Archive for the 'Mowing' Category
Performing lawn care for a trailer park can differ a little from mowing residential homes. The plots are usually a lot smaller but there is also a lot more trimming than mowing. What’s the best way to price a mobile home bid? Is it even worth it? That is what one member of the Gopher [...]
August 20th, 2010 | Posted in General Business, How to Estimate - Services To Offer, How to Estimate Jobs, Lawn Care Business, Lawn Care Customers, Mowing | No Comments
Finding commercial lawn care bids is not as difficult as you may think. Most times it comes down to picking up the phone and finding who to talk to or simply visiting the establishment and asking a few questions. That is what a member of the Gopher Lawn Care Business Forum did when he found [...]
July 9th, 2010 | Posted in Commercial Customers, Fall Leaf Cleanups, General Business, Hedge Trimming, How to Estimate - Services To Offer, How to Estimate Jobs, How to get, Landscaping Business, Lawn Care Business, Lawn Care Customers, Lawn Mowing, Mowing, Mulch Jobs, Parking Lot Cleanups | No Comments
Every lawn care customer is different and each will have a different view on how well they want their lawn maintained. Some customers will want their lawn to look as nice as possible and require a weekly mowing while others will want a cheaper job and have the lawn cut every two weeks. How should [...]
June 17th, 2010 | Posted in General Business, How to Estimate - Services To Offer, How to Estimate Jobs, Mowing | No Comments
How to price lawn mowing or a yard cleanup seems to be one of the more popular questions asked on the Gopher Lawn Care Business Forum. Many new lawn care business owners tend to be lost with this and understandably so, it can be very difficult to wrap your mind around proper bidding concepts.
To help [...]
April 4th, 2010 | Posted in Fall Leaf Cleanups, General Business, How to Estimate - Services To Offer, How to Estimate Jobs, Landscaping Business, Lawn Care Business, Lawn Mowing, Mowing, Pricing | No Comments
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 [...]
April 2nd, 2010 | Posted in 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 Mowing, Mowing, Operational Costs, Overhead Costs, Podcast, Residential Customers | No Comments
For a lawn care customer, it can be very difficult to envision how their property can be transformed from a bland empty area into a well landscaped masterpiece. That is where you come in. You would be surprised on how many more landscape sales you could make if only you took a moment to see [...]
March 25th, 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, Mowing, Mulch Jobs, Upsells | No Comments
Do you have customers who own properties in your area but live elsewhere? Do they require you to perform additional tasks local customers don’t need? Servicing out of town customers can be more challenging than servicing local customers. Here is a great story that came up on the Gopher Lawn Care Business Forum. If you [...]
March 24th, 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, Mowing | No Comments
Trying to generate positive cash flow is very difficult for any new business early on. Offering many additional services can be a way to prime the pump and get all the gears of your business working. But there is a point that some believe you need to stop offering those additional services that are not [...]
March 20th, 2010 | Posted in General Business, How to Estimate - Services To Offer, How to Estimate Jobs, How to sell, Landscape Project, Landscaping Business, Lawn Care Business, Lawn Mowing, Mowing, Start up, Upsells | No Comments
This was a very novel approach to estimating a commercial lawn care job. I don’t often see this happen but I guess it goes to show you, it never hurts to ask. This is especially true when you are talking to a new client that is switching lawn care service providers. If you take the [...]
March 18th, 2010 | Posted in Commercial Customers, Edging, General Business, How to Estimate - Services To Offer, How to Estimate Jobs, How to sell, Landscaping Business, Lawn Care Business, Lawn Care Customers, Lawn Mowing, Mowing, Operational Costs, Overhead Costs, Pricing, bed edging | No Comments
Jumping from residential lawn care to offering commercial lawn care can be tough on a newer lawn care business owner because you just aren’t used to estimating larger properties. With no example to go by you may greatly underestimate the amount of time it would take you to mow and underestimate the amount you should [...]
