Our new Green Industry Greatness blog brings you advice and insights from some of the best that the Green industry has to offer. This week features Brian Wester who is the Regional VP at Yellowstone Landscape Company. I hope you enjoy!
What is the most important lesson that the green industry has taught you?
It’s not about cutting grass and planting trees, it is all about building and developing high performing teams that must have aligned goals in order to be successful.
Who has been the most influential person in your career and how have they helped you?
It is hard to pick one single person because I have been fortunate to work with some great people. Prior to the Yellowstone brand conversion, we were branded as Austin Outdoor and Eddie Schatz was the founder. Eddie taught me the importance of quality and service. When Eddie exited the business, Bill Dellecker stepped in and taught me a ton about focusing on the people in the business as well as building strong relationships with customers. Today I work with Tim Portland and he has done a great job of developing our strategy, refining it down to 5 key operating priorities, and creating the alignment necessary to ensure that message is crystal clear throughout the organization.
What is the biggest mistake you have made and what did you learn from it?
When I’ve known that I have a personnel problem and not dealing with it immediately. Same goes with customers, if we have a bad contract or an unreasonable customer. What I learned is they don’t fix themselves and can become very expensive!
What is the biggest mistake that you see people or companies make?
From a financial standpoint, it would be not knowing or understanding their cost, especially labor. Addressing those rising cost with their customers and contracts.
What is the best way to have happy customers?
Easy…..do what you say you are going to do. Show up on time, follow through on commitments, and communicate if there are changes.
What is the best way to drive profitability?
Measure/track what is important to your business as close to real-time as possible. Have this information visible to your management team and communicate about it often with the team. Adapt and makes changes based on that data.
What is the best way to drive growth?
Would change the question to “profitable growth.” Build an all-star sales team who’s compensation is aligned with the goals of the operators. Measure/track activity and results to hold the team accountable. The other side of that coin is retaining a very high percentage of the existing customer base.
What is the most important attribute of a leader?
I don’t think there is one, there has to be a balance of: Vision, Communication, People Skills, Character, Boldness, and a Serving Heart.