Ryan Snyder [00:00:00]:
We won a silver and a bronze award this year. Highly trafficked project on a slope. Challenges were access, busy road, pretty stringent requirements from the client.
Jack Jostes [00:00:10]:
What is ecological landscaping?
Ryan Snyder [00:00:12]:
Ecological landscaping is the promotion and inclusion of ecology. Creating habitats, a place for pollinators, just managing the land the way that it's supposed to be managed.
00:24 - Meet Ryan Snyder: GreenWeaver’s Award-Winning Landscape Designs
Jack Jostes [00:00:24]:
Hey everyone, I'm at NALP Elevate in Charlotte, North Carolina and today I'm talking with Ryan Snyder from GreenWeaver Landscapes in Philadelphia. And tell me a little bit about your company. What do you guys do? And what was the award that you just won?
Ryan Snyder [00:00:40]:
Yeah, so we're an ecological design build maintain firm, focuses on sustainable landscape practices to help steward the planet and land stewardship. We won a silver and a bronze award this year in the residential design build category. And yeah, we're excited to be here and to be award recipients for the second year in a row. I think that platform in a grander sense gives us by winning those awards, that is gives us an opportunity to share that messaging. One of our flagship goals is to change the way landscaping is done in southeastern Pennsylvania, taking a more stewardship and sustainable approach.
Ryan Snyder [00:01:20]:
And by winning those awards it gives us more chops and reality behind realizing that goal. The other part is it kind of shows, we hope it shows anyway other people in the industry that you can be recognized sustainable and ecological landscape practices and you can make money doing it, which is counterintuitive to competitive in the market, promoting competition in the market. But we'd much rather do healthy competition with people of like minded goals, helping us take care of the planet accordingly.
Jack Jostes [00:01:49]:
So can you remind me what were the category of the awards?
Ryan Snyder [00:01:54]:
Yes, Residential design build.
Jack Jostes [00:01:57]:
So it was just broadly residential design build, not necessarily ecological design, correct?
Ryan Snyder [00:02:01]:
Yeah, yeah, the two awards that we submitted for all the work that we do from a design and a build and obviously a maintain perspective is through an ecological lens. So it's really cool to have that flashed up on the screen. Get an award that I can hang in the office, promote accordingly. Both professional, other landscape companies, other industry professionals talk about that through that lens and say, you know, there's some actual weight, you know, we know we're good, we know it's important work. And now nationally everyone else does.
Jack Jostes [00:02:29]:
And was the, were the awards for the same property or were they different properties that you entered?
Ryan Snyder [00:02:33]:
Yeah, it was two different properties we maintain actually both of them all the way through. But this was for the design and the build with which our company did both.
02:44 - Inside the Silver Award Project: Challenges and Successes
Jack Jostes [00:02:44]:
Cool, Ryan. Well tell me about the silver project. What was It. And what role did you play in that project?
Ryan Snyder [00:02:50]:
Yes, the hillside slope was a highly trafficked project. On a slope. The challenge was or challenges were access, busy road, pretty stringent requirements from the client. But they came to us with an ecological focus, so it was a really good fit and they were willing to work with us on that. My role specifically was I'm the general manager, so I kind of touch a lot of different parts. But I'm also the director of sales for the company, so helping my estimating team put the estimate out after the design has been built and then coaching my operations team on operational execution, logistics, coordination. It was a challenging site, but it's successful project, obviously.
Jack Jostes [00:03:30]:
So I'm curious, on that slope, when you evaluated the landscape during your, you know, initial site analysis or whatever, what plants were there that you kept and then which, which plants did you pull and replace?
Ryan Snyder [00:03:43]:
Yeah, I don't remember specifically which plants, but kept the native plants that are going to have good root systems that are going to help with erosion, help that bank stay in place, and then promoted that with native plant inclusion. That's going to attribute to the same as well as what we do is trying to make things beautiful, so seasonal color interests, textures, etc. And then client preferences balanced halfway in between that whole scenario.
04:07 - What Is Ecological Landscaping?
Jack Jostes [00:04:07]:
Cool. So tell me a little bit more. What is ecological landscaping?
Ryan Snyder [00:04:13]:
It's a good question. I don't know that anybody pointedly asked me that. Sustainable practices, using native plants, stormwater management, it's promoting ecology, quite simply. It's kind of the name. Ecological landscaping is the promotion and inclusion of ecology, creating habitats, a place for pollinators, just managing the land the way that it's supposed to be managed in whether that's manipulation of existing conditions or incorporation of new conditions or plants or mediums, those sorts of things.
Jack Jostes [00:04:45]:
So for customers, do they typically have a more ecological appreciation already or do they ever learn after talking with you that, oh, I actually want that, do you find that it's one more than the other?
Ryan Snyder [00:05:00]:
Yeah, I think it's actually both mixed bag. We definitely get inbound marketing for people that know who we are and the specialty service that we provide. And that's a great fit. But there are clients that are just looking to beautify their property and we can educate them along the way through that process. That's a big part of our messaging and how we think we're going to change the industry is through that education, whether it's doing a podcast with Jack Jostes or winning these awards, submitting for them, educating clients. We teach Classes at Longwood and Jenkins and Morris Arboretum. The bigger message that we can put out there for everyone, whether that's the consumer, the professional, or the vendors that we work with, the bigger that message becomes.