March 6th, 2010 | Posted in Commercial Customers, General Business, How to Estimate - Services To Offer, How to Estimate Jobs, Landscaping Business, Lawn Care Business, Lawn Mowing, Mowing | No Comments
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 [...]
February 4th, 2010 | Posted in General Business, How to Estimate - Services To Offer, How to Estimate Jobs, Landscaping Business, Lawn Care Business, Mowing, Pet Waste Removal | 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
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 [...]
December 19th, 2009 | Posted in General Business, How to Estimate - Services To Offer, How to get, Landscaping Business, Lawn Care Business, Lawn Care Customers, Lawn Care Marketing, Lawn Mowing, Marketing, Mowing, Word Of Mouth | No Comments
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 [...]
December 12th, 2009 | Posted in General Business, How to Estimate - Services To Offer, How to Estimate Jobs, Landscaping Business, Lawn Care Business, Lawn Mowing, Mower, Mowing, Overhead Costs, Pricing, lawn care equipment | No Comments
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 [...]
December 8th, 2009 | Posted in Apartment / Condo, Commercial Customers, Edging, General Business, Hedge Trimming, How to Estimate - Services To Offer, How to Estimate Jobs, Landscaping Business, Lawn Care Business, Lawn Care Customers, Lawn Mowing, Mowing, Mulch Jobs, Pricing, Property Management | No Comments
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 [...]
December 7th, 2009 | Posted in Commercial Customers, Door hanger, 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 Care Logo, Lawn Care Marketing, Lawn Mowing, Marketing, Mowing, Residential Customers, Snow plowing, Start up, door to door | No Comments
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 [...]
October 23rd, 2009 | Posted in General Business, How to Estimate - Services To Offer, How to Estimate Jobs, Landscaping Business, Lawn Care Business, Mowing | No Comments
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 [...]
August 28th, 2009 | Posted in Apartment / Condo, Commercial Customers, General Business, Hedge Trimming, How to Estimate - Services To Offer, How to Estimate Jobs, How to get, Irrigation, Landscaping Business, Lawn Care Business, Lawn Care Customers, Lawn Mowing, Mowing, Parking Lot Cleanups, Pricing | No Comments
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 [...]
August 11th, 2009 | Posted in General Business, How to Estimate - Services To Offer, How to Estimate Jobs, Landscaping Business, Lawn Care Business, Lawn Care Customers, Lawn Mowing, Mowing, Overhead Costs | 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
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 [...]
June 11th, 2009 | Posted in Edging, General Business, How to Estimate - Services To Offer, How to Estimate Jobs, Landscaping Business, Lawn Care Business, Mowing | No Comments
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 [...]
June 4th, 2009 | 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, Marketing, Mowing, Residential Customers, Word Of Mouth | No Comments
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 [...]
May 15th, 2009 | Posted in General Business, How to Estimate - Services To Offer, How to Estimate Jobs, Landscaping Business, Lawn Care Business, Mower, Mowing, Mulch Jobs, lawn care equipment | No Comments
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 [...]
May 13th, 2009 | Posted in General Business, GopherHaul, How to Estimate - Services To Offer, How to Estimate Jobs, Landscaping Business, Lawn Care Business, Lawn Care Customers, Mowing, Podcast, Residential Customers | 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
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 [...]
February 3rd, 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 Customers, Lawn Care Estimating Software, Lawn Care Software, Mowing, Mowing Software, Residential Customers, Software | No Comments
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 [...]
February 2nd, 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 Customers, Lawn Care Estimating Software, Lawn Care Software, Mowing, Mowing Software, Software | No Comments
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 [...]
December 10th, 2008 | Posted in General Business, How to Estimate - Services To Offer, How to Estimate Jobs, Lawn Care Business, Lawn Care Customers, Mowing, Pricing | No Comments
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 [...]
November 27th, 2008 | Posted in Business Card, Edging, Free Lawn Care Flyer Template, General Business, How to Estimate - Services To Offer, How to Estimate Jobs, How to get, Lawn Care Business, Lawn Care Customers, Lawn Care Marketing, Marketing, Mowing, Residential Customers, Start up | No Comments