When Video Never Lies: How Fleet Technology Protects Contractors & Drives ROI

Chad Reinhart, President of Reinhart Landscaping and Snow, clicked play on a dashboard camera video. On-screen, one of his company's trucks was in an accident, but the driver was not at fault. The footage saved his company thousands in false liability claims.

This wasn't one case. Reinhart and his team, Logan Karr (COO), Randy Sharpe (Director of Operations), and Jennifer Polley (Director of Admin) shared several real video examples during their Ignite panel. Each showed the same truth: when it comes to fleet accidents, the camera doesn’t lie.

The ROI Beyond the Obvious

Reinhart's team showed how integrating Aspire with Azuga provides clear returns in many areas. This technology tracks more than vehicle locations. It monitors driving habits, schedules preventative maintenance, optimizes routes, and offers accountability through video evidence.

"Safety is our #1 core value. The alerts from Azuga let us review and correct behavior, including employee uniform compliance," said Randy Sharpe.

The system's impact goes beyond monitoring. By spotting unsafe driving early, the company can fix issues before they lead to costly accidents. Preventative maintenance alerts help avoid expensive breakdowns in peak season, while route optimization cuts fuel costs and boosts job capacity.

Protection That Pays for Itself

Video after video showed Reinhart vehicles in accidents where the footage proved their drivers were innocent. These cases turned potential insurance claims and legal battles into simple defenses.

The integration of Aspire and Azuga creates a smooth data flow that helps leadership teams make informed decisions about:

• Driver performance and safety training needs

• Vehicle maintenance scheduling and costs

• Route efficiency and fuel consumption

• Insurance claim documentation and defense

• Equipment accountability and utilization

The Bottom Line on Fleet Investment

For crews hesitant about being on camera while driving, this culture shift typically changes when an employee is exonerated by video evidence and avoids a ticket or even job termination.

The panel's message was straightforward: in an industry where a false claim can cost tens of thousands, having video evidence is vital. As Reinhart's team showed, the best investment can be the one that keeps you out of trouble.

Chad Reinhart summed it up: “Azuga is already good, but it keeps improving. We will keep using deep data to boost efficiency and save costs.”

-Andrew Nicoletta

How Convex and PropertyIntel Are Revolutionizing Commercial Landscape Sales

Daniel Biundo, Vice President of Strategic Development at Realty Landscaping, exemplifies the transformative impact of combining dedicated sales teams with advanced prospecting technology. His company's growth from $16 million to $27 million demonstrates what's possible when businesses move beyond the traditional account manager model.

"When we first came in about three years ago, the business was really managed through account management, and they were selling as well as managing the account," Biundo explains. "I was actually the first true salesperson that was brought on."

This strategic shift from dual-role account managers to dedicated sales professionals, supported by Convex for prospecting and PropertyIntel for estimation, created the foundation for dramatic growth.

The Strategic Framework: Target Lists and Collaboration

Success begins with strategic targeting rather than random prospecting. Realty Landscaping creates Top 100 lists for each location through collaboration between operational leaders and salespeople. "These are the 100 accounts that if we land, it's a success," notes Biundo.

Convex enables this precision targeting by allowing teams to filter prospects based on specific criteria like acreage requirements. For Realty Landscaping, properties need to be larger than four acres to fit their operational sweet spot, with minimum contract values around $45,000.

"We can actually tweak it based on acreage. We go through, we circle that boundary map, we look at acreage, and typically for us, we want properties that are middle-range because an acre is higher than four."

Advanced Prospecting with Real-Time Problem Solving

Convex provides more than contact databases - it offers comprehensive property intelligence and decision-maker identification. Biundo shared a recent example that illustrates the platform's real-world value:

While on a property visit, he learned that maintenance was handled by another company. Instead of accepting the limitation, he called his team who used Convex to identify the management company and location within 30 seconds. "We literally left there, drove to the other location, got in front of that guy, and now we're in an additional portion of it as well."

This capability stems from Convex's extensive filtering options - over 25 different criteria, including property characteristics, permit data, and contact attributes. The platform allows searches by company, individual contacts, and specific management levels or industries.

Seamless Aspire Integration for Efficiency

The recent integration between Convex and Aspire eliminates the time-consuming manual data entry that traditionally slows sales processes. "It just takes a lot of time to take these qualified leads, and then manually create all the properties and contacts in Aspire," notes David Vroblesky, Principal Product Manager at Convex.

