Archive for July, 2012
As the old saying goes, early to bed, early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise. But when it comes to running loud gas powered lawn care equipment in residential areas, how early is too early? That is what one member of the Gopher Lawn Care Business Forum was curious to know when [...]
July 31st, 2012 | Posted in Lawn Care Business, Mowing, lawn care equipment | No Comments
Entrepreneurs are creative thinkers and problem solvers by nature, so it is no wonder they would be thinking about creative ways to save money on lawn mower upgrades. From a discussion on the Gopher Lawn Care Business Forum we see a great question on whether it would be worthwhile to put a commercial grade motor [...]
July 30th, 2012 | Posted in Mower, lawn care equipment | No Comments
Money management is a skill so many of us lack. It is especially difficult to manage your money in the first few years of starting your business because of the wide range of unknown variables. But if you are trying to come up with a money management process to keep your household and business running [...]
July 26th, 2012 | Posted in Business Failure, General Business, Lawn Care Business, Start up, Taxes | No Comments
In the beginning, trying to pull everything you need to do together to get your lawn care business launched can feel overwhelming. Which services should you offer, which should you pass on? Which services are best to start with and which are better to add on later? All these questions can make you feel a [...]
July 25th, 2012 | Posted in Aeration, Edging, Fertilization, Gardening, Gutter Cleaning, Hedge Trimming, How to Estimate - Services To Offer, Irrigation, Lawn Care Business, Lawn Mowing, Mowing, Sod, Start up, bed edging, leaf clean up | No Comments
If you are expanding your lawn care services to include landscaping, you may find yourself unsure of how to price such jobs. Here is a great example from the Gopher Lawn Care Business Forum on how to price a gravel driveway regrading job. It also talks about how long such a job would take and [...]
July 24th, 2012 | Posted in Box Blade, Compact Utility Tractor, Driveway leveling, How to Estimate - Services To Offer, How to Estimate Jobs, Landscape Project, Landscaping Business, Lawn Care Business, Pricing, Tractor, lawn care equipment | No Comments
Sometimes due to unforeseeable situations, certain services become more important than others. When this happens, the amount of money one can make for these needed services, during such times can increase, but be forewarned. Such times usually don’t last long and when demand scales back, the part of your business that provides these services will [...]
July 23rd, 2012 | Posted in Business Failure, Growth, Insurance, Lawn Care Business, Start up, Tree Removal | No Comments
There are many mistakes you can make with your lawn care business, but one of the simplest ones to prevent is mowing at the wrong house. If you think it doesn’t happen, here are two landscapers from the Gopher Lawn Care Business Forum, who have had run into similar situations. If there is a lesson [...]
July 20th, 2012 | Posted in Lawn Care Business, Lawn Care Customers, Mowing, Trials and Tribulations | No Comments
Have you been wanting to start up your lawn care business but just seem to have the time to do it? Maybe you got creative in your business planning and thought if you hired a few employees, they could run and build up the business for you. If this were possible, you could then have [...]
July 19th, 2012 | Posted in Business Failure, Business Plan, Lawn Care Business, Lawn Care Employees, Start up, lawn care equipment | No Comments
Sometimes lawn care business owners are so focused on getting jobs that they don’t consider they need to be making money with them. In this discussion from the Gopher Lawn Care Business Forum, a landscaper shares with us how this happens, why it happens, and what to do about it. If you catch yourself wanting [...]
July 18th, 2012 | Posted in Aeration, Aerator, How to Estimate - Services To Offer, How to Estimate Jobs, How to sell, Lawn Care Business, Lawn Care Customers, Pricing, Start up, lawn care equipment | No Comments
There are many ways to make money when running a lawn care business. One great strategy we will see here in this discussion from the Gopher Lawn Care Business Forum, is offering smaller services that can open the door to upselling even more. There are times when people may not need you for mowing, at [...]
July 17th, 2012 | Posted in Box Blade, Compact Utility Tractor, How to Estimate - Services To Offer, How to Estimate Jobs, How to sell, Landscaping Business, Lawn Care Business, Lawn Care Customers, Marketing, Postcards, Pricing, Residential Customers, Tiller, Tilling, Tractor, Upsells, lawn care equipment | No Comments
Have you taken a moment lately to consider if you are missing potential business just because you didn’t see it or were simply looking past it? This happens plenty of times to all of us and it is quite amazing the results we can find when we think about what we are missing. Here is [...]
