For Lindenstruth, 2019 proved to be a decent year in business. The owner of the nursery and landscaping company says business is primarily focused on their nursery sales and landscape installation projects. The company also provides spring and fall clean up services.

Like years past, he says the company’s main issue centered around the need for skilled, qualified and reliable labor. “We’ve sort of continuously been hiring,” he says. “We put a big emphasis on our training and retention this year.” The shift toward focusing on training has helped keep the company staffed, although they could always use more employees, he says. Van Zeeland ended up hiring a lot of employees in the winter to help with the snow services, too.

“Even if we were fully staffed, we just keep hiring because we know what we're going to be losing people left and right,” he says. “You’re just always going to need people.”

In his area, Lindenstruth says the market is highly segmented, which he says isn’t unlike most larger cities. And while labor is always on his mind, looking into 2020, he’s less concerned about a looming recession than most.

“I think the media could easily scare us into the recession,” he says. He’s prepared for a dip, though. They’ve been working to get as many jobs booked into 2020 as they can. “It is starting to get a little bit shakier so I'm just trying to push our guys to get as much work done and getting as much booked now so that we've got a backlog going into any recession.” - Lauren Rathmell

With some growing pains of 2018 behind him, owner Patrick Maxwell says 2019 has been “a good year.” During 2018, the company seemed to be growing, and Maxwell hired more people. But, he admits, looking back, he may have hired too many and spent too much on labor.

“The problem is just finding help,” Maxwell says. He employs four fulltime workers but has relied heavily on student employees to help keep up with his maintenance routes. He has about 20 people on payroll, but with class schedules, he says shifts just depend on availability. Right now, it might mean him, and his other full-time workers have to put in some longer hours, but he says he’s in a better position with the right amount of labor this year. His client base is about 60 percent residential and 40 percent commercial, and this year he decided to scale back on the growth.

“I’m not focused on growing too much this year,” he says. “I’m staying where I’m at.” Part of the need for more workers last year was the addition of chemical lawn care to his service mix, something that Maxwell ultimately found wasn’t a good fit for his company.

“There are high product costs with it,” he says. “And it wasn’t what I really wanted to be doing.” This year he’s dropped chemical lawn care as a service and is solely focusing on his maintenance and small landscape installation services.

Many of Maxwell’s properties are campus homes because of the proximity to Indiana University. He’s run into a snag this year with the university parking policies, though.

“Bloomington has strict parking enforcement,” he says. “You can’t park anywhere at all for any period of time really without a permit.” This year, the cost increased from $50 to $150 per vehicle. To offset the rising costs, he’s had to get used to parking the truck and driving his equipment to the properties. Still, he plans on bringing in about $400,000 in revenue during 2019. - Lauren Rathmell

A former U.S. Navy officer, Julio Lopez says his discipline has helped the business succeed. That discipline is particularly important on the West Coast, where a severe drought changed how they do things in the industry entirely.

“We learned to be smarter about water-distribution, plant usage, (and) many people got into the bandwagon to remove real grass and install synthetic grass,” Lopez says. “Our company didn’t jump on that trend that is now over. We engaged in irrigation retrofits, better plant selection, converting high-water landscapes to lower-sustainable plant-material landscapes and educating our clients.”

While several companies have struggled to adjust accordingly after the synthetic grass trend is over, Lopez says Cadre Landscaping’s biggest issue moving forward is finding a replacement for Lopez who has the same “fire in the stomach” that he’s had. Finding labor is a national epidemic, he says, but he’s trying to promote the career possibilities his company presents.

“All the professional associations and educators have failed to promote and make the general public see our industry at a higher level with great rewards and opportunities for growth,” Lopez says. “It has always been classified as a lower-grade gig… until better opportunities come by and move on, just like fast-food employment. There is so much to do to improve the notion and value of our industry, so more people are attracted to it as a vocation.”

Lopez says Cadre Landscape is trying to be forward-thinking in that regard and in others, too. For example, they now have more battery-operated equipment than before and will continue to look for other ways to gain a competitive edge in technology, too. He says his company is better than it was two years ago, and he only hopes he can say the same in 2021.

