This video explains why using the right lawn care equipment can maximize your potential and bring in more profit.
This morning as you think about your business, are you putting the right equipment on the right properties? When you bid the job, are you bidding it taking into account the right production costs because you’re using the correct equipment? Are you selling work that’s bigger than you should be doing right now because you don’t have the appropriate equipment?
This is a picture from my window of a property across the street being mowed with a 21 inch mower. There’s actually a walk behind on this property as well. It’s not a big one, 48 inches or less, and that’s what’s mowing this property. You are only seeing a little bit of this property.
Now, maybe there’s a reason for it that I don’t know about…that’s entirely possible. But, it does bring up a great question.
A lot of times I will see the wrong equipment on properties. Or, you wonder why you’re being killed on a bid. You wonder why your competitors are beating you out. The competitors are putting the perfect equipment onto a property and if that property calls for three different types of equipment, they have the three different types of equipment on there to maximize their production speed.
If you’re putting the wrong equipment on the property then your labor goes up and there’s no chance you can win the bid because most of the cost of the bid is the labor itself, not the equipment. The key to profits is putting the right equipment on the right property.
The other thing to think about too is if you’re going to jump into, let’s say commercial from residential, or big commercial from smaller commercial, so you buy one piece of equipment to do one property but you don’t really get out there and sell, then that piece of equipment is going to cost you a lot of money because it’s going to sit and be underutilized.
When you’re ready to go bigger, it’s critical to get the right equipment. But even more than that, it’s critical to be ready to sell so that you can fully utilize that equipment. If you’re only going to sell one or two properties and you’re going to buy a bunch of big equipment, you might as well not even get them. You should just focus on the smaller stuff.
Think about utilization of equipment for maximum profit. Think about it to maximize your potential to win bids. And then, think about how much you’re going to utilize that equipment and if you’re ready to really sell the work before you invest in it.
One Reply to “Are You Using the Right Lawn Care Equipment?”
Jonathon,
I had a question regarding the starting of a new mowing business in a small town that is dominated by another lawn care company. There is a lawn care company in my town that has been here for nearly 20 years. They are the major player. I started my business 2 years ago and, while I have grown a great deal over the first 2 years, I cannot bring some clients to consider my service, even when my bids are often lower than the competition. I have talked with a few of the competitors clients, and they tell me that they are comfortable with their work, simply because they have been a client for so long.
Again, the estimates I offer are routinely lower (sometimes by 20-30%), and the work I do is just as good. I pride myself on customer relations, and I have been volunteering in the community under my business entity. What can I do to get customers from this established company?