Archive for the 'Overhead Costs' Category
Lawn care business owners are in business to make money. It’s plain and simple. But are there ever times when it is alright to accept a lawn care or landscaping job when you know it won’t be profitable? Are there any upsides to doing this and if so, what are they? That is what one [...]
July 27th, 2010 | Posted in General Business, How to Estimate - Services To Offer, How to Estimate Jobs, Landscaping Business, Lawn Care Business, Lawn Care Customers, Operational Costs, Overhead Costs, Pricing | No Comments
When it comes to running the back office of your lawn care business, where do most lawn care businesses operate this from? Do they run it out of their home or do they buy office space? What about equipment storage? Where do they keep everything at the end of the day? Some lawn care business [...]
July 21st, 2010 | Posted in General Business, Landscaping Business, Lawn Care Business, Overhead Costs, Start up | No Comments
If you have been in the lawn care business for 20 years, you must be doing something right. That is how long a new member of the Gopher Lawn Care Business Forum had been in the business for. I had an opportunity to talk with him and learn some of his secrets that have kept [...]
May 7th, 2010 | Posted in General Business, How to sell, Landscaping Business, Lawn Care Business, Lawn Care Customers, Overhead Costs | No Comments
Going from being an employee to starting your own lawn care business can appear to be a daunting challenge. As an employee you don’t so much have to find the work as you have to do the work. Many of the day to day business issues are dealt with by the business owner. As an [...]
April 14th, 2010 | Posted in General Business, How to get, Landscaping Business, Lawn Care Business, Lawn Care Customers, Marketing, Overhead Costs, Start up | No Comments
There can never be enough discussion on pricing lawn care jobs. At first when you get started, you may eyeball a property and come up with a figure based on a guess, but there are much better ways to do this. As your business is around longer, you will get an idea of what your [...]
April 5th, 2010 | Posted in Business Plan, General Business, Landscaping Business, Lawn Care Business, Operational Costs, Overhead Costs, Pricing, Start up | 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
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
I want to say first off, I am not an accountant nor are any of the forum members who took part in this discussion. We are business owners, sharing with you some of our insight. If something here piques your curiousity, please bring the topic up with your accountant to learn more about it.
As tax [...]
March 17th, 2010 | Posted in General Business, Landscaping Business, Lawn Care Business, Operational Costs, Overhead Costs, Start up, Taxes, lawn care equipment | No Comments
There are many ways to pay for the equipment your business needs. You can buy equipment outright. You can borrow the entire cost of the equipment. Or you can do a combination of the two. That is what a member of the Gopher Lawn Care Business Forum does. It’s a really interesting way to pay [...]
March 15th, 2010 | Posted in General Business, Landscaping Business, Lawn Care Business, Operational Costs, Overhead Costs, lawn care equipment | 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
Is your lawn care business growing and are you finding that your old lawn truck just isn’t performing the way you need it to. This tends to happen to most new lawn care businesses after their first year but usually it’s a bad financial time to be out looking for a new truck. What options [...]
February 18th, 2010 | Posted in General Business, Landscaping Business, Lawn Care Business, Lawn Care Truck, Overhead Costs, lawn care equipment | No Comments
When you first get your lawn care business started you tend to be more desperate for work. You also are unsure of your costs and what you should charge so you tend to waiver a lot on your prices.
Over time as your lawn care business is around longer, you build up more confidence because you [...]
January 19th, 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, Operational Costs, Overhead Costs, Pricing, Start up | 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
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
Depending on how you present your snow plowing bid can have a direct result on if you get hired or not and what kinds of services your customer will sign up for. I asked a member of the Gopher Lawn Care Business Forum about his methods for estimating snow removal services and how he gets [...]
