Spring-Green University and the Lawn Care Training Gap

In the green industry, most businesses generate less than $500K in revenue, and they have small or non-existent budgets for training. However, the need for creating lawn care training processes and developing their people is the same as it is for a large organization. Business owners often find themselves providing the training with limited structure or documentation.

So, how do you balance the need to focus on landscape and lawn care training so your business can grow, provide consistent service, maintain your culture and values, while also managing the other critical areas of a small business?

Some green industry business owners facing these issues have realized that partnering with Spring-Green Lawn Care may be a breath of fresh air. With operations in 26 states, the organization has invested in an online training university. Spring-Green University is accessible by employees nationwide. Currently there are 20 courses (with more constantly being developed) that are modern, interactive, and informative; they cover various topics in lawn care, landscaping, weed control, and more. These courses are specifically assigned and grouped based on the user’s role: Owner, Manager, Customer Service Professional, and Field Service Professional.

The Benefits of Our Lawn Care Courses

Each course—whether on lawn care or equipment maintenance—contains a simple quiz or exam at the end, ensuring that the user comprehends the material they just finished reading. Because certain courses are assigned based on the user’s role, the right franchise owners’ employees will be equipped with the knowledge they need to sell specific products and services, as well as how to apply them.
All Spring-Green customers can expect that their local Spring-Green professionals know the technical aspects of how to treat their lawn correctly and effectively because every team member will have passed the exact same courses on Spring-Green University.

By harnessing the collective knowledge that lies within Spring-Green University, Spring-Green’s Support Center is able to ensure that the brand and applications are consistent no matter the location and the size of the business.

Additionally, Spring-Green owners are able to rely on Spring-Green University to train their office Managers, CSPs, and FSPs, allowing them to focus on other important areas of their business such as financials, planning, and operations.

Course Examples

To make the lawn care courses more fun and interesting, there are real-world examples and photos that FSPs and owners have submitted. The courses can range in topics from basic and advanced customer service to lawn and weed identification and treatment. The topic variety keeps the users intrigued, while also allowing them to brush up on their overall lawn care and business ownership knowledge.

Our Expertise in Lawn Care

Spring-Green’s Director of Education, Harold Enger (see his blog; Ask the Expert), is the main author of the majority of the courses. Harold has over 40 years of lawn and tree care experience and holds a BS in Education, is a Landscape Industry Certified Manager, and is also an Industry Certified Landscape Technician. Harold tours the country for several weeks of the year conducting Professional Development Seminars for Spring-Green’s FSPs and franchise owners in many locations, where he is able to share his knowledge of products, services, applications and techniques, and other day-to-day occurrences that a lawn care technician may potentially come across. Additionally, Harold authors a front line newsletter called Team Trends, which is filled with agronomic information from around the country. If you’d like to see a sample of this month’s Team Trends newsletter, please contact us – we’d love to hear from you.

By creating Spring-Green University, Spring-Green has enabled owners and their employees to learn about topics they may not know much about, re-visit courses as often as they’d like, and view them at their own pace without having to look through an overwhelmingly long printed manual. Owners are then able to promise service consistency to their customers and will spend less time training their team, which allows for more time on the field.

Even better yet, courses are edited and created based on franchise owner feedback and request, making the project a win-win for everyone involved.