A fresh coat of paint

As a rule, I don’t like to do wholesale revamps of the magazine. Instead, I try to incorporate the changes you ask for as soon as possible, so you’re always getting exactly what you need from us.

So, not to worry: I didn’t blow up the magazine and start from scratch, but I did incorporate a few changes to improve it. Starting this month, we’ve updated the fonts and general layout of the magazine to make it easier for you to find what you need and to read it quickly. And, our coverage for the rest of 2012 and into 2013 will focus on the most pressing issues our readers have told us they want. For example:

• We’ve expanded our popular Best Practices operations profiles, and combined them with other segment-specific coverage, so you’ll have dedicated sections for maintenance, irrigation, design/build and lawn care (those start on pg. 35);

• As part of our irrigation section, we’ll have columns from a team of industry experts from ValleyCrest Cos., including Richard Restuccia, Alan Harris and Martha Golea (pg. 75);

• To keep tabs on (and give advice on how to take advantage of) an increasingly active M&A market, we’ll have quarterly contributions from former Co-Cal Landscape owner and Leadership Award winner Tom Fochtman starting in November;

• Beginning in January, we’ll have 12 months of dedicated technology coverage;

• We’ve revamped our Market Insight Council (listed below) to add members from more diverse backgrounds, businesses and areas of the country.

I’ve always thought that my job is to find the most interesting and useful information I can and share it with you however I can. At the end of the day, you should be a little smarter after reading through these pages, and should have found a practical idea or strategy that you can put into place in your company right away.

These changes help focus our energy, but our mission at L&L remains the same: to bring you the best stories to help you run your business better and more profitably.

If there’s something else you’d like to see in these pages – a story you want us to tell, a perspective we should include – let me know. Thanks for reading.