Around the Horn

Tweet at @lawnlandscape, visit us at our Linkedin page at linkd.in/lawnland or Facebook  at www.facebook.com/lawnandlandscape and give us your feedback!

Here’s this month’s question.
What do you do to keep busy on rainy work days?

From Facebook:

Equipment maintenance and door hangers.
-- Jeremy Loukinas, Tru-Scape Turf Management, West Chester, Ohio

I head to the coffee shop to step back to clear my mind and plan for the day – quick maintenance or go out and bid if needed. As soon as the pavement begins to dry I’m back to work. I only have five minutes usually to drive. – Ken Silvers, Ken Silvers Residential Lawn Care, Findlay, Ohio

We train our staff and have our pop vehicle inspections. Adam Linnemann, Linnemann Lawn Care & Landscaping, Columbia, Ill. Train, clean and small projects around the shop. – Rick Longnecker

From Linkedin:

We’re a small professional gardening service catering to high-end, affluent clients. Only have three to four part-time crew members plus my husband (owner) and myself (office operations).

On rain days, our crew normally enjoy having the day off (without pay). My husband will handle office work on rain days because he never seems to have time on the sunny ones! – Gabrielle Dandy-Horn, Professional Gardener & Designer, Washington, D.C.

These are great days to do needed maintenance. Also great days for team meetings to re-evaluate what you are doing and how you are doing it. Good time to team build and improve your services with training on your processes and building customer service skills.

If you would like new business, also not a bad day to send someone out to flier a neighborhood you would like more work in, or visit some commercial prospects you have been keeping your eye on. – Travis White, Specialized Pest Control and Lawn Care, Pocatello, Idaho

During rain days, we normally send the crews home to save on the labor and you will eventually have to make up the work not completed (always keep a sharp eye on labor costs).

The salary folks use the day for equipment maintenance as noted by others. Also it’s a good time to clean shop or storage areas if needed, order supplies or check on inventory existing, also customer contacts, touching base with your customers to see how they are feeling about your service, the results they are seeing, any special projects or enhancements we can help them plan out etc.

Use the downtime for the things you never seem to have enough time for when the sun is out.

Besides, keeping busy keeps one out of trouble they might get into otherwise. – Keith O’Neil, Florida Landscape Professionals, Orlando, Fla.

Several of my customers use rainy days, especially during busy season, as a unplanned maintenance day. When you are running mowers 8-10 hours a day, hedge trimmers daily, etc., they need to be maintained.

Rainy days are busy for us as blades, trimmers and hand tools come in from our pros. I tell my sharpening techs that if they see rain, be prepared for work! :) I am friends with several other service department techs who see the same thing on their rain days.

We are just a sharpening shop. My customers are the efficient ones. We are just blessed to have their business. – Mark Madden, M & M Sharpening Services, Wichita, Ks.

Twitter:

@GreenDreamsLM: We have training classes and safety talk and then take everyone out to lunch. I’m a sweet boss if I say so myself.

@TheGroundsCrew: Call my clients: Build rapport with them and ask if they want to sign up for pre-pay or direct billing to their credit card.

@yardhalf: Check drainage at clients = good upsell opp! We often save trainings “for a rainy day” during busy times. Shop for plants.

@stewcare: When we have a rain day, we sharpen blades, clean machines, & service any machine that needs it.

@SwitzersNursery: Catch up on social media...