www.gopherforum.com Trying to figure out how much to charge for snow plowing can be pretty tough. If you charge too much, you wont get any jobs. If you charge too little you wont make any profit. Now it is important to keep in mind what the going rate for snow plowing services is in your…
Posts Tagged ‘Podcast’
How to use the snow plow estimate calculator – GopherHaul Lawn Care Business Forum Podcast
12
Dec
How to estimate gutter cleaning – GopherHaul Lawn Care Business Marketing Podcast
04
Oct
www.gopherforum.com If you are looking to submit some bids this season to clean leaves out of your customers gutters make sure you read this article first. John got on the Gopher Lawn Care Business Forum and asked his gutter cleaning question. He wrote I have been asked by a neighbor to do a gutter cleanup. She has gutter shields in place but wants to make sure everything is cleaned out and down spouts are good. Her house is 2200sq. and about half of the home has gutters. I do not think this job will take over 1.5 hours but have no idea what to charge her. I have never done this for money just on my own and folks house. Any help would be appreciated. One of our forum members responded by saying I charge $1.00 per foot for a single story and $2.00 per foot on a 2 story. For people I have lawn contracts with I do it free Spring and Fall. I found that a 2 liter soda bottle (cut down) works well for cleaning the gutters. Its pliable enough to get down into the gutter. Take a bucket with you to but the debris in. If you just dump it on the ground, the mess is harder to clean up than the gutters are. I have been doing a national survey with those who provide gutter cleaning services and the charge of $1 to $2 per linear ft seems to be standard across the country. You would charge more for gutters that are higher up or more difficult to get to than lower ones. Here are some common beginner pitfalls lawn care business owners find when offering gutter cleaning. * On my first job …
Compare your lawn care prices, Rate your lawn care equipment – GopherHaul Lawn Care Business Podcast
01
Sep
www.gopherforum.com If you haven’t started your business yet, what are you waiting for? If you don’t start your business this year, you’ll be at least one year older when you do so get started today. In today’s episode of GOpherHaul I will be talking about, How much do you charge to perform…
Free Lawn Care Door Hanger Template and Website Design – GopherHaul Lawn Care Business Podcast
24
Aug
www.gopherforum.com I was having a great discussion on the Gopher Lawn Care Business Forum with my friend Jeff and he was sharing with me some of his experiences trying to market his lawn care business. You can read more on this lawn care business discussion here on the GopherHaul Lawn Care Business Forum. Jeff When I worked with the previous lawn care business employer they did a lot of telephone soliciting and door hanger marketing. Here in our part of the state, almost all the towns limit door knocking and require that you go to the town hall or police station, pay for a background check, and wait for a permit until the background check comes back. Therefore, we didnt do much of that. So we would hang door hangers saying things like, Check out your neighbors yard. Doesnt it look great? Dont you want your yard to look that good? Then we would get their phone number out of a reverse directory and call them until they threatened to call the police. Now I go out and hang lawn care door hangers marketing my materials. I generally try to do that on weekends hoping that Ill catch someone working out in there yard. Again, I use the soft sell technique. Generally, something like, wouldnt you rather be spending time doing something else right now? If theres kids around I use that to my advantage. I have kids of my own and I say things like, they wont be this small for long, trust me. Quit spending your weekends working in your yard. I can free up your weekend for $XX.XX, but …
Lawn care customer Welcoming Kit – GopherHaul Lawn Care Business Marketing Podcast.
06
Aug
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 …
Collections at the end of the lawn care season – GopherHaul Lawn Care Business Marketing Podcast
27
Jul
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 …
