happens in a room with committed, successful peers sharing openly. If You're Not the Smartest Person in the Room, Find a New Room. The best clients Roger works with hire multiple consultants in different disciplines because they want to find out what they don't know before their competition does. Do Not Complain About That Which You Tolerate. And never be mad alone. If someone isn't doing what they should, you have to have the conversation, not vent at home. The Two-Way Promise. A written document between company and employee. Here's what we'll provide for you. Here's what we need from you. If it's in writing, it happened. If not, it's a conversation that gets misremembered. "Please Help Me Understand Why You're Not Doing What You Said You Were Going to Do." The go-to phrase for a hard conversation grounded in a promise, not a confrontation.... Chapters (00:00:00) - Start(00:00:34) - Welcome to The GROW Show(00:01:03) - Don’t Take the Monkey: The Mailbox Story(00:02:17) - Meet Roger Sitkins(00:03:27) - Living Up to Your Standards(00:04:22) - Three Lessons Roger Wishes He Knew at 30(00:07:00) - Growth Without Profit Is Chaos(00:08:30) - The Owner Is the Bottleneck(00:11:23) - How to Tell Your Boss They’re the Bottleneck(00:13:41) - The Two-Way Promise(00:19:35) - Finding Your Future Ideal Client(00:20:39) - No Practice Quoting, No Unpaid Consulting(00:23:41) - Points of Differentiation(00:25:44) - Sell With a Piece of Evidence(00:26:58) - Differentiate Without Attacking(00:29:20) - Trusted Advisor vs Commodity Game(00:30:36) - Visit us at Grunder for a Field Trip!(00:30:54) - You Can’t Scale Chaos(00:34:01) - Client Quadrants and the Three Profit Drains(00:35:41) - Introducing Saku AI(00:41:06) - AI, Process, and the Green Zone(00:44:40) - Thank you to Bobyard AI(00:45:14) - Rapid Fire With Roger(00:48:07) - The Three Freedoms(00:49:25) - Simplify and Focus(00:50:28) - Final Thoughts From Marty

Join Us for a GLC Field Trip (Dayton, OH) Connect with Fellow ACE Members at ACE Connect (Tucson, AZ - November 17-20, 2026) Master Aspire Software at the GLC Aspire Workshop (Dayton, OH - August TBD & December 2-3, 2026) Register for GROW! 2027 Annual Conference (Savannah, GA - February 17-19, 2027) Episode #193: You’ve built your plan for 2027. You’ve set your goals, established your budget, and mapped out where you want your business to go. But how do you make sure that plan actually happens? In this bonus episode of The GROW! Show, Vince Torchia shares how to track progress, keep your team aligned, and make adjustments when things aren’t going according to plan. BOBYARD is an AI-powered takeoff and estimating platform that automates the most time-consuming parts of bidding work. Contractors report up to 65% reduction in takeoff time and 3-5x more bids submitted per estimator. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Leave a Review for the Grow Show! ️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️  Subscribe to Our Youtube Channel! Key Learnings Picture a Pyramid. The whole system cascades from the top: quarterly meetings, monthly updates, weekly conversations, daily numbers. Everything connects. Past, Present, Future Is the Cheat Code. Jim Calie’s agenda for any quarterly meeting. What happened? Where are we now? Where are we headed? That one framework handles any check-in. Six Hours, Not Three Days. Quarterly meetings don’t need an offsite. Block the second Thursday of the quarter, bring the right people, and you can accomplish more than most teams do in a week. Bring in Rotating Voices. Leadership stays for the full meeting, but select up-and-comers or team members from a focus area come in for a midday block. They get context, they add perspective, and they feel heard. The Monthly State of the Union. Grunder’s “Grow Meeting.” The whole team hears the same message from the same room on the same day: revenue goals, hiring, future planning, the metrics that matter. Rotate the Presenters. When only one or two people talk at the monthly, it stops landing. Rotate department leaders and other voices so the team hears from the people they work alongside. Weekly Leadership on Monday. Ninety minutes, open dialogue, progress tracking. Monday matters because the leaders then bring the right four or five points into Tuesday’s sales meeting and Wednesday’s ops meeting. The Pyramid Flows Both Ways. Topics that keep showing up in weekly meetings deserve a monthly update. Topics that keep showing up monthly belong in the next quarterly. The team’s