Growing a Business

“In the garden, growth has its seasons. First comes spring and summer, but then we have fall and winter. And then we get spring and summer again.”

This quote will be familiar to you if you’re a fan of Being There, the Peter Sellers movie about a simple gardener who is mistaken for an insightful financial guru. The story is layered with lots of different meanings, but what stands out for me are the intuitive parallels between nature’s ecosystems and growing a business.

These comparisons are always on my mind, as I’m an entrepreneur by day, and a gardener of sorts on weekends. Many years ago, my wife and I put a few acres of land atop Toxaway Mountain, North Carolina, into a conservation easement with the goal of creating a dedicated place for our family to escape the hustle and bustle of city life and cure the “nature deficit disorder” of modern life. Fast forward more than two decades later, and Southern Highlands Reserve is so much more than an escape. Today the Reserve is a 501c3 operating foundation that encompasses 120 acres of high elevation forest dedicated to sustaining the natural ecosystems of the Blue Ridge Mountains through the preservation, cultivation and display of plants native to the region. We’ve built a team united by a mission to advocate for the value and restoration of native plants and their ecosystem.

Like many a business venture, the Reserve started small and has grown to become something bigger and more impactful than we ever could have imagined, and our “brand” if you will, has become distinguished as “the largest and most diverse collection of native Southern Appalachian plants and their cultivars.”

And, just like any entrepreneurial pursuit, its success is based largely on being the right idea at the right time. Through a combination of luck, climate, and competitive (or in the garden’s case, collaborative) behaviors, the Reserve is flourishing. As a result, I’ve taken away a number of lessons and perspectives that I regularly apply to business.

Every season has a purpose. As gardeners we recognize that different seasons require a different focus. We plant, we tend, and we harvest or enjoy the bounty of a previous season. In the winter, the garden is dormant, but not still – there’s no such thing as stasis in a healthy ecosystem. Similarly, a business can’t grow without investment and innovation, and as we enjoy the bounty of a successful season, we should always be looking ahead to how we’ll take the seeds of the harvest – or our profits – to ensure that the next season is a fruitful one. Finding the rhythm of planning, growth, success, innovation and reinvention is the key to most successful enterprises.

Adapt to thrive. The gardens at the Southern Highlands Reserve offer familiar sights that we anticipate across the seasons – blooms in the spring, and colorful foliage in the fall. But if we look more closely we come to know the rich diversity that makes up the natural ecosystem. Every species contributes something to the health of the region, and each responds in its own way to impacts like climate change. That diversity and adaptability is a powerful metaphor for business, that needs diverse perspectives and a certain amount of nimbleness to survive and thrive. Especially in work like ours at Balentine, which depends on anticipating and responding to constantly changing market conditions, technological advances and the threat of outside forces like pandemics and politics, adopting some of nature’s ability to adapt and recover is important to building resilience into our business model.

Especially in work like ours at Balentine, which depends on anticipating and responding to constantly changing market conditions, technological advances and the threat of outside forces like pandemics and politics, adopting some of nature’s ability to adapt and recover is important to building resilience into our business model.

We’re Better Together. Even as nature is diverse, it is infinitely collaborative. Intricate webs of interdependence are required for an ecosystem to flourish. Businesses can benefit from recognizing the value of interconnectedness and fostering collaborations, whether through strategic partnerships, creating a sense of shared purpose or building networks of collaboration that lead to collective growth, resource optimization, and mutual benefits.

At Balentine, the parallel is in how we’ve built our teams to both specialize and collaborate for the benefit of our clients. As our client’s “Head Gardener”, our job is to oversee their garden’s design -? to plant, prune and harvest - all the while protecting their crop.? We do this by partnering with their team of outside advisors and bringing to bear our in-house expertise in financial, tax and estate planning, managing their money, and providing wise counsel around their business, wealth and legacy.

Fit is paramount. Southern Highlands Reserve is flourishing because our team is deeply knowledgeable about native species, and is committed to returning the ecosystem to an environment that is optimal for our growing region. So just as we won’t introduce a new species, regardless of how beautiful it is, where it won’t thrive, there are brilliant people who won’t end up fitting into your business, either because their skill set is not a good match, or because they are not a cultural fit. Weeding – your garden, and your business – is a skill of discernment you will need. Cultivating a rich diversity of talent that is deeply in tune with your company, your culture, and your industry are critical for your long-term survival as a business.

I’m fascinated by the many ways that our work in the gardens parallels our work as entrepreneurs, and I take a lot of comfort in the idea that nature has designed systems that are almost endlessly renewable and adaptable. The next time you enjoy a walk through the forest or a stroll through a beautifully tended garden, think about everything that goes into creating what you are experiencing. How might your business learn from nature?