Step : Register For Taxes
You will need to register for a variety of state and federal taxes before you can open for business.
In order to register for taxes you will need to apply for an EIN. It’s really easy and free!
You can acquire your EIN for free through the IRS website, via fax, or by mail. If you would like to learn more about EINs and how they can benefit your LLC, read our article, What is an EIN?.
Learn how to get an EIN in our What is an EIN guide or find your existing EIN using our EIN lookup guide.
Small Business Taxes
Depending on which business structure you choose, you might have different options for how your business will be taxed. For example, some LLCs could benefit from being taxed as an S corporation .
You can learn more about small business taxes in these guides:
There are specific state taxes that might apply to your business. Learn more about state sales tax and franchise taxes in our state sales tax guides.
Dont Be Afraid To Go Old
Social media and digital advertising get a ton of attention when it comes to ideas for how to get landscaping customers, but dont hesitate to put older marketing techniques to work. Leverage simple notice-me tactics like door hangers and yard signs. Branded swag, like seed packets, flower pots, or even pens, are great ideas for initiatives like home shows or customer thank-you gifts.
Create A Referral Program
You might have guessed that word of mouth is effective. But did you realize just how powerful it could be? According to Nielsen, 84% of consumers trust word-of-mouth recommendations from friends and family.
Word-of-mouth customer referrals are one of the best sources to grow your lawn care or landscaping company. They make clients aware of you, put you ahead of the competition, and eliminate objections clients might have.
So, how can you create a referral program that works? First, define the reward youâll offer. Then, advertise your referral program. Here are a few ideas for referral rewards that are sure to be a big hit:
- $50 credit on their account if their referral becomes a new client
- Discounts on services if neighbors sign up for lawn care or landscaping services
- $50 check or VISA gift card along with a handwritten thank-you note if their referral becomes an active customer
- $25 credit to their account and a $25 coupon to the new customer they refer
- $50 donation to their favorite charity as a thank you for the referral
For the best results, target your best clients first. Youâre more likely to get high-quality referrals from customers who love your work, pay on time, and rarely complain.
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Get Customers To Come To You
Capturing online reviews is an excellent way to encourage potential customers to connect with your lawn care business. But thereâs another way to target âwarmerâ leads: online ads. You can get customers to come to you using pay-per-click advertising on Google or Facebook.
, according to the online database Statcounter. Now, think about your perfect client typing âlawn care service near meâ into the Google search bar. Wouldnât you want your business to be the first to pop up? It can, with Google Ads.
Itâs a fast way to grow brand awareness and increase business because youâre getting in front of consumers actively searching for your service. If you have a Gmail account, you can use that to create a Google Ads account. Once youâre there, the platform will walk you through choosing an advertising goal, setting your budget, and creating ad groups.
Facebook Ads are similar because theyâre a quick way to target people more likely to utilize your lawn care or landscaping services. And SproutSocial reports that .
On Facebook, you can choose an ad format that matches your goal. For example, you might showcase a single image, video, or slideshow to capture your audienceâs attention. For the best results, drive traffic to a landing page on your website tailored to the specific services promoted in your ad.
How Many Hours Do You Work Per Week
When you are first getting started, you will be working long hours. You should work a minimum of 70 hours per week. This is in large part because you have to hustle to get clients and serve your existing customers at the same time. Once you grow your portfolio of clients you can then cut back to a manageable 50 hours a week.
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How To Get Lawn Care Leads Through Strategic Alliances
Another great way to get more landscaping leads is to partner up with other businesses in your area. That could be Lowes, Home Depot and others. Creating a partnership means theyll recommend you to their customers, display your business cards or other marketing materials, and provide a steady stream of landscaping and lawn care leads. So, get to networking!
Put Up Yard Signs At Each Completed Job Or Service
Each time you complete a landscaping job or service, leave a yard sign behind so everyone who drives by sees your work. If your customer is reluctant to have a sign in their yard, offer them a small discount on your services and consider it part of your advertising budget.
Wondering what the perfect yard sign looks like? It should include your:
- Your business name
- Your logo
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Step : Plan Your Business
A clear plan is essential for success as an entrepreneur. It will help you map out the specifics of your business and discover some unknowns. A few important topics to consider are:
Luckily we have done a lot of this research for you.
What are the costs involved in opening a lawn care business?
