Executive Profile: Brian Dumont

Executive Profile: Brian Dumont

Brian Dumont Launched Yardnique Based On The Golden Rule

Brian Dumont

It’s a quintessential American success story. Brian DuMont grew up helping his dad in the yard and dreaming of becoming a professional baseball player. Life had other plans though, leading him to go to school for landscape horticulture. Right out of college, he launched his own company and today, 24 years later, he’s overseeing 450 employees and projects in four states.

Brian came up with the idea for Yardnique while dealing with a difficult boss one summer after his junior year in college. So that fall he submitted a business plan to his horticulture professor at NC State. His mission was simple: Start a landscaping company that treats others the way you’d want to be treated.

The key is willing to do whatever it takes to keep my employees. They're such loyal guys and gals who've been with me forever

Not only has this mantra been good for business, it’s been good for employee retention. Brian has watched employees marry and raise a family, then have their own children come to work for Yardnique. “The key is willing to do whatever it takes to keep my employees,” says Brian. “They’re such loyal guys and gals who’ve been with me forever.”

Today, Yardnique specializes in landscaping design and maintenance for property management firms and Homeowners Associations (HOAs) in Florida, Georgia and the Carolinas. But Brian had to work his share of small jobs to get to where he is today.

“Back in 1997 I would do anything to earn a paycheck,” says Brian. “I’d clean gutters, rake leaves, install fences, do plumbing, cut grass, making my way to doing landscape design and install.”

Then one day, he was doing a yard for a homeowner in a neighborhood where she happened to be on the HOA board of directors. She recommended him for work on the community entranceway. “I’m sure I had the lowest bid by more than half,” laughs Brian. “But it was just me back then, and I was willing to do anything.”

His work impressed the association, and soon he got another job from the neighborhood across the street. Business has grown from there. “HOAs are a different world,” he says. “It might just be one contract, but you’re really answering to 500 clients—or how many homeowners happen to be in the neighborhood.”

Brian says optimizing quality and quantity is a balancing act, and he relies on SiteOne for supplies and equipment as well as Aspire’s landscaping business software to keep things even.

“It’s been a gamechanger,” says Brian. “We have seven offices in four states, and it allows us to be real-time with our numbers. Anyone in the field can see if we’re winning or losing at any given time.”

Brian is proud of his team of skilled designers, knowledgeable horticulturists and managers, but he reminds them the key to retaining clients is communicating effectively, providing excellent customer service and delivering a great product. He ends each email with the question: “We are given two gifts at birth: Time and Talent. What will you do with yours?”

For him and his employees, every day matters. “We are in the customer service business,” Brian says. “We just happen to do landscaping.”

We are in the customer service business. We just happen to do landscaping

Contact

10014 Chapel Hill Road, Morrisville, NC 27560

Tel: (919) 388–9878

www.yardnique.com