Four problems every landscape owner knows. Here is where AI and automation help with each.
We start with the problem that costs you the most, use what you already pay for first, and build only what is missing. Complementary to the software you run, never a replacement.
Margin
Protect your margin
“Fuel, wages and materials went up this year. Most renewals did not.”
A typical first win: Each renewing account with its own price, from what it cost you to serve last season.
What we work on
- Renewal prices set account by account, from each property's own hours and margin, before the letters go out.
- Jobs running over estimate caught while the week can still be saved, not at month end.
- Vendor invoices read by AI and checked against what you paid last time, so price creep shows up.
When it needs a system that runs every week: Full Book, Ground Truth, or a custom build.
People
Find, keep and grow good help
“Good help is hard to find and harder to keep. When a crew leader leaves, accounts can go too.”
A typical first win: A check-in rhythm with every crew leader, and one page on what earns the next step.
What we work on
- Job ads and interview questions rewritten for the people you want. AI drafts, you decide.
- A first week for new hires that runs without you in the room.
- Reviews, check-ins and stay interviews on a calendar, so you hear about problems before the notice.
- Raises, promotions and incentive pay tied to numbers a crew leader can see.
When it needs a system that runs every week: Ground Truth, or a custom build.
Cash
Get paid on time
“The work is done and invoiced. Then the customer goes quiet.”
A typical first win: A weekly list of who owes you, with the three calls to make.
What we work on
- An early warning on clients who are paying slower than they used to.
- Reminders that go out on their own, before anyone has to make the awkward call.
- Finished work billed before the ticket closes, not when someone remembers.
When it needs a system that runs every week: Cash Clock, or a custom build.
Sales
Win the right work, and keep it
“Estimates get ghosted, follow-up depends on you, and enhancements go unsold.”
A typical first win: Every open proposal with a next step and an owner, by Monday.
What we work on
- An ideal-client profile your team can use to say yes or no to a lead.
- A discovery routine and follow-up that do not depend on anyone's memory. AI drafts, a person sends.
- The enhancement list: accounts with room for more, from what similar properties already buy.
- A renewal calendar that starts 90 days out, so cancellations stop being a surprise.
When it needs a system that runs every week: Full Book, First Minute, or a custom build.
How we start
- 1
A free 30-minute call.
Tell me what is eating your week. Within two business days you get a one-page list: what to turn on in the software you already pay for, what to skip, and the one thing worth building. It is yours either way.
- 2
The Game Plan.
The first month of working together: weekly sessions, the two or three moves that pay first, the first one set up with your team, and a written 90-day plan. $1,250, one month, paid once. Stop after the month if you want; the plan is yours.
- 3
Then it is your call.
Keep me in your corner twice a month with Advisory, have me build what is missing, or run the plan yourselves.
The Game Plan
One month. $1,250, once. A plan your team is already running.
Not a report and not a deck. Four working sessions in your own software, and by the end of the month the first change is already running with your people.
What you get
- A short intake you answer from memory. No files, no exports, no logins.
- Four 60-minute working sessions, one a week, on screen in the software you already run. Your team joins two.
- The four problems walked in the first session, so we work on the one that costs you the most.
- The first change set up and running with the people who will run it, in week two: the checklist written, the prompt saved, the report scheduled, a real case done in the session.
- A written 90-day plan within two business days of the last session: two or three moves in order, who owns each, the number that shows it worked, what to skip and why.
- Email between sessions, answered within one business day.
What you won’t get
A software pitch (I take no referral fees from any vendor), a list of everything that's wrong, or a slide deck.
What it should be worth
If the first move is renewal pricing, one extra point on $1M of renewals is $10,000 a year. If it's slow payers, every $50,000 that comes in 30 days sooner is $50,000 you don't borrow for spring payroll.
After the month
- Stop. The plan is yours.
- Keep going: Advisory, two sessions a month, $1,250 a month, month to month.
- Build: if a move needs something no software does, it's quoted in writing, and a build started within 30 days gets the $1,250 credited.
$1,250 · one month, paid once
I invoice after the first session, not before. If it isn't worth it to you, say so and you owe nothing.
Book a free 30-minute callRather write? Ask about the Game Plan.
Advisory
Start with a Game Plan. Keep an operator in your corner.
Working sessions with the operator behind SecondOrder, on your margin, your people, your cash and your sales: what to turn on, what to skip, what to build. Some clients go on to a build. Others do the work themselves, with a plan and someone to check it.
- Month one is the Game Plan: weekly sessions, the two or three moves that pay first, the first one set up with your team, and a written 90-day plan.
- After that, two sessions a month. Each is followed by written notes and the action items, yours and ours.
- Questions between sessions by email, answered within one business day.
- Start a build within 30 days and one month of Advisory is credited toward it.
$1,250 a month
Month to month, no minimum, no setup fee. The Game Plan is invoiced after its first session: if it isn't worth it to you, say so and you owe nothing. Stop after the Game Plan if you want; the plan is yours. No free trial; the free 30 days apply to the ready-made builds only.
Ask about AdvisoryOr book a free 30-minute call first.
