Start A Lawn Care Business

Make money with a lawn care and landscaping business.

Archive for June, 2010

Tail Lights for your Lawn Mower Trailer

Jun 29

Posted by Lawn Care Business in customers, enclosed trailer, equipment, lawn equipment | 1 Comment

by: http://www.StartALawnCareBusiness.com

Smashed against a tree.

Knocked off when backing into the equipment shed.

Destroyed by an errant runaway lawn mower.

I cannot count the number of times I have had to repair or replace lawn mower trailer taillights. I remember fitting a new set of taillights on a trailer and the very next day a dropped weedeater caused a wire to come loose and I had to repair the connection before driving back to the shop that evening.

As frustrating as they are, tail lights are a necessary component of lawn mower trailers for your lawn care business.

As it was getting dark one night last week, I snapped a photograph of this lawn care business owner’s lawn mower trailer.

Hauling a lawn mower trailer with nonworking lights causes three potential scenarios:

1) You send an unprofessional business image to your potential clients. If a potential client sees that you are willing to operate your equipment in a nonprofessional manner, they may very well skip your company and choose a company that takes better care of its lawn care equipment.

2) Police can ticket the driver for nonworking trailer lights. This is especially true if the police catch you driving like this after dark.

3) You might cause a road accident. Other drivers that don’t see your trailer might cut behind you too close and clip your trailer. Also, if your vehicle’s taillights are obstructed by your lawn mower trailer or landscaping equipment on the trailer, other drivers might not see your brake lights and crash into you when you are stopping.

In your lawn mowing business, always make maintenance and safety a high priority. Lawn mower trailer lights should be functional at all times. As for me, I will attempt to not drop any more weedeaters on wiring harnesses or smash into trees when backing up.

If you are looking to operate a professional lawn care / landscaping business, take a look at our “Start A Lawn Care Business” business course. It is FILLED with information and business tools to help you be a success with your business.

You can find it on our main website:
http://www.StartALawnCareBusiness.com
Start A Lawn Care Business

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June 15, 2010 Quarterly Tax Payments

Jun 15

Posted by Lawn Care Business in estimating, lawn care business, Lawn Care Business Taxes, lawn care estimating, taxes | No Comments

by: www.StartALawnCareBusiness.com

This is a quick heads up.

If you are running your own lawn care business, you need to remember that today (June 15, 2010) is quarterly tax payment day. If you have generated income this year with your landscaping business, you are likely required to make estimated tax payments throughout the year. Todayt is one of those tax payment days and your estimated quarterly payment must be postmarked before midnight tonight to comply with federal tax regulations.

Running your own grass cutting service is fun but as a small business owner you have to keep up with the paperwork that keeps your business legal.

This blog does not provide any professional tax advice. So, if you have questions about your particular business needs, please consult with a qualified tax professional.

For great information and business tools to help you start and operate your own successful lawn care business, look at the professionally produced business package on our main website at: www.StartALawnCareBusiness.com

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Lawn Care Estimating – How To Estimate (Bid) Lawn Care Work

Jun 11

Posted by Lawn Care Business in estimating, how much to charge, lawn business strategies, lawn care estimating, start a lawn care business | No Comments

by: StartALawnCareBusiness.com

Lawn Care Estimating

Our Lawn Care Business program is jam-packed with information about starting and operating a lawn care business. There is tons of information on business startup, how to advertise and acquire customers, how to bid larger jobs, how to purchase lawn mowers, weedeaters, hedge trimmers, & leaf blowers, and there is also information on how to strip lawns and give professional looking cuts.

As informative as all these sections are, one of the most important sections of the lawn care business course deals with knowing how much money to charge your customers. New lawn care entrepreneurs have difficult times telling their customers how much they are going to charge to cut their grass. We dealt with the estimation problem ourselves our first year in business. I still remember some of the first customers I estimated. I would tell them the price and they would almost always balk and say I was too high. Being new in the business and not wanting to lose customers, I would almost always drop my price immediately…sometimes as much as $10 per cut.

