It feels like Minnesota here in Cleveland. We were in the 30s, so enjoy this Soundgarden gem. If you know the lyrics, you’ll know why we posted this.

A belated Happy Birthday to Ace Frehley (April 27). His old band just isn’t the same without him Have a groovy week!

In honor of the rainy (and snowy) weather here in Ohio, and April Fool’s Day, we bring you a lost Led Zeppelin classic.

A massive chainsaw suspended from a helicopter to trim trees?

You say overkill. I say New Jersey.

It’s spring here in Cleveland, so of course that means a snow storm. Well, there’s nothing we can do about it, except drink more coffee and listen to this Holiday classic.

Start your Tuesday afternoon with a tribute to a great guitarist who we lost 31 years ago today.

Seth Godin explains why you need to choose your customers before you choose your product or service:

It seems obvious, doesn’t it? Each cohort of customers has a particular worldview, a set of problems, a small possible set of solutions available. Each cohort has a price they’re willing to pay, a story they’re willing to hear, a period of time they’re willing to invest.

And yet…

And yet too often, we pick the product or service first, deciding that it’s perfect and then rushing to market, sure that the audience will sort itself out. Too often, though, we end up with nothing.

I talked with George Gaumer, outgoing vice president and general manager of commerical landscape services at Davey Tree Expert Co. about this just last week, and he drew this handy chart for me. (This is a facsimilie; George has much better handwriting.)

The idea is that you can offer new services to your current customers, and offer your current services to new customers, but offering new services to new customers gets you skiing out past your tips.

We covered these topics extensively in our February Grow the Market report. Read it here.

Jim McCutcheon has a simple — but very important – message for landscape contractors on his blog:

We have spent so much time focusing on the “poor economy,” “Obamacare,” “Sequestration,” “Watergate” (Rubio), etc., that we are losing sight of a critical axiom of building a business – you still make the call as to how you are going to lead your company.

Yes, you may need to make some tough calls as to how you are going to successfully overcome the obstacles in front of you.  Sometimes, it means you must make difficult decisions.

Every company needs to have a leader that is willing to be unpopular at times.  That willingness means you have the courage to make tough calls that will lead to better times for all members of the team.  If your focus is on being liked all the time, you can’t succeed.

Seth Godin makes a similar point, but uses a bicycle analogy: The uphill parts of a ride are much more strenuous than the downhills, but it’s only when you’re going up that you have control over how fast you go. Once you crest the hill, physics takes over and you’re essentially ballast.

Now, I look forward to the uphill parts, because that’s where the work is, the fun is, the improvement is. On the uphills, I have a reasonable shot at a gain over last time. The downhills are already maxed out by the laws of physics and safety.

Read Jim’s full post here. Stop thinking about everything that you can’t control and start working on the things you can.

It’s just a Phil Collins kind of morning/afternoon. I remember playing this over and over in a Pizza Hut jukebox as a young lad.

Well, I’ve learned two things already this morning:

1. Costco has a magazine.
2. In that magazine, they featured Mike Kukol, owner of Horizon Landscape & Irrigation, and how he uses a peer group to improve his business.

h/t to Jeffrey Scott for the news.