Founded in 1984, Pleasant Places built a reputation as a trusted commercial landscaping provider throughout the Lowcountry region. But rapid growth brings its own problems, and by the time company leadership reached out to Waters Business Consulting Group in 2017, Pleasant Places had grown from $10 million to nearly $18 million in annual revenue in just a few years — without the processes and infrastructure to support it.
“I have been working with John Waters for around 8 years,” said Gilly Artigues, President of Pleasant Places. “I did a quick google search for a consultant that could help me and my company navigate through the obstacles we were facing during a period of rapid growth… John Waters called me in less than 2 hours. We spoke on the phone for well over an hour that day. After that, John didn’t rush into trying to get me to sign a contract or pay a fee. Instead, he took the challenges I told him about on our initial phone call and called me back a few days later with an honest take on everything and some ways he thought he could help. He impressed me with not only his knowledge and business experience, but with his genuine desire for my company to be successful.”
Growing Fast, But Not Cleanly
That kind of growth squeezed Pleasant Places’ profit margins and exposed gaps the company hadn’t needed to worry about at a smaller scale. There was no centralized ERP system to manage workflow, and accountability among the team was inconsistent. Pipeline visibility was murky, making projected growth hard to plan around, and a high cost of capital was eating into cash flow. The company’s mission, vision, and core values weren’t clearly articulated or aligned with ownership, and roles and responsibilities across the team were disorganized — all classic growing pains for a family-owned business scaling past what its original structure was built for.
Rebuilding the Business Underneath the Growth
Waters Business Consulting Group started by analyzing Pleasant Places’ historical financial trends to build a model for controlling cost of goods sold, margins, and managing breakeven. The company now has significantly higher valuation. That model did double duty — it also gave lending sources the assurance they needed, which led to negotiated reductions in lending fees. From there, the team established systems to track labor hours and materials against budgeted estimates, and reworked the company’s pricing strategy so every estimate was built to hit the gross margins Pleasant Places actually needed.
On the people side, the team identified leadership and management gaps in the organizational structure, created position descriptions aligned with a clearer reporting protocol, and helped guide a sensitive transfer of management responsibility from father to son with defined authority and autonomy. A full ERP system implementation — the industry platform Aspire — gave Pleasant Places real-time visibility into work in progress and trending margins for the first time.
From $18 Million to Over $36 Million, With Healthier Margins
The combination of pricing discipline, cost controls, and regular accountability meetings turned a low gross margin into an average of 42%. With clearer estimates and more confidence in their numbers, Pleasant Places has pursued new projects and maintenance contracts with far more conviction, growing top-line revenue to over $36 million.
Beyond the numbers, the organization now has a clearly defined chart of roles and responsibilities, formalized core values and mission, and a stronger employee review process — all of which have improved accountability, culture, and retention. Employee polling reflects that shift directly: workers now see themselves at the company for years to come. The family management transition was completed successfully, lending relationships improved, and net operating income has shown dramatic improvement across the engagement.
Growing Fast? Make Sure Your Systems Keep Up
Rapid growth is a good problem to have, but only if the business underneath it can support it. If your company’s growth has outpaced its processes, pricing, or leadership structure, a free consultation can help map out the fix.
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