How To Start and Grow Your Lawn Care Business

Tuesday

Lawn Care Business Video

Labels: business, fertilizer, grass, landscaping, lawn, lawn business, lawn care, lawn care business, lawn cutting, lawn maintenance, lawn mower, lawncare, mower, mowing, small business

Lawn Business Marketing Tip: Your Competitors Will Hate You

Labels: business, entrepreneur, fertilizer, grass, grass cutting, landscape, lawn, lawn business, lawn care, lawn care business, lawn cutting, lawn maintenance, lawncare, lawnmower, marketing, mower, mowing

Saturday

Lawn Business Books: Books You Need In Your Lawn Care Business Library

Labels: aerator, fertilizer, grass, grass cutting, landscape, landscaping, lawn business, lawn care, lawn care business, lawn cutting, lawn maintenance, lawn mower, lawn mowing, lawncare

Thursday

Are You Motivated About Your Lawn Business?

What's Driving You?

This post is a shorty but a goody.

Never trust a business opportunity promising that you'll make millions of dollars overnight with no effort. The idea sure sounds nice but it has an awful aftertaste.

If you hear a promise like that, run the other way.

In all fairness, you can make millions of dollars with your own lawn business - but it's going to take some 'seriously' smart work.

Notice I didn't say hard work. Everybody knows somebody who works hard but goes nowhere. I'm talking about working smart.

Part of that process of finishing 'first' above your competitors is developing your own motivation. This force inside of you will help you work hard at your lawn business no matter what you encounter.

If an employee calls in sick on a day when you need every one of your team, it doesn't matter. If your aerator blows up and you have to fork out $2500 (which you don't have) for a new one, it doesn't matter.

When I say it doesn't matter, what I mean is that it must not stop you.

Begin to think about the things that make you get excited and how you could enjoy them more because your profitable lawn business will help get you there. See yourself going on that dream vacation. See yourself buying that new vehicle. See yourself finishing school or paying off that debt that's been hanging over your head for years.

Whatever it is, see yourself experiencing it.

When I first started, my 'driving force' was getting my allowance.The joy of making quick money with my own lawn business. And since that was back in the days when the lawn industry wasn't as large as it is now, I had to do a lot of learning by trial and error, learning as I mowed, resulting in some very physically long days.

If I hadn't been so 'driven' about what I was doing, I would have probably thrown in the towel after round one and you wouldn't be reading this BLOG.

So do yourself a favor. Take a minute to think about and write down what drives you. This is a secret to help you keep moving when the going gets tough with your lawn business. You'll be amazed at how often you look at it for motivation.

Copyright Student Lawn Corporation 2007. All rights reserved.

Labels: aerator, fertilizer, grass, grass cutting, landscape, landscaping, lawn business, lawn care, lawn care business, lawn cutting, lawn maintenance, lawn mowing, lawncare, mower, summer business

Sunday

There's No Profits With a Grass Cutting Business Until You Do Something

Get Moving!

You can start or grow your grass cutting business anytime you want but here's the catch --- you have to start.

You'll find that you won't accomplish anything if you wait for all
the possible objections to be overcome.

Really.

Knocking on that first door or making that first phone call. Mowing
the first lawn or putting that ad in the paper. People get scared and that fear paralyzes them from doing anything at all.

Do yourself a favor, don't let fear tell you how to live. Whatever it is that you must do, do it afraid if you must, but get moving.

Don't wait for things to change. Don't wait until you feel something. Don't wait until you have more money. Don't wait until you have more time, until you are less tired, until you settle down, until school is finished, until, until, until. Don't wait for a major event in your life to occur before you begin to work on your grass cutting business.

Start Today

Start where you are today. Begin right where you're at as you read this. The minutes you are wasting now, dreaming of some success, is crowded with tremendous possibilities right here, right now.

Even if it's snowing or raining as you read this, or it's the off season from the lawn services you carry out, you can still do a lot of preparation before the season comes around again and kicks into high gear.

When you take the first step, no matter if it's a big step or a small one like straightening your attitude out, your mind will mobilize all its forces to help you.

Once you have started, all that is within you and unknown forces around you will come to your assistance setting momentum in motion.

The only way to start down the road to lawn business success is to move your feet, one step at a time in the direction you want to go.

Any Day You Want

Any day you want you can discipline yourself to change it all. Your future is right in the palm of our own hand. Any day you want you can start on the path to a bigger, better, and much more profitable grass cutting business.

Labels: aerator, fertilizer, grass, grass cutting, landscape, landscaping, lawn business, lawn care, lawn care business, lawn cutting, lawn maintenance, lawn mowing, lawncare, mower, summer business

Do You Have What It Takes To Make It With Lawn Care?

Find Out Now If You Have What It Takes...

My team and I have a job. That purpose is to persuade and prove
to you that, wherever you are in your life today, you too can
become wealthy with your very own lawn care business.

All you have to do is start now.

If you work hard enough, and do some of the things I recommend,
or others in this blog, you may even become very wealthy.

