Let me start off by saying I sincerely hope this blog post finds you, your family, and your business doing well.  We’re well into the year 2010 already and I’m sure for many of you the season is beginning to ramp up very quickly.

I also want to mention that even though I’ve been rather quiet lately, it’s not because I’ve completely forgotten about you.  In fact, I’ve been hard at work putting together some new programs that I’m certain will help you grow your green industry business this year like never before.

I won’t get into it too much today, but believe it or not and in spite of everything you’re hearing on the news, there are still lots of opportunities available to rapidly grow your business.  You just have to know where to look for them.

In the coming days and weeks I’ll be sharing some of these things with you, as well as some opportunities to help me test some new products and ideas.  Plus, you’ll have the opportunity to help at significantly reduced rates.  And when I say significant, I mean SIGNIFICANT!

Anyway, on to the purpose of today’s post.  I have a friend that needs some help.

His name is Emil Motycka and he’s competing to win a Clean Air Lawn Care franchise.  He’s one of several people competing and the winner will be determined by a vote which ends tomorrow.

So, what I’m asking you to do is to help out Emil by voting for him to win this franchise.

Now, just so you’re aware, I get absolutely NOTHING in return for doing this and to be completely honest, he doesn’t even know I’m doing it.  I just think he’s a great guy (young kid to be honest!) and I know he’d take this opportunity and absolutely make the most of it.

You can go vote for Emil right now right here:

http://voteemil.com

He’ll be the one wearing the black shirt.

Also, so you can hear Emil’s story straight from the horse’s mouth, here’s the email he sent me:

* * * * * * * * * * Emil’s Email * * * * * * * * * * * *

Dear Friends, Family, & Colleagues:

If you have a minute, please take a moment to vote for me @ http://voteemil.com

I’m a finalist in a national competition to win my own Clean Air Lawn Care Franchise; the nation’s leading full-service sustainable lawn care company, offering the cleanest & healthiest lawn service available – attached is a copy of a press release explaining the opportunity in detail.

To vote and hear my story, go to http://voteemil.com and then scroll down and choose me from the list of finalists. The order changes each time – I’m wearing a black shirt if you’re looking at the video photos.

Voting ends March 16th @ midnight MST time. Voting takes less than a minute. If you feel like voting twice, the system only allows one vote per computer so you’ll need to use a different computer for each vote.

Please feel free to tell others and forward this email or the press release. I’m closing in on first place (3rd place at the moment behind a tie for first place) so every vote counts!

Thanks in advance for your support and time.

Best,
Emil

* * * * * * * * End Emil’s Email * * * * * * * * * *

Again, I get absolutely NOTHING for doing this. I just really think Emil’s a stand-up guy and I know he’ll run with this opportunity and make the absolute most out of it.

Thanks in advance for any help you can offer and hopefully, with everyone’s help we’ll be able to push him over the top!

Again, here’s the link to vote:

http://voteemil.com

Voting ends tomorrow so PLEASE take 2 minutes right now to go vote for Emil!

If you’re familiar with Stephen Covey’s best seller ‘7 Habits of Highly Effective People’ then you’re familiar with the idea of ‘important but not urgent’. These are the things we can do that help us reach our goals and aspirations but in most cases, they’re not considered urgent.

As a lawn care business owner, you face lots of issues and challenges on a daily basis, many of which really aren’t all that important. Yes, they’re certainly urgent, but when you really boil it down, they’re just not that important.

If you really want to grow your lawn care business, then you must identify those ‘important but not urgent’ tasks and set aside time to work on them on a consistent basis.

So, what are these ‘important but not urgent’ tasks? While this is certainly not a comprehensive list, here are 5 that should definitely be on your list:

1. Strengthen relationships with your existing customers. As I’ve said before, your customers are your most valuble asset because they’re the ones that are giving you money.  Without them, you don’t have a business so you MUST find ways to make sure they stick with you, buy from you more often, and spend more money when they do.
2. Implement systems in your lawn care business. There are so many things that need to get done every single day and if you try to do them all yourself, you’re in trouble. Systems are powerful tools that allow you to get more done with less effort.  They’re steps, process, or procedures that when implemented produce consistent, predictable results.  Take time to work on designing, implementing, and improving systems in your business!
3. Planning ahead. I know this one seems elementary, but without a map of where you want to go you’ll never be able to get there.  When you have a plan in place your focus and energy are directed towards objectives that push you closer to your goals.  Without such a plan, it’s easy to get distracted, lose focus, and spend time on things that don’t produce the results you’re after.
4. Being an business owner and not just an employee. So many people go into their landscaping business thinking they’ll soon be living the high life.  Sadly, what ends up happening for many is that they end up becoming an employee in their own business.  That means if they step away or leave for any period of time, everything falls apart.  To truly be successful you MUST find time to design your business so you can step away knowing that things will continue growing and progressing.
5. Taking time to get away. Not only must you design your business so you can step away periodically, but you need to actually do it! It can be a hard thing to do for many business owners, but it’s absolutely essential if you want to maintain your interest, focus, and determination to grow a thriving lawn care business!

