Addition by subtraction

For years, Kevin Payne customarily received phone calls and letters in the mail inquiring about his interest in selling his entire business or a service line, particularly the lawn care division he had nurtured through a recession and grown.

It felt like opportunistic poaching.

“I’d rip up the letters and throw them in the trash, thinking, ‘I’m not going to do that,’” says the founder and president of TenderCare Lawn & Landscape in Derby, Kansas, a business he started in 1982 primarily as a residential maintenance and landscape design/build operation.

But the tune changed a few years ago, when Payne began coming to terms with his 70-hour workweeks and entertaining the idea of slowing down to make room for his son, Ryne, to assume more leadership responsibility and eventually take the reins.

The phone rang, once again.

“This time, it piqued my interest,” Payne says.

Time to sell

His next step: contacting a mergers and acquisitions advisor. “I told him, the most important thing in the business to my son is irrigation, so I will not sell anything that has to do with that,” Payne says.

He had already slowed down a fast-paced commercial maintenance division mainly consisting of large homeowners’ associations (HOAs), including the one where Payne and his wife, Cindy, live. She, too, was more ready than ever to taper back on long days managing the TenderCare office.

Turned out, TruGreen’s offer was a real fit, and two years ago Payne considered this and one other offer. “They knew in the Wichita market, we were one of their biggest competitors,” he says, adding that the deal was to migrate employees over to TruGreen and maintain TenderCare’s irrigation and landscape divisions — the latter is Payne’s passion. And now the business can sub out lawn care to TruGreen, he adds.

With a transition to the next generation on the horizon, the Paynes determined bigger isn’t necessarily better and more revenue isn’t always the answer to success. “Back when, the idea was to do everything and don’t ever turn anything down,” Payne says. “I don’t think that’s where it’s at now.”

Just too much

Payne retraces how TenderCare systematically sprouted new divisions to answer clients’ calls for everything from tree and shrub care to pool construction and Christmas lights. When he started the business, it was primarily maintenance and design/build. “Then a few years into it, I grew frustrated because I could not count on irrigation subcontractors, so we fell into that,” he says.

Next came requests for lawn care, so naturally, TenderCare continued growing, adding services and hiring employees. By the 2009 economic crash, the company had about 70 employees. Landscape projects “came to a screeching halt,” Payne describes.

He rewinds to a poolside conversation six months before that at a mower manufacturer outing. He and Cindy overheard some contractors from California commiserating about a drought that had nothing to do with rainfall. “They were complaining about how bad business was,” Payne says.

The Paynes didn’t get it.

“We were having one of our best years,” he says.

Then, suddenly, they were having the worst.

“I learned a lot from that and the importance of paying attention to what’s going on in other areas of the country,” Payne says.

Unwillingly and by advice from a respected industry consultant, Payne shrunk back operations and payroll. Consider the lawn care division. “We tried to keep most of our employees through winter, and our spray guys were in the building painting, cleaning and fixing equipment,” he says. “But when you’re not out spraying and don’t pick back up until the first of March, that’s a big expense.”

It was one the business could not afford if the Paynes planned on sustaining the company, which they did — and do.

Following the recession, TenderCare “dug through it” and eventually flip-flopped its service mix from pre-crash 70% design/build and 30% maintenance to 80% maintenance and lawn care and 20% landscape projects.

Then a few years ago, Payne made a concerted decision to offload more than a half-million dollars in mowing contracts but stay in the game. TenderCare maintained its builder contracts, for which the company installs landscapes on new properties that it then maintains.

But the rest of TenderCare’s commercial maintenance work gently floated to the cutting-room floor. Payne gave each several months of notice so they could collect RFPs from different vendors to find a new mowing maintenance provider.

The Paynes haven’t looked back.

Doing his thing

Ryne started working in the family business officially at age 16, though like most homegrown operations, he had been around the shop and tagging along in the field much sooner. He quickly grew an interest in irrigation. He earned a backflow certification, completed an irrigation journeyman apprenticeship and received a master irrigation certification. “At the time, he was one of the younger guys in this area that had it,” Payne says.

“For me, irrigation wasn’t my favorite part, the landscape projects are,” he says. “Ryne is following a trial that is his own, and he’s really good at it.”

So, when the call from TruGreen lit up Payne’s interest, those two services were off the table entirely. At the time, TenderCare’s lawn care division employed 10 technicians, and each received an offer to join TruGreen with benefits and expected pay, Payne says. “That was really, really important to us,” he emphasizes. “I wanted to make sure they were taken care of.”

A couple of the techs said, “No, thank you,” but the rest transitioned and Payne reports they’re thriving in the nearby branch. This was also a peace-of-mind-maker for Payne. One of the corporate leaders heading up the acquisition told him, “You’ll love our branch manager.”

Boy, was he right.

“He worked for me a few years ago and did such a great job, and because we know each other, there’s a high level of trust when subbing out lawn care for the properties we still maintain,” Payne says.

How things have gone post-sale

Now, two years after the deal closing date, Payne jokes that they haven’t slowed down quite as much as anticipated, and so there’s a recent reprise of this discussion. Regular lunches with his son serve as open forums to share a vision for the future. Payne is all ears.

“His dream doesn’t have to be my dream,” he says. “He tells me what he wants, and I encourage him."

For instance, when a local developer proposed building a new facility for TenderCare—one vastly larger than the existing property — Ryne hesitated. “I’m great where we are at,” he told his dad. “If you want to go out and build a great big facility and do all that…I’m not sure that’s what I want to do.”

Initially, Payne thought, “This would be a lot of fun, even if I was 50,” he laughs.

“It was eye-opening, and I told Ryne, ‘I’m good with whatever you want to do.’”

Curbing the operation to focus on a few services that interest TenderCare the most where it can deliver ROI, realize attractive profits and uphold its reputation for quality is the priority now and moving forward. Payne says, “I can’t wait to see what my son does with the business. He’s a great face for the company.”

Overall, the company will see a decrease in revenue of slightly more than $600,000, they will finish the year about 7% more profitable than in 2023. “We have less staff and less revenue, but we feel very good about the direction we are headed,” Payne says. “New growth will come but in the areas we want to grow.”

The author is a freelance writer based in Cleveland, Ohio.