By Lorrie DeFrank
A decade after he acquired it, Mike Zaffaroni’s business was experiencing explosive growth when he joined JAX Bridges’ Cohort 7 in fall 2017. Seven years later, Liberty Landscape Supply is nearly seven times larger than it was then, an accomplishment he attributes largely to the JAX Chamber entrepreneurial growth program.
“The focus that JAX Bridges helped me with was a significant contributing factor to our success,” he said. “What was really cool about the program was that there were people in the idea stage who hadn’t sold a thing yet and people like myself who were generating revenue and were profitable but were interested in taking the next step. It’s versatile and applicable to different stages of business.”
In staffing alone, Zaffaroni went from 30 employees in 2017 to about 165 today. When he purchased what was then called Fernandina Mulch and Stone in 2007 he had one location on Amelia Island and two workers. Now the business has six locations in Duval, St. Johns and Nassau counties and offers full service residential and commercial landscaping. Four are public garden centers and supply facilities and the other two are commercial for larger projects. He changed the name to Liberty Landscape Supply in 2016 and opened the second location on Main Street in Jacksonville in 2017, when he added products and services including installation, design and irrigation.
With such rapid growth, he turned to JAX Bridges for more clear direction. His biggest takeaway by far was embracing value proposition.
Dr. Carlton Robinson and his team stressed the importance of staying focused on what you are selling to customers, Zaffaroni said.
“In the landscape business we are trying to create a value proposition for each of our different revenue categories and I’m not sure I would have had that focus without JAX Bridges,” he said. “I took more interest in the parts of the program that focused on value proposition and what your business model really looked like and how that business model differentiated you from your competitors and from much bigger companies that could, in some cases, sort of bully you out of business.”
Zaffaroni said JAX Bridges also helped him recognize that if people are shopping with him only because he is a small business, that’s not a sustainable way to grow. “You really have to do what competitors can’t,” he said.
He also learned the importance of being able to clearly articulate his business’ capabilities. “Being able to explain to a general contractor or developer how many trucks and employees you have and what kind of equipment you have is really helpful when trying to sell your company to a bigger company you never worked with before,” he said.
Likewise, being able to quickly gauge your audience for the couple of minutes you have to pitch your product is crucial. “In my case, if I’m trying to sell a half-million-dollar landscape construction to a general contractor, I don’t need to tell them about our retail garden centers because they don’t care. They care about if we have the capability and capacity to be able to manage and run a larger project,” he said.
Zaffaroni maintains that JAX Chamber has been a critical part of the success and growth of his business. “It is the introduction, advice, sense of community and programming like JAX Bridges. It’s the fastest way to integrate yourself into the business community. If you invest the time that is necessary to be successful, it pays off in massive dividends,” he said. “If you just want to mail a check and have a membership, you can get benefits that way, but not nearly as much as if you’re willing to put the time in.”
To contact Mike Zaffaroni:
Liberty Landscape Supply67
www.libertylandscapesupply.com