Join Us for GROW! Snow 2026 (Dayton, OH - September 21-23, 2026)

Join Us for a GLC Field Trip (Dayton, OH - Multiple Options in 2026!)

Level Up Your Sales Manager at Virtual Sales Manager Bootcamp (July 8-9, 2026)

Connect with Fellow ACE Members at ACE Discovery (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 #174: In Part 2 of Marty's conversation with Phil Harwood of Snowfighters Institute, they dig into the people, process, and preparation that separate great snow companies from average ones. Phil shares how to recruit and retain drivers, why subcontractors should be treated more like employees, what a great snow team looks like before the first event, and how to run your operation like a well-trained military unit. Plus more details on GROW! Snow 2026 in Dayton, OH this September.

Resources Mentioned:

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.

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Key Learnings

Preparing to Recruit Is Half the Battle: Before you post a single job, scrub your job descriptions, clarify weekend and holiday expectations, and rebuild your compensation and incentive plans. Bring people on before you are ready and you set them up to be disappointed.

Job Postings Are Not Classified Ads Anymore: You are not paying per letter. Use the space to talk about mission, culture, and why. Most postings are terrible because they read like a task list. Great postings sell the opportunity.

Speed of Response Is a Snow Pro Advantage: When someone answers your ad, get back to them in 15-20 minutes by text. Nobody wants a phone call anymore. Automate this if you can.

Build Real Pipelines, Not One-Off Hires: Vocational schools, homeschool networks, sports parent groups, recovery community programs, laid-off seasonal workers from painting or carpentry crews. If you can pluck one or two out of a community, they will bring more.

Treat Your Drivers Like Franchise Players: Every event, even a light dusting, give them the hours. Buy them Carhartts and boots. Hook them up. The best contractors treat their drivers like gold because they are.

Don't Be Afraid to Train Your Subs: If your sub is a legitimate business with their own EIN, trucks, shop, and insurance, you can absolutely bring them in for onboarding, training, or hot chocolate. The employee-vs-contractor issue is about control, not communication.

Meet with Subs in the Off-Season: Walk their shop in July. Ask about their sweet spot, their backup equipment, their quality assurance. Be their consultant. You are investing in a relationship that pays off in a storm.

A Great Snow Team Is Drooling Before the First Storm: The best crews attack the season with the caged bull mindset. "Am I ready for the snow? Is the snow ready for me?"

Give Operators the Tools and the Training: Weather stations, GPS, live site maps, salt monitoring, cameras. Then train the trainers in the summer. Get daylight hours on every site. Stake sidewalks and curbs. Dry runs before the first storm are glorious.

Ask Where the Weakest Link Is Right Now: Every time you dispatch, pause and ask: if something is going to go wrong in the next couple hours, what is it most likely going to be? Usually you can pinpoint it (new operator + new truck + new site + picky client) and go head it off.

Run Snow Like a Military Operation: Command, communication, and control. Up and down, not sideways. No debate, no arguing, no second-guessing during the storm. Save the ideas for the debrief.

Documentation Beats Power Washing: At the end of a storm, service verification, reports, and photo uploads matter more than a clean truck. Snow lives and dies by documentation because of liability.

Debrief After Big Events, Not Every Storm: Wait 24-48 hours so heads are clear but the pain is still fresh. Identify what went wrong and who stepped up. Recognition matters as much as correction.

The Org Chart Is Different for Snow: Snow commander at the top (plus a backup so someone can sleep). Area managers below. Site captains under them. Operators and shovelers report up. It is a regional command structure, not a landscape structure.

The Two Biggest Snow Mistakes: Not treating snow as a year-round business, and over-committing without understanding capacity. Both are fixable with planning.

Reflection Questions

Additional Resources:

BOBYARD 

Aspire

ACE Peer Groups

Virtual Sales Bootcamp  

Grunder Landscaping Field Trips  

The Grow Group   

Grunder Landscaping   

Marty Grunder LinkedIn  

Join Us for GROW! Snow 2026 (Dayton, OH - September 21-23, 2026)

Join Us for a GLC Field Trip (Dayton, OH - Multiple Options in 2026!)

Level Up Your Sales Manager at Virtual Sales Manager Bootcamp (July 8-9, 2026)

Connect with Fellow ACE Members at ACE Discovery (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 #173

In this episode, Phil Harwood joins Marty to talk about snow and ice services as a profit center, the challenges snowfighters face, and what resources are available for companies to run better snow operations. They talk about the difference between companies who make money in snow and those that don't, the systems that reduce chaos, and how to plan ahead so that snow operations run well. This is Part 1 of a two-part series with Phil.

