Marketing for a Growing Landscaping Company (When You’re Still Wearing All the Hats)
For those running small-to-mid size landscaping companies (especially maintenance-heavy businesses), how are you handling marketing as you grow? I’ve been managing ours in-house due to my convenient design background, but between operations and crew management it’s becoming unsustainable—especially when it comes to SEO and lead generation for higher-value projects (which I have less experience with) Are you outsourcing to a freelancer/agency, or hiring in-house? And at what point did that investment start to make sense for you? Do you have any recommendations for Canadian companies?Any tips for making YouTube videos that actually bring in customers?
If you're creating videos for your business (or thinking about it), what's one thing you've learned that makes a difference? In this Masters of Home Service episode, Jacob Palmer (Palmer Electrical) talks about how simple YouTube videos became one of his biggest lead generators. He shares practical advice on filming real jobs, building trust before the first phone call, and using video content to win more local customers without relying on paid ads. Never miss an episode of Masters of Home Service. Subscribe on YouTube, Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Is a Salesperson Different from the Person Who Makes The Quotes?
I had an interesting discussion with my mentor lately. Some background: I promoted a team member from carpenter to operations manager. I gave a base salary plus a percentage of gross profit above a certain mark. We didn't hit that mark so he basically just got his base salary for the quarter and was really disappointed, came in and just asked for a really high base instead. I was talking to my mentor about how our sales flow is structured and he mentioned I need to be thinking of the sales person as a lead generator, then the person who would be managing the execution as the person who needs to put the estimates together. That kind of blew my mind a little bit but the more he talked about it, the more it made sense. Keep in mind our projects are all custom essentially so there's different details for everyone, even if it's kind of the same thing. If I go and make the job walk, make the estimate then sell to the team, but then try to incentivize it based on a budget, it's not necessarily fair because the production staff had no part in making that budget. BUT if I'm able to create the "at bats", the foreman walks it with the client then assigns the amount of time and material it will take. Then there's less opportunity to miss details or something get lost in communication. I can give him a plaud unit to make sure to summarize everything. This would also solve the problem of clients treating me like the project manager even though I'm not supposed to be the project manager. I was the one that shook their hand and took their deposit so why wouldn't they send me the grout selections right? Anyway, if you read through all that - I'm curious what your opinion on this is.
How do I explain the value of my services without defending my prices?
What's one service that customers consistently underestimate the value of? For me, it's often the planning, preparation, and experience behind the work—not just the labor itself. How do you educate customers on the value you bring without feeling like you're defending your prices? I'd love to hear how others approach these conversations.Are You Selling Your Service… or Selling the Experience?
Customers have more choices than ever. Sometimes the difference isn’t just the service you provide, but how you make people feel from the first interaction to the final follow-up. What are some ways your business creates an experience that keeps customers coming back?At what point does a “good customer” stop being a good customer?
I think when you first start a business, a “good customer” is pretty easy to define. They book regularly. They pay their bill. They don’t cancel all the time. They’ve been with you for years. But as we’ve grown, I’ve realized there’s a lot more to it than that. What if they’re a great recurring client, but your team dreads going to their house? What if they pay on time, but constantly question the bill? What if they’ve been with you for years, but expect exceptions to every policy because they’re a “long-time customer”? Or maybe they’re profitable on paper, but the amount of time your office spends managing them makes you wonder how profitable they actually are. I used to look at keeping a client for a long time as automatically being a win. Now I think WHO you retain matters just as much as how many clients you retain. There’s also the part that makes this difficult: you build relationships with people. Walking away from recurring revenue isn’t always easy, especially when the customer hasn’t done one huge thing “wrong.” Sometimes it’s just 100 little things that add up over time. For me, I think the line gets crossed when keeping one customer starts negatively affecting our team, our operations, or our ability to properly serve the rest of our clients. So I’m curious… At what point does a “good customer” stop being a good customer for your business? Have you ever intentionally let go of a long-term or profitable client because the relationship just wasn’t worth it anymore?Should you pause ads when you’re short-staffed?
I don’t think the answer is always to shut everything off. But running ads like normal when your team is already stretched can create a mess fast. More leads don’t help much if response times slow down, quality slips, routes get overloaded, or the owner has to jump back into the field to save the schedule. When we’re tight on capacity, I’d rather adjust the ads than pretend nothing changed. That could mean lowering the budget, keeping branded search on, focusing only on dense route areas, pushing new jobs further out, or temporarily stopping low-margin one-time work. Marketing should match capacity. If the ads are bringing in work the team can’t serve well, the campaign might look good on paper while the customer experience gets worse. But the other side is maybe this is the perfect time to hire and be over capacity instead of scrambling. When you’re short-staffed, do you pause ads, reduce spend, or keep leads flowing?What’s something social media gets entirely wrong about entrepreneurship?
Online, everyone celebrates revenue milestones. Very few people talk about payroll, workers’ comp, taxes, recruiting, difficult conversations, or the emotional weight of leading a team. If you could erase one unrealistic expectation social media creates about running a business, what would it be?
