Superior savings

Lawn & Landscape spoke to some industry professionals from across the country about how they are integrating software and technology into their companies by using artificial intelligence, budgeting software, GPS monitoring and more.

William Haselbauer

president of Bio Lawn

While good customer relationship management, or CRM, software might be top of mind when it comes to influential technology in the green industry, Haselbauer says investing in online education platforms has also been critical.

“We have our Bio Lawn University on there and it houses everything from the organization chart to policies to processes and more,” he says.

With 30 employees, Haselbauer says it’s easier to train than ever before and allows learning to extend past the onboarding process.

“It has every service we do and a presentation or educational module for each one. You can track and see what (employees) have done or haven’t done,” he says. “If a technician makes a mistake out in the field, you can reassign a module.”

Another asset of the online training tool is it allows Bio Lawn to increase its recruiting reach with ease.

“We are not afraid to hire people without experience,” he adds.

Haselbauer says that while the technology is still relatively new to the company, they are already seeing improvements throughout the staff and other benefits.

“It’s the first year we’ve been using it, so we’re still in the infancy of its capabilities,” he says. “We haven’t ever measured mistakes or anything in the past to see if they have gone down, but there’s a general feel that our technicians are better equipped to perform the job. And that shows from our production numbers being up significantly.”

That’s not the only tech making waves at Bio Lawn. Haselbauer says the company is starting to utilize ChatGPT, an AI-based chatbot, for some customer communication and marketing efforts.

As a veteran of the industry, Haselbauer recognizes his understanding of turf is much more refined than that of the average homeowner. Therefore, it’s helping them provide clear, concise information for the layman.

“I can write a paragraph back to a customer and it makes sense to me because I understand turf. But you can run that through ChatGPT, and it can clean it up and simplify it for someone to understand,” he says.

Haselbauer says he expects more green industry companies to begin using the technology, and even email-AI, more and more.

“It’s going to be a very powerful tool for any business but especially service businesses like ours,” he says.

For now, Haselbauer says only management will be utilizing ChatGPT. As like with all AI, there needs to be a human element behind the writing and someone to monitor it.

“You do have to understand the content or otherwise you could get into some trouble,” he says. “Just because they write it doesn’t mean it’s right.”

Tom Hougnon

COO of Landscapes Unlimited

When Hougnon came to the Minnesota-based company just over a year ago, he says incorporating more technology was a priority to him.

“I’m a process person…when I looked at our use of technology, it was a little on the weaker side,” he admits. “One of my goals coming in was to build up and capitalize on current technology and plan for the future.”

Hougnon explains the company, which has 150 employees during peak season and did about $16 million in revenue in 2022, was already using an industry-specific business management software.

“When I came in, we were using maybe 35% of it and mainly just its basic functions,” he recalls. “We weren’t utilizing the whole system — the job costing and the other tools that could really help manage the business.”

So now, job costing is the focus at the company, and they have the ability to perform it faster with the software.

“We’re seeing results quicker,” he says. “We were always job costing; it just wasn’t as timely as we would’ve liked. We’re utilizing the tools we already have invested in to maximize our efficiencies and production.”

But when it comes to getting a return on investment out of technology, Hougnon says saving time can be as important as saving money.

“Anytime you can save your team hours and save on drive time, that technology will save us a lot of money,” he says.

One way Landscapes Unlimited is saving time and money is with GPS and routing software.

“We can create such dense routes, particularly for our irrigation company” Hougnon says. “We have 3,000 irrigation customers to do start-up visits for the summer… we went from starting up four zones a day to nine or 10… it’s also taken the seven to eight weeks of start-ups down to five to six weeks. That’s significant savings.”

Having crews do routine inspections every morning of their trucks and trailers, and having those inspections logged virtually, has also been a big deal, Hougnon adds.

“Our fleet maintenance staff is then getting real-time updates every day and we’re able to get in front of issues that could cost us more money down the road with our fleet,” he says. “Rather than just sticking post-it notes on someone’s desk, it’s all being documented.”

The inspections are also helping to cut down on other incidents, therefore improving safety.

“I can’t put a dollar amount on how much it’s saved us, but it’s made us a much safer company and safer companies make more money,” Hougnon says.

Hougnon adds with technology being such a mainstay in today’s society, there should be no reason for pushback when it comes to getting employees on board.

