Leveraging Technology in Locally Owned Businesses: Insights and Experiences with Barefoot Lawn Care
We sat down with the owners of Barefoot Lawn Care, which is based out of Blue Springs, Missouri, to get their insight into how technology is utilized in their business.
General Technology Use
Q: How do you integrate technology into your daily business operations at Barefoot Lawn Care?
A: “We use a lot of technology in our business operations. Obviously, our website is our largest footprint in the digital landscape. We rely on it to relay information about our business and operations and attract new customers. We have a great partnership with Studio 7 KC, which built, maintained, and hosted our site for us. We do get a fair amount of traffic from our site, which helps to attract new customers.”
Q: What specific tools or software do you use regularly?
A: “Our daily operations are managed with our Field Management Software, Service Autopilot. We have used that for years now, basically since the start of our operations. It takes care of billing, routing, customer management, and more. It works well, but we are looking into other options as it has had some shortfalls. We have also noticed that it seems to be having more and more issues, so we are looking into other options.”
“Like many businesses, we use QuickBooks for accounting and billing. However, we had so many issues with their billing that we had to stop using them, so we have been using SA’s integrated billing.”
Q: What role does technology play in your overall business strategy?
A: “In today’s world, you must have some sort of digital footprint to reach customers and to allow customers to find you. I would say that we are pretty invested in technology because all our operations currently rely on various software and tools for our day-to-day operations.”
Keeping Up with Technological Advances
Q: How do you stay updated with the latest technological trends and advancements relevant to your industry?
A: “As far as it relates to our equipment, we are always on the lookout for new equipment that might make the work quicker, easier, more efficient, or save us money. We are also very hopeful that electric equipment will continue to advance to the point that it can displace gas-powered equipment.
“Some of it is good. Our 80-volt electric handheld blowers are extremely good and compare or beat the gas-powered equipment. We are also pleasantly surprised by the newer electric chainsaws. They do a pretty good job meeting our needs. I don’t know if they are ready for full-time use with a tree trimming company, but for the work we do, we find them more than sufficient. We also find them easier to use overall with more reliable start-ups.
“As far as electric mowers go, they have come a very long way. Commercial brands have much longer battery life than they used to, even just a few years ago. I know people from out west are using some of them successfully. However, they do tend to struggle in our area with wetter, thicker grasses compared to gas mowers. The upfront cost is roughly twice what a gas-powered mower costs. You do make up for some of that with gas savings and maintenance savings, but it is a high bar to get over to buy a fleet of 20-to-30 thousand-dollar machines. But they are getting very close.
“I think another major hurdle with electric equipment is battery costs. It is expensive to replace batteries, even on the handheld equipment.”
Q: How do you decide which new technologies to adopt?
A: “There are several factors. First, the technology we integrate has to either save us money or save us time, these are vitally important factors for small businesses. There must be a tangible improvement to validate incorporating any technology into our business. The second is cost; if the cost isn’t manageable or if the bottom line is not improved in relation to the extra cost of the technology, then it is not worth incorporating it into our business. In today’s climate with increasing costs, it is important to ensure the latest tech is beneficial to business operations and finances and not just incorporate it for the sake of having the latest, “greatest” new tech. Two caveats to this though, we do focus on safety and environmental concerns. If something can make the workday safer or has a real benefit to health or the environment, then cost can be a secondary consideration.”
Benefits of Technology
Q: Do you feel that technological advances have improved your business operations? If so, how?
A: “I would say both yes and no. When the technology we use is working correctly, then yes, it has made things smoother and easier. The routing software makes it much easier to work through the day’s client list. However, there have been things we have used that have just been a disaster. For example, we were using Indeed for finding and hiring employees. It honestly ended up being a terrible program for us, at least in our industry. The costs are extremely high, and the leads have turned out to be pretty terrible overall. I would say, conservatively, we have spent thousands of dollars on the program over the years; we were trying to utilize it with almost zero positive results. At least, it is not enough to warrant the costs associated with these companies. I have talked to other owners in my industry, and they have run into the same issues with Indeed and other employee lead services.
“Some of this has to do with the recent hiring climate, but the leads are terrible. Many people are just using the service to get “interviews” to keep their unemployment benefits going. It is no exaggeration to say that ninety percent of our interviewees wouldn’t even show up to the scheduled interview. It was a big waste of time and money.”
“I would also say lead generation services such as Angie’s have been pretty subpar. Admittedly, we have received some good long-term customers from their service, especially in the beginning, but the changes we have seen over the years in the quality of leads and service has been significant. Lead prices have skyrocketed, and lead quality has gone down. We have actually contacted their company in the past and given them a list of things they could do to make the service much better for us and other contractors while improving the lead quality and customer satisfaction, but these have been completely ignored. As a result, we have shut down our lead service as well.”
