Build a Six-Figure Lawn Care Business in Your Spare Time. Stop trading time for money. Get one short, actionable tip delivered to your inbox every morning to help you work smarter and scale faster. Privacy Note: Join 5,000+ pros. 100% privacy, zero spam.
$60/hour charge vs. $45/hour reality
|
I was talking to a contractor last week who was frustrated. He's working 40+ hours a week... Mowing his butt off... And barely clearing $1,800 a week. He couldn't figure out what he was doing wrong. So I asked him one simple question: "How much time are you spending in your truck between jobs?" Long pause. "I dunno... maybe 15 minutes between each one?" There's your problem. See, most guys think the key to making more money is working harder or getting more customers. But the real money isn't made on the lawn. It's made in the route planning. If your charge-out rate is $60 an hour but you're spending half your day driving between jobs that are scattered all over town... You're not actually making $60 an hour. You're making closer to $45-50. Maybe less if you factor in fuel costs. This is what I call the "density dividend." The contractors making $2,500+ per week aren't necessarily working more hours or charging higher rates (though that helps). They've figured out how to cluster their jobs so tight that they can knock out three or four lawns on the same street without ever loading the mower back on the trailer. That's where the real profit lives. But here's the thing most people don't want to hear: You might need to fire some customers to make this work. Those jobs on the periphery of your route? The ones that are "only" 15 minutes out of the way? They're costing you way more than you think. When I was scaling my business, we used to package and sell off our furthest lawns every year. Replaced them with closer ones. Same amount of work... way more profit. There's also the pricing conversation nobody wants to have. If you've got a hundred customers and you're running close to 40 hours a week, you don't need more customers. You need a pay raise. But you can't just blast everyone with a price increase at once. Instead, increase one job per week.
Any customers who cancel will get replaced organically anyway. And suddenly you're clicking over that $2,500 mark without working a single extra hour. Look, there's no real ceiling on what you can make in this business. I work about 20 hours a week now and turn over $2K. But I had to learn these systems the hard way over years of trial and error:
That's exactly what I teach inside Lawn Business Builders Pro... my free Skool group where I break down everything I learned building and selling multiple lawn businesses (including one that scaled to 5 vans and 450+ clients). If you're tired of working your ass off for mediocre money and want to learn how to remove the income limits in your lawn care business, join us here: [Join Lawn Business Builders Pro (Free)]Stuart Clifford |
Hi and Welcome to my page
Build a Six-Figure Lawn Care Business in Your Spare Time. Stop trading time for money. Get one short, actionable tip delivered to your inbox every morning to help you work smarter and scale faster. Privacy Note: Join 5,000+ pros. 100% privacy, zero spam.
I was talking with a contractor last week when he told me about the time he bought a commercial mower from a big online retailer. He said he saved maybe $200 compared to his local dealer. Felt pretty smart about it too. Until three weeks later when the hydro system started leaking fluid all over his trailer. He called the retailer... got transferred four times... and finally got told he'd need to ship it back for warranty work. Ship it back. A 600-pound mower. At his expense. And wait 4-6...
Here is the email formatted for maximum readability and impact, keeping the wording exactly as you provided. I added a subject line based on the content since one wasn't included. Once upon a time, I got an email from a contractor, and he told me about a worker who rolled the mower on its side like a toy. Back when I had workers on the crew, I had the same problem. You always had to explain it. And if you didn't... Well, you'd find out the hard way. See, when you need to clean under a mower...
I once knew a lawn mowing contractor who was retiring and decided to sell his business. He'd worked it for over a decade, and although it was stable, it was sloppily run. Lots of badly priced lawns and customers who owed money. He had no idea what his business was worth, but he thought it must be worth a lot. After all, it was his baby, and he'd built it from the ground up. He advertised his business at a ridiculous price and sold it within a couple of weeks. I knew nothing about the sale...