Darkest before the dawn

Two weeks before buying his father’s landscape company last year, Clayton Graham suffered a serious heart attack that put him out of work for nearly a month. “We think a lot of it had to do with stress,” he says. “Leading up to it, there was a lot of burnout, and things were just hectic.”

Buying out a family business can understandably be stressful, even if the transition has been decades in the making. Clayton had worked alongside his dad since age 10, and he was only 25 when he became president of Sundance Landscape Maintenance in 2013, after his father’s cancer diagnosis. Clayton was only 33 when, just before closing on the business, he awoke abruptly from a nap one day with chest pain.

At the insistence of his wife, Tiffany, they headed to the hospital — knowing that Clayton’s father, Mark, had suffered a heart attack at age 40. After a medevac flight and emergency catheterization, further tests revealed that Clayton’s heart attack was not a symptom of cardiomyopathy, which he’d struggled with previously, or even clogged arteries. It was just a reaction to the pressure of buying the business, which had about $3.8 million in revenue at that time with 80 employees and 18 crews. Clayton had been handling sales and marketing, account management, and field operations, and even though he was seeing a nutritionist and exercising regularly, the strain of this juggling act caught up with him.

“That was motivation to really get things under control,” says Tiffany, who had to step in for Clayton while he recovered. “We were going in so many different directions preparing to buy the company. We had to make some changes so this wouldn’t happen again.”

Transitioning into ownership

Although Clayton often toyed with the idea of taking over Sundance, buying the company was initially Tiffany’s idea. She started getting involved in the business around 2020, leading up to the couple’s wedding in February 2021. As she observed how Sundance processed invoices, collected payments and ran other backend functions, she recognized opportunities for improvement.

“Everything was so old school,” she says. “They were growing so fast that they didn’t have the time to investigate how to really utilize all the tools they had. We were spending a lot of money on salaries for people to do jobs that software could easily do. We took a step back to evaluate every part of the business, because you can’t grow in a healthy way if you don’t have the processes and procedures in place.”

With 15 years of property management experience (including some properties that Sundance maintained), Tiffany began suggesting changes to modernize and digitize the operation. Along the way, Mark started dropping subtle hints about passing the business down to the next generation.

Finally, one day in the summer of 2021, the newlyweds were enjoying a motorcycle ride when Tiffany proposed buying Sundance. Together, the couple broached the conversation with Mark, launching a year of negotiations to finalize the deal on June 30, 2022. “He was relieved, knowing that the company could stay within the family,” Tiffany says. “We wanted him to enjoy his retirement while we took the business places it’s never been.”

Building trust

Although Clayton’s initial transition into the role of president was unexpectedly abrupt, he had been preparing for years by working alongside his father, both in the field and in the office. But when Tiffany filled in for Clayton after his heart attack, she had to work even harder to build credibility.

“I could see what it looked like from the outside: his new wife coming in to take over the business,” says Tiffany, who became executive vice president. “I didn’t want to come in too heavy-handed or tell anyone what to do. I’m sure they were leery, but knowing the purchase agreement was going through, they knew there needed to be a change.”

After Clayton’s heart attack, Tiffany sat down with the team and said, “I don’t want you guys bothering him or texting him. You need to support me until we know what his recovery will look like.” Instead of giving orders, she asked a lot of questions about how they were doing their jobs and how she could make things easier for them. “I built their trust by being there every day, asking their ideas and opinions, and listening to them,” she says.

While most of the team was receptive to the change, a few employees resisted. That’s when the Grahams realized that the people who had grown Sundance through the first generation might not necessarily be the best fit for the next phase.

Cutting unprofitable clients

After his heart attack, Clayton realized that he had to remove unnecessary stress — which meant parting ways with people who demanded too much energy. “We started with the clients that were adding unneeded stress,” he says. “We decided we’re only going to work with people that we want to work with.”

His decision to downsize wasn’t arbitrary. He began running the numbers on every account to consider the costs, labor and time involvement that each client required. Looking at the math made it obvious that certain accounts simply weren’t as profitable as others. “It wasn’t worth the headache that went along with it,” he says — and it certainly wasn’t worth another heart attack, either.

Some clients were constantly calling Sundance to complain about invoices, dragging account managers into HOA board meetings and demanding extra services without additional compensation. Once they identified these troublesome accounts, Clayton and Tiffany tried troubleshooting. They explained to these clients that, because the ownership had shifted, the scope of work had to be adjusted as well.

“We weren’t just saying, ‘We’re firing you.’ It was more like, ‘Can we figure this out? How can we make this better?’” Tiffany says. “The ones that weren’t willing to help us make it better, we agreed that we need to move on and gave a 30-day cancellation notice. We never left any property on a bad note because we wanted to keep our good reputation.”