attention is the signal. Daily Numbers in Public. Grunder runs an earned revenue system with a public dashboard in the shop. Every day, every language, everyone can see where they stand against the goal. Transparency isn’t a problem to solve, it’s a tool to use. Acknowledge When You’re Off Track. If you can see it, the team can see it. There’s no sugarcoating. State it clearly: we’re off, here’s why, here’s what we’re doing. Within 10 Percent, Flag It and Move. Note it, don’t launch an investigation. The sales team needs to be selling. The ops team needs to be operating. A meeting about missing the number rarely closes the gap. Activity Closes the Gap. The conversation about being off track is not the thing that gets you back on. Protect the rhythms.... Chapters (00:00:00) - Start(00:00:35) - Welcome to The GROW Show(00:00:58) - The Planning Pyramid(00:01:45) - Past, Present, Future Agenda(00:03:04) - Who Should Attend Quarterly Meetings(00:04:36) - Rotating Voices Into the Room(00:07:00) - The Monthly Grunder Meeting(00:08:56) - Weekly Leadership and Cascading Communication(00:10:55) - Daily Numbers on a Public Dashboard(00:11:41) - ENDING SOON! Grow! 2027 Early Bird Special!(00:12:08) - What to Do When You’re Off Track(00:14:34) - See You at GROW 2027 in Savannah!

Join Us for a GLC Field Trip (Dayton, OH) Connect with Fellow ACE Members at ACE Connect (Tucson, AZ - November 17-20, 2026) Master Aspire Software at the GLC Aspire Workshop (Dayton, OH - August TBD & December 2-3, 2026) Register for GROW! 2027 Annual Conference (Savannah, GA - February 17-19, 2027) Episode #192: If your best salesperson left tomorrow, would your company still hit its sales goals? In this episode of The GROW! Show, Marty Grunder sits down with Chris Psencik and Kevin Keim of McFarlin Stanford to discuss how landscape business owners can build a sales engine that delivers consistent, predictable results without depending on one person to make it happen. BOBYARD is an AI-powered takeoff and estimating platform that automates the most time-consuming parts of bidding work. Contractors report up to 65% reduction in takeoff time and 3-5x more bids submitted per estimator. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Leave a Review for the Grow Show! ️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️  Subscribe to Our Youtube Channel! Key Learnings Hope Is Not a Sales Strategy. The owners who get stuck are the ones hoping the phones ring. The ones who grow are proactive, boots on the ground, with a plan for Q4 and Q1 already in motion. The Owner Is Often the Best Salesperson. Transitioning out of owner-led sales takes systems, not luck. Hope in the hiring process is just as dangerous as hope in the pipeline. If You Can’t Measure It, You Can’t Improve It. The biggest mistake Kevin sees is owners without visibility into their pipeline or process. CRMs don’t fix that. Accountability does. Panic Kills the Strategy. When volume spikes, teams drop their ideal client profile and send proposals to anyone. When it crashes, follow-up disappears. Both failures start with panic. Prioritize Like a Pro. Not every opportunity is equal. The best salespeople push the right jobs into the right windows and don’t fill the schedule with work that bleeds money. Shoot With a Sniper Rifle, Not a Shotgun. Chris on targeting. Pre-qualify every opportunity against density, bonding, insurance, and the kind of work your team can execute profitably. Target Comes Before Attract. Marketing only works when you know who you’re trying to reach. Where do your best five clients live, shop, serve on boards? Build the attract strategy around that. Delivery Is Your Best Sales Tool. The work you already sold, done well, is the next sale. Walk the customer through the handoff from sales to production and stay alongside it. Think With the End in Mind. Chris would rather have 10 deep, long-standing relationships than 100 shallow ones. One job this year, three next year, six after that. Compounding, not chasing. The Untreated Acre. Kevin’s framing: expanding with existing clients isn’t competing against competitors. It’s competing against yourself. The CRM Is Not the Engine. It’s a tool. The engine is the defined sales process behind it: how a lead moves from stage to stage, who owns it, when it advances. Three Numbers to Watch Weekly... Chapters (00:00:00) - Start(00:00:34) - Welcome to The GROW Show!(00:01:01) - Previewing Coastal Shores for Grow 2027(00:01:58) - Meet Chris Psencik and Kevin Keim(00:03:05) - If Your Best Salesperson Left Tomorrow(00:04:09) - Hope Is Not a Sales Strategy(00:07:03) - Managing the Pipeline and Follow Up(00:11:09) - How Weak Sales Ripple Into Operations(00:14:40) - Check Out Little Lime Punch from Proven Winners(00:15:37) - The Six-Part Engine: Target Ideal Clients(00:17:23) - Attract and Qualify(00:19:28) - Deliver and Expand(00:23:07) - Metrics and CRM Accountability(00:25:52) - Grow 2027 Takeaways and 90-Day Homework(00:32:42) - Join Us in Savannah, GA

