Advertising Question

[jdobbin14]

I generally only suggest aeration to a customer once during the season. Honestly, if I know that the customer has the money and he cares about the quality of his/her lawn I'll recommend a spring and fall aeration. They are both beneficial. In the spring I tell the customer that the winter freeze heavily compacted their top soil. In the fall I tell the customer that the summer heat heavily compacted their soil. I do try to explain that as best I can within a limited space on my suggestion area on my invoice. If I'm able to meet with the customer, I have a soil plug remover that I keep in the toolbox of my truck. I take that out and try to shove it into the lawn in front of the customer. They get to see how hard I have to shove that into the soil in order to pull out a plug. Then I go into the benefits of aerating your lawn. Soil compaction, clay soils here in Illinois, allowing your root system to go deeper, better absorption of rain and fertilizers, etc... (If anyone on this forum doesn't know the benefits of aeration and wants to do them (they tend to be a high ticket service that many home owners don't want to do themselves. So they will pay the money to have you do it.) I suggest doing a search on benefits of aeration and memorize them.) I have an informational brochure that I leave with the customer's invoice. I don't have it saved on my computer or I would attach it so you can see it. But again, if you do a web search on benefits of aeration you can get informed that way. I also take them out to their landscaping beds and show them the quality of their mulch and suggest remuclhing the beds or I state on the invoice "your mulch is only 3/4 of an inch and I recommend no less than 2 inches." Then I suggest on the invoice the customer go out and check out the mulch themselves. The most important thing I can say is NEVER LIE to your customer!!! If you get in the habit of doing it you will lie to the wrong person. You'll lie to someone who knows his/her way around the yard and you'll lose that customer and he/she will tell everyone who'll listen that you lied to them. Finally, again I never use a hard sales approach. I treat all my customers like their my best friend.

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Jeff Dobbin

[Steve]

Lawn care business tips

I also take them out to their landscaping beds and show them the quality of their mulch and suggest remuclhing the beds or I state on the invoice "your mulch is only 3/4 of an inch and I recommend no less than 2 inches." Then I suggest on the invoice the customer go out and check out the mulch themselves. Great thoughts Jeff. How often do you find yourself suggesting the re-mulching of the beds? When you are talking to the customer, what do you suggest to the the reason why the mulch should be 2" vs 3/4 of an inch?

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[jdobbin14]

Generally, I only find myself suggesting remulching every couple of years, depending on the quality of the mulch they're willing to purchase (i.e. how much they're willing to spend). I recommend 2" of mulch around the trees because it helps keep down on weeds, (I also recommend applying Preen under the newly laid mulch.) 2" of mulch is a good amount for insulating the soil to help keep moisture in the soil. The mulch also works as a sun barrier to keep the sun off the soil. If there isn't enough mulch the sun can more easily get through.

[Steve]

Great insight!

Jeff,

When you worked with your previous employer, how much did they want you to market in the surrounding properties that you serviced? Did you utilize the clover leaf marketing technique? Or any other marketing concepts?

[jdobbin14]

When I worked with the previous employer they did a lot of telephone soliciting and door hanger marketing. Here in our part of Illinois almost all the towns limit door knocking and require that you go to the town hall or police station, pay for a background check, and wait for a permit until the background check comes back. Therefore, we didn't do much of that. So we would hang door hangers saying things like, "check out your neighbors yard. Doesn't it look great? Don't you want your yard to look that good?" Then we would get their phone number out of a reverse directory and call them until they threatened to call the police. Now I go out and hang door hangers marketing my materials. I generally try to do that on weekends hoping that I'll catch someone working out in there yard. Again, I use the soft sell technique. Generally, something like, "wouldn't you rather be spending time doing something else right now?" If there's kids around I use that to my advantage. I have kids of my own and I say things like, "they won't be this small for long, trust me. Quit spending your weekends working in your yard. I can free up your weekend for $XX.XX, but your son/daughters childhood is priceless." In fact I'm trying to figure out how to put that last statement into a door hanger. Kind of like the Mastercard commercial. Anyone with any ideas would be greatly appreciated.

[Steve]

Hey Jeff,

How about something like this? I will put the clean template without text in the free door hanger section.

[jdobbin14]

Thank you Steve.

[Steve]

I hope you can use it. Show us what you create!