Buying the right tools for your business

There’s no foolproof method to determine how much equipment landscape companies need, but Ed Schultheis, owner of business support company ThruPutNow, says there are some common questions to consider.

“Every company is just a little bit different, so there is just no set one way to determine how much equipment one needs,” Schultheis said at GIE+EXPO, “but there is a method to evaluate, ‘How do I make this decision that will be a significant expense to the company?’”

Company owners must consider the total real cost of any purchase, which includes direct costs that involve numbers and indirect costs that are more abstract. For instance, a direct cost might include the price paid to buy the equipment, licensing and registration, insurance on the item and taxes. Meanwhile, there are indirect costs with each piece of equipment, such as the time spent training employees, potential labor inefficiencies, theft potential and safety.

Schultheis says companies need to take an accurate inventory of their preexisting equipment before responsibly purchasing anything else. Identifying those assets is one thing, but he also recommends that companies determine how they keep track of their equipment as well. For example, is there a numbering system for your trucks? He also says diving deep into targeting your customer base is important – maybe it’s unnecessary to buy the expensive equipment meant for commercial landscapers if your company primarily works residential jobs.

Perhaps above all, Schultheis says companies should find out where the nearest dealers are for the equipment they’re about to buy and decide if they’re particularly helpful.

“If you have a great piece of equipment, but you don’t have a really good dealer to support, I don’t care how good your equipment is, you’re going to [struggle],” he says. “There are lots of good shiny toys out there, but if you don’t have someone close by to help you with the challenges you’re going to have at some point, it’s a problem.”

Schultheis says this preliminary research helps eliminate emotion from the decision-making process. If company owners have hard data to support their choices to buy or not buy, then there’s a smaller chance the purchase will be impulsive and unproductive. He says crew leaders will almost always recommend the equipment that will make their job easier and get them home early, but company owners need to evaluate the overall cost and support available for their equipment before purchasing.