19
Leadership
Grunder Landscaping Company
The Kid Was the Best
Marty Grunder started out mowing lawns when he was 13 years old. By the time he graduated from the University of Dayton in 1990, Grunder Landscaping Company had annual sales of $400,000 and six full-time employees. Let's just say that the kid was the best at what mattered most.
He still is. Marty's not a kid anymore, and he has taken Grunder Landscaping Company from his dad's tractor and a push mower that he bought at a garage sale to a reputation as one of the Midwest's most successful landscaping companies.
Marty is so respected in the green industry that in addition to running Grunder Landscaping, he teaches other landscapers all over the country how to take their companies to new levels of performance. He is a speaker, consultant, and coach, and he hosts field trips in which landscapers visit his company to learn about his leadership and management success. I've been speaking to business groups for more than 30 years, and I think that Marty is one of the most effective motivational speakers I've ever seen.
A few years ago Marty hired me to spend a day helping him with ideas on how to improve and grow his company. I don't know how impressed he was with me, but I came away from that day knowing that I had met one of the most effective leaders I'd ever worked with.
So what's the key to Marty's success? What's his philosophy about being the best at what matters the most? I talked with Marty about his approach to leadership, ...
