Hiring for Values, Not Just Skills: Building a Crew That Shows Up

Daniel Jones • October 1, 2025

Why the Right People Make the Biggest Difference in Your Landscaping Business

One of the biggest frustrations in landscaping is finding employees who actually show up and stick around. Too many owners make the mistake of hiring for skills only. They bring someone on because he can run a mower or trim fast, but a month later that same worker is late, careless, or gone altogether.

The truth is, skills can be taught. Values cannot.

Why Values Matter More Than Skills

A reliable, honest employee with a good attitude can learn equipment and processes quickly. Someone with bad habits or no work ethic will cause problems no matter how much experience they have. Values drive reliability, effort, and how your crew represents your business in front of clients.

What to Look For in Interviews

When you hire, go beyond skills. Ask questions that reveal character:

Reliability: “Tell me about a time you had to show up for something important even when it was difficult.”
Attitude: “How do you handle feedback or being corrected on the job.”
Work ethic: “What motivates you to keep going on tough days.”
Team fit: “What do you value in a workplace.”

These answers tell you more about how they will perform long-term than a resume ever will.

Put Values Front and Center

If you want employees who align with your company, start with how you present the job:

Write job postings that highlight your company’s values and vision.
Share what matters to you in the hiring process so candidates self-select.
Build an onboarding process that reinforces expectations from day one.

Building a Crew You Can Trust

When you hire for values, you are not just filling a spot. You are building a crew that shows up, takes pride in their work, and sticks around. That is how you get stability in your business and free yourself from constantly scrambling for help.

Your Next Step

If you want to learn how to hire the right people and lead a team you can trust, join my G.Y.S.T. Academy on Skool. Inside, we dig into hiring, onboarding, and leadership strategies that build crews you do not have to babysit.

👉 Join the Skool community here and start building a crew that shows up for you.

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By Daniel Jones • October 6, 2025

Most landscapers track total sales, but sales alone do not tell you if you are winning or losing. You can have a record-breaking revenue month and still come up short on profit. The number that actually tells the truth is revenue per hour — how much your business earns for every production hour you work. Why Revenue per Hour Matters Every business only has so many production hours each week. Those hours are your inventory. When you fill them with low-profit jobs or inefficient routes, you waste your most valuable resource. Revenue per hour measures how efficiently you turn your crew’s time into money. It exposes what your “busy” really earns. What It Reveals Underpriced work : Jobs that seem fine on paper but drag down hourly return. Inefficient routes : Too much windshield time and not enough production. Wasted labor : Crews that take longer than the estimate or lack clear systems. Profit leaks : Jobs that look big in revenue but small in margin. When you track revenue per hour, you start spotting which jobs and services actually make sense — and which ones are quietly draining you. How to Calculate It Take your total revenue for a job, route, or week. Divide it by the total billable production hours your crew worked. The result is your Revenue per Production Hour (RPH) . Compare that to your break-even hourly rate — the amount you need to cover all labor burden, overhead, and profit. If your RPH is not comfortably above that number, the job is not profitable. How to Use It Drop or reprice the lowest RPH clients. Focus your marketing on the most profitable service types. Route for density so drive time does not eat production time. Reward crews that consistently hit higher RPH with efficiency bonuses. This is how smart landscapers grow. They do not just add more clients — they make each hour worth more. Your Next Step If you are ready to stop chasing revenue and start maximizing profit, learn how to track and raise your Revenue per Hour using real numbers. Inside my Pricing Fix Sprint , I teach landscapers how to calculate their break-even rate, identify profit leaks, and make every job count. 👉 Join the Pricing Fix Sprint here and start making every hour work harder for you.