There are several ways to setup your business so that you don’t compete on price, but lets look at the one of the most important ways: differentiation. If you can differentiate yourself from your competitors, you don’t have to compete with them on price. See this article for a great video explaining differentiation.

Every company faces the conflict between sales and operations. Sales wants to sell with the lowest price possible so their tempted to trim hours on the estimates. Operations wants to complete jobs on time – they want as many hours in the estimate as they can. So how do you solve this conflict?

Happy Friday! It’s the beginning of a new month – and a great month at that! April promises (hopefully) warmer weather, longer, sunnier days and a more busy and productive season. What better way to get the month off to a great start than to review some of the best business advice featured on the blog? Here are some of the top posts of the month.

For the most part, folks in the green industry seem reluctant to make full use of social media, particularly twitter. Perhaps there’s a feeling that many of their customers are not online and, therefore, their marketing efforts on twitter would not be as beneficial as they might be for say small business owners who are selling an actual product. Fair enough. But our inclination is that most landscape business owners are reluctant to get on twitter simply due to a fear of the unknown. So, in this article, we’re going to look at twitter and see how it can help us with marketing our business and perhaps after you might finally bite the bullet and get online!

It’s fair to say that Easter time is also the real marking point for typical spring season festivities, in which BBQs, dinning alfresco, outdoor games and gatherings are a regular occurrence. So, with all the outdoor fun ahead, your customers will want their garden and landscape to be in tip-top shape. And, even if your customers aren’t taking part in the Easter hoopla, they’ll certainly want to take advantage of the long weekend to get outside for some much-needed yard work! Whether you’re tending to the landscape and garden this Easter season, or your customers are, here is a list of “must-do” jobs.

New to blogging? Or perhaps you’ve been blogging for some time and are looking to spruce up your blog and boost your readership? Whatever your motivation, you’ve probably heard the business advantages of blogging and are therefore ready to jump on the blogging bandwagon and take full advantage of the free ride. With that in mind, here are some tidbits that will help new (and not so new) bloggers with their ventures in blogging.

Estimating is like the classic game of chess. You need to price for profit, knowing when to strike, when to sacrifice, and when to hold back, all while your customer is playing the same game! Don’t get stuck chasing the same unrewarding and profitless jobs. Learn how to maximize your time spent on profitable work, leaving the less-profitable work to your competitors.