Want to become legal.....

[Steve]

Hi bigboiron777,

Welcome to our forum! What are your plans for this year? How many customers are you looking to add?

We have seen a lot of debate on what is better, charge by the hour or the job.

What most lco's seem to agree with is you should charge by the hour but don't let your customer know this. Let them think you are charging by the job. You want to be able to get the job done faster and then move on to the next job without having the customer watching you through the window with a stop watch.

Things to think about are, what are your expenses? Divide that by the amount of your working hours and then add a profit to come to your final amount.

Ask around and see what the going competitive rates are. That will help you too come up with a pricing model.

Anyone else have any thoughts?

Hi, new to forum and semi-new to lawn care. *I have been running a pest-control company in Utah for several years though and am adding a significant amount of yard maintenance services this years. *Great forum and I would echo that I am glad to have found it recently. *I simply wanted to add a thought in response to bigboiron777's question posted here.

That's good advice in my opinion offered by Team Gopher on setting your pricing. *In my experience it is good to ask around and get the pricing of your competitors so you are in the ball park. *One caution I would offer is to not try to undercut everyones price though. *Especially the little tiny start up companies that often under-charge and will probably not last very long anyway. *

Come up with with your price based on your time/costs + profit margin which should be in the neighborhood of competitors prices. I find that a good benchmark for pricing are to look at a few of the bigger more established companies prices in the area because they are not going to be too low on price which seems to be a common mistake with new companies try to get started. *Because your business model will most likely be more efficient and streamlined compared to bigger, longstanding business you may be able to price a little bit less than them assuming you are provide the same service, apples to apples.

If you find**and you most likely will**that this price is higher than what some of the small businesses are charging; then, the issue becomes marketing yourself and helping the client understand why they want to use your service over a fly-by-night, low-ball start-up. *Oft times this is simply looking them in the eye letting them you will get it done right and they won't have to shop a new company 4-6 months later when the start-up realizes that they aren't really making any money undercutting everyone like they have been doing.

I have simply found that until I have enough experience to accurate price, this helps to avoid some of the pitfalls. Hope this helps.