Jeff HarknessNov 3, 2023
By now you have closed out your 2011 financials and you might be asking what this thing is worth? It’s a metric you should quantify each year regardless of your perceived “exit” timeline. Growing a company’s enterprise value requires planning,…
Frank RossNov 3, 2023
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…
Kevin KehoeNov 3, 2023
We talk a lot about strategic plans, but rarely about strategy. A successful strategy increases enterprise value. Enterprise value is the financial worth of your business. It is calculated by multiplying earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) by…
The greatest personnel challenge we face these days in building a grounds maintenance business is finding and managing sales representatives. We are deep into the second year of an economic recession, without any real and sustainable uptick in demand or…
If you are in the grounds maintenance business — and who isn’t these days — the one position that will undergo dramatic transformation over the next few years is that of account manager. The reasons why are simple: 1. To…
Developing a sales machine is the most important investment a landscape contractor can make. Given pricing conditions and the negative impact this is exacting on gross profit margins, generating increased revenue volume is necessary to achieve net profit dollar goals.…
Making a profit today relies on your ability to sell. In the old days, the key to profit was production management. Sales were easier to come by: You answered the phone and delivered a proposal. If we’re honest, we would…
I like watching professional poker on TV. It is especially interesting to me that the young guns consistently beat the experienced pros. I think it’s because the younger guys are not playing the same game as the older guys, and…
The phone doesn’t ring as much anymore. Does this mean there’s no demand for your services? No, of course not. But it does mean that the days of simply answering the phone to sell work are over. There’s no way…
We live in deflationary times. Simply put, there’s less money chasing many goods and services. It’s the opposite of inflation, to which we’re more accustomed. What this means for you is that raising prices is a sure way to reduce…
It's time to shift your business focus from defense to offense. Reducing costs is essential, but the easy cuts already have been made. Additional cuts probably will slice into muscle and bone. And, as anyone can tell you, cost cutting…
It's hard to make money these days, but it's particularly challenging for mid-sized companies — those in the $1 million to $5 million annual revenue range. Aggressive pricing by players large and small is squeezing the middle, where overhead usually…
Price competitiveness is a function of cost control and revenue generation. Cost control is a function of personal productivity (revenue per employee must increase). Revenue generation is a function of price and pressure (labor rate/price per hour must decrease, and…
In my April column ("Get high profits with design/build," page 60), I went to a bid opening where 38 landscape companies bid a school construction job. My client finished 10th despite tightening his pricing factors and production standards. Sure there's…
Part one of a multi-part series. I promised I would drill down into the high-profit benchmarks from my 2008 survey. So here's the first take-home: High-profit companies operate leaner. Their pricing is not better — market competition sees to that…
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