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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.

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Distractions of a Lawn Care Business Owner

Jun 27

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

Business Distractions

As long as I have owned my business, I have struggled against continuous outside distractions.  There is a never-ending supply of non-work activities available to fill every waking hour.  Self-motivation is difficult enough when internal distractions pull me away from my work but when distractions come from outside sources I often fight a difficult struggle to stay focused.

Flexible Time vs. Free Time

One of the reasons I started a lawn care business was to have free time and flexible time.  Free time and flexible time are great benefits.  However, without a time clock or boss marking my work hours, non-productive activities creep into my day to consume my valuable work time.

You may relate to a few of the distractions listed below.

1)  Your time is not respected by family and friends.

Physical labor of a lawn care business is only a small portion of your work life.  Especially during the early days of starting your business and building your customer list you may spend more than half your time developing advertising strategies, handing out lawn care flyers, calling contacts, and giving estimates.  Once your lawn care business has customers you will still spend many hours with office work, maintenance, customer relations, and research & development of the services you offer.  These ‘non-work’ hours are as important as the hours you spend performing physical labor of your business.  Friends and relatives may not understand the importance of these hours and may lure you to “take the afternoon off” since you don’t have lawns to do at that particular time.  It is very enticing to take the afternoon off when friends call you on their way to the lake.

Resist the temptation of neglecting non-mowing duties just to spend a fun afternoon with family and friends.  Let them know how important your work is and ask them to respect the fact you are trying to build your business.

2)  Need a friend?  Buy a truck.

People with trucks always have plenty of friends.  Lawn care business owners are lucky that we get to purchase nice trucks and big equipment trailers.  Once you have hauling capacity you will notice a steady stream of people needing couches moved or loads of lumber delivered from the hardware store.  They appreciate your help but they fail to realize the amount of time consumed.

By all means help friends and relatives when they truly need assistance but offer your help sparingly to prevent your flexible schedule being taken advantage of.

3)  Facebook, Twitter, Texting, CNN, CNBC, Talk Radio, The Latest Movie, Sleeping-In, Staying Out Late, Long Lunches, etc, etc.

Distractions come in all forms.  There are an infinite number of distractions which can completely consume your day.  Force those distractions to respect your time by setting goals, developing a work schedule, and forcing yourself to respect your own time and the demands of your growing business.

Defend Your Hours

I am not ungrateful for my friends and family members (and for Facebook and Talk Radio).  I relish my ability to spend free time with them.  I also know they are not purposely consuming the time I should be spending on my business.

It is up to me (and you) to steadfastly defend the work hours needed to reach our goals of building a successful business.

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