Learning From the “Big” Guys

Learning From the “Big” Guys

We’re in the same industry as the big guys, but our experiences are a lot different. And that can be good…

We’re not big, on purpose. We focus on bringing the best value to each customer and getting maximum profitability for our work.

Gary recently attended PLANET’s Green Industry Conference in Louisville, KY, a national event bringing together landscape professionals from all over. Experienced and new contractors come together for seminars, meetings, social networking and more, in conjunction with the GIE + EXPO trade show.

One of the keynote events this year was a high-level panel discussion featuring the CEOs of some of the landscape industry’s largest companies, ranging from $1.4 billion in revenues to $50 million.

We sat watching these executives talk about mergers and acquisitions, immigration issues, and other trends they deal with, and the thought occurred to us that maybe the landscape universe is larger than we thought.

It isn’t that we don’t have things in common. Sure, we’re all in “landscaping,” and we do great things to outdoor spaces, but their experiences and ours are pretty much light years apart.

Big companies have big issues – traveling to Central America to recruit immigrant labor, wheeling and dealing with venture capitalists, picking which company they want to buy next, spinning a wheel to see where they’ll open a new branch.

Lean operations and long-term relationships with clients is a far cry from the mega-companies’ method of doing business.

It all seemed so foreign to us. Granted, most of them run huge maintenance businesses, so they’re always going to be different from smaller, design/build firms. But still, $1.4 billion? Central America?

Our sector of the market has other concerns: low-ballers, clarifying our value, and not overextending ourselves in equipment, inventory, staff. We’re looking at a very different 2010 in terms of demand of our work, and the competition for clients will get pretty fierce, we suspect.

Our goal is to become intimate, trusted advisors to our clients. To run efficient and profitable companies. To create unbelievable landscapes that are exactly what our clients want and need. To have fun at it.

So in retrospect, it was good for PLANET to hold this high-level panel so we could see how things are on the other side of the fence. But instead of wanting to be more like those folks, we’re just glad we know the difference between us.

Is your landscape design/build business focused on offering real value to your clients? To learn more about how to maximize your profits by focusing on your strengths, contact us by email: cynthia@kinmaninstitute.com, phone: 614-764-8733, or website: www.kinmaninstitute.com.