Archive for the 'Start up' Category

When is the right time to get lawn care customers?

What a great discussion this is. Trying to figure out when is the right time to get lawn care customers. If you are new to the lawn care business or you haven’t started yet, you could potentially be picking different times of the year when you think it would be the best. You might even [...]

Should I buy this lawn care business?

Buying an already functioning lawn care business is a way to get started with a bang. The upside to it is you should immediately have cash flow and hopefully a positive cash flow at that. But there are plenty of downsides to it as well. You need to weigh the pro’s and con’s before you [...]

Should I buy an office for my lawn care business?

When it comes to running the back office of your lawn care business, where do most lawn care businesses operate this from? Do they run it out of their home or do they buy office space? What about equipment storage? Where do they keep everything at the end of the day? Some lawn care business [...]

When is enough, enough? When should I get out?

I think most new lawn care business owners will go through a time when they sit for a moment and really question what it is they are doing. Are they making enough? Do they have enough customers? Is this business of theirs going to work or is it failing and they just haven’t accepted it [...]

Average lawn care business start up costs.

One of the big questions I tend to hear from entrepreneurs who are considering starting up a lawn care business is, how much will it cost to start up my new business? Costs can vary greatly depending on how big you go or how cheap you have to keep it but I thought if I [...]

A lawn care equipment dealer’s recommendations.

Everyone has their own view of what kind of lawn care equipment you should get when you are new to the lawn care industry. Some will want to buy cheap equipment, others will spend their entire savings. But what would a lawn care equipment dealer recommend? Surely they have seen many new lawn care business [...]

Lawn care equipment needed for startups.

When you start up your lawn care business, you can go a couple of ways when it comes to equipment. You can either take the low dow approach, which means the cheapest equipment you can find, or spend some big bucks to get new commercial equipment. Which way you go depends a lot on the [...]

The downsides to buying a landscaping business.

Starting a landscaping business can be a real pain in the butt. If you are starting from scratch, it can seem like forever until you get a decent amount of customers. So maybe you have considered buying an existing landscaping business. What could go wrong though? What things do you need to keep an eye [...]

Why I left the lawn care business.

Entrepreneurs are people and people sometimes just get burned. The get bored. They don’t find the results they were hoping to find or they simply want to try something new. There are many why business owners give up on their businesses. In this discussion from the Gopher Lawn Care Business Forum, one business owner shares [...]

Getting your foot in the door.

Coming up with a game plan and marketing strategy for your lawn care business can be tough. A member of the Gopher Lawn Care Business Forum shared with us his frustrations when trying to figure out a way to get his foot in the door with potential customers that live near him yet are serviced [...]

I thought because I was a great landscaper people would call. I thought wrong.

It’s fascinating the lessons learned by new lawn care business owners who leave their full time jobs to go off on their own and start their own business. A member of the Gopher Lawn Care Business Forum shared with us some of the issues he ran into when he got started. He wrote “It’s one [...]

Do you have the right stuff to start your lawn care business.

Going from being an employee to starting your own lawn care business can appear to be a daunting challenge. As an employee you don’t so much have to find the work as you have to do the work. Many of the day to day business issues are dealt with by the business owner. As an [...]

Lawn care business startup mistakes and solutions.

Most every new lawn care business owner is going to mess up on a few things. The way they handle mistakes can make the difference between being able to stay in business for the long haul or losing your customers too soon. One new lawn care business owner got on the Gopher Lawn Care Business [...]

A bigger lawn care business is not necessarily better.

If only we could look into a crystal ball and see our future. Did what we dream of come true or did that dream turn into a nightmare. When you are getting your lawn care business started, you wouldn’t think your original plans and goals may lead you straight off a cliff, but you would [...]

Know how to price lawn mowing jobs.

There can never be enough discussion on pricing lawn care jobs. At first when you get started, you may eyeball a property and come up with a figure based on a guess, but there are much better ways to do this. As your business is around longer, you will get an idea of what your [...]

