GOING SOLO
Emboldened by the experience he gained, Achtenhagen decided to strike out on his own about a year later. At the time, Waukesha County, located west of Milwaukee, was exploding with residential and commercial developments.
“It wasn’t all that scary,” he says. “Pretty much everyone in my family – including my great-grandfather, grandfather, father, cousin and uncles – owns their own business. So I wasn’t afraid of being self-employed. It’s just the way it is in my family.”
Achtenhagen says his sales experience was valuable in the early going.
“You have to possess that ability to shake someone’s hand, look them in the eye and feel comfortable about talking about your services,” he says. “Learning how to close a deal, to under-promise and over-deliver, to talk about honesty and integrity and all those other clichés … you can’t be contrived. It has to be real.
“You’re also selling yourself when you deal with bankers and vendors,” he adds. “Everything we do, whether it’s convincing people to give you a loan or to do business with you, is based on the dynamics of sales.”
At first, Achtenhagen’s business flourished merely from word-of-mouth referrals. He says it was common to complete one job in a new residential subdivision, then obtain 10 to 15 more landscaping jobs from surrounding neighbors. He also benefited from taking courses in landscape design and construction at a local technical college.
NEW MARKETING AVENUES
Early in the new millennium, Achtenhagen’s continued to thrive. For three consecutive years, the company landed on the Future 50 list, a program created by the Metropolitan Milwaukee Association of Commerce to recognize companies that show significant employment and revenue growth.
As the company grew, so did its fleet of equipment. Today, the company owns eight skid loaders, two track loaders and numerous attachments, made by Bobcat Co.; one trencher, manufactured by Case New Holland; one Dingo utility machine, made by The Toro Co.; 19 commercial lawn mowers, made by Toro and Exmark Manufacturing Company Inc.; 43 snow plows, pushers and salters, mostly manufactured by BOSS Products (a division of Northern Star Industries Inc.) and Western Snowplows; eight enclosed trailers, made by Cargo Mate (a division of Forest River Inc.); nine equipment trailers, manufactured by Felling Trailers; and almost three dozen pickup trucks, dump trucks and other vehicles.
Managing such explosive growth wasn’t always easy, he notes. Finding qualified workers continued to challenge the company, along with maintaining quality. “But nothing crippled us,” he says. “Our main concern was keeping our foundation – our processes, procedures and people – stable, and sticking to our niche, which was residential homes valued between $750,000 and $1.5 million.”
Achtenhagen wanted to sustain the company’s exponential growth, but he realized that word-of-mouth referrals wouldn’t be enough. And after experimenting with various forms of media advertising, he found the perfect marketing vehicle: radio ads.
“To stay on our growth trajectory, I knew we’d have to increase awareness of the company,” he says. “We made a few mistakes early on. We dabbled in various media: television, radio, newspapers and regional magazines.
“At first, we were one of the only landscapers that advertised in regional magazines,” he notes. “As such, the return was much higher. But the rest of the crowd typically finds the hot venue … and that watered down our results. So we moved to AM radio and boom! The results went up.”
