Note: In the 7
short years since this article, P.I.E. has expanded to service more than
10,000 customers from Florida to North Carolina, and is recognized as
one of the top 100 Lawn Care companies in the U.S. with more than $6
Million in annual revenue.
Punchy logos and
eye-catching equipment touch only the surface of Brett Melanson’s plan
to turn his third business into a charm.
Plant It Earth article from John Deere Landscapes Lesco News Vol.43 No.1
Red lights don’t stall Brett Melanson – he never comes to a complete
stop. These 45-second pauses are prime time for business: Plant It
Earth’s service trucks double as marketing vehicles. Eye-catching logos
dance off the doors, painted turf designs grow from truck bodies and
American flags fly from antennas.
The loudly-decorated transportation meshes with his Orlando market, and
Melanson generally entertains a captive audience, wins a few nods of
approval and pulls away with a potential customer.
“ With all of Orlando’s theme parks and all of the glamour and fun, I’ve
heard so many customers say, ‘You fit into this city – you look like a
festive company,’” remarks Melanson, president of the year-old lawn care
business.
“ You can see us a mile away,” he adds, noting his favorite truck
design: an army fatigue paint job with patriotic stars-and-stripes
detail work. “Our trucks are inviting – people gaze at them.”
Drivers react with calls for Melanson’s service, evident from Plant It
Earth’s start-up success – $600,000 in revenue in 11 months. With 900
residential, 60 commercial customers, and plans to purchase four more
trucks this year, Melanson and his crews are cruising through a
profitable season. The company generates $30,000 to $40,000 per month in
sales and secures an average 28-percent profit margin on its services,
he says.
The fuel that powers Melanson’s young business: product placement,
quality control and good, old-fashioned teamwork.
Selling
out, starting up
Melanson entertains questions from peers who wonder how he sprinted from
spray technician to CEO before his thirtieth birthday. “I learned at an
early age how not to do business,” he says simply.
Melanson’s green industry career is punctuated with a series of lawn
care gigs – start-ups and buyouts – including sales positions at All
Green and then TruGreen – ChemLawn, when it acquired a number of
Florida’s independent leading operations. He worked for smaller
companies, one-man shows with small-time sales, and in 1998, he launched
his own business, ProTurf Lawn Care. “It started with a truck, and a
spray rig and a 200-gallon spray tank from LESCO,” Melanson describes.
The business lasted two and a half years before he sold it to TruGreen.
Melanson assumed a managerial position at the branch before the business
bug bit him again.
He recruited his brother, and b-green Lawn Care was born. Revenues
climbed to $2.9 million in two years. Scotts LawnService, too, was
impressed by Melanson’s second stab at entrepreneurship. They purchased
the business and Melanson opened up a Florida map. “I circled an area
and said, ‘That’s where I want to start my business,” he says. “It’s one
of the fastest growing cities in the nation, one of the top three
growing cities in Florida – I knew that’s where I needed to go.
Orlando shined with potential for a budding lawn care company, Melanson
figured. He moved 84 miles northeast and staked Plant It Earth “coming
soon” signs on busy intersections in the lucrative, expanding market.
“Third time’s a charm,” he chimes.
“ All of these experiences have pretty much built a machine out of me,”
Melanson adds. “I know what it takes to be successful in this business.”
Prescribing results
Success starts with first impressions. Melanson says product placement
ultimately wins clients’ attention, so Plant It Earth’s lawn care
program prescribes heavy turf medicine for fast results. “You have to
spend money in the beginning to show customers what you’re made of,”
Melanson says.
“
They key is timing the applications,” adds Bill Rose, general manager.
“When we start servicing a property, we apply a lot of product. We about
break even on the lawn a lot of time, but proper product placement is
important.”
A hard product hit the first few applications spikes properties with
green and new growth, pleasing customers and drawing neighbors’
attention, Rose points out. “Not only is proper product placement good
for overall turf health, it opens people’s eyes so they can see what we
are doing,” he says.
Rose attributes this show-me factor to Plant It Earth’s growth spurt.
Customers who subscribe to the company’s services saw results
immediately. “When we service a lawn for the first time, two weeks
later, that lawn is growing like crazy, it’s wickedly green and it just
looks beautiful,” he describes.
Melanson adds that spreading a higher concentration of product at first
isn’t a bargain for the business, but once properties are healthy,
maintenance costs less. “What makes you successful financially is not
getting customers, but keeping them,” he points out. “Once clients’
properties are healthy, we can maintain the turf more easily and we can
decrease the pounds of product per square foot because the soil has a
more balanced pH.”
Applications depend on turf needs, and Melanson says his spray truck
set-up compartmentalizes products so technicians can select appropriate
proportions for each property. “There are seven different varieties of
St. Augstinegrass,” Melanson points out. “Each needs a different balance
of nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium. We pull up to a resident’s home,
determine the turf variety and then balance the nitrogen for that lawn.”
Tanks with insecticide and tree and shrub treatments provide a
full-range product portfolio for technicians to deliver quality service,
Melanson notes. Additionally, he provides crews with self-propelled
hydroseeders, considering creature comfort. “I spend the extra money to
ensure my technicians have the best equipment,” he says, adding that
these capital investments come with strings attached. “I give a lot
because I expect a lot.”
But Melanson doesn’t set unattainable service goals for employees. He
avoids commission-base pay, commenting that this incentive motivates
technicians’ speed, not their performance. “Some companies say, ‘I will
give you a minimal base pay, and after you produce $800 for us today,
anything over that figure, I will give you 10 percent,’” he explains.
“If technicians do $2,000, they make an extra $200. That motivates those
guys to get to the property, get out of the property and go to the next
customer so they can build their revenue.”
