Case Study: How Elkhorn Lawn Care Grew 5X in 5 Years with RealGreen
The Company:
Founded in 2007, Nebraska-based Elkhorn Lawn Care provides a wide range of services to residential and commercial customers. In addition to a full range of lawn care and maintenance services, Elkhorn specializes in irrigation installation, maintenance and services; landscape design, installation and maintenance; exterior and interior holiday lighting installation; and snow removal. They have been a RealGreen customer since 2017.
The Problem:
Owner and CEO James Manske started Elkhorn when he was still in high school to earn extra money mowing lawns in his neighborhood. Over the years, “We kept growing, and as we kept servicing different customers, they would ask for different services — can you do snow removal? Can you do landscape maintenance? So we branched out and started learning these add-on services and providing more to our clients.” This growth mindset eventually led to a highly diverse portfolio of product offerings, with everything from routine lawn maintenance to complex design and build projects.
“In the Midwest, we have to adapt to the different seasons. I looked at that early on — how to keep everyone busy and employed year-round instead of just cutting people at the end of October or November,” continues Manske. “With our focus on commercial and year-round maintenance contracts, it’s easier to reassure our customers that we will take care of them so they don’t have to look for different contractors for all of their property needs.”
However, offering so many services — and keeping track of everything that entails, from appointments to staffing to billing and everything in between — creates certain challenges. How does a thriving company like Elkhorn continue its aggressive growth trajectory while ensuring nothing falls through the cracks?
The Solution:
RealGreen’s software has been instrumental in enabling Elkhorn to keep everything organized and running smoothly while also enabling them to scale effectively.
According to Manske, one of the biggest benefits has been route optimization and the ability to assign jobs to different crews. Crews in the field can easily track job completion, and the office can instantly post and collect payments. For example, during fertilizing services, they now bill, post, and collect payments via ACH throughout the day, instead of waiting one to two days after the service is completed. This has significantly streamlined their back-end processes, saving a lot of time. Manske estimates that it has eliminated the need for at least one full-time position, which allowed the company to reallocate resources and grow in other areas.
“Another benefit is the ability to have a centralized CRM that allows us to house numerous programs and services on a customer account. We have many customers that have year-round services. Having software that allows us to input all services and easily route them when the time comes, has saved us time, energy, and money. We avoid missing services or program rounds with RealGreen.”
Using Elkhorn’s irrigation services as an example, Manske describes a typical workflow using RealGreen: “We create specific programs for both residential and commercial clients. For residential properties, the most common services include a sprinkler system turn-on, a summer checkup, and winterization. For commercial properties, we also provide monthly checkups in addition to the turn-on and winterization. Routing these services is simple. For example, in August, we just pull up the ‘August irrigation checkups,’ which lists all the services due that month. The system shows the date of the last service, so there’s no need to guess when we were last there. This makes scheduling quick and efficient.”
“When we install a new sprinkler system, that’s handled separately. These are treated as special services, requiring a deposit and a signed contract. Once that’s done, we print off the work order as a fourth task for the crew. Since these installations typically take one to seven days, they aren’t routed like other services. Instead, the printed work orders are added to the crew’s folder, and projects are managed in a first-come, first-served manner.”
“Mobile Live has also helped us track services effectively,” continues Manske. “We can see what’s coming up, check if anything was missed, and stay on top of our various programs. We offer so many services — managing everything manually or with spreadsheets would be nearly impossible. This has been huge for us in ensuring we don’t miss services.”
The Results:
RealGreen has enabled Elkhorn to optimize their operations across their entire portfolio of services — something that remains extremely important as they continue to grow.
“We’ve acquired several businesses over the last couple of years,” Manske says, noting that the company is looking to expand its footprint further into Nebraska and to the south, where the changing seasons don’t have as much of an effect on services. With RealGreen, he says, “We can absorb these companies with our processes, software, and systems and be able to take care of their team members and their customers.” Upsells are increasing as well: “We’ve been able to build on our current customer base with the services we offer. When someone is signed up for two services, why not get them to 15?”
Manske estimates that Elkhorn has grown 500% since 2019. “Some of that was with acquisitions, of course, but it’s also from changing our mindset to think bigger and provide more to our team members and our community. .”
He credits RealGreen with enabling that growth process. “It’s easier to grow exponentially when you have the right software set up, and it’s made for the services you provide. It’s incredible how much time you save once everything is set up and streamlined. For anyone in the lawn care business offering recurring services, I think you have to have RealGreen. You’ll never grow unless you leverage software like this that simplifies and creates better processes. Without it, you can’t get to the next level.”
