The enterprise value specialists at Ceibass work with lawn and landscape company owners to increase the value of their businesses, make the ventures attractive to buyers, and then, ultimately, help the owners sell or transition their businesses.
“One of the key differences we notice between highly valued and commonly valued lawn and landscape companies is the company’s approach towards obligations,” said Tom Fochtman, Ceibass CEO. “One company might approach obligations with a negative attitude, with reluctance. They may be late to best recruitment practices, software updates, regular equipment maintenance and replacement so they fall behind the competition. While top valued companies accept reality, respect reality, and what is going on in the marketplace, and they take on obligations with eagerness to produce competitive advantage with their efforts.
Obligations are a fact of doing business. Top companies take on the duties that change brings about to avoid causing breakdowns AND to give themselves an advantage over the slower moving companies without the knowledge or resources to take on the obligations effectively.”
What new obligations might be on the horizon? The team at Ceibass went on to speculate about some possibilities:
- Change your velocity – things are changing much, much faster than you think. Embrace change. Anticipate it as best you can. Move! There is margin to those that move FIRST, FAST and PERSIST.
- Reduce or get out of debt. Interest is too high today to carry much debt.
- Electric is here. Commit to changing as much of your fleet and equipment to electric. Great for your branding and the environment.
- Are you as green as you could be? Could you be a leader here?
- Robotics is real. Automation is here. Where can you take advantage?
- Politics is always changing. There are very favorable winds for solar, wind, and other green solutions. Can you imagine new offers for your company here?
- AI is making significant inroads into consumer behaviors. Get on these insights before your competitors.
- There are new and more engaging ways to delight your customers. Seek to enhance your customer experiences with virtual reality or augmented reality. Explore the possibilities.
- Climate change is affecting water availability. Many areas are drier and facing water restrictions. Other areas are much wetter. Are you helping customers deal with these situations with new products, new services, new thinking? Painting lawns, yet?
- Weather is more severe. Can you offer services to deal with severe weather?
- Safety, crime, lighting, security, video, motion detection are huge concerns. What can a landscaping company do to help customers take care of these concerns?
- Online learning is a way to engage employees and provide a career path enhancing employee retention and participation. Is your HR department you up to speed here? The competition for top notch employees is only going to heat up. The team with the best players wins.
- Are you addressing equity, diversity, and inclusion in the workplace? Do so effectively to make yourself more attractive to potential employees.