Accounts/Population

[GreenKeeper]

I have been considering starting a lawnare business. But, I need approximately 200 to 300 accounts, so can anyone give me some insight on accts/population. What is a realistic number?

I would like to be in three cities within fifty miles of my home.

The following is what I'd like to see:

Pop/accts

City 1 ) 35K/100

City 2 ) 1,200K/200 thats 1.2 Million

City 3 ) 750K/200

I also want to hire crews for each city, each city having it's own equip.

Any thoughts...

[1Chavez]

You are just starting out and want 200-300 accounts????????????
Do you have any experience? What services do you plan on offering how much do you plan on making? Starting out that large seems absurd to me.
Sorry I did not answer your question, but this seems nuts to me.
-Rich

[Woody]

I'm with Rich on this one. You say you want that many accounts, but do you have any idea of what your COST OF DOING BUSINESS would be? If not, how can you POSSIBLY come up with a number of accounts that you want or need?

Sounds like you are putting the cart before the horse. There is no way you could determine profit from each account when....

1) The accounts are fictional, ie, they don't exist right now.
2) The business, and thus its operating costs, don't exist.


Woody

[GreenKeeper]

Services would include basic residential and commercial lawn care services. Mowing, Trimming, Fertilizing, Aeration, Dethatching.

My business net income would be approx. 300K/year.

That is also based on 2 man crews, working 7-8 jobs/day, with an avg. job cost of 30.00/10000 sqft

i.e. 100 jobs = 2-3 crews roughly

My question is what do you think is absurd, is it I won't get that many jobs, or I can't manage that many jobs, or other.

Any insight would be good.

[GreenKeeper]

Woody

Yes, I have a projection of costs, the business model is based on anywhere from 100 up to 500.

The problem I am having with it is that I can make it work financially. But, can it be managed, can I even get that many customers ( I think with the pop. I can because thats less than 1/2 percent ) or are there other issues. I am wondering about emplyees how hard is it to get and keep workers the whole season.

These are questions I am trying to get a feel for...

[Phil Nilsson]

Lawn care apps ???? what about those?

Unless you purchase accounts outright, it will take a while to get 300 accounts ... everybody is chasing lawn care app accounts ... nevertheless, (one person) can handle 300 accounts of average size ... 3/4 ton van, 200 gal tank, spreader walk or ride. One person can produce upwards of $1,000 a day in sales doing these apps. Nice work if you can get it!!!!!!

This is not about profits or costs, those are known and controllable ... it's about account acquisition, the profits are there ... focus 100% energy on how to get the accounts ... that's the ONLY real issue.

Phil

P.S. As many of you know ... In addition to my regular consulting work and book sales and things ... I sell green industry companies and can tell you this ... if I had a listing for a lawn care application biz at this moment ... I would have it sold in less than 48 hours! ... you read that right!

[Ground Works]

Do u think POP has anything to do with how many accounts u can actually get???\

I mean I live in a very small area and if I only do lawncare and no real landscapeing at this time so do anyone think it is possible to get in any real money ???

Thanks
Lin
I would think being new and jumping into 300 accounts u would run into some major logistical problems

[1Chavez]

300 accounts at $300,000 net? You plan on netting $1000 per account per year? If you do a quality job, you will pocket more than $1000/account/year.
What I find absurd is to me you sound like you just think that starting a LCO is an easy thing. You need experience, you have to find out what your niche is, you need to be able to train people to do a quality job if you plan on staying in this business. In order to train people, you first must be able to do it. Do you have experience in a LCO or just your own yard?
Where are you planning on getting your workers? Just going down to 7-11/Wawa and grabbing guys who will actually be responsible and care for accounts and customers is not going to happen. These employees need to be trained and trusted.
A two man crew that is trained well and works well will do more than 7-8 cuts/day. How far apart are you spacing these accounts on each route.
Last year I ran one two man crew with an income from just cutting ~65 lawns at ~$3200/week residential . The way it worked was Monday, both guys did landscape labor. Tuesday, the guy with less cutting experience was doing landscape labor while the other started the cuts. Wedsneday-Friday was a two man cutting crew.
Your money is not in just cutting, but in spring/fall clean up, shrub pruining, mulching, bed maint., areation/thatching and fert programs. You can do this without much more in terms of equipment.
What seems absurd is that you want to jump right in to having 300 accounts overnight with no experience.
Just my opinion.
-Rich

[Phil Nilsson]

Any insight would be good.

If you can live with uncertainty ... focus on commercial you'll get to those gross sales much faster ... loyalty comes with residential but at the expense of "micro managing" pretty much class A work and greater dependency on workers doing quality.

My own feeling is that you have the wrong service combo model.

Phil

P.S. what is the market?

[clclawn]

i think you need to step back a little.

How long will it take you ???? 1year, 2 years??????? hell no. The only way to pull that off would be one hell of an adv. budget.

3 towns in 50 miles. Great for some day, But since you will start as a one man show, or at best 1 crew, you will lose your butt on that one. Start with one town. What happens if you have one costomer ion each town who wants to meet with you that day or the next. You will spend 3 hours in the truck. 1 town at a time.

have you done this before. If you have not, you better run it and do the work yourself to start till you understand the biz better, you will lose your a@@ if you jump in head first like that.

