Seven-year old Sawyer Granger wanted a battery-powered edger for his birthday, and his father Brandon was proud to let him unwrap the wish. The boy puts on his safety glasses and makes rounds on the family’s Florence, South Carolina, property. He can push mow the entire yard. He spreads pine mulch and loves helping dad.
The Facebook video showing Sawyer’s day in the field – a grin as he holds a Granger Landscapes business card bearing the title Manager – went viral and quickly got nearly 4,000 hits. “He loves to go to our job sites,” Granger says. “He seems to be growing a passion for the landscape and design business, whether it’s kicking dirt with his boots or riding with me on a tractor. He loves all of it.”
For Granger, capturing Sawyer’s excitement and drive for the outdoors and landscaping is like revisiting his own start in the green industry. “When I was young, I would for hours be outside, pull weeds, and that is how my business started – mowing neighbors’ yards when I was a teenager,” he says.
Today, Granger Landscapes is a full-service landscape design, build and maintenance firm that has grown sales by 20 percent the past several years. In 2016, Granger will break the $1 million revenue mark. “It goes back to doing repeat projects for customers. They are helping us get to that milestone by giving us more work, bigger jobs,” says Granger, who started the business full-time in 1998, after spending time studying horticulture at North Carolina State University.
Granger Landscapes serves a smaller South Carolina market, so its professional approach has differentiated the business from other operations, Granger says. Rapports with contractors and a reputation for turning backyards into outdoor living spaces have earned the company repeat business. Plus, investments in technology like the website and videos showcase the work Granger Landscapes can do.
As for the Facebook video featuring Sawyer, Granger says viewers may not have landscaping on their mind when they first watch it. “But if they’re looking to do a project six months later, they might remember us.”
A real-life business education
For every heart-warming story about a business, there’s the lesson-learned situation that makes a company grow stronger. Even during the toughest times, Granger has persevered. “Closing the business was never an option for me because this is what I love to do,” Granger says, relating how a developer’s bankruptcy in 2009 put his company in a grave financial situation.
The developer owed Granger $30,000 for a landscape installation job that included a subdivision’s common areas and entranceways. Granger still owed vendors about $20,000. “That really hit us hard,” he says. “We stepped back and looked at the options. I was not going to let something like this defeat me.”
No matter how carefully you vet a client, there are market forces you just can’t control. “This guy did the [subdivision] project on good faith, but he got caught up in the recession and it was one of those times,” Granger says.
For a small business like Granger’s at the time, the $30,000 loss was significant. “It took us three to four years to recoup,” he says. The process began with calling vendors and working out payment plans with them.
Then, Granger sold some trucks and equipment the company wasn’t using to pay off debt. “We stepped back and re-evaluated,” he relates. “You get tired of working for the bank to make payments, so we focused on eliminating that debt and that helped free up some operating money to keep things rolling.”
Before the developer filed bankruptcy, which made him financially untouchable in terms of collections, Granger says that he did all the right things. Granger Landscape filed a lien on the property.
But ultimately the loss resulted in expenses and profit that Granger had to eat. Today, he says, “That was my Harvard business education degree, getting through that.”
“It really taught us one, why I do what I do, and two, that everything is in God’s plan and He had a plan for me to learn how to run my business better,” he says. That includes running lean, partnering with vendors and upholding those relationships.
Granger Landscapes does still work with some developers today. While there was no way he could have anticipated the fall-out from that recession-year deal, he says he carefully reviews a developer’s track record before entering into any agreement.
“But you really don’t know,” he says, reiterating that the previous deal was never supposed to end that way. Though, now running a stronger business would protect Granger Landscapes from a hit like that. “If we can make it through that, we can make it through anything,” Granger says.
Keeping service promises
“Do what you say you are going to do when you say you are going to do it,” Granger says, reciting the customer service mantra businesses often hear but don’t always practice. At Granger Landscapes, delivering on the promise goes deeper than the company culture. It’s how Granger lives his life.
Clients attest to the commitment. For example, Granger Landscapes completed a total overhaul on the Florence Baptist Temple property, including lighting. (The company captured a snippet about the project on video to share.) The business administrator, Ryan Caudill, says, “Brandon is true to his word. He did exactly what he told us what he was going to do, and that’s very important.”
Commercial clients Granger serves include sites like the Veterans Affairs office, where the firm installed 30,000 square feet of sod, and business sites like a Cookout restaurant chain in Summerville, South Carolina. where it put in new landscaping. Residential design/installation is its “sweet spot.” That includes projects on brand-new home sites and renovating existing properties.
Granger loves working with a blank slate. “We come in and create people’s backyards,” he says, noting that those projects take about two weeks and are a higher profit margin (30 to 40 percent) than maintenance work, which is closer to 15 percent.
The company’s approach to design/build separates the firm from others in the area. Many homeowners are just thrilled to have a landscape plan in hand, he relates. Plus, contractors want a turnkey partner that can manage all services in-house, and Granger can. (That is, with the exception of pool installation – a service Granger is considering for the future.)
“Contractors want to work directly with someone that is in the field,” Granger says, noting that he is a hands-on owner who “likes to be in the field putting my touch on things.”
On the residential side Granger says a consultation process and ongoing communication is in part responsible for all of the referrals his company gets. “We meet with clients on site, talk abut their goals and draw up a plan to present,” he says. (Again, offering a plan in the first place is not something most landscape firms in his area can provide.)
When projects take longer to complete – some larger design/build efforts could take 60 to 90 days – Granger keeps clients updated with weekly meetings. “There are no surprises,” he says.
Moving forward, Granger sees opportunities to continue expanding geographically and from a service perspective. Specialty pools are an intriguing possibility, he says. “We have the equipment to do it and some good subs that do concrete work. It’s definitely a possibility,” he muses.
Meanwhile, Granger will continue to grow that strong landscape core business—and pass the love of working outdoors to his children, particularly his son who is so interested in part in the activity. The future looks very bright. “He’s definitely following in the footsteps,” Granger says.