Want to start a landscaping business, but you’re not sure how to begin? It all starts with a business plan. A business plan is a written document that summarizes your company’s main goals, objectives, and organizational structure, and it describes the issue your company attempts to solve and how you plan to help clients. A good business plan also considers the assets, funds, and cash flow projections needed to ensure that your landscaping business can operate profitably.
How to write a landscaping business plan:
- Build an executive summary
- Describe your company
- Conduct a market analysis
- Outline your services or product line
- Create your marketing strategy
- Break down your financial plan
A business plan is imperative if you’re considering starting a landscaping company or looking for funding to expand it. Whether your lawn care company is just starting or has been around for a while, business plans are useful for businesses at every stage, as businesses that spend effort preparing a business plan expand 30 percent more quickly than those that do not. Read on to learn more about how you can create your business plan and attract the necessary funds from investors.
How to write an effective landscaping business plan
The following seven sections should be present in your landscaping business plan:
- Executive summary
- Market analysis
- Operations and management
- Business description
- Financial factors
- Services or product line
- Marketing and sales
Executive summary
An executive summary introduces your business plan and provides an overview of your organization. It provides information about you, what you do, and why your landscaping business will be successful.
Keeping this part brief and general depends on your personal preference, but be sure to include the following:
- Declaration of objectives
- Information about staff and personnel
- Business Location
- What ideals and motives will drive you to success
Writing your executive summary after completing all other business plan sections is what most small businesses do, as finishing the rest will assist you in initially determining your company’s specifics, enabling you to create a strong executive summary later.
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Business Description
The business description discusses the particular aspects of your landscaping company in greater detail. In this section, you should describe your competitive edge, the challenges you face, and why your business will flourish in its industry.
Emphasize your advantages over your rivals and the benefits you provide to customers. Outline your company’s strengths and specify what sets you apart from rivals. Do any of your staff have an extensive background in the landscaping industry?
Include a discussion of the clients you intend to serve. Are homeowners and other residential clients your primary target market, or will you target commercial clients like offices and bigger company accounts?
Market analysis
Researching your competition and placing that information in your business plan will greatly help and inform your decisions as you grow your landscaping company. You may evaluate if there is enough room in your community for another successful landscaping business by conducting a market analysis. Consider the landscaping market as a whole—is consumer spending increasing in the landscaping sector in your community or neighboring communities?
By counting the number of landscaping companies in your area, you may determine the market saturation level. Find out what areas these landscaping businesses serve, and then decide if there is a chance for you to enter the market and attract new clients. Examine what these rivals are doing right and identify development opportunities. You can determine the advantages and disadvantages of your competition from the perspective of customers by reading their Yelp reviews. You can then optimize your business procedures and gain market share when you’re initially starting if you know what people want or don’t want in your local community.
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Services or product line
Outline what services you will provide in this section of your business plan. Indicate the precise lawn care services you’ll offer clients and your target market, along with your anticipated prices.
Although landscaping businesses can provide services other than lawn mowing, you should limit yourself to a small number of them so as not to overcommit. Among the service possibilities are:
- Installing sod or mulch
- Landscape design
- Ongoing lawn maintenance
- Planting flowers and other plants
- Pest control
- Fertilizing
- Edging
- Weeding
Select the landscaping services you qualify to provide and list them here. Also, consider how frequently you will provide these services. Would you offer services biweekly, or do most of your clients receive weekly lawn cutting?
Operations and management
The operations portion of your landscaping business plan details the organizational structure of your leadership team and the type of business structure you’re establishing.
Describe the kind of company you are developing. Your options are a corporation, partnership, limited liability company (LLC), or single proprietorship. Read through the article on registering your business for additional details.
The next step is to present an organizational chart that lists your company’s executives and shows the team’s structure. Describe the hierarchy of your leadership team and who is responsible for what. You can provide a professional summary of yourself if you are the only employee at your company.
