Rollout to revenue

We visited Southwest Landscape Management and Land Creations Landscaping in Columbia Station, Ohio to see how the Rak brothers, Steve and Jeff, keep their respective businesses running. The two companies operate out of the same building but while Southwest does lawn maintenance and snow removal, Land Creations is a design/build company. 

Despite the different services, the companies are similarly sized. Land Creations has 12 employees and did $1.1 million last year, while Southwest employs 17 staff members and typically brings in $1.1 to $1.2 million annually.

Crews at Land Creations will show up to work early to socialize, but unless they’re loading a truck or trailer, they don’t clock in until they arrive at a jobsite.

Land Creations’ tools are color coordinated so there’s no confusion or disagreements over equipment and tools. Each crew has a color-coded bin to keep everything organized.

All supplies are labeled in both English and Spanish at Land Creations so that the five H-2B workers and English-speaking employees can find what they need easily. John Deere Landscapes stocks supplies like grass seed, lighting and fertilizer once a week.

Southwest uses visual cues like this mannequin and a training slideshow to demonstrate how workers should look and how they should leave a jobsite looking.

“We have a little training rodeo as we call it to set the tone for the season and we have slides that show how the bed edges should look, how the lines should look,” Steve says.

Land Creations attaches drill heads and other parts to drill boxes to make sure crews have everything they need when they take a tool out into the field.

Crews at both companies fuel up in the evening to prevent traffic jams in the yard. A mechanic visits the building at 7 a.m. every day to sharpen blades and make small repairs to make sure everything is up and running before crews leave the yard.