Resources Mentioned:

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.

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Key Learnings

Snow Is a 12-Month Business, Not a Winter Job: The best snow operators start planning for next season the moment this one ends. If you go dark for three months and wake up in September, you are already behind.

Snow Should Be Your Most Profitable Service Line: If it is not, something is broken. The leading snow pros have figured out how to be profitable no matter what. Pricing, budgeting, sales, and operations all have to work together.

You Are Selling an Intangible: Snow is not encyclopedias. You are not selling a pile of snow or a truck with a plow on it. You are selling peace of mind, risk mitigation, and insurance. That takes a different skill set and different training.

Grab the Free 52-Week Visual Timeline from SIMA: This tool maps every month of the year from both the contractor's and the customer's perspective. It shows exactly what should be happening each month and where the danger zone starts.

Snowfighting Is Emergency Service, Like Firefighting: Nobody loves fires. Nobody loves being away from their family in a blizzard. But there is a reward that comes with keeping your community open. When you tie the work to purpose, the mindset changes.

Order Equipment Now, Not in October: Coming off a good winter, undercapitalized operators are buying up inventory. Lead times are real. Set a drop-dead date, work backward, and meet with your team every week to track progress.

You Have a Relationship With Your Equipment: Consistent operators paired with consistent machines learn every nuance. Skid steer, Snowrator, pickup truck, even a $50 spreader. Every piece has a quirk. Learn it before the storm, not during.

Carry the Dumb Stuff: Cotter pins, hoses, backup tires. The dumb little parts are what will kill you in the middle of the night. You are not buying a cotter pin at a 24-hour Walmart at 3 AM.

Get Escalators Into Every Contract: Salt is a commodity. Fuel is a commodity. Do not sign contracts without protective language, no matter how small you are. Everything is negotiable.

Fire Your Worst 10-20% of Customers: Do the math on every account. If they want zero tolerance but will not pay for it, or if you cannot fix the pricing, let them go. Do it professionally and leave the door open. Some come back at market rate.

Kill the Trigger Depths: Contracts that say "start plowing at 2 inches" treat you like an idiot with a ruler. What clients really want is zero tolerance. Educate them, take it out of the contract, and be the professional.

Bill for What You Actually Do: Blizzards, drifts, snow off awnings, snow pushed off cars into your clean lot. Get scope details right or you are working for free.

If We See It, They Pay. If They See It, We Pay: Bob Grover's rule for maintenance applies to snow too. Point out the issue before the client does and you keep the leverage.

The Best Customers Get Taken Care of When Supply Tightens: Order early. Pay early. Answer the phone. Vendors take care of their best customers first. Be one.

Reflection Questions

Additional Resources:

BOBYARD 

Aspire

ACE Peer Groups

Virtual Sales Bootcamp  

Grunder Landscaping Field Trips  

The Grow Group   

Grunder Landscaping   

Marty Grunder LinkedIn  

Upcoming Events:

Join Us for a GLC Field Trip (Dayton, OH - Multiple Options in 2026!)

Level Up Your Sales Manager at Virtual Sales Manager Bootcamp (July 8-9, 2026)

Connect with Fellow ACE Members at ACE Discovery (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 #172

In this episode, Marty Grunder is joined by National Association of Landscape Professional's SVP of Government Relations and Membership Andrew Bray to talk about the H-2B program and how it impacts landscaping companies' ability to field a full, skilled team each year. They talk about the history of the program, why it works the way that it does, and what fixes are on the table to allow for a more stable program.

H-2B Resources and Advocacy:

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.

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Key Learnings

H-2B Is Capped at 66,000 Visas Per Year, but Demand Is Double That: This year alone, around 130,000 petitions were filed for the April 1 tranche of 33,000 visas. The lottery system runs through letters A through H, and if you land in D or later, you are likely not getting workers.

The Landscape Industry Is the Largest User of H-2B by Far: Landscape pros make up about 40% of all H-2B users. The next closest is hospitality at 12 to 13%. The program is built for seasonal work and the landscape industry is its biggest beneficiary.

Each H-2B Worker Supports Roughly Four US Jobs: A GAO study found that communities with more H-2B workers had higher median wages than communities without. This program does not take US jobs. It expands them.

