I got the latest version of LawnMail up on the Gopher Lawn Care Business Forum for you to download. This package of web code is jam packed with problem solving features.

First off, what is LawnMail? Basically it is a website platform that allows your lawn care customers to have more interaction with you.

• Your customers can fill out your online estimate form.
• They can log in and check their balance.
• You can review these incoming estimates.
• Add, edit, or delete customers.
• Change seasonal themed website templates to give your site a constantly fresh look.
• Add or remove webpages that are stored on your database.
• Plus much more.

Why try and create your own lawn care website from scratch? Why try to figure out how to get your website to interact with a database. I put all of this together for you. Download the LawnMail code and experiment with it. The best part is that it’s FREE! All of your database information is stored on your web server.

Here are some photos to give you more insight.

LawnMail Admin options page

LawnMail customer log in page

LawnMail review customers page

LawnMail easily change seasonal themes

If you haven’t gotten the phone call yet, you will. Soon your phone will ring and on the other end will be a salesman telling you about the wonderful marketing opportunities to be had with their mail-pak style mailers. You will hear these grand figures, reach 10,000 families in your area. It will only cost you $X amount of dollars. That’s only pennies per household!

After hearing this, oh boy, you may find your heart racing as you calculate how many lawn care customers you could land from such a mailing. Then you will start crunching the numbers to figure out how much it would cost you to do a mailing yourself and when you come to your conclusion, you will figure this will save you money.

There are some thing to consider before you jump in. First off, how many of these mailers are being sent to qualified potential customers? Meaning do they own a home or are they living in an apartment? How many other lawn care businesses will be stuff in these packs with offers of dirt cheap lawn care? And there are more issues. This is a topic we discussed on the Gopher Lawn Care Business Forum.

One member wrote “I looked into direct mail marketing and decided against it. The average response rate for direct marketing is about 1-2% if you are lucky. If I send out 100 in a mailing that I do myself, my postage alone would be hundreds of dollars, not counting the envelope and flyer printing costs. If I get only 1 response I would be in the hole until I took in about $1,000.00 (my marketing costs + labor costs + overhead).

I feel a more direct - talk to the people approach is much more economical. For $1,000.00 I can talk directly to a lot of potential customers.”

From discussions we have had in the past, if you want to experiment with direct mail you should consider a mailing list of 1,000 to 1,500 addresses to allow you the potential of getting some response without breaking the bank.

Direct mail may be more useful when you have more money than time. However when you have more time than money, you want to leverage your time instead.

But there are many options to go with depending on your situation. Did you consider things like the mailer pak style mailers? Or their equivalent?

“The mailer packs are more cost effective if you look strictly at costs, but how much of a return are you going to get on your marketing dollar? I still think I can put my business card directly in the hand of a prospect for much, much less. This way I meet the prospect eye to eye.

I get the mailer packs all the time and basically ignore them. My wife, on the other hand digests them. She however thinks it’s my job to take care of the yard and discards it. The mailer pack ads aren’t seen by the person it would benefit, the home owner cutting the lawn!

When I hand out a business card and flyer, they go to the person who would benefit most. How he handles his ’significant other’ is another story. In person, I can start a dialog, a mailer doesn’t!”

Another lawn care business owner said “there are too many of what I call trunk slammers starting lawn care businesses in my area. They offer to mow lawns for nothing. They have no knowledge of what they are doing and what happens is customers will see in a few months the quality of the work and then look elsewhere.

To prove my point, the other day I was informed there are 5 landscaping companies in one of my local communities. Out of that 5, four do poor quality work, one is too expensive and too busy. The guys that I compete with in the city don’t bother with this area for some reason, probably transportation costs.

So I ran a small ad in a local community newspaper that cost around $17.00. From that I received over 160 emails or calls. I am tracking everything and I am landing the business. A lot of it is fixing mistakes other landscapers did. Some is digging rocks out but mainly drainage pipe that either wasn’t installed or it wasn’t installed right. People are seeing my name on the equipment and word sure travels fast in a small area.”

What great information. Knowing this, you might want to consider placing an ad in your local paper with a catchy header like ‘We Fix $10 mowing Jobs.’ There might be a lot of readers who hired cheap and now wish they didn’t. The low costs of these newspaper ads allow you to experiment more and quickly change them based on the responses you get. So keep experimenting with your lawn care marketing.

We all like to know what works and what doesn’t when it comes to lawn care marketing. By reading such stories on the topic, we hope to cut out those marketing ideas that are ineffective. What amazes me about all the stories we see on the Gopher Lawn Care Business Forum, it’s amazing how one theme seems to ring true time and time again. Let’s take a look at some marketing ideas a lawn care business owner shared with us.

He wrote “As far as what has worked or hasn’t in gaining new lawn care customers:

1. Leaving flyers on cars at Home Depot - hasn’t worked.
2. Leaving flyers at business’s on Sunday, when they are closed - no.
3. Direct contact with business’s when they are open - not so much.
4. Newspaper ads in the local paper alongside the other bazillion lawncare companys out there doing the same thing - nope ( and I’m $40.00 poorer ).
5. E-mailing local Real Estate Agents with my company info - a waste of time.
6. Providing excellent service and going the extra mile for existing customers and getting referrals from them - JACKPOT !
( it’s a slow process, but it’s effective )”

Isn’t it interesting how the part about providing excellent service seems to be the key issue. Notice he points out that it is a slow process. I think this is why other lawn care business owners tend to look for quick fixes. The answer to a healthy business seems to be found in slow steady growth instead of quick jolt growth.

I then asked him, what kinds of services he offers in the slow months to keep revenue coming in.

“As far as winter services go….
I try to sell whatever I can and charge an hourly fee.

• cleaning gutters
• irrigation system maintenance and alterations
• repair gates and fences
• clean-up services to our “Basic” service customers
• Fall fertilizer apps.
• Mulch installation and misc. services to our Snowbirds
• Pressure-washing the summer mold from walkways and driveways
• Fall tree trimming ( Crepe Myrtles mostly)
• Sod installation in bare spots and damaged areas
• We even helped an elderly couple on our route move furniture the other day.

Right now we are running a 2 man crew, sometimes 3. Very rarely are we in and out of a property in less than 45 minutes to an hour. Most of our customers are “Standard” service customers, meaning - they get the full treatment every week which includes: mow,edge,blow,trim,prune,weed removal and whatever ‘other’ tasks they have on their list, which we charge additional by the hour for.

Our “Standard Service” minimum is $125.00 monthly Residential
Our “Basic Service” minimum is $80.00 monthly Residential
We try to tailor a plan around the individual customer wants and needs.”

That is very interesting. How should a lawn care business owner come up with their own packages and how do you feel having these packages helps you sell your service?

“As far as creating lawn care service packages, I consider it just good salesmanship. I learned along time ago while selling retail products, if you can provide a potential customer with well defined choices that will satisfy his needs, then the only thing left needed to close the sale is for him to decide which of your products he will purchase, not if he will purchase your products.
Does that make sense?

The catch is, you have to be able to listen closely to what a potential customer is saying and genuinely try to help him solve his problem. I think that’s where product knowledge and experience in whatever business endeavor you are involved in is so important.

As an example:

Your potential customer shows you where areas of his yard are yellow and dying. If you misidentify the problem and tell him to *up* the watering time on his irrigation when its really a bug or disease problem, then you haven’t done him any service at all, and in a few weeks when the problem persists, you will have to explain why your solution didn’t work. Then you will have to suggest some other remedy (that may not work). Your credibility as a lawn care professional will suffer and you may potentially lose him as a customer. Or, you won’t be considered to perform any tasks beyond just mowin’ the grass.

I personally don’t want to be known only as ‘that guy that only mows grass.’ Expand your knowledge and horizons. As you do, you will be able to sell more.”

Nothing gets under your skin more than showing up to mow a lawn and maintain a property only to meet the customer and have them tell you to come back next week. When a customer postpones lawn service, it not only messes up your schedule, but it costs you money.

What can you do about this though? It seems inevitably a certain % of your lawn care customer base will think it is perfectly ok to not give you a heads up. That is the problem a member of the Gopher Lawn Care Business Forum was dealing with when he wrote

“My area has been experiencing a drought for the past few weeks. How should I handle lawn care customers who wait until we arrive at their home to mow, before they tell us they don’t want the service now?”

One lawn care business owner said “if they want to wave you off from mowing their lawn, can you ask them If there is anything else that they may need done? Can you trim their bushes and shrubs? Blow off their sidewalks, rake out their flower beds, etc. Try to do as many things as you can to make up for the lost revenue.”

Another lawn care business owner shared with us a lawn care customer letter he crafted for such a situation. He calls this his postponement letter. In it he wrote:

Dear Valued Customer,

With the peak of Summer upon us, and rain in short supply, you may be considering postponing your scheduled service for a week or so. If this is the case, please call us at least two days prior to your scheduled service date. Our schedules are normally tight and this will allow us to make adjustments to account for the change. With the rising cost of fuel and service personnel, we must begin charging a flat fee of $20.00 to offset expenses if we are not properly notified of your request to postpone.

Since our schedule is planned weeks in advance, we may not be able to service your lawn before your next scheduled service date. If you request, and we are able to provide, an off-schedule service, the charge will be your normal service rate plus 10%.

As always, we strive to give great service at competitive prices and hope to do business with you for years to come. If you have any questions, feel free to call us any time.

Maybe one or a mixture of these options will help you better deal with customers in the future that wait until you show up to postpone service. Always try to make the best of each situation and find a way to keep it from costing you money.

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 it be the customer? Or will you simply mow over it?

This is an issue that was brought up on the Gopher Lawn Care Business Forum when a member asked “I am sure that I am not the only landscaper with some customers that have no disregard for cleaning up after their dogs. What do you guys do?

I know I can put it in the lawn care contract to have the yard clean prior to our arrival but they will either ignore it or just drop us. Any pointers? There are some things I don’t mind but I have been in some yards that are loaded with land mines, and it just messes up your equipment as well as the quality of your service.

During mid summer I was so sick of it that I was thinking of adding like $5 to every lawn with dog crap and hiring someone just to pick it up for me. We then have to spend like 10 minutes banging off boots and making sure no one tracks it into the truck. I hate when it gets into the tires tread but a lot of times I can clean it off with the customers hose. The absolute worst was one day this past season, one of my guys was on a weed wacker and didn’t see a dog pile until it was too late. It exploded on him like confetti. It’s a good thing we weren’t too far from home. I had to take him home to change his clothes. I think that was the main turning point and I knew that I had to do something about this problem.”

