Athletes consistently talk of mastering the fundamentals.

The same applies to business: Entities that focus on the fundamentals succeed.

To Taylor Anderson of Sunline Landscapes in the Salt Lake City region, the fundamentals are not complex: Be on time and be on budget.

To meet those goals, Sunline has turned to Aspire, the end-to-end software solution for landscaping businesses.

“Our clients really want people who are proactive in their jobs,” said Anderson, Sunline’s Systems Development and Growth Manager. “And then they really want our employees to take initiative.”

That’s why Aspire is a perfect fit for the high-end landscaping business.

“We specialize with custom home builders and high-end residential clients who have these pretty cool, crazy homes,” she said. “And we are lucky enough to be a part of the process of building, designing, and then maintaining those properties.”

All is handled through Aspire.

Fundamentals and adaptations

Anderson calls the software innovative, and it’s those innovations that allow Sunline to adapt to each customer while it succeeds at the fundamentals.

“High-end clients really want a white glove service,” she said. “They want to know what they're going to pay from the get-go. They want to know if we're getting close to that and if we need to change something. If they want to add a whole new side of their property, they want to know what that's going to be from the get-go.

“Aspire really helps us with job costing to be ahead of the game.”

Anderson speaks from experience. Sunline was already using Aspire when she joined the team in January of 2024, but Anderson also experienced onboarding and growing with Aspire at a previous job. Her knowledge of the software helps Sunline maximize its offerings.

“I'm able to really sit and focus on what's effective in Aspire and where we can put it in our processes,” she said.

How Sunline uses Aspire

Her knowledge of the software and its benefits became more apparent the more she discussed how Sunline uses it. Some of those benefits include:

Scheduling

A scheduling model that helps Sunline deal with a market where clients could be 10 minutes or an hour and 10 minutes away. 

“Aspire has really helped us be able to create these routes that are really effective for our time,” she said. “Our clients are going to know about it because we're very upfront from the get-go.”

Job costing

Job costing that relies on past data in Aspire helps ensure accurate pricing. Anderson said Sunline can use information from a previous contract and extrapolate material and labor costs to a present-day bid.

Ensuring job costing leads to profitability. Because Aspire can provide data on past work, Sunline is better able to accurately forecast costs. “The data is all in one place,” she said. “The difference is just the accessibility of it.”

PropertyIntel

PropertyIntel also helps create accurate bids with detailed maps and data about job sites. Sunline even uses Property Intel to help customers understand the work, especially because the business can provide drawings. “Clients always do better with a visual,” Anderson said. “Being able to have that in front of people has really helped.”

Issues

Sunline also monitors and addresses concerns in Aspire’s Issues tab, which lets customers report issues or request service. Paying attention to Issues allows Sunline to refer information to the relevant team and to track how issues have been addressed and handled. 

“Having a whole history of what was actually in there has been life-changing for us, especially when customers move from construction to maintenance,” Anderson said. “Our crew leaders, whether they're construction or maintenance, are really, really good at knowing, ’OK, this is what they've dealt with in the past. Here's what to look for in the future.’"

Lessons for the next generation

Anderson also teaches landscaping at Brigham Young University’s Department of Plant and Wildlife Sciences, where her father, Greg Jolley, is a professor. Anderson uses Aspire in a Bidding and Estimating class so students can better grasp the business side of landscaping.

“I think Sunline was very, very lucky because they were on Aspire early. Because of that, we've grown with Aspire,” she said. “My excitement is that I've been able to not just help our CEO see numbers, but I can help our crew members take learning into their own hands, and they can grow from there.

“Just the fact that people want to be better at Aspire has made me so excited because that makes my job so much easier—they want to learn as much as I want to teach them.”