Step One: Budgeting and Overhead Recovery

Step Two: Estimating

Preparing to Retire or Sell Your Contracting Company
Tony Bass
Length: 1.25-2 hours

Who should attend? This program is focused for owners of companies who want to learn the basics of maximizing the value of their company.

Description: Learn how to find a buyer and hire a team to help you sell your business. There are "recipes for success" when it comes to exiting your business. Learn from someone who built a multimillion-dollar small business, sold it and retired at the age of 41.

How to be Mor
e Productive
Greg Ambrose Length: 3 hours

Who should attend? Owners/operators, landscape architects, landscape designers, sales people

Description: This Class will cover the 5 most common Inefficiencies in Hardscaping. The topics covered will be Estimating Inefficiencies, Tools & Equipment, Staffing, Job Layout, and Getting Paid. We will also discuss what can be done to become more efficient with these portions of your business.

Estimating and Bidding Systems

Estimating and Bidding
Charles Vander Kooi
Length: 1.5 to 5 hours

Who should attend? Owners/operators, estimators, and accountants.

Description: The goal was to develop the "perfect" estimating system that recovers the "perfect overhead." However, after bidding over a billion dollars in work personally, and conducting extensive research with clients and other consulting firms Charles decided that in reality there is not a perfect estimating system. As a result he has developed what he calls, "As Good As It Gets." His system is a Multiple Overhead Recovery System (MORS) that is based on the premise that there are different variables on each and every job, not to mention the different expenses each company has that must be considered. Additionally there is a portion of your company's overhead that must be recovered on each and every job. MORS was developed to consider the changing variables that are unique to each company, and each job, and to allocate the proper amount of overhead to the material, labor, equipment, and subs throughout the year in order to make a profit.

Outline:

• Four things a good pricing system does for a company:
  1. Allows you to track every dollar back to yourself through your estimates
  2. Enables you to compensate for different variables on each job
  3. Gives yourself control over the job after you get the contract
  4. Educates yourself to make sound financial decisions
• Labor Costing: How and why we figure in production hours instead of dollar amounts
• Equipment Costing: Arriving at exact hourly and daily costs
• General Conditions: Why they should be estimated on a job-by-job basis, and what they are
• Labor Burden: Gives percentages of taxation on labor, or items that apply to labor
• Overhead Allocation: Illustrates different methods to use to allocate overhead
• Profit: Deciphers between four different considerations: need, risk, size and marketplace
• The Ding Dong Factor: Emphasizes the need for a cost code for the people who hit below the belt

Balancing, Estimating, Job Costing and Accounting
Charles Vander Kooi
Length: 1.5 to 3 hours

Who should attend? Owners/operators, estimators, and accountants

Description: Vander Kooi describes three vital components to a healthy business: estimating, job costing, and accounting. He discusses in detail the importance of balancing each system, and how to check them against each other to insure accurate information.

Outline:

• Overhead Recovery: The importance of a multiple overhead recovery system
• What If?: The theory of multiple recover percentages
• Sample Monthly Profit and Loss Statements: Examples of financial statements that are specific to the construction industry
• Budget Definitions: How to set up a budget and what to include in that budget
• Overhead Recovery Mark-up Calculations: Developing material, labor, equipment, and sub-contractor costs and the correct overhead recovery percentages
• Sample Profit and Loss Statement Formats: Sales, indirect costs of sales, equipment, labor burden & overhead

2-Day Estimating Workshop
Jerry Gaeta
Length: 2 days

Who should attend? Owners/operators, estimators, accountants, project managers

Description: This is a private and confidential two-day, hands-on estimating workshop where you will bring all of your company information (financial statements, wages, insurance, equipment, overhead costs, etc.). This information is analyzed and broken down, giving you a clear picture of your estimating process. By the end of the second day you'll have a budget, billable pricing, overhead recovery percentages, sales goal, and equipment costs.

