Many landscaping business owners write job descriptions for crew members, supervisors, and office employees, but often overlook creating one for the most critical role: their own. 

Landscaping business owners wear multiple hats, but being the go-to person for every decision can become the biggest bottleneck to scaling operations.

Whether you’re looking to promote a general manager, bring in a managing partner, hire franchisees, or simply formalize your role, this template offers an excellent way to evaluate what responsibilities are crucial to high-stakes partnership and franchisee roles.

Introducing your landscaping business owner job description template

This template provides clear, structured information about the role of the business owner. 

If you’re just starting a landscaping business, it can serve as an internal management tool to clarify role boundaries. As you grow, it becomes a valuable hiring tool for job postings. 

Key sections include:

• Role summary: A high-level overview of the role’s purpose.

• Job duties and responsibilities: Defines operational and strategic responsibilities.

• Qualifications: Outlines the skills and competencies required.

• Required experience: Includes both management experience and professional certifications.

• Role compensation: Details salary and draws, dividends, and other financial arrangements.

• Application process: Instructs applicants on how to apply.

• Company overview: Offers insight into the company's mission, size, service areas, and team.

Each section is designed to clarify a specific aspect of the job, setting the right expectations for business partners.

How to fill in the template

This template is a customizable resource that you can tailor to fit your business size, service type, and team structure. As you write, remember that clear, accurate descriptions won’t just help you hire—they’ll also help you onboard new management candidates and maintain internal HR records. 

Your description should align with your company culture and brand voice to attract the right business partner or franchisee.

Involve key team members or advisors to ensure your description doesn’t contain any blind spots, and update it regularly as the business evolves. What worked at $3 million in revenue may need adjustment at $10 million, and regular reviews ensure the template stays relevant as you grow.

Why does my company need a business owner job description template?

A business owner job description creates organizational clarity and a more strategic focus. It enables you to think more critically about decision-making authority, delegation, and the business value of your tasks as your company grows and one or more of the following scenarios arise:

• Streamlined hiring: Consistent and clear messaging makes a good impression on potential candidates across multiple job boards.

• Onboarding: Acts as a checklist for onboarding processes and training in critical ownership roles.

• Performance planning: Sets clear expectations for upskilling and performance evaluations.

• Succession planning: Keeps you objective as you compare potential successors.

• Promotions: Helps define where owners can step back when they promote management employees.

• Franchise development: Provides a clear roadmap for potential franchise owners who want to understand the scope of the job.

• Business valuation: Demonstrates to potential buyers or investors that your business is systems-led rather than owner-dependent.

However, the template’s usefulness will depend on the level of detail you include as you complete it.

What information should I include in a landscaping business owner job description template?

Hiring a skilled management team is a crucial aspect of running a successful landscaping business, and a well-crafted job description can help you find the right candidates. 

Here’s an outline of the broad strokes to cover in each section:

Below is a more detailed breakdown of each section:

1. Role summary

Consider this section an introduction to the role. It doesn’t have to be exhaustive, but it should provide a high-level overview of the role’s purpose and the job's demands. 

It should also briefly outline the skills and characteristics of an ideal candidate, introduce the company, and specify whether the role is full-time or part-time.

• Key responsibilities: Briefly mention some of the most mission-critical responsibilities.

• Strategic Initiatives: Describe what strategic initiatives your new hire will be working on.

• Ideal candidate: Include a sentence or two about some of the most important characteristics and skills a key candidate should possess.

2. Job duties and responsibilities

Audit and categorize your current workload. Document each task you do regularly on a daily, weekly, and monthly basis, along with any strategic responsibilities that you attend to periodically. This section can also include travel requirements or working conditions.

• Daily: Staff management, client relationship management, and safety compliance. This can also include physical work on landscaping projects, such as lawn care and maintenance.

• Weekly: Team meetings, job costing reports, performance and productivity metrics, payroll, and vendor coordination.

• Monthly: Financial analysis and reporting, marketing performance measurement, and landscape design.

• Strategic: Annual business plans and growth strategies, market analysis, recruiting, financial planning, and service expansion tactics.

3. Qualifications, skills, and competencies

Define the education, skills, and personal qualities that an ideal candidate should have. You can include both optional nice-to-have skills and mandatory ones. 

• Qualifications: Background checks, physical requirements, clean driving record, industry licenses, and certifications.

• Technical knowledge: Financial analysis, contract law, and regulatory compliance, software proficiency. This can also include operating landscaping equipment such as blowers, tractors, and snow removal vehicles.

• Soft skills: Strong leadership and team management capabilities, excellent communication skills, customer service orientation, and time management.

• Competencies: Strategic planning and business development expertise, complex problem-solving and decision-making skills, change management skills, and crisis management.

4. Required experience

Outline the educational background and hands-on experience necessary for the role. This should include both general landscaping industry experience and specific experience in management and leadership roles.

• Industry experience: 5+ years in landscaping, including 2+ years with a supervisory job title.

• Business management experience: 3+ years managing P&L responsibilities for budgets over $1M annually.

• Education: Bachelor’s degree in business, horticulture, or related field (or equivalent experience).

• Leadership experience: Proven track record managing teams of 10+ employees across multiple locations.

5. Role compensation

Provide a salary range for the role, or mention that compensation is based on business benefits or performance. Mention any insurance coverage, professional development reimbursement, or other benefits, and ensure the compensation structure is clear.

