Grounded in Father and Son

Their preference is to have a client start with the design component, mainly because it can make the installation that much easier if there’s a clear layout. However, Jeremy Scarlett explains that sales are handled by multiple people, based on what’s wanted.

Click photo for galleryAll the phone calls come to my desk and based on what the customer is looking for, we split up the calls,” he says. “If it’s a design call, I’ll set it up for Jason. If it’s maintenance, I send out our maintenance foreman, Luis Gonzales. My dad does a lot of the irrigation-system and irrigation-repair calls. And, I do anything else, especially if it relates to hardscape and retaining walls.

“We really split up the sales calls depending on the client’s needs.”

The Whole Package

Although the early emphasis of Scarlett’s was more toward the softscape side of projects, Tom Scarlett says customer demand, and his own observations encouraged him to move into hardscape.

“For one thing, we noticed the value of it,” Tom Scarlett says. “Plus, I’d been around a long time, and people trusted us to do the whole project. For awhile, I was doing that but subbing it out.”

As with the addition of Stetler to the company, the elder Scarlett adds that one of the men to whom he’d subcontracted hardscape work was going to retire and the Scarletts brought in the business, as well.

“Now we can offer the whole package,” Tom Scarlett says. “In fact, we can do things people aren’t even aware we’re capable of doing. We could probably put a pool on a roof if someone wanted it.”

He quickly adds that while Scarlett’s Landscape would be willing to take on the job, pools are one of the few things the company still subcontracts out.

“We have people who work with us on pools,” says Tom Scarlett. “They’ll build the pool and then we do the coping and things they don’t want to do, including the hardscape and the planting.”

However, that’s one of the few types of jobs Scarlett’s isn’t doing itself, says Jeremy Scarlett.

“We really say we can do anything in the yard,” the younger man says. “A lot of times we’ll do everything from bar-be-cue islands to patios to pergolas to the irrigation and planting.”

Click photo to enlargeOnly recently the firm has expanded into doing larger public projects. Scarlett’s was hired to build a new entrance for the Ventura County Fairgrounds, and Jeremy Scarlett describes the job as both a cool project and a learning experience.

“It was definitely high profile,” he says. “We did work on both sides of the street, including moving a couple large palms (some 30,000 lbs of trees) and then installing low rock walls.”

It’s also a job that’s caught the eye of several general contractors who have added the firm to their lists of potential subs, and the Scarletts expect it to generate more work.

In the meantime, they continue to attract new business using a mix of old and new methods.

First and foremost is the company’s reputation. Tom Scarlett says he likes to do business the old-fashioned way.

“My goal is to take the worry out of the customer’s hands,” he says. “When I meet with people, I try to look them in the eye and find out where they’re coming from. I try to establish some common ground and get them to see that I’m sincere so we can build up a level of trust.”

That trust is important, because Scarlett’s Landscape isn’t selling on price.

“We want to create something you want, and when we give you a price, that’s our price,” Tom Scarlett says. “If you want to delete something from the project, you can lower the price, but in terms of what you want done for this price, this is it.”