The Bi weekly Disadvantage

[joeblack]

I am looking for insight on selling weekly cuts and dissauding clients from bi weekly cuts. I understand that biweekly cuts can cause you to run at a loss if charging the same rate per cut as a weekly due to factors such as: 1) equip maint. - longer grass = harder on equip 2) increased labor - may have to double cut plus extra clippings clean up My question is this. Is there advantage to a weekly cut as it pertains to the health of the lawn that I can sell my customers on? Telling a customer you are losing money cutting biweekly doesn't come across as a sound selling technique. What other reason can we give them???

[nathan3655]

Lawn care business tips

What I tell customers is there yard will look much better having there yard cut once a week. The yard looks much nicer and your yard will look better then your neighbors. The strips in the yard most of the time will stay in the yard for a week. I can't tell you how many times neighbors get mad at me because they cannot make there yard look like that. Thats what you can tell your customers that you can make your neighbors mad by cutting the yard once a week. Also if a customer has never cut the yard once a week they will never know how good there yard will look.

[SECTLANDSCAPING]

If the grass grows to much you cant cut it as short without the risk of damaging the turf.

[TiedemanLLC]

Just say this.

"I am sorry, we don't do bi-weekly cutting because it's hard on the equipment, throws off my regular weekly mowing accounts, it's not healthly for a lawn, and if we get lots of rain then your lawn could be 3 weeks before I get to it. That will involve extra work, bagging your lawn, and in the long run costing me more money. However, if you do want me to do it, I would be more than happy to. But you have to understand that instead of paying a $45 weekly cutting, you will be paying a $85 bi-weekly cut instead. Now sure, you can save $5 by having a bi-weekly cut, but do you really want to pay $85 for a bi-weekly cut, when you can spend $5 more for weekly?"

You have basically given them an option to pick from. In the end, if they do decided to pick the 2 weeks just to save $5, you probably still made some good money.

Don't get me wrong, we have some lawns that are bi-weekly, and sometimes every 3 weeks because they are pure sand. So pick your battles carefully. But if you know it's going to be pain in the butt lawn, and they refuse to pay more, then just move on.

"I am sorry that you feel it's too expensive. If you do change your mind feel free to call me"

And leave it at that. Walk away from it, but be professional about it.

[joeblack]

Thank you Tiedeman. I can see you use honesty and bluntness with the client as long as you stay concise and professional with your words.

This is EXACTLY how I want to treat my clients because I know its best for my reputation in the long run.

Pricing them out of the biweekly cut seems risky since I am building a clientele from scratch. I will experiment with it tho.

I will test out suggesting comparing what their yard might look like compared to neighbors who get weekly cuts also.
I'll update the board on what works and doesn't work for me during this process in the coming weeks.

[jymie]

I charge anyone that wants biweekly cuts 1 1/2 times the normal rate.