For example, some accounts hadn’t received price increases from Sundance in several years — prompting an adjustment either in crew size, hours or rate. One HOA in particular had a crew on-site five days a week, but after running the numbers and realizing they were losing money, Clayton explained that they had to cut back to two days a week at that price. After seeking bids from other landscape providers, the property decided to continue its partnership with Sundance at the insistence of the homeowners who’d always been pleased with their work.

Downsizing the staff

Getting rid of several large accounts presented an opportunity to cut back on extra labor. The Grahams approached these cuts objectively by looking at factors like attendance, performance and attitude.

“We considered who fit into our culture. If you don’t fit in or you’re going to cause issues with other employees, we’re not going to have that,” Clayton says. “Our employees would rather be shorthanded than have a guy who doesn’t get along with them.”

That meant letting go of a few key managers who fought against the changes. But the loyal top performers secured their spots in Sundance’s future and received opportunities to advance.

Unfortunately, these cuts provoked rumors from previous employees and local competitors, who speculated that Sundance was going under. The Grahams reassured their remaining clients and staff that these changes were ultimately for the better, that the company would operate more efficiently as a result. In fact, the cuts enabled Sundance to reinvest in the people who stayed onboard. “We’re putting a lot more of the profit back into them, and they see that,” Tiffany says.

For example, they facilitated team-building activities like games, holiday parties, and lunches with their employees, along with regular performance reviews and incentive programs. They purchased new shirts, hats and safety vests for the crews, and repainted all the trailers bright orange to match the newly rebranded logo. Offloading old and underutilized equipment freed up the funds to buy new tools and equipment — including a new bucket truck for tree trimming that eliminated the need to rent trucks or subcontract crews, which ultimately helped cut costs.

But the best thing they did to build buy-in from the team was engaging employees in the change. Clayton sat down with a couple of crew leaders to document the company’s standard operating procedures (SOPs) for each service, explaining how this would facilitate seamless training and enable crews to cover other properties in a pinch. Then, he asked the crew leaders to present these SOPs to the rest of the team. After that, he saw a “drastic turning point” in the team’s morale as they began to take ownership of the change.

“As an owner, sometimes your ego gets in the way, but there are a lot of people who work for you that can offer some very good ideas and super helpful ways to implement things,” he says. “If you use their ideas, not only does it make them feel valued, but it’s so much easier to get everybody on board.”

Automating processes

After working in high-tech businesses, Tiffany identified opportunities to automate several manual tasks at Sundance.

Previously, for example, it took an entire day to run payroll manually from timesheets. Now, employees use an app the Grahams discovered at the Lawn & Landscape Technology Conference to clock in and out, request sick time and vacation — enabling her to run payroll within five minutes.

Similarly, creating invoices used to be a multi-step process that required crew leaders to email photo attachments to the office along with a list of services performed at each property. Now, the crews use software to simply click buttons next to pre-written service descriptions and upload photos from their tablets, creating weekly reports and invoices within minutes.

Tiffany also revamped the accounting software to calculate project costs in more detail, so the price of each service includes all of the labor, plants, fuel surcharges, and other materials. “The estimates now are way more detailed,” she says. “We’re telling them everything that’s included in the price, and we’re also breaking out parts and materials, which we didn’t do before. By being able to see every single thing that we’re spending and charging, we can adjust the price to make sure we’re actually making money.”

When Tiffany first stepped into the business, she and Clayton were handling constant questions from clients about estimates and bills, but these automated processes have curbed that. “Now, it’s pretty low stress,” says Clayton, who has delegated most of the account management and field operations so he can focus on sales and marketing. “It’s given me a chance to get more into the numbers, so I’m more focused on profitability. I’ve been able to really dig into that and understand what’s making money, what’s losing money, what’s breaking even, and what our costs are so I can make adjustments.”

Positioned for growth

Clayton expects Sundance to end 2023 with $2.8 million in revenue, 40 employees, and 11 crews. Although the revenue is down from last year, profits have multiplied from about 2% margins when they bought the business to 15% now.

“These changes have allowed us to be more productive,” Tiffany says. “Automating the business has made it possible for us to grow without having a lot of growing pains.”

Sundance, which previously focused exclusively on landscape maintenance for HOA properties, recently brought on 13 commercial properties, mostly in the Scottsdale area. “With all these systems in place, we’re able to easily take on 13 properties without having to add any employees,” Tiffany says, although the company is ramping up to hire several more people, including a sales and marketing manager.

While the company is based in Queen Creek, southeast of Phoenix, this recent influx in Scottsdale, about an hour away, unlocks new growth potential. “We’re being strategic with projects we’re bidding in that area,” Clayton says, “so it’s a possibility (that we may) open a second location in the northern part of town.”

Taking a step back to reevaluate the business and implement efficient processes positioned Sundance for future growth. “I know it’s really hard, especially for smaller businesses,” Clayton says, “but pulling back and working on the business instead of working in the business is huge.”

The author is a freelance writer based in Ohio.