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Before beginning your search for commercial landscaping service providers, you need to make sure that your budget and your request for proposal (RFP) are current, clearly laid out and in good order. Assuming you’ve been through this process before (either in your current role or in a previous position), you need to have a firm grasp on the price range that you can afford for landscaping services. Your budget isn’t necessarily aimed at the lowest price you’ll be given, but it should always factor in the development of your RFP.
Chances are, you probably already have a good sense of what services that your locations need, and whether certain locations might require more attention than others. One misconception that we sometimes run into with national landscaping service costs for a multi-location business is that the cost will be the same from site to site.
In reality, there are some factors that can cause costs to vary significantly, including:
It’s helpful to keep all of this in mind as you develop your RFP to send to commercial landscaping companies as an invitation to bid on the work. Your RFP should let these companies know your specs (what you’re looking for, a timeline, and site requirements).
A strong RFP should ultimately mean that all bids you receive back are within 10 to 15 percent of one another.
However, the different types of bids that you receive could be red flags that something is awry.
If all of the bids are returned with drastically different pricing and widely varied suggested scopes of work, that’s a clear indication that the responding commercial landscaping companies didn’t really understand your RFP document. This could lead to even more work for you, redrafting your RFP with clearer expectations. Generally speaking, if you’ve put out a strong RFP, you shouldn’t see wild variations in pricing. An exception may also be if you’ve inadvertently invited unqualified bidders, who don’t have adequate experience estimating large portfolios of properties.
As you read through all of the bid responses, make sure that these commercial landscaping companies are responding to your requests and providing a description of how they will handle those requests. Of course, you’ll also look at the pricing and determine whether it fits into your planned budget (Helpful Tip: the more information you provide about your budget and pricing expectations beforehand will make this less of a sticking point later), whether it’s in line with the services being offered, and how it compares to the other proposals.
While cost is obviously a key point of comparison, savvy buyers know to be careful about shopping on price alone. In landscaping, as with most things in life, you tend to get what you pay for. When you shop on price alone and simply choose the lowest bid, you risk a subpar experience with results that don’t live up to your expectations.
Oftentimes, a better-qualified company does mean paying a little bit more, but for the value received, most clients will feel it’s worth it in the end.
Once you’ve eliminated unqualified bids from consideration and you’ve narrowed your options, it’s time to dig into the qualifications of the remaining companies. This is where you can really begin to separate your top choice and make sure they’re the best fit.
Start by thoroughly looking through each company’s website and published materials.
This is a great way to learn more about their history, their team, and their services. The company’s website should also give you some invaluable insight into what type of communicator they are, and how seriously they take their business.
A company’s willingness to share free and helpful information before you’re even a client says a lot about how helpful and communicative they will be once you are a client. Taking the time to look through their websites will help prepare you to set up a meeting to review your RFP with them, which should be your next step.
Prior to scheduling that meeting, create some questions that you’d like to ask about the company and its employees. While you might be able to answer some of these on the company’s website, it never hurts to also hear directly from them.
Some questions that we suggest include the following.
Along with that last question, you might think of other specific questions related to your business, including any areas of concern. It’s always helpful to make a list ahead of time so that you’re prepared to talk about everything you want to cover.
By completing the interview process with a select number of the commercial landscaping companies that you’re seriously considering, you should now have a lot of great information in front of you.
This will allow you to begin comparing companies side-by-side.
While there is an inclination for some to think that “landscaping maintenance companies are all the same,” if you’ve had a bad experience in the past, you know this isn’t the case at all.
Everything from the level of customer service and communication to the very work that’s performed can differ. This is why it’s so important that you choose wisely, now. The time you spend now digging into how these companies differ is one of the best ways to set yourself up for success.
As you look at companies side-by-side, here are some points to consider.
It’s important to remember that not all commercial landscaping companies are created equally. There are significant variations in terms of the specialty services that each can offer. Even services that are out of contract, or only to be performed on an as needed basis, should be a part of your consideration process.
For instance, maybe you are really only looking for lawn maintenance work right now. But could there be a point where you want seasonal enhancements, too? What about tree work, or irrigation projects?
It’s important to think about the landscaping company in terms of its ability to meet your needs now and the needs you expect to have in the future. The last thing that you want is to end up right back at square one and starting over with the hiring process because you didn’t choose a company that could grow with your needs.