The new workflow allows sales teams to:

• Select qualified prospects directly in Convex

• Export them to Aspire with one click

• Automatically create property records and contact information

• Launch PropertyIntel directly from Aspire for instant estimation

PropertyIntel: From Hours to Minutes

PropertyIntel transforms the estimation process by providing accurate property measurements and scope visualization. "When you come to that estimation side of it from Aspire, you can go through and click launch PropertyIntel. And if you build out and take the time to build out the correct kits and the square footage coefficients, after you measure it within PropertyIntel, it auto back feeds."

This integration compresses the timeline from initial prospect identification to delivered estimate, enabling the 15-minute estimate concept that seemed impossible with traditional methods.

Operational Alignment Through Production Review

Success requires seamless handoffs between sales and operations. Realty Landscaping implements a production review process where "sales will never put anything out unless operations sees it."

This collaborative approach ensures:

• Operations reviews both scope of work and PropertyIntel maps

• Crew leaders understand exactly what was sold

• Potential issues are identified before proposals go out

• Account managers are properly introduced to new clients

AI-Powered Prospecting on the Horizon

Convex is developing AI capabilities that will further automate the prospecting process. The upcoming AI targets feature will generate 100 qualified prospects weekly based on machine learning algorithms that improve over time based on user feedback.

Additionally, an AI agent will simplify the filtering process, allowing users to request prospects using natural language: "Give me all facility managers at hospitals that are over 50 acres" rather than navigating complex filter menus.

The Technology Stack Advantage

The combination of Convex, PropertyIntel, and Aspire creates a comprehensive sales ecosystem that addresses every stage of the commercial landscape sales process:

• Convex handles prospecting and contact identification

• PropertyIntel manages measurement and estimation

• Aspire coordinates the entire project lifecycle

This integrated approach eliminates the data silos and manual processes that traditionally slow sales cycles and create opportunities for errors.

For commercial landscape companies serious about growth, this technology stack represents more than incremental improvement - it's a fundamental reimagining of how sales and operations can work together to capture and deliver on new business opportunities efficiently and profitably.

-Missy England

Aspire Mobile: Bridging the Gap Between Field Crews and Office Operations

Field operations are the backbone of any successful landscape business; yet, crews often struggle with disconnected systems, limited connectivity, and time-consuming administrative tasks that divert them from actual work. 

Aspire Mobile was designed to address these fundamental challenges by creating a single hub for crews to access work schedules, job details, and communicate progress without the friction of traditional methods, such as timesheets, phone calls, and text messages.

"Mobile resources are really critical to field operations because they ensure that crews have all the necessary information to complete their jobs," explains Amanda Weissman, Product Manager at Aspire. The platform enables crews to focus on critical work activities, rather than dealing with time-consuming admin tasks.

Offline-First Architecture

One of Aspire Mobile's most significant advantages is its ability to operate reliably even without consistent connectivity. Recognizing that crews often work at job sites with limited cellular data or Wi-Fi access, the development team built the platform to allow crews to:

• Log in and access job information completely offline

• Clock in and out with no connectivity requirements

• Store all work data locally during offline periods

• Automatically sync with Aspire Cloud when connectivity returns

The app includes messaging and status indicators that keep users informed about their connectivity status and data upload progress, ensuring transparency about where information stands at any given moment.

Impressive Adoption and Growth

Since launching to general audiences in fall 2023, Aspire Mobile has achieved remarkable adoption rates:

• 55,000 active users 

• 80% iOS usage with 20% on Android devices

• 11 user-submitted ideas implemented since launch, with many more delivered through ongoing enhancements

Comprehensive Feature Set

• Daily planning and organization - The daily plan screen provides a complete snapshot of the day, automatically selecting the crew's assigned route and displaying all scheduled work ticket visits. Crews can view aggregated materials needed for all jobs, scheduled equipment, and any direct service work available.

• Advanced time tracking - The platform provides flexible time management options, including individual and group clock-in/out functions. Crew leaders can manage multiple team members from a single device, with configurable permissions based on local regulations and company policies.

• Work ticket management - Each work ticket provides comprehensive job information, including contact details, property data, service requirements, and visit checklists. The system tracks progress through required checklist items and prevents work completion until all mandatory tasks are finished.

• Custom forms and safety protocols - Start work forms can be configured for safety checklists and protocols, ensuring compliance requirements are met before work begins. These forms support various question types and can be marked as either required or optional, depending on company needs.

