What we learned at the WorkWave conference

The 2023 WorkWave Beyond Service User Conference is wrapping up Wednesday in Orlando. Here's just some of what we heard and saw at the conference:

SLINGSHOTING AROUND YOUR COMPETITION. How fitting was it that Robin Kellagher (director of sales and marketing, Coalmarch) and Jessica Bolthouse (client onboarding and success) opened their presentation with a video of Rusty Wallace “slingshotting” around another racecar driver to win a race.

Wallace was the event’s guest keynote speaker. But the video wasn’t just a Wallace career highlight: It was an example of someone moving past their competition to find success.

In this session, Kellagher and Bolthouse joined panelists Josh Wise (GrassRoots Turf), Brian Haga (Scientific Plant Science) and Evan Unick (Customer Solutions Aptive) to walk through some ideas on navigating issues like labor shortages and managing new leads.

Finding new clients: The panelists recommended updating your Google Business Profile and setting up Google Local Service Ads. But in addition, they also really emphasized the need to get more reviews from clients.

"Take a look at what your competitors have," Kellagher says. "If you're a consumer, you're going to pick the people with more reviews and higher reviews. Most people buy based on their feelings. You’re not going to use a lawn care or pest control company with one or two star reviews.”

Wise recommends leaving your business as open for 24 hours, too, especially if you're able to set up call centers to field client inquiries at just about any hour, or if you ensure prospects are able to leave a message. Wise says if you're not actively listed as open when people search, Google won't often show your business.

Improving your brand: The panelists estimated that on average, it takes between five to seven impressions for people to remember your brand. Ideally, people will recognize your brand instead of stumbling upon you by searching "lawn care business near me."

Find ways to interact with people on social media, Kellagher says. Have fun on there by promoting your Employee of the Month or talk about some recent projects. Plus, find ways to invest in those around you.

“Some easy things that you can do: Partner with your local community," Kellagher says. "Sponsor a softball team, sponsor a teeball game, soccer.”

Keeping balanced: Bolthouse says missing leads because of unexpected high inbound call quantities and chat inquiries is a huge issue across any industry. Maybe some contractors have dealt with short staffs and too high demand, or needing to excuse themselves from family time because they were wondering how many calls they were missing.

In those instances, the solutions vary from hiring more office staff and techs to dialing back marketing, or hiring an answering service. She also recommends having daily standup meetings like she's had with her teams, where they can share what they did yesterday and what they're doing that day. They also get to share potential roadblocks, which helps them navigate any potential issues. 

“You get everyone together, very, very quickly," Bolthouse says. "What’s very interesting is that usually, my teams are each other’s roadblocks.” 

THE EVOLUTION OF YOUR WEBSITE IN 2023. Christin Nein, the vice president of product development at Coalmarch, says website design can be more about psychology than many people think.

“It’s like herding sheep: You have to keep (people) focused, they’re easily distracted, and they’re all over the place," Nein says. "You have to use your website as a tool to get them to end up where you need them to.”

Nein likens this herding process to a conversion funnel, which is how people interact with and navigate through your website depending on what they're looking for when they land on your site. At the top of the funnel is the awareness phase, then the interest level, desire and finally action. 

Your number one goal of your website is to generate leads for your business by converting traffic into contacts. But not everyone starts at the top of the funnel though. Some people don't know what your company does or what it's all about. Nein likens this to shopping for laundry: Everyone knows Tide and is likely to seek it out.

They might stumble upon a generic detergent instead, and while they know its purpose, you also still need to read more to make sure it won't burn a hole in your clothes. Or, for some products, people might not recognize the product at all and need a lot more research readily available to know what the detergent is all about.

This is why designing your website for all three types of users -- those with high, moderate and low brand awareness of your company -- is so crucial to earning new clients. Your goal is to give all users the easiest way to convert into leads as possible. Nein recommends the following:

• Simplify your webform service inquiry fields – Nein adds that she might keep it as basic as first name, last name, contact info and a comments section. Even having the option to leave your address might be too much.
• Add live chat
• Add click to text
• Consistent, modern brand
• Begin a customer referral program

RUSTY WALLACE KEYNOTE: NASCAR Hall of Famer Rusty Wallace told WorkWave conference attendees that the smallest details matter: One dropped lugnut could cost you winning a whole race, even if you're leading the whole way.

With that in mind, Wallace stressed the importance of finding collaboration within a team and recruiting people to work with you who are smarter than you are. Some NASCAR teams are comprised of around 500 people, so communication within teams is also critical.

"Every little thing is very, very important," Wallace said. "When I found myself saying, 'me, me, me,' and I started looking beyond me...Man did my career really start taking off.”

Of course, Wallace didn't just talk about the lessons he learned while racing — he also talked about some of his memories from behind the wheel, too. He recalled Dale Earnhardt dumping three cans of sardines under his seat cushion before a big race. He told attendees that after his vehicle flipped 26 times in 1993, he woke up to the thudding of a helicopter as he was airlifted to a nearby hospital — he still has a 14-inch pin in his wrist from that one.

And though Wallace is unfamiliar with many landscaping technicalities, he reminded them that speed is everything, even off the race track. When landscapers tell him they'll be there between 12 and 3 p.m., then show up at 2:58 at the earliest, he's left with a bad taste in his mouth.

“Nobody likes anything that slow. I know there’s got to be a window, but as a consumer, I’ve got to sit on my porch for three hours," Wallace said. "Try to minimize that, guys. That's one thing that aggravates me to death."

Check back on lawnandlandscape.com and future issues of the magazine for more coverage from the WorkWave event.