Your Industry Scorecard
The Herring Group landscape Industry Benchmark ReportWelcome to The Herring Group’s 11th Annual Landscape Industry Benchmark Report, a trusted source for financial information to celebrate your victories, identify opportunities, and inspire your team.
Sign up to get notified for the 2024 report, coming in October.
Greg Herring
Founder & CEO of The Herring Group
If you’ve participated in past years, you know the more participants the better. Share this info with any landscape business owners who would benefit from knowing their numbers.
We look forward to you joining us this year!
-Greg
a Message from Greg
Owners – You Need This for Your Teams
This will be our 11th year creating a data-aggregated benchmark report for the landscape industry. What I’ve learned during that time is that this is powerful stuff for owners. You can use the data to show your team their wins, their losses, and how your operations compare directly with like-sized landscape companies – from the top line (revenue) to the bottom line (net profit).
We are passionate about helping owners create real change within their organization because we have seen other companies do it. When you have believable, comparable data, you can remove some of the common objections you’ve been hearing on your leadership calls, and create actionable and accountable steps to reach your growth goals.
Our Benchmark Report includes two webinars. Not only will we teach you how to use the report in the first webinar, but you’ll also get to hear successful landscape business owners sharing what makes their companies so profitable. And we have the data to prove their stories!
We look forward to helping you find your story in the numbers. Join us to celebrate your victories, identify your opportunities and inspire your team.
Thank you to our sponsors
Aspire solutions help field service companies of all sizes—from lawn care and landscaping to janitorial and beyond—overcome their day-to-day challenges, operate more efficiently, and free up time to focus on what matters most for their business: profitable growth. Business management software built for landscape, snow & ice removal, and janitorial contractors by industry professionals.
Ewing Outdoor Supply is the largest family-owned supplier of landscape and water management products in the country. Ewing offers commercial and residential landscape and turf products, agronomics and growing materials, hardscape and outdoor living, landscape lighting, irrigation supplies, industry-leading seminars and more to professionals serving the landscaping, sports turf, golf and agricultural industries.
Unlimited Labor Solutions specializes in empowering landscape industry businesses to cultivate a motivated and dedicated workforce that meets your immediate needs and evolves alongside your company’s growth. With a well-established and transparent process for securing company-sponsored US green cards, ULS simplifies the immigration journey, ensuring a talented and inspired workforce is readily available to propel your business forward.
SmartLink technology has emerged as a powerful solution for industry leaders. Leveraging over 75 years of collaboration with the nation’s leading landscape maintenance companies, Weathermatic provides proprietary, cost-effective, and highly efficient technology that automates labor processes, increases profits, and preserves water. SmartLink offers industry leaders the tools they need for sustainable success.
Special Thanks to our Media Partner, Landscape Management
Is it budget season already?
Planning is Easier with the Right Information
While we don’t claim to have a magic bullet for forecasting or predicting the economic future, we do have a time-tested method that can bring focus to your planning and budget season – trustworthy and accurate industry benchmarking.
Currently in its 10th year, The Herring Group Industry Benchmark Report is a powerful tool that allows you to anonymously compare your financials against other companies whose size and mix of revenue are similar to your company. It gives you insight into areas of opportunity and victories to celebrate.
We make the process easy to participate in, and then present the findings in a webinar led by Greg Herring. With a knack for making numbers relevant, interesting and actionable, Greg’s financial leadership will give you the confidence to inspire your team and hone in on your focus.
The 2023 Herring Group Peer Benchmark Report represented 144 companies. That’s some serious comparison.
When Apples to Oranges Won’t Cut It
bench•mark
/’ben(t)SHmärk/
1. a standard or point of reference against which things may be compared or assesed.
2. a level of quality that can be used as a standard when comparing other things.
Other reports claim to be benchmarks, but use 2020 data. Who wants old apples?
Details
How The Report Works
Step 1: Sign Up
This step is completely risk-free. Sign up to participate in The Herring Group’s 11th Annual Peer Benchmark Report for $347 and receive a 60-day no-risk guarantee. If you don’t receive value greater than the cost, you can ask for a refund in 60-days. All the reward, none of the risk.
STEP 2: Submit Your Data
When you sign up, you will receive simple instructions to upload your income statement and balance sheet directly to a secure server. It will take fewer than 10 minutes. We ask that all data (12-months ending 9/30/24) be submitted no later than November 8, 2024.
Step 3: WAit for the magic
Our team of financial professionals reviews and “codes” the income statement and balance sheets of each company to ensure we get a true “apples to apples” comparison. The report is created so you can sort and compare to companies of similar size and revenue mix as your own.
STEP 4: Join the Webinars
You’ll receive an email invitation for two live webinars led by Greg Herring. The report review will take place in early December, where Greg will take you through the information and trends, teach you how to use the report for your own deeper analysis and answer any questions. The high-performer webinar will be in January 2025.
companies that
participated in 2023
144
total revenue of
2023 companies
$1.9B
Employees
Represented
19K+
Companies with
Net Profit Over 10%
28%
$347 for the Report and Webinar
60-Day No-Risk Guarantee
The History of The Benchmark Report
About Greg & The Report
Greg Herring, the founder and CEO of The Herring Group, has a passion for restoring life margin to business owners and helping people live well. Greg and his team of financial leaders walk alongside landscape business executives, implementing their proprietary system, the Path to 12%, to increase profit margins and provide owners with much-needed life margin, a welcome change.
