“I try to let them fail within boundaries, if that makes sense, and learn from their own experiences, unless it’s something to where they’re going to drop a ladder on a house or something.”
That is how Michael Reeves describes training the employees at Top Tier Pressure Washing & Landscaping in Goldsboro, North Carolina. The ladder is the limit. Short of that, he would rather a new hire work out a problem than be handed the answer.
The line has some training behind it. Reeves holds an OSHA 30-hour construction safety certification, and his company describes that course as covering fall protection and ladder safety, which it calls critical for work at heights such as gutter cleaning. He studied construction management at East Carolina University and holds an associate degree from Pitt Community College, with a background in building construction technology.
The arrangement depends on Reeves staying close. He is the sole owner, with employees and no partners, and he says he is at every job to make sure it is “completed properly and that the customer is happy.” A crew member who gets something wrong does it with the owner on site.
What happens after a mistake is settled in advance. “No matter how many times we have to go back, we’ll make sure that they’re happy and make the job right,” he says. A lot of the company’s work carries warranties, he adds. The rule he tries to hand down is simple. “We treat every project like it’s our own home,” he says. “I try to instill that in every employee that works for me.”
The work runs from soft washing houses and roofs to clearing gutters, sealing decks and laying mulch, with drainage and patio projects at the larger end. Crews sweep chimneys, too, and one homeowner reported afterward that the crew left no mess in the house. The company covers Goldsboro, Clayton, Raleigh, Apex, Cary and the towns around them.
Reeves says he leans toward commercial work, though the company started with residential jobs and still takes them. Its commercial side includes gas stations, car washes, apartment complexes and restaurants. For Lidl grocery stores around Wake Forest and Raleigh, the company has cleaned storefront glass, entry pads, cart corrals and parking areas, scheduling the work early in the morning so it does not interfere with store hours.
Holiday and landscape lighting has become a big enough share of the work that Reeves set it up under its own name, Top Tier Lighting, which he runs separately from the washing and landscaping company.
The business began as a side hustle. Reeves was in college for construction management, working an internship, when the pandemic sent him home, and in 2020 he took up landscaping full time.
Some of his habits are deliberately old-fashioned. The company sends Christmas cards, a new homeowner may get a housewarming gift, and Reeves likes handwritten quotes. “Anything we can do that’s a little different, that definitely helps people remember you,” he says.
He credits much of his work ethic to his mother, who always worked. The rest he seems to have found on his own, early. “I was putting chain link fences up when I was 10 years old, just on my own free will,” he says.