Lawn Care Companies – Expand Your Business with Hardscape

In your leading lawn maintenance company, you’re likely often looking for ways to increase your bottom line. Perhaps you’ve considered hardscape design and construction—chances are you’ve witnessed the very same property owners you service on the maintenance front hire a landscape construction firm to build elaborate outdoor living spaces. Getting started in that side of the industry requires substantial investments in talent, training, tools, and equipment. What’s really in it for your company? Would it be worth it? The answer is definitely a yes.

And Unilock can help as your trusted partner. For over 45 years, we’ve helped contractors grow and seize all the benefits the hardscape industry has to offer.

Upsell Potential

Expanding your lawn maintenance company to include hardscapes would give you the power to offer upgrades to existing customers. You’ve already built trusting and profitable relationships with many of the very same customers that will purchase patios and front entrances in the years to come. Your company could have insider access to such contracts and gain a huge advantage over the competition thanks to your existing connections.

According to studies, it’s anywhere from 5 to 25 times more expensive to acquire a new customer than to retain an existing one, and 77% of people are considered brand loyal. When you stack up these percentages against the cost of branching out into the hardscape industry, and then compare that to the cost of driving your bottom line with new lawn maintenance customer acquisition, you’ll find that the costs of branching out into hardscapes are worth pursuing. For an experienced lawn maintenance company with the resources to expand, choosing a related market makes a lot of sense.

If you are running an efficient, successful planting division within your company, hardscapes become just another natural extension of this practice, and offer a myriad of benefits.

Expand Your Reach and Service a Growing Demographic

It’s unreasonable to expect that you’d sell hardscape projects to 100% of your existing customer base, but you would still benefit from acquiring the skills and equipment required to serve a growing demographic of customers. The demand for hardscape products and services is expected to increase, as more people are going to pay to have hardscape work done. Putting your company into a position to capitalize on this growing market would be advantageous.

The outdoor living industry has grown exponentially over the last decade. What were once simple 10’ x 10’ patio projects have turned into large, full-scale outdoor living spaces, complete with outdoor kitchens, fire features, and water features—these spaces rival the comforts of many interior homes.

Take Europe, for example, where there are approximately 100 concrete pavers installed each year per person. In the United States, that number is closer to 1. This may seem like a disparity, but here’s the truth: Consumers in the U.S. and Canada are getting more excited about pavers.

This has partly been driven by what customers are seeing in the media. They’re seeing beautiful outdoor living projects on Pinterest, in magazines, on websites like houzz.com, and so on. Inspiration is even coming from popular TV shows and movies. There has never been a greater “buzz” surrounding the outdoor living design/build market. And your lawn maintenance company could jump on the bandwagon of the next decade by getting into the market now.

Delve Deeper Into Your Passion for Outdoor Design

You’re already leaving your mark in the lawn maintenance industry. Expanding on this to act on your passion for beautiful outdoor living design by tapping into the hardscape market would be a strategic fit. Consider it an opportunity to get back to your roots and play in the dirt. Incorporate new equipment, like the UniLyft, into your fleet. Take on exciting outdoor building projects and create magazine-worthy landscapes using new skills, materials, and cutting-edge technology.

The market is seeing a number of trends emerging in the hardscape industry right now that show exciting potential. For example, it’s recording a rise in modern outdoor design that’s spilling over into contemporary backyards, patios, and driveways. It’s also experiencing a wave of new technology in the hardscape world. New methods, techniques, and materials are changing the landscape of the future. Product innovations are driving down construction and labor costs, and increasing the diversity of available products.

For example, building functional, attractive walls, pillars, planters, and grill islands has never been more innovative and accessible, thanks to products like the U-Cara Multi-Face Wall System. Install gorgeous driveways using products like Courtstone or Brussels Block. And tap into your creative vision with design tools such as the Uvision 3D Landscape Creator.

Utilize World-Class Training and Support to Get You Started

Unilock offers a Training & Education Center to help lawn maintenance contractors get started in the hardscape industry. The classes offered in the education center offer a vital learning opportunity to companies that want to prepare their employees for a landscape career. It isn’t necessarily easy to install Unilock products and hardscape elements. Adding these skill sets to your repertoire requires commitment, dedication to excellence, and a desire to turn your employees into exceptionally skilled craftsmen. But it can pay off big time for the companies that take the leap.

Unilock also publishes a wealth of training materials on our YouTube channel and blog. As a hardscape manufacturer deeply committed to this industry, we strive to help contractors with the challenges of hardscape installation on a daily basis. This is also why we offer in-field support in the form of Territory Managers to contractors who install our products. Territory Managers provide:

• Vital field support
• Product samples
• Product sample deliveries
• Sales support
• Guidance for installation
• Additional training
• Uvision 3D Landscape Creator support

Unilock Makes It Simple

Unilock has had over 10 billion pavers installed by contractors to date. We offer a Transferable Lifetime Guarantee on every single paver, and we continue to push the boundaries of innovation by offering cutting-edge hardscape products that homeowners will love. We’ve been in this business for close to 50 years. As the owner or manager of a successful lawn maintenance company, you know that commitment to excellence is paramount to success. This is why Unilock is so deeply committed to the industry. Take one look at our inspiring range of products, and you’ll see why it just makes sense for lawn maintenance companies to take the leap to get into hardscapes.

If you’ve never handled pavers before, contact us for a free on-site visit. We have boots on the ground ready and willing to guide you, and one of our Unilock Territory Managers would love to assist you—whether it’s to answer questions you may have about the process, offer help with training your staff, or to provide samples.