Join Us for a GLC Field Trip (Dayton, OH) Connect with Fellow ACE Members at ACE Connect (Tucson, AZ - November 17-20, 2026) Master Aspire Software at the GLC Aspire Workshop (Dayton, OH - August TBD & December 2-3, 2026) Register for GROW! 2027 Annual Conference (Savannah, GA - February 17-19, 2027) Episode #191: In this episode of The GROW! Show, Marty Grunder checks in with three past GROW! hosts: Gene Freeman from Dallas, Texas, Jason Cromley from Columbus, Ohio, and Annette McCarthy from Des Moines, Iowa. Marty asks each of them the same five questions to find out what they’re seeing in the market, what’s working in their businesses, and what they’ve learned along the way. BOBYARD is an AI-powered takeoff and estimating platform that automates the most time-consuming parts of bidding work. Contractors report up to 65% reduction in takeoff time and 3-5x more bids submitted per estimator. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Leave a Review for the Grow Show! ️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️  Subscribe to Our Youtube Channel! Key Learnings Feedback Is a Gift. But not every opinion carries the same weight. Judge the quality of the feedback, not whether you like the person delivering it. Ask Your Salespeople First. They’re on the front lines hearing objections, pricing concerns, and the reasons customers buy or don’t buy. Ask them point-blank what’s preventing them from selling more. Then Ask Operations. Production knows if salespeople are setting the right expectations. Ask what gets sold that causes problems and where estimates fall short. Talk to Three Customer Groups. Your best repeat customers, the ones you recently lost, and the prospects who said no. Don’t assume you know why they chose or didn’t choose you. Pull in Trusted Outsiders. Your ACE peer group, a mentor, another landscape owner who understands the business. They see what you can’t because you’re too close. Who Not to Ask. Don’t build strategy around the person who complains about everything but offers no solutions. Don’t let one unreasonable customer dictate how you run the whole company. Three Questions, Not Twenty-Five. What’s working that we should keep doing? What’s not working that we should stop or change? If you were in my shoes, what’s the one thing you’d change? Ask the Follow-Up. When someone says proposals take too long, don’t just write it down. Ask for an example, ask how often, ask what they would recommend. Chase the root cause. Ask Yourself the Hardest Question. What am I, the owner, doing or not doing that’s getting results I don’t want? The 15-Minute Feedback Exercise. Get the team in a room. Three minutes to write down what’s working, what’s not, what to change. Go around once, no debating, just listening. Look for themes. Feedback Without Action Is Just a Conversation. Ignore what people tell you long enough and they stop telling you. Look for Patterns, Then Prioritize. One person flagging a slow estimating process is worth investigating. Five people saying it means you’ve found a pro... Chapters (00:00:00) - Start(00:00:41) - Why Feedback Matters(00:01:54) - Who to Ask First(00:03:16) - Talk to Customers and Lost Prospects(00:04:03) - Trusted Outside Voices(00:04:24) - Who Not to Ask(00:05:48) - The Three Simple Questions(00:07:34) - The 15-Minute Feedback Exercise(00:09:07) - Private One-on-Ones(00:09:27) - Turn Feedback Into Action(00:11:40) - Your Weekly Feedback Challenge(00:12:50) - Final Takeaways

