What You Need to Know Before Starting A Lawn Care Company

So, you are finally thinking of taking that leap and starting your own lawn care company.

You’ve done all of the math, bought the equipment, and have already started to advertise your services.

But there are a few things that you should know before you jump right in and begin working.

These tips are what is going to make running your company a smoother and less chaotic process as you will be prepared for some of the things that may eventually come up.

The Importance of Reviews

One thing that you really have to keep in mind, especially in the begin of your company, is that reviews are what can make or break your reputation.

Lawn maintenance can be a pretty saturated business, and if you have acquired a bad reputation from negative reviews you can count on being the last company that people would pick.

Good reviews are what can propel your company forwards and help you gain a full clientele within weeks of starting up your lawn care business.

But negative reviews are even more powerful.

One negative review can completely wipe out ten good ones as that one review can spread to potential clients and make them doubt your company’s value.

This is important especially during the beginning phase of your company as a negative review could put you completely out of business as the worst-case scenario.

As your company expands and you get more clients, you're bound to find a few people who just won’t be pleased, resulting in negative reviews.

But if you’re a larger company people will be more understanding of that, and your positive reviews will end up outweigh the bad ones.

Unpredictable Work Flow

Now, this might be something that you already thought of while getting ready to start your lawn care company and that is the possibility of unpredictable work.

Lawn care can be a seasonal business which means that you might find yourself with no jobs during the fall and winter seasons.

The best way to make up for that is to offer a variety of seasonal services such as leaf raking and shoveling snow to try to maintain a few jobs throughout those seasons.

Even if you do offer seasonal services, you should also have money set aside for those slower months just to make up for the income that you might lose.

Another factor that could affect your flow of work is change in the economy.

You could lose a large chunk of the clientele that you have accumulate because of economy changes which is why it’s important to think ahead and prepare.

Make sure you have a variety of clientele such as higher end neighborhoods and businesses to balance out the effects from possibly losing your homeowner clientele.

Changes in the economy will affect everyone so you will have to cut your losses, but you will at least maintain a portion of your clients.

Competition

Lawn care businesses is a very competitive form of work as there are usually many lawn care companies in your local area. Starting and growing a lawn care company is easier than you think.

Because of that you have to make sure something makes your company stand out from the rest.

Whether that be unique services that you offer, more detailed services, more professional advertising. Something has to stand out to your potential clients in order to bypass the competition.

If your lawn care company looks just like every other company out there, then you need to take a step back and figure out what makes your company the better option.

Until you figure that out and can portray that to your clientele, you will just be another lawn care business.

What You Look Like Matters

Now I know you’re thinking that you are going to be outside working in the dirt, under the sun, getting sweaty. So why do you need to look presentable?

Well, appearances do matter–even when it comes to lawn care companies where most of your time is going to be spend outdoors working.

Uniforms are what sets you apart and makes you look like a real, professionally run lawn care company.

Who would you trust more? The guy who shows up in dirty clothes that are torn and stained or the person who shows up in something that portrays their brand.

It doesn’t have to be anything fancy. If you are starting a lawn mowing business with little or no money, you could just have a shirt with the company logo on it with a clean pair of pants.

Especially when you begin to hire on workers you need to make sure that everyone looks like they are part of a company and not just your average Joe who mows lawns.

Having uniforms of some kind will help your company to be seen as more professional and will help you and your crew to feel like they are presenting the company.

Difficulties When Growing

There are a lot of ways in which a lawn care company can grow and expand but there are difficulties once you get to a certain point.

Once you begin to hire-on more workers, the insurance side of things can become more and more difficult.

There are specific types of legal rules that you must adhere to once you begin to hire on payed workers and it only gets more complicated as your company grows.

For this reason, some lawn care companies only expand to a certain point then stop adding on workers and clients to avoid the legal problems.

Whether you decide to only grow to a certain extent or to figure out the legal loopholes, it’s important to do your research for your area to make sure that you're hiring legally and following all of the rules.

So, you can see that there are just a few things that you need to know before diving head first into running your lawn care company. Lawn care is a pretty straight forward business and if you are prepared for some of the challenges ahead you can end up saving yourself some costly and stressful mistakes and situations.