Archive for the 'Operational Costs' Category
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
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
Are you considering starting your own lawn care business but aren’t sure if it’s worth all the hard work? That is what one new entrepreneur was interested in knowing on the Gopher Lawn Care Business Forum when he asked “I am wondering how many accounts can you solo guys average per week? What can one [...]
October 28th, 2009 | Posted in General Business, Landscaping Business, Lawn Care Business, Lawn Care Employees, Operational Costs, Overhead Costs, Start up | No Comments
Do you find yourself in a situation where you are running your lawn care business yet you feel after paying bills, you have no money left for a salary? That is the subject of a question asked on the Gopher Lawn Care Business Forum. A new business owner wrote “I started my biz 2 years [...]
August 29th, 2009 | Posted in Business Plan, General Business, Landscaping Business, Lawn Care Business, Operational Costs, Overhead Costs, Start up | No Comments
Have you noticed more lawn care business owners in your area starting up? Do you find they tend to try and compete solely on price? Is it difficult for you to make a profit on lawn care when others are offering to cut lawns for $15? If so, here is some great insight from the [...]
July 2nd, 2009 | Posted in General Business, How to Estimate - Services To Offer, How to sell, Landscaping Business, Lawn Care Business, Lawn Care Customers, Lawn Care Website, Marketing, Operational Costs, Overhead Costs, Prepay, Pricing, Residential Customers, Start up, Website | No Comments
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 [...]
June 14th, 2009 | Posted in General Business, GopherHaul, How to Estimate - Services To Offer, How to Estimate Jobs, Landscaping Business, Lawn Care Business, Lawn Care Customers, Mower, Mowing, Operational Costs, Overhead Costs, Podcast, lawn care equipment | No Comments
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 [...]
June 12th, 2009 | Posted in Business Card, Estimate or Proposal Form, General Business, GopherHaul, How to Estimate - Services To Offer, How to Estimate Jobs, How to get, Landscaping Business, Lawn Care Business, Lawn Care Customers, Marketing, Mowing, Operational Costs, Overhead Costs, Podcast, Residential Customers, Word Of Mouth | No Comments
If you think by offering to do a landscape project for cheap will make the customer more appreciative, think again. One of our Gopher Lawn Care Business Forum members offered a customer a really good price on two jobs and he found himself running into problems. Here is what he said.
“I’m about to lose my [...]
May 8th, 2009 | Posted in General Business, How to Estimate - Services To Offer, Landscaping Business, Lawn Care Business, Lawn Care Customers, Operational Costs, Residential Customers | No Comments
If your lawn care and landscaping business performs snow plowing and is desperately trying to create estimates that bring the same percentage profit on small or large jobs, here is a tool for you. The GopherHaul Snow Plow Estimate Calculator is available for use on your personal computer.
May 2nd, 2009 | Posted in General Business, How to Estimate - Services To Offer, How to Estimate Jobs, Landscaping Business, Lawn Care Business, Operational Costs, Overhead Costs, Pricing, Snow plowing | No Comments
Many times when a new lawn care business gets started, they tend to under price their services. In order to jump start their lawn care business, they figure if they undercut the aver price to mow a lawn, they will quickly fill up their customer base. While this tends to work for an initial jolt, [...]
April 24th, 2009 | Posted in General Business, Landscaping Business, Lawn Care Business, Lawn Care Contract, Lawn Care Customers, Operational Costs, Overhead Costs, Pricing | No Comments
It’s important to find a niche when you run a business. Some business owners in the green industry focus on cutting lawns, some focus on hardscapes and some on pondscapes! But what if you want to focus on landscape maintenance only? How should you charge for such a service? That is a question put to [...]
April 23rd, 2009 | Posted in General Business, How to Estimate - Services To Offer, How to Estimate Jobs, Landscape Project, Landscaping Business, Lawn Care Business, Lawn Care Customers, Mowing, Mulch Jobs, Operational Costs, Overhead Costs, Pricing | No Comments
The Lawn Care Marketing Return on Investment Calculator is now available for use on your desktop. If you liked using it online, here is your chance to now own it and use it without needing your internet connection. The great thing about this investment calculator is that it will help you figure out if your [...]
April 16th, 2009 | Posted in Estimation Software, General Business, How to Estimate - Services To Offer, How to Estimate Jobs, Landscaper Software, Landscaping Business, Landscaping Business Software, Landscaping Estimate Software, Landscaping Software, Lawn Care Business, Lawn Care Business Software, Lawn Care Estimating Software, Lawn Care Software, Marketing, Mowing Software, Operational Costs, Software | No Comments
Starting a lawn care business and getting a bunch of commercial grade equipment can be quite expensive. One of my friends from the Gopher Lawn Care Business Forum wrote and told me how he got out of offering lawn care and now specializes in dog waste disposal. He wrote ” have shot down the lawn [...]
