Hi there!

[Lawny Anderson]

Hello everybody! I've been in business for about 2 months or so now. I originally started life in another direction but lawn care brings me tremendous peace and satisfaction as well as the opportunity to work with my family. We're still working out the kinks as we go but it's coming along very nice. We only have 3 regular clients so far but we've been getting a lot of cleanups. This website has been EXTREMELY helpful with all the tips you guys offer so I'm very thankful. I can't wait until I can actually help others as well. For now, I have mostly questions

[pfreeman]

Lawn care business tips

Welcome aboard!! I was in your same shoes last year. Learn everything you can and start marketing. What marketing are you doing to get out there or differentiate yourself from everyone else?

[Hedgemaster]

OMG! I nearly spit out my drink when I saw your screen name!

I guess I'm old enough to see how funny that is.


Welcome to the forum. Learn you will.
I've learned a bit from some of the kind people here and I like to give back in kind when possible.

Enjoy your stay and best of luck in your new venture!

[Steve]

Welcome to our forum!

Congrats on already having customers! You are doing great!

[Lawny Anderson]

thanks everybody!

for marketing, we've just done flyers really. we're still working out the kinks so we haven't had time to explore other options. i read about clover-leaf marketing on this site and we've tried it. i believe in it and think it's great but it hasn't produced any results so far.

we went and saw somebody at S.C.O.R.E. and he has a friend who advertises his business fixing computers entirely through church newsletters so we're going to try that as well. i'm fortunate enough that my mom does freelance marketing/graphic design so she typically makes our flyers/business cards/website etc. i just need to find out what i need for the church newsletter to pass onto her.

i think it's our area that makes our situation what it is too. we live where the housing bubble was demolished, not just popped so there's a LOT of foreclosed homes whose lawns were left completely unattended so there's new people living in them who need cleanups or a lot of renters who don't care but have a strict HOA breathing down there necks. so that's why we have cleanups vs. regulars i think.

where we have advertised so far was a planned community and the builders/landscapers looked for the cheapest options at the time so there's a lot of problems with the trees so we get calls for that too. i'm not complaining cus it seems like it's excellent training for when we do expand to the areas that will probably take us on. we're learning ALOT about the zone we're in AND about customer service issues - and holy crap are we running into those!! people are amazing sometimes! but along the way we learn about ourselves i.e. how to handle that inside, not to take it personally, and how to turn it into something positive so it's all valuable. also what we've learned to do isn't what these people expect so we learned all about communication and to be very specific. we're staying positive through it which is important.

to differentiate ourselves: hmmm... we're both veterans so we have a veteran owned and operated thing on our advertisements. that's mattered to a few people (other veterans). also, i don't want to be offensive whatsoever and i didn't choose this but what stands out about us, we didn't do on purpose. we speak english and people have had problems communicating to other companies cus most of them don't (we live in arizona). what happens is with the limited english they don't understand the customers requests as we can. so we just naturally came upon that one. we also from what we've heard alot around here is that people don't do a good job and don't show up. so we do a really good job and we show up when we say. i don't know if any of that will be helpful cus i don't know the problems in other areas. we have a good work ethic, we can handle heat cus of military training, we also have a good eye for detail. that seems to be different. but still we've only had a few people want to take us on as regulars. i think they just don't have the money and want to call as needed. we are going to advertise in other areas soon since our confidence is really growing. we know our value now. we're also getting to where we want to turn down certain jobs where we didn't feel like that before.

regarding the username: he he he. thanks! my husband had a name for us on here and i couldn't log in to read some tips or post so i had to create a new name. i thought it was fun. i don't think you need to be that old to know that name tho lol. my mom use to watch WKRP so i knew who she was very young. i giggled to myself as i made the name.

[Steve]

AND about customer service issues - and holy crap are we running into those!! people are amazing sometimes!

What kinds of situations have you run into with customers and how did you handle them? I think a lot of readers find themselves in difficult situations at times with customers and don't know what to do. Any advice would be helpful.