Meet a Design/Build Revolutionary: Ralph Brown

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Meet a Design/Build Revolutionary: Ralph Brown

Ralph Brown

Profile: Ralph Brown, Director of Business Development, Hardeman Landscape Nursery Inc., Tampa, FL

Employees: Approximately 50 employees + office staff

Mix: 65% Commercial Bid/Build, 35% Residential Design/Build, plus some maintenance

Affiliated companies are:

Sitecrafters of Florida Inc. — Site Development Work
Hardeman Kempton & Associates — Landscape Architecture

Years in Landscape Business: 20+

Business Focus:Residential Design/Build, Commercial Bid/Build, Estate Management.

What’s Unique in this Business: The focus recently has changed to more bid/build work with the shift in the economy, says Brown. “The economy has forced us to make two big changes: We’ve gotten more aggressive in marketing and getting work; and we’ve become much more efficient with fewer employees, shortened project time cycles, and more streamlined operations. This has allowed us to get good margins on our work.”

Design/Build Revolutionary since: 2001

“I had taken a sabbatical from the industry to go back to school and I first saw Gary Kinman speak when the ALCA Conference came to Tampa,” he explains. “It blew my mind. I thought: ‘Holy Smoke! That’s exactly what I need to hear!’ That presentation changed my perspective on what I was trying to do as I was getting back into the industry.”

Brown attended a Kinman Institute Seminar soon after and started putting the Process steps into practice right away.

“The Process is incredibly well thought out and is a terrific qualifier for prospective clients,” he says. “I can tell within 30 seconds if we want to do business with people.”

After his firm started using the Kinman Process, it was obvious how well it worked. “Our closure rate was scary how effective it was – more than 90%,” Brown notes.

Brown has attended the Kinman Institute Seminars three times, including their Model Making Class (see “What’s New at the Kinman Institute? below).

Takeaway from the Kinman Institute:

From time to time, Brown says, they got away from adhering strictly to the Process. “I talked about it once with Gary and told him, ‘I can do this part of it, but that part won’t work.’ But the more I varied form the process, the less effective it was.”
Although Hardeman’s bid/build work process does not rely as heavily on the Kinman Process, “We maintain the Process on the better, residential design/build jobs,” Brown notes.
“We had a landscape architect intern who revisited us and said he was interested in starting his own landscape contracting firm. I recommended the first thing he should do is sign up for the Kinman Institute Seminar, because he will learn things there he will never learn on his own for 50 years. I told him it would save him time.”

2009 Destinations:

Local deep sea and Tampa Bay area fishing
Enjoying his newly renovated house and garden

For more information about Hardeman Landscape Nursery Inc., visit www.hardemanlandscape.com.