I frequently joke that when I was in my 30s and 40s, I'd come back from conferences all excited with new ideas for my team at Grunder Landscaping Co. I'm sure the seasoned members would whisper to new recruits: "Just wait. He'll be at a different conference next week with a totally different list of initiatives." 

It's a common trap, especially during conference season when there's so much to learn. Our industry is fantastic about sharing information, but that makes it difficult to narrow down priorities when we get home. 

That's why I'm grateful to peers, mentors, and teammates who hold me accountable - people who say "Hang on, you said you'd have that training system in place by March 1. What's the status?" As many of you attend events like Equip and Elevate, remember: all the education in the world won't help if we don't go home and do the work. 

At Grunder Landscaping Co., we hovered around $4.5M in annual revenue for years. My team and I had accepted that was our ceiling in our market. But a few things changed that helped us break through, and we'll do $18M in revenue in 2025. Here's what happened: 

1. We implemented Aspire

By implementing Aspire, we had real-time data to make informed decisions where we didn’t before. When the numbers started coming in, we realized some things that changed our business permanently: 

• We had a ton of inefficiencies in our business. When we fixed them, we became more price competitive on commercial work. 

• We had a bias against smaller dollar value services, thinking they weren't profitable. In fact, services like mowing and watering were some of our most profitable while hardscaping projects had lower margins. 

• We could make new services like snow removal and lawn fertilization work within our model. 

These changes had a large impact on our growth because they helped us see opportunities. From 2020 to today, we've more than tripled the size of the business without major acquisitions by doing what the data tells us is smart. 

2. We surrounded ourselves with the right people.

My team and I spend a lot of time around others in the industry, and we've relied on experts from other landscaping companies or from our vendors when we're stuck or need some help. Some ways this has shown up: 

Going to visit companies that do more snow removal work than we do. Seth Pflum and Bill Rosell went to visit teams that we've met through industry events and our ACE Peer Group Program this year to learn from their operations as we expand our snow capacity.  

Asking other experts to review our plans. We've also relied heavily on our vendors for their expertise - as trends change or we offer new services, we go directly to people like our representative at SiteOne for up-to-date advice and guidance.  

3. We Got Accountable.

One of my favorite books to recommend to people is Winning with Accountability because it's a quick read and the lessons are so applicable no matter your role within a company. Accountability is huge for success, and this book really outlines a framework that works well for holding ourselves accountable. 

But that's often not enough, we also need others to hold us accountable to what we say we'll do. It helps us to stick with the plan even when it gets hard. It's why accountability is so central to the design of our ACE Peer Group Program - the biggest barrier to success in this industry is often just sticking with what we say we're going to do. 

As you attend industry events this season, keep this in mind: spend the slower months looking at what your data is telling you, meeting people who can help you grow, and building systems of accountability. One way to do that is through an ACE Peer Group. If you're interested in joining one in 2026, ACE Discovery is happening this month in Park City, UT and again in March in New Orleans. Get in touch! 

Marty Grunder
Founder & CEO
The Grow Group & Grunder Landscaping Co.

P.S. My team and I have a busy winter ahead, and I'd love to meet more of you in person! Say hello to us this week at NALP's Elevate - I'm teaching a breakout session on Wednesday and we have a booth on the expo floor or catch me on stage at Brian Fullerton's Lawntrepreneur Academy Live on Saturday, November 8.