Staying Ahead of the Changes
Life brings with it opportunities, and you must be prepared to act on them when they come along. You take the right classes, you get the right licenses, you align yourself with the right suppliers, and you make sure you can “staff up” when that opportunity becomes a reality. In a sense, you take control of the future by preparing for it today.
But what if the things that come along are out of your control? Then what? Take inflation, for instance. Everyone said it was coming. You could GET AHEAD of some of the changes it would bring – and limit the damage it costs businesses and other sectors of life – or you could sit around and watch your money erode. We chose to take action by stocking up while prices were low on some items and practicing wise inventory management with the rest.
Once we saw gas prices beginning to rise, we began to route our deliveries in ways that saves mileage and better manages our fuel costs.
Now we have these insane water restrictions to deal with. (I believe they’re partly political.) We’re an irrigation store, should we just close up until the rains come next winter? I don’t think so. We just remodeled our Altadena store to better deal with the conservation needs of our customers and their clients. Other locations will follow. We may even hold classes on best ways to manage maintenance accounts during this restriction period: best equipment to use, best supplements, best techniques, and more.
Even though much of this is out of our control, we can still prepare for them and lessen their harm. We might even find new ways of making additional income. Like they say, “turning lemons into lemonade.”
– José Robles, owner, Landscape Warehouse