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20% Time For Lawn Care Innovation

Oct 12

Posted by Lawn Care Business in employees, lawn business strategies, lawn product development | 1 Comment

If you read this blog consistently, you have surely noticed that I am a big fan of analyzing successful, non-lawn care, companies. We can learn from other industries and apply their successes to our own personal lawn care businesses.

Google is one company I am constantly impressed with. Today, Google announced plans to help develop an off-shore wind farm to generate electricity for up to 1.9 million homes. If you live in a part of the country that does not have wind turbines, I encourage you to visit a wind farm. Last year I drove from Tennessee to Seattle and was amazed at the number of wind turbines along the way. Kansas seems to have thousands of windmills and the Hood River region of Oregon and Washington seem to have millions of windmills.

Windmills are beside the point I want to make today but they just brought to mind an impressive feature of Google and how they constantly innovate in their product offerings. Google allows their engineers to spend up to 20% of their time working on their own projects within the Google infrastructure. An engineer with an idea how one of Google’s products can work better or be more productive can spend 1 day per week innovating and redesigning the product. If his/her project is approved, it will be included in Google’s offerings. In fact, Gmail, one of Google best features, started out as a 20% time project by one of it’s engineers. Today, Gmail boasts nearly 200 million users.

So, how does this relate to your lawn care business?

What products could you develop for your lawn care business if you (and / or your employees) took the incentive to devote 1 day per week to innovation? Yes, I can already hear your answers and I can’t imagine giving lawn care employees free reign over 20 percent of their time. However, what if it was a supervised 20%? And, what if it wasn’t 1 day per week but 1 hour per day instead? For those of you who think 1 hour per day is still too much, what if you dropped it to 1 hour per week? I can completely imagine that your employees, or you, would respect the 1 hour per week of innovation time. I can only imagine the developments of creative employees and lawn care business owners being creative within our industry spending 1 hour per week on innovation.

Granted, lawn care is a different business model than developing a search engine. We have to be out there sweating through customers lawns before we make any money. On the other hand, can you imagine the profit increase if you develop a better method of weedeating a customer’s ditch or edging a customers driveway?

As we move into the winter months, I would like to challenge each lawn care business owner to devote 1 hour each week toward innovation within their business. You might work on a new tool to pick up trash in customers’ lawns without having to stop your lawn mower or you might develop better, more efficient, mowing patterns for your biggest clients.

Don’t expect results immediately because it might take you a couple weeks before your creative juices start flowing. Once the idea hits you please check back in with us here to let us know your progress.

We believe in innovation within the lawn care industry. If you are just getting started with your lawn care business or if you are trying to make more money in 2011 than you did in 2010, you probably just need some simple help with your business plan and your pricing strategy.

We have developed a comprehensive Lawn Care Business course that will help you start and operate a successful lawn care business. This is a huge business tool that also includes the estimating software so you will know how much to charge your customers for lawn care work.

You can learn more about the Lawn Care Business course on our main website: http://www.StartALawnCareBusiness.com

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Sickness can affect your lawn care business.

Sep 27

Posted by Lawn Care Business in bidding lawn care, employees, lawn business strategies, lawn care health, lawn care safety | No Comments

by: www.StartALawnCareBusiness.com

What happens to your 1-man lawn care business when you are sick?

Especially starting out, many small lawn care businesses operate as sole proprietorships with no employees. While the freedom to call your own shots is a great benefit in running a 1-man operation, without proper planning there are pitfalls that can cause you to lose time and money when you are sick and cannot complete your scheduled lawn care work.

Although being sick is never fun there are certain steps to take while you are well to assure your business doesn’t suffer as much as your body does when illness strikes.

1) Explain the Situation to your Customers: Lawn Care Customers normally understand when situations arise that delay their lawn care work. Afterall, weather hampers your ability to do their work on a timely basis often during the year. An illness is just as unforeseeable as a sudden and lengthy rain shower. Upon first onset of an illness, take a few minutes to call your customers. Explain that you are not well and you feel the quality of your work will suffer. Give them an explanation of your expected recovery time and let them know how (and when) you plan to catch up on your schedule.

2) Stay up-to-date (or ahead) of your schedule: If you are vigilant in completing your lawn care jobs ahead of time you will be able to buffer a few unforeseen glitches in your schedule. Customers normally don’t mind if you bump them up a day to avert delays due to inclement weather. Likewise, they normally don’t mind when you bump them up a day if you feel you are getting sick or if you have a Doctor’s appointment that might run long.

3) Let a family member or friend help you. One of the best ways to recover from unexpected delays is to have someone dependable to help you out from time to time. If you have good rapport with your family, you probably know of a family member willing to pitch in. Though they may willingly help you without requesting payment, it is a very good idea to offer them payment for their time and travel expenses. Family and friends often do not mind helping you occasionally without pay. However, they will quickly tire of helping you if you don’t compensate them.