Performance Optimization Strategy

Recent enhancements focus specifically on improving app responsiveness and reducing data overhead. The new approach includes:

• Intelligent data management - Upon login, the system downloads route data only for routes to which the crew leader is assigned. For crew leaders with "All Routes" permissions, additional routes can be manually downloaded as needed.

• Automatic data cleanup - Routes not accessed for seven days are automatically removed from local storage to prevent degradation of device performance due to unused data.

• Targeted updates - The system refreshes only necessary information rather than pulling comprehensive datasets that may never be used.

Material Management Innovation

• Barcode scanning - Crews can scan manufacturer barcodes or custom-printed codes for bulk materials, eliminating the need to scroll through large item catalogs and reducing allocation errors.

• Material substitution - When planned materials aren't available on-site, crews can document substitutions within configured parameters, keeping all stakeholders informed without delaying work progression.

• Equipment scheduling - The platform provides visibility into scheduled equipment for upcoming jobs, helping with truck loading and resource planning.

Communication and Issue Resolution

• Centralized issue management - Crew leaders can view all open issues assigned to them in one location, whether tied to specific work tickets, properties, or opportunities. The system displays the five most recent comments per issue, with options to add updates, photos, and mark issues as complete.

• Real-time translation - Dynamic translation capabilities help diverse workforces overcome language barriers, ensuring clear understanding of service requirements and site-specific instructions across teams.

• Visit documentation: Comprehensive visit notes and progress tracking maintain detailed records of work completed, issues encountered, and communications with customers.

Strategic Route Management

The route filtering system allows crew leaders to manage work across multiple routes while maintaining optimal performance. Routes can be pre-downloaded during morning preparation when connectivity is reliable, ensuring crews have access to all necessary information throughout the day, regardless of on-site connectivity challenges.

This approach particularly benefits crews handling emergency repairs or last-minute schedule changes, as additional route data can be downloaded whenever connectivity allows.

Integration with Core Operations

Unlike standalone field apps, Aspire Mobile maintains seamless integration with the core Aspire platform. All data captured in the field - time entries, material usage, issue reports, progress updates - automatically syncs with office operations, providing real-time visibility into field activities.

This integration eliminates the disconnected databases and manual export processes that plague many landscape operations, creating a true unified system where field and office teams access the same current information.

The Competitive Advantage

Aspire Mobile represents more than feature parity with legacy solutions - it's a complete reimagining of how field crews interact with business systems. The combination of offline capability, modern interface design, comprehensive functionality, and seamless integration creates a platform that enhances productivity rather than adding administrative burden.

For landscape businesses seeking to maximize field efficiency while maintaining operational visibility, Aspire Mobile provides the technological foundation necessary to scale operations without sacrificing service quality or crew satisfaction.

The platform's continued evolution, driven by user feedback and real-world usage patterns, ensures that field teams have access to tools designed specifically for their daily challenges and operational realities.

-Missy England

From Manual to Automated: Aspire's Customer-Driven Roadmap

Since last year's Ignite conference, Aspire has delivered 126 user-submitted ideas representing over 1,500 votes from the community. The upcoming release adds another 758 votes worth of requested features, demonstrating the platform's commitment to user-driven development.

To reinforce this commitment, Aspire launched the "You Ask, We Listen" (YALL) initiative, which will dedicate additional resources to delivering the features users request most. These items will receive special designation in future release publications, ensuring transparency in the development process.

AI Integration: Beyond the Buzzword

"At Aspire, we believe AI is a critical tool that can help save you and your team significant time and effort, ultimately making you a more efficient operation," explains Jason Pye, showcasing the platform's thoughtful approach to artificial intelligence integration.

Current AI Capabilities Driving Results:

• Enhanced help and documentation - AI-powered search and summarization of user guides has increased guide usage by more than 36%, helping teams onboard faster and establish standard operating procedures more effectively.

• Generative communication - AI assists in creating draft emails and proposal descriptions, allowing teams to select from options that adjust tone, length, and grammar. Users can even create custom prompts for company-specific messaging needs.

• Multi-language translation - Real-time translation across Aspire Core and Mobile helps diverse workforces overcome language barriers, ensuring clear communication about service requirements and site-specific needs.

