How a Landscaping Company Systematically Grew Their Sales

Patrick McFadden • December 7, 2019

As the Founder of Indispensable Marketing, it has been an enormous goal of mine to share our expertise and the stories of small businesses we have helped – from landscaping companies to those consulting management firms.

Today’s interview is with Craig Attkisson, CEO of  Green Side Up Landscaping Inc. , a landscaping company that installs and maintains the finest lawns in central Virginia.  

Craig Atkisson launched Green Side Up Landscaping in 2004. While going out on 13 meetings a day to meet prospective clients, he found out what people are looking for and that his ideal clients tended to be people with decent incomes who needed someone to cut their grass. They lived in neighborhoods where not doing the chore themselves was almost considered a status symbol.

But Craig’s ultimate plan for Green Side Up was to cover the full spectrum of homeowners’ outdoor needs — from mowing lawns to designing and building outdoor living spaces.

From a marketing standpoint, spreading the word about services that broad turned out to be a challenge greater than Craig could have imagined.

The Pitfalls of Going in Too Many Directions at Once

First, Craig worked with a marketing company that took a scattered approach to marketing and advertising.

He says, “We weren’t organized. We had someone doing SEO, but we weren’t blogging and putting out new content. I did newsletters in-house. We were listed on Angie’s List and Houzz.com, which is sort of a Pinterest for building home ideas. Those last were two avenues we relied pretty heavily on.”

Craig adds, “We grew every single year, so we had some good systems in place and we do good work.” But he had the nagging feeling they weren’t getting enough bang for the bucks they were spending.

That’s where Indispensable Marketing and Patrick came into the picture.

A Process Approach Begins to Makes More Sense

Craig wanted someone to put the pieces of the marketing puzzle together. He rightly sensed that a coherent, consistent message about Green Side Up on all platforms would yield even better results.

He met Patrick at a networking function through a mutual acquaintance who happened to be Indispensable Marketing’s client and had gotten great results. Craig invited Patrick in for a meeting to see if they’d be a good fit for what Craig had in mind.

Turns out, Indispensable Marketing was.

First Step: Back Up and Look at the Big Picture

Craig remembers, “Indispensable Marketing first made us step back and ask, ‘What do we do well? What do clients say about us? What do we need more consistency on?’ Their big-picture, holistic perspective was great.” IM steered Craig toward things he needed to start doing, things to test and see if they were working, and new things to try.

Craig adds, “Patrick knows he can’t do everything himself, so his role is more of a quarterback. He works with people who are very good at different things. He gets the right people in the right place to get results.”

Next, Figure Out What Your Clients Care Most About

IM helped Craig to determine t what his customers care most about. Craig boils it down to, “ They want high quality to make their neighbors jealous, they want constant communication, and they want to make sure that they’re always taken care of.”

That gave IM a blueprint to map out the most important points to hit with their marketing message.

Then Pinpoint What’s Made You Successful So Far

“Part of our dilemma was trying to narrow down what our services were. IM’s process enabled us to fine-tune them,” Craig recalls.

“Starting out with IM, our service goals were property maintenance, landscaping and hardscaping, which is building patios and outdoor kitchens.

“We were trying to gain work in all three avenues. By the end of the process, we were focused on just property maintenance. We did a good job achieving that, getting more maintenance and less install work. It changed the dynamic of our company and where we wanted to be.”

Eliminate or Downplay Distractions

IM continued to lead the marketing by the business goals Craig set and shifted marketing expenditures and resources to where they needed to go to reach those goals.

Craig explains, “To achieve consistency on all our marketing fronts, IM advised, ‘This is what we’re talking about from a content point of view. This is what we’re trying to gain. These are the touchpoints we need to hit in service delivery, hiring, blog articles, newsletters, with the SEO and the pay-per-click. All the way down the line, these are our touchpoints.’”

Assemble the Best Team

Craig discovered that he needed to change his marketing tactics not only to attract new customers, but also to  attract good employees . “The labor market for the service industry is pretty challenging. We needed to attract quality employees for our teams who could do the work up to our standards. That involved changes to our budget to attract the best.”

