With Halloween approaching this Sunday, the team of value specialists at Ceibass got together to shed some light on what scares them the most.
“Without a doubt, what scares me the most is lawn and landscape business owners without an exit plan or an exit mindset,” said Tom Fochtman, Ceibass CEO. “You see the owner with an exit mindset is setting up their business to be run effectively without them. With this mindset they value their staff, work their systems and seek year over year growth. Without it they may do too much themselves, they may not take the time and energy to develop a strong executive team, get too complacent and may postpone upgrades to equipment and technology to squeeze a little margin.”
What other things are “horrifying” to the team at Ceibass?
- Drought, floods and fires
- The prospect of punishing new tax legislation
- Companies not offering top tier value propositions to their customers
- Supply chain disruptions
- Having the right person in the wrong seat on the bus
- Companies that don’t seek to differentiate themselves
- Managers who don’t take on the responsibilities of leadership
- Those companies that are not inclusive and not into diversity or equal pay for equal work
- Those companies that aren’t looking into robots and reimagining landscape maintenance or using the latest tools to hire right
- Those neglecting to learn how the H-2B program might help grow their business
- Management leaving money on the table by not increasing fees or not working to improve their customer and employee retention programs
- Dealing with small jobs and crazy customers
- Owners who are not looking to improve their systems and technology every year
- Owners that take for granted their employees
- Managers without compassion
- Companies with not enough debt (money is still cheap!)
- Not having a strong, powerful 24/7/365 employee acquisition strategy
- Weak websites and pitiful digital presence
