www.gopherforum.com When most landscapers start up their business, they tend to start with a truck only. Then later they may add an open trailer. At a certain point you may be asking yourself whats better to have, an open or enclosed trailer and why? Thats the question one of our new forum members asked and he quite a few responses I think will help you make up your mind as well. Brandon Hi everyone my name is Brandon and I am the president of my own landscape & maintenance corp. I have been in business for 9 years and hope to find continued success long into the future. I was wondering if anyone could provide me with some positive and negative attributes of an enclosed trailer as opposed to an open utility trailer to move lawn care equipment from job to job? I have an open trailer now and I am thinking of making the switch over to an enclosed one. Keith: I can think of a few pros and cons of the top of my head. Pros: – Ability to lock. – Protection from rain. – Larger area to put name/logo/phone number. – Looks more professional. – Possible increased slipstreaming giving better gas milage (offset by weight, Im sure). – Ability to put shelves/storage areas. – Protects cargo from rocks kicked up by your truck. – Winter storage. Cons: – Increased cost. – Increased axle and tongue weight. – Inability to load from top (leaves, mulch, dirt). This is the biggest negative I can think of. – Doesnt air out well when mower has wet grass or fuel fumes. – Reduced freedom of movement …
Posts Tagged ‘Marketing’
Open or enclosed landscape trailer? – GopherHaul Lawn Care Business Marketing Forum Show
GopherHaul 30 – Landscaping and Lawn Care Marketing Business Forum Show.
www.gopherforum.com Which lawn care business logo would you choose? At first glance, you would think choosing a lawn care business logo would be easy. Just pick the one that for whatever reason, stands out to you. Maybe the color, maybe the boldness, maybe the way it looks on your truck. But as we will see in this discussion there is more to choosing a lawn care business logo than just those issues. Lawn guy wrote on the Gopher Lawn Care Business Forum opinions please, there is one lawn care business logo I like the best but I want to get a general opinion on this thanks. Tom wrote I like the smiley face logo one the best. The smiling face says Im confident and want to be a friend of the customer. You will be as happy with the results as I am producing them. Lawn guy responded I like that one also. I live in a very rural country area were everyone is kind of scared of big businesses so I think it kinda shows a home town feel too. I am not exactly sure why, but its just different. Its more personal and associated rather than an industrial or high tech style logo. Does that make any sense? Tom: It does to me! Seek friendship and indicate your desire to help solve their problems. I like the idea as well. I do feel it conveys friendliness and fun. It makes me think the owner would be approachable and easy to work with. You could have business cards that say Steve The Lawn Guy. And then you could become known in your area as the lawn guy. You could make promotional videos that …
Lawn care customer Welcoming Kit – GopherHaul Lawn Care Business Marketing Podcast.
www.gopherforum.com Hello everyone and welcome to Gopherhaul. If you haven’t started your lawn care business yet, what are you waiting? If you don’t start your lawn car business this year, you’ll be at least a year older when you do so get started today. In today’s discussion I want to talk about a couple of topics. First off, if you haven’t seen all the new lawn care marketing design options on the Gopher Forum, you have to visit the site. When you get to the forum click on the link at the top that says “Design It Yourself.” You will see you can design lawn care logos, animated banner ads and now lawn care flyer and lawn care door hangers. This is just fantastic! You don’t need to be artistic. You don’t even need a graphics program. Just choose the background you want to use. Maybe the aeration flyer? Or the de-thatching door hanger? Then type in your lawn care company contact information, the services you offer and a few eye catching headlines and the online designer will create a pdf file for you. You can print that file out or save it or take it to a printer and have them print it out. With all these online designers, your lawn care business is going to look like a million bucks! Try them out today. Next up is how to create a lawn care customer welcoming kit. Are you giving all of your new lawn care customers a Welcoming Kit? If you arent you should start doing it. This is something that can really help keep your customers from leaving you. You can join this …
Two simple lawn care business success tips. – GopherHaul 54 Lawn Care Marketing Show