Another lawn care business owner explained his policy that has been crafted from years of experience. He answered “I have notes about surcharges for this in my lawn care agreement forms. I also ask when I arrive to do the estimates if they have dogs? How many & do you clean up after them? If the answer to the last question is no, not really, or they look at ya funny & think for a minute before answering yes add a couple bucks per service for cleaning the dog crap off your tires & dealing with the stink in your trailer.

If I include it in the estimate, I don’t surcharge them on top of it. Just having it on my paper work seems to be motivation enough. I have clients who see me pull up & come running out with a bucket & shovel to avoid being charged. I have rarely had to impose this fee but if the “crap” gets out of control I can. I’m sure I’ve lost one or 2 estimates because of my up front approach about it but I don’t care. Look the customer in the eye & make a light hearted joke about it. Maybe say something like ‘hey, if you had to deal with extra crap at your job you’d expect to be compensated right?’ That kinda makes fun of the situation but gets the point across.

My lawn care contract reads like this:

Premium turf maintenance package to include mowing, trimming, edging, blow off all concrete areas. (fee per service) $_____________
Doggy Patrol : If animals are kept on the property, $3.00 will be charged per visit, per dog kept. This charge will
Apply anytime the yard is left soiled. The fee is to cover the costs & time associated with equipment clean up. $____________

Total per service fee $____________”

I like that. I think if I was a customer and I had the options to pay for dog clean up service like that, I would be happy with it. I know a lot of pet owners and they don’t like cleaning up after their dog. If they can spend a few bucks a week to have it taken care of, then why not! I almost fee like the $3.00 per dog is cheap! I think it is a good deal for the consumer. How do most of the customers respond to it?

“That’s a good point. At first I was going to charge for cleaning the yard, but the bottom line is I don’t wanna be hauling a bucket of dog crap in the truck or trailer around all day. I charge for having to clean up the equipment. I still ain’t gonna pick the crap up though. It’s their crap, they can step in it too, so I’ll leave it for them.”

Here are some Spring lawn care marketing ideas in both flyer and postcard format. I think they are all very creative and should hopefuly inspire you when you are working on your lawn care marketing material.

They all play up the selling point of taking your weekends off. You can read more on this at the Gopher Lawn Care Business Forum.

Here is a lawn care flyer design.

Lawn care flyer example

Another member wrote” I like the idea of trying to get the lawn care customer to think that his/her weekend time should be spent doing other things than lawn work. I had a couple of requests for lawn care postcards along the same idea, just using different wording, but the same concept none the less. The two ideas are below.”

Lawn care post card example 1

Lawn care post card example 2

There is nothing like the feeling of running your own business and being an entrepreneur. You are in charge! You are calling the shots! It’s up to you to make it work! But sometimes, the realities of it are that you get burnt out. You take on too many responsibilities. You don’t delegate enough to others. The mounting weight and pressure can ultimately collapse ontop of you and then you may consider the thought of selling your lawn care business. But as we will see in this discussion, before you do it, you better think hard about it. The answer may not be in selling your business but in finding better ways to manage it so you find the love again for running your business. If we don’t wake up everyday feeling pumped about the new day and our business, something is wrong.

A member of the Gopher Lawn Care Business Forum wrote “After the terror attacks on the World Trade center on 9/11, I lost my job and decided NOT to go back to corporate America. I started a lawn care business from nothing and worked it well. It was primarily focused on servicing residential accounts. At one time I had 50 accounts. But I had problems hiring good people. So I then decided to trim the fat and the headache customers and keep it to a managebable 30 lawn care accounts. But these lawn care accounts wanted everything all year round, so that was good.

I loved the lawn care business, the people, the flexability, and my time. I also coached at the local high school. Life was great, but it became physically exhausting. That is when I made a huge mistake of selling it. I sold my lawn care business to a local competitor who ended up pissing off half the customer base almost immediately and lost the accounts.

Now I find myself back where I started after finding myself unemployed yet again. But I will learn from my past mistakes. I am starting a new lawn care business with neighbor accounts who want me back and plan to go full throttle into the new year. My business motto is simple, bust your *** for people. Make smart purchase decisions, be professional, courteous and try to be everything to each landscaping account. Offer other stuff in between your schedule and by doing this the customer will come to know, love and respect you.”

Can you tell us a little about why you initially decided to sell your business and why you wanted to get back in again? Do you have any advice for others who might find themselves in that spot you found yourself in as you considered selling it?

“I sold everything the first time around because I was offered an opportunity to run operations (desk/office job for a small company). It was local, I had a flexible work schedule and I was just too tired….physically from doing all the lawn care work. My child was getting older and I didn’t need to be so close to home all the time and play the part of Mr. Mom who ran his own business! I was also able to continue to coach part-time which is also a passion.

Why am I going back? A lot of my old lawn care customers inquired as to what I was doing. The guy who purchased the landscaping business lost most of the accounts. I’m now unemployed and I enjoy being my own boss. I feel like I am good at it and I truly enjoy caring for a persons’ most prized asset, their home.

What advice do I have for others? Be very careful who you sell your lawn care business to. I tried to do it right. I knew the owner and his sons. I explained everything to them and let the customers know in writing and face to face. But in the end, the bottom line comes down to, the lawn care business is all about relationships and people are not always as they seem. I established good relationships with my lawn care customers and the guy who purchased my lawn care business just didn’t care about them in the end.”

If a lawn care business owner were looking to buy a customer base from another lawn care business, what advice do you have that would lead to success? What pitfalls should they be careful of?

“Don’t buy lawn accounts from anyone else. They’ll never take care of the accounts the way you do and customer retention is extremely difficult. I sold to a guy who’s been in business for 20+ years, so why didn’t he just grow himself? This should have been a sign to him that something was wrong in the way he operated his business.

If you end up purchasing a landscape account list, do your due diligence. Make sure you get to know the customer, likes, dislikes, walk the properties, review prior billing, and all that.”

Here is a great question that came up on the Gopher Lawn Care Business Forum. Should you be looking to seal the deal everytime you go out for an estimate? One lawn care business owner initially seemed to be so focused on doing this at all costs, including his profits.

He wrote “I am going to give an estimate to a new lawn care customer that was referred to me from a current customer. I heard he is also going to get an estimate from from one of the big nationwide franchise lawn fertilization companies.

Currently right now what I have been doing, is offering a 15% off any deal a potential customer presents me from their current provider. How I am doing this is in my spare time I drive around, find houses with the lawn treatment signs, and then send them marketing material.

Would it be wise to present this gentleman my flyer with my estimate stating, “Here is my price of the estimate, but if another comes in lower, I will offer 15% off of what they charge.” Sure, yes there might be sometimes of where another company can offer their service price where it is actually lower than mine, which would be like maybe 1% of the time, but you are almost guaranteed the sale every time. Wouldn’t you basically close the sale then every time?

I am just trying to think outside the box. If I am wasting my valuable time giving an estimate, and not closing each sale, why not price it to where I can close it everytime. Can you imagine being able to close an estimate 75 to 80% of the time?”

One lawn care business owner shared his experience when he wrote “here’s the problem as I see it. You need to make money for you, not your competitors. So,you need to base your prices on what you need to make a living. I’ve seen too many people lose their business because they were trying to meet or beat the competitions prices. I used to work for a company that was utilizing this strategy and they stated they were going to run another competitor out of business. We were losing money on every service we offered in order to beat the competitor’s price. Well, the other company is still making modems when the one I worked for isn’t. I don’t work for them anymore.”

A second lawn care business owner said “here is my point of view. With a price there comes value.
With value there comes a price.

I am the most expensive guy on the block and I have a 95% client retention rate year after year. What I offer my clients is what they pay for and more.

In the past, I had another competing lawn care company go to every one of my clients with an ad stating that they would offer a quote 10% lower then their current provider. I had clients calling me telling me that this company was doing this cutthroat approach. So I asked them why they called and why they would not switch? They said that they expect to pay more for the level of service I provide.

In my opinion you cannot beat your competition on price (most of the time). There needs to be more;

- Quality of work (100%, 100% of the time)
- Value for their money
- On time all of the time
- Trust
- Need to look and act professional

Clients will pay more (and expect to pay more) for higher levels of service.”

So before you decide to get in a price war with a lawn care business competitor, remember you need to make a profit. With no profit, in a short time there will be no business. If you think you can be the lowest price in the area, trust me when I say, there will always be someone out there willing to go lower than you.

If you have been looking for some ideas to create your own lawn care quote card, check out what this Gopher Lawn Care Business Forum member put together and was using to promote his Spring lawn care services.

He wrote “My lawn care marketing plan this year is to visit a few neighborhoods and just write the mowing price on the lawn care quote card and leave it at the door. I am not looking to be the most expensive top notch lawn care operator out there. Instead I’d rather offer an affordable solution to homeowners in my area that don’t have the time or means to care for their own lawns or just need some additional help.

I think by doing this with the quote cards, it may actually show customers that professional lawn care isn’t expensive.

lawn care quote card

I usually try distributing the lawn care quote cards during the day sometime between 10 am and maybe 4 pm. I haven’t done any weekends yet.

I stopped at a Realtor’s office earlier this week and talked to a few of the ladies in the office. We discussed a few ideas on how we could possibly work together in improving their home sales by improving the properties that surround the homes. They were very interested in boosting the curb appeal on their properties. They are finding it difficult now to sell homes and thought the idea of adding a years worth the lawn and yard maintenance was a great idea. They felt it added a lot of value to the property at little cost to the seller. As I was leaving they asked for a quote for everything. Cutting, edging, trimming and some landscape work for a rock bed they have around their office building.

I’ve also talked to a few friends in different businesses and just general friends and family as I was passing by the place and they have said my quotes are very competitive for my area, so that helped me feel like I was on target.

The problem I am having is I am not getting any calls. It’s very confusing. I feel like I am missing something. Do you think having an out of state area code on the card could effect calls?”

I think that could play a big role in the success of your lawn care marketing campaign. If your phone number on the card shows an out of state area code, it might cost the home owner more money to call you and they also might feel you are too far away to provide the kind of service they need.

