Kyle Cahill is founder and chief horticulturist of Grow and Company, a Houston TX based, multi-service residential landscape firm with 50 employees and almost $5M in revenue. Jeffrey and Kyle discuss the dynamics of charging time and material (the basis for Kyle’s...
There is more than one way to make a first impression. With economy in a state of flux, I am advising all of the landscape professionals to re-energize their customer service focus, and ensure they are not taking clients or prospects for granted. In the past, you...
How Is Your Lead Flow? According to a recent poll I conducted with over eighty people, around 40% are feeling a softening in the market, yet another 44% are having their best year ever. Is This A Tale Of Two Cities? What Are You Experiencing? Even if you are having...
Keeping clients happy during the busy season takes both good systems and the right company culture and training. Right now with strong consumer confidence, it is hard to stay on top of everything. But now it matters more than ever. As soon as there is a slow down, the...
Stop selling from your own wallet; here is a case in point. I am renovating my front landscape (new second driveway, fencing and auto gates, walkway, and foundation plantings). We are getting this work done before our upcoming wedding anniversary celebration. In...
Running a design/bid-build business or division is a double-edged sword. (Note: I wrote this 2 years ago, and updated the message. It is more relevant today than ever!) There are big pluses and equally big minuses to focusing on design-build or bid-build. The pros...
In the non-profit world of hospital care, the phrase "No Margin, No Mission" is used to remind those in charge that it is ok for a hospital to be fiscally responsible and make decent margins. I feel the same message needs to be embraced by our industry, the world of...
If you truly want to scale your lawn and landscape business, you must grow an effective sales team. And to do that, you must become quite good at both marketing and sales management. Are you? They don’t teach Sales Management at school or university – almost nowhere,...
Let’s turn the tables, we spend all our time talking about how to make your landscape business better – did you ever wonder how I make my business great and what you can learn/apply from that? Successful business building requires a combination of a great product and...
After much research and deep discussion with contractors everywhere I have developed a more nuanced economic projection for you. Two key factors will drive the economy. The first is based on how this virus plays out. To gain a better understanding of the pandemic, I...
