Archive for the 'How to Estimate Jobs' Category

How one lawn care business owner filled his Fall schedule.

Finding work in the Fall and Winter can be more challenging at times than picking up mowing accounts during the Spring. Many lawn care business owners seem to struggle finding customers to service and end up having a rough time when the mowing season slows down. But this doesn’t have to be the case. In [...]

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 make $230 an hour removing moss.

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 [...]

Estimating and invoicing snow plow customers.

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 [...]

The first rule of running a lawn care business.

Many of us over time create a list of rules we try and live by. We create rules for our day to day lives like don’t smoke and always wear your seat belt in a car. We also create rules for our businesses. But there are times, for whatever reason, we break these rules and [...]

Step by step, how to winterize irrigation systems.

As we have seen in the Gopher Lawn Care Busines Forum, there is quite a bit of money to be made when you offer your clients irrigation system winterization services. But it seems a lot of lawn care business owner just don’t offer it because they don’t know how to do it. Well thank to [...]

Performing landscape projects in stages can help sell them.

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, [...]

Sell more landscape services by staying put.

Why travel around so much when you can sell more staying put at the same location. You may not think you are missing out on potential upsells until you read this. One of our Gopher Lawn Care Business Forum members shared with us his view on staying put and making more on upsells. He wrote [...]

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 [...]

Front yard landscape mulch bid example.

Here is a great example of how much a front yard landscape project was estimated. If you are a newer lawn care business, this will help you figure out how much others are charging for such projects. Before you read what the landscaper’s final bill was, try and come up with a price in your [...]

Snow plowing business basics.

As Summer turns to Fall and Fall turns to Winter I am seeing a lot more questions on how to get your snow plowing business started. How do you get customers? What’s better, residential or commercial snow plowing? This is a topic that was brought up on the Gopher Lawn Care Business Forum and I [...]

Hedge trimming job bid example.

I like to point out lawn care business bids when I get the opportunity because I think they are great learning tools. In this example a member of the Gopher Lawn Care Business Forum asked how much he should charge for a job trimming some hedges. Here is what he posted to give you some [...]

Before and after landscape retaining wall construction.

Has your lawn care business experimented with designing landscapes on your computer and then using the design as a sales tool? That’s what one of our forum members did and he landed a retaining wall job by doing it. Let’s take a look into his experience. Maybe this will help you with your future landscape [...]

How to bid a sod removal and install job.

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, [...]

The customer wants you to scalp his lawn?

Have you ever found yourself in a situation where your lawn care customer asks you to do something that you know is no good for their lawn? How do you handle such a situation? Is the customer always right and do you do whatever they ask or will you stand your ground and not perform [...]

Are you offering organic lawn care services?

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 [...]

How to get commercial snow plow accounts.

If you live in an area where you get a lot of snow and are looking to expand your lawn care business into snow removal, you may be thinking how to land commercial snow plow accounts. That was a question brought up on the Gopher Lawn Care Business Forum when a member asked “as part of [...]

Commercial lawn care bid example of an ocean resort.

We all tend to learn best by example so here is a commercial lawn care bid example that was posted on the Gopher Lawn Care Business Forum. If you haven’t gotten into creating lawn care bids for commercial properties, this will at least shed some light on the process.
A member wrote “I tried searching the [...]

How to bid a sod cutting & removal job.

Have you ever found your lawn care business in a situation where you were asked to bid on a sod cutting and removal job, but you weren’t quite sure what was really involved in doing such a job? That is the situation that was brought up on the Gopher Lawn Care Business Forum. One of [...]

Offering animal trapping services to your lawn care customers?

Have you ever considered offering animal trapping services? This is a great topic that came up in the Gopher Lawn Care Business Forum. When you are offering your customers property maintenance, this is a service that could fit right in as an upsell. It could also open more doors to other potential customers who have [...]

Lawn care customers that don’t want to pay sales tax.

Sooner or later when you are running your lawn care business you are going to run into a new client who is going to want to haggle with you and tell you they don’t want to pay sales tax either. How should you deal with such a situation? Should you agree? Should you disagree? Should [...]

When the storm hits, will you be prepared to profit?

When storms come through your area, are you prepared to service your community? Will you be able to remove fallen trees? Board up broken windows? Cover damaged roofs with large tarps? Pump water out of basements? Offer general property clean ups? We had a great discussion on this topic in the Gopher Lawn Care Business [...]

Most asked for pressure washing jobs?

If you are looking to add pressure washing to the list of services your lawn care business offers, you might be interested in knowing which pressure washing jobs are most commonly needed? This was brought up in a discussion on the Gopher Lawn Care Business Forum.
One lawn care business owner asked “I wanted to get [...]

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 [...]

Landscape retaining wall bid example.

I think we all learn better when presented with an example. A lawn care business owner asked a great question on the Gopher Lawn Care Business Forum about how to bid the removal of an old railroad tie retaining wall and replacing it with a new castle stone retaining wall. How long will it [...]

How to get your first commercial lawn care customer.

If you are a newer lawn care business owner who hasn’t made the jump yet to servicing commercial properties, you might be thinking, how do I land my first commercial lawn care bid. This questions seems to come up often and when I hear stories from those who made the leap I love to pass [...]

What’s your minimum price to mow a lawn?

Setting a minimum price to mow a lawn is very important. No matter what the size of the property, you are going to have a certain amount of expenses just to show up to the lawn and lower your landscaping trailer gate. Knowing your expenses can help you determine a minimum price to mow a [...]

lawn care business upsell idea - driveway sealing.

A question I get asked often on the Gopher Lawn Care Business Forum is, what other services can I offer to make more money? I usually have a bunch of ideas to share with them but here is a great idea I hadn’t even considered. One of our members wrote “Yesterday I was out giving  [...]

Organic lawn care advertising sample.

There has been a lot of discussion on offering organic lawn care spraying services, on the Gopher Lawn Care Business Forum and I wanted to share with you an advertisement one of our lawn care business owners used to promote this service.
The products he sprays on the lawns require no license and they work. Make [...]

$300 a year lawn care customer upsell idea.

You never know when your next big idea is going to be right around the corner. Take this idea for instance. One of the members of the Gopher Lawn Care Business Forum had been at a lawn care customer’s home performing some power washing when a light bulb went on in his head and a [...]