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How To Bid (and Win) Lawn Care and Lawn Mowing Contracts

May 1

Posted by Lawn Care Business in bidding lawn care, contracts, lawn care contracts | No Comments

Remember that lawn care contract you bid on way back in January of this year? If you lost the contract because you were not the lowest bidder, there is hope that you can still win the contract.

Many contracting agencies follow a “lowest bidder first” rule when awarding lawn care contacts. This means that the lowest bidder will be awarded the contract irrespective of higher bidders’ experience levels. Though the lowest bidder might lack equipment, personel, or experience, they will be allowed to attempt to successfully complete the contract.

If the winning bidder is not able to competently perform the work, the contracting agency will, likely, cancel the contract due to non-performance and will contact the next highest bidder to see if that company wants to complete the remainder of the contract.

As summer wears on, make contact with the purchasing managers of the contracts you bid earlier this year. Let them know that you are still interested in the contract should the winning bidder fail to perform his work correctly.

***WARNING*** There are a few tactics some purchasing managers use to prevent lawn care companies from getting the money they deserve. Learn how to be aware of (and counteract) these tactics in our Lawn Care Business Owners Guidebook and Software Package.

For more information, please visit our main website:





How to Bid Lawn Care Contracts

www.StartALawnCareBusiness.com

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2012 Lawn Mowing Contracts Are Coming Due

Jan 25

Posted by Lawn Care Business in contracts, landscaping, lawn care business, lawn care contracts | No Comments

Bidding Lawn Mowing Contracts for 2012

Lawn Care Contracts are Great Sources of Extra Money

How to Successfully Bid Lawn Care Contracts
http://www.StartALawnCareBusiness.com/order.html
As lawn care business owners, we are all looking for additional sources of income for our companies.
The approach of the 2012 lawn mowing season brings special opportunities for any lawn care business that is either brand new to the lawn care industry or is looking to increase an already thriving business structure. Lawn care contracts are often bid during the January through April time frame. Industrial plants, apartment complexes, retail establishments, and government agencies renew their lawn care and landscape maintenance contracts between now and the beginning of the new mowing season.

The problem with many lawn care company owners is that they do not know how to bid these contracts. Too many lawn care companies mistakenly try to win contracts by simply underpricing last year’s price. This is the wrong way to price a contract and many lawn care companies lose THOUSANDS of dollars each year following this strategy.

Developing a pricing strategy is only one of the problems lawn care companies face bidding on contracts. Procedural difficulties in bidding contracts also cause many lawn care companies to have their bids rejected. This results in downtime and lost revenue for those lawn care companies.

If you want to take your lawn care business to the next level this year, take the time RIGHT NOW to learn how to properly find, develop, and bid on larger-scale lawn care and landscape maintenance contracts. Our company has developed a professionally produced lawn care business guidebook and software package that includes a very detailed look at how to properly bid on lawn care contracts. The package is on sale right now for less than $50.

For more information and ordering instructions, visit our main website by clicking on the link below:





How to Successfully Bid Lawn Care Contracts
http://www.StartALawnCareBusiness.com

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Starting a Lawn Care Business During Winter (December, January, February)

Nov 15

Posted by Lawn Care Business in autumn, commercial lawn mowers, contracts, start a lawn care business, used lawn mowers, winter | Comments off

Hi Everyone:

This is Keith from SALCB.

If you have ever thought about starting a lawn care business or if you currently own a lawn care company and are thinking about expanding your business in the coming year, the next few months (December, January, and February) are target rich months for: performing winter cleanup jobs for your current customers, purchasing used and last year’s model LC equipment, securing new (larger scale) contracts.

Additionally, the customers you acquire during the winter months will be your first customers once spring rolls around. This will give you a solid customer base to grow your business.

Don’t ignore the next few months. You can still make a lot of money during the winter and you will be ready to go in the spring.

My company started our lawn care company 1992. We started small and grew rapidly. We have developed a professionally produced lawn care business guidebook and estimating software package. If you are having problems starting your business, acquiring customers, choosing equipment, doing the work properly and efficiently, and estimating your prices, visit our website to learn more about the lawn care business program.





Once again, our website address is: Start A Lawn Care Business.com

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Cleaning Foreclosure Properties – Lawn Care Companies Benefit

Aug 16

Posted by Lawn Care Business in bidding lawn care, contracts, economy, lawn care business, lawn care estimating, zoning laws | 1 Comment

http://www.StartALawnCareBusiness.com

Does StartALawnCareBusiness.com offer MILLION DOLLAR ADVICE???

