Welcome to the Aspire Case Studies

Fifty years ago, The Greenery Inc. was a mom-and-pop landscaping company with just two trucks and a small team. Now, The Greenery is among the top 25 landscaping companies in the nation and operates in three states: South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida. It’s 100 percent employee-owned with no private equity backing, which creates a unique culture of pride and dedication evident in everyone’s work. The Greenery specializes in large-scale and high-demand projects, such as vacation resort work, roadside mowing, construction installation, and commercial property maintenance. It is currently a $65–$70 million company with nearly 1,000 employees on the payroll.

Founded in 2016, HeartLand is comprised of seven unique landscaping companies that span from Denver to Washington D.C.: Signature Landscape KC, Keesen Landscape, Columbia Landcare, Hillenmeyer Landscape Services, JML Landscape Management, Heritage Landscape Service, and Landscape Concepts Management. These companies specialize in commercial maintenance, including snow removal, plant care, and irrigation system maintenance. David Tribble is the Aspire director at HeartLand. His team works with each of HeartLand’s companies to ensure the Aspire platform is implemented smoothly and that each team understands how to optimize the product.

Landscape Workshop was founded in Birmingham, Alabama in 1984 and sold to McKinney Capital in 2012. Since then, the company has expanded exponentially and now covers much of the southeast United States, with 644 employees in nine branches across Alabama, Tennessee, Kentucky, and Florida. The company does approximately $46MM in annual revenue and grew 20% from 2017-2018. In 2018, Lawn and Landscape named it the 38th largest landscaping company in the country. With that robust growth came increased complexity. Starting in 2014, CEO JT Price and VP of Ops Paul Young implemented an incentive program to help unify the company around two key metrics: the bottom line and customer retention. Price’s goal was to empower his team to think like owners. In practice, this meant managing an increasingly complex workload and tracking more metrics. Meanwhile, the back office was starting to scramble. With no streamlined systems, they were operating on an assortment of Google docs and spreadsheets synced to a shared drive. “For a company that was growing at the rate we were, it made me nervous,” said VP of Finance Christianna Rudder.

Signature Landscape is a grounds and snow maintenance company specializing in commercial maintenance and high-end multifamily sites. It was founded in 1989 by Bill Gordon, who dreamt that one day the company he started in his garage would provide the best grounds maintenance service in Kansas City. Now, Signature Landscape is headquartered in a purpose-built facility in Olathe, Kansas. With branches all over Kansas City and a team of 300 landscape professionals, Signature is a $30 million dollar company. Since its inception, Signature’s team has focused on delivering quality customer communication and services through landscape best practices.

Belknap Landscape was founded over 30 years ago as a design/build firm and eventually expanded to include a maintenance division. Today, the company serves a mix of commercial and high-end residential properties around Squam Lake and Lake Winnipesaukee in the Lakes Region of New Hampshire. At peak season, Belknap employees 90–100 people. Despite having a strong market presence for over three decades, Belknap found its revenue was stagnant, hovering between $7.0 and $7.3 million in annual revenue since the mid-2010s. “We just weren’t efficient in the field,” explains Andrew Morse, head of recurring services at Belknap. “It took too long to collect and collate data, and our account managers didn’t have the tools to understand job tracking and renewals. That’s when we started looking for a business management solution.”

Aric Budden started DBL Landscaping in 2006 in Tempe, Arizona, focused on performing installation work for residential clients. In 2008, the company broke into the commercial landscape maintenance segment where it found a reliable source of recurring work and revenue. In 2009, Aric decided to specialize exclusively in landscaping for professionally-managed commercial property management. This focus allowed the company to customize their services to meet their core clients’ requirements, allowing for profitable growth. As a result, DBL grew from $2.5 million in revenue, with low profit margins, to more than $7.5 million annually with strong profits. “We went from a shotgun strategy to a focused sales effort,” says Budden.

Aphix was founded in 2003 as Al's Complete Lawncare by then high school student Allen Sweeney in his hometown of Frankfurt, Kentucky. Al grew the company quickly and in 2007, expanded to a branch in Lexington. In 2012, the company sold the residential side of the business to focus only on commercial clients with an emphasis on equine farms. In 2016, Aphix purchased a competitor in Louisville, KY and expanded to a third branch. Today, Aphix provides commercial maintenance to properties that range from 200 to 3,000 acres.

In 2015, Brett Gordon bought a $600,000 landscape business in Oklahoma City. He changed the name to Signature Landscape and, in the six years that followed, grew the company’s annual revenue to $4.8 million. Today, Signature Landscape offers full-service commercial maintenance throughout the city, including irrigation, snow removal, ice mitigation, and installations. In peak season, the company employees 78 people, a number Gordon foresees increasing to 100 in 2020.

Austin-based Sunscape started in 2004 when CEO, Hank Wilson, was mowing lawns. It took 15 years, but the Sunscape team grew the company into what it is today: a leading commercial grounds maintenance company with 85 employees in the Austin and San Antonio markets. Sunscape focuses on large-scale, high-end properties and providing maintenance, enhancements, irrigation and plant healthcare services. Wilson’s leadership style has always been vision-driven with a focus on the strategic as well as the tactical. His BHAG (Big Hairy Audacious Goal), published on the company’s website is, “To be the first choice to customers and employees in every major market in Texas.”