Archive for December, 2012
It doesn’t take much to get yourself back logged with mowing jobs. A day or two or rain in row, or maybe even getting a cold and not being able to work for a few days can really set you back. But what should you do when you find yourself in a hole that is [...]
December 31st, 2012 | Posted in Growth, Lawn Care Business, Lawn Care Customers, Lawn Mowing, Problem customers, Residential Customers | No Comments
Chainsaws can drive you crazy. For most lawn care business owners, their chainsaw is not used everyday, so on those odd times when you need it to start, there is a good chance it won’t. Here are some steps and procedures you can take to make sure you get the most out of your chainsaw [...]
December 28th, 2012 | Posted in Chain Saw, Lawn Care Business, lawn care equipment | No Comments
Have you ever been called to give an estimate on clearing a large wooded area of brush? Such projects can appear daunting at first because it’s hard to get a full grasp of what is in front of you and how long the job will take. That is why some lawn care business owners bid [...]
December 27th, 2012 | Posted in Brush Clearing, Chipper, How to Estimate - Services To Offer, How to Estimate Jobs, Lawn Care Business, Lawn Care Customers, Lawn Care Employees, Pricing, lawn care equipment | No Comments
People in general poo poo new ideas. They don’t like change. If you want to change something in your life, you can almost guarantee if you ask others around you, they will say why change things, stay the same. Don’t do anything different, don’t think about anything differently. Keep going just [...]
December 26th, 2012 | Posted in Business Failure, Growth, Lawn Care Business, Lawn Care Customers, Marketing, Mower, Start up, lawn care equipment | No Comments
It’s many an entrepreneurs dream to build up a business that they can pass on to their children when they want to retire. But what is the best way to do this without losing your customers? That is a question asked on the Gopher Lawn Care Business Forum and it brought out a lot of [...]
December 24th, 2012 | Posted in Business Plan, Growth, Lawn Care Business, Lawn Care Customers | No Comments
Everyone wants to feel appreciated. They want to know they are doing a good job and being productive with their life. But as we will see from this discussion on the Gopher Lawn Care Business Forum, getting that feeling of being appreciated can have a lot to do with how you operate your business. Let’s [...]
December 21st, 2012 | Posted in Business Failure, Customer Retention, Growth, Lawn Care Business, Lawn Care Customers, Marketing, Problem customers, Referrals, Trials and Tribulations, lawn care equipment | No Comments
Many new entrepreneurs enjoy going into a business with a partner because they fear going it alone. They also want the companionship of another as they travel down this new business adventure path. But with partners, comes problems. Instead of having one boss, now there are two. Inevitably ideals will clash and one’s desires and [...]
December 20th, 2012 | Posted in Business Failure, Lawn Care Business, Operational Costs, Overhead Costs, Partnership, Trials and Tribulations, lawn care equipment | No Comments
Thinking about business growth all the time can be really stressful. Equipment, employees, travel time, all of these issues can weigh heavily on your mind. So what should a small lawn care business owner do when they are trying to grow, yet they feel they are being run ragged by trying to maintain a service [...]
December 19th, 2012 | Posted in Business Failure, Growth, Lawn Care Business, Lawn Care Customers, Lawn Care Employees, Lawn Care Route, Lawn Mowing, Marketing, Mowing, Residential Customers, Start up, Your First Employee, lawn care equipment | No Comments
There are going to be times when you are so fixated on getting a lawn care job, for what ever reason, you will not pay attention to what your costs are when figuring the price. When this happens, you run the risk of breaking even or losing money on a job. With such low priced [...]
December 19th, 2012 | Posted in Business Failure, Growth, How to Estimate - Services To Offer, How to Estimate Jobs, How to get, How to sell, Insurance, Lawn Care Business, Lawn Care Customers, Lawn Mowing, Marketing, Mowing, Pricing, Referrals, Scheduling, Trials and Tribulations | No Comments
It’s a lot easier to get a lawn care business started part time while you have another income source. That saves you the stress of worrying about how to pay your bill. But there still is quite a step to take from having employment elsewhere to going full time with your own business. If you’re [...]
December 17th, 2012 | Posted in Business Failure, Door hanger, Growth, Lawn Care Business, Lawn Care Customers, Marketing, Operational Costs, Overhead Costs, Start up, lawn care equipment | No Comments
I am sure there are quite a few new start up lawn care business owners who just don’t want to concern themselves with any extraneous issues other than mowing lawns and collecting their money. When it comes to being licensed, insured, and complying with tax laws, some business owners just don’t feel those rules, regulations, [...]