“The West coast mentality forces us to become better and adapt to the ever-changing demands of our clientele and their sophistication,” Lopez says. “Since the knowledge and information is readily available, we need to stay a couple paces ahead. (It’s) really hard to do but we need to.” - Jimmy Miller

James Geissmann isn’t sure if he’s exaggerating or not, but he estimates he’s interviewed close to 100 people and has ultimately employed two of them. He says the process isn’t particularly difficult for potential employees – he has five questions he asks, mainly consisting of their experience level and for verification that they can legally work – and often, they don’t even complete that.

“It is a nightmare,” he says. “Nine times out of 10, they don’t answer all five questions and they’re still calling looking for a job.”

It’s a dog-eat-dog world in Arizona, where Geissmann says competition is high as they’ve got landscapers around every corner. He puts employment advertisements on Indeed and similar websites, and this is because he wants to grow the business as he eyes retirement. The problem is he’s trying to do things the right way, where some of his various competitors are paying in cash and under the table to recruit employees.

“For me, as a corporation, I don’t want to get into paying people cash,” Geissmann says. “That’s getting into IRS situations and I’m not interested in getting audited. I don’t want to get into major time like that. If you can’t take a check every week and you don’t have an ID, I don’t want you working for me.”

At 59 years old – and with his business partner at 33 – Geissmann says he’s probably got 10 more years before hopping out. In the meantime, boosting his business is critical. He has six full-time employees, one of which is dedicated solely to marketing. He’s had that employee for six months and he’s a versatile, do-it-all marketer who takes videos and pictures of jobsites, runs their social media accounts and even helps with recruiting.

They also run Google and social media advertising that costs roughly $10,000 a year. The company services a medley of business from large apartment complexes to a few extremely high-end homes.

“I’ve been in the industry for 25 years, and it’s not a business for the faint of heart,” Geissmann says. “The market’s been really good, I could not be happier as far as that goes. The competition’s a little tougher, but when it’s all said and done… am I going to where some of these mega companies are? I don’t plan on it, but we’re a good little business.” - Jimmy Miller

It’s been a good year overall in the Charleston-area market for CEO Sarah Engstrom. She say’s the company has been seeing a steady six to eight percent growth, even with the tight labor market.

“We’re having to bring in less skilled workers and pay them more,” she says. Something that’s been echoed across the country for the last several years. And in turn, she says they’ve been carefully and slowly raising their prices as they can to cushion the added labor costs. And if that wasn’t enough, Engstrom says the wage increase also prompted the company to increase pay for their core group of fulltime workers, as well. This year she says the company will finish around $2.3 million in revenue.

Engstrom says they’re keeping an eye on legislation like immigration reform and insurance because she’d like to see some better solutions for small businesses like hers. The company hasn’t tried using the H-2B program because of the cost and red tape, and they do landscaping year-round in the south so it doesn’t make much sense to have that type of seasonal worker join the team.

Hurricane Dorian blew through in early September leaving a lot of the Charleston area underwater, prompting most of the area to essentially shut down for an entire week. Being familiar with the storm risk, Engstrom says storm prep and clean up are part of their service offering. While it did put them behind their usual schedules, the team was prepared and had processes in place to get things moving when the water cleared.

“Basically, once the storm passes, everyone that comes in just does maintenance for the week (after the storm),” she says. The team of 27 employees also has an option to come in on a Saturday just to volunteer their time and get ahead of the game. “Our customers expect us to be the best,” she says. “A lot of them don’t live here fulltime, so a lot of services we provide are what we do before and after a storm.”

For customers on or near the water, the company will put up planters, put away lawn equipment and outdoor furniture. After the storm clears, they set the property back up again. - Lauren Rathmell

Norman Phillips is quite satisfied with the state of his market. Located right in the Florida Keys and among older residents who are willing to pay higher prices for quality work, Phillips says his job is perfect for someone who’s on the verge of retiring.

Good thing, too, because Phillips is already semi-retired but is still working because he enjoys working outside with his hands. His major problem is that he’s having trouble finding the employees who share that same passion.

“(It’s about) finding qualified labor, finding people who are interested in getting their hands dirty,” Philipps says. “Who’s going to do it?”

Philipps co-manages the business with his wife, Betsy, and has noticed less people are interested in mowing their lawns than ever before. He says the tradition used to be that people would barbeque on the weekends after a long day’s work of gardening or working in the yard.

