Archive for the 'How to sell' Category
Most new lawn care businesses start out with a lot of time on their hands and little money. You may think this puts you at a disadvantage, but that is not the case. It actually is the exact ingredients you need to find success in your lawn care marketing. As you will see in this [...]
June 25th, 2010 | Posted in Door hanger, General Business, How to get, How to sell, Landscaping Business, Lawn Care Business, Lawn Care Customers, Lawn Care Marketing, Marketing, Residential Customers, door to door | No Comments
Everyone hates pushy people. And pushy sales people are even more hated. So what is a lawn care business owner to do when they want to promote their business but not come across as being pushy? That is a great topic that came up on the Gopher Lawn Care Business Forum, when a business owner [...]
June 1st, 2010 | Posted in General Business, How to sell, Landscaping Business, Lawn Care Business | No Comments
A great question came up on the Gopher Lawn Care Business Forum. It was on the topic of when should you offer lawn care customers, a discount. Should they be offered a discount if they pay in cash? Or what about a discount to seal the deal if they are on the fence?Do discounts help [...]
May 21st, 2010 | Posted in General Business, How to Estimate - Services To Offer, How to Estimate Jobs, How to sell, Landscaping Business, Lawn Care Business, Prepay, Pricing | No Comments
It seems some lawn care businesses can find traction at a certain point and take off while others continue to flounder. Why is this? A member of the Gopher Lawn Care Business Forum shared with us how his business finally started to take off and what he did to help.
May 13th, 2010 | Posted in General Business, How to get, How to sell, Landscaping Business, Lawn Care Business, Lawn Care Customers, Pricing, Upsells | No Comments
If you have been in the lawn care business for 20 years, you must be doing something right. That is how long a new member of the Gopher Lawn Care Business Forum had been in the business for. I had an opportunity to talk with him and learn some of his secrets that have kept [...]
May 7th, 2010 | Posted in General Business, How to sell, Landscaping Business, Lawn Care Business, Lawn Care Customers, Overhead Costs | No Comments
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 [...]
April 27th, 2010 | Posted in Business Plan, General Business, 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, Start up, Upsells | No Comments
There are many situations you will run into as a lawn care business owner where you may wonder if you should be charging extra for certain services. A member of the Gopher Lawn Care Business Forum had an interesting question along these lines when he asked “if you are providing lawn care for a [...]
April 11th, 2010 | Posted in General Business, How to Estimate - Services To Offer, How to Estimate Jobs, How to sell, Landscaping Business, Lawn Care Business, Lawn Care Customers, Lawn Mowing, Pricing | No Comments
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 [...]
April 9th, 2010 | Posted in General Business, How to Estimate - Services To Offer, How to Estimate Jobs, How to sell, Landscaping Business, Lawn Care Business, Lawn Care Customers, Pricing, Start up, Upsells | No Comments
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 [...]
April 9th, 2010 | Posted in General Business, How to get, How to sell, Landscaping Business, Lawn Care Business, Lawn Care Customers, Lawn Care Employees, Lawn Care Marketing, Marketing, Referrals, Start up, Upsells | No Comments
Everyone who runs a business has customers. Sometimes those customers are a delight to work with while other times they can be nightmares. Everyone seems to do alright handling the happy customers but it can be a serious challenge to handle a difficult customer. Depending on the choices you make, such situations can be turned [...]
April 2nd, 2010 | Posted in General Business, GopherHaul, How to Estimate - Services To Offer, How to Estimate Jobs, How to sell, Landscaping Business, Lawn Care Business, Lawn Care Customers, Lawn Mowing, Mowing, Operational Costs, Overhead Costs, Podcast, Residential Customers | No Comments
There are many paths you can take your lawn care business when you want it to grow. You can focus on residential. Or maybe focus on commercial lawn care. Many newer lawn care business owners like to try and get their feet wet in commercial work as soon as they have a few residential customers. [...]
March 29th, 2010 | Posted in Commercial Customers, General Business, How to Estimate - Services To Offer, How to get, How to sell, Landscaping Business, Lawn Care Business, Lawn Care Customers, lawn care equipment | No Comments
It can be really difficult to keep your lawn care customers signed up with you for service all year long, especially when the season slows down. If you lose contact with them during the slow months, it can be tough to get in touch with them to sign up and start again in the Spring. [...]
