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The Symbiot Business Group is different. It’s not a national company, but it plans on securing national contracts. It doesn’t do any interior plant installations or maintenance, but it looks forward to using significant purchasing power to reduce costs.
So, what is Symbiot, and why has Dick Ott, one of the most recognizable names in the industry, joined its team?
Symbiot is a group that plans to create a national network of interior landscape firms that will use Symbiot’s products and services to boost sales and control costs, thereby positioning itself to service national customers.
Symbiot is headed by two individuals who enjoyed considerable success in the exterior landscape industry: Drew St. John and Steve Glover.
“I’ve talked to several contractors who have lost clients who were satisfied and wanted the contractor to move into a new market so the client could work with just one provider,” St. John explained. “If the contractor couldn’t do this, then they lost the contract. Our plan creates a nationwide network of contractors who could work together to serve a client’s needs.”
In addition to St. John and Glover, Symbiot employs Emily Thompson, who spent years selling national accounts for Orkin Interior Plant Care and TruGreen Interior Plants. Now that Symbiot wants to develop an interior complement to its exterior network of more than 300 companies, the group hired Ott, formerly of Rentokil to lead the charge.
Ott officially joins Symbiot on Dec. 1 as vice president of educational programming, and his top priority will be selling interiorscapers and their suppliers on the concept. “Symbiot is a win/win situation,” he told Interior Business, a sister publication of Lawn & Landscape, in an exclusive interview. “I’m going to develop the interior model.”
Companies that decide to join the group will pay a fee plus agree to pay Symbiot a fee for securing any contracts in their local markets. “Symbiot’s role is to act as a 'facilitator' and not as a contractor in these relationships,” explained St. John.
St. John acknowledges that Symbiot is taking an approach that is unique to the green industry, but he’s convinced it can work. “I don’t know why this was never done before in our industry, but it has been done successfully in other industries,” he maintained. “One example is the independent office furniture and supplies industry. When these companies had OfficeMax move into town, they needed something that let them play on that field. Office Furniture USA allows them to buy on a national basis by pooling their purchasing and keep their costs competitive even if their own volume isn’t that high.”
Ott compares Symbiot to well-known interior groups such as the Silverados and the Interior Landscape Industry Council. Ultimately, Symbiot hopes to secure 30 to 35 interior partners, who pay a higher fee for the first right of refusal on any contracts in their markets. These will generally be larger firms, and they’ll be the only partner in their market.
“We’ll probably limit the group to the first 50 that sign up because once we get beyond that there will be too much market overlap and we want to give our members exclusivity in their area,” St. John pointed out.
Then Symbiot will pursue 150 to 200 affiliates, smaller companies or companies in second-tier markets that ensure the company can offer true national coverage to potential clients. “These will be companies in secondary markets that can really use purchasing agreements to their advantage and use something to differentiate themselves from the competition,” St. John explained. “The information that we gather through benchmarking and networking will filter down, and so will the sales responsibility if we have a property in the area to maintain.”
In addition, Symbiot hopes to sign on about 10 industry suppliers as P3 Partners, its term for those suppliers that agree to sell to Symbiot members at discounted rates.
While Symbiot’s success remains to be seen, a handful of prominent interior firms are already on board with the exterior network. This group includes McCaren Designs, Minneapolis, Minn., Engledow Group, Carmel, Ind., Plantscape, Pittsburgh, Pa., and Kujawa Enterprises, Cudahy, Wis.
“So long as our partners and affiliates feel they benefit from us, then we’ll succeed,” noted Ott, adding that the networking and benchmarking the group will provide should be powerful selling tools.
Still, he knows that members will ultimately look for financial benefits. And he’s confident he can deliver. “I can tell you that a lot of national people want to deal with fewer service providers,” he maintained. “And there are a lot of opportunities for our exterior network to help our interior network because of the size of that market. But they’ll be able to get our interior members in doors they couldn’t get in otherwise.”
“We’re already starting to get a good bit of requests on providing interior landscape services, so this is a natural move for us,” agreed St. John. “Dick is the key to this. Building this network will take up his time for six months, and then he may be able to do some other things for us.”
The author is Editor/Publisher of Lawn & Landscape magazine and can be reached at bwest@lawnandlandscape.com.