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Author: Ken Thomas

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Ken Thomas

Thomas, founder of Envisor Consulting, has owned three of Atlanta’s most successful landscape companies. He is the COO of The Greenery and principal of Envisor Consulting. Reach him at kenthomas@envisorco.com.

Using enhancement sales to improve your business

How effective enhancement sales can make a successful landscape maintenance business. In the commercial maintenance world, enhancements can offer an opportunity to build customer loyalty and increase revenue and profit margins. With profits from base contract work being squeezed, enhancements can be considered the “icing on the cake” when it comes to having a successful […]

4 steps for onboarding landscape maintenance clients

So they finally said yes, and you have a new landscape maintenance client. You or your salesperson probably spent hours, days or even years cultivating the relationship to finally get the opportunity to bid, and you finally won the job. Congratulations! What now? Well, what you do next will either set you up for a […]

Organize production chaos

I started my career in the green industry working summer jobs at landscape companies. After college, I threw out a hard-earned biology degree and entered the landscape business full time. During the early years, I learned and mastered all the field-level skills that helped me become a great landscape technician. Eventually, I started my own […]

Guest Post: Key to profits? Labor management

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Quick, what’s the key to profitability? How do you ensure all your work results in something left over to make it all worthwhile? Is it growth? No. Windfall growth can result in short-term profitably if overheads don’t grow at the same speeds as the new revenue, but it’s hard to build a plan on continuous […]

Guest Post: Creating effective enhancement systems

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Selling installations and additional services is a critical part of the landscape maintenance business strategy. The benefits are both external and internal. Externally, enhancements represent good customer service. Landscapes are living and dynamic and require some investment from time to time. These additional projects put you in a position to solve problems and add value […]

Guest Post: How to create respectful tension for results

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How do words like, conflict, confrontation, accountability, debate and tension make you feel? Uncomfortable? Sure! I don’t blame you. Nobody enjoys confrontation. If there’s someone who does, I would avoid him at all costs. On the other hand, I’d like to suggest there’s is a certain type of constructive tension that’s healthy in business. I […]

Guest Post: 4 actions of great leaders

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Leadership starts with vision, passion and will, but what is it that great leaders do from day to day to be effective? 1. Communicate. Communication is hard. Learn to do it well. Great leaders communicate the why, the how and the what. Leaders have the privilege and prerogative to set the what: the issues, problems […]

Guest Post: Where do good account managers come from?

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The account manager position is mission critical to success in the landscape maintenance business. This position’s ability to retain and upsell clients sets the course for growth and profits. Where account managers are not successful, growth stalls and profits are reinvested in replacing business, rather than adding new revenue. So where do the good ones […]

How many support staff do I need?

I’m continually surprised and amazed by the lack of continuity in the amount of support staff per dollars of revenue among landscape business owners. It ranges from two people per $5 million to one person per $1 million. Notwithstanding the differences between design/build and maintenance, it seems there should be a standard correlation between support […]

How to avoid customer service problems

In 2006, I learned a valuable lesson about customer service. My company had recently completed a beautiful project for a wonderful client who happened to be a 9/11 widow. She was quite pleased with her new backyard patio and waterfall until she was hit with a flood that washed through her yard, overwhelmed the development’s […]

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