The simple definition of change management is what it sounds like: managing changes in processes, procedures, or products with stakeholders from all sides. In a landscape-related business, stakeholders could include buyers, growers, purchasing agents, office admin staff (in particular, finance), delivery drivers, designers, and more.  

Whenever you make a change, such as embracing an online marketplace like LandscapeHub for selling or purchasing, there’s always a little bit of friction. People have to learn new systems, procedures, and technology, and they might be resistant.

Solid change management techniques can help overcome resistance and ensure that your new way of doing business is successful, and that’s what everyone wants — even those who seem resistant. A lot of resistance comes from fear (that they won’t understand what to do, that their job is going away, that their job will take longer), but these tips can help you and your stakeholders overcome the resistance and benefit from the positive outcomes the change will allow.  

Does this sound like “corporate speak?” A little bit, but it doesn’t have to be. Here are six key tips for managing change successfully. They’re not complicated and involved and don’t require you to wear a business suit. If you make a point to do these six things, you will be successful in getting staff and customers on board with LandscapeHub.

Define the Goal & Associated Benefits

Start by defining your goal for using LandscapeHub and then listing the associated benefits. Setting the goal is important because everyone needs to know what they are working toward. However, listing the benefits is what will help you get buy-in from stakeholders. To make a change with more than halfhearted compliance, people need to understand how the change will help them and make their life easier. Otherwise, a change is just more work.

The high-level goal for anyone reading this blog post is “to use LandscapeHub.” But, it’s helpful to define why you’re using LandscapeHub. Here are a couple of goals and associated benefits that might speak to you.

• Goal: Convert XX percentage of buyers to using LandscapeHub by XX date.
• Goal: Complete XX percentage of purchases through LandscapeHub by XX date.

The acronym “SMART” is often used for goals, but that’s because it’s useful.

Goals should be

• Specific
• Measurable
• Attainable
• Realistic
• Timely

When you’re articulating your goals, make them SMART!

Identify Key Stakeholders & Resources They Need

Once leadership has defined goals, identify key stakeholders and how this change will affect them. Actually writing this down will ensure you don’t leave anyone out. For example:

• Buyers: If you’re a supplier looking to convert buyers to using LandscapeHub, you’ll want to make sure that they know LandscapeHub is an option, understand the benefits, and have some training on using the platform.
• Office staff: If you’re a buyer purchasing through LandscapeHub, your office staff might need support to pay bills through the system. (It’s easy, but you’d have to point them in the right direction.)
• Delivery drivers: Let’s say you’re a buyer starting to purchase through LandscapeHub. Make sure your delivery drivers understand where, when, and how they’re picking up materials.

Anyone who touches the fulfillment process, from tagging trees in the yard to paying bills, to scheduling deliveries, to requesting quotes, will be affected by working through LandscapeHub.

Provide Training & Support

Make sure the effects of using LandscapeHub are positive by using your list of stakeholders and their needs to create a game plan for enacting change that satisfies the needs you’ve identified. Training and support can include:

• Marketing emails to let customers know that LandscapeHub exists, with links to training materials. (This blog post is a great source of info for getting the most out of LandscapeHub.)
• A designated in-house “LandscapeHub” expert who knows the ins and outs of the platform.
• A checklist for creating quotes or uploading materials to LandscapeHub.
• Demonstrations of tips for using the software.

What you need to do to help your customers and staff use LandscapeHub will vary depending on your goals, but in general, people need to know that it’s available and understand key functionality that relates to their role.

Schedule Evaluation

When the changes are rolled out, make sure there’s a meeting, phone call, or get together scheduled to check in with stakeholders.

• Suppliers: Call your buyers and ask how it’s going. See if they have any questions, frustrations, or wins. Ask if you can use their positive feedback in your marketing emails.
• Suppliers: Meet with your office staff to see how product upload is going. Find out if there’s anything you can do to streamline the system.
• Buyers: Pause and reflect on how your purchasing process has changed. Are there any other features of the system you can incorporate now that you’ve gotten started?

Give Encouragement

Nobody likes to work in a vacuum. If you’ve gone to the trouble to get staff and customers to make changes, go to the trouble to give feedback — encouraging feedback. Let them see their metrics. “We’ve added XX new customers since implementing online fulfillment through LandscapeHub.” “We’ve cut XX amount of time from our purchasing process, for an XX percentage in efficiency.”

If possible, give a bonus or provide a “gift” such as a half-day of paid time off or lunch in celebration of meeting the goals. If that’s not feasible, expressing gratitude and giving feedback on their efforts goes a long way toward making people feel valued and interested in making more changes in the future.