“I wasn’t sure how big of an issue this may be but it could be a big problem. The phone number area code I have been using is an out of state number. I live close to the state line, about 5 minutes away and because of that my area code is different. Could it help if I get a local number or at least one with the area code to the area I am offering lawn care?”

A number of factors may effect the success of your lawn care marketing campaign. Are you handing out enough cards? Quite often we see a response rate of between 1 - 2 % so if you hand out 100 cards, you might get 1 or two return calls.

The time you are distributing the cards might be wrong too! The more you talk to people, the better your chance is of selling them your services. Look at the example you gave us with stopping in at the Realtor’s office. You talked to them for a few and they asked for a bid. That’s the way to do it! Knowing this, you might decide to distribute your cards after dinner or on the weekends when the homeowner is available.

Lastly, if there is even a consideration that your phone number may be turning customers away, you need to change it. Get another cell phone or get one of those internet phone services that forward a number to your current cell phone.

Remove as many obstacles as possible between you and your customers and you will find more success.

A new member of the Gopher Lawn Care Business Forum wrote abut his situation. He had just recently gotten his lawn care business started and was finding there were plenty of things he needed to do in order to go legit. It’s pretty crazy the amount of hoops you gotta jump through to be legit, but in the end it’s worth it.

He wrote “Hi, I am a student that has started a lawn maintenance service a few months back to help myself and other students pay their tuition here in Florida. Our catch phrase is, ‘Let your grass pay for my class!’

Here is a little background on my situation. I have recently come to Florida to study. I had a sponsor that was going to be helping to pay for my tuition etc. Unfortunately he backed out, so I was forced to fend for myself and was liable for my own tuition. I brought a mower and made a few business cards and flyers online. I began handing those out and my lawn care business started growing. Right now it’s myself and few other students earning their way through college by offering lawn maintenance (mowing, trimming, edging etc.)

Here is how I have been bringing in the lawn care customers. I contacted a local property investment company. Due to the current state of the housing market, there are no houses being sold. Because of a high foreclosure rate, there are a high number of vacant properties. I cut a deal with this property investment company to go cut all their inventory for a flat rate. They agreed. Now word of mouth is growing and I find it to be the best form of advertisement and it has been working well. I have also been cutting grass for a few banks as well.

I want to get licensed and insured so I can expand even more, perhaps in franchising out, you never know what tomorrow may bring. How do I go about doing this? I have heard I need a license and a tax receipt. What is the occupational license/tax receipt called that I need? Any information would be greatly appreciated!”

One member responded and said “To operate a lawn care business in the state of Florida, you will need an occupational license (available through your county court house/ building dept / tax office / or online.)

To get this you will need to register a dba (doing business as…. Joe’s Lawn Care dba). If you choose to, you can incorporate instead (INC., LLC.)  A quick search on your local state or county site will have all the forms to fill out. You will also need to look into getting a tax receipt. The form for that will be available on the same site.

For liability insurance you should shop around a bit, look up a local office in the phone book & call around. I have a policy through nationwide for what that’s worth. Dealing with vacant properties increases the chance that you will strike a rock or other object hidden in tall grass. A thrown object can cause damage to person and property.

Another thing to consider is what is the business relationship among you and the other students? If they are doing business under your business name, you should strongly consider having them bonded to add further protection for your business.

Keep up with your tax obligations too. You will need to make quarterly estimated tax payments. Contact a CPA for professional help. For a hundred bucks a CPA will likely set you up with all the forms needed to keep you in line with tax obligations.”

That is fascinating! How did you go about finding out who to contact at the banks and the property investment companies? I am kind of amazed they didn’t require you to have insurance to work for them! How did you get around that?

“That is the really odd part. I haven’t been asked for proof of anything until this morning which is the other reason I’m finding out info on license and insurance. I asked a property wholesaler the same question and he said that it is probably because the bank has so many foreclosed properties, they are basically taking who they can get. So it’s worth a shot if you looking for contracts!

I built a connection with a property manager, by maintaining his lawn, then he involved me with his management properties. Then he got me in contact with this investment company. Basically just persevering and doing the best job you can with what you get. Here is a tip for everyone, contact your local realtors about this because they deal with the banks’ foreclosed properties. Once you make contact you should be able to bid on their properties.”

After some leg work, this lawn care business owner was able to register his business as a dba and told us he got himself an Employee Identification Number as well (EIN). The requirements to start a business can vary from state to state as well as from town to town, so check with your local government to make sure you are complying with all the rules and regulations.

There is a constant flow of new lawn care businesses that get started up every year as there is a constant flow of lawn care businesses that fail. Finding a niche and standing out is very important if you are going to find success. I think we all learn best when presented with examples of this, so here is an example of a lawn care business that has created a theme and a niche.

This new lawn care business owner wrote us on the Gopher Lawn Care Business Forum to tell us a little about his business and where he came up with his unique style. “I am getting ready to start a lawn care business in the Spring. I have come up with my logos and some of my advertisement ideas thanks to this forum and to Steve’s book “The Big Lawn Care Marketing Book“, which I got two days ago and almost finished with. I have attached my logo, and one of my $10 off coupons.

Lawn Care Logo

My company is called Remember When Lawn Care Service. It stands for remembering when old fashioned work ethics, honesty, value and integrity were the norm in America. I elaborate on this in each of my advertising ideas. I hope to win customers and contracts by making people remember what it was like when these values were in place. I plan on giving the customer excellent customer service by doing more than they expect and being personable. If you show the customer that you really care about them and their lawn, then they are more likely to keep you around and tell others about you.

I plan on knocking on doors and handing out business cards and a coupon book for $50 off different service. For this first year, I plan on just mowing, edging, trimming, blowing, and gutter cleaning during the Fall. Next year, I am planning on hitting it big by including landscaping design, organic fertilization, and sprinkler systems.

Even though my name has an older feel, I am using modern equipment.”

I love the concept “Remember When.” Very creative and very unique!

Now since we deal with a lot of lawn care business owners who start up and don’t create a unique selling point as you have, can you tell us a little about where this came from? Have you had marketing experience in the past? What do you think led you to the concept that you had to be different to stand out?

Also can you tell us a little about what you plan on including in the $50 coupon book?

“My business concept came from years of customer service work. I have been in the customer service world all of my life. From managing a grocery store for a couple of years, restaurant management for 5 years and parts store management for 5 years.

It seems that business has become more cut-throat over the years. People have become more lazy. America is no longer a primarily blue-collar country as it used to be. I want to show customers that a company can give personalized customer support as well as a great service at a reasonable price. Just like it used to be years ago.

I am planning on starting out small this year because I work full-time 4 days a week at a job that I cannot just “give up” because of financial responsibilities. I plan on mowing after work every day and on my days off. I am sure I can handle around 15-20 accounts each week.

My coupons are going to be in the “currency” format. In order to get immediate contracts, I plan on offering the first mowing FREE with a signed annual contract. I will then give other coupons for different services.”

Lawn Care Coupon Book

I love the concept and the logo. Simply put, it stands out! I would totally build on this theme. For instance you could create ‘back in time’ specials in your marketing material where you give a discounted price for a certain job. Maybe get some older photos of your town and use them in your marketing material where you could say remember when town hall looked like this? And then show a picture of town hall from the earlier part of the 1900’s. That way when a customer gets the flyer, they will want to hold onto it and show their spouse or their kids the picture as a historical lesson and oh yea by the way ‘do we need lawn service?’ Anything you can do to keep the consumer to hold onto your marketing material for a longer period of time, betters your chances of getting your message across and selling to them.

You could also create a small magnetic fridge calendar that would include different ‘remember when’ photos from around the town and then also have different seasonal coupons. I know I would certainly love to see some older pictures from my area I bet others would as well.

Why not build up a historical section in your website where you could have older photos and collect stories from senior citizens in the area? Why not put together a book on ‘remember when’ : A history of Your Town, IN. You could give historical presentations at the library. You could get free press on this and everyone would learn that you also offer lawn care. You could become the ambassador to all things that used to be good and bring them back! Join your local historical society or start one!

Tie all this in and make it work for you!

Everyone is always looking for ways to save a buck or two. It’s the way of business. There are many cost cutting methods one can employee to keep their expenses in check, but when your lawn care business decides that it’s better to have independent contractors working than it is employees, you better make darn sure they are properly categorized as contractors as defined by the I.R.S. or you are in for a bruising.

Let’s start this off by hearing from an ex-lawn care employee who had enough with his employer and sounded off when he wrote on the Gopher Lawn Care Business Forum “Hi, I have worked for a lawn care company now for going on three years. The lawn care company has always had about 50 or 60 clients and the owner has never done any tax withholding, no benefits, no 1099 form, nothing. I needed a job and I did what I could to survive, that’s why I initially took it.

Now this week the company was sold to the previous owner’s best friend. I am told by the new owner I have until next Friday to sign a 1099 tax form or to find another job. In my eyes I should have had with holdings all of the last 2 years to that I could have drawn unemployment in the winter until I could find more work. This new guy is offering $11/hr on a 1099. I am a professional landscaper and operate their $20,000 equipment to service their clients on their time for their profit while they write me out a puny paycheck in which now I’m getting fired for not accepting to be 1099′ed?

Point blank I am an employee and so is every other lawn care employee in the United States of America that uses the owner’s equipment, gets orders as to when to work, and let the owner receive all the profit sitting on his butt doing zero percent of the work.

This owner is sitting back collecting a check, has his own secretary doing the billing, putting us in plain (no logo) tshirts, trying to set a sales percent in the contract that is capped at 5%, and pay us like dogs while getting these 50 or 60 yards mowed in 30 hours, and only because they’re spread throughout the entire city. He’s also demanding we get him yards that are closer together. This guy wants to have a sweat shop, sit back and eat his cake. I am going into business for myself with a small loan, and do things the right way. Screw the fat pig. I’ll whistle blow him to the I.R.S. in a few weeks when all is said in done.

Please Help Anyone?”

One lawn care business owner responded by saying “As I understand it, for a lawn service to hire a person as a 1099 subcontractor they can tell you basic instructions like what properties to service & what needs to be done either daily or weekly etc. They can not give specific instruction like what order to do the work, when exactly you need to be there etc. The specific instructions make you an employee. As an independent contractor, you must also use your own tools and equipment.

