Landscape and Irrigation is read by decision makers throughout the landscape and irrigation markets — including contractors, landscape architects, professional grounds managers, and irrigation and water mgmt companies and reaches the entire spetrum.
Issue link: https://read.dmtmag.com/i/32573
Special Feature By John Kmitta Break out of the Box T hinking outside the box; that is what a lot of business owners in the landscape and irrigation industries are doing as they look to capitalize on their current client database, while also appealing to a whole new group of potential customers. For many, that means expanding beyond their traditional offerings to provide their clients additional products and services. As a result, franchise and dealership opportunities are pre- senting landscape and irrigation professionals with bolt-on business potential based on established business models. A few of the fran- chise and dealership opportunities that are gaining ground in the landscape and irrigation markets are as follows: We Do Lines In 2008, Chris Couri, Tom Darrow and Dan Rella were sitting around trying to come up with a new idea. Each had a landscape and irrigation businesses, a lot of commercial accounts and con- tacts, and wanted to do something together. Darrow suggested parking lot line striping. “It was one of those off-the-radar items,” said Couri, president, CEO and co-founder of We Do Lines. “Embracing the entrepre- neurial spirit, we bought a machine, learned how to stripe, and started plugging it into our existing business. We were already in the parking lots, plowing and sweeping; this was just another service.” We Do Lines created a website, commanded a big online pres- ence, and ended up getting inquiries from across the United States in its first year. “We would do our day jobs in landscape and irrigation, and then take a break, wait until it got dark and places closed, and then go back out at night and stripe lines,” said Couri. “We did that part time the first full year, and ended up doing well and making money. As such, we said it could be done on a full-time basis. We felt we had something really special.” By their second year of line striping, the owners of We Do Lines felt that they could look at the business model as something that could be franchised. “I had taken franchising in college, and one of my professors was one of the people who started Jiffy Lube,” said Couri. “That was something that had always resonated in the back of my mind as an interesting model. So we met with some consultants, and they said it sounded like we had an interesting concept — business in a box, in the service industry, demand based, relatively low start-up cost, and something that we knew we could replicate.” 10 Landscape and Irrigation May/June 2011 Above: Parking lot line striping is an ideal business avenue for landscapers — especially those who are already sweeping and plowing clients’ parking lots. Below: Tom Darrow, co-founder of We Do Lines, at work. — Photos courtesy of We Do Lines with Bolt-on Business Franchise and dealership opportunities that are helping landscape and irrigation companies grow www.landscapeirrigation.com