Minding Your Business: July 2000, Image Is Everything

To compete against bigger, better budgeted companies, smaller contractors must convey a professional image. By doing this, clients will view the company as an operation that has the skills, knowledge and values to manage their landscaping needs.

Image is something every company has to continually work on, with set policies and procedures that focus on improving and maintaining a professional image. To start, ask customers for their opinions – they are always willing to offer ideas for service improvement.

Smaller landscape contractors have many opportunities throughout the season to improve their image. The tools they use every day can accomplish this without incurring additional expenses.

POINTS TO IMPROVE ON. While they’re often taken for granted, a contractor’s vehicles are a huge image-enhancement opportunity. Today’s larger landscape contractors have realized that their vehicles are the greatest marketing tools they have. If a large landscape contractor in your market sends out 50 trucks a day, how many people do you think will see those vehicles each day? These contractors get a bigger return on their vehicles than advertising on the radio.

Using vehicles to convey a professional image is common throughout many industries. Have you ever seen a dirty UPS or Coca-Cola truck? If your vehicles are dirty and need repair, people will notice, and that will affect their image of your company.

In addition, smaller companies tend to have real difficulties communicating with customers, which can do serious image damage. Larger firms have secretaries, voice-mail systems, cellular phones and middle management to maintain communication with their clients, while smaller companies usually have one person who does everything. Despite this fact, you need to develop procedures to make sure you return phone calls promptly and maintain communication with customers at all times. You must use today’s technology to improve your customer service and your image.

Another way to improve your image is through uniforms. Imagine going to see a professional baseball game at Yankee Stadium and when you get there, the players are all wearing cut-off shorts, tank tops and work boots. Your first instinct would be to walk out of the ballpark, since the outfits they were wearing did not make them look like professional baseball players. If you were to stay and watch the game, however, you would see that they have the talent and skill to be professionals, but, without the uniforms, they do not represent professional athletes.

This is how your customers feel when you show up to work on their properties not wearing uniforms or dressed inappropriately. Uniforms represent professionalism and companies can improve their image by wearing them.

Being prepared to do a job can also improve your company’s image. How would you feel if you hired a painter to paint your house and he showed up without a paint brush? You would lose a lot of confidence in that painter and would probably question his professionalism. The same holds true for when you show up to do a job without the right equipment or with the wrong plants. Proper planning and organization will help a small company maintain its professional image.

Have you ever thought about how your image affects your efforts to attract skilled people to your company? Professional people want to work for professional organizations. Since most small companies cannot afford to have recruiters on staff, they must rely on their image to attract candidates.

As the old saying goes: "image is everything." In an industry saturated with larger firms, smaller landscape contractors must focus on their own image to maintain their market share. If we all take some time to focus on our image, we will find many inexpensive ways to improve.