ItÕs show time! This is the time of year when all of your meticulous planning and the long days youÕve put in since the fall season are starting to pay off with the first blooms of spring. As you know firsthand, however, the slate of long days is just beginning. There are flowerbeds to mulch, fields to maintain between baseball doubleheaders and spring football practices, spring events to plan for such as graduations and campus visits, and so much more!
With all the projects and tasks you face this time of year it would be very easy to overlook one of the most critical responsibilities of a grounds manager: MARKETING. After all, it is the subtle beauty that you provide your employer that greatly enhances the value of the property Ð the old Òcurb appeal.Ó
Now, I know that you are probably saying to yourself, ÒMarketing? What are you talking about, Grammer?Ó After all, one of the reasons you chose a career in grounds management was because the job allowed you to be in the field doing what you love rather than in the office devising plans to attract customers. However, marketing is what separates truly effective grounds managers from the pretenders.
While you might not have to rely on attracting customers in order to pay bills and salaries, your grounds program surely relies on funding from the organizationÕs key decision-makers. While it would be great to think that your department receives its level of funding based solely upon its efficiency and value to the organization, this is just not the case in todayÕs business environment in which an organizationÕs resources are finite, but the requests are never-ending. With such stiff competition for support, it is no wonder that todayÕs grounds management professional must know how to market. They must know how to market the grounds program to the organization itself, the larger community in which the organization resides, and the grounds management profession in order to gain their fair share of these limited resources.
The first and most important focus should be on marketing to the key decision-makers within your organization. A lot of this is simply educating your organizationÕs administration about the broad array of services provided by the grounds department and focusing on your crewÕs effectiveness. So, how do you do this? First, why not just start by showing them? With ornamentals and flowers in their full springtime glory, now is the time to market your department to those who hold the purse strings. ItÕs a great time to thank the administration for supporting your department. Show them the results obtained with that new piece of equipment; educate your superior about its value and explain how it has increased productivity, saved money, and/or decreased manual labor. Do some research beforehand (PGMSÕ Operational Guidelines for Grounds Management provides lots of valuable benchmarking statistics to refer to) and demonstrate how your crew is meeting or even exceeding best practices established by the Green Industry.
Another great step in raising your departmentÕs profile among the eyes of executives is to showcase your efforts by participating in the PGMS Green Star Awards program. The only awards program to recognize the countryÕs most outstanding grounds maintenance programs, winners are profiled in national publications (including this one). Imagine your CEOÕs or ChancellorÕs reaction upon learning that they have one of the countryÕs top grounds management programs. Then imagine how impressed they will be when your local media reports on this honor to the larger community in which your organization resides. Ka-ching!
Receiving such honors also helps to further educate those within the organization and community about the grounds management profession: the broad range of skills required, the level of planning and management involved, and the certifications and education it requires.
So what are you waiting for? With everything in full bloom now is the time to start getting your entry together. With 15 categories of competition covering all types of private, public, commercial, and industrial landscapes everyone stands a great chance at such recognition.
Further information is available online at www.pgms.org/greenstarawards.htm
After all itÕs show time. Lets see what you got!
