Commercial Lawn Maintenance for Minnesota, Taylor Made, Steve Hoogenakker

Taylor Made for Minnesota Commercial Properties

Commercial PropertyLawn Maintenance


Whatever your goals are for your homeowner association, commercial building or multi-family property, Taylor Made delivers and exceeds the results you and your clients expect. Working together, you can rest assured that we’ll develop a plan that brings out the full potential of your natural site while keeping your budget in mind.. Hire the company you can trust, Taylor Made Landscape Management.


We take care of all of the details so you don’t have to. We start the process by listening to your goals. We develop a plan that enhances the beauty of your property. Our professional scheduling of comprehensive landscape services are performed on time, no matter what the weather is doing. We become your eyes and ears on the property. We’re vigilant about discovering potential issues before they become problems.


You will have an active partner when you decide to work with us. We’ll design and create a valuable, vibrant, living landscape.

As a partner, we’re not satisfied until you’re completely satisfied with every service. Your landscape will benefit from the expert care on a timely basis. Your property reflects your values. Clients, tenants and prospective owners base a large part of their opinion of the property before they walk inside. We’ll work with you to keep tenants and clients happy and to attract and retain potential prospects.


We’re confident that we can meet and exceed your landscape maintenance goals, regardless of the size of your association. We also know you expect a dependable, trustworthy company that continually provides solutions. Our creative staff will deliver cost effective solutions that will keep you, your board members and residents happy.

Value of a Landscape or Lawn business

HOW TO BUILD, BUY OR SELL a LANDSCAPE MGMT COMPANY:
In the past 6 months, I’ve had a number of people ask me to advise them in valuing their business, or evaluate a business they’re considering purchasing. There’s a lot of interest and a lot of activity this year.
So, what’s a business worth?
To help you find out, you should follow three general rules.
1. Start planning TODAY! You never know when an opportunity presents itself, or when disaster strikes. Ideally, you’ll want at least 2-3 years planning before selling a business.
2. Hire a professional or ask an industry expert to help you
3. Maximize the guidelines listed below to bring the highest price.
The first place to look is your own business. This is a complex process, but here are the basics.
As a business owner, you should always be thinking of your company’s intrinsic value, and how you’ve achieved it. Most contractors look at the income statement (if they have one) at the end of the year and say “I made $100,000 net!” But, using the same financials, you might have actually increased the value of your company by $350,000, or reduced the value by $50,000. So, having the right information might mean a $400,000 swing in real value instead of $100,000 profit! Do you see how your daily decisions will be profoundly affected by this new knowledge?
You have assets that you can sell, but I’m here to tell you that you aren’t selling or buying “hard assets”. Heck, you can buy equipment anywhere, anytime. You’re really selling or buying “soft assets”; your ability to build a team, sell, market, satisfy, create relationships, forge loyalties, make a profit and grow the business.
In the Minnesota market, I would say that most businesses I’ve seen for sale are overpriced because somewhere, someone is saying “my company is worth one year’s gross sales” Some of this is encouraged by business brokers who don’t understand the green industry. They make a percentage off of the price of the sale, therefore, they encourage high pricing. If you’re going to use outside help, stay away from the brokers, at least at first.
Gross sales have little to do with the value, therefore, if your goal for 2008 is to grow the biz by 40%, then you could still decrease the value of the business, or even reduce it’s profits. Most companies who make the Inc. 500 fastest growing companies lose money! In the two years my companies would have made the Inc 500 list, we lost money.
Realize that businesses generally sell on multiples of earnings, which is much more complex than just profit!
Steve Hoogenakker
Showcase Landscape

Steve Hoogenakker has 20 years in the landscaping and leadership field. He can be reached by email at Steve@Landscape.Pro. Steve Hoogenakker, MHA, CAI, CIC Midwest, MNLA, PLANET, MTFG, Showcase Landscape, Gerrit Hoogenakker, Kirsten Hoogenakker, Paul Hoogenakker

This may be reprinted, as long as the authors information and the article aren't changed or altered in any way.

