[00:00:01] Speaker A: Welcome to the Grow show, brought to you by Mardi Grunder's Grow Group, where we specialize in helping landscaping companies clarify their platform, grow their people, build their processes, and realize profits. Everything we teach is grounded in real experience. Our team's actively involved in the day to day operations of Southwest Ohio's Grunder Landscaping Company. New episodes are released weekly on Wednesdays and are made possible by the support of Aspire, Bob Yard and Exmark. Remember to subscribe so you never miss an episode. Now, here's your host, Marty Grunder.
[00:00:30] Speaker B: Well, good morning, good afternoon, good evening, wherever the case may be. This is Marty Grunder from Grunder Landscaping Co. And the Grow Group. Thanks for downloading the Grow Show.
Today we're going to talk about how to fill up your schedule this fall and winter and how to make sure you aren't sitting there next spring wondering where all the work is. I have a lot to share. Excited to teach on this topic, but first, a reminder. You can get the latest edition of the Grow show delivered to your phone, tablet or computer by subscribing wherever you get your podcasts or Watch us on YouTube for an enhanced learning experience.
The Grow show is the greatest thing since Handwritten Notes okay folks, I love to hand write notes and send them to people. This is a note that came from Melissa Bates, one of our clients. I'm not going to let you read. I'm just going to say it's just a very well written little note on this cute ice cream cone card. Melissa, thank you. If you ever wonder if you make an impact on someone by sending them a handwritten thank you note, you do onto the Grow Show. Okay folks, we're in the fall and depending on where you are in the country, you may still be very busy. Your crews are busy, your production team is busy, your salespeople may be busy. Everyone's running around. And that's exactly where I want you to be. And this is where I want you to be careful too, okay? We gotta watch this kind of stuff because it lulls us into sleep. Because being busy today can fool you into thinking you're okay tomorrow. I've seen this happen time and time again. The schedule looks good now. Everybody relaxes. We stop prospecting. We stop following up. We stop looking ahead. And then pow, four, six, eight weeks later from now, someone walks into the office and says, hey Marty, we're running out of work.
Well, that's a lousy time to start selling. Folks, the time to fill a hole in your schedule isn't when you get to the hole. You need to see it coming. So today I'm going to give you a very practical game plan for filling your schedule this fall, for keeping your people productive as long as you possibly can, and. And setting yourself up to come screaming out of the gate next spring, guns a blazing. Number one, your schedule is a sales scorecard. Here's the first thing I want you to do. Look at your production schedule, not your sales pipeline. Look at your schedule board. If you use Aspire lmn, you got a manual schedule board. Go look at it. Not how many proposals you've sent, not how busy everybody says or claims they are. Look at what you've actually sold and is on the schedule board. At Grunder Landscaping Company, I've learned that our production schedule is one of the best sales scorecards we have. I want to know several things. What's happened in two weeks from now? What's happened in 30 days from now? What's happened in 60 days from now? And ideally, I want to know 90 and 120 out and even beyond. Because salespeople sometimes fool themselves with pipeline. They'll say, I've got 900,000. I've got 2 million in my pipeline. Okay, that's great, but how much of it is real? I like weighted averages. We look at that. How old is it? How long have you been calling on them? When's the last time you got a touch on those people? When are they making a decision? Can we actually produce the work when they want it done?
A pipeline filled with proposals nobody's going to buy isn't a pipeline, folks. It's a filing cabinet or a shredder box. So start with the schedule, look for the holes, and put a dollar amount on those holes. Don't say, we could use a little bit more work in November. Who's got something? Say, we need $195,250 worth of work for November. Now we've got a target. Or say the man hours, whatever it is. But get a target. And then once you have that target, you can develop activities to go hit it. That's called sales management.
Number two. Nothing happens till somebody sells something. I've said this forever. Nothing happens until you sell something. The prettiest of all Ferraris and ain't going anywhere without gas in the tank. There's nothing for production to produce if we haven't made any sales. There's nothing for accounting to invoice if we haven't made anything to invoice. And there's also nothing for our people to Install. If we haven't made any sales, there's no gross profit. There's no money to reinvest. There's not anything until someone sells something. And here's where landscape companies get themselves in a boatload of trouble during spring. The phone rings, leads come in. Everybody wants landscaping, everybody wants mulch, Everybody wants maintenance, Everybody wants a patio. And we think we're rock stars. And we get our salespeople conditioned to be an order takers instead of order makers. They get the phone calls. The phone rings, they answer it. The email comes in, they respond, the web request. Somebody asks for an estimate, they write it. That's not bad, folks, but that's not professional selling. A professional salesperson is an order maker. They go out and make it happen. They don't just wait and see what happens and wait for the phone to ring. They make the phone ring. They make things happen. And fall, ladies and gentlemen, is the perfect time to find out what kind of sales organization you have. Because when leads slow down, the order taker says, well, there's not much going on. Sure wish Emily would do some marketing. The order maker says, where can I go create some business? What proposals can I look back through? Who's got a phase two or a phase three? What properties don't look good that maybe would let me do some enhancements? What properties don't look good that maybe I could take over? That's the mindset I want your entire sales team to have.
