Top Niche Ideas

The preparations to start your own lawn care business are not that different from starting any new business.  While the work you do of making people’s lawns look great is different from many businesses, the rules of how to start a business apply to you too.  And one big rule that you must obey before you get started is to know the costs of doing business before you launch out on your own.

Running a professional lawn care business must be done with a different approach than just doing lawn care to make money as a contractor.  You may have already learned a lot by loading up your small push Briggs and Stratton lawnmower in the back of your pickup and going around mowing lawns to make money.  Not that this is not good honest work.  But to actually upgrade from that stage to running a full scale lawn care business means you will think bigger, plan to make more money and approach the question of equipment with a bigger vision as well.

There are expenses that are a natural part of running a lawn care business.  Probably the top three expenses are (1) employees (2) equipment and (3) storage and maintenance of your equipment.  One reason you must do some realistic thinking about the equipment you will need to create a business out of your talent for lawn care is that knowing the “start up costs” is a big part of becoming a full fledged business.  When you finally have your business started, whether that means incorporation or some other format that you frame your new business in, you must be ready to get out there and start working as soon as possible.  That means moving quickly and efficiently to buy the tools of the trade for taking good care of your customer’s lawns.

The basic tools needed for lawn care are pretty easy to list.  Depending on the kinds of services your lawn care company will do, those tools might include lawnmowers, edgers, rakes, brooms, leaf blower/suckers, weed eaters, hoes, trowels, shovels and clean up equipment. If you have been doing lawn care either of your own place or as a contractor, you no doubt know this equipment well.  But that basic lawn mower that does a good job being used once a week in a home is probably not going to be sturdy enough to be used 8 hours a day, 5-7 days a week.

In addition to finding out the costs for “industrial strength” equipment, the types of contracts you will be servicing and the kinds of services you offer impact equipment needs.  If you are going to be the primary lawn care service for a large golf club, you will need large riding lawn mowers and other equipment that can handle such a big job.  Also think about storage and transportation of that equipment and any maintenance needs you will have in keeping the tools of the trade that make your business work in tip top operating equipment all the time.

As a rule, start out evaluating the equipment you will need for your first few months of business.  If you already have customers, just upgrade the equipment you have been using to be ready for the expansion of business you are planning.  Don’t invest in equipment to support hundreds of large scale corporate contracts if you are starting off with a dozen residential customers that will be the starting place for your business. Plan for today and for your next step in growing your business.  And grow your equipment and employee base to support the business as it grows.  That is sensible business management that will serve you well day one and for years to come as your lawn care business continues to grow and succeed.

To start a business in any field of expertise, the first step to success is to know what you are doing.  While it may not seem that it takes tremendous experience to mow lawns, running a full service lawn business requires a knowledge of equipment, an ability to offer a variety of lawn and garden services and a knowledge of customer service and expectations that do require some experience and wisdom in order to see the kind of success you want.

The best way to learn the nuts and bolts of actually running a lawn business is to work for one.  This “paying your dues” phase is about more than just showing yourself able to do the various jobs that a professional lawn care specialist can do.  It is about sitting under the guidance of someone who is running their own lawn business and “spying” on how it is done and how your bosses handle various situations to keep the business moving forward toward success.

What initially inspires someone to start a lawn care business is their love of the work.  But what goes on in addition to doing a great job making your customer’s lawns look great is what is the difference between a lawn care worker and someone who is running their own small business that is focused on lawn care.  And perhaps the most important aspect of that business is marketing.

The primary way of getting new busiess when you run a lawn care company is word of mouth.  Pay attention to the boss when you are working for a lawn care company as a way of learning the ropes.  When you go on a job with the boss and owner of the lawn care company you work for, you will notice he spends as much time talking to the customer as he does doing the work.  That is the heard of marketing because by making happy customers, your boss will get referrals.  That is also very smart marketing.

By taking a job in a lawn care company, you are in the finest “college of lawn care” there is.  You are in the school of real life.  You will see why your boss’s company is a success.  You will also see failures and problems that crop up and how that lawn care company you work for handles those roadblocks.  If they do a great job resolving problems, they will be profitable and you can learn from their success.  If problems cause the business to lose money, you can learn from their mistakes at no expense to you.  That is also solid gold training you will use when you start your own lawn care company.

You will have to decide whether to confess to the lawn care company you go to work for that you are there to learn now to run a successful operation.  In some cases, that will endear you to the boss who will give you private lessons in management, taxes, accounting, recruitment, marketing, maintenance and all of the aspects that you must be good at to make your lawn care business thrive.

But it is possible that if you tell your current boss you are there to learn the business in order to start a competing business, that can create bad feelings or even cost you the job.  So you may have to keep your true motivations for being there to yourself.  Nonetheless, continue to do a good job for your boss while paying scrupulous attention to everything that lawn care company you work for has to do to be successful as a business.  You might even take notes and write up what you learn each day.  When you finally step out of the “employee” role and strike out on your own, those notes will be your Bible on what to do and what NOT to do to be a success with your lawn care business.  Your time in training will be time well spent when you avoid the pit falls and see your new lawn care company grow from the first day of operation on out.