Start A Lawn Care Business

Make money with a lawn care and landscaping business.

Posts Tagged business

Lawn Care Cleanup for Foreclosed Homes

Jul 4

Posted by Lawn Care Business in bidding lawn care, lawn business strategies, lawn care business | 1 Comment

As hurricane season begins, communities in heavy weather target areas struggle to place lawn care cleanup responsibility for foreclosed homes.

http://www.carolinalive.com/news/news_story.aspx?id=307652

This is good news for lawn care companies who have their businesses registered with their local code administrator and purchasing manager.
Irrespective of your location in the country (in hurricane zones or not) lawns need to be cleaned after severe weather.  If homes are in foreclosure or if vacant property is not cared for by registered property owners, responsibility of cleanup often falls to public works departments.
These departments often do not have available manpower after inclement weather since they are working hard clearing public streets and other prioritized locations.
If you are known to their purchasing managers and are on their list of available lawn care vendors you will often get calls to bid on clean up.  If job costs fall below purchase price thresholds you may be allowed to perform work without completing a bidding process.

The Start A Lawn Care Business guidebook and business toolkit describes how to properly get on local bidding lists and preferred vendor lists.  You can purchase the guidebook by visiting our home page at:

http://www.StartALawnCareBusiness.com

Feel free to contact us to order the business program or purchase it directly from our website.

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Father's Day June 21, 2009 Lawn Care

May 27

Posted by Lawn Care Business in father's day, lawn business strategies, lawn care training | 1 Comment

Father’s Day is June 21, 2009

If you are like millions of people around the country, you haven’t even begun to think about a gift to buy for your Father this coming Father’s Day. Father’s Day will be here before you know it. Before you drive out to the mall or Wal-Mart and spend an hour shopping for something he probably won’t like anyway (sorry, truth hurts) take a moment to think about buying him something that will truly benefit him and his life.

Earning Money is Important to Fathers

What is important to most Fathers? Money, right? Not just money itself but money as a way to provide for their families, to put food on the table, to pay the rent/mortgage, and to pay for the niceties that make life enjoyable. Especially in these hard economic times, any man with a family is worried about his ability to maintain finances.

Though it might seem unlikely, starting a lawn care and landscaping business can be a quick way to generate almost immediate cash. Lawn care can also be a long-term business that can grow over time. Starting his own business may be a life changing event.

About Men (especially Fathers)

Let me tell you a quick fact about most men (I am one so I should know). There is a reason men don’t want to stop to ask for directions. There’s a reason men are reluctant to ask for help. We want to figure things out on our own. We are explorers and pioneers. We are hunters and gatherers. We are cavemen and Vikings. Armed with only a club we will kill the fiercest beast and drag it home for dinner.

Okay, that would all be well and good if we were living a million years ago. But we’re not living a million years ago. We’re living in the present and there are consequences to trying things on your own. There is help available today and there is no stigma accepting help from others.

Help Him Start a Lawn Care Business

Starting a lawn care business is no different than being a pioneer except for the fact that it doesn’t have to be done alone. There should not be any stigma accepting help in starting a lawn care business. But, men are men and sometimes reluctant to ask for help. This is where you should step in for the Father in your family.

Business Start-Up

The ( www.StartALawnCareBusiness.com ) business program is designed to help in starting your own lawn care business. From the first days of your business plan, learning about licenses, knowing how to advertise and what equipment to buy, the business program takes you through practically every step of operating a successful lawn care and landscaping business. We have been in the business since 1992 and we have done everything from small $20 lawns all the way up to large multi-year government mowing contracts. All our years of knowledge and experience has been poured into the program.

Father’s Day Gift

If you would like to get your Father the best Father’s Day present ever and not make him face starting his own business alone, get him the complete Lawn Care Business program.  It includes a full series of business  manuals, business software, training videos, and estimating & bidding software.   It’s on sale right now in time for Father’s Day.