“Tablets and smartphones have been around for almost 15 years now,” he says. “Virtually everyone has a smartphone…there’s no barrier. Mobile technology is a part of everybody’s lives, and that’s taken away any excuses not to utilize technology.

Alex Munns

president of Colonial Gardens Landscape Co.

Munns says he was using one industry-specific software when he decided to switch to another to better meet his needs.

Munns says it was the budgeting program the new software offers that motivated him to make the move.

“It’s been a gamechanger. It opened my eyes to a lot of things I thought we were charging for, and it guided us to being more profitable and making sure we cover all of our costs, in every job, from start to finish,” he says.

The software is so detailed that Munns says it allowed him to get a better picture of Colonial Garden’s financials and make adjustments to improve profits. The company, which employs 15, reached just over $1.1 millions in revenue in 2022.

“To me, it dialed in on things I was hoping I was doing but wasn’t really sure,” he says. “In the past, we just had a wage rate that we felt comfortable with, but we never had a way to really prove it without doing a regular budget in QuickBooks or something like that, which would’ve been very time consuming.

“It covers everything I need it to do,” he adds. “It holds people accountable including myself. So that’s one big piece of the puzzle.”

And in terms of accountability, Munns says GPS technology is another must-have.

“That’s helpful beyond what everybody thinks… If a crew finishes up and I’ve been trying to get a hold of another crew, but they can’t hear the phone ringing or something, I can send the other crew to join them, he says. “We use it for that all the time.”

Munns says it’s also helpful in showing customers when and where his crews have been.

“There’s been a few instances where a client is trying to pull one over on us and say our truck wasn’t there,” he says. “Having the ability to print out a report and show on the map that our trucks were in front of their house for two hours has been very helpful in overcoming some issues with certain customers.”

Overall, Munns says as his business continues to grow, he’ll be relying on technology more and more as there’s only so many hours in the day.

“I’m hands-on and I wear a lot of hats,” he says. “The ability to use the technology as we grew was incredibly helpful in being places I couldn’t be physically and seeing what was going on with my company day-to-day. As you grow, you can’t be everywhere. I have the ability to see what everyone else is doing.”

Mike McCarron

CEO of Image Works Landscape Management

McCarron recognizes the technology being utilized on the front lines of any company will be completely different than that in the executive’s suite.

By prioritizing the field-level, Image Works has been able to not only grow the business to $2 million but also cut down on some common burdens.

“At the lower level, the employees and the foremen get blamed for a lot of stuff,” he says. “So, we use technology at a very high level for all the photos. We document everything before, during and after.”

McCarron notes that when a crew first arrives on site, a foreman is going around and taking photos of the entire property — regardless of if they are only working in one area. More photos are also taken as the work progresses and then again right before crews load up and leave.

“All of the photos are time and date stamped,” McCarron says. “That way down the road, you can email those photos with the invoice.

“You get blamed for a lot of stuff unless you have photos,” he adds. “It protects your team and the integrity of your team. The technology keeps the crew out of trouble in that regard.”

While the photos are helping cut down on accusations from customers, McCarron says it’s also helping save time — and therefore money.

“The account manager doesn’t have to drive all the way to the jobsite and back because he can just look at the photos online,” he says. “So, the account managers aren’t racking up nearly the amount of miles they were before. It’s not a replacement for boots on the ground, but it is helpful.”

In addition to improving efficiency, McCarron says he likes to measure ROI in other intangible terms.

“Success is measured upon financial value, but sometimes it’s about understanding and confusion control,” he says. “Even if you barely broke even on the investment, but your staff is way happier and productive, then is it always about how much money you’ll save?”

McCarron says some of the best investments are ones that improve things for the company’s staff of 25, regardless of the bottom-line benefits.

“There’s some pieces of software where it’s not about making money,” he says. “It’s worth a lot more than the dollar value. There’s no way to gauge that ‘happy meter’ but companies need to start looking more in that direction.”

Additionally, McCarron says with technology, there’s no silver bullet or quick fix that’s going to automatically take your company to the next level.

“Everyone is always looking for that golden nugget or that one thing that will magically change their whole business,” he says. “Everyone is caught up on that…we have to use several pieces of software and try different things. You have to put together bits and pieces that work best for everyone… a one-and-done solution doesn’t exist.”