Q: What specific technology has had the most positive impact on your business?
A: “Despite some of the issues, field management software is extremely helpful to keep everything flowing smoothly, billing correctly, routing correctly, scheduling jobs, etc. I think the key is to find the right one for your business. Some of them are way too hefty for many businesses to bother with, and some are way too lean. We have recently been turned onto a different system by a friend in the industry who switched over to YardBook. He has been extremely happy with it, so we are looking into switching to that.”
Challenges with Technology
Q: Have there been technologies that you initially thought would be beneficial but ultimately decided were not useful?
A: “Some of the electrical equipment was not where we thought it would be so a few items we purchased to test out, we have not really incorporated into our business. But we are hopeful that will change soon.”
Q: What are the biggest challenges you face in implementing new technology?
A: “Costs and time are the two factors that really challenge us as a small business. If the cost is too high to implement new tech, then it just isn’t going to happen. Time is also a factor; despite our best intentions, sometimes we just don’t have the time to invest deep diving into the use and implementation of new software or tools.”
Q: How do you address these challenges?
A: “Our off-season is our biggest opportunity to explore new business tools. We have a couple of months in the winter to evaluate new tools.”
Customer Interaction and Marketing
Q: How do you use technology to interact with and engage your customers?
A: “We utilize some of the basic online channels; our website and social media are the main channels for engagement, but utilizing email newsletters to our customers is another great tool for us.”
Q: Which platforms or tools have been most effective for customer engagement?
A: “Honestly, just communicating with clients, even through email, is our most successful tool for customer engagement.”
Data Management
Q: How do you handle data management and security within your business?
A: “All of our data management is done through our field management software. This third-party system is responsible for most of our data security. For billing, our credit card processor uses tokenization to help secure credit card information. This helps us be more secure because nothing, no customer credit card information, is stored on our system, which I prefer to help keep things safer and secure. We also make generous use of our shredder for hard copies of information. Also, we utilize security features on our website to help increase the level of security. Obviously, there isn’t any system out there that is immune to attack, but hopefully, we can reduce the exposure as much as possible.”
E-commerce and Online Presence
Q: Do you have an e-commerce platform? If so, how has it impacted your business?
A: “Our e-commerce is pretty much limited to our online billing for our services. We don’t sell any products.”
Q: How important is having a strong online presence for your business?
A: “I think it goes without saying that having an online presence today is necessary. Even if you don’t get too heavily involved online, I think at minimum, you need a website and maybe one social media channel just to have some sort of presence online because most people are using online resources to find what they are looking for.”
Q: What steps do you take to maintain and enhance your online presence?
A: “We try to keep everything updated as much as possible. Writing articles for the site is a good way to do that, but it can be hard to find the time to crank those out when running the business operations.”
Productivity and Efficiency
Q: What technologies do you use to improve productivity and efficiency in your business operations?
A: “Our FMS has to be our biggest efficiency booster. When working correctly, it helps smooth all the business operations, from estimates to billing. I would say this is the main efficiency booster for us. On the equipment side of things, keeping on top of maintenance and trying to stay ahead of issues that will slow down the day are the most important things to consider.”
Q: Have you noticed a significant difference in efficiency since implementing these technologies?
A: “In our first year, we just kept track via pencil, paper, and spreadsheets. The FMS really made a difference in the ease and efficiency of our operations.”
Future Plans
Q: Are there any upcoming technological investments or upgrades you are planning for your business?
A: “We do plan on switching our FMS over to a new provider. Other than that, we don’t have any new tech investments at this time.”
Q: What do you hope to achieve with these new technologies?
A: “We hope they will work better and be a little more reliable than what we are currently using.”
Q: How do you envision the role of technology in your business evolving over the next few years?
A: “We always look for anything new in the pipeline. We have started to try to transition some of our gas-powered equipment to electric. Some of it is great, but a lot of work is needed before some of the electric equipment is viable for commercial use.”
Employee Training and Adaptation
Q: How do you ensure that your employees are well-trained to use the latest technologies?
A: “We don’t currently use any employees; we run everything on our own.”
Q: What challenges do you face in getting your team to adopt new technologies?
A: “The cost would be the main limiter on some technologies.”
Technology Support and Maintenance
Q: How do you handle technical support and maintenance for your business technologies?
A: “Studio 7 KC maintains most of our business technology. They manage our website and online presence, which works very well for us.”
Advice for Other Business Owners
Q: What advice would you give to other small business owners about integrating technology into their operations?
A: “Do your homework and find online forums with professionals in your field. There is plenty of information out there from other businesses that have used or are currently using different technologies. I would spend some time reading their experiences and asking questions. Find out what worked or didn’t work for them and why. Sometimes, what doesn’t work for one will work fine for another, but you can usually find a consensus on what works well for your field and what doesn’t.”
