Mix and match

Bob Walsh grew up by one of the largest landscape design-build firms in southwest Florida. He worked there from age 10 until 25, eventually becoming manager of the landscape division. When the company closed, Walsh used his on-the-job experience to start R.S. Walsh Landscaping in 1982 with his wife, Lisa.

“I started very small with a truck and a trailer and worked hard to grow it up from there,” says Walsh, president and owner. “I started with smaller residential jobs I could do myself, and then as I could add crew and equipment, the jobs got a little larger and the designs got a little more complex.”

Walsh added services from low-voltage lighting to small water features, ultimately building a more diversified firm headquartered in Fort Myers. By making sure that every new addition – from a single employee to a whole division – contributes to the improvement of the entire company, R.S. Walsh continues to grow.
 

Maintaining growth.

Previously focused on landscape design/build, R.S. Walsh added maintenance in 2010. At the time, it was merely a way to stay busy during the recession as installations slowed down.

“As the economy turned, we didn’t have enough installation work for all of the foremen we were employing,” Walsh says. “Adding a maintenance division was kind of a natural way, as the economy slowed down, to retain good employees.”

Employees stayed busy as maintenance blossomed. By cross-selling to design-build customers – 90 percent of whom are high-end residential – Walsh tapped into a built-in customer base to grow the maintenance division. As a result, it has tripled in size since 2010, now accounting for about 15 percent of the company’s total revenue.

“We have done almost no advertising of the maintenance division,” Walsh says. “Almost every new design we install, we are working with them on maintenance. That’s been a built-in way to grow the company, and servicing our customers better has helped us retain them.”

Handling the entire project lifecycle – from the inception of design to installation to maintenance – enables R.S. Walsh to serve customers cohesively. Most employees are cross-trained to bring projects full circle. Foremen are capable of design layout on site and installation of everything from large trees to mulch to lighting.

Collaboration between divisions also keeps projects running smoothly. Designers go onsite with foremen to translate each client’s vision into reality.

The maintenance manager also gets involved to coordinate installation for proper maintenance in the future.
 

Showcasing capabilities.

In 2010, R.S. Walsh also opened In The Garden, a retail garden center on Sanibel Island, Fla. Purchasing the property during the lowest point of the recession was a huge risk.

Initially, the addition was simply a way to showcase the company’s landscaping capabilities. In The Garden isn’t set up like a typical garden center because it’s set up to sell more than just plants.

“Instead of sacks of mulch and plants in a row, our garden center looks more like someone’s backyard garden,” Walsh says. “It’s sort of a strolling garden tour through pathways with small brick pavers and little water features.” Of course, being new to the retail format, R.S. Walsh had to adapt some of its traditional approaches. Historically, the company had grown mostly through word-of-mouth. But to actively bring people into the new retail location, the company had to formally coordinate its advertising efforts for the first time.

As more people visit the garden center, business grows – but the growth isn’t limited to retail.

“Not only has it increased our retail sales by 20 percent every year,” Walsh says, “it also has increased our landscaping sales. It’s an avenue for people that didn’t know our company to come in and stroll through the gardens and say, ‘These are the people we want to coordinate our landscape.’”
 

No duplicates allowed.

Walsh now has 30 full-time and 40 seasonal employees to bring larger projects to life. But he doesn’t want employees just like him.

“I’m always looking for someone that’s smarter than me, that has a talent I don’t possess, that can expand the horizons of what the company knows,” Walsh says. “If everyone you hire has a little bit different perspective and a little bit better knowledge of something different, it just makes the whole company stronger.”

For example, each of Walsh’s four other designers has a distinctive style or specialty – such as Asian-themed gardens or large residential projects – that allows Walsh to match up each client with the appropriate designer.

Walsh sees each employee as a way to inject new knowledge, skills and ideas into the company. Young employees – like Walsh’s sons Justin, the operations manager, and Jeremy, a project manager – bring new ideas to improve and expand the company.

“For a long time, everything had been done the same way,” Justin says. “We’ve been lucky to have a lot of employees that have been here 10 to 20 years and longer. But you always need the influx of youth to get new ideas turning.”

Younger generations have modernized R.S. Walsh into the computer age, leading the company toward upgraded design tools like new CAD software and tablets. “A lot of our clients need more than a 2-D piece of paper to see what we’re trying to convey to them,” says Leigh Gevelinger, Walsh’s youngest landscape architect.

“In addition to using full-size drawings, landscape plans and graphic displays as presentation material to review with our clients, we also use Samsung tablets to reference other landscape photos to help our clients create the vision of their landscape.”

By expanding the company’s horizons through fresh skills, new services and modern tools, R.S. Walsh positions itself to better serve a spectrum of client needs. This diversification – though risky at times – secures the company’s future through long-term, returning client relationships.

“Taking some of those risks has really helped us as a company,” Walsh says. “Staying on the cutting-edge of new plants and new design ideas and constantly updating what we do has been key to our success.”