In today’s economic climate it is important to consider every opportunity to to increase revenue. One way is to consider becoming a full services landscape contracting firm. Consider adding maintenance services or adding irrigation services to the list of services you provide to to your customer. It gives you a competitive edge when you are able to meet your clients every need. In today’s market the more diversified the more opportunities you have to get the sale.

As a former Design/Build contractor, we found that maintenance services were not our most enjoyable services to sell, but we recognized that the service was necessary for our clients and started offering the service to them. We also found that after an installation was complete most customers did not want to deal with maintenance themselves and wanted us to deal the issue for them. Who better to handle the maintenance than the installation company who knew more about the landscape than anyone else? It was not easy moving from install to maintenance, the hand off was always full of finger pointing, but in the end those were internal issues and the client never knew that it was happening.

The idea of a full services contractor can also be handled by subcontracting some services out to others. However, if you can manage the services for the customer it keeps you in the game. Making you and your company indispensable is most important when it comes to taking care of the client. Being full services does not require that you internally provide all the services, but that you are managing the landscape for the customer, providing the best value, quality and service to each of your customers.

Think about what it might mean for your company to become a full service landscape contractor.