July 16th, 2012 | Posted in Business Card, Compact Utility Tractor, Growth, How to get, How to sell, Landscaping Business, Lawn Care Business, Lawn Care Customers, Marketing, Residential Customers, Snow plow, Snow plowing, Tractor, lawn care equipment | No Comments
It can be so difficult to get your new lawn care business off the ground. Many times though, the difficult isn’t so much out there somewhere as it is within you. Battling yourself and your own doubtfulness can keep you from ever actually taking one positive step forwards to achieve your dream. But knowing that [...]
July 13th, 2012 | Posted in How to sell, Lawn Care Business, Lawn Care Customers, Start up | No Comments
Are you a stickler for high quality when it comes to lawn care? Do you find you need to perform a perfect mowing each and every time? If a job is not completed up to your standards, do you go back and redo it or do you just pass it by and work on it [...]
July 12th, 2012 | Posted in Lawn Care Business, Lawn Care Customers, Lawn Mowing, Mower, Mower blades, Uncategorized, lawn care equipment | No Comments
There is work out there if you want it. Here is a great example on the Gopher Lawn Care Business Forum of how one landscaper who was called to regrade a driveway ended up signing 6 more customers on, just by talking to people who were passing by. Imagine how many more new customers you [...]
July 11th, 2012 | Posted in Box Blade, Business Card, Compact Utility Tractor, Driveway leveling, How to Estimate - Services To Offer, How to Estimate Jobs, How to get, How to sell, Landscaping Business, Lawn Care Business, Lawn Care Customers, Marketing, Mini excavation, Pricing, Residential Customers, Tractor, lawn care equipment | No Comments
Lawn mower belts are the ink that directs the energy produced by the lawn mower engine and directs it to spin the mower blade. The are not visible when you look at a mower from above and because of that, they tend to not get much attention. But there is much we can learn about [...]
July 10th, 2012 | Posted in Mower, lawn care equipment | No Comments
There is plenty of work out there for your lawn care or landscaping business. Don’t expect the work to just come to you. You need to keep an eye out for it. Then once you find an opening, get yourself an opportunity to present yourself and sell the customer on why they need your services. [...]
July 9th, 2012 | Posted in How to Estimate - Services To Offer, How to Estimate Jobs, How to sell, Landscape Project, Landscaping Business, Lawn Care Business, Lawn Care Marketing, Marketing, Mini excavation, Postcards, Upsells, lawn care equipment | No Comments
Does appearance matter when you pull up in front of a new potential lawn care customer’s house to give an estimate? Do you need to show up with a brand new truck or can you show up in an old beat up one? Does the customer mind either way? What about the way your lawn [...]
July 6th, 2012 | Posted in Lawn Care Business, Lawn Care Customers, Lawn Care Uniform, lawn care equipment | No Comments
Bidding on smaller residential properties can be relatively easy for the average lawn care business owner after they have performed a few of them. But what do you do when you are called on to give a mowing estimate on a much larger property? How do you give an accurate lawn care estimate and not [...]
July 5th, 2012 | Posted in Commercial Customers, How to Estimate - Services To Offer, How to Estimate Jobs, How to get, How to sell, Lawn Care Business, Lawn Care Customers, Lawn Mowing, Mowing, Pricing | No Comments
We all have our dark moments when we pause from traveling on our dream pathway to ponder if we have what it takes to make it. Sometimes these moments charge us up to push onwards ever stronger. Sometimes we further discourage ourselves and end up quitting too soon. If your dream is to own and [...]
July 4th, 2012 | Posted in Business Failure, Lawn Care Business, Start up, Trials and Tribulations | No Comments
If you want to land large commercial lawn care mowing bids, you can play by the normal rules. Call the home office, find the date to submit your lawn care bid. Go out to the property, review the area and then get your bid in. Cross your fingers all the while hoping you stood out [...]
July 3rd, 2012 | Posted in Commercial Customers, Community Projects To Promote Your Business, Customer Retention, How to get, How to sell, Lawn Care Business, Lawn Care Customers, Marketing | No Comments
Some lawn care business owners seem to be able to market themselves without any problems while others seem to have quite a bit of difficulty doing it. What makes one marketer get their message across while another meets with resistance? How can we learn from the experiences of those who are successful and apply [...]
July 2nd, 2012 | Posted in How to get, Lawn Care Business, Lawn Care Customers, Lawn Care Marketing, Marketing | No Comments