December 15th, 2012 | Posted in Business Failure, General Business, Lawn Care Business, Start up, Taxes | No Comments
Have you been performing lawn care for a while and had the desire to perform some landscape projects but were unsure of how to do them or bill them? One member of the Gopher Lawn Care Business Forum shared with us a landscape project he created. The job was done for cost so that the [...]
December 13th, 2012 | Posted in How to Estimate - Services To Offer, How to Estimate Jobs, How to sell, Invoicing, Landscape Project, Landscaping Business, Lawn Care Business, Lawn Care Customers, Mulch Jobs, Operational Costs, Overhead Costs, Pricing | No Comments
When it comes to figuring out how much you should pay your lawn care employees, there is a sweet spot. Pay too much and you are going to lose money on each lawn mowing you perform. Pay too little and either you won’t attract any applicants or you will attract the wrong kind of applicant. [...]
December 12th, 2012 | Posted in 1 Man Lawn Crew, Bonus Pay, Lawn Care Business, Lawn Care Employees, Operational Costs, Overhead Costs, Start up, Taxes, Your First Employee, lawn care equipment | No Comments
It can be very frustrating when you go out and buy a bunch of lawn care equipment, get signs made, and are ready to work but no one calls. There are many reasons as to why this happens and to help shed light on the topic, I’d like to look at a discussion from the [...]
December 11th, 2012 | Posted in Business Card, Commercial Customers, Free Lawn Care Flyer Template, Growth, How to get, How to sell, Lawn Care Business, Lawn Care Business Book, Lawn Care Customers, Lawn Care Marketing, Marketing, Newspaper Ads, Residential Customers, Start up, door to door | No Comments
If you are just getting your snow plowing business going or maybe you have been doing it part time for a while and are curious as to how many customers you could handle with a one man crew, here is a great discussion that covers that topic from the Gopher Lawn Care Business Forum. One [...]
December 10th, 2012 | Posted in How to Estimate - Services To Offer, How to Estimate Jobs, How to sell, Lawn Care Business, Lawn Care Customers, Pricing, Residential Customers, Snow plow, Snow plowing, Start up, Tractor, lawn care equipment | No Comments
Sometimes opportunities come your way that have the potential to really push your lawn care business way ahead of where you currently are. But how much growth should you be taking on at a time? Would you prefer large bursts of growth or slow steady steps? That is the dilemma one entrepreneur found himself in [...]
December 7th, 2012 | Posted in Business Failure, Commercial Customers, Growth, Lawn Care Business, Lawn Care Contract, Lawn Care Customers, Operational Costs, Overhead Costs, Trials and Tribulations, lawn care equipment | No Comments
Meeting new people and being able to strike up a conversation is very important to sell more services and make more money. But what is the best way to go about doing this? That is what one lawn care business owner was interested in knowing when he wrote us on the Gopher Lawn Care Business [...]
December 6th, 2012 | Posted in Business Card, Cold Calling, Growth, How to get, How to sell, Lawn Care Business, Lawn Care Customers, Marketing, Residential Customers, Start up, Upsells, door to door | No Comments
Buying new lawn care equipment can save you with repair headaches. They are less prone to breaking down and you usually have a dealer warranty that covers repair issues that pop up. The down side though is the price. If you are trying to save some money, you could consider doing what these other business [...]
December 5th, 2012 | Posted in Back Pack Leaf Blower, Debt, Lawn Care Business, Line Trimmer, Mower, Overhead Costs, Trailer, lawn care equipment | No Comments
It’s very important to realize that it doesn’t take much to get your lawn care business started. For those of you reading this article thinking you need to save a little more money before you can begin, you may want to re-evaluate your position. Here is a great story from the Gopher Lawn Care Business [...]
December 5th, 2012 | Posted in Free Lawn Care Flyer Template, Growth, How to Estimate - Services To Offer, How to get, Lawn Care Business, Lawn Care Customers, Lawn Mowing, Marketing, Mowing, Residential Customers, Start up | No Comments
The lawn care business comes down to selling time. The more accurate you are with estimating job time length, the better your chances are of profiting on each job. But where do you start to learn how to estimate the amount of time it will take you to mow a lawn? The easiest way is [...]
December 3rd, 2012 | Posted in How to Estimate - Services To Offer, How to Estimate Jobs, Lawn Care Business, Lawn Care Customers, Lawn Mowing, Mowing, Pricing, lawn care equipment | No Comments