Adding Irrigation To The Mix: Marketing Strategies That Work

JUMP RIGHT IN. For the most part, contractors adding irrigation capabilities weren’t hesitant to offer the full range of services.

“We started right out offering both installation and maintenance services,” explained Jeremy Hope, irrigation manager, Audrie Seeley & Co. “We started out the first couple of years doing only residential work because the commercial projects generally involve much more complicated systems and contractors need to coordinate the work with the other trades involved on the project. We wanted to be comfortable with our abilities before taking on those projects.”

“Along with installations, we perform basic spring start-ups and winterization of systems with one crew,” said Michael Llop, president, Sandy Springs Lawn Scapes Inc., Atlanta, Ga. “If we’re really backed up, we contract with an area company to do the maintenance work, and we charge a small handling fee in addition to the subcontractor’s fee to cover our administration costs.

“Last year, we had an eight- to 12-week backlog on irrigation installations, so we subcontracted the maintenance work,” he added.

“We did only maintenance work our first year,” noted Spielman. “We felt the feedback we could obtain by working on the systems and seeing how they affect the turf was too important to ignore as preparation for installation work.”

Spielman recommended any contractors installing irrigation systems also maintain those systems. “Otherwise, you don’t learn anything about the work you’re doing after you walk away from the installation,” she explained.

MONEY MAKER? The ultimate factor for adding or deleting a service among a company’s offerings obviously comes down to that service’s impact on the bottom line. Although some contractors have found profitable markets, most note that they see tight margins and work that can turn costly if it’s not done properly.

“This can be very profitable work if you’re efficient at it,” recognized Llop. “But one of the downsides is that if you’re not efficient or you don’t have the right people, you can end up losing money.

“We lost money on a few initial jobs,” Llop continued. “But we learned to build extra time into the labor costs for our learning curve. It probably cost us a few jobs, but we didn’t lose money on the jobs, and now that we’re more efficient we’ve stopped adding in that extra time.”

Llop explained that his company pays specific attention to comparing its job estimates to the final actual job costs to make sure they are bidding and doing the work properly. “We job cost everything on a site per zone and per head,” he said. “We can’t afford to be losing money and find out after the fact. This method lets us pull detailed reports and understand where we’re making mistakes and losing the money.”

Spielman has been disappointed with lack of additional profits she anticipated irrigation service to bring. “We expected to generate more revenue, but it’s taken us longer to develop a good list of irrigation clients than we expected,” she admitted.

Some contractors may actually be able to make more money from irrigation than they do because they undercharge the customer.

“Contractors using subcontractors obviously mark up the subcontractor’s price to cover their administrative costs, and they usually give up that administration fee when they bring the work in-house,” Williams lamented. “Contractors should keep that fee in place. I see too much irrigation work sold too cheaply for the amount of labor involved. If you’re already getting that markup, continue to do so — but then try to offer additional services or improved quality to the customer.”

PEOPLE PROBLEMS. As with the entire industry, a lack of labor is often the limiting factor for a company’s ability to profit from irrigation services. Companies’ approaches have varied from hiring individuals with irrigation experience to training current employees for the work.

“Initially, we hired people with irrigation experience,” explained Hope. “It made a lot more sense since none of us were trained to train anyone in irrigation.”

The limited volume of irrigation work at Sand Springs led Llop to settle on training current staff. “The problem is that this type of cross-training means everybody is working at different speeds and levels based on how quickly they learn and how much time they have for being trained,” he said. “It also creates challenges keeping the better people working on the irrigation jobs when there’s other work to do.”

“We train from within because it’s so difficult to find the labor,” said Williams. “Plus, we’ve found that hiring irrigation crews from outside can cause problems. Each person has his or her own preferred techniques, and they don’t always mesh with the company’s techniques.”

"Acquiring the training is difficult,” agreed Spielman. “In our area, irrigation technicians have to be licensed, and that’s a difficult process. We send people out for irrigation training once or twice a year, but a lot of the training is acquired doing the job because every job is different and has its own specs.”