Craigslist talk

[WeekendWarriorLawn]

In my area, craigslist is pretty weak for buying/selling/trading. I haven't had a call from my old CL ad for work, but I changed it up tonight - A LOT. Tell me what you guys think, and post your own CL do's, don'ts & whatever's! http://porthuron.craigslist.org/fgs/3029429668.html

[CHEESE2009]

Lawn care business tips

I love it! I think you should remove the pics of your shirts and just put work pictures!

[krzys666]

make sure you put in work pictures.
i made this add perrty fast and have had good response.
https://post.craigslist.org/manage/3056302755

[CHEESE2009]

To be even more precise.

Always use "and" in replace of "&".

You can also write 'mom and pop' in quotations every time, or do the phrase in italics!

[WeekendWarriorLawn]

Thanks for the tips, bros!

Well, my ad as-is paid off today! It's great that my area is just full of jokers who write things like, "I DO GOOD WORK CALL ANYTIME FOR LAWN CUTS I AM THE MAN"

Anyway, I woke up to a call today! My first from CL ever! Goin to knock a gal's yard out before her hubby gets home! *wink-wink* *nudge-nudge*

[Steve]

I really like the ad and this picture!



It projects this feel that you are a can do guy and the job will get done right.

[WeekendWarriorLawn]

Just got home a little while ago from the CL job.

I actually flew flyers out in the neighborhood previously, and am sure I hit the customers house.


So we showed up. The yard is pretty big, she said medium, but betwene the front & back, it was a good, big yard.


Very overgrown. Neglected. I wanted to up bid her higher, but I bid at 55.00

Honestly, I know the job was worth more due to the nature of strain it put on our mower, but I also knew she was going to be turned off from hearing a firm 60.00, so I told her 55. off the bat.


She didn't want to pay it! She told us to just do the front, whihc I told her would run 25 (realizing at the time that many of you guys won't even unload for under 30!)

In haste she told us to do it all. We picked up the original bid.




She wanted us to get the yard done before her hubby came home from work. Ma took the mower and I started detailing with the whacker. Started with some nice definition edging along the driveway, cleaned out all the cracks in it, made it look super. Moved along the porchway, they had some nice stonework installed which was disastrous (we come back to this at the end). Cleaned that up real nice. Moved to an area that was landscaped at one time, has a dying bush in it, and some old stones buried under years of neglect; made the rocks visible.


Trees in the yard had large roots, cut a nice defining edge around the tree and whacked out all the weeds. Edged the root structure of the tree to make him look nice and sharp.


Moved to the backyard - NIGHTMARE!

Out of control weeds under the deck, neglected grass taking over anywhere it could - trees in dire need of pruning, bushes begging for trimming - but that'snot in the bid! So maybe next time. Meantime, I had to weedwhack out the back yard in sections to thin it out. I am having a bad time with a "reel-esy" bump feed wee-whacker - maybe someone can give me tips because I have to keep rewinding the spool every time and the bump feed doesnt do anything except wear down the underside of my weed whacker.


Ma comes out back, starts mowing. The grass blades were so tall they retained sooo much moisture that the yard was getting wet from me clearing it out. This bogged the mower A LOT. Used the blower to speed cool it from time to time when it was getting too hot. Do any of you guys ever do that? Speed cool the engine fins with your leaf blower?


OBSTACLES!! picnic table, lawn chairs, a hammock frame! Huge aluminum ladder along the fence of the house - I decided we were going to leave it. Said I'd charge them an extra 15 to move it and clean the lawn under it, like it or not. Cx never asked, but that was my plan.

A nice stone patio that's over grown. Edged it a little bit, but the best way would be to move the stones and just mow/whack the area and replace them, they weren't that big a deal. We left them at mowed and edged.

She needed this huge yard done by 5:30, we had it done around 5:40. Shge said hubby was coming home just as we were packing up. Here comes LAST MINUTE REQUEST!!

"It looks a little long along the area here" (the stoneway I edged earlier) "thats going to be the first thing my husband notices, can you fix that up? (but hurry mind you, he can be home now at any minute)

No, the first thing he would notice is how great his yard looks.


Anyway, clean it up with the whacker - however I had it all nicely blown off. I decided not to go back and blow it again as we were supposedly low on time and I had already packed up the blower. It also made it a little uneven which I was not too happy about, but got over it because the check was in hand. I don't want to get too jaded but yeah, don't spring requests or tips on us at the last minute.


So anyway, the job went off without a hitch. We got it done in just over 2:40 minutes. This was our first emergency service/short notice call. I don't have the best pictures because she rushed us and we stayed busy at all times, but feel free to check them out in our FB page. They have descriptions in there as well.



https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?...4328686&type=1

[WeekendWarriorLawn]

EDIT:

more last minute crap - now they wont let us share pictures of their yard because it shows their house. so the album looks like junk, I might as well take it down.

I guess I kind of understand? No, not really. Kind of uppity people. I wont work for them again for less. I don't need the money that bad, I need some people to let me reference them more than anything.

[SECTLANDSCAPING]

$55 for 6 man hours? Your working for less then minimum wage. You shouldve charged a couple c-notes. The only reason to drop the price is if it was going to be a weekly gig. That way you make it back in the end.

[WeekendWarriorLawn]

6 hours? where did you get that, man? just under 3 hours on our part guy. almost 20 an hour.

This area's busted when it comes to that kind of money, 20 per man per hour. ideally i reckon id like to move to your state/area, but out here, it's brutal.