Join Us for a GLC Field Trip (Dayton, OH) Connect with Fellow ACE Members at ACE Connect (Tucson, AZ - November 17-20, 2026) Master Aspire Software at the GLC Aspire Workshop (Dayton, OH - August TBD & December 2-3, 2026) Register for GROW! 2027 Annual Conference (Savannah, GA - February 17-19, 2027) Episode #190: In this episode of The GROW! Show, Marty Grunder checks in with three past GROW! hosts: Gene Freeman from Dallas, Texas, Jason Cromley from Columbus, Ohio, and Annette McCarthy from Des Moines, Iowa. Marty asks each of them the same five questions to find out what they’re seeing in the market, what’s working in their businesses, and what they’ve learned along the way. BOBYARD is an AI-powered takeoff and estimating platform that automates the most time-consuming parts of bidding work. Contractors report up to 65% reduction in takeoff time and 3-5x more bids submitted per estimator. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Leave a Review for the Grow Show! ️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️  Subscribe to Our Youtube Channel! Key Learnings Gene Freeman (Complete Landsculpture, Dallas) The 5/10 Rule for Communication. Any communication received before 5:00 PM gets responded to the same day. Anything after 5:00 PM gets responded to by 10:00 AM the next business day. Shared with clients, subs, and vendors as the standard they can hold you to. Plan Your Work, Work Your Plan. On Monday you shouldn’t be asking “What are we gonna do this week?” That happened Wednesday last week to get it lined up for Thursday and Friday. Relationships Matter at All Levels. Vince and Marty give Gene credit for this one. From smaller operators to peer group heavy hitters, Gene asks questions because the smaller guys are closer to where the tire hits the road. Referrals Are the Number One Lead. A happy client is your best salesperson. Intentionally ask satisfied customers for Google reviews to strengthen trust and brand. No Return Visits Protect Profit. Return visits kill profits and erode trust. Incentivize safety and precision because broken windows and dropped margins come straight off the bottom line. Standardize Your Plant Palette. 111 degree heat index in July, freezes in winter. Spec plants that work in your market. Fewer SKUs, fewer parts, fewer tires, consistent fleet. Educate the Client, Then Void the Warranty. If a client insists on a plant that won’t survive, put it in after educating them, document that it’s not warrantied, and move on. You’re not saying no, you’re giving them value. Jason Cromley (Hidden Creek, Columbus) A Director of Revenue Takes the Pressure Off. When you miss your sales goal three years in a row and you’re the one in charge, it’s time to hire someone who sits beside the sales team daily and holds them accountable. Culture Is Your Brand. Brand isn’t a logo on the truck. It’s what people say about you when you’re not in the room. Do What You Say, On Time, With Quality. Clients are simple. Let them know when you’re doing it, when it’s done, and that it’s right. Everything else is noise. Chapters (00:00:00) - Start(00:00:34) - Welcome to The Grow Show!(00:02:19) - Introducing Gene Freeman(00:04:40) - Humility and the Power of Peer Groups(00:06:32) - Humility and Learning Mindset(00:08:33) - Gene’s Economic Outlook(00:11:32) - Portecting the Culture at CLS(00:13:18) - The 5/10 Rule(00:14:21) - Referrals and Social Proof(00:16:07) - Cutting Costs: No Return Visits(00:18:17) - Standardizing Plants and Sales Training(00:20:42) - Fun Plans and Wrap Up(00:22:12) - Thank You to Aspire!(00:22:52) - Introducing Jason Cromley(00:23:18) - Jason’s Family Update(00:26:24) - Jason’s Economic Outlook(00:27:52) - Hiring a Director of Revenue(00:28:45) - Culture Is Your Brand(00:31:46) - Warranty as Marketing(00:34:36) - Project Kickoff and CD Sign-Off(00:38:24) - Jason’s Fun Between Now and Christmas(00:41:00) - Meet Annette McCarthy(00:42:40) - RJ Landscape and the 2027 Outlook(00:45:57) - Beautiful Spaces for Clients and Team(00:49:06) - Word of Mouth and a New Marketing Hire(00:51:00) - The Credit Card Reset and AI Audit(00:54:22) - Annette’s Fun Between Now and Christmas(00:55:42) - Episode Wrap Up

Join Us for a GLC Field Trip (Dayton, OH) Connect with Fellow ACE Members at ACE Connect (Tucson, AZ - November 17-20, 2026) Master Aspire Software at the GLC Aspire Workshop (Dayton, OH - August TBD & December 2-3, 2026) Register for GROW! 2027 Annual Conference (Savannah, GA - February 17-19, 2027) Episode #189: Setting a sales goal is easy. Building a plan to actually achieve it? That’s where the real work begins. In this bonus episode of The GROW! Show, Marty Grunder breaks down how landscape professionals can build a realistic, actionable sales plan for 2027, and why simply hoping for more revenue isn’t a strategy. BOBYARD is an AI-powered takeoff and estimating platform that automates the most time-consuming parts of bidding work. Contractors report up to 65% reduction in takeoff time and 3-5x more bids submitted per estimator. