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Archive for category lawn mowers

Lawn Mower Maintenance – Grease is the Word

Sep 27

Posted by Lawn Care Business in commercial lawn mowers, lawn equipment, lawn mowers, maintenance | No Comments

Changes of seasons are great times to pay extra attention to your lawn mower maintenance schedule.

After a long, dry, dusty summer the first few weekends of autumn are great times to check all your grease fittings.  Proper bearing lubrication is very important to the longevity of your lawn mower.  I try to keep a weekly check on grease nibs but I have to admit that I often let them go neglected longer than I should.  So, if you are like me and have forgotten to check your grease fittings in a few weeks, take some extra time this weekend to make proper refills where necessary.

In addition to making rudimentary checks, if you are truly inspired (and have a few extra hours) to do proper maintenance on your lawn care equipment, consider pulling your bearings and  repacking or replacing them.  You will greatly increase the life of your lawn mower and you will have confidence in your bearings once spring rolls around again.

For more tips on how to keep your lawn mower running longer as well as a lawn care equipment buyer’s guidebook (new and used) check our main lawn care website for our lawn care business program:





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

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E15 Ethanol Gasoline in your Lawn Mower and Weedeater Engine

Jun 29

Posted by Lawn Care Business in commercial lawn mowers, John Deere, lawn care pollution, lawn equipment, lawn mowers, maintenance | No Comments

E15 Ethanol Gasoline is likely to be in many markets by late summer.
Do you feel that your lawn mowers are ready for E15 Gasoline?

I have heard a number of complaints from lawn care business owners all around the country that tell me E10 is damaging to their lawn mower engines. The implied complaint is that E10 draws moisture to the engine parts displacing gasoline and thereby clogging engine components.

I do not consider myself to be a small engine expert but I do know how to keep my equipment running with proper maintenance. As often as it is available, I buy 100% gasoline. However very few gasoline stations in my area carry 100% gasoline.

Are you worried about the new gasoline blend that might be hitting the market place later this year?

I would love to hear your thoughts.

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Lawn Care Estimating – The Driveway Moment.

Apr 5

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

Lawn Care Estimating - The Driveway Moment

Lawn Care Estimating - The Driveway Moment

What do you think is the most important part of estimating lawn care jobs? 

When I am consulting with new lawn care business owners I spend lots of time discussing the basics of giving proper lawn care business bids.  Understanding the total costs of each particular job is paramount to knowing how much money to bid.  Basic knowledge of your overhead is important as is knowing local pricing (what the market will bear).   Our Lawn Care Business Guidebook contains an excellent bidding tutorial which teaches you the basic principles (as well as the finer points) of lawn care estimating. 

All of this information is helpful to you in determining a basic price and the Lawn Care Estimating Calculator Software is a very handy business tool.  However, all these “textbook estimating examples and calculators” don’t do you any good if you can’t actually SELL your services to your customers.  

Let’s face it, presentation is highly important when you are giving lawn care estimates.  If customers don’t believe you will do a good job, they will pass over your estimates and choose other lawn care companies.  If you are not confident in your bids, customers will sense your weakness and will get you to lower your prices.  If you are not prepared to offer additional services to your customers, you will miss crucial upsell opportunities.  All of these things cost you money. 

When giving lawn care estimates, I have always taken a couple of moments to sit in the driveway before exiting my truck.  These “Driveway Moments” allow me time to prepare myself for each sales call.  During this time I scan the house & the yard (and even the cars in the driveway) looking for clues that give me an indication of the price I can get for each job.  I also look for additional services to offer the customer.  No matter what the customer requests, I try to have 3 or 4 addtional services that the customer might need.  Great presentation, understanding of your customers’ needs, and proper upselling can make your lawn care business thousands of dollars of additional income during the course of a year.  

The driveway moment also gives me an opportunity to put myself in a proper frame of mind (psych myself up).  It allows me to forget about that guy who cut me off in traffic as I was leaving my last lawn care job.  It allows me to convince myself that I will not be talked down on my price.  It allows me to approach the estimate with enthusiasm, confidence, and a positive attitude.  

If you are new to the lawn care business and you feel that you don’t do a good enough job in presenting your lawn care estimates, give yourself a Driveway Moment before knocking on the door of your next potential customer.  I have given thousands of estimates over the years and I still believe that the Driveway Moment is one of the most important parts of estimating lawn care jobs. 

If you are a new lawn care business owner and you need help in your estimating process, our Lawn Care Business Guidebook and Software package is what you need to help you give better estimates.  To learn more about this HUGE lawn care business guidebook, business toolkit, and estimating software, please visit our main webpage: 

How To Estimate A Lawn Mowing Job
http://www.StartALawnCareBusiness.com

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Commercial Lawn Mowing Equipment – Spring Tuneup.

