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What timing your lawns actually reveals
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Here's something interesting: When I start working with a lawn mowing business, I always ask them if they're timing their lawns. If they are, that's great. If they're not, that's where we start. Before the timing begins, I ask my clients to do a simple exercise:
After keeping track of their times for a month or so, we begin to evaluate the results. And here's where it gets weird... Some of the lawns they think are profitable are not. And vice versa.
Why is this? The answer is simple: If you're not keeping track of your times, you're judging your lawns on emotions. You may like mowing a lawn, but the profit is low. And a lawn you hate is one of your most profitable lawns.
Truth is: Your feelings about a job have nothing to do with how profitable it is. Without data, you're running your business on emotion instead of facts. Most lawn care operators are guessing which jobs make them money. They're pricing based on how they feel about the property, not actual profitability. The lawns they enjoy might be draining their time and profit. The ones they dread might be keeping their business afloat. Timing your lawns is the first step to running a profitable operation. Use a Google Sheet. Write your lawns in there and keep track of the times. Once you have this, you'll know which jobs to increase the price of. That's where real profit begins. I just published a full breakdown on the blog covering the complete system for maximizing efficiency and profit per lawn—everything from mower prep to route planning to weed-eating techniques that save you 20+ minutes per day. Check it out here: [Read: Easy Ways to Make More Money by Mowing Lawns Faster]Stuart Clifford |
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