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Leave a Review for the Grow Show! ️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️  Subscribe to Our Youtube Channel! Key Learnings Hope Is Not a Sales Plan. “We want to grow 10% next year” and “we want to do $8 million” aren’t plans. They’re wishes. Every number needs a compelling reason behind it. Start With the Financial Plan. More sales don’t automatically mean more profit. You can grow yourself broke. Decide what kind of company you want to build first, then back into the revenue. Break the Big Number Down. A $5 million target isn’t one giant number. It’s recurring maintenance, renewals, enhancements, backlog, snow, and only then truly new business. Make the number smaller, visible, and someone’s responsibility. Retention Is Sales. If you lose $300K of maintenance contracts, your sales team is starting in a $300K hole. Every recurring account needs an owner, a renewal date, a strategy, and a next action. Go Where You Already Have Trust. Your existing client list is the most valuable sales tool you own. Walk the properties, look for opportunities, follow up on that outdoor kitchen conversation from three years ago. Revive Unsold Proposals. Somebody who said no six months ago might say yes now with a follow-up. Pick up the phone. Not an automated email. A call. Your Schedule Is a Sales Scorecard. If you need $400K for March and you’ve only sold $175K, you have a problem, and you need to know it in October. Where the schedule is empty, it’s too late to start selling. A Filing Cabinet Isn’t a Pipeline. Open proposals with no follow-up and no next action aren’t opportunities. They’re paperwork. Every Sale Needs a Next Action. A call Tuesday, a site visit Friday, a revision Wednesday. No next action means you’re not managing the opportunity, you’re hoping. Order Makers, Not Order Takers. Good salespeople create activity, follow up, ask questions, find opportunities, and ask for referrals. They don’t sit around waiting for leads. Turn the Yearly Plan Into a Weekly Plan. A $2M annual goal is a monthly number, a weekly number, an appointment count, and a follow-up count. Manage the activities, not the end-of-month pressure. Sales... Chapters (00:00:00) - Start(00:01:04) - Welcoming NALP as a New Sponsor(00:01:49) - Start With the Financial Plan(00:02:53) - Break the Big Number Down(00:04:03) - Retention Is Sales(00:05:40) - Go Where You Already Have Trust(00:07:11) - Your Schedule Is a Sales Scorecard(00:08:32) - Every Sale Needs a Next Action(00:10:30) - Sales and Operations Must Talk(00:11:44) - Protect Your Margins(00:12:31) - The 8-Point Sales Checklist(00:13:51) - Action Beats Planning

Join Us for a GLC Field Trip (Dayton, OH) Connect with Fellow ACE Members at ACE Connect (Tucson, AZ - November 17-20, 2026) Master Aspire Software at the GLC Aspire Workshop (Dayton, OH - August TBD & December 2-3, 2026) Register for GROW! 2027 Annual Conference (Savannah, GA - February 17-19, 2027) Episode #188: In this episode of The GROW! Show, Marty Grunder catches up with Gene and Chris from Complete Landsculpture, hosts of GROW! 2026 in Dallas, to see how the goals and initiatives they shared with attendees have played out over the past year. Gene and Chris talk candidly about their push to grow maintenance, the impact of losing major accounts, and why strong client relationships remain one of the most important pieces of their strategy. BOBYARD is an AI-powered takeoff and estimating platform that automates the most time-consuming parts of bidding work. Contractors report up to 65% reduction in takeoff time and 3-5x more bids submitted per estimator. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Leave a Review for the Grow Show! ️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️  Subscribe to Our Youtube Channel! Key Learnings Flat Numbers Don't Mean Flat Progress. Despite nearly $2M in new contracts sold, two key losses early in the year kept maintenance numbers flat. The team used the year to build systems that will pay off for years. Managing, Not Mowing. Account managers walk every property and record videos for clients, noting enhancements and ownership. "Anybody can mow grass. One weed can get you canceled." SharePoint as the Central Hub. All communication, schedules, and visibility across business units in one place. A real operational win in 2026. The Platinum Rule. Don't just do unto others what you'd want. Do unto others what they expect. This filter catches the quality gaps that technical