RyansLawn
11-28-2012, 11:05 AM
Hello all,
My name is Ryan, a landscape business owner in the Northwest Suburbs of Boston. I just completed my first business year (almost still a few Fall clean ups), as I opened my business this past March. I have read that 90% of landscape businesses fold in the first year, so I am excited to be a part of the 10% that have been profitable in the first year. I recently bought another truck ('07 F-250) with an 8ft Boss plow to service my clients with snow removal services this winter.
I left a good banking job in March to pursue this dream full time. I have always been attracted to beautiful landscapes and helping create them. I was doing small landscape and mowing jobs part time for people and found with just a few customers it was pretty damn profitable. I decided that I was tired of "Big Brother" and the corporate scene so I jumped two feet in to make it happen. I started with a beat up Toro 21" push, and a crappy weed eater wacker that I stuffed in to the back of my Jeep Grand Cherokee! 500 flyers door to door provided my starting base of customers. After acquiring a$2200 revamp landscape job I was soon too big and had to buy a truck asap! I showed up to the estimate and the woman asked "where's your truck?!" Fast forward to today, with two part time workers, two small commercial accounts, 33 weekly lawn customers, and 13 snow removal accounts I cant imagine still being a banker!
I have learned SO MUCH in this first year. Trial and error, endless research on grasses, fertilizer, aeration, lime etc have made me leaps and bounds better than where I was. Mistakes to me are extremely necessary and inevitable in this business. Every time I made a mistake I could smile knowing I was learning crucial elements in improving my business in the future. I realize that you can never really stop learning in any business, especially this one. Knowledge is power.
I have done numerous searches on a variety of topics throughout the year to better myself and my service. Most of these searches have resulted in Gopher Haul being towards the top. I have read some of these posts, and watched videos and they have been informative to say the least. Steve seems very knowledgeable, and driven which is what attracted me to this forum. Also, many of you have contributed great things in helping Steve provide an insanely helpful forum to the public.
I am looking forward to being a regular part of this site to contribute, and more importantly, pick up valuable information from those more experienced than I.
My name is Ryan, a landscape business owner in the Northwest Suburbs of Boston. I just completed my first business year (almost still a few Fall clean ups), as I opened my business this past March. I have read that 90% of landscape businesses fold in the first year, so I am excited to be a part of the 10% that have been profitable in the first year. I recently bought another truck ('07 F-250) with an 8ft Boss plow to service my clients with snow removal services this winter.
I left a good banking job in March to pursue this dream full time. I have always been attracted to beautiful landscapes and helping create them. I was doing small landscape and mowing jobs part time for people and found with just a few customers it was pretty damn profitable. I decided that I was tired of "Big Brother" and the corporate scene so I jumped two feet in to make it happen. I started with a beat up Toro 21" push, and a crappy weed eater wacker that I stuffed in to the back of my Jeep Grand Cherokee! 500 flyers door to door provided my starting base of customers. After acquiring a$2200 revamp landscape job I was soon too big and had to buy a truck asap! I showed up to the estimate and the woman asked "where's your truck?!" Fast forward to today, with two part time workers, two small commercial accounts, 33 weekly lawn customers, and 13 snow removal accounts I cant imagine still being a banker!
I have learned SO MUCH in this first year. Trial and error, endless research on grasses, fertilizer, aeration, lime etc have made me leaps and bounds better than where I was. Mistakes to me are extremely necessary and inevitable in this business. Every time I made a mistake I could smile knowing I was learning crucial elements in improving my business in the future. I realize that you can never really stop learning in any business, especially this one. Knowledge is power.
I have done numerous searches on a variety of topics throughout the year to better myself and my service. Most of these searches have resulted in Gopher Haul being towards the top. I have read some of these posts, and watched videos and they have been informative to say the least. Steve seems very knowledgeable, and driven which is what attracted me to this forum. Also, many of you have contributed great things in helping Steve provide an insanely helpful forum to the public.
I am looking forward to being a regular part of this site to contribute, and more importantly, pick up valuable information from those more experienced than I.