Bring in new customers??

[RK1]

I have been running a few ideas through my head on the advertising front to get customers.
Let me know what might work and will not.

1. 10% Senior Citizen Discount On All Services - I think this might work great in the area I live in due to the population of retired people.

2. 25% Off First Lawn Maintenance Service.

3. Customer Rewards Program - Offer new customers some kind of program to help keep them faithful to you plus it might help get new customers. For example if they refer you to a new customer and you get the job cut them a discount on the next service. Or offer some kind of gift certificate.

4. Emergency Lawn Care Service - for example if a customer has unexpected guest arriving or need quick service offer some kind quick service plan
example: Unexpected Guest? Need Quick Dependable Service? (company name) Is Available 24x7
Of course there would be a small additional fee.

5. Total Care Package - This would take a good solid bid to be profitable but it could work.. For a certain fee you would take care of all the lawn care needs, two gutter cleanings, snow removal from drive and walk, and three leaf cleanup sesions during a 12 month period. Depends on your area if this could work well or not.

6. Anybody to curb house number painting? I did this when I was going to school in Dallas on the weekends and made good beer money.


let me know what you think.

[dancom]

reply

i am not big on senior citizen discounts. i am more likely to give a discount to young people with children. senior citizens have a lot more money than they lead you to believe. there is a big market for young families tring to find time to spend with their children. give them a little discount and you can get their business.

[CCLS]

reply

RK1 scratch all those ideas except for #6. You might make some good money off curb painting, I never thought of that. As for the rest, NO SENIOR DISCOUNTS, ECT. I always get the pity story from seniors, I CAN'T AFFORD ALOT BECAUSE ALL I GET IS SOCIAL SECURITY. All I have to say is BULL. When they live in a $350,000 plus house and drive a brand new Mercades, there is no way in hell they can't afford to pay $2.00 bucks more a week to have their yard mowed.

In your ads stress the words, DEPENDABLE, RELIABLE, ALWAYS ON TIME, QUALITY WORK, ect. See what happens.

[RK1]

reply

Thanks guys for the comments and suggestions.

[jland]

reply

RK1,

I'm don't like to paint, so the curb painting is out for me. I also do not like giving discounts, because if I do it for 25% less the first time, why can't I do it for that price all the time? The Senior discount is out because where I live, the seniors are the retired ones with the money.

I do like 3, 4, and 5, although they would need to be well thought out. You might combine them all and it would be like a 'lawn membership' or 'lawn insurance'. They could pay a monthly membership fee and you could provide everything from regular lawn maintenance to emergency service like picking up fallen limbs and trees. I like your ideas -- keep 'em coming!

[indmowing]

reply

Really Dancom??? We are the other way around! Firstly, we work our rear ends off & pay our taxes which go to paying their pension and they want a discount on that??? As we tell our customers, we do the best price we can for everyone, we are not prejudice ), plus if you can give them a discount I would think you are over charging everyone else! Just a simplistic way of looking at the whole discount side of things! We may at times discount senior citz but I do not agree with discounting single mothers etc. My dear sister is a single mother of 3 and just bought herself a new house, she gets more money on the pension then I do and all the discounts on gas, electricity, water, etc etc etc. But none the less your twist on advertising and the use of your potential market is great thinking )

Take care all

Ebony

[dancom]

reply

i did not say i give all young families a discount i said i am more likely to give them one over a senior citizen. It is a lot harder raising kids then it is living off a pension. I agree with ccls about the big houses and new cars. i think that young families are a market that the majority of us don't do a lot of business with. because their money is tight. a small discount might get you some of that business. just a thought.

[CCLS]

reply

Something you could try is giving a prepay discount for fertilizing contracts. Alot of the loco's give a 5% prepay discount to anyone reguardless of age, ect. Something I do for my regular mowing customers is if they need extra services like clean-ups, fertilizing, ect., I give them a couple bucks discount just because they are regular customers.

I used to work retail and something we did is advertise stuff on sale, when it was really regualr price.
EXAMPLE******
Figure out what you charge for a certain job, like $30 for weekly mowing and add two bucks to the price. So you quote them $32, then tell them that if they sign up by a certain date you can give them a 5% discount on weekly mowing. Sometimes people will jump at the oppertunity, because you tell them you can save them over $60 a year on mowing.

This is just a suggestion, if you do it right you can get a lot more contracts. Give it a try. If you are going to advertise 5% discount, then this is the most profitable way to do it. Just some food for the thought.

[GrassMaster]

reply

Hello G-Man:

I Really Like Your way of Thinking! []

I know exactly where you are coming from & what others don't think of is...

To Start with this is a High Risk Client, one thing goes wrong with the work or the Son does something wrong, Guess who gets the Boot? The Son is the Swaying Factor!

I had several Clients at the beginning that had Sons old enough to cut grass & over time he would need extra money, get punished for something or the Client is running short of Money... But They call you back to a Natural Born Mess.

This doesn't go with the theme of things, "My Job is to get a Client, Keep them, Make them Happy & in Return they Send me a Monthly Check. Yes, Believe it or not, I Eat Steak, Pay Taxes, Pay Numerous Bills & Burn Unleaded Gas, Every Month of the Year!"

The Above in Quotation Marks was one of my Last Verbal Spills to the Customer (after learning the Hard Way), When I'm their bidding for their Services on my Initial Visit! It's Makes them think. If you going to be Culling out Clients do it on Your First Visit! []

<b>Please Note G-Man, GrassMaster is a Bonified JawJa Redneck from the Word Go!</b>

I did Give away Freebies of My Choice to Clients that Refered me to others at my Descretion!

[dancom]

reply

I agree, I always find it odd when someone with teen age children call me to cut their grass. well you guys have convincing arguments i have never given a discount to a young family but i have kicked around the idea. but g man once your kids are raised you know you have a lot more expendible cash than you do when you are raising kids. nothing agravates me more than a senior citizen winning about their discount and walking out to their brand new cadi.

[cole1980]

reply

They don't deserve a discount just because they are 68 years old. I'm not driving a cadi. and I don't get a discount at JC Penny on Tuesday like my grandma does.

[srlawnservice]

reply

We tried five dollar off coupons first year. What we got was folks seeking a discount. Only ONE of those folks are still a regular after two years. I think quality and dependability made them a regular, not the discount.

The senior discount I would consider, but haven't done it so far.

RL