Phil Nilsson
03-25-2006, 09:46 AM
Nilsson Associates Toll Free 866-280-2252
www.nilssonbooks.com (http://nilssonbooks.com/)
Starting a Lawn Care Service Business & Landscape Business
Road to Success
For Landscapers, Lawn Care Service Techs, Crew Leaders "going into business for yourself" ... this is what it takes to really succeed and grow a serious business enterprize.
Business happens in three steps ...
Getting the work ...
Begins with developing an entire "philosophy" as to how you'll get your phone to ring ... over and over, year after year. Advertising, marketing and promotion all fall into this category. You'll need to master each one of them or hire experts because like anything else, customer accounts have a limited life cycle. Add, replace, add, expand. Once you've done that, the next crucial step is to become an absolute without a doubt expert at job estimating and bidding. Your success or failure starts with the job you;'re bidding on. It's the starting point to your costs, and your profits. With each bid you should know what to expect, and how winning any particular bid will impact your business. We're not talking a hit or miss approach. Bidding input and outcomes are predictors of where your business is going. Careless bidding almost always leads to marginal results. Marginal results leads to below average growth and profits. You need to focus on advertising, bidding, cost, pricing, and work measurement becausae they all fall into "getting the work". Education and information is key to success at just about anything. Getting the opportunity to bid is part of it, bidding intelligently the other part.
Doing the work ...
Comes a little more naturally, but understand that you yourself can't make a great deal of money by working for it. At least not in a busines that sells time, and most service business sell labor hours. If you want to grow a busienss, you need to separate yourself from the work! Growth comes when the owner works at getting the work and management, not actually doing the work. Doing the work means that you value an hour's worth of your own time at no more than you pay your employees. Ten bucks an hour or so? In other words, if you never stop doing the actual work in yoiur sevrice business you'll never have the time to really grow your business which means to sell other peoples time.
The more time you sell in a service type business, the greater the sales ... hopefully the higher the profits. But aside from that aspect, doing the work is not as simple as it sounds. We're not looking to just do the work ... we're looking to do it smart, at the least cost, with highest productivity. Effective management considers best crew size, equipment and what it produces and costs, employee recruitment, crew leader training, quality control ... and to complete the work within budgeted times. That's a mouthful. But that's part of the equation to getting results. It takes a whole lot of trying. You'll find yourself "thinking your brains off". But in a nice, slow, well thought out way. The fast road to growth? That as soon as you decide to delegate to others the "simple stuff", the faster you'll have time to not only learn how to manage but to use it to further your business. It makes all the difference and why some companies do let's say a few hundred thousand in sales while others do millions. I'm not advocating doing big sales numbers but without big sales numbers it's tough to make big money even if profits go lower as sales go higher and higher! Over time, you promote yourself in your own business by becoming its manager ... not its worker.
Managing outcomes ...
Is what managers do. They learn how to sell, prepare, and present contracts, and work proposals, and how to best do the work staying within cost guidelines (so there's a profit) then at the end, they measure results to see if they reached particular goals. Managers Oversee everything. It's the most important thing an owner can do because we know that when owners turn their backs on their business ... things start to go wrong, profits drop, and employees begin to get careless.
3 Ring Circus ...
You're the ring master. Accept the position as that. See that you need to learn how to manage, and not just how to do the work yourself. From my experience with companies at every level, I'd say it's more important to learn to manage and delegate the work, than to learn how to do each job or task in your company yourself. You yourself can't make the "big money" that way. You make money by managing that work using other peoples time, not your own.
Knowing what matters ...
That using your brains and not just your back will help you succeed. Your company like any other can make it to the top of whatever "heap" you're after but to make it big you have to learn how to think big. Managers think about things like branch operations, business expansion, acquisitions, diversifying into new services, finding more profitable ways and means, and looking ahead a few years to understand how the business will continue to grow and prosper. Managers look at the big picture, and so in that respect management doesn't "major in minors". Who cares about the cost of paper clips? We're after focusing on major concerns, and the main driving force to the future. That's what manageent does. It's not a license to lay back and rest on.
Real business managers are unique because they are "positively charged". Taking calculated risks, not dwelling on negatives. Asking "what will make this work?" ... rather than overexamining each and every possible pitfall. Real managers simply "go for it". They know it's more about where they are "going" rather than where they came from, and then having the desire to actually do it.
