My experience as a lawn care provider

My experience as a lawn care provider:

I have been taking care of residential lawns as a side business for the past four years. Many people consider starting their own lawn care business. While costs of equipment and how to bid a job are important considerations; if it is the right career change for you, question must be answered first.

I have always enjoyed taking care of my yard and getting out and enjoying nature. It is a good way to shut out the rest of the world. When all you can hear is the hum of your mower, weed trimmer, or blower the rest of the world is non-existent. I have used this time to contemplate other issues I have bee considering. Some people like to play their MP3 players when doing yard work. For safety reasons you should still have some kind of hearing protection other than your ear bud speakers.

I started my lawn business part-time to supplement my part-team substitute teacher job. When I went back to school to attain my teaching certificate it was a good way to earn a part time income that I could schedule around my class schedule and study time. Now that I am teaching full time, my lawn service has been a therapeutic stress reliever.

I currently take care of five lawns in addition to my own half-acre lot. I end up doing most of my work on Saturday’s with a few Sunday afternoons being necessary because of other commitments during the week.

Most of my clients are seniors and I have to be careful to not bid too high or they will go with another service that will “low-ball” my bid. The last couple of years I have only been taking on new clients based on referrals or they have contacted me because they have seen me working on their neighbor’s yard. I do have a tendency to go the “extra mile”. I take the care to do the job, so that the lawn looks like I would want mine to look. I might take a little longer to complete the job, but I am satisfied with how it looks when it is done. I don’t feel right asking to be paid for something that I would feel I wasn’t getting my money’s worth if I was the one paying.

In addition to mowing, I also spread fertilizer, re-seed lawns, haul and spread mulch, and remove leaves in the fall. I do end up doing other odd jobs like painting, cleaning gutters and even vacuuming water out of a flooded basement. In some ways I view my business as a ministry to our community’s seniors and as a way to fund my hobby of lawn care.

The community I live in is a “graying community”. We have an unusually large population of people over 55 and they have the money to pay for services. There is a lot of demand for lawn care, but many of these seniors end up being taken advantage of or have their service provider stop showing up. I have gotten a couple of clients because they were dissatisfied or lost their service provider.

Anyway, to sum things up if you are considering doing this as a business I would suggest you start it part time before you leave your current career. I haven’t made a huge income from my business, but I don’t have the headaches of dealing with employees either. I started out running a short classified ad in the local paper and my first client was from a referral of a friend, that also does a lawn service, and he and his partner couldn’t service this particular client; so I got their overflow. The bulk of my clients have come as a result of this one referral. On the other hand my highest paying client was a result of my classified ad; so both are good sources of business.

My ad was real simple and was the least expensive one I could get.

Lawn service

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