Number three. Start with people who already know you. It's far easier to work with someone that's done business with you before than to try to create something new. So where do we look? Those existing clients? It's so obvious, folks, but we miss it. Landscape companies spend an inordinate amount of time trying to find complete strangers while sitting on hundreds of thousands of dollars that clients have that will spend with us because they know us, because they like us, because they trust us. Go look at those properties. Don't just call them and say, do you need anything that's lazy. Go out and walk the property. Give them some unsolicited quotes, take a picture, do a little doodle on it. Send them a quote. Look like the professional you are. Are there trees that should be added? Did plants not perform well? Does the commercial sign look terrible and maybe need some color or rehab? Are there bed areas that need renovated? Are there lighting opportunities? Was it a new home 20 years ago and it had full sun, perennials, and now it's full shade? Is there a trade out that's needed Is there any standing water? How's the irrigation look? Audit it. Shout out to my friends at Weathermatic. Are there any hardscaping that needs repaired? Any overgrown plant material? Some winter pruning? Is there a screen? Is there a.
A fire feature that would extend the time that they can use their outdoor space? Does a commercial property need improvements before next year's budgets get locked down? Bring them the ideas. Look like a professional. Make your property managers look good. Don't let their boss come in and say, why does that look terrible? Hasn't your landscaper said something?
We teach our salespeople here at Grunder Landscaping that our clients hired us because we're supposed to know more about landscaping than they do. So you need to act like it's a good doctor, doesn't work in the room, and say, what procedure would you like for me to perform today? They diagnose, they make recommendations. That's what a great landscape professional does. And don't get commission breath. You're not going out there trying to shove something down someone's throat. You're saying, I was looking at your property and I noticed this. Here's something we could do to make it look better. Are you interested? That's service.
Sometimes they'll say no, that's fine. But you still are going to get accolades for doing this. But they're never going to say yes to an idea that you never presented.
Number four. Go back to everything you didn't sell, okay?
Revisit old proposals. This is low hanging fruit. Pull up every proposal for the last six or 12 months that didn't sell. And don't assume a no six months ago is a no today. Sometimes they didn't reject you. The timing wasn't right. Their budget wasn't ready, the car needed a new transmission, they went on a Caribbean cruise. They got busy. There was a wedding. Their spouse wasn't ready. The project was bigger than they anticipated. They didn't get the bonus. They thought something else became more important. Call them. And please don't send them a stupid email that says, I'm just checking in. What exactly does that mean, Folks? Give them a reason to respond. Say something like, hey, Jim, we talked earlier this year about redoing that front landscape. Fall is for planting. That's our motto. It's a great time to plant, and I've got an opening coming up in my schedule. I wanted to see if it would make sense for us to revisit that project. I could see you Friday, Saturday, Monday. Would one of those days work? Or maybe you Say, Susan, when we talked in the spring, you liked the plan but wanted to wait. We're planning our late fall and early spring schedules now. Would there be value in us getting together and taking another look? That's what I like to call being professionally pushy. There's nothing wrong with being professionally pushy. What service provider do you want to work with? You want to work with the one that wants to work with you or the one that you have to keep prodding to get moving? You don't have to be obnoxious, ladies and gentlemen, but you do have to ask. Closed mouths don't get fed.
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[00:10:18] Speaker B: Number five, Sell the season you're in.
Give clients a reason to act now. I love fall for landscaping, folks. Fall is for plantings. Tell your clients that your customers don't live and breathe landscaping like we do. We're the experts. They don't necessarily know what can be done in October and November. They don't know what works, what work makes sense in December in your particular client. So it's our job to teach them, to inform them and create a fall campaign. Maybe it's Fall is for planting. It's landscape renovation time. Plant a tree today to enjoy tomorrow. Drainage, lighting, cleanups, pruning, plant replacements, enhancements, dormant season work, whatever makes sense for your company and your market. Go after it. Marketing and sales should sit down together and be in sync and say, what do we want to sell over the next eight weeks? Not 20 things. Pick two or three. Four, maybe five.
