Are you looking for some very simple ways to grow a lawn care business? Here are some very simple and guaranteed tips on how to grow your own lawn care business and turn your start-up or company into a very successful venture.
Finding the first few customers to start out will be easy. But if you want to know how to grow your lawn care business into a successful business, you need a steady stream of new clients. The key is to get the word out and network.
There are so many ways to do so!
Do Your Market Research
Conduct a simple survey with your neighborhood homes and businesses. Ask people about their service providers, what they pay for lawn care, what services they like, and what more they would like to see. There are also ways to do this online via Facebook groups, Nextdoor, and other platforms.
In general, there are some common problems that many lawn care companies aren't good at. These include answering the phone, following up, consistency, and skills. Of course, there are others, but these are some opportunities to beat the competition that exists in nearly every market.
Design and Distribute Your Brochure
Next, plan your service programs for homes and businesses separately and design two simple brochures. Make sure that you include some of the important keywords that came up in your survey. In particular, mention the issues these people identified as your key offerings, such as excellent trimming.
Knowing a customer/prospects pain points or problems is one of the most valuable pieces of information you can have. The better you understand this, the better your marketing material will be.
Next, do a quick tour of the local neighborhood and deliver your brochures or business cards. You can drop them in mailboxes or even go up to doors and knock. This will help your potential customers to put your face with that of your lawn care business.
Go Out And Meet Your Potential Clients
The most old-fashioned way to get new customers is going door to door. I would only recommend this to a small company or someone just getting started. If you have more time than work, this is a pretty good way to almost guarantee you will get some work.
Manage Your Equipment
You may feel motivated to buy some of the best lawn care equipment out there, but it would be wise to resist this urge. Look at the lawn care equipment you already have and make the best use of that. Make a plan about what equipment you will buy next so that you can start investing in it as your lawn care business grows.
If you are serious about growing your company, it is important to get commercial equipment as soon as you can. I wouldn't recommend going into a lot of debt to do this though. Make sure you have cash flow, save some money, then buy commercial equipment. If you're an established company it isn't always a bad idea to have a little debt if its unavoidable.
Some related articles to get you started:
Best Commercial Zero Turn Mowers
Best Commercial Walk Behind Mowers
Build Your Team
You may not need a team right away, but when you plan to start and grow a lawn care business, there will be a time when you will need additional help. When the time comes to grow your team, you can choose to hire part-time or full-time workers. Before hiring, always ask for references, a practical demonstration of their work, and do a background check so that you can build the strongest team possible.
This is probably the biggest challenge lawn care companies face in today's time. It is very difficult to find good employees that show up everyday and do a good job. Let's face it… it is hard work and there are many other opportunities that don't involve manual labor.
That being said, it is still possible to find good employees. The key is to have a great company, plenty of work, and treat your employees well. Once you are able to find a good employee, it is then vitally important to keep that person on your team.
Tell Everyone
Your family, friends, former colleagues, and neighbors are all potential clients. Tell them all about your business and the amazing lawn care work you are doing. Always carry your business cards and give them to anyone you come across. You will be amazed to see how many of these will convert to possible leads.
People talk… a lot. It's important for you to be top of mind whenever someone brings up the topic of lawn care in your area.
Offer Incentives
Very frequently, your current customers can help you find more business without any additional effort on your part. Talk to your clients and offer them incentives for referring you to their friends and family or neighbors. People take recommendations for service providers, such as lawn care businesses, quite seriously and you can surely gain from the current client network.
Set Up Your Google my Business Page
This should be one of the first steps in taking your marketing efforts online. Google is one of the best places to be found because people are actively searching for your services. I have a tutorial on setting this up on my marketing ideas article. If you're familiar with the process you can sign up and claim your business page here.
Set Up Your Facebook Business Page
Your presence on Facebook is very important. Setting up a business page on Facebook is very simple and it will give you access to the large number of people who spend time on this social media network daily. You can post regular updates with pictures of your outstanding lawn care projects and use Facebook advertising to reach thousands of potential clients.
Use Other Social Media
Twitter, YouTube, Pinterest, and Instagram are some of the other very popular social media channels you can use to start and grow your lawn care business. Even if you do not get a lot of new customers from these forums, don’t be disappointed. You may end up finding new business partners for your lawn care business or learn from other similar businesses about their best practices.
Build Your Website
Your website is a very important part of your lawn care business. If you want to learn how to grow your lawn care business, building your website is an essential part of the process. This online presence will find you new customers while you are out working on your lawn care projects and even while you sleep!
The best part of a website is it's a 24×7 billboard for your company. You can use Google and social media to bring traffic to your site or it's a great place to send people that are interested in your services.
Check out this article to get you started with building a website for your company.
Use Testimonials
The power of personal reviews and testimonials is phenomenal. Ask your happy customers for positive reviews on your social media pages and Google to improve your professional online standing. You can also ask them for video testimonials that you can share on your Facebook page or your lawn care website.
Get Listed On The Online Directories
It is very easy to get your lawn care business listed on one or more online directories. Some of them allow free listing while others may charge you a small fee. These directories will help people get in touch with you while you work on the lawns you already have. This will also help with your Google rankings and ranking on the Google local map.
