Beginner Mistakes: Executive Mowing

[Steve]

Beginner Mistakes from our friend Jim of promower.net Here are some things beginners often get wrong: Executive Mowing: This is that wonderful scheme where you send out the troops to do the grunt work while you sit home by the pool. This one belongs in your “Maybe someday” file. For beginners it’s usually fatal.

__________________
- Subscribe to my Lawn Care Marketing Blog Feed and get daily tips sent to you. Free!
Download your Free trial of Gopher Lawn Care Software.

Lawn care business tips

Been there done that and it hurt big time! I learn from my mistakes.

[Steve]

What was your experience on this?

No way. Too scary for me. I was the man, the one pushing the mower. After 12 years and still being in school, almost there. Got H2B coming in April. Way excited, and nervous.

[Steve]

Originally Posted by [b

Quote[/b] ]No way. Too scary for me. I was the man, the one pushing the mower. After 12 years and still being in school, almost there. Got H2B coming in April. Way excited, and nervous.

Welcome Skyjack_1,

How will this effect your business and upcoming season?

My experience was that I #1 did not plan right, #2 my employees did not have a hand book that laid down the rules of what I expected. #3 The routing was not routed well enough which hurt me in labor and fuel costs. #4 Proper training was not given. So it about killed my business and for the 1st time I had complaints and jobs were not getting completed in the proper amount of time. Luckily I realized what was going on and corrected the problems fast enough that I did not lose a single client.

[Steve]

Do you now have crews that go out and do the work and are they achieving different results?

What would you suggest to the newer lco that is attempting to do this?

I will be sending out one crew by themselves this year and one with me aboard. I am changing the customers base and am not sure how many crews I will have this year. Some customers will be dropped and many will be gained.
I may need to run 2-4 but for sure 2. 1 landscape maintenance crew and 1 mowing but I may need to add 1 more mowing and 1 treatment truck.
And they will be awesome!
I would suggest not being in a hurry because it WILL harm your business. Also have your bidding perfect before hiring and realize that you should not bid at how fast you can get the job done bid it how fast your employees can accomplish the task. Slow growth is good growth but fast can be too but you need to plan ahead don't just take it as it comes thats fatal!

[Steve]

What suggestions would you have to manage such crews when you are not on site. How do you make sure the job is getting done to the level you require? Do you use any motivational strategies to make sure they hit a certain quality level?

The key is hiring people you really trust if there is any red flags or bad feelings then don't hire the person. The other key is hire people that have education in the proper way of doing the job. The only downside with this is they might be set in certain ways and you also need to have this kind of employee sign a non compete agreement. You should really have all employees sign this kind of agreement.
I have promised lunch out on smaller jobs and dinner to Outback if they can complete larger jobs in a certain amount of time and done right. Well last year I had to buy a ton of lunches and a few dinners so it worked well. Also I may give bonuses to employees to help egg them on. I did hire an employee last year who needed no motivational help he did a great job worked hard and was just a all around great worker. Needless to say he is coming back with a higher pay.
Another thing I did was I walked around with the customer and employees and asked if there was anything that they would liked changed. I did that so the employees could better themselves by seeing what the customers expect not just what I expect from them.