Now, there’s more business potential than ever before. Navigating that has been tricky, to the point where Philipps often employs day labor to manage the workload. They’re fortunate to be in a situation where they can afford this because of the high incomes of their clients, and they don’t have a ton of competition. They can charge fair rates as unlicensed landscapers get weeded out quickly in their market.

But still, they’ve got to find the people willing to help do the work. That’s the tricky part.

“Again, how do you navigate it?” Philipps says. “My feeling is you have to treat your employees with respect, show them they’re of value, and give them the training to progress.”

He says one way to help navigate a stingier market is to offer more specialized services. Philipps and his wife will help take care of an entire home, including the interior, which can help upsell to clients and show his company is different than any other around the block. A younger person just taking ownership of a company could be doing even more of this than he is, Philipps admits.

“I think people are leaving a lot of money on the table by just doing maintenance,” he says. “If I was in my thirties, I’d be doing a lot more in terms of landscaping.”- Jimmy Miller

When people in high school would hear Zach Jones wanted to pursue a career in horticulture, their response was one of confusion – why would you want to go into that industry? He, in turn, was just as perplexed because of that reaction.

Jones got the same reaction a lot of future landscapers received when they voice their interest in pursuing a career in the industry. But instead of buying into that groupthink, it only motivated him more to become a success.

“That’s one of the stigmas that I’m trying to break – if you’re a true landscaper, you’re a very highly skilled individual and you’re not just a Joe Schmo off the street who says that he can do stuff,” says the senior at the University of Maryland. “I got that a lot in high school. People would ask me why I wasn’t going into like computer science. I think it just kind of drove me further to pursue this industry because I wanted to prove people wrong.”

It’s that type of attitude that earned Jones the Richard Foster Award, which is given to an outstanding student planning a career in landscaping, lawn care or a horticulture business. You can read more about that in Insider.

That attitude will also serve him well with his ultimate goal in the industry – owning his own company. Jones says he’s thought a lot about how his future company would look. As far as services go, he’d like to focus on maintenance, design/build and tree care. Culture-wise, he wants his employees to know he appreciates them.

“Despite the fact that you’re probably not out there with them, but you have to show them that you understand the work that they’re doing,” he says.

While owning his own company would pay the bills, it would also offer him an opportunity to educate about how to properly landscape.

“The simplest things from over mulching, to not pruning correctly,” he says. “We have to get out of the realm of thinking that everything needs to be cut back every year. We need to let things grow naturally. A lot of clients say that they like everything to be pristine all the time, but I think my woody plant professors said it best – no plant was ever evolved to be cut back.”

But before he owns a company, he wants to get experience in the working world as an employee, “just to continue gaining that leadership experience and managerial aspects of the business,” he says.

“But, I think, at this point, the only way for me to really understand the financials behind it is to learn from the business – like the actual landscaping business rather than just taking a class. Just to see a landscaping company’s financials and understand what’s coming in, what’s going out.”

Jones is set to graduate this coming spring and doesn’t plan on losing sight of his goals.

“What motivates me to continue moving forward in this industry is just the fact that it’s always changing,” he says. “No day is the same. You never know what you’re going to walk into when you go to work every day. That’s exciting. It’s challenging. It’s very stressful some days, but I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

We need to do a better job on the front end by making sure we get it right the first time when hiring new team members.

Our good employees can get burnt out when they keep picking up the slack. At one point, we had an account manager not carrying her weight. Our vice president of sales had to keep rescuing her accounts until he finally became too frustrated. He was doing two jobs, and we almost lost one of our “A Players.”

It was then that it dawned on our leadership team to part ways with the account manager, as it was better for team morale to cut the losses instead of having that employees’ poor attitude spread through to others on the team. While the financial impact can be anywhere from 30-40 percent of the employees’ first year earnings, the actual bad hire’s morale and productivity may have an even larger effect compared to the monetary loss.

Better people decisions.

Every single company and department within the company is designed to get results. To create different results, the company executives are going to have to change the team dynamic. Do you have the right people on the team to take you to the next level? Take the guesswork out of talent searching to increase the top and bottom line with the best people.

Do you know your strengths, weaknesses and talents so that you can get the most out of yourself and your employees?

To do this, we need to understand the inner workings of the human mind.

