There you are again, staring down a pile of landscape company contract proposals.
After a while, they all look alike, right?
Look closer. You’ll see some real differences.
Michael Mayberry, chief technical officer at Level Green Landscaping, has worked in the landscape industry for years, in a variety of roles.
He’s seen his share of contract proposals.
Here’s his look at the main players.
The Lowball Proposal
“Some companies will come in at the absolute lowest price, just to buy your business,” Mayberry says.
“Chances are, they won’t be able to deliver because they priced themselves right out of your job,” he says. “So you won’t end up getting what you paid for.”
You probably know this drill: Four proposals come in right around $50,000.
Then there’s that one proposal for $30,000.
Hmmmmm.
Naturally, this company will need to cut some corners in order to actually come in at that price.
“The biggest thing you see these companies do is not provide the number of mowings in your contract,” Mayberry says.
“Your contract may say 24 mows, but they’ll push the days between mowing, so they actually finish with 22 mows.”
Also: weed alert.
“They probably won’t spend as much time on weed management, and that will become obvious when your property is suddenly full of weeds,” he says.
Sure, it’s tempting to go for that lowball offer. But learn from some Level Green client experiences.
“We’ve seen people who have done that, then come back to us saying, ‘Wow — we really made a big mistake,’” Mayberry says.
“The thing is, once your property falls into disrepair, it will likely cost you more to clean up the mess than it would have to go with a higher offer.”
The Construction Company
This is the company that makes its bread and butter through construction, but decided to do some landscaping on the side to bring in more money.
“Because their main thing is construction, if they get into a bind on a big project, they’re going to put all their people and equipment on that big construction project,” Mayberry says.
Where does that leave you? …
That’s right. Waiting.
They may be great at construction, Mayberry says. But how are they at landscape maintenance?
While landscape installation can be pretty cut and dried, “landscape maintenance is a whole other animal,” he says. “They may not have the technical knowledge to really maintain your property so it looks its best. They may not understand things like mow height or the timing of pesticides.”
The “We Do Everything” Company
“This company comes in promising the world,” Mayberry says. Residential, commercial, construction, installation, maintenance, killer omelettes.
But can they really deliver?
“They say they do it all, but because they don’t specialize in anything, they do just a so-so job at everything,” he says.
“There are a lot of intricacies involved in commercial landscaping,” Mayberry says.”Scheduling. Timing Client requests. A company that spends most of its time moving from one house to the next to mow isn’t going to understand all that.”
The High Bid Company
“There’s always going to be one of those,” Mayberry says. “They think they’re the best, and that you should feel privileged to work with them.”
This strategy can work, he says.
“There are people out there who only want to work with the best,” he says.
But sometimes an expensive option is just that, he says.
“They really care about keeping peoples’ perception of them up, but they can be difficult to work with,” Mayberry says. “They often have a lot of requirements for customers to even work with them. Clients have to meet a certain standard. It’s often ‘This is our way, and you have to do things our way.’”
The Level Green Landscaping Proposal
No weirdly low or high proposals. No promising things we can’t deliver. No squeezing you in on the side.
Just the real deal, honestly and with plenty of explanation.
Here’s how we approach proposals:
- “We’re large enough to take care of any request, but our goal is to be your partner,” Mayberry says. “We want to ease your pain, and fix your problems for you.”
- “We’re fairly priced, based on what we need to fairly pay our people,” he says. “We’ll do things the way you want them done.”
- “Our proposals are clear,” Mayberry says. “You’ll know exactly what you’re getting.” If your contract says we’ll be there 28 times, you can bet we’ll be there 28 times.
- Questions? First, we listen. It’s one of our best traits. “Then we’ll walk you through that contract,” he says. “We’ll listen to your pains, and explain our plan to make your property great.”
- We keep you posted. “We’ll tell you what we’ll do if we can’t come to your property that day because we got six inches of rain yesterday and it’s too wet to mow,” Mayberry says. “We’ll call you and suggest why it’s better to come Friday.”
- “We’re not just shoving a piece of paper at you,” he says. “Anybody can do that. What separates us is not what’s on that paper — but how we present that piece of paper to you. We’ll explain why what’s on that paper is going to make your life easier, and better.”
Sign, Stress-free, With Level Green
“Signing a contract can be stressful,” Mayberry says.
We get it. It’s a lot of money. A big commitment.
We don’t want you to be anything less than perfectly comfortable.
We’ll make sure of it.
If you’re not already a Level Green Landscaping client, we’d love to add you to our growing list of happy customers.
Our focus is on commercial properties like offices, mixed-use sites, HOAs, municipalities and institutions in Maryland, Washington DC and parts of Virginia.
Contact us at 202-544-0968.
You can also request a free consultation online to meet with us one-on-one.
We’d love to hear from you.