Preparing Your Landscape for Spring Part II

Da Garden” If you have a personal garden, ‘tis the season to till it up. Consider doing a soil test yourself for best results. Here’s a little secret: Why does Miracle Grow grow 700 pound pumpkins? I know you don’t actually want a 700 pound pumpkin this fall, but if you want to give your garden every chance of providing pleasure or juicy tomatoes, then the secret is this: Most fertilizers carry 3 ingredients. Even if you ask the U of M, they’ll say. “Buy a 10-10-10”! This is the standard response for anyone in the industry, and it usually works Ok. BUT, there are 16 minerals needed for every plant to survive. Miracle Grow provides all 16! They might not be needed, but if just 1 or 2 are missing or weak your plants will suffer. “Da Trees” Make sure that the tree wrap is removed from trees, look for split trunks or damage that might’ve happened from the early snow storm or from wind damage. If you know you have Ash Trees, which almost everyone has, there is a terrible menace out there this year. The Emerald Ash Borer. Once it’s on a property, can kill all the ash trees on a property in 1-3 years. There are links on www.Townhome.Pro. “Da Water” Irrigation system startups need to include replacing broken heads, and resetting the direction of heads so they cover the lawn, making sure they don’t blow over the freshly washed car and into the bedroom window. If you don’t have a system, I would be happy to recommend a professional, or design one myself..Finally, work with your contractor. It’s in his/her best interest to have a wonderful, living landscape too. If your association does a lot of work itself, or if you’re just curious, call or write a Master Gardener volunteer. It’s free, and the link is on your website that is just being created; www.Townhome.Pro. This article written by Steve Hoogenakker of Taylor Made Landscape.He has 20 years experience in landscaping.
This article may be reprinted as long as the author’s information is left in the new article

I can help, I've done acquisitions for lawn care/landscaping. If you want a BUSINESS VALUATION, below is a very real formula. If you want a REAL LIFE VALUATION, a lot of times it's two guys over coffee, going over customers and employees, then they agree on a percentage of revenue (20-100%) plus maybe buying out some equipment. [B]Short Answer:[/B][B]I'd start out with a number of mows per client, so I'd offer to pay the previous owner the payments received for the first 2-3 mows. You can do it the week after you mow them, or if you wanna be a nice guy, you could pay them for 2-3 mows once they sign your contract. [/B]If that isn't good enough, below is very valuable information on larger business acquisitions:[B]Answer that imparts wisdom for this and future transactions:[/B]A REAL VALUATION, which you should run at least once per year so you know what your business is worth goes like this:Technically, it's based on EBITDA, which is Earnings Before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation and Amortization. If you would like to know more about that, just reply and I'll give you a better explanation that should be useful. It's basically a "cash flow" formlula. You take your profits, depreciation, interest expense, and any of your pay that is "excessive" to what you do. So, if you're running a crew and making $80,000, you could put $40,000 back towards cash flow because a new owner would have to hire on a new foreman to run that crew:Formula works like thisProfit $20,000Depreciation $30,000 Interest Expense $8,000Excessive Owners Income $40,000 Total: $98,000. Then you use a multiplier on this EBIT or EBITDA formula. Something like 2.5 to 3.5, so the business would be valued at $250,000 to $350,000. In this sort of equation, the value of the equipment is negotiated. IT can be rolled into the price, or the net value can be added, or the buyer may ask that the equipment be paid off from the $350,000 and be free and clear. The way to keep this clear is to think from the buyers view is:I'm going to buy a business for $300,000. I expect to earn $98,000 per year or get 33% for my money which is a lot better than Wall Street!Other factors, it's based on:1. Size of company. I would rather buy companies over $750,000 because there has to be some management or systems in place, but a business broker friend of mine says he finds many many more buyers of businesses of around $200,000-$400,000. We think it's because it's easier for another contractor to add that much service to his present line. 2. Type of billing. Since we're in the Lawn Maintenance forum, I'll assume that we're talking about mowing. "recurring billing" is what brings in a bigger amount. When you have solid monthly billing, this is something that buyers can count on more than one time landscape sales. Commercial usually worth more than Single Family Residential. 3. Spread out customer base. A Customer base that doesn't consist of 3 clients that make up half of the billing is going to scare some people away. A base with 50 clients with no one client making up more than 25% is pretty solid. This is also something that banks financing your company, or financing a sale4. Growth. Most buyers prefer some decent, but not excessive growth. A 10 year company growing 15% every year sounds pretty solid to me with probably a solid customer base. 5. Gross Profit margins. Anyway, if you have other questions, let me know, Best of Luck!Steve HoogenakkerSteve Hoogenakker, Showcase Landscape, Taylor Made, Delano Minnesota, CIC, MHA, CAI-MN, MNLA, Gerrit Hoogenakker is awesome, Kirsten Hoogenakker is great, Paul Hoogenakker is Super, Teri Hoogenakker is a saint.