Want more time? Weekly sessions, or working alongside your team, are quoted.
What we build, when the tool does not exist
Three reporting and follow-up systems, set up on a server in your own cloud account and managed by us, delivered to the right inboxes on schedule. No setup fee, thirty days free on your own data, one flat monthly fee after that.
Founder pricing for our first 3 clients: a lower rate locked for 12 months, in exchange for a monthly feedback call for the first three months and an anonymized write-up of the results. 3 of 3 seats left.
Operations · Crews and jobs
Ground Truth
The most important numbers for your ops team, delivered right to their inbox.
Last week's performance meets this week's plan in one easy-to-read snapshot: what each crew got done, hours against estimate, what is scheduled next and what needs attention. Your production meetings run on what happened and what is scheduled, not on who remembers to bring it up.
- · Last Week, Next Week
- · Daily ops digest
- · Schedule change alerts
Cash · Billing and collections
Cash Clock
Find the money in finished work every Monday, not at month end.
Every week, the work that is done but not invoiced, the clients who are slowing down on paying, and the deposits still open, flagged while there is still time to act.
- · Billing opportunities
- · Payer watch
- · Receivable aging, weekly
Sales pipeline
Full Book
Your sales pipeline management system, from renewals to every open proposal. Keep it flowing.
Every week, each account manager sees which proposals are still waiting on an answer, and each contract renewing in the next 90 days gets a recommended price from its own hours and margin, or is flagged for your call when there is too little to go on. Renewal season starts with the numbers in hand.
- · Proposal follow-ups, every Monday
- · Renewal queue, 90 days out
- · Hold or increase, contract by contract
Custom build
Something else eating your week?
Tell us the workflow you want automated, or the systems you want talking to each other. We will propose a build for it, scoped and priced on its own, with no free trial. See custom builds we run
Add-on: First Minute. Built with you at setup: every new website lead gets a text and an email back within the minute, and every finished job gets a review and referral ask.
Bundle: The Full Stack. All three builds plus First Minute, on one server, for one monthly fee.
Configured to how you run, not one report for everyone
Each report is tailored to the role, delivering only the relevant information to the people best equipped to act on it. Here is the same week, as three people in one company receive it.
Sample. Invented company, people and numbers.
Each person gets their own page
The owner sees the whole company. Each account manager sees their own accounts, each crew leader their own visits, and crew leaders never see dollar figures. One person can hold several roles.
Your thresholds, from your baseline
What counts as over estimate, a slow payer or a renewal worth a larger increase is set from your own numbers in the first week, and you can override any of it.
Your schedule, your logo, your people
Who gets which report, on which morning, under your company's name. When your team changes, tell us and we change it; that is part of the monthly plan.
Every report in one place
Besides the e-mails, each person can open their own reports page: the latest numbers, the trend behind each one, past reports, and an AI-powered text box to ask questions about them. Every answer names the report it came from.
How a build runs
- 1
Fit
Write to us or take the Audit. We reply in writing within two business days: whether it is a fit, which build we would start with, and what credentials your platform needs to issue.
- 2
Trial
Thirty days free on your own data, starting with an account signup. The setup call opens your cloud account; the first versions of your own reports and your baseline follow within three days. The free 30 days are for the ready-made builds; custom builds and Advisory are paid from the start.
- 3
Live
One flat monthly fee, month to month. The server is yours; we manage it and run every report on schedule. You fill in a short setup sheet: who gets what, when, your logo.
- 4
Refine
A check-in after the first week to set your alert levels from the baseline, then one each quarter. Rosters and wording tuned as the season changes. Anything outside the menu is scoped as a custom build, and Advisory is there whenever you want an operator in the room.
What the fee covers
One flat monthly fee, month to month. It covers every scheduled run, a check on every run, and the updates when your software changes something. The server sits in a cloud account in your name, billed to you directly, about the price of a lunch a month: you own it, we manage it.
We never charge for access to your platform or its data, and nothing of yours is stored on our systems.
Pay ahead, get more
- · Three months up front: we tune your Google Business Profile.
- · Six months: that, plus one extra report configured to your taste and an ideal-client workshop.
- · Twelve months: all of the above, two months free, and a leadership session each quarter.
If you leave
Month to month after the trial: cancel with 30 days' notice and no cancellation fee; service runs to the end of your last paid month. The server and your data stay yours, and we remove our access. If you would rather keep the reports running yourselves, you can buy a permanent license to the code and its documentation.
Who this is for
$1M–$10M landscape companies, owner still operationally involved day to day. Advice and the Game Plan work with any software. The builds work from the software you already run, by API or the exports you already pull. Each build needs a particular way in, and not every build runs on every system yet, so tell us what you run: our written reply says plainly what works on yours before anything starts. A build reads your account with read-only credentials you issue and can revoke. First Minute works for any company with a website and a phone.
Write to us
Rather write than talk? Tell us which of the four problems costs you the most, and what you run. We reply in writing within two business days with what we would look at first and whether we are a fit. Not sure where to start? The Audit scores your company in three minutes and points to the biggest gap.