The leaves are almost cleaned up, the mowers are getting winterized, and the pace is finally starting to slow down. There's one job I'd put at the top of your list before the snow flies and the holidays take over: clean out the shop.

Every estimate is a prediction. Ours start with kits in Aspire that standardize how we estimate, make sure we don’t miss details, and help our newer salespeople estimate as consistently as our experienced ones. Then our crews go out and try to do that work within the hours we bid.

I think if I looked back at a map of the topics we’ve covered this year in this Great Idea, sales would probably take the lead as our most talked about. It’s for good reason: it’s one of the biggest struggles we’ve had at Grunder Landscaping Co. this year, and I know we’re not alone in that. We’re hearing from our ACE.

Marty and I were recently in Savannah, GA for a site visit ahead of GROW! 2027 on February 17-19. We were seeing the event space at the Savannah Convention Center (it’s awesome), checking out the hotels (also great), and visiting with the team at Coastal Shores Landscape (you’ll be impressed).

When I first started out in the business, and for longer than I’m proud to admit, we often priced our jobs based on our gut feelings. We’d do our best to plan out how long a job would take, and then we’d add a contingency fund just in case.

I recently had my friends Rob and Jessie Shrieve on The Grow Show. They own Coastal Shores Landscape in the South Carolina Lowcountry, and they're hosting our tour at GROW! 2027 in Savannah this February. We covered a lot, but one line from Rob has stuck with me: "We're not a culture of flattery."

Last Spring we tried something through our ACE Peer Groups and it turned out to be one of the best things we've done in the 25 years of running these groups. We call it the CEO swap; inspired by ACE Peer Group Facilitator Jim Cali's previous experience swapping branch leaders at Kinkos.

Something unexpected happened last week at Grunder Landscaping: our leads jumped.

A couple of weeks ago, I mentioned that our team had a meeting on the calendar to work through renewals and requoting for 2027. We've had that meeting now, and I want to share how we approach this time of year, because a renewal is one of the biggest opportunities you have and also one of the easiest to waste.

When people come to tour Grunder Landscaping Co. on a Field Trip they always want to see the morning roll-out: the huddle, the stretches, the trucks pulling out for the day. I get it, it's definitely exciting, and there's a lot to be gathered from how we do it. But one reason we have such a smooth morning roll-out is.