STIHL introduced more new products at GIE+EXPO this year, also its 90^th anniversary, than it ever has before. “In 2017, customers will be able to pick your power like never before,” said Bjorn Fisher, president of STIHL.

Here’s what’s on tap for Spring 2017:

STIHL Lightning Battery Systems Technology

• Advanced STIHL Lithium-Ion battery technology offers users an option to reduce their impact on the environment and provides a powerful alternative to gasoline-powered equipment
• No battery memory limitation, no gradual drop in power means high performance; runs at full speed until battery is depleted
• STIHL Lithium-Ion batteries have indicator lights to indicate battery status/level of charge
• Long service life – more than 80 percent of battery capacity remains after 500 charges

STIHL BGA 45 handheld blower

• Lightweight at 4.4 pounds including the integrated lithium-ion battery
• On a single charge, it clears up to 13 parking spaces with a blowing speed of 85 mph and air volume of 235 cfm.
• An activation key prevent accidental use of the machine.

STIHL HSA 45 hedge trimmer

• Lightweight at 5.1 pounds for enhanced portability
• On a single charge, the HSA 45 can trim a hedge up to 20 inches wide and a length longer than a football field
• High cutting speeds of 2,500 strokes per minute

STIHL AK batteries and charger

• More than 80 percent of battery capacity remains after 500 charges
• AK 10 and AK 20 run at full power until discharged
• 80-minute charge time for AK 10 and 150-minute charge time for AK 20
• Charger shuts off automatically after the battery has been fully charged

STIHL BGA 56 battery blower

• Delivers air speeds of 100 mph and an air flow of 353 cfm at the nozzle
• Just 7.3 pounds (including battery) for easy portability and maneuverability

STIHL FSA 56 battery trimmer

• Features an adjustable shaft to fit different user heights for enhanced comfort
• Users can trim the length of five football fields on a single charge
• The battery trimmer is just 7.3 pounds

STIHL MSA 120 C-BQ battery chain saw

• It is lightweight at only 8.4 pounds (including battery, bar and chain)
• Features low vibration, quick chain adjustment and the STIHL Quickstop Plus chain braking feature
• The MSA 120 C-BQ chain saw can make up to 100 cuts on a single charge

HSA 56 battery hedge trimmer

• It is portable and lightweight at only 8.1 pounds (including battery)
• Features a high cutting speed of 2,800 strokes per minute
• Users can trim up to 1,000 feet

Extended-Reach hedge trimmers

The HL 56 K (0°), HL 91 K (0°), HL 94 K (0°), HL 94 K (145°) and HL 94 (145°) feature low emissions, double-sided reciprocating blades are ground on both sides and an innovative control handle featuring ECOSPEED throttle set wheel that allows users to adjust speed for specific tasks.

• New, lighter gearbox design shifts weight to the powerhead for better balance and easy maneuverability, helping users work for longer periods with less fatigue
• Semi-automatic choke lever enables simplified three-step start procedure, saving users time
• The one-touch stop switch allows the user to turn off the engine with the simple press of a button. When the engine is off, the one-touch stop switch automatically returns the trimmer to the start position

Pressure washers

The RB 200 and RB Dirt Boss have 25-foot ultra-flexible, high-quality no-kink hoses and stainless steel high-pressure nozzles and brass detergent nozzles.

The RB 200 has 2,500 psi at 2.3 gallons per minute of cleaning power and 12-inch tires and a tilt-back design.

The RB400 Dirt Boss has 2,700 psi delivering 2.7 gallons per minutes, a combined on/off and fuel valve control for easy transpot. And a four-point vibration isolation system to increase unit longevity. The 10-inch pneumatic tires feature rugged steel hub.

Even if your business mows lawns, you’re not in the business of mowing lawns. You’re in the business of delivering client expectations.

In his presentation, Delivering Over the Top Service Excellence, at LANDSCAPES in Louisville, Kentucky, on Wednesday, Jason Cupp stressed the importance of giving clients what they want, ask for and pay for. The former business owner and now growth consultant said the question you need to ask yourself is: Is your company client-centric? Is it focused on the client every single day?

“I’m convinced one of the largest differentiators between companies who are successful and not successful, both in market share and in sales profitability would be a focus on laser-like, client-centric customers service and retention,” he said.

Cupp told the story of a doctor who called him after losing a patient, driving home and arriving at home, where Cupp had recently renovated the landscape. The doctor explained how he felt that he had arrived at an oasis, and that’s when Cupp realized he was selling a feeling, not a service.