Sounds like the new owner is just looking to cover his butt & be able to claim your labor as an expense in the process. If you go 1099 that’s fine but make sure you set money aside as you will need to pay your taxes. Also as a 1099 subcontractor you may need to carry your own workers comp & liability insurance. If your going to do that, you might as well file the DBA & start your own business, then do his jobs with his equipment, & have him make the checks out to the new company name, all the while building your own customer base.

IF you are a subcontractor & not an employee, he can not tell you not to do work for anyone else. If this bothers him, then he wants to have his cake & eat it too. Life doesn’t work this way either your a sub or your not!? I use a tree company for tall tree jobs as a sub, I can’t tell him not to go trim trees on his own…. same deal. My employees however are just that, & if they wanted to start a business of their own they would be let go.”

As we have seen, some lawn care business owners like the idea of having their employees be categorized as independent contractors. They think this is cheaper for them to do but it’s going to get you into trouble. If you are considering going down this road, read this link on the I.R.S. website Independent Contractor (Self-Employed) or Employee?

From that site “In determining whether the person providing service is an employee or an independent contractor, all information that provides evidence of the degree of control and independence must be considered.

Common Law Rules

Facts that provide evidence of the degree of control and independence fall into three categories:

1. Behavioral: Does the company control or have the right to control what the worker does and how the worker does his or her job?
2. Financial: Are the business aspects of the worker’s job controlled by the payer? (these include things like how worker is paid, whether expenses are reimbursed, who provides tools/supplies, etc.)
3. Type of Relationship: Are there written contracts or employee type benefits (i.e. pension plan, insurance, vacation pay, etc.)? Will the relationship continue and is the work performed a key aspect of the business?”

When this ex-employee contacts the I.R.S. the owner or previous owner is going to owe a lot in back taxes, fines and what ever else they want to tack on. You can be sure it’s going to get ugly. So remember to make sure to categories employees as employees and sub-contractors as sub-contractors. There is a big difference. Read up on this and know what you are doing before you do it.

How do I get new lawn care customers? How can I find more success in the lawn care industry? These are two of the big questions we often see on the Gopher Lawn Care Business Forum. What amazes me is that all too often, business owners are looking for some secret to doing this when in reality it comes down to doing the basics and doing them well. Here are two examples of what it takes to be successful in the lawn care industry.

One lawn care business owner wrote “Everyone on here is asking how to grow their business all the time. We see a lot of the same questions over & over & that’s fine.

You want to know my response? I just want to say this. Guys, set yourself up to both appear & actually run like a professional company. Get some shirts, signage, custom estimate forms & business cards etc. On top of all that DO A GOOD JOB! If the lawn looks like crap when you’re done…. YOU ARE NOT DONE!!!

Yes you need to market your lawn care business & however you do it is fine. Sure there are some ways that will be better than others. But If you do the job right, you won’t lose your existing customer base and as you pick up new ones, your lawn care business will grow. If you do a crap job, you’ll lose them faster than you’ll gain them.

My company has exploded even more this year. It was a lot of work, but now I have a lot of work because of it. My client list is easily twice what it was 8 months ago. I am now at almost 200 clients. I think I only lost 2 (per cut) clients this season & that was because they moved out of their homes & didn’t need me anymore.

Things are good, Getting better & this off season looks much more promising than last winter did going into it.

Remember, you are the boss, so do your job and do it well!”

Another successful lawn care business owner shared “I agree 100%. Here is an example. Just the other day, I put in a sod bid for a lady who lives in an upper class area. I not only put in the bid but as I walked around the property with her I explained every thing from why her bougainvilla wasn’t flowering to the stress points caused by the mower. Within 30 days I’ve gotten 4 bids from her word of mouth. Out of those I landed 3 of those jobs. The two kickers are that I haven’t even done any work for her yet and it turns out that she’s the lady that has to aprove all new landscaping in her home owner’s association.

So every time someone ask her about having some landscape work done, she gives them my name. I’m also working on getting all the maintanance work because their guy just isn’t good enough. If I get 4 of those houses at $150.00 each month year round. That is 8.6 hours a month for $600.00. All because I market myself and my knowledge.”

So keep those two simple things in mind when you are trying to grow. Know your business and do good work. Keep them coming back for more!

If you keep your feelers out there listening to what’s going on in your area, every once in a while you will hear of a lawn care company that wants to sell their customer base for what ever reason. It might sound like a sweet deal at first or maybe the lawn care business owner is asking too much for the contract. Before you go jumping in head first on such a deal, what are some of the things you should be considering? This is a topic that came up on the Gopher Lawn Care Business Forum.

A lawn care business owner wrote “I’m looking at purchasing a lawn care maintenance contract from a landscaper. It’s a commercial property that has a minimum income of $1000/month. The contract made $10,200 last year. He has it listed at $5,000 which seems quite expensive to me, but I have never purchased an existing contract before. What would you pay?

The lawn care contract is for 1 client. The job takes him 5-7 hours per week to complete and runs from April to October. The client supplies a 60″z mower and an atv with trailer for cleanup. I just provide all other tools and labor. One other thing is the landscaper is getting out of the business and moving out of town. I will be meeting with the landscaper and the client later this week.”

One lawn care business owner said “there are some varying views, but the consensus usually ends up being that a contract is worth about 1 month of it’s pay. So up to $1,000 in your case depending on a few variables give or take a hundred or two.”

“One month sounds fair to me, I was thinking 10-15% of contract value.”

I don’t think it matters what it made last year because these contracts are perishable. For all we know, the contract ended last year and the client might never sign up with that lawn care business owner again!

A second lawn care business owner shared “I think I would be real skeptical about paying much of anything until the lawn care client signs a contract with you and you have it in hand. At that point it would amount to a “finders fee” and not a “contract purchase”. I think this changes how much most people would value the transaction for. I agree with the others, a contract, as a contract, is perishable (in my opinion, especially when it is not a contract between you and the client) and is worth only about one month’s pay at the most.

I think I would tell the landscaper that if you and the client decide to sign a contract then you will pay X amount. If you decide to not sign it you will pay him nothing or only Y amount.

If you don’t handle it this way, you don’t know if 3 weeks down road the customer is gonna cut all ties with you. I would at the least meet with both of them and also have seller sign a no compete contract. Basically it is just a written agreement saying that he will not compete with you for business by continuing to offer these or similar services in your area.”

Ultimately the lawn care business owner who originally asked this question thought about it and said “thanks for all the input. I have learned a lot and I won’t pay anything until I meet with the client and have a contract signed.”

If you find yourself in such a situation, think these things through and cover your butt in case things go sour. Think of all the potential issues that could go wrong and resolve them before you exchange your hard earned money. In the end, you will be glad you did.

When you are looking to scale up your equipment and expand the services your lawn care business offers, instead of simply buying the next larger sized ZTR mower, why not consider a tractor? A member of the Gopher Lawn Care Business Forum did and it has opened the doors to many new services that make him stand out from local competitors. Most newer lawn care businesses don’t own a tractor so they simply won’t be able to compete with you.

He told us about the equipment is now using. “I have a quick connection on the front of my tractor which allows me to go from bucket to snow plow in under two minutes. It’s 6′ wide. I had John Deere put a special valve on so I can press a button and it switches the hydro from the curl on the loader to the angle on the plow or the top and tilt cylinder on the box blade, I just use the loader joystick rather than adding another control unit.”

For the readers considering going the route of buying a tractor and a snow plow vs a pickup and a snow plow can you tell us why you might want to go with one over the other?

What would you say are the pros vs cons of each?

“The advantage of using a truck to snow plow is that you can cover greater distances faster, the cost would be far less that a tractor I have bought.

The advantage of a tractor is it will take the abuse of plowing and never bat an eye, therefore maintenance costs are next to zip. I have been snow plowing with one of my tractors for 20 years and have had a total maintenance cost of less than $500.00. A tractor will use far less fuel as well. I can plow for 8 hours on $28.00 +/- diesel, I get better traction, and I have pulled probably 10 guys with plows on trucks out so far this season! Another advantage is the loader. I can pile snow high and widen driveways, clean bus stops, fire hydrants and I just picked up a contract for three fire halls.

The big advantage of these CUT’s (Compact Utility Tractors) is the attachments you can get. All of which will expand your business and make you good profits. The average hourly rate around here is $105.00 and because you can do so many things with them, there is good demand. I would take a tractor over a skid steer anyday as they are lighter and faster.”

Tractor with plow

For lawn care business owners who have a tractor or are thinking about getting one, what is the best way to market the services you can offer with a tractor?

“What I did was send a post card and cover letter to my current clients. I wanted to start with clients who live in what we quite often call the rich or upper scale are. The letter basically said I was expanding into mini excavation. From the 200 +/- letters I sent, I received just over 50 inquiries. We now have a few months of excavation work and quite a few lawn care contracts, some want snow removal as well.

Now what I did with snow removal was I was only interested in our area. So after or during a storm I would drive around in my truck. I had a card made up for snow removal. If a driveway wasn’t plowed I left the card in their door. If they were outside I stopped, introduced myself, said I offered snow removal if they wanted to give their back a break just give me a call. I offer snow plowing by the storm or every storm. I picked up just over 30 driveways which is more than enough. Word of mouth spread and I started getting calls from others.

What I did also was tell these people I offer lawn care, mini excavation, tree chipping. I try to take note of something I could do at their home, it’s tough as we have so much snow but if I saw a tree(s) that needed to be removed for example, I would simply say if you are interested we perform tree removal and chipping, give it some thought and give me a call in the spring/summer.

Next we have a medical clinic in our area with a free bill board for local services, I posted these cards there and at the local pizzeria and another take out restaurant. I have since taken all these down as I do not want any more driveways this season.

Here are the cards I had done up with magnetic sign to match the color of the truck also.

There is an area fairly close to here I call the retirement area so I did up a funny card which I will have mail dropped to this area only, probably in late April.

Snow plow postcard

Lawn mowing post card

Now when it comes to buying a tractor, most of the CUT’s are similar, I believe JD is considered the most expensive however. What is critical is that you have a very good feeling about the dealer. It doesn’t matter much what brand although you should do some research but remember that things will break down and when you need service you need to know the dealer will back you up. That is #1 in my book. They can be expensive and if you are considering a tractor, I would encourage you to buy something a little bigger than you need. They hold their value very well.”

