You may have heard the expression that a happy worker is a productive worker. While you might have implemented some efforts to build a stronger company culture, you could still be wondering whether you’re doing enough.
Considering the fact that a positive company culture not only helps you to retain your existing employees but to recruit new ones as well, it’s definitely an important piece of the puzzle.
The landscape industry is unique in the fact that its lowest paid employees have some of the greatest power in their respective companies. While they’re certainly not the ones making major business decisions, their actions can have a big impact on the overall success—or failure—of the business.
Why?
Because laborers are the ones on the front line. In fact, they probably have more interaction with your customers than anyone else in your company. And that’s a big deal.
Put simply: The people at the bottom of your organizational chart are the ones that should be the best at representing your company. Regardless of your marketing efforts, your branding, and any other efforts you make to present a certain “image” of your company to the public, if you have crews that are dressed sloppy, are careless when they work, have poor interactions with your clients, and cause other issues, it’s going to negatively impact your business image.
Do you find that your landscaping equipment is costly to maintain? While most landscape business owners recognize that their equipment maintenance costs are high, they might be unsure as to exactly what they’re investing in it. That may be the case for you. In fact, you might even be wondering: Is this equipment costing more to maintain than it’s worth?
If you feel like you make decisions on equipment maintenance more on emotion rather than good business sense, then it’s an issue that requires further exploration. You may even feel as though you are unaware of just how big your equipment costs are and whether or not they’re hurting your profitability.
The possibility of employees stealing company money is something that most landscape business owners don’t want to think about. It’s one of those things that make a lot of people say that could never happen to me.
But the fact is, it happens more than most people realize. It’s estimated that workplace crime costs U.S. businesses as much as $50 billion a year. And research shows that on any given day as many as one in four businesses are being embezzled.
While most embezzlement cases do occur in the financial services field, every industry is at risk. And that certainly includes landscape businesses.
Just consider this one real-life case for example.
In this day and age, where customers want their questions answered and their problems solved as quickly as they present them, it can be hard to keep up. Customer demand and expectations only continue to rise. You try to be as supportive as you possibly can, but it’s impossible to be physically present for all of your landscaping clients, 24/7.
While you can’t be personally attentive at any given moment of the day, your website is a powerful tool that is always available. Even after you’ve gone home for the evening or are no longer taking client (or prospect) calls, visitors to your website can still be online reading information about your company and getting answers to their questions, all on their own time.
Billing is a fundamental process of your landscaping business. That’s because billing is your “bridge to cash flow,” making it an essential process that allows you to sustain your operations.
Despite the importance of billing, it’s a process that can go awry for many different reasons—and that’s a big deal. Billing blunders can cost your business profit and should be addressed seriously. The last thing that you want to do is leave money on the table due to a billing mistake that could have been prevented.
Even so, you might feel as though you’re struggling to find a good system that prevents you (or your staff) from making these errors in the first place. It might feel like a hopeless cycle. You know billing mistakes are being made but you can’t seem to put a stop to them.
But have hope because there are solutions out there.
At Include Software, we’ve worked with hundreds of landscape companies and often end up discussing their business needs. Occasionally, we hear a lot of companies are looking at updating or improving their websites.
This is a smart business move. After all, your website is one of your most important marketing tools. Even if a client finds you somewhere else (like a Facebook ad or even via word-of-mouth), they’re still going to head to your website to check you out.
While you may be great at designing a landscape or a property maintenance program, chances are, you might not know much about website design. You may know it’s important to put together something that will stand out, but you may not be sure how to get started.
If you’re worried about retaining landscaping employees, you aren’t alone. No matter what trade show, conference, or other green industry events you attend, listen to the chatter and you’ll likely hear about the same struggles come up again and again.
Landscape business owners nationwide are all struggling with the same employee retention concerns, saying that it’s not only difficult to find workers, but it’s also incredibly difficult to keep them.
While you need more job recruits to fill your open positions and to keep your business growing, employee turnover can be a thorn in your side.
Fortunately, it doesn’t have to be that way.
Let’s be honest, the financial aspect of your business can be a big challenge. While the landscaping part of your operation may be cut-and-dry to you, the inner-workings of the business, may not be. After all, financials are complicated and require a certain level of business acumen that typically only comes with a business degree or background.
Even so, you are tasked with not only running a successful landscaping operation but also ensuring that your company continues to make more profit. It’s a lot of pressure.
While you feel as though you should be able to manage your business in a more profitable way, you may not be sure how. With so much data that needs to be tracked, you may not be certain of the best way to determine where your company is gaining—and where it’s losing.
Chances are, you started your business because you’re passionate about landscaping. Not because you are passionate about accounting. While you know that staying on top of the financials, and making better decisions is key to your profitability, it may be a struggle to do so.
After all, very few landscape company owners have a strong business background. You know a lot about your trade and about producing and maintaining spectacular landscapes but you may not know a whole lot about maintaining financial reports.
Because of that, you may be worried that you’re not turning enough profit for your business. You want to be able to track numbers more easily and make better decisions based on priorities—and on data. But you may not even know where to start.