March 15th, 2009 | 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, Pet Waste Removal, lawn care equipment | No Comments
We are always having great lawn care business discussions in the Gopher Lawn Care Business Forum and to miss a day of the latest posts is to miss a chance at reading some real quality information. This discussion started off on the topic of dealing with customers. From that it morphed into a profit markup [...]
March 11th, 2009 | Posted in Business Plan, General Business, How to get, Internet, Landscaping Business, Lawn Care Business, Lawn Care Customers, Marketing, Operational Costs, Overhead Costs, Pricing | No Comments
With winter here and a lot of people losing their jobs, many are looking for ways to make money and offering snow plowing or snow shovelling services is a great way to get started.
I was contacted by a new lawn care and snow plowing business owner and he asked “I have always wanted to start [...]
February 2nd, 2009 | Posted in General Business, How to Estimate - Services To Offer, How to Estimate Jobs, Lawn Care Business, Lawn Care Customers, Operational Costs, Overhead Costs, Residential Customers, Snow plowing, lawn care equipment | No Comments
Your lawn care business needs to charge more. Check out this discussion I had with a lawn care business owner who just recently restarted his lawn care business after having to previously shut his doors because he was lowballing and not charging his lawn care customers enough.
Ernie wrote “Hey guys you probably remember me “Ernis [...]
January 23rd, 2009 | Posted in Business Failure, General Business, Lawn Care Business, Lawn Care Customers, Operational Costs, Start up | No Comments
How much do you charge to perform lawn care service? This has got to be one of the most common questions I have seen appear on the GopherHaul Lawn Care Business Forum. It is a very important question too. If you don’t know how much the average lawn care business owner is charging for standard [...]
January 17th, 2009 | Posted in Estimation Software, General Business, GopherHaul, How to Estimate - Services To Offer, How to Estimate Jobs, Landscaper Software, Landscaping Business Software, Landscaping Estimate Software, Landscaping Software, Lawn Care Business, Lawn Care Business Software, Lawn Care Customers, Lawn Care Estimating Software, Lawn Care Software, Mowing Software, Operational Costs, Podcast, Software | No Comments
With the GopherHaul lawn care business software online estimator, you are empowered. In this discussion I will show you how to enter your overhead costs of running your lawn care business so you can create a lawn care estimate which will provide you with a % of profit you desire.
We often talk about how little [...]
January 12th, 2009 | Posted in Estimation Software, General Business, How to Estimate - Services To Offer, How to Estimate Jobs, Landscaper Software, Landscaping Business Software, Landscaping Estimate Software, Landscaping Software, Lawn Care Business Software, Lawn Care Estimating Software, Lawn Care Software, Mowing Software, Operational Costs, Overhead Costs, Software | No Comments
I am lucky enough to interact with many new lawn care business owners who are just getting started. Most of the time they seem to ask two questions. How do I get commercial accounts and how do I figure out how much to charge to mow a lawn. Let’s look at this example.
January 8th, 2009 | Posted in Commercial Customers, General Business, How to Estimate - Services To Offer, How to Estimate Jobs, Lawn Care Business, Lawn Care Customers, Operational Costs, Residential Customers, Start up | No Comments
Trying to figure out how much to charge for snow plowing can be pretty tough. If you charge too much, you won’t get any jobs. If you charge too little you won’t make any profit. Now it is important to keep in mind what the going rate for snow plowing services is in your area [...]
December 20th, 2008 | Posted in General Business, GopherHaul, How to Estimate - Services To Offer, How to Estimate Jobs, Lawn Care Business, Operational Costs, Overhead Costs, Podcast, Snow plowing | No Comments
Before you spend a dime on any landscaping or lawn care marketing make sure you play with the figures before you enact your plan. Use this new Lawn Care Marketing Return On Investment calculator to see how much money your marketing campaign will bring you, before you go through with it. You never know, you [...]
December 17th, 2008 | Posted in Commercial Customers, General Business, GopherHaul, How to get, Lawn Care Marketing, Marketing, Operational Costs, Podcast, Residential Customers, Video | No Comments
When you are trying to estimate a lawn care job, you need to know which equipment you will be using and how much it costs you to operate that equipment per hour. These calculations will give you a bare bones figure. You might also want to include the lifespan of each piece of equipment, by [...]
November 10th, 2008 | Posted in General Business, How to Estimate - Services To Offer, How to Estimate Jobs, Lawn Care Business, Operational Costs, lawn care equipment | No Comments