Aaron Whitener

president, ACE Outdoor Services, Flint, Mich.

Whitener says his biggest struggle is a universal dilemma for most — labor. His company has been fighting against it since the onset of the coronavirus pandemic.

“There’s always the employee challenge — that’s always there,” he says. “For us it’s been an ongoing rebuild since 2020. We got hit pretty hard up here…we already had our guys on lower hours with it being March and April, so we lost a lot of people. We’ve had to spend the last three years rebuilding our staffing and getting that retention back. That’s been a big challenge.”

Currently, the company has 120 employees with more on staff during the wintertime. ACE Outdoor Services reached $10 million in revenue in 2023 and expects to grow in 2024.

“I feel like in 2024, it’s started to stabilize for us,” he says of the labor shortage. “We have way less turnover than in 2023. People just seem to be staying with us for a longer period of time.”

And while finding — and keeping — quality labor may have been the business’ biggest challenge, Whitener says it’s also been their biggest victory.

“I think retention has been the biggest win,” he says. “Having someone stay over one year is a good mark for us. They’ve seen both seasons, summer and winter, they’re still here and that’s a success for us.

“It sounds cliché, but it’s all about customer retention and employee retention,” Whitener says. “Those are the two goals that we have this year. You’ve got to have good customers that fit our model, and we have to keep those customers in order to grow. To do that, we have to keep our employees who know the customers and know the contracts and keep them happy.”

With more dependable employees on board, the next hurdle for ACE Outdoor Services becomes growing during a time where customers aren’t spending as freely.

“I think it’s just economics — people aren’t spending as much as they were in 2023,” Whitener says. “I think it’s just tightened up a little bit and they’re holding on to their money or putting it into other places but not their outdoor space…On the residential side, maintenance is good. In the enhancement world, there has been a slowdown a little bit. The work is still there; we’re just having to estimate more projects to get to the goals that we have.”

While Whitener says he is eager to put the upcoming presidential election behind him, he hopes that no matter the outcome, the doubt customers are feeling will go away — ideally, allowing for increased spending.

“It’s just same old, same old,” he says of it being an election year. “The market is going to do what it does. Whoever is in the White House, I don’t think affects (customer) decisions, though that’s after the election. Right now, I think it is impacting a little bit. I think it’s just the uncertainty that people are fearful of. Once we have that election over with, they will either go back to spending less frugally or they won’t. I’m hopeful that after the election they will be spending more.”

Nevertheless, Whitener says he expects good things for the company for the remainder of this year and in the future.

“We have a continual growth projection year-over-year that we’ll modify based on the economics we see in our market,” he explains. “Generally speaking, we plan to just forge ahead and make slow and steady growth. We do want to acquire some other companies if the opportunity arises in the market areas that we’re already in.”

Christian Wynne

talent collector/owner, Gordon Eadie Landscape & Design, Phoenixville, Pa.

The biggest trend Wynne says he’s noticed in his market is having to be more proactive when it comes to closing the deal. Gordon Eadie, which is about 60% design/build and 40% maintenance, earned $5.5 million in revenue in 2023 despite the challenges the company faced.

“Now, we are having to do more order making as opposed to order taking,” Wynne explains. “I think you are really having to refine your sales process and really make sure you’re providing a strong value. I don’t believe it’s always price driven anymore. More often than not, it’s about what the deliverable is and how you set yourself apart from the rest of the industry.”

While the hesitation isn’t always price driven, Wynne does note that not only are customers spending less frequently — but they’re also extremely critical of any increases.

“The challenges are the same as the challenges for everyone — prices have gone through the roof,” he says. “It’s really hard to explain to customers that mowers have gone up 35%, fuel is up, trucks are up, labor is up — across the board are costs have gone up substantially.”

Wynne adds he’d be lying if he said he wasn’t frustrated with customers’ perceptions of cost.

“It’s interesting to me that I as a consumer can go to the grocery store and go get gas and realize that everything is more expensive — but when it comes to landscaping, customers are asking us, ‘Why are your prices going up?’” he says.

Even with concentrating on efficiency, Wynne says Gordon Eadie was forced to raise prices. Thankfully, most customers have been understanding.

“We have had to do some price increases to cover these big fees,” he says. “But mostly we’re trying to educate the clients and explain to them that increasing the price isn’t making us more money — it’s just that the costs of doing business have gone up. About 25% don’t understand it. They don’t understand why their costs have gone up or they think we’re trying to take advantage of people. It’s a hard conversation to have. You want to believe your client is educated enough to understand it’s that trickle-down effect.”

Wynne says he’s focused on the future for Gordon Eadie, and it’s looking bright for him and his 30 full-time employees.

“We are in growth mode right now,” he says. “Not because of the vanity of size, but for the opportunity to impact more of our men and keep them busy and give them the hours they need so they are able to take care of their families.”

