Landscape Management, January 2012

ACUTABOVE 57 JANUARY 2012 LANDSCAPEMANAGEMENT NET Ted Hofer TOP TRENDS Educating the customer A customers cultural practices are a deciding factor in the quality of their lawns One of our challenges in lawn care has always been to make sure customers understand that mowing at the right height and watering properly are important to the aesthetics of their lawns In addition to the aesthetic appeal there are extensive environmental benefits gained from having properly maintained turf so now we take it one step further and let the customer understand that by mowing and watering properly and by using our service they are having a positive impact on the environment Lawns are still being maintained While the lawn care customer base may not have grown over the past few years its not declining severely as you may have seen in other industries Many people are spending more time at home than ever before Theyre eating in more frequently and taking fewer vacations so they want their homes and their properties to look good Despite the economic downturn and the unpredictable future ahead most lawn care users have kept their service TOP OBSTACLES Access to credit Many Spring Green franchises are looking to expand and accelerate their growth but the lack of access to credit has slowed a businesss ability to achieve its long term goals This is true for most small businesses today They would like to grow but are often unable to get financed through traditional means In todays lending environment there are still plenty of million dollar deals getting done but the lower loan amounts 25000 to 200000 have been more difficult to secure Increasing costs This past year has seen significantly increasing costs in fertilizer and fuel two key components of our business To offset some of these cost increases Spring Green franchises went back to the basics and utilized a daily drivers report to track product usage and vehicle mileage They made sure their equipment was properly calibrated and tracked their fertilizer usage daily They used routing software to schedule tight routes for each days work Then they monitored the mileage being driven each day Lawn care businesses certainly experienced a tightening of margins in 2011 and Id expect 2012 pricing to reflect the increasing costs of doing business TOP OPPORTUNITIES Increasing our marketing complexity Although I think of lawn care as a service that you dont want to over complicate there are some areas of our business such as marketing in which we can delve deeper We want our franchises to keep a database mentality when it comes to marketing and they do so by maintaining detailed customer and prospect databases Annual plans One of the great things about lawn care that many companies dont take advantage of is that its fairly easy to put together an annual business plan During winter the Spring Green support team works with franchise owners to create a plan for the upcoming year that focuses on areas of the business such as staffing equipment and marketing After the spring sales season our team revisits the plan evaluates where the business will be at years end then makes educated managerial decisions during the second half of the year to improve bottom lines By maximizing potential cash flow they are able to fund next years marketing investment and keep the cycle turning PHOTO COURTESY SPRING GREEN BY BETH GERACI GREEN INDUSTRY MAINTENANCE LEADERS At Plainfield IL based Spring Green Chief Executive Officer Ted Hofer has a lot on his mind To start the new year he took a minute to opine about financing marketing the strength of the industrys customer base and other issues affecting his business and the industry overall INSIDE INFO Company Spring Green Headquarters Plainfield IL with 122 franchises in 26 states Employees 350 2010 revenue 34 million Key to being a maintenance leader In lawn care a leader needs to run an operation that can generate business and get the work done on time So at Spring Green we make sure our franchise owners have a strong operational focus while also maintaining a marketing mentality In lawn care there are operational realities that cant be ignored A certain amount of work needs to be completed each year and a schedule has to be maintained throughout the year to finish on time Our franchise owners track their progress against their production schedule while accounting for real life factors such as weather and employee turnover As they deal with daily operations our franchise owners need to be able to maintain a marketing mentality in order to take advantage of each sales opportunity They execute and follow through on their marketing activities with the same passion as the production side of the business and train their staff so that everyone feels comfortable making sales