Best, and biggest

It seems I get asked one question more than any other – what companies are the biggest in the industry? So every year, we poll the industry to find out. We started our first rankings in 1997. The Top 100 list you’re reading this month began in October of that year as the Top 50.

The Lawn & Landscape editorial staff surveyed companies to accurately determine their 1996 revenue. In 1998, we expanded the list to 100 companies. Every year and in every list, we rank companies based on their reported top line revenue for all green industry profit centers.

Many of the companies on that first Top 50 list are still around today. But much has changed. The top company in 1997 is the same as in 2011 – TruGreen. But 15 years ago, the company reported just $680 million in annual revenue. This year’s list has them at $1.1 billion.

And number fifty, the last company on the list in 1997, had a top line of $7 million. Number 100, the last company on this year’s list, reported revenue of $10.6 million.

The second question I get asked the most is how companies can be listed among the Top 100 if they’re bad companies. (I get this one a lot in June.) I have to explain that our list doesn’t describe the hundred best companies, just the hundred biggest. And as we showed in our April issue, being one of the biggest isn’t any guarantee against failure.

But I think there’s a lot of overlap among those two groups – that a majority of the biggest companies are also some of the best, and are true stewards of the industry.

We profiled four of them in this month's issue – James River Grounds Management, Spring-Green Lawn Care, Yellowstone Landscape Group and the Greenery – to highlight the programs and strategies they’re implementing to stay ahead of their competition in the coming years.

The companies are big, yes. But more importantly, they’re trying new approaches and creating new ideas. From personality profiles to succession plans to strategic acquisitions and innovative ownership models, these four companies are examples of what any company – large or small – can do with the right attitude and approach to its market.

Even if your balance sheet is paltry by comparison and your top line has a lot fewer zeroes, you can still use these same ideas to improve and grow in the coming year.