How knowing your numbers and processes sets your business up for success

Business growth is a natural part of business ownership. But do you know how to scale your business? Do you know if your business is truly profitable?

As part of Landscape Management’s education sessions at Equip Exposition, Ben Gandy and Ken Thomas, principals with Envisor Consulting, will help you understand what you need to do to scale your business effectively and help you get a better handle on your company’s numbers. Gandy and Thomas will present two separate education sessions centered around knowing your numbers and scaling for success, held Thursday, Oct. 19, from 12-1 p.m. and 2-3 p.m.

It’s about the process

Ben Gandy.

Scaling your business, Gandy says, is about documenting processes that are easy to replicate.

“Nobody got into landscaping to write standard operating procedures, but that’s what (scaling) is about,” he says. “Scaling is about developing and documenting systems.”

He says this is as simple as documenting exactly how a salesperson closes a sale and hands it off to the designer and the administrative team. It’s developing a consistent process for the tasks within a business. All of this documentation, Gandy says, is with the idea for a business to grow — whether that’s opening up a second branch or just naturally wanting to grow.

“A lot of times (Envisor Consulting) will step into businesses at the point where they’re thinking about multiple locations, multiple branches,” he says. “Now (you) have to take the systems from the mothership and duplicate them somewhere else. Well, what are these systems?”

Ken Thomas

Documenting processes and procedures — and sticking with them — he says is a critical step to business growth.

“If I can develop and document that workflow, then I’m beginning to create the templates I need to scale,” he says. “We’re going to talk about that workflow, and we’re going to talk a little bit about some of the critical elements in each one of those phases that you need to include in your standard operating procedures so that you can scale with structure.”

He says all business owners, regardless of company size, will learn something from this session. Business growth leads to more opportunities for your team and your operation.

“We’re in a war for talent, for labor. Part of the compelling story that your business needs to tell is a story about growth, about opportunities,” he says. “The earlier you start (developing systems), the easier it is just to grow.”

Know your numbers

Another part of successfully running a landscaping business is understanding your company’s finances. Gandy says this includes knowing how to create a budget and comparing the budget to the actual monthly expenditures and revenue. He says it’s also important for business owners to know and understand the profit and loss (P&L) statement.

“‘What did I budget for this month? What was my plan? What did we actually do?’” Gandy says. “Compare those. I need to be able to do that at multiple levels as a company overall, but also by service line,” he says.

Gandy says looking at each service line and job and comparing actual financials to budgets help business owners understand exactly what’s happening. Is one crew less efficient? Did the cost of something increase from budget to installation? Gandy says he and Thomas will present mock P&L statements and walk attendees through how to read and learn from the data in those statements.

“We’ll talk about how to read a profit and loss statement and what’s the story that it’s telling us,” he says. “Anybody can read the story as a narrative, but what if it’s just a bunch of numbers on a page? Well, let’s go through that exercise together through an iteration or two so that we can come away with the story, and if this was your company, what would you go home and do?”

Register today

The 2023 Equip Expo takes place Oct. 17-20 at the Kentucky Exposition Center in Louisville, Ky. 

To register for all Equip Expo educational sessions, you’ll first need to register to attend the show. Register for Equip Expo by following this link to get a 50 percent discount on your Equip Education registration. During the registration process, you’ll be prompted to add educational sessions.