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Change or die. The mantra sounds harsh, but successful companies embrace opportunities and branch out. Ambitious owners are willing to try something new that pushes normal boundaries. Change is good, and there’s nothing like a challenging economy to force businesses to try something new.
Take D&K Landscape in Las Vegas where Donnie Garritano, president, shifted gears completely, abandoning core commercial construction bid jobs for more creative work: a park, playground and leisure division.
“This company had enormous growth in commercial construction, real estate properties and housing developments, until that came to a screeching halt,” Garritano says, classifying the Vegas market as “the bigger they are, the harder they fall.”
Today, D&K is a completely retooled business with a robust and growing government/municipal customer base, continually expanding maintenance division and an owner who is excited about thinking out of the box.
This month, Lawn & Landscape spoke with Garritano and two other industry pros to learn how they gained focus and grew their businesses.
High design
 Jarod Hynson heard that high-end design/build was a tough market to crack, but that didn’t discourage him. “And when someone says it can’t be done, that fuels my fire to work even harder,” says the president of Earth, Turf & Wood, Denver, Pa.
So as many companies began to phase out their design operations, trading construction for maintenance services that promise repeat billing, Hynson took a different route.
For the last few years, his firm has focused on building prestigious outdoor rooms for wealthy clients. And that’s all. “I’m a firm believer of do one thing and do it well,” Hynson says.
The proof that this laser-sharp focus really works is in the numbers. Earth, Turf & Wood is coming off its biggest growth year in 10 years and grew by 20 percent. That’s partly because projects have increased in size between $100,000 and $300,000. Hynson’s largest job was almost $1 million.
The company has narrowed and deepened its design/build operation: Compared to five years ago, the firm does fewer jobs that cost more. Back then, projects averaged $25,000 to $40,000 and Hynson’s team would complete 50 to 100 of them per year. Now, Earth, Turf & Wood may complete outdoor spaces for 16 to 20 clients – but the price tags on those projects have at least quadrupled.
Comprehensive, complicated design projects demand an in-house registered landscape architect, Hynson says. “We are dealing with bigger projects that are more integrated and there are changes continually throughout the project,” he says.
“We need to be able to send a set of plans to our office where the architect is and she can quickly redo a sketch or meet with a client on site.”
As Earth, Turf & Wood transitioned, its team of employees has evolved to provide the company necessary skill sets, such as foremen working as project managers. “They make decisions, order materials and meet with clients on a weekly basis,” Hynson says.
Hynson seeks high-caliber employees, and his company mandates random drug testing. Recruitment involves a criminal background check.
The quest for quality starts with the landscape plan but extends to the worksite and how employees represent the firm. Hynson forbids smoking and foul language.
To stay trendy and sharpen skills, Hynson invites consultants who specialize in hardscape, lighting, water features and other services to present workshops.
“We can roll open our plans and say, ‘What if we did this, or that,’” Hynson says. That said, Hynson encourages his team to leaf through magazines and to identify workshops of interest.
Staying ahead of the learning curve is critical for a company that wants to continue attracting premium clients.
But Hynson doesn’t spend needlessly. He has always operated with a frugal mind, purchasing used trucks and building the company while staying debt-free.
“When the economy does dry up and you have to sharpen your pencil, you can’t if you are overleveraged,” he says.
 Visible change
Marketing is often the first budget line item slashed when a landscape firm needs to reign in expenses. But it’s the last area to cut if you want to stay on the front line. Robert Bertog decided last year was prime time to revamp his company’s brand, from a website redesign to a fresh look for its 70 trucks.
“With the downturn in the economy over the last couple of years, now more than ever we felt the need to make our presence known through branding and getting our name out there,” says Bertog, president, Bertog Landscaping, Wheeling, Ill.
Bertog comes to the green industry with a finance background. “I’m a numbers guy,” he says. “I could see the economy turning.”
Specifically, he noticed clients were backing off on some services. Many were looking for areas to cut back, and Bertog was pushed into the price-pusher arena, where he doesn’t like to play. So he needed to begin showing customers and prospects the value by ramping up his company’s presence.
