Dear Lawn or Landscape Business Owner,
At any moment in the life of your lawn or landscaping business, there’s ONE challenge that’s kicking your butt!
There’s always ONE thing that’s the biggest challenge of all. We’d like to think that IF we could solve this ONE challenge, everything would get better. Our business would suddenly become the cash-generating machine we had in mind when we got started.
Since 2010 we’ve been carefully listening to the answers from landscapers to a simple but powerful question:
What’s the single greatest challenge you face in your company today?
We ask lawn and landscape business owners this question once or twice a year. We want to make sure we listen to the answers, in your words, from real landscaping business owners. This way, we can help our brothers in landscaping overcome the challenge of the day.
The answers to the question changes over time. When the economy is really good and everybody has a ton of work, we tend to hear that “people/employees” are the biggest challenge.
Our latest landscape business owner survey tells us this is still the number one landscaper challenge. This is nothing new. The “people/employee” challenge has been number one since the Great Recession of 2008-2010 ended. In other words…this one has been with us for quite some time.
But the people/employee challenge seems to be losing ground.
In 2021, 79.8% of responses to the “greatest challenge” question were people/employee related. In 2022, just 62% report people/employees to be their biggest challenge.
Money problems seem to be growing.
In 2021 only 7.3% of our responses indicated that money was their biggest challenge. But, twelve months of inflation at double digit percentages is changing things for many landscapers.
Today, 22.2% of our responses indicate that MONEY is the number one challenge.
Please note…that’s just over a 300% change from twelve months ago.
We expect this trend to continue and accelerate into 2023.
Just this week, the sad news of a bankruptcy of a top 100 landscaping company in Colorado arrived. According to the news release, around 400 employees will be laid off.
We hate to hear of business failures. The destruction of capital and the interruption of business relationships can be devastating for those involved.
But the cold, hard facts of business must not be ignored. You can’t expect to operate or survive if you ignore money problems. In case you missed it, we explained that the complaints about people/employees we’ve heard so often all start with a MONEY problem. Article here.
There’s a pretty good chance we will see the macro economy slow down a bit over the next few months. When we do, those companies who have been skating by with poor cash flow or puny checking accounts will struggle to survive.
Please, don’t ignore your money problems.
If you think your lawn, landscape or contracting business could do better, you’re probably right. Based on our work with over 400 landscaping business owners, we know that most under perform when we measure net profit.
If you own a landscaping business, take the Wealthy Landscaper Productivity Challenge. In a few minutes and a few keystrokes on your calculator, you’ll find out how you and your company compare to the top profit producing companies in the industry. Go here for instructions. This is a FREE landscape industry financial analysis tool.
When you complete the calculations…let us know what you have learned.
Send your comments or results to tony@tonybassconsulting.com
Fax your results to 478-822-9707.
Or call 866-923-0027. You can 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. If we are closed, just leave us a voice mail.
We’d love to hear from you.
Tony Bass, founder
