Planet Trailblazer
Trailblazer visit This past week, our trailblazer stopped by our place of business. The trailblazer is a program through the national association of landscape professionals (NALP) in which an experienced veteran in the industry is sent to visit a less experienced entrepreneur. With the Trailblazer program, we are given the choice of whether we want […]
Asking for help
Sometimes, it helps to get tips (free tips are even better!) when starting a lawn care business. For that reason, we are members of PLANET, now called NALP, or National Association of Landscape Professionals which can be found here https://www.landscapeprofessionals.org/. Through our roughly $340 annual membership, we get tons of free help, tips and advice. One […]
Tips for Lawn Care Aerator’s Comparison
It is that time of the year to start aerating your lawn. Fall is better than the spring since the ground is warm but the nights are cool. This provides optimal conditions to core aerate your lawn. Before you aerate, it is best to water the lawn or to perform the work after a lot […]
Hiring “A” players
A couple weeks ago, we terminated our worst guy. We were in such a hiring frenzy for heads this spring that we were taking on anyone that would show up. This resulted in us hiring some less than spectacular players. When things finally slowed down, we noticed our worst guy was generating a charge rate of […]
What happened this year?
I was recently gchatting with my friend who asked me why I have only been compensated $4000 this season so far (end of August of 2015!). It has been so busy, we really haven’t had time to reflect on what happened. Now that things have finally slowed down, I figured out why: In summary, all […]
Hourly versus fixed prices services
For the most part, we have always provided services for a fixed price. As that is what the customer usually wants- how much is it going to cost me to get this work done? They don’t usually want to her per hour- if you give them that, then their next question is “how long will […]
Shop Equipment & Equipment Maintenance
Shop Equipment To properly service your landscaping equipment, you will need the proper tools. Below is a list of the equipment we have in our shop and what it is used for. Properly maintaining your equipment on a regular basis is essential to keep your equipment in top notch running condition, and avoid costly repairs […]
Where to find good labor help
This year, with our growth, we had to hire a lot of people. Unfortunately where we live, there is a not a big labor pool to pull from for physical labor jobs. So what did we do? We scrapped- hired crappy people, whoever we could get, whom many of were not hard workers and or […]
Working on the business, not in the business
This year has been a very tough year financially. Along with many unexpected large equipment repairs, our labor costs also rose. Along with our aggressive growth, we also made many changes which were amplified by the growth. The biggest downfall was changing the guys from commission pay to hourly. The hours got out of hand, […]
Red Flag Customers
When doing landscaping or any business, you are going to have the easy customers and then the difficult customers. The easy customers are the good ones and are the ones you want to have. The difficult customers are not worth working or. They will give you a hard time and maybe not even pay their […]