A fairy tale...

[Bassman]

Stopped by to give an estimate to a prospect today, they called several days ago because their next door neighbor is a current customer of mine and were not happy with their current service. I made an appt for today to meet with them. The property was in beautiful shape, plush St. Augustine lawn freshly mowed. All landscape material, shrubs & plants just trimmed. No weeds.
Prospect: Please come in, would you like some iced tea?
Myself: No thank you.
Prospect: We would like an estimate for year round service, we are here in the winter only and would like our property maintained throughout the year.
Myself: No problem, please allow me to look at your property and give you an estimate.
Prospect: Our current lawn maint. company has not shown up for a month and we didn't want you to have to take care of the overgrown nature of our property so we mowed the lawn, trimmed all the shrubs and completely weeded everything.
Myself: Thank you, it looks spectacular.
Prospect: You won't have to fertilize, our son takes care of that.
Myself: I believe I can maintain your property for $125 per month.
Prospect: THAT'S TOO LOW, WE FEEL LIKE YOU SHOULD GET AT LEAST $150 PER MONTH.
Myself: If you insist.
Prospect: We also have some extra palms and a small vacant lot adjacent that we would like figured in.
Myself: (I had already figured it in).
Prospect: Let's add $10 per tree and $25 for the adjacent lot. We would like it mowed 1 X per month.

Now this prospect continued to increase the price they thought I should be making and they were soooo nice and doing all the talking, I thought I was in the Twilight Zone. It ended up being well over $200/mo. for a job that I honostly would have taken on for $125. In addition, they said if for ANY reason I ever felt that I was being short changed to just give them a call and we could re-negotiate the price.
One last thing as we finished our visit...
Prospect: By the way, the people across the street will want you to do their property also, make sure you talk to them.
Sure enough, I signed them up to a yearly agreement also.
I am not lying, this actually happened to me today. I'm still thinking I'm dreaming but it actually went down this way. Any one ever experience a prospect like this?
Bassman


[Edited by Bassman on 02-15-2001 at 07:25 PM]

[cleancut]

On occasion, I have had people offer me more money..However, this week has been a weird week as far as that goes...This guy calls me Sunday night and said that I met him 2 years ago and asked if I remembered him..I did vaguely..When I met him 2 years ago, he approached me and said that he had about 15 yards that he was wanting to get rid of...He was wanting out of the business and he asked if I would be interested in taking them over..I said sure and gave him a card..I never heard from him until this past Sunday...When he called, he said that he had gotten a job with Home Depot and was wanting to get rid of all of his lawns...I told him I was interested..Well, we went out Tuesday and visited all of his current customers...Instead of 15 lawns now, he has 24...So far 20 of the 24 customers have signed on with me...Many of them want landscaping and other jobs done...These lawns will easily make me $30,000 this year...They're all within 5 miles of each other and are in blocks of 4-5 yards with one unload..Several of them are in a high end neighborhood that I've been trying to break into for the last 2 years...What did all of this cost me????Nothing...!!!The guy said that he just didn't want to leave his customers hanging and that I had made a positive impression on him two years ago....He chose me over one of his friends..Go Figure...I'm not complaining...Sometimes it's just a matter of being in the right place at the right time...Derrick

[Sammy]

Sounds like the other maintenence company lost a good customer. Good luck man.

[bob]

Wow Bassman, Could you imagine if every customer was like that guy. I've had great customers, but that one takes the cake!

[MJ]

Bassman, I think I'd be at least a little leery. Why would the last company neglect such an obviously great customer? Congrats on the good luck, though. Cleancut, that shows that good things do happen to those who hang in there and wait. I wish someone would tell me "here, you can have my customers - I don't want them anymore".

Mick

[TJLC]

That would be a RARE thing to happen down here. Most people here want you to mow their lawn for $2-3 dollars less than what you bid!

[Nathan]

We just got a very similar customer. An old english couple. They had a guy taking care of their yard for nine years. He had to move back overseas so they called us out of the paper. We gave them a fair bid and they said it was too low, so we let them make an offer. Since then we have slowly been bringing the property up to our standards, but it still isn't even close to 'maintained'. They love it and say it has never looked so good. They also keep trying to pay us more. Even better is that they said they tip each year, even though we told them it was totally unnecessary. I love freindly older people with money!

[mowerman90]

Bassman
You'd better pinch yourself to see if you're just dreaming. On second thought, you need more than a pinch, maybe run over your foot with the mower or something (LOL) you've obviously entered "THE TWILIGHT ZONE"

[Bassman]

Originally posted by MJ
Bassman, I think I'd be at least a little leery. Why would the last company neglect such an obviously great customer? Congrats on the good luck, though. Cleancut, that shows that good things do happen to those who hang in there and wait. I wish someone would tell me "here, you can have my customers - I don't want them anymore".

