The National Drought Mitigation Center generally designates West Central Florida as “moderate” to “severe” on its drought intensity scale. Ray Bradley operates his business, Raymow Enterprises, in the heart of this region, and his bottom line has taken a hit because of the dry weather.
“Sales opportunities are vanishing before our eyes due to the drastic watering restrictions being imposed,” Bradley says. He estimates losing about 1 percent of annual sales because of drought conditions hampering landscape installation projects.
“At a glance, this may not seem like a significant amount,” Bradley continues, “but during these tough economic times, every sale is important.”
Because of water restrictions earlier in the year, many customers who approved landscape enhancements requested a hold on installations. Drought also affects landscape maintenance, Bradley points out. Dry lawns spur secondary landscape maintenance problems, such as chinch bug damage. Also, Raymow’s irrigation crew must respond to more calls for irrigation maintenance because customers suspect a system malfunction when the cause of turf “hot spots” is actually drought.
The key to retaining clients and selling work during dry times is to talk to clients about dry weather solutions before drought strikes.
“Irrigation is always an important part of every client discussion,” Bradley emphasizes.
Raymow offers a menu of drought-focused services to minimize the impact of dry weather: hand-watering, moisture management (wetting agents), irrigation system audits and drought-tolerant landscape installation.
Information about these services is blasted to customers via an e-newsletter. Account representatives follow up with on-site conversations. Water is never left out of a sales discussion. “In addition, instituting sound horticultural practices, such as proper mowing heights, frequencies and so on helps minimize drought effects,” Bradley says.
The startup cost for offering hand-watering services included investing in two watering trucks and drivers. Technicians have at least two years of irrigation experience, and the service is billed by the hour. Moisture management involves use of wetting agents; pricing is based on time and materials per square foot.
“To adapt, we have also incorporated more drought-tolerant plants in our landscape designs,” Bradley adds. The company also targets sales in arbor care and grounds maintenance.
Raymow is constantly monitoring revenue and expenses to offset the drought and an overall reduction in revenue opportunities because of the Tampa Bay area’s suffering housing market. 
“Raymow, indeed, was part of the ‘housing bubble’ and suffered significant revenue losses with the decline of the market,” Bradley acknowledges. To recover, Raymow invested in a fresh marketing campaign last year and now offers more landscape consulting, lighting, street sweeping and water features to a broader client base.
Raymow stays close to customers with e-newsletters, site visits and tradeshows. Education in a down and dry market is critical, though Bradley says the Drought Mitigation Center is predicting adequate rainfall for the rest of the season. Following spring water restrictions, this is good news for business.
But Raymow staff will prepare customers for dry days regardless.
“Being proactive by educating your clients about reasonable landscape expectations during a drought prior to the actual drought establishes creditability,” he says.
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Introduction
Small Business - Less than $500,000
Medium Business - $500,000 to $2 million
The author is a freelance writer based in Bay Village, Ohio.
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