So as you analzye your business over the past year and begin making plans for the next, take a few minutes to determine where you’re spending your time.

Are you dedicating some of it to these ‘important but not urgent’ tasks? If not, take a few minutes right now to schedule time to do so.

During times like the difficult economy we find ourselves in the middle of, customers of all types of goods and services become much more demanding of the products and services they spend their money on.  That’s not to say they stop spending money, although many certainly do, but overall consumers as a whole become much more interested in making sure they get maximum value for their money.

As a result, it’s COMPLETELY dependent upon you to make sure you’re providing your lawn care business clients with the maximum value possible.  Don’t give them any reason to doubt the fact that they’re getting their money’s worth anytime they send you a check or you ding their credit card.

Another reason it’s so important to make sure you’re giving your clients the maximum value for their money is because they’re comparing your lawn care service to that of your competitors. They’re trying to find those little ‘extras’ that will make the difference and will ultimately either give you the business or hand it over to your competitor.

So, how can you make sure you’re offering your landscaping business clients maximum value every single time?

First, find out what they expect. What’s the minimum level of service they expect from your lawn care business so at the very least, you can make sure they’re getting that.

Next, once you know what the minimum service level expectation is, go above and beyond. That’s right, give them more than they expect! Don’t be content to simply satisfy the minimum requirements because you make it too easy for a compeitor to come along and show you up.

Finally, once you are providing maximum value, don’t be afraid to let your customers know about it. Tell them you provided an extra service at no charge. Show them where you went above and beyond and gave them that extra attention they want.  Yes, it might cost a little more in terms of time and/or money, but the goodwill it creates, and more importantly, the stories it creates will more than pay for your time.

So, as you continue looking for ways to grow your lawn care or landscaping business in this difficult economy, remember that it’s all right there within your control to win more customers, keep ‘em longer, and create consistent referral streams as a result!

You’ve heard me talk about this before and I’m sure you’ll hear me say it many times in the future as well.  Basically, marketing MUST be a year round process.  It’s something you need to do every single day to make sure your business grows like you want it to.

Unfortunately, so many of us get caught up in the day-to-day responsibilities of running our business that we think we don’t have time to do marketing. If you have that mindset for very long you’ll soon have plenty of time to do marketing because you won’t have any customers to provide service to!

At any rate, one of the best ways to make sure your marketing is getting done the way it needs to is to make it a habit.  It needs to be something you do EVERY SINGLE DAY!

Now, that doesn’t mean you have to do a lot, but you should something every day. Pick just one task, schedule time on your calendar, and make sure it gets done!  Then do the same thing for the next day, and the next day, and every other day after that.

Pretty soon you’ll have made some serious progress on getting marketing systems setup in your business AND you’ll have a pretty steady stream of qualified new prospects and customers.

As the marketplace continues to shift and adjust to economy, the way people buy products and services shifts and adjust right along with it. And given the roller-coaster ride we’ve been on lately, the marketplace and our clients have shown some pretty erratic behaviors.

As a result, it’s important to understand that a few basic principles will help you be competitive and be able to adjust to these changes as they happen.  In fact, these principles are the foundation of success in ANY marketplace environment.

That means they’ll work in good times and in bad.

So, what are these foundational principles of marketing that will help you be successful?

Here’s my list of the top 7:

1. Marketing should be your #1 priority. No customers, no business, plain and simple.
2. You should be doing something EVERY SINGLE DAY to market your business.
3. Focus on quality prospects and quantity. A handful of quality prospects will do a whole lot more for your business than a bunch of mediocre ones.
4. Become known as ‘the expert’. People like to work ‘the best’ and the way you can become known as that is to position yourself as ‘the expert’.
5. Forget about branding your business. Build name recognition through consistent, effective direct response marketing.
6. If you’re not online yet, you’re already waaaaay behind the curve. Because of the way your customers and prospects are researching their options, you’ve got to be online when they come looking for you.
7. Don’t forget about your existing customers. They’re your most valuable asset and it’s 10x’s easier to sell them than it is to sell to a brand new customer.

