The Edge March/April/May 2026

“We have our budgetary goals for enhancements, but we won’t sell a project just because it hits a quota if it’s not what fits for the property,” Munie says. “Our account man agement team performs audits and site walks, identifying ar eas of enhancement potential, not to meet a quota, but to improve property function and beauty.” Hilary Moody, design/esti mating team leader for Bland Landscaping Company, says there is always some type

Munie agrees that every customer is a target for enhancement opportunities; it’s just the size of their goal that will vary based on their understanding of each customer. Pacific Landscape Management makes a point to create a budget for every property, but Barrow says she knows which will invest in enhancements and which will not, based on previous years. “The smaller the property, I would say it’s going to be harder,” Barrow says. “I know HOAs are harder to sell things to just because it’s their money. Their emotions are involved in that purchasing process. The larger properties that are more commercial and are professionally managed tend to be easier sales. Most of that is because they’re looking to reduce their liability. They want to make sure things are safe, so where a lot of these projects tend to focus on is like safety and liability.” Tew says they opt to respond and react to different customer groups and customer types based on what they’re trying to do from a value standpoint with their assets, but will present enhance ment opportunities to everyone. What matters the most is timing proposals, so they align with your client’s renewal season. “What we try to do is present en hancement budgets for the upcoming year to these property managers, so that gives them an opportunity to budget it,” Haygood says. Haygood says by being proactive, they can ensure they have spring work front-loaded for operations by present ing enhancement budgets during the August-September timeframe. Munie has found the summer months are a good time to get in some billable work, especially if clients still have money left over for the year and the spring rush has come to a close.

Photos: (Left) Bland Landscaping Company (Right) Pacific Landscape Management

from the client. If the clients have specific needs, they then will capture photos, measurements, and information of that sort. Some enhancements are so small, they can easily take care of them themselves. If it needs more design work and it’s a larger-size project, they’ll take all that information and submit it to the design team. From there, we have dedi cated enhancement designers and esti mators who will pull that together with a design, with renderings, estimating, and a full proposal that the account manager can then submit back to the client.” Haygood says selling enhancements is one of the three key functions of their account managers. At Visterra, they hold account manag ers accountable through the KPI of how many monthly site inspections (MSI) they’ve conducted that month. Haygood says aside from property managers requesting enhancements, the rest of their enhancement work is fueled by their MSIs. “It’s a big relationship builder,” Hay good says. “When we’re proactive, they wake up in the morning to get their MSI report, and it’s here all the things that I saw this morning during our morning in spection. Would you like us to fix them?”

of enhancement that can be done on site each month of the year, so they try to look 60 to 90 days out. For instance, with hard pruning shrubs to improve sightlines, this is work that is best done in January or February, so they’ll pitch this offering to clients in November, so they have time to propose the work, the client can review and approve it. Barrow says she starts building bud gets from March through September where she conducts site visits to identify and document problems and build out an estimated budget for properties. “After that is submitted to the cus tomer, as we get into the new year, I have different lists that I refer to for each month that have what was budgeted for each month, and then I’ll dive through that list and send out those proposals to customers on that monthly cadence,” Barrow says. Because about 25-30 percent of enhancement work comes directly from customer requests, it’s best to have a sin gle point of contact for your client base. Moody says they prefer their account managers to be the single point of con tact as they meet with clients most often. “They discuss opportunities with the client,” Moody says. “They take requests

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