I came across a headline today from Kansas City. Apparently, the city of Kansas City is owed $1.26 million in unpaid Lawn Care bills. With the current state of the economy and the real estate bust, Kansas City is being forced to maintain foreclosed properties and vacant lots. The total bill Kansas City has racked up is over $1.26 million. That’s a lot of money.

Now, not to toot our own horns…but “TOOT TOOT.” The lawn care business training program offered through our website has specific instructions on how to get involved with your city public works department cleaning up and mowing grass on abandoned and foreclosed properties. We have been instructing lawn care business owners on this lucrative segment of the lawn care industry for nearly 10 years.

We show you how to get on the city bidding list, inside secrets on how to increase your chances of winning lawn care bids, and how to estimate the work to be done. Without this information, your lawn care company is twisting in the wind. Without knowing how to properly bid on these city contracts, your lawn care company might be losing out on millions of dollars of lawn care related work.

Now, K.C. might be a peculiar case but most cities across the country are struggling with abandoned properties that need their grass maintained. If you are interested in making money mowing grass on abandoned and foreclosed properties, I urge you to purchase the Start A Lawn Care Business training material and estimating software. You will be leaps ahead of your competition.

For more information, visit our main website at:
Start A Lawn Care Business
http://www.StartALawnCareBusiness.com

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Bidding on Government Lawn Mowing Contracts

Mar 17

Posted by Lawn Care Business in bidding lawn care, contracts, lawn care videos, start a lawn care business | 4 Comments

March is already half over and if you are thinking about bidding on Government lawn mowing contracts you may have already missed the majority of the contracts that have been let for bid for the upcoming mowing season. Don’t fret because there are likely several contracts that have been delayed or are being rebid for one reason or another.

Before you bid on a Government lawn mowing contract you should be aware that Government contracts follow a different code of conduct than many other requests for proposals. I’ve made a short video for you highlighting a few finer points of an example Code-of-Conduct manual. Understanding and agreeing to this manual is the first step in getting your lawn care company on a Government’s bidding list.

Proposal Forms: I want to highlight a few finer points of this contract bidding instruction booklet. The first point is the Proposal Forms. Most bidding packets come with a series of bidding forms. You must complete the bidding forms that come with the bidding packet. Do not fill in your own forms or simply write your prices on a sheet of paper. Your bids may be rejected if you fill them out on anything but the bidding forms that come with your bidding packet.

Late Bids: Make sure you get your bids in on time. If you are late on a bid, the purchasing agent will, most likely, reject your bid. I have seen lawn care companies attempt to turn their bid packets in 2 minutes after the bid-closing times and the purchasing agents have rejected those bids. 9:00AM means 9:00AM and not 1 minute after 9:00. Acceptance of a bid is a violation of the request for proposal and could cause the job to be rebid. I like to submit time sensitive bids a couple days in advance. Rushing to get your bid in at the last minute will cause you to make mistakes. Taking your time with bid preparation allows you to calculate your prices with a clear head.

Submittal of Bids: Bids must be presented in a special bidding envelope that comes with your bidding packet. The envelope will be time stamped by the Purchasing Agent as proof that your submittal was within time cut off of bid acceptance.

Competency of Bidder: Purchasing agents can reject bids from lawn care companies that are deemed incompetent to complete the work. A company that does not posses proper equipment, skills sets, or manpower can be rejected from the bidding process if they are unable to demonstrate their ability to complete the job. Likewise, if a company does not have proper insurance or if they have defaulted on a previous contract, they might be deemed incompetent and their bid rejected even if they are the low bidder.

Performance Bond: A performance bond is a financial instrument stating that you will complete the work as stated in the contract. If you do not complete the work, you may lose your performance bond. A performance bond is designed to keep lawn care companies from bidding jobs that they do not have intention or capability of completing. Take a performance bond seriously. Also, a performance bond will cost you some money or it will tie up some of your financial resources. So, take the additional cost into consideration and work that into your contract.

Collusive Bidding: Bidders of many government contracts are not allowed to discuss their pricing or estimating strategies with other bidders of the same contract. Price setting is highly frowned upon by purchasing agents. Collusion can cause all bids to be rejected by the purchasing agent. Worse than having your bid rejected; collusion can have you banned from the bidding list and can bring even harsher penalties upon the collusive bidders.

This is just a brief overview of a Code-Of-Conduct example to get your companies name onto a bidding list. It can be nerve-wracking attempting to navigate the bidding process. If you are interested in bidding government contracts, we include an in-depth discussion of the bidding process in our lawn care business guidebooks. We have lots of experience bidding these type jobs and our bidding tutorial as well as our estimating calculators will help you give the best bids for these larger-scale contracts. Take a look at our website for more information on the Start A Lawn Care Business program

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More lawn mower racing videos.

