Transition from Grass to Leaves

[Totally Green]

When dealing with my regular customers, when (and how) should I start to charge for leaf removal? For example, we go for the regular scheduled cut and there are leaves in the yard. If you chop them up, they look bad. If you bag them, it takes longer. How do you charge for the leaf removal without making your customer mad?

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

Lawn care business tips

I would think to just let them know ahead of time, and give them the options...either you mow over them and they stay behind or you bag them up for a certain amount... That gives them the option to clean them up themselves if they don't want to pay.

[Steve]

Gary,

I don't know how your area is but is there a slow down in mowing when the bulk of the leaves fall?

[Totally Green]

This is my first year, but our grass can grow all the way into October. That leaves us at least a month or so of doing both.

[Totally Green]

Hi Steve,
This is off subject, but yesterday I was looking over a thread searching for a business plan (now I can't find it) and noticed you use to help companies through, I think you called it, a "head start" program. I was curious why you don't do that any more.

[Steve]

Here check this link out http://gopherforum.com/showthread.php?t=357

[Steve]

This is my first year, but our grass can grow all the way into October. That leaves us at least a month or so of doing both.

This is a very interesting question especially for those who live in warmer areas. When you don't have a break between mowing and leaves falling, how do you tell the customer that cleaning up the leaves will be an additional fall cleanup rate?

Any other thoughts on this?

[StartALawnCareBusiness]

Anyone who has read the "leaf work" section of my lawn care material or my posts on this board knows I'm not a huge fan of annual contracts. However, this thread is a perfect example of one benefit of contracts.

With an annual contract, leaf work will have already been outlined. The cost of leaf work is either tacked onto Autumn invoices or adjusted into the monthly price during the entire contract.

I have never had much of a problem getting people to pay more for leaf work. The main problem I've seen is with customers calling a day or two after their service wanting to know why their are leaves all over their lawns. Sometimes it's difficult to make them understand that they are paying for removal of the leaves that are on their lawn at the time of service and not the ones that fall 10 minutes after we exit their neighborhood.

Keith

[Lukacs Property Maintenance]

i have always seperated the lawn care with fall cleanup. I have a leaf blower vac that i use for the debris jobs and include bed clean up also.

Mike

[Steve]

Mike is there a slow down for you between lawn cutting and when the leaves fall?