Outline:

• Develop a profit and loss statement for your upcoming year
• Create labor, equipment, material, and sub-contractor costs
• Budget your overhead to show your yearly net profit
• Set average crew wages, labor burden, and hourly equipment rates
• Meet in a private and confidential setting with the consultant to analyze the information
• Incorporate the information into the Vander Kooi estimating system
• Produce an actual bid with a bid opening

Leadership, Management & Teamwork

Creating a Culture of Teamwork
Gary Ostwald, PhD
Length: 2 to 4 hours as a breakout session, 4 to 8 hours for a workshop or seminar.

Who should attend? Owners, senior management, project managers, team leaders, supervisors and other key decision makers.

Description: Experiential education tools and techniques will be used within an appreciative inquiry format to help participants tear down barriers of entrenched thinking and build bridges of new attitudes and behaviors. This program offers an ideal opportunity to step back, slow down, focus on the present moment and build deeper relationships -- while developing teamwork skills. The program is designed to develop and enhance each individual's unique style of being a team member. Participants have an opportunity to further develop their teamwork skills and become more aware of their own style of being a team member and the various styles of their fellow participants. This program will take place in an intense environment where participants must reflect on their values, challenge their ideas, and take risks with their behaviors. This program will involve a process which instills a lasting impact on both the individual participants and their organization. It will be the start of a quest to build a values-based culture o teamwork.

Outline:

• Develop your inner resources into team member competences
• Learn how to use the TeamSpeak model of team effectiveness
• Enhance your ability to make better decisions
• Develop skill at adjusting to change and overcoming obstacles
• Improve your ability to bolster the confidence and abilities of others through feedback and guidance.
• Enhance each individual’s unique style of being a team member
• Develop your ability to communicate, collaborate and inspire – in ways that enable others to act decisively.

Your take-away: As a participant, you will:

• Identify the components of the TeamSpeak model and understand how each component applies to your organization.
• Become a more competent team member by gaining knowledge of your unique style of being a team member.
• Develop your listening skill and your ability to send clear, convincing messages.
• Refine your skill at sensing other people’s emotions, understanding their perspective, and taking an active interest in their concerns.
• Create an action plan that will allow you to help your organization become more effective, with higher levels of performance and productivity.

High Performance Leadership
Gary Ostwald, PhD
Length: 1 to 2 hours as a keynote presentation, 2 to 4 hours as a breakout session.

Who should attend? Owners, senior management, project managers, team leaders, supervisors and other key decision makers.

Description: The ability to lead, manage, and inspire employees is a challenge facing leaders in all size companies. Creating a high performance work environment is the leader’s most important responsibility. If leaders fail in the task of driving high performance, nothing else they do will work as well as it could or should. Data shows that the number one de-railer of owners and managers today is their inability to build relationships and inspire their employees -- not their functional or technical skills. High performance leadership is about people, not projects and processes. This program shows you how to become a more effective leader by using seven core competences that drive high performance and inspire employees to make difficult decisions and move the company forward in new ways.

Outline:

• Understand and leverage individual differences
• Lead positive change toward an elevated goal
• Build deeper relationships
• Manage conflict and generate commitment
• Empower others to make decisions
• Manage individual and team performance
• Create a culture of appreciation

Your take-away: As a participant, you will:

• Gain insight into your strengths and your development needs, by using extensive research into the behaviors of highly effective leaders.
• Identify the components of building a high performance work environment and understand how to best move the company toward this type of environment.
• Appreciate and leverage the differences amongst members of your top management team.
• Refine your own leadership style, revitalize your vision and build on your strengths.
• Create an action plan that will allow you to become a more effective leader that drives high performance within your company.

Lead with Authenticity
Gary Ostwald, PhD
Length: 1 to 2 hours as a keynote or breakout session presentation, 4 to 8 hours for a workshop or seminar.

Who should attend? Everyone with leadership potential -- including senior management, team leaders, project managers, supervisors, and all other employees with leadership potential.

Description: Each person has a unique and distinctive leadership style and this program helps you uncover these aspects and become more aware of your strengths and limitations as a leader. You will discover the principles that make up the leading with authenticity model. Once a leader understands these principles (and how to use them) their effectiveness really increases. Leading with authenticity requires that you understand your beliefs, attitudes, values and other personal characteristics and how they impact your leadership style. Leaders must be congruent. Once you have self-awareness and self-acceptance then you are able to refine and fully develop these God-given inner resources. Learning to use the Arrow of Authenticity tool will help you become a leader people will follow.

