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Lawn Care Estimates – Get Your Pricing Right

Sep 30

Posted by Lawn Care Business in estimating, how much to charge, lawn care business | No Comments

Mowing Grass for Minimum Wage - Make More Money

Mowing Grass for Minimum Wage? Make More Money.

Do you own a lawn care business? Are you undercharging for your lawn care services?

I am continually surprised at the number of new business owners who start doing lawn care and have absolutely no idea how much money to charge for the services they provide. Pricing is a tricky subject and if you are operating a lawn care business without a proper understanding of the estimating process, you are likely going to lose thousands of dollars. We received a comment recently in response to one of our free videos that we have on YouTube.

The commentor wrote:

I get paid $25 for a house with a huge hill that takes me 2 hours to mow. It takes me 30 minutes to get there and I have to mow around a bunch of stuff and trim alot and use my own gas.

I must point out that I do not know anything about this person’s business or why he is charging this price. However, on the surface, it seems to me that he is VASTLY undercharging for his lawn care services. According to his comment he is working for 2 hours and driving for 1 hour round trip. Additionally, he is providing his own gasoline and, I assume, using his own lawn mowing equipment. For his time, he is only getting paid $8.33 per hour. Subtract his gasoline and equipment expense and he is probably making less than minimum wage for this lawn care job.

YIKES!!!!

If you own a lawn care business you MUST get your pricing right. There is very little point in setting prices so low that you are working for close to minimum wage when, with a quick lesson in proper price estimation, you can learn how to make great money in your lawn care business.

Our lawn care business program is dedicated to teaching you proper strategies in lawn care estimation. If you are tired of mowing grass for less money than you should, visit our main website and consider purchasing our lawn care business strategy guidebook and estimating sofware.





Visit the link below:

Lawn Care Estimating Software
http://www.StartALawnCareBusiness.com

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Southeast Storm Damage – Lawn Care Business Pricing

Apr 27

Posted by Lawn Care Business in how much to charge, lawn business strategies, lawn care customers, start a lawn care business | No Comments

Storm Damage Cleanup

Storm damage cleanup means big money in the lawn care industry.

If you are anywhere within the Southeast portion of the United States this week, I am sure you have either experienced severe weather or seen it on television. The past several days have been intense with thunderstorms and very heavy winds (if not tornadoes). In fact, tornado sirens were sounding all over our area last night as storm after storm rolled through. If you or those you love have been affected by this severe weather, we hope you pulled through without property (or personal) damage.

It seems like we’ve written many times about severe weather in just the past few weeks.

Once again, as terrible as it is that many people have down trees and property damage, the potential for lawn care companies to make money right now seems to be greater than ever. Storm cleanup work is plentiful in storm damaged areas. If you have necessary tools, hauling capacity, man power, and a lawn care business already established in an area affected by the storms, you should consider adding storm cleanup services to your existing lawn care business services.

Do you know how to price your storm cleanup services?

One of the biggest problems new lawn care business owners face is the ability and confidence to price their lawn care services correctly. We fully understand how difficult it is to price your lawn care services when you are a new company owner. You don’t want to overbid your jobs and lose your customers. You also don’t want to underbid your services and risk losing money.

We faced this same problem when we started our lawn care company but we quickly developed pricing strategies so we could make the most money possible from all of our lawn care customers and still keep them happy with great services and terrific looking lawns.

If you want to learn how to properly price your lawn care services (including storm cleanup) we encourage you to visit our main webpage and learn about our Lawn Care Business Guidebook and Estimating Software Business Package. This program is a huge resource for new (and existing) lawn care business owners. It includes bidding tutorials and estimating software to help you start and operate a successful lawn care business.

Visit our homepage:

Make Money With Your Lawn Care Business
http://www.StartALawnCareBusiness.com

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Selling (retiring from) your lawn care business?

Feb 18

Posted by Lawn Care Business in how much to charge, lawn business strategies | No Comments

While most of our blog posts (and our lawn care business program) are designed are with the new lawn care business owner in mind, we are often reminded of the fact that many people need advice at the end-stage of their lawn care business careers.

