I had a lawn care business client a while back who was struggling during a slow period. The phone wasn't ringing. Income was down. He was stressed about where the next batch of customers would come from. So I told him to send one email to his entire customer base. It was autumn. Offer a simple leaf removal service. He was skeptical. "Will that actually work?" But he did it anyway. It took him maybe 15 minutes to write and send. That single email increased his income that month by 25%. The...
3 days ago • 1 min read
A few months back, I was talking to a lawn contractor who was frustrated as hell. He was getting out and doing tons of quotes. Customers said they wanted regular cuts. But after one or two mows? They'd disappear. At first, I thought it might be his work quality. Nope. His lawns looked great. So I dug into his quoting process instead. Turns out, he wasn't asking ANY questions during incoming calls. No data. No context. He had no clue what kind of job he was walking into until he showed up. He...
4 days ago • 1 min read
I met a lawn guy a few years back who was absolutely drowning in work. Mowing all day. Doing admin at night. Barely keeping his head above water. One of his nightly rituals? Calling every single customer who was due for a mow the next day. Half an hour. Every night. That's two and a half hours every week spent on the phone. And here's the part that makes you think... The same task could be done in under 20 minutes via text. But he wouldn't do it. "That's not how I've always done it," he said....
5 days ago • 1 min read
"that business card is still on my fridge..." A few years back, I handed a potential customer one of my magnetic business cards. She looked at it, smiled, and walked straight to her fridge. Stuck it right there next to her kids' artwork. Fast forward three years... She calls me out of the blue asking for a quote. "Sorry it took so long," she said. "But your card's been on my fridge this whole time, and I finally decided to get someone in." Three years. That little magnet sat there through...
6 days ago • 1 min read
I know of a guy who had a customer who was three months behind on payments. He didn't even notice. He was too busy mowing lawns and chasing new customers to track his money. By the time he realized what happened, he'd done 12 cuts for free. That's hundreds of dollars just... gone. And here's the crazy think: he had no system in place to catch it. No software tracking who paid and who didn't. No alerts when someone went 30 days overdue. Nothing. Just a mental note that never got checked. Truth...
7 days ago • 1 min read
Full disclosure: When you offer or accept a discount on a regular lawn job, it's not just the one time you're giving that discount. You'll provide that discount every time you do the lawn for the life of the job. And that can soon stack up. Most lawn care operators don't think about the lifetime cost of a discount. They see it as "just $5 off" to win the job. Seems harmless, right? But multiply that by 26 cuts per year. Then multiply by 3-5 years. That "small" discount just cost you hundreds...
8 days ago • 1 min read
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: List your five highest-profit lawns. List your five lowest-profit lawns. 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...
9 days ago • 1 min read
A few years ago, I had a realization about something we were doing wrong. We get a couple of calls every month for lawn treatments. Which is definitely not a service we offer. People assume that since you mow lawns, you do everything from gardening to repairing garden gates. And here's the thing... If you tell the customer you can't help and just hang up, they think twice about ringing you when they have jobs that you can do. That's money walking out the door. We only accept lawn mowing...
10 days ago • 1 min read
Here's something interesting: When you're finishing up a mowing job, you grab the blower to tidy up. You clear off the tiny pieces of grass from the concrete and tarred areas. The customer doesn't want to see clippings when they get home from work. Simple enough. But here's where it gets tricky... The problem starts when there are a lot of leaves or other debris on the drive. You can clean the first meter or so easily. But where does it stop? You can't just blow the edges and leave the middle...
11 days ago • 1 min read