• Owner draws: Regular monthly or quarterly payments based on company revenue (this is the most common approach).

• Profit sharing: Bonus payments at year-end if the business exceeds profitability targets.

• Dividend payments: For incorporated businesses, payments can be based on stock ownership and company performance.

• Performance incentives: Bonuses tied to specific revenue or operational milestones (more common in partnership arrangements).

6. Application process

This section applies to companies hiring someone into a managing partner role or owners vetting franchisees. 

Describe the application process candidates can expect, including interview stages and any background checks, so they’re not caught off guard.

• Resume submission and screening: This stage assesses general financial capacity (for franchisees), background, and experience.

• Interview and assessment: Evaluation rounds cover operational scenarios, leadership experience, and cultural fit.

• Background and reference checks: Comprehensive checks including professional references, credit review, and licensing verification.

• Trial period: 60- to 90-day period with defined performance milestones or objectives to meet.

7. Company overview

Include a short paragraph about your landscaping company’s mission, size, service areas, and team culture. This provides applicants with context to determine whether they are the right fit for the opportunity, aligning their expectations with your business values.

• Company mission: Define your company’s core purpose. What sets your landscaping company apart, and what direction are you aiming to take it in?

• Size: Include your annual revenue range, number of employees, fleet size, and years in operation.

• Service areas: Outline the areas where your primary markets are located, and specify the percentages of commercial and residential properties.

• Team culture: Describe your workplace values, management style, and what makes your company a great place to work.

With this template, you’ll give potential candidates a comprehensive overview of the opportunity, and put yourself in a much better position to assess candidate fit.

What are the primary responsibilities of a landscaping business owner?

Landscaping professionals often do a little bit of everything, and business owners are no exception. Describing your work can be a challenge, but breaking down your tasks into key categories can make it easier:

• Operations oversight: Overseeing daily operations, including crew scheduling, equipment maintenance, quality control, and project management.

• Team building: Recruiting team members, evaluating performance, and establishing compensation and incentive structures.

• Training entry-level crew: Training on best practices for maintenance of outdoor spaces, including lawn mowing, application of pesticides, irrigation systems, hardscape techniques, mulching, and planting flowers.

• Financial planning: Managing budgets, job costing, cash flow forecasting, pricing strategies, accounts receivable, and long-term financial planning.

• Client acquisition and retention: Building client networks and referrals, maintaining key client relationships, and handling major account negotiations.

• Strategic leadership: Setting the company vision and direction, evaluating market opportunities, and planning for long-term growth.

Once you can see the broader categories, it will be easier to identify the skills you need for each one.

What skills, experience, or training does a landscaping business owner need?

The best landscaping business owners usually have lots of field work experience that overlaps with that of a landscaper job role, including:

• Landscaping techniques, such as groundskeeping, lawn maintenance, and year-round landscaping services.

• Equipment operation, including tractors, sprinklers, and trimmers

• Seasonal service requirements, such as snow removal

• Safety protocols, including safe pesticide applications and understanding how weather conditions impact work

However, a landscape contractor will also need the operational skills and project management expertise to manage these projects successfully. They also need skills like:

• Leadership abilities for finding, hiring, and retaining employees

• Strategic thinking for identifying growth opportunities

• Financial management skills to gauge how decisions impact revenue

While formal business education helps, many successful business owners develop their skills through hands-on experience.

After you’ve listed these skills on paper, the next logical question is: what’s the appropriate compensation for this complex role?

What is the salary range for a landscaping business owner?

According to ZipRecruiter, the average salary of a landscaping business owner was between $33,766 and $53,582 in 2024. However, salary data often doesn’t reflect the reality of business owner compensation.

For example, salary data excludes owner-draw models, which are a common form of compensation in which owners withdraw funds directly from the business. 

Owners may also reinvest heavily in the business at some point and draw larger distributions at other times. Or, they might receive dividends or performance bonuses.

In reality, total compensation is likely to be between $60,000 and $186,000.

Before you hire a managing partner, ensure you’ve established a way to track business performance, key metrics, and finances for compensation.

What software helps landscaping business owners with planning and scheduling?

Landscaping business owners need more than just an extra pair of management hands to scale their business; they also need the right processes in place. 

Aspire’s landscape business software is a complete solution for end-to-end business management:

• Scheduling and dispatching: Update schedules from any device and sync schedule changes to crew devices. 

• Estimating and job costing: Build precise, profitable estimates and track job costs in real time to avoid margin loss.

• CRM and sales pipeline management: Get complete visibility into your sales and customer service pipeline, with all communications in a single, cloud-based platform.

• Invoicing and payments: Automate invoice sending as soon as work is complete. View past-due and aging invoices at a glance, and allow customers to pay through a convenient portal that accepts both credit card and ACH payments. 

• Reporting and analytics: See material and labor costs on jobs in real time, and make responsive resource allocation decisions to safeguard profitability.

With the Aspire platform in place, it’s much easier to bring in new owners, promote managing partners, or attract franchisees. They’ll be able to learn established operational processes to scale your business even further.

Over to you

Dividing management responsibilities is no easy task—but a well-crafted job description is an excellent starting point. 

With Aspire’s landscape management software, you can take the next step to standardize operational processes as you grow. 

When new management takes over, they’ll have all the tools they need to schedule crews, manage projects, and monitor growth.

Ready to get started? Book a free demo to see how Aspire can help your business grow.