Flyer

[psparaco]

I put my flyer in doors of elderly people and single women who have younger children who arent old enough to be doing shoveling as a chore for their parents. Most women around here wont shovel at all. Except for the senior citizen behind me. She is a stubborn woman and always shovels and mows her own lawn. but i help her from time to time for free. She gave me over 400 lbs of landscaping bricks for free last year so i tend to lend her a hand with hard to reach things that need trimmed or like yesterday. i offered to salt her driveway for free. no big deal. she has lived here for over 30 years and i have been here for 5+ years. On a higher note. I was in homedepot last night picking up more bags of salt to prepare for today and this weekend's coming storm. I ran into a woman who was also picking up salt. Turns out, I live on the 1000 block of my road. She lives on the 500 block. I gave her my flyer I rode by her home on my way home. did an estimate for snow removal and a soft estimate for lawn care. A soft estimate is one you do without walking the grounds and just give it a 5 min look. while u stay in your car. The yard is easy no excessive obstacles, fenced yard. Very easy. Snow is easy too. just alot of sidewalk like my parent's home. Anyway. She calls me last night and we set up an appt for snow removal today and also told me i would be needed for the snow storm this coming weekend. she also said she would consider me for lawn care in the spring-summer-fall time. Since i told her a basic bio of my background and why i got into landscaping. she told me she thinks i need the money more than who usually does her yard and our rates are the same. So she is giving me a chance and if i do a good job with the snow removal. she will consider hiring me for the lawn maintenance. She did call already this morning and canceled the snow removal cause her fiance is going to do it since it's already melting and isnt much as we expected to get but definetly woudl be calling me for this weekend. So the probability of picking her up as a customer for grass is highly likely. I am happy. Plus she told me her neighbors are mostly elderly. So i plan to ask her if she can see is any of her neighbors need my services for summer. Maybe give her a finders discount or a free mowing here or there. Not sure how i'll do it just yet. I'll keep you all posted. Time to go shovel my driveway. Little one goes into school late today. Lucky me. until next time.

[Steve]

Lawn care business tips

I put my flyer in doors of elderly people and single women who have younger children who arent old enough to be doing shoveling as a chore for their parents. How would the average lawn care business owner know who these people are and where they live? What do you suggest as to finding these ideal customers?

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[psparaco]

The average lawn care business wouldnt know unless its in their current neighborhood. The alley behind me touches the backs of 80 townhomes. So on a daily basis in the summer you tend to see just about everyone out and about from kids playing in the alley to people just out enjoying the nice warm weather. I know when people move or get evicted. When people move in. You just have to be conscience of your surroundings. Our family is out alot in the summer. Actually my daughter and I weather permitting go out bike riding in the alleys alot. As long as its above 40 degrees, no ice ice or slush in the alley and sidwalks or wet period. We are 9 out of 10 times out. Larger single family home neighborhoods are harder cause the houses are farther apart so most would tend to know 10-15 homes and who live in them. Depends on how long you lived there and so on. For example. My parent's home i grew up in and lived there for 25 years from birth. So i know 50-100 owners, how many kids they have, who actually lives in the home or has moved out on their own. With time you tend to get to know everyone in your little pleasantville area. It seems that way where I grew up. lol.

[Steve]

That is great! Do you keep business cards on you when you are out like that? Or do you wear a company tshirt?

It seems like coming into contact with all those folks could really give you great marketing opportunities.

[psparaco]

winter time i have kept the snow flyers in the glove box and summer. the lawn care flyers. like 1-5.

now last year when i put flyers out door to door. i made a spread sheet on excel of every single address a flyer was put in a mailbox. what day/time it was put in the box. and then another column for what day/time they called for service. also another column for if they signed a contract with us. that was how i detemined how much of a gain i had. 20 flyers. 15 called. 10 signed. etc. and each lawn was pre estimated so in case they called, the price was already presented to them on the phone since i did the pre inspection while i was doing the door to door flyer distribution. If the person wanted to hire me. I took the general service agreement, entered all their info in the contract so it was neatly typed and the only hand written part was our signitures. printed 2 copies. they kept one. i kept one. they signed my copy and both copies are already pre signed by me. i have a jpg of my signiture on the word file. so they didnt have to sign their own copy of it. saved me from having to visit them again to give them their copy. next time i saw them was when i was mowing or picking up my payments.

each tab in my workbook was for each classified neighborhood. as you know in baltimore you have sub divisions called rosedale towson and even smaller neighborhoods called something else like high point that you wont find on general maps but only detailed maps. dont need a picture of their home. google maps helps with that mostly. the power of the internet. gotta love it.
Well i am headed out. Found an ad on craiglist today for a lawn service maintenance business that performs tune ups and they can sharpen my mower blades for 6 bucks each so i am gonna do that instead of doing it myself and they are like 10 min up the road so . talk to yall later.

paul