landscaper of the year finalist
six weeks later, we sold our house and moved to
Oklahoma."
In the second year of owning the company,
Land was able to double revenue and gain 25
employees. However, despite the success, Land still
faced bumps in the road.
"I believe one of my faults is I tend to be a poor
delegator," he says. "I had no midlevel manage-
ment in place with 25 employees. You learn that
everybody doesn't want to work as hard as you do,
and everybody is not as honest as you are."
The economy started to slow in 1985, and Tulsa
Landscape started to feel a bit of a pinch. "Thank-
fully, I was able to sell off a lot of the equipment
and get premium prices for it because we were
selling before things got bad," Land says. "We rode
that down from 25 employees in '85 to one in '87."
From that point forward, Land was determined
to hire fewer but better-quality employees. "I was
never going back to that original group I acquired
because they cost money. They don't make you
money," Land says. "Hire the best people and sub-
contractors you can. It will always be less expen-
sive in the long run."
The company has continued to grow steadily
with five employees and provides design/build
for high-end residential, as well as maintenance
for residential.
2 6 To t a l L a n d s c a p e C a r e . c o m N O V E M B E R 2 014
By bringing his employees to tradeshows every year,
Land has found he can implement new technologies,
products and materials into all of his projects. He
believes anything outside of the four walls of a client's
home is fair game for his company.
