Personalized care is something you always expect from a physician, hairdresser or insurance agent. But, when it comes to lawn and landscape maintenance, personalized care is something that is much more rare. Monolithic lawn and landscape companies send out legions of trimmers and mowers who may or may not care about a customer’s needs. At HomeTeam Lawn Care, however, personalized care is the hallmark of the company’s success.
“We guarantee that there will always be an owner or manager on your crew,” HomeTeam Lawn Care owner AJ Negron says. “We don’t have big crews running around when you’re not sure about what was done on the property.”
Negron, along with family friend and manager Chris French, aren’t just the owners/operators of HomeTeam Lawn Care, they also are the crew. Negron and French have some shared history that not only brought them together, but also brought them into business together.
Negron and wife his Judy moved to Florida from Long Island, NY in the summer of 2008. They liked it so much, they decided to stay.
“We left everything and came down here,” Negron said. “We really fell in love with the area.”
Negron was considering a job with the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office or in his field of study, psychology. Yet, when neither avenue showed potential, he dwelled on some of the words of wisdom his paternal grandfather gave him before he passed away.
“He would say, ‘Look at all these people making a living,’ indicating the landscaping trucks in their suburban neighborhood,” Negron says. “I thought that I had enough experience in it, so I thought I’d give it a try.”
Negron was used to mowing and caring for lawns in upstate New York and on Long Island. So, he began with a department store push mower. He upgraded to a self-propelled mower and then in November of 2013, fate would enter into the equation.
“It was a God thing,” Negron says. “It was just one of those things where the timing was absolutely perfect.”
Negron’s maternal grandmother wanted to give him some money to start a business. It happened to be just the amount one of Negron’s friends wanted as a down payment for his lawn company. Negron picked up a trailer, two mowers, some other equipment and all of the business accounts.
Soon, conversations Negron had with French, while working at Benedetto’s Restaurant in Land O’ Lakes, began to get serious. Negron was working and adding accounts, while French was still managing the bar at Benedetto’s, and was considering switching fields to work with Negron. Then, it happened.
“In May of 2015, (Chris and I) did 33 yards in one day,” Negron recalls. “It was a feat, and then I knew we could fly with the business together.”
It was French’s first day working as a team with Negron. At the time, AJ was handling a combination of 75 weekly and bi-monthly residential accounts requiring “creative summer scheduling.” But, he knew if he wanted to expand further, he’d need help — full-time help.
French came on board full time and now HomeTeam Lawn Care has more than 130 residential accounts, mostly in the New Tampa/Wesley Chapel area. HomeTeam Lawn Care tends properties in Heritage Isles, Pebble Creek, Estancia, Seven Oaks, Lexington Oaks, Northwood, Live Oak Preserve, Brookside and even as far south as Tampa Palms.
And, when they needed new equipment, family friend Danielle Mattingly helped them purchase it.
“We couldn’t have done it without her,’’ Negron said.
Quick Quotes AND Quality Care!
Negron brings some New York hustle to his business that he says will always specialize in personalized care.
“We take pride in our extreme attention to detail,” Negron said. “We’re not your average landscaper, we do above-average work and try not to ask for much more than average prices.”
Communication is a driving aspect of HomeTeam Lawn Care. When a customer calls, they get Negron’s cell phone, not a secretary. AJ says he takes pride in not just returning and answering calls but in the time it takes to visit a potential customer and draw up a quote.
“We hammer out quotes fast,” Negron says. “When someone (else) responds to your query and says they’ll be there next week, we say that, in 48 hours at the most, we’ll be out there with feet on the ground at the house, ready to give you a quote.”
HomeTeam Lawn Care offers a “full service” that runs from $90 monthly and up. The full-service package includes: hedges and low trees, sidewalks and driveways, as well as mulch bed maintenance. Full service is where Negron says HomeTeam separates itself from its competitors.
“(When a house has full-service care with us), that house has our name on it,” Negron says. “I would rather pull my truck up to a house with full service from us than just take care of the grass at a property that also has landscaping that needs attention.”
Take it from one of HomeTeam Lawn Care’s customers.
“Outstanding work! Resodded our yard, redid our landscaping and trimmed two trees. Will be doing our mowing work for us. I highly recommend AJ,” customer Mike Harshman said. “He responded right away to our call and had all of the jobs done in less than two weeks!”
Negron and French have an affinity for the New Tampa/Wesley Chapel area and hope to bring even more of their attention to detail to lawns and landscapes in the area.
“It’s nice to work with the homeowners in New Tampa and Wesley Chapel because they see the quality of the work that we do,’’ French says. “They don’t need to worry about things getting taken care of. They realize it’s a set-it-and-forget-it type of operation we’re running.”
HomeTeam Lawn Care LLC does not operate out of an office, but can be found on the web at HomeTeamLawnCare.com, by phone at 817-9554.