If you already have employees, describe each employee, together with their qualifications and years of experience. Highlight qualifications that demonstrate their suitability for the position and how they will benefit your company. To improve this area, you may also include summaries of your key employees’ résumés. If that is not possible, create a desired employee profile so that when you begin hiring, you will know what kind of employees you’re looking for.
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Marketing and sales
Your landscaping business plan’s marketing and sales section explains to readers how you’ll attract and keep clients. You may locate new leads and create enduring relationships with current customers using a variety of landscaping marketing tactics.
Your marketing approach must include a professional-looking website, as it will act as the online persona of your business. The majority of marketing strategies will point prospective clients to your website. Additionally, you’ll need to figure out how to grab the interest of prospective clients and persuade them to visit your website or get in touch with you by phone or email. Among the most successful marketing techniques are:
- Social media. Building relationships with your neighborhood can be an effective strategy to increase your consumer base and establish trust. To begin, set up Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram accounts, and be sure to include up-to-date, correct information so others can locate and get in touch with you. You can highlight team members, discuss project success stories, and even include promotional offers. Keep an eye on the accounts and reply to any comments or inquiries.
- A website. A website can help tremendously, even if it only has a few pages for Home, About, Services, and Contact. You can also include on your website email advertising, a referral system, content promotion, and optimization through search engines. An online presence will also help you take control of any review pages online.
- Advertising. There are several ways to advertise, from paid local online ads to event sponsorships. Local marketing for your company can assist in building brand recognition and drive them back to your contact information for simple access. Among the most well-liked are:
- PPC (Pay-Per-Click) adverts include details and links to your website in the search results on Google.
- Promoted posts on social media mean spending money to provide local users with niche content.
- Local periodicals like local newspapers or online publications sell ad spaces.
- Mail-order catalogs where you advertise in a MoneyMailer or send your own printed material.
Make a marketing plan, select suitable strategies, and emphasize them in this area. Describe how you want to increase your business’s lead generation and trust among customers, keep them as clients, and reward their loyalty.
Financial factors
Realistic financial forecasts for your firm are provided in the finance portion of your lawn care business plan. If you’re looking for investment, you’ll need to convince readers that your company will be profitable.
You must have the capital to establish your firm and that your expectations are reasonable before you begin. Make a list of all the beginning expenses you anticipate, like the costs of a lawnmower, work vehicles, edgers, and trimmers. From there, you can determine the price of your services based on the expenses that you are anticipating.
If your business has already begun operations, you can add financial statements such as income statements, balance sheets, and cash flow statements. This will provide observable proof for prospective lenders or investors to decide whether your business plan is one they’re willing to fund.
You may also add a funding request if you’re looking for cash from a third party. Just be sure to mention how much capital you’ll require, what you plan to accomplish with the money, and how long your business will take to become profitable. Your initial investment, ability to set reasonable prices, and rapid expansion of your clientele will affect whether you become profitable.
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Frequently Asked Questions
How long should it take to write a business plan?
Three months is the ideal amount of time for founders to spend crafting a plan since it enhances the possibility of starting a successful business by 12 percent.
Who should prepare the landscaping business plan?
The individual or people in charge of carrying out the plan should have played a significant role in its creation. Some individuals hire consultants or have staff members draft the plan. You must be involved in the plan’s creation if you want to be held responsible for the choices that are made based on it.
To learn more on how you can start your own landscaping business, check out my startup documents here.
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Meet Shawn Chun: Entrepreneur and Landscape Business Fan.
I’m a happy individual who happens to be an entrepreneur. I have owned several types of businesses in my life from a coffee shop to an import and export business to an online review business plus a few more and now I create online resources for those interested in starting new ventures. It’s demanding work but I love it. I do it for those passionate about their business and their goals. That’s why when I meet a landscape business owner at a job site, driving down the road or anywhere else I see myself. I know how hard the struggle is to retain clients, find good employees and keep the business growing all while trying to stay competitive.
That’s why I created Landscaping Business Boss: I want to help landscape business owners like you build a thriving business that brings you endless joy and supports your ideal lifestyle.