www.gopherforum.com – How do I get new lawn care customers? How can I find more success in the lawn care industry? These are two of the big questions we often see on the Gopher Lawn Care Business Forum. What amazes me is that all too often, business owners are looking for some secret to doing this when in reality it comes down to doing the basics and doing them well. Here are two examples of what it takes to be successful in the lawn care industry. One lawn care business owner wrote Everyone on here is asking how to grow their business all the time. We see a lot of the same questions over & over & thats fine. You want to know my response? I just want to say read this… http Ifyou are in need of free lawn care marketing material for your lawn care business, please visit our site at www.gophersoftware.com. We have hundreds of free lawn care logo, flyer, door hanger and web templates you can download and use for your lawn care business. We also have free lawn care business contracts, estimate and proposal forms. Download our trial version of Gopher Lawn Care Business Software. Gopher will help your lawn care business schedule and invoice more customers in less time, allowing you more time to grow or enjoy your life. Check out my lawn care business blog at http and my lawn care business forum at www.gopherforum.com and visit http
Collections at the end of the lawn care season – GopherHaul Lawn Care Business Marketing Podcast
www.gopherforum.com – Are you finding it difficult to collect on your overdue lawn care business accounts? Are your lawn care customers holding off on paying? This article should help you with some tips and tricks on how to collect payments. Gary got on the Gopher Lawn Care Business Forum and asked last year was my first year running my lawn care business. I made it through the whole season with only one lawn care client failing to pay. Now that the end of the season is here, I have several (previously prompt paying) customers who have failed to pay their final bill. Is this something out of the ordinary or is it common around the holiday season? Frank This happens to me all the time. Last season I had a property manager owe me $1500.00 and it took him until Feb to finally pay. And as of now I still have some past due accounts but it is just normal and I know that after a few mailings or a phone call it will finally trickle in. The holidays, the economy and peoples ignorance are most likely the causes. Just remember it and either dont work for them next season or just accept the fact they are late payers and you definitely have to keep on them! Steve: What kinds of things should a lawn care business owner do to get those bills paid that are lagging from last season and how long should they wait before they take further steps? Frank: Well this is what I do. First send the lawn care customer a copy of your invoice with Past Due stamped on it. If you hear nothing after a few …
How a few calls landed some big jobs. GopherHaul 59 Lawn Care Marketing Show
www.gopherforum.com – A great way to get jobs is to keep your eyes open when you are out driving around town. If you see a site that seems like it could use your services, don’t wait for the land owner to come to you, go to them. That is exactly what this lawn care business owner did and as soon as he decided to be proactive, he found a lot more work. He shared his story with us on the Gopher Lawn Care Business Forum. He wrote “I have a huge cemetery right next to my house. It is also right next to a school. Well in the winter months, I noticed that the sidewalks were not taken care of at all and the kids were walking in the street to avoid the sidewalk. The sidewalk is long too, about 1 mile if you add it up the total length. Since I offer snow removal services in the winter, I thought this would be a great bid to land so I politely called them to ask if my company could take care of the sidewalk for them. They initially told me they were not responsible for the sidewalks and therefore did not need for me to remove the snow. I thought they were mistaken and decided investigate this further. I then called the city to see who is responsible for these sidewalks and they told me the cemetery was! Ifyou are in need of free lawn care marketing material for your lawn care business, please visit our site at http We have hundreds of free lawn care logo, flyer, door hanger and web templates you can download and use for your lawn care business. We also have free lawn care business …
GopherHaul 26 – Lawn Care Marketing Business Forum Show
Title: GopherHaul 26 – Lawn Care Marketing Business Forum Show Show description: Hello and welcome to GopherHaul 26 – Lawn Care Marketing Business Forum Show GopherHaul breaks the 1000000 view mark! Thank you everyone for watching us! New 1-on-1 private lawn care business consulting forum added. I just added a new section to the Gopher Lawn Care Business Forum. This section will fill a gap that I have seen for quite some time. I have met a few very talented businessmen and lawn care business authors who are able to assist in answering questions on the forum. However they were not able to dedicate the amount of time that they could have because of other commitments. So I asked them, if we set up a private forum area where a reader paid a subscription fee of $19.95 a month to get 1-on-1 business consulting advice, would they be able to make time to assist the forum readers? They both agreed, so lucky for us, we now have access to tap into their insights and thoughts for business advice. If you are running a lawn care business and are in need of business advice that will put you ahead of your competition by leaps and bounds all for less than the price of mowing one lawn per month, we have a great service for you. To sign up, either visit the Gopher Lawn Care Business Forum or visit Keith’s site at www.startalawncarebusiness.com or visit Ken’s website at http and you can sign up for a subscription from either lawn care business expert. Is It Too Late To Start Your Lawn Care …
GopherHaul 38 Lawn Care Business Marketing Show – How to get 20 new lawn care customers.
