Our Level Up series shares the strategies that help landscape and lawn care companies get to the next level.
Glenn Bonick, owner of Bonick Landscaping based in Irving, Texas, says he believes if you are not growing, you are shrinking.
The company has been in business for over 38 years and has always experienced steady growth. Bonick Landscaping has been growing at 10 to 20 percent a year since 2010, with 2017 being the only exception. He says this exception was just due to the sales cycle at the time.
“Out of these 10 years since the last (economic) turn down, to only have one flat year is pretty good,” Bonick says.
Bonick says he’d like to grow the company by 50 to 75 percent or reach the $15 to $18 million mark. In 2018, the company was at the $6 million mark and last year they reached $11 million in revenue.
“We expect growth this year even during this pandemic,” he says. “I feel very confident that we are in a great place to have accelerated growth as the economy turns back around.”
Creating Luxury Landscapes
Like many others, Bonick started out mowing lawns but after a customer asked him to build a hot tub and gazebo, he discovered his love for landscape design/build work.
Bonick Landscaping offers residential landscape design, pool design and construction, lawn care service and pool service throughout the Dallas and Fort Worth areas in Texas. The company’s business is about a 50/50 split between services, like pool cleaning and garden care, and construction work. The company takes pride in their superior customer service and out-of-the-ordinary landscape designs.
Bonick says they brought the pool building in-house around 15 years ago and started servicing pools 10 years ago. He says they love building things and figured they might as well step into that space to control the details. Pool construction makes up about 20 percent of their business.
“Coming out of the last recession is when we decided to add additional services for our clients because we want to be a one-stop-shop for our clients and since we’re building it, we thought it only made sense that we take care of it,” he says.
The company has earned Awards of Excellence in both 2016 and 2017 for their work. Bonick is also a NALP Trailblazer where he mentors others in the industry.
“The relationships I have made on a national basis are some of the best teachers I could ever have,” he says. “All of them have come through my involvement in NALP.”
Passionate Employees
Bonick credits his company’s growth directly to his employees and their quality of work.
“Our people are our backbone,” Bonick says. “Our people really have a passion whether it’s for design, whether it’s for construction, or whether it’s for caring for things, each one of them are unique. It’s the fact that we as a company are always striving to do things better than we did before and it is noticeable. I’ve had many times clients comment to me that they really appreciate how somebody’s gone out of their way to make sure that something’s happened, whether it’s correcting a problem, or it’s showing up to make sure something’s right for a party or whatever the case is.”
He says there’s no secret sauce to their success other than hard work, being diligent and actively expanding every year.
“It really is the fact that our work is being recognized and we’ve got a core group of people that are really staying with us and so it’s allowing us to do more,” he says.
Currently, the company has 75 employees, and Bonick says he can remember the days when he was excited to have 10 people on staff. He says part of the reason they continue to grow is to offer their employees a place to growth with. Bonick says the company’s culture is work in progress as they continue to grow.
“As we have grown, I am less managing the day to day work but working with our team to be better trainers and better listeners,” he says. “We want a safe and rewarding environment for our team so helping one another is what I feel makes a great culture.”
The greatest challenge to their growth right now is capital and employees. Bonick says they’d like to bring on two more crews but cannot find the talent to do so.
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