When Outback Landscape acquired a company last fall, it completed a years-long process of ensuring the two companies had everything in place to finalize the deal.

Among those priorities for Outback, an Idaho-based company, was making sure the technological transition would be seamless. Well before the deal was finished, the company they acquired started training on the same software Outback had been using since 2012. This was so that once the 14 employees joining Outback’s team were officially part of the company, they already had the experience of dealing with the same software for a year.

Outback’s Tyler Washburn, the operations manager, says thinking of efficiency when using technology is a critical step many companies miss. While his company has watched its staff grow from eight employees to 70 in a decade, others find implementing technology is more of a hindrance than a tool for growth.

“We basically wanted to play offense with how we rolled the crews out in the morning rather than defense,” he says. “We’ve been aggressive to see what’s the next thing to help us.”

Finding the next thing.

First, Washburn cautions landscapers from investing in new technology too quickly. He says nobody wants to wake up a year after buying software – or anything else – and have regrets. Company ownership should be fully committed to a software, he says, and putting in the time to do research on what fits your particular company could save you lots of consternation later.

“Look at what the core of your business this and find something that’s going to grow as you grow,” Washburn says. In other words, buyers should make sure the new technology will advance their company’s missions and can be adapted over time.

For Washburn, they use two separate software providers: one of them is reserved for the company’s maintenance division, and another software is for tracking bigger install projects that are primarily estimated by materials.

They use the software to send automated notifications to clients on when they might be coming, and they can even use it to upsell certain products or services. Washburn says one of his upselling tactics is to have a marketing email that essentially says something along the lines of, “We’re starting our pruning season and coming to your house soon for regular maintenance. Do you want to also add on our pruning service?”

Internally, the software is also used to track time out in the field and cross-reference it with GPS data. Plus, foremen on the installation crews are supposed to fill out daily, short questionnaires that essentially tell Washburn and management what materials need to be ordered for the next day’s services. And when managers leave the company – and they will leave at some point – the company still has each client’s data stored on the same software.

But what Washburn uses the technology for could be entirely different than how another landscaping company conducts business. He advises buyers to really consider how the technology would actually make their company more efficient. If they can’t come up with a good answer, the technology’s probably not a good fit.

“Implementing (software) has helped us put fires out before they happen, and it has given us the tools to be able to grow,” Washburn says.

How to approach it.

Washburn says that “there’s growing pains in everything.” Essentially, he urges landscapers to acknowledge that transitioning to a new technology won’t be easy. He spent countless nights fiddling with the software, testing it out with dummy accounts and entries before finally feeling like he had a good grasp on how it worked.

He recommends handing the technology off to a select team of employees first before implementing company-wide. It can help them fine-tune how to use the technology first and troubleshoot with management as problems arise.

“With rolling it out to the employees and showing them the benefit of it, we started with a small segment of our employees first, ones we knew were sort of tech-savvy,” Washburn says. “Getting a few of those key members on board…was a huge benefit.”

Investing in a consultant is additionally worth “every penny” before finding a software that helps you best, he says. He adds that it’s prudent to make sure the technology providers are like partners and keep up consistent communicate. Whether it’s general help questions or asking for advice on how to improve the product, Washburn says his company’s relationship with their software providers has helped him tremendously over the years. If anybody ever had any questions, it’s nice to have experts with the technology ready to help.

And speaking of ready to help, Washburn also says it’s easier when someone on staff is specifically in charge of the technology, especially software. Outback Landscape promoted someone within the company already who had worked with the software out in the field to oversee everyone’s use. And as more climb the company’s career ladder, they are also able to easily track some of their long-standing client accounts.

“As we’ve grown, we’ve moved managers from the field to where they can look back and go, ‘This is what’s happened, these are the notes on this client’s account,’” he says. “This way, training’s a whole lot easier.”

To read the rest of the Technology Report, click the links below.

Software is now table stakes

Exclusive technology research

The right approach

Tackling tech

Nathan James has always had a love of the outdoors.

“Since I was very young, I’ve been very interested in plants and nature in general,” he says. “Especially from living in west Michigan.”

James says he was introduced to the green industry early on in life.

“A few family friends introduced me to the horticultural and greenhouse industries,” he says. “They worked on living walls and living roofs, which were really unique. They also worked with me to find sustainable methods to help the community.”

James, 20, is now pursuing an Associate of Applied Science degree in fruit and vegetable crop management at Michigan State University’s Institute of Agricultural Technology.

“It was tough to decide where to start with college,” he says. “Working with MSU has introduced me to a lot of different aspects of the industry.”

Through his studies, James’ interests have continued to blossom. He has enjoyed learning about nursery management, food science, conservation, plant pathology and entomology.

“I’ve always been pretty interested in conservation,” James says. “It’s been another outlet to help me understand our surroundings and the natural benefits of the world around us.”

Being a student at MSU has also given James the opportunity to volunteer.

