Given a choice between quantity of business and quality, landscaper Ken Schuster will choose quality every time. By putting the brakes on fast growth and focusing instead on customer service, business diversity and continuing education, his company - Greenleaf Landscaping & Gardens in Greenleaf, Wis. - prospers, bad economy or not.
“We’ve fought to stay small,” Schuster says. “We’ve had lots of opportunities to grow bigger, but we never jumped at it. We like being able to really get to know our customers and do high-quality work.
“It’s a quality of life issue, too,” he adds. “I know a lot of people in the landscaping industry ... and almost every one of them has told me to avoid getting big. As soon as you expand, all your problems and worries grow exponentially.”
So far, Schuster’s think-small philosophy has paid off. The company, which started out as a lawn service operation in 1969, now owns eight dump trucks and about a half dozen pieces of heavy equipment. In addition, Schuster recently opened a large garden center that offers everything from plants and supplies to a landscape display area, plus classes and special events that effectively promote the center.
Greenleaf’s success hinges on working closely with customers to meet their needs, and staying within a budget by suggesting cost-cutting solutions. But that doesn’t mean Greenleaf is a low-price outfit, either.
“We don’t come in with a low price just to get a customer,” Schuster says. “Every customer has a need, and we look at what they want and offer three different options - high-end, medium and low-end. We give a fair price without cutting corners.
“We also offer cost-cutting solutions,” he continues. “We try to find the best solution at the best price. We don’t worry about being the cheapest. A lot of people - especially young families - let price dictate their choice (of a landscaper), and deal with the resulting problems later on.
“We make sure the important things are taken care of, like establishing a correct drainage pattern so water doesn’t run toward the house or cause problems for a neighbor. It’s kind of like a foundation on a house: If you don’t pour the basement right, the house won’t stand.”
Schuster recalls a customer who complained that Greenleaf’s bid for a new lawn was twice as high as another landscaper’s price. So Schuster broke down the bid and showed the customer the cost of items such as tractor hours, labor, seed and fertilizer quantity and mulch bales, then told the customer to compare that to the other bid.
“The other contractor had half as much seed, less base matter, no rock-picking and so on,” he says. “We ended up getting the project.”
DIRT-DIGGING ROOTS
Schuster’s affinity for working with dirt comes from his father, Bill, who used to run an excavating business on the south side of Milwaukee. In 1969, he sold the company and moved to Greenleaf, about 10 miles south of Green Bay, in search of a simpler, rural lifestyle. He didn’t have the capital to invest in a lot of new iron to start another excavating firm, so he started a lawn-grading and seeding business instead.
Ken Schuster worked for his father while growing up. After graduating from high school, he continued to work for his father and attended college classes in landscape design and construction during the off-season. He bought the company in 1984.
Looking back, Schuster can easily pick out two watershed events that greatly enhanced his business prospects.
First, while he was still attending college classes, Schuster entered a display-garden design contest sponsored by a landscape stone supplier. The complicated project included tying together various grade changes, using 30 different kinds of stone and incorporating many different plants. Schuster’s design won the contest.
“That launched me - gave me the boost of confidence I needed to do this kind of work,” he says.
RIGHT PLACE, RIGHT TIME
The second event occurred a couple years before Schuster bought the company, when he was still establishing himself as a landscape designer. An insurance company executive was building a mansion along the nearby Fox River, and Schuster went over to look at the massive project.
As Schuster stood in the driveway, a man drove up on a motorcycle. Schuster started talking with him about the house, then mentioned he’d love to do the landscaping.
“He said he was the owner, and he happened to be having problems with the landscaper hired for the job,” Schuster recalls. “He said I should come over the next Monday to talk about it, and we ended up getting the job.
“He wanted a paver-block patio and walkways, which was new and cutting-edge at the time. We didn’t have the right equipment to do it. But he bought the equipment for us, and we bought it back from him after we completed the project. It took us two years to finish, which worked out fine because there wasn’t a lot of other work going on anyway.
“It was a complete stroke of luck that we were there at just the right time, and he liked us,” Schuster says.
The executive was so pleased with Greenleaf’s work that he then hired the company to landscape his company grounds, which took another year to complete.