Keep Momentum Going

It’s easy to backslide into old habits. Schedule more evaluations/ check-ins for the future and incentivize further productivity. Set new goals once your company has effectively started using LandscapeHub so that you can get more out of the platform.

LandscapeHub can give your business tremendous gains in efficiency, and you’ll see more gains if you do your best to positively and proactively manage the transition into use for your key stakeholders.

If you use LandscapeHub, you’re in the business of selling. . . something. But it might not be what you think, and thinking differently about what you sell will actually help you sell more.

Gut Check: Does the idea of marketing and selling make you happy or nervous?

Before delving into a discussion of reframing your thinking about marketing, take a minute to figure out what you think about marketing.

It’s our experience that suppliers are fairly comfortable with selling products because selling products is (they think) at the core of their business. But, suppliers might get nervous about marketing their products. Marketing makes a lot of people nervous. Or, suppliers might not think they even need to market their products.

Conversely, many buyers, especially smaller landscape design firms or sole proprietor designers, seem to be more reluctant to actively sell and to market. Maybe thinking about marketing feels like drinking vinegar. Maybe you feel too pushy when you market or put calls to action on your website like, “contact me.” That’s ok (for now). It’s good to know where you stand.

Selling features and benefits

Now that you know how you feel about marketing and selling, you can begin reframing your thinking, and varying your message will help you sell more without even trying.

Jot this down:

Facts tell. Benefits sell.

Benefits sell because the benefits of a product or service are what people really want.

Here are what facts look like in marketing:

“Now available: New Guinea Impatiens - 4 inch and gallons”

“Project management is billed at $125 per hour and may be purchased in blocks of $500”

“New Item: Mexican Rock 1⁄2” to 1” available by pallet.”

Ok, so where do benefits come in?

Jot this down: You don’t sell stuff. You sell solutions.

The benefits are the solutions.

A homeowner or their contractor buying gravel isn’t just buying gravel. They’re buying a new pathway to take them to their garden to enjoy their free time. They’re buying a buffer area around a low-cost fire pit for safety and peace of mind while enjoying their outdoor space to relax and unwind.

An architect buying arborvitae isn’t just buying trees. They’re filling a need for their clients’ project  (and thus fulfilling their own need for work to live). They’re buying a living screen to separate the client’s backyard from the neighbors so the clients can enjoy their outdoor space in peace.

A couple buying design services isn’t buying a plan for their backyard. They’re buying a way to make the dream that they have of spending time with family instead of swatting bugs and stepping on sand spurs a reality.

A shopping center manager buying 400 pots of hot pink New Guinea Impatiens isn’t just buying plants. They’re buying the attention-grabbing color of the plants that will capture the interest of people driving by, hopefully encouraging them to stop and shop.

Feature benefits while marketing to adopt a “helping” mindset

Think about how much your clients or customers benefit from what you have to offer. You’re not just snatching their money. You’re helping them solve problems.

When you put it that way, it’s much easier to communicate about what you’re selling.

Communicate benefits when you’re marketing. Every sign doesn’t have to be a story. Every facebook post doesn’t have to be a brochure, but even saying something simple like:

“Stop traffic with instant curb appeal. Now available New Guinea Impatiens - 4 inch and gallons”

communicates the benefits they’ll get from buying the impatiens.

It also reframes your thinking from selling to helping.

Marketing makes it easy for customers

Time for the big finale! Why bother marketing at all?

You bother because marketing helps customers realize that you can help them.

You are all about helping, and how can you help someone if they don’t know about you?

Customers are looking for solutions, and marketing is how you tell them about the solutions you offer.

Why make people hunt for your availability if you can email it to them? (Here’s a LandscapeHub marketing plug: Why bother creating your own availability list when you can email your customers and point them to LandscapeHub? See what we did there?)

Why make people stop by for a visit to see what’s on your lot when you could put pictures on Facebook?

Why let a customer miss refreshing their annual plantings for the year when you could call them or send them a postcard to remind them?

Of course you have to think about the frequency of your messaging and the way you deliver marketing messages, but you can stop thinking of marketing being pushy and start thinking about it being helpful.

Isn’t it nice when you need to contact your insurance broker to be able to search through your email and find an email from them? Or to be able to click to call them from their website? Or when you see their “google my business” listing is up to date?

To sum it up:

You’re not selling products and services. You’re selling solutions that will help people. For people to know you can help them, you have to tell them. That’s marketing.

Now, go forth and help!

Maybe you think email marketing is just for online businesses that ship products to customers. The truth is that email marketing, or if the word “marketing” makes you squeamish, email “communications,” when done right, can make a huge difference in your business.  If you’re reading this, whether you’re a buyer, supplier, or re-wholesaler there are benefits to keeping in touch with your customers this way, the biggest of which is that you’ll remain top of mind when they need more plants, help with a project, or a landscape designed for their new house. Here are the basics of creating an email program.

