Next year's business plan/ideas

[wrestlingcoach]

My partner and I are coming up with a plan for next year.
Here are some ideas and plan to develop around.

Any thoughts or additions?


Business Ideas

1. Expand business from this year’s total $63,000 to
a. $100,000
b. $90,000
c. $80,000
d. $70,000
e. Or try to keep it the same
f. Or cull the bad yards and add good ones

2. Fix small 4x6 foot trailer (Use Steve’s uncle’s Shop-free)
a. Add trimmer racks $100
b. Add ramp
c. Add box for blower

3. Advertise
a. Newspaper $135
b. Phonebook $80
c. Computer screen @ 2 Warehouse Markets $120
d. Post-it Notes through high school print shop $50 in food

4. Fix 16 foot trailer
a. Weld tale gate
b. Fix lights

5. Keep website or get rid of it
a. Keep $80

6. Expand number of employees
a. Add and train 2 or 3 employees

7. Winterize all equipment

[Littleriver1]

If the $63,000 in gross then you need to tighten up. The phone book ad can't be much for $80 per month. ( that cost goes on for 12 months) For what your going to get in return I would drop that. I'm sure some will disagree. The newspaper ad is hard to figure. If there are a lot of LCO's advertiseing in the same paper as you a 1" ad will get lost. Nothing less than a business card size will do. The $135.00 per hit seems low. The $80.00 per month for the web site doesn't add up for me. It's nice if you have a lot (100's) of people calling and wanting information about your company. But you will need to go a long way to convince me that it's going to generate any new business for you. Add to your customer base and let the business determine, when and how many new employees to add. Everyone's business is different and different ways of advertiseing has a different effect on each one. Is it a burdensome expense with no effect or does it make the phone ring? No one knows the answer to that untill you try it. Just don't lock yourself into a long term expense if you can't afford the loss.

[Phil Nilsson]

Bizz plan ... reconsider if need a "partner" before growing any further.

[Braxton]

Wrestlingcoach,

If you want to have a website, know about basic html, and don't need e-commerce, cgi, etc., you can get a pretty good site for $20/year. That doesn't include any bells or whistles, just a basic "here's my business and here's what we do." You can set up a way for your customer to contact you, and if you use Paypal, you can even take payment through it, but you have to know html and web design pretty well to make it work. If you don't know it, but are a fast study, it isn't all that hard, though.

PM me if you want info on doing this.

Braxton

[GrassMaster]

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[wrestlingcoach]

I already have a website through lowesthosting, $78.50 .pretty good job for being cheap. I need to decide if I want to keep it at the end of Dec. I don't think It is very good for me since my partner and I getting out of the spraying weed control application side ( just didn't do well). The website did help us land a $26,000 year round account www.coachslawnservice.com


The $135 is for 13 weeks in our town's newspaper. (Mid March to June). each year the ad has generated 3-8 new accts

The $80 for the phonebook is for a listing only in the town's phonebook. The phonebook has about 7 companies in it.

the partner issue is that we have been partners for 6+ years and friends since 1st grade, plus roommates in college,& teach and coach together in the same school district. But I have considered to buy him out, but he doesn't want to yet.

I think we want to go towards the management more: more employees and more lawns, less in the grass.


The above stuff are ideas/ goals for me and my partner to focus on next year and ask where do we want to be. We have gone from 5 years ago ($15,000) to last year($26,000) to this year $63,000. I just wish that was all profit..we did buy $23,000 in equipment this summer. CONSIDERING we are teachers and wrestling coaches with wives and kids NOT BAD, BUT I want better.

NOW FOR SUGGESTIONS / any other considerations
any help or questions ??