As you grow you want to focus.

Trying to generate positive cash flow is very difficult for any new business early on. Offering many additional services can be a way to prime the pump and get all the gears of your business working. But there is a point that some believe you need to stop offering those additional services that are not [...]

Lawn care business tax tips.

I want to say first off, I am not an accountant nor are any of the forum members who took part in this discussion. We are business owners, sharing with you some of our insight. If something here piques your curiousity, please bring the topic up with your accountant to learn more about it.
As tax [...]

Is my new lawn care business on track?

We all want to know where we stand compared to others in the industry that have been in business for a similar time we have been. Are we ahead of others or are we lagging behind? It’s impossible to know if we live our lives in a vacuum. That is why a new lawn care [...]

Another winter lawn care business owner money making idea.

The end of the year can be a very slow time for lawn care business owners. However with some creativity it doesn’t have to be. Check out what this one lawn care business owner does on his slow time. He details cars and makes quite a bit of good money doing it. A great thing [...]

Pushing your lawn care business through that initial dip.

To get your lawn care business started, it really doesn’t take much. In fact if you just one day decided to tell your friends that you started your lawn care business, then in a sense you are started. That easy, that simple. However, to actually turn it into a profitable business that you and your [...]

Think real hard before you decide to sell your lawn care business.

There is nothing like the feeling of running your own business and being an entrepreneur. You are in charge! You are calling the shots! It’s up to you to make it work! But sometimes, the realities of it are that you get burnt out. You take on too many responsibilities. You don’t delegate enough to [...]

Starting a lawn care business? Do you need a license or a tax receipt?

A new member of the Gopher Lawn Care Business Forum wrote abut his situation. He had just recently gotten his lawn care business started and was finding there were plenty of things he needed to do in order to go legit. It’s pretty crazy the amount of hoops you gotta jump through to be legit, [...]

Using a lawn care business niche and theme to stand out.

There is a constant flow of new lawn care businesses that get started up every year as there is a constant flow of lawn care businesses that fail. Finding a niche and standing out is very important if you are going to find success. I think we all learn best when presented with examples of [...]

Stand firm on your lawn care prices.

When you first get your lawn care business started you tend to be more desperate for work. You also are unsure of your costs and what you should charge so you tend to waiver a lot on your prices.
Over time as your lawn care business is around longer, you build up more confidence because you [...]

Accounts receivable is a silent business killer.

All too often, accounts receivable, is over looked by new lawn care business owners. When a new lawn care business owner is just getting started, they figure they would rather be working than not working. So as long as they are working, they feel like it is money in the bank. But it is so [...]

What it takes to start your own lawn care business.

A lot of people talk or dream about starting their own lawn care business, so I thought it might be a good idea to ask members of the Gopher Lawn Care Business Forum, what made you different? What made you be able to actually do it, instead of sitting around and talking about it?
Here are [...]

How to land commercial lawn care accounts without a mower.

You might read the title of this article and think to yourself, there is no way one can land a commercial lawn care account without having a mower, but this new lawn care business owner did. How did he do it? He knew the right people. But how did he meet the right people? That’s [...]

Is the customer always right?

We have a lot of discussions at the Gopher Lawn Care Business Forum on the topic of customers. How best to deal with them. How to attract them and in this discussion, are they always right?
A new lawn care business owner shared with us some of his thoughts on getting his lawn care business going [...]

5 steps to improve your lawn care business sales.

There are those who really take to sales immediately. They tend to be outgoing people, extroverts and they love to talk. For the rest of us, we find sales to be difficult and akward. In order to help you improve your sales techniques a member of the Gopher Lawn Care Business Forum shared with us [...]

The pitfalls of buying an existing lawn care business.

Purchasing an existing lawn care business can seem very tempting for some who want to hit the ground running. There are upsides to it but there are a lot of downsides which you sometimes can’t see at face value. Take for instance this new member of the Gopher Lawn Care Business Forum. He shared with [...]