End of year - bad news

[stevef1201]

How many of you wonder why am I not making money, I work all the time?

I just got back from a meeting with "the board", my business advisor, my accountant, and me.

The good news is yes I made money, the bad news I did not make enough to cover needs.

Why?

Well lest see, I have yards that I dont charge enough for, some of them I cannot charge enought to cover the income I need for that time-they just dont pay,

Some I underestimated the amount of time it would take.

Some I just felt sorry for the old lady who is handicapped and cannot care for her yard-her husband died last year.

So the question is what am I going to do?

My BA and accountant both say I have to drop those yards that I cannot raise, raise those that I can to thier proper rate, and get out there and do some targeted advertising for yards that will pay the bills, so I have written and sent out 8 discontinuation of service letters, and will be rasing rates of about 5 more in the Spring.

I now have to go looking for about 30 yards in the area that will be worth working in.

If you have the same situation then I suggest you sit down with a good businessman and look at your operation too. Lets work and more money sounds great to me.

[Steve]

Are there areas in your town that you feel would pay better? Had you targeted them yet or were you working your way towards doing that?

Do you feel the customers you dropped were a stepping stone to bigger and better ones?

[bluebird]

possible to lower operation costs ? 30 new high paying customers is tough

[LawnBoy0311]

Any updates or changes you are going to make?? Curious how this turns out.

[SECTLANDSCAPING]

You shouldnt need 30 more yards. Dont stop servicing anyone. Let them decide with the price raise. The ones that dont want to pay the increase will drop themselves.

I believe you said before you had 40 yards. A $10 increase a week would net a extra $1600. Since you said you were only taking in $2k a month it might seem drastic but its not. They got away with underpaying you and now your trying to make up for it but dont make it seems like this its inflation.

Another thing to do is full service contracts. Figure out the mulch, hedges, fall clean ups, aeration, fertilizing. Then submit a contact with options like $50 more a month for mulch and $30 more for fall clean up, etc. That would raise your monthly income and would only add expenses the months you do it.