Select an email service provider (ESP)

Your ESP is the program that will collect email addresses for you and through which you’ll send emails to hundreds of contacts at a time. No more bulk bcc’ing through your outlook or your gmail account (which isn’t effective, efficient, or desired by “office” type email programs). You can build one email and send it to different groups or segments at one time. The ESP will also help you manage your list by allowing your contacts to unsubscribe with one click if they don’t want to be on the list. The least expensive, easiest to use ESP is MailChimp. Constant Contact is another popular choice. Choose one and sign up.

Set up your ESP

Don’t be scared of this part! All ESPs have great tutorials to explain how to set them up. At a minimum you will:

1. Change the text on your signup form page and confirmation email.
2. Customize one of the email templates with your company logo and colors
3. Add your postal mailing address to the account (to comply with federal CAN-SPAM laws
4. Upload email addresses of customers or clients you’ve emailed within the last year.

Add opt-in forms to website & social media

You can grow your email list by asking clients if you may add them to your list (opt in to your list). You’ll also want to add an opt-in form to your website. Common locations for email signup forms are the footer and the sidebar. If you’re really serious about your program you will add it to your homepage somewhere prominent. Always include the following information with your opt in form:

1. Type of information you send
2. Frequency you’ll email
3. Link to a privacy policy

Here are some examples of that information:Get our weekly availability. We’ll never sell or give away your email address. See our privacy policy here. (Link to privacy policy.)Be the first to know about new plants in our monthly newsletter.  We’ll never sell or give away your email address. See our privacy policy here. (Link to privacy policy.)Stay on trend with monthly design tips.  We’ll never sell or give away your email address. See our privacy policy here. (Link to privacy policy.)Most ESPs will easily let you embed your signup form from your ESP on your Facebook page. You can also add the link to the form in your Instagram account using Linktr.ee, a free multi link tool that will help you get more out of the one allowed Instagram link.

Build your editorial calendar

The key to a successful email program is consistency. To stay consistent, build a calendar with the date of the email send, topic of email, and some notes about what you want to include. Then, mark your calendar to batch produce emails and leave them in draft for last minute additions, or mark your calendar to work on emails a week before they’re scheduled to send. What do you want to write about? Keep in mind that your main objective is to solve customer problems. Help them save money or time (with your products and services) or improve their lives (with your designs and installations, tips and tools).

Here are some good topics for our industry:

1. Availability lists
2. Design tips
3. New plants/ good-looking plants
4. Plants to solve specific customer problems
5. Custom order information
6. Trends
7. New product or hardscape features/products
8. Promotions
9. How-to content

Always include a CTA (call to action). Suppliers, you can encourage buyers to check out your offerings on LandscapeHub. Buyers, ask your clients to reply with questions about their landscapes.

Build your first email and send it!

These are the parts of your emails that you’ll need to customize:

1. From line & Email Address: Customers should recognize this as you. You should have an info@yourdesignbusiness.com to send email from. You’ll set this once for your list/account.
2. Subject line: The headline for your email. It should be provocative to get people to click and open it, but it also needs to be relevant to the content inside the email.  
3. Pre-header text: This text shows up in the email box and should give a sneak peek at what is inside.
4. View in Browser Link: So they can share it online or see it if their email program is messing things up.
5. Header Image: Make this your logo and link it to your website.
6. Body: The main email content
7. Footer: The bottom of the email, which has several components.Social Share links: So people can share the email in their Facebook or Twitter feeds.
8. Unsubscribe link: Required to comply with CAN-SPAM laws and usually provided by the email service provider.
9. Reminder: Brief bit of text reminding people how they ended up on your email list. This is automatically inserted, but you can usually edit it.
10. Postal Mailing Address: Required to comply with CAN-SPAM laws.

Create a maximum of three to four content blocks for your emails. You don’t need fancy graphics. In fact, it’s better to build your email from pictures and text because text on graphics doesn’t scale well on mobile, and can become really tiny when people are reading emails on their phones.  Use buttons to encourage readers to click through to your website or the LandscapeHub website to browse.Always send yourself a test of the email and click through all of the links before you send the email to your whole list.

Your email list is your “bank”

It is worth it to take the time to develop an email program and to build your list because emails will constantly push people toward your products and services on a schedule that your customers have agreed to. They opted in that they wanted to hear from you, so they’ll be much more receptive to your message. It’s a great way to efficiently keep everyone informed about new products and services and to ask for business. Once you start a program, you’ll wonder how you lived without it!