The Company

Family-owned and -operated since 1982, Colorado-based American Turf & Tree Care offers lawn care, weed control, aeration, tree care, mosquito control and emerald ash borer treatment services. They are dedicated to providing great service with beautiful results, and committed to building a strong, positive company culture that attracts and keeps great people. They have been a RealGreen customer since 1998 and a Coalmarch customer since 2014.

The Challenge

Growth ebbs and flows in every company. While American Turf & Tree Care had been using RealGreen for many years, by 2014 growth was slowing, leads were drying up and the company wasn’t working as efficiently as it could have. “We had too many tracks and too many employees,” says owner Brad Woods. “We were all running in circles instead of using the tools we needed.” That same year, the company hired Blair Matthews, now Head of Sales and Marketing, to help turn things around. “If you’re not growing, you’re dying. What we were doing just wasn’t working,” continues Woods.

The Solution

Using RealGreen and Coalmarch to grow more and do more

While they had started with RealGreen back in 1998, it wasn’t until the team at American Turf & Tree Care started attending the annual Users Conference that they really started learning about how to maximize the software to their best advantage. Wood says, “We were blown away. Going to those conferences, we really learned how to use the software – more about the routing, Mobile Live, CAW, Captivated and obviously Coalmarch – that’s how we learned about the marketing template that RealGreen offered. We just learned so much about the business side of things and how to implement those with the software.”

Maximizing the software’s potential has affected the business’s bottom line significantly, says Matthews. “We’ve really streamlined our lineup of services and how we associate services together, so that when we’re at one property, we get as much work done in that one trip as we possibly can. Now, instead of one $70 treatment, we’re doing three applications for $200, and that makes a world of difference. It’s how you can organize things in Service Assistant and how the services and programs are set up – so for the technician, they are able to kill two, three, four birds with one stone each time they are at an address.”

The team learned about Coalmarch by attending the conference as well. Realizing they were not utilizing digital marketing to its fullest, and unhappy with the marketing firm they had been working with, they decided to make the switch. “It was night and day on the approach,” according to Woods. “The other company’s energy – they were more of a cookie cutter type platform.”

“We didn’t even know what a cost per lead was,” adds Matthews. “One of the things I really like about Coalmarch is that we meet with them every month and see what’s working and what’s not working. Coalmarch focused on our company and figured out what was working in our area. They customized our website the way we wanted it, where our previous company was basically just – you get this template and that’s it, no flexibility.”

He adds that being able to track leads and see on a monthly, weekly or even daily basis where the leads are coming from has been a game-changer. “It’s been eye-opening on where we need to be spending our marketing dollars.”

“Coalmarch and RealGreen work together to help deliver results,” he continues. “The team at Coalmarch understands how SA5 works. It’s not like you have one party speaking Spanish and the other speaking Greek. We’re all speaking the same language.”

The Results

Combining effective use of RealGreen’s suite of tools with Coalmarch’s tailored, data-driven marketing has made a significant difference in American Turf and Tree Care’s growth trajectory. 

Lead volume is up, cost per lead is down, website traffic has increased and most importantly, the company’s revenue increased by nearly $1 million from 2021 to 2022 – from $1.3 to $2.1 million.

Woods notes that when he started working with his father, revenue was around $300,000. According to Matthews, “When I started in 2016, we had nine technicians and were doing $735,000 in business. In 2023, we have eight technicians and will do at least $2.1 million, probably more.”

The Value

Changing the mindset, changing the outcome

Woods and Matthews both agree that working with RealGreen and Coalmarch has changed the way they approach the business. And that’s made a world of difference for American Turf & Tree Care.

“The tools that are provided – those are just tools in the toolbox,” says Matthews. “For me, it’s shown that it’s not about what to think and what we need, it’s HOW to think. It’s the mental stimulation of realizing that this is how we need to think about playing this game, it’s not down to just this tool and that tool. There’s not one single tool that’s going to make this whole thing run. It’s using them all together. And we’re getting a better idea of how to use the right tools at the right times in the right ways, and that’s made a big difference for us over the last seven or eight years.”

Woods agrees, noting that because RealGreen is such a complete solution, it’s built for growth. “It’s so well-rounded. They have all the components we need or could grow into.”

“Plus, with RealGreen, you have that suite of solutions that’s all there in one spot. There’s not anyone else out there that has the breadth of applications that are so specific to the lawn industry,” continues Matthews.

Matthews adds that it’s not just about the tools or the mindset, but the people as well. “You can’t overlook the relationships we’ve made. There’s a lot of knowledge that we get from interacting with the folks at RealGreen and Coalmarch.”

“RealGreen and Coalmarch do a really good job at taking thousands of customers and organizing their data,” notes Woods. Having all of that information easily accessible in one place and one platform has made long-term planning easier and more effective. “When things are automated, when things are happening in the background that we don’t have to worry about, that just makes us more efficient doing what we need to do. We’re able to concentrate more ON the business instead of working IN the business.”