Advertising In my neighborhood

[dpatt07]

I want to advertise in the neighbor hood where i live, should i be making seperate flyers for my neighborhood, or just use the sameones everywhere? Do you think i could pull more potential customers from my neighborhood if they know i live near by? Any suggestions would be great or anything to do with neighborhood business. Thanks

[Bulldog26]

I'm going with sepret flyers for my neighborhood. For those that don't know me I will list that I live in the neighborhood, I do the neighborhood entrance and am offering a discounted rate of $30.00 to anyone in Hidden Meadow. That's what I'm doing. Hey, Livonia, is that southern MI just noth of the IN line? North east of Elkhart? Good Luck.
bt

[dpatt07]

Yeah i was thinking seperate flyers as well....Bulldog is that $30.00 a lawn you were refering to? Livonia is in southeastern michigan. I am about 35-40 minutes outside of detroit. Really nice nieghborhood and city we have like 100,000 in our city alone. Thanks!

[Bulldog26]

Yes, $30.00 a lawn. I can do that due to the saving in drive time, gas etc. Plus it drives me crazy seeing other LOC's in my neighborhood. Four houses down, has someone else do thier yard and to make things worse he dose it on Sat. when I'm home resting. I"m 30 min. from Noter Dame.

[dpatt07]

Yeah thats what drives me nuts. I have a couple neighbors that have lawn services do their lawns and these guys come in rip the crap out of the lawn and then leave with barley cleaning up. I actually had one customer i have now fire her previous lawn care company and come to me because they were using big riders on it and scalping the lawn week after week. She just so happens to be one of my best customers and easiest to cut!! This is what got me thinking about advertising more in my neighborhood! Do you think i should ask my neighbors how much much they are being charged for another company to come in and cut their lawn and just go like 5 dollars less? I wouldn't even have to take my truck out of the driveway!!!

[Bulldog26]

I don't know if I would go $5.00 off. Ya, I might ask, but before I asked I would make sure I know what I would charge to anyone else and judge your price form that. Just understand neighbors talk. If you had a scrup on that lawn before charging $25 and you drop a little from that $23, you better be ready to charge that for everyone else in the neiborhood. Some people might feel like thier getting screwed if their paying $35 and two houses down is paying $23. That's why I'm doing the everyone in the neiborhood at a set rate unless it's a double lot. My drop gate is $25 and that is for a postage stamp, city lot. So I went $5 up from that and I'm happy to get 15 or more here if it comes. Good luck, how long have you been in the biz?
bt

[dpatt07]

Last spring of 05 was when i started on my own. I got a little bit of a late start and really just kinda took what i could get last year, this year im hoping to advertise right from the start hard and get what i want out of this business. I also think that a set rate is a good idea for in the neighborhood cuts. What about yourself? How long have you been in business? What kind of equipment do you have?

[Bulldog26]

Started last year. I'm a school teacher doing this part time. I haul my equipment to school (45 min drive) and mow my way home 3 days a week. The rest is done around my home town. I bought my 48" 19hp Kaw Cub Cadet Tank ztr last April with no clients. Started off pretty good with 10 weekly and bumped that to 27 by the end of the year. I was very suprised how fast it took off. I added a Cub rider for bagging(all i could afford) 21" cheap push, Husk. line trimmer/ back pack and an Echo line trimmer. 6.5 x 12 trailer and bought a company 96 Dodge 1500. I added a 61" Grasshopper this winter and will be buying a new trailer in April. How did your first year turn out?

[dpatt07]

First year went well, like i said i just kinda took what i could get though. I am hoping to get around 25-35 lawns this season. I work midnights at UPS so this is what I do during the day. I still have a little bit of equipment to pay off, but thats no big deal. do you only use riders? or do you have walkbehinds as well?

[Bulldog26]

I only have the two ztr's and the one rider. The rider will be sold as soon as I purchase a bagging system for one of the z's. No wb's yet. Depending on how many new clients I add this spring I might have have to add someone and set up the 12' trailer to be use while I'm in school. I that happends I will prob. add a wb to go with the 61" GH. What equipment are you using? Glad to hear you have most of your eqipment paid off! Good move. That kind of bus. smarts will take you a long way.
bt

[dpatt07]

I have a 2005 36" toro proline hydro, 2001 48" exmark metro HP belt drive, 33" billy goat (but im selling it)...all are walk behinds. Cheap 21" mower, Redmax eb7001 blower, echo edger, and just some no name string trimmers. 12x6 open trailer 2004 F-150. Love everything that i have it all worked perfectly for what i used it for!

[Bulldog26]

Hey, I'm buying a new blower, how do you like the redmax? I looked today, man that suckers is heavey!!!!!!!! Did the weight bother you on long days?
I know working by your self is rough, if you grow like it sounds you might, look into the ztr's I don't think i could put the time in that I do with the wb. You can find good used machines.
bt

[dpatt07]

Nah im only doing small residental lawns and in the spring the ztrs leave big ruts in the wet ground and they stay there all season... as for the redmax no the weigh doens't bother me at all even on long days. It is so strong it can move a pile of wet leaves across the lawn in like 2 minutes. I love it and it starts everytime no problems what so ever. But if you dont do fall clean up with the leaves and what not and are only using it clean up clippings you could probably go with something cheaper and lighter. Do you do leaves at all in the fall? or maybe you could even look into getting an ezchute or a trimmer trap...its just a closable chute to keep the grass from blowing on the sidewalks and streets...safes you a lot of time when cleaning up. gtg to work, but what you wnat and i'll get back to you. Thanks for the help

[Bulldog26]

I do some clean up and leaves. This year sucked for us with fall clean up. At the point of doing clean ups we got nailed with a lot of snow for about 4-6 weeks. I have two jobs that I had to put off until spring. I'm ready for one of the big back packs.