Many landscape professionals have a certain attitude about good old-fashioned direct mail marketing: “I tried it once before and it didn’t work.” The keyword here is once. Do-it-yourself business owners tend to look at marketing as a one-shot exercise. Send out 5,000 direct mail pieces one time, and get 500 new clients, right? Well, I wish it were that easy,... read more
A question landscape professionals frequently ask me is, “What percentage of revenue should I allocate toward my marketing budget?” To gain their undivided attention, I quickly respond with “zero”—as in zero-based budgeting. Think of zero-based budgeting as a blank-sheet-of-paper approach to budgeting, and one that forces all those involved in the process to think strategically while analyzing and justifying every... read more
What drives successful commercial landscape sales? First, it’s a sense of the effort required by the reality of the numbers involved to achieve a goal. Specifically, benchmark figures tell us a close rate has an upper limit given the competitive nature of the commercial business. The limit of that close rate is driven by a number of positive touches with... read more
While sales and customer relationships are the lifeblood of any service company, additional aspects of a business can help improve profitability with a relatively small investment. Companies that invest in employee training enjoy longer retention and experience fewer on-the-job accidents and equipment breakdowns. It might seem like an intuitive step, but many landscape companies don’t see the value or purpose... read more
The truth is many landscape contractors know little about marketing. Honestly, what do you know about marketing? Is yours even working? Do you know for sure? How do you know? I’m sure some of you are muttering: “Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted. The trouble is I don’t know which half.” With modern analysis, that variance has... read more
The rule of focusing on no more than two goals at a time has guided me throughout my career. It’s helped me, and many other individuals and companies, achieve goals. I’m fortunate to have been influenced by many successful leaders and training programs in and out of the green industry. I’ve consistently been taught the discipline of narrowing the focus,... read more
