Getting off to a good start in the lawn care industry, or any other business for that matter involves getting to know as much as you can about the customers that you will be targeting.
Market research is essential. Below is a step-by-step plan that you can use to meet your customers, learn about them and get close to them before you start a lawn mowing business.
Research potential Customers
Firstly you should decide on the area that you will be targeting and then go for some long walks around the streets within your chosen area. This gives you a chance to look at the state of the lawns of the households in your chosen area and some chances to try to strike up conversations with people living in the street who may happen to be outside in their yards or on their driveways.
You should carry a clip board with some customer survey forms and when you do manage to have conversations with people try to make notes after each discussion. Try to find out which lawn service provider is currently mowing their lawns, if they are satisfied with their price and service and if they would consider changing to a new lawn service provider. You can also ask for their contact details and permission to contact them once you have started your business.
Depending on the area where you live you can try a door knocking approach but be careful as some areas have regulations that disallow unsolicited door-to-door calls.
Research your Competitors
It is also necessary to do some research to learn about your competitors. Call them and try to find out as much as you can about their prices, services and the way they run their lawn business in general. By taking it one step further and inviting them to come to your own property and give you a quote for your lawn you can then see their whole sales process in action.
Taking the time to do market research before starting your lawn mowing business reduces risk, helps you to meet prospective customers and to analyze the services of your competitors. Market research is crucial if you want to start your lawn mowing business off in the right direction.
Steve Sutherland has experience running a variety of small businesses. Passionate about helping others get started in business he writes on a several business related topics including the lawn care industry. For more advice and articles about how you can start and maintain a profitable lawn care business visit http://www.StartaLawnMowingBusiness.com
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Why Asking For Help Makes Military Wives Stronger
by: Sarah Smiley
There are two things I hate doing: the lawn and the trash. When counting down the days until homecoming, some women choose to track paydays, school days, or Mondays. Me? I always counted trash days. “Just 12 more times of taking out the trash,” I’d yell across the street to my neighbor as I rolled the can to the curb.
And when the cruise (my husband’s first in 2001) was extended, not a neighbor was spared my ranting and raving over having to take out the trash “yet another two weeks!” Each time I rolled the green, heavy bin down the driveway, I considered it one of the most intolerable jobs of a Navy wife.
That same deployment my front yard was invaded with fire ants, crab grass, and some type of crepe myrtle fungus, which was never identified. I let these problems go “unnoticed,” believing they might magically disappear and I wouldn’t have to actually care for the grass myself.
And the yard problems did go away. My sympathetic neighbor next door became my complimentary yardman. (Although, I’ve always wondered if it was true charity which prompted him to mow my grass each week, or rather a fear that the chinch bugs would crawl over to his side.) Either way, I had free lawn service.
Occasionally, a neighbor would take pity on me and replace my trashcan back to the side of the house after the garbage men were done with it.
And once, when I had maggots in the bottom of the bin, a few men from the neighborhood were nice enough to dispose of them and Clorox the trashcan, and not tell me about the whole incident until a year later (they knew better).
“It takes a village to do Sarah’s trash,” one neighbor joked.
And sometimes it also took a village to change Sarah’s flat tire, to kill big bugs in her living room, and to fetch her son’s toy airplane that landed on the roof.
Towards the end of that deployment, I began to feel guilty. I wondered if I wasn’t being strong enough and if I shouldn’t take my title of “Navy dependent” so literally as to mean I was, well, dependent.
“Don’t be silly,” my neighbors would say. “We’re glad to help.” More than hanging a flag from their door, they said helping a Navy family made them feel like they were doing their part.
Surprisingly (to me), despite doing my lawn every week and occasionally my trash and home repairs, these neighbors often told me I was far from “dependent.”
Instead of focusing on the things I was not doing myself, my neighbors were in awe at the things I had done alone. And most of these things (caring for sick babies in the middle of the night, dealing with emergencies), I had done without my realizing it or giving myself credit.
I learned that being strong and independent doesn’t necessarily mean doing it all.
Most things in life do require a “village,” and there are few people who can do everything themselves. It’s OK to ask for and accept help. Most people are eager to give it.
We all have our limits (apparently mine are maggots and chinch bugs), and it’s best if we know them. That’s the true makings of a strong military wife.
About The Author
++You may reprint the above column on your website so long as the following is included the URL address is actively hyperlinked back++
THIS MUST BE INCLUDED: Copyright 2004 Sarah Smiley http://www.SarahSmiley.com – Sarah Smiley’s syndicated column Shore Duty appears weekly in newspapers across the country.
Sarah@sarahsmiley.com
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