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This is my first year full time in the business. I have been mowing for 3 previous years but am getting into the professional side of it and want to do it right. What I need to know is if I am forgetting anything or leaving something out. I have taken care of insurance, incorporating, licensing (for chemicals) and regestering with the county clerks office. Is that about it. I am a one man show for now and will worry about the employee stuff later.
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Allan,
I work out of the Tulsa area as well. What's your company name? Maybe I've seen you around...
This will be my second year in the business, and it seems like it has been more difficult to pick up new yards this year.. I'm not sure what the problem is. I've got a few more advertising ideas that will hopefully come through..
Anyway, good luck this season!
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If your going to do applications or installations or products, or pass the price of the product on to the customer you will probably need to get a state sales tax id. Depends on the state. Mowing usually isn't taxed but fertilizer is. This also means you can buy the materials and not pay sales tax yourself but charge it to your customers.
Also check to see if when you need to send in your state estimated income taxes. Check out wether you need a Federal EIN or if you will need to send the estimated income taxes to the fed as well . Fed EIN can be done online at the IRS website and is free. I know that this is usually for people with employees but there is things in the application for a one man show as well.
Check with the cities you will be working in to see if they require a business license (these are pretty cheap).
If you are doing any moving, removing, or installation of live plants then you might need a license to do that as well. This is more on the landscaping side than mowing.
Are there any special requirements for your truck to do fertilizer/herbicide (i.e numbers or a code on the side)?
Thats all I can think of.Comment
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A Business Plan!Comment
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MGO, right now the business plan is to get a bigger truck so that I can haul all of my lawn money to the bank without bottoming out. Well, it is not quite that good but business is booming. The business plan is next on the list. I agree that it is important and will be putting a lot of thought into it. Thanks for your reminder.
Tulsa Lawn Guy - 852-8610
Allan Guenther
Guenther Lawn Care (now officially registered)Comment
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Read this article I wrote on business planning ...
Business Planning in Three Easy Steps
by Phil Nilsson, Green Industry Consultant
What if we had all listened to our grandmothers years ago when she told us to save 10 percent of every paycheck we ever earned? What if back then we had invested that money in growth stocks? What if at an early age we had given serious thought to exactly, precisely who we were, where we were going, and how we would get there? What if after having understood and analyzed those things we could see clearly as to how to position ourselves in the world (For example, choosing a career field or business that was right for us and focusing our energies and time on an exact target because we knew what it was we were after.)? Well, I'm sorry to say that I didn't do all those things - but then again I guess it's never too late to start. There is always tomorrow - at least until we run out of them.
Business planning, or better yet personal planning (because you are the business), is a good idea. Anyone who has lived long enough to make some bad choices in life will testify to that fact. So if you're not dead yet - and I'm assuming you're not because you're reading this article - it's never too late to plan the remaining portions of your life, like reinventing yourself. Hindsight is 20-20, and as we all go along in time, planning gets easier because of the mistakes we have already made. Now we can avoid making those mistakes again ... hopefully.
THREE STEPS IN PLANNING...
Business happens in three steps.
You get the work by selling it.
You do the work by producing it.
You manage inputs and outcomes all along the way.
The more of an expert you become in selling, producing and managing, the better the expected outcomes. The better you plan and manage, the better your chances of hitting profit and growth levels above average. Why is that? When you plan, you improve your odds. I don't know of any "average person" who gave it an "average try" and achieved extraordinary results. The grade of "A" is reserved only for those who do their homework. In fact, in the landscape industry, about 70 percent fail at it. Those people came into the industry, took a casual look around, took a lot for granted, didn't do their homework and became history. The other 30 percent learned, applied and survived.
WHAT DO YOU NEED TO DO?
Lots of people are under the impression that business planning is about accounting spreadsheets, budgets and all kinds of number-related issues. That's part of it, but it’s merely the end result of having done a lot of soul searching in looking ahead. The real benefit of planning is to uncover those aspects of business that you need to learn more about, filling in the blanks to see the whole picture. What is it you should know but don't? What do you need to do to become an expert and enhance your chances of developing your business so it provides you with a meaningful source of income?
Think of the entire process as a series of college courses with "X" amount of credits needed to graduate. Planning involves a lot more than just knowing the numbers. Look at your business and each part of it as course content. To help you see the many subjects that need to be addressed, study the diagram below. These are the many things that make up your business. It's broken down into the three sections of getting the work, doing the work and managing the business.
Get The Work ... Do The Work ... Manage The Business
Get the work
Service Offering
Competition
Selling Technique
Advertising Methods
Pricing Strategy
Contract Proposals
Customer Service
Do the work
Plant and Facility
Equipment
Personnel
Operating Methods
Quality Control
Manage the business
Work Measurement
Costing Methods
Business Direction
Financial Outcomes
Accounting
Taxes
Evaluation
Regulations
Contingency Plans
MASTER BUSINESS PLAN.
The master business plan above is like an outline of college courses on how to succeed in business. It’s a lineup of individual areas of study. Your business will eventually test you on each item on the list. You could know how to sell but not be good at doing the work. You could know how to do the work but have a deficiency in costing and pricing the work. You could be good at pricing, but when it comes to managing people, you may not be so good.
Business planning is to fill in the blanks of knowledge and expertise so that you form a complete picture. The plan asks you to be honest with yourself. Do you have a handle on each of the areas required? That's the real purpose of planning: finding out what you don't know and then taking the initiatives to learn. It's not easy. Unlike big business where each area of expertise is departmentalized into such departments as sales, marketing and management, small business people must wear all of those hats. That's the problem - you need to become an expert at so many disciplines. Business planning helps you recognize what the requirements are. The rest is up to you.
Phil
P.S. This article was originally published in L&L Mag
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