Archive for the 'Lawn Care Employees' Category
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
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
Many lawn care business owners I have met on the Gopher Lawn Care Business Forum have found success through a lot of trial and error. Talking about what works and what doesn’t gives us all a chance to move on quickly from what isn’t working to find what is. One lawn care business owner in [...]
March 10th, 2010 | Posted in Bonus Pay, General Business, Landscaping Business, Lawn Care Business, Lawn Care Employees, Overhead Costs, Your First Employee | No Comments
Most lawn care business owners are constantly looking for ways to improve efficiency. Is it more efficient to run a 1, 2 or 3 man crew? Sure everyone will have their own opinion on this but in a discussion on the Gopher Lawn Care Business Forum we got a chance to talk with a business [...]
March 8th, 2010 | Posted in 1 Man Lawn Crew, General Business, Landscaping Business, Lawn Care Business, Lawn Care Employees, Lawn Care Route | No Comments
With anything you want to do in business and in life, there is a good way to do it and a bad way to do it. Even when it comes to advertising for a new lawn care business employee. That’s what we learned in this discussion on the Gopher Lawn Care Business Forum. One of [...]
February 28th, 2010 | Posted in General Business, Landscaping Business, Lawn Care Business, Lawn Care Employees, Your First Employee | 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
Everyone is always looking for ways to save a buck or two. It’s the way of business. There are many cost cutting methods one can employee to keep their expenses in check, but when your lawn care business decides that it’s better to have independent contractors working than it is employees, you better make darn [...]
January 28th, 2010 | Posted in Business Failure, General Business, Landscaping Business, Lawn Care Business, Lawn Care Employees | No Comments
The vast majority of lawn care businesses that exist are solo operations. What I mean by this is that they are a one man show. There are good sides to running your operation like this because it’s easy to get started and you get to keep all the profit. There are downsides too. The big [...]
January 22nd, 2010 | Posted in 1 Man Lawn Crew, Business Plan, General Business, Landscaping Business, Lawn Care Business, Lawn Care Employees, Partnership | No Comments
If you are a lawn care business owner you would probably agree with me when I say no matter where you go there will most likely be heavy competition. This is a discussion we were having on the Gopher Lawn Care Business Forum. Another business owner shared “I feel this is correct. Where I am, [...]
January 10th, 2010 | Posted in Business Plan, General Business, Landscaping Business, Lawn Care Business, Lawn Care Employees, lawn care equipment | No Comments
Running your lawn care business as a one man show has it’s advantages and disadvantages. When it’s only you performing the work and dealing with the customers, you know you are getting the job done and treating the customers the way you want them to be treated. But what about when you grow. When you [...]
November 9th, 2009 | Posted in Customer Retention, General Business, Landscaping Business, Lawn Care Business, Lawn Care Customers, Lawn Care Employees, Your First Employee, training | 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 have trouble coming up with a way to estimate and invoice your snow plow customers? If you do, you’re not alone. Plenty of new businesses get stuck on this but thankfully I got to talk with a snow plow business owner who shared some great advice on how to estimate and bill your [...]
October 26th, 2009 | Posted in General Business, How to Estimate - Services To Offer, How to Estimate Jobs, Invoicing, Landscaping Business, Lawn Care Business, Lawn Care Customers, Lawn Care Employees, Snow plowing | No Comments
I can never get enough of good start up business advice. When ever the opportunity arises, I like to ask successful business owners to share some insight as to how they were able to cross that very difficult mine field from start up business to successful operation. The best answers are never quick two or [...]
October 26th, 2009 | Posted in Business Failure, Debt, General Business, How to get, Landscaping Business, Lawn Care Business, Lawn Care Customers, Lawn Care Employees, Marketing, Overhead Costs, Trailer, Your First Employee, lawn care equipment, training | No Comments
Do you think you have a great business model? Is your model a lot better than others. Do you feel you need more money and resources in order to grow? If so maybe you have considered franchising your lawn care business. But before you go out and start trying to sign people up, you better [...]
October 21st, 2009 | Posted in Debt, General Business, Landscaping Business, Lawn Care Business, Lawn Care Employees, Start up, training | No Comments
Being that a lot of start up lawn care businesses read the Gopher Lawn Care Business Forum, I asked the members what equipment would you suggest purchasing now that you have had some time to see what works well and what doesn’t. What I found was quite interesting and I hope it gets you thinking. [...]
October 20th, 2009 | Posted in General Business, Landscaping Business, Lawn Care Business, Lawn Care Customers, Lawn Care Employees, Mower, Tractor, lawn care equipment, training | No Comments
In a discussion on the Gopher Lawn Care Business Forum, we talked about how breaking landscape projects down into sections can really help you sell larger projects. If the customer knows that at anytime they can say ok this is enough. Or if they feel their budget is shrinking to pay for the landscape project, [...]
October 17th, 2009 | Posted in General Business, How to Estimate - Services To Offer, How to Estimate Jobs, How to get, How to sell, Landscape Project, Landscaping Business, Lawn Care Business, Lawn Care Customers, Lawn Care Employees | No Comments
Have you ever wondered what your closest lawn care business competitor has that you don’t? Is it something you can obtain to get an edge over them? I asked this question on the Gopher Lawn Care Business Forum.
What does your next closest competitor have that your company does not? Or what do they have that [...]
September 2nd, 2009 | Posted in General Business, Landscaping Business, Lawn Care Business, Lawn Care Employees | No Comments
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 [...]