Visit our homepage at: www.StartALawnCareBusiness.com

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Digital camera for your landscaping business.

May 17

Posted by Lawn Care Business in customers, landscaping photography, lawn business strategies, lawn care videos | No Comments

Digital cameras help document your lawn care and landscaping jobs.

If you have read our materials on starting and operating your own lawn care and landscaping business you already understand the importance of keeping a digital camera ready to document your work.

Digital cameras are handy for adding projects you are particularly proud of to your photo portfolio.  They also allow for photographic documentation.  Quick before shots and after shots of your work stand in your benefit should disputes arise with your customers. 

Don’t forget to synchronize your camera’s clock with your GPS clock so you have proper ‘when and where’ documentation.  On-photo time stamping is not necessary since most cameras record time information into their exif data table.  This information can be pulled out at a later time without ruining your photograph.

All that aside, the purpose of this post is to let you know about one of the best compact point and shoot cameras on the market today.  It is one we have recently acquired and are well pleased with during initial tests.

Panasonic Lumix TZ5

The Panasonic Lumix TZ5 has recently been replaced by the Lumix TZ7.  Therefore, since the feature set of the TZ7 is marginal above the TZ5, the TZ5’s recently lowered price makes it a very attractive bargain.

Wide angle 28mm 10x Leica lens

The TZ5 features a 9.1 megapixel CCD and an incredible optical 10X Leica lens.  Completely zoomed out, you are given 28mm (equivalent) wide angle coverage.  Wide angle allows photographs of large landscaping and lawn care projects without having to step backward in order to frame your scenes.

High Def (HD) Video at 1280x720p

An amazing feature of Lumix’s TZ5 is its ability to film HD video.  While, as a landscaper, you will get more benefit from still photos, there are occasions when video gives better representation of your work.  Video quality is not up to quality received from a multi-CCD 1920x1080i dedicated video camera though our initial tests show great quality video from this camera.  Low-light graininess and washout are issues compared with higher-end dedicated camcorders.  If your landscaping has lots of colors, use sunshine creatively to brighten your project.

Price of the TZ5

As mentioned earlier, TZ7 is the latest offering from Panasonic’s Lumix line.  TZ5’s price has dropped significantly in light of this latest release.  Order via Amazon.com using the links provided below.  This is how we ordered our TZ5 and we have been uniformly well pleased with our purchase.

We plan to shoot several landscaping shots this week.  Check back this week for new blog postings including pictures from our TZ5.

Order your Panasonic Lumix TZ5:

Black
 

Blue
 

Silver
 

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Lawn Care Businesses Watch Nature Unfold

May 4

Posted by Lawn Care Business in environment, landscaping, lawn business strategies | No Comments

by: Start A Lawn Care Business

Owning a lawn care / landscaping business means you get to enjoy the wonderment of nature more than the average person.

If you are just starting your own lawn care business you might think of it as nothing more than cutting your customers lawns as a way to make money.  After you have been in business for awhile you will begin to feel a kinship with nature.  Whether you simply cut grass to make money or you offer full-service landscaping you will increasingly notice the changes that nature provides.

StartALawnCareBusiness.com is located near the foothills of the Great Smokey Mountains.  We love watching “color creep” each spring and fall.  In early spring all deciduous trees are without leaves.  Slowly, as temperatures rise and days lengthen, trees at the base of our mountains begin to turn green.  As spring wears on, trees at ever increasing elevations gain their foliage.  On a day-to-day basis we watch the color creep up the mountain.

Spring leaf color creaps up a mountian

Spring leaf color creaps up a mountian

As photosynthesis ceases during Autumn, an opposite color creep occurs as trees at higher elevations turn golden and eventually shed their leaves followed closely by trees at lower elevations.

