Archive for category advertising lawn care

Springtime Lawn Care & Landscaping Contracts – Make More Money

Bidding Lawn Mowing Contracts for 2012

Lawn Care Contracts are Great Sources of Extra Money

Lawn Care is a Competitive Business.

Many lawn care companies suffer with underbids and lowball prices. They “THINK” they have to cut prices to get customers.

Have you ever thought about starting a lawn care company? You owe it to yourself to make the most money possible for your work. Successful lawn care companies learn bidding strategies that make the most money possible. They don’t underbid and they don’t cut their prices.

Lawn Care is a competitive business. If you want an advantage over your competition, you MUST possess strong pricing strategies. You will never make money by undercutting your completion’s prices. You will make great money by learning how to price your lawn care jobs effectively and profitably.

We have developed our guidebook and estimating software to educate other lawn care business owners. If everyone prices properly, we all make more money.

Our lawn care business package includes:

– Lawn Care Business Guidebook (90 Pages Jam Packed with real-world instructions, tips, tricks, and tutorials).
This is an actual book….NOT AN “E-BOOK.”
– Business Toolkit – Estimating Forms, Business Letters, Bid Proposals, Contract Examples.
– Tutorials – How-To do the work efficiently and professionally.
– Video Training – How-To’s that teach you how to operate a professional lawn care business.
– Estimating Software – Never underestimate a lawn again.

The program is on sale this month for only $53.95 (Includes Shipping). Click the “Add To Cart” button to order.





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Lawn Care Business Customer List – Mid Summer Expansion

We dedicate a large portion of our lawn care business guidebook to the concept of building a highly profitable lawn care client list. You can learn how to turn your low profit customers into a highly profitable lawn care business customer list that will make you thousands more dollars between now and the end of the year.

Low Profit Lawn Care Customer List

If you operate a lawn care business, you probably know the relative ease of gaining customers through competitive (lowball) bidding practices and expensive advertising. While the strategy of lowball bidding and expensive advertising will build a large client list, it is probably not a desirable customer list. Unfortunately, many new lawn care companies fall into the trap during their first few months in business of acquiring low paying customers with difficult to manage lawn care needs.

Highly Profitable Lawn Care Customers

Now that summer is in full swing, it is time for you to weed out your low-profit customers and begin building a highly profitable customer list. By now, you have identified your good customers versus the ones that are barely making you any money for the amount of time and effort you spend on their lawns.

The questions you probably have are:

1) Should I drop low paying customers?

2) How can I attract higher paying customers?

We do not suggest you drop low paying customers as a first course of action? Instead, our lawn care business training course supports methods of increasing the amount of money your customers pay you each month. Increased rates and nominal services increased with higher profit margins will dramatically increase the amount of money each customer pays you. Yes, you might lose some customers. However, we have developed a solid customer psychology strategy to help you retain many, if not most, of your customers.

Lawn Care Business Training Guide

Higher paying lawn care customers can be attracted via careful marketing of your lawn care business. Again, our lawn care training guide teaches you how to specifically target higher paying customers and develop strategies to build a highly profitable list of high paying customers.

If you are languishing with low paying lawn care customers, take steps right now to increase the profit of each lawn care customer.





Visit our main website (click the “Start A Lawn Care Business” link at the top of this page) to learn more about our lawn care business training course.

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Lawn Care Business on Facebook

Lawn Care Business on Facebookacebook has almost 1 billion subscribers. Chances are almost everyone you know (including your entire customer base) is on Facebook.

Lawn Care Business owners can benefit greatly from an active presence on Facebook. Facebook can be used as free marketing and you only need a few extra minutes to keep your customers up-to-date with your lawn care business.

We are on Facebook too and you can find us at: http://www.Facebook.com/LawnCareBusiness

If you want to learn advertising methods that really work for your lawn care business,
visit our website at: www.StartALawnCareBusiness.com





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Christmas Presents for your Lawn Care Customers?

Do you give presents to your lawn care customers at Christmas time?

Probably not but I have always thought it nice to send lawn care customers handwritten notes thanking them for their business during the preceding 12 months. Customers like to know that they are appreciated and they don’t expect presents from you.