The costs include obtaining a simple business license, equipment, supplies, promotional signage, flyers, business cards, a website, Internet connection, and having a pickup truck .You can have very modest liability insurance for this business however, you will need to pay for workers compensation insurance if you hire employees.A typical start-up budget for an owner/operator business with no assistants is under $3,000 and consists of:
- Mower – $500
- Oil and Gasoline – $20 per tank needed.
- Promotional Signage – $100 for magnetic signs
- Flyers – $50
- Website Creation Free to $500
- Internet Services – $50 to $75 per month
- Insurance $50 to $200 per month
- Pickup Truck Lease – Nothing down with good credit, $299 per month plus $100 per month for insurance
Read our lawn care business purchasing guide to learn about the materials and equipment you’ll need to start a lawn care business, how much to budget, and where to make purchases.
What are the ongoing expenses for a lawn care business?
The ongoing expenses include labor cost, truck and equipment maintenance, and operating expenses. A typical monthly expense budget for a small operation with a home-based office would be:
Use Local Seo For Landscaping And Lawn Care Lead Generation
Search engine optimization, usually referred to as SEO, is still the king of digital marketing. Its what will move your landscaping business to the first page of Google and keep it there, on top of your competitors. If your SEO campaign is strong enough, SEO alone can generate the majority of your landscaper leads !
A good first step to your SEO campaign is setting up and filling out a Google My Business account. From there, you can advance to backlinking and content marketing .
Its always a good idea to let an SEO expert get your campaign up and running. Theyll also be able to make recommendations for your SEO campaign that will improve its effectiveness over time.
Reach out to get a free quote on a local SEO campaign for your landscaping business!
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Contact Your Family And Friends
One of the best ways to kick-start your business is to search within your own network. Since you already have a good relationship with your friends and family, they should be the first to know about your new lawn care business. Even if they dont need lawn care services at the moment, they can pass the information to their networks.
What Are Some Skills And Experiences That Will Help You Build A Successful Lawn Care Business
One way to attract customers is to make your own lawn look spectacular. By practicing on your own lawn you will be able to learn the skills needed to keep a lawn in perfect condition. All of the information is readily available on the Internet, which enables any person interested in this business to be self-taught and to improve their skills.
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How Do You Get Lawn Care Customers Fast
There are many ways to get lawn care customers. One of the best ways to build your customer base is by word of mouth be a knowledgeable, likable landscaper to make a good impression on your customers. Once theyre satisfied with your services, theyll likely recommend you to friends and family.
Another good way to pull in more customers is to be active in local Facebook groups and be the go-to person when it comes to landscaping. Answer questions from group members so they know youre an expert on lawn care and remember you the next time they need landscaping services.
The Grass Can Be Greener With Your Lawn Care Company
Starting or expanding your lawn care business can be overwhelming, but using these strategies will help you grow your customer base and hit your goals.
Dont be afraid to get creative and even adopt some new technology thatll help you streamline tasks and put you ahead of any competing companies in your neighborhood.
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Start With Family And Friends
Reaching out to family and friends is often the first step for many small business owners, regardless of industry. Since you dont have a reputation as a business owner yet, its easiest to get your first customers from people you already have relationships with.
There are a few other great reasons to start with family and friends:
- Its less work. Your friends and family are more invested in your success than anyone, so it can be a lot easier to sell to a relative or family friend than a total stranger. Reach out to your network, to find people who are enthusiastic to help you promote your business.
- It helps you build confidence. Your personal connections likely wont criticize you as harshly as new customers. Theres also a good chance you can ask them for a positive online review.
- Its good for cash flow. The revenue you make in the first few months is critical to your long-term success. When you desperately need income in your early days, family and friends will be the first people to choose you over a large business.
When its time to start promoting your business, put out announcements on the social media channels where you interact with your family and friendswhether that be LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram.
You could post a Facebook announcement like this:
Dont be afraid to let everyone know, says Jason Creel. Put it on Facebook, anywhere, but let all your friends and family know youre starting a lawn care business.
Check Out The Competition
Dont fire up the mower just yet! First, take a look at the demand for lawn care in your area. Are you near a few residential neighborhoods with big yards? Or maybe theres a call for commercial jobs, maintaining green spaces for local businesses.
Commercial or residential, remember that potential clients may already work with an established lawn care company. That means you should look not just for possible customers, but for ways to differentiate yourself from your competition. What can you offer that they cant?