Color creep is just one of the millions of amazing phenomena of nature.  Lawn Care and Landscaping Business owner have special opportunities to view nature at work.  Those business owners also have special responsibilities in conducting their businesses.  The “StartALawnCareBusiness” program will help you run a successful lawn care business so you can take part in the wonderment of nature.

Learn more at our website: www.StartALawnCareBusiness.com

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Landscaping and Homeowners' Associations

Apr 27

Posted by Lawn Care Business in landscaping, lawn business strategies, Lawn Care Advertising, Real Estate Clients | 3 Comments

by: Lawn Care Business

Free Lawn Care Advertising by Landscaping a Homeowners’ Association Entryway.

Landscaping an entryway can bring many new lawn care customers. (Free Advertising)

The impact made by your landscaping work may be your best form of self advertising especially when you landscape by planting decorative shrubs and colorful perennials.

Bidding lawn care contracts within homeowners’ associations can be very profitable for your lawn care company.  Often, homeowners’ associations bid out contracts for public areas within their confines.  Pools, road right-of-way, and, most importantly, sub division entrances are included within the lawn care and landscaping arrangements.

Allowances for advertising vary from one homeowners’ association to another.  Some HOAs will allow you to place signs on completed project areas while other HOAs will place a free ad for you within their monthly newsletter and recommend you as trusted vendor within the community.

The entrance to a residential complex under the guidance of a HOA is probably the most important initial portion of your landscaping work for the HOA.  The subdivision entrance is the first impact anyone entering the subdivision experiences.  If your landscape work is dreary or unkempt it will make a negative impact on those who notice.

However, if you skillfully design your landscaping and make a spectacular impact every resident of the subdivision will notice your work and many of them will clamor to become your clients.

Free Lawn Care Advertising

Although landscape design and installation will bring you many new lawn care customers, resist the temtation to reduce your price in exchange for “Free Lawn Care  Advertising” as you might be convinced by the HOA. Great landscaping is free advertising for the HOA since residents, seeing great landscaping, will happily continue paying their HOA fees.

When landscaping for a homeowners’ association, charge fairly and do a great job.

Landscaping a subdivision entryway is free advertising for your lawn care business.

Landscaping a subdivision entryway is free advertising for your lawn care business.

Our Start A Lawn Care Business package is on sale right now for quick shipment.   For much more information about the business package, visit our website at:  http://www.StartALawnCareBusiness.com

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How to stripe a lawn with your lawn care business.

Apr 21

Posted by Lawn Care Business in customers, lawn business strategies, lawn equipment, lawn striping | No Comments

by:Lawn Care Business

Striping grass gives a professional look to your customer’s lawn.

With the simple addition of a striping kit to your commercial lawn mower (and a little practice), you can turn your customer’s lawn into a visual masterpiece.


A basic "back and forth" striping pattern.
 

After the addition of a striping kit to your lawn mower, striping is attained with directional cutting.  Directional cutting allows the striping kit on your lawn mower to bend each blade of grass in the direction of the cut.  Grass bent toward the viewer appears darker than grass bent away from the viewer.  Stripes are solely dependent on direction of the bend.  Individual stripes have nothing to do with length of cut, different types of grass on each cut, or fertilizer applied in a pattern.  However, length of cut and type of grass will change the intensity of the stripes.   Striping gives a visual appeal to a lawn that is unattainable with concentric perimeter cutting.

Striping lawns as part of a commercial lawn care business makes your lawns look professionally manicured.  Some lawn Care customers have been known to pay as much as an additional 50% to 100% of a basic grass cutting job for a striped lawn depending on the complexity of the striping pattern. Your results will vary but it shouldn’t hurt your company’s reputation to add striping services for those customers who are willing to pay extra for it. Additionally, you should notice more potential clients stopping to ask you for estimates (and advice) when they see the spectacular job you’ve done on their neighbor’s lawns. 

To learn more about how to professionally stripe lawns and increase profits for your lawn care business, visit our website at: 
www.StartALawnCareBusiness.com

 

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Sub-contracting (independent contracting) your lawn care work.

