The Ultimate Landscape CEO - Jeffrey Scott
Helping Landscape Business Owners to Fix, Scale and Exit their Business
252 episodes
latest
fortnightly cadence
English language
https://jeffreyscott.biz/feed/podcast/
Episodes
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Helping Landscape Business Owners to Fix, Scale and Exit their Business
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Jason Lee runs Skyfrog Landscape, a $3M full-service design/build/maintenance company out of Gainesville, Florida, and sits down with host Jeffrey Scott to unpack a wild few years in business — including overcoming a building fire, being a FNGLA state chapter head, alligator hunting as a side hobby, and rebuilding his leadership team from the ground up. The conversation moves fast between hard-won lessons on insurance gaps, partnership fallout, and operational fixes, all delivered with the kind of dry, no-excuses attitude that makes the episode feel more like a beer-in-hand debrief than a poli
As your landscape company grows, your people challenges evolve. In this episode, Mitch Katz sits down with Katie Magoon, owner of People Solutions Center, to discuss how HR can become a strategic advantage instead of just a compliance function. Katie and Mitch discuss the key HR milestones growing landscape companies face, how hiring and leadership needs change at different revenue levels, and why culture should be built intentionally—not left to chance. They also dive into the true cost of a bad hire, how to define roles before you recruit, and practical strategies for attracting, selecting,
Scott Hollister, Editor-in-Chief of Landscape Management Magazine (published by North Coast Media, headquartered in Cleveland, Ohio), joins Jeffrey Scott to break down the 2026 LM150 — the industry’s ranking of the 150 largest landscaping companies. This year’s list hit nearly $22 billion in combined revenue, up 18% year over year, but the real story is private equity: who’s consolidating the industry, why some top-10 giants are actually shrinking, and how a 2009-vs-2026 comparison reveals just how much the business has changed. They name names, debate organic growth vs. acquisition-fueled gro
Jeff Korhan, founder of Treemendous Landscape Company® (suburban Chicago) and now marketing strategist at TrueNature.com, brings over 20 years of hard-won experience running a residential design-build landscape company — and another decade helping green industry companies sharpen their brand, win better clients, and grow with intention. Jeff went from corporate America (chemistry and oil) to building an award-winning landscape firm, then transitioned into consulting, speaking, and authorship. In this episode, he gets into the strategies that actually moved the needle for his business and how l
If your estimators are buried in takeoffs, passing on bids because there just isn’t enough time, or manually counting plants for hours on end — this episode is going to hit close to home. Jeffrey Scott sits down with Michael Ding, founder of Bobyard, a San Francisco-based AI-powered takeoff and estimating platform purpose-built for the construction and landscape industry. Michael breaks down how Bobyard uses computer vision models (not your typical ChatGPT-style AI) to read complex construction drawings and automate the most time-consuming parts of the estimating process — cutting takeoff time
If you’ve ever fumbled through a presentation, relied too heavily on data slides, or watched your team’s eyes glaze over mid-meeting — this episode is your fix. Jeffrey Scott breaks down why storytelling is the most underrated leadership skill in the landscape industry, and how any owner or manager can master it. Drawing from his hands-on work coaching speakers for the Summer Growth Summit, Jeffrey walks you through exactly what separates a forgettable talk from one that moves people to action. Whether you’re addressing five employees or a room of 500, the frameworks he shares here — including
Troy Clogg, Founder of Troy K. Clogg Landscape Associates, based in Farmington Hills, Michigan, sits down with Jeffrey Scott to share the unfiltered story behind building a $20 million landscape and snow business from the ground up. Troy started the way most of us do — knocking on doors as a teenager, cutting grass four square miles at a time. Fast forward a few decades and he’s closing in on $20 million in revenue, with his first employee still on the crew after 40 years, a supply house built around a hot pink de-icer, and a company culture rooted more in humanity than P&L margins. He pulls b
In this episode, Jeffrey Scott sits down with Ivan Katz, founder of Great Lakes Landscape Design just outside Detroit, Michigan. Ivan’s been in the game for 37 years, but he’s moving like he’s just getting started. They dive into four surprise questions—from what he wants attendees to notice during his new facility tour, to the one thing he believes he does better than almost anyone else (hint: it’s not just design work). Ivan gets real about the hardest transition he’s made: moving long-time, loyal employees off his leadership team and bringing in outside talent without blowing up the culture