Get a sales target, get a marketing message, give production some predictability and go for it. Number six. Break that number down. Here's another mistake we make. We make the goal too big for anybody to believe. We need another 2 million. That sounds intimidating. Break it down. Let's say you got five salespeople in 10 weeks to sell 2 million. Or you got five salespeople in 10weeks to sell 500,000. That's 50 a week. That's 10 grand per salesperson per Week. I personally think you can do a lot more in that, but that's believable.
And now we can ask. Can a sales. Can a professional landscape Salesperson create another 10k of opportunity a week by going through existing clients, old proposals, enhancements, auditing properties, referrals? Heck, yes, they can. You know they can.
Several years ago, I showed our team how. Just selling $5,000 in additional enhancement work each week over 50 weeks adds up to 250,000.
Small numbers compound. That's why I want salespeople thinking weekly, what do you need to sell this week? How many calls are you making? How many appointments? How many proposals? How much did you close?
What move forward? What. What stalled? What do you need help with? What's the next action?
Don't wait till December 15th and discover your 300,000 short.
Manage it every week. Go get it. Number 7. Hunt where you already work. That's another one I really want you to think about. Hunt where you already work. If you're maintaining one beautiful commercial property, what other properties are around it? How can we get more route density? If you're doing snow at one location, what other properties are on that route? If you've installed three great residential projects in one neighborhood, how many neighbors drive past those projects every single day? Again, route density is incredibly important.
We don't get paid for travel time. You may think you do, but I'm telling you, you don't. If you charge for travel time, you can end up pricing yourself out of the market. Get the route density. One stop after another, drop a tailgate and be there for a day. Route density, again, very important. Travel does not make us money. Windshield time does not make us money. So instead of just randomly taking every lead that comes in from wherever and chasing it, be intentional. Screen your clients and your prospective clients. Look where your best clients are. Look where the best neighborhoods are. Look at your best commercial routes. Where are you most profitable? And ask yourself, where can we find more clients who look like these?
We talk a lot here at Grunder Landscaping company about the ideal client. In fact, I did about a half hour of teaching of that today at a field trip that we had here at Grunder Landscaping.
Sometimes the easiest way to define your ideal client is simply to look at your 10 or 20 best existing clients. Why do you like them? Why are they so profitable? Why do they buy from you? Where are they located? Why do they value you? Then go find more people like them. It's really a pretty simple concept to understand, number eight. And this is something I don't know why salespeople have trouble with this, but ask for referrals. And while you're talking to those great clients, ask them, can you help us? It doesn't have to be awkward. If someone tells you your team did a fantastic job, just say thanks. Can you do a Google review? That would mean a lot to me. And we're also looking for more clients like you. If you have a neighbor or friend you think could use our help, we'd really appreciate an introduction. That's all. You're not begging. You're not selling Amway. You're not asking someone who doesn't want to help you. They do want to help you. You're asking a happy client if they know someone you could help. That's a good thing. People like referring people that did good work. Your best clients, ladies and gentlemen, generally know people like themselves. They run in the same circles. There's that's the reason that referrals are so powerful.
Number nine don't just fill fall, Sell spring now as well. Spring's going to be here soon. We need work then as well. And here's where I want to shift some gears a little bit. Because this episode isn't just about keeping November full. It's about getting some critical mass to jump out of the spring next year. Great guns a blazing maintenance renewals, new maintenance contracts, landscape projects, commercial work enhancements. Whatever your business model is, I don't care. But don't wait to March to figure out April.
Commercial clients work on budgets. Now's the time to talk to them. Residential clients may not work on budgets as much, but they're making plans now. Maybe they have a wedding. Maybe they have a family reunion. Maybe they are looking at a new home. I don't know. But get in front of them again. Nothing happens till someone sells something. And if you're going to sit there and be an order taker, none of this is going to work. You got to be an order maker by getting in front of your clients. Now there's a strategic advantage at play.
Imagine being a landscaping company that goes in the winter, knowing we already have eight works of spring production sold. Think about what that does. How it helps you with planning, with recruiting, with purchasing, with cash flow forecasting, with equipment financing and planning. It lowers stress. There's a world of difference between entering the spring thinking, gosh, I hope this phone rings, and entering the spring thinking we already know what we're doing for the first eight weeks.