The Prevailing Wage Is Set by the Department of Labor, Not the Employer: Grunder's H-2B prevailing wage is $18.75. That means they cannot hire anyone, including their own kids, for less than that. It is a fallacy that this is a capitalistic move to pay workers less.

Do Not Try to File H-2B Yourself: This is not the same as immigration law. Use a reputable firm. NALP has a list of strategic providers on its website. One wrong move and you are cooked.

H-2B Should Never Be More Than 40% of Your Workforce: If you are over that, you have hit the critical danger zone. Build relationships with veteran groups, community colleges, federal prisons, and other recruiting channels. The program is one piece of the workforce puzzle, not the entire solution.

The Trump Administration Released All 64,716 Supplemental Visas This Year: This was a major win for the industry. NALP went to Mar-a-Lago to advocate in person. The lesson: in-person conversations change outcomes in ways email and social media never will.

The Certified Seasonal Employer Program Could Be a Game Changer: If passed in FY27, employers with five consecutive years of clean H-2B use would be guaranteed their highest historical visa count without going through the lottery. The language is already in the House appropriations bill.

Get Informed, Then Take Action: Sign up for The Advocate newsletter. When you see an action alert, click the link and submit the pre-drafted letter to your congressman. It takes under 60 seconds.

Recruit Non-Traditional Allies: Your business clients, your homeowners, your local officials. Help them understand what is at stake. The more people aware of how H-2B works, the more the political conversation shifts.

Talk to Your Senators and Representatives in Person: They will listen, even to small business owners. You do not need to run a $50 million company to get a meeting. Marty got Senator Husted's staff on a call. You can too.

Reflection Questions

Additional Resources:

BOBYARD 

Aspire

ACE Peer Groups

Virtual Sales Bootcamp  

Grunder Landscaping Field Trips  

The Grow Group   

Grunder Landscaping   

Marty Grunder LinkedIn  

Upcoming Events:

Join Us for a GLC Field Trip (Dayton, OH - Multiple Options in 2026!)

Level Up Your Sales Manager at Virtual Sales Manager Bootcamp (July 8-9, 2026)

Connect with Fellow ACE Members at ACE Discovery (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 #171

Everyone talks about recruiting. But what about retention? In this episode of The Grow Show, Marty Grunder breaks down one of the most critical and often overlooked drivers of success in the landscaping industry: keeping great people. Drawing on 40+ years of experience, Marty shares why the easiest employee to hire is the one you never lose, and how building a strong culture, developing leaders, and creating real opportunities for growth can transform your team.

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.

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Key Learnings

Retention Starts with Culture, Not Wages: Ask yourself, would you want your son or daughter to work here? Would you want to work for you? Culture is not what you write on the wall. It is how people feel on Sunday night before they come into work Monday morning.

Culture Eats Strategy for Breakfast: Peter Drucker had it right. Whatever the plan is, culture decides whether it actually happens. Get the culture right and everything else has a chance.

Every Manager Owns Retention: HR is not a department. It is a mindset. People quit managers. Every leader has to be able to coach, mentor, train, and address conflict. That is not the HR department's job. It is leadership.

Chastise in Private, Praise in Public, and Do It Swiftly: If there is an issue, handle it privately and quickly. If something good happens, call it out specifically in front of everyone. Move fast on both.

If It Is Not Written Down, It Did Not Happen: Document every conflict, every conversation, every coaching moment. Jean Seawright has been teaching this for over 25 years. You need it legally, and you need it to see patterns.

Hire Slow, Fire Fast, and Get the Bad Apples Out: Every hire is either impressing or depressing. The longer a bad apple stays, the more damage they do. Park a truck if you have to, but get them out and debrief afterward to learn.

Give People a Future or Someone Else Will: The best people want more responsibility, opportunity, and growth. Career paths, reviews, promotions, training. The best reason to grow your company is to create opportunities for ambitious people.

Be a Lazy River, Not a Raging River or Stagnant Pond: A raging river exhausts everyone. A stagnant pond suffocates them. A lazy river has steady, organized, controlled growth where people are moving but can still catch their breath.

Appreciation Does Not Have to Be Expensive: Grunder spent $600 on burgers for the whole team. Marty cooks. Show up at morning stretch. Know their names. Sing happy birthday. Pass out the first paycheck. People want to know they have done a good job.

