Fancher says. “The best information you’re going get is from the people that are hiring you.” While your business should be able to turn a profit, Fancher says following your passion is also important. “If you’re not passionate about one side of the business, you’ve got to do one or two things,” Fancher says. “You’ve ei- ther got to hire somebody to run the side of the business that you’re not passion- ate about that does have the passion for it, or you need to shift gears and focus on what you’re passionate about.”
MAKING THE TRANSITION Fancher says the shift to adding landscape maintenance and design/build services was fairly easy since he already had existing customers requesting those new services. “When you have an influx of custom- ers who you have a relationship with that are asking you to provide additional ser- vices, if those services make sense for the company and they make sense for revenue and the growth of the company, then it was a pretty easy move for us,” Fancher says. When The Plant Concierge dropped interior plantscaping services, Fancher says there were only two customers left who only had interior services. He was honest with them about the business decision and lined up a couple of other companies who could take on their needs.
As for the transition to organics, this took more time as they needed to gather data on their customers’ properties and they spent a year educating their clients on organics and the long-term viability of the soil. In the end, they only lost two customers over the switch to organics. “I think the education process was very important in helping our clients under- stand why we were making this decision,” Fancher says. “I think that if you educate them prior, it kept us from losing a lot of our customers.” Chapel Valley’s transition to focus more on commercial maintenance was more subtle as they didn’t drop any of their services.
“Like any new thing, there is going to be a bit of a learning curve,” Castor says. “Shifting from a construction to a main- tenance mentality, or even shifting from a residential maintenance to a commercial maintenance mentality didn’t happen overnight.”
HOW TO BE SUCCESSFUL During the early onset of COVID-19, Eastern Land Management, Inc., (ELM) based in Stamford, Connecticut, saw a significant decline in landscape enhancement services from their commercial clients and record low snowfall exiting the winter. “We were faced with the challenge of keeping our teams employed and trying to generate additional revenue to support our employees,” says Bruce T. Moore Jr., LIC, president of ELM. “While speaking with industry peers and being keen to the marketplace we realized there was a large demand for residential landscape construction with consumers re-investing in their yards during the pandemic. We knew we had the teams, equipment, and resources to do this work and we made the decision to pursue it.” ELM launched a social media campaign and used targeted ads to the residential areas within their service areas. They also let their existing clients know in case they had a personal project they wanted to do or could refer a friend. Despite their efforts, they did not gain any residential clients last year. “By the time we decided to try this out it was mid to late June and I think at that time all the consumers had decided on what they were going to do and had contractors lined up,” Moore says. “We only tried the advertising for a short period in June and did not continue with any efforts.”
Moore says they did eventually see a slow uptick in additional work from their existing clients and took on some larger commercial landscape installation projects. He says they’ve decided not to continue to pursue the residential market. “At the end of the day we serve the commercial market well and we did not want to have any distractions or cause any confusion with our teams and cli- ents,” Moore says.
Moore advises companies to do their
research with their teams to consider sales and marketing, operations and finance when it comes to shifting gears. “What type of clients are you seeking to serve?” Moore says. “Do you have the skilled personnel and resources to serve this new area? What is your capacity to take on new work? Will there be capital needed in order to fund this new venture? Bring in your team and thought partners to strategize your approach and ensure that you have a sales and oper- ations process to achieve the work that
you are seeking and are able to execute well in order to develop a solid reputation in the marketplace.” “Truly under- stand what the vision is, what you’re attempting to do for the company,” Castor says. “Don’t become a jack of all trades. If you’re go- ing to add a new business model, you need to spend time and you need to have some conversations about what does it look like to make it successful.” As for whether to share the changes with your current customer base it really depends on if it impacts them at all. In Chapel Valley’s case, as they’ve changed their focus, but haven’t dropped any ser- vices there’s been no need to tell them of the shift. Fancher believes you should always be willing to change if something’s not working. Whether you’re a large company or a small company, you need to be able to make the necessary transitions so you can be ahead of the game. He also stresses getting engagement from your employees and customers when making a change.
a
ou’re go- iness model, me and you need
Large or small, you should always be willing to change your company if something is not
working. Photos: The Plant Concierge, LLC
“It’s important to get buy-in from your employees and your customers,” Fancher says. “When everybody is sitting at the table, you can get everybody’s buy-in, and when people feel like they have a voice, you can get buy-in. I think that if you go at it alone, you’re going to miss the mark.” TLP
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