As a Greater Chicago property manager, you’re probably pretty busy.
And each time you add a new meeting to your calendar, you probably take a deep breath and wonder how you will fit everything in. You certainly don’t have time to waste.
This is why when scheduling a commercial landscape consultation, you likely have no time to prepare for this meeting and make every moment of it count.
No worries; that’s why we’re here. Let’s talk about how to maximize landscape consultations to get the best insight from these important meetings, which will result in outcomes that will better your property and business.
A well-designed and maintained commercial landscape can boost your Greater Chicago facility's curb appeal and value.
That’s why whether you’re meeting with a commercial landscaping service provider to revamp your landscape or discuss its maintenance, there are certain things you should do to be best prepared for this commercial landscaping assessment and get every ounce of advice into how your property can put its best face forward in your market.
Here, we’ll offer you a cheat sheet you can use to prepare for your next commercial landscape discussion. This will help you determine whether this commercial grounds management professional fits your facility and can stay within your budget and goals.
When you're extremely busy, delegating your commercial landscape meeting to a colleague or trusted maintenance personnel can be easy. Still, you must attend the walk across your property.
Why? These property assessments are crucial to you airing your pain points. At the same time, they are fresh, so your commercial landscape professional can get first-hand accounts and visuals of your problem areas and develop appropriate ideas for addressing them.
The goal is to create a commercial landscape plan that makes your job easier. Knowing where you have big headaches or challenges helps us better serve you.
When meeting with a new commercial landscape service provider, you want to be upfront about what your previous or current vendor handles.
This enables your potential new provider to offer an apples-to-apples proposal and recommend things that can improve your property.
Understanding the history of your landscaping during the commercial landscaping assessment gives us additional insight into the effort put into your site. It also gives us a better idea of its current state and what kind of TLC it may need to improve its health and appearance.
It’s also important to share what’s going well and going wrong. Maybe you have a broken irrigation system, or flowers are dying, or your vendor doesn’t show up when you want them to.
Knowing where you have headaches helps us serve you better and ensure we keep your priorities in focus.
When you want to create attention-grabbing areas of your site to help draw more people in – whether it’s shoppers at a retail center, business and employees at an office park, tenants at an HOA, or customers and visitors at warehouses and industrial facilities – landscaping enhancements can provide fairly quick and impactful results.
Think about a fiery flower show at your front entrance, a patio with an impactful water feature in your shopping center courtyard, or a community fire pit in your HOA common space.
During your commercial landscape consultation, talk with your service provider about how much you want to spend on maintenance versus enhancements and what areas are your priority regarding improvements that can positively impact your business.
Ask them for enhancement ideas they can suggest that can make your specific property shine.
Another question you should be prepared to ask during your commercial landscape meeting is whether the company can provide you with some examples of maintenance and design at nearby properties you can check out.
This can make you feel more comfortable that the company you’re hiring can handle your specific property type and needs. It can also showcase the quality of their work and even inspire you with ideas.
Each commercial property type has specific challenges and needs.
So, during your commercial landscape assessment, speak to your unique issues.
For an HOA, for instance, common areas may be the focus, while individual yards are left to the care of homeowners. For a different HOA, maintenance fees may include grass trimming of individual front yards and common or shared areas, while back and side yards are left to homeowners to manage themselves.
Outlining areas you want to be maintained is crucial to getting the best service recommendations.
Your HOA may also use a plant palette you want your contractor to stick to for a consistent and uniform appearance. Your contract may also need to outline methods for how property owners should talk with the service provider to answer questions or correct problems.
If you manage an industrial property, issues like standing water, erosion, and overgrown trees and shrubs can become bigger and more expensive if they aren’t proactively managed.
Discussing these areas and ensuring your maintenance and enhancement plans focus on them ensures you don’t miss anything that can hurt your business's safety or reputation.
We hope these tips help you easily tackle your next commercial landscaping assessment.
The best Greater Chicago commercial landscapes will preventively address landscape problems to ensure an attractive, functional, and safe facility.
Working with a commercial landscaping company you trust can get you this result.
If you are unsure whether you have this relationship with your service provider or want a better partnership, remember to look for a company that has experience working on properties like yours and proactively suggests improvements to fix problem areas of your facility so it continually delivers for you.
Let KD Landscape help. We have extensive experience making commercial properties stand out in Greater Chicago and would love to do the same for you.
Want to learn more about commercial landscape design and maintenance in Greater Chicago? Get started today with a free quote. We’ll review your options together so you can make a great choice.