Blazing A Trail

 For Chuck Twist, president, TNT Lawn & Landscape Management, Inc., Stillwater, Okla., constantly evaluating his company’s inefficiencies is what keeps him ahead of the competition.

 “We want to be ahead of the pack,” Twist explained. “To ensure that we provide the quality of service necessary to be the highest priced in the area, yet to continue to retain existing clients and to gain new and more profitable jobs, we have to be the most efficient. We have to be the best.”

 To become the best in his area and to maintain that position, Twist stressed that he concentrates on what his company is good at, which is lawn and landscape maintenance and fertilization and weed control. Twist commented that when the company ventured into other areas of the business that the quality of the work started to slip and he started to lose control of the vision he had for his company.

 “It took us nine years, but we realized that we needed to concentrate on what we do best and make it run like a well-oiled machine,” Twist remarked. “When it starts to run itself, then we’ll start to think about going into another area of the business.”

 So, for now, Twist and his partner, Tim Tunin, the company’s secretary and treasurer, are working to perfect the foundation for a successful business they built almost 15 years ago.

 GETTING STARTED.  Twist and Tunin got their start in the landscape industry right out of high school. In 1985, Twist enrolled in North East Oklahoma Junior College in Miami, Okla., majoring in forestry. As part of an assignment, Twist sent his resume to different companies within industries relating to forestry and was hired at a landscaping company in Bartlesville, Okla. He worked for that company for three summers on his breaks from school. After the second year, Twist enrolled in Oklahoma State University (OSU), Stillwater, Okla., and after his third year of working in Bartlesville, decided that he didn’t want to continue moving back home to work. That’s when he and Tunin, who worked for a competing landscaping company in the area, decided to start their own business near OSU. That way, they were able to run the business, while finishing college.

 “We started planning our business and building our trailer to carry our equipment,” Twist recalled. “We bought a trailer for $15 and tore it down and rebuilt it. The paint on it was still wet when we went back to school.”

 Once back in Stillwater, Twist and Tunin shopped around for financing to get their business off the ground. “We managed to get one bank to loan us $5,000 as long as my partner’s father co-signed,” Twist related. “We used that to buy our equipment.”

 With the loan, the pair bought a small pickup truck, two trim mowers, a trimmer, a blower, an edger and a few other miscellaneous items. They also rented an old warehouse space for $60 a month and used Tunin’s dorm room as their office.

 The first year was spent planning, but by the spring of 1988 the two were ready to get their business going. “We went around and knocked on doors,” Twist explained. “I was shy, but I’m over that now. It was really hard for me to get up the nerve to do that.”

 The first year, they grossed about $30,000, Twist added, paying themselves about $300 a month. With business for the two college kids picking up steam, Twist and Tunin hired their first employee to help lighten the load while they concentrated on school. “Luckily, we had supplemental incomes from financial aid and our families,” Twist remarked. “We still ate a lot of Beanie Weenies and Ramen noodles.”

 In 1989, the pair rented some additional office space adjacent to the warehouse for $40 a month and, in that same year, they bought a few apartment complex contracts from a friend who was graduating and moving out of state. That meant that they needed more employees, so Twist and Tunin hired a few more people.

 But, even though the business was growing, there was one major obstacle in the way: the most well-known landscaping business in the area was hogging all the accounts. “We couldn’t get anywhere because he had all the jobs in town,” Twist said.

 But, the two continued to do the best job they knew how and it eventually paid off.

 OVERNIGHT SENSATION.  The next year (1990), the owner of the company that was monopolizing all the local accounts approached Twist and Tunin and asked if they were interested in buying the mowing portion of his business.

 So, with another loan, this time for $40,000, Twist and Tunin expanded their business again. “We bought his mowing contracts, mowing equipment, a few trucks, a few trailers and a lot of miscellaneous equipment,” Twist continued. “When we bought that, we went from little guys to overwhelmed in one night.”

 With the extra contracts came the need for more employees, so the two added seven to eight more to help manage the load. Two years later, when the same owner wanted out of the industry altogether, he approached Twist and Tunin, asking if they’d be interested in buying the pest control portion of his business as well.

 “That was another $40,000 purchase,” Twist noted. “That’s how we grew to where we are today.”

 With a new 5,000-square-foot facility housing offices and shops, TNT Lawn & Landscape Management Inc. has two mowing crews and one spraying crew to service hundreds of mowing, maintenance, weed control and fertilization accounts.

 STAYING ON TOP.  Twist and Tunin have managed to stay on top by remaining vigilant when it comes to professional appearance, quality of work and customer service. For instance, they keep their trucks clean at all times and require their employees to wear uniforms, including work boots. The company provides these uniforms at no cost to the employees and also pays for 50 percent of the laundering cost each week, which totals about $3, Twist explained. The employees must keep their shirts buttoned up and they aren’t allowed to wear jewelry, except for a single ring.  The managers also forbid smoking on the job.

 Twist also inspects each job thoroughly to be sure nothing is overlooked. “We strive to provide the best service possible by finding and fixing all of our mistakes before the customer has a chance to find them,” Twist explained. “I demand the guys do a good job.”

 To retain customers, Twist sticks to a strict customer service policy: call the customer back within 24 hours or on the next business day. “We keep our customer informed ahead of time if there’s a change in plans,” Twist continued. “Basically, we do what we say we’ll do, when we say we’ll do it.”

 In addition to professionalism, quality of work and customer service, Twist teaches his employees ways to become more efficient. “I tell my guys if they’re on a big job and they run out of gas to take the equipment to the truck and fill it up, not the other way around,” Twist advised. “If you take the equipment to the truck and fill it up, you make two trips, but if you take the gas can to the equipment, you make four. You’re doing double the work and wasting time.”

