Lawn Care Marketing - More Profit Stimulating Idea

[Steve]

As quoted from http://www.lawncaremarketingmagic.com Contact Chestin if you have questions! Lawn Care Marketing - More Profit Stimulating Ideas Originally Posted by [b Quote[/b] ]Today I’ll finish up the list of 7 profit stimulating ideas I started last week. As a quick recap, here are the first four we’ve already discussed: 1. Create a frequent buyer’s program 2. Provide occasional discounts 3. Use premiums 4. Package your services together The 5th way to stimulate your profits is to give your customers the option to prepay for your services. For example, let’s say you have someone that’s interested in signing a year long contract for services but instead of you sending them a monthly invoice, you give them the option of paying it all upfront in exchange for 2 months worth of services free. Now, you obviously need to know your costs very well to know how much you can afford to give them, but by providing this type of incentive you’ll get a number of customers that would be more than happy to avoid all the hassles associated with sending payment PLUS they get 2 months worth of services for free. The 6th way you can stimulate profits is to accept credit cards. Now I know this one may seem a bit elementary, but believe it or not, there are quite a lot of companies out there that still don’t. Consumers today are used to convenience. They love the convenience of using a credit or debit card, knowing everything happens instantaneously. Believe it or not, if you offer your customers the option of paying by credit card you’ll pick up a healthy number of new customers that are interested in that convenience. They just don’t want to mess around with writing a check each month. Another way you could really take advantage of this idea is to set them up on automatic draft so that each month, their invoice is paid automatically. Once it’s set up, you don’t have to worry about remembering to charge their card. They don’t have to worry about returning the invoice. Everything happens automatically and everyone’s life is a whole lot less complicated. Of course, you need to remember to cancel the auto-draft if they are no longer your customer. Trust me, all the hassles and headaches you avoided by having them on auto-draft will be multiplied if you don’t change that when they cancel. The final profit stimulating idea is to communicate constantly with your past and present customers. Your customer list is your most valuable asset and by failing to maintain constant contact with them, you’re allowing that asset to simply waste away. While many will tell you “it’s okay to contact them quarterly”, I say that’s baloney. If you’re not contacting your customers AT LEAST once a month with something other than a service call or a bill, you’re losing 10% of that relationship. Each contact doesn’t have to be something extraordinaire and it doesn’t have to be something expensive either. A monthly newsletter is an excellent way to maintain contact and you can get them printed and mailed for less than $1. Now, if you’re saying that $1 is too much to spend to strengthen the relationship with the one’s that are putting at least 25 times that much into your pocket each month, then you’re in the wrong business!

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[Steve]

Lawn care business tips

Great ideas! You know what I am amazed with, how often I talk to people and find they would be willing to prepay for a years lawn care services. I am not sure if it is because they don't want to mess with another monthly bill or is it because they want the discount that comes with it. What's your take? Also what kind of incentive do you offer your clients that prepay for a year?

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We offer a 5% discount on prepaid contracts. And about 30% of my clients prepay. It’s all about the savings, who doesn't love to save money. At a company point of view, it starts the revenue coming in a lot earlier.

[Steve]

Do you find you keep a real watchful eye on the money so you don't run out of it before the end of the year? I could see how that influx of money in the beginning could lead many companies to think they should be buying new equipment or spending it somehow.