Feb 17

Posted by Lawn Care Business in lawn equipment, lawn mowers, leaf blowers, maintenance, start a lawn care business | No Comments

Spring is here and it is time to pull the tarps off the lawn mowers and prepare them for the busy mowing season ahead.

As much as I have always liked to maintain my own equipment, I believe it pays to have lawn mowers, blowers, and weed trimmers professionally serviced at a favorite commercial lawn mower repair shop at least once per year.  Changing oil, oil filters, air filters, and gas filters as well as lubrication service is well within the reach of most all lawn care business owners.  However, perfectly dialing-in a lawn mower is a skill reserved for the repair professionals.  Perfect tracking, carb adjustment, and preventative maintenance inspections will help keep your equipment running smoothly.

Commercial Lawn Mower RepairIf you are like many lawn care business owners, you are well capable of routine maintenance  on your lawn care equipment.  But paying a professional lawn care repair center will help ensure perfectly operating equipment and less downtime in the months ahead.

If you are starting your lawn care company this year and want to know more about proper landscaping equipment selection for your business, we include an equipment selection manual in our lawn care business guidebook.

Learn more on our homepage:

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

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How to mow grass on a hillside.

Jan 21

Posted by Lawn Care Business in lawn care safety, lawn mowers | No Comments

After yesterday’s blog post on remote controlled slope mowers, we received a number of questions concerning the use of standard commercial lawn mowers on hillsides.

When mowing on slopes and hillsides, operators of lawn care equipment must use extreme caution.  Each individual lawn mower has  different center-of-gravity characteristics.  Though we give quite a bit of lawn mower handling procedures within the pages of our lawn care business training course, we strongly suggest you check the manufacturer’s guidelines of your particular lawn mower.

As a brief example, Scag Power Equipment has published a safe handling pamphlet outlining proper use of their Zero-Turn Radius commercial riding mowers.  Though each manufacture will have differing guidelines for their lawn mowers, Scag says that their Zero-Turn commercial mowers should never be operated on a slope greater than 15 degrees and they should never be running unattended.  There are many general guidelines telling operators to reduce speed and use care when approaching blind corners.

Government regulations on lawn mowers is becoming more strict too.  In fact, in a recent report the CDC send a strong message to lawn mower manufacturers on such things as developing Roll Over Protection Systems  for their lawn mowers.

Mowing on slopes increased the danger of operating a lawn care business.  So, we hope you will heed your equipments mfg.’s instructions.

Take care and be safe mowing slopes.

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Is your Lawn Care Business facing noise ordinances?

Jan 20

Posted by Lawn Care Business in hearing protection, lawn business strategies, lawn care pollution, lawn care safety, lawn mowers, leaf blowers | No Comments

Noise pollution is becoming a familiar topic in many towns across the United States.

Okay, let’s face it, our lawn care equipment is noisy.  Our lawn mowers emit low thunderous roars and our backpack blowers scream out high pitched shrills.  We have written many times in the Start A Lawn Care Business blog that lawn care operators must take many precautions to protect their own hearing and the hearing of their employees from the noise emitted from lawn care equipment.

In addition to the common sense precautions we must take to reduce the noise levels in our own heads, community councils are becoming bolder in their efforts to tackle the noise issues to help protect their residents from the noise problems.  We recently read about a community in East Hampton that is attempting to restrict to hours noisy lawn equipment can be operated.

What do you think about restrictions such as this?   Are there happy mediums that can be struck between home owners and landscape professionals?  Can landscape companies make concerted efforts to reduce the number of minutes leaf blowers are used on each lawn?  Can lawn mower operators develop mowing patterns that reduce the time spend on each lawn?

The answer to the last two questions is “YES.”  In fact, our lawn care business training packages shows you how to develop mowing patterns that GREATLY reduce your mowing and blowing time.  Developing these mowing pattern not only allows your lawn care company to leave your customers with great looking lawns it also helps you reduce your time an amount of noise pollution you produce.

For more information on our Lawn Care Business training package, see our main home page:

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

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Remote Controlled Lawn Mowers – Kick Back and Enjoy?

Jan 20

Posted by Lawn Care Business in lawn equipment, lawn mowers | 1 Comment

What do you think when you first hear the term “remote controlled lawn mower?”

My immediate vision is of a guy lounging back in a lawn chair sipping a cold beverage while an unmanned mowing vehicle tools around his lawn neatly manicuring his grass.  Before you think about starting a lawn care company employing an army of remote controlled lawn care units, put down your cold beverage….we’re not talking about those types of lawn mowers.

