Going Lean Within His Means

“It was getting too far to travel,” he says. “And, there wasn’t enough work in Oregon to make it worth my while. If I could have designated a crew to just work there all the time, it would have been another story. Having to go here and go there and then the staging just got too hard. I decided I’d make my living here on the Vancouver (Wash.) side. I still serve all of Clark County and the southern part of Cowlitz County.”

Click photo for galleryTHE OUTDOOR ROOM MAN

Perhaps the best indication that Woodhead is keepings things compact is in the work the company does. In his 23 years in the Northwest, he’s done all of four commercial jobs.

“I would say calling us 100-percent residential is pretty accurate,” he says.

However, he doesn’t see that as a bad thing. While at one point some of his work involved doing new homes, these days his client base is the backyard remodel.

“Over the past five years, it’s somebody who has caught on with the term ‘outdoor living’ or ‘outdoor room’ and wants to extend the backyard into a place of enjoyment,” Woodhead says. “That generally means more patio and seating space, maybe a barbecue and a water feature. Often these are people who aren’t going on vacations now, and they’re not planning to move because of the way the economy is, but they want to spruce up the landscaping.”

And, fortunately, he says Woody’s has the skill sets necessary to serve them. It all dates back to those days when he was still working as an employee.

Click photo for gallery“I’ve always been a custom landscaper, but when I was working for another company, the boss had done custom work and had trained in Berlin as a mason,” he says. “I picked up the skills in masonry and then taught my guys what I know about it. Then, pavers became a big hit, and then it became segmented retaining walls. And, we just ran with it.”

It’s not unusual for Woody’s to do outdoor kitchens, and Woodhead says his philosophy is that masonry is masonry.

“About the only thing we don’t do is granite countertops,” he says. “I hire somebody else to do that, but there are a lot of different kinds of countertops we can put in, including polished concrete and tile.”

It may just be years of experience, but Woodhead seems to be adept in knowing when to call in other experts. He says a typical job begins with his initial meeting with the client, but from there it can go one of two ways, depending on his read on the situation.

“A lot of my clients might be friends with other clients I’ve had, and they may already trust me,” he says. “In that case, I’ll run around with a can of paint, come up with some concepts and a budget, and if everybody’s in agreement, we go ahead.”

It’s not that he’s opposed to making design changes, Woodhead says. However, he doesn’t feel he has the time to devote to doing elaborate plans.

“The thing is, they have to already trust me,” he says. “I try to bid a job so there’s never a surprise in there, and then I can go ahead and absorb some of the cost overruns or whatever.”

If Woodhead isn’t comfortable that he and the client are on the same page, then he tries to figure out which of his list of landscape designers and landscape architects might be the best fit for the job at hand.