Editor's Focus: May 1998

If you’re just getting your feet wet in the industry, then it’s just as likely that you find yourself looking for any opportunity to learn from the experiences of others who have gone down the same road of business growth before you.

Such sharing of information among contractors is commonplace among green industry contractors, and, I suspect, it is one reason for the widespread, rapid growth of professionalism and profitability within the industry over the last decade. Granted, a bullish economy like we’ve enjoyed can make business easier, but it doesn’t carry any guarantees with it.

What makes this networking even more interesting to observe is that it often occurs between companies that can find themselves in competition with one another at times. While some people may be somewhat reticent to swap tricks of the trade with another player in their market, I would argue that this may actually be the most effective type of networking that takes place.

Yes, sharing an idea with a competitor could make them a better company and make business more difficult for your own organization. So what do you do? There’s two choices - do nothing and let that company improve itself more rapidly than your company does, or force yourself to generate new, even better ideas or business practices.

Many of our readers commented to us that they were surprised to see how forthcoming Environmental Care was about its business strategies in the December issue of Lawn & Landscape. The company showed little hesitation sharing such ideas. Instead, it was happy to share information that could be used by other companies to improve their businesses, thereby bettering the industry as a whole. Plus, as one ECI manager pointed out, "Just because someone knows how we do something doesn’t mean they can necessarily do it or do it better."

Should a competitor of ECI’s improve upon an idea ECI initially developed, that would challenge ECI to find an even better solution for that particular problem. How can that be bad for business?