Archive for the 'Pricing' Category
Lawn care business owners are in business to make money. It’s plain and simple. But are there ever times when it is alright to accept a lawn care or landscaping job when you know it won’t be profitable? Are there any upsides to doing this and if so, what are they? That is what one [...]
July 27th, 2010 | Posted in General Business, How to Estimate - Services To Offer, How to Estimate Jobs, Landscaping Business, Lawn Care Business, Lawn Care Customers, Operational Costs, Overhead Costs, Pricing | No Comments
Have you been asked by any of your lawn care customers to give them a bid on adding some topsoil to their property? Did you find you were at a loss as to how to estimate such a job? A lawn care business owner had this issue and asked on the Gopher Lawn Care Business [...]
July 15th, 2010 | Posted in General Business, How to Estimate - Services To Offer, How to Estimate Jobs, Landscaping Business, Lawn Care Business, Pricing | No Comments
There are so many different ways to bill your lawn care customers, the number of choices can make your head spin. What methods works well for some lawn care may not work so well for others. There are many factors to consider when you are creating your billing frequency.
June 14th, 2010 | Posted in General Business, Invoicing, Landscaping Business, Lawn Care Business, Prepay, Pricing | 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
Many lawn care business owners look to offer additional services to supplement their lawn service income. One of the many services they choose to offer is pressure or power washing. If you choose to offer such a service you may be wondering where to get the water. That is what one member of the Gopher [...]
May 5th, 2010 | Posted in General Business, How to Estimate - Services To Offer, How to Estimate Jobs, Landscaping Business, Lawn Care Business, Pressure Washing, Pricing, lawn care equipment | No Comments
It usually takes about one lawn care season to get you to a point where you begin to understand your overhead and operational costs. At the end of your first season, you may look at your bank account and realize with all your efforts, you have very little money to show from it. If you [...]
April 12th, 2010 | Posted in General Business, Landscaping Business, Lawn Care Business, Lawn Care Customers, Pricing | 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
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 [...]
April 5th, 2010 | Posted in Business Plan, General Business, Landscaping Business, Lawn Care Business, Operational Costs, Overhead Costs, Pricing, Start up | No Comments
How to price lawn mowing or a yard cleanup seems to be one of the more popular questions asked on the Gopher Lawn Care Business Forum. Many new lawn care business owners tend to be lost with this and understandably so, it can be very difficult to wrap your mind around proper bidding concepts.
To help [...]
April 4th, 2010 | Posted in Fall Leaf Cleanups, General Business, How to Estimate - Services To Offer, How to Estimate Jobs, Landscaping Business, Lawn Care Business, Lawn Mowing, Mowing, Pricing | 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
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
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 [...]
March 4th, 2010 | Posted in General Business, How to get, Landscaping Business, Lawn Care Business, Lawn Care Customers, Marketing, Pricing, Residential Customers, Start up, door to door | 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
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
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
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
A member of the Gopher Lawn Care Business Forum shared with us a postcard he had designed for his lawn care marketing campaign. In the postcard he was promoting an annual contract fee that would include all sorts of services a lawn care customer would get throughout the year if they signed up with him.
When [...]
January 12th, 2010 | Posted in General Business, How to get, Internet, Landscaping Business, Lawn Care Business, Lawn Care Customers, Lawn Care Marketing, Marketing, Postcards, Pricing, Residential Customers | No Comments
When you are bidding jobs for lawn care or landscaping projects, should you let your customer know how much you are charging them per hour or should this be something you keep to yourself and simply bid on the job as a whole? That is a question that was brought up on the Gopher Lawn [...]
January 4th, 2010 | Posted in General Business, GopherHaul, How to Estimate - Services To Offer, How to Estimate Jobs, How to sell, Landscape Project, Landscaping Business, Lawn Care Business, Lawn Care Customers, Lawn Mowing, Mowing, Operational Costs, Overhead Costs, Podcast, Pricing | No Comments
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 [...]
