Archive for the 'Marketing' Category

How to land commercial lawn care accounts without a mower.

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 [...]

Is the customer always right?

We have a lot of discussions at the Gopher Lawn Care Business Forum on the topic of customers. How best to deal with them. How to attract them and in this discussion, are they always right?
A new lawn care business owner shared with us some of his thoughts on getting his lawn care business going [...]

5 steps to improve your lawn care business sales.

There are those who really take to sales immediately. They tend to be outgoing people, extroverts and they love to talk. For the rest of us, we find sales to be difficult and akward. In order to help you improve your sales techniques a member of the Gopher Lawn Care Business Forum shared with us [...]

How to improve your online lawn care advertising.

Do you find it difficult to create an ad for your online classified advertising? A lot of times you will see a lawn care business post an ad with just very bland text, but thanks to a member of the Gopher Lawn Care Business Forum, you can now download some free graphical templates to edit [...]

Keep busy and drum up lawn care business.

When things are slow and you are looking for an affordable way to drum up lawn care business, why not consider doing what this member of the Gopher Lawn Care Business Forum did. He wrote us and said “don’t waste your time handing out flyers in mailboxes or all that other marketing junk we’ve talked [...]

When your ads don’t work, strong customer relations will.

Finding which lawn care marketing strategy works seems to be a topic of never ending fascination. Everyone seems to be looking for that magic key. Is it flyers? Is it door hangers? If not those two, what else could it be? That is a topic raised at the Gopher Lawn Care Business Forum when one [...]

Tips on how to get your first lawn care customers.

A lot of people are getting laid off now. Some are having thoughts that now is the time to get their business started they always wanted. But this is bringing more competition than ever before for work which leads me to the question at hand. With all these new lawn care businesses getting started, how [...]

Profiting more on upsells than the original job?

When you are out on a potential job site to perform an estimate,  pointing out issues on a home owners property, do you find you are able to make more profit on the upsells either immediately or soon after, once you get the customer to sign up for what they initially called you for?
I would [...]

Advice on generating word of mouth advertising.

A lot of start up businesses really have a hard time generating word of mouth advertising. To help us understand how to do this better, I asked a member of the Gopher Lawn Care Business Forum how he did it.
I asked him, did you find it tough to generate word of mouth initially when you [...]

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 [...]

How to submit $1 million of lawn care estimates in two weeks.

Getting the momentum of a new business going can be very difficult. It can feel like you are trying to move mountains. Sometimes an entrepreneur can become overwhelmed with a sense of impending doom when things don’t happen fast enough. But how does one get things going and potentially get them going fast? It takes [...]

How to get lawn care customers Vol.3

The GopherHaul guide on how to get customers for your landscaping and lawn care business - Volume 3 is now available.
Anyone can start a landscaping or lawn care business but the tricky part is finding customers. This book will show you how.
Coming up with marketing and service ideas to keep busy and profitable all year [...]

Is it email marketing or spamming?

Have you ever been in a situation where you were able to get a hold of a local organization’s email address database and wanted to send out email marketing material to their group? Would that be considered smart marketing or spamming? That is a great question brought up on the Gopher Lawn Care Business Forum. [...]

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 [...]

Lining up Fall & Winter work.

The average lawn care business tends to find things slow down in the Fall and Winter but that doesn’t have to always be the case. You can go out and drum up business if you want it. Let’s look and see how a member of the Gopher Lawn Care Business Forum did this. He wrote [...]

The 11 rules of engagement when going door to door.

Have you thought about going door to door in your area to meet new potential clients and promote your Fall & Winter services to them? Is so, you might be wondering what the best way to go about this is. Are there certain things you should do or shouldn’t do in order to improve your [...]

Should I give Christmas gifts to my lawn care customers?

Giving your lawn care customers a Christmas gift may be a great way to show your appreciation of them and retain them for the next year’s mowing season. But is it really always a good idea? Also what about the type of gift you give? Should you send a holiday card instead? What works best?
That’s [...]

Lawn marketing ideas that didn’t work and some that did.

Every once in a while I like to ask on the Gopher Lawn Care Business Forum, what lawn care marketing ideas have you experimented with? What hasn’t worked and what has. It seems one of the things I have learned from asking this is every time I ask it, I will get different responses! So [...]

A printer shares his business and marketing insights.

Do you ever wish you could ask what your competitors are doing with their marketing? What about business questions to help you find out what makes some businesses successful while others fail? A new member on the Gopher Lawn Care Business Forum shared with us some of his fascinating business insight. You see he is [...]

How to win home owner association lawn jobs.

Trying to crack open customers that live within certain homeowner associations can be tough to do. Especially if the HOA is a gated community. One lawn care business owner figured out a way to get their foot in the door with a interesting marketing tip. They shared with us their lawn care marketing secret on [...]

Should you include a discount in your lawn care marketing?

To discount or not to discount, that is the question. I have seen plenty of arguments going one side to the other on the importance of discounting a teaser service when you are marketing your lawn care business. On the Gopher Lawn Care Business Forum I asked, how important do you feel it is to [...]

Cheap ways to drum up Fall lawn care business.

When mowing season comes to an end, that doesn’t mean it’s time to relax. There is still plenty of work to be done for those who keep busy. One lawn care business owner on the Gopher Lawn Care Business Forum asked “well with mowing season is over, I want to drum up a lot more [...]

How to approach lawn care customers.

As we have seen from many discussions on the Gopher Lawn Care Business Forum, you can’t sit back and wait for lawn care customers to find you. You need to actively go out and seek them. A newer lawn care business owner was warming to this concept when he wrote and asked “ok we have [...]

Turn your truck and trailer into a force multiplier.

In the military they use terms like force multipliers. This term means with a given number of soldiers using certain equipment, they are able to project a larger amount of force than if they didn’t have it. The same term can be applied to the lawn care business. In this discussion we will see how [...]

Mow a neighbor’s lawn and get a new account?

Have you ever been out mowing your customer’s property and looked over at the neighbors to see the lawn could use a cut too? Did you ever decide to cut their lawn? Well a member of the Gopher Lawn Care Business Forum told us a little story about what he has been up to and [...]

Should I combine my lawn care company with another?

You have probably heard the word synergy before. It means the value of the whole is greater than the sum of it’s parts. This holds true in many uses except potentially for this one. A lawn care business owner asked on the Gopher Lawn Care Business Forum if he should consider partnering up with his [...]

Help! My lawn care marketing isn’t working!

It’s one of the most frustrating things to have to deal with as an owner of a small lawn care business, when you spend money on marketing and nothing is working. It can make you feel like you are in a ship that is sinking and no matter what you do to bail the water [...]

Six do’s and don’t for the start up lawn care business.

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 [...]

Cheaper price on lawn care in hopes of future work?

Have you ever been on a site to give a lawn care estimate and sensed there was plenty more work to come your way if you were able to land this account and develop a working relationship with the property owner? Did you take this into account when you gave your estimate price? Was it [...]

Is the Chamber of Commerce irrelevant?

We often talk on the Gopher Lawn Care Business Forum about the importance of social networking. How getting to know other business owners in your area can help your business grow. However what I have noticed is very few lawn care business owners I have talked to are members of their local Chamber of Commerce. [...]