Too much of the business was still running out of my head.
As the company grew, I was still carrying too much of it myself.
I've been landscaping for more than 30 years. And one of the hardest transitions is going from being good at the work to actually running the business.
For a long time, Manzanita was still running off of my head. We had systems, but they weren't always followed. We'd create paper SOPs or planners, put them in trucks and eventually they'd disappear.
We'd hire experienced people and assume they'd understand how we did things because they already knew landscaping. That created confusion.
I had to stop trying to own everything.
One of the biggest changes came from looking at the different parts of the business and asking who actually owned them. When we worked through the four pillars, I realized I owned most of them.
It was too much—and I wasn't doing a great job at any one of them because I was trying to do all of them.
That forced us to look differently at roles, responsibilities and what our leadership team could carry. The Accelerator helped change that mindset across the team. Then the tools—SOPs, workflows, Lean Boards—gave us ways to actually put it into practice.
Our leaders own more of the business, and I carry less of it home.
More of the business belongs to our leadership team now.
This has probably been the biggest change for me. We're giving people real ownership instead of having everything flow back through me.
We've redefined roles. We've made difficult personnel decisions. We've brought in an operations manager. Our production leaders are building processes and taking responsibility for how their areas run.
And when people genuinely own something, they start thinking differently about it. It's been really rewarding to watch that happen.
We're finally working from the same information.
Communication used to create a lot of unnecessary stress. Something would change in the office, another version would be in a truck, somebody on the jobsite would have different information—and suddenly we're playing telephone.
Lean Boards have been game-changing for us. Now the person on the jobsite, the person in the office and the leadership team can all see the same information.
That sounds simple. But when you're running multiple projects and dozens of maintenance jobs, that clarity matters every day.
I don't have to carry as much of the company home.
Letting go has always been difficult for me. When you've spent years building something, your instinct is to stay involved in everything.
But I'm learning that the company gets stronger when the answer isn't always Marc. Our leadership team is taking more ownership. They're solving more problems. There are more moments now where the response is basically, “We've got it.”
That takes weight off me at work. And it makes it easier to actually be present when I'm home.
I can see how we grow without everything getting heavier.
We're growing, but the part I'm most optimistic about isn't just the topline. It's the leadership underneath it.
We're building clearer processes, giving people ownership and getting better information into the hands of the people who need it. That gives us a much stronger foundation for whatever comes next.
I don't need Manzanita to become a bigger version of a company that depends on me.
I want it to become a company more people know how to lead.
