Beyond the yard

With the equipment and labor in place to manage landscape installation and maintenance jobs, some owners are taking a good, hard look at the resources they have and considering how their firms could multi-task. Can crews take their building skills indoors and renovate homes? Can a robust customer list provide a ready market for a service like driveway sealing? And perhaps most importantly, how can a green industry business stay busy year-round?

This month, Lawn & Landscape talked to three landscape firms that have branched out in various business arenas, from refinishing basements to demolishing the insides of over-run homes and sealing driveways. Here’s why they chose to add on a different service and what it has taken them to ramp up successfully.
 

Underground business

Tapping smart expansion has kept Breyer Construction in Reading, Pa., relevant and growing, even when the economy slipped. “You have to take risks as a company in order to survive, otherwise you run the risk of becoming an antique,” says Matthew Breyer, president, who in 2004 merged the construction firm he started in 2001 with his brother’s landscape company. “We started getting more focused on how we wanted to do business,” Breyer says.

Focus is the operative word. The brothers recognized a lack of deck building professionals in their market; meanwhile, interest in creating outdoor living spaces continued to peak, and there’s still demand today. So rather than relying on summer labor, the Breyers began hiring carpentry professionals – tradespeople with experience who had already made a career out of building decks, or were looking to do so.

“The refined focus helped us going into the recession,” Breyer says. After the company began strongly focusing on deck work – it makes currently 70 to 80 percent of its business – it dominated this niche, also working for companies that hired the company to complete this specialty aspect of a larger job. Meanwhile, Breyer Construction also began developing relationships with subcontractors and companies with deep plant knowledge so they could deliver the sophisticated landscapes clients were seeking.

The only year Breyer Construction had a revenue dip was in 2009. “Now, we have tripled the company from a revenue perspective,” Breyer says. The basement work really took off after 2013, when a client who had relocated from Las Vegas was referred to Breyer Construction.

Breyer had an opportunity to take the company’s carpentry and construction craftsmanship indoors. This seemed like a natural way to extend the business season into winter months.

The company had finished basements before, but nothing to the scope of what this couple wanted: a warehouse-like space with exposed brick, acid-etched concrete floors, exposed ductwork and a modern bathroom. “It was a huge risk,” Breyer acknowledges, adding that the company made the job more “comfortable” by breaking it down into stages. The client’s trust in Breyer and his team to complete the project was also important.

“If a service/project is not well-planned, you run the risk of failure and you don’t want to lose sight of what you’re really good at. You don’t want to compromise your sweet spot because you are chasing a pipe dream,” Breyer says, warning companies to step slowly into add-on businesses.

For Breyer Construction, this basement job stretched the team creatively and gave them an opportunity to showcase their skills in a safe environment with clients who believed in their work.

The company seeks out interior work, such as basement refinishing jobs, in early fall before the cold season sets in. Direct marketing is targeted to existing landscape clients, with a message of, “You trusted us for your outdoor space, so let us do your indoor project.”

The marketing focus on interior work picks up in the fall to book jobs for the winter months. One of the great advantages of this add-on is that it provides consistent work year-round for the company, Breyer says. “If you can take your building months from nine to 11 months a year, that two additional months of income is huge,” he says.

Enjoy to destroy

Demolition services provide year-round work for the five crews at High Profile Grounds Maintenance Services in Minneapolis, where the firm manages the upkeep up 163 houses owned and leased out by HavenBrook Homes, a national company that buys houses, then rehabs them and rents them out.

Account supervisor Rob Linhoff had experience in construction demolition and is licensed to do this work, so he approached HavenBrook last year.

Once HavenBrook buys homes, depending on their condition, the insides may need to be completely gutted, Linhoff says. High Profile goes in and does a clean sweep, which can mean gutting kitchens and bathrooms, ripping out carpet and tearing down moldy walls. On the outside, the landscaping maintenance firm deals with any issues that could violate rental code, such as trees hanging over a home’s roof.

