Hello Everyone

[Totally Green]

Hi, My name is Gary. I opened my lawn care business on the 1st of May this year. It is owned and operated by me, my wife, my daughter and her husband. Now, only 8 weeks in and starting with "zip, zero, nadda" accounts, we now have 19 full time accounts with 27 full time properties. They range from weekly service to once every 3 weeks. I wasn't too wild about the three week cycle, but this client has 6 properties so I wasn't going to pass it up. I guess you could call me a "habitual business owner". I have had 9 businesses including this one. The first was in 1981 while I was still in the Air Force. Since retiring in 94' I have sold antiques, dabbled in EBay, bought and operated a second-hand store (still operating) and now I'm in the lawn care business. I must say, by far, this business shows the most promise. Even with gas prices and a full time employee, our profit margin is in the 20-30% range. My success so far has been helped in no small part by the information I've found on this website. I've listened to all of the videos (most more than once) and have dug through the forum threads as I have had time. For now, I work full time in my so called "real" job while my son-in-law handles the bidding and service work. We have set our sights very high for the future. We have one company that is the leader in our area. When I tell friends about my goals for our company, they always say "Oh, so you want to be the next ?". My response is "No. In a few years will want to be the next Totally Green". Hopefully by next season, I will be running our second crew and looking for someone to start a third. So thank you and all of the forum members for the wealth of information you provide. Hopefully, I will be able to return the favor in the future.

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Totally Green Lawn Care, LLC
http://www.totallygreenlc.com

[Steve]

Lawn care business tips

Hi Gary, That is great! Welcome to our forum. I think many new business owners find themselves stuck in a rut, not able to get those new customers. Could you share with us some insight as to how you got so many new customers so quickly? What advice would you have for other new lawn care business startups? Congratulations!

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Welcome always good to hear the sucsess stories. As Stev asked, we would love to know what approch you took in your marketing to grow your acct base so quick.

P.S. Steve has Bugs......LOL

[Steve]

Sherman,

Did your post above, immediately show? I think it went to being moderated first and I am not sure why.

[Totally Green]

I wish I could give myself full credit for all of my clients, but 9 of them came from a friend who is in the business. He is cutting back on his work and asked us to take them over (which we gladly did). As for the rest, including 3 new ones yesterday, we've use flyers in the paper (some with special offers and some without), door hangers, newspaper adds and business cards. Believe it or not, about 80% of our customers came from business cards. My daughter runs a paper route. While she is filling racks at service stations, she asks if she can leave cards. None have refused. She checks and restocks the about once a week. Also, we don't just lay the cards on the counter. I am a CAD drafter, so I designed a holder with our company name to place the cards in. It seems more professional and they stand out. I've attached my business card and the holder if anyone cares to look. Also, if anyone has a better holder design, I would love to see it. This one works well, but even with card stock, it could use just a little more rigidity. As for the flyers, wee still do them but we have cut way. I just do them occasionally along with the business cards to maintain name recognition. It must be working because I've had more than one person say "Man, everywhere I look I see Totally Green". Also, we still run a permanent newspaper add in the areas we service. We're about to try running adds on a local information channel on SuddenLink cable. You've probably seen them. A text page just rolls over from one ad to the next 24 hours a day. We're running two adds so we can double our exposure and appeal to two different groups. One ad will target customers who do not use a lawn service now and the other will target people who are unhappy with their current lawn service. It's mostly the older folks who what this channel and so far this group has been my most profitable. At $40 per ad per month, I think it's well worth a try. Thanks for everyone's interest. As you can see, I love to talk.

[Totally Green]

Hi Steve,
My message did go through a moderator. Also, the reply I sent just now also said it would go through a moderator prior to posting.

Gary

[Totally Green]

I forgot to add my attachments to my previous reply. This reply should include my business card and holder. I hope I did this right.

Gary

[Steve]

Gary you got a lot going on!

Have you been able to apply your drafting skills to landscape design?

Also, what section of the newspaper do you advertise in? What do you suggest? Also what should a new lawn care business owner have in their newspaper ad?

Do you track your advertising?

[Little's]

Originally Posted by Totally Green

I forgot to add my attachments to my previous reply. This reply should include my business card and holder. I hope I did this right.

Gary

I would like to use this card holder template if you dont mind. I tried editing it in MS Word, but with no luck, I couldn't put my logo image over the holder image (not real handy with Word). How would you edit it, which program to use?
Thanks, Brandon

[Totally Green]

I drew this in autocad but may be able to take out the logo and send it in a PDF file. I'm just not sure if the scale will be right. Maybe a better way is for me to add dimensions so that you can redraw it yourself. Let me know.

Gary