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 Though California has been plagued by drought, some forward-thinking contractors have found that the key to successfully selling irrigation services is to emphasize water conservation. Marketing water management has helped these businesses thrive, even during the economic collapse, and it’s a lesson anyone selling irrigation services can learn from.
“In this economy contractors are crying there’s no work, but I’m keeping as busy now as I did five years ago,” says Mike Garcia, owner, Enviroscape in Redondo Beach, Calif. What’s Garcia’s trick? He says he’s learned that clients will spend money if it means saving money in the long run.
“I’m looking at the trends and have found that wherever people are hurting, if you’re able to offer a solution, that’s where you can make a business.”
That trend right now is water conservation, and Garcia has focused on rainwater harvesting, something he says may be initially costly to install, but a justified expense when you consider that the price of municipal water will only continue to rise.
To demonstrate its power, Garcia converted his own backyard swimming pool into a rain-harvest collection system complete with pondless waterfall. He uses the harvested water to keep his landscape green year round and says that instead of needing 12 months of tap water to keep his landscape alive, it now only requires two months. And by unplugging his pool pump, he cut his electric bill $100 per month.
The innovation is drawing attention, even without a lot of marketing effort. “Right now, because it’s such a new concept, people are just dropping by and it’s spreading by word of mouth,” he says. “Municipalities, garden clubs and even television crews have come by, just to see the new technology. I’m currently giving bids out.”
Garcia has also put together a YouTube video to share the process with his clients. Facebook has also proved to be a great marketing tool to share photos and information. And Garcia says that in order to entice residential customers, he throws in a little pump or builds a small waterfall for aeration, but mostly to add some aesthetic appeal. “People have a hard time with the idea of paying a lot of money for something that’s underground, which they can’t see,” he says. “So I tie in a little waterfall and they really feel like they’re getting something out of it. It adds a little appeal to the backyard.”
Become certified. For Tom De Lany, CEO of ACLS, in Fresno, Calif., becoming certified through California Landscape Contractors Association’s Water Management Program four years ago has made all the difference in this economy. “I found right off the bat that we started picking up maintenance accounts because of the fact that we could show charts that demonstrated the clients’ water savings,” De Lany says. “Just through that alone, we probably picked up close to $100,000 a month in extra maintenance work.”
ACLS is picking up new accounts as well as getting additional work with existing accounts by going back to retrofit large commercial properties. Jamie Rust, the company’s general manager, says that on a recent job for a large hospital they were able to save the client about a third of its water consumption by installing new nozzles and web-based controllers. “It was a big initial expense but they’re looking at a return on investment in about two and a half years,” he says.
De Lany says the main reason the company was able to pick up that large maintenance account, which brings in about $20,000 a month, was by touting their expertise in water conservation during the pre-bid walk-through. “In this day and age, most landscapers who aren’t certified are overwatering,” De Lany says. “We were able to show (the client) charts that demonstrated just how much we could save them.”
Being able to show the client water savings with the use of charts can drive home the effort. Tom Ellington, president of Bayscape Management, in San Jose, Calif., has been using the CLCA’s online water conservation tool (see “A new tool,” below) to help monitor his clients’ water usage and uses the printed out charts to demonstrate how it’s keeping them on budget.
“In the past there were some similar tools available but the industry was not as concerned about water conservation as they are today and the technology has greatly improved,” Ellington says. “There’s been an evolution toward wanting to save more water since the population is growing but water availability is not. It’s becoming critical to find ways to conserve.”
ACLS also markets its water services with cold calls. “Whether I’m visiting a commercial building or an apartment complex, I’ll always bring up our division of certified water consulting,” says the company’s business development manager Garey Porter. “I’ll bring up not only the savings involved but also the emotional connection – the fact that I’m concerned about my grandkids and their grandkids because there’s only a finite amount of water. If we don’t apply ourselves and make use of these new technologies, we won’t have any water left. It’s a very scary prospect.”
But one of the most successful marketing efforts the company has made is hosting seminars where property managers and other management personnel can learn about the opportunity to conserve water. “It raises the bar,” De Lany says. “Whereas they may have just seen us as a mow-and-blow landscape company, they now see us as a more professional outlet that also offers water audits. We’ve had tremendous feedback.”
Get on board. Though contractors in drought-stricken states are more apt to be committed to water conservation efforts, the contractors we’ve interviewed all stress how important it is for everyone to become more water conscious. “Go through the certification and training that’s offered in your area,” Ellington says. “We’re seeing this become a requirement for public works contracts – where you’ll actually have to be a certified water auditor to even bid certain jobs. From a public works standpoint, in the future you may potentially not be able to bid those jobs if you don’t get certified.”
De Lany says when he first became certified people asked him “Why?” Now people are wishing they’d done it sooner themselves. “If you’re not already, get on board,” he says. “It’s a lot like the price of gold – don’t you wish you bought it 10 years ago? Water really is the new gold.”
 A New Tool
The California Landscape Contractors Association recently launched the CLCA Engine, a new online water management tool that can help monitor clients’ water usage and keep them on budget. At press time, the new engine had only been live for about four months but had already gotten a lot of positive feedback.
Prior to the launch of this newer tool, the CLCA offered a different version, but users were complaining of issues with the software. So, the association redeveloped a whole new site with the help of some input from those users.
The engine can calculate a budget for each property simply by entering some key data – area irrigated, the type of irrigation system and the meter type being used. Contractors will also need the site’s ZIP code to generate ET data.
“Once you have all the information together, it’s a really simple process,” says David Silva, CLCA’s water management certification program manager.
A graph tool also makes it easy for the client to visually see their budget’s status. “We have a very nice printer-friendly version of it,” Silva says. “It will print in PDF format and gives the client the quick bottom line as to how the site is doing. They’re also able to view a monthly history.”
The site is designed to be automated and helps users save time. “We’re trying to make it easier for companies that have multiple sites in the water management certification program,” Silva says. “We have some contractors that have 30 or 40 sites in the program so this makes it easier for them to keep track of all that data and to quickly see what last month’s readings were – whether they were over or under budget.”
The author is a frequent contributor to Lawn & Landscape.
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