The demolition work High Profile does prepares the home for renovation, giving HavenBrook an empty canvas to create a desirable home for lease. “We’ll go in and tear out a garage, remove trees, take out (home) foundations, there’s a whole list that the state requires in order for a property to be safe,” Linhoff says.

Linhoff says High Profile already had the crews and equipment – so moving into demolition work was a natural transition, though it has required some on-the-job training, mainly provided by Linhoff. “We’ll get a crew together and explain why a tree is unsafe and how to remove it without the tree going on to the house,” he says. “We don’t just have robots out there going through the motions. We promote the right way of doing things.”

That includes an emphasis on safety. Linhoff knows firsthand that demolition work comes with risk and proper personal protective equipment is critical. A few years ago, Linhoff admits he was not being safe and a large piece of concrete came down on his foot, removing the big toe, which was surgically re-attached.

The demolition work can bring up to $500,000 in extra revenues to the bottom line per year. So, it has been a boon for business, and a way to keep crews busy during summertime lulls when the weather’s hot and dry and mowing slows down. Linhoff says he likes to rotate crews on demolition jobs to keep them fresh.

Linhoff says demolition and rental property maintenance is not for every landscape firm. “It’s good for us because we are a large company and we had the room to expand,” he says. In the last year, the company invested in its own dumpster so it does not have to rely on a third party for this critical aspect of the demolition jobs. High Profile also has a hook truck to haul in and take away dumpsters.

What’s great about the demolition work, and specifically partnering with this rehab/rental company to serve as its maintenance go-to, is the diversity this type of work offers. “It’s different every day,” Linhoff says.

Seal the deal

A plywood sign staked into a yard advertising driveway sealing prompted a slew of phone calls – and more than 700 driveway jobs in the last three years – making this service a legitimate add-on business to David Michel’s young landscaping company.

Michel first learned about sealcoating from his dad’s friend. “He told us how his daughter put herself through college and bought a car by sealing driveways in the summer,” says Michel, a landscape architecture student at SUNY Cobleskill. “I was engaged and willing to learn and add money and grow, so I thought this would be a great add-on opportunity.”

So Michel learned the basics from the friend, who had retired from General Motors. He helped Michel sealcoat the first driveways, showing him the proper broom application technique to achieve a smooth coat. (Michel prefers this method rather than using a squeegee or spray application, which can leave a mess.) Michel decided to keep this business separate from the landscaping company he started in 2010, but still advertise the service under the same David Michel name.

He started the sealcoating venture with a 350-gallon tank for mixing the materials with water and established a relationship with a local distributor where he buys the product, and can ask questions and get training. His first job was his grandmother’s neighbor. “It came out great and I put out one sign, and ever since then the service has grown,” he says.

Last summer, Michel added a couple of commercial accounts: CVS drugstore, Kwik Fill gas station and Byrne Dairy, where he got “in” because he graduated high school with the owner’s son. Michel asked to bid on Byrne Dairy, got the job and now landscapes and sealcoats the property.

Driveway sealcoating is profitable – if you stick to just the surfacing, Michel says. “We sub out the parking lot striping because the money is not worth it by the time you buy the equipment, and you need a steady amount of commercial accounts,” he says.

Specifically, getting into sealcoating can cost less than $1,200, including the price of that tank and materials, Michel says. His company charges $0.10 to $0.15 per square foot – freshly poured asphalt that has never had sealcoating costs the higher end because the surface “just sucks up the material.” At that price, Michel can complete a 1,000 square foot driveway for about $100. It takes him about a half hour. “That’s pretty good starting out for a side-business where we live,” he says.

Also, the sealcoating can be done when mowing slows down during the dog days of summer. Ideal conditions for sealcoating are at least 50 degrees for 24 hours. The hotter and drier outside, the better. “Prime time for this business is late May to early October,” he says.

Another positive about this add-on business is the recurring revenue. Most driveways and parking lots need to be resealed every two to three years, Michel says, noting that he has even turned down some work while he completes school. But the amount of accounts – an average of 250 driveways per summer – has created a solid foundation for his business, fueling income so Michel can dive right in after he graduates. “When I get out of college, I can grow right away,” he says.