Aspire helps Pacific Landscape Management scale operations in the Pacific Northwest

Pacific Landscape Management provides full-service landscaping management, maintenance, design, and installation services for more than 2,000 commercial and new construction properties in the Western Oregon and Washington region.

Founded in 2001, the company employs more than 600 employees who staff six full-size branches in the Portland area and three full-size branches in the Seattle area, with two more satellite locations in Seattle set to expand into the future.

The company’s successful growth and scalability is due in large part to utilizing Aspire, a comprehensive business management platform that helps landscape companies operate more efficiently and profitably, says Juan Mejia, a branch manager for Pacific Landscape Management.

“Aspire has been helping us grow tremendously, just being more scalable and also bringing that transparency to operations and on the management side,” Mejia says. “Having all that information in one place from one central location makes it so much easier to move forward.

“It would be so hard to try to grow with a different application,” he adds.

After learning and implementing Aspire seven years ago for a different company, Mejia used that industry knowledge and training to land a better job with Pacific three years ago.

“When I started getting familiar with Aspire, that was definitely a big jump for me,” he says. “More positions opened up, and I was able to move from estimating over to invoicing, and at some point, I was doing some of the operational administration work for our technicians.

“Once I transitioned to Pacific, it felt very seamless, and I didn't feel lost going into a different company because the industry, all in all, is very similar, and Aspire definitely helped tailor my move over and keep everything consistent for me,” Mejia adds.

Aspire automates tasks for branch managers 

Aspire helps branch managers save time and manage teams more efficiently by giving them access to the information they need when they need it, all in one location.

“Aspire helps us have the information in one place and be able to readily look at our day-to-day, without having to filter through apps,” Mejia explains. “I like to be able to go to one list and be able to see how we're doing financially, but also go back and look at operations, see how they're managing their tickets, what their day-to-day looks like, and see where they need help.” 

Features that come standard with Aspire include real-time job costing, customizable reporting, estimating templates, accurate payroll reporting, technician and job tracking, and so much more.

“Aspire just helps with understanding margins, understanding production, understanding all the levels of productivity,” Mejia says. 

Pacific Landscape Management works mostly with commercial properties, providing weekly lawn and shrub care, pruning, weed control, fertilization, leaf removal, water management and irrigation repair, seasonal color, bark mulch application, and other services. Mejia says communication is key to finding success in the commercial landscaping industry.

“Definitely, with as many customers as we have, being able to put out information quickly to them is super important,” Mejia says. “Utilizing issues, visit notes, just keeping that information flowing is such an important part of communicating with our customers daily and keeping them posted of everything happening on their site.”

Pacific also uses Aspire’s site audit features to inform customers about the quality of work on a specific site as well as identify areas for future enhancements or make corrections to improve liability conservation, which protects the landscaper from legal costs and expenses associated with property damage or injuries caused by their work. 

“Being able to put that together in one document every year just makes it so much easier for them to be able to negotiate,” Mejia says.

Aspire gives commercial landscapers an advantage

While Mejia thinks Aspire’s end-to-end business management software with everything in one place offers the biggest advantage to commercial landscapers, he’s also a fan of the streamlined workflows.

“Everything from generating the lead over to creating the estimate, then the way it's scheduled and how it gets to the crews, down to the invoicing end and how we collect that money. Putting everything in one single workflow without having to move through too many apps is a big advantage,” he says. 

Pacific also finds advantages by using PropertyIntel, a value-added integration of Aspire’s all-in-one software. Landscape contractors use PropertyIntel to measure precise takeoffs and quantities, ensuring accurate estimating and purchasing of materials. The software uses automation to calculate job costs while you measure, saving time and reducing manual work. 

“PropertyIntel makes it very seamless. We're exploring bringing it in for estimating enhancements, which is also going to be another game-changer,” Mejia says.

His favorite Aspire feature is the renewals report, a more recent addition to the platform. He says this report was especially helpful when Pacific expanded into the Seattle area.

“Being able to see the current year and the following year on the renewal, and being able to identify on one single export what we need to do, what the pricing should look like, and how we're performing so far, definitely has an impact,” Mejia says. “It makes it really easy to seamlessly adjust and set our budgets for our customers and make it easy for them to also get that information quickly without delay.

“Aspire is innovative,” he adds.