What drove one entrepreneur to quit the lawn care business.
Nothing can be more frustrating than trying to start a business. If you do decide to take that step, you need to be prepared to stay the course. Giving up too soon will not only take away any chance you have at finding success, it can also effect your chances at success in any other path you choose next. As we will see in this discussion from the Gopher Lawn Care Business Forum, the answer is not in quitting, it is in finding better ways to succeed.
One lawn care business owner wrote “well I am going to finish out this summer, and call it quits with my lawn mowing. I will then continue on with power washing. I have gotten burned out with the ‘I’ll call you when it needs mowing’ type customers. Plus you can get a decent pressure washer for less than half of what a commercial zero turn cost. Good luck to the rest of you. I hope you have better luck than I did.
Looking back on it, I feel like I shouldn’t have set my expectations so high, when in all reality the soil around here is terrible and I only have 2 decent mowing customers. I advertised in the newspaper and put out flyers around the area. It seems from my experience the only thing people wanted done in their yards was leaf removal. That stuff gets old after a while.
With a little experimentation, I found that I enjoy pressure washing a lot more. With pressure washing, it seems either people want it done or they don’t. No more trying to get people set on schedules and contracts. Most of the businesses around here are chomping at the bit trying to find someone to wash off their walk ways.
I will keep a few mowing accounts, but only mowing and some landscaping maybe because it helps pay the bills. I have had it with people trying to call me back and lowball me down off my bids. If I knew ahead of time that the grass was going to grow this slow in my area, I wouldn’t have even started a mowing business. I just moved here about 2 months ago.
Another service I have thought about is asphalt driveway sealing and of course there is always snow plowing in the winter. I am gonna keep the accounts I already have because I could upsell them power washing until the end of the summer and have funds to start up again next year.”
A second lawn care business owner said “if you just moved into the area 2 months ago and are already calling it quits, you may be throwing in the towel way too early. Power washing is a great add on and upsell but the lawn mowing business is where the reoccurring money.
Your first year is always the toughest. It’s difficult getting customers, learning how to run a business, and figure out how to make money. But once you make it through your first year, it tends to get easier as you are reaching out to more people and the more people you meet, the more that will hire you.
An improved confidence level also comes with sticking to it. You will get better at bidding over time. As you get better, your potential customers sense your confidence level and it helps improve your ability to sell. Sure some customers are going to want you to lower your prices but over time, you will find more customers and feel confident to not have to play the lowball game.
I’d really think twice before giving up yet. Instead why not promote both services and see how you can utilize one service to reach out to new customers and then upsell them on the other services you offer. Trying out a business for two months is no where near long enough to get a real feel for what you are capable of.
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