Archive for the 'GopherHaul' Category

Excited, unsure, too much, not ready, all mixed together!!!

What would you do if you received a phone call from a local landscaping company and they offered to give you all their lawn care customers? Would you find this to be a curse or a blessing? At first glance it may seem like a fantastic opportunity to jump on, however there are many issues [...]

How a few calls landed some big jobs.

A great way to get jobs is to keep your eyes open when you are out driving around town. If you see a site that seems like it could use your services, don’t wait for the land owner to come to you, go to them. That is exactly what this lawn care business owner did [...]

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 [...]

What should you do with your tax refund?

If you paid more taxes last year than you owed, you will be getting a refund. Sometimes it’s a little and sometimes it’s a lot. What should you do with this money? Is there anything you can do to help your lawn care business grow from it? That’s a question a member of the Gopher [...]

Worst lawn care customer.

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 [...]

The biggest mistakes made by lawn care contractors.

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 [...]

Lawn care packages help you sell more.

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 [...]

Two simple keys to success in the lawn care industry.

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 [...]

Telling lawn care customers your hourly rate.

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 [...]

How to upsell snow removal services.

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 [...]

How to get lawn care customers Vol.3

The GopherHaul guide on how to get customers for your landscaping and lawn care business - Volume 3 is now available.
Anyone can start a landscaping or lawn care business but the tricky part is finding customers. This book will show you how.
Coming up with marketing and service ideas to keep busy and profitable all year [...]

Tips for winning commercial snow plowing accounts.

Have you had difficulties landing commercial snow plowing accounts? It can be difficult to break through a companies layer of insulation before you get to the person in charge of making such decisions. Persistance seems to be a big part of the key to success. Let’s look into this discussion that took place on the [...]

How to win home owner association lawn jobs.

Trying to crack open customers that live within certain homeowner associations can be tough to do. Especially if the HOA is a gated community. One lawn care business owner figured out a way to get their foot in the door with a interesting marketing tip. They shared with us their lawn care marketing secret on [...]

How to speed up leaf collection.

When the leaves fall and you are hired to clean them up, a lot of times you are not only fighting with trying to collect wet leaves but with wind! How do you collect the leaves when the wind is blowing them all over? That is a question asked on the Gopher Lawn Care Business [...]

How to win over a property manager.

This is a very interesting topic. Lawn care business owners are always looking for ways to land commercial lawn care bids. But what’s the best way to do it? There are many ways to go about getting close with property managers to win bids but there is nothing like hearing the inside scoop straight from [...]

Being on site longer improves your chances of selling more.

With many small lawn care businesses, the owners tend to feel there is more money when you get in and get out fast. However as we will see in this discussion, offering more services than simply lawn mowing can help you be on the job site longer. The longer you are on the job site, [...]

GopherHaul Extreme Lawn Care Business Tips. New Book!

Here is my latest lawn care business book.
GopherHaul Extreme Lawn Care Business Tips. - Unfiltered, unedited, and a little rough. A collection of landscaping & lawn care business lessons.
A collection of landscaping & lawn care business lessons I’ve learned along the way. I see so many new lawn care businesses get started only to fail [...]

The fear of getting too many lawn care customers.

Fear is an interesting topic. It is amazing how the fears we have can effect how we see the world and what we do in the world. A member of the Gopher Lawn Care Business Forum brought up a great topic that has popped up in the past, leading me to think many lawn care [...]

Lawn Care Business Insurance Basics.

Understanding what insurance you need when you are just starting your lawn care business can be quite overwhelming. I have been able to have a few discussions on landscape contractor insurance over the years to help you understand the topic better. In this most recent discussion I had an opportunity to talk with an insurance [...]

Napkin dispenser lawn care marketing idea.

I just love the creative marketing ideas that get posted on the Gopher Lawn Care Business Forum. There are so many ideas posted, you will never run out of ways to promote yourself. Let’s talk about the latest great idea. One of our members shared with us a story on how he uses napkin dispensers [...]

Making the most of potential lawn care business upsells?

How often are you performing a service on a customer’s property when you see a problem that you feel you could fix? Do you mention this problem to the customer? If not, why not? Offering basic weekly mowing services is a great way to open the lines of communication with a customer that can lead [...]

Lawn care customer sales funnel.

Have you spent much time thinking about your lawn care customer sales funnel? Many newer lawn care businesses don’t think about this so I thought it would be a good idea to bring it to their attention.
What is a sales funnel? Well think of it as a big scoop. You want to go out there [...]

How to charge bi-weekly lawn care customers.

When a lawn care customer decides mid-season they want to save money and only have you mow their property every other week, how should you handle this or even bill this? This was a dilemma that was presented to the members of the Gopher Lawn Care Business Forum. The member wrote “I’ve had this weekly [...]

How a new lawn care business owner went from 3 to 20 customers in 3 months.

Nothing helps us learn how to be successful than to hear stories from those who have found success and then ask them how they did it. A new lawn care business owner shared with us his story on the Gopher Lawn Care Business Forum on how he went from 3 to 20 lawn care customers [...]

Would you go with the name B.S. Lawn Care?

Here is a really interesting question that was posted on the Gopher Lawn Care Business Forum. One of our friends wrote in and he had this idea for his new lawn care business name. His name is Brian S. and he was asking “What do you guys think about naming the business B.S. Lawn Care???? [...]

Stick to your landscaping bid or pass?

When you are out and about giving new landscaping estimates to customers, when should you stick with your bid price and when should you pass the job on to someone else? This is a great topic and it was brought up on the Gopher Lawn Care Business Forum by our friend Tom. He wrote “I [...]

Walk the lawn before you bid or this might happen.

With the advent of google maps and other similar services, your lawn care business might feel more inclined now to pull up an overhead map of a new customers home to review their yard. Once you calculate the dimensions of the property, you may even feel compelled to give the new lawn care customer a [...]

Lawn care t-shirt idea that will get attention.

Creating a catchy idea or phrase to stand out with your lawn care business can be very difficult. Unless you are doing creative thinking everyday, when you need to be creative it can be tough to pull these ideas out of nothing. This leads me to a question Kurtis wrote on the Gopher Lawn Care [...]

Lawn care business postcard distribution tips.

When you are thinking about marketing your lawn care business, why not consider using postcards? That’s what one of our forum members did and he has been getting great results. He wrote “Hey, I just wanted to share with you my new oversized postcards. I am very happy with them and have been getting great [...]

Lawn care business website search engine optimization tip.

Did you know you can appear on google’s search engine even if you don’t have a website? And if you have a lawn care website, here is a tip that you really need to take advantage of. The best part about all of this, is that it’s FREE. It’s amazing what you can learn when [...]