Figuring Travel Costs

[rednktxn]

How Much Does Everyone Try Or Do They Charge For Travel. All Of My Lawns Are Within 20 Minutes Of One Another. Just Say The Lawn Job Is $45.00 How Much Would You Or Do You Add For Travel. Its Obvious We Can't Charge A $40.00 Service Call A Week. Any Help Appreciated.
Thanks, Larry

[GeeVee]

Figure you have X hours per week/year to make money. You can only do so much and have to make X amount to cover overhead and burden, plus profits. All of your work must bring in its share.

[csm]

rednktxn,
I am a x-truck driver and have spent many many many days and hours on the peninsula. Why are your jobs 20 mins from one another? This is my first year back in the business and all of my jobs are within 2-3 minutes of each other with the exception of one house which is one the way to one of my main areas. I wouldn't worry so much about travel time as I would about getting customers in the hoods I'm already in. I don't advertise the any papers only direct mailings or flyers of neighborhoods of my choosing. If you are not doing that then I would start. I've read peoples post on travel times. My feeling is this, I choose the hoods I work in, if I decide to target a hood 20 miles away and get work there then it's me who eats the cost of travel not somebody else. You must have 2.5 million people where you are with lots of richies, those are the hoods I'd hit hard. I did in Southside Richmond (Chesterfield) and it's paying off nicely. Best of luck
Scott

[Elwood]

if I decide to target a hood 20 miles away and get work there then it's me who eats the cost of travel not somebody else.

Sorry Scott, but bad information. We are in business to MAKE money, not drive across town for free to end up losing money on a job. We sell time. Time on the lawn, time in the truck, time in sales, time in the office, etc. GeeVee has it right.

[csm]

Elwood
I understand what you are saying and I agree. My point to him was "why is he traveling so far between jobs? There are a few million people in a 20 mile (if that ) radius in the area he is in. Now if you too are traveling 20 minutes in between jobs for a $40.00 cut please teach me how to get $70.00.
Thanks
Scott

[SCW]

We work hard to minimize travel costs as much as possible. We have a very limited area we service because there's so much available very close to home. Like someone above said---target your advertising---don't travel 20 miles for 1 house when you have thousands and thousands of potential customers in your backyard.

[RRS]

I consider travel time for my mowing route indirect overhead. It's already subtracted from my billable hours before the season begins. Travel time for one-time jobs is built into the estimate.

[Elwood]

Now if you too are traveling 20 minutes in between jobs for a $40.00 cut please teach me how to get $70.00.

Fact is, you don't. If you plan on traveling 20 minutes for a single lawn and the lawn is competitively priced at $40, but your included travel time price should be $70, what you are in reality doing is paying $30 per cut, in addition to the other advertising you had better be doing in that same area to gain as many accounts as possible, so the travel time can be shared amongst several clients. Your $30 per cut has to come from somewhere, not taken on the chin. If you plan on travel like this, you had better have an aggressive advertising plan in place or you will lose out every time.

Expanding into areas outside "your own back yard" can be very profitable, IF it is planned out carefully. 20 minutes each direction, or 40 minutes of drive time per day for a days worth of work in a better area, where profit levels are much higher is a small price to pay for those profits, is it not??

It all goes back to careful planning. This is one reason as to why I don't like yellow page advertisement for small lawn care companies. They get strung out all over the place and end up "buying" windsheild time, paid for with profits.

If you are cutting lawns for $30 each and you have an opportunity to get into a new area, several miles away were the cuts are $40 each, would you not develop a plan to get into that area? Rearch that area completely, develop a plan and execute it, if the profitablity is there. In the end, you are still selling time, just at a higher rate with very little increased inputs.

[csm]

I'm glad you support my original point to rednktxn!

[dave_n_mulberry]

i use a siimple equation as they called me and i tell them. that my price for the service would normally be $40.00 however you are 10 miles outside my normal coverage so if you want me to service your lawn it will be $50.00. if they are willing to pay the extra go for it. i use $5.00 premium from 5-9 miles $10.00 from 10-14 miles $15.00 15-19 miles and run the driving distance from my house. outside of 20 miles i thank them for calling but suggest that they look for someone in the neighborhood. remember everything is for sale including your time. the price just has to be right.

[Elwood]

I'm glad you support my original point to rednktxn!

Well, not really. Your point is to charge for the job that you do on the property, then move on to the next property and charge for the job done there, correct? If I am wrong, point that out, that is what I understand you are saying anyway.

What I am saying is that when my crew leaves the shop at 8am and returns at 5 pm, I am billing out and being paid for 9 hours worth of work (less lunch time) at my per man hour rate. If someones house is further away than someone elses, they get charged a bit more to cover that travel cost. It costs money to put two men in a truck and have them drive from place to place and that time must be recovered AND a profit made on it.

Case in point is Scaper. He services a 50 mile RADIUS of his shop AND is very profitable. He could not be IF he were not getting paid for his crews to drive from property to property each time.

[GrassMaster]

Let me suggest this...

I wouldn't mention to the customer anything about adding on fees for drive time.

Just work it into your bill & don't even mention it.

He services a 50 mile RADIUS of his shop AND is very profitable.

I bet his jobs are closer than 20 minutes apart?

All my jobs were a 8 mile drive into town then they were in a very tight area about 4 or 5 mile circle. I was just lucky on that part, we would go further for bigger one time jobs but I kept driving down to minimal on scheduled maintenance!

[GeeVee]

Dave in Mulberry....
Here's a tip for you.

Lay out your map and grab a compass. Not the thigy with the letters and a arrow that moves alot, the two legged thingy with a pencil on one end and the sharp pointy on the other.

From your base, draw larger and larger cirlces. Push pin your current accounts into the map and see what info this provides for you.

I'm sure most could find this informative when trying to grow your business's and also help with route scheduling- and pricing more work later.

[Elwood]

GM, ask him yourself, but I DO know of some places that are in KY and IN and close to 30-40 minutes away.


Keeping your routes as dense as possible is very smart business, BUT if you can spread your area AND be profitable at it, especially if the area further away is MORE profitable than your current area, shouldn't you at least entertain the idea??

[dave_n_mulberry]

Dave in Mulberry....
Here's a tip for you.

Lay out your map and grab a compass. Not the thigy with the letters and a arrow that moves alot, the two legged thingy with a pencil on one end and the sharp pointy on the other.

From your base, draw larger and larger cirlces. Push pin your current accounts into the map and see what info this provides for you.

I'm sure most could find this informative when trying to grow your business's and also help with route scheduling- and pricing more work later.

************************************************
All of my accounts are within 15 miles of my home.

I do have a day from hell that I do for a rental agent that is down to 9 homes on one day scattered around the county furthest is 35 mile form my house but it is only 10 miles from the previous stop and at that stop is four houses.

around here we have divided four lanes at 65 MPH and hardly no traffic so 30 miles takes less than 25 min. You can't travel that in NYC