One of the first and most obvious questions to ask yourself - “Is this commercial landscaping company is truly large enough to handle my business?”. Whether you’re a bank with multiple branches, part of a regional healthcare system, a big box store, or another type of business operating multiple locations, you know that it’s easier to work with one national company than several different local companies.
In fact, you might be in the process of making that switch right now. With many different smaller companies, each handling parts of all your different locations, you have likely found the inconsistency in service and communication to be too much to continue to put up with.
But if you’re choosing a national company, you still want to be sure they’re actually large enough to handle your needs, too. The truth is, even with a national company, some are more robust than others.
We find many clients frustrated because they simply assumed that a “national” company would handle everything in-house, using all their own employees to service your locations. So, we always encourage clients to ask this question about subcontractors. You’d be surprised (or maybe you wouldn’t if you’ve already tried to work with one of our competitors) how many “national” companies subcontract out the majority of your work to smaller, local providers.
That means that even though you’ve intentionally chosen a larger company (over a bunch of smaller ones), that you could still end up with many different local landscapers performing the work.
The problem with this is the consistency of the service and the quality. It can be very difficult to manage the quality of subcontractors’ work as they’re likely all trained in different ways and don’t have standard operating procedures.
We realized this ourselves long ago and changed our procedures. Now we only work with clients where we can self-perform the work for a majority of their sites with our own employees. Our goal is to never sub out more than 20% of the sites for any client.
There’s no question that insurance is a big deal with landscaping services for national accounts. It’s not enough to just know that the company carries insurance, you also want to make sure it’s enough insurance.
Don’t just take their word for it, either. Ask that they provide insurance documentation. Your commercial landscape company should be able to provide you with proof of adequate coverage for liability, worker’s compensation, automobile, and umbrella policies.
It’s also so important that you find a landscaping company that takes safety seriously. This is dangerous work, and not all commercial landscape contractors are equally safety conscious. And this can be very problematic for you as a buyer of landscape services.
The best way to find out how seriously a company takes safety is to ask to see their safety policies and examples of their training program. Then you can compare these facts side-by-side and make sure that the company you’re selecting keeps safety at the forefront of their operations.
Finally, it’s important to keep in mind that the account manager assigned to you and your sites should be your “eyes and ears” on each of your properties when you aren’t there. It’s so important that you choose a company that takes the relationship between clients and the account manager incredibly seriously.
It comes down to communication.
The questions that we’ve suggested in the linked article above will help you to get a good sense of what the communication process will be like between you and your account manager.
Ultimately, you deserve a single point of contact who is handling everything for you. If you’ve previously worked with multiple landscaping companies then you know how overwhelming it can be to manage a lot of different meetings with different people each month. When it comes to simplifying your life and taking some of the burdens off your shoulders, that single point of contact will be key.
You’ve put in all the hard work and you’ve done your due diligence. You’ve gone through the bids, interviewed prospective landscaping companies, compared them side-by-side, and ultimately made your choice.
Now, it’s time to sign the contract.
Contracts are important to protect both you and the landscaping company. This means it’s important that you invest the time in reading it completely and asking any questions.
We advise including a clause in the contract that outlines the process for resolving problems between you and your landscape company in writing, in the event that either party feels there are any failures or problems. This will help ensure that work is completed as stated and that agreements are mutually beneficial, and are being fulfilled on both ends.
You’ve signed the contract and now it’s time to start building upon that relationship with your account manager. Your account manager should be keeping an open line of communication, making sure that everything is going smoothly and exactly as planned.
We understand that poor communication and an overall lack of reliability can be one of the biggest complaints about working with a landscaper—and might have been one of your problems in the past. But by making your wise choice, you can feel confident that this is going to be a much more positive experience. Instead of feeling like you’re being pulled in a million different directions, you’ll have a dedicated account manager who is acting as your trusted eyes and ears. This will allow you to free up time and focus on other aspects of your job that need your attention and energy.
We sincerely hope that this National Accounts Hiring Guide has helped to give you some ideas to consider as you make this big decision.
Our team at Yellowstone Landscape would love the chance to help you create beautiful, safe, and functional spaces for your national account. By working together, we can become partners and start on a path to success.
Yellowstone Landscape is a full-service commercial landscape company operating across the United States that offers a full range of services - landscape maintenance, landscape installation, landscape enhancements, commercial tree care, irrigation & water management, and snow & ice management.
Call us at 877.785.6685 or fill out the form on this page to get started.
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