Starting a new bikini lawn service in Fort Wayne IN

[astallard]

I have recently started a bikini lawn service in Fort Wayne IN. I was wondering if anybody has any ideas on how I can grow my business. It seems pretty slow and sometimes dead at times. I have recently added a bikini car wash and bikini outdoor maids to the list of activities that we do. Everybody wanted us to be indoor maids at first and I do not want to do that so I created the outdoor maid service, to go along with our lawn mowing. I get plenty of calls mainly from my whatzup advertisements. My craigslist ads really have not generated anything in quite a while. Sometimes I feel that my prices are too high but they are lower than any of the bikini house cleaners here in town. I charge $65 for a 1/4 acre or less and the indoor cleaners want $80 an hour. My bikini outdoor maid service is $65 an hour so I am still the lower price. I am just curious if anybody out there has any ideas on how to generate more business. I get the calls but they either think the price is too high or not sure if their neighbors would appreciate it. Please feel free to check out my website at www.myspace.com/lawnangels to see the pics of my team and our videos we made to show off our services that we offer. I have seen some of your tv shows on talking about starting lawn care businesses and how to operate them. Last year I was on youtube doing a project for my college class and I came across the GopherHaul show on the bikini lawn care company. That motivated me this spring to start my company Lawn Angels. I have gotten a lot of peoples attention, I have tried to advertise it to the best of my ability. I have gotten the calls from people to talk to me on the phone and emails. I just have not gotten the amount of people that I was expecting to sign up for our services. I usually get around 15-20 calls a week. This week it seems the extremely dry weather has people not calling at all. Also I did a promotional event washing cars to drum up business, which did not really work. I have made exciting photos, videos, a hot website but it just seems to be not catching on as well as I had hoped. I have gotten several calls from other guys in other states who want to mold their company's after mine. Guys like the bikini lawn mowing idea they just do not want to pay the price. I feel $65 for a 1/4 or less is a fair deal. It is more of a show than mowing your lawn. There are already bikini house cleaners here in Fort Wayne and they are charging $80 an hour. I am charging less but not getting the same results. Thanks Aaron Stallard Lawn Angels

Attached Images

lawn-angels.jpg (67.8 KB, 6 views)

[Steve]

Lawn care business tips

I like the name of your business Lawn Angels. Did you contact the local media yet about it? Could you do some sort of publicity stunt to raise money for a charity and gain more media attention? Like maybe a charity carwash? Could you pick a local cause and raise money and then get the media there?

__________________
- 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.

[astallard]

Yeah we already got featured in a news article very early on. I have that article on my blog on my myspace page for anyone to read it. We have done car washes as a stunt, we got some attention but not a lot. We are also taking place in a charity car wash coming up in a few weeks. I am hoping that goes well. The guy doing the wash is letting us have a table to sign up customers. My girls won't be the only ones featured at the wash. He is having a local modeling agency down there as well.

It probably won't be a bad idea to call one of the tv stations down to the charity event to get some free pub. I hate to toot my own horn but sometimes I think it is necessary to get the word out.

We have tried to get on to the radio stations here in town but they will not give a radio interview unless you buy the expensive advertising. We even offered to do their yards for free if they become our spokesperson. They were unresponsive.

[Steve]

It probably won't be a bad idea to call one of the tv stations down to the charity event to get some free pub. I hate to toot my own horn but sometimes I think it is necessary to get the word out.

You gotta promote yourself because if you don't no one will know what you are doing.

I think one of the problems that was run into in the past was that lawn care can be dangerous. There are a lot of ways you can get hurt especially if you are in a bikini when you are performing the service.

I think ultimately the bikini option is tool that can be used to attract attention but ultimately it won't alone be a long term answer.

You might find that you get better results using the Lawn Angels to help distribute flyers and marketing material and charge an average amount for non-bikini lawn care. Maybe have the gals wear shorts and a tied off half shirt or something like that with boots when they are mowing.

Even with the gimmick of the bikinis there seems to be a need to work on the core of the business or else it just won't be sustainable. Have the gals help with publicity, doing fund raising and the like.

