17 secrets from Complete Landsculpture

A key part of the event was a tour of Complete Landsculpture, a $15.5 million, full-service company. So before sunrise Thursday, attendees boarded a half-dozen buses to Complete’s headquarters northwest of the city. Complete’s management team had arranged a full tour of all its major business units and operations, holding nothing back from visitors. 

 

Complete has two facilities – it’s headquarters in Dallas and a satellite location in Oklahoma City. It has 195 full-time employees in season, and runs 28 crews. It offers design/build, maintenance, landscape lighting, irrigation, pools and water features and lawn care. The Oklahoma City branch, which employs 25 people and opened 18 years ago, offers snow and ice management.

 

Here’s what they learned: 

 

1. Complete sources plant material from three local nurseries, as well as the online service Plant Bid. The web-based system allows it to source material from many other locations outside its typical area quickly, according to David Graeber, purchasing agent.

 

2. A two-man night crew works from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m., and is responsible for unloading and cleaning out the crews’ trucks, gassing them up and loading material and equipment for the next day’s jobs. Project managers are emailed at 3 p.m. the previous day for the next day’s trailer requirements.

 

3. The company prides itself on a “fanatical customer experience,” says Gene Freeman, VP and co-owner. Any positive feedback from clients is read publicly to the entire company at weekly meetings. 

 

 4. Each month, supervisors and other management nominates a crew of the month for high levels of quality, performance and profitability. Each of those 12 winning crews is automatically entered into a crew of the year contest. The winning crew gets parking spots near the front door, their truck gets a special decal and the entire crew gets new high-end boots.

5. Freeman says Complete’s most profitable services are tree work and landscape lighting, and so these two items are cross-sold and included in all proposals presented to clients. 

 

6. All Complete employees are eligible for quarterly bonuses, which are paid for with 20 percent of the company’s profits. Half of supervisor incentives are paid based on a system the company calls Management by Objective. These MBO goals are written quarterly and are very specific, like taking a Spanish class, earning a new certification or setting up a lunch-and-learn with local property managers, says Chris Strempek, president and co-owner.

 

7. Salespeople earn commissions on each project, but those payments are cut back or eliminated if the job misses its gross profit margin targets, Strempek says. This keeps the sales team engaged with the production team, and ensures they bid the job’s hours correctly. 

 

8. All administrative employees are cross-training on all tasks, which eliminates bottlenecks with payroll and billing, says Jennifer Freeman, controller.

 

9. Complete uses Include’s Asset software to track sales leads and each job’s gross profit margin by line item. Complete’s purchaser reports to the accounting department, not operations or sales. 

 

10. Complete partners with schools in high-end towns. For example, the company pays $1,500 to sponsor University Park’s the town’s summer opening pool party, where employees cook hamburgers and pass out branded beach balls. 

 

11. Freeman says the company has moved to spend less on pay-per-click advertising and invest more in building relationships through lunch-and-learns for builders and property managers.

 

12. For projects valued at $10,000 or more, Freeman’s department tracks the hours and percentage of jobs completed by week. Any variance of hours is discussed with sales, production and management in real time, not after the job is completed and any profit is eliminated.  

 

13. Complete uses its facility as a showcase for its work. In the back of the offices, it has a showroom where prospects can see and touch samples of pavers, wall facing, pool tile and gravel that could be used on their properties. It also has examples of granite countertops, gas grills and outdoor refrigerators that could be installed.

 

14. Each salesperson is responsible for creating a production ticket (essentially a work order) that is as specific as possible, and is then shared with the job’s production manager, crews and any subcontractors, says Bram Franklin, salesman. All Complete employees who will be involved on the job have a pre-production meeting at the job site to discuss the ticket and make any decisions necessary.

 

15. Franklin says Complete salespeople schedule a final walkthrough with the client after the job is finished, and present the final invoice on site to encourage prompt payment. 

 

16. Complete uses the H-2B program for some employees, but relies mostly on referrals from current crewmembers. It offers what it calls a “1-2-3” recruiting bonus: If the person a crewmember refers stays for one month, the employee gets $100. If he stays for three months, the employee gets $200. And if the new recruit stays a year, the employee gets another $300. These bonuses are paid out in public at weekly safety meetings. 

 

17. Michael Liggett, fleet manager, says the company runs 61 trucks (Chevrolet pick-ups, Isuzu box trucks and Ford F-450 dumps), and more than 400 pieces of handheld and small-engine equipment. He uses Networkfleet GPS to track the trucks, and keep tabs on their scheduled maintenance.