Twelve Tips to Get Lawn Care Contracts

Twelve Tips To Get Lawn Care Contracts

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As a landscaper, your main goal is to make a profit, and you can only do this by increasing the value of services you offer, expanding your customer base, and getting more contracts.

Here are some of how you can get lawn care contracts: 

  • Choose your area of specialization.
  • Choose your target customers.
  • Create a portfolio.
  • Advertise.
  • Offer incentives for referrals.
  • Offer promotions and discounts
  • Work on weekdays and weekends.
  • Hire professionals and subcontractors.
  • Networking.
  • Have relationships with existing landscapers.
  • Apply for lawn care jobs.
  • Have a steady price list

Choose Your Area of Specialization

Lawn care consists of a series of activities. Some of which must be handled only by professionals and some of which can be grasped through experience. However, it is always advisable to pick a specialization, keep increasing your knowledge in that area, and build your customer base in that area. 

For instance, if you choose to be a greenhouse/nursery grower, you need to keep developing yourself and specializing as a greenhouse/nursery grower. This would naturally convince a person who needs to plant, grow, and maintain trees and flowers to hire you, rather than hire a general landscaper. 

Note that you can specialize in more than one of the areas of lawn care. However, you need to ensure that you are not overwhelmed by the workload that comes with these various areas as this could hinder you from specializing in any. 

Things A Landscaper Needs

Choose Your Target Customers

Twelve Tips to Get Lawn Care Contracts

There is a popular quote by Meredith Hills that says “When you talk to everyone, you talk to no one.” This is very true for every service provider including landscapers. 

Generally speaking, not everyone has a lawn, not everyone can afford a lawn and not everyone can own properties that give extra provision to start a lawn. With these three conditions, you have already narrowed down your potential customers to people who either own a lawn or have the space and willingness to start one.

Once you have chosen your audience, you may now begin to market your services to them. This would give you a better chance of winning contracts. 

It is advisable to target your customers within your locality in the early stages of your business. This can help you win contracts easily.

Create a portfolio

As a landscaper, you should have a portfolio of previous work that can be easily referred to when trying to market your services to a potential customer. This helps the client to build quick confidence in your expertise when they make inquiries about your services. 

Your portfolio can either be in soft or hard copies or both. Whatever means you choose must be readily available as evidence of the value you give.

Not to worry if you’re just a startup landscaper, you can create sample designs and strategies for lawn care for your portfolio and use them to market your services.

Advertise

The importance of advertisements in any business cannot be over-emphasized. Advertisements are the fastest means to help your business gain visibility. As a landscaper, you can either use the traditional means of advertisements (commercials, infomercials, newspapers, and magazines) or the digital means of advertising (social media marketing, paid searches, and website content). The more visibility your business gains, the more contracts you are likely to get. 

Advertising can be either paid or free depending on the means of advertising you choose to use. However, as a startup, unpaid adverts such as social media posts can be highly favorable. You can eventually sponsor your posts or pay for adverts when you can afford to.

Things To Know When Buying An Existing Lawn Care Business

Offer Incentives to Referrals 

Twelve Tips to Get Lawn Care Contracts

Incentives are a great way to say “thank you”. As a landscaper, when a customer refers you to a potential customer, you can offer incentives such as; free spot treatments, a book guide on how to maintain plants, etc. This can encourage the customer to refer more people to your business. Here are some of the benefits of offering incentives to referrals:

  • It broadens your market reach.
  • It creates a stronger customer base.
  • You can place the level of customer satisfaction by counting the number of referrals.
  • You will have an increase in brand awareness.
  • Higher chances of customer retention.

Offer Promotions and Discounts.

Promotions and discounts are an effective means to cause customer traffic to your business. Some studies have shown that promotions and discounts will increase sales by 36%. 

An example of a great promotion is a 50% decrease in all lawn care services from December 1st to December 31st, one free lawn care session for customers who patronize your business twice in one month, etc. These promotions and discounts will encourage patronage from both existing and potential clients. Promotions and discounts are to be advertised by you through any channel to create awareness. 

Work on Weekdays and Weekends

You might already feel fatigued by this point, however, it is important to let your clients know that your services them are readily available. Lawn care is a job that not only requires expertise, it also requires time depending on the needs of the client or the situation of the lawn to be cared for. You must work as long as you can as long as getting the job done is concerned.

This does not mean that you cannot take breaks from your work when needed, it just means that when you are available to work, you should put in all the effort needed to get the job done.

Hire professionals and subcontractors

In lawn care, some projects are more complicated and technical than others. You might need to hire professionals to ensure that you give the best value to your customers. You might also need subcontractors to help you with large projects. 

You might incur extra costs from hiring professionals and subcontractors, however, the customer loyalty to your business will stay intact because of the value received, while referrals from customers will increase the chances of getting more contracts

Things You Can Claim As A Landscaper

Networking

Networking is the act of interacting with people to share information or exchange information. Several events encourage networking as well as several opportunities to network every day! You just need to seize the opportunity to tell someone about what you do and soon enough, you might either get patronage or a referral. 

To network properly, you must be sensitive to both the environment and the timing.

Networking can be either in-person or online. 

Have Relationships With Existing Landscapers

Twelve Tips to Get Lawn Care Contracts

Building relationships with existing landscapers will open you to a world of endless opportunities. You can either be hired as a subcontractor or you can hire the best subcontractors from the pool of expertise. 

This means you do not feel overwhelmed by handling more contracts, and you increase your customer base by being a subcontractor. 

When your business has gotten to this stage, more customers will be encouraged to give you more contracts.

Apply for Lawn Care Jobs

Most times, requests for landscapers are placed on job boards as job advertisements. Look out for these advertisements and apply for these jobs as often as you can. You stand a high chance of getting one or more of these jobs. 

Tip: When applying for a lawn care job, it is important to put in an application that speaks well for your business by stating your work strategy and having proof of value from previous work done.

Have a Steady Price List

It is understandable to have price shifts in your landscaping business due to economic instabilities, however, it would be very encouraging to customers when they pay at the same range for the services they have been receiving. 

Tip: To get a price list that does not always drastically change with changes in the economy, you can hire a financial analyst to assist you with predictions that might affect your prices in the future and help you to effect the changes to your prices from the onset. 

Things You Should Know Before Starting A Landscaping Business

Frequently Asked Questions

1. How often can I get lawn care contracts?

There are several determinants of how often you can get lawn care projects. Some of them are:

  • The value of your business services: As a landscaper, the value your business gives will determine how many callbacks you get.
  • Weather conditions: Lawn care is an activity that peaks during the summer and dry seasons. Rainy seasons and winter will cause a reduction in most landscaping activities.
  • The visibility of your business: A business with low visibility cannot get contracts as much as one with high visibility. You can increase the visibility of your business by putting out highly engaging content and advertisements.

2. How can I retain my lawn care contract?

Maintaining your lawn care contract is one sure way to ensure that your business stays active to keep making profits. Here are a few tips for maintaining lawn care contracts:

  • Maintain a cordial but professional relationship with your clients.
  • Offer discounts on subsequent lawn care services.
  • Develop a win-back attitude towards your clients. Check-in via emails, telephone calls, and messages.

3. How much should I charge for a lawn care contract?

Your lawn care charges are always dependent on a lot of factors, some of which are: 

  • Time spent on lawn care.
  • Equipment and tools used for lawn care.
  • Rates of the professionals hired (if any).

Tip: If you are finding it difficult to deduce your rates with the following factors, try hiring a financial advisor to help you. 

To learn more on how you can start your own landscaping business, check out my startup documents here.

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