Marty Grunder, founder of Grunder Landscaping Company and the Grow Group, sits down with his daughter Emily Lindley, the Grow Group's Content and Event Manager, to reflect on 30 years of the Grow Conference and the evolution of their $18 million landscaping company. From hosting the first Grow event with just 14 people in 1994 to today's conferences drawing over 1,000 attendees, Marty shares how staying stuck at $4.5 million for 12 years taught him the difference between being comfortable and truly scaling, why he once bought a racehorse with the dining room table money, and how his wife's unwavering support became as important to the business's success as any employee they've ever had.

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Episode Chapters:

00:30 - Introduction and Episode Overview
04:05 - Why Both Roles Feed Each Other (Not Harder to Balance)
06:45 - The Origins of Grow: Starting at Age 26 with 14 People
10:44 - “Say Yes to Get to $2M, Say No to Grow Beyond It”
18:42 - Dawn’s Rule: “Do One More Thing Before You Go Home”
19:40 - Cashflow Then and Now: “Paper Rich, Cash Poor”
22:47 - Peer Groups: Layering Best Practice on Best Practice
26:22 - “You Did Not Miss Big Things, You Were Always There”
32:55 - Stuck at $4.5M for 12 Years: The Wake-Up Call
36:59 - “Sometimes You Gotta Push, Sometimes You Gotta Trick ‘Em”
43:58 - “A Different Kind of Person Shows Up to Grow”
50:20 - Please Like, Share, and Subscribe!

Resources:

Virtual Sales Bootcamp  

Grunder Landscaping Field Trips  

The Grow Group   

Grunder Landscaping   

Marty Grunder LinkedIn  

Stihl  

Say Yes to Get to $2 Million, Say No to Grow Beyond It – What gets you to a million (adjusted to $2 million today) is saying yes. What gets you beyond that is saying no. I didn't know what the word "no" meant in the early days. We said yes to way more than we should have and didn't have the focus we have today on the right kinds of work.

The Basic Foundations Never Change – In many respects, it wasn't a whole lot different in the '90s than what we do today in terms of basic business strategies. I've always known you gotta have your clients happy. I've always known your best form of marketing is to do a great job. The quality and sophistication have evolved, but foundational principles remain the same.

Monkey Math Still Matters – I did a lot of "monkey math" early on - how much were my bills, what did I have in receivables, what was in the checking account? "To this day, that simplistic math equation is still one that I pay a lot of attention to." Even at $18 million, those basics still drive decisions.

Cashflow Problems Don't Disappear With Growth – We're paper rich and cash poor right now. Our cash flow today, to be blunt, is probably worse than when we were a lot smaller. A lot of our growth has come from commercial work that doesn't pay quickly. You front all the material, you're delayed, you can't get paid for it. When you push yourself to grow, you're getting into uncharted waters.

Larger Contractors Saw What I Couldn't See – Mike Rory, Todd Pugh, Jim McCutchen, and Frank Mariani came through Grow, asked what my sales were, and were speechless when I said $4.5 million. "They said, are you profitable? I said, heck yes. They said, what are you doing? You could do so much more than that." They saw the scalability I'd built but wasn't leveraging.

Sometimes You Gotta Push, Sometimes You Gotta Trick 'Em – I thought if somebody didn't come tell you they wanted to do something, you can't ask them to do it because they're not motivated. What I've realized is sometimes you gotta push on 'em, sometimes you gotta trick 'em - like asking someone to be a group leader for one Saturday without telling them it could lead to more.

Being Busy Means Saying Yes to Everything – In the early days, I would drive to pick up a check and take it to the bank, or call the bank saying payroll's coming out and I'm bringing a check in. I think anybody that tells you they've never had to deal with that, they're not pushing themselves. When you push yourself to grow, you're doing things you've never done before.

Spousal Support Is As Valuable As Any Employee – My wife has been just as much an important part of this business's success than any employee we've ever had by the support she has given us and our family to allow me to do what being an entrepreneur often forces you to do. She never said "don't you know what I'm doing with these four kids?" when I had to handle client emergencies.

Do One More Thing Before You Go Home – Dawn, our Director of Sales Operations, tells the sales team: when you're ready to sign off for the day, just look at your email inbox and task list and try to do one more thing before you head out. "You start doing one more thing before you go home, and in a week you've done five extra things. In a month you've done 20 to 30. In a year you've done 200."

You Gotta Have an Ego to Host Grow – I mean that in a good way. Jason Cromley has a giant ego, so do I. You think for one minute somebody like Jason Cromley or Taylor Milliken or Jeffrey Johns is gonna let anybody show up and leave not being blown away? We're not gonna do that. It's an opportunity to say thank you to our teams and make them realize they do special things.

Hosting Grow Forces You to Level Up Everything – The biggest thing hosting Grow enabled me to do was put my whole team on stage and tell the whole audience how proud I was of them and have everyone give them a standing ovation. That was the thing I remember most. It forced us to clean up every single thing and do significant projects.

Economies of Scale Are Real When You Scale Properly – You're spreading $18 million worth of revenue over, for the most part, the same overhead structure that you were at $4.5 million. We didn't build a bigger building (except a branch location). Yes, we have more leadership positions, but percentage-wise, we're not adding at the same rate - we're scaling and realizing incremental costs, not proportional costs.

Layer Best Practice on Top of Best Practice – We get an idea from someone in peer groups, implement it here, teach it to other contractors, they report back how they made the idea better. "You're literally layering best practice on top of best practice, and you're in the mode of continuous improvement where you're just constantly trying to get better."

A Different Kind of Person Shows Up to Grow – We've heard from sponsors and attendees that a different kind of person shows up to Grow. They're not here to party or get loaded or go to strip clubs at night. "They're here to learn. They're here to get better, and that makes me so proud. It's the cream of the crop in the industry - success-minded individuals pushing themselves."