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[COWPOP]

Our son is now home from the Navy and we helped him purchase a lawn care business. This is something he was wanting to get into before he went into the Navy. I have register the company name and purchased the insurance. The question I have for the forum is what is the best way to price jobs or are there different ways for different areas? I have looked at the equipment cost and tried to price jobs out in that way with profit margin added in the equipment cost. I have also spoke to different people to find out that the going price seems to be, on average, $35.00 per hour. But, I don't really think you should biil out per hour but, bill out per yard is this a better idea? He is planning to mow, trim, clean grass clippings, mulch and pruning. If the business grows like he would like to see it, adding fall and spring fertilizing. Thank you for your time. Any suggestions or advise would be greatly appreciated.

[Steve]

Lawn care business tips

Hi Charlie, Welcome to our forum! That was very kind of you to pull all this together for your son. Originally Posted by [b Quote[/b] ]If the business grows like he would like to see it, adding fall and spring fertilizing. I think there is no doubt your business can and will grow! One of the things we see when it comes to pricing at least initially is that a lot of new start up lawn care operators like to mentally shoot for $60 an hour in billing. If you get a chance, read through some of the GopherHaul 20 episode guide, there was a lot of great billing information in it. The pdf version is here http://www.gophergraphics.com/images...sode-guide.pdf Another thing is, you don't want the customer to know you are creating a bid based on an hourly fee or they will be clocking you. You want to have an idea in your head how much you should charge per hour but if you are able to do the job quicker, you should benefit from it. Alot of finding success in this business is knowing your costs. How much is it costing you to run your business each working hour? Knowing that is a great starting point. Know your other living expenses too and then as Tim said in the episode guide, take on another 15-20% profit for your business so your business can grow. The business profit is not your salary. Your salary is built into your living expenses your business needs to pay you. How is this so far? Does this help? Also what are you doing to market your business? I think you have a great story about your son coming back from the Navy and you could include that in your marketing material. That might get a lot more people to want to sign up with your services.

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