Growing a business to the point where it can be sold is a very viable exit strategy for even the smallest lawn care company.  If you have spent your time and efforts cultivating a profitable and successful lawn care company, you should not overlook the fact that your company is probably very valuable over and beyond the amount of revenue your company generates on a monthly basis.

If you have grown your lawn care business and are now thinking about quiting your business either to retire or to follow other pursuits, don’t make the mistake of letting your company fade away without it realizing it’s full profit potential.  Lawn care business owners can often sell their routes, equipment, business name, and company’s goodwill.

So, if you are thinking about selling your lawn care business after owning it for a number of years, our lawn care business program will be very valuable to you.  There is a section dedicated to helping you value your lawn care business if you are in process of selling the business.

To learn more about the entire program, please visit our main website:

http://www.StartALawnCareBusiness.com
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Lawn Care Estimating – How To Estimate (Bid) Lawn Care Work

Jun 11

Posted by Lawn Care Business in estimating, how much to charge, lawn business strategies, lawn care estimating, start a lawn care business | No Comments

by: StartALawnCareBusiness.com

Lawn Care Estimating

Our Lawn Care Business program is jam-packed with information about starting and operating a lawn care business. There is tons of information on business startup, how to advertise and acquire customers, how to bid larger jobs, how to purchase lawn mowers, weedeaters, hedge trimmers, & leaf blowers, and there is also information on how to strip lawns and give professional looking cuts.

As informative as all these sections are, one of the most important sections of the lawn care business course deals with knowing how much money to charge your customers. New lawn care entrepreneurs have difficult times telling their customers how much they are going to charge to cut their grass. We dealt with the estimation problem ourselves our first year in business. I still remember some of the first customers I estimated. I would tell them the price and they would almost always balk and say I was too high. Being new in the business and not wanting to lose customers, I would almost always drop my price immediately…sometimes as much as $10 per cut.

When I think back to those early days now, I left a ton of money on the table because I was too inexperienced to know how to give a good estimate and stand firm on my price. I probably lost thousands of dollars the first six month in business because I didn’t know how to give proper estimates.

If you are new to the business and you feel that you are just not making the money you know you should be making, I urge you to get our Lawn Care Business training coursebooks and training videos. The program includes a REALWORLD description teaching you how to price jobs and how to keep from having your customers turn away from reasonable estimates.

We have the lawn care business coursebooks, video training guides, estimating software, and business toolkit on sale right now through our main website. Learning how to estimate lawn care work properly might save you thousands of dollars of lost revenue this year in your lawn care & landscaping business.

You can order the lawn care business program through our main website: http://www.StartALawnCareBusiness.com

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A Professional Lawn Care Company Would Never Do This!

Apr 10

Posted by Lawn Care Business in how much to charge, lawn business strategies, start a lawn care business | 2 Comments

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There are several attributes of professional lawn care companies that will differentiate them from amateurs.

One big difference between professional and amateur lawn care companies is attention to detail. Amateurs get the job done as quickly as possible, charge a low price, and move onto the next lawn. Sure, the grass is cut and the customer is satisfied (for the price) but the lawn often doesn’t have the finely groomed and finished look of a professionally cut lawn.

Professional yard maintenance companies take a few extra minutes to finish their jobs correctly. As such, commercial landscapers can charge their customers a premium over amateurs. Professionals make more money, in the long run, than amateurs who leave their grass cutting jobs unfinished.

I came across a great example of an imperfectly performed lawn care job today. The grass was cut and the weedeating was done but the lawn care company skipped the detail work. Specifically, instead of properly blowing the grass off the road, the workers left the grass on the road surface.

Blow Grass Off Road for a Professional Lawn Care Appearance

If you want to operate a Professional Lawn Care company and get paid professional prices, pay special attention to the small details. They are the difference between your reputation as a professional landscaper versus an amateur with a lawn mower.

Do you want to run a professional lawn care company and make professional money for your work? If you want to earn more money and gain the reputation of a professional, our lawn care business course is designed to help you. We are running a special price on it right now. Visit our main website for full information.