execution alone misses. "She Didn't Feel Loved." Chris met with an unhappy client who confirmed CLS had done everything they promised. The problem wasn't the work. It was that she didn't feel cared for. Hard to Fire a Friend. Account managers taking clients to lunch isn't a soft skill, it's a strategic moat. Relationships are what survive competitive bids and board changes. Live Video Property Walks. Account managers walk the property with their face on camera, personalizing with details about the client's family or weekend. Removes the "can't reach them" excuse entirely. Back Porch Parties as a Trust Indicator. When clients and vendors take time away from their work and personal lives to show up at your office, that's a sign the relationships are real. Purchasing Discipline. Two team members bought the same thing on company credit cards with a 65% price variance. Centralize purchasing, share information, don't buy the T-shirt twice. Humility Compounds. Frank Mariani sat in on Grow at CLS 11 years ago doing $50 to $60M and asked more questions than anyone in the room. There's no neutral in this business. AI as Connective Tissue for 2027. The Asset Include Go platform launch plus AI integration will connect data streams that currently d... Chapters (00:00:00) - Start(00:00:29) - Welcome to The Grow Show(00:01:02) - Bobyard Spotlight(00:01:57) - Life Updates With Gene and Chris(00:03:55) - The Maintenance Growth Update(00:06:55) - Staying on Their Radar(00:08:35) - Training the Relationship Side(00:10:43) - Managing, Not Mowing(00:13:09) - The Platinum Rule in Action(00:17:24) - Wear the T-Shirt Moments(00:23:16) - Looking Ahead to 2027(00:30:39) - Revenue Follows Relationships(00:31:45) - Early Bird Pricing for Grow 2027!

Join Us for a GLC Field Trip (Dayton, OH) Connect with Fellow ACE Members at ACE Connect (Tucson, AZ - November 17-20, 2026) Master Aspire Software at the GLC Aspire Workshop (Dayton, OH - August TBD & December 2-3, 2026) Register for GROW! 2027 Annual Conference (Savannah, GA - February 17-19, 2027) Episode #187: In this bonus episode of The GROW! Show Marty Grunder breaks down how landscape professionals should be planning their equipment needs for 2027, and why that plan should always start with the business plan. BOBYARD is an AI-powered takeoff and estimating platform that automates the most time-consuming parts of bidding work. Contractors report up to 65% reduction in takeoff time and 3-5x more bids submitted per estimator. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Leave a Review for the Grow Show! ️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️  Subscribe to Our Youtube Channel! Key Learnings Equipment Plan Follows Business Plan. Don't start with what equipment you want. Start with the work you're going to do next year and back into what you need. Start With the 2027 Sales Plan. Revenue target, service mix, crews added or cut. Everything downstream depends on it. Inventory Everything You Own. Trucks, trailers, mowers, skid steers, snow equipment. Age, hours, reliability, cost to maintain. Decide what stays and what goes. The Smartest Purchase Is Sometimes a Sale. Get rid of what's breaking down or no longer fits. You're in the landscaping business, not the equipment business. Talk to Your Crews. Group leaders and crew leaders know what breaks, what you rented too much of, and what one more unit would save in labor. Listen to what they need, not everything they want. Buy Labor Savings, Not Price Tags. Don't ask what it costs. Ask what it lets you accomplish. One Boss sidewalk machine replaces four guys with shovels. Repair, Replace, Rent, or Buy. Four questions on every major purchase. If you use the machine six days a year, don't own it. If you're renting the same thing every week, maybe you should. Utilization Decides Ownership. A machine sitting in your yard isn't making you money. Build the Budget in Three Categories. Must-have, should-have, nice-to-have. Forces discipline when every shiny truck looks tempting. Order Early With a Plan B. Supply chains don't care about your production schedule. Know the lead times, and have a contingency if the truck doesn't show up until June. Reflection Questions Does your current equipment list actually match the work you're planning to sell in 2027? What should you be selling before you buy anything new? What are you still owning that you'd be smarter off renting? Additional Resources: BOBYARD  Chapters (00:00:00) - Start(00:00:28) - Welcome to the Grow Show(00:01:28) - The Reactive Equipment Trap(00:02:10) - Start With Your 2027 Sales Plan(00:02:56) - Inventory Everything You Own(00:04:34) - Talk to Your Crews(00:05:42) - Sign Up for Grow 2027!(00:06:07) - Buy Labor Savings, Not Price Tags(00:07:27) - Repair, Replace, Rent, or Buy(00:08:20) - Build the Budget: Must, Should, Nice(00:09:41) - Order Early With a Plan B(00:10:38) - Scrambling Is Expensive, Planning Is Profitable