Should you network with others in your area and let them know you can be called to sub-contract out tractor work? Or should you market to your customers that you have a tractor and can do the following jobs?

“Personally I stay clear of sub contracting work. I can’t be bothered trying to collect money from a contractor that says they are trying to collect from the owner. I go direct and will go head on with a bigger more established company.

If you know the contractor well and are not concerned about payment, then yes this will get you a pile of work fast. I have had contractors call me but I tell them I really appreciate the consideration however we are booked solid at the moment. It’s a polite way of saying thanks but no thanks. I consider myself fortunate that I do not need the extra work at the moment.”

When you market these services, will you be including a photo of yourself on the tractor? What do you think is the best way to get across to the customer what your equipment looks like and what it can do? Or is that not so important?

“90%+ of the time it’s critical. People want to see what jobs you have done in the past. When you show up and they see the size of the tractor they will think there is no way that will do the job.

These smaller tractors have a big tractor attitude. I have been running tractors for over 30 years now in all sizes. When I first saw my smaller one I thought for the twenty grand I was about to spend there is no way it’s worth it as I doubt it will even plow my driveway. The salesman assured it would do whatever I asked and it did. In short it continues to shock me what they will do and it has never let me down.

Here is a suggestion on getting going. Advertise on the local bulletin board’s and explain what the equipment will do. When driving around and you see something you can do, stop and leave a note or do up a flyer if the people are outside talk to them and introduce yourself. Once you get going, word of mouth and neighbors of where you are working will keep you going. This worked for me and I had more work than I knew what to do with last summer.

This summer should be interesting. I have added a lot of attachments to expand what I can do and bigger equipment for the larger jobs. I met with two septic tank pumping companies yesterday as I was thinking people have to get their tanks cleaned every 8 years or so and most homeowners, would rather hire a backhoe to remove the soil for the truck to get at the top of the tank, One meeting went very well and he said they have been trying to find someone with a smaller backhoe to do this as the larger machinery damages the customer lawns. We struck a deal which he will include in his advertising. We won’t make a lot of money clearing off the tops, about $50.00 per dig, 6 a day on average and no float fee. However the goal here was to make new contacts and I know most people will have other chores that need done so I consider it a marketing expense/cost of doing business.

I also plan on contacting sprinkler installation companies, companies that install low voltage lighting, and garden stores that sell trees etc. Push the fact you are a value added resource for their company.”

The vast majority of lawn care businesses that exist are solo operations. What I mean by this is that they are a one man show. There are good sides to running your operation like this because it’s easy to get started and you get to keep all the profit. There are downsides too. The big one is, what will happen to your lawn care business if you get sick? That’s a topic we discussed on the Gopher Lawn Care Business Forum and we learned quite a bit about planning from it.

A lawn care business owner wrote “how many of you guys running solo have a back up plan if something were to happen to you like an accident or sickness and you could not service your lawn accounts?

I have been solo most of my lawn care career because I still have a full time job. A few years back, my lawn care business grew to about 25 customers, which is a lot for a guy working 50 hours a week at another job. A friend of mine who also ran his own lawn care business part time, would help me out from time to time.

We ended up knowing each others’ lawn accounts and to this day help each other out if needed. Now I find myself in a similar situation except this time, not with mowing, but roto-tilling, landscaping and other services that I grew to offer. I am leaning towards going full time with my lawn care business now especially if the organic fertilization services I started offering begins to take off the way I think it will. Luckily I have my 2 sons to help me out now.

My point is : If your gonna remain solo, have someone trained to help you out in case of emergency. Have a back up plan.”

Another lawn care business owner shared “I have three real good friends who also own their own lawn care businesses. We help each other out when needed such as with vacations, sick days, or when we get behind in mowing like I did this past week. With all the rain we received recently, we got behinds in our lawn accounts so we helped each other out. I helped my friend land a package account (7 stores) for a major restaurant chain. I don’t have the time to do this account just yet so he has it now. At the end of every month he comes by and donates some greenbacks to my account for my equipment repairs.”

What advice would you have for putting something together where you could have an emergency plan like this in place for when you need it?

“I would suggest having someone trained like a helper or family member. What also works well is having another lawn care business owner help you out. Of course it has to be someone you can trust. A good friend of mine who is also in the business helps me out with bigger landscape projects as well as mowing especially when I get behind because of rain. He has all my accounts on his GPS and I have all of his. What’s really cool is we both have 2 son’s that can help us as well. We also refer work to one another.

At one time, together we almost bought out a larger lawn care company and were gonna go into business together but decided against it and I am glad we did. Anyway I think if your running solo you better have a back up plan or your business could go down hill fast.”

Are you getting your Spring lawn care marketing campaign together yet? A lot of lawn care business owners are. Here is a lawn care postcard that a member of the Gopher Lawn Care Business Forum got printed up. He will be sending out these cards soon.

He wrote “I ordered these lawn care postcards about 10 days ago and am very happy with the quality of the printing and the stock the printer used. Although they are post cards I designed the back to be full color.

Mailing marketing material allows for the targeting of very specific areas however the costs can be high. So along with my mailing I will be handing them out to potential customers while at the Spring Home Show where I am renting a table.

If you look at the design you will see the lower right hand corner has a spot to place a 10% off discount. However, I don’t want to head down that road, at least yet.

lawn care postcard design

I had 1,500 printed. I will start by sending them to out targeted areas in March. This will utilize direct mail with a cover letter letting them know of my services. Then in April at the same time as the Spring home show I will do a bulk mail drop to a larger area.

Once that has settled down, I will be going to my local farmers market where I have many good connections with vendors and will hand them out there also.”

At what point do you engage your 10% off area and then how will you distribute those? To the same previous people?

“That is the million dollar question.

In the past, I have always stuck to my pricing. From my experience, once you get into a price war, no one wins. I am leaving my options open though just in case I need wiggle room.

I am working my social networks too. There is a large day care center being built not too far from where I live, the owner is an artist on the side and we spoke yesterday. I was telling her about my yard care/landscaping business and she asked me to do the landscaping for the new day care and lawn care after wards without asking for a quote. This is great as it will be about an acre to look after.

My main marketing goal right now is to focus on target marketing. I also do everything as professional as I can from using lawn signs to uniforms, vehicles, equipment etc. Marketing is not a one time thing. You are always on stage and you always have to be putting on a great show.”

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 learn you can do a quality job and customers will pay your price to do the work. This allows you to gain more customers and feel more confident with the prices you charge.

It is a lot easier to raise your prices when you have a full rooster of lawn care customers than it is when you are desperately trying to get your first few customers. Here are some stories from the Gopher Lawn Care Business Forum that reaffirm this point.

One lawn care business owner shared “today, a realtor was showing the foreclosed home right next door to me. I had tried to get her business earlier this year on this property and she wasn’t interested. The lawn, about 1.75 acres hadn’t been mowed since the first week in April. The grass was at least knee high. When her clients left she came over to talk to me and wanted the property taken care of.

I told her that it would take at least 3 runs to mow the lawn and gave her a quote of $200.00 for a one time mowing. She told me that was ridiculous, she could get someone to do for half that price. I said that $200.00 was my price and that I would require half down and the balance upon completion and walked away.

Two other companies came to measure the lot while I was working on my lawn. At 6:00 pm she called me back and came to the conclusion that my price wasn’t out of line. I was told I could do it tomorrow morning because she was showing it again in the afternoon. I said I would need the $100.00 deposit first. At about 7:00 pm she was knocking on my door with $100.00 cash and wanted quotes for 6 other properties.

The point I’m trying to make is that I didn’t lower my price (although I considered it). I will do it myself and I want $50.00 per hour. I have no travel time and I am sure I can do it in under 4 hours but I wanted to establish my price.

She then told me that she couldn’t do business with anyone who didn’t have liability insurance and that none of the other people she called had it and she had to get it done by her husband and son and they didn’t have the proper equipment (only a residential push mower).

Now she wants me to do 5 properties at my one time mowing price and then mow every 2 weeks under contract. I imagine all are in the same condition as this one and would not give her a price without seeing them.

The point is, don’t cheapen your service costs. Provide them with the service they need at the price you need to grow. Remember, you are in business 24/7/365 and you want to stay in business.”

Another lawn care business owner said “where ever we go, we are a walking, driving advertisement of our business. I even drive my truck to run personal errands around town. I know it would cost a fraction in gas to take my car as but my truck has brought business in while in lots or on the road. I had a guy following me Friday who called me as he saw my name and number on the truck. We both pulled over on the highway and talked. I did a quote to level 32 loads of fill on his property and he accepted.

On your other point, clients will call our bluff. However my price is my price and I will not flex. There are very few people who have walked away from my prices in the end. I know where they are coming from and know this game well. But the bottom line is this gear costs me money, we do excellent work, I treat my employees like owners and pay them far more than others in this business. I hire the best and their work shows it. If you want to hire us, there is a cost. We are over the new startup finding lawn care customers hurdle so it doesn’t matter at this point even if we only get 1 in 5 or 6 quotes as we have so many contracts on the books, it’s a comfortable place to be in as I can focus on other areas of the operation.”

A third business owner added “I think part of the learning curve of a new lawn care business is going through the process of bidding lower than you should just to get the job. After getting burned a few times you quickly learn. If you only knew you could charge more in the beginning, you could skip this entire step.

Low balling in lawn care is nothing new. Generally the guys that doing it so cheap are desperate for customers. When they finally know their operating costs they will either raise their prices or get out of the business.”

Combining your love of multiple interests can really help set you apart from competitors and give you a unique marketing angle that is all your own. A member of the Gopher Lawn Care Business Forum was doing just that when he wrote us about a local outdoor cooking competition he was taking part in and wanted to use it to further promote his lawn care business.

He wrote “I am entering in a King of the Wing competion/trade show. Basically what it is is that I cook wings and have them judged. It is being held in a gated community at their community pool. Many residents are being encouraged to attend.

The organizers are predicting 300-400 people are going to show up. Once there, each person goes booth to booth trying the different chicken wings. I am going to have a booth with my banner, tent, table, flyers and wings. The question I have is , how do I get those 300-400 people to remember my both and company? Using flyers is all I can think of. I am working on a limited budget and don’t have the money for fancy little give aways with my name on it.

