How To Get 50 New Customers For Your Lawn Care Business

Innovative lawn care business owners are constantly writing me and asking how they can gain new clients. When responding to these doubts, I like to give specific examples a lawn care business owner could do today or tomorrow to help them get their goals. Here is a specific example of how one lawn care business owner marketed his business and accomplished over 50 new lawn care customers in less than 5 months. Recently on our lawn care business community forum, a new member Egreen wrote and said "This is my first season in business. Last winter I identified as several businesses ex. gas stations, 7-11 small shopping centers in my area and explained to the manager that I was NOT selling them anything. I told them I was considering a lawn care business and was taking a customer survey about their current Lawn Care Service provider. This allowed me to build a rapport with the business owner. I sought after who serviced their property, how often , how much they charged and if they were happy with the service provided. Before installing up I told them if I considered opening shop I would call them and let them know how it was intending. These phone calls allowed me to gather a lot of information from them that they may not have told me otherwise. When I did available shop I called each one back and explained to them who I was and that I could service their garden and property. I could also solve the problems they had with their current lawn care provider and I could save these a few dollars. I landed 11 out of 12 commercial accounts! " Now any lawn care business owner that's around for a few seasons knows the return they will make on many marketing strategies. For instance passing out lawn attention service flyers in your neighborhood may help you get a 2 to 3 % response. But can you imagine landing 11 using 12 accounts you targeted? That is an amazing response! We asked Egreen further detailed questions to really hammer off the steps in his successful lawn care marketing process. He responded by saying "When I labeled as the potential clients, I just took a spiral notebook and took notes. Everyone felt free to tell me the majority of things because I told them up front I wasn't trying to sell them anything. The most common complaints I heard were that last lawn care company didn't do a good enough job trimming. " Now this is very insightful information, but As i immediately thought even with this information, it would be difficult to land these commercial lawn care account because I has been certain there would be lawn care contracts involved that wouldn't be up for renewal until the end in the year. To my surprise, after talking further with Egreen he said "The lawn care contracts made way for 30 days written notice to cancel. That was fine with me because I had to prepare myself anyway. When I was wanting to present my estimate, I was able to beat the competition's price by a few dollars but I had the information they will told me in the past ex. Bad job trimming. This allowed me to go into detail about how well I toned all areas. I learned not to sell price but sell the quality of work. " Now once these accounts have been landed, what was the chance Egreen and his lawn care business would fall into the same trap the previous lawn care and attention business owners did. The trap being a lack of communication. There was a disconnect between what the customer wanted and precisely what the lawn care service company was providing. So I then asked Egreen if he was handling his connection with his new clients differently than the previous lawn company. He responded by saying "I call my residential and additionally commercial accounts about once a month and ask them how we are doing. I explain that I would rather have them tell people if I'm doing something wrong (regardless of how small the problem) than not have a happy site visitor. I feel this personal touch is better. This is my first year in this business, I started about five a long time ago and I have 53 residential and small commercial accounts. The biggest lesson I think is to make them feel that they also have a friend in the business. They will hopefully be a little more loyal. I do get word of mouth calls also. I also walk entry to door and tell the customer I was in the area giving an estimate to a neighbor and since I was at the neighborhood I wanted to stop by. I mention what I do and point something out like an unedged sidewalk in addition to explain the clean look of an edge job. " Can you imagine that! In only 5 months in the lawn caution business, Egreen has been able to land 53 new lawn care customers! Talk about being a lawn care marketing product. There is no stopping him. I do hope this story will help your lawn care business grow and flourish. If you're just starting out or if you have been in business for years, we can all learn from Egreen and his success story. Get the phone and talk to people. Reach out to your customers and gain their feedback. Let them feel you are their acquaintance in the lawn care business and you will grow.