March 26th, 2010 | Posted in Debt Collection, Estimate or Proposal Form, General Business, How to sell, Invoicing, Landscaping Business, Lawn Care Business, Lawn Care Contract, Lawn Care Customers, Pricing, Residential Customers | No Comments
For a lawn care customer, it can be very difficult to envision how their property can be transformed from a bland empty area into a well landscaped masterpiece. That is where you come in. You would be surprised on how many more landscape sales you could make if only you took a moment to see [...]
March 25th, 2010 | Posted in General Business, How to Estimate - Services To Offer, How to Estimate Jobs, How to get, How to sell, Landscaping Business, Lawn Care Business, Lawn Care Customers, Lawn Mowing, Mowing, Mulch Jobs, Upsells | No Comments
Do you have customers who own properties in your area but live elsewhere? Do they require you to perform additional tasks local customers don’t need? Servicing out of town customers can be more challenging than servicing local customers. Here is a great story that came up on the Gopher Lawn Care Business Forum. If you [...]
March 24th, 2010 | Posted in General Business, How to Estimate - Services To Offer, How to Estimate Jobs, How to get, How to sell, Landscaping Business, Lawn Care Business, Lawn Care Customers, Lawn Mowing, Mowing | No Comments
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 [...]
March 20th, 2010 | Posted in General Business, How to Estimate - Services To Offer, How to Estimate Jobs, How to sell, Landscape Project, Landscaping Business, Lawn Care Business, Lawn Mowing, Mowing, Start up, Upsells | No Comments
This was a very novel approach to estimating a commercial lawn care job. I don’t often see this happen but I guess it goes to show you, it never hurts to ask. This is especially true when you are talking to a new client that is switching lawn care service providers. If you take the [...]
March 18th, 2010 | Posted in Commercial Customers, Edging, General Business, How to Estimate - Services To Offer, How to Estimate Jobs, How to sell, Landscaping Business, Lawn Care Business, Lawn Care Customers, Lawn Mowing, Mowing, Operational Costs, Overhead Costs, Pricing, bed edging | No Comments
Have you ever sat back and wondered what it is that is keeping your lawn care business from growing? Do you find it difficult to talk with new people? Do you have a difficult time trying to sell yourself and your services? If you do, you are not alone. I had a discussion on the [...]
March 14th, 2010 | Posted in Bonus Pay, General Business, GopherHaul, How to Estimate - Services To Offer, How to Estimate Jobs, How to sell, Landscaping Business, Lawn Care Business, Lawn Care Customers, Lawn Care Employees, Lawn Mowing, Podcast, Upsells, training | No Comments
What do lawn care customers want? Their requirements can vary widely. Some may simply want the township off their back and not care how their lawn looks. Others will be very meticulous and want high quality lawn care service. What should you do when you service a customer with a smaller mower and then scale [...]
March 11th, 2010 | Posted in Business Card, General Business, How to Estimate - Services To Offer, How to Estimate Jobs, How to get, How to sell, Landscaping Business, Lawn Care Business, Lawn Care Customers, Lawn Care Marketing, Lawn Mowing, Marketing, Residential Customers | No Comments
Coming up with the proper rate to charge your lawn care customers can be difficult, especially when you are just getting started. It seems that newer businesses tend to underestimate the amount of time a job will take and therefor underestimate the price the job should be bid at.
A member of the Gopher Lawn Care [...]
March 5th, 2010 | Posted in General Business, How to Estimate - Services To Offer, How to Estimate Jobs, How to sell, Landscaping Business, Lawn Care Business, Lawn Mowing | No Comments
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 [...]
February 24th, 2010 | Posted in General Business, How to get, How to sell, Landscaping Business, Lawn Care Business, Lawn Care Customers, Pricing, Start up | No Comments
You have probably been in this situation in the past where you are mowing a lawn care customer’s property and they come out to ask you how much it would cost to have you ——–. You eyeball the job and because you don’t know how much the materials are going to cost, you ballpark the [...]
February 22nd, 2010 | Posted in Business Failure, General Business, How to Estimate - Services To Offer, How to Estimate Jobs, How to sell, Landscaping Business, Lawn Care Business, Lawn Care Customers, Pricing | No Comments
If you haven’t gotten the phone call yet, you will. Soon your phone will ring and on the other end will be a salesman telling you about the wonderful marketing opportunities to be had with their mail-pak style mailers. You will hear these grand figures, reach 10,000 families in your area. It will only cost [...]