I know which company I'd rather run, the one with backlog folks
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[00:17:07] Speaker B: Number 10, hold a weekly sales meeting that actually manages sales. How do you stay on top of this? Have a sales meeting and make it a sales meeting, not a storytelling contest. I want to know, what was the goal? What did we sell? What's in the pipeline? What's the backlog? Where are the holes? Where are you stuck? Which proposals have stalled? Who owns the next action? What are we going to do about this in the next week before the next sales meeting? At Grunder Landscaping, we've long believed in regular sales meetings and in sales and production communicating with one another. Sales cannot live on an island. If production has a hole coming up, sales needs to know. If sales has a monster project coming up, production needs to know. I believe it's sales job to bury production with work.
We're all on the same team. That's true. And there's another reason why I like looking 30, 60, 90, 120 days out. The farther out you can spot the problem, the more options you have and time becomes your friend. When you're proactive, folks, time is your enemy. When you're reactive.
Number 11, getting close to wrapping up this episode of the Grow show on filling up your sales efforts. Don't destroy your margins just to stay busy. Do not do that. That's my warning to you. When people get nervous about schedule, they start doing dumb stuff. They discount. They take work outside their service area. They cut margin. They take bad fit clients. They price jobs too aggressively. They sell work they shouldn't sell. Don't do that. All right? Remember, sales can stroke your ego, but profits fund your future.
I'd rather sell less work at the right margin to the right clients and then fill my schedule with work that keeps everybody busy while we're losing money. You aren't trying to fill the schedule at any cost. You're trying to fill it intelligently and profitably with ideal clients. Know your ideal client. Know your minimum job size. Know your service area, Know your gross margin expectations. And have discipline to stay within those boundaries. Because busy and profitable are not the same thing.
Every dollar is not the same, folks. So the fall sales playbook. Let me bring this all together.
If you're listening to me and thinking, okay, Marty, what do I do tomorrow? Here's what I do. First, I pull up your production schedule, and I look 30, 60, 90, 120 days out. Where are the holes? That's the first thing I do. Second, I put dollars into the holes. Exactly how many hours do I have to sell here? How much work do I need?
Third, I pull every open unsold proposal. Who's following up and by when. Fourth, I make a list of my best existing clients and I make sure that they know what's possible for their yard. What additional improvements could you proactively recommend to them?
Fifth, pick two or three services you want to sell and promote right now and build a simple campaign around them.
Sixth, identify your best neighborhoods and your best routes, your best commercial clusters, and work that route density hunt where you already work, folks.
Seventh, start selling spring. Now. Get those renewals closed up before your competition steals them from you. Get the maintenance lined up, get the projects lined up. Get the commercial budgets lined up. Get out ahead of it. And eighth, review all of this every week.
Not once every week. Be diligent about it. Because sales isn't something we work on when sales are slow. Great companies are always selling abs. Always be selling. Great companies make selling part of their operating rhythm. So here's my takeaway, folks. Here's what I really want you to remember.
Don't let an empty schedule surprise you. It shouldn't. We have all the tools. We have the data. We have the CRM systems. We have the production schedules. We have the pipelines, the phones, the email, the clients who already know us. It's all there, right in front of us. Most of us don't have an information problem. We have an execution problem. And we're lazy. Get your team looking ahead. You can go fix this now. Get them talking to clients. Get them making recommendations. Get them following up. Get them excited about filling up the board and having everybody be busy till Christmas.
Get them asking for referrals. Get them finding their future ideal clients. And most importantly, get them making orders instead of just taking orders. Look ahead, find the gaps. Fill them before they become problems. Because nothing happens till someone sells something. And if you're listening to this and thinking, I need to get better at this, my team needs to get better at this. We need better systems, better leadership, better sales management, and more ideas from people who understand the landscape, profession.
That's exactly what we do at GROW. Among other things, GROW 2027 is February 17th through the 19th in Savannah, Georgia. You're going to be surrounded by success minded landscape professionals who are dealing with the same challenges you are. Come with your questions to Savannah, Georgia. Come with your problems, come with your team, Come ready to learn and most importantly, come ready to go home and do something differently in 2027. Early bird pricing and soon. You can learn
[email protected] well, that's going to do it for this week's edition of the Grow show, folks. If you haven't done so already, subscribe to the Grow show and if you can give it a rating or share a comment that helps more success minded landscape professionals find us.
And if you really want to help us, take out your phone right now and text this episode to someone or share that YouTube link to someone in the green industry or someone you think would benefit from our message. Thanks for joining us on the Grow show this week. We'll talk to you next week.
[00:23:02] Speaker A: Thanks for listening to the Grow show and a special thanks to Aspire, Bobyard and Exmark for making this episode possible. We'll talk to you next week.
