Losses and ladders

Despite some challenges, Gary Hardy and Josh Brunner are still excited about the possibilities of raising their prices and making better profits on jobs, but so far, they have been striking out.

“I've lost $100,000 worth of clients,” Hardy says. “They were low profit. The thing is we're doing things the right way that they're (the Harvesters) wanting us to do it, but I don't have the resources to do it as quickly as they want stuff done,” Hardy says. “So, we've lost some of those low margin clients.”

“What's going to end up happening is our revenue is going to decrease, but our profit margin is going to increase and we're going to focus on our team and get our foundation and then really start trying to expand,” Hardy says.

Moving up. While they haven’t had much luck with proposals, they have noticed that the culture’s improved and employees seem more motivated. Hardy says this can be attributed to changes like developing a safety program, investing in new uniforms and providing $100 allowance to buy any replacements that are needed.

But more importantly, they’ve also established a career ladder to give employees an idea of what a future at Brunner’s looks like, and a training curriculum based off of the Harvester’s templates to achieve these positions. 

It starts with the title of groundskeeper one, which is an entry level position for someone who’s never touched a piece of equipment. Hardy says it should only take two weeks to complete that training. 

Once groundskeeper three is achieved, they are seen as a leader in training. 

“After they're certified at that, then it's team leader one and then team leader two,” Hardy says. So, I created this whole career tier and I've got training programs written out up to the team leader one position.”

Hardy realizes the starting pay is low, but that’s because he and Brunner want second chance employees and kids in high school or those who are just out of high school. 

“Somebody like an 18-year-old-kid out of high school can start here at $11 an hour and within 60 days be at 12 to $13 an hour,” Hardy says.

Harvester’s take. Despite the busy winter doing snow work, Gary and Josh have been “working more on their business and not as much in it” this winter.  After we helped prioritize the Urgent and Important Items from their Playbook, they have been working feverishly to accomplish as much as possible before spring. 

Let me list out some of what has been done:

Greenius, the on-line training program for their crews, is set up and ready to go. All work schedules are in  place for spring.  Career Ladders were created so their team members can see how to advance in the company.  New safety cones for their trucks were purchased as we suggested, and their name will be applied to help in their branding/marketing efforts.  

They are changing their team members uniforms so they  are more appealing. Most importantly, they have separated their profit centers  (departments) so they will be able to get gross margins  for each and every month.  

Not only are they doing terrific in accomplishing these needed items, but they met their annual snow budget one month early and their profits year to date profits are double that of last  year! Lastly, they have decided not to renew some of the low-profit and distant jobs and have already secured new contracts to replace all of them and more.