During National Apprentice Week, a nationwide celebration that gives businesses, communities and educators the opportunity to showcase their apprenticeship programs, seemed like the most fitting time for Fullerton Grounds Maintenance (FGM), headquartered in Kenvil, New Jersey, to officially launch the NALP Landscape Management Apprenticeship Program. The inaugural group will begin their journey with this career-shaping […]
A Pennsylvanian family was looking to upgrade their home’s curb appeal and their backyard pool. They wanted to take full advantage of warm summer months. They had painstakingly updated and refinished their house and wanted an outdoor space to match. With a general idea in mind, they contracted Earth, Turf, & Wood to help make […]
Many sales experts say better understanding your customers is the secret of successful selling. Existing customers are important sources of information. The more you know about them, the more you can target other people like them as new customers and the more you can increase current customers’ spending. Customer profiling enables lawn and landscape professionals […]
What do sports have to do with the way you run a business? Quite a lot, says Ross Bernstein, an award-winning, peak-performance business speaker who is the best-selling author of nearly 50 sports books. Bernstein will be leading a 2020 Leaders Forum workshop entitled, “Harnessing Innovation and Technology to Invest in Your Company’s Future: Greatest […]
Company culture is increasingly becoming a differentiator for landscape businesses. A positive, productive culture has the power to make prospective employees and customers want to partner with you. Even more important, they’ll make them want to stay with you. While it can be simple to describe what your company does, as in the services it […]
As owner of Meticulous Landscaping Inc., Waretown, New Jersey, Robert Kraft knows plenty about providing landscape services to commercial properties. His company’s expertise includes commercial lawn care, landscape design, construction and installation services, irrigation installation and maintenance, and tree care and snow removal services. He has also learned that touching base with his management team […]
You’re beyond the plan-on-a-napkin stage. It’s time to create your first business plan, or take one you already have in play to the next level. So, what now? How will you advance your planning approach so you can dig deeper into the business and get better results? As your business changes, so does the need […]
Preparation is the key to conducting an effective interview. This is your opportunity to get to know a candidate, and to determine if this person is a fit for your company culture. First, prepare a job description so you can determine what qualifications you are interviewing for. You must also know what skills are needed […]
Building a team is a multi-step process that involves recruiting, interviewing, hiring and developing team members. Ideally, you work through this process from beginning to end, because we know from experience if you skip any one of these steps, the result could be a very expensive mistake. Because hiring and onboarding is a process, it […]
The lawn and landscape industry has an interesting dynamic in that it involves quite a few “entrepreneurial couples,” a new term that is replacing “mom-and-pop.” The term refers to businesses owned by couples (spouses or life partners). And the truth is, there are more of them out there than people realize. Couples run many small […]