Most recently, he participated in an Alternative Spartan Breaks service trip to Loggerhead Marinelife Center in Juno Beach, Florida, in March 2020.

“With a couple of other Michigan State students, I helped find ways to reduce the impact humans have on the ecosystems in Florida,” he says. “We also stained the pier, planned for destructive weather, did beach cleanups and more.”

James adds he also enjoys volunteering with the Michigan Natural Association.

“We’ve preserved different nature sanctuaries and ecosystems,” he says. “We also learn ways to reduce environmental abuse.”

James has also worked to eliminate invasive species and establish barriers to environmental abuse with MNA.

While James, a sophomore, is keeping his career aspirations open for now, he had the opportunity to intern with Hortech in Nunica, Michigan, last summer.

“I worked with them for three summers, and was most recently an intern,” he says. “As an intern, I worked in three departments where I got to know each plant they specialize in. I learned how to care of all of them.”

While interning, James was also responsible for fertilizing plant beds, applying lime to assist in plant growth, performing pest management and analyzing products for potential disease. He also got a chance to get back to one of his early interests – living roofs and living walls.

“I took care of weed management, mulching and helped design some of the walls,” he says.

James says he isn’t sure exactly what he wants to do in the industry but insists sustainability and conservation will be at the forefront of it. He is eager to see what the future holds.

“I just want to find sustainable ways to help everybody,” he says.

As hardscape projects come together, including trendy patio furniture in a design or suggesting it to a client can round out your next job. Executives from three retail garden centers who are successful in selling outdoor furniture talk about the latest trends from that segment of the market.

Jessica Salisbury, CEO and creative director at Village Green Home & Garden in Rockford, Illinois, says that her IGC started selling patio furniture more than 30 years and hasn’t looked back since. In fact, patio furniture makes up 51% of Village Green’s business.

Kate Terrell, general manager of Wallace’s Garden Center in Bettendorf, Iowa, says Wallace’s has sold outdoor furniture for nearly 20 years and it contributes to a decent chunk of profits. “Last year, I think it was probably 10-15% (of profits), which sounds low, but when you add in all those accessory pieces, it's really a big part of our center and it's a big part of our merchandising,” she says.

Similarly, AJ Petitti, president of Petitti Garden Centers in Cleveland, says they have been selling patio furniture for more than 15 years and about 10% of their sales come from this category.

Latest trends.

Salisbury says the latest trends she’s noticed are that customers are drawn to neutral tones while accessories provide pops of color. “Pillows, rugs, pottery – that's where they're drawing in all of the color, but the base fabric on a lot of the furniture is still in that neutral tone,” she says.

Petitti also says that neutral tones are popular with consumers. “Traditional pieces do really well, and accent pillows are still going really strong,” he says. “Cantilever umbrellas have really been picking up steam, too.”

Terrell notes that there is an uptick of sales from furniture made of recycled plastics. People like the fact that it's made from post-consumer recyclables and, while it is expensive, the materials are durable and weather resistant. Terrell says they’ve experienced a resurgence in natural materials too, such as eucalyptus and teak.

“A lot of people lose their price resistance once they realize, ‘Oh my gosh, I can sit this on my deck and never move it again,’” Terrell says.

Traditionally, Wallace’s best-selling colors are neutral slate gray, chocolate or lighter neutral shades in between. However, a lot of people shy away from white because of the dirt, Terrell says. People with swimming pools tend to buy bright-colored pub set chairs to go around the pool and offering tropical colors like lime green or turquoise are a good way to cater to those people, she says.

Both Salisbury and Terrell agree that fire pits are huge sellers in the Midwest, as they help extend the seasons because consumers use them earlier in the spring and later on in the fall.

“People are doing outdoor seating groups, whether it's sofas, sectionals, chat groups,” Salisbury says. “It's about cocktailing and conversations and having fun, and that's usually done around a fire pit.”

Price points.

Offering products at various prices can help all budgets.

“We offer everything for every pocketbook. We offer an opening price point, which for us – for like a dining set – would be $1,000. And then our most expensive set is $15,000. That sweet spot is the middle price range, that $2,500 to $3,000 price,” Salisbury says.

At Petitti, they offer selections between $999 and $7,999 and try not to stray from those points.

For a long time, Terrell says they tried to stick in the middle price points, but they had a hard time doing so.

She says their real wood or recycled plastic furniture tends to be on the high end of the price point, while their outdoor interiors tend to be middle-of-the-road. They also offer low price point options such as benches.

“When we would kind of sacrifice quality for cheaper price points, we personally had a hard time selling it to people because there's a lot of middle of the road out there in the market,” Terrell says.

The author is an assistant editor with Garden Center magazine, a sister publication of Lawn & Landscape.

Stephanie Early, chief of strategy with Timberline Landscaping in Colorado Springs, says technology has always been an important element of the business and something they still focus on growing.

“Timberline has been an early adopter of technology for quite some time,” she says. “We began mobile timekeeping almost 10 years ago. And, from what we’ve seen, we were one of the first companies to really dive into that. We’ve had mobile timekeeping, GPS, estimating software systems and accounting for many, many years.”

