Photo: Village9991/FlickrThe green industry has a number of niche markets it serves and as a landscaping company you always want to focus on offering the services you are best at, but you also want to be reaching the optimal customers.
The first step to finding the right clients is, of course, knowing what sort of business you are. Come to terms with the fact that you can’t be all things to all people and do it well, and then focus on the jobs that you enjoy doing the most.
If completing design/build jobs for commercial properties is your slice of heaven and you know it, you’re already one step closer to being able to find your ideal clients. The second part of this is knowing who in your area is also offering design/build services to commercial clients.
If one of their big selling points is they will do the maintenance after the installation, you have to come up with a way your services are different. Perhaps you can offer low-maintenance plant palates so your crews are able to visit far less frequently than the competitors would.
Once you know what your landscaping business is really about, sit down and think about what traits you are looking for in a customer. If your competition is going for all the huge commercial properties, consider offering services to the smaller businesses that still need you but the other companies don’t want to fool with.
It’s important to come up with tangible qualities, like their revenue stream or perhaps what type of business they do, instead of subjective traits such as “easy to work with.” Sure, everyone wants to work with a customer who never complains, but you can’t always be that lucky.
You want to find customers who have their needs met by your services so create a customer profile of who that would be. If you want to be the premiere landscaping company for small start-ups and independent, family-owned stores that put a value on sustainability and native plants, that’s pretty specific and can help define who you’re wanting to target.
You can also do customer interviews with your current clients to see what they love about you and why they choose you over the competition. If your current clients are who you are wanting more of, you can gain a lot of valuable knowledge from them and emphasize their favorite aspects of your business on your website and marketing materials.
When you’ve finally cultivated your list of ideal customer qualities, don’t just keep these details on the back end of your business. Share it on your website where potential customers can quickly and easily see if your company can meet their needs. Having a checklist like this available helps save both consumers and your sales people time; those who know they don’t fit won’t bother contacting you and your sales team won’t be trying to make a mediocre lead work.
By knowing who you’re looking for, you can create smarter ads, more effective search engine optimization and hopefully work with more of the people you’re wanting to serve.
