In this episode, Kevin Keim shares what he's learned in his career, the mistakes he's made, and the tips he has for landscape pros to create great SOPs and manage change in their organization. He shares tips for ensuring smoother transitions when you make a change and for documenting SOPs with low-cost (or free) tools.
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Episode Timestamps
00:30 - Introduction & Welcome
02:40 - Megan’s Background and Connection to Landscaping
04:52 - The Importance of Accountability
10:01 - Skill and Will in Leadership
11:56 - Practical Tools for Accountability
16:47 - Advice for Landscaping Business Owners
22:33 - What to Expect at Grow 2026
My $40,000 Mistake: I Implemented Change Too Fast – I knew this from Dow, I just never did anything with it. It landed very differently after I made my first bungle, which cost about $40,000 in mistakes. That's just what I could calculate. I'm sure there was a lot more residual impact outside of that. The first thing I did when I came in was realize we needed to change our scheduling software. I rolled it out in three weeks. Big mistake.
The Five Steps of Change Management – First, create awareness. Why are we doing this? Second, desire. What's in it for me? Third, knowledge. How do I do this? Fourth, ability. Can I actually do this? Fifth, reinforcement. How do we make sure this sticks? Most people skip straight to knowledge without building awareness and desire first. That's where I went wrong.
Don't Stare at a Blank Screen, Just Start With Something – Whether it's change recipes or SOPs, just start with something. Starting is how you go do anything. We started on paper, flip charts literally, moved to a digital format, and then towards the end we took all of our SOPs and put them in ChatGPT and they could prompt and ask questions. Baby steps are okay as long as you've got that consistent change and you're communicating the vision.
Use ChatGPT to Build Your SOPs for Free – You can go into ChatGPT and say, "I'm the president of a $5 million landscaping company. I'm struggling with how to implement change and get SOPs and get more of my team on the same page. What would you suggest I do?" You will be amazed at the fire starters that come out of that conversation. You can upload documents, ask it to rewrite things in simpler language, create step-by-step guides.
An Employee Who Doesn't Know How to Do Their Job Leads to Burnout – An employee who doesn't know how to do their job leads to frustration, which leads to burnout, which leads to turnover, which is extremely costly. Not having an SOP, a documented one especially when you go to onboarding, is not an option. The biggest freeing moment we had was realizing that holding onto bad employees because you don't have a good onboarding process is what was holding us back.
Paint the Vision of What's In It For Them – You gotta paint the vision of what's in it for them. You gotta get them to understand how it can make it easier on them. People at your company don't want to show up and have you hand them a pack of papers with drawings and phone numbers in a three ring binder. It's all on their phone now. It's so much easier. But if you're used to using paper, it does take a while to get there.
Change Happens in Baby Steps With Consistent Communication – We started with flip charts, moved to digital, then to ChatGPT. Each step made sense for where we were. You don't have to go from zero to perfect overnight. As long as you're making consistent progress and communicating why, people will follow. I wasn't there every day, I was there a couple days a week. They needed to be able to action a plan when I was at a peer group site visit for three days.
Step 1: Start Simple
Step 2: Move to Digital
Step 3: Use ChatGPT
ChatGPT Prompt Example: "I'm the president of a $5 million landscaping company. I'm struggling with how to implement change and get SOPs and get more of my team on the same page. What would you suggest I do?"
Resources:
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