How to Grow Your Landscaping Business

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StrategyDriven Managing Your Business Article |Grow your landscaping business|How to Grow Your Landscaping BusinessRunning a small business is always a challenge. Achieving growth in a crowded market requires intelligent approaches to unlocking new markets and increasing revenues from your existing markets.

With more than 31 million SMBs in the U.S., making up 99.9% of all businesses, competition is tough. The landscaping business is no exception.
Here are some innovative strategies for growing your landscaping business.

Diversify Your Clientele

Are you currently servicing residential clients? Consider opening up to commercial clients, or vice-versa. Landscapers who are only working for one type of client constrict their businesses and limit their growth.

How do you make the transition to insuring, growing, and developing a small landscaping business, though? Follow these steps:

  • Develop Contracts – Commercial clients will always require a contract. Make sure you already have a template ready that covers all the bases.
  • Alter Your Insurance Policy – Working for a residential or commercial client in insurance terms changes your insurance needs. To work for a business, you should carry insurance of at least $1 million to $2 million.
  • Upgrade Your Equipment – Pay attention to which equipment you’re using. Invest in state-of-the-art equipment like wide-area mowers or z-turn mowers. Budget for making the upgrades.

Moving into the realm of serving businesses can be intimidating. You will need new equipment, and you may also need to expand your team. However, when you diversify your client base, you instantly unlock new revenue streams.

Add Landscape Curbing to Your Retinue

Adding additional services is an easy way of upping your income. Curbing can earn you as much as $14 per foot of concrete.

Concrete curbing is one of the most straightforward services to add to your list of services. It’s an extra add-on that most of your existing clients will add because it’s a finishing touch that’s affordable.

Controlling the final look of your client’s space can enhance the client’s last impression of your work and improve their overall satisfaction.

Host Landscaping Seminars

In 2016, there were 25 million Americans either running or thinking about starting a small business. Yet many of these ventures fail because business owners fail to think outside the box.

Offering landscaping seminars is a great way to increase your brand’s footprint and connect with your target audience. Beginners interested in your services, landscaping enthusiasts, and even other landscaping firms from around the country are all potential targets for your seminar.

Seminars can either be online or part of an event in your area. To begin with, you may want to piggyback off an existing event to get your name out into the open.

Landscaping seminars are a great way to generate new business, but you could even make money by launching a paid seminar.


Create a Client Retention Strategy

Every time you lose a client, it costs your business far more than the immediate lost revenue. The general rule of thumb is it costs five times more to find a new client than to retain an existing one.

Focus more of your attention on retaining your clients. Most of your revenue, after all, will come from your most loyal customers.
Some of the ways to bolster retention include:

  • Providing high-quality work
  • Quick, responsive customer service
  • Acting on customer feedback
  • Rewarding your loyal customers
  • Adding value through how-to guides

Clients want to feel like they are getting their money’s worth when they work with you. Concentrate on providing value and delivering a higher-quality landscaping service than your competitors.

Move into New Areas

Which areas do you currently serve?

Consider expanding into the surrounding areas. Obviously, covering more ground opens you up to more potential clients. Do your research before deciding whether to move into a new neighborhood or town.

You should also be aware of any well-established companies with stellar reputations. Trying to compete with the local favorite is rarely a smart strategy for a landscaping business.

Create a List of Off-Season Services

Not every month is friendly for the landscaping business. Firms plying their trades in the northern reaches of the U.S. will likely find that the winter months are incredibly barren.

Rather than closing your business for a few months every year, consider adding some off-season services to compensate for that lost revenue.
Snow removal, outdoor holiday decoration installation, and deicing are just some of the options available to you.

Bundle Your Services Together

One of the biggest reasons clients choose a company is because they believe they are getting value for money. Everyone loves a deal, so if your clients get some extra services for free or at a discount, they are more likely to want to work with you in the long term.

Bundling your services is also an easy way of selling more of your services. It simplifies your selling strategy and requires little marketing to promote.

Sign Residential Clients to Contracts

Landscaping businesses often only provide contracts to their commercial clients. Most residential clients prefer to book their services as and when they need them. Don’t underestimate how houseproud people are.

Make it easy for them to keep their yards looking beautiful by signing up your residential clients to long-term contracts. They may not be as complex as those you hand out to your commercial clients, but they can still detail a regular service.

To encourage your clients to commit to you long-term, offer discounts for clients who commit to you for more extended periods.

You can even offer greater discounts for clients who sign longer contracts. For example, if a residential client wants to sign a contract for the next year, you may opt to throw in some extra services that someone who signs a six-month contract wouldn’t get access to.

Make loyalty pay for your clients.