August 18th, 2009 | Posted in General Business, GopherHaul, How to Estimate - Services To Offer, How to Estimate Jobs, Landscaping Business, Lawn Care Business, Lawn Care Business Book, Lawn Care Customers, Lawn Care Employees, Marketing, lawn care equipment | No Comments
The GopherHaul Lawn Care Business School is now online.
If you look above along the brown bar header on the Gopher Forum, you will see a new section added to the forum. Our FREE online lawn care business school.
This FREE course the “Class 1 - Lawn Care Business Operator’s Certificate” is designed to give the new [...]
March 6th, 2009 | Posted in 1 Man Lawn Crew, Bonus Pay, Business Failure, Business Plan, Business loan, Debt, Debt Collection, General Business, How to Estimate - Services To Offer, How to Estimate Jobs, How to sell, Insurance, Landscaping Business, Lawn Care Business, Lawn Care Customers, Lawn Care Employees, Overhead Costs, Pricing, Start up, Your First Employee, lawn care equipment, training | No Comments
Jerry wrote the Gopher Lawn Care Business forum looking for insight into how many lawn care accounts he could possibly service as a one man show. Jerry asked “for the single person crew, how many lawn care contracts are needed to maintain a healthy income. I was thinking 40. My brother-in-law does good on 25 [...]
November 10th, 2008 | Posted in 1 Man Lawn Crew, General Business, How to Estimate - Services To Offer, How to Estimate Jobs, Mowing | No Comments
If you are like most lawn care business owners, you want to see your business grow over time. How are you going to do this though? Do you have a plan? What are your lawn care customer base goals? That is the amount of base customers you want to be servicing weekly.
I asked this question [...]
November 9th, 2008 | Posted in General Business, Lawn Care Business, Lawn Care Customers, Lawn Care Employees, Residential Customers, Uncategorized, Your First Employee | No Comments
When you are starting and running a lawn care business, you might think you have an idea what your customers want and what they don’t care about. From what I have read on the Gopher Lawn Care Business Forum, it seems like the difference between what your lawn care customers want and what you think [...]
November 8th, 2008 | Posted in General Business, Lawn Care Business, Lawn Care Employees, Lawn Care Marketing, Lawn Care Truck & Trailer Signs, Lawn Care Uniform, Marketing, lawn care equipment | No Comments
One of our forum members created a post to show off part of his fleet of lawn care business trucks in this post at the Gopher Lawn Care Business Forum. In the post I had a great opportunity to learn a little about what stops most small lawn care businesses from ever getting themselves up [...]
October 16th, 2008 | Posted in Bonus Pay, General Business, Lawn Care Business, Lawn Care Employees, Lawn Care Truck, lawn care equipment | No Comments
When you are trying to get your lawn care business to grow, think of these 5 simple steps you can easily follow. Join this discussion at the Gopher Lawn Care Business Forum.
Charles wrote “I currently have a lawn mowing only operation, and it’s worked out very well for me. My travel time is very low [...]
October 16th, 2008 | Posted in Door hanger, General Business, How to get, Lawn Care Business, Lawn Care Customers, Lawn Care Employees, Lawn Care Marketing, Marketing, Postcards, Residential Customers, lawn care equipment | No Comments
I had a great conversation with Jeff, a lawn care business owner, at the Gopher Lawn Care Business Forum. You can join in on the conversation as well by clicking that link. He shared with us his insight on how he has been able to grow and what he uses to push himself to get [...]
October 15th, 2008 | Posted in Door hanger, General Business, How to get, Lawn Care Business, Lawn Care Customers, Lawn Care Employees, Lawn Care Marketing, Marketing, Newspaper Ads, Referrals, Residential Customers, Word Of Mouth, door to door | No Comments
We don’t often get a chance to look inside a lawn care business after it fails but there is a lot to learn from the experience. Most of all, we want to know why it failed. What did the owner do or not do that attributed to the demise of his lawn care business? You [...]
October 14th, 2008 | Posted in Business Failure, Business loan, Debt, General Business, Lawn Care Business, Lawn Care Customers, Lawn Care Employees, Lawn Care Marketing, Marketing, Start up | No Comments
What are you training your lawn care employees to do? You can join in on this discussion at the Gopher Lawn Care Business Forum here.
When you hire employees for your lawn care business, they are on the front lines and the impressions they make with the public and your customer base is going to do [...]
October 8th, 2008 | Posted in Commercial Customers, Customer Retention, General Business, How to Estimate - Services To Offer, Lawn Care Customers, Lawn Care Employees, Mowing, Residential Customers, training | No Comments
A great question came up on the Gopher Lawn Care Business Forum, you can join in here.
Q: How many lawns can you cut with a 3 man lawn care crew?
Chuck responded by saying: “I currently run a 3 man crew (myself & 2 helpers). One truck, one trailer, 2 zt’s, 3 trimmers, 3 blowers, [...]
September 24th, 2008 | Posted in General Business, Lawn Care Business, Lawn Care Employees | No Comments
Do you ever wonder how much training your employees should be given? For instance , do they need to be trained on how to change belts? Or is that just something that would be too much for most of them?”
Tim: “All employee’s should be trained on every minor mechanical repair detail you can do in [...]
September 9th, 2008 | Posted in General Business, Lawn Care Employees, Lawn Mower Repair, lawn care equipment, training | No Comments
I thought this business card discussion was very interesting and I thank James for sharing with us some us his insights. He posted his new business cards and they didn’t have a person’s name on them, unlike most normal business cards. I asked James why and got some great insight from him that you might [...]
July 15th, 2008 | Posted in Bonus Pay, General Business, How to Estimate Jobs, Lawn Care Business, Lawn Care Employees | No Comments