Apr 18

Posted by Lawn Care Business in customers, lawn business strategies, lawn equipment | No Comments

Questions about the "Start
A Lawn Care Business" training material.

We recently received an email question concerning the feasibility of starting a lawn care company and hiring out all the work to independent contractors.  The initial email question follows with our response further below.

Hello,

I bought your Lawn Care Business
Program in February and I am trying to start a lawn care business (on the side).  I seek your feedback. I do not intend to do the work, but to be the owner/manager/promotion mgr/dispatcher… I intend to set it up where I pay lawn care workers as Independent Contractors with them using their own yard equipment. Would it work better if I bought some some lawn care equipment and rented a storage unit?

Thank you.
 

Our response is below.

Hi:

Many LCOs transition from lawn care workers to full-time managers. If you intend to manage a lawn care business without first doing the work yourself, don’t underestimate the hands-on efforts needed to keep your business running smoothly. I’m sure you can understand the infinite possibilities of things going wrong if you are not on job sites or in constant communication with your workers and your customers. Poor quality mowing jobs by your crews, equipment break downs through rough handling, payment skimming, and bad treatment of customers and/or their property, will adversely affect your lawn care business. If you are a hands-on manager, you can quickly abate these problems. However, if these problems get ahead of you, they can quickly derail your efforts of running your lawn care company.

Additionally, before you decide to hire your lawn care workers as sub-contractors, please check the laws on what a "sub-contractor" really is. If you control their timeline, their equipment, and how the work is performed, there might be legal accounting rules which disallow the workers from being considered anything other than employees. We are not experts with accounting laws so you will need to check with your CPA.

Thank you and good luck:

Keith
Start A Lawn Care Business


Support after your purchase of
our Lawn Care Business training materials

When you purchase our lawn care business program, you are welcome to ask specific questions which may not be fully covered in our training material. Our team of lawn care professionals will do our best to answer your questions. The Lawn Care Business package is a full series of manuals and software which will most all questions you have about starting your own lawn care business. www.StartALawnCareBusiness.com

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Commercial lawn mower selection

Apr 16

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

by: Lawn Care Business

Choosing a commercial lawn mower

Your commercial lawn mower is the most important piece of equipment for your grass cutting service business.  Purchasing the wrong equipment can cost you thousands of dollars in lost revenue. 

The lawn care business program available through our website at:
StartALawnCareBusiness.com includes a huge buyers guidebook for lawn equipment purchases.  We recommend you read the entire guidebook before making an important purchasing decision which will affect your business each and every day.

Here are a few quick tips taken from the equipment guidebook:

1)  Engine size:  Purchasing a lawn mower with a small engine size will give you inferior performance from your lawn mower.  A low powered lawn mower will not allow the lawn mower blades to slice quickly through the grass. Sluggish blade movement tears the grass instead of cutting it.  Torn grass turns brown and gives an unprofessional look to the lawn.  We recommend a minimum of 14 hp engine for most any commercial walkbehind lawn mower with a 48" deck size or smaller. 
If you are purchasing a ZTR, zero turn mower, or other mowers that carry the operator, bump up your engine size to a minimum of 17 horse power.

2)  Deck size:  What kind of grass cutting jobs does your company perform?  If your lawns are small and your customers’ back yards are gated, you do not need a 61" mowing deck.  Look for something smaller such as a 36" or 48" mowing deck. 
These decks are easier to maneuver and can often fit through back yard gates.  If you are doing wide area mowing, look for 48" to 72" decks.  Larger decks increase the chance of scalping uneven yards. 

3)  Controls:  There are many types of operator controls in the commercial market today especially for walkbehind lawn mowers.  Some controls require constant attention but they offer great ability in keeping the tracking of your lawnmower straight to give professional straight line patterns to your lawn.  If strength or dexterity is an issue for you, choose controls that are easy to maneuver and will allow you rest your hands during
your work.