Make Choosing Your Company Simple

Since so many people shop for services online, Craig says, “We’ve made online scheduling super-simple for potential customers. Now they get a pre-meeting document so they come to the meeting knowing what we offer and our pricing. They can sign an electronic document to get started. All their points of contact are emailed to them immediately.

“Everything is easy and fast. I’m trying to take all the frustration points out of landscaping. I want Green Side Up to be a leader in making this a great experience for our clients the whole way through.”

When You Plant the Right Seeds, They Will Sprout

Property maintenance is now Green Side Up’s No. 1 focus.

Craig explains, “Our thought process behind that is, if we continue to grow with property maintenance, clients we have a year-round relationship with will eventually want to do design install projects. They go hand in hand.

“So, we longer need to advertise for landscaping. It’s on our website, but we’re hyper-focused on getting more maintenance clients. We know the design builds will grow as our maintenance grows.”

Step Back Again to Savor Your Success – and Plan Your Next Move

Craig reports that in 2019 with IM as a marketing partner, Green Side Up has achieved 21.7% growth. “That’s about $500,000 gross over last year, which is incredible.”

To continue on that trajectory, GSU is thinking bigger. This means carving out a more industry-specific niche where the company can become the leader.

Don’t Just Break Free from the Pack, Lead It

Craig says, “Indispensable Marketing has an incredible process for any business. I would definitely recommend them even for just a consultation. Their consistency with strategy and implementation, such as communication, messaging, ideal client interviews, blog posts, websites, newsletters, the SEO and the pay-per-clicks all drove home the same point, and that set us on our current path.

“Now we’re changing our processes. We’re promoting high communication with our clients. We’re promoting high quality in training our employees. Our message is that we’re a company that’s technology forward-thinking. That’s what the Indispensable Marketing process did for us.”

Want to learn more?  Schedule a consultation  with us so we can talk about how to do this for your business.

The Missing Layer in AI: Why Judgment, Not Just Data, Will Define the Next Era of Intelligence

By Patrick McFadden • May 2, 2025
Everyone is scaling outputs. Almost no one is scaling judgment.

Everyone Talks About AI Judgment. We Built It.

By Patrick McFadden • May 2, 2025
Ask anyone in tech where AI is headed, and they’ll tell you: “The next leap is reasoning.” “AI needs judgment.” “We need assistants that think, not just answer.” They’re right. But while everyone’s talking about it, almost no one is actually shipping it. So we did. We built Thinking OS™ —a system that doesn’t just help AI answer questions… It helps AI think like a strategist. It helps AI decide like an operator. It helps teams and platforms scale judgment, n ot just generate output. The Theory Isn’t New. The Implementation Is. The idea of layering strategic thinking and judgment into AI isn’t new in theory. The problem is, no one’s been able to implement it effectively at scale. Let’s look at the current landscape. 1. Big Tech Has the Muscle—But Not the Mind OpenAI / ChatGPT ✅ Strength: Best-in-class language generation ❌ Limitation: No built-in judgment or reasoning. You must provide the structure. Otherwise, it follows instructions, not strategy. Google DeepMind / Gemini ✅ Known for advanced decision-making (e.g., AlphaGo) ❌ But only in structured environments like games—not messy, real-world business scenarios. Anthropic (Claude), Meta (LLaMA), Microsoft Copilot ✅ Great at answering questions and following commands ❌ But they’re assistants, not advisors. They won’t reprioritize. They won’t challenge your assumptions. They don’t ask: “Is this the right move?” These tools are powerful—but they don’t think for outcomes the way a strategist or operator would. 2. Who’s Actually Building the Thinking Layer™? This is where it gets interesting—and thin. Startups and Indie Builders Some small teams are quietly: Creating custom GPTs that mimic how experts reason Layering in business context, priorities, and tradeoffs Embedding decision logic so AI can guide, not just execute But these efforts are: Highly manual Difficult to scale Fragmented and experimental Enterprise Experiments A few companies (Salesforce, HubSpot, and others) are exploring more “judgment-aware” AI copilots. These systems can: Flag inconsistencies Recommend next actions Occasionally surface priorities based on internal logic But most of it is still: In early R&D Custom-coded Unproven beyond narrow use cases That’s Why Thinking OS™ Is Different Instead of waiting for a lab to crack it, we built a modular thinking system that installs like infrastructure. Thinking OS™: Captures how real experts reason Embeds judgment into layers AI can use Deploys into tools like ChatGPT or enterprise systems Helps teams think together, consistently, at scale It’s not another assistant. It’s the missing layer that turns outputs into outcomes. So… Is This a New Innovation? Yes—in practice. Everyone says AI needs judgment. But judgment isn’t an idea. It’s a system. It requires: Persistent memory Contextual awareness Tradeoff evaluation Value-based decisions Strategy that evolves with goals Thinking OS™ delivers that. And unlike the R&D experiments in Big Tech, it’s built for: Operators Consultants Platform founders Growth-stage teams that need to scale decision quality, not just content creation If Someone Told You They’ve Built a Thinking + Judgment Layer™… They’ve built something only a handful of people in the world are even attempting. Because this isn’t just AI that speaks fluently. It’s AI that reasons, reflects , and chooses. And in a world that’s drowning in tools, judgment becomes the differentiator. That’s the OS We Built Thinking OS™ is not a prompt pack. It’s not a dashboard. It’s not a glorified chatbot. It’s a decision architecture you can license, embed, or deploy— To help your team, your platform, or your clients think better at scale. We’ve moved past content. We’re building cognition. Let’s talk.