Wynne says this growth will be achieved by listening to their clients and continuing to deliver the best service possible.

“I want to ensure we’re servicing our customers the best we can,” he says. “We’ve spent a lot of time in constant contact with them through surveys and reach out calls to try to understand what they need from us, how we can improve our service and what we can do better for the 2025 season.”

Mark Fahlstrom

owner of Oasis Lawncare, Springfield, Mo.

Fahlstrom’s plight is a tale as old as time — plenty of work and not enough people to do it all.

“The market is good out here,” Fahlstrom says. “I don’t really have any complaints. We grew last year and we’re growing this year as well. I’m not having a hard time finding clients at all, but staffing is an issue. I think it’s that way for everyone though.”

Oasis Lawncare garnered just over $1.3 million in revenue in 2023 and employs 25 people. The company is also expecting about 37% growth for 2024.

To combat this common challenge, Fahlstrom has turned to technology.

“We purchased our first autonomous mower,” he says. “We’ve been dabbling in that side of things. We’re the first ones in the area to dive into it. I haven’t seen any of our competition with them yet.”

The consensus has been “so far, so good,” Fahlstrom reports.

“I honestly love it,” he says. “I like to think of it as an employee who is going to show up every single day and we don’t have to worry about it calling in sick or anything like that.”

It was the lack of labor that led Fahlstrom to take the leap into autonomous mowing.

“The biggest motivation was staffing,” he admits. “We were having such a huge issue with having quality staff and with having guys show up every day.”

In Missouri, there’s plenty of great plains that need to be maintained, and that’s where Fahlstrom says the autonomous mower has been most beneficial.

“We use it on a lot of our bigger properties,” he says. “Having that mowing big fields has helped move the process along. I can send one guy out with it. It’s pretty cool technology.”

Fahlstrom adds he’s eager to see where the technology advances to in the future.

“I’d guess within the next 10 years that technology will improve enough that it will make a massive impact in the mowing industry,” he says. “It will continue to help with the labor shortage. That’s exciting to me.”

For now, though, Fahlstrom says he has no immediate plans to move the mower out of the big fields.

“Right now, we just use it in big, wide-open spaces where I’m not worried about it running into a fence or someone’s dog. With a residential lawn, I don’t feel comfortable using it yet. It’ll have to get to the point where the technology, and the sensors and the readings, are more honed-in,” he says, adding that he expects to increase the company’s autonomous mower fleet in the future.

Fahlstrom says he’s happy to see autonomous equipment and other technology becoming more prevalent in the green industry — something he says has been lacking for a while.

“The lawn care industry in general is behind the eight-ball in terms of technology compared to other industries out there, so it’s been great to be a part of this at the beginning stages and help guide this and see it grow,” he says. “Who knows what this technology will produce coming down the road here?”

Jake Reynolds

director of property maintenance, D.W. Burr Landscape and Design, Simsbury, Conn.

From pesticide use to electric equipment, it seems like more and more legislation is pushing green industry companies in the Northeast to evolve and be more sustainable.

Reynolds says he and the 75 employees at D.W. Burr are working hard to stay in front of these ever-changing regulations, so when they inevitably do go into effect, they will be ready and not be left rattled.

“As far as pesticides go, there have been a couple things that have gone to the Senate floor to ban certain products and whatnot,” he says. “A lot of them have failed. I think it’s because we’re starting to see an overwhelming amount of these pests coming in from other countries and wreaking havoc around here.”

While he’s all for sustainable practices, Reynolds does emphasis the importance of some chemical lawn care treatments.

“Obviously, we’re trying to minimize the chemical use and promote the pollinators that we need and all that, but at the same time, we do need to keep things at a certain level,” he says.

Making the move to battery-powered equipment in a time where gas-powered bans are increasing everywhere has been a bigger stumbling block.

“Last year we made a sizeable investment into it,” Reynolds says of battery-powered equipment. “We’re one of the first in the area to adapt to this equipment. We’ve run into some serious problems with this, but we’ve also had a lot of success at the same time. It’s been especially nice in the HOA world and some of the towns that we’re in where they are pushing to ban two-stroke engines.”

For the company, which made $9 million in revenue in 2023 and is projecting $12 million in 2024, Reynolds says the first challenge was the cost of the equipment — something he was hoping to eventually pass off to the customers.

“Some of the issues are the upfront initial costs being significantly higher,” he says. “With our customers who ask us to use electric equipment, a lot of them aren’t willing to pay a premium for it. So, it’s harder to invest into it when people aren’t paying a premium for it.”

Reynolds says the other issues with the equipment are pretty standard and boil down to battery life and charging capabilities.