Copyright Nilsson Associates 2005
For more information about business management (CLICK HERE) (http://nilssonbooks.com/coms_package.htm)
http://nilssonbooks.com/guarantee.gifNilsson Associates has the information you need to operate your business (http://nilssonbooks.com/) and make it a success. We offer one of the Largest Resources available in the Green Industry on the internet. Everything from how to sharpen a mower blade to how to manage a small or large, simple or complex business doing millions in sales! You can keep your buisness small or grow it each year. It's up to you how far you go. Some are just interetsed in mowing lawns as a service, then add on pruning, planting, trimming, shrubs, trees, plowing snow, and getting into bidding and estimating grounds maintenance, landscape installations, hardscapes, patios, retaining walls and waterscapes.
No mattter what services you want to offer, we have the technical and managment information you need that will save you time and money getting started. Take a look at our extensive line of books, audios, videos and employee training materials in English and Spanish. Start at the Nilsson Associates home page (http://nilssonbooks.com/) and scroll down the left side of the home page to locate the lawn care service or landscape business problem you want a solution to. The index includes all these categories dealing with just about all lawn care, the best lawn mowers, how to maximize profits in lawn mowing and landscape installation work including seeding lawns, hydroseeding lawns, sodding lawns, slit seeding and drilling, lawn care service job bidding & pricing, what lawn tractors and equipment to buy, seed to use for lawns, grass types, lawn chemicals, lawn fertilizers, lawn pesticides, lawn herbicides, managing landscape company operations, installing irrigation, snow plowing, planting shrubs and trees , pavement sweeping services and many others.
The instruction you will receive is affordable, and highly focused training that really works! And ... The FREE ongoing personal support from our Industry Experts (http://nilssonbooks.com/about_the_author.htm) is the Best Professional Management & Ownership Training Program in the Industry. With us assisting you every step of the way, your business will be up and running fast, making money, organized to win, separate itself from the competition, and on the "Path To A Rewarding Future."
Business solution links:
Advertising (http://nilssonbooks.com/advertising_and_sales.htm) -
Bidding Jobs (http://nilssonbooks.com/job_bidding_pricing.htm) - (http://www.asharpdesign.com/nilsson/discounts_and_deals.htm)
Business Growth (http://nilssonbooks.com/mangement.htm) -
Business Plan (http://nilssonbooks.com/mangement.htm#Business Planning Workbook) -
Commercial (http://nilssonbooks.com/advertising_and_sales.htm#Selling To Commercial Customers) -
Company Policy (http://nilssonbooks.com/mangement.htm#Writing Your Company Policy Manual) -
Contract Cost (http://nilssonbooks.com/job_bidding_pricing.htm) -
Customers (http://nilssonbooks.com/advertising_and_sales.htm#Selling To Commercial Customers) -
Employees (http://nilssonbooks.com/employee.htm) -
Estimating (http://nilssonbooks.com/job_estimating_package.htm) -
Job Cost (http://nilssonbooks.com/job_bidding_pricing.htm#Labor Time Data Handbook) -
Job Specs (http://nilssonbooks.com/job_bidding_pricing.htm#Writing The Maintenance Speci-fications) -
Labor Time Data (http://nilssonbooks.com/job_bidding_pricing.htm#Labor Time Data Handbook) -
Maintenance (http://nilssonbooks.com/operations.htm#Grounds Maintenance Manual) -
Management (http://nilssonbooks.com/mangement.htm) -
Mowing Profits (http://nilssonbooks.com/operations.htm#Maximizing Profits In Mowing) -
Pricing (http://nilssonbooks.com/job_bidding_pricing.htm#Pricing Your Services) - Sales (http://nilssonbooks.com/advertising_and_sales.htm) -
Sales Letters (http://nilssonbooks.com/advertising_and_sales.htm#How To Write Effective Sales Letters) -
Sales Skills (http://nilssonbooks.com/advertising_and_sales.htm) -
Snow Removal (http://nilssonbooks.com/operations.htm#The Snow Removal Business) -
Subcontracting (http://nilssonbooks.com/employee.htm#Subcontracting the Work) -
Training Video (http://nilssonbooks.com/video_tapes.htm) -
Website Services (http://nilssonbooks.com/other_services.htm#Web Design) -
Winter Income (http://nilssonbooks.com/operations.htm)
Other
resources:
Sales Boosters (http://nilssonbooks.com/sales_booster_package.htm)
Job Estimating Package (http://nilssonbooks.com/job_estimating_package.htm)
FREE Job Pricing Guidelines (http://nilssonbooks.com/free_job_guidelines.htm)
New Business Startup Package (http://nilssonbooks.com/just_getting_started.htm)
Complete Operations management System (http://nilssonbooks.com/coms_package.htm)
Nilsson's Job Estimating System (http://nilssonbooks.com/job_estimating_package.htm) has everything you need to evaluate job site specifications & work required, figure costs, how to price ~ lawns, grounds maintenance, landscape installs. You'll get step - by - step instructions, bid proposal outlines & customer contracts, labor hours job times. You'll get job price guides to compare your prices with the going rates, overhead costs, materials, profit ratios. You'll set realistic prices, and job labor hours goals based on field tested, proven, time studied labor hours for every job you bid. You'll know how to evaluate every job for total work hours required, the price to charge for the job, the profit you'll make, best crew size, job costs. You'll also get add-on service check lists to help you maximize sales by upselling customers on additional property improvements.