Outline:

• Raise your awareness -- of self and others -- by learning how to expand your bubble of awareness
• Discover your areas of limitation and vulnerability and how to manage the shadow side of your personality
• Generate commitment & support by using a participative decision making model
• Use conflict and creative abrasion to make better decisions
• Accept personal responsibility by developing an internal locus of control
• Embrace ambiguity and change by leveraging your strengths as a leader

Your take-away: As a participant, you will:

• Develop your God-given inner resources into leadership competences.
• Become a more competent and authentic leader by gaining a greater appreciation for who you are – both your strengths & limitations.
• Build true self-confidence as a leader by becoming more congruent.
• Create an action plan for developing your unique & distinctive leadership style.

Communicating Effectively Using the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator(TM)
Gary Ostwald, PhD
Length: 3 to 5 hours

Who should attend? Owners/operators, key people, team leaders, decision makers, project managers, supervisors, employees.

Description: Used worldwide as a vital tool for understanding personalities, the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator is essential to taking your key people's performance to the next level. In this program, leaders and key employees take the MBTI test and are re-graded by Dr. Gary Ostwald before showing up to the program. Dr. Ostwald will then present individuals with a written report on their own leadership style. The workshop is spent discussing the results and conducting several team-building activities designed to increase problem solving skills and decision-making.

People Management

People Management
Charles Vander Kooi
Length: 1.5 to 3 hours

Who should attend? Everyone including owners/operators, key people, team leaders, decision makers, project managers, supervisors, employees and spouses

Description: It takes a certain type of person to be able to motivate and effectively manage a construction crew. In this program Charles Vander Kooi draws from over 40 years of experience in the construction industry to share his expertise on the broad subject of People Management. In it he talks about the good employee who has gone bad (egg sucking dog), the 4 different personalities needed in a business, communication with contractors, and many other topics that are vital to effectively running a company.

Course Outline

• Motivating Employees: Learn how to keep a crew motivated
• Bonus Systems (good, bad & ugly): How to develop a system that recognizes an employee’s contribution to the company
• Egg Sucking Dogs: Recognizing employees with bad attitudes and how to deal with them
• 4 Personalities That Exist In a Business: Discusses the Idea Person, the Happening Person, the Managing Person, and the Maintenance Person
• And much more!

Negotiating
Charles Vander Kooi
Length: 1.5 hours

Who Should Attend? Everyone including owners/operators, key people, team leaders, decision makers, project managers, supervisors, spouses, employees.

Description: Most contractors only think about negotiating a job when you talk about negotiating. Yet they negotiate every day with their employees, existing job owners, and even with their family. In this talk, Charles Vander Kooi will show you how to take negotiating from the usual adversarial relationship to positive methods of arriving at win/win solutions.

Outline:

• How we have been doing it, but shouldn’t have been doing it.
• A better way – getting to agreements without giving in.
• The four principles to negotiating.

How to Maximize & Manage your Field Production
Jerry Gaeta
Length: 1 to 3 hours

Who should attend? Owners/operators, team leaders, project managers, schedulers

Description: This seminar focuses on key areas and methods of managing one crew to multiple crews. Your ability to manage and motivate your field is a challenge that all size companies face. Today every company finds themselves in a very competitive environment; the effectiveness of our field can be your key to success. How does your field measure-up to your competitors.

Outline:

Maximizing Your Three Greatest Assets: Customers, Employees & Equipment
Tony Bass
Length: 1 to 4 hours

Who should attend? Owners/operators, key people, team leaders, decision makers, project managers, supervisors.

Description: You can become a more effective manager! Tony uses personal stories to teach attendees how to take control and strategically manage Customers, Employees, & Equipment. This is a great keynote for large audiences. Fast-paced and delivered with an inspiring story of personal accomplishment, attendees find practical solutions to everyday management challenges.

Outline:

• Time management – Improving personal effectiveness.
• Customer systems – Winning proposals and improving customer service.
• Employee systems – Recruiting, hiring, training and retaining a super star work force.
• Equipment systems – Productivity secrets for contractors.