February 8th, 2010 | Posted in Direct Mail, General Business, How to get, How to sell, Landscaping Business, Lawn Care Business, Lawn Care Customers, Lawn Care Marketing, Lawn Care Truck & Trailer Signs, Marketing, Newspaper Ads, Referrals, Residential Customers, Word Of Mouth, door to door | No Comments
We all like to know what works and what doesn’t when it comes to lawn care marketing. By reading such stories on the topic, we hope to cut out those marketing ideas that are ineffective. What amazes me about all the stories we see on the Gopher Lawn Care Business Forum, it’s amazing how one [...]
February 7th, 2010 | Posted in Direct Mail, General Business, GopherHaul, How to get, How to sell, Internet, Landscaping Business, Lawn Care Business, Lawn Care Customers, Lawn Care Marketing, Marketing, Newspaper Ads, Podcast, Pricing, Referrals, Word Of Mouth | No Comments
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 [...]
February 2nd, 2010 | Posted in General Business, How to get, How to sell, Landscaping Business, Lawn Care Business, Lawn Care Customers, Lawn Care Employees, Start up, buying customers | No Comments
Here is a great question that came up on the Gopher Lawn Care Business Forum. Should you be looking to seal the deal everytime you go out for an estimate? One lawn care business owner initially seemed to be so focused on doing this at all costs, including his profits.
He wrote “I am going to [...]
February 1st, 2010 | Posted in Customer Retention, Direct Mail, General Business, How to Estimate - Services To Offer, How to Estimate Jobs, How to get, How to sell, Lawn Care Business, Lawn Care Customers, Lawn Care Marketing, Marketing, Pricing, Referrals, Residential Customers | No Comments
How do I get new lawn care customers? How can I find more success in the lawn care industry? These are two of the big questions we often see on the Gopher Lawn Care Business Forum. What amazes me is that all too often, business owners are looking for some secret to doing this when [...]
January 26th, 2010 | Posted in General Business, GopherHaul, How to get, How to sell, Landscaping Business, Lawn Care Business, Lawn Care Customers, Lawn Care Marketing, Lawn Care Truck & Trailer Signs, Lawn Care Uniform, Marketing, Podcast, Referrals, Word Of Mouth | No Comments
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 [...]
January 19th, 2010 | Posted in General Business, How to Estimate - Services To Offer, How to Estimate Jobs, How to get, How to sell, Landscaping Business, Lawn Care Business, Lawn Care Customers, Lawn Mowing, Operational Costs, Overhead Costs, Pricing, Start up | No Comments
How often have you created a new landscape project or hardscape project and thoughts to yourself, ‘if only the neighbors could see this place, they’d all want me to do this for them.’ This thought may come up especially as the scale of the project increases as well as the amount of profits.
There are plenty [...]
January 14th, 2010 | Posted in General Business, Hardscaping, How to get, How to sell, Landscape Project, Landscaping Business, Lawn Care Business, Lawn Care Customers, Lawn Care Marketing, Marketing, Residential Customers, Word Of Mouth | No Comments
I love to showcase some of the landscape projects, members of the Gopher Lawn Care Business Forum share with us. They are great learning tools because you get a chance to see a before and after image along with the bid price and the amount of profit the job generated. From this you can compare [...]
January 8th, 2010 | Posted in General Business, How to Estimate - Services To Offer, How to Estimate Jobs, How to get, How to sell, Internet, Landscape Project, Landscaping Business, Lawn Care Business, Lawn Care Customers, Lawn Care Marketing, Marketing, Mulch Jobs, Residential Customers, Website, door to door | No Comments
Are you looking for more ways to improve your sales skills? A new member of the Gopher Lawn Care Business Forum shared with us some of sales secrets. He wrote “I have 7 years of sales experience in retail and business. What got me to start my lawn care business is one day when I [...]
January 7th, 2010 | Posted in Business Card, Commercial Customers, General Business, How to get, How to sell, Landscaping Business, Lawn Care Business, Lawn Care Customers, Lawn Care Marketing, Marketing, Marketing on Craigslist.com, Newspaper Ads, Residential Customers, door to door | No Comments