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7 Lawn Care Business Tips, Tricks, & Secrets

Published on April 9, 2020

It’s natural to wonder about the competition’s top lawn care business tips, tricks, & secrets to growing.

In this article, we will examine everything needed to beat the competition with insider secrets to things like:

  • Unique branding
  • Winning great clients
  • Properly priced services
  • The best lawn care software
  • Choosing the right equipment

By the end of this article, you’ll know the top lawn care business tips, tricks, & secrets to develop a successful business.

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1. Maximize Profits by Properly Pricing Services

Many lawn care owners think they can generate more money by lowering prices. However, this could not be further from the truth.

In reality, you should focus on maximizing profits for potential future business growth.

Keep in mind, about half of all small businesses fail within the first 5 years.

This is primarily because many small businesses aren’t properly pricing their lawn care services for maximum profit.

Rather than striving to be the lowest price, your lawn care business should strive to provide the highest quality of services possible.

By putting your best foot forward, you’re bringing value to clients. In turn, you’re simultaneously proving your services are worth a higher price tag.

As you determine the best price, here are a few factors to consider:

  • The business owner’s salary
  • Employee wages
  • The cost of your lawn care software
  • Your office building (e.g. rent, utilities, etc.)
  • Transportation (e.g. cost of vehicle, gas, insurance, etc.)

In addition, it’s important to consider the desired profit for the growth of your business.

After all, you’ll need enough profit to cover additional costs that come with growing, such as:

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2. Stand Out from the Competition With Unique Branding

Copying the competition is one of the oldest and least effective methods in growing your business.

In fact, copying the competition can actually destroy your business.

By far, pricing is one of the most notorious ways lawn care owners copy their competition.

In the beginning, many new lawn owners believed the best way to sell more work was by providing the cheapest price.

However, these “lowballers” typically only attract low-quality clients, and many end up shortly going out of business.

By copying the competition’s pricing, you rob the business of everything making it unique

In other words, copying competitors means you no longer stand out to clients in the midst of other lawn care businesses. 

Here are some other major reasons to not copy the competition:

  1. Your competitors are doing it wrong.
  2. You’re not taking your own costs into account (i.e. labor, equipment, and etc.).
  3. Your ideal clients care about VALUE over price

Remember, emphasizing value is the best way to gain more clients.

Plus, accurately determine how much profit you want to make by setting your own prices.

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3. Find and Fix Profit Holes By Focusing on Finances

The majority of lawn care business owners struggle with their finances, and it’s killing their businesses.

However, most businesses can be saved by prioritizing finances as soon as possible.

These are a few reasons most lawn care owners are financially struggling:

  • Overspending
  • Not setting your business up for the future
  • Don’t want to admit your business is losing money

No business is immune to everyday financial struggles. Therefore, every lawn care business has the opportunity to increase their efficiency - even if it’s by a small percentage.

A small percentage of increased efficiency might not seem significant. If your lawn care business makes $1 million in revenue a year, that’s an extra $20,000 in your bank account, annually!

Simply admitting your business can improve is the first major step toward fixing your financial struggles.

Then, seek counsel from a CPA (i.e. Certified Public Accountant) to see where you can maximize spending.

4. Purchase High-Quality, Reliable Equipment

Your lawn care crew is only as good as the equipment you’re providing for them.

Which means, every time a piece of equipment breaks down, you’re hemorrhaging profits.

As a result, it’s important the equipment you're purchasing is as reliable and efficient as possible.

New vs. Used Lawn Care Equipment

If you’re wondering if you should buy equipment new or used lawn care equipment, it depends on your business needs

Ideally, everyone wants to purchase new equipment because it’s considered  safer.

However, if you’re new to the game, new equipment might not be an option.

Alternatively, buying used equipment can be extremely cost-efficient. Though, if you do it wrong, it can also cost you more than it’s worth.

For this reason, you should NEVER buy equipment that’s been previously used in a business.

