mow for free

[cjcland]

i am going to offer my customers a special if they get me a full service 12 month contract for lawn care i will offer them a free month of mowing, is this too much or should i offer 1/2 the month or 1 free cut i know i would make nothing the first month of the new contract but the next month i would break even and every month after that would be profit-expenses what have you done in the past, i feel 1 month of free mowing would really motivate them, please let me know if i am going to far<p>----------<br>CJC Landscape Management<br>Winter Haven, Florida

[bob]

I wouldn't give away ant free services. Instead at Christmas, send them a tin of pretzels or a gift from Swiss Colony.

[HOMER]

UH UH, Did you get a free month with your phone, cable, power, internet service, cell phone, etc............If I gave away a month of business I would have to give away my business.....Send them a gift certificate when they refer you to somebody else AND you land them. Everybody likes to eat so make it a Shoneys or something, don't give away your sweat though!<p>Homer

[Charles]

CJC, please tell me that your're not that desperate. Wipe free out of your vocabulary. If your a one man operation your&quot;re not going to get rich enough to off free work

[cjcland]

thank you all i am glad i checked here first<p>----------<br>CJC Landscape Management<br>Winter Haven, Florida

[ZYAL8R]

how about a free mowing?? i was thinknig of setting up a fertilizer/areation plan and give all new customers a free mowing if they signed up.

[Charles]

I don't think you want the type of customer who are just looking for a freebie. What if you get 200 calls wanting a free cut and most of them have 2 acres? Most good customers arent going to give up their regular lawn service for a free cut. &quot;free&quot; that is such a scarry word lol

[DMC300]

IF YOU GIVE THEM 12 MONTHS TO PAY FOR YOUR SERVICES YOU ARE ALREADY GIVING THEM A BREAK.<p>----------<br>DON<br>LIANNES' MOWING

[Keith]

I have to agree with Charles, you don't want this type of customer. Next think you know they are try to get you to honor a competitors coupon or something. :)

[yardsmith]

I offer a few perks for my customers that help me out as well. My main point of interest is that for every referral they send, if they become a reg. customer, I will give the original customer a free mowing. May not sound like much but for avg. of $25 a pop, I could sit on the phone for 5 min. at a time & call all my friends- $25 savings for 5 min. of your time.<br>I also send cards at Christmas time & surveys asking what they liked/disliked about our service, & any other comments.<p>----------<br>Smitty ô¿ô<br>

[cantoo]

I'm considering having a draw of some type for my customers and the winner gets a 10' gazebo, 2nd prize a picnic table and 3rd a plant stand. I am a carpenter real time so I have made a few and sold them, I was thinking this would be a good way to advertise both businesses. It wouldn't really cost me that much money and the space that the gazebo takes up is less grass I have to cut. :)<br>I'm thinking maybe one chance for every $50 or something they give me. This might give me some winter work building them. The other bonus is that friends who come to visit will difinately ask where they got it. Still in the planning stages yet.

[FIREMAN]

I GIVE OUT COUPONS FOR PEOPLE WHO REFER ME NEW CLIENTS, ONE FREE CUT NOW AND ONE TO USE IF THEIR REFERAL SIGNS AGAIN FOR NEXT YEAR, THE SECOND ONE IS AS FOLLOWS. 25% OFF SPRING CLEAN-UP OR TWO FREE MOWINGS OR 50.00 OF ANY INSTALLATION PLANTS/MULCH WHATEVER. REFERALS ARE ONLY USEFUL IF THEY REMAIN CUSTOMERS.

[southside]

I don't do freebies or &quot;love jobs&quot; as they<br>are known here.Send them a christmas present.<br>None of us here are charities.<p>Karl<br>

[lawnworker]

have never mowed for free exept when some loser doasant pay wich has happened 2 timesw since in bussiness however if you could use the offer on referals that would be good

[cjcland]

thats what my post said, if THEY GET ME a 12 month FULL SERVICE contract at an equal or greater cut price then i will give them a free month if every one of my customers got me an account then the first month my income wouldnt change but the second month it would double.... as for the question has my phone, internet ....ever gave me free service well alot of phone companies do give money/discount for referals same for internet, now the power company is diferent why should they, its a monopoly unless you own some big generators<p>----------<br>CJC Landscape Management<br>Winter Haven, Florida

[Charles]

Ya CJC, but phone companies and internet companies are not out in the hot sun mowing yards for free. Sometimes its easier to come up with these genious ideas in your mind than it is to actually follow through with them. A month of cutting grass for free is like a lifetime. I surely wouldn't want to find out what that feels like. I think flyers and advertising would be a better way to fill a schedule.

