It’s a list of the 5 attributes that we value most in our employees.
We thought about the most successful people in our company. Men and women who have risen through the ranks and been given positions of great responsibility - Branch Managers, Business Developers, and Senior Account Managers.
What are the traits they have in common?
1. Professional: They chose this industry as a career. It’s not just a job.
There’s a popular perception that people who end up in the landscaping industry just fell into it. Like we’re that kid who started mowing lawns during the summer and it became a full-time job. While there are certainly a number of landscaping companies that get their start like that, our story is different. We formed Yellowstone by merging existing, successful businesses together. We saw a need for a strong, regional company that specialized in creating and maintaining complex, commercial landscapes across the South. That’s what Yellowstone is today, and why the Landscape Professionals who work here are so dedicated to solving the challenges that our clients face in their landscapes.
2. Hard Working: There is no easy button for what we do. Landscaping requires sweat and grinding it out, day after day.
Summer in the South is unrelenting. Average temperatures above 90 degrees and with the humidity it usually feels like triple digits. This is the environment that our Landscape Professionals sign up to work in. They report before 7am and sometimes don’t get back to our shops until well after 5. Fall, Winter, and Spring bring their own challenges. Leaf cleanup, pruning, fertilization applications, irrigation system testing and repair - there’s always something to be done when you work in commercial landscaping, and it’s never easy.
3. Positive Attitude: There are no failures, only opportunities to learn.
Let’s be clear with this one. Working at Yellowstone isn’t like walking down Sesame Street. But we’ve realized that there’s nothing more draining to the morale of a team than constant negativity. If we chose to focus on the things that go wrong every day, we’d be miserable. Instead, we want Landscape Professionals who choose to be positive in the face of adversity. People who are so confident in their abilities, that they see problems as opportunities to demonstrate their competence.
Clients don’t hire us for when things go well. They hire us for how we handle it when things go badly. When an irrigation line bursts, how quickly do we respond? When someone takes a drive through the grass and tears up your HOA’s entry, how soon can we get the turf replaced? When a storm comes through, when are our crews there to start the cleanup?
4. Part of the Team: “We’re all in this together.”
If you’re around any of our branches for any length of time, you’ll here this phrase. “We’re all in this together.” We’ve adopted this mantra because we understand that our success depends on each of us pulling our own weight. From our CEO to front line service crew members, no one is more important than another. A successful client relationship depends on all of us, using our individual skills to create landscapes that will make our clients proud when they drive through their properties.
5. Knowledgeable: As Landscape Professionals, it’s our responsibility to share what we know.
When we look across our management team, about three-quarters of them hold some level of advanced degree or certification that relates to what they do. From Bachelor’s degrees to industry certifications, our Landscape Professionals have accumulated a tremendous amount of knowledge about creating and caring for landscapes. Even after they’ve finished school, they participate in continuing education classes to stay up to date on new technologies and ideas. And they’re applying what they learn, to change how we serve our clients and their landscapes.
It’s a really simple slide. But when we pause for a few minutes to think about what each of these five traits means to us, it’s pretty easy to see why the Landscape Professionals that exhibit these traits are so successful within our company. It’s easy to see why we’ve entrusted them to manage our branch locations, represent us to new clients, and serve our existing clients.
If you’re a student, thinking about what to do after you finish school, we invite you to explore our Internship Program and read about the experiences of our past interns.
If you’re already in the industry and looking for a new opportunity, we invite you to check out our current Job Opportunities and join us.
If you’re a Property Manager in search of a new commercial landscape service partner, we invite you to meet one of our local Yellowstone Landscape Professionals and tell us about what your landscape means to you.