4) Hire an as-needed worker. While a helpful friend or family member can be relied up in an emergency, a dedicated part-time or as-needed worker will have more of a vested interest in keeping your customers on the roster. An employee knows your schedule and your work habits. You customers will be familiar with your employee and will not call you on the phone complaining of some strange person mowing their grass.

As unfortunate as it may be, sickness has dismantled many lawn care businesses. Without proactive plans of action schedules are thrown off, customers lose patience and find other lawn care companies, and income is lost. A few simple steps can save your business and make your recovery much quicker.

Do you want to learn how to avoid pitfalls that can damage your lawn care business? We have been associated with the industry for over 18 years. We have taken our experience and developed the Lawn Care Business training course that shows you how to start and expand a successful lawn care business.

Learn more from our main website:

www.StartALawnCareBusiness.com
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People Who Don't Respect Your Time

Jul 24

Posted by Lawn Care Business in customers, employees, lawn business strategies, lawn care business, time | No Comments

I’ve written a couple posts lately on the concept of time valuation.

The-Law-of-Scarcity

and

Distractions-of-a-Lawn-Care-Business-Owner

These posts don’t speak to a dollar amount per minute for your time (there’s plenty discussion of pricing in our lawn care manuals).

More philosophically, these posts explore the concept of general valuation of your time as a business owner and the perceived value placed on your time by yourself and others.

Time Value

I am quickly coming to a strong realization.  You become the sole controller of your time only when you take a strong stance to protect it. Anything less than continued diligence will see your time completely absorbed and abused.

Three methods of protecting your time are listed below.

1)  Surround yourself with people who respect your time. Whether you are dealing with business acquaintances, customers, or employees the people around you must respect your time as a business owner.  If people around you don’t value your time they will waste it for you.  Do your best to distance yourself from time sappers.  Instead, surround yourself with those who allow you the time you need to make your business a success and enhance your productivity during your time with them.

2) Be proactive when allocating your time. When you know someone is a time sapper be ultra-defensive in agreeing to give them time for their activities.   Customer relations are very important for a lawn care business.  However, we all know customers who talk and talk, non productively, when you come to the door.  They tap you on the shoulder and try to talk to you over the roar of your lawn mower.  They never have your check ready when you have completed their lawn and they want to chat endlessly about their grand kids or the weather.

DON’T BE RUDE!!! but be proactive with time sappers.   Let them know you have work to do.  Let them know your business is important to you and, more importantly, all your customers are important to you and you don’t want to keep your next appointment waiting.  Act with a sense of urgency and be on your way.

3)  Resort to being a jerk if needed. Be as friendly and hospitable as possible to all your customers (and friends and other relationships).  However, there are just some people who do not take a hint.  When gentle reminders do not work, occasionally resort to strong reassurances that you don’t have time to devote endless hours of non-productive time to their needs.  Other, more productive, customers will come along and as you fill your client list with good customers, cull the time wasters from your roster.

Start and Expand Your Own Lawn Care Business

Do you have difficult customers?  Learn how to handle them with the Lawn Care Business Program available, and on sale now, through:

StartALawnCareBusiness.com

How to hire lawn care and landscaping employees.

May 13

Posted by Lawn Care Business in employees, landscaping, lawn business strategies, unemployment | 2 Comments

As your lawn care and landscaping business continues to grow you may eventually decide to hire an employee to help with your business.

A common tendency of new-ish business owners hiring first employees is to try to make their business appear to be a smooth running organization where nothing ever goes wrong.  If you have been in the lawn care / landscaping business any number of years you know that most days are not exactly smooth running.  Employees coming aboard your business need to know what they are getting themselves into.  Likewise, you need to know a prospective employee is the right fit for your business model.
 
Before establishing your interview process take stock of your daily business proceedings.  Mimicking your daily atmosphere will weed out incompatible prospects. 
 
If you run a low-stress, laid-back, detail-oriented business, conduct your interviews with a similar energy level.  A good example of this type business is a landscape design business where careful and detailed measurements are integral to a project’s success.  Slow, thought provoking questions that require detailed and contemplative answers will make high energy A-type personalities jump out of their chairs during the calm, methodical interview.
 
Conversely, if your lawn care business is a hustle and bustle, go-go-go type atmosphere a prospective employee should be able to adapt to an unorthodox interview.  Making sure you follow all procedures for the safety of your interviewee, conduct an interview in your workshop while you are changing lawn mower blades.  Does your prospect understand your questions despite noise and distraction?  Without being prompted by you, does he or she hand you a can of penetrating lubricant or a cheat sleeve when the spindle nut is hard to loosen?  If your prospect can handle interview questions in a high pressure atmosphere you may have found your next employee.
 
If you properly mimic your daily business atmosphere during your interview process you will gain a better understanding of how an employee will react when faced with everyday job pressures.

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