Hey lads

Here there Lads My name is Joel, just recently got back into the lawn care business after being out for a couple years.. I live in a small town called Petawawa located in the province of Ontario pop. about 12000. Looking to get into the lawn care ful time this summer.. Catch ya lads around

[Steve]

Lawn care business tips

Hi Joel, Welcome to our forum. How have you found getting your lawn care business up the 2nd time versus when you did it the first time? What did you do differently?

__________________
- 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.

Well Steve the few things that I have done differently are basicly in the advertising section. I was only 13 when I first started up in this business so you only can expect so much, I'm currently 23. This time around I purchase a 30sec spot on our local radio station, Purchased a Ad in our local newspaper( Our towns only newspaper), and also planning on doing door hangers in the near future. My goal is to have 50-70 customers this season coming, I have the equitment and two little bros that are nice cheap labour lolol...

But one thing Steve I'm not really sure about is pricing. For example theres alot of military housing aka PMQ's. They're alot smaller then your regular size lawn. My plan this year was not to unloaded the trailer for less then $25 a lawn, but I really dont know if I do that if I well get the business from the people who live in these Pmq's especially when theres a resession happening up here in Canada. It would literally take 15 mins at a good pace to finish one of these Pmq's. These houses make up about 45% of our small town as well.

Do you think I should stay firm at $25?

[Steve]

This time around I purchase a 30sec spot on our local radio station, Purchased a Ad in our local newspaper( Our towns only newspaper), and also planning on doing door hangers in the near future.

Very interesting! I rarely hear of any lawn care business owners buying radio or tv spots! What turned you on to the radio spot?

I have the equitment and two little bros that are nice cheap labour lolol.

Can you harness them to distribute flyers and promote some of your winter services? Are you offering any winter services?

But one thing Steve I'm not really sure about is pricing. For example theres alot of military housing aka PMQ's. They're alot smaller then your regular size lawn. My plan this year was not to unloaded the trailer for less then $25 a lawn, but I really dont know if I do that if I well get the business from the people who live in these Pmq's especially when theres a resession happening up here in Canada. It would literally take 15 mins at a good pace to finish one of these Pmq's. These houses make up about 45% of our small town as well.

Do you think I should stay firm at $25?

Well you can stand firm but if that is too high for your market currently, you won't get much work. If you could get a bunch of these close by, you could probably do pretty well. Have you asked around to find out what the going rate is for these smaller military homes?

Welcome Joel,

How is the weather over there in Pet? Meaford, ON here. I had some friends from Pet nice place. If you need any information this is the place to find it.

Ya I know one of the guys that work at the local radio station, he just happen to mention to me about it and I went for it... Really cheap to $85 for one month and my business is mention 3-4 times a day. As for getting my little brothers to help with flyers, don't little brothers have to listen to the older brother anyways lolol.

Right now for snow removal since I just decided in the fall to get back into this industry, I currently only have a 03 Artic Cat 500cc 4 wheeler with a plow thats doing the trick for me right now. I have 20 clients and charge $30 for 5" or more of snow and $20 for anything under that.

[Steve]

Ya I know one of the guys that work at the local radio station, he just happen to mention to me about it and I went for it... Really cheap to $85 for one month and my business is mention 3-4 times a day.

Let me know how this works for you.

If you aren't doing so already, when a new customer calls, ask them where they heard of you from and try and keep track for your records. It will be interesting to see how the ad works out. Are they promoting snow plowing services? Or what will they be promoting?