About Jud Griggs

Landscape Design/Build Sales and Marketing Consultant

A long journey to success by working with the best.

Jud has had the good fortune of working with some of the best design/build companies in the country over his long green industry career. Starting with Lied’s in Wisconsin, Jud worked with Tom Lied, one of the founding members of ALCA (Now N ALP). Next, Jud moved to Naples, Fla., to manage the operations of Smallwood Landscape – one of the preeminent design/build companies in Florida. From there, Jud joined Dallas-based Lambert’s to work with Paul Fields and manage first the business operations and then lead the company’s sales and marketing efforts. Recently, Jud worked with Scapes in Atlanta Each of these companies, with the exception of Scapes, were in the Lawn & Landscape Top 100 list during Jud’s tenure at each of the companies.

Through these career opportunities, Jud has worked and succeeded in diverse markets across the country. He understands what it takes to be successful in the design/build arena. More importantly, he knows what mistakes and pitfalls to avoid.

Speaker and consultant.

 With more than 40 years of hands-on experience in design/build, Jud now consults with companies all across the country to help them improve their operations as well as their sales and marketing processes and procedures. Working with Jim Paluch at JP Horizons for two years exposed Jud to the intricacies of consulting and guiding companies through the challenges of everyday business to attain their goals. His ability to observe and assess a company and then offer solid solutions and ideas to help a company grow to the next level is invaluable. Speaking on topics ranging from customer service to sales and sales management makes Jud a sought after speaker.

Leadership.

Jud served as president of ALCA (now NALP) in 1997. That experience taught Jud how to lead a diverse national organization of business owners to attain success. Working with some of the top companies and leaders in the industry exposed Jud to many of the best practices that he still subscribes to today. The most important lesson he learned from this experience was how to build a team and then delegate to the team. This allowed Jud to be away from his company for many weeks while serving as president. Everyone in the company was able to grow through that experience.

Metrics – if you can’t measure it, you can’t grow it. 

How much should a design/build salesperson sell in a year? What should my sales costs be? What systems are needed to measure my sales? Bottom line, you need metrics to grow your business. Metrics including:

• Budgeting sales costs
• Gross Margin goals
• Enhancements
• Design/Build
• The ratio of Enhancements to maintenance revenue

Structuring your design/build team for success.

How you structure your team will have a major effect on the ultimate success of your company. Some critical questions you should consider:

• If you’re not ready for a full-time design/build team perhaps you should consider outsourcing design/build sales.
• Should you have a defined separation and hand-off from design/sales to production?
• Can one person design, sell, estimate and manage the installation of their projects?
• Estimating – Should one person do all the estimates for each salesperson? Or, should each salesperson do their own estimating?
• When is a design team concept recommended?

Sales incentive plans.

Paying for performance is becoming more prevalent in all service industries. Sales incentive plans can be a win/win, or they can be very divisive to your team.

• Pros and Cons
• What are your options?

To learn more or talk to Jud about your design/build business, contact Jud at [email protected].