Atlanta-based Top Turf shares how it strives to achieve quality by focusing on weed control.
If there’s anything Kevin Bryan has learned in his 22 years running Top Turf, it’s this: success boils down to quality. And for Top Turf, that means focusing on weed control and employees.
“Business-wise, the biggest challenge is always getting and keeping the best employees,” he says.
Agronomic challenges change year to year, but weeds always remain enemy No. 1 for Top Turf.
“Typically, when people are upset it’s because they have weeds,” Bryan says. Top Turf, which Bryan founded with his brother, Scott, employs about 160 people.
Here’s how the company, which has locations in four major Southern markets (Atlanta, Dallas, Charlotte, N.C., and Greenville, S.C.), works to ensure quality in these two key areas.
Doubling up
Bryan takes pride in saying many employees have been with Top Turf since the early days.
“We still have our first employee,” he says. Something else that’s been with Top Turf since the beginning? The concept of always having the next technician on deck. It’s an idea that, on the surface, seems to add cost, but Bryan and Jason Miscedra, service coordinator for Top Turf in Atlanta, say it pays off in training and quality.
“You’re only as good as your worst technician, right?” Bryan says.
From day one, Top Turf has strived to staff itself with two-man crews: a lead technician and a helper. “We do it so we can provide better quality, and so whenever there’s a technician position that comes available, we already have someone trained,” he says. “We don’t always achieve two techs per truck, but that’s what we’re aiming for.”
For perspective, in Lawrenceville, Ga., there are 21 technicians and 18 helpers. An important component of this concept, Bryan says, is rotating the helpers among the technicians. “When we have a technician position open, the helpers are already trained,” he says. “And they’ve been with the technicians who are good and the ones who are average, so they have a wide variety of experience to pull from.”
The helpers ride along and assist the lead technician with anything that will make him more efficient, Miscedra says. “They may help pull the hose, run a spreader in the back or spray weeds,” he says. “It just helps move things along, and we find it helps them spray a lot more weeds.”
Bryan says another thing that allows the company to focus on quality is branch structure. Each branch manager has service managers who report to him. One service manager is responsible for four lawn care technicians. When the technicians are out treating lawns, they note which lawns need extra attention, and they put in a service call for those accounts.
After the weed control from the primary visit has had time to take effect, the service manager goes back out to follow-up on the lawn and do additional weed control, if necessary.
“That’s how the service managers are able to maintain high quality in their routes,” Bryan says. “That creates a lot of good will for customers. They see somebody has been on their lawn, but it hasn’t cost them anything.”
Focus on weeds
The company’s strategy of doubling up on technicians and providing follow-up service calls by managers allows it to pay extra attention to weed control. Beyond that, product selection plays an important role in the company’s goal to be the “neighborhood weed control experts,” as its tagline says.
For the past two years, Top Turf has opted for combination postemergent herbicides to control a broader spectrum of weeds with a smaller selection of products on the truck. In the past, the company’s technicians carried several different hand cans and a backpack sprayer on their trucks.
“A tech would pull off one hand can for nutsedge, a different hand can for dallisgrass and so on,” Miscedra says. “You might have five to six different types of weeds in a particular lawn.”
The result? It would take technicians longer to spray weeds if they had to go back to the truck for multiple products. Those trips take time and energy. Although the technicians are incentivized based on quality over speed or quantity, any bump in production is a good thing.
“We get some 95 degree days here,” Bryan says. “The quicker they can get into the AC, the better.”
Having a herbicide that controls so many weed types is simply a time saver, he says. The savings could be 10 to 15 minutes per stop, depending on how bad the weed situation is, Miscedra adds.
The company’s foray into combination postemergents was about two years ago. It has used Tribute Total and Solitaire.
“We’re constantly testing different weed control,” Bryan says. The company taps distributors, extension agents and manufacturers to help with product choice and agronomic challenges. “But mostly, we get out there and figure it out ourselves,” says Miscedra. He adds that the No. 1 quality the company looks for when testing new products is efficacy.
“We just want something that’s going to work,” he says. “We’d rather spend the extra money on something that’s going to work better and save us customers, rather than something that’s going to take three or four treatments anyway.” Bryan agrees, noting it all goes back to customers’ concerns about weeds.
“The way we look at the cost/benefit (to more expensive products) is word gets around,” he says. “Most of our business is from referrals, so, to me, you’re just shooting yourself in the foot if you’re going to use products that aren’t quite as effective.”
Top turf for the cure
Top Turf customers’ lawns are speckled with pink lawn signs this month. Since 2011, Top Turf began donating $10,000 annually to the Breast Cancer Research Foundation (BCRF). Custom lawn signs are the company’s way of informing customers about the effort.
“We just wanted to give back,” said owner Kevin Bryan. “The reason we chose breast cancer is everybody knows somebody who has been affected by it.”
Top Turf also provides a space on clients’ bills where they can opt to donate to whatever charity Top Turf is supporting at the time. The company typically promotes four nonprofits per year. The BRCF and Angels Among Us Pet Rescue are two the company has supported consistently. For Angels Among Us, Top Turf matches client funds for a minimum donation of $1,000.
Because the pink lawn signs have been well-received, the company plans to extend the idea to seasons and holidays next year, Bryan says. For example the signs will sport American flags in July for Independence Day.
Photo: Top Turf
