Customer Stories

Larry Mertz was working 50 to 60 hours a week for a large, billion-dollar company when his buddy quit his job to start his own business. "When I compared my quality of life to his, it didn't take long to decide to follow in his footsteps!" says Larry.

Larry started small with lawn maintenance. By 1992, he had created Eastrock Landscape and was providing full contract landscape services to the East San Francisco Bay Area.

To advertise the business, he started in the obvious place: the Yellow Pages. But recently the paper-based venue was losing appeal. "We didn't feel we were getting a return from our investment in a Yellow Pages ad anymore," he says. Mailers and magazines proved to be very expensive. And when he hired a local website developer, he spent $750 and ended with nothing to show for it.

After these frustrating experiences, Larry went looking online for ways to build his own website. "I did a lot of research," he says. "I liked Intuit Websites the best: for cost, for what was offered, and for flexibility - I could easily change things like colors and photos."

Larry especially liked how easy it was to start up. "Intuit Websites was very user-friendly, and customer service was outstanding," he says. "I prefer talking to a person. Anytime I called, I had a short wait and a live person who gave me an answer right away."

Larry is thrilled with the new business the self-managed website is bringing in. "Advertising through my website has been so successful, I literally cannot keep up with the work that's coming in," he says. "In the past year, I've been getting double, even triple the number of calls. The economy has slowed down, but I'm busier now than I have been in the past five years!"

"About 40% of my business comes from referrals. The rest is from my website," he adds. "And lately, it seems like we're getting even more from the Internet."

Larry is also using his website for an online employment application form he's made himself, which is saving him massive amounts of time. "Where I used to have to interview five to seven people, I now only have to interview one or two," says Larry. "It takes me two minutes to review someone's online application instead of an hour talking. It's just a huge time savings."

A smart businessman, Larry knows the importance of finding new business without slashing his prices. "Some contractors have gone out of business because they underbid too many projects," he says. "We adjust to stay competitive, but we make sure we're always profitable."

"You can succeed in any economy if you have a good product at a reasonable price, you follow up with customers quickly, and you find the right advertising. Intuit Websites helped us do that."