Lawn Care Business Marketing Tips - GopherHaul Blog

You can spend a lot of time mowing a lawn and then miss getting that final perfect look all because you were in a race to get to the next property. One of those small steps you can do when you finish mowing is clear the grass clippings that might have been flung off the lawn. How you do this can make a big difference. That is the topic which was brought up on the Gopher Lawn Care Business Forum. Should you blow grass clippings out into the street or do something else with them?

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We all know the importance of having insurance, whether it be for your auto, theft, fire, medical, or liability. The reality of insurance though is it costs money to purchase and many start up businesses simply don’t have enough cash to go to all the things they would like to get. All too often insurance is put on the back burner. Sometimes those lawn care business owners get through that start up phase unscathed while other times they don’t and without insurance, get wiped out. In this discussion on the Gopher Lawn Care Business Forum, we get some insight as to what a group of entrepreneurs do for insurance.

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When you mow a lawn, your mower clips off the top of the grass and the clippings are left. Some service providers will mulch the clippings while others will bag the clippings. There are pros and cons to each method. Which one you choose to perform will depend on a bunch of factors like your region, the grass you are cutting, and the customer’s preference. In this discussion from the Gopher Lawn Care Business Forum, we get some insight as to what other landscape companies do on their lawns.

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It can be difficult to find good employees. Then finding ways to keep them productive is a whole other story. As we will see from this discussion on the Gopher Lawn Care Business Forum, if an employee has a moment to rest, they tend to have a difficult time getting re-engaged into the work. This behavior can at times make a two man crew seem extremely unproductive.

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A one man show can only take on so much work in a day. Then going from a solo operation to adding your first employee can be a huge step. This one member of the Gopher Lawn Care Business Forum shared with us his angst as he tried to figure out the next step he should take to allow for more growth.

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A great way to make more profit on your landscape projects and have more room to be more competitive in your pricing is to purchase your landscape materials at wholesale prices. Why pay retail when you can potentially save up to 40% on materials? Sounds great, but how do you get those prices? That is what one member of the Gopher Lawn Care Business Forum was interested in finding more about when he asked about the process.

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Trying to come up with the right lawn care marketing message, the right manner to communicate that marketing message, and the right time to send it out can be difficult. In this discussion from the Gopher Lawn Care Business Forum, we see one door hanger design a landscaper created to promote his message and how important WHO you market to really is.

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It can be frustrating when you are trying to get new lawn care customers and you keep running into the same kind of customer. One that focuses on price is very hard to sell on quality. Rebranding your company image may help you promote more of who you are and better target who you want to reach but there is still a lot more one can do than rebrand, as we will see in this discussion from the Gopher Lawn Care Business Forum.

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You would think the government would be pro-small business and pave the way for any and all entrepreneurs to get started. Well, as we will see from this discussion in the Gopher Lawn Care Business Forum, it’s just not the case. Government employees seem to enjoy making you jump through hoop after hoop even before you get started. Here is one entrepreneurs story on the bureaucracy he had to deal with to get a simple business license.

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Every year, the laws stating what you can and can’t spray on a customer’s lawn gets longer and more restrictive. Yet every year, there are still new lawn care business owners who get themselves started and think they don’t need any licensing because they are spraying chemicals on a small scale. Well here is a big wake up call for anyone considering spraying anything without the proper license. One member of the Gopher Lawn Care Business Forum shared with us his experience of getting ticketed and going to court. The experience was an eye opener and he was lucky to not be punished worse than he was.

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Sure you may have a lot of questions when you are starting up your lawn care business but here is a great collection of 5 questions one new entrepreneur had. He asked them on the Gopher Lawn Care Business Forum and got a few great responses to help better direct him as he sets off in his new career.

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The first year of starting your lawn care business can be very frustrating, with the biggest frustration likely being the difficulty of adding new customers. As we will see in this discussion from the Gopher Lawn Care Business Forum, it is so very important to talk to people. The more people you talk to, the better your chances are of making a sale. All other marketing methods are secondary to making contact with and talking to people.

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There are many different sized line trimmers manufactured these days that designed to perform different sized jobs. But which size is the right choice for the average lawn care business owner? Should you go with a 22cc engine or a 32cc? What about a 4 stroke versus a 2 stroke? Some are heavy while others are light. Buy the wrong sized trimmer and it might not do the job. It might break down prematurely or it might tire you out long before the day is through. A discussion on the Gopher Lawn Care Business Forum talked about all these differences and which one tends to be the most ideal.

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Do you include a stop charge in your lawn mowing estimates or do you estimate the amount of time the job will take and create a bid based on that number? If you find you have a hard time coming up with a bid price, this discussion from the Gopher Lawn Care Business Forum will offer you another option. A simple calculation based on the size of the property can help you come up with a pretty consistent lawn care estimate.

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Which lawn care marketing method would you feel generates more callers, business cards or postcards? After reading this discussion from the Gopher Lawn Care Business Forum, you may be surprised to find that postcards tend to win out. But these are not just any general postcard designs. No no. These successful companies are getting up to a dozen different postcards made that promote many different services. Let’s look a little into how they are finding such success.

