Need a little advice on churches

[j2short]

New to the business last year started out with about 10-14 accounts. Would like to be Full Time in 2-3 years, but in the process would like to add 5-10 accounts each year. I have the opportunity to bid on a church about 3 acres to cut and 6500 sq. ft. of beds to maintain and prune . The question is concerning the Grave Yard which makes up nearly half the property. I have heard the stories about churches not wanting to pay and so on. I would like the job 4 sure but not sure how to price the grave yard ( lots of head stones to trim around) Do any of you guys have churches and if so how have you priced and is it a job that puts green in your pockets.. Thanks for any help, Jeff (let the grass grow)

[wenied]

Dont Do It Dont Do It Dont Do It Dont Do It Dont Do It

Dw

[MASTERMOWER]

It's gonna be lowballed....probably done by some fellow church member and his MTD riding mower.

If you're gonna bid on this, you'll need to estimate your time spent trimming/mowing around the headstones and go from there. But don't spend too much time dwelling over this, b/c as I said, it will be lowballed.

[OLD HAT]

my recomendation about churches is.
Do your own for free (or at cost)
Bid high enough on the rest you want get them!
It is like every other property figure out what you have to have then be prepared to loose the bid. Just know you can only go so low and if they are very demanding you will loose money and one thing about churche congragations is they like to talk.

[GrassMaster]

Grave Yards are really hard to do & they are very picky.

Sort of Off Topic...
From what I hear a grave yard is far worse than Condos or working for Home Owner Associations (Same thing I reckon). You ever do any of them, I've done one Condo place & will never do one again. I was paid well too...

I used to have a lady that would come to me & say Mr. 5-Ash there's 2 Magnolia leaves under my car could you please get them before you go? It was 36 Condo units, I had a kid come up to me & say my Dad pays you $1,200 a month to cut his grass & our yard looks like crap 3 days later, it only takes you 10 minutes to cut it, you're a rip off? That little punk if I could have caught him I would have stomped his big toe.

Back on Topic...
Most people spend a lot of time trying to bid grave yards & still get underbid. There's a lot of hassles involved in them too.

When you doing that place & a chip pops up on the bottom corner of Aunt Wilma's $5,000 head stone, tell me how you handle that? What if you miss blowing off one slab? When you're there cutting and there's couple of people visiting different graves, are you going to ask them to get out of the way, wait on them to leave or maybe they drop dead so you can finish or are you going to come back later? What about the flowers & all the other crap people leave on the graves... What if you get them mixed them up?

Anything goes wrong at the church or cemetery, multiply the members & graves by 2 minimum & that's how many people will know about it in about 7 days. A month later multiply them times 10. Plus the Almighty will be upset too?

I'm just trying to give you a typical example of what could happen in less than 2 cuttings during the month of July? Things go wrong at places like that you are dealing with a very high stress situation right from the start?

If you can handle all that go for it & Good Luck to You!

[KLC]

I had 2 churches last year and am hoping for a third this year. What I can tell you is that they like things to be done near the end of the week so it still looks fresh cut but the clippings have worked their way to the soil and wont get on their shoes.

They prepay for the season in advance and I only offer a 5% discount for prepayment (but it sure takes billing issues away). Mine are always easy to work with and friendly.

About the cemetery... I have never done one, but read an article in Turf South that made them look like a nightmare to do correctly so the headstones are not damaged. If you decide to bid on this with the cemetery please look into the RIGHT way to do them and really sell that to the church. Let them know there is a right and wrong way to do it and that your intent would be to do the job in the least destructive manner possible.

Good Luck, dont offer a big discount as you will lose your butt that way. It all takes time and you should get paid for yours. Bid it like any other so that you get paid, and be sure about the time to do the cemetery.

[highlander316]

i maintain a church right now. Some pay good, some don't, it depends on their funds. I make out good. Bid as normal, but realize you might get underbid by someone in the church itself. Usually after a year of crappy looking work, they are willing to pay out (how I have the one I maintain). As for the graveyard, I don't maintain one, but I can see it to be a b$tch to do. I'd imagine they'd want it bagged to keep the clippings off the tomb stones, unless you have a mulch kit on your mower. Try to get them to allow you to spray a growth regulator around the stones so that you don't have to trim nearly as much. Just remember, bid it for what it will cost you to make a profit.

One last thing, not sure if this is true or not. I have heard if you donate your services to maintain the church and then try to write that off on your taxes, it's an automatic audit. Supposedly too many people were trying to get away with it.

[spotremix]

i recently but a bid in on my church. can't remember the square footage off the top of my head but i did based off of how many hours it will take and my cost per man hour. i had some friendly advice of the min. i should be making a man hour and used that lowest figure. i'm still waiting to hear from them so i don't know if i got it or not. i'm afraid i didn't because the guy who does there work now puts down 3 apps of fert/weed killer and i can't do that (no license). i'm hoping my bid was cheap enough that if they used me plus someone to put the 3 apps down it would be less that what the guy that does it now charges cause i'd really like to have my church (it woudl give a chance to expand my equipment).

[Stephen M.]

A couple years ago, the church I used to go to approached me about taking care of two of their properties a couple blocks apart. I quoted $250 per building per month and they acted like I was committing armed robbery!

2 years before that, they asked me to remove a hedge of Escollonia Fredesii along the back fence that I had planted years before. They wanted them out completely. I quoted them $500. Too much money.

So they had the deacons cut the hedge down and they left the roots. STUPID! The hedge grew back better and taller!!! :laughing: :laughing:

Churches around here call and as I'm pre-qualifying the call, I tell them its a waste of my time to give them a quote.

[KLC]

Stephen,

If what you said about donating services is true, there is another way. Tell them that you will upon reciept if funds tithe back 10% of your total bill back to their building fund. That way its not on the invoice for an audit and you have a legitimate deduction.

I understand the audit thing, but those documents arent recieved by the IRS to my knowledge, just the tax man sees them.

[Stephen M.]

Its not worth it to me KLC. For years I gave them free work because it was a hobby and I worked in the dairy industry at the time. But when I changed occupations and started doing this as a business, I don't donate my services anymore and it certainly isn't worth a tithe of 10% going back into their coffers. It isn't worth the expense to pay my employees on jobs that give no income like a home church.

Besides, my local home church can kiss their collective A$$.

[rustyt22]

Wow, some of y'all have had bad expeiriences with churches. I mow a church that is fairly good sized, and they didnt even want a competitive bid against me. Its not my home church either. They just heard that we were the company to call for a church building.

We did about $6k worth of landscaping, got the lawn fertilization going 6x per year, and also got the maintenance account somewhere around $1k/month. We do have to mow it on Fridays due to church on Sunday, but that's the only special favor they asked. Im going to put a sign in front next week to see if I can get some of the church members too. We'll see......Good luck man..

[j2short]

rustyt22, Just curious how many acres is that church?? and is it year round. grave yard? thanks

[rustyt22]

no grave yard, and about 3 crew hours on a 2-man crew. I dont know how many acres....

[S&S]

j2short, Ido a church and both of their cemeteries. I cut the open area with the lazer and around the stones with the wb. The wb's have mulch kits on them and makes it easier. The first couple of times you do one just be carefull after that speed will come. We can cut and trim the big cem.in about 1.5hr. 2 guys cut and 1 trims all done at same time. about 4acre and we cut wide open. Mike