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

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Asynchronous Risk vs. Reward Ratio

Feb 21

Posted by Lawn Care Business in equipment, how much to charge, lawn business strategies, start a lawn care business | No Comments

I had a great conversation with a business associate today concerning the concept of risk management.  In particular, we were discussing risks that far outweigh their rewards.

Risk management is a common subject in business and since this is a lawn care business blog, you may think we were discussing concepts such as giving 100% guarantees to customers who purchase landscape plantings.  Or, we may have been analyzing the spreading of landscape mulch and charging for maintenance without first properly treating the ground or placing weedblock as an underlayment.  Or we may have been discussing the purchase of a commercial 34 horsepower, propane fueled, 72″, zero-turn, front deck, lawn mower before even acquiring a single lawn care customer.

Climbing and a discussion of asychronous risk management.

While these are all great ideas to discuss, we were not talking business.  Instead, we were talking about free climbing a rock face without the use of proper safety equipment.

In your lawn care business, us proper risk management procedures.

Whether you are bouldering a rocky outcropping or starting your own lawn care business, it makes perfect sense to think strongly about risk management procedures. 

If you want to learn how to rock climb, seek professional rock climbing instruction (and use a rope!!!) 

However, if you want to learn proper risk management procedures for your lawn care business, purchase our lawn care business guidebook and estimating software package through our website:  www.StartALawnCareBusiness.com

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Lawn Care Business and High School Economics

Jul 3

Posted by Lawn Care Business in how much to charge, lawn care business | 1 Comment

It’s 6:00 AM and I just awoke dreaming of yesterdays post on job pricing for your lawn care business and how it relates to a test question I had, many years ago, in high school economics.

I remember the question clearly because I was gunning for a perfect grade and I got the question wrong.  The jist of the question was along the lines of:

“In a capitalistic economy, such as the United States, a business owner can charge whatever price he wants to charge for his goods or services.”

I answered that question “True” since I believed, and still do, that the question was more concerned with political freedom of business owners and not a question on sound economic judgement.  My teacher marked my answer wrong.

Yesterday’s blog posting stated that a business owner must not charge less than jobs cost if he wants to remain profitable and avoid financial hardship.  This is my opinion from a sound economic viability standpoint.

However, harking back to high school economics, I will amend my statement to say that in a polically capitalistic economy lacking price controls a business owner is free to charge whatever he pleases even if it means the eventual failure of his business.

As July 4 approaches, we should be aware of how lucky we are to live under an economic system where we are allowed to thrive in our businesses, or fail with them, without undue political control.

Though I still disagree with my economics teacher’s assessment of my answer, I must give her credit for devising a question that begs examination many years later.

Start A Lawn Care Business

The Start A Lawn Care Business business package is packed with information and business tools to help you start a lawn care business or expand an existing lawn care business.  Visit our site at:  StartALawnCareBusiness.com

Growing your Lawn Care Business

Jul 2

Posted by Lawn Care Business in bidding lawn care, how much to charge, lawn business strategies, lawn care business | 2 Comments

by: Lawn Care Business

Controlled growth and profitability is best for your lawn care and landscaping business.

As a note of caution to new business owners; control grow of your lawn care business and only accept profitable jobs to keep from getting too big too fast.

New lawn care business owners have a tendency to pursue all the business leads that come their way.  Aggressive marketing can bring many new prospective customers.  Another  tendency new lawn care business owners exhibit is dropping their prices to get as many customers as they can.

If you are a new lawn care business that is marketing agressively and underbidding all your jobs, you may quickly find your business in financial difficulty.

From the list of many attributes demonstrated by successful lawn care business owners controlled growth and profitability on every project rank high.

1)  Controlled Growth of the Lawn Care Business

Growing a lawn care business is a careful balance between developing capacity by purchasing the correct equipment and gaining customers to fill that capacity.  Ideally, a lawn care company should gain profitable customers slightly ahead of increasing their company’s capacity.