1. Who: Their personality traits, strengths and weaknesses.
2. What: Do they have what it takes to do what is needed and the experience to perform properly? If they don’t have enough experience, can they be trained?
3. KPI: everyone should be assigned a number. As Gino Wickman says in his book Traction, “what gets measured gets done.” With a completed scorecard, you can track high-level numbers down to a single person.

If you have all three, you have a successful hire. For more strategic hiring and getting the right people on the bus from the beginning, every person that you add to your team should stack the deck in your favor. Ask yourself three questions:

1. Can they do the work? Do they have the heart or experience to do what we are asking? Do they need the experience, or can they be trained?
2. Do they want to do the work? Are they willing to do the job you are asking of them, and would they be happy to live where your company is located and be in the industry?
3. Are they actually hardwired to do the kind of work that you want them to do? We all have a natural hardwire that is set in stone by the age of about 12 years old. Some may have to stretch in their job, but if we keep placing people in jobs that they are not naturally hardwired to do, how long will it take before they fail? If we have proper alignment, we increase the probability of success in the workplace. With, “I can do the work, I want to do the work and I am naturally hardwired to do the work,” the potential for success goes up drastically.

Some people wake up every day being a natural gas pedal. They are thinking, “how do we make this bigger, better, stronger and faster?” Some are a natural brake pedal, and I mean this in a positive way. The gas pedal says, “Let’s push, let’s go!” while the brake pedal says, “Hold on, let’s make sure we are doing this right and that it is scalable so that when top line revenue is growing, EBITA is not shrinking. Let’s make sure we are not going broke as we grow.” Others wake up every day as people-glue. They are about building relationships externally with your clients and internally with your team.

If you lack that, you are going to have turn over in both departments. For instance, if an error is made and you don’t have a relationship with the clients, you may lose them to your competitors. On the other hand, if you have established a relationship, then you can spend some relational equity and assure them that the oversight would be fixed and you would make sure to get it right next time. All this is possible only when you have the glue to make them stick with you.

If you can’t draft the right members to your team, you will not win one game. It is not just about individual talent, it is about team talent. Great coaches are always looking at both team and individual talent. You could have Brett Favre as a defensive lineman and Reggie White as quarterback and you still wouldn’t be winning many games. Do you we have the right team, designed the right way, to get you to the finish line?

Moscarino is CEO of Moscarino Landscape + Design and executive advisor with Culture Index.

hether you’re grading, digging, lifting or hauling, compact loaders can make landscaping jobs a little easier. But choosing the best machine for each job can be a challenge – especially when deciding between compact wheel loaders (CWLs) or compact track loaders (CTLs).

“They’re different tools,” says Lew Marotti, regional director of construction at Juniper Landscaping in Southwest Florida. “You need to know what you’ll be doing and where you’ll be working so you can use the right tool for the job.”

Both types of compact loaders have their strengths and weaknesses depending on the site conditions and the task at hand, and can lead to better productivity in the field.

After the rain.

Last Christmas, Charlotte received so much rain that developers were literally stuck in the mud. Baytree Landscape Contractors – a commercial landscape company based in Atlanta with offices in Charleston, Charlotte and Nashville – sent CTLs to the rescue.

“(Developers) were unable to get closings done because they couldn’t get the yards done,” says Matt Maurer, a principal at Baytree. “We took all our track loaders in there and dug out eight inches of mud and muck, replaced the fill dirt, and finished those yards. That would not have happened if we did not have compact track loaders, because a rubber tire loader would just get stuck.”

When the ground is too wet or muddy for wheels, CTLs prevail. That’s why Baytree relies primarily on this equipment – with 25 CTLs in its fleet, compared to just two CWLs.

Superscapes deals with similarly soggy conditions near Dallas, with clay soils that absorb rain like a sponge. With 11 CTLs in its fleet, Superscapes’ crews can get out in the field faster after downpours – “which means less downtime and greater productivity, because we’re actually out there working rather than waiting for the site to dry out,” says Craig Duttarer, vice president of operations at Superscapes. “That’s the greatest advantage of using the track machine compared to the wheel loader.”

Tricky terrain.

Tracks are designed to thrive in more difficult terrain, which makes CTLs well-suited for grading slopes.

“Track loaders are better for dealing with slopes and embankments because the center of gravity is lower to the ground,” Marotti says. “A track machine can actually pick up more weight than a wheel loader – where the center of gravity is higher off the ground, making it more likely to tip over.”

