Best Practices: Manage enhancements
1 May, 2006 By: Bruce Wilson Landscape ManagementThe best companies still find a way to stick to the discipline of their work processes to make higher margins.
Maintenance contractors thrive on enhancement sales as a method for improving their bottom line. However, most contractors rely on pricing and a high volume of enhancement sales as the driver. Enhancements are mostly small jobs that get accomplished in one to three days. These jobs are just as hard to organize, schedule and produce on budget as larger construction jobs.
Most companies do not focus enough on producing these jobs efficiently to make the optimum margin. Many companies do not have a system in place for producing these jobs. I think this is a lost opportunity.
Six tips
In order to increase your profit margin on enhancements, consider these tips:
1. Create a detailed work order outlining budgeted hours, materials needed, equipment and tools needed, along with a schedule of what is expected to be accomplished each day if the job lasts more than a day.
2. Close supervision ensures the work is getting done according to the desired schedule.
3. Coordinate with maintenance to verify the right site conditions (for example, is the irrigation turned off so the ground isn't too wet?).
4. Communicate with the client to double-check that expectations are being met.
5. Coordinate with purchasing to make sure that the right materials get to the job or yard at the right time.
6. Finally, touch base with maintenance on post-installation maintenance to make sure the project was completed successfully.
Details pay off
Of these six key tips, the first one is the piece that gets overlooked the most. In the haste to get going no one has time to complete a detailed work order. The customer may have authorized the enhancement after sitting on the proposal for weeks and then wants it done tomorrow.
Skipping this critical step leads to lost time and efficiency on the job because you don't have a detailed plan for what you need on site. Or, skipping this step might lead to crews that just work to finish the job with no idea how much time they should have allotted. You don't find out that you are over budget until the final accounting has been done and it is too late.
The best companies still find a way to stick to the discipline of their work processes to make sure that all steps are followed and make higher margins. They hold all accountable in the work chain to do their piece and do it on a timely basis. After all, how effective is it to give the crew leader the work order after he has arrived at the job without some of the things needed to complete the job? Details are critical on small jobs.
The author is a partner with entrepreneur Tom Oyler in the Wilson-Oyler Group, which offers consulting services. Visit
www.wilson-oyler.com.
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