Join our Design/Build Revolution

Join our Design/Build Revolution!

Welcome! We started this newsletter to help landscape design/build contractors develop more effective business practices, create better projects, and realize the real value to what they bring to the profession.

We’ve lived and sweated landscape design/build for more than 35 years and in the process, have learned a lot. We’ve won just about every state and local award possible, and created more than $100 million in landscape work. To create this type of work, we’ve created a process that starts with the first customer conversation and carries us through to the completion (and often expansion) of the project. It’s this process — which we call the Kinman Process — that our colleagues asked us about. We taught it to them and saw that they, too, improved their companies, their work and their clientele. Then we started teaching this process in our Focus on Professionalism seminars designed exclusively for landscape design/build professionals. Ten years later, we have hundreds of professionals using, and succeeding because of our Process. Some might call that a “Design/Build Revolution,” since the ideas are so radical to how most contractors operate.

We are dedicated to raising the level of professionalism in this industry through better standards and methods. Our hope is that by sharing some of the best ‘gems’ of our Process, our seminars, and the real-life experiences of our students, you can start taking your company to a higher level, too!

When contractors ask us to explain how we do what we do and what our ‘revolution’ is all about, here’s what we tell them:

1. We’re the real deal
First, we did a beta test. We put our products and projects into the marketplace with our own clients. We have been testing for 40 years. Then, we brought our Kinman Process to our industry friends, who asked us to show them how we do what we do. For ten years, they have been testing it. We know it works and we know it is effective.

We believe the industry has had a crisis of confidence in its abilities. When contractors learn to become professional, that crisis goes away and they learn to succeed. We have this amazing evidence and it is the Kinman Process, which works in all markets and most areas of life. One by one, we have been helping contractors change and improve their businesses. We know we can’t reach all 50,000 companies in the industry, but we can reach as many as want to join our revolution. We have hundreds of alumni who can tell you we’re the real deal and it’s worked for them.

2. We need a revolution of thinking
We saw the impact of the people who came from our first class, then we saw the impact out of the 25th class, and the 50th one. We realize we need a revolution of thinking in the industry, and our seminars represent only a tiny fraction of the industry. By creating this newsletter, we can share our ideas and hopefully, plant some seeds by communicating our ideas and values.

Every day, we see contractors beaten down by the toll of working long hours for low profits on projects where they’ll never reach their full potential. What’s the reason for this? Customers don’t see landscape contractors as professionals, and often, the contractors themselves don’t see that either. We hope to change this thinking with a revolutionary look at every practice, from customer service to design itself to operations. We hope contractors will take the step to think differently and act differently, and in the process, become professional. Once that happens, you’ll have more efficient operations, engaged customers, and much higher profits.

3. We’ve seen real change happen
We’ve had an amazing opportunity over the last ten years where the most progressive companies sought us out, and shared their plight. We have shared our unique Kinman Process with them, and it changed their professional and personal lives. We have felt and personally enjoyed the success, but the acid test for our Kinman Process was when this training and our tools started affecting other landscape companies with different personalities, in different cities, with different clients, in different markets.

In the Kinman Process, we have discovered the potent effect of understanding things that seem to be outside our industry, but are so critical to open up the gateways to success. We understand how landscape history, communication skills and sound business practices work together. It is the awareness and balance — the recipe — of these disciplines that gives us these skill sets for Design/Build success. We’ve rolled this recipe in what we call like to call, “WEAPONS OF MASS INSTRUCTION,” which is the whole arsenal you’ll need to be successful.

4. We’ve seen contractors change
These weapons of mass instruction are what we use with Design/Build contactors, who change their preconception about this business, by having “epiphanies” of their own. They adopt our Kinman Process with no detriment to their own companies. Our methods are based on self-discovery, a mix of different learning styles, and exploring each person’s potential in a way that the Design/Build contractor can use this unique process with all clients. This process is built to be effective with all styles, personalities, tastes, education levels, and social/economic classes.

Our difference is that we share a set of “tools” contractors can use — that’s the magic of what we do. We present our educational nuggets so they are easily understood and can be used effectively in each contractor’s organization. The hardest thing about change is a person’s ability to adopt it. We have the nuggets, and we can successfully make change happen. We have achieved this state of change by sharing the tools to be implemented into any organizational culture. It isn’t something only Gary and Cynthia Kinman can do. This isn’t the latest and greatest thing; we know these bullets work.

5. Our alumni are the proof
Our Kinman Institute Alumni have been given the freedom to reach their potential. They come as tattered, exhausted fighters, with no armor and few weapons. We restore these warriors, and make them become powerful, fighting business strategists. We give them the tanks, jets, rockets, and bombs they need — the whole arsenal they need to be successful! We help this group of devoted, hard working Design/Build contractors take their pure energy, passion, and unwavering faith that they will succeed and we turn them into a Design Build Professional Company with standards and methods that help, them achieve success, no matter what comes their way. We wouldn’t take you into any battle if we thought you were going to get wiped out

6. Join our Revolution
This newsletter is a way to reach people in this field and let them know that there is another way to succeed, a better way. But we need your help. We need other Design/Build contractors to stand up with us to reveal failures in the landscape industry that leave contractors exposed and enslaved to suppliers.

We need to be the ones who are protected, respected, and have the lifestyle that is a result of our fruits and labors. With out our Design Build Process, a brick is just a brick, a timber is just a board, a plant is just vegetation. It is the disciplines of the Kinman Institute that give us the ability to create and combine them into an inspiring landscape. We teach how to communicate our values in a specific way so that the contractor and the client can together have their self- discovery and experience creativity in the design process.

Our alumni live the experience of going from the hope of success to the certainty of success. Find out for yourself.