www.gopherforum.com – Nothing helps us learn how to be successful than to hear stories from those who have found success and then ask them how they did it. A new lawn care business owner shared with us his story on the Gopher Lawn Care Business Forum on how he went from 3 to 20 lawn care customers in all of 3 months. I was able to talk with him and get some insights as to how he did it. I hope this discussion really helps you grow your lawn care business. He wrote I just opened up my very own lawn business. I am very fortunate to have opened it when I did, because my first few months I have seen a jump in clientele. I first got started in the lawn care business by working with my father doing property maintenance at his home building company. My job included mowing all of his model homes and properties. I serviced 25 properties for 3 years. As I worked for him, together we set up a lawn trailer including a Toro 52″ z-turn, John Deere 48″ walk behind and assorted sticks edgers and trimmers, and back pack blowers. So having all of this equipment in my hands I decided to start my own company and expand it past his properties. At the same time I started leasing his equipment from him. This made it very easy to start since I did not have to go out and purchase most of this equipment in one lump sum. I have the experience of cutting grass, but its with the buisness side I need to become an expert on to make lots of money. That is what has brought me to this forum. I have …
GopherHaul 21 – Lawn Care Marketing Business Show
Title: GopherHaul 21 – Lawn Care Marketing Business Show Show description: Hello and welcome to GopherHaul 21 — Lawn Care Marketing Business Show. In this episode we will be talking about GopherHaul breaks the 500000 view mark! Thank you everyone for watching us! For a more in depth reading of our show, make sure you download the latest GopherHaul episode guide in pdf format. You can download this and previous episode guides here. Inspirational Story: When you are having trouble envisioning yourself starting your own business and you just can’t imagine it happening. Or you feel the odds are stacked against you, I want to share with you two stories that will inspire you to say yes you indeed can get your business started. I was able to get a chance to meet two great entrepreneurs who run their own lawn care business. What’s so unique about them? They are both 14 years old and don’t even have a drivers license yet! The first entrepreneur I want to talk about is Mitch. He wrote me a short time ago to say “My name is Mitch, and I’m fourteen years old, and own my own lawn care company, DreamScapes Landscaping. I started when i was ten, mowing my neighbors yard and things have grown a lot since then! Either my dad or my grandma tows me around with my dad’s Jeep and this year I can drive with my permit with my new truck! I just bought a 1999 Chevy 2500.” Check out the post he made and see pictures of his fleet with includes his truck, trailer and several mowers and trimmers …
GopherHaul 25 – Lawn Care Marketing Business Show
Title: GopherHaul 25 – Lawn Care Marketing Business Show Show description: Hello and welcome to GopherHaul 25 – Lawn Care Marketing Business Show In this episode we will be talking about GopherHaul breaks the 900000 view mark! Thank you everyone for watching us! Lawn Care Business Question: “I need help selling my accounts.” Greenmind wrote us “I am selling my accounts this week to a local landscaper. He wants to pay me in 3 payments. Over a 3 month period or 90 days as people stay with the new company. Also he does not want to pay the initial payment until all customers are contacted. Is he buying my business or my customers? Also is the 90 day period normal or am I being to generous, I have talked with several people and they seem to think that he is taking some risk by buying my accounts and thats part of the business and some suggest that I charge more for letting him pay over 90 days. What do you guys think? Any help with someone with experience in this area would be very helpful. I don’t want to get taking on this transaction. I worked very hard to get and keep these customers.” A bunch of the Gopher Lawn Care Forum members responded in this post www.gophergraphics.com Lawn Care Business Podcast Discussion: I had a great podcast interview with Author Ken Lavoie. Of lawnguru.net 1. We talked about the pitfalls of buying too much new too soon, Ken calls this ‘Iron Addiction.’ 2. How ego effects business decisions and how to control it. 3. Then we talked about what …
