[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.
[00:00:28] 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 in our bonus edition coverage about equipment planning and specifically what you should be doing right now to make sure you have the trucks, the trailers, the mowers, the machines and the equipment you need next year. Got a lot to share, really excited about this one, but I'm always excited to come on board with you here. 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 Ex mark mowers. With 60 of them in our fleet, I'm well aware of the quality they bring to the table. They hold up to the abuse of mowing daily and deliver a superior cut. If you're interested in a demo of Exmark mowers, reach out to us at Growro Group Income and we will get an Exmark dealer to contact you. All right, folks, so here's the problem.
Landscape pros, this is what I don't want you doing.
It's March, sales are coming in, you've hired another crew, and someone says, man, we need another truck. That's not equipment planning, folks. That's being reactive, not proactive. Okay? And reacting usually costs you money.
You either can't get what you want, you pay too much, you buy the wrong thing, you settle, or you have a crew staying around waiting for equipment. So here's the big idea for today's show. Your equipment plan should follow your business plan. You don't start with what equipment do we want. You start with what work are we going to do next year and what equipment will we need to execute that work efficiently and profitably.
So, number one, here's the first thing you do. You start with your 2027 sales plan.
Before you buy anything, know what you're trying to accomplish. Next year, what's your revenue target? What's the mix of that revenue? Is it maintenance? Is it design, build? Is it lawn care, snow? Are you adding crews? Are you scaling back and eliminating crews? Are you entering a new market? Are you adding a service? Maybe you're going to add lawn care. Maybe you're going to add, I don't know, power washing, street sweeping, I don't know. But your equipment needs should come directly from that plan. If you're planning to add two maintenance crews next year, that's going to require equipment. If you're trying to grow enhancement work, that's going to require something completely different.
Sales plan first, equipment plan second. So, number one, what's your sales plan? Number two, inventory. What you already have.
You need to look at everything you've got. And I mean everything. Trucks, trailers, mowers, skid steers, loaders, mini skid steers, snow equipment, chainsaws, blowers, laser levels, I don't know, whatever. All that stuff, everything.
What do we own? How old is it? How many hours or miles are on it? What's it costing us to maintain? Is it reliable? Is it productive? Do we still need it? One of the mistakes I see folks making is we grow.
And we assume that because we own something, we should keep owning it. Not necessarily. That's not always true. You know, I remember years ago I went to that Equip Expo down in Louisville and I bought a thing I really didn't need and I regretted it, okay? I let a salesperson talk me into buying it. You don't go there and just react. You're planning, you're going to equip. You go there knowing what you need before you get there. And I think sometimes the smartest equipment purchase you can make is actually an equipment sale. Now hold on here with me. Get rid of that stuff that's sitting around constantly breaking down or no longer fits. How you operate might surprise you to know if you come to one of our field trips, you're going to find out we don't have a mechanic.
I think if you have a mechanic, that's great. But in the world according to Marty Wham, mechanics often justify their existence by keeping old crap going. And I don't know that that's what's best for you. You need some depreciation. We're not in the equipment business. We're in the landscaping business. So we tend to buy new, depreciate it, and get rid of it when it's lost its useful life. So I think one of the smartest Things you might be able to do is sell some stuff and go buy new. I really do.
Number three, and this one's really important. Talk to the people using it. Don't make an entire equipment plan sitting at your desk. Talk to your team. Ask your group leaders, ask your crew leaders. Ask your fleet manager what's working, what's not, what equipment is constantly breaking down. What did we spend a whole lot on renting in 2026 that maybe we should buy?
Where are needs we have for equipment in terms of where are we slowing down? What are the crews fight over? What piece of equipment, if we had another one, would save us labor? You can go too far with this, too. Like, I remember a few years ago, some of our men said we need three or four more Vermeer mini skid steers. Well, folks, already had four of them. I think what we need to do was plan a little bit better. And on our recently completed grow show, where I brought on Bill Roselle from our that runs our production, he talked about how planning keeps us from needing more equipment. I think it's better planning, but the bottom line is your people in the field know things you don't know. And from a culture perspective, it's important to have them involved there. Okay, but there is an important distinction. Listen to what your team needs, not necessarily everything they want. We know how this goes, folks. There's a difference.
[00:05:44] Speaker A: Okay? Okay. You listened to the grow show, so you already know that my team and I have information that can help take your business to the next level.
The next step. Join us at GROW 2027 in Savannah, Georgia, in February. Tickets are on sale now, but the price goes up by $200 per person on November 1st. So save your seat and save yourself some money by visiting growgroupinc.com I'll see you there.
[00:06:07] Speaker B: I have four more things I want you to be thinking about as you build your equipment plan out for the next year.
Number four, look for labor savings. This is where equipment planning gets interesting.
Don't just ask, how much does this machine cost? What I want you to ask is, what does this machine allow us to accomplish? Can a larger mower reduce mowing hours?
Can a mini skid steer eliminate wheelbarrow work?
Can a piece of equipment allow three people to accomplish what it used to take five or six?
