Single employed LCO's

[walker-talker]

I am just curious how many LCO's are out there that are one man operations....and what kind of money can you make....annually and after cost. I work full-time at another job and have for 10 years, but I have been cosidering making a change over. I know demographics have a lot to do with it. I was just curious if it possible to make anywhere from $60,000, up to $100,000 a year after taxes and all other cost, by myself. Any input is appreciated.
Matt

[TGCummings]

I have seen those kinds of numbers for small operations. In my own situation, I make about half of the kind of money you're talking about, but only put in between 18-20 hours per week on the job and in the field. A lot of reason for that was because my wife was working full-time until recently and, as the only driver in the family, I was spending a lot of time commuting her as well as working on the business. Now, with the wife released from her former job and helping me full time with the management of business, we have an opportunity to focus hard on the business and solely on the business.

If I can fill in the other half of my week with like work, I can definitely make the kind of money you're talking about just on the lawn maintenance end.

However, in the don't-quit-your-day-job category, it's not easy. We'll have to provide our own benefits and there are hassles of self-employment above and beyond what you see as an employee. It's not altogther less complicated, less political, or in any way easier than in the working world. In a lot of ways, a lot of days, it's a lot worse. There isn't a self-employed person I've ever met that doesn't think about jumping to the employment world several times a year.

The most important thing to remember is don't do it for the money. There are a lot of ways to make money, so find what you love and do what you love while you have the opportunity.

If that's in the Green Industry, my friend, welcome aboard. ;)

-TGC

[awm]

i thought you were single and solo. then you would be in a position to take full advantage and build big money before you choose a lady.:) later now

[walker-talker]

Well I am single and solo...lol I guess I should of put in a different subject, something like "one man operations" or somthing to that degree. Thanks
Matt

[AztlanLC]

To make that kind of money after taxes you would need to gross about $400,000.00 in sales, I don't know in your area but I see a lot of people here saying they charge between $25 and $40 per lawn....

If you mow 52 weeks a year and have around 200 $40 customers and don't skip any lawn for reasons like drought. I think you got a pretty good chance in getting to that number.

[GrassMaster]

Hello Everybody: I'm Back!

To try to make that kind of money, first you need to stray away from the Cutting end as much as Possible! :)

That Kinda Money is there but you need to work on Spraying Chemicals & Fertilizers (Granular, Liquid & Maybe look into Organic). Aeration, Dethatching, Seeding & Mulching is Very Good Income.

I did Quite a bit of Fertilizing, a Little Spraying & Quite a bit of Aeration. Goood Money! :) I also loved doing Big Clean Ups, Very Profitable. All of this work is not as Time Critical as Mowing. So if ya don't get it that day, well you get in the next day or 2. That way you can get your Regular Scheduled Maintanance out of the way & then make the $BUCKS$

Every Clean up I did, that I can Remember, I always got other work from it.

Questions for you?
Cut for an hour for $45 bucks or Spray (Or Fertilize) for 15 or 20 minutes for $45?
Cut 10 or 12 yards at $45 each in 8 or so hours driving all over the place or go to 1 Clean up & Work 6 or 7 hours for $500?

$$$$$MONEY IS WORK DIVIDED BY TIME$$$$$

About your least Profitable is Riding a Mower!

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Off Topic!
LOL, if you want to make Big Bucks, Check this out!
My Drain was Clogged at my shop, I call Roto Rooter. The $10 an hour Guy Shows up at 5:45pm he gets his Motorized Snake ($600 New) Cleans out the Drain. At 6:25pm he's finished. LOL, he gave me Discount & Charged me $129.95 yep for 45 minutes work max. He said they Bill out at $175 an hour.

It was his 7th or 8th call that day! He had 2 more jobs before going home. I asked him to clean up bathroom, he said if he had Rags he would (his company does not furnish employees with rags?) We gave him a Hand Full & he was Tickled. He cleaned & we Talked!

His Truck was 6 Years old & he had a Total of less than $4,500 of tools in the Van. LOL, a Ladder, 1 big & 1 Small Motorized Snake & a few Hand Tools? I was in the wrong Business?

