When Mark Pyrah founded Peak Landscape Inc. in 2005, he leaned on values forged in rural Idaho, where he grew up with six siblings mowing lawns for extra money.

Teamwork tops his list.

“I often tell my team that if there was a grand piano in this room, one person couldn't get it out,” he said. “But if there was a bunch of us, and we all lifted and did it together, we could get it out.”

Peak, a commercial maintenance and enhancement shop in Portland, Oregon, was on its way to becoming a Pacific Northwest powerhouse when it opened a branch in Seattle 10 years ago. 

But soon after, Pyrah ran into a problem that teamwork couldn’t solve. To keep growing, he needed software that could do some heavy lifting.

Peak was still relying on outdated paper forms and spreadsheets. Pyrah experimented with a few service apps, but never found software he could customize to fit his needs. 

“We were maybe a $6 million company at that time, but we were broken,” he said. “Not broke, but we were broken … we needed more organization.”

Everything changed five years ago when Peak turned to Aspire—the cloud-based business management platform built for landscape and field service companies.

Unlocking growth

The move to Aspire paid immediate dividends for Peak, which now has five divisions (tree services, enhancements, maintenance, container services, and inclement weather) and serves the Portland, Seattle, and Vancouver markets with 170 employees.

“It brought visibility into our financial side that really helped us to scale properly, and we doubled (revenue),” Pyrah said. “We increased our gross margin, increased our efficiency with our teams.” 

Some other areas where Pyrah has felt Aspire’s impact:

• Consistent paperwork: As Peak expands, Pyrah said having uniform language for estimates and other forms has been crucial. “Aspire helps us to make sure the templates we use, the proposals we use – everybody's on the same page,” he said.

• New hires: Pyrah said transitions are smoother for incoming talent. “If I hire a new business developer, a new account manager, they just jump right into the process and they get their own dashboard – there's not this high learning curve,” he said.

• Reporting issues: Peak’s account managers visit job sites and do inspections, and Pyrah loves that they can use the platform to immediately submit issues and log any future enhancements that make sense. 

What Pyrah really loves about Aspire are the dashboards. He said every position in the company has its own customized dashboard, and he has “about 127. Way too many.”

But he puts them to use. One example:

“You can filter it and get to the very specific information that for a business developer, say, is specific to him,” he said. “We do our weekly check-in, and he doesn't have to guess what I think is important. We both know based on his dashboard, and that helps him to be more successful.”

Pyrah called Aspire’s tech support “amazing” and was excited when he attended a session at Ignite, the annual user conference for Aspire and FieldRoutes, and heard about some planned upgrades for the platform.

“I have confidence that they're listening to what we're saying,” he said.

For companies considering a visit to Ignite, Pyrah said attending is a no-brainer.

“They need to come, mainly to develop relationships with other people who are having the same challenges you are, because you're not alone,” he said.

Seeing the impact of success

Peak has been humming since switching to Aspire, and the company’s recent 20-year anniversary offered Pyrah a chance to reflect on the success.

“At Peak, I'm probably most proud of our people,” he said. “Sometimes, you don't see the impact you have, because you deal with one person or two people. But when their kids are there, their families are there – you really see the impact. 

“That's what I cherish the most, is just what we are able to provide for our team.”

The values instilled in him back in Idaho – teamwork, accountability, owning your mistakes – haven’t changed. Nor has his vision for Peak. 

“(We want to be) a company that's treating its people well, treating our customers well,” he said. “If we do that, the future will take care of itself.”