Do What You Said You Would Do: DWYWYWD. If you promised training, deliver it. If you promised a raise for certification, pay it. One broken promise undoes months of goodwill. Retention is built on trust.

The Number One Way to Recruit Great People Is to Become a Great Place to Work: Stop focusing so much on the people you need to hire and start paying attention to the people you already have. They are your greatest asset.

Reflection Questions

Additional Resources:

BOBYARD 

Aspire

ACE Peer Groups

Virtual Sales Bootcamp  

Grunder Landscaping Field Trips  

The Grow Group   

Grunder Landscaping   

Marty Grunder LinkedIn  

Upcoming Events:

Join Us for a GLC Field Trip (Dayton, OH - Multiple Options in 2026!)

Level Up Your Sales Manager at Virtual Sales Manager Bootcamp (July 8-9, 2026)

Connect with Fellow ACE Members at ACE Discovery (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 #170

In this episode, Loren talks about his background in the industry and his approach to commercial landscaping. He believes landscapes should be treated as managed assets and that we should be focused on how we add value for customers. This interview is full of great insight for landscaping companies who want to focus on enhancement sales.

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.

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Key Learnings

Stop Selling Maintenance, Start Managing Assets: Property managers already think about HVAC, paving, and building envelopes as assets. The landscape industry's messaging on this is weak. Reframe landscapes as managed assets and you change the entire conversation.

Messaging Has to Hit the Team Before the Client: If your team is not bought into the concept of building meaningful landscapes and great partnerships, the message will not land with clients. Culture has to be simplified around adding value, not selling.

Property Managers Hire You for Three Things: Reduce risk, identify opportunity, and make their job easy. That's it. Everything else is secondary. The mention of slip and falls, compliance issues, and operating expense matters more than aesthetics.

Use a One, Three, and Five Year Roadmap: Long-range plans help clients budget, help them justify spending to stakeholders, and stop you from chasing reactive proposals. Combine that with annual sales campaigns and your year sells itself.

Three Calendars Have to Overlap: Operational calendar (when you have capacity), horticultural calendar (when the work should happen), and customer mindset calendar (when they're thinking about it). Miss any one and the campaign falls flat.

Humble First, Trusted Second, Advisor Third: Most companies skip straight to advisor and end up with commission breath. Humble means turning down the blower when someone walks by and listening more than talking. Trusted means doing what you say. Advisor comes last and takes years.

Start Every Meeting with Maintenance, Not Enhancements: Arrive an hour early, walk the property with the production manager, and open the meeting with the work orders you have already created. Once you've earned the right, then talk enhancements. Skip this and you have commission breath.

Protect the Quarterback: Operations exists to clear the field so account managers can run plays. Site walks should be prepped in advance so the conversation can move to value, not chase complaints. Enhancement sales is a team sport.

If We See It, They Pay. If They See It, We Pay: The job is to notice issues before the client does. That's how trust and leverage are built. The minute a client has to point something out, you have lost both.

Hire Slow and Fire Fast Applies to Clients Too: Allied uses the first 90 days of a new contract to assess fit. They have walked away from $500K HOA contracts when the partnership was not right. Bad clients drain operations more than they pay.

The Future of Landscape Maintenance Is Not Maintenance, It's Landscape Management: This shift in language alone changes how clients think about the work, how teams approach it, and how budgets get built.

Reflection Questions

Additional Resources:

BOBYARD 

Aspire

ACE Peer Groups

Virtual Sales Bootcamp  

Grunder Landscaping Field Trips  

The Grow Group   

Grunder Landscaping   

Marty Grunder LinkedIn  

Upcoming Events:

Join Us for a GLC Field Trip (Dayton, OH - Multiple Options in 2026!)

Level Up Your Sales Manager at Virtual Sales Manager Bootcamp (July 8-9, 2026)

Connect with Fellow ACE Members at ACE Discovery (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 #169

While we can't stop executing for 2026, we also need to be doing some strategic planning for 2027 and beyond NOW. In this episode, Marty shares the 3-step process they've used when trying to launch a new service or expand to a new area. He details what the Grunder Landscaping Co. team did to ease into big changes, and what you can do if you're planning to do anything differently next year.

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.

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Key Learnings

If You Are Only Working on This Year, You Are Already Behind: The companies that keep growing are constantly asking what's next. The ones that plateau are heads-down on this season. By the time January hits, the planning window is closed.

