A bout with Mother Nature

Tiffany Tucker and Michael Mould were operating at a record-breaking pace when Hurricane Michael hit Panama City, Florida, putting a halt to the jobs New Visions was working on. For-profit work turned to helping neighbors, friends and family clear debris.

“It was more or less checking on the elderly and widowed and just making sure everyone was OK,” Mould says. “Then, after that, just finding what type of service they need so we can assist them in that.”

As of late October, Tucker says operations are getting back to normal, and the company is on pace to close 2018 around $850,000.

A big win for the company in 2018 was finding a manager for the maintenance side of the division, allowing Mould more time to sell instead of working in the field. He also implemented a quality control system to grade projects, since the high number of jobs the company performed meant some work didn’t live up to Mould’s expectations.

“Every aspect of doing business has changed,” Mould says. “We knew we were doing OK last year but we just didn't know how and where it was coming from. We couldn't put our finger on it. So being able to break it all down and start over and put in the work in the beginning as far as building the structure and becoming a business instead of just people offering the service and knowing the business – you can't put a price on that.”

Mould and Tucker would like to hit $1.5 million by the end of 2019 and possibly add chemical lawn care.

“We definitely want to be able to bring that in house instead of subcontracting the fertilization,” he says.

Harvester’s take

Michael and Tiffany were growing at too rapid of a pace entering 2018, so it’s no surprise they surpassed their goal of $600,000 and will land at $850,000 to end 2018. But they fell short of the goal of 48-50 percent gross margin, only making 45 percent gross margin. They beat their revenue goal because Michael is a great salesperson and they are currently in a great market. The gross margin suffered because they had so many new people and inefficiencies.

Their second goal was getting Michael out of the field and having him focus on selling. A while ago, Michael assisted another landscaper with a flat tire and kept in touch, letting him know the door was always open to come to New Visions. Eventually he came over in a foreman role, but had the qualities for an account manager role for maintenance clients, which he is now in. You should always be recruiting and keep in the mind that the next person you meet can be your next star employee.

Michael and Tiffany also wanted to develop vision, mission, and core values statements and success behaviors. After taking some time to discuss with each other what they wanted to represent as a company, they were able to develop those core components. Vision, mission and core values are must-haves for any company to have a successful culture. Employees also need to learn these so they have an idea of how they should operate when they leave for jobsites every morning.

Finally, the duo needed to have an established maintenance agreement signed by customers, which they did develop. This agreement is important because it details what they are doing for their customers as well as what the charges are. And if they want to sell the company one day, owners are not going to buy a company without contracts or agreement.