50 Ways to Find, Hire, Evaluate and Retain Super Star Employees!
Tony Bass
Length: 1.25 – 3 hours

Who should attend? This program is for owners or human resource professionals in small businesses.

Description: We have to be creative finding people in an increasingly employee-deficient society. Discover 50 overlooked strategies (sources) to find Super Star employees that are either FREE or almost free. Depending on the time allotment, I will cover a proven method for screening your employee prospects and selecting the winners.

Outline:

• Recruiting super star employees
• Evaluating prospects
• Hiring the best
• Training & retaining super star employees

Sales and Marketing

Marketing, Sales, & Business Growth for Your Landscape & Irrigation Company
Tony Bass
Length: 1-6 hours

Who should attend? Owners, sales professionals, or marketing professionals of green industry firms.

Description: Discover the overlooked, low-cost, proven methods for adding clients, increasing sales, and gaining repeat buyers. Tony shares Super Successful marketing and sales strategies that turn new start-up, struggling, or plateaued businesses into multi-million dollar companies. No theory; here’s how you get it done!

• Getting More of the Best Prospects
• Building Your Winning Sales Presentation
• Pricing Strategies
• Separate Yourself from the Competition
• Make your telephone ring and ring and ring and ring
• Low cost marketing secrets for contractors

Selling Landscape, Hardscape & Irrigation Services
Tony Bass
Length: 1-6 hours

Who should attend? Owners, sales professionals, or marketing professionals of contracting firms.

Description: Become a million dollar producer! Learn how to win bids without being the low bidder! Discover how to qualify the best prospects, separate yourself from the competition, overcome objections and get the contract signed! This program is perfect for commercial and residential sales professionals.

• $100,000 Project Sales Challenge
• Getting More of the Best Prospects
• Building Your Winning Sales Presentation
• Pricing Strategies
• Separate Yourself from the Competition
• Ultimate Sales Opportunity

Key Skills For Growing Yourself or Your Super Successful Small Business!
Tony Bass
Length: 1.25-3 hours

Who should attend? This program is for owners, managers, and team members.

Description: Learn the personal habits and the business skills necessary to control your schedule & your financial future. There are specific talents and passions you have today that can drive your direction and your results. Learning key business skills will help you become a better planner, financial manager, recruiter, sales professional, negotiator, resource manager, and promoter. This is a great keynote presentation or workshop.

Design-Build....Create a Process That Sells In Any Market.
Joe Palimeno
Length: 1.5 to 5 hrs

Who should attend? Owners, landscape architects, landscape designers, sales people

Description: Design build is a process - saying you can do it, and actually doing it, are very different. Specializing in designing, selling, and installing beautiful landscapes from $50,000 to $500,000 Joe Palimeno makes it his mission to show the client all of the potential in their property, and then turn their vision into reality. He is an award-winning Designer and Contractor, most recently winning best in show at the Philadelphia Flower Show for the Exhibit he created for EP Henry. This seminar will show you how to set yourself apart from the competition, present yourself and company to the client, sell the vision, create the excitement and manage the job at the high end level.

Mock Sales
Greg Ambrose / Tony Bass
Length: 3 hours

Who should attend? Owners/operators, landscape architects, landscape designers, sales people

Description: This class will cover in-home sales techniques thru Role Playing and other class participation. We will also cover how to use your manufactures provided sales tools, and how to incorporate your ICPI Certified installer knowledge and installation methods into your presentation. We will go over critical questions to ask that will allow you to pre-qualify your leads.

Technical Programs

Specialty Applications
Greg Ambrose
Length: 4 hours

Who should attend: Owners, Foreman, Estimators and Designers

Class Description: A proper base is essential to a great installation. Nowhere is this more important than a Raised Patio application. In this presentation we have combined Advanced Base Installation along with Raised Patio Construction. This class will cover the importance of proper base installation. We will discuss the proper material, proper placement, and proper compaction. We will also look at alternative base materials and their uses. We will discuss basic engineering and how that applies to our everyday installation methods for a proper base. We will also discuss raised patio construction. The discussion will include how to plan out your raised application for maximum efficiency, and how to manage your materials. All of the above will ultimately lead to better quality, better productivity, and more profit.