When it comes to pricing lawn and landscape jobs nobody has more industry pricing information than Nilsson Associates. Nilsson's Job Price Guides covers lawn care job bidding & estimating landscaping job bids for commercial & residential customers. Get more customers. Price estimates & bids, grounds services, landscaping pricing estimates , estimating & bid the price seasonal work, year around commercial estimate contracts, best price per square foot, best grounds maintenance & landscaping job to bid & pricing, price of lawn care, lawn mowing price, aeration pricing, lawns, commercial landscape job bid estimates, maintenance estimating & pricing, mulching prices, pricing chemicals, weeding & aerating pricing, fertilizer prices, prices for organic fertilizer, pricing weeds in beds, pricing pruning & trimming trees & shrubs, pricing commercial & residential snow plowing, hardscape pricing, pricing hydroseeding, irrigation service estimates for commercial & residential, pricing seeding lawns, pricing lawn sod, prices for slit seeding lawns, pricing edging lawn beds, spring cleanup prices, pricing fall cleanups, hourly price of pressure washing walks & patios, pricing trees, stump grinding prices, price for gutter cleaning, lawn dethatching price, price for shoveling snow, pricing salting, price sanding.
For more information about Pricing Click Here for FREE Job Pricing Guidelines (http://nilssonbooks.com/free_job_guidelines.htm)
Click here for: Labor Time Data Handbook (http://nilssonbooks.com/job_bidding_pricing.htm#)
________________
Phil Nilsson
Nilsson Associates
Green Industry Consultants
www.nilssonbooks.com
www.nilssonbooks.com (http://nilssonbooks.com/)
Starting a Lawn Care Service Business & Landscape Business
Road to Success
For Landscapers, Lawn Care Service Techs, Crew Leaders "going into business for yourself" ... this is what it takes to really succeed and grow a serious business enterprize.
Business happens in three steps ...
Getting the work ...
Begins with developing an entire "philosophy" as to how you'll get your phone to ring ... over and over, year after year. Advertising, marketing and promotion all fall into this category. You'll need to master each one of them or hire experts because like anything else, customer accounts have a limited life cycle. Add, replace, add, expand. Once you've done that, the next crucial step is to become an absolute without a doubt expert at job estimating and bidding. Your success or failure starts with the job you;'re bidding on. It's the starting point to your costs, and your profits. With each bid you should know what to expect, and how winning any particular bid will impact your business. We're not talking a hit or miss approach. Bidding input and outcomes are predictors of where your business is going. Careless bidding almost always leads to marginal results. Marginal results leads to below average growth and profits. You need to focus on advertising, bidding, cost, pricing, and work measurement becausae they all fall into "getting the work". Education and information is key to success at just about anything. Getting the opportunity to bid is part of it, bidding intelligently the other part.
Doing the work ...
Comes a little more naturally, but understand that you yourself can't make a great deal of money by working for it. At least not in a busines that sells time, and most service business sell labor hours. If you want to grow a busienss, you need to separate yourself from the work! Growth comes when the owner works at getting the work and management, not actually doing the work. Doing the work means that you value an hour's worth of your own time at no more than you pay your employees. Ten bucks an hour or so? In other words, if you never stop doing the actual work in yoiur sevrice business you'll never have the time to really grow your business which means to sell other peoples time.