Greg created the Benchmark Report as a tool for his clients back in 2014 to help them get a more accurate picture of the landscape industry. He found that many reports claiming to be “benchmarks” could easily be skewed by companies naturally reporting their financials differently. He decided to do something about it and created a unique model where each company’s data is “coded” for maximum comparability. His model also shows each company’s data (anonymously, of course) so that participants can find companies most similar to theirs and customize the benchmark report to make it more relevant to their needs. He demonstrates how to get the most out of the report in a live webinar.
Whether your company has revenue of $1 million or $50 million, he believes this report can be a powerful tool to use with your team, and will help put you on an actionable path to real change.
INSPIRING AN INDUSTRY
Better Data Means Better Decisions
We’re always looking for new ways to bring value to the landscape industry. Valuable articles, webinars, ideas. We want the industry as a whole to grow and thrive – and we care about business owners.
As a participant in the 2024 Industry Benchmark Report, you will receive value in three ways:
- Customizable report with anonymous data from each participant and NO jumbled averages
- Webinar #1 – Learn how to use the report for your own deeper analysis
- Webinar #2 – We will invite high-performing companies to join us to discuss what makes their companies successful*
$347 for the Report and Webinar
60-Day No-Risk Guarantee
*If you are having greater than average success in 2024, you could be featured in our high-performer webinar!
People are Talking
“This Benchmark Report is unique. You see each company’s data – revenue mix as well as expenses and net income as a percentage of revenue – and it’s anonymous. I use it each year to see how my company is performing. I love it!”
Nick DiBenedetto, ND Landscape Inc.
Frequently Asked Questions
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What data is measured in the report?
With The Herring Group’s Peer Benchmark Report, we turn each company’s raw data into percentages, allowing you to anonymously compare yourself to companies of all sizes. The data is also filterable, so you can get a clear comparison to companies like yours, in terms of size and revenue mix.
That’s one of the big advantages of our report.
Here are just a few things that we measure:
- Revenue growth
- Revenue mix
- Enhancements as a % of maintenance
- Net profit margin (net profit divided by revenue)
- EBITDA margin (EBITDA is used to value landscape companies in a sale process)
- Gross margin
- Repairs and maintenance as a percentage of revenue
- Fuel as a percentage of revenue
- Overhead as a percentage of revenue
- Days in Accounts Receivable
- Debt to Equity Ratio
Does my company need to be a certain size to benefit from participating in the report?
Companies with revenue of $1 million to $100 million will benefit from the Benchmark Report. One of the best things about the report is that the data can be filtered so that you can get clear comparisons with companies like yours (both in terms of size and revenue mix). Over the years, we have seen highly profitable companies of all sizes.
Why does The Herring Group charge for The Benchmark Report?
Some people are surprised that our report costs real dollars ($347 this year). At The Herring Group, we give away a lot of valuable information to help business owners increase their profit margin and life margin. Why? Because we value the industry and private business owners.
So why don’t we give away the Benchmark Report? Two reasons. First, we only want people who are serious about motivating their teams to improve performance to participate. Second, we spend dozens of hours reviewing and “coding” each company’s financial statements to make the data comparable between companies. Those two reasons make it a far more valuable product than any other benchmark report.
Do I need to be on Aspire in order to participate in the Benchmark Report?
No. The Benchmark Report only uses data from your accounting software (e.g. QuickBooks). We provide detailed instructions on how to generate these reports. It will take less than 10 minutes.
I want to purchase the report, but my team is still working on closing out the last month. Do I need to submit my financials immediately?
No. You can purchase the report now and you will have time to submit your financials. We ask that all data (12-months ending 9/30/24) be submitted no later than November 8, 2024. We can also use data for the 12 months ended August 31, 2024 if September 2024 data is not available.
We encourage all companies who did not participate in 2023 to include two years of data so we can do a comparison with the year prior. This is included in the price of $347.
How will the report be delivered to me?
A link to a secure folder with your copy of the report will be provided to you by email on the day the report is released. You will get copies of the report as a PDF and as an Excel file, as well as a video recording of our two webinar presentations.
I am unable to attend the post-report webinars. Are they recorded?
The first post-report webinar is where Greg will explain both how to use the report and point out some of the interesting findings from the year’s report. The second webinar will be a panel discussion with owners from high-performing companies. Both webinars are recorded and will be available for you and your team to view after the live event.
I am currently a Herring Group client. Do I need to purchase the report?
No. All current clients of The Herring Group will receive the Benchmark Report and an invitation to the webinars as a part of our ongoing services. You do not need to register to participate.
Can you buy the report without participating?
No, the report is only available to participants. We work diligently to make sure each participating company’s numbers are comparable to the other companies. If you are in the landscape industry but not a business owner, sponsorship opportunities may be available. Contact us at [email protected].
How secure are my numbers? Do you share them with anyone?
Your data is uploaded into a secure Dropbox folder. Dropbox uses Secure Sockets Layer (SSL)/Transport Layer Security (TSL) to protect data in transit between Dropbox apps and their servers.
From there, your company’s dollars are converted to a % of revenue. Your company is assigned an ID number and your percentages are displayed in a single column in Excel, labeled only by the ID number. Your specific ID will be emailed only to the purchaser’s email address on file when signing up.
We take this approach to make the data more comparable and to make it easier for people to participate. Participants and sponsors will see the report with anonymous data, only. We use overall statistics to help inform the industry.
Reserve Your Spot Today
It’s all good. You can upload your financial documents (12-months ending 9/30) later.
$347 for the Report and Webinar
60-Day No-Risk Guarantee
HAVE A Question?
Do you have Questions not found in the FAQs?
ask them here.
Filling out this form does not sign you up for the report.