Sales Process for Selling Hardscapes

According to this Green Industry Pros article, landscaping is a huge way to improve the worth and value of your home. Investing in larger projects like retaining walls, paver patios, outdoor kitchens, fire pits/fireplaces, or a paver driveway are ways see the most return on your investment. 

Arnold Masonry and Landscape, Flickr.com

With the housing market getting better but still historically weak, it's important for landscape contractors to encourage existing homeowners to invest in landscape upgrades. Northwest Indiana contractor Mike Arnold of Creekside Landscaping couldn't agree more.

"It is so important for contractors to convince homeowners and other property owners that it is vital to their property’s worth that they invest in great landscaping," Arnold says. "If the property owner's goal is to ultimately sell the property, a fresh landscape design is a sure ticket to quick selling. An old and outdated exterior gives a negative first impression and leaves a bad taste before prospective buyers even enter the building. Then, if landlordship is the property owner’s forte, curb appeal is a must for retail, and good luck getting a quality renter in your apartments or homes without paying attention to your landscape layout."

Hardscaping fits the bill

According to Arnold, one of the best ways to bring a property’s landscape from eye sore to eye candy is through hardscape design and installation. "If done right, most of your landscape budget will be targeted toward a sophisticated mix of retaining walls, paver patios, outdoor kitchens, fire pits/fireplaces, and maybe even a paver driveway," Arnold points out.

The financial value of this option is clearly in the cost of the materials and the extensive labor to install. But the value in the eye of an estimator is its permanence and capacity to be an outdoor living space. "If installed correctly, these structures will last a lifetime," Arnold says. "At Creekside Landscaping, we firmly believe that our customers should consider hardscapes because we understand the primary concern of every homeowner: growing the value of an investment."

To read the full article, click here.

Popular Outdoor Design Trends for 2014

With many of the new 2014 landscaping trends requiring some heavy lifting, keep Power Pusher's electric wheelbarrow in mind. Take a look at a few of the up-and-coming techniques you might see this year according to this article from GreenIndustryPros.com 

Glenn Switzer, Flickr.com

Consumers are spending money on residential landscapes, especially those used to relax and socialize. Commonly known as outdoor living spaces, these types of landscape projects, along with sustainable and low-maintenance landscaping, are the most popular among consumers in 2014, according to a survey conducted by the American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA).

Landscape architects who specialize in residential design were asked to rate the popularity of different landscaping elements. Roughly 94% said "gardens and landscape spaces" were either somewhat or very popular. Coming in second at 92% were "kitchens and entertainment spaces". Third was "outdoor recreation" at 76%.

Additionally, the following specific residential landscaping elements were noted as being "in demand" this year:

Lighting – 98%
Seating/Dining Areas – 97.7%
Fire Pits/Fireplaces – 95%
Grills – 94%
Installed Seating – 90% (includes benches, walls, ledges, steps and boulders)

To continue reading about more common 2014 trends, click here.

On Contractors' Minds

Have you ever had business concerns regarding personnel, government regulations, industry professionalism, staying price-competitive, pursuing the best opportunities, building a consumer base, or managing growth? According to this article on GreenIndustryPros.com, landscape contractors are struggling with the same issues. Know that you're not alone as you learn what you can do to ease your worries. 

USACE, Flickr.com

The market for landscaping services is much improved, but this business is still rife with challenges. According to a survey of landscape contractors subscribed to Green Industry Pros magazine, three primary issues remain foremost in the minds of landscape contractors:

1) Finding, training and managing employees
2) Government policies and/or regulations which impede the ability to maintain acceptable profit margins and grow
3) Dealing with "fly-by-night" competition

Actually, according to the survey, a couple dozen issues where brought up by contractors. Some are interrelated, and each tie back to one of the three main issues listed above. For this article, we'll break it down just a little further into seven topics of conversation, while also providing possible solutions as recommended by landscape contractors themselves.

To read the full article, click here.

Essential Jobs Include: Creating Job Descriptions

As a boss, you juggle many hats so make sure your employees are still getting your best! This article found on greenindustrypros.com makes a good argument for the importance of employee motivation in regards to your company's success.  

Landscape company owner/operators wear a lot of hats. They not only do the physical work of actually servicing accounts, but also sell and manage, respond to customers and do bookkeeping. The owners of larger landscape companies—who rarely if ever work on a crew anymore—wear many hats of their own; as a company gets bigger, the behind-the-scenes demands grow exponentially.

Whatever your personal situation is, the success of your company largely rests on the backs of your employees doing the work in the field. You must be able to trust them. In order to develop that trust, it's useful to have clear job descriptions in place before placing a new employee into action.

Tony Bass, a business trainer and former contractor, says that when you take a moment to reflect on all of the work that you do, you can start to see how it fits within numerous different roles within your company.

Click here to read the full article. 

6 Steps to Lowering Worker Comp Costs

Landscape Worker at Machu Picchu by David Berkowitz via flickr.com 

Even very small operations need to learn the rules behind workers compensation. Every state is different, but there are common sense rules any business ought to follow. Learn more in the article excerpted below from GreenIndustryPros.com. 

For landscapers all over the United States, the premium of workers’ compensation insurance is a large expense that’s often required by state laws. In other words, there’s not much you can do about it. Or is there?

Understand your state’s laws

Not every state requires businesses to provide workers’ comp. In fact, most states only require businesses to provide it when they have more than three employees.

Even when not required by law, offering workers’ comp is still beneficial for landscapers to avoid prosecution from injured employees who waive their rights to file damage lawsuits against the employer when receiving workers’ comp benefits.

The premium for workers’ compensation insurance is designed to provide sufficient funds to not only pay for benefits to the injured employees, but also to operate the system that delivers those benefits. It is a pre-funded insurance system, which means that premiums are determined before the policies are issued, and that premiums are intended to meet all future claim payments made under those policies.

Read the full article on GreenIndustryPros.com. 

3 Steps to Better Estimates

This is an excerpt from a landscaping estimates article published on Greenindustrypros.com.

Without completely knowing their costs, landscape contractors can't possibly arrive at an accurate bid number. And without that, they can't possibly earn the profit they need to sustain their businesses.

Contractors need a reliable, repeatable and consistent bidding system. By knowing all costs associated with each job, the bidding process will run more smoothly.

Information related to material prices and hourly labor costs should be readily accessible. Some contractors keep binders of information in their trucks. Others use management software back at the office, many times syncing up to a mobile device such as a smartphone or iPad. However you do it, having this information available on the fly is helpful. Not only can it help you to improve the accuracy of your estimating, but it can help speed up your estimating process. Remember, in many instances, the faster you can get an estimate into the prospective client's hands, the better your chances of getting the job.

Producing an accurate estimate requires two things: 1) Knowing how much it costs you to perform each task, 2) Knowing the exact parameters of the job you are bidding on.

Read the full, "3 Steps to Better Estimates" article at Green Industry Pros' website.