“We geared our marketing to meet the type of clients we currently have and to attract more of that type,” he says of his 50/50 residential/commercial customer base, which consists mostly of single-family properties and homeowners’ associations.
One of the company’s first initiatives was giving trucks – their on-wheels advertisements – a fresh look. Bertog wasn’t changing any of the services the company offered, but he felt a need to more clearly communicate the firm’s core competencies, which were bullet-pointed in white and yellow on the company’s green trucks.
The company revisited its website, which Bertog says “was more of a glorified PowerPoint presentation.” Now, the site includes better graphics and it is easier to navigate. It also showcases complete projects and news. “We try to update it more often with what’s going on in our company, such as awards or other accomplishments,” he says. One person in the firm is assigned with website-update responsibilities so the task remains a priority.
Meanwhile, Bertog Landscape started a Facebook page and posts updates several times weekly. “Social media is the wave of the future, there’s no way around it,” Bertog says, adding that, in general, doing business online is critical for sustaining customers who are accustomed to getting what they want instantly online. As with the website, Bertog’s team constantly updates the Facebook page with photos, such as a crew installing a sprinkler system.
 To generate new business, Bertog Landscape built cold calling into the sales team’s program. “That has opened some doors,” he says, noting that salespeople work to find contacts for property managers at HOAs and building engineers at corporate campuses. “We’ll send them information on our company – and we have gotten some calls back,” Bertog says.
These efforts have breathed new business into the firm, and customers are interacting online and notice the polished trucks, Bertog says. “We’ve received e-mails from clients that have been around for years – things like a quick note that says, ‘We like the new look,’” he says.
Winning play
 There was a rumor that D&K Landscape went out of business. Competitors who sat at the bid table with Donnie Garritano wondered where the D&K team was – why they weren’t bidding on these large, commercial construction projects. For 13 years, this work had represented most of D&K’s business.
Not anymore.
“We don’t even accept bid invitations,” says Garritano, president of the Las Vegas-based firm.
Today, D&K is much more service based, after shifting its commercial work from construction to maintenance (though the company does some commercial design/build), and adding a couple of fresh divisions that are bringing the business new clients in the government/municipal world. Especially with the federal government kicking dollars toward parks projects, Garritano says his new park, playground and leisure division will thrive. The average price of a project is $25,000 for upscale installations at schools, parks, daycare centers and other facilities..
Garritano says the new service opportunity was presented at the right time. He was approached by a playground equipment manufacturer called Landscape Structures to be a distributor. Garritano’s sales force that typically did commercial landscape construction now focuses on this division. “We had to learn a whole new trade,” he says.
And these aren’t your typical jungle-gym setups. For example, a half-million dollar project the company is completing at Nevada’s Nellis Air Force Base combines natural and manufactured play elements: shade structures, trees, sand boxes, grassy knolls, stepping logs and other features, Garritano says.
To accommodate this new department, Garritano had to reduce and retrain his workforce. He also ramped up his maintenance team by hiring in customer-service oriented talent. Some of his employees shifted departments as the company wrapped up construction projects and ramped up its seasonal gardener service, a quarterly offering that includes pruning, irrigation system checkups and other tasks.
“This service gives customers a resource. With this program, they can pick up the phone and call us,” Garritano says, relating how residential customers in his area tend to mow their own lawns (if they have turf), so rolling out this “extras” service has appealed to clients.
Meanwhile, the playground division has introduced other federal project opportunities, Garritano says. “Now, the landscape business is riding on its coattails,” he says of the park installations. Overall, the maintenance division at D&K continues to grow. Being forced to think outside of the commercial bidding arena to develop business has stoked creativity at D&K.
Being forced to think outside of the commercial bidding arena stoked creativity at D&K. Now, the company is rolling out its own iPhone application called Landscape Creative, a maintenance management tool for consumers and property managers. The application includes a plant identifier and other features, and it can send out real-time alerts. The corresponding website will include how-to videos and editorial.
All this change in the past few years has encouraged Garritano to think of his company as much more than a service-provider. “You can’t be afraid to leap and do something differently,” he says.
This author is a frequent contributor to Lawn & Landscape.
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