To answer that, youll need to do some research. The easiest way is to start online. Google lawn care and check out the local business listings. Take a look at their websites, especially the services offered and any price lists.
If you want to start your own lawn care business, you probably know at least a couple of people who are already working in the industry. See what they think: How hard is it to find customers? Is there a demand for specialized skills, like working with pesticides or fertilizers? Youd be surprised how helpful a simple conversation can be.
Whatever the answers, make sure you have a solid understanding of the market before you begin.
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Leverage Facebook And Instagram Advertising
Digital ads can be a major opportunity to reach the right customers. One of the main advantages to using Facebook and Instagram for ads is the ability to create highly targeted audiences based on factors like location, interests, and demographics.
Boostpoint, an Equipter partner company, takes the mystery out of running ad campaigns on these networks. It shows your landscaping company ads to a highly targeted audience based on areas where youre already working or where you want to work. The app also provides customizable ad templates to help you get started, as well as an easy-to-read dashboard so you can measure campaigns for ROI more clearly.
Tips For Generating Organic Website Traffic
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An ample amount of time needs to be invested when building your website. If youre getting a quote under $12,000 for a new website, its a good sign there isnt much SEO research or quality copywriting involved.
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Consistently creating useful, long-form blog content over the years can help you to rank for hundreds of search terms. A great content strategy with remarkable content requires expertise thats worth investing in.
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Set up online directory listings with Google My Business, social media profiles, etc. Make sure you have a consistent company name, address, phone, website, etc. listed. Search engines love this validation.
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Manage Your Online Reviews
84% of local consumers trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations. This means that as soon as your business is online, you should actively be trying to getreviews. Use this strategy:
Go For The Easy Wins First
When you want to know how to get lawn care customers fast, its vital to use a variety of marketing strategiesestablish a digital presence, network face-to-face with potential customers, and employ traditional marketing techniques. Do the easy things first, like printing out business cards, establishing a social media presence, and claiming your Yelp Business Page. You can then move onto the more complex undertakings, like creating a website, and soon youll be garnering new lawn care customers.
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Step : Create Your Business Website
After defining your brand and creating your logo the next step is to create a website for your business.
While creating a website is an essential step, some may fear that its out of their reach because they dont have any website-building experience. While this may have been a reasonable fear back in 2015, web technology has seen huge advancements in the past few years that makes the lives of small business owners much simpler.
Here are the main reasons why you shouldnt delay building your website:
- All legitimate businesses have websites – full stop. The size or industry of your business does not matter when it comes to getting your business online.
- Social media accounts like Facebook pages or LinkedIn business profiles are not a replacement for a business website that you own.
- Website builder tools like the GoDaddy Website Builder have made creating a basic website extremely simple. You dont need to hire a web developer or designer to create a website that you can be proud of.
Using our website building guides, the process will be simple and painless and shouldnt take you any longer than 2-3 hours to complete.
Recommended: Get started today using our recommended website builder or check out our review of the Best Website Builders.
Develop An Effective Direct Mail Strategy
Sending postcards can be a great lawn care lead generation strategy. A carefully executed campaign should result in a 1.5 -3.5% return. This means if youre sending 10,000 lawn care postcards, you should be getting 150-350 new lawn care leads. If thats not happening, there is an issue with your list, timing, offer, design, or website landing page.
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Turn Your Customers Into Ambassadors
When youre out of ways to promote your business, let your happy customers do it for you. Here are a few ways to make your customers ambassadors that help you get more business:
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Set up a referral program
Many businesses have a customer referral program that offers a special service or discount to customers who refer people they know. Referral programs work best when you have well-prepared scripts to ask for referrals, and when you listen to your customer base to find out what a valuable incentive would be.
Referrals arent just proven to be effective at getting new clientstheyre the best way to get quality clients who are more likely to stay with you, since theyre choosing you based on recommendations from people they trust.
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Collect feedback
Social proof is a must-have tool in your marketing and sales. Praise and testimonials from your existing customers will be highly effective at attracting new customers. Its rock-solid proof that you deliver quality service.
One of the best ways to ask for testimonials is to ask for genuine feedback. Dont just ask for praise from your customersif you show them youre willing to hear how they really feel, theyll be much more willing to give their feedback.
Its also important to make it easy for customers to give you instant feedback on a job. A few days after the job, write a sincere email asking them about their experience. In this email, you can include a or send them a feedback survey to prompt a response.
