Associations Groups And Networking Events
Homeowners Associations and similar real estate groups, Building Owners and Managers Associations, Chamber of Commerce meetings and other networking-type events can get you in front of the right people. You might be able to make deals at the events themselves, or at the least will have a reference point when you follow up later on.
Getting to know government officials can give you a huge leg up when it comes to winning new accounts. Government officials know what big projects are coming up and also have a network of other corporations in the community that will have commercial landscaping needs. Especially if you live in an area with a high amount of commercial properties, you will want to have a network of people who can let you know when a big account might be looking for a new vendor or taking bids.
Is A Lawn Care App Affordable
Each lawn care app offers various features so pricing varies from product to product. Pricing can also be dependent on how many employees you need, locations, and even what features you need to implement.
Now, some lawn care apps are super affordable because they dont fully charge per user or location. You should start with a free trial to play around with the lawn care app to ensure its a good fit. Then size up what features are necessary and what is nice to have.
Use Your Social Media Channels
Social media channels allow you to communicate with current and potential clients online. Facebook and LinkedIn are two platforms that can help you get lawn care customers fast.
Facebook offers two ways to interact with locals in your area for freea Facebook business page and local Facebook groups.
Facebook business pages are like mini websites but on the Facebook platform. You can include a link to your website, phone number, photographs, and your hours of operation. People can like your Facebook page and comment on your posts, providing a great opportunity to interact directly with current or potential customers.
Facebook groups are slightly different. They are groups of people with common interests who can share information and interact with one another. For example, your city likely has several Facebook groups like Buy and Sell or Jonesville Neighborhood Q and A. You can join these groups with your personal Facebook account and advertise your services. This is an ideal outlet to promote the discounts and referral incentives we mentioned before.
LinkedIn is another platform that can help you land customers. Since its a professional network, youll be interacting primarily with other business owners and professionals. While you wont be talking directly to consumers, you can connect with other local business owners and present yourself as a thought leader.
Don’t Miss: When Should You Aerate Your Lawn In Georgia
Get Insured In Under 10 Minutes
Get an affordable & customized policy for as low as $25.95/month*. So you can get back to what matters: Your business.
How much you need to earn: Add up your overhead costs. This might include the cost of equipment, maintenance, fuel, and paying your employees. Add in your own salary. Then decide what rate you need to charge to pay for your expensesand still earn a profit. Remember, this is a business. Youll want to stay competitive.
An example in Bostons suburbs: According to , the average cost of lawn mowing for a medium size lawn outside of Boston is between $40 and $80 per week. The cost goes up for a larger size lawn, of course. It also costs more if I add lawn edging, shrub trimming, and other services.
A lot of companies near me ask their clients to agree to a regular weekly, biweekly, or monthly schedule. This way, they know how much work to expectand they can ensure a steady stream of income.
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.
You May Like: How To Estimate Lawn Mowing Jobs
Offer Package Discounts For Scheduled Lawn Maintenance
Fertilization, aeration, dethatching, mulching and tree trimming, rather than mowing, tend to be your money makers in the lawn care industry. The trouble is, many homeowners want a nice lawn, but not if it costs a lot. Paying to have your lawn mowed is one thing it removes a strenuous, time-consuming and often unpleasant chore from the homeowners honey-do list but many homeowners will simply fertilize their own grass, or skip fertilization and other less regular maintenance chores altogether.
Take some of the sticker shock out of lawn fertilization. Offer package discounts for homeowners who sign up for lawn fertilization, aeration and dethatching package. Youll get more customers willing to shell out for the extra service, and thatll be more money in your pocket.
What Not To Do When Expanding Into Commercial Lawn And Landscaping Work
Part of taking the right steps to be successful in the commercial landscaping market means avoiding some costly pitfalls.When youre first starting out, it may be tempting to buy a job to get a foothold with an account. But, thats a lose-lose situation. Stick to your set profit margins.You also have to educate your employees. Just because your sales team is good at landing residential accounts doesnt mean theyll be as successful in the commercial sector. In fact, without the right training, they will probably fail miserably and quit, Delany says.Commercial lawn accounts and landscaping contracts can bring in large checks, but make sure your business isnt too dependent on one account. You need to have a good mix of property types. You dont want to have all of your eggs in one basket, Schill says.With the right business tools and preparation, you can make commercial accounts a profitable part of your landscaping company.If you have the patience and are willing to deal with slow payments and losing/replacing large accounts, Delany says, go commercial.
