A Commercial Success: First Look

IN FOCUS. Commercial installation work is Sutherland’s forte, and recognizing this from the beginning has been her secret to success. Compared to residential work, where the "homeowner wants you to wine and dine them, hold their hand and explain everything," Sutherland has found commercial work to be a no-hassle, straightforward experience, she said.

From paperwork and safety meetings to financial rewards and scheduling ease, Sutherland simply loves commercial work, she said. "You don’t have to worry about the money and you are guaranteed a six-month lead time before you even get there."

Doing her own irrigation work, in particular, has helped her secure a niche with local general contractors, who prefer to work with a versatile landscape contractor who can do both installation and irrigation, Sutherland said. "General contractors won’t split the two - they always want to keep the commercial contracts together," she explained.

Establishing solid relationships with local builders has allowed Sutherland to pick and choose which jobs she takes on. "We don’t work for everybody - just a little clique of builders," she said.

The key to establishing these relationships is constant professionalism - from being efficient and dependable to emphasizing quality and meeting customer expectations, she added. "People I’ve worked for like me because we do what we say we’re going to do," she described. "Our word is good."

For a landscape contractor working with builders who are often in a state of panic, getting in and out of a job site efficiently is paramount, Sutherland observed. Her company has capitalized on its ability to do this well, she added.

Sutherland recalled one job with the kind of adrenaline-pumping deadline she thrives on. A late-October shopping center installation job needed to be finished in a tight time frame, since the two on-site owls mated Nov. 1 and couldn’t be disturbed by the project, she described. Sutherland’s challenge was to get in and out, installing a 12-zone irrigation system and full landscape in just a few weeks, so the owls would remain undisturbed during their annual rendezvous. "That was the quickest we ever had to do a job, and it was perfect," Sutherland remembered. "We had four days to do an entire irrigation system."

Extreme organization aids in the company’s quick turnarounds. When trucks deliver plant material, for example, drivers know exactly where to unload. Plants are then marked with different colored flags to indicate variety and planting location. "Crape myrtle might be blue and hollies might be red, for example," Sutherland related. This is just one of many systems that ensure jobs run smoothly. "I’ve always been over-organized," she admitted. "I try to work out everything in my mind ahead of time."

LESSONS LEARNED. After more than a decade as a smaller contractor, Sutherland has gleaned plenty of wisdom on successfully navigating a business in the landscape industry. As a smaller contractor, she realizes the importance of setting up systems in every aspect of her business. This means always working with a contract, no matter how straightforward or simple the job appears. "Get it in writing, even if it’s on a piece of scratch paper," she advised.

While she has never lost money on a job, "which is a hard thing for someone to say after 11 years," Sutherland remembered a few close calls when a contract came in handy.

She was installing irrigation and landscaping for one general contractor’s three commercial sites and discovered that the builder failed to provide a water source. With no way to water the plant material, Sutherland eliminated her liability by having both the project’s superintendent and manager sign a piece of paper indicating that she was not responsible for dead plants. "I said, ‘I am not guaranteeing any material without an automatic irrigation system,’" Sutherland recalled, adding that the general contractor eventually refit the system and she didn’t lose any money.

In her experience, Sutherland also has learned the importance of keeping her employees happy and letting them know they’re valued - an especially critical move in a tight labor market. While her company’s work is concentrated in central Florida, Sutherland will mix in an out-of-town trip periodically to give her crew a change of scenery and break the monotony of "doing tract home after tract home," she related.

Sutherland also gets creative with employee appreciation gestures, which pay off in crew member loyalty and longevity, she observed. For one Spanish-speaking employee’s year anniversary, she rented a limo and an interpreter and took everyone out to dinner to celebrate, she recalled.

She encouraged and financially assisted another employee, Charley Barker, with earning his irrigation license. At 18 years old, he is now the youngest person in the state of Florida to be certified in irrigation.

ALWAYS IMPROVING. As a manager, learning to let go of responsibilities has been one of Sutherland’s biggest challenges. "I try to micromanage too much," she admitted, noting that she’s trying to get out of the mindset that she’s "the only one who can do it right."

Sutherland recently addressed this issue by hiring a field superintendent to take over many of the day-to-day activities that get

in the way of growing the business, such as running crews and supervising jobs. Between doing the payroll, taxes, hiring and bidding, "I’m really doing two full-time jobs," Sutherland observed.

"It used to be cool to have a ‘boy’ job, but the novelty has worn off," she added. "I don’t want to be out there driving a trencher. I want to be in the office, bidding and bringing in work."

Like many smaller, growing contractors, Sutherland has reached a point where wearing all the proverbial hats in the business, while once advantageous, is now detrimental. Adding an additional layer of management with a new field superintendent will help Sutherland refine her focus on securing work - a move that should easily increase her annual revenue into the $1.2 million range by year’s end, she predicted.

"Right now, I’ll bid a lot of work and stop and go do it," she described. "Then I’ll come back, bid a lot of work and then stop and go do it. If I just bid continually, however, I could do four times the work."