The more time you sell in a service type business, the greater the sales ... hopefully the higher the profits. But aside from that aspect, doing the work is not as simple as it sounds. We're not looking to just do the work ... we're looking to do it smart, at the least cost, with highest productivity. Effective management considers best crew size, equipment and what it produces and costs, employee recruitment, crew leader training, quality control ... and to complete the work within budgeted times. That's a mouthful. But that's part of the equation to getting results. It takes a whole lot of trying. You'll find yourself "thinking your brains off". But in a nice, slow, well thought out way. The fast road to growth? That as soon as you decide to delegate to others the "simple stuff", the faster you'll have time to not only learn how to manage but to use it to further your business. It makes all the difference and why some companies do let's say a few hundred thousand in sales while others do millions. I'm not advocating doing big sales numbers but without big sales numbers it's tough to make big money even if profits go lower as sales go higher and higher! Over time, you promote yourself in your own business by becoming its manager ... not its worker.
Managing outcomes ...
Is what managers do. They learn how to sell, prepare, and present contracts, and work proposals, and how to best do the work staying within cost guidelines (so there's a profit) then at the end, they measure results to see if they reached particular goals. Managers Oversee everything. It's the most important thing an owner can do because we know that when owners turn their backs on their business ... things start to go wrong, profits drop, and employees begin to get careless.
3 Ring Circus ...
You're the ring master. Accept the position as that. See that you need to learn how to manage, and not just how to do the work yourself. From my experience with companies at every level, I'd say it's more important to learn to manage and delegate the work, than to learn how to do each job or task in your company yourself. You yourself can't make the "big money" that way. You make money by managing that work using other peoples time, not your own.
Knowing what matters ...
That using your brains and not just your back will help you succeed. Your company like any other can make it to the top of whatever "heap" you're after but to make it big you have to learn how to think big. Managers think about things like branch operations, business expansion, acquisitions, diversifying into new services, finding more profitable ways and means, and looking ahead a few years to understand how the business will continue to grow and prosper. Managers look at the big picture, and so in that respect management doesn't "major in minors". Who cares about the cost of paper clips? We're after focusing on major concerns, and the main driving force to the future. That's what manageent does. It's not a license to lay back and rest on.
Real business managers are unique because they are "positively charged". Taking calculated risks, not dwelling on negatives. Asking "what will make this work?" ... rather than overexamining each and every possible pitfall. Real managers simply "go for it". They know it's more about where they are "going" rather than where they came from, and then having the desire to actually do it.
Copyright Nilsson Associates 2005
For more information about business management (CLICK HERE) (http://nilssonbooks.com/coms_package.htm)
http://nilssonbooks.com/guarantee.gifNilsson Associates has the information you need to operate your business (http://nilssonbooks.com/) and make it a success. We offer one of the Largest Resources available in the Green Industry on the internet. Everything from how to sharpen a mower blade to how to manage a small or large, simple or complex business doing millions in sales! You can keep your buisness small or grow it each year. It's up to you how far you go. Some are just interetsed in mowing lawns as a service, then add on pruning, planting, trimming, shrubs, trees, plowing snow, and getting into bidding and estimating grounds maintenance, landscape installations, hardscapes, patios, retaining walls and waterscapes.
No mattter what services you want to offer, we have the technical and managment information you need that will save you time and money getting started. Take a look at our extensive line of books, audios, videos and employee training materials in English and Spanish. Start at the Nilsson Associates home page (http://nilssonbooks.com/) and scroll down the left side of the home page to locate the lawn care service or landscape business problem you want a solution to. The index includes all these categories dealing with just about all lawn care, the best lawn mowers, how to maximize profits in lawn mowing and landscape installation work including seeding lawns, hydroseeding lawns, sodding lawns, slit seeding and drilling, lawn care service job bidding & pricing, what lawn tractors and equipment to buy, seed to use for lawns, grass types, lawn chemicals, lawn fertilizers, lawn pesticides, lawn herbicides, managing landscape company operations, installing irrigation, snow plowing, planting shrubs and trees , pavement sweeping services and many others.
The instruction you will receive is affordable, and highly focused training that really works! And ... The FREE ongoing personal support from our Industry Experts (http://nilssonbooks.com/about_the_author.htm) is the Best Professional Management & Ownership Training Program in the Industry. With us assisting you every step of the way, your business will be up and running fast, making money, organized to win, separate itself from the competition, and on the "Path To A Rewarding Future."