Want more sales insight and advice? Enter your email below to receive new articles instantly . And be sure to check out our Tip Sheet with practical advice on how to market and sell commercial landscaping work.
Read Also: Plug Aerator Lowe’s
How To Get 50 New Customers For Your Lawn Care Business
New lawn care business owners are constantly writing me and asking how they can gain new clients. When responding to these questions, I like to give specific examples a lawn care business owner could do today or tomorrow to help them achieve their goals. Here is a specific example of how one lawn care business owner marketed his business and gained over 50 new lawn care customers in less than 5 months.
Recently on our lawn care business forum, a new member Egreen wrote and said “This is my first season in business. Last winter I called several businesses ex. gas stations,7-11 small shopping centers in my area and explained to the manager that I was NOT trying to sell them anything. I told them I was considering a lawn care business and was taking a survey about their current lawn care service provider. This allowed me to build a rapport with the business owner. I asked who serviced their property, how often, how much they charged and if they were happy with the service provided. Before hanging up I told them if I considered opening shop I would call them and let them know how it was going.
Now any lawn care business owner that has been around for a few seasons knows the return they will make on many marketing strategies. For instance passing out lawn care service flyers in your neighborhood may help you get a 2 to 3 % response. But can you imagine landing 11 out of 12 accounts you targeted? That is an amazing response!
Managing Your Clients And Jobs
Now that weâve got a handful of Clients, we need to work on putting basic systems in place to run our business well. In order to maximize our efficiency, weâll want to automate as much as possible.
We can use an app like Check which automates a number of time consuming tasks, completely eliminating those things from our to-do list.
- Automatically sending invoices at the completion of a job.
- Automatically scheduling jobs on a regular cadence .
- Automatically generating the shortest route for the day.
- Automatically calculating each Clientâs balance based on invoice and payment activity.
It also makes other tasks much easier, such as:
- Logging Client payments .
- Capturing and storing critical Client information.
- Rescheduling or canceling jobs due to weather or equipment malfunction.
- Keeping track of job details and special Client requests.
Step 1: Download the App
We can search for âCheck: Lawn Care Managementâ app in the Apple App Store or Google Play Store and download it for free.
Step 2: Sign up for an account.
We just have to add some basic information like name, phone number, email address and services. It should only take us a quick minute.
Step 3: Import our Clients.
Step 4: Set up Recurring Jobs.
- Lawn Careevery 2 weeks.
- Gutter Cleaningevery 6 months.
- Hedge Trimmingevery month.
Wrapping it Up
Recommended Reading: Can You Hydroseed Over An Existing Lawn
Mow Early In The Height Of The Season
Every week or 10 days, change clients from fortnightly to weekly for the growth season. Often they will agree for short periods of time. Not only does it increase your chances of profitability, but it will make your customers feel like your schedule is based on their lawn growth – one way to make them feel important!
Iscape: Create Virtual Landscape Designs
iOS Free, offers in-app purchases
iScape is every lawn care and landscapers dream. It lets you build in augmented reality from a photo to help sell your services, impress customers, and help them communicate their vision. More simply, you can place images of shrubs, new grass, flowers, trees, and more into a photo of your clients property and add them to quotes. iScape is used by customers and professional landscapers alike, so you can bet on it being user-friendly.
Its free to download but youll probably find most features require payment to use. There are pro weekly or monthly versions for plans that range from $2.99 up to $199.99 if you want full access to all of the design features.
Ideal for: Lawn care businesses that also specialize in landscaping.
Recommended Reading: How Much Peat Moss For Lawn
Bidding On Commercial Lawn Maintenance And Landscaping Jobs
After youve laid the groundwork, its time to turn your attention to the bidding process.
If youre bidding commercial maintenance and landscaping jobs like you bid residential, you wont get the work, Schill says. Most commercial accounts are chasing the bottom dollar. Thats why its so important to have a good grasp on every aspect and expense of your business.Youre better off trying to take the scientific approach, Durden says. That includes taking good field measurements and knowing the number of man-hours the task will require.It costs time and money to put a bid in on a property, so make sure you truly understand the specs and the clients expectations, Schill says.When working on a contract, Delany says to add a clause giving you the right to pause work until you get paid. If you dont have that in your contract and you stop working, youve breached it first.One of the main numbers to look at when bidding commercial lawn maintenance and landscaping jobs is your profit. Since all landscape contractors are paying approximately the same amount for trucks, mowers, labor, overhead and fuel, the deciding factor is often how much profit do you want/need to make on this job, Delany says. Here are some questions Delany suggests asking yourself when deciding how much profit to add to your bid:
You may not be able to answer all of these, but the more you think about these, the better chance you have of winning the account, he says.