Though you don’t give presents to your customers, you can help your customers with their gift giving. Let your customers know that if they have trouble finding gifts for anyone on their Christmas lists, you are happy to happy to provide lawn care on a one-time basis or through out the coming mowing season.

I have often had clients that paid me to maintain landscaping and provide lawn care for elderly parents that can no longer maintain their grass themselves. An entire year of lawn care makes a great Christmas present.

You have a few days to offer this to your customers. So, let us know if any of your customers take you up on this offer.

Are you looking to improve the marketing efforts of your lawn care business in 2012? Our Lawn Care Business guidebook includes a marketing and advertising manual that will help you bring in many new customers for the 2012 mowing season. For more information, visit our main lawn care website:

More Lawn Care Business Customers in 2012

http://www.StartALawnCareBusiness.com





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Running a Lawn Care Business – It’s Not Always Fun.

Live Strong - Start A Lawn Care Business

Live Strong and Fight Like H*LL

On this lawn care blog, I often write about the benefits of owning a lawn care business. Truthfully, there are many benefits such as calling your own shots, setting your own hours, making the amount of money that you are truly worth, and having pride in owning your own business.

Although there are many positive aspects to running your own business, I do have to be honest with you…some days really do suck. I have had a couple of those days this week. Most of this hassle is accountable to a single customer that is causing one huge headache. Ugh.

I remember the early days of owning my lawn care business. Many days seemed like a never ending headache and a never ending fight. Fighting to cut my costs. Fighting my lawn care competition with good advertising and marketing tactics. Fighting low cost lawn care equipment. Fighting cheap lawn care customers who didn’t want to pay the going rate for lawn care.

Fight. Fight. Fight.

Gradually, as I developed my lawn care business strategies, I found that the number of fights diminished. As I learned the proper lawn care equipment to buy…fight diminished. As I learned how to properly negotiate with customers…fight diminished. As I developed GREAT marketing strategies…fight diminished. As I implemented customer scheduling strategies…fight diminished.

Those “fights” are some of the reasons I developed the Start A Lawn Care Business guidebook and estimating software. My major frustrations were manily due to lack of knowledge and as I learned the business I vowed to help other entrepreneurs (like you) beat the fights and frustrations.

Sure, there will still be a few minor fights and a few minor frustrations along the way but if you start your business right, purchase the correct lawn care equipment, and negotiate the best prices with your lawn care customers, your lawn care business will be a much easier endevour.

If you are interested in having an easier time starting and operating your lawn care business, consider purchasing our lawn care business guidebook and estimating software. It will make your business (almost) fight free.

Live Strong and Fight!!!





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

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Build A Lawn Care Client List for Free

Retail Lawn Care Customers

Tall grass and trash in the weeds drive away customers.

Are you looking for new lawn care customers?  An assertive disposition will help you add many new customers to your lawn care client list for free.

I took this picture a couple weeks ago and want to share a marketing strategy with you that I have used many times in the past.

Image is important in the retail world.  Retail stores spend lots of money on signs and window displays all in an effort to lure customers into their stores.  A bright banner or a well placed sign can be the difference in a car pulling into their parking lot versus driving by and shopping at another retail outlet.

Since image is important, can you imagine the customers that continue driving when they see tall grass and trash outside a store front?  Though an untidy appearance will not deter all shoppers, each missed customer is a loss for the retail store.

These three stores are in a strip mall that appears to be on the decline.  The grass is often long and there is often trash amongst the weeds.  The property owner should be taking care of general upkeep but, for some reason, regular maintenance such as grass cutting is not being taken care of regularly.   I have written before about assertive marketing for your lawn care business and here is how to do it when you see that a retail property owner is not taking care of his responsibilities.

You must realize that the retail store managers likely do not have the responsibility of grass maintenance.  Grass cutting is normally the property owners responsibility.  Still, if the grass is not cut, the retail stores’ sales suffer and the managers might be very willing to pay to have the grass cut.  Most retail managers have small discretionary funds at their disposal. 

