[Dale Wiley]

Hmmm... I thought that we had taught them better....pretty good idea as to who they are and neither one of them needed to do something like that....modifications to the system maybe, but not wholesale changes....maybe its that asociated business that changed them..

The markets are more price sensitive than ever and when you start dropping prices or trying to "get smaller" that's a kiss of death in most cases.

I got to go too... I was going to drink a beer, but a Kawasaki motor grenaded this afternoon, and I need to take it off so we can put a new KOHLER on it tomorrow.

[johnkeegan]

Stable but not rabid demand. Which is fine. 80-90% of new install work is old customers or referrals. Can't imagine trying to start a business in this climate. You'd really have be walking a thin profit line to get work with no referral base.
Nice thing about slower growth is that I don't feel pressed to buy new trucks, equipment etc. So everything's paid for....Also, no need to have to scrounge around for more employees.

[Mac]

I echo John in that Im very thankful im established and have a very stable business. I know a number of new startups from this spring and they told me they are struggling... one told me how large his service area is and Im fairly certain my jaw dropped. Personally, I cant figure out why someone would want to get into this business.

[Cochran]

We had tons of rain from July 1st-July 20th and now we're saturated.....with work that is! While we were essentially rained out, we had 12 sign-ons between landscape and irrigation that we are literally swamped :-) No pun intended.....

We are booked out through October, which is the farthest out we've ever been booked with two residential proposals out and one commercial out that are in the works. The jobs range in price from 4K-30K.

My husband (the irrigator) has me (the landscaper) referred to an apartment complex he's irrigating and I haven't even called yet because of work load?!? HUH, not like me to do that, but with all going on I forgot!!! Or really in all actuality, I know the guy will want me there "next week" and not be too happy with my answer, although he handles my husbands "nope not next week" rather well. Cultural differences probably don't have him seeing that with a woman, though.....

Our house building is slowing down a bit, a few other landscapers and irrigators have been complaining to one of our supply houses, but so far (cross my fingers) we haven't seen it. I just got a call from a real estate agent today with several new and being constructed houses on the market for permission to send our name as referrals.

That's the thing I'm counting on in the slow down of building times :-) Guess all that Yellow Pages advertising we DON'T do is working out :-)

I'm just crossing my fingers we don't get the wrath of a hurricane this year, since the Coastal Bend of Texas is waaaaayyyy long overdue!

[LandArts]

We're up 50% over last year due to some lucky breaks we caught. Seems like the under 15k market has died due to suburban moms choosing to spend on other things.

[Alberto]

Yes, we're very slow right now because of the severe drought and time of year. But I knew this would happen. Earlier this year we had four landscape crews running full time. Even our irrigation/fencing crew was doing installs earlier in the Spring, so I knew work would slow down. I'm not in the financial part of the company, but it's GOT to have been a good year SO FAR!

[Malrex]

Feast or Famine...

That's what I was told. I just started my business this year..just a one man army. Things were great in June, I actually had to decline 2 jobs because I was so busy and they were in a rush. But with this drought, bleh...I had 2 jobs in July, both were 1 day projects, and nothing in August so far. I just got a call the other day though in response to my advertising in the paper...checking out a potential pond project tomorrow, so wish me luck! Also got another 1.5 day landscape project in a few weeks. Things seem to be picking up...hopefully.

I kinda went into this knowing my first few years would be rough. My wife and I just had a log home built so during this off time I've been staining and keeping busy (I'm really sick of staining--takes forever for a log home, but looks great).

Other companies around here I've been told are trying to keep busy, but everyone has been pretty slow. I'm just tightening my belt and gritting my teeth...gonna stick with it.

[peteg]

It is starting to pick up again right now. Got some sod work. And the phone is ringing a little more. I also sent out flyers and put an ad in another local paper. For the the past 10yrs I have ran one ad in a local paper and have received enough work to keep busy every year. Now I am branching out to other areas that connect.
I still am trying to get snow removal contracts for this winter by going out and letting people know Im here with good equipment and based right in the neighborhood. So I have to keep the faith
things are going to keep on rolling along.

[Dale Wiley]

Pacific Northwest is real slow. I laid one guy off yesterday and cut every one else back to 32 hours.

We could do better in landscape, if we just paid under the table and skipped on insurances, we could get a lot of work then, that's who's getting all the work.

The business model for landscape construction business up here is to cheat on as much as you can and charge as little as you can. Cover cash flow and call it good.

My exit plan is coming together and we will start to implement it on September 1.

We have had a bad run of non support and screw ups from vendors and suppliers also in the last 2 weeks. We are going to have to find new vendors for sed and chemicals, web site service nd development, IT services, and insurance.

Not a good thing...very time consuming.

[peteg]

The uninsured flies by nights don’t seem to last long around here.
I am seeing more illegal’s starting up a business with no insurance and pay no taxes. And looks like there’s going to be a lot more.
It doesn’t seem fair that they can take business away from me.
But who cares?

[johnkeegan]

Dale, You said "exit plan," what is it that you're exiting?

[Dale Wiley]

We are exiting the landscape market, both commercial and residential. We have been moving towards sports turf for the last 2 years , and the market economy has just made us that more anxious to get the hell out of landscape construction and maintenance. Work is going under our cost, and there are sooo many people in the business, and we just can not compete is our service area. The yellow pages add will be cancelled, all print advertising in newspapers will be cancelled, and that money put into sports field marketing.

We will keep a block of maintenance accounts we have, and all our public, schools and muni work. Those we make money on and have no issue with. It is trying to fill up the other hours in a market that is dominated by low cost scum balls, and the bottom feeding homeowners and GC's that love to get "great " deals on landscape work . And they both could care less if you have workmens comp, or you pay a living wage to your employees, and you (shocker) pay for their health insurance. Landscape work is a commodity, not matter how you slice it, and it will be for a long time.

In sports turf our market is a 2 state area with 2 other primary sports / athletic company's, and we are partnered with a gold course builder on several projects. Beats trying to fight it out with over 300 (literally..) landscape companies in a 15 mile radius . We saw this coming and put no money as far as capital in the landscape business in the last year.

We have one more landscape project to finish up, and then its on to several sports fields projects.

4 zone sprinkler systems are going for under $ 3,000, and some labor rates are $ 10 per hour under my cost and my cost is about $ 36.89 per man hour.

I can hardly wait....

[Terre]

Mine has slowed down. I'm hearing "Isn't it too late to plant?" a lot. The real pisser is that I have had three calls this week, for new complete landscaping big projects. 2 to 5 acres, retaining walls, stamped concrete, etc. I'm without work other than maintenance, and having to turn down jobs cause I'm not big enough to handle them. :-(

[Forge]

I just got lucky and picked up an overhaul of a self-storage place that is trying to give itself a facelift to compete with the new, shiny self-storage place 2 blocks down the road. The project should take me well into December assuming some monstrous weather delays in November.