Small but mighty

Without much advertising, Gavin’s Lawncare and Landscaping keeps growing steadily. But owner Gavin Yednock won’t let his company grow so big that it can’t effectively serve the small market around Streator, Illinois, which is 80 miles southwest of Chicago. Like many contractors, Yednock started cutting grass in his neighborhood around age 12. He ran this operation part-time all throughout school, mowing in the summer and using a small tractor and snow blower to plow driveways in winter.

When he turned 16, he got a job at a local nursery, which offered landscaping services. After graduating high school in 2000, Yednock earned a two-year degree in landscape design and construction from Kishwaukee College in Illinois.

With a degree and several years of industry experience, Yednock moved back to Streator and put full-time focus on Gavin’s Lawncare and Landscaping.

Now, in addition to lawn care and maintenance services, the company offers design/build and renovation of landscapes and hardscapes, complemented by snow removal in winter.

With sales increasing from $250,000 in 2014 to $300,000 last year, the company had a small increase in revenue. And that’s fine by Yednock.

“I don’t want to get too much bigger,” he says. If we pick up some big contracts, we will invest in expanding a little bit, but we’re not in a big market. If we go 60 miles north, closer to Chicago, or south, towards Bloomington, it’s a whole different game.”

Staying small.

By identifying gaps in his small market, Yednock identified growth opportunities.

“No one was installing pavers in our town, so I started with that. We started doing pavers, retaining walls and landscaping,” he says. “Pavers have been a big addition to our company. It’s grown every year since.”

Hardscaping now makes up 35 percent of the business, serving predominantly (80 percent) residential clients. Snow removal makes up another 15 percent, while the other half of the business is maintenance (leaning 60/40 commercial).

For most of the season, the company has five employees, split into one maintenance crew and one landscaping crew.

In winter, the company puts about 10 people to work, including drivers for its four trucks, three subcontractors, and a few people to shovel. Some large snow contracts boosted the company’s sales last year, but Yednock is careful about which big projects he takes on.

“Being a smaller company, sometimes it’s hard to do bigger jobs because you get tied up for so long that you’re not getting to other jobs,” he says. “Last year, we did turn down a little bit of business, (bigger jobs) on the paver/patio side. I like jobs that take three or four days, compared to the paver jobs that take three weeks. If we can get in and out, it’s easier for cash flow, and we’re getting more jobs done because we’re not bogged down on one.”

Instead of committing limited resources to one big, time-consuming project, Yednock would rather accumulate five or six smaller jobs in the same time – grossing the same amount, while serving more clients. Fortunately, his small market lends itself to this strategy.

“In our market, we get big jobs once in a while, but not on a regular basis,” Yednock says. “We do a lot of 300 to 400-square-foot patios. We have done numerous 1,500 to 2,500-square-foot patios, but we may get a chance to bid one of those a year.”

The case for maintenance.

Because large landscape projects are limited, and because cash flows more steadily from recurring jobs, Yednock focuses his growth on maintenance.

Landscaping work drives growth to maintenance through cross-selling. Offering maintenance services to a client with a new landscape is a much easier sale than selling a new patio to a client who just wants the grass mowed.

Monthly maintenance contracts also sustain work longer, keeping Gavin’s crews busy all year long instead of pulling them out for several weeks at a time. In that sense, maintenance services build stable year-round business with steady cash flow.

“If we get in with a spring (maintenance) contract, we can usually get the snow contract, too, and provide year-round service,” he says. “Our goal, over the past couple of years, has been pushing toward year-round service.”

About one-third of Gavin’s maintenance clients receive year-round service.

“For snow removal, we only service the town we live in, because it’s too hard to travel out of town,” Yednock says. “It’s hard to drive 15 miles out on country roads in a snowstorm, and I don’t need a truck in a ditch.”

Room for year-round growth.

Yednock retained most of last year’s employees because he kept them busy over the winter. This was partly due to the company’s push toward year-round work, paired with a special project: building a new office.

“I like jobs that take three or four days, compared to the paver jobs that take three weeks. If we can get in and out, it’s easier for cash flow, and we’re getting more jobs done because we’re not bogged down on one.” Gavin Yednock, owner

“We own about five acres just outside of town, and we had been renting an office space in town,” he says. “If I needed a drawing from a job, I’d have to run back to the office, print it off and run back to the shop. When suppliers would drop off (materials at the shop), I had to run across town to get my checkbook from the office.”

By keeping construction of the 40 by 72 building in-house, Yednock saved money and kept his team busy all winter. They moved into the new building in February.

Even with a brand new office, Yednock doesn’t want to spend too much time in it, or be too busy to go check on landscaping projects or mow with his crew.

“I still have to run the business, but I try to make my appearance on jobs as much as I can to address concerns with customers or questions with crews,” he says. “It shows customers that it’s not just my employees. It’s me out there too.”