The OCR Revolution Coming Soon

The upcoming Optical Character Recognition (OCR) technology will transform administrative workflows. Instead of manually matching invoices to purchase receipts, users will be able to scan PDFs or images within Aspire, with the system automatically validating matches and highlighting discrepancies that require attention.

This capability will particularly benefit accounts payable teams and branch administrators, eliminating the tedious manual work that currently stands between busy professionals and their time off.

Proactive Customer Health Monitoring

Aspire is developing advanced customer health scoring that analyzes multiple parameters, including:

• Accounts receivable balance and aging

• Volume and sentiment of customer portal requests

• Service penetration rates across different offerings

• Historical interaction patterns

This tool will help account managers and branch managers identify at-risk accounts before churn occurs, enabling proactive intervention rather than reactive damage control.

Mobile Revolution: Performance and Capability

The enhanced Aspire Mobile delivers significantly faster loading times and navigation, with improvements visible in everything from button taps to full-screen transitions. New capabilities include:

• Time Transparency: Employees can view recently logged time and request corrections through an auditable process that protects both workers and management.

• Material Allocation Accuracy: Barcode scanning reduces manual errors when allocating materials to jobs, supporting both manufacturer barcodes and custom-printed codes for bulk materials.

• Equipment Inspections: Crew leaders can complete vehicle and equipment inspection forms directly in the app, with results automatically communicated to branch personnel.

• Smart Substitutions: When planned materials aren't available on-site, mobile users can document substitutions within configured parameters, keeping all stakeholders informed without delaying work.

The Mobile Management Future

Beyond crew functionality, Aspire is designing expanded mobile capabilities for account managers and production managers who spend significant time in the field. The upcoming platform will enable:

• Creating prospect records directly from mobile devices

• Setting appointments and logging detailed notes

• Creating and managing issues and performance documentation

• Performing comprehensive site audits

• All with modern interfaces optimized for on-site work

Portal Evolution: Customer and Subcontractor Experience

Customer Portal 2.0 has been adopted by hundreds of users, offering branch-level customization for look, feel, and URLs - critical for companies managing multiple brands or locations. Enhanced features include custom payment preferences with configurable minimums and maximums, and optional sharing of site audit results to build customer trust.

Subcontractor Portal 2.0 launched last month with a mobile-responsive design and expanded capabilities. Subcontractors can now upload and manage documentation like certificates of insurance with expiration tracking, ensuring compliance gaps are identified before they become problems.

Construction Management Maturation

Two years of focused development have transformed Aspire's construction capabilities. Key enhancements include:

• Schedule of Values for breaking large projects into manageable, billable components 

• Item Substitution capabilities that eliminate change orders for similar materials 

• Bulk Rescheduling that moves multiple visits in a single workflow 

• Invoice Reversal and Rebuilding for easy error correction 

• Work-in-Progress Reporting for real-time project insights

Amy Groves, Senior Production Controller at Heartland, notes: "Having your financials, your cost of goods, your labor, your efficiency reports all together in one - it does not make sense to use a separate platform."

Intelligent Scheduling and Routing

New property-centric scheduling provides multi-service views for complex properties like HOAs, eliminating navigation between multiple route managers. Property availability settings ensure crews are scheduled only during approved times, while certification and skills linking match qualified personnel to specific service requirements.

The new routing engine offers advanced optimization with visual route planning, mass work assignment, and intelligent routing algorithms designed to maximize crew efficiency while reducing drive time and fuel costs.

Site Audit 2.0

The next generation of site audits will feature:

• Photo-first approach with holding areas for images that can be assigned to specific categories later

• AI-powered text generation for responses, notes, and audit summaries

• Professional branded reports with clear photos and recommendations

• Real-time dashboards with analytics for identifying trends and upsell opportunities

• Historical trend analysis for anticipating future customer needs

The future of landscape business management isn't just about individual tools improving–it's about creating an integrated ecosystem where every component works together to drive efficiency and growth.

-Missy England

The End of Marketing Guesswork: How MarketingPro Drives Growth

Marketing Pro represents a fundamental shift in how landscape businesses approach customer engagement. As the only all-in-one marketing solution directly integrated with Aspire, it eliminates the data silos that have traditionally plagued marketing efforts.

"The seamless integration allows you to build hyper-targeted audience lists using data within Aspire," explains Matt Heggelund, Group Product Manager at Aspire. This integration advantage means no more manual data transfers, no more outdated customer information, and no more guessing about campaign effectiveness.

