Author: Frank Ross

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Frank Ross

The author is owner-manager of 3PG Consulting. Reach him at frank@3pgconsulting.com.

Leverage internal data

If I had to grade the economy during the past three years, I’d probably rate it OK. Certainly not great, but compared to the years during the Great Recession, the past three were decent. I doubt we’ll get back to great for awhile—three to five years, anyway, or until the housing market receives a much-needed […]

Information and accountability in the workplace

My partners and I gather the financial data from many of our clients nationwide, dump the information into a big cauldron, stir it around and run some interesting benchmarks to provide you a report card about the successes of 2013. This year we isolated the predominately landscape maintenance firms—30 of them—totaling $251,481,724 in annual volume […]

Is 2014 a year of opportunity for the Green Industry?

Invariably, all of us sages are queried with: “You’ve been around the country. You see things. So, what kind of year is 2014 going to be?” Like we know… We do have opinions, though, and mine is very upbeat. I make it a priority to stay on top of industry benchmarks and information sources, not […]

Voila! You have a budget

OK, it’s January. You should have your budget completed for this 2014. You do, don’t you? Uh-oh, you don’t, do you? Why is this budgeting thing always such a struggle? Would you ever go on a long trip without a road map? Would you ever contract a large job without an estimate? Of course not. […]

Tracking new leads: From generating to following up

An obvious way to stimulate profit is to generate more volume. To generate more volume, take a hard look at the way you’re receiving and following up on the leads coming into your business. Obtaining and managing leads kickstarts the entire financial management cycle. Following up on leads creates the basis for your scorecard. It […]

How important is the budgeting process?

A budget is a way to realistically combine what you know with what you want to achieve. It asks, “What do we need to do today to make our long term goals a reality?” Would you ever accept a landscaping job you’d never created an estimate for? Of course not. A budget is basically an […]

Do you have an integrated financial management process?

Integrated financial management is not accounting. It’s a system of financial management for a landscaping business that relates the most important financial processes to each other in such a way that, at any point in your financial cycle, you will have a clear and focused picture of where your business stands, where each individual job […]

Confessions of a budget freak

I am all about eliminating the guesswork we face in our businesses. Yes, I am a budget freak. Some of this stems from what my mentor, Emol Fails, Ph.D., instilled in me a long time ago. One such morsel was the construction industry is the second most risky business behind restaurants in the U.S. That […]

Focus on the right stuff

In the last several months in this space, Jeff Harkness, Kevin Kehoe and I have written about sales performance, margin generation (a sign of pricing and productivity) and, of course, my favorite, net profit. Why net profit, you ask? Well, in my mind there are two reasons we’re in business: profit and fun. Profit is […]

Before you fire a customer…

As you think about renewing maintenance agreements for next year, do you identify jobs that are underperformers and develop strategies to deal with them? For many of us, the thought process is, “I don’t really know how the job performed and don’t much care. Just let me renew it!” OK, I get it. None of […]

How to prevent business failure

As consultants, we’re constantly asked “What are the reasons companies succeed?” or “What do other companies do to make more money?” Recently, I received an unusual question: “What are the top 10 reasons companies fail?” Typically, consultants are optimists and think about why businesses succeed, so fielding this question is outside the normal response zone, but […]

The Benchmark: Time for the 90-day scrub

The absolute best management planning document on the planet is the rolling budget. Managed properly, there is no better management tool ever invented. Ever. In my January column, we spoke of the benefits of creating a budget for your year — documenting that budget, spreading it by month and focusing your management team’s energies to […]

10 business resolutions to beat the market

For most of us, 2011 was challenging. The economy continued to be sluggish. Businesses struggled with rising fuel and labor costs against declining prices. New construction in many arenas was non-existent. Cash flow tightened. For many, it was a matter of hanging on tight and riding out the storm. The economy remains sluggish. Unemployment in […]

Why are you in business?

So, what’s your budget like this year? Budget!?! Frank, you know you can’t budget in this industry! There are way too many variables — there’s the weather, there are labor issues, things die… Frank! It simply can’t be done. No way, no how, just forget it! Sound familiar? I hear it all the time. But […]

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