Google Workspace: Why it’s the best email solution for landscapers
You’ve got a lot on your plate. Managing employees, working in the field, maintaining equipment, and still finding time to get estimates out the door—everyday feels like you’re just hanging on. Hell, in the spring you're not even doing that some days.
In the midst of busy landscape life, many pros overlook seemingly small details like your email game. The truth is, though, even with all the texting you do now, email is an essential part of running a successful landscaping business. Not only does it allow you to communicate with customers and vendors, but it also gives you a more professional look and feel—critical for growth if that's what you are after.
Let’s dive in and explore the benefits of having an email address at your website domain and how you can set one up that just simply works using Google Workspace. It’s time to say goodbye to the jimmyslandscaping@gmail.com email if you are serious about scaling your business to $3M.
Why do you need a professional business email address?
Bottom line? You look more professional and it will give you real street cred Mrs. Jones. When you have an email address like Seth@jimmylandscaping.com, it tells customers that you are a legitimate business with a professional presence. Rocking that jimmyslandscaping@gmail.com address gives the impression that you're just running a hobby or side gig rather than a serious business. It’s not a good look and companies that scale over time make the switch sooner than later.
The other reason a real email system is important is because you need scalable systems for adding employees. With a proper business email solution, you can manage all your company emails in one, easy-to-use spot.
But what email provider is best for growing landscaping companies?
We’ve seen some scary things over the years with businesses that can’t rely on their email. They miss emails, their email boxes fill up all the time, the service goes down, and/or they’re using some 1980’s style program that’s horrible to even check mail. We talked to one business who followed up every email with a phone call because their email worked so poorly!
So how do you know where to turn for easy, reliable, professional email? Easy…Google.
Google Workspace is a cloud-based collection of productivity tools that includes email, calendar, file storage, and more. It's designed to help businesses of all sizes work more efficiently. It’s efficient, cost-effective, very secure against spammers, integrates with everything, and most important of all, just simply works without any b%llsh*t. This means you can spend time on other things that matter.
Setting up your email on Google WorkPlace (the best email for landscapers)
To get started with Google Workspace, you'll need to sign up for a subscription. The basic plan costs about $6 per user per month and includes 30GB of storage, while the business plan costs $12 per user per month and includes unlimited storage.
Go to the Google Workspace website and click the "Get started" button.
Select the plan that best fits your needs (Basic or Business).
Create an account by filling in your personal and business information.
Choose your domain name or add an existing one that you already own.
Verify that you own your domain by adding a TXT record to your domain's DNS settings. This step can be a bit technical, so you may need to ask your web developer or hosting provider for help.
Once your domain is verified, you can create email accounts for yourself and your employees. You'll be able to choose your email address, such as jimmy@jimmylandscaping.com, and set up a password.
Access your email through the Gmail web interface, or use a desktop email client like Microsoft Outlook or Apple Mail.
Google has great help docs and support to help you set this up. The trickiest part of it all is step #5. Basically, you need to login to your website domain hosting account—GoDaddy is a popular one for landscapers. From there you can follow the steps to add the code to the account. Again, just take a deep breath and follow the directions on this link for those GoDaddy folks. For other domain hosts, simply Google “verify my Google Workplace email, [enter name] host.”
Building the systems you need to grow
After you tackle the email thing and finally check that off the list once and for all, you can gradually check out more of what Google Workspace offers. For example, you can use Google Drive to store and share files with your team, Google Calendar to schedule appointments and meetings, and Google Docs and Sheets to replace Word and Powerpoint. By using all of these tools together, you can streamline your workflow and save time.
Getting these types of tools and systems in place is key to scaling your business and proper email is a great place to start.