What you read in this blog should be taken with a grain of salt, but
for the most part the methods, techniques and strategies do work.

(My team and I moderate what is posted here and keep only the
good tips everyone submits...)

They have for me and countless others. There is no reason why
you too, cannot achieve your dreams.

If you are willing to take the time to learn how to attain it, you can
achieve what you set out to accomplish.

Most of the millionaires in the US are first-generation. That means
they are self-made.

Let me bring it down another level...they started with nothing.

They earned every penny by applying their talents and abilities to
the opportunities that they either discovered or created. It is
estimated that someone, somewhere in the United States,
becomes a millionaire every four minutes.

That is mind boggling when you stop and think about it.

But what these self-made success stories have done you can do
as well. Believe that no one is better than you and no one is
smarter than you. Those who are successful with a lawn care
business are quite ordinary.

They are invariably honest, hardworking men and women who
have taken risks, developed expertise in their chosen fields and
refused to quit when the going got tough, as it always does.

Copy The Successful

Successful lawn care business owners are not very different
from you than you might think. They have simply used more of
their talents and done things in a different way from the majority
that have started out on their journey and given up.

The wonderful discovery is if you do what other successful,
wealthy lawn business owners do, over and over again, you will
eventually get the same results.

Contrary to popular belief, lawn business success is not a miracle,
nor is it based on luck. It is simply the law of sowing and reaping.

If you sow (you act on the information you learn), you will reap the rewards.

You've already got all you need.

If anyone tells you that running a profitable lawn care business is
impossible, they're lying.

Copyright Student Lawn Corporation 2007. All rights reserved.

Labels: aerator, fertilizer, grass, grass cutting, landscape, landscaping, lawn business, lawn care, lawn care business, lawn cutting, lawn maintenance, lawn mowing, lawncare, mower, summer business

Saturday

Where In The World Is Your Lawn Care Business?

Where Ya From?

This post is for letting the world know where your lawn care business is operating. Let others know.

Daniel

Labels: aerator, fertilizer, grass, grass cutting, landscape, landscaping, lawn business, lawn care, lawn care business, lawn cutting, lawn maintenance, lawn mowing, lawncare, mower, summer business

Lawn Business Questions & Answers

Questions & Answers

This is a post I started because there were so many people emailing us for advice about a lawn business that I want to make the questions and the answers to the questions available for everyone.

So go ahead and ask away!

Labels: aerator, fertilizer, grass, grass cutting, landscape, landscaping, lawn business, lawn care, lawn care business, lawn cutting, lawn maintenance, lawn mowing, lawncare, mower, summer business

Thursday

Learn About and Understand Your Lawn Service Customers

Do You Know Your Lawn Service Customers?

Contrary to popular belief, your lawn service customers are not hard to figure out and impossible to understand. This is a flat out lie.

Customers are something you can learn about and understand.

You should research your customers and find out all that you can about them. Knowledge is power and it is also profits to you.

If you take enough time to sit down and think about your customer's buying behaviors, you'll come up with creative ways to fill your lawn care business with good, quality customers.

Noticed I said "good" customers. Those people who pay on time and refer others to you.

IT'S UP TO YOU

It's up to you to get stirred up enough to step out and begin to study your lawn service customers. From the moment they contact your business!

If it's their first time contacting you, find out where they saw your ad and why they called. Go from there.

If it's not their first time contacting you, thank them for returning and find out what compelled them to return.

THE MORE YOU KNOW -- THE BETTER

The more you know about your customers, the better it will be for your lawn service business. The more profitable you will become.

Prepare to win. Knowing and understanding your customers is preparing to win.

Start from when they first contact you and never stop learning. If you've already been in business for awhile, start today. Don't skip a beat. Start on your journey to understand your customers.

The more you know, the richer you will be because you will focus on the areas that have been bringing in your customers. You will leave the unprofitable avenues alone.

Copyright Student Lawn Corporation. All rights reserved.

Labels: aerator, fertilizer, grass, grass cutting, landscape, landscaping, lawn business, lawn care, lawn care business, lawn cutting, lawn maintenance, lawn mowing, lawncare, mower, summer business

Lawn Maintenance Advertising Tips

DON'T JUST SELL YOUR LAWN MAINTENANCE SERVICE

If you want to attract the good and okay customer that will add toyour profits, you must use advertising to project high value -- this is a secret of lawn maintenance advertising.

You want customers on your roster that are smart enough to understand that a higher price can be well worth it if they get genuine value for their money.

Even as you read this, any lawn maintenance advertising you have going right now isattracting a specific type of customer whether you realize it or not.

START HERE

As I learned and am now suggesting to you, the first place to start when designing a high value ad for your lawn maintenance service is, whatever you do, don't just sell the service.

If you are just selling your lawn maintenance service and no other benefit to the customer you are putting yourself in the trap of being a commodity where the cheapest price wins.