That’s why he gave his staff a certain amount of money to use to make an unsatisfied client into a happy one with no authorization required.

“If we’re selling feelings and emotion, we can’t let the emotion go to the other side,” he said.

Go the extra mile.

Cupp said customer service is so crucial because of the way people shop, and the way the make their purchasing decisions.

• Clients want to know and be known
• They are sick of just being “another number” especially a dollar sign
• They are more informed, and even more discriminating, than ever before
• They can find out virtually anything about your company online
• Value is not only an element of price, but of feeling
• Clients will NOT settle for mediocrity

Here’s one thing you can do Monday morning to start your interactions with your customers on the right foot: Answer the phone the right way. Cupp said that many companies don’t even bother to answer the phone.

“If a client takes the time to call us, we want to make sure that we’re there to answer that call,” he said. “And if you answer your phone abruptly, that’s not setting you up for success.”

So instead of saying “ABC Landscaping,” say “Good morning, thank you for calling ABC Landscape. This is Jason. How may I help you?” That way the client will feel that their call matters to the company.

Do it quickly but do it right.

“It doesn’t matter how big or small your company is, your clients care about how fast you are,” he said.

That’s what people want now, whether it’s nswering the phone, getting an estimate or getting it done. He used the example of Amazon, which has been wildly successful because it will send customers what they need right when they need it.

But you have to make sure that you’re doing the job the right way to ensure customers satisfaction as well. So how do you do it?

Cupp said that every single person in the company needs to be involved in customer service. “The best way to do that is to ingrain it in the company culture,” he said. “It has to be executed by every member of the team.”

Start by developing a focus group of your key clients across all demographics – not just the ones who have been with you for years. “Call that client you think you’re a day away from being fired from. It’s risky and they might yell at you but it’s worth it,” Cupp said.

Once you speak with them, you have to have a collaborative discussion with your team. Including them gets them on board right from the start. Figure out what your gold standard is and write it down. Then let everyone know about it by putting it on contracts, your website, social media or press releases.

And remember that you don’t have to do it all at once. You can take it “one bite at a time,” Cupp said.

When Ed Laflamme was in the early days of being an entrepreneur, he didn’t know what direction go in because he didn’t have a plan. Once he established a plan, he was able to focus and go in one direction.

“If I would have stayed on course and developed a plan earlier, I would have done better faster,” Laflamme said. “It stopped me from making mistakes.”

As part of LANDSCAPES, Laflamme and Bill Arman, consultants with The Harvest Group, spoke to attendees about the steps to setting up a strategic plan.

Here are some highlights from their presentation: How to Build a Strategic Plan and Stick to It.

Planning preparation.

• Hold meetings off site, even at a client’s facilities like a restaurant. You should also think about having a facilitator lead the session instead of the owner doing it, at least the first time. “Don’t hold them in your office sitting at your throne,” Arman said.
• Do a lot of fact finding. Assign teams to find out information needed for the meeting like safety reports or other areas you want to address. Don’t do it all yourself. Go over the good and the bad lessons you’ve learned in the past year.
• Investigate trends that are happening in your area like the drought in California where removing turf is increasing. You had better put that in your plan to tackle it or take advantage of it.

Planning session fundamentals.

• Establish rules of engagement like: Be respectful, active listening, cell phones off, etc. “Have the group come up with those items,” Arman said, adding he recently facilitated a meeting with a client where everyone put cell phones in a bucket, which worked out well.
• Practice the 90-10 rule. Laflamme said you should focus 10 percent of the session on what caused the problem and 90 percent on how to solve the problem.
• Build consensus with a priority map. Arman said you should draw a bullseye with success in the middle and lines branching off that list with everything you talked about. Then, have a blind vote for five of them on a piece of paper. You do it blind so one person, like the owner, doesn’t have a more influential vote.
• At the end of every session, look at what you accomplished and the action items. “That way,  everybody understands where we are now,” Laflamme said.
• Get a night of sleep before making any big decisions. Go to dinner afterwards and have more informal talks about the day. “Then after a night, everything becomes much clearer,” Laflamme said.

The “here to there” premise.

• Establish where you are with key metrics like safety, revenue, gross margin, net profit, client retention, client penetration, key employee retention, internal quality levels and accounts receivable.
• Establish where you want to be. Do people map/organizational chart based around revenue goals. For example, think about what revenue number you want to be at in three years, with what services and which people you’d need. Then do that a few more years out.
• Pick one to three key metrics to improve and figure out how you will measure or know when you have accomplished them.