“The cost is high, the ease of use is nice, but the batteries still need some development,” he says. “We’re working on charging things, too. We’ve tried inverters on trucks, we’ve tried a few things and eventually want to get into having a solar panel on the roof. We have a cyber-tank on all the trucks to store batteries. It’s kind of like a big gas tank that charges the batteries.”

Despite the headaches the equipment may have caused originally, Reynolds is thankful the company made the switch now instead of waiting to be forced to down the road.

“I think it’s been setting us apart that all of our two-stroke equipment has gone to electric,” he says. “We know it’s coming eventually, so the further we are ahead of that — we’ll be successful. We’ll be way ahead of the curve.”

Matt Hines

owner, Hines Designs Landscaping, Soddy-Daisy, Tenn.

Matt Hines considers his whole green industry experience a roller coaster.

Nowadays, it’s just him and another employee who handle all the services they offer, which he says is just about everything but irrigation. It’s all primarily residential work, though he does service a 75-acre horse farm that’s semi-commercial.

At one point in his career, he did expand to multiple crews but shed them in 2009 when the market crashed. He often mowed yards in middle school and high school, then worked for two different local nurseries prior to this business, which he scaled back from its peak during the recession.

As the industry exits the pandemic era, and after some personal life changes, Hines considers himself lucky he didn’t try to take on more workers again. While other landscapers significantly expanded, he stayed put.

“You hear everybody in the world talking about how it’s hard to find people to work,” Hines says. “I’m just comfortable where I’m at. I make a living. I want to be the one out doing the work.”

Meanwhile, some customers are changing how they want to pay for the completion of the services. But, Hines says most of his clientele hasn’t opted for digital payment and instead still pays by check. There’s lots of folks who moved to the region who are working from home, but that hasn’t changed customer expectations in Hines’ experience. They largely keep to themselves and aren’t demanding anything out of the ordinary.

Hines adds inflation is the number one struggle he faces in the industry.

“It’s been a killer,” Hines says. “Lack of ability to find materials on demand has probably been the worst effect of the COVID era.”

Even with that issue and his stance on keeping the company at its current size, it’s been tempting to expand. Hines says the Tennessee Valley area is expanding at three times the rate of the rest of the U.S. They’re building new neighborhoods, and the customer base is more diverse than ever before. And while his specific spot is not a very business-based town, he’s benefitting from the folks who moved to Tennessee seeking lower cost of living.

“The dynamic in our city’s changing a lot. It’s a little town…but the customer base is completely different from what it used to be,” Hines says. “We’ve got brand new customers who’ve moved from all over the country who are new customers.

“I don’t see there being a lack of work in this industry and this region any time soon,” Hines adds, also saying that he’s noticed a lot of natural land like wooded areas quickly becoming hot spots for new neighborhoods. It’s a double-edged sword for him — more growth in the area also means less untouched land.

Andrea Henning

owner, Henning Landscape Management, Burlington, Wis.

It’s been a slower year for Henning Landscape Management, which hovers around $1.1 million in revenue and employs four people.

Andrea Henning, the company’s owner, says the phone’s not ringing quite like it did during COVID-19. While this year hasn’t been a bust, the pandemic was quite the boon, and now the leads are falling back down to earth.

“This year is definitely noticeably slower with leads and stuff coming in,” she says. “We still have plenty of work throughout the year, but the phone is definitely a lot slower.”

Henning says she’s a positive person, but it’s hard to come up with reasons for optimism after a tough year. For starters, it doesn’t help that she’s dealt with troubling weather. “If we go a week without having torrential rain, it’s like a miracle,” she says.

Inflation has hit Henning as well. She says she’s not sure how they’ll update two trucks they’ve had since 2015 because everything’s too expensive. Meanwhile, she’s contending with wage inflation and high competition from companies like Amazon and Uline that are in the area paying decent wages, too. They’ve cut down on payroll but only because they have less employees. This fall, Henning says she’ll evaluate hourly rate, job bidding and more.

“We try to keep raising our hourly rate but at some point, it still needs to be affordable for the customer,” Henning says. “It’s kind of a tough thing right now.”

The company does everything from patios, retaining walls, design/build and even a bit of concrete work. Henning says she’s phasing out mowing though because she’s seen the profit margin shrink on it while others in the area can offer it cheaper to her customers.

Weeding out some of these maintenance clients has been happening organically. Henning says they switched to seasonal contracts last year for mowing instead of per cut. It’s helped streamline their billing and helps them keep track of how often they’re mowing. They’ll skip days if the grass is too brown and dry.

Still, while it keeps steady income coming in, it’s a service Henning believes she’s better off without.

“We’re friends with a lot of other landscape companies in the area. We’re close to Milwaukee, and some of the bigger companies, that’s all they do,” she says. “They have hundreds of different mowing clients. They’re set up to do it fast and efficient.”