Scaling From The Start - Dani Friesen - Leaders Who Scale - Episode #026

Leaders Who Scale

Today’s guest started their business with their husband and zero experience in the landscaping industry and ran the company out of a trailer on a farm. Now they operate out of a 4800 square foot commercial space and they’ve grown to 13 employees. Dani Friesen is the Co-Owner and Vice President of Friesen Landscaping. Dani shares how to navigate hiring the right people for your business from day one, three tips on improving your cash flow, and the different ways to show your employees how much you appreciate them.

Takeaways:

• Early on, it’s not always easy to figure out what kind of person would be an ideal employee. Because of this, you’ll likely face high turnover as you filter out the wrong people and narrow your search down to only the right people.
• The most important aspect of finding the right people is finding people that will show up and that care about the outcome of the work they do.
• As your company grows and you find the right people, you need to establish processes so your employees can run the company. This lets you work on the company and not in it.
• You need to buy from vendors that will stand behind you and their products. This will have massive implications for your cash flow, especially for smaller companies working on expensive projects.
• If you’re an expert in what your company does, you don’t need to become an expert in all of the little things that revolve around your company. Find accountants, lawyers, bankers, etc. that you can trust to handle the things you’re not an expert in.
• Put systems in place to track your profit and loss from the start of a job until it’s completed. There are many industry-specific tools that you can use to implement and run these processes.
• It’s important to make sure that your employees feel appreciated. This can come in many forms and can include simply saying thank you, giving an extra raise or company-wide events.

Quote of the Show:

• “I honestly think some of our customers are some of the best people we've talked to and learned from” - Dani Friesen

Links:

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dani-friesen-8265169b/
• Friesen Landscaping Website: https://friesenlandscaping.com/
• Friesen Landscaping Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/friesenlandscaping/
• The Planted Container Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thecontainedplanter/

Ways to Tune In:

• Amazon Music: https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/337eea2a-f8ab-4b4f-8a36-fe4143b5913b
• Apple Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/leaders-who-scale/id1609131634
• Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5PFtdxDlXcnaojG8jJk74T
• Google Podcast: https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cubGVhZGVyc3dob3NjYWxlLmNvbS9mZWVkLnhtbA
• YouTube: https://youtu.be/07gqLp_3QlA

Leaders Who Scale is sponsored by Siegel Solutions, providing world class accounting, advisory and QuickBooks and Acumatica Cloud ERP Services. Learn more at https://siegelsolutions.com/