After you have identified a property such as what is in the picture, go into the store with the smallest store in the shopping plaza (in this case H&R Block).  Explain to the manager that you have your grass cutting equipment with you and you can mow the grass immediately.  Tell him that you are aware that the property manager should be taking care of this but you are willing to do a one-time job so it looks nice for their customers.  The manager of the first store (the smallest store) will probably tell you “no, let the bigger store pay for the grass cutting, they have more money.”  If you are met with this rejection ask the manager if he is willing to pay $40 if the bigger stores agrees to pay the rest.  After all, one extra tax return (H&R Block) will pay for the work.

After the first store agrees, go to the second smallest store (Family Dollar) and tell the manager that the other store has agreed to pay 1/3 of the fee.  That manager will likely agree to pay since the first store has already agreed.  The final and largest store (Food Lion) will easily be brought on board after you explain that there are a few grocery carts in the high weeds that you will pull out and bring back to the store.

Peer pressure (among the retail managers) and the retail managers’ fear of losing customers are great bargaining tools to get this retail plaza on your client list.  After you perform the work and visit each manager to collect your pay, ask him or her to call the property manager and recommend your lawn care service.  With a little luck and additional assertive marketing, you will be able to add this shopping center to your list of weekly clients.

Do you want to learn more assertive marketing techniques for your lawn care company?

Assertive Marketing is a very important tool to help you make great money with your lawn care business.  Are you struggling finding lawn care clients? Are you struggling learning how to price your lawn care services effectively? You will benefit from our lawn care business guidebook, software, and estimating business package.

This Lawn Care Business package teaches you practically everything you need to know to operate a successful and profitable lawn care business.  The program is on sale right now.  Please visit our lawn care homepage for complete details and ordering information.

Get More Lawn Care Customers
http://www.StartALawnCareBusiness.com

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Free Advertising for your Lawn Care Company? Think Again!

Lawn care is a competitive business.  As with any competitive business, you have to advertise your company to get customers.  Right now is one of the best times of the year to advertise heavy.  Customers that you acquire right now will, likely, be with you for the rest of the year.

As with all business principles, there are right ways to advertise and wrong ways to advertise.  I am noticing a disturbing trend that lawn care companies are using to advertise their businesses this year.  And I think they are making mistakes. 

After I finishing for the day, I stopped into a gas station to fill up my truck to prevent an empty tank tomorrow morning.  As I reached for the gas nozzle, I noticed about 1/2 a dozen stickers with the name of a local lawn care company printed on them.  The stickers covered the panel of the gas pump and a few of them were placed to obscure the gas price display.

Lawn Care Advertising

Improper Lawn Care Advertising

Do you think this lawn care company will attract good customers by using this type of advertising scheme? 

Personally, I think this is the wrong way to advertise a lawn care company.  Very few potential customers will respond favorably to this type of advertising.  More-so, potential lawn care customers are turned off by this tactic.  Instead of attracting clients, this company will garner complaints, destroy their goodwill, and potentially lose existing customers.

If you are thinking about using this type of marketing for your lawn care service, please think twice.  There are legitimate forms of free advertising available that are not nearly this obnoxious.

If you are starting your lawn care business this year or if you are attempting to advertise heavily to expand an existing business, our lawn care business guidebook package includes a great section on advertising your company.  Proper advertising will gain your company many more clients than resorting to placing stickers on gas pumps.

For more information, visit our home page:

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

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Landlords as Lawn Care Customers

Spring is almost here and we have been blogging quite a bit lately about attracting new lawn care clients. 

What kind of clients are you trying to attract this year?  Individual residences, homeowner’s associations, real estate agents, and business complexes should all be within a lawn care business owner’s customer mix.  A diversity of clients makes a stronger lawn care business.  If there is a downturn in one sector of a lawn care company’s client list, the other sectors will buffer the hardship.  For example; we received an email from a lawn care business owner last year who focused all his attention in previous years on a single industrial complex.  The money was great and his drive time between customers was minimal.  However, at the beginning of last year businesses began suffering greatly due to the economy and the lawn care business owner lost over 75% of his revenue from that one complex.

There is one customer we did not mention above; landlords.  As the nation’s economy begins to get back on track this year, we think landlords, once again, are a great source of revenue.  Landlords definately want a bargain for their money but on the positive side most landlords own multiple units and they can give you a steady stream of work to fill gaps in your schedule.  Landlords understand the value of curb appeal and they are more than willing to pay you a fair price to keep their properties looking great for their renters (and prospective renters).