This stability and lifting capacity explains why Duttarer prefers CTLs over CWLs. “The greater stability on slopes or with heavy loads eases an operator’s mind to know that you’re not going to have tipping or rocking back and forth, potentially causing an injury or even a skid down a steep slope,” he says.

“While the cost of a track loader is a little bit more, that can easily be outweighed by the number of days you’ll be able to produce, especially in wet weather, when you’d be sitting at home, not producing anything if you had a wheel loader.” Craig Duttarer, vice president of operations, Superscapes.

Solid ground.

However, if your crews mostly work on even, solid ground, CWLs may be more efficient. Wheels move faster on pavement than tracks, so CWLs suit enhancements and maintenance projects better than new construction sites.

“Wheel loaders definitely have their place,” Maurer says. “We use compact wheel loaders in our maintenance division when we’re doing enhancements on existing properties, like shopping centers and apartment complexes, where we’re not working in the dirt.”

Although CTLs can tackle most terrains, paved surfaces accelerate wear-and-tear – whereas CWLs have the advantage of speed on solid ground. “If we have a lot of distance to cover, we try to get a wheel loader to move material back and forth because you’re going to have a faster ground speed,” Duttarer says. “The track loader is slower on a parking lot, and plus, the concrete adds wear and tear on the tracks.”

Of course, turning too sharply in either machine can damage any surface underneath. But even with careful operation on dry ground, wheels can leave ruts. The pounds of force per square inch (PSI) are isolated into each tire of a CWL, whereas with CTLs, “the weight is evenly distributed over a larger area on the track,” Marotti says, “so you do less damage to your finished grades than you would with a wheel loader.”

Comparing costs.

Although CTLs excel across most terrains, their versatility comes at a cost. In terms of both purchase price and ongoing maintenance, “the track loader is more expensive,” Duttarer says. He estimates that these machines cost between 10-20 percent more than a wheeled equivalent. Maurer says that’s an additional $10-$15,000 upfront. CTL expenses also add up over time due to higher maintenance and replacement costs than CWLs.

“We usually get about 1,000 to 1,200 hours out of a set of tracks, and we run our machines 3,000 hours so we’re putting on a minimum of two sets of tracks per lifecycle of a machine,” Maurer says. “It’ll cost me about $6,000 to replace one set of tracks. So, over the 3,000-hour life range, the track system will cost us roughly $12,000 to own, from a maintenance perspective.”

Superscapes replaces the tracks on its machines every year, but Duttarer admits that they “probably could extend that a little further if we stayed off the pavement.” At Juniper Landscaping, Marotti says tracks last up to two years because they don’t use CTLs on finished surfaces; they have CWLs for that.

When it comes to CWL maintenance, tires are cheaper to replace than tracks, even though they have to be changed more frequently.

“If you’re using standard tires, which are about $250 each, it’s $1,000 for a set of tires,” Maurer says. “Through that same 3,000-hour lifecycle, you may put on four to six sets of tires on average. That’s about $4-$5,000 for the cost of ownership.”

Contractors also must consider the cost of downtime when machines aren’t being used.

“Contractors are thinking about one thing: producing revenue,” Duttarer says. “While the cost of a track loader is a little bit more, that can easily be outweighed by the number of days you’ll be able to produce, especially in wet weather, when you’d be sitting at home, not producing anything if you had a wheel loader. Don’t get scared by the track loader’s cost; look at what it’s going to produce in the field.”

The bottom line.

So, do you want tracks or wheels in your landscaping fleet? Knowing how and where you plan to use your compact loader will dictate which machine to use.

“If you’re a residential contractor working in small areas or finished yards where your machine is just a lifting tool, then you can probably get away with using rubber tires,” Maurer says. “It’s going to be a lower cost of entry.”

However, he says, “If you’re a contractor who does a lot of grading, heavy tree planting, or slope work, then you need to look at track loaders because you’ll remain more productive.”

And contractors who do both types of work but can only afford one machine? “You need to buy the machine that’s going to be the most helpful in your worst-case scenario,” Maurer says. “You’re probably looking at a track loader, because it’s one of the most versatile pieces of equipment that a landscape contractor could have. You can utilize it in both aspects of your business, whereas if you just bought that rubber tire (machine), you may not be able to do new construction when the weather turns.”