“Those jobs sort of pole vaulted us into the limelight,” Schuster says. “Everyone wanted to know who did the landscaping. From that point on, we were established as a go-to landscaping company.”
STEADY GROWTH
As Greenleaf grew, so did its equipment needs. Today, the company’s stable of machinery includes eight dump trucks (eight- to 10-yard capacities), purchased from Quality Truck & Equipment Inc. and Fox Cities Truck Sales; a 2004 Caterpillar 246 skid-steer, bought from FABCO Equipment Inc.; a 2005 John Deere 35C ZTS mini-excavator and a 2006 John Deere 110 utility tractor, acquired from Brooks Tractor Inc.; a 1984 Ford 340B rubber tire loader, bought from Griesbach Equipment Inc.; a 1990 Ford 1720 utility tractor; a Jumping Jack compactor, made by Wacker Neuson; a wide array of attachments, such as augers and trenchers; and 10 trailers of varying lengths and payload capacities.
Schuster says he prefers to buy used large equipment to reduce his overhead costs. The only exception is trucks and trailers, because they take such a beating.
“We have no equipment debt, which is of real value right now,” he says. “This way, it doesn’t hurt us if those pieces of equipment aren’t busy every minute of the day. We’re not overextended financially.”
The company’s biggest investment to date is a new garden center, built in 2005 on 10 acres of land outside Greenleaf. Open from mid-March through Dec. 31, the center sells a wide variety of garden tools and supplies, plants, and gifts and home decor items.
“It was always my dream to have a business location,” says Schuster, who for years ran the business out of his home. “It kind of put Greenleaf on the map. Before, we didn’t present as professional an image as we wanted for clients who’d visit us for project presentations. When people come out now, we can show them the actual plants we talk about in a presentation.”
CLASSES ATTRACT CUSTOMERS
A key component of the center has nothing to do with bricks and mortar: a slate of almost a dozen classes for customers. The center also is home to the Ready Set Grow Garden Club, whose members meet once a month. Dues are $10 annually, and members receive a 10 percent discount on plant purchases at the garden center.
The classes last about an hour and touch on a wide range of gardening and backyard lifestyle topics, ranging from how to make suet for birds to basics of landscape architecture to making birdhouses, Schuster says.
“By offering the classes, we show customers that we’re staying on top of new things out there,” he notes. “We try to cover things that are meaningful and pertinent to our area. The center and the garden club generate extra publicity for us, too.”
The center also has a display area that shows off Greenleaf’s landscaping expertise. Highlights include a patio and sitting walls; a built-in, stainless-steel grill; and an outdoor fireplace unit.
“We can showcase not only our products, but our craftsmanship as a contractor,” Schuster points out. “We can point out things like no more than 1/4 of an inch of space between pavers. It allows us to separate ourselves from other installers ... and it shows our quality work much better than a photo.”
“STAYCATION” DRIVES TRENDS
In the wake of record-high fuel prices during the last year and the slumping economy, Schuster says more and more customers want to turn their yards into mini-resorts - a setting they can retreat to without driving anywhere. That includes features like fire pits, water features, built-in grills and outdoor kitchens.
“Another trend is using large chunks of quarried stone - usually limestone that’s roughly three feet long, 12 to 24 inches high and 18 inches deep - to build retaining walls instead of retaining-wall blocks,” Schuster says. “They’re cheaper than retaining blocks, and look more natural.
“With the quarried stone, we can build a nice retained area in about a half day, as opposed to a day or two if we use retaining-wall blocks. In the right setting, they’re gorgeous, and in some yards, they’re the only thing that will work.”
While landscaping trends may come and go, one thing won’t change at Greenleaf: a strong commitment to quality work and customer service. To ensure that happens, Schuster is counting on his children, who play an integral role in the company’s operations.
Daughters Monica and Genine, along with Genine’s husband, Bryan, run the garden center. Sons Gregg and Warren run the company’s landscaping division with their father. A third son William is in his second year of college, majoring in horticulture with a business minor, and plans to join the family business after graduating.
“I feel like they’re on good footing,” Schuster says. “They’re not overextended financially, and there’s no competition, such as a Home Depot, right on top of us. There’s enough room for us to grow, too.” Slowly but steadily, no doubt.