Tip 2: Build A Team Of Trustworthy People
As your business grows, there may come a time where you need to pull in some extra help. Regardless of the position, whether its a fully time field tech or a part time worker to help you manage your business, the individuals you decide to hire can have a major impact on your company. Before you hire someone, we recommend performing a background check there are numerous companies that can offer in-depth checks. You should also ask for references and follow up with them.
You May Like: How To Rid Lawn Of Clover
Build A Landscaping Referral Program
If you dont already have one in place, a customer referral program is a smart way to facilitate word-of-mouth advertising. Offering an incentivewhether its monetary or non-monetarycan be just the encouragement a happy customer needs to spread the word about your landscape business. The most effective way to motivate is to offer incentives for the referring client and the new prospect.
Earning A Great Living At Grassperson
When we hire for any of these roles weve discussed, we are looking to hire people who want to stay with the company for the long-haul. Were committed not only to providing a competitive wage , but other attractive incentives.
Some of the things that help us work toward our goal of being the employer of choice in our region include the fact that we offer year-round employment , we pay weekly, and we offer competitive benefits.
Another really big incentive is that we offer overtime. While you might be making $14 an hour, you have the opportunity to earn $21 an hour with overtime. Now youre talking about a more substantial yearly salary. Plus, theres room to grow and continue to climb the pay scale.
Of course, this is not how all lawn care or landscaping companies operate.
For a lot of lawn care and landscaping jobs, workers do need to go out and find a second job. But our business model is that wed rather provide you with those additional hours you might want so that you dont have to go out and work somewhere else in order to be able to earn a living.
You May Like: How To Revive Brown Lawn
Gasbuddy: Buy And Find Cheap Gas
Lawn care app for iOS and Android Free
Whether you have multiple crews on the road at once or youre a one-person operation, you spend a lot of money on gas. GasBuddy helps you get smart with your gas expenses and find the cheapest gas nearby. If you get one of their GasBuddy cards, you can earn free gas and save up to $0.25 per gallon. Your crews can even search for gas stations by price, location, and restrooms.
Ideal for: Every lawn care business
The Cons Of Lawn Mowing For Money
- Expensive start-up-costs: If your child needs to purchase a lawnmower, it could be an expensive job to start. You could let them use your mower to get started or help them purchase one secondhand.
- Safety: Make sure that your child understands how to operate a lawn mower with caution. Anytime a child operates machinery, there is the possibility of injury. Create a plan for your child in case he has an emergency.
- Limited ages: Lawn mowing is appropriate for older children who can operate a lawn mower safely. Younger children may want to consider raking instead.
- Competition: There could be stiff competition for lawn mowing jobs if they are all interested in the same job. Encourage your child to get creative to land repeat jobs.
- Weather: Rain can cause a problem for a lawn mowing business so can drought. Help your child create a backup plan for getting lawn mowing jobs done when there is inclement weather.
Recommended Reading: All Wheel Drive Push Mower Reviews
Have A Strict Payment Policy And System
All Crewcut franchisees have a well developed client Terms of Trade form which is printed on the back of each client statement or invoice. Train your clients to pay monthly or every two lawn cuts. Cash flow is the life-blood of your business and good cash flow will mean that you never have to worry. Remember that planning customer payment methods is far easier than trying to claim their debts – it just gets too messy for what it’s worth.
Taking It Slow If You Want To
I understand what a jump it can be to quit your job in favor of your side hustle. So if you want to take it slow, you totally can. Consider going part-time at your job if that is possible, or taking a week or two off if possible and testing things out. It is smart to be cautious about your financial stability, but you have to be confident in yourself. If you know you do good work and you are determined to make it work, then you will have no problem succeeding. The important thing is that you stay on good terms with your employer. That way if you do quit and then fail, you can always go back.
Don’t Miss: How To Use Bioadvanced Fungus Control For Lawns
Moving Forward With A Lawn Care App
When it comes to adding lawn care apps to your day-to-day grind, make sure you do your homework to find the best fit for you. Determine which features are the most beneficial to your business. If you need help with time tracking, scheduling, communication, and streamlining daily operations then Connecteam may be the best fit for you, especially due to its practical pricing.
Lawn care apps will ensure that your business runs as smoothly as possible so that you can spend more time gaining new clients, supporting employees, and increasing revenue. The eight lawn care apps we highlighted above are the best in the market right now so take some out for a test drive and watch your business grow.