Business solution links:
Advertising (http://nilssonbooks.com/advertising_and_sales.htm) -
Bidding Jobs (http://nilssonbooks.com/job_bidding_pricing.htm) - (http://www.asharpdesign.com/nilsson/discounts_and_deals.htm)
Business Growth (http://nilssonbooks.com/mangement.htm) -
Business Plan (http://nilssonbooks.com/mangement.htm#Business Planning Workbook) -
Commercial (http://nilssonbooks.com/advertising_and_sales.htm#Selling To Commercial Customers) -
Company Policy (http://nilssonbooks.com/mangement.htm#Writing Your Company Policy Manual) -
Contract Cost (http://nilssonbooks.com/job_bidding_pricing.htm) -
Customers (http://nilssonbooks.com/advertising_and_sales.htm#Selling To Commercial Customers) -
Employees (http://nilssonbooks.com/employee.htm) -
Estimating (http://nilssonbooks.com/job_estimating_package.htm) -
Job Cost (http://nilssonbooks.com/job_bidding_pricing.htm#Labor Time Data Handbook) -
Job Specs (http://nilssonbooks.com/job_bidding_pricing.htm#Writing The Maintenance Speci-fications) -
Labor Time Data (http://nilssonbooks.com/job_bidding_pricing.htm#Labor Time Data Handbook) -
Maintenance (http://nilssonbooks.com/operations.htm#Grounds Maintenance Manual) -
Management (http://nilssonbooks.com/mangement.htm) -
Mowing Profits (http://nilssonbooks.com/operations.htm#Maximizing Profits In Mowing) -
Pricing (http://nilssonbooks.com/job_bidding_pricing.htm#Pricing Your Services) - Sales (http://nilssonbooks.com/advertising_and_sales.htm) -
Sales Letters (http://nilssonbooks.com/advertising_and_sales.htm#How To Write Effective Sales Letters) -
Sales Skills (http://nilssonbooks.com/advertising_and_sales.htm) -
Snow Removal (http://nilssonbooks.com/operations.htm#The Snow Removal Business) -
Subcontracting (http://nilssonbooks.com/employee.htm#Subcontracting the Work) -
Training Video (http://nilssonbooks.com/video_tapes.htm) -
Website Services (http://nilssonbooks.com/other_services.htm#Web Design) -
Winter Income (http://nilssonbooks.com/operations.htm)
Other
resources:
Sales Boosters (http://nilssonbooks.com/sales_booster_package.htm)
Job Estimating Package (http://nilssonbooks.com/job_estimating_package.htm)
FREE Job Pricing Guidelines (http://nilssonbooks.com/free_job_guidelines.htm)
New Business Startup Package (http://nilssonbooks.com/just_getting_started.htm)
Complete Operations management System (http://nilssonbooks.com/coms_package.htm)
Nilsson's Job Estimating System (http://nilssonbooks.com/job_estimating_package.htm) has everything you need to evaluate job site specifications & work required, figure costs, how to price ~ lawns, grounds maintenance, landscape installs. You'll get step - by - step instructions, bid proposal outlines & customer contracts, labor hours job times. You'll get job price guides to compare your prices with the going rates, overhead costs, materials, profit ratios. You'll set realistic prices, and job labor hours goals based on field tested, proven, time studied labor hours for every job you bid. You'll know how to evaluate every job for total work hours required, the price to charge for the job, the profit you'll make, best crew size, job costs. You'll also get add-on service check lists to help you maximize sales by upselling customers on additional property improvements.
When it comes to pricing lawn and landscape jobs nobody has more industry pricing information than Nilsson Associates. Nilsson's Job Price Guides covers lawn care job bidding & estimating landscaping job bids for commercial & residential customers. Get more customers. Price estimates & bids, grounds services, landscaping pricing estimates , estimating & bid the price seasonal work, year around commercial estimate contracts, best price per square foot, best grounds maintenance & landscaping job to bid & pricing, price of lawn care, lawn mowing price, aeration pricing, lawns, commercial landscape job bid estimates, maintenance estimating & pricing, mulching prices, pricing chemicals, weeding & aerating pricing, fertilizer prices, prices for organic fertilizer, pricing weeds in beds, pricing pruning & trimming trees & shrubs, pricing commercial & residential snow plowing, hardscape pricing, pricing hydroseeding, irrigation service estimates for commercial & residential, pricing seeding lawns, pricing lawn sod, prices for slit seeding lawns, pricing edging lawn beds, spring cleanup prices, pricing fall cleanups, hourly price of pressure washing walks & patios, pricing trees, stump grinding prices, price for gutter cleaning, lawn dethatching price, price for shoveling snow, pricing salting, price sanding.
For more information about Pricing Click Here for FREE Job Pricing Guidelines (http://nilssonbooks.com/free_job_guidelines.htm)
Click here for: Labor Time Data Handbook (http://nilssonbooks.com/job_bidding_pricing.htm#)
________________
Phil Nilsson
Nilsson Associates
Green Industry Consultants
www.nilssonbooks.com