Conclusion

Growing your landscaping business should be your top priority. You can implement so many growth strategies to supercharge your business, but the simplest way to attract more clients is to do a great job.
Ask your customers what they think of your services. Solicit feedback and make changes to improve the quality of your services.
How are you growing your small landscaping business?

Useful Brand Communication Strategy Tips

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StrategyDriven Marketing and Sales Article |Brand Communication Strategy|Useful Brand Communication Strategy TipsGood brand communication strategy is key to the success of a modern business. Every business aims to cement a unique brand identity that speaks directly to their target audiences. Poor brand communication leads to a disjointed public image. Here are a few tips for the businessperson looking to develop a brand communication plan.

Always Do Your Research

Good market research is absolutely key to all successful brand communication strategy. No long-term public relations planning is going to be worth much unless it is backed up with data driven market research. Experts in consumer PR & Brand communications are increasingly using big data to develop extremely accurate assessments of consumer populations. Big data sets are vast, constantly evolving troves of data that can only really be analyzed with the help of intelligent algorithms. Data collected from a broad range of sources is the most significant in business. Social media, mailing lists, in person data collection and consumer feedback are all important sources of material that can be analyzed in market research.

Segment Your Market

Segment your market into distinct groups that share attributes. When a market is segmented during the research phase, it is far easier to work out which groups to prioritize with a Public Relations campaign. When conducted competently, market segmentation will allow a company to plan a long term strategy based on the needs of its most highly prized consumer ‘types’.


Create Detailed Audience Profiles

Basic market segmentation is not enough. Extremely detailed profiles need to be built up of the members of each segment. What kind of work do they do for a living? What is important to them? What are their desires? Really knowing your consumer targets is the key to communicating your brand effectively. In order to create detailed audience profiles, you may be required to do some kind of in person polling or focus group work. It is during this work that you can identify problems to address as part of your strategic campaign.

Find Problems To Solve

Finding problems to solve is crucial. Addressing the things that your target consumer audience want to change can be a powerful way of drawing in engagement. Brand communication strategies need to be conducted with an aim. More often than not, that aim should be to communicate how your brand is capable of fulfilling a consumer need.

Craft A Story

Telling a story is one of the most effective ways of gaining the attention of your target audience. Conveying the aims and ideals of your company through your branding is important. Weaving a cohesive narrative into your long-term branding strategy can help to keep engagement high and enables you to speak directly to the audience members that you have conducted such large amounts of research upon.

Engage With Experience

Experiential marketing strategies should play a role in your long-term brand communication strategy. Engaging directly with consumers not only keeps your brand in memory: it also helps you learn more about your target consumers.

The Complete Guide to Creating Marketing Content for Small Businesses

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StrategyDriven Marketing and Sales Article |Creating Marketing Content|The Complete Guide to Creating Marketing Content for Small BusinessesSmall businesses that blog are able to obtain 126% more lead growth as compared to those that don’t. Business owners who don’t take advantage of blogging miss out on an excellent opportunity to collect great leads.

The key to successful marketing is to create quality business website content. But many business owners believe it is not worth the time and effort.

In truth, creating marketing content is incredibly easy. So if your business is falling behind, read on to learn what you should do today to start catching up.

Defining Your Target Audience

As a small business, one of the most important things you can do when it comes to creating marketing content is to define your target audience. By understanding your target audience, you can better tailor your content to their needs and wants.

To start defining your target audience, consider what demographics they fall into, such as age, gender, location, and income. Once you understand who your target audience is, you can start creating content that will resonate with them.

Remember that your target audience can change over time. For this reason, it’s important to periodically reassess who they are and what they want.
By constantly adapting your content to your target audience, you can ensure that you’re consistently delivering relevant and valuable information.

Developing a Tone and Voice in Creating Marketing Content

It’s also important to develop a tone and voice that is aligned with the company’s values and mission. This will ensure that the content is authentic and engaging.

By taking the time to develop a tone and voice for your content, you can create marketing materials that will help your small business stand out from the competition.


Creating Compelling Content

This article also advises that you figure out what kind of content you want to create. One way to do this is by creating compelling content that will grab attention and keep people coming back for more.

Your first step is to determine what type of content will work best for your business and target audience. This can be anything from blog posts and articles to infographics and video tutorials.

Once you know what type of content you want to create, it’s time to start planning and crafting your masterpiece.

Measuring the Success of Your Marketing Content

The success of your content marketing campaign can be measured in several ways, including how many people view it, how often it’s shared, and how long people spend engaging with it. You can also track specific goals, such as generating leads or making sales.

Track multiple metrics over time to get the most accurate picture of your content’s success. Regularly reviewing your content’s performance will help you adjust your strategy and create better, more successful content in the future.