[GreenKeeper]

I don't want to give anyone the wrong idea here, I am trying to get some input. I have worked out the costs across the board from 100 to 300. I don't think 100 jobs starting out is out of the question, and yes I would want to build it up. Currently, there are mom and pop operations that are doing at least 100 jobs in some of these towns. I know of a guy who is a Fireman by trade, and has a lawn service on the side. He does around 15 accts a year, and he says people are calling him to do more. And he drives up in his pickup truck with his Yardman mower on the back for equipment...and he gets 30.00 for each lawn he does.

My idea is that most people trust a professional cost competitive operation when given a choice.

I currently have the business model that works and covers all the costs. Obviously, there are problems that have to be overcome before I could ever reach 300 accounts.

I also agree that a good crew is capable of doing much more than 7-8 lawns per day. But, if I error I would want to error to the low side.

I agree the better the employee the better off the business is. I wasn't planning on 7-11 but, advertising seemed like a good idea to me, or the local job service. I also include training as a necessity for any business big or small. I would say that if you are not keeping track of your service and keeping everyone up to date then yes it will be garbage. I would assume that most LCO's have a QOS plan, thats common in all businesses that are successful.

As for money, I already have the money to make a substantial start.

As for targeted markets, I feel anyone is fair game, communities that have a large retiree population, or an upscale population would be start. The middle class middle income folks will be less likely to hire it done. Does anyone have any good demographics? Also, I plan to market to the the commercial customers.

I felt that starting out I would focus on LC services, and also would accept landscape services as I go.

[1Chavez]

Do you have any experience in this business or is this just an idea that is passing through your head? Sure, you cut your own lawn thinking, "wow, how cool would it be to do this day in, day out and get paid", but you are not taking into account the rain, heat, cold, customers, bill, taxes...........
Getting even 100 accounts in your first year is not going to be easy. You need to have accounts to get accounts in my opinion and the only way to do that is start small or buy them. How do you figure these mom and pops are doing 100 yards? Even 100 is a good size business. The fireman you mention is probally doing nothing but cut and trim. It's cool and all for him to have pocket money, but if you want to survive in this business you have to be attached to it full time. There is a lot more work to be done with a legit business than cutting 15 yards after work when you have time.
I agree that people will trust a professional operation if given a choice, but what makes your business a professional business except the fact that you are paying insurance and have an ad in the paper? This is where my main problem with your idea of this business being "turn-key" is wrong.
As for having a lot of money to start, that's good, but I think I am trying to caution you to start small and get you feet wet before going gung-ho.
For people to sell services to, the people with money are the ones to target, but in my experience you do not want to go after these people unless you know what you are doing. These people are extremely picky and if you do a job that is not up to par with what they are accustomed to, they will they'll their friends and you can pretty muck forget about the high end accounts. On the flip side, if you take the time to learn the ropes and what works when you finally get the nice places, they'll refer you to the other nice places.
I guess what it comes down to is you need to have some experience before having 300 accounts to look after by the end of week one.
-Rich

How old are you roughly?

[Easy Way Lawn Care]

Greenkeeper

It sounds like you have some business knowledge, and understand how to do the numbers and it also sounds as if you are booksmart. But it also sounds like you don't have a clue about this business and are thinking way too big at this point. I do not mean in any way to insult you, I admire your ambition, but this is a hands on get involved business. And it takes years to really understand. Will you get 300 accounts? yes you could however it will take you years to hit that mark. You understand numbers, but thats just math here are some basic realistic questions you should ask yourself.

what equipment are you going to get walkbehind, ztr, what brand and why?

What trailer and truck are you going to get and why?

How do you get your lines straight?

How long does it take to trim 300 feet of chain link fence?

How long does it take to mow 32,000 square feet? How about 130,000 square feet? or 5,000 square feet? what would you use to cut each and why?

Can you mow when its wet, how does this affect your cut, how does this affect your machine?

How much are you going to charge to powervac the lawn, and what type will you use and why?

How do you keep from burning the lawn when turning a ztr?

These are just a few questions that you have to have hands on experience to know. If you don't know the answer to all these questions then you better slow down a little and think more in terms of start small and build a solid foundation, while learning the business. Because its knowledge like these and many others like types of grass, plants, trees, mulch, insects, etc etc. You will have to know to handle the services you are trying to take on at the volume you want. I don't mean to discourage you at all just realize that going from a zero to 300,000 dollar a year in a lawn business takes along time, unless you buy a big business and hire someone who has the knowledge to completly run it.

[jrservices]

guess what it comes down to is you need to have some experience before having 300 accounts to look after by the end of week one.
-Rich

I could not agree more. This business takes time to build up. I could not imagine starting up with 300 accounts. Better to start small, then work your way up. My.02

[Phillip Baker]

3 yrs hustling and im just now breaking the 100 mark It takes time and knowledge, The first time you stripe someones yard because you apply fertilizer wrong and you'll understand, man two shades of green in perfect stripes, it was funny but hard to explain, and i learned a lesson, and that was just one yard. 300 is unreleastic in your first yr. Try to get 50 if you can, but i doubt that since your not experienced. And the maw and paw ones are. Im a fireman also with a two man crew, we have a three on my days off, we do roughly 18-22 yrds a day, and we hustle. Good luck.......even a blind squirl finds a nut sometimes!!!!