work at home ideas

Learn the Lawn Care Business

home based business ideasOne nice thing about a lawn care business start up is: you set the hours and the days you work. You also decide who you work for and how many customers you have. Lots of varied customers can also mean a 'hedge' against bad times (pardon the pun). Even if you lose a few customers due to a slumping economy, you don't have to worry about the entire business falling apart. As long as plants keep growing someone has to maintain them.

Another positive thing about the lawn care business is: you don't have to put a lot of cash into getting started. You can start small and grow slowly - manage your risk and don't over-expose yourself. Start out residential grade lawn and garden equipment, and later you can move up to commercial lawn mowers and commercial lawn equipment.


Blowout Sale at Gardener's Supply Co.

The lawn care business is much more than simply lawn mowing. You must develop a number of skills to be able to meet your customers demands for quality lawn care and home garden maintenance. For example: What types of products are the best to use to care for the lawn. Does it make a difference if you use a mulching mower vs. a mower with a catch bag? What types of fertilizer are appropriate to use on different types of grass or other plants? How often should a lawn be watered and cut? Does the type of grass make a difference? There is quite a bit to learn but don't worry, we have a lot of links to help.

Some things you will need

There a few a few obvious tools you will need, and a few not-so-obvious items too:

  • Commercial Lawn Equipment (mower, clippers, trimmer, etc.. depending on your geographic area)
  • Transportation suitable to carrying your equipment (i.e. pickup with cover or similar)
  • Standard client contracts (for monthly service and one-off type jobs)
  • Proposal Forms
  • Estimating guidelines (can be found in on-line forums and through other sources)
  • Equipment maintenance schedule and replacement parts (blades, oil, nylon line etc..)
  • Knowledge of lawn and plant care
  • Promotional brochures, business cards
  • Business Plan (very important)

Start a lawn care businessIn addition to the above, you will need to know how to handle your customers in a professional manner. Basically YOU are your business. People buy from who they know and trust, so building up good contacts and a good reputation in your area is very important. Consider small ads in community papers, leaving your brochures in hardware stores, lawn care equipment retail stores, beauty salons - anywhere you think an interested consumer might decide to look for a lawn care company. Printing up flyers and distributing them around the neighborhood is also a good idea.

There are a lot of resources available on the web for the lawn care business. Here are a few places you can start:

Lawnsite.com - Lawn Care & Landscaping Business Forum with lots of "How To" and Product Showcase information for lawn care and landscape specialist. A good place to connect with others in the industry and get questions answered.

Lawncafe.com - Landscape and lawn care forum with a special advice section on starting a lawn care business.

Wikipedia - Landscape information by the webs largest encyclopedia.

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