Snow and Ice

Residential vs. Commercial – Sample contracts will be included
Chris James
Length: 2 hours

Who should attend? Owners/Managers/Sales Staff

Description: Which one is right for you has a lot to do with your present client makeup, where you see your organization headed, the type of equipment you have & the time and capital you are willing to invest. The snow amounts in your market and more.

Risk Management - Avoiding and Reducing Slip and Fall Liabilities
Chris James
Length: 1 (1/2) hrs

Who should attend? Owners/Managers/Site Supervisors/Property & Facility Managers

Description: It’s not how great a plow operator you are. If you want to service your client and compete with the true professional then risk management before, during and after has to be a top priority. This is an excellent opportunity for both contractor and property owners & facility managers to review their part in avoiding and preventing risk. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.

Tying Snow & Ice Services into your core business
Chris James
Length: 1 (1/2) hours

Who should attend? Owners/Managers considering the Snow & Ice field

Description: So you want to be in the Snow & Ice game? Do you really now? It must have snowed a lot last winter. Have you considered the cost in dollars, time and manpower? How will this add value to your present services or business? Will it add value to your clients? Will they pay a premium for this high risk, sometime high rewarding service?

Should I be in the Snow and Ice Management Business? Subcontractor or Contractor?
The real cost of Snow and Ice Management
You bet your snowflake it’s about Profit and where Profit should be
Chris James
Length: 3 hours

Who should attend? Owners/Managers/Companies considering or engaged in Snow & Ice

Description: This is for companies just a few years into the snow profession looking for direction or those considering entering the profession. We will discuss the real cost involved. Should you be a subcontractor or primary contractor? We will discus how this can add value and how this can be a very negative and costly mistake. It is better to ask these questions now. We are talking about your reputation and real money here.

Anti and De-icing Technologies
Liquid Ice Control Products (hint) ...... they’re all liquids
Chris James
Length: 1 (1/2) hrs

Who should attend? Managers/Operators/Field Supervisors/Property & Facility Managers

Description: We are talking reactive vs. proactive. There is no magic bullet. Is it how your Father or Grandfather did it or is it part science, part experience or both. Don’t ever blame the product. They all work when used in the correct manor under the right conditions. Environmental impact will be reviewed. Parking structure and alternative product use to preventing these multi-million dollar structures from being damaged prematurely.

Sales and Marketing–what are you really selling? Commodities or value added service? The real power behind “NO Thank You” (learning to walk away)
Chris James
Length: 1 (1/2) hrs

Who should attend? Owners/Managers/Sales Staff

Description: You are not selling lawn mowing or seal coating here. This is as high risk as it gets in both time & dollars invested and the liability & risk involved. You are selling solutions to provide a safe accessible, productive environment as possible under some extreme conditions. There are some big no-no’s in the word that can or should not be used. Ways to provide excellent marketing materials without crossing the line. We will review marketing budget plans and why advertising is not marketing.

Equipment & Training your people. They make or break you, so train them. Equipment needs: Including selecting the right equipment
Chris James
Length: 1 (1/2) hrs

Who should attend? Leaders/Trainers/Site Supervisors/Mechanics

Description: Equipment and training your people – What a novel concept. Sorry for the negativity, it just always seems like a good idea to me when you give someone the key to piece of equipment that you spent hundreds or thousands of dollars for that they get to know how to use it safely and as productively as possible. We will review renting vs. owning, adding attachments to equipment you already own, the right equipment for the job and a few examples of what that equipment really cost you. Even the proper use of a shovel will be discussed and how valuable a tool it is.

Dispatch & Operations – Everybody is good at plowing snow. What makes a good company a great company? Pre and post-event meetings
Chris James
Length: 1 (1/2) hr

Who should attend? Operations/Dispatch Staff/Owners/Senior Managers

Description: We could spend all day on operations alone. However, we will cover how systems can help your people at all levels and improve your company from how they prepare to how they think, to the increase in productivity and to how much safer it can be when there is a plan. Dispatching is the next step, how this is part plan - part technology, part experience.