Essentially, this pay plan produces shoddy results, he remarks. That’s
why Melanson assigns two crew members per truck – one trainee and one
experienced worker – and he doesn’t pressure technicians to turn out the
numbers and sacrifice quality. “It’s raising the bar,” he says simply.
Caught
on tape
Consistency seals repeat business, and Melanson tunes into technicians’
performance – literally. Trucks equipped with recording devices capture
every move. Melanson feeds each vehicle with a VHS tape in the morning,
and informs customers that their properties are on candid camera.
“ When we pull up to a customer’s house, the tape captures the majority
of the front yard and side yard on camera,” he says, quickly adding that
he doesn’t tape because he doubts employees’ skills, but rather to
control quality because the company is growing so quickly. “It’s not a
trust factor, but when you start growing, it sets a tone so customers
realize our company is well managed.”
The tapes serve as training tools, as well. “It’s innovative,” Melanson
says proudly. “I can flip though a video tape and evaluate performance.
One technician was wearing tennis shoes rather than boots, and I caught
it on tape. It’s like Reagan said, ‘Trust but verify.’ Part of managing
is following up and seeing that technicians do the job you pay them to
do, and if they do, we reward them for that.”
Melanson doesn’t devote an unreasonable amount of time to viewing tape,
but he spends a couple of hours each week skimming recordings, which he
chooses randomly. These backup tapes create a service log; Plant It
Earth references material if customers complain. Melanson archives tapes
for one year.
“ If a customer says, ‘You didn’t treat my yard, I’m not paying for
it,’” he recalls. “I can say, ‘Well, Mrs. Jones, we videotape our
performance and we can give you a copy of that tape.’ Then, she will see
two technicians on her property – and what can she say about that?”
Melanson says this scenario is not make-believe. He has referenced tapes
and pressed play for clients. Now, he tells customers about the tapes
during the sale, and they are impressed with Plant It Earth’s checks and
balances, he says.
Leading
sales
Rose is Melanson’s right-hand man, and the general manager says he
admires Melanson’s industry resume. Though Rose is the license carrier
of the clan, Melanson’s in-field know-how balances management’s
strengths, he points out.
“ While I was working at LESCO in Kissimmee, Brett came down here to
open a branch because of the b-green Lawn Care buy-out,” he says,
recalling when he first met Melanson. The young owner was a regular
LESCO customer, and he offered Rose an opportunity to join him on a
route. “I went out while they did what they do,” he describes. “By the
end of the day, I went back to Brett and said, ‘It just can’t be done
any better.’ Proper product placement is how we do things and make sure
the customer is happy.”
Rose is a self-described sponge. He always wanted his own lawn care
business, but had never managed people, worked in the field or sold
services to customers. His expertise stems from training at LESCO, where
he learned to diagnose disease, identify turf pests, recommend product
solutions and advise customers on proper cultural practices. Rose is a
label guy.
“ I learned from Brett that there are two different ways to do business:
the technical way and the technician’s way,” Rose notes. “Customers want
to feel like you are on the same level as them. They want to hear that
you will fix the problem, and that is what I try to incorporate into my
sales approach.”
Plant It Earth targets high-end residential customers, selling them curb
appeal insurance, Melanson relates. “We keep their lawns beautiful and
protect their properties from damage and loss,” he explains. “Fifteen to
20 percent of the cost of your home is landscape, and we protect that.
We are the cheapest bill in the house, yet we are a homeowner’s main
investment – that is my favorite line to tell a customer. We are cheaper
than most people’s cable bills, at $50 per month.”
Still, Melanson doesn’t target customers who won’t invest in exterior
upkeep. When Plant It Earth scouts out prospects, technicians look for
neighborhoods with homes priced at $200,000-plus. “We pick streets based
on appearance,” he says.
Accordingly, Plant It Earth technicians are dressed to impress. They
wear logo shirts and appropriate safety gear, such as boots; they leave
their mark by fixing tidy,
Plant It Earth flags on property perimeters, required by law.
Presentation wins repeat customers and new accounts, Melanson notes.
“Also, we do something that 90 percent of other companies don’t do,” he
adds. “We spray wasp nests, we take empty trash cans at the curb to the
garage, we move toys in the back yard and we blow off sidewalks.”
Brett is persistent. His theory: “Buy now or buy later,” he asserts.
“Eventually, people will end up buying from us. We will get your
neighbor and his yard will look better. After time, you will hear the
neighbors and see our trucks, and we will weigh on you. And then we will
contact you and do the little things that are important.”
Melanson says he never sells, per se. Rather than Yellow Pages or print
advertising, Plant It Earth drives business by delivering hand-written
estimates on potential customers’ doors. The company also drafts new
accounts from landscape maintenance companies that don’t offer treatment
services.
“ Other than fliers on doors, we’ve never gone out of our way to sell,”
Melanson remarks. Still, Plant It Earth generates $30,000 to $40,000 in
sales per month, and Melanson only accepts customers who sign full year
contracts. “There is no way we can maintain properties for $50 per month
for only three months,” he explains. If clients aren’t willing to commit
to year-round results, he doesn’t want to plant Plant It Earth flags in
front of their homes.
After all, Melanson says his best salespeople are customers. “Those are
960 advocates for my company,” he relates. “Those are my salespeople.”
Word of mouth is spreading – people talk, potential customers sign on
for services, and Melanson sees more trucks in his future. A five-year
contract on a 600-home account in Daytona Beach will spark a satellite
office. “At the end of next year, I’d like to be at $2 million in
revenues,” he says, commenting that this lofty goal is part of a
multi-branch plan.
Spirit fuels his growth strategy. Melanson wants to stop traffic
state-wide, and this time, he’s not settling. “This is the third time
and I have it right,” Melanson confirms, pausing. “I have nothing
stopping me.”
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