November 23rd, 2009 | Posted in Commercial Customers, General Business, GopherHaul, How to Estimate - Services To Offer, How to Estimate Jobs, How to sell, Landscaping Business, Lawn Care Business, Lawn Care Customers, Overhead Costs, Podcast, Pricing, Snow plowing | No Comments
Are you just getting started offering snow plowing services this year but you are unsure of how to go about it? This situation was discussed on the Gopher Lawn Care Business Forum when a new member wrote “I’m going to be plowing this winter for the first time with my own truck. I don’t know [...]
November 22nd, 2009 | Posted in Estimate or Proposal Form, General Business, How to Estimate - Services To Offer, How to Estimate Jobs, Landscaping Business, Lawn Care Business, Lawn Care Contract, Overhead Costs, Pricing, Snow plowing | 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
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 find yourself in a situation where you are running your lawn care business yet you feel after paying bills, you have no money left for a salary? That is the subject of a question asked on the Gopher Lawn Care Business Forum. A new business owner wrote “I started my biz 2 years [...]
August 29th, 2009 | Posted in Business Plan, General Business, Landscaping Business, Lawn Care Business, Operational Costs, Overhead Costs, Start up | 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
Have you noticed more lawn care business owners in your area starting up? Do you find they tend to try and compete solely on price? Is it difficult for you to make a profit on lawn care when others are offering to cut lawns for $15? If so, here is some great insight from the [...]
July 2nd, 2009 | Posted in General Business, How to Estimate - Services To Offer, How to sell, Landscaping Business, Lawn Care Business, Lawn Care Customers, Lawn Care Website, Marketing, Operational Costs, Overhead Costs, Prepay, Pricing, Residential Customers, Start up, Website | 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
If your lawn care and landscaping business performs snow plowing and is desperately trying to create estimates that bring the same percentage profit on small or large jobs, here is a tool for you. The GopherHaul Snow Plow Estimate Calculator is available for use on your personal computer.
May 2nd, 2009 | Posted in General Business, How to Estimate - Services To Offer, How to Estimate Jobs, Landscaping Business, Lawn Care Business, Operational Costs, Overhead Costs, Pricing, Snow plowing | No Comments
Many times when a new lawn care business gets started, they tend to under price their services. In order to jump start their lawn care business, they figure if they undercut the aver price to mow a lawn, they will quickly fill up their customer base. While this tends to work for an initial jolt, [...]
April 24th, 2009 | Posted in General Business, Landscaping Business, Lawn Care Business, Lawn Care Contract, Lawn Care Customers, Operational Costs, Overhead Costs, Pricing | 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
Starting a lawn care business and getting a bunch of commercial grade equipment can be quite expensive. One of my friends from the Gopher Lawn Care Business Forum wrote and told me how he got out of offering lawn care and now specializes in dog waste disposal. He wrote ” have shot down the lawn [...]
March 15th, 2009 | Posted in General Business, How to Estimate - Services To Offer, How to Estimate Jobs, Landscaping Business, Lawn Care Business, Lawn Care Customers, Operational Costs, Overhead Costs, Pet Waste Removal, lawn care equipment | No Comments
We are always having great lawn care business discussions in the Gopher Lawn Care Business Forum and to miss a day of the latest posts is to miss a chance at reading some real quality information. This discussion started off on the topic of dealing with customers. From that it morphed into a profit markup [...]
March 11th, 2009 | Posted in Business Plan, General Business, How to get, Internet, Landscaping Business, Lawn Care Business, Lawn Care Customers, Marketing, Operational Costs, Overhead Costs, Pricing | 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
With winter here and a lot of people losing their jobs, many are looking for ways to make money and offering snow plowing or snow shovelling services is a great way to get started.
I was contacted by a new lawn care and snow plowing business owner and he asked “I have always wanted to start [...]
February 2nd, 2009 | Posted in General Business, How to Estimate - Services To Offer, How to Estimate Jobs, Lawn Care Business, Lawn Care Customers, Operational Costs, Overhead Costs, Residential Customers, Snow plowing, lawn care equipment | No Comments