labor rate

Thanks fourseasons, I'm going to try it out, it seems like it would be a better way to make it more accurate in getting the right cost.

[Steve]

Lawn care business tips

Hi Andrew, A lot of forum members now are able to use satellite images to come up with bids. It seems to be a faster way to find the sq. ft. of the property to be serviced. Check out this video from Keith, it may open your eyes to a new way of doing things. http://www.gophergraphics.com/forum....;t=6426 Originally Posted by [b Quote[/b] ]Right I am not doing any marketing because i was also wondering what type of marketing would be the best to use like radio, signs, etc. As far as marketing goes, I don't think many lawn care business owners are using radio, but can you explain to us what kind of signs do you mean? Radio ads aren't targeted to your specific audience, they hit everyone, whether they have a lawn or not. You want to market only to people you want to sell too. You could get more bang for your buck by handing out flyers in your area or door hangers or sending out postcards. Give us some of your reflections on all that.

__________________
- 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.

[ljustice]

I have passed out some flyers and i want to try again but i did not get any work off flyer last year. I tried putting and a add in the paper twice but only got like one maybe two jobs from it in two years. I have tried door to door but not much help their either. A lot of competition in this area as well too.

I really want to get into the commerical area now. I want to figure out the labor to charge. I was also wondering how you use square feet to charge. Is this only to charge labor to the job or to charge for the total job? To me it would be simpler to charge per hour for all your expenses except for maybe the labor. Like to charge for gas expense and oil change and stuff per hour because you can see how many hours one tank of gas will last and charge this to the client and you know how many hours til your mower needs an oil change so charge your client for the amount of hours used to cover its portion of the oil change cost. Simpler to me but just my thoughts. Like I said though I want to learn how to bid commercial jobs so if anyone could help me I would truely appreciate it. If anybody with an understanding of this would care I woulld not mind talking about it over the phone since it would be easier and faster. If anybody would have the time please let me know and I will call your # or you could call me.

Thanks to all
Lyndale

[FourSeasons]

Originally Posted by [b

Quote[/b] ]A lot of forum members now are able to use satellite images to come up with bids. It seems to be a faster way to find the sq. ft. of the property to be serviced.

Check out this video from Keith, it may open your eyes to a new way of doing things.

http://www.gophergraphics.com/forum....;t=6426

Quote
Right I am not doing any marketing because i was also wondering what type of marketing would be the best to use like radio, signs, etc.


As far as marketing goes, I don't think many lawn care business owners are using radio, but can you explain to us what kind of signs do you mean?

Radio ads aren't targeted to your specific audience, they hit everyone, whether they have a lawn or not. You want to market only to people you want to sell too.

You could get more bang for your buck by handing out flyers in your area or door hangers or sending out postcards.

Give us some of your reflections on all that.

I never saw that video. I missed it some how. thats pretty cool. But if someone calls you for a estimate on a small residential property its not that hard to just measure it with a wheel. takes about 5 min if that usually.

I disagree with Steve on the radio. But first of all its very expensive and it covers to broad of an area. I listen to the AM stations all the time and they are full of advertisements from roofers, contractors, and window people. Not everyone owns a home and needs a roof or windows either. The radio host always endorses it to and usually the people listening are loyal listeners so they trust the referral. But the person thats listening might have a brother that needs some work done and would reccommend you off of the radio ad.
The AM stations here cover almost all of western washington so that might be a disadvantage unless you live in the most populated areas like I do. I think about advertising on the radio all the time but I can't afford it;
Its got to be very expensive.

But yes probably more bang for the buck with flyers or whatever

[Steve]

Hi Lyndale,

Originally Posted by [b

Quote[/b] ]I have passed out some flyers and i want to try again but i did not get any work off flyer last year. I tried putting and a add in the paper twice but only got like one maybe two jobs from it in two years. I have tried door to door but not much help their either. A lot of competition in this area as well too.

Have you also considered craigslist.com? It's free and a lot of people are getting jobs through it? What about marketing through myspace?

I have recently tried advertising through myspace and so far, not effective. Will let you know if that changes!

So far, my best marketing tools have been word of mouth and my website. Thanks to Rodman, my website is in the top 5 of just about everything you can think of to Google for lawn care in my area (cities, counties, etc). I've learned how to do this myself, so I've tweaked my other pages on my site to encompass even more Google search strings. =)

Jason and I have passed out well over 10,000 fliers since September, and not one person has called from those fliers. I've given up on them. I might carry a handful with me for when someone asks me about our business... I can give them one to possibly sway them a little more to want to use our service.