Topics: Technology

Top Technology Trends:  2018 Innovations for Lawn & Landscaping Businesses

Picture of Chad Diller Author: Chad Diller

This article originally appeared in the November 2017 edition of Turf Magazine, where Chad writes a monthly column about sales and marketing insights for lawn care and landscape companies.

Technology for lawn care and landscaping companiesBlueprints, mechanical time clocks, 2-way radios, and messy stacks of paper reports—these are just some of the exhibits one may find if the Green Industry History Museum if we constructed one. While it’s fun to reflect in jest, those items aren’t in a very distant past. The technological landscape has changed rapidly over the past couple decades. And the alarming rate of technologies being swapped for newer counterparts seems to increase as time presses on.

To run a successful company in the lawn and landscape industry requires being able to change over and over again. Legislation, technological advances, consumer behaviors, and culture itself is shifting, progressing, and refining every day. We must not only be okay with change, we must be excited about it. Our businesses depend on it.

These shifts and developments are often met with new technological solutions to meet the demands. What’s worked just a year or two ago may be becoming obsolete and it’s important to keep tabs on what leaders in our industry are finding to be the top technology trends to follow.

 

New Trends

While individual technological advances may lead to an exhaustive list, industry experts and savvy company owners are seeing these main trends being adopted and used widely.

Virtual & Interactive Landscape Design Software

The overwhelming majority of landscape companies utilize some sort of drafting program to create scale landscape plans via a computer. While the blueprints of just 10-15 years ago have been traded in for newer technology producing full-color renderings and 3-D sketches, that common method is now becoming a passing trend.

Augmented reality landscape design software from Structure StudiosNoah Nehlich, Founder of Structure Studios, a professional pool and landscape design software solution, is excited about not what just the past two years have brought to the design world, but enthusiastically embracing the very near future. His clients are not only using 3-D video for presentations, they’re moving to virtual reality (VR).

“Not only can the designer sell more with VR, customers are demanding it.”  With VR sets becoming mainstream for recreational purposes, pioneers in the landscape industry are getting their prospects to strap on a headset and take a peek at their new outdoor space.

But Nehlich says an even more exciting future is not as far away as we may think. Virtual reality has now led to rapid development to augmented reality (AR) for landscape design. “In the next 9-12 months, expect to see AR.” Using augmented reality takes elements from the real world and puts it directly into a phone or tablet. Looking through a device, a prospect will be able to turn and move about outdoors, virtually seeing a design it in their own space as it existed in real life. “Today they are just novelty items, but by end of next year (2018) they will be incredibly useful.”

Automated Marketing & Sales Software

“I feel that we are ahead of our time compared to most of our competitors,” states Claude Kershner IV, President of Reef Tropical Pool & Landscape in Key Largo, FL. The company offers not only a cutting-edge portfolio of high-end design projects but uses the latest technology to automate much of their sales and marketing processes.

http://www.turf-digital.com/November2017#&pageSet=16&contentItem=0“Customers want information now. They don’t want to wait or meet, they want descriptions, pictures, graphics, and have user-friendly proposals to sign and send it back.” The increasing speed of buyer behaviors has led Reef Tropical to utilize an inbound marketing approach that uses their website to deliver a robust array of useful content to prospects and integrates with their CRM to continue to nurture lukewarm leads into closed deals. Kershner says that it allows his sales team to “step back and have opportunities to come to when the prospect is ready.”

Smart marketing and sales automation tools such as these help green industry companies prioritize their efforts and close a greater percentage of jobs.

 

(RELATED READING:  10 Cool Things HubSpot's Sales Software Can Do for Your Landscape Sales Team)

Interconnected Landscape Business Software

Green industry companies who can remain competitive in their market, maximize the most profit, and minimize the most internal headaches are relying on software to help them run the many processes of their business from sales, operations, billing, and financial reporting.

Landscape business softwareCrew leaders and technicians who use devices to video call their team and access vital information in their company’s database aren’t elements of a hopeful future. They’re part of the present reality. Buddy DeLong, VP of Bluegrass Landscaping & Maintenance in Bridgeton, MO is continually finding new ways for technology to improve his business.

From mobile technology that instantly imports data into a united landscape business software program, DeLong keeps tabs on what is valuable to their business. “At the end of the year, you’re able to see how many hours were spent on each job, which ones weren’t estimated high enough, and which ones made us money.”

“We used to never know how much we used in materials and now finally we have exact figures on how much we used. Now thanks to technology, we saved a ton of money because we audit estimates and red flag certain quantity issues. Those kinds of errors mean a lot of time and money. The bigger you get, the more things you need to keep track of this stuff. Everyone sees the data coming out off the software.”

Using technology tools such as an integrated business software solution allows company owners like Buddy to make educated decisions versus relying on gut instincts.

 

(RELATED READING:  7 Expert Tips to Successfully Implement New Landscape Business Software)

 

Researching and Adopting New Technology

In the admirable pursuit of improving your company, it’s important not to hang your profit-generating hats on any one piece of technology. “We find people are buying software in hopes it will solve their process problems. It won’t fix it, they need to fix their processes first.”, warns Ken Thomas from Envisor Consulting. Over the past 30 years in the green industry, Ken has ran and helped grow successful landscaping companies.

Landscaping business processesThomas always puts process improvement before technology adoption, but he suggests green industry companies need to keep advancing. “In 10 years we are going to be in a different world. Our industry needs to evolve because it will limit the size of their business if they don’t adopt technology.”

Our industry as a whole is categorized by outsiders as late adopters to many technological trends. However, times are changing. Nanette Seven, VP of Include Software, which offers a landscape business software solution, is hopeful because of what she’s seen in the past couple years.

“With the millennials entering the workforce, the next generation is very open to new technology.” Seven also adds that technology is even being easily adopted by Spanish-speaking H2B workers at a surprising success.  

With so many new technological options, it’s important to research solutions extensively as you incorporate tools into your improved processes. “Do your homework and research” Seven adds. “Go online and research software and other technology. Talk to industry peers, people you respect. Ask them what challenges they faced, and what has worked for them.”

When it comes to moving your company onward and upward, facing forward to the future is the key. Use your past experiences, but utilize new technology to move you past the age of blueprints and 2-way radios. It takes some guts, but with the right resources, you can make more money, provide better service, and stand out among your competitors. As Seven says, “You have some risk involved in adding technology to your company, but you have to be a forward thinker and to take a chance to propel your business.”

 

For more innovative tips, subscribe to our blog for regular insights just like these. If you'd like to learn more about cutting-edge technology that you can use to support the sales and marketing processes at your company, we'd love to talk. Feel free to schedule a meeting to learn more about how you can track what really matters and maximize your efforts to grow your lawn care or landscaping businesses.

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Images courtesy of Structure Studios and Include Software

Picture of Chad Diller

About Chad Diller

Chad is the President of Landscape Leadership. Prior to joining our team he served as a marketing manager for one of the Top 150 Companies in the Green Industry. In addition to his vast marketing experience, he also has held certifications such as an ISA Certified Arborist and Landscape Industry Certified Technician. He currently resides in beautiful Lancaster County, PA.

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