Mick

MJ,

I am simply perplexed by some of the comments from new customers regarding their previous lawn maint. co's.
I.E. "My lawn service guy just stopped showing up and won't return my phone calls".
"My guy was doing a good job but he stopped coming".
This one takes the cake and I've heard it more than once. "Our guy stopped maintaining our property and he never billed me for work that he did".
"Our guy called and said he had an accident and can't do our lawn anymore".
Whatever, I am happy for what ever reason to take on new work and "show my stuff". As far as being leary of a situation that seems to good to be true, I won't look a gift horse in the mouth. This dream customer that my original post is about comes from a neighborhood that I have established myself in and came as a result of word of mouth. He seems very sincere and respectable. Time will tell.
Bassman

[bobbygedd]

this one time i had a lady ask for a spring cleanup. thought the job should sell for around $250. i heard from someone that she was a cheapo, but had lots of money, i quoted the job at $300, expecting her to "chew me down". she says, three hundred, thats it? here is $400, do a nice job. BOB

[LJ lawn]

i knew a guy who mowed a lawn for beer.the guy would give my friend a case of brew every time he did the lawn.i think he had something like 30+ cases in his garage at the end of the season.unfortunately i can't seem to get that lucky.i'd be a little concerned if someone got rid of such a great customer. the first thing that goes through my head when i go meet a potential new customer is WHY they are getting rid of (so they say)their existing lawn service.was it the service? price? or did the lawn service dump them cause they didn't pay?or were a pain in the ass?hmmmmm?i wonder?

[MJ]

I'm in kind of the same situation. Had an association representative call me about snowplowing the other day. Said they were unhappy with the current plow guy. As I talked to her to find out what was wrong, it was apparent that it wasn't getting plowed on time, leaving deep ruts, ice-covered hill of a driveway, etc. I went and looked at it and let them know it wouldn't be cheap but they would be getting premium service. Lady let me know right quick that money wasn't a major consideration and she liked what I was saying. Now I have to wonder if the guy they have now is just overloaded or what. This is going to amount to enough that I'll build a route using this as a hub. Like I said before, I just can't figure people getting lax about the service they provide. Anyway, service will always sell itself.

Mick

[MJ]

Sorry, technically I got off the subject of "Commercial Lawn Care".

Mick

[Acute Cut]

I must be glutton for punishment tonight. I have disagreed with every post i have read! Do those of you consider yourselves honest? I see that as a form of stealing. If i sell you an apple for 5 cents and then joe offers me 10 cents. Well, ill say "nope, they are only 5 cents my friend"

What if this customer finds out later via word of mouth that you are overcharging her. Not only may you get fired, boost resentment, but you will also start a beautiful negative advertisement campaign. I believe Clinton started one of those, but it sucked for him.

Come on guys, stop being joe blow with a mower in the back of his datsun. Be honest. Be professionals. Dont go to the dark side.

When you are honest and fair, your reputation preceeds even your work.

Think about that last line for a minute. I am reflecting on it even now and am dumbstruck by its truthfulness. WOW> i just came up with that too. I might be the next John Grishum starting my career with that one sentance. LOL

[motor86]

Originally posted by Acute Cut
I believe Clinton started one of those, but it sucked for him.



I don't think we can talk about that here. I heard it was in Oval Offi....oh, sorry.

About being leery of a job, get both sides of the story. Talk to both the fired person who took care of the lawn and the property owner. Get both their reasons.

I started a lawn last year after hearing mixed things. I talked to the previous person who mowed her lawn and he said she was a ***** and was always yelling at him for something. I talked to her, and she said he hardly ever came, which I found out from him to be true. Also, he would mow right after it rained, and go fast so his mower hardly cut the grass, and he didn't trim or mow the ditch. I can definetely see a reason why he would get yelled at! I took 2 of his lawns from him, and I am working on more, shouldn't be hard......

[Twotoros]

Bassman , you stumbled into one of them thar theme parks you's got down there . It was the 'free ride' ride .

[cleancut]

Hey Acute Cut are you for real???You must be joking...If someone is going to offer me more money, you better believe I'm going to take it...As long as you perform quality work and the customer is satisfied, get as much as you can..That's why we're in this business..Maybe we shouldn't charge at all...In the above cases, the customer is the one that offered to pay more....Get Real...Derrick

[MIDSOUTH]

I'll have to agree with cleancut!!!!!!!!!!!

[JimLewis]

I agree with the last two posts. I thought Acute was joking too. I tell ya, if someone offers to pay me more money, I'll take it every time. And I don't feel like I am being one bit dishonest or unethical.

The apple scenario is a bad analogy. A better analogy would be if you went for a job interview and they decided to hire you. They asked you what you wanted to make. You said $10 an hour. They said that was too little and said they'd pay you $13 an hour. You telling me that taking that would be dishonest? No way!

As for Fairy Tells, they are few and far between but always nice. I got one like that my first week in the business. I would have bid $125 or $150 per month - seasonal. But before I could even get a word in, she said "Tell ya what. We were paying the last guy $300 a month year-round. If you can do it for that price, you got a deal." I did. And they've been paying me $300 per month for the last 6 years. And they always pay on time and never *****.

Some times, you just get lucky. I still can't figure out why the other guy let that one go. He, too, just wasn't showing up regularly.

[Greenkeepers]

When you are buying you want to get your product for the cheapest price and when you are selling you want to sell it for the highest price...... Not the other way around. This is known as a crazy thing called a business transaction, I thought that is what we were all here for but I must be mistaken.
People like these customers mentioned in this post make up for all of those who try to devalue our service and are the ones who appreciated hard work and a good job. They are just hard to find anymore !! Congrats guys, hang on to those ones...... :)

[MJ]

Shopping is a good analogy. If you want cheap (or to save money on a product), go to a discount store. If you want service and customer assistance with professional advise from the clerk, quality, after-sale service etc then you would go to a specialty store and except to pay more. Basically all the lawn service companies are selling the same thing, some are selling cheap and making money with volume and others are selling high-quality service to fewer customers. It's up to the customers to determine which they want. I agree that you wouldn't voluntarily pay more for equipment than the dealer asked - but with service (vs goods) it's done all the time. It's called tipping and it's intent is to assure good service. That's what I'm seeing is happening here.

Mick