As you look for ways to grow your business right now and position it for future growth, keep these 7 principles in mind and you’ll have the strength and capacity to weather any economic storm.

As you work to grow your lawn care or landscaping business, there’s one job that MUST remain at the top of your priority list.  And sadly, it’s a job that most business owner’s think falls on an employee or a consultant.

Your #1 job responsibility must be marketing your business. That’s right, it’s not cutting grass, fixing equipment, hiring or training employees, or even managing payroll or AP/AR.  Yes, those things are incredibly important, but without customers willing to pay for your services you’ll never have a need to do those other activities.

The only thing you can do to guarantee a steady stream of customers willing to pay for your services is to continuously market your business.  That means you’ve got to spend time EACH DAY thinking about, putting together, and following up on effective marketing campaigns.

If you’ll accept the responsibility of marketing your business and do so using effective direct response marketing, you’ll be able to withstand the current economic recession and will position yourself for considerable success in the future.

As every business struggles to adapt to a tighter economy and customers that are guarding their money like Fort Knox, it’s critically important to understand the important aspects of growing your lawn care or landscaping business.

Sure, it’s not an easy thing to do these days, but give how difficult things can be this means most of your competition is either hibernating, just waiting for things to improve, or they’re on the edge of disaster and even one small slip up could cause their demise.

So to help you take advantage of the many opportunities that still exist in today’s marketplace, here are 5 strategies for making sure your business is moving in the right direction:

1. Guard your existing customers with your life. I’ve said it many times before that your existing customers are your most valuable asset and you should do everything within your power to take them off the market for your services forever.  That hasn’t changed and if anything, is even more important in today’s challenging economy.
2. You’ve got to do all the little things you didn’t have to do when things were good. Admit it, there were plenty of little things you just didn’t want to do when getting customers was a piece of cake.  But now that times have changed and getting a new customer is harder than ever, you’ve got to be willing to go the extra mile and do the little things no one else wants to do.
3. Remember, it’s about the relationship not the price. While most businesses are simply looking at their bottom line and make decisions based on cost, you should look at things from a relationship perspective. If you’ll treat your customers as a relationship to be nurtured and not just as another paycheck, you’ll quickly find that your customer base is growing right along with your bottom line profits.
4. Review your service quality and eliminate anything that isn’t up to par. Because people are so guarded with their money these days they’re much more likely to scrutinize every dollar they spend. As a result, you’ve got to make sure your service quality is above and beyond what your customers expect to receive.
5. Become a networking fool. Let’s face it, people do business with people they know, like, and trust.  One of the best ways to develop these kinds of relationships is to network. Fortunately, there’s no shortage of networking opportunities, either in your local business community, at your kid’s school, in your church, or in other organizations you belong to. Get out there, meet lots of people, learn about their problems/challenges/wants, and then when the time is right let them know how you can be a problem solver.

There are certainly many challenges and obstacles to operating a successful business in today’s difficult climate, but the ones that are willing to step up to the challenge and face it head-on are the ones that will see continued success now and well into the future as well.

In today’s hyper-competitive marketplace, you’ve got to be extremely focused and strategic when it comes to growing your lawn care or landscaping business.  It’s easy to sit back and think that things will continue to move in a positive directio without expending some effort to make sure that happens.

One of the biggest sins many business owners commit during both good and bad times is thinking that once they’ve got a customer they’ll remain loyal to them.  Sadly, this is not the case at all.

In fact, just because you’ve landed a customer once doesn’t mean they’ll continue to remain your customer.  You’ve got to continuously remind your customers why they selected you to be their service provider.  You’ve got to give them reasons to continue selecting you as their service provider. And you’ve got to make it easy for them to continue being your customer.

If you don’t do any of these, you’re committing one of the ultimate marketing sins.  Forgetting about your customers and not doing anything to encourage and stimulate repeat business from them is one of the fastest ways to send your business’ growth in the opposite direction of where you want it to go.

Don’t take your existing customers for granted!

I don’t know about you, but I have a really hard time watching the news lately.  It seems like all the talk is about how this political party did this, and that elected official did that, and how everyone’s arguing over what to do with our health care situation.

Now don’t get me wrong, I have some very strong opinions about what I think needs to be done, but you didn’t subscribe to my email list to hear me talk politics.  Maybe someday I’ll branch off and create an email list just so I can rant and rave about what’s being done in Washington DC, but not today.

Today I want to share with you some things you can do to create your own stimulus package. You see, I’ve been asking small business owners left and right if they’ve seen any benefit from the multi-billion dollar stimulus package and as I suspected, the answer is a resounding ‘NO!’