Landscape Maintenance Steve Hoogenakker Minnesota

I don't have anything in Rochester, but keep my email for later this winter and check back. The other place that I used to get a little business was Craig's list. If you're not familiar with it, in Minneapolis, the web address is minneapolis.craigslist.org. The advertising is free, and I got free business for 5 minutes work. I've sold equipment there, helped to get another business started, and even talked to lawn care businesses for sale on that site. I'm not sure if Rochester has their own, but it's worth a shot. You might not get much this fall, but I'm positive you'll get leads in March and April. What you'll want to do is to put a new advertisement in at least once a week. You're only supposed to run one ad per service at a time, so maybe delete out the previous week's ad. The fresh ads will bring more leads. Email me if you need any other help.Steve HoogenakkerSteve@Landscape.Pro

Minneapolis South High School Renovation by Volunteers??

We enjoyed meeting with you and discussing the primary and practice fields at South High School.
We’ve discussed the situation and developed the following recommendations:
1. Practice Field
a. The field is uneven, has rocks, glass, and even chunks of concrete in it, causing an extremely unsafe environment for athletes and students who use the field regularly for phy ed classes. There is little bluegrass or desirable grasses to work with. The field is mainly knotweed, which will need to be killed off prior to seeding. Without an irrigation system, new grass isn’t likely to live therough a hot summer. The field is very uneven with mud and standing water in many locations making it unusable on most days. On our second trip to the site, there were 30 Canadian Geese feeding in the standing water, leaving plenty of droppings that no student would want to play in, not to mention carrying this material into the school or ruining clothes. The field needs to be leveled to promote grass growth, allow rain to runoff, and keep geese off. We can save money by seeding, which will provide just as high quality field as sod, but students will need to stay off for 4 weeks. The seed will need to be fertilized regularly, and broadleaves need to be sprayed 2-3 times per year to get the grass established, thick and green.

b. The Irrigation system has been removed. Since all sprinkler heads but one have been taken out, and the system hasn’t operated in 10+ years, water has almost certainly leached into the pipes and frozen, causing the pipes to break lengthwise, making them impossible to repair. There is an irrigation controller and a 2 ½ or 3” backflow that could probably be used, and looks like hooking up to the existing line might be relatively easy, although we’ll have to dig and test the connection to know for certain.
c. The cost for a new irrigation system using the present hookup should be under $10,000 depending on the pressure and gallons per minute available to use in the system.
d. The weeds need to be sprayed prior to installing the black dirt. Cost for application is $450.00
e. The field needs about 80-100 yards of screened black dirt. We discussed grading the present field. The field was used as a dumping ground while the school was being buit, so grading might just expose more waste and concret. Adding dirt, and creating a crown that allows the water to runoff, will make for a long lasting solution. Cost $4,800
f. The next step is to seed the field. We’re suggesting a tall fescue-bluegrass blend that can withstand heavier traffic than bluegrass alone. Cost for seeding $2,150
g. Fertilizer for starting the new grass seed. Cost $425
h. 2 more applications of fertilizer and weed control Cost $650