Bring Your Business to Greater Heights With Content Marketing

The bottom line is that when creating marketing content that will help your small business succeed, you need to follow the tips in this guide. This has covered everything from developing a content strategy to creating killer content and promoting it effectively.

So what are you waiting for? Get started today and see the results for yourself!

Did you find this article helpful? If yes, check out our posts on everything from business to career.

How To Earn Respect As A Manager

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StrategyDriven Management and Leadership Article |Earn respect as a manager|How To Earn Respect As A ManagerEverybody has had a ‘bad manager’ at some point and the effects of poor management are well understood. It can be demoralizing, and demotivating and create a workplace that nobody wants to be in. It is why, when it is your turn to step up to the plate and take on the coveted role of manager you want to do it differently. You want to earn the respect of your peers and subordinates to foster a happy and healthy working environment. For some management comes naturally for others, a few pointers in the right direction can help make all of the difference. So whether you are looking to climb the ranks to CEO of the biggest international tech company or being the boss of your own local rain gutters and drainage start-up, here are some great tips to be a manager worthy of respect.

Always be honest

You are taught to be honest from an early age so why should the world of business be any different. Keeping secrets from employees will leave them feeling undervalued, uninvolved, and uneasy about the workplace. As much as you can you should always endeavor to be open and honest with your team. Address concerns and queries they have as frankly and openly as possible. This is the best way to create a relationship built on trust and respect.

Easy on the micromanaging

A really great boss can relinquish control. You have a team with a job to do and the best thing you can do is to let them do their jobs. Trying to take over and micromanage their work will result in their irritation, frustration, and feeling demoralized and demotivated once again. The more responsibility and accountability you can give your employees the more they will thrive and engage in their working environment, which will pay dividends for both you and them.


Always say ‘thank you’

Many studies have proven that staff will respond well to and thrive off of appreciation for their work. Recognizing the work undertaken by staff and the efforts they make in their role will go a long way. Rewards and recognition come in many forms and of course, all employees would like a financial incentive or reward however there are plenty of times where a simple ‘thank you’ and ‘job well done; will suffice.

Give feedback

While you may roll your eyes at a performance review they actually serve a great purpose. Employees enjoy the opportunity to have candid discussions with management regarding their performance and future within the company. Your employees will want to know about the progress they make and when they are doing well, or not as the case may be, so do not shy away from handing out feedback and offering up regular performance reviews.

Accept feedback

Feedback is a two-street and there will be times when your team is invited to or will choose to offer up feedback on your role as manager. A good manager will listen to this feedback, take it onboard, and enact any changes or improvements should they be required.

How to Uncover New Business Opportunities

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StrategyDriven Strategic Analysis Article |Business Opportunities|How to Uncover New Business OpportunitiesIf you want to make a success of your business, you need to know when a good business opportunity is staring you in the face. It might sound obvious and easy, but it certainly isn’t. First of all, spotting new opportunities is easier said than done. And on top of that, you might not know an opportunity is in front of you until you’ve tried it out and seen what happens. Read on to learn more about what you can do to uncover the best new business opportunities.

Listen Closely to Your Customers

If you want to know which direction your business should go in next, it obviously makes the most sense to listen to your customers. They can tell you a lot about where you need to go and what you need to do in order to appeal to their needs. These are the people who are going to be buying from you or paying for your services, so ask them what they want from you.

Research Trends

It can be a good idea to keep an eye on trends that are relevant to the industry in which your business currently operates. That way, you can make the most of these trends, but avoid going all-in on them. Trends are often short-term and they’re not something to base your entire business model around because that’s just risky and unwise.


Think About Problems That Need to be Solved

Finding problems that your customers have and then coming up with creative ways to solve them is a great way to find new opportunities. Where there’s a problem, there’s the potential for a lucrative solution. Everyone makes purchases based on problems they have, even at the most fundamental level. So it’s definitely something you should spend some time considering.

Start Networking More

Networking is a good way to have conversations and build connections with important and influential people. This can lead to opportunities developing if you have the right conversation or make the right impression. If you don’t know how to network, this guide by Monty Cerf on how to get back into it after the pandemic might be just what you’re looking for. Once you get into the swing of it, it’s easy.

Carry Out a Cost-Benefit Analysis When You Get an Idea

Finally, you should carry out a cost-benefit analysis whenever you come up with an idea that you feel might be beneficial to you and your business. It makes sense to look at what you could achieve by following this idea and where the costs might be of focusing on that thing at the expense of other potential ideas and opportunities.

As an entrepreneur or business owner, you’ll always need to be on the lookout for new ideas and new business opportunities that you might be able to take advantage of. But what matters most is making sure that you’re able to identify the right opportunities, and the tips above will help make that possible.