These are just three tips of what to look for in a commercial lawn mower.  For a huge lawn mower buyer’s guidebook, purchase our program available from

http://www.StartALawnCareBusiness.com

 

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Lawn care business taxes. April 15.

Apr 15

Posted by Lawn Care Business in lawn business strategies, Lawn Care Business Taxes | No Comments

Tax Day – April 15, 2009

Lawn Care Business Taxes

Like thousands of other lawn care & landscaping businesses around the country today, you may still be working on your income and business taxes hoping to beat the midnight deadline.

As you are working on your taxes, there is
something else you need to keep in mind. You get a double whammy today.

While today is the day to balance out your 2008 tax bill, it is also the day to make your first quarterly estimated tax payment for 2009.

Proper tax planning today for your lawn care business will save you lots of stress at tax time next year.

For professional business tax advice, find a CPA – Accountant who is knowledgeable and has experience with lawn care and landscaping businesses.

For tips and advice for your own lawn care
business, visit out website:
Start A Lawn Care Business

 

 

 

 

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KISS Advertising for lawn care

Apr 9

Posted by Lawn Care Business in customers, landscaping, lawn business strategies, Lawn Care Advertising, mulching | No Comments

KISS Advertising: 
Keep it simple, stupid!

If you are anything like me in the early days of my lawn care business advertising, you over-think yourself with your flyers, newspaper ads, and other advertising.  It took me a couple years to realize the beauty of simplicity. 
A potential customer only needs to know two things before they call you:
1) What service do you provide? 
2) How do they contact you?

I recently came across a sign tacked to a telephone pole which, in two words, summed up an entire business concept.

lawn care advertising sign

NEED MULCH?  Two words
sum up an entire business concept.

Your potential customers are smarter than you might think:

Customers do not require overly complicated advertising to explain your offer.  Two words "lawn care" or "gutter
cleaning" or "leaf raking" are all you need to say along with your phone number or website address.  Your potential customers can figure out the rest.

Legibility is important:

How many times have you seen a sign taped to a telephone pole written on a piece of notebook paper with magic marker that has faded or run from the rain?  I have seen many flyers like this.  If potential customers cannot read your sign, they are not going to call you.  A professional sign gives your customers an immediate favorable opinion of you.  Look at the "NEED MULCH" sign.  It is professionally printed and easy to read with bold, black lettering.  I did not need to slow my truck down to be able to read the numbers and make a mental not of them.
 

Professional printing of your lawn care flyers:

How much did the "Need Mulch" sign cost? 
If you buy signs like this in quantity, you can buy them for just a few dollars each.  A professionally designed and printed sign will bring you many more customers than a flimsy piece of paper printed from you home computer.  If you are tempted to print your lawn care signs on a piece of paper think again. 
Pony up a few dollars and have a professional sign company make your signs.
 

No need for area code or additional information:

If your target lawn care customers are in the same area code as you, there is no need to include the zip code. Two pieces of information will satisfy your customers desire for information before they contact you. 
1) The service you offer.
2) A way to contact you.

Professional placement:

I only have one issue with the "Need Mulch" sign.  Sometimes, signs tacked to telephone poles are considered eyesores by residents of the neighborhood.  In many cases, it may also be illegal to tack your sign to a utility pole.  Be discreet in placement of flyers and signs.  Get authorization before you put advertising on public or private land.  Do not let your signs become torn or worn out.  If they weather, replace them.

Advertising for your lawn care business can be much more successful if you follow a few SIMPLE rules.

The Lawn Care Business Program available from
www.StartALawnCareBusiness.com
includes a large marketing guidebook to help you get the best results using the latest advertising methods.  The program covers old school advertising such as flyers and newspaper ads.  It also covers the latest in advertising strategies such as MySpace, YouTube, and Facebook. 

STARTALAWNCAREBUSINESS.COM

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