Mar 11

Posted by Lawn Care Business in bidding lawn care, contracts, customers, Lawn Care Advertising, lawn care business | No Comments

We received some nice responses from yesterday’s video of the lawn mower race. So, I want to post a couple more minutes from a 5 man lawn mower race video.

Do you participate in these types of events? I think lawn mower racing is fascinating and I would love to give it a try. Also, I would love to hear from any lawn care business owners who also participate in the events and use lawn mower racing as a promotion for their lawn care businesses. Let us know if it has helped your business as a marketing tool and if people recognize you around town. You you incorporate your lawn mower racing in your business name or in your logo?

Enjoy the video. We may have more for you later this spring.

Oh, that reminds me; spring is basically here and I hope everyone is pounding the pavement hard drumming up new customers and contracts. Contracts are still being bid for the upcoming lawn mowing season. If you need some help finding customers and bidding contract, be sure to check out our lawn care business program. It includes the estimating software. This will really help you bidding jobs and giving prices to your customers.

Start A Lawn Care Business
http://www.StartALawnCareBusiness.com

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RFPs for your LCB

Jan 31

Posted by Lawn Care Business in bidding lawn care, contracts, lawn care business, money, start a lawn care business | No Comments

Hidden in reams of papers, buried deep within a website’s menu hierarchy, or ambiguated by legal jargon in rarely seen publications, RFPs can bring great profits to your lawn care business.

RFP are “Requests For Proposals” that are sometimes less-than-adequately advertised by businesses, public entities (such as libraries or schools), and government agencies.

Requests For Proposals are voluminous toward the beginning of the year and often cover work to be completed during the upcoming year’s mowing season. Many of these RFP are not heavily advertised. Sometimes, an agency is happy with their current lawn care maintenance company and they refuse to advertise more than is required by their charter for bids to upcoming contracts. Other times, a purchasing manager may not have a large enough budget to properly advertise for bids. For whatever reason they are not correctly advertised, you cannot bid on a contract unless you know it exists.

As a lawn care business owner, your duty is to be a sleuth in searching for RFPs. If you are attempting to grow your business by pursuing contracts, uncovering RFPs should be as large a part of your business as all your other advertising efforts combined.

Knowledge on where to look for RFPs and how to chip away at layers of corporate and government bureaucracy will greatly enhance your ability to successfully bid large-scale mowing, lawn care, and landscaping contracts.

Are you ready to start bidding big lawn care contracts this year?

Our lawn care business guidebook, video training, and estimating software will help you search out these hard-to-find contracts and bid them successfully.

We have years of experience bidding these types of contracts and there is a section in our program devoted to bidding larger scale contracts.

If you are interested in growing your lawn care business and making more money than you ever expected, look at our website for more information. We have a special sale price on the program right now.

Visit our website:

http://www.StartALawnCareBusiness.com

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2010 is 1/12 over.

Jan 29

Posted by Lawn Care Business in bidding lawn care, contracts, equipment | No Comments

Remembering back 1 month ago, 2009 seemed to fly by and was ended long before I though it would. 30 days later I see that the first page of 2010’s calendar is ready to be flipped.

Where does the time go?

February 2010 is upon us. Although February is the shortest month of the year (and often the most wintery), this is the month where you need to work harder than most any other month getting contracts and lining up new customers for your lawn care business.

Municipalities, small businesses, government agencies, and homeowners alike are all beginning the search for this year’s lawn cutters. If you are not out right now pounding the pavement and getting your name in front of these customers, you are missing a potentially huge market of new customers.

Getting customers right now can make the difference between a great year and a financially misserable year.

Early customers are important for a number of reasons. First, you want long term customer for your business. Clients who start with you today have the potential of having their grass cut for the entire mowing season. Secondly, customers refer other customer via word-of-mouth. If you hump it right now, you may very-well be able to fill your roster by the end of February. Can you imagine having a full client list before March arrives. The third reason why you should get busy now is because lawn mower dealers are running early-bird specials this time of year. They want your business early and if you already have money coming in (or, at least, guaranteed contracts) you will be able to get some great deals on commercial lawn mowers and other equipment.

Are you at a loss on how to get customers and lawn care contracts? We have developed a lawn care business guidebook and training package which will help you Start and Expand your lawn care business this year.

Learn more about our business package at our website:
http://www.StartALawnCareBusiness.com

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