StartALawnCareBusiness
09-11-2007, 01:14 PM
I was reading about the early 19th century auto maker Henry Ford this morning.
He was such a pioneer and such an industrialist. I wondered what knowledge of his could be applied to the Lawn Care Industry.
One of his quotes stuck out in my mind:
"If I'd asked my customers what they wanted, they'd have said a faster horse."
That goes slightly against what I've thought about customer relations in lawn care. I've often said you should ask the customer what he wants and then give it to him at a fair price. Ford, though, said a business should not ask the customer what he wants. Instead, ask him what his problems are and then find a way to solve those problems.
Ford didn't think of himself as a car maker, he thought of himself as a problem solver.
There's a lesson to be learned there. Lawn care customers don't call you to cut their grass...they call you to make their lawns look good. They don't call you to trim their shrubs...they call you to beautify their beds.
They call for a general purpose. The specifics on how to solve the problem are up to you.
Next time you have interaction with a current customer, try this. Ask "What problems are you having with your yard?" or "What don't you like about your yard?" I bet you will hear something you never thought to ask. She will not like the way water pools around the air conditioning unit. He will wonder why there's a fairy ring (mushrooms) that come up in the late summer. Immediately, you have to two non-grass specific jobs before you. For her, you can add a drain tube on the air conditioner...a 5 minute job for which you can probably charge $25. For him, you can suggest that there is wooden building material buried in his lawn (mushroom fungus often feeds on wood burried in the lawn when the house was built) that you can dig up, remove, and reseed...hey, and since you're reseeding that area, might as well aerate and overseed the entire lawn and put a flower bed around the mailbox...that would really make his lawn look great. One simple question has just landed you a $1000 landscaping job.
If you had never asked the general questions, you would have never known there are other problems to solve than just mowing the lawn.
Don't think of yourself as a grass cutter. Instead, think of yourself as a problem solver.
Keith
He was such a pioneer and such an industrialist. I wondered what knowledge of his could be applied to the Lawn Care Industry.
One of his quotes stuck out in my mind:
"If I'd asked my customers what they wanted, they'd have said a faster horse."
That goes slightly against what I've thought about customer relations in lawn care. I've often said you should ask the customer what he wants and then give it to him at a fair price. Ford, though, said a business should not ask the customer what he wants. Instead, ask him what his problems are and then find a way to solve those problems.
Ford didn't think of himself as a car maker, he thought of himself as a problem solver.
There's a lesson to be learned there. Lawn care customers don't call you to cut their grass...they call you to make their lawns look good. They don't call you to trim their shrubs...they call you to beautify their beds.
They call for a general purpose. The specifics on how to solve the problem are up to you.
Next time you have interaction with a current customer, try this. Ask "What problems are you having with your yard?" or "What don't you like about your yard?" I bet you will hear something you never thought to ask. She will not like the way water pools around the air conditioning unit. He will wonder why there's a fairy ring (mushrooms) that come up in the late summer. Immediately, you have to two non-grass specific jobs before you. For her, you can add a drain tube on the air conditioner...a 5 minute job for which you can probably charge $25. For him, you can suggest that there is wooden building material buried in his lawn (mushroom fungus often feeds on wood burried in the lawn when the house was built) that you can dig up, remove, and reseed...hey, and since you're reseeding that area, might as well aerate and overseed the entire lawn and put a flower bed around the mailbox...that would really make his lawn look great. One simple question has just landed you a $1000 landscaping job.
If you had never asked the general questions, you would have never known there are other problems to solve than just mowing the lawn.
Don't think of yourself as a grass cutter. Instead, think of yourself as a problem solver.
Keith