And what’s really sad about the whole situation is that small business really is the lifeline of this great country.  Since the beginning our this great country it’s been entrepreneurs like you and me that have helped shape our great nation into what it STILL IS.

Although it’s questionable if we’ll remain there, but again, this isn’t about my political beliefs. This is about ‘what can you do to keep your business thriving and growing’.

So, here are 3 suggestions for what you can do to create your very own stimulus package:

1. Take massive action. I’ve talked about this principle before and the idea of it is that if you want massive results, you’ve got to take massive action.

And I’m not talking about sequential action, I’m talking about SIMULTANEOUS action.  That means instead of just trying one new marketing technique, trying out 5.  Yes, it might seem like a lot to swallow, but right now is NOT the time to be shy about growing your business.

2. Focus on creating referral relationships. As you no doubt already know, referrals are one of the best lead sources available.  The problem is they’re not very consistent.

To combat that, why not create a referral system that teaches you customer or business partners who you’re looking for, provides them with tools to make referring you easy to do, and then rewards them for their help in growing your business?

Every business is different so it’s up to you to decide how to implement this, but I can promise you it’s one of the most effective things you could be doing right now to grow your business.

3. Provide even more value for your customers. Now I know this one probably goes against what you’re thinking, but it’s actually a GREAT strategy right now because almost every other business is thinking of ways to cut corners.

If you can provide even more value for the money your customers are giving you, you’ll get more new customers as a result of your existing customers raving about you, plus you’ll position yourself as the clear leader in your marketplace.

Listen, I’m not going to blow any smoke up your skirt and tell you you’ll wake up tomorrow and everything will be back to normal. We definitely need to buckle down and become even more savvy if we want to not just weather this storm, but really prosper.

Yes, it’s ABSOLUTELY possible but it’s going to require working harder AND working smarter. Much smarter in fact.

On Tuesday in Lawn & Landscape’s weekly email newsletter was included an article about steps being taken by the EPA to create a nationwide standard for water usage.  While it certainly makes sense for some areas like toilets, shower heads, etc., given the climate differences between the various parts of the country it’s hard to imagine how they can justify creating one blanket standard.

Go here to read the complete article on EPA’s WaterSense Program Harmful for Lawn and Landscape Industry

But don’t just stop at reading the article.  The green industry needs your help!

As stated in the article:

We urgently recommend all interested parties to write to their congressional representative and Senators asking him or her to raise these issues with EPA and ask that the agency set aside the WaterSense outdoor landscape criteria for now, evaluate the science, and work with stakeholders to improve the product. Contact information for your representatives can be found at www.senate.gov and www.house.gov or you can contact Kris Kiser at OPEI at kkiser@opei.org.

Remind lawmakers that when properly managed and maintained, the benefits of turfgrass are multifold:

Captures Water Runoff and Dust
Turfgrass does an excellent job of capturing water runoff and lessening dust and particulate matter pollution, versus alternatives such as hard surfaces, mulched areas and impervious or bare surfaces.

According to a Council for Agricultural Science and Technology (CAST) 2006 Publication, turfgrass decreases dust emissions and for controlling soil erosion, a live, functioning grass cover, including urban lawns, is a cost-effective option, since a grass root system is one of the most effective in soil stabilization because of the fibrous, dense character of its roots.

Lessens Heat Island Effect
Turfgrass lessens the “heat island” effect, especially in urban areas. Urban areas generally have higher temperatures than surrounding rural areas, well known as the urban “heat island” effect. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) states that “the annual mean air temperature of a city with 1 million people or more can be 1.8-5.4 °F warmer than its surroundings. In the evening, the difference can be as high as 22 °F.”

Captures, Stores Carbon in Roots
Properly managed turf areas are significant carbon sinks. When kept in a growing state, carbon sequestration in turf areas can range anywhere from four to seven times the carbon emissions, according to the report, “Technical Assessment of the Carbon Sequestration Potential of Managed Turfgrass in the United States” by Dr. Ranajit (Ron) Sahu.

Boosts the Oxygen Footprint
Turfgrass can boost your oxygen footprint. Compared to bare ground, non-green areas, and lawn substitutes, such as painted concrete or even artificial turf, actual grass and green areas generate oxygen. For example, a turf area 50 feet square produces enough oxygen to meet the everyday needs of a family of four and each acre of grass produces enough oxygen for 64 people a day.

After you’ve contacted your congressional representative, be sure to sign up for Lawn & Landscape’s weekly email newsletter!