Speed to Market: From Hours to Minutes

Traditional marketing campaigns often require significant time investment just to build customer lists and segment audiences. Marketing Pro transforms this process dramatically.

Fast list-building capabilities allow teams to create and send targeted campaigns in significantly less time. The platform enables users to easily segment customer lists and create hyper-targeted audiences in minutes rather than hours.

The drag-and-drop editor enhances efficiency without compromising personalization, enabling teams to customize every campaign with their company's branding while leveraging pre-built templates specifically designed for landscape and janitorial businesses.

Data-Driven Precision Marketing

The power of Marketing Pro lies in its ability to leverage comprehensive property and customer data for precise targeting. 

Instead of broad, hope-and-pray campaigns, businesses can now deliver highly specific messaging based on:

• Property characteristics like size, value, and age for direct mail campaigns

• Customer lifecycle stage for upsell and cross-sell opportunities

• Service history for renewal and win-back campaigns

"Send the right message at the right time," notes Alex Attarian, Director of Product Management at ServiceTitan. This precision targeting improves response rates and drives measurable sales from existing customer bases.

Multi-Channel Campaign Management

Marketing Pro enables businesses to orchestrate sophisticated multi-channel campaigns from a single platform. Whether deploying email sequences, direct mail postcards, or combination campaigns, everything is managed centrally.

The platform supports both one-time campaigns scheduled for specific dates and automated drip sequences that nurture prospects and customers over time. This flexibility allows businesses to maintain consistent touchpoints without constant manual intervention.

Real-Time Performance Visibility

Perhaps the most significant advantage is the platform's comprehensive performance tracking. Marketing Pro provides real-time campaign results through an intuitive performance dashboard that connects marketing activities directly to revenue outcomes.

Key performance insights include:

• Revenue attribution from each campaign

• Contact-level engagement tracking

• Campaign-by-campaign ROI analysis

• Real-time results monitoring

This visibility enables businesses to pinpoint which initiatives have a tangible impact on their bottom line and adjust strategies accordingly, based on actual performance data rather than assumptions.

The "Set and Forget" Automation

Marketing Pro's automation capabilities enable businesses to maintain consistent customer engagement without constant manual effort. Once campaigns are configured, the system can automatically:

• Send targeted messages based on customer behavior

• Deliver renewal reminders at optimal timing

• Follow up on service completions with upsell opportunities

• Re-engage inactive customers with win-back campaigns

This automation ensures no opportunities fall through the cracks while freeing up team members to focus on higher-value activities.

Maximizing Marketing Budget ROI

Traditional marketing often involves significant guesswork about effectiveness. Marketing Pro eliminates this uncertainty by providing clear visibility into which campaigns generate actual revenue.

The platform's performance insights allow businesses to:

• Identify high-performing campaign types and invest more heavily in what works

• Optimize messaging and timing based on engagement data

• Focus spending on segments that demonstrate the highest conversion rates

• Track customer lifetime value impact from different marketing touchpoints

The Integration Imperative

The landscape industry is increasingly competitive, with customer acquisition costs rising and retention becoming more challenging. 

Marketing Pro addresses these pressures by enabling businesses to maximize the value of their existing customer relationships through intelligent, automated engagement.

By keeping customer data synchronized between Aspire and Marketing Pro, businesses maintain a single source of truth that powers both operational excellence and marketing effectiveness. This integration ensures that marketing campaigns reflect the most current customer information and service history.

Building Sustainable Growth

The true value of Marketing Pro extends beyond individual campaign performance. The platform enables businesses to build sustainable growth systems that:

• Reduce manual marketing workload through intelligent automation

• Improve customer retention through timely, relevant communications

• Identify expansion opportunities within the existing customer base

• Scale marketing efforts without proportional increases in staff time

For landscape businesses serious about growth, integrated marketing automation isn't just an advantage—it's becoming essential for staying competitive in an evolving market.

The combination of precise targeting, multi-channel capabilities, real-time performance visibility, and seamless integration creates a marketing solution that delivers measurable ROI rather than just marketing activity.

What's Next: SMS Integration

Marketing Pro continues to evolve with new features on the roadmap. The upcoming SMS integration will add text messaging capabilities to the existing email and direct mail channels, enabling businesses to reach customers through their preferred communication method. This three-channel approach will provide even more touchpoints for nurturing relationships and driving engagement, all managed from the same integrated platform that connects directly to Aspire data.