I think this is a Worth While Business to look into. He is not a Plumber. Very little Skill involved, He only cleans drains & yes he Plunges a Few Commodes at $75 a Pop Min. If Sewer or any Plumbing needs repair. They get 10% referall fee for repairs!
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Just my Thoughts! :)

[walker-talker]

I was not thnking that you could make that kind of money just from mowing alone. I do dethach, aerate, overseed, verticut and so on. I recently recieved a study manual to take a test for spraying chemicals. As a reply to AztlanLC post, if I was grossing $400,000 just from mowing annually, would I have to pay $300,000 in taxes and overhead??

[AztlanLC]

It's hard to believe but it's true, after you pay all you taxes and overhead cost most of the people in this business take about 25% after taxes and some take even less than that.

Even if you get into fertilizer, detaching, aerate, clean ups, and whole nine yards, let's say you make $500.00 a day multiply that by 6 day a week and that's $3,000.00 a week by the times you can work on a season in my area it's about 40 weeks
40 x 3,000 $120,000.00 minus SS and medicaid $102,000 minus state tax, minus federal tax, minus gasoline, minus equipment expenses, minus insurance and the list goes on and on.

and tha's working from monday to saturday about 10 hrs. a day about $50.00 dls on hour and not skiping a single day, (rain, drought, holidays) think about that, most people says in here they make about $50 dls p/hour, but you don't get pay to change your blades, drive from one property to the other, take you equipment to get fix, lunch, etc.)

[kutnkru]

The average lot is 8-10m/sf and one operator can cut and trim an average of 22 a day solo. If you charge at the low end of the spectrum $25/day thats $550(gross) and $2750/ 5 day week or $88,000(gross) for 32 weeks of cutting.

Net will depend on your overhead expenses, type of machinery used etc.

[AztlanLC]

The average lot is 8-10m/sf and one operator can cut and trim an average of 22 a day solo. If you charge at the low end of the spectrum $25/day thats $550(gross) and $2750/ 5 day week or $88,000(gross) for 32 weeks of cutting.

That means you have to get 100 customers and half of those will let you mow monday tuesdays and wenesdays, commercial I don't see a problem but residential is a whole different thing.

100 customers, hmmm I don't know in your area, but that's a really big number to start, than you have to pray for rain at night or wekeends throughout the whole year.

Belive me it's hard to walk out with $100,000 at the end of the season.

[kutnkru]

AZ...LC

We have many LCOs in our area who will start cutting their routes in the lower end housing areas on Mondays and work thru the week ending in the upper scale homes by Friday pm.

Yes that is an immense number of cuts to attain that $88k mark your right. However you must take into consideration that the $88k is strictly for mowing. This does not account for income earned thru nutrition programs, seasonal(not including snow) and renovation services.

[dogdad]

I am a sole operator and tell people like this: Work smart not hard. For example, if you get a commercial place to cut that pays $125.00 a cut at 4 weeks is $500.00,,,,,,,then get 10 places like that and you are at close to 60,000 a year GROSS. Now you go up from there to what you can handle. I personally don't do the homeowner since it is only around 30.00 a cut. I can do all my cutting in about 3.5 days and grossed more than the 60,000

[AztlanLC]

Please don't forget that the questions was if he could make 60k to 100k after taxes, and overhead expenses.

Last year I grossed 200K and I only had about 40k after taxes, expenses, insurance and so on.

[AztlanLC]

I am a sole operator and tell people like this: Work smart not hard. For example, if you get a commercial place to cut that pays $125.00 a cut at 4 weeks is $500.00,,,,,,,then get 10 places like that and you are at close to 60,000 a year GROSS. Now you go up from there to what you can handle. I personally don't do the homeowner since it is only around 30.00 a cut. I can do all my cutting in about 3.5 days and grossed more than the 60,000

Do you mow 12 months a year, don't you skip any lawn at all

Once again, It's easy to get to the 100k mark, but to walk with all that money at the end of the season, that's is a whole different thing. unless you get paid only by cash and maybe not even so.
Insurance, gasoline and all those overhead expenses really add up.