Join Us for a GLC Field Trip (Dayton, OH) Connect with Fellow ACE Members at ACE Connect (Tucson, AZ - November 17-20, 2026) Master Aspire Software at the GLC Aspire Workshop (Dayton, OH - August TBD & December 2-3, 2026) Register for GROW! 2027 Annual Conference (Savannah, GA - February 17-19, 2027) Episode #186: In this episode of The GROW! Show, Marty Grunder sits down with GROW! 2027 hosts Rob and Jessie Shrieve of Coastal Shores Landscape to talk about their journey from starting small to building a thriving company centered around great people, strong leadership, and premium service. BOBYARD is an AI-powered takeoff and estimating platform that automates the most time-consuming parts of bidding work. Contractors report up to 65% reduction in takeoff time and 3-5x more bids submitted per estimator. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Leave a Review for the Grow Show! ️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️  Subscribe to Our Youtube Channel! Key Learnings From Indiana to the Lowcountry. Rob and Jessie moved from Muncie, Indiana to the South Carolina Lowcountry in 2002 with one little girl, no job, and no landscape experience. The business started with Rob cutting grass on five properties Jessie managed. Doing What You Say You Will Do Is Still a Competitive Advantage. In the early days, clients were shocked when Rob showed up on time and delivered a quote he promised. That alone built the business before he knew much about landscaping. Premium Starts With Your Team. Coastal Shores applies premium to how they care for their team first: high benefits, high training, high respect. That trust earns the right to hold the team to a higher standard for clients. Core Values Need Measuring Sticks. Posters on the wall are not enough. Every value needs tangible, measurable behaviors behind it or the team drifts without knowing why. SALT Training Reinforces Culture Weekly. Spiritual, Attitude, Life, Teamwork. The third Wednesday is Life skills, where team members have learned direct deposit, financial literacy, and even how to change a diaper. Help People at Home and They Work Better. Mama J's philosophy is that personal life and work life always intersect. Smoothing one smooths the other. Not a Culture of Flattery. Build enough trust and care first. When hard conversations come, people are receptive because the deposits in their emotional bank account are already made. From Doing to Coaching. Rob's biggest shift as an owner was moving from knowing every detail of every job to coaching, mentoring, and looking for root causes. He described himself as "a blanket on the team, holding them back." A Healthy Sign of Scale. When the owners find out about a big job neither of them knew was happening, it means the team is actually running the business. Define Your Ideal Client Narrowly. Coastal Shores asks what community you live in before anything else and will decline work outside their footprint. Specialization Enables Scale. Middle management and divided roles are not optional at scale. Delaying those decisions costs profit and bur... Chapters (00:00:00) - Start(00:00:28) - Welcome to the GROW Show(00:01:39) - Meet Rob and Jessie Shrieve(00:04:27) - Doing What You Say You’ll Do(00:06:32) - Jessie on the Early Survival Years(00:09:52) - What Premium Really Means(00:11:58) - Building Systems to Scale Premium(00:14:37) - Defining the Ideal Client(00:17:51) - Core Values With Measuring Sticks(00:24:48) - Not a Culture of Flattery(00:27:13) - Thank You to Bobyard AI!(00:27:47) - From Doing to Coaching(00:31:43) - The Hardest Parts of Growth(00:33:39) - When Roles Must Split(00:35:01) - Letting Go as Owners(00:35:46) - Married and Running the Business(00:40:00) - Choosing the Right Technology(00:40:43) - The Aspire Commitment(00:45:26) - AI, Claude, and Smarter Data(00:49:10) - GROW 2027! Early Bird Pricing NOW!(00:49:37) - Why They’re Hosting GROW 2027(00:52:00) - Inside the SALT Program(00:55:29) - Rapid Fire With Rob and Jessie(00:57:48) - Come See It in Savannah(00:59:28) - Please Share this Episode with a Friend!