Abigail Downer

I would say my parents. Being able to watch them throughout my childhood and now my adult life working extremely hard, having the work ethic they do, and just their leadership and the way that they treat people has been incredible. I've seen it in so many instances, whether it's with coaching, or with the people at our company, or just the way they treat friends. They are amazing role models who really know how to be successful, how to work hard, and how to scale a business, but they also really make sure that people are at the forefront of that. They're not just growing without thinking about our people and caring for them. We're growing with them in mind, and we want them to grow with us. Ultimately, we want to grow so we can give them more opportunities. That mission has had a really big impact on me and just makes our work really fulfilling and gives me a greater sense of fulfillment and greater goals and a mission as well. They've been the greatest mentors, always seeing my potential and doing such a good job at recognizing the good I'm doing while pushing me in a really positive way. They lead by example and are the hardest-working people here, working the longest hours.

The best career advice I've ever received came from an advisor at LeanScaper, the consulting community we're part of. He said the number one important thing with people is to dial into how you feel. For me, professionally and personally, that was the best piece of advice: really putting your ego aside and just dialing into how your actions and your words are making people feel. I think that's super important to me because at the end of the day, I personally just want to help people, and I want them to feel seen and supported, like they have a career path and an opportunity. I just want the people around me to have a positive impact and to bring happiness and joy. I heard this in September, and it's really been something I've been dialing into as a leader. I make sure I'm thinking about how my actions and what I'm going to say is going to make people feel, and making sure it's something positive.

I would say this industry is one that is very male-dominated, but females are really needed in this industry, and females bring such a unique perspective. They are able to have hard conversations, they're able to understand emotions better, they know how to advocate for themselves and advocate for other people. Women also primarily don't have as much of an ego and come in with less of an ego, which is really valuable as well. I just say to women in this industry that you're needed in this industry, and just because there are a lot of males in it now doesn't mean that's going to stay that way. We're really trying to increase the female representation here, and females are needed just as much as males. Don't be afraid to go into an industry like this. Learn as much as you can, but your voice and what you bring matters, and it's really needed.

I would say a big challenge that we face, which is ongoing but getting easier with technology, is having most of our frontline workers speak Spanish and having that communication barrier. We do have people who can translate, but when most of the people in the office don't speak a lot of Spanish and all the people on the front line do, that communication barrier is definitely a problem and it's hard to overcome. Another problem within our industry right now is that a lot of clients are getting bids from five different landscapers, so it's super competitive and makes your turnaround time have to be a lot quicker. It makes it a lot more important for us to explain our value and our why, and explain why they should go with us rather than the four or five other competitors they're also looking at. The competitiveness of it now is challenging. There are around 700,000 companies in the U.S. in this industry, and there are a lot of people who will just go out in a truck and trailer and be super cheap. It's hard to assert ourselves, and we have to explain our value a lot more and why they should go with us even though we're more expensive. The saturation of the market and just how many bids people are trying to get when making a decision makes it difficult.

I would say trust is a huge one, especially here. This is important in my home life and at work. We have a lot of immigrants here and people who don't speak the same language as you, so trust looks a little different, but it's extremely important. Respect is another big thing. Earning respect from people is huge, and not just expecting that in return. Then I would just say empathy. We have a lot of workers with a lot of different backgrounds who grew up in a very different way than I did and have a lot of different things at play that you want to be empathetic towards. You want to put yourself in their shoes and see where they're coming from, and when you learn how to be empathetic, you can just be a better leader. And then just kindness at the end of the day, really caring for people, being kind to them, wanting to help them, wanting to use positivity at the forefront of the way you lead.