New Kid on the Block

[Love Your Lawn]

Hi all, We are a new company in the Tampa Bay (Fl) area. I "inherited" the company from my sister-in-law after she divorced her husband. This is a new experience for me and my wife, but we are looking forward to the challenges of operating a small business. (We have been in the lawn care industry for several years but have never had the opportunity of ownership.) I stumbled across this website while looking on line for answers to the many questions we have. It is good to see that there is an on-line community to help and discuss the industry. As we go forward I hope we will be able to contribute in a meaningful way. J.B. Love Your Lawn

[Steve]

Lawn care business tips

Hi J.B., Welcome to our forum! Wow! that is certainly an interesting story! How does it feel getting into business like that? Was this something you always wanted? I bet it must be very interesting jumping into it like that. What kinds of issues have you found yourself dealing with so far that you wish went smoother?

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[Love Your Lawn]

What kinds of issues have you found yourself dealing with so far that you wish went smoother?

I think the biggest issue is that, come to find out, they were running illegally. This comes as no particular surprise if you know them. I've been forced to go to the 7 commercial accounts they had and tell them we'd be unable to service them for now. (No liability insurance coverage.) I'm hoping we'll be fully operational by the 1st of the year.

Was this something you always wanted?

It's something we've discussed many times but the planets never seemed to align themselves the right way to allow it to happen until now.

I will say this...I've learned more from this forum in the past 3 or 4 days than I have been able to decipher from various gov't sites in the past month.

[Steve]

I've been forced to go to the 7 commercial accounts they had and tell them we'd be unable to service them for now. (No liability insurance coverage.) I'm hoping we'll be fully operational by the 1st of the year.

That is quite surprising because I would figure they all would have required proof of insurance before works could start.

How did these clients react to you telling them that information? Will they let you pick up work from them in the spring or are you going to have to re-bid the jobs?

[Love Your Lawn]

How did these clients react to you telling them that information? Will they let you pick up work from them in the spring or are you going to have to re-bid the jobs?

With the exception of one place they all took the news in stride. I met with the managers or other appropriate person and explained the situation to them. As far as being able to pick them back up at some point...perhaps but I'm not counting on it. One of the properties is an apartment complex and they have an irrigation system that is/was part of the contract. I have no irrigation experience unfortunately so that one would be lost even if we did have the correct insurance.

[Steve]

Do you ultimately feel better about handling it like this because you can scale it back to be within your comfort zone and then build it as you feel more comfortable doing so?