Green industry pro’s are skilled at their crafts. Whether you’re in lawn maintenance or irrigation, you’ve likely spent years learning how to use the tools of your trade to create beautiful landscapes for your customers. You’ve learned how to use your equipment safely, yet efficiently at the same time. All of these are learned skills that can take years to master.
But what about the skills that aren’t necessarily tangible? There are skills that savvy green industry business owners and employees should have aside from the work they do in the field. Soft skills aren’t visible, but you can use words just as effectively as you would use a wrench to turn a bolt. Soft skills are often equated to an individual’s ‘emotional intelligence’, the ability to think on your feet and adjust on the fly, all which are highly valuable in the field. Here are 5 essential soft skills that all green industry professionals need to develop.
Teamwork
One soft skill that benefits not only you, but your crews is the ability to work in a team setting. As a green industry professional, there are quite a few jobs that you need a team to accomplish. It would be impossible to get some landscape jobs finished on your own and other kinds of work that a green industry pro might perform would be more of a hindrance with a disjointed team.
While there are times that all teams will go through tough times, a group made up of people with a solid shared goal in mind can work through those issues.
Communication skills
This is the biggest ‘soft skill’ that people find most important and with good reason. Solid communication is a desirable trait in any new hire, any service provider and pretty much anyone that you plan on doing business with.
As a green industry business owner or employee, it suits you best to have strong communication skills from the very first customer interaction. It helps you sell your services, it shows the customer that you’re listening to their needs and that you understand them and they feel comfortable bringing any concerns to you.
Positive attitude
The work isn’t always easy. Things go wrong, customers might have issues with your work and your co-workers might get on your nerves. For that reason, a positive attitude is an important soft skill to develop. Having a positive attitude doesn’t mean that you always need to be the chipper person out on the job. But it means that you have the emotional intelligence to understand that things happen and that you can only control so much.
Decision making
Another soft skill that is essential for green industry professionals is the ability to make decisions on the fly. Things change, being able to react to those changes, whether in the customer’s requests or to a potential issue is crucial. It is a tough skill to develop, yet it can be practiced. There are situations that you might face that you know have been mishandled in the past, learn from them.
Drive
This might be the ‘unteachable’ soft skill that every green industry pro should have. Every teammate wants to work with driven people, because it makes them better at their job. Their attitudes are contagious, they succeed when everyone else around them succeeds. Driven people know what they want to accomplish, they set goals for themselves and their team and make it happen.
Want to learn what other skills are necessary for green industry professionals? Then download the 2016 Green Industry Benchmark Report today! Just click below.
