Ah, the good ol' landscaping business cards. Spend hours designing them, leave one behind after every conversation.. sounds familiar? It seems like business cards have been around forever. Have you ever tried to figure out how many customers they bring in? I'm sure you'll agree they might have served their purpose well in the past, but there are other solutions out there better equipped to keep you at the forefront of your customers' minds. We've got some ideas to help you get your creativity juices rolling and finally say goodbye to business cards.

The 2016 Houzz report on the state of the industry is out and we couldn't be more excited about the info and based on the content - majority of general contractors, home remodelers, builders, and landscapers feel the same. 

2015 proved to be another year of growth for the industry - year over year as well as compared to the pre-recession times. 

Home remodelers, landscapers, and every home improvement business that deals with appointments and work in the field will say that the most challenging parts of running their business include employees and customers. In other words: people. Hands down, regardless of if its formal surveys or passing conversations, these are the most common two biggest headaches in our industry.

On the flip side, the biggest money and time investments by these same business owners include machinery, materials, and actual time on labor by business owners.

Website analytics are not a-learn-it-overnight kind of topic. From selecting the right tools, to understanding how to use them - you can invest hundreds of hours and still be in the dark about truly understanding how well your website is doing online. There are a few that are more important than others and thankfully, we'll help you identify these top metrics to get you on the right track.

First, selecting the right tool isn't as important as always using the same tool. Every website tracking tool (e.g. Google Analytics is one) uses slightly different reasoning in their calculations. Some have more filters and some give you the raw data. So before you go on tracking a specific group of metrics, the first and most important thing you need to do is pick a source for your metrics and stick to it. 

The green industry, or as some prefer, the outdoor living industry, has exponentially grown over the last few years. Homeowners in the U.S. are seeing their outdoor living spaces as part of their homes. They're investing in their outdoor homes. As a result, and as everyone in this industry knows, this means that landscape design and build companies are popping out left and right. Regardless of where you are, your competition is endlessly growing. And rightfully so. After all, if you're going to start a business, you want to do it in an industry thats booming. 

This is good and bad news for landscape professionals. Increased competition means increased standards. This industry is on the uphill in quality and margins. The downside.. losing to bids to the wannabes.

Lets take a step back together. You've been hearing this acronym for years now. You know that you need to make sure your website is SEO'd and all that good stuff. Heck, everyone's paying a lot of money for this stuff. Maybe you're even thinking that its been a while since your website was redone so you need a new website to help with SEO. But what exactly is SEO? It's really not all that mysterious. 

SEO, Search Engine Optimization, is indeed something you need to make sure is at the top of your priority list, when it comes to driving leads. We'll help you understand why.

SEO is...

In the small world of home contracting and home services, strong businesses are still built on strong relationships. While a company's relationships with its clients, employees, and sub-contractors are all key, support and respect at the dealer/distributor level may just be the most important. This partnership can offer some hefty rewards if fostered properly—or some hard blows if not. 

Tens of hours (maybe hundreds) into talking, discovering, pitching, persuading, and pouring your heart and soul into bidding for the project of the year (or project that's good enough) and... you lost. Perhaps even to the new guy or a home contracting company that doesn't even normally do this kind of job.

Ever heard the expression that potential customers don't look for reason to buy from you - they look for reasons to not buy from you? Well, in today's buyer's world, this is exactly the case, almost 100% of the time.

Now you could've lost the bid because the world just sent you bad luck that day.

From the beginning days of on-boarding to the years that proceed, inbound marketing isn't easy. Whether you've hired a marketing agency or writing your own content, it takes time, dedication, and patience. And it all pays off; the results it delivers don't compare to any other marketing approach. There is a lot that home service contractors can be thankful for with inbound marketing. So here is your list of things of the top ten reasons to say thank you to inbound marketing!

Good landscape contractors often find themselves in a situation where they are ready to grow their businesses and make the jump to a higher revenue level. These are not new companies. They are landscape construction companies that have earned enough project experience over the course of 3, 5, or even 10 years (depending on the revenue target sought) where they now know their level of quality is superb. Regular positive referrals, possibly an award or two, and increased project detail, size, and sale price. But how do you make the jump to selling and building high-end projects for most of the season? How do you cater to more affluent clientele who award these projects soring above the $100k mark?

Most small businesses in the home services industry use Quickbooks to manage their accounting. The software is truly great at what it does, albeit slightly frustrating to use at times. Everything from creating estimates and invoices, finding a customer’s phone number, and finding out which customers to call for overdue payments, Quickbooks becomes the hub for many small businesses. In fact, we’d say second to email, construction business owners spend more time in Quickbooks than any other software application.

Changing your target customer isn't the first thing that usually comes to mind when setting your next year's goals. Rightfully so, after all there is revenue to grow, efficiencies to improve, and many more endless and lucrative ideas to spent time on. The reality is if you're attracting the wrong target customer, you won't reach any, or at least most of your objectives.

What exactly does changing your target customer mean? Perhaps it's changing to a lower income client or the opposite, much higher. It could mean going from targeting couples with small children to no children. Read more about targeting here. Whatever the end result is, here are the top five signs that you should sit down and re-target a new type of customer now. 

You've successfully made it through to this second full chat with your prospect about their home improvement plans - whether its about landscaping, general contracting, a remodel, or anything in between. If you've asked the right questions to help you understand your prospects real needs (a must read before you continue further in this post: 10 Questions to Ask Your Prospect on The First Call) then you know that this next chat, which is most likely in-person, is worth the trip. You've qualified them in terms of budget and service and you know when they'd like it all completed. The second chat isn't your proposal conversation because you haven't yet filled in all of the details in between. So here are the questions you absolutely must get to in this meeting to make sure your proposal is a winner.