Annually or Per mowing?

[BergLawnCare]

I am new to this site, but as i have been reading through this, it is great for all of us in the business to have such a good site to see what everyone else in the same line of work is doing and to get different view points and ideas. i have been in business for about 9 years and i am charging on the per cut basis, but after that drought we had this past year i was debating on going with an annual price. i was just wondering if anyone has any insight on this way of charging good or bad? for the most part i do have one other guy and we mow about 50 accounts every week...i won't take any accounts if they are not mowed on a weekly basis with the exception of a drought then they are mowed as needed. this past summer's drought left some of my accounts not needing mowed more than 2-3 times from july through september...that can really hurt in the bank. any feed back would be great!

[qualitylandscaping]

reply

There's nothing wrong with going to annual contracts, its just that people, like you said, know they are paying you even if the lawn doesn't need to be mowed.. That is the biggest problem in getting residential customers to go on a contract with one annual payment. Almost all commercials will sign annual contracts so they don't have to deal with figuring everything out later.. I would offer a speical incentive to a residential customer that goes from weekly cutting with no contract, to contract mowing.. Its easier for everyone, it can just cost the customer more..