Help with my business

[zach103]

Ok guys i started a lawn care business last year and have started to expand.. i pay taxes and am working on getting the insurance. but heres my question i started this website and i am on google and all the things i can think of but i want to expand my site but im not a marketing major nor have i been around for as long as most of you guys ( no offense) so i havn't seen as much.. so ill post my site at the end of this boring post and if anyone can help give ideas on what i should add or what you would be looking for when you look for a lawn care services.. Thanks guys!!

ZKSLAWN.COM

 

[jeffnick]

Re: Help with my business

If I was starting a lawn care business, I wouldn't rely on a web site. Every 6 months I'd tape my business card to every mailbox within a 50 mile radius of my business.

 

[zach103]

Re: Help with my business

well i have put out more than 500 post cards... give my business cards to lots of people and have a pretty good referral program for existing customers.. i just want to make the website more professional

 

[642mx]

Re: Help with my business

Your website looks good to me. Its easy to navigate and has plenty of pictures of your lawns. I would add some more photo's of everything you do, such as the plowing, hanging Christmas lights, etc. Maybe add a pic of your staff too.

The absolute best advertising in any business is word of mouth. A business owner once told me, a satisfied customer will tell 3 friends, an unsatisfied customer will tell 10. More work will come if you keep giving 100% to your business.

 

[bruceb58]

Re: Help with my business

Make sure you have signs on the side of your trucks advertising your business with telephone number, email and website name. If you can incorporate your name in the phone number that will be easier to get people to remember it.

Find houses that are for sale in your neigborhood and make sure you leave advertising for the new owner when the house sells.

Talk to property mangment companies in your area as well.

 

[gibletts]

Re: Help with my business

We started up a business from scratch about a year and a half ago, along with a web site I personally delivered about 5000 flyers around our area to peoples letter boxes, probably got less than a 1% strike but it still was worth it (best place for you is going to be new housing developments where residents have moved into new houses), if I was a lawn guy i would have a whole bunch of flyers and business cards in my truck and every time I drove past a house \ business with a scruffy lawn I would be knocking on the door to intriduce myself or at least leavin sothing in the letter box. We got a bit more clever and were a bit more targeted of our marketing.... for example you might try getting your local real estate magazine (or listings in the local paper) and email ever estate agent who will have contacts who need property care while selling their house. I have done similiar, although not exactly legal in the sence of unsolicited email (spam) but a well worded polite email addressed to a single person at a time doesnt offend (I have one that I have sent out 100s of time, welcome to us it as a template if you want).

 

[PiratePast40]

Re: Help with my business

Might try offering an existing customer a discount for a month in exchange for leaving your sign on their lawn for the same period of time. Showing off your work is allways a good advertisement.

For snow plowing, it's probably too late for this season but contracts with the owners of strip malls are a good way to have steady business.

As allready mentioned, a picture of your staff really helps to personalize your business.

 

[roscoe]

Re: Help with my business

Looks like you are trying to be everything to every customer.
If you want to do landscape design and building, specialize in it.
If you want to do lawn care, maintenance and repair, specialize in it.

You can always branch out, offering additional services to you existing client base, after you fill the schedule.

If you fill the schedule with projects, you won't have the time do do the lawn maintenance in a timely fashion.

Get INSURED. Make sure that is front and center on your new site.

You can't afford to not be insured. One rock in the side of a car, a kids head, or a gas spill, and you will be working for weeks or months just to pay for the repair.

Your best bet for a new site ?

Buy some decent software and do it yourself, OR visit a local computer shop that does sites professionally.

Your site must have some sort of pricing info, direct email contact and a phone number on every page header.
You also need a list of customers to use as references. -- These people recommend us !!
Personally, you need some better photos.
Some without swirly tractor marks, or directional cut marks would be nice. As would some showing the picture
perfect lawn, not lawns with brown patches.

As far as marketing, get a few thousand oversized postcards or handbills printed (5x7) or (5.5x8.25) .
Distribute them by hand, rubberband them to the outside of mail or paper boxes, or on door handles.

Copy could say something like:

We currently have customers in your area/neighborhood, and would love to add you to our satisfied customer list.
Include contact info and web address.
Offer free quotes, new customer discounts, season long discounts.
Distribute twice, a month apart, starting on tax day.

 

[gibletts]

Re: Help with my business

One other thing I was going to mention "Z" is the worst letter to have as the first letter in the name of your business, it puts you to the back of the yellow pages, we put a random "A" in front of our name, stands for nothing but we always get the first call when someone is trolling through the directory.

 

[bruceb58]

Re: Help with my business

One other thing I was going to mention "Z" is the worst letter to have as the first letter in the name of your business, it puts you to the back of the yellow pages, we put a random "A" in front of our name, stands for nothing but we always get the first call when someone is trolling through the directory.

