How Wholesale Plant Brokers Can Help Save 50% of Unproductive Time
The labor force in the landscaping industry is stretched thin. This problem can especially be felt when trying to source wholesale plants for your jobs. Finding suppliers, getting estimates in time, ensuring quality, and coordinating timely deliveries can be highly time-consuming tasks. And yet the idea of outsourcing makes people pause. This hesitancy however is largely owed to misplaced concern. Outsourcing to wholesale plant brokers doesn’t replace anyone within your landscaping business. Instead, it allows employees to be more productive.
We’ll break down some common concerns when using wholesale plant brokers and take a look at the brokerage realities in today’s day and age.
What Makes Some Wholesale Plant Brokers a ‘Dicey’ Option
There are many worries concerning wholesale brokers that are shared among landscaping business owners. Your landscaping business and the quality you expect from your team are paramount, and rightfully so. Partnering with wholesale plant brokers to source your plant materials means trusting an outsider with your business’ product. It’s understandable to have reservations.
What if you find yourself having to do the legwork anyways, despite paying a commission or premium? Or worse yet, what if subpar items are sent to your job sites and now your reputation is on the line?
While these scenarios may be true and may still occur, they’re increasingly becoming a thing of the past. New-age digital wholesale plant broker services, like GoMaterials, are changing the game.
New-age Wholesale Plant Brokers: A New Model of Collaboration
Outsourcing doesn’t have to be a choice between external suppliers and your long-term internal hires. Today’s relationship between brokers and landscaping businesses is one of collaboration. Think of wholesale plant brokers as another tool in your arsenal, if nothing else!
You and your team understand the values and vision of your company better than anyone. So your internal hires can take on more important duties such as closing sales, long-term strategy development, submitting more bids, team-building, etc. And all the grunt work can be outsourced to plant brokers!
Sourcing plants and trees is no small feat in the current landscaping environment. Transportation logistics are another headache as well considering the truck driver shortages. These two tasks alone account for a monumental amount of work for your crew that suddenly disappears when you work with a plant broker. Generally, brokers have relationships with countless wholesale nurseries and transport services, which helps you get a better deal and more assured timelines.
What Can Your Team Do with The Time Freed Up by Wholesale Plant and Tree Brokers?
You’ve finally taken the plunge and outsourced to wholesale plant and tree brokers. Now what? GoMaterials customers find they’ve cut down their unproductive time by an estimated 50%. Outsourcing leaves employees with more time and energy to devote elsewhere!
Your team now has the opportunity to focus on long-term procurement and logistical challenges
When plant sourcing is taken care of, refine your plan of attack for issues that have been on the backburner for too long. If your landscaping business has been losing too many bids, rework why this is happening. Perhaps you’ve wanted to decrease the time and money that’s wasted on job sites. You finally have the mental bandwidth to solve these dilemmas.
Build long-term contingencies and supplier networks for all types of materials
Wholesale plant brokers take over the sourcing of plant materials. Your landscaping business surely relies on many other suppliers as well. Devote your time towards hardscape supplies, tool rentals or equipment suppliers, etc.
Hone your ability to actively track timelines
This will save you from direct and indirect losses caused due to project delays. Whether you finally take the opportunity to look into project management software or go at it a more manual way, this is your chance to look closely at timelines.
Move to more strategic, managerial roles, allowing you to scale up your team and take on more work
Most business owners dream of expansion or growth. If your workload is cut in half, make this dream a reality! As it stands, the landscaping industry is changing. We need new strategies to adapt to ever-decreasing labor numbers without forever struggling to attract a rotating door of employees.
Working with third-party specialists just may be the way forward. Outsourcing to wholesale plant brokers allows landscapers to reduce wasted time, it allows us to manage the labor shortage – and most significantly, it allows us to maintain or improve profitability all in one fell swoop!
***
Have you or your landscaping crew been struggling to source plants this year? Learn how GoMaterials can help!