Does anybody have any suggestions? Like should I offer mowing specials? Give a door prize away? If so what should I give away?

I think this is a great opportunity to get a lot of leads in a high end neighborhood. I just want to do it right.”

Could you create some marketing material for you and your booth that might say Joe’s Lawn Care Cooking Team? Or something like that? Could you wear tshirts and then have a banner that promoted that?

What about fabricating a grill from part of a mower or tractor? So like you need to raise the hood to cook the food. That could really get others talking too!

lawn care marketing idea

If you enjoyed this, maybe you could do this more often to meet more people. In fact maybe you could create a catering team where the main goal of it was to help market your lawn care business?

“That grill won’t just get people talking, I think they would hang around the booth a lot too. Bad news is that the event is this Saturday so I don’t have much time to do a lot. I do have a 3×8 banner that I will hang on my table. I didn’t get any shirts made up because of costs but this is an annual event, so next year I can hit it harder.

Should I put any thing special on my flyers or print outs that I hand out. Because every person that walks in goes booth to booth trying chicken wings, just like a chilli cook off. So 300-400 people, that’s a TON of advertising right there. What is the percent I should expect for leads and landing jobs? Cause thats the whole point of this.”

One lawn care business owner suggested “I would wear a business shirt and/or put up a sign that says ‘ASK ME ABOUT MY BUSINESS!’  and have a stack of business cards out.”

A second business owner shared “personally I would give away one free mow and trim. Have a large banner done up for across the front of the table. Give out free water bottles too. What I have seen done is you can get something like 1,000 of those paper rings that fit around the water bottle with your company name and contact information on it. What happens is most will want water. Your name will then be everywhere at the event. Bottled water is cheap but it will make your company look massive.”

A third owner said “the first thing I would suggest is make the BEST wings there. Win the contest and have everyone talking about you. Also how about a big sign that says,
“WIN A FREE LAWN MAKEOVER”
“LET US PAMPER YOUR LAWN FOR THE DAY AND MAKE IT THE STAR OF THE NEIGHBORHOOD”
“ENTER HERE”

The best ways to get leads is to try to get everyone to fill out a form to win the lawn makeover. Of course, only one person will win. Afterwards you need to call everyone else who signed up to offer a trial “lawn makeover” for half price and then amaze them and get them to sign up with you for lawn care.”

A new member of the Gopher Lawn Care Business Forum shared with us his experience with running a property management company and why he got out of it in order to focus on his landscaping business. This might help you gain some insight if you were thinking about expanding into property management in the future.

He wrote and gave us the low down. “Hi all, I am 37 years old and run a landscaping business with around 30 customers so far. I have two trucks with plows on them. They are both older models but they work great.

I only really use 1 for now and am saving the other for back up or if I get more snow plow clients. I focus more on residential customers than commercial. I keep my billing simple and charge by the minute .$1.00 per minute, per man and $.45 for each pound of salt spread.

I had gotten my start running a property management business. I was managing local rental properties for out of state owners. But the thing I didn’t consider when getting that business started was the amount of constant phone calls and pressure these customers put on me. It made me hate it.

So as I sat there, trying to find something else to do, I took stock in what I had. I had all these properties that I was managing and included in my management service was mowing their lawns and removing snow. I put two and two together and came up with a new business model. I quit the property management business and started landscaping. It has been more laid back and less stressful.”

That sounds like you made the right move for you. What kinds of things have you been doing to promote your business?

“To market my services I was initially going by word of mouth at first. Later I was using craigslist, door hangers, and flyers that I sent to real estate & property management companies. I also offered an incentive to all my existing customers. If they refer me a new lawn care account, they get a one time service for free. Either snow plowing or mowing.

I’ve noticed that word of mouth brings me the best results. I make sure I do the best job I can for the customer and that gets them talking to others they know. One of the big mistakes I made this year trying to attract new lawn care customers is when I actually took a $2,000 loss over the summer on a landscape job. I under bid it trying to impress a customer who had 45 other properties in the area, but it didn’t pan out. Oh well live and learn. I’ll never do that again. Always charge the price you need.”

What advice do you have for others considering to offer property management services?

“My advice to other lawn care business owners looking to expand into property management is to stay away from it. But if you really want to try and make a go of it, keep these thoughts in mind:

A)You will need a real estate license.
B) The phone calls are non stop and you HAVE to get them, no machines.
C) Owners with real run down houses will want top rent for them.
D) Tenants are hard to track down for the rent.
E) Going to court for evictions is such a headache.

Stay with lawn care and you will feel a lot less stressed.”

There are many ways to market your lawn care and landscaping business. The best ways tend to be the ones where you can visit person to person with members of your community. Saying hello to them, shaking their hand, and getting to know them all help you sell. A member of the Gopher Lawn Care Business Forum was able to jump on an opportunity to meet with local community members and get press coverage when he took part in a local ground breaking ceremony.

Here is what he told us about the event. “A few months ago I bid on a local city contract. There were two parts I was able to bid on and they had broken out each phase as separate contracts.

In short, they were seeking bids on tree clearing, excavation, and then construction of two outdoor skating rinks. Both of these projects are in my service area.

The contract I won was to excavate the two sites and have it finished by November 30th. I had a great idea that I could make the initial dig into a ground breaking ceremony. So I contacted all the parties involved, including the media, two weeks ago and said today was the day for the initial dig. What a blast we had! Local members of the media showed up and it will be in the news/papers tomorrow.

Everything went very well. Many members of the community got together at this event. We had a food stand. There was a ground breaking ceremony sign provided by the local politicians with my lawn care company name on it. I parked my truck right up front and had a business card dispenser on the side of it. About 70 of my cards were gone from the display on my truck. I let the local politician get up on my tractor, which has my company name and number on the side, to dig out the first stump for the photo shot.

I suspect over the course of the day around 200 to 250 people were there, including kids. For the younger kids, I got up on the back hoe and let the kids sit on my lap as their parents took our photo. I gave kids seat rides on the tractor. All these marketing technique seemed to have worked. I had 10 email inquiries today alone. I had one person write me basically begging to fix their drain problem. Pretty soon, I will not be taking on any more business this season because I will be swamped with work. I found it to be a very fun day and everything went well. It allowed me to meet a lot of new potential customers.”

Isn’t that a fantastic idea? He implemented it very well too! You could be doing something very similar in your area. You don’t even need to win a government contract to do this. You could volunteer some of your time to help improve a local park or to clean up a section of your town.

When you are out driving during your day, keep your eyes open for something you can improve upon and when you see it, jump on the opportunity. Make it a spectacle too. Get the community involved. Get the local politicians involved and get the media involved. Next thing you know, you will become the ‘go to guy’ in your area when it comes to lawn care and landscaping.

How often have you created a new landscape project or hardscape project and thoughts to yourself, ‘if only the neighbors could see this place, they’d all want me to do this for them.’ This thought may come up especially as the scale of the project increases as well as the amount of profits.

There are plenty of times when you will be working on a landscape project that simply won’t be seen by anyone else beyond the home owner, so you aren’t going to get as much marketing buzz out of it as if you might get from a well mowed front lawn. So what should you do?

This is a question that came up on the Gopher Lawn Care Business Forum. A lawn care business owner wrote “I have just started to work on a retaining wall, driveway and interlock brick patio that will lead to a customer’s back door. So far I have the back door steps done at a material cost of $2,178.00. The driveway is I am estimating will cost $4,600.00 in materials and I am curious as to how I can use this job to get more landscape work? This job is going to take an estimated 60 man hrs to do and when it is done, I’d really like to show it off.”

What if, after you install the new hardscape, you offer to throw a “Garden Party.” Or something to that effect. What this would include is you would get some soda, beer, hamburgers and hotdogs on a weekend and maybe bring a grill to cook for a group of neighbors to show off the new hardscape job you completed.

You could ask the homeowner if you could send out flyers to the neighbors. Maybe make these not just flyers but fancy invitations. Have it say “I just had a new hardscape and garden created in my yard and I would love to show it off to you. Stop by Saturday 12pm - 3pm and check it out. I will be providing bbq food and drinks!

This could give you a great chance to meet the customer’s neighbors and show them some pictures in a photo album of the project as it progressed. Maybe you could give out some company tshirts or hats. You could also include in your invitation a business card and maybe a discount for hardscape. Maybe you could have some wording that says ‘The project was completed by Joe’s Landscaping. I was lucky enough to get some discount cards from them to send to you as well if you are looking for some landscaping done on your property.’

Maybe also you could include a magnetic business card that shows a picture of the hardscape along with a date for the party. In the picture of course would be your landscaping business sign, a little out of the way but easily readable.

If this seems like it is too much of a sales gimmick and you feel it might turn neighbors off, you could hold off on the discount and business cards until after the party. During the party you could still meet the neighbors. Talk with them and shake their hand and then days later you could send them a mailing that includes some pictures of the hardscape project that was completed along with a discount card if they sign up by a certain date.

There is nothing like showing off a new landscape to get the neighbors feeling they need to do something in order to keep up with the Joneses.

A member of the Gopher Lawn Care Business Forum shared with us a postcard he had designed for his lawn care marketing campaign. In the postcard he was promoting an annual contract fee that would include all sorts of services a lawn care customer would get throughout the year if they signed up with him.

When I saw it I thought to myself, I liked the creativity he used to put it together but I wondered about promoting an annual lawn care mowing price and if it would be effective.

It made me think about other marketing material though. When you see ads in a paper for such products as cars how do they market prices? You probably can find an advertisement for an expensive car and at the top of the ad it will say with big text $99.95 a month or some kind of teaser rate. Then in the fine print they will include a sign up fee and all these other fees, but they catch your attention with the first monthly teaser fee.

So my question to you is this, what helps sell better, promoting a larger annual fee, a monthly or even weekly fee?

What would catch your attention?

Another lawn care business owner shared “I will offer my two cents based on my experience, in short people will not buy it, or at least the clients that I go after.

When I see ‘buy it now, big discounts etc.’ I think to myself, they are either over priced to begin with or desperate for business, personally I’m not interested in either.”

Do you feel it is better to market a lower weekly price or what would you say is the best way to go about it?

