These days are often frustrating to me because many of the clients and potential clients I would otherwise be talking to are entirely focused on serving their clients with emergency snow and ice removal services.
We all know that a “good” snow season makes all the difference to many landscape operators in the snow-belt (and this year somewhat beyond). Even though not that many landscape companies are really excited at snow removal as a service, they know that it can be very profitable, especially tantalizing given the business downturn most have experienced over the past three years. In addition, it can provide work for their crews during a time when many might otherwise be subject to either seasonal layoffs or, at a minimum, subject to a very much reduced work schedule.
Even though not every year provides the opportunities in this service line that the winter of 2010-2011 has so far, some operators have a contingency plan in place to be able to mobilize quickly to respond to the opportunity to provide snow removal services presents itself, either in a routine way or in the more significant and critical way that El Niña seems to have provided this year. Those landscape companies that have gone through the planning process are by far the most likely to really take advantage of a snow event when it occurs.
Because I have been thinking about, focusing on and writing about exit strategy planning for some time now, I asked myself “What do snow removal services and exit strategy planning have in common? The answer I came up is pretty simple – those that plan for the unexpected or uncertain have the best chance to profit from their ability to seize the opportunity when it presents itself.
Carpe diem!