When an already-sustainable sports and entertainment complex was looking to up their game even more, they turned to DeSantis Landscapes to get the job done. The Moda Center at the Rose Quarter, a 30-acre campus and home to the Portland Trail Blazers, had been improving their sustainability efforts across the board, having earned their first […]
Before coming to work for Utopian Landscapes LLC full-time, Terra Phelps, the “handler” (because she “handles it all”) had already been consulting on various jobs and tasks. As the wife of Nikos Phelps, the Harrisburg, Pennsylvania-based company’s founder and co-owner, she’d offer design advice or contribute to projects, even though she was working for the […]
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 […]
The landscape industry is constantly changing. Fluctuating fuel costs, vehicle prices and indeterminate weather during busy seasons all contribute to uncertainty. But for innovative landscape fleets, uncertainty doesn’t need to be foreboding. Instead, it should be an opportunity for fleet managers to hone in on wasteful procedures and replace them with streamlined processes that both […]
Edward Joseph Klaas, II, owner of Southern Sprinkler Systems LLC in Roswell, Georgia, has made an effort to assist in every major hurricane in the Southeast since 2005 when his company’s assistance with Hurricane Katrina left a lasting impact. After Hurricane Dorian left parts of the Bahamas devastated, Klaas teamed up with a local business […]
If you’re struggling to hire or retain employees, it’s possible you may need to revisit the way you do things. Today, the post-millennial generation (Generation Z) is arriving in the workforce—and their wants and needs are quite different than you might be used to. That means if you’re still employing yesterday’s approach to hiring and […]
Shayne Newman, founder and president of YardApes in New Milford, Connecticut, credits his upbringing to his ultimate career choice in landscaping. Having spent so much time outdoors as a kid made it seem virtually impossible to choose a career that involved the confines of four walls every day. “I don’t just like being outside; I […]
There are a couple of effective ways to price your work for profit—and we do not recommend bidding all jobs at the same hourly rate (figured on your overhead and desired profit). In a competitive market, you’ll need to go deeper with pricing. Let’s illustrate how three different companies can price jobs three different ways. […]