How To Run A Lawn Care Business Successfully [Comprehensive Guide]

A landscaping design is a reason why homeowners spend a large amount of their money. This is because they want to give a refreshing look to their home that will probably add value to their home. And for that, they will need a person who runs or owns a lawn care business.

So, if you are willing to start a new lawn care business, you must know what lawn care providers do. Apart from investing time and money, you may require proper planning to expand your landscaping business.

At first, you might think all you want is a lawnmower, but let us tell you that the lawn care business is more than just cutting the grass.

Stepping into the landscaping industry, you need to consider the in-demand services of your clients. Here, we will share easy steps on how to run a lawn care business. With the growing landscaping industry, you can expect higher growth and these below-mentioned tips will help you to be at the top of your own business.

How to Run a Successful Lawn Care Business

Following the consultation with the lawn care business owners, we brought you some noteworthy points to remember before setting up a lawn care company. 

If you are planning to develop a successful lawn care business, but are unsure where to start? Follow these six steps to run a lawn care business smoothly.

1. Know Services to Be Offered 

   Before starting a successful lawn care business, you must know what are lawn care services you should offer to the residents. Once the customer books your services, you must offer different types of services to please the potential client.

   

   Basically, you need to understand the client’s demands and on the basis of that, decide which services you are lacking in your lawn care business.

    As a lawn care professional, you need to consider the following services:

   • Landscape installation
   • Lawn care equipment
   • Installation of flower beds
   • Mulching
   • Removal of trees and shrubs
   • Gardening works and maintenance

   However, these services are likely to hamper your budget as they will require specialized tools. Whenever there is a demand for eco-friendly services in your area, you can offer special discounts on services to compete with other successful lawn care businesses. This will let the interested customer come to your services first.

2. Develop a Plan and Organize the Team

   To run a successful lawn care business, you need to think in the right way to establish long-term services. Therefore, you should come up with a plan to organize fieldwork as well as in-house paperwork for office use. Also, determine what business structure you need to follow, whether in a partnership or sole proprietorship. 

   

   While setting up the business plan, also check if your company requires a business license or not. There will be no need for a license to conduct lawn mowing services, but if you include pesticides, then, you may require a business license from the local administration and registered an employer identification number.

   Also, you should organize a team to tackle any challenges in your lawn care business. When you are handling more than one lawn care service, you might not have an idea of your crew. In such cases, you should have proper communication with your team to perform multiple tasks. When you are a leader of your team make sure everyone receives proper instruction and the deadline to complete the job. 

   Also, ask them to share information from their end so that none of their efforts will be duplicated. To keep these hassles away, start using scheduling software like FieldCamp and automate most of your daily operations.

3. Purchase Necessary Lawn Care Equipment

   Coming up with a lawn care company means there will be a requirement of equipment and tools to carry out any type of landscaping project. Since most successful lawn care work depends on the condition of the outdoor living area, you will need small or large equipment ready for use.

   

   Your lawn care startup too will require the necessary equipment to operate your lawn care services. Most lawn care businesses use the below-stated tools and equipment for landscaping services.

   • Goggles for mowing
   • Earmuffs
   • Gloves for gardening works
   • Gas cans
   • Lawn bags
   • Lawn Mower
   • Edger
   • String trimmer
   • Blower
   • Weed eater
   • Leaf blower

   After purchasing these required items, you may need a transport vehicle to move your equipment from here and there. In case, you don’t have a transport facility, you will also need to purchase a commercial vehicle.

4. Decide Costs for Lawn Care Services

   Once you are ready with your equipment, set the price for the lawn care services that you want to offer. Just like other contractors, lawn care professionals too, take the visiting charges from their lawn care clients. If you are out for lawn maintenance or small repair work, you can ask for $30-$60 per visit.

   

   Other than that, lawn care business owners like you charge around $50 for the removal of grass and watering the flowers on the pathways. Actual prices may also differ according to the work done by the tradesmen. For instance, if the resident asks you to cut the tree, you can include extra charges in the final bill.