In this episode, Jeffrey Scott sits down with Desiree Bouchard, Integrator and General Manager, and Ellen Moore, Director of Continuous Improvement — both from Great Lakes Landscape Design in the Detroit, Michigan area. These two have built one of the most intentional leadership structures in the green industry. Des shares how she rose through the ranks over 13 years, from office support to becoming the obvious choice for integrator when the company adopted EOS. Ellen brings an unconventional background — from nuclear power to an MBA to landscape — and now serves as what she calls “the integra
In this episode, host Jeffrey Scott sits down with Doug Taylor, CEO of Frontiers Design Build in Guelph, Ontario, Canada. Doug shares the fascinating 18-year journey of evolving his business from a landscape design-build firm into a high-performance construction company. He opens up about the real-world challenges of managing two vastly different business models—landscape and construction—under one roof, and how he navigated the financial tightrope to find the perfect balance. Doug also dives into his latest chapter: pivoting into multi-unit affordable housing by applying high-performance buil
In this episode, Jeffrey Scott sits down with Christian Ruf, founder of Uncommon Elite and former Night Stalker helicopter pilot with the elite 160th SOAR, to break down one of the most impressive first years in recruiting you’ll hear about — 78 placements in 12 months, serving construction, home services, HVAC, fencing, foundation repair, and more. Christian pulls back the curtain on why special operations veterans outperform conventional hires in blue-collar leadership roles, how he’s built a headhunting firm that completes placements in days instead of months, and the lessons that surprised
In this episode, Jeffrey Scott sits down with Kelli Anh Shaw, COO of HYRE (HYREup.com), a boutique offshore staffing and virtual assistant management firm based out of Overland Park, Kansas. Just two years old as of January 2026, HYRE has already placed around 80 virtual assistants across client companies and built an internal team of 11 — hitting $1.7M in revenue and proving fast that their model works. Kelli shares the real story behind how HYRE was born — out of a moving company that grew 863% in three years, landed on the Inc. 5,000 multiple times, and then nearly unraveled when the housin
In this Olympics-inspired episode, Jeffrey Scott draws powerful parallels between the 2026 Winter Olympics and running a high-performance landscape business, sharing 10 actionable lessons every CEO can apply right now. From Lindsey Vonn’s fearless leadership under injury to Italy’s surprising rise as a winter sports powerhouse, Jeffrey unpacks how Olympic principles — team synergy, real-time scoring, leaderboards, coaching from the sidelines, and relentless efficiency — translate directly into business wins. He challenges leaders to stop being player-coaches, start building client-facing cultu
In this episode, Jeffrey Scott sits down with Chase Mullin, CEO of Mullin Landscape located in St. Rose, Louisiana, to discuss the strategic decisions and leadership lessons behind scaling a regional landscape company from roughly $5 million to nearly $30 million in revenue. Chase shares how continuous improvement, tough business decisions, and strategic focus helped drive growth — including dropping hardscape services, eliminating residential divisions, and doubling down on commercial maintenance to improve efficiency and profitability. He explains how outsourcing certain services created ope
In this episode Jeffrey Scott tackles the critical topic of sales goal setting in preparation for an upcoming Sales Symposium. He challenges the traditional top-down approach to goal assignment and advocates for a collaborative method where salespeople participate in creating their own commitments rather than simply complying with quotas. Jeffrey breaks down how to structure effective sales goals by type and month, connect activities to outcomes, and create genuine buy-in from your team that translates to resilience when market challenges arise. Register now for our Sales Symposium, which take
In this episode, Jeffrey Scott sits down with Mark Sedley, CEO of Granum, the parent company behind LMN, SingleOps, and Greenius, to explore his entrepreneurial journey and bold vision for the green industry. From knocking on doors as a teenager to leading software platforms serving landscaping and tree care businesses, Mark shares how his background shaped his leadership style, why landscaping is harder than running a software company, and how technology, education, and labor solutions must evolve together. The conversation dives deep into industry fragmentation, the growing complexity of lan