05:43 - Winning the Award: How Selective Imagery and Storytelling Sealed the Deal
Jack Jostes [00:05:43]:
Cool. So what other elements that were in this design? What do you think made you win? You know, because there are a lot. There's a lot of competition for these awards. What do you think when you look at the design, when you look at that project, what stood out to you as some of your favorite things that you think contributed to winning? Or did you get feedback about why it was selected?
Ryan Snyder [00:06:02]:
We don't get direct feedback. I think the feedback that's given is the award that we win. I guess I would say that our director of marketing did a fantastic job presenting it. The award submission process is expensive and cumbersome to.
Jack Jostes [00:06:18]:
What is it? What's involved to submit a design.
Ryan Snyder [00:06:21]:
Yeah. So the cost is $500 per award, which is not steep. So obviously. Or not cheap, rather, it is steep. The more awards that you submit for, obviously, the more expensive it gets. But then there's a comprehensive form that you have to fill out. They ask pretty pointed questions. What are the challenges? What were successes? How did you overcome those challenges? There's fillable fields on the form, but the real challenge for us is a picture's worth a thousand words, but you can only put so many pictures in.
Ryan Snyder [00:06:48]:
I think the cap is something like 18 or 20 pictures. So being really intentional about the pictures that you select to show all of those things, you don't want to show all before pictures, where it's just this negative thing, you have to have some showcase pieces. But in order for the judges to understand how you got where you are, they have to know where you came from. Like I said, kudos to our director of marketing. She did a great job telling that story through a narrative in that form and in the form of pictures. But. Yeah, and then you kind of hold your breath and hope that you're the one. And again we were again this year, which is really cool for myself, for the company and all the team members that contributed all the way down through operations.
Ryan Snyder [00:07:26]:
I'd say everybody that touches and works for Greenweaver had a hand in our success.
07:31 - Marketing an Award-Winning Landscape
Jack Jostes [00:07:31]:
So, Ryan, have you talked with your marketing person about how you're going to market that you won this award?
Ryan Snyder [00:07:36]:
Yeah. So we do have a strategy. We are still using our tokens. You get tokens for email signatures and you can plaster the awards on your website. We'll update those for 2024's awards instead of 2023's and then it's, you know, putting those watermarks on our website and enhancing doing blog posts. You get a lot of press from it too. NALP does articles that feature your project throughout the year. Reporters will reach out from other publications or websites to do that sort of stuff.
Ryan Snyder [00:08:10]:
I get a chance to talk to Jack Jostes at the same time.
Jack Jostes [00:08:13]:
Woo hoo!
Ryan Snyder [00:08:13]:
Yeah, exactly. So yeah, there's a comprehensive marketing analysis. There's been reciprocal and measurable return on that investment that not only from a increasing sales revenue perspective, but as I said, the messaging of ecological landscape just got a bigger footprint.
Jack Jostes [00:08:28]:
Well, good. Well, you know, some other ways to continue marketing this. You know, local newspapers and magazines are always looking for good news. And so the fact that you won this national award is good news and that you can get in your local newspaper, if there are Facebook community groups, you can share it there magazines. So I would encourage you to like think local because cool. We've got all this national recognition in the industry and stuff, but getting in front of your customers in your local market is another opportunity. So sending it to them, sending them the photos, those sorts of things is just another way to keep the momentum going.
Ryan Snyder [00:09:04]:
Yeah, that's a great idea. We have a press kit that we can, we've put together previously and can insert there and send out to local publications. We use these a lot for recruitment as well, which is usually a pretty overlooked category from a marketing perspective. Prospective employees want to work at award winning landscape companies and that's just another notch in our belt to attract and retain good help for sure.
Jack Jostes [00:09:27]:
So on your careers page and each job description. Right. So a lot of times, and I've realized this in my own recruiting like oh, I have this on my careers page, but I didn't put it in the actual individual job listing. So that's a really great point. Getting it in there, just reviewing that.
09:44 - Final Thoughts and Exclusive Upcoming Events
Jack Jostes [00:09:44]:
Well, cool, man. Hey, congrats and thanks so much for coming on The Landscaper's Guide.
Ryan Snyder [00:09:47]:
Yeah, thanks for having me, Jack.
Jack Jostes [00:09:49]:
If you enjoyed today's show and you haven't already subscribed, make sure you subscribe at landscapersguide.com/podcast so you'll get an email each week when our episodes come out. Plus, exclusive invitations to our live events. We go to different trade shows, we have in person events, we have live webinar series. We'd love to invite you, so sign up landscapersguide.com/podcast. My name is Jack Jostes and I look forward to talking with you next week on The Landscaper's Guide.
Show Notes:
???? Watch the full episode + see the transcript at: landscapersguide.com/podcast
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???? Connect with Ryan Snyder: www.linkedin.com/in/ryan-snyder-71b968163
???? Learn more about GreenWeaver Landscapes: green-weaver.com