Learn First, Test Second, Invest Third: Most owners flip this order. They buy the trucks, hire the people, and lease the building, then try to figure out how to run the new service. Reverse the order and the risk drops dramatically.

Step One Is Buying Information, Not Profit: Visit other companies. Bring in consultants. Attend conferences. Partner with experts. Send your people to training. The goal at this stage is to learn, not to make money. This is the cheapest part of the entire process.

Step Two Is a Pilot, Not a Launch: Run it on 10 maintenance clients. Rent the equipment before you buy it. Assign one crew. Sell some work in the new market before you open the branch. GLC sold 1.5 million in Cincinnati before opening the office there.

One Successful Project Proves Nothing: Twenty projects start to tell a story. Look for patterns. Can you consistently sell it? Will clients pay? Can you perform it at the quality standard you want? What operational problems keep showing up?

Step Three Is Invest, but Only After Proof: Once the concept is proven and you know clients will write checks for it, commit fully. Buy the equipment, hire the team, lease the building, launch marketing. The risk has not disappeared, but assumptions have been replaced with data.

Most Expansions Fail for Three Reasons: The owner moves too fast. The owner falls in love with their own idea. The business has not earned the expansion yet. GLC waited until they were doing 15 million in Dayton before opening Cincinnati.

Expansion Doesn't Happen Because Equipment Shows Up, It Happens Because Leadership Shows Up: Who owns that new division? Who is accountable? Who wakes up thinking about its success? If you cannot answer that question, you are not ready.

Mistakes Are Tuition, but Keep the Tuition Affordable: Marty has tried a Christmas tree stand (mulch by December 22), a power washing company, and a gift basket company. He learned this the hard way so you don't have to.

The Best Reason to Grow Is the People Already Inside Your Business: Mike Rorie told Marty over clam chowder: if you have good people pushing you and you do not create opportunities for them, they will leave. Growth is a career path for someone.

Reflection Questions

Additional Resources:

The Grow Show Episode 165: The Lies That Get in the Way of Growth

BOBYARD 

Aspire

ACE Peer Groups

Virtual Sales Bootcamp  

Grunder Landscaping Field Trips  

The Grow Group   

Grunder Landscaping   

Marty Grunder LinkedIn  

Upcoming Events:

Join Us for a GLC Field Trip (Dayton, OH - Multiple Options in 2026!)

Level Up Your Sales Manager at Virtual Sales Manager Bootcamp (July 8-9, 2026)

Connect with Fellow ACE Members at ACE Discovery (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 #168

In this episode, author Steve Shapiro talks about milestone projects in his career, how people who are different from you push you to be better, and what drives innovation in teams and companies. In his new book, You're Not Playing with a Full Deck, he details how teams often are missing key perspectives with too many alike thinkers. This episode previews that book and applies this mindset to small businesses.

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.

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Key Learnings

If You Only Hire People Who Fit the Mold, Eventually Your Organization Grows Mold: Opposites don't attract, they detract. But when we surround ourselves with people who think like us, we get stale ideas, musty ideas, and the same things we have always had.

Understand Who You Are Not: Most people focus on identifying their strengths. The bigger unlock is identifying who you are not. That tells you exactly which kind of people you need to surround yourself with. The person who drives you crazy is often the person you need most.

Find Your Ray: Steve had a coworker named Ray who drove him nuts, but together they did the greatest work of his career. Not in spite of their differences, because of them. Everyone needs a Ray. Appreciate them, learn from them, have empathy for them.

Organizations Have Personalities Too: Company personality is not defined by the mix of people you have. It is defined by what gets valued, recognized, and rewarded. People leave companies when they do not feel valued or appreciated.

Expertise Is the Enemy of Innovation: Past experience worked in the past. It does not necessarily work in the future. If the world is changing, we cannot keep relying on the same perspectives and the same expertise we have always had.

Relational Conflict Is Bad, Idea Conflict Is Good: Some conflict will always happen when you work with people who are different. Conflict over ideas is productive. If everyone agrees on every idea, you will never do anything new.

Match the Environment to the Person, Not Just the Task: Do not stick people in boxes. A structured person can be creative if you give them a structured approach. A relational person can be a great implementer if you give them flexibility.

Communicate to the Whole Deck, Not Just Your Cult: Most leaders speak only to the dominant culture in their company. Use the four-part rhythm: problem, pain, solution, vision. That hits every personality type.

