From Mowing Yards to Owning the Business: Zach Kessie on Fundamentals, Grit, and Building a Landscaping Company
Student of the Game · Season 3 · Episode 19
From Mowing Yards to Owning the Business
with Zach Kessie, Clounie Landscaping
Brad Noll sits down with Zach Kessie of Clounie Landscaping for a conversation about working your way up. Zach traces his path from a seventh-grade job mowing the yard at a construction company, through laboring in the field and a new direction as a project manager, to owning a landscaping business of his own, with humility and fundamentals carrying him the whole way.
Key Takeaways
- Start where you can get in. Zach's entire career traces back to one seventh-grade chance to mow a construction company's yard. Sometimes the smallest opening changes everything.
- Master every rung of the ladder. From mowing to cleaning the shop to laboring, Zach learned the business from the ground up, and that foundation made ownership possible.
- Feedback is not rejection. Being told he would not be a great carpenter did not stop Zach. It pointed him toward school and, eventually, a project manager role.
- Full circle takes patience. The kid who mowed the yard came back to buy a landscaping business in the same industry. Long games reward those who stay in them.
- Humility is a fundamental. Willingness to do the unglamorous work is often what separates those who build something from those who stall.
Chapters
- 00:00Welcome and Zach's small-town roots in South Whitley
- 03:03What Clounie Landscaping builds across Northeast Indiana
- 07:36Taking over a company with 40 years of history
- 09:09The scariest days of buying the business
- 13:37From project manager to building a sales team
- 18:02Talking to strangers and finding confidence
- 23:37Journaling and leading as the visionary
- 28:31Building great teams and developing people
- 33:02Relationships win in business and in life
- 39:01Family support and how to connect with Clounie
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Working Your Way Up in Construction
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