2) Profitability on Every Job

Successful lawn care business owners know the costs of every job.  Even jobs as small as $25 lawn mowings have associated costs.  Equipment depreciation, gasoline, trimmer line, travel time, and  opportunity costs all have to be calculated.  Successful lawn care business owners will not bid less than the  job’s total revenue.  If costs out strip revenue the job is not profitable and should not be accepted.

Start and Expand your Lawn Care Business

If you want to grow a successful lawn care business, check out our lawn care business material by clicking the “How To Start A Lawn Care Business” link at the top of this page.

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Tips for Starting a Lawn Care Business

Apr 29

Posted by Lawn Care Business in bidding lawn care, customers, how much to charge, lawn business strategies | No Comments

by: Start A Lawn Care Business

The lawn care business program available from our website: www.StartALawnCareBusiness.com is packed with information about how to operate a lawn care business.  Sometimes we are asked: “What is your number one piece of advice for someone brand new to the lawn care business?”

No individual tip can sum up all you need to know about running your own business, knowing how to price your services is a tremendously important lesson to learn about running your business.

Pricing is subjective in the lawn care industry.  No one can tell you exactly how much to price each job.  Therefore, it is very important for you to develop a strong pricing strategy. Know your costs, know how much your time is worth, and know what price the market will bear. If the market won’t bear the amount you need to cover your costs then don’t do the job. You can’t make money by losing money. DUH…right? You’d be surprised how many people don’t know that basic concept.  Companies go out-of-business everyday because they can’t cover costs.

Additionally, don’t let customers talk you down in price or intimidate you because you’re new to the business…they’ll do that, trust me. If a lawn care or landscaping job is worth $30 hold firm to that price. If the customer won’t pay, walk away and find someone who will. Don’t sacrifice your rightful profit just to get a lawn care customer.

Our lawn care business package has a huge section on how to bid and estimate lawn care and landscaping jobs.  Estimating calculator software is also included with the package.  The lawn care estimator will help you estimate your lawn care jobs.

You can purchase the lawn care business package, on sale right now, from:

http://www.StartALawnCareBusiness.com

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Bidding a lawn care job.

Mar 28

Posted by Lawn Care Business in bidding lawn care, how much to charge | 2 Comments

by: Lawn Care Business

How to bid a lawn care job.

Properly bidding a lawn care and landscaping contract involves a fine balance between covering your costs and knowing how much your customer will pay. Underbidding is one of the biggest problems that new lawn care business owners face.

The StartALawnCareBusiness.com estimating guidebooks give you extensive information and examples on how to bid lawn care jobs. Whether you are doing simple grass cutting or installing intricate landscapes, you must know how to properly bid your jobs or you risk going out of business. Below are 3 simple guidelines to follow.

1) Know your costs:

You should never bid on a lawn care job until you know your costs to perform that job. If you are bidding on a straight-up grass cutting job, your costs include: labor, equipment depreciation, supplies (gasoline, weedeater line, etc.) transportation costs, and office expenses (including all other expenses of operating your business.)
There are very few instances when you should ever do landscaping for less than your cost.


2) Know your customers:

Knowledge of your customers gives a good indication of the amount they are willing to pay for your services. A customer in an exclusive neighborhood with 30,000 square feet of finely manicure grass should be willing to pay more than $20/week to have the grounds maintained through the summer. It behooves you, as a lawn care business owner, to extract enough information from your prospective customer during your initial interview to help you determine the amount of money that customer is willing to pay for your services.

3) Know your competition:

Your competitors will always attempt to lowball and underbid your prices. Keep tabs on your competition. Learn what they are charging. Learn what tactics they are employing to steal away your customers. Counter their moves by providing top-quality services and charging fair prices for your lawn care / landscaping work.
 

These are just a few tips on pricing your lawn care jobs. In our 17 years of lawn care experience we have performed jobs from small $20 duplexes up to large 90 acre industrial complexes and multi-year government contracts. We have poured our pricing experience into the lawn care business program. If you are interested in learning how to properly price your jobs, our estimating guidebook and estimating calculators will help you give better bids.

Our Lawn Care Business program is on sale right now at:
www.StartALawnCareBusiness.com

 

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