“My price is my price. I know my costs and I know what I can do. If you can’t afford my services, I can understand but I will not budge on my price. My ROI (return on investment) is 32% on average. I think we are priced higher on some things yet I have clients who pay me more for leaf removal for example than I had quoted them. This hadn’t happened once, but 5 times last week alone as they were so impressed with the results. On one site alone, the lady paid me an extra ninety bucks because one of me employees cleaned her gutters. With the equipment we have, it took him only 15 min but that is what it was worth to her.

I don’t buy these marketing sales type advertisements that promote price as their teaser. I mean no disrespect but from my point of view, it’s an act of desperation.”

lawn mowing postcard

We all know you need liability insurance when you are driving around in your car. You also need liability insurance when you are running a lawn care business just in case you injury someone. But what happens if you are out on a job site working on a lawn and you get injured? Things can get really messy really quick.

A member of the Gopher Lawn Care Business Forum shared with us his experience of being injured on the job and what the fall out from it was. He wrote “I recently got hurt while working and made the mistake thinking I was covered by my wife’s health care insurance through her job. I didn’t think much more about it. Well, wouldn’t you know it, she was laid off from her job and a month later I ended up in the hospital.

I’m a type 2 diabetic and I was working on a sprinkler repair job in some brush and trees. I couldn’t see exactly what I was doing when I got a cut on the bottom of my foot. At first I thought it was poison ivy. It had all the symptoms of it so I took a little time off and went back to work a week later. Then one night I was in bed and my legs were hurting. I got up to get a heating pad and when my wife pulled the covers back she said looked at my legs and said ‘oh no we are going to the hospital!’ I lifted my leg up and and wow they were black and blue.

I got real scared and after rushed off to the hospital. When I got there the nurse looked at me and went to get the doctor right away. I didn’t even go in to the emergency room, they took me right to the ultra sound room to do a scan. Next thing I know they were pulling blood and asking a lot of questions.

I ended up in the hospital for 7 days! I had gotten a nasty infection and if I would have waited any longer I probably wouldn’t be here to write this story. Now $20,000 dollars later I’m filling for bankruptcy.

So please as you are reading this, think about it. If you were out working and got injured on the job what would YOU do? I didn’t think it would happen to me. I thought I was careful and safe. But it happened to me and it can happen to you too.

Here is a photo of my feet when I was in the ultra sound room. You can see how discolored they are.

lawn care job injury

Lawn care business injury

“Both of my feet had an infection. I was lucky it was in my blood stream and that it hadn’t gotten any worse. Otherwise I wouldn’t be here to share my story.”
been talking to”

If you are a lawn care business owner you would probably agree with me when I say no matter where you go there will most likely be heavy competition. This is a discussion we were having on the Gopher Lawn Care Business Forum. Another business owner shared “I feel this is correct. Where I am, it’s all about equipment, quality of work and word of mouth, price is not always the deciding factor.

Unless you have a hundred grand of cash to invest, in my city, you will probably starve. You need to build relationships with paying clients and your company has to be structured to attract them. With my business I found a niche above the small businesses and below the big companies. I found there is money to be made in the middle ground. I proved this to myself early in my business which is growing at an insane pace.

I had worked as a banker for close to 15 years before I started this business and I can tell you I have never seen a company turn a profit as fast as this one has. But it didn’t happen by accident, it has taken contacts, capital and a very strategic target market.

I have been researching other was to differentiate my business from others and I have come up with a plan of attack. Phase two, next year will take my business into some interesting areas. I will become certified to install septic fields. In my area, it’s considered a license to print money. The training course is very tough, very few companies are certified but I will not be daunted by this. Plus I will offer complete new home residential construction (turn key) from clearing your driveway of trees and rocks, chipping, building your road, clearing for the house, grading, septic system and then landscaping and spraying. The average cost around here to perform these services is around $80,000 per lot.

I am not worried about finding the business. I have the contacts and have already been contacted many times to perform such services. At the time, I simply did not have the gear but I do now. I had to keep my eyes open and figure all this out before I bought the proper gear. Patience is critical. Various laws on new construction are on my side also if you want to get a mortgage.

I had considered offering snow removal. Yes there is money in it but once again it depends on the equipment and client list. This is a service I sub-contract out. I do this for all but 9 very close lots. I am personally not interested in working out in the cold. We do offer mowing and have around 50 locations we mow however that is not where the money is, in my experience.”

I bet a lot of new lawn care business owners are sitting here reading this post and wondering to themselves how the heck can I find a niche?

What would you say to them? Do you feel there is some sort of filtering process you must use in order to find a niche? Or is a lot of it simply luck?

“Luck has nothing to do with it. You have to be innovative and have a bit of an eye for detail. The trick to it is you have to see what the customer might want. How do you do this? Simply ask the customer what is it you do that is a pain in the butt? When they tell you, respond by saying, I might be able to help you. It may sound corney but asking such questions and responding has grown my company.”

What is your view on what lawn care business owners should do who find themselves in situations where the competition is heavy and they don’t have much funding? Does it then come down to a long process of chipping away at market share or is there more that should be done?

“That is not an easy answer. There are so many factors from quality, sales skills, marketing and of course access to capital to set yourself up and go after it. Personally I am not interested in chipping away. Instead I ask what can I offer that others do not. It doesn’t take a big investment to get the market, youjust have to make a plan.”

That is a very good point. It explains why some entrepreneurs toil their entire lives with little to nothing to show for it, while others can hit on something rather fast and just take off.

I think a tough part about this is when you are getting your first business started, you tend to have little to no business education. Because of that, you don’t know even to consider planning. You have no idea what to plan for or what to even consider. You don’t know what you are doing.

Many feel if they can simply wake up in the morning, get out, work a bit and keep themselves busy, enough to cover their expenses, then they have done enough.

But there is so much more. Planning seems to me, like a very high level term not often utilized. I would even venture to guess, if you asked the average entrepreneur, what is their plan, they would have none but if you pressed them, they would say something to the effect of, ‘well my plan is to hopefully make more money this year than I did last.’

What’s your view on that?

“That is part of it. You have to remember that lawn mowing is a cheap business to get into. It takes many skills to make money and your potential depends on many factors. You should ask yourself, what are your personal strengths? What financial resources do you have? What is it the client wants, you could possibly do or buy the equipment to do that others will want.

One other thing that comes to mind is, if you can get equipment that sets the bar higher than the competition, then you will reap the benefits. I understand it takes money to make money and one should be careful going hand over fist into debt, but there is a fine line. Education and knowledge is power. I am not saying you have to be the smartest person on the block but I am saying you have to do your research and have a plan.

The Internet is like having the world’s largest library at your finger tips. Use it! Personally I have set the bar quite high compared to my competition. I have the gear to do what they can’t or won’t. My staff does outstanding work and I am very fussy. I am not afraid to take on those projects that have risk. Risk could be the home on water frontage, very tight areas etc. We run into this a lot cutting trees near power lines. We have the gear and trained staff that to us there is little no no risk however the money you can make is nuts.

Search out what the others are not doing and the customer wants and go after it. You will win. If you try butting heads with the competition offering similar services and undercutting their prices, in my experience you might make a living but you will bust your butt doing it.”

Have you been trying to find ways to reach out further in your service area and attract more lawn care customers? Local home & garden trade shows can be a great way to meet and talk with home owners in your area. Here are some suggestions members of the Gopher Lawn Care Business Forum offered to help you get the most out of your trade show presentation.

One lawn care business owner said “trade shows put us on the map. They can be very expensive but the key I learned is to look bigger than you are. Know your stuff inside out, and be very professional. Image, knowledge of your offerings in lawn care are key to success. You have to produce results.

Have your gear at the booth. The cost of a previous trade show that went on for 3 days was so high that I wanted to balk but I ultimately gave in. The benefits we reaped were far beyond my wildest dreams. We are now fully booked from mid April to the last week of May which is great, I think trade shows are an excellent marketing tool.

At the most recent home and garden trade show I attended, the excavation, yard care and lawn mowing booths were tired rented booths, where nothing stood out.

If I could offer advice to others on how to maximize returns on their marketing dollar, I would set a piece of my gear in the booth. Have a very nice polite lady handing out fliers. Laugh if you want, but it works. I have done many shows where we hired models, I realize this is over the top for us but you really should consider trying it. As the lawn care business owner, I would work my butt off in the booth, answering questions and have a few well dressed staff who knows their stuff. Once again it’s presentation and image.

If you are looking for a real cheap way to make an impression at a trade show yet don’t have the money to rent a booth, consider this. Once all I had was a truck and trailer with a new 2520 and chipper on the trailer in the parking lot as I was too late to get space. I got there really early and parked in the closest parking spot. On my truck I had signs and a business card dispenser. I picked up around 27 small to medium sized jobs in April. That was before word of mouth had kicked in and then all hell broke loose. I haven’t been able to keep up since.”

Another shared “with all the other marketing options a lawn care business owner has at their disposal, trade shows are still important and can be an effective way to get business, but that you need to “do them right”. Trade show exhibiting can be very expensive and one can lose a lot of money quickly if you don’t know what you are doing.
But I think the most important message one needs to remember is to build personal relationships and treat people like humans!

It pains me to walk down the aisles at a lot of trade shows as it reminds me of going to a used car lot. I am suddenly pounced on by all sorts of people popping out of their trade show booths (sort of like gophers popping out of their holes in my lawn) wanting to sell me something! All these gung-ho sales people would do well to not be so pushy. To look to make contacts and not sales.”

I love to showcase some of the landscape projects, members of the Gopher Lawn Care Business Forum share with us. They are great learning tools because you get a chance to see a before and after image along with the bid price and the amount of profit the job generated. From this you can compare and contrast your jobs and get an idea what others are charging for similar work. Or if you have yet to offer such landscape services, this will give you an idea how much you can make if you did start offering them.

One of our forum members wrote “here is a before picture of an area I recently landscaped.

Landscape project before image

Also attached is a computer generated design the customer and I came up with. They took 3 of our original designs and decided what they wanted to integrate into their own design.

Landscape project - after image

An added bonus to this job is that their house is the first in the subdivision, so it will get a lot of “Show Time” to potentially attract other customers. The customer also agreed to let us keep a sign in their front yard for one month after the install.

There are two of us doing the install so it should take a good two solid days to do the job. Then later a few follow up visits to check for proper root development and growth.

We finalized the figure at $2,750, it will cost me roughly $1,100 to do the job.

