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Bobcat Introduces TL623 Telehandler
Jessica Schwartz
Turf Winter 2019 Issue
Turf Winter 2019 Issue Table of Contents Winter Weather Protection | Minimize your exposure to liability when planning and performing snow and ice management work. Staffing In The Off-Season | Who stays and who goes in a challenging labor market? Finding Your Niche In The Market | Three lawn and landscape companies share how they built upon the basics to offer more. Tips For Deicing | Safety is paramount in this winter weather task. Winter Weather: Selling More Than Plowing | To prevent seasonal damage, customers’ sump pumps, roofs, gutters, trees, and more all need attention. Financing Know-How | When obtaining equipment, consider the factors related to three leading financing options. Drainage Solutions For Water Woes | As temperatures warm, winter snowmelt and spring rains may saturate properties with excess water. Tree Care: Prepping For Spring | As spring arrives, take a look at the trees on customer landscapes. The Tide Is High | Sea level rise threatens the National Mall Tidal Basin. My Landscape: Safety On A Snowy Campus | Facilities staff plan year-round to maintain safe pathways and roads throughout their campus. Get Equipped | Plows & Attachments, Deicers & Spreaders, and Organic & Natural Products
Six Essential Tips To Grow Your Lawn Care Business
Although providing high quality work is a must, any lawn care business owner can attest that delivering great work and staying on budget is not enough to get ahead in this increasingly competitive market. This article will discuss six business tips for lawn care pros that will help their businesses grow, while standing out from the crowd. Tip #1: Understand What Homeowners Want According to a 2017 Cone Communications CSR Study, 88% of millennials will be more loyal to a company that supports social or environmental issues, and 92% are more likely to trust a company that supports these issues. This means that consumers are looking for companies that make environmentally sound decisions. This standard even applies to sourcing landscaping companies to tend to their lawns. For lawn companies that have been in business for many years, it’s important to make small changes to increase your green business practices. The market for green lawn care is becoming larger than ever, especially in big city markets. Some lawn care professionals are making the shift to using more battery equipment and smaller mowers, as well as offering new services, such as full organic lawn treatment programs. Small changes can also show a commitment to the increasing emphasis that homeowners are putting on environmental sustainability, such as going paperless by embracing technology or using recycled materials. There are countless ways for businesses to show their customers that they recognize them and are aligning to their needs. Tip #2: Evaluate Efficiency As your business ...
Maximizing Customer Referrals
Most landscape maintenance and lawn care company owners will tell you that the best marketing campaign is word-of-mouth advertising. It’s free and easy to obtain if you’re giving your clients what they want and need for their properties. Just Ask (Or Don’t Ask) There are many ways to ask for referrals, but three popular methods include: Incentivize your clients; Incentivize your field crews; and Giving excellent service, so you don’t have to ask for referrals—they just come naturally. But before you can ask for positive reviews, you need to provide excellent work. Jeff Scott, President of New Orleans, LA-based Jeffrey Scott Consulting, Inc. says that if you give five-star service, then you shouldn’t have to ask for any referrals. Your customers will be naturally motivated to send you new clients to grow your business. “The best referrals are when the customer is bragging about you. They can’t wait to talk to you,” says Scott. Maria Pallotta of Canopy Lawn Care in Cary, NC, says it’s easier for the company to ask for referrals because management encourages field crews to create the finest property on the street. And as Scott said, the referrals spontaneously come in. “We coach our field teams to make customers’ properties the best-looking ones on the street. It helps referrals come in more naturally,” says Pallotta. “Otherwise, you won’t see results from any marketing campaign if you’re not meeting your customers’ expectations.” Dennis Evans of Quiet Village Landscaping in St. Louis, MO, agrees with Pallotta and Scott ...