   

Key elements of a plan.

• Determine your vision (where you see your company going,) mission (why your people come to work every day,) core values (narrow down to five that matter to you) and success behaviors.  Figure out how these link to your key metrics.
• Have a specific marketing plan because marketing and sales aren’t the same thing.
• Figure out what type of clients you make the most revenue from and go after them.
• Establish areas you want to fix, and one reason why you struggle in that area.  Arman had a client struggling with client retention, and the group decided they had poor retention because they over promised on jobs and then got off to a poor start when executing. Moving forward, they decided to “overkill” on with the initial execution of a job and then can work on other parts later.
  

Putting the plan together.

• Prioritize and determine timing with deadlines: “It’s amazing what gets done when you have a deadline,” Arman said.
• Action items should be broken down into the following:

Critical: Right now in the next 30 days (Make sure your I9s are filled out correctly.)

Urgent: Within 90 days

Important: Within year

Long range: Two to five years

Execution of the plan.

• Document everything you’ve done and give the “Playbook” as Arman calls it to key people. Have it in writing and then assign it to different teams or a champion who can take care of those action points.
• Conduct regular “touch base” meetings to report progress to team.
• Always keep in mind that you may have to adjust the plan when circumstances change. “Don’t get frustrated if it doesn’t work at first, because as we all know stuff happens,” Arman said.

While many GIE+EXPO attendees were making their way to Louisville, Kentucky, for this year’s convention, a handful of landscapers spent their day in Lexington, participating in a facility tour hosted by the National Association of Landscape Professionals.

The first stop on the tour was Henkel Denmark. “We’re really impressed with who you are,” said Gordon Denmark, co-founder of the company. “It brought to mind a fight I used to fight all the time: thinking I wasn’t good enough.”

He said at the time, he felt like someone was always better, but now he knows that everyone is a little different, but great in their own way.

“Throw away the fear and the doubt and just make friends, learn and grow,” he said.

During the visit, attendees also got to experience a few things that Henkel Denmark does with its crews. First up was stretches, where everyone followed Denmark as he directed what to do. Then, everyone rushed into the center and shouted a cheer to learning. Denmark said the company likes to celebrate somebody or something when everyone cheers.

At the three stations, members of the group had a chance to learn about the company’s operating system, Boss LM. After explaining how they use it, the session was opened to the floor so people could talk about the system they use, as well as ask questions about Boss LM.

The landscape designers also led a session where they explained how in the last year, they switched up their consultation setup. Now, instead of wasting time driving to potential clients’ houses to give a consultation, they ask clients to come to them. This eliminated clients who weren’t serious because they weren’t willing to waste their own time.

The final session covered marketing. Henkel Denmark worked with a marketing company to produce a four-minute video highlighting who they are. The marketing group also helped the company narrow down its target audience.

“We’re no longer shooting with a shotgun,” said Bill Henkel, co-founder. “We’re shooting with a rifle.”

The company also recently hosted a party where they invited vendors, partners, subcontractors and clients. Henkel said it gave everyone a chance to talk and get to know the people they were working with.

Following Henkel Denmark, people on the tour stopped at the Klausing Group, just a short drive down the road.

Founded in 1992, Roscoe Klausing, founder and owner, and his brother - who no longer works with the company - joined NALP in 1999.

That was also the year they switched from fully residential to fully commercial. The company now services 120 sites a week with 70 to 80 customers. There is a construction division in Lexington, and a maintenance division in Lexington and Louisville.

Attendees were given a tour of the company’s 2-acre property, which included a water retention system in the parking lot, as well as a rain garden for overflow. The rain garden is also a certified monarch waste station, which means it has a lot of milkweed plants to help the species that is becoming endangered.

The Klausing Group also focuses on training and employee development. Every third Friday, work shuts down and they train employees for the day. Depending on the topic and the materials, sometimes the trainings can even give their crews CEUs.

They also have a crew of the month board. Each month, the crew leaders’ names are put on the board, and each crew is graded on performance, incidents, issues, and efficiency. The crew with the highest number at the end of the month is recognized and taken out to lunch.

The third stop on the tour was an equine facility, maintained by Henkel Denmark as well as Stephen Hillenmeyer Landscape Services.

The facility features 65 miles of post and board fence, and Henkel says he walked the roads of the facility at least four times prior to creating the design.

“It was visual recon,” he said. “Most tree planting has been done in clusters and groups to denote the road and to screen or enhance views.”