I tried to upsell the customer but couldn’t hook him in on lawn services. He had just recently spent out $5,000 on a new ZTR. However I did sell him on bed design and install, a retaining wall, and next year sod in the back yard. He has a few trees he needs removed before the sod installation though and that should generate more money.

I asked him how he found us and he said he found us via our website, so I know my internet marketing is working. I also have been doing a lot of door to door marketing the past few days. It has been very successful as I have been able to pick up 14 new lawn care clients and two other landscape installs and mulch jobs.”

Beyond learning how much this lawn care business owner charged for such a landscape project, we also get to see how he tracks his marketing efforts by asking his new customers how they found him. He can track this information and see which of his marketing is working and which isn’t. If he finds he is spending quite a bit of money and time on certain marketing campaigns that are not producing results, he can cut them from his marketing strategy and focus more on what is working.

Are you looking for more ways to improve your sales skills? A new member of the Gopher Lawn Care Business Forum shared with us some of sales secrets. He wrote “I have 7 years of sales experience in retail and business. What got me to start my lawn care business is one day when I was speaking to my neighbor about getting loam and seeds for his front yard and I told him I could do it and gave him a quote. He liked and accepted it. So I did the math and my profit was only $300.00. Yes that’s for a day but I wanted more. Am I greedy? Yes but that’s what makes the world go round. So I used my sales skills and up sold him a retaining wall, plants, landscape lighting as well as a walkway. Now my profit was higher and he was happy.”

What kinds of sales tips would you suggest for newer startup lawn care business owners? Could you offer any advice on this?

“The first thing I would suggest is do not offer the sale, ask for it. What I mean by that is, don’t say ‘oh I can buy mulch and lay it and spread it for you if you like.’ Instead say ‘I noticed you need mulch over there because the rain washed most of it away. When would you like me to place the order for you? It will cost …..’ Then the customer will think ‘hmm, well you’re the professional, saying that I need it. So can we get it today or tomorrow?’

Another thing to consider is compliments help in your sales pitch. You might want to say things like ‘oh Mr. Johnson I love your front yard and house I would love such a nice house & yard like yours.’ Customers love when you compliment their house. If you do that and build trust with them, you will have a client who will keep calling you and tell his friends about you.

I have done jobs where I was in sales before and I have learned how to read and talk to people. My all time favorite thing to do is to upsell. Say you get a call about an ad you placed online or in the local newspaper. You go over to their home and estimate it. Don’t forget to compliment the potential customer by saying nice house Mrs. Smith, you know a nice slate walkway with some pretty flowers and lights along it would be great for curb appeal. The next thing you will see is the customer looking to you to tell them how much it will cost.

I do my own marketing and I have found that sending flyers through the mail doesn’t work. So instead I ordered a shirt and some business cards. I also go door to door. I have some public places that let me place some flyers in their store business cards as well.

The biggest marketing mistake I see others do is leaving a crummy black and white flyer or a flyer that is boring at someone’s door. A boring flyer would be one that uses a title line like ‘We Offer Great Deals.’ Everyone and their grandmother use such a title line. What I do instead on my flyers is I say ‘Don’t Let Your Lawn Fall Into Disrepair, Call The Team That Can Make Your Dreams Come True’ or ‘We Work For You And Your Lawn Why Wait? Call Today.’ I will also put catchy pictures and words on my flyers.

Not only is marketing a good way to get sales but having knowledge about the landscaping field. If you were hiring a crew to mow your lawn and build a retaining wall, you would want the lawn care business owner to be knowledgeable about their field. Knowledge is very important. I have explained to my neighbors and friends a problem with something in their lawn and then I follow it up by how I could fix it. I will point things out like how to remove crab grass or how to install an irrigation system. And what helps is to STUDY STUDY STUDY. You might think you know everything, but you need to realize you don’t. You need to read every night about landscaping and watch how to videos. I listen and watch how to videos to see how they do things. I also get ideas and learn new ways to explain things to customers. I have a $10,000 contract coming up for a condo association because I knew what I was talking about and how to present it. Because of that the association president liked me.

Some of the other things  I am doing to promote my lawn care business is to place flyers in a local pizzeria. I went back 3 days later to get a drink and check on the flyers and they were all gone. The owner told me that people were taking them left and right. I am also working with realtors in my area to get added to their contact data base, if someone is buying or selling a house and is in need of a landscaper to add curb appeal to their property or clean the area up.

What I do is when driving around during the day if I see a residential or commercial property for sale, I will call the realtor and let them know I am available any time they have a yard that needs to be cleaned up or landscaped.”

Is it a good idea to give a kick back to get a lawn care bid? It seems when you start to go down this path, it has a tendency to get messy and the end results may become undesirable. This is a situation that was brought up on the Gopher Lawn Care Business Forum. A lawn care business owner shared with us an interesting situation that you may at one time find yourself considering.

He wrote “this guy recently called and asked me to mow his neighbors yard. He told me that the neighbor is abroad and asked him to take care of it for him. I get out there and give an estimate. He gives me the go ahead. I do a great job on it. Before I can finish he calls me and asks me to do his yard too.

Well, it was dark when my buddy and I were finishing up so I tell him I’ll get to him the next day. I do it for same price as his neighbor. Mind you, I still haven’t met this guy, we keep missing each other, but I did meet his wife. She said I was such a gentleman.

Well, a few days later the guy calls me and asks if I’m licensed and bonded.

I’m honest with him and tell him, “not yet.” With no excuses or stories to tell him. I’m just still growing and hustling up on my business. The conversation then goes as followed:

Me - Why do you ask?

Him - Well, I wanna offer you something. The contract for doing the entrances to the subdivision is coming to an end and the Home Owner’s Association is no longer making the decision on who gets the contract. Since the community is established now, we have a board of directors that will choose. The HOA is just gonna accept bids and pass them to the board of directors. Now, there are three people on the board of directors and you’ve already cut 2 of our yards.

Me - I have?

Him - Yes. Mine….. and the other gentleman across the street.

Me - Oh.

Him - Now this is one hand washes the other, you understand?

Me - Yeah, I gotcha.

Him - You get licensed and bonded and we’ll get you this contract. It’ll be some guaranteed work for you for 12 months.

Me - Ok. What’s the criteria?

Him - Just keep the entrances cut and trimmed, plant some flowers, keep it looking pretty. It pays about $5k for the year, and they cut every 10 days.

*main entrance is about the size of 1.5 times his yard. Other entrance is less than the size of his yard. Just to give you guys an idea I charge him $55.*

Him - When can you come by to go over it?

I went and talked with him and he seems cool, but here’s the catch.

He wants me to throw in the three board of directors yards as well. So both entrances and 3 yards for the same price that they are paying the current people with the contract??

What I’m thinking is that I’ll try to edge up the bid to about $6k and do it, considering I’ll be doing more work and essentially not getting the revenue from it that I was getting before. Also, their 3 yards together are more than the entrances so I would be doing double the work for the same amount as the guys that have the contract now… I don’t want to shoot myself in the foot.

I’m also afraid that once I’m in bed w/ these guys that they’ll start to ask for more extra stuff like fertilization, aerating, etc. These are things that I charge extra for and I need the revenue that it generates. I don’t want them holding them getting me the contract over my head in order to get more free work.”

Another lawn care business owner suggested to “make sure that your contract is specific. Make sure that you are very detailed and specific to each job that you are going to be performing. Attach a price to each job, be it a monthly price or a yearly price. You could add the extras that you offer and at what cost they would be mthly/yrly. Make sure that if you are to do an extra job that you do up a work order and have all the directors agree and sign said document. Then it is binding and legal. There will be No waving a piece of paper over your head.

As for doing the 3 houses, that is your call, but if it was to take me just as much as time to do the entrance as their houses without any extra money, then I don’t think so. You have 3 extra lawns there and you could build on them and add more to your list of clients. Maybe you would lose the one but make out better in the long run.

You said that he would like it cut every ten days and you are cutting year round? At a yearly price of 5k and you cut every 10 days that equates to 37 cuts per year. That is about $135.00 a cut for about 1.5 the size. I’m thinking not bad. But if you do the 3 lawns also every 10 days than you would make $34 per cut for the entrance and 3 extra lawns plus he stated some flowers? Hmmm, I plant flowers about 4 times a year and it is always an extra charge.”

Some other things to consider as well are right now you are operating without insurance so you don’t have to include that in your overhead and can operate at a cheaper cost per hour. When you add that in along with the bonding fee that might be involved, how much will that increase your hourly operating costs?

How many hours per week would you have to spend maintaining the entrances? How many weeks per year? In total how many man hours would be spent doing this?

How many many weeks and man hours per week would be spent maintaining the three board of director properties?

You also have to keep in mind what you feel you would need to charge the Home Owners Association per week to maintain the entrance and what you would have to charge each of the three property owners to maintain their lawns. These situations may seem like a good deal at first but once you start crunching the numbers, you may come to the conclusion that it’s not such a good deal after all.

Have you ever experimented with advertising your lawn care business in local newspapers? Did you find you got good results from your ad or no results at all? There are so many variables that can effect the results of your marketing campaign, it’s mind boggling. Did you know that the category your ad appears in the paper can have a great impact on how many calls you get?

This is somethign I learned when a member of the Gopher Lawn Care Business Forum shared with us his experience of advertising in his local paper when he wrote “this is horrible. It really makes me want to take legal action but I am afraid I am just screwed.

I just looked up my ad in the local paper. I could not find it on their website so I did a search for my phone number. I found my ad in the “Work Wanted” section. Now understand, this section is full of unemployable, alcoholics on state disability. No one feels safe hiring anyone in that section. My ad was, for several months, under the landscape section of licensed services. For some stupid reason they saw fit to move it. As soon as I found this error, I called them right away and gave them hell. They told me its an extra $2 per week, I told them I didn’t care about the extra $2.00 and said to get my business out of that section ASAP. No wonder no one has been calling me. They are afraid I will rob them.

As far as I can figure from the dates I have been told I went from several calls a day when the ad was where it was suppose to be to 0 calls in a few months. Not one person has called since the ad was moved.”

Can you imagine that! How something that would seem so simple and a non-issue can make a huge difference in ad results. Keep this lesson in mind when you are creating your ad for your lawn care business. The difference between finding success or failure in a newspaper ad can come down to something as simple as putting the ad under a proper ad category.