While there are robot lawn mowers for sale to the general public for residential lawn care, as lawn care professionals we don’t benefit from these small units.  Afterall, when it comes to cutting grass on a standard residential plot of land, there is nothing more efficient than a capable operator on a Zero Turn or walkbehind commercial lawn mower.

The big advances for remote controlled lawn mower is coming in the form of heavy duty slope mowers.  Any of us who have ever accepted jobs mowing slopes knows it is dreadfully difficult and dangerous work.  Slope mowing jobs are fraught with equipment breakdowns and dangers to the operator.  Remote controlled slope mowers are changing the scene for many lawn care business owners who bid on slope jobs.

When we visited last year’s Lawn Care Business Expo in Louisville, KY, we saw a find example of a slope mower we saw a fine demonstration of a remote controlled lawn mower.  More companies are now entering the field and we are seeing some very interesting prototypes.  This angle on the lawn care industry is becoming very interesting.  As these companies begin to refine their remote controlled slope mower concepts our jobs as mowing contractors will become easier.

For more information and advice on commercial lawn mowing equipment that will be perfect for your lawn care business, take a look at our Lawn Care Business training guidebooks.


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Make a billion dollars cutting grass.

Nov 2

Posted by Lawn Care Business in economy, lawn care business, lawn mowers | 1 Comment

by: Start A Lawn Care Business

Though it is quite unlikely any of us will actually ever make a billion dollars cutting grass, I found an interesting statistic earlier this evening while researching the economic impact of the lawn care industry in the United States.

According to a University of Florida Extension Office report, the total economic impact of the Turf Grass industry in the United States is $62.2 billion (2005 dollars).  Of that $62.2 billion, nearly $19.8 billion is comprised of the lawn care services.  Within this $19.2 billion is the addition of over 295,000 jobs associated with lawn care services.

This impact isn’t just dollars and cents though.  It is calculated, on average, a commercial lawn mower in use by a lawn mowing business burns 2,000 gallons of gasoline each year.  That is more gasoline than a typical car.  Lawn mowers in the United States consume more than 1.2 billion gallons of gasoline and commercial mowing accounts for 35% of this total.

I find these statistics on the size of the lawn care industry in the United States interesting.  However, one thing is for sure; if any of us are going to make a billion dollars, we’re going to need a bigger mower.

Want to make a billion dollars cutting grass?  Well, I can never guarantee that kind of success.  However, if you want to increase your business in 2011, I encourage you to purchase our Lawn Care Business guide and software package.

Learn more about it on our main webpage:  http://www.StartALawnCareBusiness.com

Sources:
http://www.afdc.energy.gov/afdc/pdfs/48369.pdf
http://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/fe632

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On our way home from GIE-Expo

Oct 30

Posted by Lawn Care Business in lawn equipment, lawn mowers | No Comments

by: Start A Lawn Care Business

If you read yesterday’s blog post you know that the staff of Start A Lawn Care Business took the weekend to drive to Louisville, KY to attend the annual Lawn Care Equipment expo.

We just want to give a huge thanks to the GIE-Expo staff, organizers, vendors, and participants.  We met lots of great people and learned a tremendous amount about the new lines of lawn care equipment product that will be on the market in 2011. 

If we did not get a chance to make it by your booth, please take a minute to drop us a line to make contact with us.  We are always interested in learning about the newest lawn care equipment products and passing the information onto the new (and old) lawn care business owners that visit our site daily.

If you are a vendor with new and interesting lawn care equipment products, we would love to demo your products for the coming lawn care season. 

Thanks again and we will see you next year:

Sincerely:

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

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New Lawn Care Equipment (GIE-Expo)

Oct 29

Posted by Lawn Care Business in lawn equipment, lawn mowers, lawn product development | 3 Comments

Hello from Louisville, KY at the GIE-Expo

One of our jobs at Start A Lawn Care Business is to bring you information on the latest trends in the lawn care industry. Lawn care equipment (mowers, blowers, and string trimmers) will be very much on your mind during the next few months as you make purchasing decisions for your lawn care equipment needs for the coming season.

We drove up to Kentucky early this morning to attent the lawn care expo. There are hundreds of vendors and we have been lucky to speak with some very innovative companies that are developing the new trends in the lawn care industry.

In the days and weeks ahead we will be able to provide you with information that will help you purchase your new lawn equipment. Keep an eye on this blog and if you haven’t purchased our Lawn Care Business training course, visit our main web homepage to learn more about what we offer.

One of the funnest pieces of equipment at this year’s trade show is the Spyder radio controlled slope mower. This company has been at the expo the last few years and their slope mower is always fun to watch. Too bad I’ve yet to be able to talk the operator into letting me drive it. I’ll include a picture below.

Spyder Slope Lawn Mower

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