The Lawn & Landscape School of Management, held Feb. 17-19, drew nearly 400 green industry professionals to Charlotte, N.C., to share their company ideas and learn from seminar speakers about various business development topics. The show was kicked off with a tour of North American Lawn & Landscape, a $10-million company that employs 220 full-time employees and offers a host of services, including maintenance, installation and irrigation. Ninety percent of the company's revenue comes from commercial accounts.
Here are some photos from the show and the landscape tour:
The Lawn & Landscape School of Management attracted 375 attendees to its business management- and development-focused seminars and events.
Lawn & Landscape School of Management attendees check out the magazine's annual Top 100 List, which is published every October and includes the largest 100 lawn care and landscape companies in the United States and Canada based on revenue numbers.
North American Business Development Manager Brandon Gurley explains how on-going design/build projects are kept on a board and filed according to completion date so the company can project the number of crews needed for job completion.
North American Business Development Manager Brandon Gurley shares a project bid with Lawn & Landscape School of Management attendees on Feb. 17. He points out that labor isn't broken out on the bid separately, but it is included with each part of the project. "This way clients don't beat us up on labor costs," Gurley says.
North American Lawn & Landscape's maintenance business is made up of two division managers, each managing four supervisors. Then, each supervisor manages four crews. The division managers also are in charge of the four detail crews, which handle fertilization, pruning and annual flowers. Scott Wildrick, the company's maintenance manager, says he tries to make sure maintenance employees work no more than 42 to 45 hours weekly during busy spring and summer months.
Ninety-five percent of the maintenance work North American Lawn & Landscape gets comes from its landscape division referrals, said company Maintenance Manager Scott Wildrick. "And we only maintain properties that are interested in full maintenance services," he says.
North American Lawn & Landscape factors plant warranties into its overhead. Every year, the company makes a replacement list of the plants that didn't survive throughout the year and another list of those that maintained adequate health. "We pay attention to whether some were better with more or less irrigation and things like that," points out Brandon Gurley, the company's business development manager. "That way, the next year we know what plants to avoid using in design and which ones will do really well."
The company also has a plant storage area and tree farm on its site. A large pond is used to water trees and plants, pointed out Jeff Eichinger, North American's nursery manager.
Dave Bergman, Landscaping Brothers, Quincy, La., was the winner of two roundtrip airline tickets from Continental Airlines. The drawing was held Tuesday, Feb. 19, during lunch. Thirty people were eligible to win the tickets by purchasing their tickets to the conference through Traveline Travel, the official travel agency of the Lawn & Landscape School of Management.