A cautionary tale

We write a lot in this magazine about companies that are doing well. About companies that are growing, hiring and doing innovative things.

We talk a little bit about mistakes, what our readers and sources have learned, but we don’t tend to report on the bad parts of our readers’ businesses.

But those things are always there – the bad hires, the missed budgets, the underperforming branches. The missteps and failures are always there, even if nobody wants to talk about them in a magazine, at a conference or at the bar.

This month we’re changing that. We’re bringing you a story of a bad thing. A very big, very public failure.

On page 76, we bring you the exclusive story of Juan Carlos Vila, the landscape industry’s version of a Horatio Alger novel. He came over from Cuba as a young man, started a small landscape company with his father and grew it to become one of the biggest and most-respected companies in the field.

But the company got too big, the economy tanked and people stopped paying. Those things aren’t necessarily Juan’s fault. But one thing is: He didn’t act fast enough. He didn’t fire people, trim the business, turn down bad contracts.

“I don’t blame anybody for what happened,” Vila told me. “I’m a leader, and I blame myself.”

Now, we didn’t track Vila down and talk to him just to highlight his failure. His is just the most high-profile example of a story that happened to thousands of other companies across the country in the past few years – and one that will continue to happen to owners who don’t pay attention.

As a business owner, you need to be somewhat divorced from reality. You need to be able to ignore the many bad things that can happen to your business so you can focus on the goal.

A new salesman could steal accounts. You could end the year off by 50 percent. That new branch could never be profitable. Those could happen, but you don’t let that stop you. Not many people can do that.

But after a point, if they go bad, you have to be realistic and let them stop you. Some people can’t do that, either.

These days, Vila works with his son, Ivan, at a company Ivan started in Miami late last year. He admits he made mistakes, but realizes that he can’t change the past. All he can do is focus on the future and the next challenge and goal. Yes, it’s a story about a failure. But the story isn’t over yet.