Year-End Reflections: The Highs and Lows of 2025 of Grunder Landscaping

In this episode, Marty Grunder and Vince Torchia recap what 2025 looked like for Grunder Landscaping Co. and the ups and downs that we saw. There were some great wins and also some lessons learned, all shared in our best effort to help other landscaping teams.

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Episode Chapters:

00:54 - Landscape Pros Playbook Overview

01:48 - Reflecting on 2025: Wins and Learnings

02:19 - Platform: Culture and Growth

08:56 - People: Team Additions and Changes

18:02 - Process: Improvements and Challenges

21:14 - Profit: Financial Insights and Investments

26:56 - Looking Ahead to 2026

30:20 - Please Share & Subscribe!

Resources:

Virtual Sales Bootcamp  

Grunder Landscaping Field Trips  

The Grow Group   

Grunder Landscaping   

Marty Grunder LinkedIn  

Stihl  

Show Notes:

We Added $4 Million and 40 People—Training Couldn't Keep Up – We grew a lot this year. We added $4 million in revenue and about 40 more people. When you grow like we have, you assume people know how to do things and you don't slow down enough to train them. We've gotta train better. We have a saying here that's trust the process, but you can say that as long as you understand the process. I think we have so many new people here, they don't understand the process.

Landscaping Isn't Simple When You Do This Many Transactions – We often hear from people or the inference is that landscaping's a simple business. I don't think it is when you do the number of transactions that we do. Now in lawn care, some of those transactions are $80 lawn apps and you have weather to deal with and all these people and complicated projects. There's just a lot, and when you grow and add new people, it takes a while for them to understand how to do things.

Our Peer Groups Give Us a Reality Check – The great thing about our peer groups is the barometer that we get out of almost 250 companies. That's closing in on one and a half billion dollars in collective revenue. When you're in those meetings and you hear what other people are dealing with, you realize you're not alone and you get perspective on what's normal versus what needs fixing.

Cash Management Requires Daily Review—Not Just Systems – The biggest thing I've learned this year was accounts receivable communication with the team. Yes, it's centralized and yes, we have a process for how we do it, but just because you are not involved in that collection does not mean you just get to put your arms up and be like, well, I'm not getting involved in that. Everybody on the team has to understand who owes money, why they owe money, and what we're doing to collect it. Nothing will ever beat daily review of cash in, cash out, and AR balances.

We've Learned More About Our Ideal Client This Year – We've done a fountain project, we've done a historical renovation of a property, we've landed more commercial snow work this year than ever before. We changed the mission statement to create opportunities for our team to grow and succeed. I think from a platform perspective, we are doing that through looking at our ideal client in a new perspective for the kind of work that we want.

Reading My 2014 Journal: The More Things Change, the More They Stay the Same – I went and found one of my old journals from 2014. I was 42 or 43 years old. I'm 57 now. It's amazing how many of the things are still the same. I wrote "look into Gallup's StrengthsFinder" and "sell more commercial work" and "add our fourth and fifth salesperson"—we have 11 now. The same issues, there's just more zeros after it. You do get better at dealing with the issues.

Mindset Matters More Than Systems – It's the mindset. You go in there in the morning with a smile on your face and a positive can-do attitude, there's a lot you can do with that. You go in there with a foul, nasty attitude and a frown on your face, and nobody wants to be around you. That's just another reminder—there is a lot that's changed, but there's a lot that stays the same.

Reflection Questions

1. If you hired 40 new people this year, what percentage of them truly understand "your process"—and what would happen if you assumed nothing and trained everything from scratch?
2. When was the last time you had a daily review of cash in, cash out, and AR balances—and does everyone on your team understand who owes money and why?
3. If you went back and read your journal or business plan from 5-10 years ago, how many of the same issues would still be there—just with more zeros?