Login

USERNAME
PASSWORD

Become a Registered Guest Login Help Lost Password?

Fitting framework

This company controls its growth through infrastructure

After being in business only a few years, Mike Neese, CLP, decided it was time to light the afterburners. His company, Grayson South, located in Charlotte, North Carolina, had been growing slowly since it was founded in 1999. Five years later, the owner launched an aggressive growth campaign. He moved the company closer to his work, hired an office manager, and put in place a series of systems to both encourage and control growth.

The plan worked. By the end of 2005, Grayson South’s revenue had increased by 55 percent and the company looks for a repeat performance by the end of this year.

Company operations

Grayson South’s revenue is divided nearly equally between residential design/build and maintenance. The company has nine full-time employees and operates four crews, two for maintenance and two for installation projects.

Neese, who holds a finance degree from Appalachian State University, started his business after several years in the corporate world as a sales associate. Even though he had no formal training in horticulture, he was raised on a farm and had an affinity and knack for growing and maintaining landscapes. The former Eagle Scout started out small, with a truck, mower, and single employee. He joined PLANET’s legacy association, ALCA, a year later and began to lay the foundation for future growth.

Business model

“In 2004, I created a five-year plan that included developing an infrastructure to control anticipated growth,” says Neese. “Since the Charlotte area has plenty of work, I thought that reaching growth goals wouldn’t be too difficult. The difficult part would be to control growth and make sure it would be profitable.”

His plan included a business model — targeting residential customers and setting up a system of processes to help ensure appropriate cash flow and profit margins. As he points out, the plan also looked for ways to eliminate sources of frustration and aggravation, such as avoiding accounts that didn’t fit the business model, educating customers, and setting appropriate expectations upfront.

The ideal Grayson South maintenance customer signs a 12-month contract and automatically deposits the monthly maintenance fee into the company’s bank account. “We encourage customers to sign up for our automatic Visa/MasterCard pay program, or they have the option of simply direct depositing our fee,” Neese explains. “Either way, we know when the money is coming in. The program also reduces our risk and saves us the time and money associated with monthly billing. Further more, we find that many of our customers who don’t want to cut grass also don’t want the hassle of cutting monthly checks.”

To ensure a decent profit margin in the highly competitive residential maintenance market, the owner also added a few efficiencies. The two maintenance crews are completely standardized with the same trucks, mowers, and two-cycle equipment. Even the toolbox is placed in the identical location in each truck, and crews know exactly what needs to be done at every stop.

All maintenance is scheduled for Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, leaving Thursday open as a makeup or special project day. Employees are cross-trained to work on both maintenance and installation crews.

Grayson South’s office manager plays a key role throughout, adds Neese. Since she has the first contact with a prospective customer, she weeds out projects or customers that don’t fit the company’s business model. She also handles receivable and payable accounts and works closely with vendors, among other responsibilities.

Two-way street

Neese says that a big part of his success is attributable to having a give-and-take attitude. He has high expectations of his employees. In return, they receive a relaxed work environment, flexible hours when work permits, and a three-day weekend when feasible. Employees, though, take a drug test, and Neese runs a motor vehicle check on them before they walk through the front door the first time. “I’m not unreasonable, just cautious,” he adds. “It doesn’t make any sense to hire and train individuals who could become a liability to your company.” The owner also gets his hands dirty in the field with crews when he can, and he learned Spanish to communicate effectively with his Hispanic employees and help train them.

Similarly, he gives customers exemplary service, but, in return, he expects them to understand that Mother Nature throws a few curve balls from time to time. He also expects them to be sympathetic to the busy-season regimen. “Instead of encouraging mulching during busy times in spring and fall, we try to schedule most of our mulching in January and February,” Neese relates. “That way, our crews don’t do double time when time is at a premium. This also keeps us in front of our customers year-round and keeps our employees working through the winter months.”

The owner expects his company’s next five-year plan to be less aggressive than the current one. As he emphasizes, success is not all about growth. It’s also about having profitable, controlled growth and encouraging all parties — customers, employees, and owners — to walk the same two-way street.