Complete the sentence: “Landscape and lawn care companies striving to be more efficient should…”
Landscape Professionals
Richard Bare
Arbor-Nomics Turf, Norcross, Ga.
“…look at basic operations and see how their percentages stack up to leading competitors in their particular industry. For instance, in lawn care direct labor should be about 18-20 percent; chemicals , 20 percent (tree/shrub, 7 percent); fuel, 3 percent; and overall payroll, 38-45 percent. A typical truck should bring in around $150,000-250,000 per year in the South. A consultant will readily be able to examine your numbers and let you know where you’re out of line. If your direct labor is too high, you may be paying too much straight pay, overtime or you may not be charging enough for your services. Your technicians may be running their routes in a helter-skelter fashion, costing you big money.”
Bill Bemus
Bemus Landscape, San Clemente, Calif.
“…should limit their services offerings and develop simple performance metrics.”
Chris Joyce
Joyce Landscaping, Cape Cod, Mass.
“…take a look at how other best-in-class companies improved their production systems and try to implement anything that might align with your company.”
Adam Linnemann
Linnemann Lawn Care & Landscaping, Waterloo, Ill.
“…take a look at their morning rollout/afternoon preparation for the next day and cut out their non-value added, unproductive time.”
Jerry McKay
McKay Landscape Lighting, Omaha, Neb.
“…focus on finding outstanding employees.”
Greg Winchel
Winchel Irrigation, Grandville, Mich.
“…be willing to look at changing the way they do every aspect of their business even if that’s the way they’ve always done it.”
Industry Consultants
Dan Gordon
TurfBooks, Newton, N.J.
“…manage their labor and cash flow.”
Kevin Kehoe
3PG Consulting, Laguna, Calif.
“…get on a common computer platform that connects sales, operations and administration real time. In this way customer requests, schedules, purchasing and billing can minimize things falling through the cracks and redundant or ‘completely missed’ work.”
Phil Harwood
Pro-Motion Consulting, Farmington, Mich.
“…decide on at least one measure of efficiency most relevant to their business and track these metrics religiously to benefit from gained knowledge, transparency and enhanced results.”
Frank Ross
3PG Consulting, Alpharetta, Ga.
“…focus on the earned revenue per man-hour by job.”
Jeffrey Scott
Jeffrey Scott Inc!, Trumbull, Conn.
“…involve their employees who do the work in this exploration. Don’t assume they don’t care or don’t see the waste; they do and they’re waiting for you to better engage them.”
Jody Shilan
“…develop standard operating procedures for everything they do.”
