“If it rains, we’re already contacting our customers four or five AM,” says Seth Prescott, who owns A.M.P Lawn Care & Landscaping in Topeka. By the time those customers get out of bed, a text is waiting that tells them which day the crew has moved them to.
Prescott, who is in his early twenties, puts that habit near the top of his answer when he explains what sets the company apart. It sits alongside showing up on time and keeping customers informed. Lawn work runs on weather, and a rained-out morning can leave a homeowner wondering whether anyone is coming at all. Prescott’s approach is to settle that question before anyone has to ask it.
He has trouble saying where the instinct comes from. “I’ve kind of just always been that way,” he says. “If I say I’m going to do something or be somewhere, I try to always be there, if possible.”
He runs the company with a business partner, Parker, who he says is “just as involved as I am with the clients.” Customers have a direct line to both of them, and neither owner passes problems down a chain. “When you work with us, just contact one of the owners directly,” Prescott says. “We’ll get there. We’ll get everything fixed if anything ever goes wrong.”
The company makes the same pitch to its commercial accounts, telling property managers they can reach the crew by phone rather than through an answering service. One homeowner who has A.M.P maintaining a lawn singled out the flexible scheduling in a review, along with how quickly the crew got the yard cleaned up.
Most of the work is residential, roughly 60 percent, with commercial properties making up the rest. Prescott would rather have more of the commercial side, and lawn maintenance is the work he likes best. The company describes its finish standard in plain terms: edge where other crews skip it, blow clippings off the driveway instead of leaving them behind, and check the work before pulling away.
Prescott has been doing yard work for pay since he was about 12, which he describes as “little side jobs for money here and there.” A.M.P is his first company. It grew out of a proposal from a friend, and the two ended up launching separate businesses around the same time and helping each other build them.
He has also, he says, “always been big on planning.” The test comes on the mornings the plan does not hold. If he has put six jobs on one day and wakes up knowing the crew cannot finish them, he does not pretend otherwise.
“I’m like, dude, there’s no way we’re going to get all six done,” Prescott says. “I either try and figure it out, hire another company to make sure the work gets done that day, or go talk to clients myself and get a reschedule on the books.”