In this episode, Jeffrey Scott steps away from traditional business strategy to explore a more intentional and sustainable approach to personal goal setting for the new year. Rather than relying on reactive New Year’s resolutions, Jeffrey explains why they often fail and introduces a simple but powerful framework built around four core questions: Who do you want to be? What do you want to do? Where do you want to go? And what do you want to have? Drawing from personal experiences, travel aspirations, family life, health goals, and leadership growth, he shares how aligning personal goals with p
In this episode, Dan Simpson, Manager of Product Marketing at Fleetio, joins Jeffrey Scott to break down why fleet and equipment management is one of the most overlooked — yet most volatile — cost centers in landscaping and contracting businesses. Dan shares insights from his hands-on background in construction and years working directly with fleets, explaining how better visibility, preventative maintenance, inspections, fuel tracking, and data-driven decisions can dramatically reduce breakdowns, control costs, and protect margins. The conversation dives into why landscaping companies are als
In this episode, Jeffrey Scott addresses the critical relationship between budgeting and business strategy for landscape company CEOs planning for 2026. He identifies a fundamental problem: too many companies treat budgeting as a checkbox exercise rather than a confirmation of their strategic direction. Drawing from his consulting experience with landscape businesses, he walks through ten common disconnects between budgets and operational reality—from unclear owner objectives to poor equipment management and weak cash flow planning. His core message is that effective budgeting requires intenti
This is a replay of a previous episode featuring Wade and Dustin Vugteveen, owners of DeHamer Landscaping, a $10M+ landscaping firm based in Grandville, Michigan. They do a mix of snow, maintenance, landscape and irrigation. We discuss their history of startups, first with a baseball training business and then in retail. We discuss how hard it was for them early on, and how difficult it is to grow a business as an entrepreneur. These two have taken a series of risks over and over again, which has allowed them to scale their business quickly. Business is more of a “calling” for them as a people
Join Jeffrey Scott for an insightful conversation with two leaders from Aspire: Mark Tipton, co-founder and former CEO, and Eli Zevin, the current General Manager. Mark shares his 12-year journey building Aspire from a skunkworks project into the leading landscape business management software, while Eli discusses his transition from Service Titan and his vision for Aspire’s AI-powered future. This episode explores leadership transitions, scaling software companies, company culture, implementation challenges, and the revolutionary role of artificial intelligence in transforming the landscape in
👉 Register for our Financial Masterclass In this episode, Jeffrey Scott breaks down the complete roadmap to financial mastery for landscape entrepreneurs. Whether you’re running a $1 million or $50 million operation, Jeffrey guides you through ten progressive steps that transform financial confusion into confidence and control. From establishing proper chart of accounts and job-costing systems to implementing gamification strategies and building enterprise value, this episode covers the essential frameworks that separate struggling companies from highly profitable ones. Jeffrey shares real-wo
In this episode, 24-year-old entrepreneur Matthew Woolley, founder of Woolley Outdoors in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, shares his journey from mowing lawns after work to building a company that now generates nearly $4 million in annual revenue. In just four and a half years, Matthew’s success has been driven by his relentless work ethic, willingness to learn, and focus on people. He opens up about his early challenges, key leadership lessons, hiring strategies, and how he manages rapid growth while maintaining balance in his personal life. His story offers practical insights and inspiration for an
Founder Nate Moses of Precision Landscape Management built his $10 million landscaping company in Greenville, South Carolina, from the ground up—literally. In this episode, Mitch Katz sits down with Nate to uncover how he turned a one-man mowing operation into a thriving business serving high-end residential clients across the Upstate region. From working out of a Honda Accord to leading a multi-branch enterprise, Nate shares the defining lessons, growing pains, and pivotal decisions that shaped his journey. Listeners will gain insight into Nate’s leadership philosophy, the role of self-awaren
In this conversation, Phillip Carnuccio, Founder of Clean Peak Landscaping in Westchester, PA., shares his mission-driven journey in the landscaping industry, detailing the evolution of his business from a small operation to a successful $2M model that primarily utilizes subcontractors. He shares his mission driven approach to building his business and impacting his community. He discusses his strategy for building high-impact relationships with subcontractors, the challenges of pricing and financial management, and the significance of mentorship and community in fostering growth. Phillip also
