TUCSON, Ariz. - Based on its annual sales of $15.7 million and a position at number 41 on the Lawn & Landscape Top 100 list, AAA Landscape clearly knows at least a thing or two about running a landscape company. Richard Underwood, a partner in the company with his brother Bob, offered a look inside AAA’s operations with a facility tour.
The company offers the typical range of services, although the desert climate minimizes the amount of turfgrass in the area and mowing dollars the company generates. In fact, although the company has approximately 500 year-round employees, it only owns about 50 mowers, and many of them are smaller, walk-behind units.
With about half of its annual sales coming from landscape installation work, the company is currently focused on controlling the type of clientele or installation jobs it takes on. “We’re really trying to move away from a lot of the bid work to more of a limited bid or negotiated contract situation,” Underwood explained, adding that he thinks one key to making this move is a top-down sales approach. “I spend a lot of my time networking and being involved with the key executives and decision makers at our clients and potential clients with the hope that we can get involved in the landscape construction process as early as possible. Ideally, we want to be at the table when the company is discussing its landscape plans and formulating a budget.”
In addition, the company doesn’t employ its own landscape architects or designers in order to nurture its relationships with area landscape architect or design firms. “I don’t think those folks would be nearly as likely to hire us if we’re also competing with them,” Underwood related.
Obviously, once a contract is won and work has to be done, the firm’s equipment becomes critical to its success. AAA counts on two full-time mechanics to keep the machines in working order, with one mechanic handling the small-engine machines and the other managing the larger units. The mechanics use a computerized program to track the preventive maintenance schedules so they know what has or hasn’t been worked on and when certain machines are due for service. One of their next goals is to establish formal guidelines for the expected lifespan of various types of equipment, although the preventive maintenance software helps accomplish this right now.
While no contractor enjoys hearing about equipment damage, the problem is further compounded when the individual responsible for the problem doesn’t want to be held accountable. Underwood acknowledged that he occasionally finds himself dealing with a crewmember and a mechanic who each blame the other person for an equipment problem like a blown engine. “In those situations, I think you have to look at the two employees and their history with you,” he explained. “If an employees has a good history with regular attendance and giving you hard work, then that’s someone I think you can trust.”
To help minimize equipment loss due to damage or theft while also increasing crewmembers’ responsibility for equipment, all of AAA Landscape’s equipment is assigned to specific crews and tracked by serial number. This prevents crews from trying to hide damaged equipment or taking machines off other another crew’s truck to replace something they’ve lost. The mechanics then conduct a monthly inventory of all trucks to make sure all equipment is in place.
Employees are also expected to purchase their own safety boots, pruners and other basic equipment that tends to be stolen most often from the company. “Having the employees buy these tools tends to eliminate the theft problem,” Underwood observed.
Getting the crews out in the field in a timely fashion is important for AAA for more than the normal productivity reasons. The Arizona heat in July can dramatically influence anyone’s productivity, so the company has crews that start as early as 5 a.m. In fact, many of the crews report directly to a job site to start the day, which gets them started earlier, minimizes congestion in the yard each morning and controls the company’s indirect costs or “windshield time.” “If an employee is supposed to report directly to the site but can’t drive and needs to get a ride to the yard with another employee before going out to a job, that’s fine. But he won’t get paid for any time until he gets to the job site,” Underwood added.
Another idea that Underwood hopes will simplify the process of getting the crews out of the yard every morning is a newly installed, on-site gas pumping system. The company partnered with a petroleum company, which provided the tanks for free and was able to work through the legal requirements for installing such a system on AAA’s property. AAA paid to have the pumps installed and agreed to buy fuel exclusively from the petroleum company for the next few years, but the system is too new for Underwood to evaluate its effectiveness.
For more information about AAA Landscape visit the company's web site at www.aaalandscape.com.
The author is Editor of Lawn & Landscape magazine.