When to hire employees?

In the last 2 weeks, I have been advertising on www.craigslit.com. I make sure to put my ad in everyday and it's worked like magic =) If you are in need of customers, it's a great free way to reach a lot of people. But make your ad stands out compared to the other lawn care ads. Just today (sat april 5th) we have received over 15 calls, it's amazing but it's only me and my hubby doing the work....!! So my question is, how do we go about hiring employees? Keep in mind this is our "part-time" business, we both have full time jobs but any time we are not working we are taking care of our lawn care business. so we just need a couple of people...how much should we pay them, by the hour or by the job? Thanks for any info you may have! *

[musician/lawnman]

Lawn care business tips

Jody, That's great your getting such a response! I would love to see a copy of your add if you can post it or pm me the link.

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[Steve]

Hi Jody,

I hope others are going to be able to jump in here too but I would be wondering, when would you want your employees to work? Would they be working during the day when you and your husband are working your other job? Or working with you?

[musician/lawnman]

Found it...... It looks good!

Thanks.

Well right now we would want them to work with us, just to make the jobs go by faster. Eventually we want to be able to send out employees, but need to buy another truck and more equipment. How did you guys get to that point?

BTW, I like this gator =)

[Steve]

Even if you could hire one person now part time that sounds like it may be helpful. I would think you would need to pay them by the hour.

Let us know what you decide to do.

[StartALawnCareBusiness]

Jody:

Congrats on getting such tremendous response to your lawn care advertisements.

If you are considering hiring employees, I strongly advise you to get professional help from your CPA. You will want to get all your tax questions answered and all forms filed as they should be.

Your accountant will be able to answer such questions as withholding amounts and payment.

You will also want to consider insurance and bonding for your employee. A non-compete agreement will also be in order to keep him from redirecting your clients should he decide to go out on his own.

Good luck in ramping your lawn care business up a notch:

Keith

Hey Jody,

My wife and I are in your same position. I work full time and the part time business is booming. We service the customers close to us on the weekdays after our full time jobs and then on Saturday and Sunday do as many as we can. This worked for about 3 weeks until we got up to our 27th customer. Of course my wife and I cant mow 18-22 yards on Saturday so we got our first employee , plus her brother in law is helping also. It is amazing what you can do with 3 people! Last saturday we knocked out 17 yards and were done by 4:30. So I would say get your first employee when you and your husband cant grow any more because your too busy and you dont have any down time (Sunday). You will be suprised at how efficient you are vs. just you and your husband. Pay him by the hour and try to find someone that needs work just on Saturday. I am paying 10 per hour and buying lunch.

As a sub-unit of a larger company, I've had access to other employees for days when I've needed them, but this year, it looks like I'll be needing my own employee.

I'm trying to get someone on early, and really market as much as I can to fill in the gap that a new employee will create.

[Steve]

Originally Posted by [b

Quote[/b] ]My wife and I are in your same position. I work full time and the part time business is booming. We service the customers close to us on the weekdays after our full time jobs and then on Saturday and Sunday do as many as we can. This worked for about 3 weeks until we got up to our 27th customer. Of course my wife and I cant mow 18-22 yards on Saturday so we got our first employee , plus her brother in law is helping also. It is amazing what you can do with 3 people! Last saturday we knocked out 17 yards and were done by 4:30. So I would say get your first employee when you and your husband cant grow any more because your too busy and you dont have any down time (Sunday). You will be suprised at how efficient you are vs. just you and your husband. Pay him by the hour and try to find someone that needs work just on Saturday. I am paying 10 per hour and buying lunch.

Greg,

This is very interesting!

What is your next step in scaling it up further? Where do you take it from here? I bet a lot of others would like to hear your advice on this.