In 2015, Christy Webber Landscapes installed over 250,000 trees, shrubs, perennials, bulbs and grasses on The 606, a train line-turned-green space in the Logan Square neighborhood of Chicago. "It's just knowing the industry," she says. The bid was too low, and it was hardly enough to cover the prevailing wages of her workers. "Those were the years where we were almost close to going under." If you look at the trajectory of my company, I'm growing, growing and making money and then all of a sudden, here comes the Millennium Park job, and then, 'Bam!'" she says. You've got to understand how to buy right, how to handle it right, how to bill it."Īt that point, she didn't. You've got to have the right people in place. "You've got to understand how to manage a project like that. You can't just be thrown out on these jobs. But because she was still new to the industry, the project didn't make her much money at all. "It was the one that put me on the map," she says.
In 2004, when Millennium Park, one of Chicago's biggest, was built, she handled the design and installation of all the trees, shrubs, grass and irrigation systems. At the time, it was her biggest contract. Her company won a bid in 1998 to maintain the United Center sports arena, home to the NBA's Chicago Bulls and the NHL's Blackhawks. She gradually made a name for herself as a landscaper in Chicago, and as her company grew, those competitors were surprised by her success, she says.īy the late '90s, Webber was doing mostly commercial work. She wasn't condescending, didn't overcharge and didn't treat female clients differently from males. Webber pushed aside the sexism and bad advice on how to cheat clients. "These chicks don't know," he told Webber, who affirms that the shortsighted misogyny was ultimately bad for his business in the long run. One man told her that when he installed rocks in women's yards, he'd overcharge them and have them pay for two tons, though he'd only use one. "Typically, in residential, you're dealing with wives," she tells CNBC Make It. The men often boasted about scamming clients, too. Usually, she knew well more than they assumed, but she also took the opportunity to ask questions like, "And how many yards of soil would I need for a job like that?" At meetings for the Illinois Landscape Contract Association, for example, men would ask her, "Honey, what are you doing at this meeting?" Or they would "mansplain" about the business.
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