If customers see no difference and no benefit in choosing your lawn maintenance business over another then they would be foolish paying moremoney for the exact same service that they could get from a competitor.

DON'T FALL FOR THIS LIE

A lot of lawn maintenance business owners complain that they are in a market in the country where customers only care about getting the cheapest price.

But take any market, any business category, there are businesses that are at the highest price. I've seen several situations in which 2 lawn maintenance business owners, one is convinced that they are only selling a commodity for the cheapest price and the other is selling in the same market at a much higher price.

THIS IS HOW YOU PRICE HIGH

To price yourself at the high end of your market you have to add things to your lawn maintenance services that are more important than just the lowest price.

Let me give you an example. Keep in mind that there a few different types of lawn care service purchasers...

Many people like unique gifts. There are quite a few stories of peoplewandering the malls looking for that last minute special gift.

What do you think would happen if this type of purchaser had seenan ad like:

"Use ABC Mowing's annual reminder service to never rushfor a last minute gift. Give a unique gift and make them smile."

Really picture this. A lawn maintenance business that helps pick a purchase.When that person makes the purchase the lawn care business keeps iton file. They phone the person a few days after the lawn service iscarried out and ask how the person liked the gift.

1 year later they call again and email a couple of gift choices that match last year's lawn care service. They will give a couple of price range options and will have the gift lawn service ready to go as soon as the person says go ahead.

Dumb idea you think?

It's better to have a list of 200 people to remind than be waiting around for people to call because of an ad that says 50% OFF first lawn service.

SELL CONVENIENCE

Don't just sell a lawn maintenance service. Sell the convenience. In the example above, it was the convenience of buying and giving aunique gift.

This is a simple, new way to look at your business. You get the picture.

Continually think of ways for your lawn maintenance business to stand out. A lot of your competitors are too lazy or distracted to do the extra things that drive more business in.

I agree, adding on extra services is a pain. But being broke and fighting for scraps of customers with competitors who offer theexact same thing is a much, much bigger pain.

I'd rather suffer the pain of being innovative and so should you.

Copyright Student Lawn Corporation 2007. All rights reserved.

Labels: aerator, fertilizer, grass, grass cutting, landscape, landscaping, lawn business, lawn care, lawn care business, lawn cutting, lawn maintenance, lawn mowing, lawncare, mower, summer business

What Is a Lawn Mowing Business?

Good Old Hard Work

A lawn mowing business happened to be the very first business I dared to start with. I am no exception to the rule so, like most mowing business owners, I had to figure things out the hard way. Contrary to popular belief, I didn't know anything about the business at all nor did anyone take me under their arm and teach me. I just learned to push the mower and trim as fast and effectively as I could.

If you think you need to know lots to start your own lawn mowing business - you've been lied to. Remember, I didn't know much at all but over time I got the swing of things. And because I did, building a successful and profitable mowing business will be much easier for you than it was for me. After all, you are now discovering all my experience for the fraction of the price it cost me in more ways than one.

What Is a Lawn Mowing Business?

In essence, a lawn mowing business is an art. I find myself calling what I do 'lawn art' and my paintbrushes are the lawn mower and trimmer. Is it so crazy to call someone who mows a lawn a 'lawn artist'? After all, anyone can push a lawn mower but not everyone can make it look good.

Generally speaking (not taking into consideration chemical applications), the non-artsy, and down to earth description of a lawn mowing business, is the cutting, trimming, and power blowing of a property.

You spread the word of the lawn care service you offer. Interested people ask you to give them a quote and if everything sounds good they hire you to take care of their lawn - and so your business grows.

The potential for your client list is not just residential but also commercial. Even the grass on gas station properties and similar commercial sites needs to be maintained.

You can choose to have your hands in both pies. It's up to you. Both have their advantages and disadvantages.

Once you have all the facts, you decide for yourself what you want to do.

Essentially, a lawn mowing business will give you a sense of pride while earning a ton of cash.

How Much Money Can You Make?

Let me give you a stark basic example. In other words I won't be factoring in the minimal daily expenses such as fuel etc. For all I know these lawns could all be on one street or under two minutes from each other.

Take an average lawn and attach a $25 price to mow it. If you can mow one average lawn in one hour that's $25/hr. If you mow 8 average lawns in a day that's a $200 pay day, $1000/week, and $4000/month.

If you double those numbers - mow 2 average lawns an hour - you'll pocket $400/day, $2000/week, and $8000/month.

This was just an example. Keep in mind you're going to find out techniques for making money with other services. My hope is that you make what you set out as a goal to make.

For the most part even just $1000/week isn't too shabby. As you can see, the numbers just keep going higher. Even this isn't the only good point to mowing for money - there's many more.

Obviously, this isn't rocket science. What you need to do is find some great information that teaches you how to start, run, and grow a lawn mowing business and then take ACTION!

Labels: aerator, fertilizer, grass, grass cutting, landscape, landscaping, lawn business, lawn care, lawn care business, lawn cutting, lawn maintenance, lawn mowing, lawncare, mower, summer business