Why Organic Lawn Care Services Are Better For Your Lawn, Children, Pets, Wallet, and the Environment

That intoxicating scent of freshly mowed grass tickled my nostrils as I proudly looked at my lush green landscaping. A flush of happiness soothed my body and mind because I knew the sight I was staring at ended up being the result of organic fertilizers and absolutely no lawn pesticides. I felt confident that I had overcome challenges and is now performing a new, better way of lawn care. A method of lawn maintenance that was saving money on my mineral water bill, keeping neighbor children and pets safe, and protecting the environment while still having a beautiful healthy property that made my jealous neighbors wonder why they haven't made the switch to organic lawn maintenance yet. The debate continues whether lawn pesticides are harmful to young children, pets, and the environment. It isn't much of some sort of debate these days with numerous new studies coming out providing evidence that many of the materials that were and still are being applied to "traditional" lawn care will cause cancer and other health problems while harming our environment. My goal of this article isn't to help scare homeowners into using safer products or to provide statistics and scientific research on if lawn pesticides are bad. My goal is to educate, and let folks know that there is a better way of maintaining a turf through the use of organic materials and inform them why it is beneficial for them to make the switch. Hopefully with the help of this knowledge, consumers will start demanding that companies such as Scott's begin to put more of their large R&D budgets toward better and more natural products that are as effective as the chemicals we have been blasting our lawns with for years. The first thing An excellent opportunity is to adjust your mentality to what a perfect lawn looks like. Residential lawns are never going to look like the fairway for your local country club. The sooner you realize this, the better. A couple of dandelions showing their yellow heads is not the end with the world. It is actually natural and common even on the most expensive lawn program out there. I'm not saying your sod can't look similar to that fairway, but weeds come and go. That's nature. Work with it and not with it. The second thing I would suggest is adjust your cultural practices such as mowing and watering techniques. Without practicing these things properly, your lawn will continue to fight nature instead of working with it. Mowing your lawn to short-term lengths like your country club fairway is not beneficial or correct. Those fairways are usually bentgrass and the proper mowing height is under an inch. Most residential lawns in the Midwest and the northern part of the U. Ohydrates. are blue/rye/fescue cool season grass mixes. These types of grasses should be mowed at 3-4 inches after being slice. If they are mowed down to lengths below this you will exponentially create an environment that is more prone to crabgrass, broadleaf weeds such as dandelions, and a shallow root system that can't fight off drought, insects, and disease well. Watering your lawn everyday is not smart and your root system will hate you for it. The roots for the grass want to dive deep into the ground to search for minerals and water. By watering everyday you are keeping people roots close to the surface and creating a weak root system more prone to stresses. The proper way to water if you need to, is to give you the grass with water when it needs it. Every lawn is different, but I usually suggest watering every 4-7 days to weeks for about 1-1. 5 hours per spot. You want to water deeply and infrequently to train your roots to plunge deep into the ground. Now let us get into the fun stuff. How can switching to an organic lawn maintenance process save you money? This is what everyone wants to know these days with the economy struggling. Well, the main reason you can save money through a much more natural program is because you are actually improving your soil structure instead of just juicing the lawn up with unsustainable top growth through synthetic fertilizers. How does this occur? A lawn is only as good as its base, the dirt. You can grow grass on concrete, but it would cost a lot of money, cause you plenty of headaches, and it may be silly since growing grass in 6-10 inches of quality soil is much easier and less expensive. So we should address the issue of how to develop a high quality soil first and then I will explain how this can save you money. Get their soil tested. This can be done by a local professional lawn service provider, yourself, or your local county extension office. Having your soil tested is not only smart, but also the right thing to do. The results will provide you with what the soil needs, so you can save money applying only the necessary materials down. Once you have this information, you can then develop a fertilization plan around what the soil is missing in. There are many organic fertilizers out there that provide many of the same nutrients as chemical fertilizers. The way they work is just a bit different, but the result of feeding the grass plant the necessary nutrients is the same. Chemical fertilizers feed the yard plant mainly through the tips of the grass, while organic fertilizers feed the grass plant from the soil in place. Organic fertilizers feed the soil life, which in turn feed the grass plant. So how does using organic fertilizers save you money? With organic fertilizers you are actually improving the soil structure with the organic matter while additionally feeding the grass. This combination of benefits is why organic fertilizers are superior to chemical fertilizers and how down the road it ultimately will reduce your water bill by providing a much improved soil structure with deeper roots. Seems like so simple because it is. Improving the soil biology aspect of organic lawn care is