I am proud to present my latest interview with two movers and shakers in the landscape world: Loriena Harrington and Shanna Scordo.This interview is valuable whether you are a woman or a man! Women will gather ideas, motivation and empowerment. Men will broaden their perspective, and increase their chances of attracting and retaining women in their company.
Did you know that you can use “throughput” to guide your sales team on which sales to go after, and even how to price them?Here is a brief case study, with a resource (podcast) at the bottom for you to learn more. Using Throughput To Your AdvantageI met this spring with a green roof company. (They had been to many of my events and finally pulled the trigger to meet with me.) The two owners brought their team to NOLA where we performed a two-day strategic review of their entire business, top to bottom. When we got to the financial analysis, we uncovered something interesting.
Chris DiStefano is the CEO of DiStefano Landscaping in Burlington, VT. Founded in 2004, his 65% design/bid-build company has grown to 7M with 55-60 employees. Chris and I explore his company’s steady growth process, starting with his dad and mom impacting his love of...
Landscape professionals are always asking me “What is the best incentive?”
While that answer depends on the company situation, the best overall incentive is to empower your employees with “trust” in the form of more information.
One of the best ways to do that is with Open Book Management.
In March, I wrote that the common industry expression “100 days of hell” should be changed to “100 days to sell.”
It’s more upbeat and helps your team stay optimistic in tough times.
Here are two quick tips to keep you sane and selling in the 100 days of sales.
BrightView, our industry’s largest landscape firm, recently posted poor quarterly results. At the same time their CEO left, with no replacement announced.Did the CEO suddenly decide to leave or was he fired? Either way, the company has performed poorly. This begs the question: Is BrightView’s poor performance due to poor strategy or poor execution? Here is my view, with some lessons & cautionary tales for you.
As I work with landscape business leaders across the continent, I see people who are either “proactive and strategic”, or “reactive and highly tactical”. However, the proactive ones will have a more-profitable and more-fulfilling year. We can put these leaders into 3 categories. 1. In the weeds: Those who are deep in the details, putting out fires, reactive in their day to day duties. They are sucked into client and employee issues; and doing “the work” themselves.
Since we are in the middle of 100 Days to Sell, I want to share a timely sales tip. This tip will increase your design-sales conversion and improve your margins.
Last week I shared two things that Mariani does uniquely well.
Here is the third thing they do uniquely well: Selling “premium specialty services” which helps to keep their clients “sticking” around.
Below are 3 examples, plus I explain “what it means for you.”
It’s a brilliant strategy, and one that you can copy.
(Note: Today’s the last day to get the super early bird discount for the Summer Growth Summit.)
Mariani’s Premium Specialty Services.
It’s not enough to do a great job serving your clients with commoditized landscape services.
It helps to find opportunities for additional services that go above and beyond your competition.
Mariani does this well.
For anyone who watches the show, Shark Tank, you have learned how the Sharks love companies with a unique, hard-to-copy product. It’s even more important for the Sharks that this uniqueness is translated into strong sales and profits.In prep for my Summer Growth Summit, I asked the marketing director at Mariani Landscape, Andrew Gross: What does Mariani do uniquely well? He shared with me 3 eye-opening answers.Over the next two weeks I am going to share those responses with you, in two parts. Here is Part 1.Note, I have included my own assessment on “What it means to you.”
