What Color Does Your Company Bleed?
The other day, I was out helping service some clients when I tossed the safety cones out for my spray tech. Looking at the image above, I was compelled to snap a picture. One of my favorite things we've done at Lawn Apps + is matching safety cones to our brand.
Branding is so important to any company and the excercises involved in crafting brands are something I truly enjoy. One of my earliest memories as a child is sitting in my dad's truck and him telling me his favorite color was blue. Growing up and into adulthood, people told me almost daily, "I saw one of your dad's trucks today." - the dump beds were all painted "JML Blue", much different than all the other landscapers with their inconspicuous green logos and black dump beds. This made Jim Meinert Landscaping, Inc. not only the most recognizable landscape company in Pittsburgh, but one of the most recognizable companies in the region. My dad credited a lot of his success to this. It was my first lesson in branding.
When we created Lawn Apps +, I knew I wanted to stand out the way JML did, so we created Lawn Apps Green, a mathematical variant of JML Blue. The results are awesome. Something of a neon green, which our trucks are wrapped in, making them look like a giant highlighter driving down the freeway. If you live in our service area, once you see one of our trucks, you won't be able to avoid it next time you pass one by. This, of course, we count on being key to our recognizability and growth. In honor of my dad, we use JML Blue for all of text and logos.
Maybe more importantly, the color your brand reps goes way beyond making you recognizable. The color your team bleeds gives them a simple idea to unify around. I've noticed this all over LinkedIn lately; photographs of a company's employees who follow a strict uniform policy without exception look happier and more unified than those who don't. You've probably seen this too and if not, you'll start to notice it - the laborers with gray shirts, mismatched pants, unzipped safety vests; they just don't look like a highly functioning team (or happy to be at work). Check out this picture from my JML archives for example.
Like I said, I'm not a fan of untidy details, like the undone safety vests on the right, but barring that one detail in this photo, you can see how the team is adhering to a pretty strict uniform policy. The same shade of blue caries through the truck, the trailer, and the uniforms. The result is a team that looks unified in their mission; you don't have bad actors in the group looking sloppy or wearing a different hat or jacket that they prefer. Individualism is our God-given right, but when it comes to coming together to accomplish goals as a team, you have to be unified in your approach. There's a reason, after all, that the military has such a strict uniform policy. And the ultimate outcome of that is a team that's happy to be at work and with one another and that sees one another as the same as themselves, which is what you see in this photo.
So, what color does your team bleed? If you're looking for a shining example of all of this, look no further than Pacific Landscape Management. I was recently in Washington State and happened to see one of their trucks out servicing a client and let me tell you, the in-person version of what you see on LinkedIn and their website is about exactly what you see online. Those guys bleed orange.
