Lawn Care Business Marketing Tips - GopherHaul Blog

If you are a lawn care professional there is no doubt you have to deal with customers who have pets and pets who leave a mess on the lawn. No one likes cleaning up after a dog but if the lawn is to be mower, someone has to do it. Should it be you? Should [...]

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 [...]

Actually starting a lawn care business is but a small step in a grand adventure. Immediately as soon as you open the doors, you are going to start having to deal with conflict. Conflict from customers, staff members, equipment and the list goes on and on. If everyday you are operating your business, you can [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

You might read the title of this article and think to yourself, there is no way one can land a commercial lawn care account without having a mower, but this new lawn care business owner did. How did he do it? He knew the right people. But how did he meet the right people? That’s [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

Have you experimented much with your different lawn care procedures? Should you mow first or trim? What about edging first? What saves the most time and makes the lawn look the best that it can? This is a great topic that was brought up on the Gopher Lawn Care Business Forum. Let me share with [...]

Richard posted some great lawn stripe pictures on the Gopher Lawn Care Business Forum and along with the pictures he shared with us many of his secrets on how he gets his lawns to look so great.
Here are some of the questions he was asked. How long does it take to get the lawn to [...]

When you are mowing a customer’s lawn do you mulch the grass clippings or use your mower’s side discharge? That is a question asked on the Gopher Lawn Care Business Forum and I found the results to be very interesting.
One of our members wrote “I have noticed a lot of local lawn care folks are [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

Do you have a hard time figuring out what you should charge to mow a lawn? Are you including your overhead costs when you calculate how much to charge a lawn care customer or are you just winging it? If you want to find profits and find success, you need to be scientific with your [...]

A lot of forum members wanted a copy of the mow time estimator to use on their computer in the field so I put together a downloadable version of the mow time estimator. If you would like a copy of it, I’ll email it to you after purchase.
Many times I see newer lawn care business [...]

I had this great question come in from Joe who is just starting his lawn care business. He was curious on how to bid and about what kind of insurance he needs. Joe wrote “I just am starting my own business in landscaping and lawn care and I was just wondering if you had any [...]

Are we in a rough patch now with our economy? I would say so and it’s most likely going to get worse before it gets better. But you don’t have to be a puppet in someone else’s show. Now is a great time to start your own lawn care business. It’s something you can do [...]

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 [...]

Are you finding yourself trying to compete with fly by night lawn care businesses that advertise they will cut a lawn for $15? Don’t try to compete with them. Any customer who hires such a lawn care business will quickly find out how unreliable they are. You don’t want these cheap customers anyway because they [...]

A lot of times a new lawn care business owner will be working solo and wondering what kind of income can they potentially make? How many lawns can the average solo lawn care business owner service? To get some insight we asked our friend on the Gopher Lawn Care Business Forum to share with us [...]

If you are looking to provide snow plowing services or property management services to home owners, here is a great sample letter you can send out in fall to line up potential customers. Tom wrote on the Gopher Lawn Care Business Forum “I provide property care taking and snow removal service during the non [...]

What’s more profitable for a lawn care business, small or large yards?
This is such a great question and I am glad it was brought up on the Gopher Lawn Care Business Forum. There are down sides and up sides to going each way. For instance, if you service a lot of smaller accounts, no one [...]

Have you ever found yourself cutting lawns and noticing after you cut the lawn, the tips of the grass blades are turning brown? That’s a question posted on the Gopher Lawn Care Business Forum by Frank.
Frank: “I was wondering if anyone can help me out! I’m new fairly new to the commercial end of the [...]

How best to use a mower vac to clean up leaves and how to charge for it. YOu can join in on this discussion at the Gopher Lawn Care Business Forum here.
Jeremy wrote in “I’m planning on purchasing an ultra vac for my exmark zero turn lawn mower to do leaf cleanup, but I’m not [...]

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 [...]

Here is a great question from Ryan that he posted on the Gopher Lawn Care Business Forum. You can join in on the discussions too.
Ryan: “What is the best way to create a lawn care bid for an apartment or condo complex?”
Joel: “Thanks for your question Ryan. This question is one that many have as [...]

James posted a great question on the Gopher Lawn Care Business Forum that you can join in on here. He asked “Is striping lawns a normal service?”
Tom: “I think it depends on where you are. In the south grasses such as bermuda and zoysia do not stripe well at all because of their growth habits [...]