When the leaves, needles and debris land on your clients' lawns, clean them away efficiently and effectively with blowers, rakes, debris cans and other tools from Aqua-Flo.

From Corona, we have many styles of leaf, lawn and landscape rakes that are great for fall season clean-up tasks. From Husqvarna, we offer battery-powered blowers that are quiet, efficient and stay charged for the full day's work. Don't forget a CatchyCan to haul away the debris.

Shop the displays and grab some great deals at Aqua-Flo.

Don’t wait until it’s too late. Catch up on invoicing for work you have not yet billed. Collect your past-due accounts too.

After a great season, many landscape contractors are cash-rich, but they also have a large accounts-receivable balance too. Many forgot to bill for jobs they did during the busy months!

There’s a temptation to put off contacting these customers to get their accounts settled. Don’t give in to that temptation! Get paid for all of the work you’ve done.

A build-up in AR can indicate billing mistakes, lack of collection persistence or a client satisfaction problem. It’s way easier to resolve all of these now.

How healthy are your collections? Your accounting software automatically calculates the average number of days it takes you to collect on an invoice. A number below 30 is ideal.

Cash is king! Build your cash war chest to keep your business healthy, and to be ready for a great 2023.

Low prices, shoddy work.

Every economic slowdown tends to bring a new crop of lowballers. They’re usually new to the industry because they lost their job elsewhere – and they cause havoc for established contractors who know how to do the work correctly.

How can you set your company up to be ready to compete effectively with lowballers?

1. Get ahead of them with great marketing. Have a fantastic website. Have lots of really good Google reviews. Have professionally-lettered trucks. Stand out as a leader.

2. Be a professional. Answer your phone. Respond to emails. Wear uniforms. Show-up on time. Keep your trucks clean and organized. Clients can spot a sloppy joker a mile away.

3. Lead with the best products and services. Demonstrate your expertise. Showcase with pictures and examples how your installations are better. Offer options. Sell your after-sale support.

4. Employ quality people. Hire and keep the best. Invest in your employees with winter-time training. Have a safety program.

5. Stay away from cheap clients. Certain neighborhoods and client types are notoriously always looking for something for nothing. Stay out of those areas. Leave those to the new guy who doesn’t like to make money!

Retrofitting your customers' existing spray heads with rotary nozzles can save up to 6,600 gallons per nozzle over a five-year period.  

Rain Bird's R-VAN rotary nozzles are an ideal solution for sites where uniform coverage and healthy turf are desired.

Their multi-trajectory, rotating streams apply water more slowly and uniformly than conventional sprays. Independent water audits now document water savings of 20% or more when conventional spray nozzles are replaced with rotary nozzles. Additional water-saving advantages include better wind resistance and less misting. Because water is applied more slowly, there is less chance for run-off in tight soils.

To achieve efficient watering with rotary nozzles, you must:

• Convert all spray nozzles to rotary nozzles on the zone
• Not mix rotary nozzles with other application types
• Adjust watering run times and cycles at the controller



Offer your customers the option of rotary nozzle conversions. They'll appreciate a greener, healthier lawn with water savings. You'll appreciate the added easy boost to your bottom line.  

Quote Close Rate. What percentage of projects you quote turn into sales? In 2022, it was “good enough” to email clients a price (and clients were happy to go with anybody who showed up). If the market slows, experience shows you’ll need to spend more time with prospects to get them to buy. That means more actual sales presentations and site walks.

Your Backlog. How much work do you have already sold for installation? How far out are you scheduling this work? The depth of your backlog is an excellent indicator of how well you’re doing in getting skittish customers to commit to projects. When it thins, you can ramp up your marketing efforts (have campaigns planned and ready to drop when things are slow), and when its full, you know to adjust pricing.

Incoming Sales Opportunities. Is your phone ringing regularly? How many inquiries are you getting per week? How many quotes do you have to complete? Understanding the pace of new sales opportunities entering your pipeline is a quick way to judge market mood and the effectiveness of your marketing campaigns.

New Sales to Existing Clients. A fast way to customer loyalty and additional profits is finding additional products and services to sell to your existing clients. It’s why we constantly encourage you to explore new services and add-ons. Avoid being an “order-taker” for enhancements. Instead, actively market them repeatedly. Be sure your company is the one offering the new solutions, not someone else.