When I think back to those early days now, I left a ton of money on the table because I was too inexperienced to know how to give a good estimate and stand firm on my price. I probably lost thousands of dollars the first six month in business because I didn’t know how to give proper estimates.

If you are new to the business and you feel that you are just not making the money you know you should be making, I urge you to get our Lawn Care Business training coursebooks and training videos. The program includes a REALWORLD description teaching you how to price jobs and how to keep from having your customers turn away from reasonable estimates.

We have the lawn care business coursebooks, video training guides, estimating software, and business toolkit on sale right now through our main website. Learning how to estimate lawn care work properly might save you thousands of dollars of lost revenue this year in your lawn care & landscaping business.

You can order the lawn care business program through our main website: http://www.StartALawnCareBusiness.com

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You've Goat To Start Your Own Lawn Care Business

Jun 2

Posted by Lawn Care Business in customers, landscaping, Lawn Care Advertising, lawn care business, lawn mowers, start a lawn care business | No Comments

Starting a Lawn Care Business?  Think about alternative and creative services to offer your customers.

Once again, cities around the country are using goats to gain control over weeds and other vegetation in hard to mow areas.

In our city, Chattanooga, Tennessee, goats have been employed for the last 15 years to fight the relentless creep of kudzu vines.  Kudzu was imported many years ago to help fight erosion on the steep mountainous terrain that circles the city.  Kudzu is great at stemming erosion.  The downside is that it grows rapidly and engulfs trees, telephone poles, and roadways.  Since it is often planted in hard to reach areas, there is no practical method of using lawn mowers or trimmers to keep it at bay.

In the 1990’s, our public works department made a contract with a local goat farmer.  He brought his goats to areas of heavy kudzu growth.  The grazing goats worked non-stop at gnawing the tenacious vine.  Though there were several problems with the goats (wandering off, chased by dogs) the goats proved beneficial to the landscaping upkeep of the city.

We are just one of hundreds of communities using goats for various lawn care and landscaping upkeep duties.  There are even many environmentally conscious corporations and small businesses that use goats as their lawn care companies.  This goes to show you that if you are thinking about starting your own lawn care business, you shouldn’t rule out alternative services to offer your customers.

Though we have never used goats in our own lawn care business, we have been involved in the industry for 18 years and we always enjoy learning about new and creative ways to make money mowing grass.  If you are looking to start your own lawn care business or if you are just looking to make some extra money this summer mowing grass, you will benefit from our experience.  We have produced a very helpful lawn care business guidebook and software package. 

The lawn care business guidebook and software package is for sale right now through our main website and you can read more about it here:  http://www.StartALawnCareBusiness.com

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How Much Money Can I Earn with a Lawn Care Business

Jun 1

Posted by Lawn Care Business in bidding lawn care, estimating, lawn care business, money | No Comments

How much money can I earn with a Lawn Care Business?

Many of our readers wrote to comment about our blog posting from January where we linked to our lawn care “earnings potential”  calculator.  The posting was designed to give you a goal for 2010.  Along with the posting, we linked to the Lawn Care Estimating calculator to help you discover how much money you could make (weekly income) during 2010.

If you took the challenge in January, we would love to hear how you are doing with your goal.  Are you making more money than you thought you would make or are you slightly behind schedule?  If you are behind schedule with your earnings, there’s nothing to worry about.  Though the year is almost 1/2 over, the season has barely begun.  June is a PRIME time to gear up your lawn care business and start picking up bigger and better customers.  The next few month are the time to really prove yourself.  With a bit of motivation, we know you can still reach your earnings goal for this year.

If you want to use the calculator to figure your earnings potential doing lawn care, check out the link here:

Lawn Care Estimating Calculator

We would also like to remind you that our Lawn Care Business Course is currently on sale through our main website.  The course will show you how to start and operate a successful lawn care business.  With your purchase of the lawn care business course, you will also receive the full set of lawn care estimating software to help you with your estimating and bidding. 

Check it out on our main site:  http://www.StartALawnCareBusiness.com

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