 Whenever Twist has three employees on a mowing job, he knows that it’s highly unlikely that all three men will finish at the same time. “So, I tell them that when the first guy finishes, he should get all the machines ready for the next job,” Twist related. “Then he can sit down and drink his water. It’s inefficient to sit there and wait until they’re all done to do it.”

 Twist also uses a night crew, consisting of two employees, to help increase efficiency for his day crews. This crew comes in at 12:30 p.m. and completes miscellaneous work, such as trimming shrubs, until 5:30 p.m. When the day crews come in and go home for the night, that’s when the night crew starts working on the trucks.

 “The night crew will come in and check the truck for safety, unload all the equipment and clean and oil it to get the crews 100 percent ready for the next day,” Twist explained. “I used to have every one of my employees coming in trying to service equipment and it was a zoo around here. Half the time things didn’t get done properly or at all because one thought the other had done it.”

 The night crew is something new to the company this year, but Twist said it has had a positive impact on how the business runs. “My shop has never been so clean and the trucks have never been so organized,” he declared.

 FINDING A QUALITY WORKFORCE. Although the work is not hard to come by, TNT has had problems finding quality employees. “Last summer the unemployment rate dipped below 1 percent, which made it impossible to find people,” Twist stressed.

 After having problems finding workers locally, Twist and Tunin turned to the government H-2B visa program for hiring Mexican nationals. “We’ve been using that program for the past four years,” Twist noted. “We are extremely happy with the quality of employees we get through the program.”

 Before the company started using the H-2B program the employee turnover was between 150 percent to 200 percent, according to Twist. Now, turnover is 25 percent or less. “I can’t think of a single time that an employee has not come into work. I’ve had almost 100 percent attendance for the past four years,” he trumpeted.

 The major problem with using the government program is the red tape the company has to go through to apply for the workers. Twist and Tunin start the process by contacting the Oklahoma Employment Security Commission. From there, the request goes to the regional U.S. Department of Labor and then to the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service. “They will not allow you to start [the process] more than 120 days before you need the guys and often they can be a month or two behind,” Twist advised. “Last year we were a few weeks early in getting approval for our workers, but this year, we were a month or two behind, which really hurt us.”

 Another problem with the program is that Twist has to rely heavily on referrals and he has no control over when he gets the workers. “I don’t get to interview and we’re at the mercy of the government when it comes to getting our workers when we need them,” he commented.

 But even though Twist acknowledged that the program isn’t perfect, he feels as though it’s the best they’re going to get right now. Because he taught himself to speak Spanish, communicating with his employees has not been a problem. And there are some benefits for him as well. Twist doesn’t have to offer health insurance since most of his employees aren’t eligible for it, and because the employees need the money to send home to their families, most of them aren’t interested in receiving the coverage.

 In return for their hard work, Twist goes the extra mile to make sure the employees are as comfortable as they can be. The company provides fully furnished, air-conditioned mobile homes at no cost to their workers. However, the employees are responsible for the utilities. Employees are also allowed two weeks off in the summer, without pay, if they want to visit their families.

 TNT also offers its procedure books and manuals in Spanish, including a pesticide training manual. Twist said he felt the need to write the pesticide training manual in Spanish because he had an employee who wanted to become certified. The state gives the certification test in Spanish, but only offers training materials in English. “I used the Oklahoma core manual as my reference,” he explained. “It took him two tries, but he got his license.”

 A new system implemented this year, the Star Crew Award, was designed to help boost morale among the employees, while teaching procedures. “I have a checklist of company policies and procedures that I use to inspect each job site and crew. At the end of the week, the employee with the most points out of 100 gets a small red star on their truck,” Twist explained.

 The crew with the most stars at the end of the month wins a small prize, such as a gift certificate, and the crew with the most stars at the end of year has a chance to win a large prize, such as airline tickets for a return trip to Mexico, Twist explained.

 Although it’s been a rough transition, Twist said the employees are starting to realize that he’s going to continue to inspect the crews and the job sites until he’s confident that all the procedures are being followed. “I only announce who the winner is, I don’t announce the losers,” he related. “I don’t want them to feel bad, so I just write a list of things they need to work on and let them know that they can come and talk to me if they have questions.”

 CONTINUING TO GROW. Although TNT Lawn & Landscape Management strives to offer the very best service, its growth has been capped nonetheless. “The town is growing in leaps and bounds, but we’re finding it hard to get more work,” Twist lamented. “We’re growing at the same rate as the town, so we’ve saturated the market. We only grow if the town grows.”

 Twist explained that while his company is the biggest in the area, it’s an area of only about 50,000 people. Twist expects the business to gross about $450,000 this year, up from $400,000 last year. But, because they are planning to buy all new equipment this year, he expects his profits to dwindle slightly. Twist’s theory is that selling the smaller equipment, such as mowers, before the warranty has expired, will save the company money in the long run by avoiding costly repairs on relatively cheap equipment. “We’re spending $400 to $500 in repairs on a $200 machine,” he said.

 Twist also fears a slowdown in the economy will affect his business. “Will people still purchase luxury services if the economy heads south?’” he asked. “I keep it in the back of my mind that people are going to cut the least important things out, which might include having their lawns mowed.”

 But, despite the uncertainty of the economy and saturation of the market, Twist and Tunin keep a positive attitude and continue to implement new systems in the workplace to help make the business run more efficiently. “We’d like to see these systems get ironed out and to hopefully be more profitable through those systems,” Twist emphasized.

The author is the Internet Project Manager for Lawn & Landscape Online.