Field Notes

Practical, honest thinking on the business of landscaping — written for the owners and managers who run the crews.

Where the next customer comes from.

One relationship could put a steady stream of motivated homeowners in front of you.

You get one meeting. What you carry through the door decides whether an entire office starts sending you addresses.

Before you can win the job, the homeowner has to decide there should be a job at all.

The people most likely to want your work are watching you do it for someone else.

The difference between busy and profitable.

Revenue tells you how busy a crew is. It doesn’t tell you whether the crew is making you money.

The redo is the cheap part. The real bill starts when a finished job comes back onto your schedule.

You’ve already paid to put the truck, equipment and crew in the driveway. What else needs doing while you’re there?

Finishing a job faster feels like a win. It only becomes one if you know what happens to the time you saved.

Every estimate is a prediction. The problem is most contractors never check whether it was right.