By Jimmy Miller

Kevin Surace started his keynote speech at the Lawn & Landscape Technology Conference with some bad news — the labor shortage isn’t going anywhere.

Surace told conference attendees that statistically, the birth rate nationwide has trended downward for 40 years while the need for employees has gone up. The previous strategy of doubling productivity at work was to double your employment. Surace says that’s a reality of the past.

“Each one of you thinks you have the trick to buck the macro trend. It’s a macro trend — you can’t win,” Surace says. “We can’t double the people. There aren’t double the people. If there aren’t double the people, that means you must embrace the technology.”

Not all’s lost though, Surace says. Increasing artificial intelligence capabilities have proven to be overwhelming at times, but still quite useful. Surace showed attendees videos that were entirely AI-generated. They heard voices and music that were never produced by human beings. They watched Mona Lisa talk and Elon Musk use Surace’s voice. And Surace even used AI to tell landscaping-specific jokes on stage, including a quip about lawn mowers.

For the record, the joke was: “What do you call a group of lawn mowers? A grassroots movement.”

But beyond a few punny sayings to use at a party, how is AI applicable to landscapers? Among other ways, he suggests applying it in the following areas:

Content generation and content editing: Use AI to create blog posts for your website to bring extra views, helping your search engine optimization and presence online.

Landscape design: Help clients envision their dream backyards by taking a picture of their landscapes, then apply filters on AI-powered apps that would show edited photos of their properties with certain landscape types (Colonial garden versus New England garden, for instance).

Robotic field work: Allowing autonomous mowers to run the maintenance side of your business, empowering employees to do other work.

Surace says AI is often viewed as the boogeyman — or, more specifically, a job thief. But Surace says AI is just leading to less tasks, not less jobs. In fact, in the past, AI has proven to actually lead to more jobs. Calculators did not shut out accountants; it empowered them. And today, as AI is conquering language after conquering mathematics, he says we’re seeing AI do anything like more accurately diagnose heart arrythmias than leading cardiologists, or scan through NDAs in 30 seconds when lawyers need 90 minutes.

“Your future growth,” Surace says, “will come from your leverage of technology.”

The author is associate editor with Lawn & Landscape magazine.

By Jimmy Miller

His team might joke that Todd Reinhart likes to count mulch down to each individual nugget, but he can’t understate the importance of finding a data analytics position for your landscaping company.

Reinhart told Lawn & Landscape Technology Conference attendees that anybody who actively uses technology sees massive amounts of data coming in the door every single day. He recommends creating a data analytics position at your landscaping company to help parse through some of the numbers, determining which data is important and what can be ignored.

Reinhart says this person can help your company develop a detailed business plan, which is among the most important things your team can have.

“If you don’t have one,” he says, “you have no idea what you’re trying to accomplish.”

A data analyst can help landscapers determine which data is significant in building out a business plan. Reinhart says one example is tracking lost sales in a CRM, which helps businesses figure out if they’re on pace to meet their business plan goals or not.

“If you track your lost (sales), you can tell whether your salesman is being honest or not,” he says. “We never want to turn anything to lost (sales). It’s a disease we have. But it’s so important as a company.”

Reinhart also points to data unification as a reason to hire a data analyst. So often, companies will run on so many software platforms and systems that the numbers — and their true benefits — get lost in the shuffle. A data analyst can not only create and collect data with software they know well, but they can also bring together existing numbers and streamline some of the data reporting they currently use.

This also means that a data analyst can establish good key performance indicators specific to your company. Reinhart says an operating manager may be really interested in seeing the labor management data, such as what jobs are completed versus which ones have callbacks. But the operating manager may not want to sift through KPIs that a marketing director would need, like how many new leads were generated by a social media campaign.

“We spent a long time arguing and really getting after, what are those things that every person needs to see?” Reinhart says. “It’s a constant refinement.”

So, a data analyst isn’t just there to help generate new numbers — they’re there to really show the whole team which numbers are pertinent to them. But in order to find the right fit for the job, Reinhart says a data analyst is going to need to have skills in six different areas.

• Basic mathematical skills: No, a data analyst may not need to know how to do parabolic functions, but they should know enough math to quickly identify when numbers are askew.

• Data analysis and interpretation: It’s one thing to look at data — it’s another to understand it. Data analysts should correctly understand what all the numbers mean and be able to explain it to the rest of the staff in ways that make sense to them.

• Data visualization and reporting: One way to communicate data significance is by creating data visualizations. These visuals help the whole team understand what trends might exist — do the numbers suggest an increasing revenue? How about how much more of a revenue increase year over year?

• SQL and programming skills: Knowing Structured Query Language can help a data analyst identify problems with the software and how to fix those issues as they arise.