Landscaper Call Center Service Gains Funding
Slingshot, a customer engagement platform (or call center) for home services providers, such as landscaping firms, has closed a $2.4M seed round led by RET Ventures. The funding will help the company expand, scale its operations, and make strategic investments in R&D. Since many landscaping firms typically don’t have the resources to operate a fully functional contact center, Slingshot provides an answer across multiple channels, including voice, text, and web chat. It employs trained, remote sales and customer service reps to create an overall call center solution that can engage leads, increase sales close rates, and improve customer experience. It also ensures any customer issue is handled quickly and effectively 24/7. “One of the primary inhibitors to closing a sale in the home services industry is simply the inability for a potential customer to get a live human on the phone,” said Taylor Olson, CEO for Slingshot. “Sales leads are perishable so it’s important that businesses connect with customers the moment they are ready to make a purchase. Through our decentralized call centers and proprietary software, we enable home services providers to leverage the benefits of an always-on call center that is adept at closing sales as well as providing a best-in-class customer service experience.” “We were impressed with the traction Slingshot was able to gain in the highly fragmented home services provider market,” says John Helm, managing director of RET Ventures. “We believe that an omni-channel customer service platform capable of closing leads is attractive to many small businesses…. ...
Keep An Eye On Lawn And Tree Disease
By Lindsey Getz From the Spring 2019 Issue As a lawn care operator, you’re in the business of producing well-maintained and lush green lawns and landscapes. But the unpredictability of weather and the prevalence of certain diseases (as a result of changing weather and site conditions) can make this challenging to say the least. Even so, having success with turf and tree disease management as an add-on service isn’t exactly an easy feat, either. It often requires taking the time to talk to and educate customers—along with a serious dose of honesty. Fred Oskanian, owner of Terra Lawn Care Specialists in Collegeville, PA, knows a thing about that. In fact, he’s often competing against the “big national companies” that tend to make hard sales pitches and even use diseases as bait. “There is a lot of misinformation out there, and some of it is perpetuated by companies who are willing to use any line to hook new customers,” Oskanian says. “It’s why we have two agronomists on staff, and we make all of our technicians obtain their own licensure. We’ve been out to properties in which the client was told their lawn was dead when in fact it was just dormant.” Oskanian says that lawn care companies that fail to educate their clients also run the risk of the client assuming they did something wrong, when in fact, the lawn has just been plagued by disease. “That’s why we’re big on sending one of our two lead technicians over to ...
Looking To Increase Your Rates?
By Andrew Duncan From the Spring 2019 Issue One of the most common complaints I hear from business owners in the landscape field is that labor rates as a whole are too low. In our business you are always going to be competing with companies underpricing their work, whether that is someone who mows lawns on the side for extra income or a new business who doesn’t fully understand their numbers. As an industry we aren’t very good at creating value, and it is a tough battle when you are trying to bill double to triple what the kid down the street will charge. However, there are companies out there that are consistently getting new customers while still charging profitable rates. What is their secret? Selling. You may think, “Well I’m already selling every time I go meet a potential customer.” Take a hard look at your sales process: are you really selling value, or are you just listening to the customer and giving them a price? The majority of businesses are going to a quote, trying to jot down everything the customer wants, and formulating a price for the required services. This process is not only robotic and impersonal, but also decreases your value as a company. Have you ever gone to the doctor and said, “Hey doc, I have some chest pains,” and had the doctor only reply with, “Okay, that will be $500.”? I certainly wouldn’t trust a doctor who just threw a number at my problem ...
Three Cheers For Pavers In Hardscape Design
Sticker shock may deter a homeowner from choosing pavers for their driveway, patio or pool deck project, but these are most often the better choice for long-term, beautiful results. A hardscape is an extension of the home, and homes are a reflection of those who live within them. The extra effort to research materials and building techniques that last and are easily maintained pays dividends in the end. Realtors would agree that details like extremely durable and attractive pavers make the difference in curb appeal. Here are three reasons to point out pavers when speaking to clients about hardscaping projects — courtesy of EP Henry, a Woodbury, NJ-based family-owned and operated manufacturer of unit concrete products. The following highlights why pavers are good option for these types of projects. 1. Attractive and flexible. Pavers have an immeasurable advantage over other common paving materials like concrete and asphalt. The range of colors, textures, size, and pattern options give homeowners design advantages that other surface covers cannot offer. Many very closely emulate the look of natural stone. Pavers can be customized to fit any design aesthetic. 2. Extremely durable and weather-damage resistant. Pavers last for decades. Stamped concrete, ordinary concrete, and asphalt begin cracking after the first few winters. Because pavers are a flexible system, they have room to expand with freeze and thaw conditions; the other monolithic surface treatments do not. The design of the pavers help snow and ice melt more quickly and the surface pavers create allows for easy ...
