For landscapers, hardscapers, and outdoor living contractors, there are many benefits of using an Application Tracking System, or ATS for recruiting. Without an ATS system, recruiting fast becomes an overwhelming task.

A tightening labor market is making it harder and harder for companies to attract and hold onto top talent. But nothing seems to work. That’s why leading landscaping companies are turning to recruitment marketing as a way to nurture happy, productive, and innovative workforces.

Your employer brand is the reputation your company has among team members—and, perhaps more importantly, potential future team members. A strong employer brand attracts top talent, while a weak brand attracts low quality talent, or in many cases, none at all.

These cloud-based construction, landscaping, and pool builder software solutions can help you optimize processes and increase efficiency throughout your entire organization, allowing you to serve a higher number of clients or customers and dramatically increase profitability—without adding additional team members and incurring extra payroll expenses.

Are you all too familiar with hosting or participating in a landscape or pool industry trade event that comes and goes, and is promptly forgotten? Whether you’re a manufacturer participating in a B2B trade show, or a contractor doing a B2C home show, these tips will make things go a lot further for you in terms of ROI. The answer lies in using social media. Social media is one of the best ways to promote your event beforehand and capitalize on it afterward.

Explore the upcoming Facebook advertising updates for 2021 as they pertain to the outdoor design/build, landscaping, hardscaping, and pool industries, along with their implications and how your brand can take action now to prevent unwelcome surprises.

No is a simple word, but one that many owners in the design/build world have trouble saying. Perhaps it’s because success in the beginning often comes by saying “yes” to all possible sales, and to any and every project that comes your way, in order to grow the business. Or maybe it’s because it goes against the grain to say that the customer is not always right. Whatever the core reason, saying “no” is often a challenge, even for industry veterans.

So many owners I meet express that they just ended up as a business owner, and the path was one that just seemed to happen and evolve. They started mowing a few neighborhood lawns as a high school student, and today they design and install $200K backyards—that kind of thing. But the details in between aren’t always crystal clear—things just ... grew.

Your talented team’s detailed craftsmanship deserves to be seen. Since your focus is always dedicated to the current open projects, it’s understandable that carving out the necessary time to pull together proper case studies for last year’s projects is hard to do. But it’s critical to ongoing marketing success.

There are numerous challenges with owning a successful pool design and build business, including weather and unforeseen building process obstacles. Budgeting and labor planning can almost seem like a roller coaster ride. One thing that is a constant is the need to drive leads, more customers. While building beautiful pools that create happy homeowners are an obvious crucial essential, getting enough customers to sustain a healthy business is even more important.

The need for transparency in SEO services is the main driver in HALSTEAD’s mission to change landscape and pool contractors’ perception of this area of marketing and help them understand how it all works. Our strategies align with data-fueled insights from hundreds of case studies—our approach is based on experience of what works, rather than assumptions or guesses.

Old-school contractor marketing was largely limited to display ads in regionally focused, industry-specific magazines, and setting up booths at a home show or two. These marketing methods are referred to as “outbound marketing.” They still have their place in the world, but are often compared to “yelling” at prospects and hoping they’ll listen. Sometimes they do, but it’s more effective to gear your strategy more toward inbound marketing and effective content marketing.

Ignoring the importance of online marketing would be a costly setback for your growing design/build company and so would failing to evaluate the effectiveness of your chosen marketing strategy. So, what is the best way to approach marketing your landscape or remodeling services online?

When you partner with a marketing agency, they become an extension of your existing team. The right marketing agency will make it so you can focus on what you do best. Here’s a lesson learned for when a partnership can work well—or fall apart.

If your design/build or landscaping company seems to be struggling as of late with handling communications with existing and potential customers, you may have been advised to invest in a CRM tool or system that will help you streamline the customer relations management process.

There's nothing quite like a beautiful flyover of a clean, gorgeous swimming pool and glistening waterfalls set against the earthy colors of a paver patio and lush landscaping. It’s a special view—often made available on Instagram or on your website—that very few would be able to see firsthand (unless they were a pilot).

Do landscape design/build companies really benefit from using the popular home services marketplace Angie’s List? The website is popular with some consumers who view it as an easy search solution for finding landscape contractors, and some contractors think they can establish a legitimate presence for those homeowners simply by having a listing.

If you're getting it wrong (not getting the leads you’d like) then it's likely that you haven't yet figured out how to work the options. So if you're one of many that has turned to Google Ads for home remodeling leads, then here's a few tips for the road ahead.

The historic time we are living through with the coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak is a time for leadership, not panic in the landscape and design/build industries. And great leaders must work to understand the entire picture, the good and the bad. The challenges and the opportunities. Here, we dive into some time-tested strategies for coming through stronger than ever.

These are uncharted waters for all of us. No one knows exactly when this will pass and when we can all get back to business as usual. However, if we all stay positive and use this time to build our skills, our businesses, and our teams, we can emerge as smarter, stronger professionals. Here, we outline how the channels of the industry - manufacturers, dealers, and contractors -can work together.