Want to be successful?
Just be nice.

Damon Manale doesn't seem overly impressed by the degree of success he has achieved in a relatively short time. He thinks being successful is easy. He attributes it to the great relationships he has with his customers and credits those relationships to the good service he provides. It's all pretty basic stuff. And it makes perfect sense.

"We're there when they want us there," he explained. "I'm big into that. I believe it's the little things that make you successful. It's easy to make money. It really is."

Here are some Manale Landscaping basics:

• Be nice

• Be prompt

• Treat your customers the way you would want to be treated

• Ask questions and listen to the answers

• Return phone calls

• Hustle

• Give 110% every day

• Never say never

• Do a good job

Armed with these simple values, Damon Manale and his team of hardworking associates are making their mark in both Charleston and Charlotte. As he says, "I tell my sales guy, this should be the easiest job in the world - beautifying the landscape, beautifying the world. Everybody wants to make things look better."

Put that way, it does sound simple. Doesn't it?

Manale Landscaping News & Articles

Overseeding with Perennial Ryegrass Produces Green for Manale Landscaping
Lesconews - Fall 2003 - Vol. 41 No. 3

At one point in his post-college pursuit to find himself, Damon Manale was working as a night auditor at a Marriott hotel and holding down two jobs during the day. One thing led to another and he began helping with the landscaping at the hotel. That was the beginning... and it wasn't that long ago.

In operation for seven years, Manale Landscaping now does a million dollars worth of business a year in the Charleston, South Carolina and Charlotte, North Carolina markets. Manale started out alone in Charleston with his equipment and supplies piled in the back of his pickup truck. Now he has six vehicles on the road, employs four supervisors, a director of sales and has opened a branch in Charlotte that his brother manages. He employs anywhere from 8 to 25 depending on the time of year and the number of projects in the works.

"In all honesty, when I first started doing landscaping work, I came close to being like so many other guys out there - just a weekend warrior," Manale said. "Then I hooked up with LESCO and became a company that specializes in high-end commercial properties. I want our properties to look fantastic and the LESCO guys help make it possible because they are the experts. they're the ones that make my properties look like the golf courses."

Today, Manale relies on a variety of LESCO people for technical advice, service and the products and equipment he needs to operate his company. His primary contacts are LESCO Sales Representatives Paul Hartzog and Paul Stevens and Scott Utsey, who are the manager and assistant manager respectively, at the Charleston Service Center. The recently opened Service Center in Wando, South Carolina, operated by Sales Manager Rob Hopkins and Assistant Manager Chad Stilley is another added convenience for Manale. In Charlotte, his brother Eric does business with Jeff Zobel and David Miller who manage the Service Center there.

"You need to have the right people around you. These guys make us look good," is the way Manale explains his relationship with LESCO.

About 40% of the revenue Manale generates comes from design, build and installation work and the remaining 60% from maintenance. He doesn't advertise, preferring instead to rely on Jason Suggs, the sales director he hired in mid-2002 to generate new business. Word-of-mouth is another powerful sales tool.

Green, green grass of home

A northerner by birth, it was Manale's talent on the baseball field that landed him in the Low Country, where he played for Charleston Southern University. And although there are many reasons Manale enjoys living and working in the South, the one thing he found he truly missed about the North was the beauty of really green grass.

The St. Augustine, centipede and bermudagrass lawns that adorn most of the properties he maintains don't hold a candle to the cool-season varieties when it comes to color. At least not until fall arrives and Manale works his overseeding magic.

The remarkable overseeded winter turf Manale Landscaping produces is the company's pride and joy. It has earned the landscaping firm numerous accolades and years of repeat business from clients in the Charleston area - many of which are hotels and residential developments.

One of the reasons the properties are such standouts is because Manale chooses to overseed with perennial ryegrass - as opposed to the more commonly used annual ryegrass.

Damon Manale's product of choice is LESCO Overseeding Eagle Blend - which contains three varieties of perennial ryegrass. And while it is true that a 50-lb bag of Overseeding Eagle Blend costs more than a 50-lb bag of annual rye, Manale believes going with the higher-quality seed actually saves him money in the end.

"We save on labor and equipment because it only has to be mowed every two weeks as opposed to annual rye that requires weekly mowing," he explained. "Another benefit is that the perennial rye is less wet and lush, so it doesn't require as much cleanup because it doesn't stick to the hardscape like the annual rye does. The bottom line is it saves us money and makes us look terrific."

Treat it right

To promote germination and establishment, the Manale Landscaping crew applies LESCO 18-24-12 Starter Fertilizer at the time of seeding in late September or early October and then typically follows up with LESCO 32-5-7 with 50% Poly Plus® Sulfur-Coated Urea at the beginning of December. In February, LESCO 25-0-10 plus Dimension* - which contains 30% Poly Plus - is used to fertilize and prevent grassy and broadleaf weeds.

As LESCO Sales Representative Paul Hartzog explained, "The reason we recommend high nitrogen products is because they go farther and Damon's guys don't have to carry as many bags around. One bag of the 32-5-7 covers about 16,000 sq. ft. so they can carry less product, plus the cost is going to be down some and there's less labor."

Or as Damon puts it, "You certainly want your properties to look great, but you're also in business to make money."

Hartzog also emphasized the importance of the slow-release characteristics of the LESCO fertilizers Manale uses.

"We try to be careful because many of these lawns are centipede and centipede is pretty picky and really doesn't like to be overseeded," he pointed out. "We don't pound it with a lot of fast-release nitrogen because we have warm-ups here in the wintertime. If you put a fast-release fertilizer down and we get a warm spell, the centipede wants to come out of dormancy and if we get a frost, that hurts it."

To some degree the weather dictates what is applied, but Damon generally eases up on the N, P and K after he puts down the fertilizer plus preemergent product in February. From then on, he relies on iron to keep the ryegrass green until transition.

When the warm-season grass starts coming back, Manale most often uses granular atrazine to eradicate the ryegrass. Because the granular atrazine product must be watered in - and because Damon is not one to let an opportunity go by - he looks at the transition period as a chance to promote irrigation inspection as an add-on service.

"Believe it or not, the transition period is actually good for us because we go in to management and tell them we are about to transition out the rye and we need to make sure the irrigation system is up to spec," he explained. "Knock on wood, we've always had a great transition, but it's been with LESCO and ourselves working together."

In areas where the atrazine application is not practical, Manale relies on spray-applied Manor™ Selective Herbicide to eliminate the perennial rye. When the transition is complete and the danger of frost is past, Manale Landscaping initiates a warm-season lawn care program until it is once again time to overseed. Along with fertilizers, the company relies on a variety of LESCO products to control weeds and mole crickets, provide fire ant protection and correct any disease problems that occur.

"In the wintertime, we're more concerned about let's get it green, green, green," Manale said. "But in the summertime, we're concentrating more on maintaining the integrity of the turf."

Blame it on baseball

Damon Manale relates much of his success in the landscaping business to his love of baseball and what his dad taught him about working hard to achieve the desired results. "You want to be good? Don't talk about it. Do it," he remembers his dad saying. "If the guy down the street is catching a hundred ground balls, you catch 150. If he's taking a hundred cuts in the batting cages, you take 150. That's how you become successful."

It worked for Manale on the ballfield. And now it is working in the landscaping business.

Dimension is a trademark of Dow AgroSciences, LLC.
Manor is a trademark of Riverdale Chemical Company