[GrassMaster]

Hello:<p>I would be very careful using the word free, in fact I would erase it mentaly from my business vocabulary.<p>Unless a contract is very carefully written it can be broken & even after you have it properly written it can still be broken.<p>Contracts are made to be obeyed, broken & changed. Thats all contracts are used for. In my opionion only & there is no other reason to use them!<p>If you have a customer & they are unhappy with your services, would you still wan't to work for them? Not me maybe discontinue in 30 days or prorate it if it works out to your advantage.<p>Yes, it's simple & only takes a few carefully worded lines to make a 12 month contract stick in court. <p>If you only do them once or more & they try to drop you, yes you can take them to court, but I wouldn't want a business name like that.<p>BTW, Sorry I got a little off topic for this post. <p>But back to the freeby what if it was a large residential account say $450 to $650 a cut, do you want to give this person a freeby or Love Job as SouthSide says. <p>I don't think so, but if you do decide to do this, make sure it's the 12th month that's the freeby.<p>Wait a minute, I changed my mind LOL, think about it, I think I would make the freeby on about the 9th or 10th month because they would notice it more being mid contract, on that freeby month of billing, let them know it's the free month & write them a nice thankyou note below the invoice fee. Then scratch through the amount & place a big ole NC there!<p>----------<br>GrassMaster - Home: www.lawnservicing.com<br>My Start Up Page www.lawnservicing.com/startup/

[Ssouth]

I sometimes give free services and I think it works out great if you do it right. Two months ago a client ask me to prune a Cr. Myrtle, I did, and when I invoiced her I applied the pruning as free because of her timely payments (she always pays early). It only to ten minutes. The next week I got her to up a 12 month contract from just cutting to cutting and all pruning. <br>Moral: Give when not expected and ye shall recieve. <br>This has worked with other clients as well.

[yardsmith]

my free mowings have a $25 limit, & yes I don't think twice because that is a customer you didn't have to cold call, or spend time & $$ passing out flyers, etc. Plus it gets the wheels turning inside customer's heads & they can drum up business for you. You make your 25 back after the 1st cut, & it's a new customer you didn't have; which can add minimum of $500+ a season to your pocket. Maybe I should rephrase it to &quot; I will swap a mowing for a referral&quot; (that signs up with us), & they get the mowing after we have the referral for one month- I've made a profit by then.<br>Grassmaster, I can't imagine a residential customer with a lawn that big that'd spend that much EACH time to have someone else cut it-they must have bumped their head! Everyone I know with any kind of acreage is tighter than tree bark, & would buy a mower & have kid or neighbor do it for $6 an hour instead. I'd love to have some accounts like that!<p>----------<br>Smitty ô¿ô<p>

[MOW ED]

Give them a percentage off of their bill for a months worth of mowings and extend it to two or three if the referral is really good but make sure you price your referral that percentage higher to make up the difference, get it. You don't lose and it looks like your customers get a little break. <br>The large companies give freebies but they aren't losing a penny, the difference in price is shifted to somewhere else in the market. You are not a multimillion dollar corporation (I don't think u are)so you have to be creative without picking your pocket. Good luck.

[Charles]

I get referrals, because my customers like the job I do on their yard and or they like me personally. They want that kind of friendliest and quality work for their friends and family and neighbors. I have never had to resort to begging for referrals with free work. One reason a customer may not automatically refer you is because they may think then you wont have time for their yard if u get too much business. reassure them that they will always be at the top of your list. In the order of priorities

[GrassMaster]

Hello Smitty:<p>The yard I mentioned was the lawn from hell. It wasn't that bad it just took a while.<p>A small entrance, drive was 2,500 ft. long with almost 40 ft on each side, with post every 10 ft, trim all the way around the post, then lawn was almost 6 acres, 181 pine trees, very little edging except for a few large beds. <p>The guy looked exactly like Ray Stevens with a beard & gay as a $3 bill. LOL, his boyfriend looked exactly Christopher Reeves, yes this is the truth. They spent money like going out of style. Any time I was there, there would be at least 2 to 3 other contractors there. He paid people to ride his horses & etc...<p>I worked for him on a cash basis for 1 1/2 years, once every 2 weeks, he planted rye in winter, we could only come on certain days & couldn't be there over 5 hours max at any one time. He never once had a complaint with our work!<p>He dropped me because he called me at 1:00 after lunch the day after I cut & he wanted me to put down about 1,000+ bales of straw by 6:00 that afternoon. I told him that i needed more time, that I couldn't even get that much straw there by 6:00, much less put it down. He laughed at me & said he would call me later. I knew I was history, but it was sweet while it lasted.<p>He gave one of his workers $100 to call me up & tell me not to come back, since I couldn't provide him with service.<p>He never kept another lawn service over 1 month & later on he bought all big equipment. The new worker that he hired stole all the equipment & now the poor devil lives in a $250,000 dump & does his own lawn.<p>Moral of story don't put all your eggs in one basket. The customer is not right most of the time, but they are still a paying customer!<p>----------<br>GrassMaster - Home: www.lawnservicing.com<br>My Start Up Page www.lawnservicing.com/startup/<br>

[greenlawncare]

Just do the math and think of it as just another promotion. The only person who should view it as a FREE service is your customer. If your bottom line increases as a result of your promotion vs. other promotions you could have offered then you made the right choice.<p>I think we should all try to break down the numbers on every decision we make, rather then just assuming that things like a free service are not worth your time.

[Lawnworks]

I think it is a great idea when you need customers. I got the idea from you and it has worked well. I plan to use it more. I would only use it when I need to significantly increase my customer base though. I hate working for free, but this will pay for itself. Also what you could do is just charge 5 or 10 dollars more ont the estimate and that alone would pay for the freebie over the course of the year.<p>LawnWorks<br>Rick Wallace