   For setting up the startup costs for a successful lawn care business, you can take help from an experienced person who is in the landscaping industry for a long time. Or else, analyze the total working area or size of the lawn and get your estimates using the online automated software. It is the easiest way to set competitive landscaping costs.

5. Advertise Business Via Online Marketing

   Establishing a lawn care company is not only enough as you will need marketing efforts to get new clients. As lawn care owners you will know how homeowners prefer a bright green lawn and to maintain that lawn they will extra care. Just like that, your lawn care company will need different marketing efforts to keep the attract new clients and achieve rapid growth in business.

   

   Below are the steps to promote your lawn care business using online strategies. 

   • Find out your competitors

     As a business owner of a lawn care company, you need to figure out the competitors via various marketing channels. Know what are the features they offer to their customers and how they please their potential clients. In short, you can pick out pros and cons which you can include or exclude in your lawn care company. This will help you to perform the next step too. 

   • Build your own website

     In the next step, build your new website and add a unique logo for your lawn care business. Introduce your current offers on the main web page and list out your services. It should look like a professional website so that visitors scroll the page down and check out the other services. Besides, offer them user-friendly support by mentioning your contact.

   • Use SEO strategies

     Following the website, put the relevant content like informative blogs and service guides for the customer’s use. Then, hire an SEO expert to bring your newly-developed website into the top rankings. This is how it would be easy for the online user to pick up your website whenever they are in need of lawn care services. 

   • Start email marketing

     Landscaping jobs usually get new customers when they promote their business via email marketing. And therefore, we recommend you reach out the new and existing clients by sending emails. Prepare a mailer that has the list of your landscaping services and the CTA button linking your website.

     Using such methods, you are allowing the clients to read the message at their convenience. Ultimately, potential clients would be interested in your services.

   • Run social media campaign

     Another step of marketing techniques includes the usage of Facebook, Instagram, and other social media platforms. This is exactly where you can advertise your business and expect more clients at the same time. Running social media marketing will attract homeowners not only from your service area but also from remote places.

   • Launch referral program

     Lastly, when you have customers approaching your services, don’t ask them to go empty-handed. Instead, request them to share reviews of your services. Let the online and offline users know that you have launched the referral program via social media campaigns. 

     In a referral scheme, let your customers get one-time free services if they recommend your services to their close ones. Such advertising through word of mouth will let you in more customers.

6. Adopt an Automated Software

   As soon as you start a lawn care company, you will have to invest more time in managing reports and chasing your scheduled tasks. It is not that easy where you can keep eye on ongoing activities. To get rid of these issues, we recommend you adopt automated lawn care software to keep the track of the crew and generate an invoice in just a few clicks.

   

   In quest of providing excellent customer service, you often forget to concentrate on the payment process and staff management. As a result, you are likely to lose your hard-earned money. If you don’t show up at the exact time of the next scheduled project, it will result in making your potential clients uninterested. Also, it is not a professional way to provide lawn care services.

   These types of troubles would never arise if you are using automated software like FieldCamp. The field service management software will allow you to manage your job scheduling, job dispatching, invoicing, payments, and reporting all under one roof.

   These easy steps would be effective if you’re coming up with a new lawn care business. Simply, you can follow them one after the other to mark your presence in the lawn care industry. Moving on, let us know the common questions related to the lawn care business.

Conclusion

These were the easy ways to start your lawn care business legally, which will help you do a profitable business. Now you know how you can get off the mark starting a lawn care business. Since you are beginning with a lawn care company from scratch, you should deal with patience in the initial stages. Later, your business will flourish as soon as you get new clients into repeat customers.

Inching closer to the end, we understood that it is necessary for business owners like you to form a business structure to begin work on a positive note. Even you can use the lawn care business software to automate your daily operations. Start your free trial using FieldCamp now and reduce your workload.