The FNGLA’s Certified Landscape Maintenance Technician (FCLMT) program is designed to measure the skills of practicing landscape maintenance technicians. This program serves as a means to train employees, recognize their achievement and raise the standards of working professionals within Florida’s landscape industry. It is provided by the Florida Nursery, Growers and Landscape Association (FNGLA). FCLMT is offered as a stand-alone certification and marketed to the landscape industry as an employee training, recognition and advancement program. This certification relies heavily on the green industries best management practices.

FCLMT certification is valid for a three-year period. During that time, an FCLMT is required to earn 15 Continuing Education Units (CEUs) in order to renew.

Certification is a great way to distinguish yourself as a knowledgeable landscape professional. It provides a set of standards developed, maintained and administered by industry. These standards establish a minimum level of competency for professional members of the industry. Certification is voluntary and helps regulate the industry by providing a means by which consumers can identify industry members who have demonstrated their skills and abilities. FNGLA certification provides Florida’s nursery and landscape industry personnel the opportunity to earn professional accreditations distinguishing themselves from others. Other certifications for landscapers include:

• FCHP
• FCLT
• FCLC
• FCLD

The FNGLA Certified Landscape Technician (FCLT) program is designed to measure the skills of practicing landscape installation technicians. This program serves as a means to train employees, recognize their achievement and raise the standards of working professionals within Florida’s landscape industry. It is provided by the Florida Nursery, Growers and Landscape Association (FNGLA). FCLT is offered as a stand-alone certification and marketed to the landscape industry as an employee training, recognition and advancement program. This hands-on, multi-language approach to certification is designed for the true landscaoe installation technician.

FCLT certification is valid for a three-year period. During that time, an FCLT is required to earn 15 Continuing Education Units (CEUs) in order to renew.

Certification is a great way to distinguish yourself as a knowledgeable landscape professional. It provides a set of standards developed, maintained and administered by industry. These standards establish a minimum level of competency for professional members of the industry. Certification is voluntary and helps regulate the industry by providing a means by which consumers can identify industry members who have demonstrated their skills and abilities. FNGLA certification provides Florida’s nursery and landscape industry personnel the opportunity to earn professional accreditations distinguishing themselves from others. Other certifications for landscapers include:

• FCHP
• FCLMT
• FCLC
• FCLD

The FNGLA Certified Horticulture Professional (FCHP) program is the industry’s only standard for measuring horticulture knowledge on everything from plant and pest identification to landscape management. It is provided by the Florida Nursery, Growers and Landscape Association (FNGLA). FCHP promotes professionalism among horticulture professionals, including nursery, greenhouse, landscape and retail garden center employees.

The FCHP program has been in existence since 1984 with more than 1,100 certified professionals statewide. FCHP serves as the base of all FNGLA’s industry certifications. An applicant for FNGLA’s landscape certifications should first complete the FCHP exam. Since the FHCP exams are included in FNGLA’s landscape certification exams, those who hold an FCHP designation are exempted from retaking those exam sections when sitting for one of FNGLA’s landscape certification exams.

Certification is a great way to distinguish yourself as a knowledgeable landscape professional. It provides a set of standards developed, maintained and administered by industry. These standards establish a minimum level of competency for professional members of the industry. Certification is voluntary — as opposed to state licensing — and not required by law to do business. However, certification helps regulate the industry by providing a means by which consumers can identify industry members who have demonstrated their skills and abilities. FNGLA certification provides Florida’s nursery and landscape industry personnel the opportunity to earn professional accreditations distinguishing themselves from others. Other certifications for landscapers include:

• FCLT
• FCLMT
• FCLC
• FCLD

The Florida Nursery, Growers and Landscape Association (FNGLA) is Florida’s oldest and largest association targeting the needs of the Florida’s environmental horticulture industry, which has an estimated $15.2 billion in industry-wide sales annually. BearWise Landscapers is proud to join and support the association and provide quality insurance service to its members.

FNGLA is a member-driven association that recognizes the need for individual industry members to unify. FNGLA works to better the industry, raising the bar on professionalism by spearheading marketing programs, providing promotional and educational venues for members, taking a leadership role in protecting and promoting their members’ business interests, communicating the latest industry issues and providing professional accreditations to interested individuals.

Until 1951, the Florida State Nurserymen had been a part of the Florida State Florist and Nurserymen Association. In May of that year, some nurserymen members felt that with the growing importance of the nursery industry within Florida and with concerns not shared by the Florist group, a separate organization was needed.

The first official organized meeting was held in Miami on May 25-27, 1952 and a plan of organization was adopted. Dave Stabler of Winter Haven Nursery agreed to be president. James F. Griffin, Jr. came to what was then called FNGA as Executive Secretary in early 1953. Since that time, FNGLA has gained strength, popularity and clout—absorbing the Florida Foliage Association in 1993, the Florida Ornamental Growers Association in 1995 and the Florida Landscape Designers Association in 1999. During this time, FNGLA established itself as one of the largest and most active nursery associations in the country with a membership base of over 2500 professionals.

Now in it’s sixth decade serving the industry, FNGLA is in its prime! The association represents all walks of the industry–foliage, woody ornamental, citrus nurseries, floriculture producers, interiorscapers, retailers, allied suppliers and landscape professionals – as proven by the recent addition of “landscape” to the FNGA name—making the association the Florida Nursery, Growers and Landscape Association, FNGLA. Landscape contractors, landscape designers, landscape architects and the like now have an association targeting their needs. Government representation & monitoring, professional education and marketing projects encompass just some or the services provided by FNGLA to members and the industry.