Or can one person do what four used to be doing? I know with our boss, snow raiders, the sidewalk machines, we really feel like one of those sidewalk machines replaces four guys. When you're talking after being out shoveling walks for 10 straight hours. In some cases, a motorized piece of equipment that can push snow, man, it's. It's really, really important. We're all fighting the same battles, ladies and gentlemen. It's labor. And when I'm evaluating equipment, our teams evaluated equipment. We're very interested in anything that can safely help our people accomplish more in less time. Okay, Vermeer. Many skid steers don't get sick. Exmark mowers don't have babies. I could go on and on and make you laugh. So don't only look at the purchase price. Look at the total return on the investment.
Number five, Repair, replace, rent, or buy. Not everything needs to be purchased, folks. Not every major piece of equipment.
Ask four questions. Should I repair it?
Should I replace it? Should I rent it, or should we buy it? Should I repair it, replace it, rent it, or buy it? If you're going to use a specialized machine six days next year, why in the world would you own that? Like, we don't own a mulch blower. We don't feel like, first of all, they break down a lot. And for us, we just feel renting that because fin is located less than an hour from our office, we can get a multitude of them.
It just doesn't make sense for us. We rent that. But if you're renting the same machine every week and paying delivery charges while the crews wait, maybe it's time to own one. Don't forget utilization. A machine sitting in your yard is not making you money.
Equipment makes money when it's working, not when it's parked.
Number six, build the budget. Now, once you know what you need, put dollars against it. We like to create three categories. The must have, which is equipment we absolutely need to execute our plan. Those are must haves and should have. Equipment with a strong productivity or replacement case should have and then nice to have things we like, but the business doesn't require them. We have a couple Toro. They're articulating buggies, and they're awesome. And because of a program with Ohio workers comp, we got them to pay for two of those. They were something that we didn't absolutely have to have, but now that we have them, man, we use them to move concrete. We use them to use mulch. We use them to move boulders and cobbles. They're wonderful productivity tools. Okay, they were nice to have. We didn't have to have them, but we found a program.
This forces discipline, folks. The nice to have thoughts, they should have thoughts. The must have thoughts because there's Always another shiny truck or machine we'd love to have. People are infatuated with equipment. It's one of my beefs with Equip down there in Louisville. I wish people were as excited about learning as they are about the equipment. Because if that ever happened, there's no telling what we do with our businesses. But I digress.
Just because the bank will finance it doesn't mean you should buy it. Know the purchase price, Know the payment. Know your expected utilization, Know your maintenance costs, Know what you're replacing. And I think most importantly, know how you're going to get a return on that investment. You got to do the math. And the number seven here, the fourth one. Order early and have a plan B. Once you've made the decision, don't wait until spring. Talk to your dealers now. It takes time. We learned this during COVID and things are better now. But what's available? What's the lead time? What pricing looks like? You know our awesome EB truck beds that we have on our trucks? Those take time. That you're not going to get one of those in 60 days. It's more like 120 if you really want to have that. So the good stuff takes time. Are there incentives? When would it arrive?
And then ask, what's plan B? Because you know what we found out? Supply chains don't care about your production schedule. If that truck doesn't arrive till June, what are you going to do? Is there a local rental yard that you can rent one till then and get a magnetic sign with your name on it and put it out there for the first three months of spring? Can you extend the life of another truck? Can you rent? Like I said, lease, move equipment between crews? What are you going to do? What's your contingency plan before you need them?
Here's the bottom line, the most important point I want to make for you landscape pros. Equipment planning isn't really about equipment.
It's about capacity, productivity, cash, and I think, most of all, profitability. Your equipment has to support the business you're trying to build.
So sometime in the next few weeks, get your leadership team together and answer these three very important questions again. What work are we planning to sell next year? What's our sales plan?
What equipment do we already have? What's our equipment analysis?
What's worn out or unreliable that needs replaced? Where could equipment save us labor?
What should we sell?
What should we repair, rent, replace, or buy? And what absolutely has to be ordered now so it's ready for when we need it. If you're looking at backpack blowers and weed eaters and things like and string trimmers, those you can probably wait on. You don't have to incur the cost right now. Those can wait. But the other big stuff, you got to do that now and next spring when you're executing your plan, you're ready, don't do it. And next spring you're going to be scrambling. And that's never fun. We need all hands on deck for our 100 days of victory. As my friend Jeffrey John says, the period in the spring that goes up until July 4th, and I've learned this one over several years. Scrambling is expensive.
Planning is profitable.
Scrambling is expensive.
Planning is profitable.
Stop scrambling and start being more profitable, folks. Okay, folks, that's going to do it for this week's bonus edition of the Grow Show. I hope I got you thinking about your equipment plan for next year and more importantly, got you moving on it now. Don't wait until you need something to figure out you don't have it. Have a plan and then work that plan and make sure every piece of equipment you own has a purpose. Thanks for listening to the Grow show.
And please by all means share this episode with any landscape pro you think it might benefit from. And check out everything we're
[email protected] thanks for joining us today on the Grow Show. We'll talk to you next week.
[00:12:42] 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.