• Statistics and machine learning: Statistics knowledge will help a data analyst devise the right algorithms and equations for coming up with data, and machine learning helps simplify that process by using computer programs to recognize data trends.

• Business acumen and communication: None of it matters if the data analyst can’t communicate why it’s important to look at certain data sources for the business, plus communicate those effectively.

Reinhart also offered two key reminders: one, that results won’t just happen overnight; and two, in addition to those six items, a data analyst should be curious.

“They have to want to understand why something happened,” he says.

By Jimmy Miller

The days of taking care of grass and calling it a day are long gone.

Loren McIrvin, the owner of Allied Landscape in the San Francisco Bay Area, says that since COVID-19, more clients are spending time outside with their landscapes. Many work remotely and see their property all day long rather than just pulling up after work ends when it’s already dark outside. Plus, many more clients are environmentally conscious, and McIrvin believes landscapers should adapt their messaging with that in mind.

“I think there should be a narrative (with your landscapes),” he says.

Maybe landscapers aren’t just planting a garden anymore — they’re building a botanical garden so clients can teach their kids what plants are in there. Maybe urban landscapes that were previously at odds with nature are instead ecological restorations for local birds and insects.

It’s not just a branding tactic though. McIrvin says landscapers have more technology than ever before to develop environmentally friendly landscapes. Sure, it’ll help landscapers who adopt more eco-friendly practices to outbid competitors, but McIrvin says it’s also just the right thing to do, too.

“We should be offering sustainable services because it’s going to help us in many facets of our company,” he says.

Return on investment

Fiona Mayne, the ASC director at Allied Landscape, says there are some pragmatic steps to take to evolve the business.

But beyond the technology, it first starts with identifying the personnel dedicated to implementing changes. Mayne referenced a book called Rocket Fuel, which speaks to two personality types — visionaries and integrators.

“Now, most of us won’t fit perfectly into one box or the other,” she says. “But think about where you, your leaders, and your team members might fall.”

Visionaries are the types of leaders at your company who love big ideas, generating them at sometimes a rapid rate. While these employees are great at devising innovative changes at their companies, they often move from project to project before the previous ones are finished.

So, the integrators are the ones who play a big part in making those ideas happen. They often see realism over idealism, for better and for worse.

So the question is, how do you get these two entirely different employee types working fluidly together?

“How do we respect the visionaries without being the Negative Nancy in the room?” Mayne says. “How do we get the innovators to rely on their skillset to get things done?”

She says the key is relying on data to collaborate. Planning ahead together to figure out a return on investment with the technology you’re implementing is important, as is using that data to guide decisions.

Plus, Mayne offers some clarification on who’s being a “Negative Nancy” versus someone who’s helping out the cause.

“Pause the next time you open a can of worms, and look at the numbers behind it,” she says. “Is it really a problem, and is it really a priority?”

Rushing water

Justin White, the third speaker during the session, is the CEO at K&D Landscaping. He spoke to the practicality of using good data to make business decisions that also benefit the environment, as K&D launched a water management division to help make landscapes look beautiful while using less and less water.

“Most landscapers, us included until about 18 months ago, have no idea how much water we should be applying to our sites,” he says, adding that they were recently called into an HOA to see a landscaper’s property was using double the water they actually needed.

Data suggested there was a market demand and need for water conservation. So now, water management has become a bolt-on service that has benefitted their local drought-stricken environment while also benefitting their bottom line. And White’s employees are happy because they’re able to be paid $40 an hour. “I may have one or two techs who clear six figures this year,” he says.

He added that he’s even taken to educating his competition because it helps the local environment. As an unintended benefit, White says the competition that was undercutting him has seen data that shows they can actually charge more.

White suggests using data to pick one new initiative for the rest of this year. “Don’t try to do a little bit of everything,” he warns, “because you’ll do a little bit of nothing at the end of the day.”

By Kim Lux

When Sean Cooke came on as general manger of Avalon Landscapes, the company knew it had to undergo major changes in order to grow to the next level.

Cooke quickly identified five key areas where technology would help the company operate more efficiently and therefore more profitably.

“My analogy was I was rebuilding the Titanic with the same materials that were on it as it was sinking,” he says. “And I had to do it quietly enough that the guests didn’t notice.”

The guests in that analogy were Avalon’s long-time clients — who wouldn’t want any disruption in their services.

The areas where technology helped assist Avalon Landscapes were:

Operational efficiency — this included everything from support for all services and departments; budgeting, routing and scheduling software; quality control through note taking and photo documentation; mobile capabilities and much more.

“They all have specific needs and we wanted to find platforms and solutions to solve those,” Cooke says of the different departments within the company.