There are thousands of landscaping businesses in Florida. Florida has a lush environment suitable to a wide variety of plants and is even named the ‘Sunshine State’ for its tropical climate. It is also the fourth most populated state in the United States with an estimated population of 18,328,340 according to the 2008 United States Census. These are all great statistics for landscapers who are able to work year-round in Florida due to the climate. Although the exact number of landscaping businesses is unknown, it is estimated to be above 10,000 with the majority of these being small owner-operated businesses. One of our insurance companies, Progressive, writes commercial auto policies for over 5,000 landscapers in the state of Florida. Our goal at BearWise Landscapers is to provide useful information and a valuable insurance service to these landscaping businesses, both large and small. For insurance quotes on your Florida landscaping business, please complete our online insurance quote request form.

A little less than a month ago the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) stated that the 33,000 cap for H-2B workers had been reached for the second half of the 2009 fiscal year. For the second year in a row this means that many landscape contractors will not be able to get the H-2B workers they need to run their business successfully and legally.

The Professional Landcare Network (PLANET) has been pushing hard for Congress to get involved and this past week there was finally some movement on the issue.

On February 5, 2009 a group of twenty senators led by senator Mikulski (D-MD) introduced a piece of legislation titled “Save Our Small and Seasonal Businesses” that would extend the H-2B returning worker exemption for three years.

PLANET is requesting that everyone contacts their senators and representatives to inform them on how urgent this pending legislation is.

For more information on this legislation, the senators involved, and how to contact your congressional leaders please click here.

I wanted to post an article with some of the magazine publications I receive to stay current with the “Green Industry”:

- Lawn & Landscape magazine (lawnandlandscape.com)
- PRO – Business Success for Landscape Professionals (promagazine.com)
- Turf Magazine (turfmagazine.com)

All three of these offer some great information catered specifically to professionals in the landscape or lawn care industry. Be sure to check out these publications.

Also, please let me know if there are any other good publications that I did not mention.

The learning never stops!

A couple of days ago, I read an article by Seth Godin. Seth is a writer that publishes books on ‘permission marketing’ and other marketing strategies. Seth was founder and CEO of Yoyodyne, the industry’s leading interactive direct marketing company, which Yahoo! acquired in late 1998. Godin worked as VP Direct Marketing at Yahoo before leaving to become a full time speaker, writer and blogger. He holds an MBA from Stanford, and was called “the Ultimate Entrepreneur for the Information Age” by Business Week. I enjoy reading his blog which has great insights to marketing.

In the article I read recently, Seth discussed creating services that people either ‘love’ or find ‘annoying’. He says that your business should strive to create a service that people love to talk about and promote. He also talks about services that people find annoying and how they could strive to be less annoying. It is an interesting article and could apply to your landscaping business through developing mindset to find ways in which you could improve your service to gain market share. Read the article here.

I read a good article the other day. It was written by Kevin Kehoe. He is a business consultant (Kehoe & Co.) located in California that frequently works with landscaping businesses. Here is a copy of his article:

There are two rules for managing in a tough economy: Control the things you can control, and minimize the risks of things you cannot. You must do both.

For example, you can control (increase or decrease) your costs. Your decisions drive this number. But you can only minimize the risks of revenue disruptions and/or revenue creation because your customers ultimately control these factors. Your actions only influence this number.

• Start with cost control. Eighty percent of your costs are related to staffing, equipment, insurance and rent. You have some leverage in controlling insurance and rent, but you have a lot more clout with staffing and equipment expenses. In a down market, you must downsize these costs and stretch these resources more thinly than you might like. If revenues do not materialize — or if they’re taken away by competitors — you will wish later that you had made some tough cost-reduction decisions upfront. Tighten your belt now for 2009.
• Minimize the risks to your revenue streams. The chief risks are low pricing, declining customer budgets, insufficient new sales activity, and slow and late renewals. Your customers will be looking for lower pricing and/or more value in 2009. They will want you to save them money. If you do not find them a path to savings, they will find someone who will. After you make your 2009 budget, refine your pricing model. Reducing costs will help with pricing by lowering your burden and recovery markup rates.

You must be proactive in meeting with your customers to restructure your service deliverables and to better help them meet their budgets. Develop several service and pricing options for their consideration. This may mean delivering less-than-perfect landscapes to some of your customers. But it is better than losing the revenue.

• Stay in front of your customers. Get out of the office and talk to them often. Start your renewal process earlier in the year, especially with your biggest customers. Talk with them frequently enough to address their changing economic situations. Customers appreciate flexibility and ingenuity even more in a tough market. Relationships still matter, but they are based more on mutual economic realities.

2009 is going to be the toughest year yet in grounds maintenance. My clients are experiencing this already with falloffs in enhancement sales and with price negotiations on renewals. Construction has had its two worst years in a long time, and the pain is about to spread to our industry. Don’t get caught. Act early. It’s too late to close the door when the cost and revenue horses already have galloped out of the barn.

On behalf of everybody here at BearWise Landscapers and Black Bear Insurance Agency, we would like to wish you a Happy Thanksgiving. We have a lot to be thankful for over this past year and we look forward to serving your landscaping business over the upcoming years.