December 26th, 2009 | Posted in Debt, Debt Collection, General Business, How to sell, Invoicing, Landscaping Business, Lawn Care Business, Prepay, Pricing, Start up | No Comments
If you mow a lawn with a push mower and it takes you a long time should you charge more than if you mow with a faster mower? Should your lawn mowing price be dependant on how fast you can get the lawn mowed? This was the topic we discussed on the Gopher Lawn Care [...]
December 12th, 2009 | Posted in General Business, How to Estimate - Services To Offer, How to Estimate Jobs, Landscaping Business, Lawn Care Business, Lawn Mowing, Mower, Mowing, Overhead Costs, Pricing, lawn care equipment | No Comments
Whether you are just looking to get into offering commercial lawn care or you are currently offering it and wanting to see what others are charging for their services, here is a great inside look at one condominium associations commercial lawn care contract. In this example discussed at the Gopher Lawn Care Business Forum, a [...]
December 8th, 2009 | Posted in Apartment / Condo, Commercial Customers, Edging, General Business, Hedge Trimming, How to Estimate - Services To Offer, How to Estimate Jobs, Landscaping Business, Lawn Care Business, Lawn Care Customers, Lawn Mowing, Mowing, Mulch Jobs, Pricing, Property Management | No Comments
Depending on how you present your snow plowing bid can have a direct result on if you get hired or not and what kinds of services your customer will sign up for. I asked a member of the Gopher Lawn Care Business Forum about his methods for estimating snow removal services and how he gets [...]
November 23rd, 2009 | Posted in Commercial Customers, General Business, GopherHaul, How to Estimate - Services To Offer, How to Estimate Jobs, How to sell, Landscaping Business, Lawn Care Business, Lawn Care Customers, Overhead Costs, Podcast, Pricing, Snow plowing | No Comments
Are you just getting started offering snow plowing services this year but you are unsure of how to go about it? This situation was discussed on the Gopher Lawn Care Business Forum when a new member wrote “I’m going to be plowing this winter for the first time with my own truck. I don’t know [...]
November 22nd, 2009 | Posted in Estimate or Proposal Form, General Business, How to Estimate - Services To Offer, How to Estimate Jobs, Landscaping Business, Lawn Care Business, Lawn Care Contract, Overhead Costs, Pricing, Snow plowing | No Comments
Have you ever taken a look at your customer’s home and seen moss on their siding or on their deck? Did you ever stop to talk to the customer and ask them if they would like it removed? There is money to be made in offering such services. A member of the Gopher Lawn Care [...]
November 3rd, 2009 | Posted in General Business, How to Estimate - Services To Offer, How to Estimate Jobs, How to get, Landscaping Business, Lawn Care Business, Lawn Care Customers, Pressure Washing, Pricing | No Comments
How much can you make as a solo lawn care business owner? That’s a very good question and one that many new lawn care business owners want to know. Knowing such a number can help you figure out if you are doing well or maybe you need to charge more. One of the Gopher Lawn [...]
September 9th, 2009 | Posted in General Business, Landscaping Business, Lawn Care Business, Lawn Care Customers, Pricing | No Comments
When a lawn care customer calls you and asks for a quote on a new sod installation, there are a bunch of questions that should pop up in your mind before you actually proceed in bidding the job. If you don’t find out first why the current lawn needs to be replaced with new sod, [...]
September 5th, 2009 | Posted in General Business, How to Estimate - Services To Offer, How to Estimate Jobs, Landscaping Business, Lawn Care Business, Pricing, Sod, Sod Cutter | No Comments
There has been quite a bit of talk about offering organic lawn care services on the Gopher Lawn Care Business Forum. From what everyone has been saying, the profit margin on offering the service makes it worth while. Another great point is that you don’t need any sort of chemical applicators license to do this [...]
September 3rd, 2009 | Posted in Back Pack Sprayer, General Business, How to Estimate - Services To Offer, How to Estimate Jobs, Landscaping Business, Lawn Care Business, Lawn Care Customers, Liquid Organic Lawn Spraying, Pricing, lawn care equipment | No Comments