Very good point!

 

[Splat]

Re: Help with my business

Though this bears some weight, studies have shown it's not nearly as important as one may think. Studies also have shown that using names like A1 landscaping (getting both the first letter and number to come up first) gives end customers a sense of "generic" and thus unprofessional feelings towards a particular company. Your company name will often be your customers first impression of your operation. Make it count.

Keep your equipment clean. You don't have to be the cheapest price to get the business. But you do need to be professional. Clean looking trucks, professional looking employees(t shirts are fine, but not with the arms ripped off), painted trailers without rusted out wheel wells, all help to convey this point. Even little things like your employees riding around on a lawnmower with a cigarette hanging outta their mouth can leave a lasting impression. I know were talking about landscaping, but people like to have peace of mind for the company they hire. Your employees actions all day long convey your business practices to your customers. The better you look, the more you can charge. Like I said you don't have to be the cheapest, merely the best.

When I used to landscape another trick we used to do, is have a few professionally made yard signs made up. After completing a large project such as a yard install, or a retaining wall, place the sign in that customers front yard to put your company name with the new work.

 

[Splat]

Re: Help with my business

Also forgot to add, offering snow plowing contracts with "insurance" is a great way to get contracts. I would NEVER do a contract on a per push basis, however i'd offer yearly with "insurance". Basically you need to determine your average per pushes per year. You base your contract price on that number. However to save yourself you give a leeway of say 3-5 pushes. If you are forced to plow an account 3-5 times more than your average quoted snow fall, the contract is then seasonally priced, plus a per push rate. Likewise if it's a light winter and you push 3-5 times less than your quoted average your customer is due for a X amount of refund.

Especially in a climate like here in norther Ohio where winter is such a crap shoot, a well written contract like this has helped immensely with securing contracts with otherwise leery customers. This gives the customer a warm cozy feeling cause they won't be over charged, and you a cushion in a saturated winter. Obviously the trick is to estimate your averages a bit in your favor.

Bill

 

[eastont]

Re: Help with my business

Never, ever operate a business without insurance. As stated previously a rock, gas spill or the dreaded law suit will end it all and could have some long term problems.

As far as advice, this web site is excellent: http://www.lawnsite.com/index.php

I found when I was putting in my water feature, lots of info.

 

[avenger79]

Re: Help with my business

around here we have a monthly coupon book that comes in the mail. not very expensive to put an ad in them. (relatively speaking) printed flyers in newspaper boxes, name on the trucks, and trucks look good. if your truck looks like a rat, I don't want it in my drive. my wife runs her own cleaning business, these things have worked well for her. don't rely on a site only.

don't be afraid to put on a little perfume and walk around a new subdivision and introduce yourself and tell them of your service.

appearance is everything. don't go looking cheesy and don't look homeless. speak professionally and directly. don't stutter and "um yeah" a lot.

as mentioned smoking employees. especially now days that's a big no no. especially in someone's yard who is willing to pay for their upkeep.

good luck.

 

[korygrandy]

Re: Help with my business

As far as the website is concerned, the most important part is to make it informative. Don't treat it as an online business card, treat it as an extension of yourself. Make the site convert the lead. Add a quick quote section where they can submit there info to you and you get back within 24hrs with a quote. Some people don't like talking face to face and therefore they go online (introverts, busy people, etc).

Give the user as much useful information as you can on your site so they will be educated when they make that first contact with you.

Put a section on there showing diseased lawns with pictures as examples, explain the disease and the solution you have to resolve it.

Lawncare is a highly competitive market where I am...good luck! When you get your first government contract you might want to consider yourself a Land Management Company rather than a lawn service comapny.

I think I might opt to have my land managed, before I had me lawn serviced...this is just me though.

Get setup with Google Analytics so you can see where your sites traffic is being generated from. This also helps you realize where your leads are coming from.

Google your competition, be one step ahead of them. If they are listed higher in Google, find out why because everyone starts at the same level online. With 0 visitors in a vast vast online world.

Sign up for Google Business, and make sure you have your business on Google Places...if not you will be pushed below all the lawn companies that DO have a map tied to there business.

One way you can get ranked higher in Google is to get linkbacks which is someone else linking to your site. The sites that get the most traffic and link to you will be the ones generating your leads so cater to them.

I could ramble on and on about this as I design websited for Small Busiensses. I see lots of great ideas, and not so great ideas but the bottom line, if your customers are happy at the end of the day good things will happen. There is no magical way to drive people to your site without being famous or blasting your word of mouth.

