After more than a decade in the landscaping industry, one thing has become crystal clear to me: it’s easy to get stuck working in your business instead of on it. But when I talk to companies that are growing, scaling, and building strong teams they all seem to have one thing in common: they aren’t doing it alone.

They've found in their peers a space to reflect, a community that challenges you, and a structure that helps you follow through on the goals you’ve been meaning to prioritize for years. This quiet support is a game changer for businesses. While there are informal ways to find this, too, in my opinion peer groups are truly the best way to find this help. 

Here’s how I’ve seen the best in the business use our ACE Peer Groups to grow:

1. Accountability That Actually Works
Companies that thrive in ACE groups aren’t just full of great ideas — they’re executing. Why? Because they’ve got real people, from outside their company, who care enough to ask and share: “Did you do what you said you’d do?” and "Based on our experience; this is going to work"

For example, one company from Ohio came into the group looking to professionalize its systems. With the support of their ACE peers, they implemented repeatable job costing for the first time and finally started to understand where their profit was (and wasn’t). Within a year, they’d improved margins across their maintenance division not because of a new product or app, but because people held them to the hard work of doing what they already knew they needed to do and helping with the math and production rates needed to be successful. 

It can be easy to get distracted by shiny new projects, it's much harder to stay focused on the "boring" projects but it can make all the difference. 

2. Seeing Behind the Curtain of Other Companies
One of the most eye-opening things about ACE groups is the company tours. You walk the shop floor, meet the leaders of other companies, and see how another company kicks off their morning start up for the day. It’s not theory or ideas, it’s live and real.

A Florida company that scaled from $2M to $5M in just a few years shared their hiring process during one of these tours. What blew everyone away wasn’t some fancy system; it was how they trained new hires by pairing them with culture champions and holding weekly check-ins for the first 90 days. Multiple ACE members took that model home and rolled it out in their own companies with great results.

3. Real Growth, Shared Together
Peer groups don’t make you magically successful overnight, but they remind you that you don’t have to go it alone.

You get to show up, month after month, with a group of people who care enough to tell you the truth. You share wins, failures, pivots, and experiences. And somewhere along the way, you start to notice: you're not stuck anymore. You're moving forward with more confidence, more alignment, and more clarity.

If you're reading this and wondering if a group like this would help your business, here’s what I’ll say: the companies I admire the most, the ones that seem to grow year after year without burning out, all invest in relationships. They carve out time to think, to listen, and to learn.

ACE Peer Groups happen to be one of the best ways I’ve seen to do that. We'll add new members to our groups during ACE Discovery this fall, if you're interested in joining a group let's start talking! 

Vince Torchia
Vice President
The Grow Group