Equipment that was previously used in a business may be on its last leg.

For this reason, it’s probably best if it goes to a homeowner who won’t put it through the wringer as much.

Remember, your local dealer is the best place to find both new and used equipment.

No matter which option you choose, be sure there’s some sort of commercial warranty in case something goes wrong.

5. Choose the Right Clients for Your Lawn Care Business

While getting new clients is a primary goal, if you accept or keep the wrong clients, you’ll likely end up losing money.

Here are a few signs you’ve got a bad client:

  • They’re your least favorite client.
  • They refuse to yield a single inch.
  • They’re not meeting your profit goals.
  • You’re spending excessive amounts of time on them.
  • They complain ALL the time and are never happy with your work.
  • You’re bending over backwards to accommodate their every whim.
  • You’re not earning as much profit on their account compared to other clients.

It’s better to find and maintain the RIGHT clients than to waste your time and efforts on the troublemaker clients.

By freeing up these extra resources, you can refocus your efforts on capturing more ideal, profitable clients.

With that said, sometimes bad clients can be transformed into profitable ones.

If you decide it’s worth a try, you can adjust their pricing based on the amount of time the job requires.

However, before making the decision to transform an unprofitable client into a profitable one, it’s important to set ground rules.

6. Target Messaging to the Right Audience

Earlier, we briefly discussed identifying your ideal lawn care client using a client persona.

Now that you’ve identified your ideal client, you know which audience to target in your marketing efforts.

As a result, you’re ensuring marketing efforts are being spent only on winning ideal clients.

How to Identify Your Ideal Lawn Care Clients

In order to identify your ideal lawn care clients, think about your favorite client.

For example, think about the client who makes you the most profit and genuinely appreciates your high-quality service.

Then, clone this ideal client using effective marketing strategies.

Keeping your favorite client in mind, these are a few ways to begin marketing to them:

Pay-per-click advertising (e.g. Google, Bing, Yahoo ads, etc.)

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7. The ULTIMATE Secret Behind Lawn Care Business Tips, Tricks, & Secrets

Growing a business is hard enough. However, doing it by yourself can be a whole different ball game.

The ultimate secret behind lawn care business tips, tricks, & secrets lies within the best lawn care software.

You need a software that’s specifically designed by lawn care owners, for lawn care owners. A software that NEVER stops working for you and always has your back.

Think of all the late nights you’ve spent at the office when crews have already left and gone home. 

You’re spending the night manually routing your jobs for tomorrow, and it’s taking forever. 

Imagine how much easier your job would be if you had software to automatically do this for you.

Instead of staying late at the office routing jobs, you can go home to eat dinner with your family - all while the software automatically optimizes routes for you.

With Service Autopilot, you’ll get:

  • Quick bulk invoicing
  • Automatic payments
  • Instantly scheduled visits
  • Remote calendar updates
  • Automatically optimized routes
  • Easy estimates from anywhere
  • Stored client information and history in one place

When you choose Service Autopilot, you can automate business growth, conquer goals, increase profits, and save time.

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Take Advantage of These Lawn Care Business Tips, Tricks, & Secrets

Always remember, the ultimate secret to growing a successful lawn care business is inevitably YOU.

After all, you have to be willing to make the necessary decisions to push past your biggest bottlenecks.

Pushing past those bottlenecks is not an easy task. 

Though, once you get past the growth ceiling, you’ll have the ability to conquer unbelievable goals leading to success.

Take your business to the next level by using these top lawn care business tips, tricks, & secrets today!


Related: Is There Money in the Lawn Care Business?


Originally published April 9, 2020 7:00 AM, Updated Nov 10, 2021 1:14 PM

Alyssa Sanders

Alyssa is the Team Lead of Content Marketing at Xplor Field Services. When she's not writing or creating content, you can find her watching a new sci-fi series or shoving her nose into a book.
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