Just like the landscapers who are running their own landscaping business, if you have the goal of growing your business, there are certain key principles that you must follow for those ambitions to be realised. Many will relate to marketing, enhancing your brand, increasing sales, offering world-class customer service, and taking steps to ensure that the first landscaping business anyone in your area thinks of is yours.
What all of those have in common is that they directly impact the profits that your landscaping business makes, and it should go without saying that a business that does not make a profit is unlikely to be growing. However, not all your focus should be on your bottom line, because there are other elements and assets within your landscaping business that will make huge contributions to the success and subsequent growth of that business.
At the forefront of these are the people who work for you and with you and without whom it is probable your business would not be able to operate as successfully as it does. We are sure you treat your employees well, pay them a fair wage, and try to create a great working relationship with them. Despite all of that being laudable, a question you must ask yourself concerns what steps are you taking to develop your employees.
“Have I created a working environment that lends itself to one or more employees becoming leaders within my landscaping business?”
By leaders we mean those who excel at what they do, are ambitious, and have the potential to fulfil management roles that in the future could enable you to take a less hands-on role, whilst others manage your business for you.
If the answer to the question above is “No”, then you are in the majority, which unfortunately means that few business owners are developing their staff and are therefore going to be lacking in leaders now, and in the future. You can reverse that for your landscaping business by taking steps to empower your top employees so that they can be the leaders within your business. Here are four of those steps.
Provide Regular Feedback
Employees who are given regular feedback, including constructive criticism designed to help them, will always outperform those who receive none. Giving feedback shows employees you care about their performance, but more than that, you are showing that you want their career to progress.
Allow Employees To Contribute Ideas To Improve Your Business
If you have an entire team whom you encourage to make suggestions on how to improve their work and the business as a whole, you will have more and much better ideas than if it is only your ideas you have. This makes ambitious employees feel as though they have a vested interest in your business’s success.
Provide Structured Training And Mentoring
Businesses that have planned training that extends to employees being mentored by the business owner or a senior manager, will invariably have greater success than those who do not. The bonus is that those trained employees now have greater knowledge and skills, plus they should be keen to learn more.
Allow Employees To Experience Different Aspects Of Your Business
It helps you and ambitious employees if you allow them to experience parts of your landscaping business that they would not normally. This enables them to have a greater understanding of the structure of the business and how all its elements interact and make their respective contributions to the business.