Hello from NW Burbs - IL

[PN Landscaping]

Members,

Hello from the N.W. Burbs of IL. This is my first post to the website so I am sure this will be a little rusty. I started a landscaping business last summer with a lawn mower I purchased in a garage sale. Perfectly Natural Landscaping, LLC.

I spent the rest of the summer talking to people and slowly building my business and buying equiptment. Ebay & Cragslist made it all happen :). I now have a truck, open trailer, exmark 36 metro mower, echo blower / vac, echo trimmer, snapper edger and a toro 21 mower. I just had business cards made up and recently ordered signs for my truck and t-shirts for this next season. However, I am still a long way away from making it big but I work at this everyday to learn what I need to. Does anyone have any suggestions on how to get the proper insurance? What does an average policy cost for $200K in coverage? Should I have more or less? Does it cover my truck, trailer and equipment? I only have 10 accounts right now - what should my business plan consist of? Am I asking too many questions? I have read alot of real helpful posts so thank you for all that particiapte!! I have attached some shirt designs and logo pdf's. Any feedback would be appreciated. THANKS!

Dwight Polka
Perfectly Natural Landscaping, LLC
(224) 2MR-LAWN
www.pnlandscaping.com

[Steve]

Welcome to our forum!

You got a lot of great marketing material there! WOW

As far as insurance goes, have you contacted an insurance company yet? I think they will help you figure out what you need.

If you are looking to perform work on commercial properties, you will probably have to have $1mil to $2mil in liability.

As far as the business plans go, do a search on here. There are a bunch of examples.

What do you think got you to be so creative with all your marketing? So often we see newer businesses that don't put this much energy into their marketing material.

[PN Landscaping]

Steve,

I received you book for x-mas from my cousin and I have downloaded everyone of your podcasts to my apple tv. I used some of your marketing ideas for the flyer and will be using alot of the letters in the forum to send to my cutomers. My girlfriends brother designed the logo for me and she came up with the name.

As far as the phone number - I got that from Google Vocie. I got really lucky with it. My neighbor told me about Google Voice and how his number was unique for his car 93M-RTWO. He had a 1993 Toyota MR2. So I checked out the webiste - added in my area code and thought that LAWN was a great number to have :). It just so happens that 267 spells out 2MR. The way I see it as long as they know my number the rest will come. I then decided that I would get a sign made up to fit on the wood rails of my truck 18inches by 8ft long so my number could be seen from as far away as possible ;). With the numbers that big and unique everyone will know who I am with in a few seconds of looking at my truck. As I said before I have a long way to go yet but I love what I do and that helps alot. This forum has been a great help and I thank each and every member on poster!

Thanks!

Dwight
Peferctly Natural Landscaping, LLC
(224) 2MR-LAWN
www.pnlandscaping.com

[Steve]

Oh Dwight that is very interesting!

Can you tell us a little about Google voice? I have never heard about it before. How can it help lawn care business owners?

[PN Landscaping]

I never heard of it either until my neighbor told me about it. Here is the link that explains all about it. I asked for more info and was invited to join. They are testing it right now so I guess I am a lab rat so to speak.

You can make calls right from your pc and when someone calls you - you can forward it to your current cell phone. If you miss the call it translates the message in text and sends it to your phone. It has many more capabilites - too many to explain.

Go here for more info...http://www.google.com/googlevoice/about.html

One my phone plan ends I am going to take my google voice # and make it my actual cell number. Right now my (224) 2MR-LAWN number forwards to my current cell #. Google voice is currently free so it cost me $0 to essentially have another line on my cell phone plan. Saves me $9.99 a month. Perfect for someone trying to grow a business and keep costs low. Hope this was helpful enough to all who are interested.:)

Dwight
Perfectly Natural Landscaping, LLC
(224) 2MR-LAWN
www.pnlandscaping.com

[Steve]

That sounds like the next killer application from google! WOW!