Ontario landscaping firm is set to grow

by Sally Bouorm | April 1, 2010 9:45 am

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By Kristine Archer

Creativity, imagination and hard work are the staples of a successful landscaping firm. Darryl Shaver and Sandro Aiello, owners of Darsan Contracting in Concord, Ont., put these three tenets into practice as they built their company, which offers high-end residential and commercial landscape work, from flagstone, decks and paving to pools, water features and fencing.

Forging a partnership

A stonemason by trade, Shaver got his start in the business in 1987, after completing a three-year program at Toronto’s Humber College. He worked for other people for a few years, learning some valuable lessons along the way.

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“I was exposed to a lot of custom work, which is what we’re into now,” Shaver explains. After getting his bearings in the industry, Shaver broke out on his own, working alongside a variety of different landscape architects. It was on one of those jobs where Shaver would meet his future business partner.

“We met through a friend of Sandro’s,” Shaver says of the first time he was introduced to Aiello. “He had purchased a house in North York, Ont., and needed somebody to do his landscaping.”

Aiello, a business graduate of Toronto’s Seneca College, was employed in the construction industry at the time.

“I was involved in earth works—excavation and relocation of earth—and then got into a lot of structural work, such as excavation of residential homes and trenching and forming for front staircases,” he explains. “That’s when I got involved in landscaping, which just happened to be around the time I met Darryl. Our personalities really fit together well.”

After tackling a few landscaping projects and some winter snow removal work together, the new associates decided to officially join forces and start their own company.

“We understood how each other worked,” Aiello says. “After a couple of years we said, ‘We’ve got to pull everything together.’ That’s when we took the plunge.”

Even the company name was a joint effort, according to Aiello.

“We took the first three letters of Darryl’s name and the first three letters of my first name,” he explains. “We didn’t want to do ‘regular’ landscaping. We wanted to get into high-quality residential work.”

Getting established

Darsan grew from humble beginnings, with its first office operating out of a spare bedroom in Aiello’s home; down the street, a makeshift ‘yard’ (10 rented parking spots in a local lot) served as an equipment storage space. The partners later moved to an office in Concord, Ont., complete with a small equipment yard, where they spent the next five years establishing their reputation and growing the business.

“Our passion has always been the residential work,” Aiello says. “The gratification is phenomenal. When the project’s done, it’s just overwhelming, both for the homeowners and ourselves. That’s what we’re striving for.”

Pools have long been an important element of Darsan’s landscaping work. The decision to add a full-time pool professional was made in part to streamline operations.

“A lot of our clientele were into gunite pools and would hire their own pool companies,” Shaver says. “We also had pool companies that would bring us into their jobs. We really didn’t get involved in the swimming pool end of it until recently, when we started our in-house vinyl-liner pool company.”

Though Shaver and Aiello say gunite pools are ideal for their high-profile projects, they also recognize these pools don’t always fit into a customer’s budget.

“Some of our landscapes are $300,000 to $400,000, but they have a vinyl pool in them,” Shaver explains. “The rest of the landscaping costs so much money that to spend an extra $60,000 on a gunite pool is not feasible. The problem, of course, is most clientele want a vinyl-liner pool to look like a gunite pool. We have to do the detail around the pool to make it look like its gunite.”

Open and honest

Whether or not a pool is involved, Shaver and Aiello are always mindful of the bottom line, especially when it comes to quoting on projects. Shaver says even the slightest bit of price flexibility can make a lasting impression on a client.

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“We will try to give a customer a break on things, try to make it work within their budget,” he says. “We try to educate our client from day one about every option prior to starting the job. In our industry, a lot of people will give you a price beforehand, but when the work starts they say, ‘Well, I never priced this; we need to put it in.’ They trick the client and, at the end, come in with the big ‘extras.’ We don’t believe in unforeseeable extras.”

The pair says their experience helps them create and provide a more complete assessment of the project, unlike designers who may not have a firm understanding of labour and material costs.

“Designers will draw up the design, present it and even provide the price, but there’s a lot of grey area, because the designer doesn’t know enough about the construction end of things. We’re a lot more informative because of our construction background.”

The right people

As in most small businesses, proper hiring and employee training are constant challenges for Shaver and Aiello. The pair pride themselves on their staff retention rate, which they say has paid off with well-trained employees who share their professional beliefs. Today, Darsan boasts a staff of roughly 20 employees year-round, including an in-house pool specialist and several experienced technicians.

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While Shaver admits he has a hard time stepping back on the construction site, Aiello says his partner’s hands-on approach serves as great training for younger staff, who learn by Shaver’s example.

That example includes a dedication to professionalism and transparency, two qualities the partners say they believe in strongly. Small gestures and attention to detail also go a long way, according to Shaver.

“At the end of the day, when the client comes home, they like to see things tidy,” he says. “We also strive on letting the customer see as much progress as possible. You don’t want them climbing over a mountain of rocks just to go see what you’ve done. It’s very important the customer sees that progression because if there’s something they’re not happy with, it can be easily changed as you go.”

The partners are pleased to see their employees following their lead and taking more ownership of their work, Aiello says.

“It started off with just Darryl and I doing every job, but now our employees are actually doing the jobs, learning how to read the drawings and offering their input. They’re growing and maturing. They also understand the cost of doing business now. We want them to know this is their company, too. They are creating it.”

Ready for the future

In May 2009, Aiello and Shaver began constructing a new office in Concord, about 10 minutes north of their previous location. In November, they moved in, even though the accommodations were still a little rough around the edges.

“It was just a shell at first,” Aiello says, noting the pair has done much to renovate the space since moving in. Clients enter through a large, inviting lobby space, while Aiello and Shaver work out of nearby side-by-side offices. Building a new facility during peak season was a challenge the partners shared, each playing to their individual strengths.

“I was managing the guys on the landscaping jobs and Sandro was building the office as best as he could,” Shaver says. “That’s what saved us—the fact that I was able to handle the landscaping side, while he was able to handle the administrative side.”

Darsan has also branched out into commercial work—including high-profile clients such as Holt Renfrew—largely on the success of their residential projects.

“We had a few residential clients approach us to do some commercial projects for them,” Aiello says. “We noticed the commercial market is starting to mimic a residential look. People want to see stonework and plant material.”

As the company continues to expand, Aiello and Shaver are beginning to funnel more resources into advertising and marketing.

“We were afraid our quality would drop,” Aiello adds of the hesitancy to aggressively market Darsan. “As you advertise, you would create more work. By creating more work, you have to create more crews. To create more crews, you need more people who can oversee them.”

“We have never advertised, only because our word of mouth has been so positive,” Shaver adds. “However, that gives us a limited amount of clientele. We were progressing and then unfortunately, this year, the recession kept us at a level plateau. I think if we had been motivated a few years ago to start advertising, it may have helped us a bit. Now, we’re definitely ready to grow.”

Source URL: https://www.poolspamarketing.com/trade/ontario-landscaping-firm-is-set-to-grow/

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