Snow Response Plan (SRP) Every great football team has a play book and so should you. Hold Harmless…….YES, they should sign yours
Chris James
Length: 1 (1/2) hrs

Who should attend? Facility/Property Managers/Owners/Managers/Site Supervisors

Description: Many of the slip and fall cases I am asked to review could have been avoided with a snow response plan. These plans are a great way to get everyone on the same page as the risk in winter conditions is almost always shared between all parties. It seems like it would be very important to all involved to help write and understand a Snow Response Plan. A good SRP is great at defining responsibility expectation, site issues that pre-exist, help identify cost associated with Snow & Ice for each property and it’s use.

Business and Personal Wealth – what it can mean to you and your loved ones
Chris James
Length: 1 (1/2) hr

Who should attend? Owners & Spouses

Description: There are a lot of smarter maybe even better looking people in this business then me. This is just one business owners plan to make sure his family has some level of comfort diversification and financial stability. Why you should never have all your eggs in one basket. The biggest mistake I ever made. How diversification can build your dream and save your butt.

Plant Horticulture

Plant Culture
Ian Cooke
Length: 4-6 hours
Days: 4 (1 day per season)

Understand plants from a 12 month, year round, perspective. This intensive, seasonal instruction is delivered in 4 modules spaced evenly throughout the year. Too often plants receive suitable growing conditions for a limited part of the year. This culminates in apparent plant success only for failure rates to increase later in the year. We will identify and highlight the key components that support plant culture - year round - and adopt them into our daily organization. At the end of this instruction your company will be able to substantially increase the value plants give to your customers and reduce the costs associated with plant replacement. This will lead to every garden you build aging gracefully and becoming a lead generating source for many years to come.

The Perfect Plant Pallet
Ian Cooke
Length: 4-6 hours
Partner program Plant Use

All too often we rely on a very small group of plants that get used repetitively because using a wider plant pallet is too complicate and expensive. There is a solution and it will distance your company from the mainstream and allow you to effectively track costs, with known availability and known success in your growing zone.
Along with stone, lighting and irrigation, plants are a valuable tool that we use in our clients projects to create outdoor living and entertaining spaces. But unlike those other items plants have some unique characteristics. Plants require daily care and monitoring to ensure they remain in a saleable condition. Availability fluctuates significantly with the seasons and replacements can be difficult to match to existing plantings. This module shows you how to make and save money with plants

Plant Use
Ian Cooke
Length: 4-6 hours
Partner program The Perfect Plant Pallet

What to specify and how to specify it. An overview of the plant specification world, highlighting issues that impact cost and value. Identify the 32 major plant groups and break down the benefits of each group. Learn how to mix and blend plants to deliver increased, form, flower, fragrance, function and foliage. Fully understand plant spacing and density. This module is ideally suited for those companies that have an established plant component to their business and are looking to consolidate this vital aspect of our industry. With planning your clients can have flowers every day of the year in their garden.

The 7 Most Common Plant Related Mistakes
Ian Cooke
Length: 4-6 hours

This is a must for every landscape professional. Identify the top 7 issues that impact quality, profitability and referral generation. This image driven class will put money in your pocket by showing you where and how you are losing money on plant related issues. For any dynamic, aggressive company that needs some cold hard truths, this work shop is for you. We will identify seemingly unimportant aspects and then look at how they become magnified and ultimately remove money from your business. Once identified, and fully understood, onsite productivity will increase, down time and waste will be reduced and the customer referral rate will increase.

Understanding Residential Clients
Ian Cooke
Length: 4-6 hours

Understand what customers think, say and mean when they talk about plants. Many customers find it difficult to explain their requirements in the planning and bidding stage, and end up settling for a mainstream product. Clients look to us to provide them with ideas and directions, for we are the industry specialists and yet how is it that at the end of the installation when we are ready to conclude business the client then starts to articulate expectations and objections previously unknown to use.
The answer is simple, we where oblivious to their communication methods. If you look closer at all the dialogue prior to construction and during construction you will find plenty of evidence that would indicate the client’s degree of satisfaction.
This module will show you how to spot those clients that want sophistication who are willing pay for it. When you correctly identify a client’s needs you are now in a position to manage their expectations. When you manage their expectations, you get paid on time in full and you get referrals