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Jessica Schwartz
Six Ways To Improve Job Bids
Creating better and more accurate landscape bids should be a top priority of your sales team. Accurate and timely bids based on precise job costing data can put you on track to building long-term relationships with your clients—and lead to more profit. Here are six keys to making your next bid a winning one. 1. Be Consistent Bidding better is all about consistency—consistency in the way you’re measuring your job sites and consistency in the job cost data that you’re referencing. Whether you’re heading out and walking to your sites with a hand wheel or using GPS technology to measure off satellites, your consistency and accuracy in counts and measurements is how the bid starts off the right way. If you’re not using job costing software to track your cost data, Excel is the most common tool. If you’re already using Excel, it’s essential that all your estimators use the same spreadsheet and the same version. Whatever your method, the spreadsheet or software should accurately reflect your labor and materials costs. 2. Know Your Costs Know your actual job costs. As mentioned above, the job costing spreadsheet or software you use should include accurate costs for labor and materials. For materials costs, which can fluctuate depending on where and when you’re purchasing, make sure you’re capturing your costs as accurately and as often as possible. A job costing software may have the capability to track how much you’re actually spending, average your costs, and calculate your costs automatically. There are ...
SiteOne® Landscape Supply Allies With Aspire Software
SiteOne Landscape Supply has announced an alliance with Aspire Software, expanding its business management software solutions offering to its customer base. Named one of Americas’ Fastest Growing Companies in 2021 by Financial Times, Aspire has more than 51,000 users across the green industry that manage nearly $4 billion in revenue. “We seek to partner with the best of the best in the industry — like Aspire — giving customers access to superior services and products to increase their company’s profitability,” said Sean Kramer, CIO at SiteOne Landscape Supply. “The smart business management software makes it easier to handle day-to-day needs without relying on multiple people to do the task, offering another solution to manage the continued labor shortage that many are facing.” The Aspire Landscape and SiteOne integration is ideal for businesses with more than 10 crews. Saving time and money, a seamless experience will link users to their SiteOne account where up-to-date catalog pricing can be found based on the user’s location to the nearest branch. Because material pricing can fluctuates, the experience reduces guesswork often required in building accurate and timely estimates. “Working with SiteOne, the industry’s top distributor, gives Aspire customers 24/7 access to updated prices on the products they rely on at the job site,” said Mark Tipton, CEO of Aspire Software. “As the partnership evolves, we hope to offer more of the features available on SiteOne’s e-commerce site like ordering materials, scheduling delivery, development of estimates, managing invoices and more — all through the trusted ...
NC-Based Yardnique, Focused On HOA Landscapes, Revitalizes Its Brand
Yardnique, a landscape and design maintenance company based in Morrisville, NC, has revitalized its brand identity as part of its aggressive growth plans to propel the company into national prominence. The company specializes in Homeowner Association (HOA) community landscape design, maintenance and preservation for HOA property managers, boards, and residential developers to protect the quality, lifestyle and environmental standards of their communities. Currently with operations in North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia and Florida, Yardnique introduced a new corporate identity, website, and communications program in an effort to bolster its expansion across the southeast. The new corporate identity uses a bright orange logotype with a green leaf and a blue water droplet graphic element, designed to reflect the the energy and vitality of the Yardnique marque. The new branding represents both growth and the company’s passion, shared by all team members, to protect the beauty and environmental quality of the residential communities it serves. Since a core goal of the company is to be the most revered brand by HOA’s in the landscaping industry, the new identity and branding is essential to provide immediate recognition and recall. Yardnique provides services solely for Homeowner Association (HOA) managed communities. Currently the company serves over 400 HOA communities in four states with plans to expand to 700 HOA communities by 2023 through organic growth and acquisition. “I founded Yardnique over 23 years ago mowing a few lawns to get through school at NC State University and since then, we have evolved the business with ...
Making The Most Of Software
As a landscape business owner, you’re probably always looking for tools and processes to help you run your business better. More specifically, you’re in search of ways to improve efficiency and productivity in order to boost the bottom line. For those who have implemented it, one tool for running a better business has been landscape business software. “In general, software is a valuable tool to help you be able to look at data and make better decisions about your business,” says Hank Wilson, CEO of SunScape Landscaping in the Austin, TX area. “We use software in a lot of different ways including closer scrutiny of sales activity, estimating, production, and job costing.” Wilson uses Aspire Software and credits it for helping his business take the leap from an $800,000 business to $6 million operation. He says that being able to know how all jobs were performing—including analyzing budgeted versus actual hours—is what helped him make wise decisions over the years. If a job got off track, corrections could be made before money was lost. That has led to increased profitability. For Julie McHale, controller for McHale Landscape Design, a $20 million full-service landscape and maintenance company headquartered in Upper Marlboro, MD, the benefits have been similar. McHale, who uses Asset from Include Software, says that software has always been an essential tool to the company’s overall success. In fact, McHale was using a simple software program back in 1981 (when the company got its start)—a time when many landscape businesses ...
