Tuesday, July 1, 2014

LM150 Lessons Learned: Carol King

When it comes to business growth, would you do it all over again if you had the chance? Would you know where you went wrong the first time and what needed to change? With information from those who have gone before, it's easier to plan your steps for the future. 
Landscape Management Magazine


Hindsight is 20/20, and I’m always brighter after the fact.

As we’ve morphed into a $9 million to $10 million company, we compete on the commercial maintenance side against large, national and regional companies who sell contracts to hotel chains, restaurant chains and large property management groups. It’s dawned on me we can’t work in certain areas because they’re tied up with negotiated relationships. It takes a certain market segment away from you.

CarolKingConsequently, if we had it to do over again, we might have developed a more niche-related company to have a smaller footprint and closer control. It would have been years ago, probably in the late 1970s or early 1980s.

Companies that accomplish this increase their margins and retain their customers better because of the relationship factor. The one thing the national companies may not be able to do, versus a family business or one-market business, is be close to customers, react quicker to their needs and maintain a relationship-based business.

For instance, homeowner associations (HOAs), condominiums and multi-housing sites for the residential side are not prone to being rolled up by national companies because they’re all locally controlled.

There are opportunities to target a specific market. Spend your marketing dollars in that one area and become a preferred provider or a boutique company. You’ve just got to find the one you’re comfortable with. It always has to come back to who and what you want to be and where you want to head. You need to make these decisions when you’re in the $1 million to $2 million revenue point.

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