Military Families Need Your Help
Winter 2019 is going to be a teeth-chattering cold one, with plenty of snow, according to the venerable Farmers’ Almanac. That’s not the news families of deployed military personnel want to hear since clearing driveways and sidewalks of snow and ice is physically taxing, and a real hardship when one of the primary heads of household is not there. That’s why the need for volunteers remains strong and Project EverGreen, in partnership with BOSS Snowplow, is once again teaming up to make a difference this winter by encouraging snow management professionals to register to become a Project EverGreen SnowCare for Troops volunteer. Now in its ninth year, the need for SnowCare for Troops volunteers is still tremendous. With military deployments occurring regularly across the U.S., new volunteers are needed in all states to provide snow removal service to the families of deployed military personnel. Volunteers are matched with families within their service area. “SnowCare for Troops provides military families in need with peace of mind and lifts a significant burden from their plates,” says Cindy Code, executive director of Project EverGreen. “We’re very grateful for the commitment of our dedicated volunteers and the continued support from BOSS Snowplow. The leadership they have demonstrated in support of military families goes above and beyond the call of duty.” November 11-17, 2018 is National SnowCare for Troops Awareness Week and is intended to raise the profile of the program and spotlight the efforts of the initiative’s loyal volunteers and the military families they ...
Touchdown Turf: Survey Studies What It Takes To Have A Winning Season
In a recent survey of lawn and landscape professionals, Environmental Science, a business unit of Bayer Crop Science, garnered data that emphasized what nearly every lawn care company is struggling with — a lack of qualified folks on the field. According to the survey findings, maintaining strong customer satisfaction doesn’t appear to be a key challenge for lawn and landscape companies. In fact, nearly six in 10 survey respondents noted that they have die-hard customers. And to further underscore that confidence, 42% of the respondents also ranked “an unhappy fan base” as having the least impact on whether or not their business is winning. The challenge with the most impact, according to more than four in 10 survey respondents, is “a shallow bench” or not enough team members. “The lawn and landscape industry is built on leaders who understand what it takes to satisfy customers and to rally teams that can deliver on that,” says Rob Golembiewski, Ph.D., Green Solutions Team specialist for Bayer. “It’s a classic story of finding the right talent to get the job done — to push through the last yard, to win the next new account or to beat the elements and keep your fans happy.” According to the survey, the ability to build and operate a team likely comes second-nature to lawn and landscape professionals — with 84% of respondents reporting that they played a team sport in high school or college. “As the Bayer Green Solutions Team, our goal is to get in ...
Lessons Learned From Angry Customers
In the seconds before answering a customer call or moments before a client meeting, keep in mind that the best way to initiate control is to take the high ground — not just the high road of virtue and doing the right thing, but the high ground as a vantage point to observe the situation as a whole. In the time it takes to reach for the phone and say, “Hello,” you must have the focus and knowledge necessary to take control and lead the caller back into your corner. Preparedness comes by having the structure in mind that will allow your persuasive and reassuring abilities to control the situation. Maybe it was your staff, your management team or a salesman, but the buck stops with you. As you listen to the complaint, pay attention to how the caller became disgruntled, and match their words to the organizational structure and discipline that you have in place. Many times the caller has reached your desk because someone in the chain of command failed to listen and address their concerns. Let’s begin with the approach; how you manage the window between the “ring” and the “answer” will define the experience as educational, confrontational or successful. Prepare to remove yourself from the fray and look at the big picture. The best means of accomplishing this is to remember four rules. 1. Do not speak until you have truly listened. The opposite of speaking is not listening — it is waiting to speak. Listening ...