One of the biggest inefficiencies Cooke says he noticed early on was overtime.

“When I came on board, we were averaging 400 hours of OT a week and that had a huge impact on the bottom line,” he says.

Managing overtime better, through specialized routing and scheduling software, allowed for plenty of perks for not just the company’s bottom line but its employees too.

“It’s allowed us to increase their hourly rates and have them spend more time with their families,” he says.

Account Management — Cooke wanted to find software that would improve Avalon’s estimating, have a customizable CRM (customer relationship management), contract and customer portals and tools for budgeting and P&Ls (profit and loss statements).

Bookkeeping and Financial Management — going hand-in-hand was more technology to improve invoicing, job costing and other financial tracking.

Cooke says he wanted something that would sync with the company’s existing accounting software and where he could drill down on the P&L.

“We needed to find out at an executive level where things are going,” he says. “There were a lot of things as a team we didn’t know to ask.”

Human Resources — Finding technology to better streamline HR processes like job posting, onboarding, benefits management and more was mission critical, Cooke says.

He adds that by embracing technology Avalon was also better at distributing company-wide notifications.

“It’s been a great resource for us,” Cooke says. “It’s great to be able to recognize our employees for their accomplishments and recognize them in bulk.”

Physical Resource Management — Cooke says he wanted something to better monitor the company’s equipment, fleet and inventory.

“We need to manage all of that so we know when it breaks, when it needs service,” he adds.

While Cooke decided to dive head first and tackle all these issues at once, he now recommends companies evaluate their needs and fix the most important things first.

“It was a real challenge,” he says. “We can see the sunlight a little bit now.”

However, despite any challenges, Cooke acknowledges Avalon and its employees learned a lot along the way.

“When you’re in the trenches with somebody you really see what they’re capable of doing,” he says.

Cooke adds that while technology is great and can help make improvements — it isn’t necessarily a quick fix or a band-aid for bigger problems.

“Software is not a fix; it’s not a magic wand,” he says. “If you don’t have well-established policy and procedures, a software platform isn’t going to fix that — it’s going to magnify those problems.”

The author is assistant editor with Lawn & Landscape magazine.

Collaborative communication

Frederico Outdoor Living is tapping into what employees want from technology to create a winning company culture.

By Kim Lux

In the first few weeks after taking over his father’s business, Frederico Outdoor Living, Adam Frederico learned a lot.

While still shadowing his father, there was a problem one morning when a crew lead didn’t show in a company truck. Other crew members didn’t find it strange and said it had happened before.

Two or three days go by, and no one has heard from him.

Frederico starts to panic but it turns out all was fine.

That instance prompted Frederico to deploy GPS trackers into all the vehicles.

“A week later, I started to notice some very interesting data patterns,” he says. “A vehicle was stopping at a residence every morning for about an hour and a half… it wasn’t one of our jobsites.”

Frederico went to talk to the employee and after being confronted he quit abruptly.

“We quickly realized there was a lot of work to do here,” he says. “But there’s been a lot that’s helped us grow and helped us change how we operate.”

As a high-end residential design/build company with 35-plus team members, Frederico Outdoor Living has to get creative with the technology it uses.

“We’re not just adopting tech to adopt it — we really dig deep to find out how it’s benefiting the team,” Frederico says.

Communication has also helped change the culture within the company. Frederico suggests a great way to boost communication is through chat apps.

A fun way the chat apps are used is to give kudos from teammates. They are encouraged to post positive remarks to each other for the whole team to see.

“Anything to encourage collaboration and engagement with the team is what we’re trying to do,” Frederico says.

End-of-day reports are also all done through the chat apps. Crews can include pictures and updates on jobsites that are then archived to be reviewed whenever and leadership can comment on the status.

“It’s all about building momentum and inclusivity in our culture,” Frederico says. “The team thrives on appreciation.”

The company also uses automated to-dos and other pipelines along with more tracking tools and timekeeping.

Another piece of advice Frederico has is to make sure the technology matches your workforce and their preferred methods.

He adds that customers becoming more tech savvy has also contributed to the digital transformation of the company.

“What are you doing in your business today to adapt to your changing environment?” Frederico asks attendees.

Frederico says all this new technology has improved culture because it brings them more information and more knowledge to the job.

“Let’s all visualize together what success looks like,” Frederico says. “It’s really helped us get the team excited.”

Now that’s its successfully implemented a number of things, Frederico says the business is now dabbling into some others including drones.

Drones are improving culture too as team members take pride in the work they’re doing and enjoy viewing and sharing the videos and photos taken with family and friends.

“We’ve used the drones for a number of things including marketing, general site conditions and some stuff to provide progress updates,” he says.