Most Leadership Teams Are Too Rational: A leadership team full of logical, structured thinkers will miss the relational side. Bring people-oriented and idea-oriented voices to the table and give them an equal voice. That is how you grow.

A Leader's Job Is to Ask Better Questions, Not Have Better Answers: The best question to ask: what problem or opportunity are we really solving? Hit pause before chasing solutions, or you will waste time, money, and energy solving the wrong thing.

In a Digital World, Our Value Is What Makes Us Human: Anything digital is becoming a commodity. Knowledge is a commodity. AI is a tool. The differentiator is humanness, empathy, and judgment.

Reflection Questions

More on Stephen:

Additional Resources:

BOBYARD 

Aspire

ACE Peer Groups

Virtual Sales Bootcamp  

Grunder Landscaping Field Trips  

The Grow Group   

Grunder Landscaping   

Marty Grunder LinkedIn  

Upcoming Events:

Join Us for a GLC Field Trip (Dayton, OH - Multiple Options in 2026!)

Level Up Your Sales Manager at Virtual Sales Manager Bootcamp (July 8-9, 2026)

Connect with Fellow ACE Members at ACE Discovery (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 #167

This episode of The Grow Show focuses on how to run effective sales meetings that actually drive accountability, alignment, and growth within a team. Marty breaks down why most sales meetings fail, the key components of a productive and engaging meeting, and how leaders can use meetings to build stronger sales cultures, improve communication, sharpen skills, and create momentum.

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.

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Key Learnings

The Purpose of a Sales Meeting Is Simple: Create clarity, accountability, alignment, and momentum. That is it. Every effective meeting should answer four questions: Where are we going? What's working? What's not working? What are we going to do next?

Your Team Needs Focus, Not More Information: Most salespeople are overwhelmed, distracted, reactive, and busy. They have too many dials and too much data. A good sales meeting cuts through the noise.

Most Sales Meetings Fail for Predictable Reasons: No structure, they become reporting sessions, no accountability, and leaders talk too much. If you are doing 90 percent of the talking, your team is doing 10 percent of the thinking.

Always Start With Wins: Real wins. Closed deals, breakthroughs, objections overcome, referrals. Recognition creates energy, and energy changes performance. Keep this fast and intentional, five to ten minutes.

Salespeople Need Scoreboards, Not Feelings: Review key metrics every meeting: leads, appointments, close rate, proposal volume, average ticket, pipeline value, follow-up activity. But do not weaponize numbers. They bring clarity, not shame.

The Leader Should Speak Last: Your best ideas are already sitting inside your team. Ask Tony what he thinks, ask Jimmy, ask Oscar. Facilitate the discussion. The mistake leaders make is assuming they always need to provide the answers.

Role-Play Is the Most Underutilized Tool in Sales: Skills deteriorate without repetition. If someone cannot confidently communicate in front of their peers, they will not do it at the kitchen table or in a boardroom. Practice creates muscle memory, just like a tight end running routes.

Never End a Meeting Without Clear Commitments: Vague expectations create vague results. Every person should leave knowing what they are responsible for, what success looks like, and when the next check-in is.

Consistency Matters More Than Intensity: A decent meeting every week beats one incredible meeting every quarter. Rhythm is what creates the culture you want.

Praise in Public, Chastise in Private: Coach with honesty, challenge directly, but never humiliate. Fear-based sales cultures eventually collapse. People perform best when there is both accountability and psychological safety.

Reflection Questions

Additional Resources:

BOBYARD 

Aspire

ACE Peer Groups

Virtual Sales Bootcamp  

Grunder Landscaping Field Trips  

The Grow Group   

Grunder Landscaping   

Marty Grunder LinkedIn  

Upcoming Events:

Join Us for a GLC Field Trip (Dayton, OH - Multiple Options in 2026!)

Level Up Your Sales Manager at Virtual Sales Manager Bootcamp (July 8-9, 2026)

Connect with Fellow ACE Members at ACE Discovery (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 #166

What will separate elite landscape companies over the next five years? In this episode, Marty Grunder shares why the future won’t belong to companies with the best trucks or biggest crews — it will belong to companies with the best operational intelligence. From AI and leadership systems to recurring revenue and client relationships, Marty breaks down the mindset shifts landscape leaders need to make now to stay ahead.

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!

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Key Learnings

Operational Intelligence Will Beat Equipment, Labor, and Design: The winning companies will turn their data, client relationships, and leadership systems into a scalable platform. They will know more, communicate faster, predict better, and execute more consistently than competitors.