Do you want to add a landlord or two to your lawn care customer client list?  Do you want to charge these landlords more than they are willing to pay.  Landlords are very protective of their property investments and a great strategy of proving your worth to a landlord is to show him you will care for his property when you are mowing.  Landlords hate having to make repairs and they hate air conditioner problems.  When you are speaking with a landlord about mowing his property mention that you always take special care to blow the grass away from the air conditioner unit.  Grass can clog the cooling fins and repairs are costly.

Grass and leaves can cause air conditioner problems

Grass and leaves can cause air conditioner problems.

Impressing a landlord client will mean you can charge more money and he will tell his other landlord friends about your services.

If you want to learn more about how to generate a proper mix of lawn care clients for your lawn care and landscaping business, our lawn care business strategy guide book will show you how.  Also, our estimating software will help you with your quotes so you can operate a successful and profitable lawn care business.

Learn more on our main page:

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

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Lawn Care – February 1, 2011

Time waits for no man.

The first month of 2011 has passed us by. If you are a lawn care business owner, you are very likely cheering that Springtime is one month closer. Though there are still many cold days ahead of us this winter, the sun is beginning to creep up on the horizon and a few warmer days are showing up in the forecast. For many of us here in the southeast, we saw temperatures in the high 60’s last weekend and I even saw the first sprouts of wild onions and wild garlic in yards last week.

If you are starting a lawn care business in 2011, RIGHT NOW is the time to get started….like TODAY. Customers are already thinking about getting their lawns cleaned up for springtime and plantings in their landscape beds. Lawn care companies should already be advertising to acquire these ‘earlybird’ lawn care customers.

You surely have many questions about lawn care business startup, equipment selection, advertising, bidding and estimating, and growing your lawn care business. If you are just starting out or if you’re new to the business and want to expand more this year than you did last year, we have developed a comprehensive lawn care business program that will answer you questions about starting and expanding your own lawn care business.

Read more about the business program on our main lawn care business web page:

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

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Is Lawn Care a Luxury?

Dave Ramsey, the financial guru, answered a question recently from a listener to his radio program:

Dear Dave,

We currently pay to have our lawn mowed each week. This expense is figured into our monthly budget, but we’re not quite out of debt yet. My wife says this is a luxury at this point, and I should cut the grass myself until we’re out of debt. What do you think?

Dave’s answer to this lawn care question was very close to the way we would have answered this question.

We believe most financial questions should be answered from a standpoint of a cost/benefit analysis.  In essence, does the cost of the product/service outweigh the benefit of that product/service. If the cost outweighs the benefit then it is a luxury.

Dave Ramsey mentioned that a Doctor or a Lawyer with a high income can easily afford to hire a lawn care company. In fact, high income households SHOULD hire lawn care companies instead of doing the lawn themselves as they will make much more money performing their careers than they will pay for lawn care. Ramsey goes on to state that someone earning $12/hour will probably not earn enough at their job in the amount of time they would save by hiring a lawn care professional, therefore, they should cut the grass themselves.

We think Dave’s answer if pretty good. However, we can think of many examples when a $12/hour employee would hire a lawn care company and a Doctor would cut his own grass. Ability to take time off work is a great example. $12/hour employees often have their work lives dictated to them by their bosses. They often have to work double shifts and weekends because their bosses tell them to. They are often scrambling for extra hour of overtime they can get to increase their paychecks.

Doctors, on the other hand, often have much more autonomy in their jobs. They are able to take time away from work and if gardening or lawn care is their hobby then they don’t want to hire lawn care professionals even if they can afford it.

As a lawn care business owner, it is wise of you to consider your customer’s cost/benefit analysis. Seeing their budget through their eyes can help you point out how valuable your services are. Yes, we all want roster full of high income clients. However, sometimes, a $12/hour employee often needs, and is willing and able to pay, you to cut their grass on a weekly basis.

Our lawn care business guidebook has a great section showing you marketing strategies to help you gain a wide range of lawn care customers. We believe you need a good mix of lawn care customers to have a truly successful operation.

Learn more at our main website:
Start A Lawn Care Business
http://www.StartALawnCareBusiness.com

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