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Each day you are operating your business, you will find there are learning lessons to absorb. Some lessons are small, while others can be larger. Here is a great discussion from the Gopher Lawn Care Business Forum about how it’s so important to follow up on bids you place. Also how it is very important to meet up with potential lawn care customers to talk with them about their property before you submit any bids.

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Most all of us take our personal safety seriously when we get into a car. Before we even start the engine, the first thing we do is buckle up. But it seems a lot of times, there is a disconnect when it comes to carrying equipment or materials. The same level of importance isn’t put on ensuring the load is solidly attached to the truck or trailer and that the hauling capacity isn’t overloaded. As we will see here in this discussion from the Gopher Lawn Care Business Forum, many accidents and fines can be easily avoided with a little foresight on the driver’s part.

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Some of the biggest annoyances a lawn care business owner dreads is rainy days and late paying customers. So when you mix the two of them together, you get a day that is REALLY dreadful. As we will see in this discussion from the Gopher Lawn Care Business Forum, there are ways to benefit and profit even on those most annoying days. The key to it is finding ways to be more productive and not throwing in the towel.

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Taking on your first hardscape construction project can seem a little overwhelming when you haven’t had any experience with such work in the past. If you have any interest in expanding your company into offering hardscaping, you should consider slowly buying some basic tools and working on projects in your yard first. Which tools should you get and where should you get your supplies would probably be your next question and luckily such a topic came up on the Gopher Lawn Care Business Forum to answer all that.

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There is nothing more frustrating than spending time and money on lawn care marketing and not hearing the phone ring because of it. This can happen for a lot of reasons. Are the services you are marketing in need at the moment? Are potential customers getting your marketing message? Is it too late to start your marketing? These are some of the topics that came up in the Gopher Lawn Care Business Forum as one new entrepreneur was trying to figure out what he was doing wrong and how he could get his phone ringing.

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There are some steps you can take that will really improve your company’s ability to grow. Here is a great example of a few steps to take to improve your sales process, get more jobs, and reach out to new potential customers from a discussion on the Gopher Lawn Care Business Forum.

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The Lawn Care Business Can Get Dirty, Ugly, And Mean.: Stories Of Survival And Success To Get You Through The Rough Times.

Lawn Care Business Book.

When I first got my business started, I didn’t really know anyone who was an entrepreneur. I had no one I could bounce ideas off of or compare my crazy stories with. For all I knew at the time, I was the only one who ran into problems with my business.

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Each season you operate your lawn care business you can really learn a lot of great lessons that just might help you improve your operation in the future. Here are 5 lessons one business owner shared with us on the Gopher Lawn Care Business Forum. From this list, he decided he would change the way he ran his business to streamline his operation and improve his profitability.

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There are many laws that effect lawn care businesses. Some you probably know, but I bet there are some you don’t know about. For instance, does your local community have a time when you can start mowing lawns? If so, when is it? That is a very simple law to avoid breaking by knowing it exists, but there are other laws too that were shared on the Gopher Lawn Care Business Forum in this discussion.

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We can learn a lot from a business that is doing great as we can from a business that is failing. In this story, shared on the Gopher Lawn Care Business Forum, we get an inside look at a company that is suffering a slow death. It’s quite amazing to look at from the outside, but from the inside, I get the feeling the business owner really has no clue what to do or where to go. He is captain of a ship with no rudder, heading towards a rocky shore. Consider the lessons discussed in this story and use them to improve your company.

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People do strange things at times because they think certain things are ‘in’ or ‘out’. If they think something is ‘in’ or cool, they may pay more for something than they would normally pay to get what ever it is they want. This applies to cars, shoes, and even the type of customers a lawn care business might try to acquire. Let’s take a deeper look into this topic that was brought up on the Gopher Lawn Care Business Forum.

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New lawn care business owners come up with a lot of creative methods for pricing lawn care, but the problem is, a lot of these methods used are just not profitable. Take for instance this discussion from the Gopher Lawn Care Business Forum. In it, one entrepreneur talks about how he is interested in signing up two renters of a duplex by charging each of them half the total full price. But if one cancels, he will quickly find himself losing money with the remaining customer.

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Drive down any street in the spring or summer and you are almost guaranteed to see a home with mulch around it’s foundation. With so many people doing that, you might figure it’s a good idea. But wait before you install your next mulch job and read this discussion from the Gopher Lawn Care Business Forum. It is an eye opener on why you shouldn’t use mulch around a house. It’s also a great piece of information to help you sell your customers on other products that work better.

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Are you in need of more cash now to upgrade your equipment but you don’t want to take out a loan? Why not consider this business owner’s method of raising a large amount of cash, offer a 3 year prepaid lawn care contract to a favorite customer. In this discussion from the Gopher Lawn Care Business Forum, a member discusses the details of his contract and how he got a check in hand for $14,000 by offering a customer a long term contract.

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On that first nice spring day when the weather finally warms up, do you start to get the bug to want to go out and distribute some of your newly printed lawn care flyers? You aren’t alone if you do. Here is a discussion from some members of the Gopher Lawn Care Business Forum about their spring marketing plans. Also included is a sample lawn care flyer that is being used. It may inspire you to create your own design.

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