Total Cost for Practice field renovation: $18,425

Primary Field.
This field is in relatively good shape. There are 2 problems with the field, which is used 3-4 times per week for varsity football and soccer games. We agree with Tom Wassman and Mark Sanders that the practice field needs attention now. The primary field can wait until the practice field is in good shape.
a. There is a sprinkler system, but it doesn’t have adequate pressure or enough gallons per minute to diffuse the spray and provide an acceptable level of irrigation. The present system basically creates 40’ green rings with the first 20’ receiving a lower than needed amount of water. The system needs to be separated into 3 zones, with a new controller, and 3 valves installed.
b. The other problem is the grade of the field. The grade of the crown is high on the west site, but really high on the east side. The crown is so high in the middle that a soccer player on one side of the field can’t see the soccer ball on the other side of the field. This field needs to be re-graded.
c. As for the stands and facilities, there are no lights, there is no bathrooms, and there is a need for a concessions trailer where chocolate, chili, and even tickets can be sold. This will certainly raise more than enough money to pay for the trailer and make the experience more enjoyable for athletes, fans and visiting teams.
Please call me to discuss any or all of these options. We look forward to working with you in the future.
Sincerely,
Steve Hoogenakker, Tom Connors and Tom Polak
763-213-2410 – Steve@Landscape.Pro
Minnesota Nursery and Landscape Association

Minnesota Nursery Association working to help Minneapolis South High School

Hello everyone, I wanted to update everyone about South High School. At the bottom of this email is a link to a story about a landscape company volunteering to replace a basball field for Bluffton High School some of their kids died in a bus crash! I would welcome any ideas, feedback that you might have. Here's the short story with extra details below.Tom Connors and I went out to South on Tuesday.The practice field is a mess. It's uneven, with rocks, glass, and at least one piece of concrete right in the middle of the field that's been there quite a while. There WAS an irrigation system, but it hasn't been run in 10 years. We found one brass 8280M Sprinkler head, ( a google search couldn't identify the model) and there's a Buckner 10 zone controller. There's a big backflow and it looks like 3" main. We decided that the field can't be sustained without a sprinkler system. Here's the scoop: The field is about 260' by 350'. It needs dirt, or grading by an operator more skilled than me, seed, fert and sprayed for broadleaf. A soil test would be a good idea. I think it's a sandy loam, so structure will be good. Any chunks or rocks will have to be removed as well. The school WILL close off the field or do whatever is necessary to help if someone is willing to help with the fields. After talking to Mark Sanders, the Athletic Director, we think that redoing the practice field might be enough to get the parents and boosters involved with more improvements as well as pride in the school. If anyone wants to contact the school directly, contact Mark Sanders at 612-668-4323 or Mark.Sanders@mpls.k12.mn.us , or email me. At this time, they've asked me to put a plan together to submit to the Mpls School District, because the powers that be won't allow any work to be done until it's checked over, even if volunteered. Estimates:80 yards black dirt spread and graded.300-400 pounds of seedFert - Sprayand irrigation. Looks like we're pushing for spring, which is OK because it gives everyone time to put the plan and materials together. More detail:We met with Tom Wosman, the Engineer in charge of South's Property and Mark Sanders, the Athletic Director. There are 2 fields. There is the main football field and the practice field. While both fields need work, the main field is in pretty good shape, although there are no lights, 2 porta potties (imagine this during homecoming), no ticket booth. They can't even sell hot dogs or hot chocolate. This field has such a high crown on it that the soccer players can't see the soccer ball from the other side of the field! Like I said, this field isn't bad, other than the crown and the fact that the irrigation system is composed of 1 zone with such low pressure, they can't diffuse the spray on the sprinkler headsThe practice field is another story.It's It's not much better than mud, knotweed and random patches of bluegrass. The field is uneven, and the day we were out there, there were puddles.There were rocks in it, and at least one concrete piece sticking out. The practice field is used by the students for all outside activities, so the danger of injuries is pretty good. Here's the article about Bluffton basballhttp://www.landscapemanagement.net/landscape/On+the+Record/This-baseball-field-is-not-just-any-baseball-field/ArticleStandard/Article/detail/462137?contextCategoryId=450That's All for now!Steve

Steve Hoogenakker
Teri Hoogenakker
Paul Hoogenakker
Kirsten Hoogenakker
Gerrit Hoogenakker
Showcase Landscape