As for the business:
Word of mouth, word of mouth, word of mouth! Make sure everyone always knows what your business is. Any person you encounter is a potential client and should be treated this way. If you can relate to your potential client you have a better chance of converting the lead.

You might want to get involved with the local business community, if the other local business owners admire you, they will refer you, and they see a lot more people in a day then the average Joe. If they REALLY like you they will do some advertising FOR you.

I like the idea of approaching realtors, inspectors, anyone that is involved in the sale of a house. You want to become these people's go to lawn service where they know they can rely on you to have that lawn mowed the day of the showing, or the day of the sale. If i was a realtor I would make sure everyone's lawn was mowed before they moved in, I mean come on you know the new homeowner would be running around saying the realtor even mowed the lawn for us so we could focus on getting settled in.

 

[foodfisher]

Re: Help with my business

Clean, crisp, professional appearance in an upscale neighborhood, will net more time to fish, with the same income, as busting your butt anywhere . Lacking proper punctuation, what I just said is similar to. "you can fall in love with a rich person just as easily as falling in love with a poor person"

 

[WIMUSKY]

Re: Help with my business

Well, I tried to send a post on this subject and it errored out. It was too long to start all over. So I'll give a condensed version.

I too am in the lawn and snow business. You need to get insurance TOMORROW. All it takes is one accident and your life could change forever.

Don't overextend yourself. Stick to what you specialize in. Expand as the finances dictate. Business have gone under because they tried to do everything for everybody.

As far as your website. Your portfolio needs to pop. You want people to say "wow" when they look at it. The first pic is good, the second isn't bad except for the human shadow and the rest are a lttle drab. Not trying to be mean just pointing out what I see. Add pics of your equipment, especially if you have quality machinery.

Try and get mutli year contracts. It's good for the customer and you. For the customer, they don't have to bid out a job every year. For you, you know you are guarunteed a contract for x amount of years. This may enable you to upgrade equipment knowing you have this money coming in. Then there's always a good chance of renewing another multi year deal if the are happy with your work. I have a many contracts that worked out this way.

Word of mouth is everything. With advertising, especially in papers, I was throwing money out the window. If you do good work, word travels like wildfire.

 

[avenger79]

Re: Help with my business

Word of mouth is everything. With advertising, especially in papers, I was throwing money out the window. If you do good work, word travels like wildfire.

this is very true. most of my wife's work comes from word of mouth. ads catch a new client once in a while so we try to maintain the ads but word of mouth always seems to get 90% of her clients that are regulars.

 

[WIMUSKY]

Re: Help with my business

Something else about insurance, not only will it protect you from financial disaster, it is also a requirement for most, if not all, commercial accounts. I have to provide proof of insurance for those accounts.

Also, not sure if you live in a bigger city or are more rural, but, plowing out cell towers is lucrative. I had a guy in Arizona call me last year to open up the drives for various towers. That's where being in the yellow pages paid off. He manages a bunch of towers around here. I e-mailed him earlier this fall to express that I am interested again this year. Just received a call from him to open up a new tower. Truck is warming up as we speak.

Also, I contact all my regular customers at least once a year by a flyer in the mail outlining that years contracts. I do it in the spring b/4 summer work and again in the fall for snow plowing. Send them magnetic business cards too so they can put it on their fridge. That way it's always handy and their friends may see it too....

Gotta go.......

 

[aspeck]

Re: Help with my business

Zach, I would have trouble hiring you if I looked at the website ... First thing I could not read your logo. What does it say under the ZKS Lawn Service? Next, I was not impressed with the pictures ... the grass had brown patches ... is that what I get with you? The pavers looked dirty and the one where you are showing the finish (nice finish around the window well, btw) also shows what appears to be a broken paver.

I only want to reinforce what has been said ... with lawn service, it is about appearance. I don't hire someone just to do what I don't have time for, I hire someone to do MORE than I can do ... make my lawn look great. I don't see any of your equipment or employees in the pictures, leading me to assume you are a one horse business and you can't take a picture of yourself on your equipment. If I want a young kid to mow my grass and shovel my walks, then you are my guy. But if I want lawn maintenance, I better look elsewhere.

I don't mean to be brutal, but that is the impression I get from looking at the website. That said, I would never look at a website to make my decision on lawn maintenance ... it would be because of referals ... people that I know that have worked with you, or seen your work. I know when I wanted some major lawn work done I asked a contractor friend who he would recommend, because he has worked with several.

So go to different contractors, agree to sub-contract for them, etc. Above all, realize that if people have enough disposable income to have their lawns "professionally cared for" then they are not looking for the cheapest route, they are looking for the BEST. Present yourself as the best ... make it look like you are not just anyone off the street who bought a lawn mower and is looking to pay it off! Get insured NOW, and state that you are insured. Look the part of a professional.