Know SEO.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a crucial component of Timberline’s technology use. Early says she works with Timberline’s marketing coordinator to develop SEO and keyword research into the company’s strategy.

“I’ve been with the company for seven years and we’ve had an SEO focus since that point,” Early says. “We have continually worked on that. What I love is that we’re at the point now that we are continually ranking well organically for most of the search terms that we want.

Early says Timberline, which has slightly more than 200 employees, targets a mix of short-tail and long-tail keywords. Examples of short-tail keywords would include “landscaping” or “lawn care,” and a long-tail keyword would be something along the lines of “Should I mow my lawn in the winter?”

She also suggests incorporating keywords into the title, image alt. text and headers of a post.

According to Early, ranking well in terms of SEO has boosted Timberline’s business.

“We’ve been able to create this free, organic pipeline of work, just based on search results, that is feeding a whole lot of business our way,” she says. “We measure our sales by marketing sources and internet search is our number three, just underneath current customers and referrals.”

Early attributes the company’s ranking to an aggressive in-bound marketing approach.

“Outbound is your cold calls, mailers and things of that nature,” she says. “In-bound is about creating content that people are already searching for and having that available on your site and giving them the opportunity to convert from there.”

Timberline’s website features blog posts and other gated content, where users must provide an email address to access it. Early says this content is rich in SEO keywords.

“When people sit down to do keyword research, they say, ‘Well I think people are searching this way.’ We actually plug it into a software and determine exactly how people are searching for each service and seeing what words they are using so we can make sure we are making our content rich in those keywords,” she says.

Early says the company determines the keywords internally but uses the software to determine which to go after. When choosing an SEO software, she suggests “looking for something that allows you to track performance analytics and plays nice with Google analytics and social media. Keyword traffic and ranking difficulty are great tools to have.”

It’s been an effective approach for Timberline, and Early says traffic to the website continues to increase.

“Our website traffic continues to rise year over year, every year,” she says.

Early adds there is one annual post that drives a large amount of traffic to the website every year.

“We do Christmas lighting as a service over the winter, so we prepare a Christmas lights map of the local area where people submit their house,” she says. “And that map drives 65,000 people in the month of December to our website. That amount of traffic helps our website authority for the rest of the year.”

The Christmas lights map, which you can view at bit.ly/xmaslawn, also keeps users on the web page for a while, which Early notes is important for improving SEO.

“On average, people are spending five minutes per unique view on that Christmas lights map,” she says.

Combine components.

Early says the company recently purchased a new business management software to help consolidate all the technology they were using in hopes of streamlining operations.

“We found we were limited by our estimating, job costing and CRM system,” she says. “We were using items that were working decently but weren’t cloud-based. We wanted to make sure that all this software was available to our field staff. We wanted to keep things moving quickly without having to come into the office.”

The new software, which is designed specifically for landscape companies, has helped Timberline.

“It brought out CRM, estimating, job costing, timekeeping and billing all under one umbrella,” she says. “The only things that are still separate are our overhead and our balance sheets and income statements. But there’s a bridge to connect those.”

Early says getting all the software onto one platform was great, but getting everyone on board with the new software posed a challenge.

“Anytime you move people’s cheese, they will struggle a little bit. We had a lot of conversations with our team as we were vetting out new software,” she says. “As we were demoing software, we narrowed it down to two and then brought in a lot of our team to watch the demos and learn what was going on. There is a ton of setup that goes into it. People not only have to learn the new software but also adjust their workflows.”

Early says Timberline’s C-Suite business unit leaders and estimators were all involved in demoing the software options. While no formal vote was taken, a general consensus was made by all parties.

While it might have been difficult early on, Early says everyone is adjusted to it now and sees the benefits of the process.

“We pulled the trigger almost a year ago,” she says. “A couple of months in, people were still struggling, but by this point they say they get it and see why we made this change. We had to get used to taking the good, letting go of what we were used to do and just move forward.”

To help everyone transition, Early says Timberline took an employee who adapted to the new software early on and used him as a trainer for others.

“(He) helped train our team, setup the system and troubleshoot,” she says. “He continues to help us in that role still and we could not have done it without him.”

Research & request referrals.

Early says any company looking to implement a new software or technology should make sure they do their homework.

“Make sure you do your due diligence,” she says. “Look at multiple options, talk to people who are using the software and take your time with the decision-making process.”

Early also suggests getting good, reliable referrals.

“If a company is not willing to give you referrals, then we would likely steer clear,” she says. “Those referrals make a huge difference.”

While software can be expensive, Early says it can be an investment worth making if it’ll improve business operations.

“You’re definitely going to have costs associated with these things, but you have to think about that return on investment over time,” she says. “For us, it’s been worth it.”

To read the rest of the Technology Report, click the links below.

Software is now table stakes

Exclusive technology research

The right approach

On the offensive