a little more complicated, nevertheless how this reduces your need for lawn pesticides to control fungi and insects is pretty simple. Improving ones own soil biology instead of depleting it will create an environment that allows nature to fight off pests that harm a lawn. Feed the good guys down there, so they can fight off the bad guys and eliminate your need for insecticides and additionally fungicides. Again, this means less money you have to spend to keep your lawn the envy of the neighborhood. That sounds superior right? So why isn't everyone doing organic lawn care instead of "traditional" lawn care? The main obstacle holding that movement back is the absence of a selective organic weed control. This is where the adjustment of your mindset comes into play. Don't allow this scare you though. Your organic lawn doesn't have to be a plot of weeds with some grass neighboring it. There are ways around this, but sometimes it takes a little patience, adjusting your mowing height, a little seed, and possibly some extra work. Uh oh, did I just lose some of you with that "extra work" comment? Hopefully not, but don't worry it isn't that much extra work. Following this statement that may seem a bit hypocritical, I will present you with some tips that will keep your lawn weed free without using lawn chemicals. First though, let me state that some turf may need an application or two of spot treatments of a selective broadleaf herbicide before the grass can start to the natural way crowd out the weeds. This doesn't have to be done, but often times can satisfy the more impatient homeowner looking for a a lot more weed free lawn quicker. Many religiously organic lawn gurus will curse me for stating that, in addition to honestly I hate stating it, but on some occasions it may be needed to avoid drastic lawn renovations which completely kill the lawn and then you would have to start over. If you do use spot treatments of herbicides, ensure you only use them where they are needed and follow the instructions that the label provides because these pesticides can result in harm to humans and animals. Use the proper safety equipment and please make sure to keep your children and pets heli-copter flight lawn for 24 hours after the application if possible. That is a last resort technique and should only be used after testing out the following tips to lower and eliminate the weeds in a safer more natural manner. So what are these safer methods of controlling weeds? The main and most important tip I can give anyone trying to control their weeds naturally is to mow high. A deep lawn will have less weeds and this type of lawn is developed by mowing properly. Remember the mowing tips mentioned previously? Follow these and it will help drastically to reduce the number of weeds that thrive in your lawn. Another tip is complete any bare/thin areas with new grass seed in September or October for cool season lawns. These tips will help you develop a thick lawn that can "crowd out" the weeds. Even a thick lawn will have some weeds though, so what can you do then? Hand pull or use a device that makes manual weed pulling easy. Ensure you get the entire root of the weed and don't get discouraged when the weeds keep popping up. If you keep at these, they will lose their energy eventually and die off. The main thing with weeds is to stay determined and take them out before they have a chance to seed. If the weeds seed, the vicious cycle of perennial and annual weeds might continue. Sometimes this might mean collecting the clippings while mowing your lawn to avoid spreading the weed signs over the lawn. This is the only time I would suggest bagging your clippings because those clippings provide extra organic issue and recycles the same nutrients you provide with the fertilizer being applied. This is just another way of saving money because if everyone collect those clippings when it isn't necessary you will have to put down more fertilizer. Organic lawn care is the new, far better way of maintaining your lawn. There are a plenty of reasons that places like Harvard University are now caring for their property naturally. Saving money is one reason, but helping the environment and providing a safer place for children and house animals are other reasons. Provinces all over Canada are banning the use of cosmetic lawn pesticides. Places like child attention centers, schools, and places where animals habitat are beginning to use organic lawn care because of the previously claimed reasons. So why not become one the thousands joining the organic lawn care family daily? Soon, most people too can smell the scent of freshly cut grass like myself while having the peace of mind that you are working at something good for the planet. Oh yeah, and you can save some money so you can enjoy that gorgeous healthy lawn of yours. I am internet websites PureLawn Organic Lawn Care. PureLawn is a lawn care service provider that maintains Dayton and Cincinnati lawns within a environmentally responsible manner. While working for a traditional chemical lawn care company in high school and into my summers while attending The University of Dayton I saw a huge amount of unnecessary lawn pesticides being applied. I imagined there has to be a better way, so after graduating from U. D. with a business degree, I began PureLawn. I appeared to be ahead of my time with this type of lawn service and now enjoy a very healthy growth annually with the happiness to learn we were doing this before "being green" was cool. I love the smell of freshly mowed grass. If you happen to drive through a neighborhood during the spring, you might smell the perfect aroma of a mowed lawn or the strong distinctive smell of lawn pesticides being applied. My mission and goal with PureLawn, is to make sure in the future this kids and homeowners will have the priviledge of smelling the beautiful smell of freshly cut kentucky bluegrass instead of the toxic scent of pesticides.