But I think there are reasons why others who tried to focus solely on offering bikini lawn care, just didn't last. I think because once the gimmick wears off, you still need to be able to cut the lawns at a reasonable price and provide quality service.

Maybe you could also have the girls provide a car wash as the customers lawn is cut?

What's your thoughts on this?

Yeah we already got featured in a news article very early on. I have that article on my blog on my myspace page for anyone to read it.

I couldnt find it. Can you tell me the link?

[astallard]

http://www.news-sentinel.com/apps/pb...NEWS/904070337

Here is the link for our newspaper article. I thought it was very well written. That got us a lot of publicity for awhile. I was fearful that it would be written in a negative way.

You are probably right about the lawn care being pricey for the customers. That seems to be the driving factor in them not scheduling us. But to do what we do it will be a little extra. One the girls want to be paid well for showing skin and being flaunted in front of men, while doing physical labor. Plus I have to make money as well for it too work. Its not easy to have this type of business with a low price. I lowered my original price by $10.

On the foot wear for promotional purposes only they wear heels or what ever they want for pictures and car washes, but when they mow the lawns I am strict and make sure that they wear tennis shoes. I told them that I want to make sure that they do not hurt their toes by accident. Safety is always first.

I have a few ideas on how to generate more business and have a survey again on my myspace page. The link is the first thing in the about me section. It is just a quick survey. Take it if you like. I just want to know some thoughts from my fans of Lawn Angels on a few things. It is a way to generate revenue as well as to get customers interested in having Lawn Angels come over to mow their lawns. Tell me your thoughts.

Thanks

[Steve]

That is a great article! Can you give us some advice as to how you were able to get the article printed? What did you do?

You are probably right about the lawn care being pricey for the customers. That seems to be the driving factor in them not scheduling us. But to do what we do it will be a little extra. One the girls want to be paid well for showing skin and being flaunted in front of men, while doing physical labor. Plus I have to make money as well for it too work. Its not easy to have this type of business with a low price. I lowered my original price by $10.

Here is my take, use it as a gimmick to get attention but I still think the core audience will want simple lawn care. I love the name and the concept. I would get a bunch of promotional pictures. Maybe even raise the rates on the bikini cuts so when you get them, they are REALLY worth your time, otherwise I would focus on the core business which would be quality lawn care at reasonable prices.

I would consider coming up with an outfit similar to what Lee did. Here is an example with the logo. You might even get a better reaction if the girls aren't in bikinis but rather in some kind of sexy outfit like the one shown in the logo.

For the long haul, bikinis just don't seem to work too well with lawn care. I think there are other places where they could work better like say for instance this example of a bikini coffee booth. Where the work is not so physically demanding.

What's some of your views on this?

[jasonw]

Do you live in a *** town? Maybe try advertising male speedo lawn service. Sorry I could not help that one. It seems to me girls in bikinis mowing lawns is a self promoting venture or at least it should be. You will get people with no lawns calling to have there lawn mowed he he hee.

You will get people with no lawns calling to have there lawn mowed he he hee.

See...as a novice in this myself, I'd have thought the opposite to be true. The people who have the yards (and let's be honest, that's where the business is), are probably home owners, and most of them probably have either a spouse or a significant other. I don't know too many women who would be cool with bikini babes coming over to be fawned at. My visceral reaction was that it would be a great gimmick, but not a full-time venture. But again, I'm new, so I could be wrong.

To the contrary, I would have set up the bikini service as a promotional tool. "Give five referrals, get a bikini cut" or something similar.

Plus those bodies are only going to look nice until the first encounter with poison ivy!

[jasonw]

Oh common half naked babes smothered in poison ivy? Who wouldn't call you? LOL joking of course. I guess it depends on as you said your customer base. Semi retired, elderly couples, probably not going to pay you for that. HOWEVER. Mow there lawn wearing a hat saying "VETERAN" on it and a shirt with a Studebaker and you will have you some life long customers.

[Steve]

I would have set up the bikini service as a promotional tool. "Give five referrals, get a bikini cut" or something similar.

That is a great idea! It could potentially really help promote your lawn care business further.