Lawn business startup
Use your landscaping and lawn care skills to start a profitable business.
To get started, you must already have experience in mowing, cutting, and trimming. It also means that you spent some time learning the basics of gardening and technology. You must be physically fit and able to cope with the harsh working conditions, which may include lifting heavy equipment and using bulky hand tools for several hours.
To get started, you must already have experience in mowing, cutting, and trimming. It also means that you spent some time learning the basics of gardening and technology. You must be physically fit and able to cope with the harsh working conditions, which may include lifting heavy equipment and using bulky hand tools for several hours.Market.
According to the Professional Landcare Network (PLANET), an international lawn care professional association, outsourcing contractors, installation/design/construction professionals, and United States interior specialists, there are approximately 10,000 individual lawn care providers. The market they serve is huge, the US green industry, which includes lawn and landscape services, brings in between $ 67 and $ 69 billion a year. In addition, according to PLANET estimates, the beautification services sector alone creates 704,000 jobs and $ 35.6 million per year in value-added.
Who are the clients?
Millions of homeowners recognize the value of a well-kept lawn and a beautifully designed and landscaped yard, but they often have neither the time nor the desire to do maintenance on their own.
The target audience:
- Homeowners who are often busy;
- Pensioners who no longer want to do their own care;
- Golf Course Managers Who May Need Service Assistance;
- Property managers or condominiums with disabilities;
- Managing facilities of botanical gardens, historic buildings, municipalities and other government agencies, universities, cemeteries and other public spaces with green spaces.
There are many ways to get into the lawn and landscape industry.
The main types of lawn and landscape business are:
- Lawn Mower / Care
- Installation of turf/hydroseeding
- Weeding or applying fertilizers and/or pests
- Landscaping / Maintenance
- Landscaping / Contracting Services
- Landscape Architecture Services
Income.
No one can tell you exactly how much you can earn. In this area, it all depends on your skills, perseverance, and performance. Some owners of the lawn care business earned anywhere from $ 5,000 to $ 50,000 in the first year, and from $ 160,000 to $ 250,000 in a few years. They started by simply mowing the lawn and over time expanded the list of services to increase revenue.
Lawn Care Basics
Lawn care is a seasonal business. Depending on your area and climate, the main vegetation months begin around April to early October. In the spring, you will need to actively promote your services so that you have enough customers in the summer. Then, in the fall, you should warm the lawns, rake the leaves, and collect overdue bills. In winter, you can offer a service such as snow removal.
A typical lawn care business serves 20 to 30 regular customers per week and offers up to three types of services: mowing, fertilizing, and applying chemicals. It is also a strictly regulated industry, which requires practitioners to obtain certificates that allow the use of hazardous chemicals.
Most owners of lawn care services prefer to start with basic mowing and add other services as they become more experienced and acquire more equipment.
Cost of work.
Experts recommend pricing depending on the size of the lawn. The plus is that you will appear more professional to your potential customers if you have an established price structure. You can compensate for the unusual features of the land by adding an additional amount of, say, 10 percent to your price. Because the lawn care industry is so competitive, it’s important not to overestimate your services.
Lawn & landscape may be particularly useful. Call several lawn care companies on Craigslist. This method works especially well if you conduct business in a community with uniformly distributed units or other parties of the same size. It is good to evaluate your services somewhere in the middle or closer to the top of the range. Then you must demonstrate that your professionalism, quality service, and reliability distinguish you from your competitors and justify a higher price.
Job Evaluation
Regardless of whether you provide a simple service, such as pruning bushes, or installing a complex three-tier deck, people will want to know in advance how much the work will cost. As a result, you need to develop good assessment skills from the start. The problem is that evaluation is a science, and it’s easy to make a mistake that can cost you a lot of time and resources. Your mission here is to determine what your expenses will be, and then add profits. Your expenses will include everything from materials (plants, mulch, topsoil to labor (both your own employees and subcontractors), equipment (yours and everyone you rent), and general business overhead (everything that you plan to demand as expenses for doing business, for example, expenses for a home office, gasoline, etc.).
You better indicate the specific services you offer, the materials you provide, and everything else that is relevant to the job. The tools of the “Everis” platform will help you with this, using the dispatcher’s panel you can enter the current prices and notify your customers about them at any time. And also set personal discounts.
Finally, you can calculate your bet based on how much money you would like to earn in a given year. For example, if your goal is to earn $ 60,000 in your first year of work, you need to calculate the monthly income. It is best to use statistics tools in the work, then you can see not only the amount of income but also the debt and the number of deductions to employees. And these are always moving amounts and depend on workload. Use the statistics and planner tool in the “Everis” platform and plan income with an accuracy of a cent.
Other tasks.
In addition to decorating America, you will need to deal with some of the office tasks. They include:
Office administration: in addition to answering the phone and email, you must have business mail to send bills. If you decide to accept credit cards, you will also have to process these credit cards through your trading account. You can use software that already includes all the necessary tools and the “Everis” platform is one of them.
Personnel Management.
As soon as the work is added, you will find that you need to monitor the work of employees, scheduling work and refereeing in the event of a conflict. Use the demo version of “Everis” for your company and evaluate how easy it is to control the progress of work and be sure that your worker mows the lawn on a hot day, and does not sunbathe on the nearest lake. That’s why you have to use modern tools if you want to work better.
And finally.
At any given time, you can turn to an army of landscape care professionals for help. Below is a list of useful resources.
Franchise Opportunities
- Lawn Doctor Inc.
- NaturaLawn of America
- NiteLites Outdoor Lighting Franchise
- Outdoor Lighting Perspectives
- Spray Green Lawn Care
- Spring-Green Lawn Care
- U.S. Lawns
- Weed Man
Lawn and Landscape Industry Trade Publications
- Grounds Maintenance
- Irrigation & Green Industry Magazine
- Landscape Architect and Specifier News
- Landscape Architecture
- Landscape Construction
- Landscape Contractor National
- Landscape Design/Build
- Landscape Management
- Landscape Superintendent and Maintenance Professional
- Lawn & Landscape Magazine
- ProGardenBiz
- PRO Magazine
- Turf Grass Trends
- Turf Magazine
- Water Garden News
Professional Lawn and Landscape Associations
- American Horticulture Society
- American Nursery & Landscape Association
- American Society of Landscape Architects
- Association of Professional Landscape Designers
- California Landscape Contractors Association
- Independent Turf and Ornamental Distributors Association
- The Irrigation Association
- Landscape Maintenance Association
- National Gardening Association
- North American Rock Garden Society
- Organic Landscape Alliance
- Outdoor Power Equipment and Engine Service Association
- Professional Grounds Management Society
- Professional Landcare Network
- Turfgrass Producers International
Good luck in your new business!
This article was written by service experts. “EVERIS” is a platform for planning work orders and managing specialists and clients. Thousands of local service companies use the platform to streamline their workflow, eliminate losses, and increase revenue.