Has the first snow fallen in your area yet? To make it to print, I'm writing this column ahead of when you'll read it. Hopefully we've had a couple of snow events or at least some salting routes by now.

In Ohio, we don't get nearly the amount of snow that some of you do, which means that our team needs to be prepared for snow and ice, but we also need to be prepared in case there isn't much. Our goal is to keep our entire team employed and offer them as many hours as we can during the winter. We don't want to have an off-season, and there are several things we do to ensure we stay busy. To make that happen, we're doing:

Snow and ice management, obviously

Snow and ice is a major revenue driver for us in the winter, and performing this work for our clients brings in money and hours for our team members. When we have snow, we're efficient about taking care of our clients' properties. Our efficiency comes in large part from preparations ahead of time: communicating with clients to make sure everything is ready to go; training team members on any new-to-them equipment; and doing practice runs of routes.

Winter landscaping work

Throughout the year we look for jobs that we could do in the wintertime. Things like retaining walls, dormant pruning, tree work, and other kinds of hardscaping are jobs our sales team is trained to propose and then save for colder months. Even if we work a little slower because of the cold, or even have to tent an area, it's keeping our crews busy and generating billable hours. To make this happen, our teams need to be working to fill our schedule year-round by selling snow removal services and winter work projects, while still filling up our normal landscaping schedules.

Shop work

We'll spend some days working around our shop. In 2024 and 2025, we're working to get our Cincinnati branch open. We'll have team members doing work around the facility on projects we've saved for days when the weather prevents us from working outside. This also includes any equipment maintenance or deep cleaning.

In addition, we use this time of year to invest even further into our team's skills by attending industry events, offering CPR training, or working with team members to help them earn certifications. Again, the key to this is being organized and prepared. We track our equipment, so we know what needs serviced; we know our training and certification priorities; and we reiterate our goals so the team understands what a wintertime win looks like.

Marketing

Some of our marketing tactics require hand-to-hand effort. We have weeks earmarked for our crew to help with door hangers in neighborhoods where we want to build up landscape maintenance route density. We'll do this on days when the teams can't be out landscaping or doing snow removal, so that we're being productive and still getting our team the hours they want to work.

Our goal is to use the winter months to set our year up for success, and we know that we can't reliably count on any one solution. It's possible we'll have a great year for snow; it's also possible it'll be a lighter season. As we look at all the possibilities when making our plans, we try to understand the best-case, most-likely-case and worst-case scenarios. Then we plan so our teams are ready to tackle whatever comes next.

Whatever 2025 holds, we'll embrace the challenges as opportunities because that's what they are: chances for us and our team to learn and grow together. I'm excited about all that the new year will hold, and I hope that you are too. Happy holidays and Happy New Year! 

Marty Grunder is founder of Grunder Landscaping Co. and The Grow Group coaching firm.