How Turf 212 grew into a million-dollar business with Pinnacle Financial Partners
Jason James is already working by the time most people are waking up. Trucks are out, calls are coming in and the day is well underway. Turf 212, the lawn care company he co-owns with his wife Melissa in Greenville, South Carolina, has grown into a multi-truck operation with a full team behind it, surpassing $1 million in revenue in under three years.
“People see where we are now,” Jason said. “But they don’t see what it took to get there.”
Long before he owned a business, Jason was learning how one actually holds together. He grew up on his grandparents’ dairy farm in Buffalo, New York, where work started early and expectations were simple: do it right, every time.
He carried those principles into the turf and pest control industry, where his understanding of soil and treatment methods earned trust from customers and business owners alike. Over time, that trust led to leadership roles and the chance to help run and grow the company he worked for — though ownership still felt out of reach.
That changed in 2022, when a mutual friend connected Jason with Brett Robinson, a financial advisor with Pinnacle Financial Partners, to handle turf and weed management at his home. What started as a service visit turned into a longer conversation about their work, and Jason shared his vision for the future.
“I told [Brett] I had tried to start my own turf business before, but it didn’t work out,” Jason said. “And I wanted to get back to doing something of my own.”
Brett, drawing on over a decade of experience advising business owners, listened. He saw the opportunity and how close Jason already was to it.
“Why don’t you buy the business you’re already running?”
For Jason, it shifted the conversation immediately. Having dreamt of owning his own business for years, the idea finally felt tangible. From there, Jason and Brett worked through what the buyout would require, mapping out the acquisition, structuring the financial side and preparing for what came with stepping into ownership.
For Brett, that kind of work starts with understanding the person behind the business.
“We want to really understand someone's business and why it matters to them,” he said. “That’s how you give advice that actually holds up over time.”
Melissa could see the difference in how things were coming together.
“I think in the back of my mind, I always knew it was going to happen,” she said. “[Jason] had been talking about it for so long. Then once he started working with Brett, it felt like there was finally a real path.”
In June 2023, Jason purchased the business he’d been running day to day. Turf 212 was officially his.
“I called Melissa and told her, ‘I did it,’” he said. “Then it was, now we go.”
The name Turf 212 reflects how Jason approaches his work. At 211 degrees, the water's hot. At 212, it boils. That one degree creates steam, and steam creates power.
For Jason, that difference shows up in the margin. The extra call returned, the job done right the first time and the consistency that compounds.
Turf 212 grew the same way. What started with one truck expanded into a multi-truck operation with a full team, scaling from roughly $350,000 to over $1 million in under three years. As the business took shape and began to scale, Melissa stepped in alongside him. With a background in operations and project planning, she brought structure and perspective at a time when the pace was picking up and decisions carried more weight.
What had once been an idea they talked about became something they were actively building together.
“Jason doesn’t stop,” she said, half laughing. “From the time his feet hit the floor in the morning to when his head hits the pillow, he’s going. There was never a question about effort.”
As the business grew, so did the conversations around what comes next. Through Pinnacle’s Business Mastermind series, Jason gained perspective from other business owners, while continuing to lean on Brett as a sounding board for bigger decisions.
“It opens your eyes,” he said. “You hear how other people are solving problems, and it changes how you think about your own business.”
Now, those conversations are shifting toward expansion, with a focus on long-term growth and the potential to invest in real estate as the business continues to scale. And Brett remains part of that process.
“Once you build that relationship, it doesn’t stop at one decision,” said Brett. “It’s about continuing to help them think through what’s next and how to get there the right way.
At Pinnacle, that’s what we do. We bring distinctive service and effective advice to every stage of the journey.”
“Nothing about this was overnight,” Jason said. “But once it started moving, it didn’t stop.”