Sign Contracts
When signing new clients, always encourage them to sign a twelve-month contract. This will be very useful during the off-peak season during the winter. You may be surprised how many people feel motivated to sign an annual contract for an incentive, such as one-month free services.
When I ran my lawn care company I had 95% of my customers on annual contracts. The only customers not on a contract were some long time customers I had since I began and we just never really needed a contract. Other than the few, everyone was on a contract and billed monthly on the first day of the month. In my opinion, it was the best way to run the business (and still is) to avoid late payers and to increase cash flow.
Place An Advertisement
Your local newspaper is the best place to place your ad. Many people go through the classifieds when they are looking for a lawn care provider service. You are sure to get some good leads from your ad and your personalized follow-up will convert these into steady customers.
Networking Is Important
People prefer working with people they know. To improve your networking, attend local business events and meet new people. You may meet other businessmen or executives who may be looking for good lawn care services. Since lawn care providers are often more focused on their projects and less on networking, you will surely have an advantage over them.
Improve Your Customer Service
To improve your customer service, you must go beyond being friendly and willing to impress. You do not have to spend extra time on your lawn care work to provide good customer service. Instead, pay attention to how you listen to customers and respond. Responsiveness and reliability are the two biggest downfalls in the lawn care industry. If you stand out in these two areas it will go a long way with customers.
Find Lost Customers
If someone cancelled your lawn care services in the past, it is time to follow up on that. Be confident and ask them for feedback so that you can find out what went wrong. If it was due to something related to your services, and it may not be, you can ensure that you never lose another customer by learning from your mistakes.
Keep in mind that many people will come up with random excuses they canceled. Try your best to get the real reason by asking open ending questions. Always ask if they were happy with your service. Even if they say they were happy, ask them what could be improved.
Connect With Gardening And Landscaping Companies
Once you connect with local nursery, home improvement and landscaping companies, they will help you find more customers. You may even want to incentivise these companies by offering a referral program. Many of these company get a lot of foot traffic of people that could be interested in your services. This is a great way to pick up a lot of business quick.
Find Partners
You can form a partnership with other lawn care businesses. Ask them to refer clients for a commission on the lawn care jobs that they refer to you. This arrangement will help both partners, as you will start and grow your lawn care business while the partner company will gain a commission without doing any of the work.
The best way to do this is partnering with lawn care company in neighboring counties to the county you service. You may be able to find some companies that have more work than they can handle and they will send you business they can't take on. Be a little careful of this as most companies that do this will send you less than ideal customers.
Get In The News
Because any publicity is good for a business, aim to appear regularly in various forms of media. This could be the local news channel, the newspaper, or a lawn care magazine. Find an interesting angle regarding your lawn care projects or something new you discovered, or even a before and after story about one of your projects to make an attention-grabbing news headline.
Use SEO
SEO is a wonderful way to generate evergreen leads for free. It is definitely a long term play but can really pay off overtime. Search engine optimization services are available for a fee and you can benefit from driving regular traffic to your website once your revenue is good. You can find marketing professionals who will manage your website, social media, and SEO for a moderate fee so that you can focus on growing your lawn care business.
If you're interested in help with SEO, let me know in the comments or contacting me through this website. At a minimum, I will point you in the right direction and get you started.
Use Google AdWords
Google AdWords provides a good and effective marketing option. You do need to monitor the amount you spend on this and the business you get from online advertisements so that you do not spend too much. A good way to start is to set limits on your expenses initially and increase spending once you see a good return.
Every business takes time to grow and become profitable. In addition to all the tips we have discussed, the secret to how to grow a lawn care business lies in three important factors: give it your best, be patient, and work hard and you will start and grow a lawn care business that you can be proud of!
Truck and Trailer Decals
This will depend on your setup but you should always have some kind of truck/trailer decals or wrap. This is a great way to receive business from neighbors and others within the community you service. For full details on the best trailer setup, check out this article.
Email Marketing
Email marketing is a great way to nurture leads and to upsell existing customers. It is very important that you keep the name and email address of every potential lead and customer you ever have. You can load these into a tool like Mailchimp or ConvertKit and send blast emails. This is such an efficient way to keep customers informed and to make additional sales. Email is not dead.
Wrapping it up
There you have it, 25 ways to grow your lawn care business. Whether you are a beginning a new startup or run an established business, these strategies can be used to grow your business. Depending on where you are in your business, will depend on which to use.
I wouldn't advise going out and trying to implement all 25 of these strategies. You will spread yourself to thin and it won't be effective. The best strategy is to pick 1-3 strategies from this list, focus on them, and dominate those areas. Once you complete the marketing strategy or find a way to automate it, then move to another.
Always remember, the most important part of marketing no matter which strategy you are using is it should be actionable and measurable. If you aren't measuring your marketing efforts, you have no way to gauge your success, know your customer acquisition cost, or know which strategy is working best.
What do you think?
Which strategies are you currently using to grow your business? Are they working well?
If you have any questions or need help with your marketing feel free to leave a comment below or contact me.
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