As a junior, he and a few friends were hired by a local real estate company. They trimmed and mowed lawns in the summer and after football practice during the school year.
“We were working too hard,” Ziehler said. “I thought it might be a good time to do something on our own.”
The friends decided to spread mulch for $10 an hour. They bought wheelbarrows, shovels and brooms to get started. Ziehler’s father Chris connected them with a mulch sales company.
“I made flyers, and we were in business,” Ziehler said. “My dad really helped mentor me throughout the process and made sure I had a solid start.”
“Mulch Buddies” was launched in 1997. Without a business plan, nor goals for the future, the friends just worked together with whomever showed up.
During his senior year in high school, Ziehler got a job at a hockey pro shop where a customer saw him making flyers for his business.
“He said he had a big mowing company and wanted to sell me a couple of mowers and sub out work to me,” Ziehler said.
Ziehler raised the money to buy the mowers and added that service to his mulching jobs. With that, he changed the company name to Ziehler.
“After high school I went to Sinclair and also started coaching football back at Centerville,” Ziehler said. “I still didn’t have a business plan or a 20-year goal. I was just trying to figure out how to pay for college.”
Ziehler decided he could call himself a success if he earned enough money to put a down payment on a home. And he found himself loving entrepreneurship and everything about his growing business.
“I loved meeting customers and getting the work done for them,” Ziehler said. “At the end of the day that was a reward in addition to making the money.”
As he continued in college, Ziehler found himself less interested in classes and more interested in his business. He eventually rented space from a local landscaping company. He met Kyle Webb, the owner of A-to-Z Landscaping who told him about the National Association of Landscaping Professionals.
“Kyle convinced me to go to my first conference and it opened my eyes to what a business could be,” Ziehler said. “I could grow what I had to create a great career path for my future.”
Over the next few years, Ziehler grew professionally by taking courses related to owning a successful business. He met his wife Dessine, who had an accounting background and joined the business in September of 2006. The couple married in 2009.
“All of my wife’s strengths are my weaknesses so I really wanted her to come into the business,” Ziehler said. “After that we kept networking, and we learned that lawn service was going to be our focus.”
In 2016, Ziehler sold 90% of the business to focus solely on lawn services. Today he admits there are highs and lows in the business but thus far, it has far exceeded his expectations.
The couple set what they call their “big hairy audacious goal” in 2016, of making life more enjoyable for 20,150 people.
“We figured that people don’t buy lawn service just to make their lawns green and weed-free,” Ziehler said. “They are making their lives more enjoyable at the end of the day.”
Building a quality team was then and still is important to reaching the goal. Ziehler wanted to give his team career path opportunities and good wages so they could better take care of their families.
“The 20,150 comes from a customer and a team member goal combined,” he said. “We started out with 5 employees and now we have 50. And we started with 100 customers and now have 8,000.”
Ziehler said they have also learned how to build their brand and market what they offer, which is “unmatched customer service.”
The couple recently accepted an award given to them by the Dayton Business Journal and were recognized as “Family Business of the Year.” In addition Ziehler Lawn Care has been recognized twice as among the “Best Places to Work” in Dayton.
“There is a lot of competition,” Ziehler said. “But we believe that if we build a sound business on good practices and take care of our people, we can compete at a high level. I put my name on the company as a way of holding myself accountable. If I’m going to walk around town with a business named after me, I’d better build a good reputation. It’s been a fun journey, and I enjoy it every day.”
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