[LJ lawn]

please man, you're killling me -lol.EASY to get to 100k? solo op? be real!maybe where you're at but i only know one guy ( true solo op)round here that did 80k mowing dawn till dusk 7 days a week ,had 100 + lawns,plus all the extras (aerate,landscaping,fert etc.)he recently gave it up because of getting killed with taxes.he figured out he could make the same after taxes working elsewhere -and getting benefits without killing himself.walker -talker,i don't know where you live but it seems your location pays a BIG part in how much you can make.it's extremely hard to compete with the big legit lawn co's here because they make it up in volume.sorry for the negative outlook, but if you can get the customers and the perfect route -then great! but every time this subject comes up i see a lot of people posting how easy it is and throwing numbers around.

[walker-talker]

LJ Lawn.....I posted this message to get opinions, whether positive or negative, I don't care at least they are honest. Thanks for the post. I am in the business just a couple of years and wanting to set a goal for myself. Currently I am mowing, aerating, dethatching, overseeding and verticutting. Next year I am going to get my applicators lincense. Maybe my goal should be to gross 100K. I am willing to take on one employee, but not sure if it is worth getting large enough to get more. At my current job I manage 30+ people so I think I could handle the pressure. Thanks again for the post....I am learning.
Matt

[dogdad]

As I said I do not do homes, but businesses like Sara Lee Coffee,office Max, Just for Feet, one of the top budweiser Distributers in the country , and a few more. If you get the LARGE accounts ,then you Can make a large amount of money. He asked for opinions, I gave him mine. If you sell anything in this world, you need to sell the most expensive items you can. For example, If you sell cars , sell BMW or Mercedes, not chevy: if you sell shoes sell Ferragamo shoes,not cheap shoes. You want to seel planes ,sell Lear Jets,not cessnas. MY POINT was if you get the large properties you get the large paychecks.

[AztlanLC]

I din't really mean grossing 100k was easy actually it's very hard but to take home 100k after taxes and all expenses I don't see that happen in the real LC biz, even if you grow pretty big you'll have more expenses than you might think.

And walker please be honest, first you said that you had a full time job and were plannig on making a change over. I though that you had a job where you were making that kind of money had health insurance and work year around.

If you do, don't make the change over unless you are 18 years old and don't mind working real hard for maybe the next 10 years to get to the same number

[gusbuster]

Originally posted by dogdad
As I said I do not do homes, but businesses like Sara Lee Coffee,office Max, Just for Feet, one of the top budweiser Distributers in the country , and a few more.

Getting those type of commercial accounts are tough. You have to have both reputation and price to get these type of business.

Originally posted by dogdad
If you get the LARGE accounts ,then you Can make a large amount of money.

Also bigger headaches. ie higher insurance premiums, labor cost ect.. when you go to bigger accounts, bigger responsiblilty. That's why you get the bigger bucks. Got a rep like our family does, get a better price as these companies tend to pay premium prices so they don't have a headache. Companies we do-Hewelt Packard, orecle.. plus few others. My uncle is in charge of the accounts, but I do help out with manegment.

I don't disagree with you dogdad, but making big money doesn't mean squat unless you live in an affordalbe area. We have to make that kind of money to live in the San Francisco Bay Area. Try renting a home(2 bed, 2bath) for less than $3200 a month. You need that balance of income and cost of living. That's more important than making 100K a year.

John

[LJ lawn]

a point on selling,did anyone think mcdonalds would get to where they are today by selling cheap hamburgers? i think they saw that they could sell a million cheap hamburgers and make them the same each time,instead of selling a lesser amount of more expensive burgers.of course it's a little different with the service industry ,but not really. just look at chemlawn and the larger businesses.they probably got to where they're at by being cheaper and consistent.just my 2cents.

[kutnkru]

Originally posted by gusbuster
... Try renting a home(2 bed, 2bath) for less than $3200 a month. ... Isnt that the TRUTH!!!

After HS I rented a house in Tracy (just south of Stockton) with two other friends and got a steal on a 3 bdrm 900sf home for $750/mo +utils.

That is the most amazing thing how the same house in my neigborhood in NY can run $129k on the market and go for $500k in other parts of the country or more depending on lot sizes up to 1 acre.

LoL!!! :laugh:
Kris