Traditional Competitive Advantages Are Becoming Commodities: Equipment is temporary. Labor is unstable. Design is replicable. Marketing is easier than ever with AI. A $2 million company can look like a $30 million company online. Execution consistency at scale is what separates elite operators now.

Good Managers Make Good Decisions With Good Data: Operational intelligence means seeing your business in real time, not waiting until the end of the month. Connect your CRM, estimating, production, job costing, communication, and equipment into one operating rhythm.

Watch the Five Signals: Margin drift, client friction, leadership health, capacity forecasting, and owner dependency. Elite companies track these in real time and make decisions before competitors even realize there is a problem.

AI Is a Tool, Not the Answer: AI amplifies whatever system already exists. A disorganized company using AI just becomes more disorganized faster. The companies that benefit most already have the processes, standards, and clean data to plug it into.

Bet on Recurring Revenue Ecosystems: The future winning company will behave more like a membership organization than a contractor. Focus on lifetime value, recurring services, add-ons, and advisory positions. Manage the entire outdoor experience year-round.

Clients Do Business With You Because They Trust You: When Grunder surveyed clients 25 years ago, they did not lead with quality or creativity. They said they trust us. Operational excellence frees up time to spend with teams and clients, which is how trust gets built.

The Best Companies Will Reduce Owner Dependency: Look at how many decisions require you, how many problems wait for you, how many relationships exist only because of you. Scalability depends on distributing leadership, not centralizing it.

Reflection Questions

Additional Resources:

BOBYARD 

Aspire

ACE Peer Groups

Virtual Sales Bootcamp  

Grunder Landscaping Field Trips  

The Grow Group   

Grunder Landscaping   

Marty Grunder LinkedIn  

Upcoming Events:

Join Us for a GLC Field Trip (Dayton, OH - Multiple Options in 2026!)

Level Up Your Sales Manager at Virtual Sales Manager Bootcamp (July 8-9, 2026)

Connect with Fellow ACE Members at ACE Discovery (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 #165

In the 42 years that Grunder Landscaping Co. has been in business and the 30+ years Marty has been working with fellow landscape pros through The Grow Group, he's seen every excuse. Often the biggest thing standing in a team's way? Themselves and the lies they let become reality. In this episode Marty shares the common self-limiting things he hears, and how teams can move beyond this to be successful this year.

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

Growth Is Not a Straight Line, It Is a Staircase: Growth stalls, plateaus, and sometimes looks like failure right before a breakthrough. Business growth is often delayed compensation for consistent effort. Most people quit because the timeline did not match what they imagined.

The Hardest Thing for an Entrepreneur to Say Is I Need Help: Businesses do not scale through isolation. They scale through leverage: people, systems, partnerships, mentors, peer groups. Trying to do everything yourself eventually makes you the bottleneck.

Growth Always Takes Longer and Costs More Than You Think: Marketing costs more. Hiring costs more. Mistakes cost more. What worked at $5K a month breaks at $50K. Scaling means rebuilding parts of the business over and over again. That is normal, not failure.

Perfection Is Hesitation in Disguise: Ready, ready, ready, aim, aim, aim is not preparation. It is fear. Meanwhile someone less talented but more willing wins. Business rewards execution over perfection.

You Were Not Good at This When You Started Either: If someone can do the task 80 percent as well as you, let them do it. Give your team a shot. They will learn from your mistakes and accelerate past where you started.

Hard Work Alone Is Not a Growth Strategy: You can work 14 hours a day and stay stuck if your positioning is weak or your systems do not scale. The smarter you work, the luckier you get. Build a business where the right work compounds.

More Customers Will Not Fix Broken Systems: Sometimes you do not need more traffic, you need more clarity. Better retention, better messaging, better pricing, better onboarding. Growth does not fix broken systems. It exposes them faster.

The Finish Line Keeps Moving: Every new level brings new complexity. More revenue means more responsibility, more decisions, more pressure. You do not grow by reaching a level with no problems. You grow by becoming the person who can handle bigger ones.

Reflection Questions

Resources Mentioned

Additional Resources:

BOBYARD 

Aspire

ACE Peer Groups

Virtual Sales Bootcamp  

Grunder Landscaping Field Trips  

The Grow Group   

Grunder Landscaping   

Marty Grunder LinkedIn