We Found the Missing Layer AI Has Been Waiting For

By Patrick McFadden • May 2, 2025
In every era of innovation, there’s a silent bottleneck—something obvious in hindsight, but elusive until the moment it clicks. In today’s AI-driven world, that bottleneck is clear: AI has speed. It has scale. But it doesn’t have judgment . It doesn’t really think . What’s Actually Missing From AI? When experts talk about the “thinking and judgment layer” as the next leap for AI, they’re calling out a hard truth: Modern AI systems are powerful pattern machines. But they’re missing the human layer—the one that reasons, weighs tradeoffs, and makes strategic decisions in context. Let’s break that down: 1. The Thinking Layer = Reasoning with Purpose This layer doesn’t just process inputs— it structures logic. It’s the ability to: Ask the right questions before acting Break down complexity into solvable parts Adjust direction mid-course when reality changes Think beyond “what was asked” to uncover “what really matters” Today’s AI responds. But it rarely reflects. Unless told exactly what to do, it won’t work through problems the way a strategist or operator would. 2. The Judgment Layer = Decision-Making in the Gray Judgment is the ability to: Prioritize what matters most Choose between imperfect options Make decisions when there’s no clear answer Apply values, experience, and vision—not just data It’s why a founder might not pursue a lucrative deal. Why a marketer might ignore the click-through rate. Why a strategist knows when the timing isn’t right. AI doesn’t do this well. Not yet. Because judgment requires more than data—it requires discernment . Why This Is the Bottleneck Holding Back AI AI can write. It can summarize. It can automate. But it still can’t: Diagnose the real problem behind the question Evaluate tradeoffs like a founder or operator would Recommend a path based on context, constraints, and conviction AI today is still reactive. It follows instructions. But it doesn’t lead. It doesn’t guide. It doesn’t own the outcome. And for those building serious systems—whether you’re running a company, launching a platform, or leading a team—this is the wall you eventually hit. That’s Why We Built Thinking OS™ We stopped waiting for AI to learn judgment on its own. Instead, we created a system that embeds it—by design. Thinking OS™ is an installable decision layer that captures how top founders, strategists, and operators think… …and makes that thinking repeatable , scalable , and usable inside teams, tools, and platforms. It’s not a framework. It’s not a chatbot. It’s not another playbook. It’s the layer that knows how to: Think through complex decisions Apply judgment when rules don’t help Guide others —human or AI—toward strategic outcomes This Is the Missing Infrastructure Thinking OS™ isn’t just about better answers. It’s about better thinking—made operational. And that’s what’s been missing in AI, consulting, leadership development, and platform design. If you’re trying to scale expertise, install judgment, or move from tactical to strategic… You don’t need a faster AI. You need a thinking layer that knows what to do—and why. We built it. Let’s talk.
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