In order to continue to grow and thrive, landscaping companies, like any other business, need to bring in new clients. This makes the landscape business development manager a critical role within our organization.
Of course, exactly what the business development manager role looks like can vary from company to company. The daily responsibilities and expectations—and even who is typically hired for this role—can differ wildly from company to company.
In this article, we want to tell you more about what a business development manager at Yellowstone Landscape does, as well as how this role might be a bit different from what you may have expected a sales role to be in this industry.
What Does a Business Development Manager Do at Yellowstone?
At Yellowstone, the primary responsibility of a business development manager is to find and network with new potential clients. But we know that when people hear that, they often assume it’s just a traditional high pressure sales job.
We want to stress that at Yellowstone Landscape, it’s actually very a relationship-focused position.
Our business development managers are charged with going out into their communities, building their professional networks at industry events and building relationships as professional ambassadors for our company and our industry. They’re providing education about our service offerings and determining what potential clients might be a good fit for us (and if we’re a good fit for them - this is a two-way street after all).
A key way that this role is a little different at Yellowstone Landscape than it is at other companies is that it is a dedicated position. Oftentimes the responsibility of building relationships with new clients tends to fall on an account manager or the business owner at other green industry companies.
That means that the same individual that is managing current relationships with existing clients is also responsible for finding new work.
We find that separating these responsibilities - building new client relationships and taking care of our existing customers - into two different individuals ultimately works best for everyone involved.
It means that our account managers are not stretched too thin by having to juggle both new and existing clients. Instead, they are able to really focus their attention on meeting the needs of their existing accounts. Naturally, that keeps our clients happy and well taken care of.
It also frees up the time of our business development managers to exclusively focus on building relationships with potential new clients, and really getting to know their needs and the needs of their properties.
What Does a Day in the Life of a Business Development Manager Look Like?
You might be wondering, what a typical day would look like as a business development manager at Yellowstone Landscape. Our Business Developers often tell us that they don’t have “typical” days because every day for them really is entirely unique, but let’s try to help paint a picture for you anyway.
Morning
A typical day might start off by stopping into their branch to help see the crews off during morning dispatch. Next they’ll be off to a mid-morning meeting with a prospective client. That would involve spending time educating the clients on Yellowstone Landscape’s services and how we could fulfill that property’s service needs.
Mid-Day
Mid-day might involve a networking lunch or attending a lunch meeting with an existing client at a local restaurant to talk about other properties they’re looking for our help with. Our business development managers frequently attend local business networking opportunities as well as industry-specific events, to stay on top of what’s happening in their business communities and our industry.
Afternoon to End of Workday
The afternoon might also involve looking at some properties, walking the grounds with a prospective client, taking measurements and photos, connecting with our landscape designers to create renderings, and talking about improvement opportunities or creative ways to solve landscape problems.
What Skills Does a Business Development Manager at Yellowstone Landscape Require?
First and foremost, we want to mention that the business development manager role at Yellowstone is someone who is often being promoted from within the company.
That’s because we have found that some of our most successful people in this role are those that truly know our services - what we do well and what we don’t. Oftentimes, these end up being former account managers or even branch managers who are ready to take on a new challenge in their careers and help us grow our business, creating new opportunities for advancement within their branch location for others.
At Yellowstone Landscape, the business development manager is considered a partner and needs to be completely aligned with their branch manager. We often say that these two roles, the business development manager and the branch manager, are solely responsible for shaping what their branch will become over the next five years. Branch locations are shaped by the kinds of clients they serve (business development) and the employees that are hired (branch manager).
When we do hire for this role outside of our company, we also typically hire account managers or other operational roles with a good working knowledge of our industry.
This is a bit different than how we’ve seen other companies fill the sales role. Even we have occasionally hired salespeople from other industries, but we’ve found that green industry knowledge and even hands-on experience are really the most important factors to make a great landscape industry business development manager.
- Other character traits that we look for include a strong work ethic and a positive attitude. Sometimes we are not the right fit for clients (and sometimes they are not the right fit for us). We are looking for people who can deal with these situations and will have that strong understanding of what clients would make the best fit.
- We also look for people who are competitive and want to “win.” A business development manager can be a really compelling (and ultimately fulfilling) role for this type of individual.
We know that many people do think of think of “business development” as a slightly nicer way to say “sales”, as if sales is a bad word. And that can be a turn-off for many candidate that don’t see themselves as salespeople. We want to emphasize that some of our most successful business development managers have never done any type of traditional “sales” role before.
It is far more important that you know and understand our industry. Knowledge and experience are how you can build successful relationships based on an understanding of the value that we can offer to clients.
Succeeding with Yellowstone Landscape
At Yellowstone Landscape, we know that it is our team of people who have made us the successful company that we are today. We care deeply about helping individuals to grow their careers in the landscape industry with us.
The business development manager role at Yellowstone is definitely a unique opportunity to use your landscape industry skills and apply them toward building relationships and helping grow our organization. It can be an incredibly rewarding role in many ways.
At Yellowstone Landscape, it’s our goal in any role to create a workplace culture and a team where our employees want to stay with us and build long-term careers that are beneficial for everyone.
We want prospective team members as well as those who are already climbing the career ladder with us to know that there are so many opportunities here.
And as our company grows, it only creates more leadership roles that need to be filled.
No matter where you enter the company, you’ll find that you don’t need toever feel stuck in your current role. There are endless opportunities for growth and you can build a true career and find great success here at Yellowstone. There’s no question that a career in the Green Industry can be rewarding. But it’s even better when you find a company that treats you well and wants to see you succeed.
If you’re interested in a career with Yellowstone Landscape, we’d love to connect with you.
