Archive for May, 2011
To market gutter leaf cleaning services, you have a lot of different methods to choose from. Which marketing method will work and which won’t? Well, you will never truly know for sure what works best in your area until you experiment with different techniques, but here is a great discussion from The Gopher Lawn Care [...]
May 31st, 2011 | Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments
There will always be competitors in the field no matter where you go or what services you offer. The way you treat your competition can help you build allies in the industry or enemies. As we will see from this discussion in the Gopher Lawn Care Business Forum, you stand to gain a lot more [...]
May 30th, 2011 | Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments
From time to time we will talk on The Gopher Lawn Care Business Forum about goodwill. In a recent discussion, one lawn care business owner was asking how much he should charge an elderly customer to install a new mail box post. Almost everyone that responded to the question said to do it for [...]
May 28th, 2011 | Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments
Here is a classic tale of what can happen when you are too eager for work. Some lawns are unmowed because the cost to mow them is just too high. You always have to visit each and every property you are bidding on, before you submit your bid. If you don’t and you are too [...]
May 27th, 2011 | Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments
Setting up your lawn care mowing schedules can be challenging, especially when you have weekly and bi-weekly customers all mixed together. If you aren’t using a Lawn Care Business Software package like Gopher to handle it, you may be curious to know how others keep their mowing schedule organized. That is the question proposed to [...]
May 26th, 2011 | Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments
There are many different niche services you can get into as the owner of a lawn care business. Some will make you more money than others. In order to be successful, you need to keep your eyes and ears open for jobs your customers need done. As we will see here in the discussion from [...]
May 25th, 2011 | Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments
If you live in a suburb you probably had mowed a few average suburb sized properties before you got your lawn care business started so you could pretty much bid those sized jobs with ease. What do you do however when a larger job comes your way? How should you go about bidding a 10 [...]
May 23rd, 2011 | Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment
There are many ways you can word your classified ads in newspapers. Here is one example a lawn care business owner used with success. He shared with us his story on the Gopher Lawn Care Business Forum.
May 20th, 2011 | Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments
Here is a great story, from the Gopher Lawn Care Business Forum, on how a simple ad for lawn care, placed in a classified section of a local newspaper, led to thousands of dollars in work. The job initially involved a one acre yard cleanup but kept leading to more and more work. It goes [...]
May 19th, 2011 | Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments
If there is a lesson to be learned from this Gopher Lawn Care Business Forum discussion, it’s that you really need to test your marketing before you go out and spend a lot of money on equipment that won’t bring you anything in return. Everyone loves new equipment. The feel of it, the smell of [...]
May 17th, 2011 | Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments
There is a pretty big difference between someone who has been trained in the art of sales and someone who hasn’t. Many lawn care business owners get started but don’t consider themselves people persons. Others may think they are natural born sellers. However, there is no substitute for training and knowing what works and what [...]
May 17th, 2011 | Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments
There are many different style of mowers that are manufactured and each have their pluses and minuses. Before you buy one, you really should demo the lawn mower to see if will perform the way you want it to on the landscapes you service. One member of the Gopher Lawn Care Business Forum seemed to [...]
May 16th, 2011 | Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments
A whole lot of things need to be balanced properly for you to stay healthy and fit enough to make it through a vigorous day of lawn care work. Every lawn care business owner seems to have a different way they go about getting through the day. Until you find a schedule that works for [...]
May 15th, 2011 | Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments
One quality every new business owner has in common with others, is that they bring themselves to the table when they are getting started. What I mean by that is, they bring all their good, their bad, and their ugly. If you want to have a good time with your business and grow, you will [...]
May 14th, 2011 | Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments
Did you know one of the injuries many lawn care business owners deal with is Carpel Tunnel Syndrome? Many don’t know that over time, the heavy usage of your hands and arms through landscaping work and operating vibrating equipment can effect your body in such a painful way. Here are some stories, shared with us [...]
May 13th, 2011 | Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments
It seems pretty simple enough to say, don’t start mowing until you get an agreement in place. This especially holds true for large commercial jobs. But you would be amazed at how many times lawn care businesses will start mowing first and then ask questions later. As you sit there reading this, you may think [...]
May 12th, 2011 | Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments
People will be people and if there is a chance for communications to become mixed up and wires crossed, it will happen. You may find yourself giving a verbal lawn care quote for a job earlier in the year and when you get around to doing the job, the customer may remember you quoting a [...]
May 11th, 2011 | Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments
We often talk, on the Gopher Lawn Care Business Forum, about the importance of having insurance for your lawn care business. As with all kinds of insurance, everything is fine without it, until you have an accident and need it. Then after your accident, you kick yourself for not previously buying it. Here is a [...]
May 10th, 2011 | Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments
We are always looking for more services to add, if they will bring us more customers or more money. Sometimes, to offer these services, we need to buy expensive equipment that may take quite a long time to recoup the costs. But here is a great add on service, suggested on the Gopher Lawn Care [...]
May 10th, 2011 | Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments
There is a period of time between the moment you start and the moment you get your first customer where you question yourself and wonder if you have done the right thing. There have been many a new lawn care business owner who decided to cut their losses and run because their phone didn’t start [...]
May 7th, 2011 | Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments
Finding happiness in anything that you do can be an elusive goal. It can be a concept that you feel is out there but is hard to find. In the Gopher Lawn Care Business Forum, we talked about the pursuit of happiness and if running your own lawn care business was making people happier or [...]
May 6th, 2011 | Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments
Coming up with a lawn care ad that works can be a very daunting task so when you see an ad that has already proven itself, it may be worthwhile to experiment with using it yourself. In this discussion from the Gopher Lawn Care Business Forum, one business owner shared with us his winning ad [...]
May 5th, 2011 | Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments
As anyone who has ever estimated a lawn care job knows, creating an estimate is not as easy as it may initially appear. It is part art form and part science that takes time and practice to get a handle on. If you feel your estimation process is not giving you profitable numbers, you are [...]
May 5th, 2011 | Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments
Here are some lawn care marketing techniques that could help kick start your spring season. One lawn care business owner shared with us some of the things he is doing to attract new customers this year, on the Gopher Lawn Care Business Forum. He wrote “I am starting my lawn business this year and I [...]
May 1st, 2011 | Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments