Spring cleanups

[Dingo]

I was wondering what all do you do for spring cleanups? Do most people that get spring cleanup become regular mowing clients? and how do you charge? any info would be a help thanks<br>

[accuratelawn]

Spring and Fall clean up is hard to call sometimes. Most guys around here charge $45 per hour. I think customers are put off by the high per hour charge. I bid around 3 times the regular mowing fee. The customer does not usually know how long you are on the property....just happy with good results.<br>Bid right to make your money and do quaility work to please the customer.<br>Alot with stay as regular mowing customers. Market yourself!

[MWHC]

Clean-ups are one of the hardest items to bid. Sometimes you have to take a W.A.G. (wild ass guess) on how much time it will take to complete the task. The more clean-ups you do, the better you get at estimating time. Here are a couple of things to consider.<p>1. Clean-ups usually require the disposal of lawn debris. Does your landfill charge you to dump? If so, you have to work that into your price.<br>2. How much travel time is between the work site and dumpsite? This needs to be worked into the price also.<br>3. Is there enough debris to merit multiple trips to the landfill?<br>4. Have a minimum charge. This eliminates the customers that wan't you to come over for $5.00 to clean a corner out.<br>5. To find a price, you need to know how much per hour it costs YOU to do business. After you know that, you can put whatever profit margin in you like. If it's to high, you won't win many bids. To low, you win lots of bids but make no money. Many posts suggest charging $30-40/man hour.<p>You will find some spring clean up customers become full time accounts while others will not. Do a quality job and the customer will at least see you care about your quality of work.

[HOMER]

I have changed my attitude about it, might be a little nasty but if people don't see the need for yearly maintenance I don't see killing myself and getting behind. My NEW price for one timers is $100.00 minimum. I have been burnt sooooooo many times I feel justified in charging so much. If they want to look around for a better price they are welcome to it. Maybe another guy will get lucky and land them year round. Figure it like this, they have saved money all winter long by not paying for it to be done, they should expect it to cost a lot!<p>Don't give your services away, let somebody else lose their a$$$!<p>Homer

[mountain man]

Homer is right. This is a good way to loose money. Alot of the people that call for cleanup have no idea what it costs to run a business. Most probably need the neighborhood kid that they can hire on a Saturday for $50. If there is no regular maintenance then I am not going to do it for less than $200. It is just not worth doing the smaller jobs after factoring in risks, costs etc vs the potential profit.

[lawrence stone]

Homer,<p>Now your starting to think like a man who controls his own destiny.<p>In the spring I will get calls for a one time<br>spring clean up. The conversation will sometimes go like this:<p>Mr. Stone I would like a price on a one time<br>spring clean up.<p>Stone: Who is doing your lawn mowing maint.?<p>Well I am or when I get sick I have a &quot;scrub&quot;<br>do it on a per occourance basis.<p>Stone: Who handles your fertilization and<br>pesticide application needs?<p>Well Chemlawn does for they are the biggest and the best in the biz.<p>Stone: I can provide you a complete lawn and<br>landscpe maint. package that includes mowing maint., fertilizations, pest. apps., aeration<br>dethatching and spring clean up on a yearly<br>basis. Can I give you a quote?<p>No Mr. Stone we only want you to perform the one time spring clean up.<p>Mr. Stone: Due the great demand for my services I cannot take time from my busy<br>schedule now and not make any revenue from a customer througout the rest of the year.<br>If you decide to change your mind in the future and want to have one company service handle all your lawn care and landscape maint. needs I will be waiting for your call. Thank you for your interest in my company and good day.<p>They key is to qualify these cold calls over the phone and not to get involved with marginal residential business.<p>

[accuratelawn]

Good points Homer, Mountainman, Larry. I think some of us will take the clean up work in hopes of gaining a new customer. By quailifing them in advance you know where you stand. There is no need to work on a clean up project, only to find out the kid down the street mows it all summer and Chem Lawn provides the fertilization.

[HOMER]

Now thats what I call useful information! I don't normally look at it in that fashion but will start. Even if you get the $100.00 min and go up from there you tend to tie up your &quot;free time&quot;, are not going to make anymore off the customer, and are going to piss yourself off for taking on such a headache.<p>I could spend that time trying to make $1000.00 to $1500.00 over the next year by sitting at this computer printing brochures or out scouring the city looking for potential annual customers. <p>Nope, forget the one time clean-ups, I have never made money on them anyway. I suggest (unless you have to have it) you spend your time figuring out how to survive the long, cold, money tight winters! And the only way to do that is to establish customers that are willing to avoid the need for that one time crap.<p>Good Advice Larry,<p>Homer

[ashlandscaping]

Those one time clean-ups can be a headache but they can also lead to farther work like landscape install brick walk and ect. I hated doing them at first but we charge high the crews in and out on most lawns with in 30minutes and the waste is min. But when I go to look at the job I take a good look over the job plus look to see any areas that can be improved a homeowner installed brick walkway that lifting all over old out date landscape and so on. Out of 60 lawns we do in the spring from calls we land between 40 and 50 for lawn maint. Maybe it will not be at first but with in the next 30 days or so. Plus we average about 10 landscapes per year from those cleanup might not be from them might be their kids or friend that seen the job we did or saw the note we left to home onwer telling them of other servies like redoing that paver walkway that we land work from someone that other wise would not have. YES they can be a headache BUT if you really look at whats on the grounds and have an added note telling between now and time of the cleanup any added limbs and so forth will cost more. Some will be like that was their but in same ran when it comes to gets those call for cleanup we have all are customers done and the crews can hit these real quick so not much problem their.

[HOMER]

Well I guess I agree with that philosophy as well, only I don't do any landscaping. If I did that would be the opportune time to look around and see what else could be done. I tried doing the landscape, irrigation thing and could not keep up with all of it so we just mow. If you &quot;just mow&quot;, they are real time wasters IF you aren't going to get any more revenue from them. I can run over to my regular customer and be in and out in a few minutes, I can't there. Most of the cleanups I have gotten into are large yards that have been let go for a long time. I haven't seen one we can do in 30 minutes, I really don't call that a big job. I see your point and in that sense it might make cents!<p>Homer

[GroundKprs]

Dingo, you will want to achieve an certain hourly gross during the season. When someone commits to a season-long maintenance program, they are providing a continuing source of revenue. The single spring cleanup is a one time sale. If you have the time for extra work, consider having different levels of pricing for these two situations.<p>Say you want to offer a 10% discount for full season maintenance, and your hourly rate on cleanups is $40. Then your list price will be $44.45 ($40/0.9=$44.44) per hour for spring cleanup on one time jobs, and only $40 ($44.45x0.9=$40) per hour on full season jobs. This way you are making more on the one time job, to offset the initial costs. It may also help to influence some peopls to go with full maintenance.<p>----------<br>Jim<br>North central Indiana

[Retro67]

I agree, clean ups are probably the worst work we do in my opinion. I won't take any on this year if I don't already contract the lawn. I can't afford to drive for an hour per load of leaves to get rid of them. Nope, I'll be really desperate before I advertise fall cleanups, for sure.&lt;p&gt;Someone else gets the gravy the whole rest of the year, and you get the s%#$ in November. No thanks. I won't do another until I have a leaf loader and a blower buggy to attach the blower to the mower. I can then afford the drive time because the cleanup is more efficient. Otherwise, I'd rather just go work for someone else during the winter if I'm that desperate for cash. Only a small percentage of lawns in my area require this service. &lt;p&gt;Last year, our three person crew was doing a cleanup on a small 1/2 acre max. lot. It took us over 12 man hours to do a $150 job. All three of us are hard, steady workers. Maybe I could find someone in my area to trade that business to for business they don't desire. That just reminded me. There is a guy in my area who advertises and takes only commercial contracts. I am going to give him a call and see if he would like to sell residential referrals.&lt;p&gt;John

[nlminc]

I agree with the idea of the one time job hassel. I have been doing them all along and will most likely discontinue it this year. I do pick up extra work from these people, but I feel that it is the annual customer that I will devote my time to in the future. For spring and fall clean ups I charge an hourly rate of $120.00/hr for 2 men and a 1 ton with a vac system. I also charge for disposal.

[Dingo]

What exactly does a spring cleanup consist of? Is it mostly leaf removal? Do you also do other jobs and add them all together for the &quot;spring cleanup&quot;? I am just starting out and I have lots of free time since im not booked. So would it be a good idea to do these spring cleanups and hope they will sign on as a regular or should i spend my time doing something else? thanks for the help <br> Dingo

[MOW ED]

My spring cleans differ a little depending on previous business. I now quote for dethatching (front mower mount) different than a spring clean on a yard that I didn't fall clean. Most people want a dethatching and it makes the lawn look nice while they are waiting for it to grow. If the yard isnt too bad I'll walk around the house and blow the leaves out so the mower can pick them up. Hand raking is a definate no no and if they insist I tell them its $80.00 per hour minimum 1 hour charged by the 1/2 after and thats that for the hand rake.<br>But if a lawn has alot of deadfall and leaves blown tight around the house then the price goes way up and dethatching is a separate charge. Of course removal of debris is an extra charge also.

[cjcland]

on clean ups i usually charge what it would cost for me to do a full service 4 times, i learned ths from a previous employer, right now i do them because i do have free days but as my company grows and i have established myself i will only do them for my customers, which should be alot easier, knowing that it was me that has ben taking care of it all along, my thinking is yes it might not be great money but with me not having a full schedule yet, i can make more money doing a clean-up then i can waiting for the phone to ring, 9 of my accts are from the same person she invests in properties, and i do all sorts of work for her but i know in time i will have to stop doing the other things(putting up fences, demo work basically anything i can do to make a buck, i do se where it could hurt me to do a 1 time clean-up instead of a contracted acct., but as of now i have more time then money<p>i really learn alot from this site<p>cjcland

[gene gls]

Dingo,<br>Work is work,theres good money in spring and fall clean-ups.As you are just starting out and need to get your foot in the door, (sort of speaking ).There are a wide varity of home owners in any given area,some are richer and some are more ambishous,some even have health problems that restrict their ability to fully maintain their properties.This is where you come in,to assist them in their property maintaince.People who request one time jobs are more likely to pay a higher hourly rate to have it compleated. The one time jobs are usually more labor intensive and physcile,such as spring and fall clean-ups,gutter cleaning,window washing.These jobs also require special equipment to make your work easyer whitch home owners don't want to invest in or have room to store when not in use.The biggest thing is having the right equipment to make your job easy.There are no two clean-ups ever the same.I have been to the school of hard knocks and learned to charge by the hour only,especally for spring clean-ups.My spring clean-up equipment list consists of:hand blower for getting the leaves out of the shrubs and bushes,steel tine spring rake for the flower beads,a cheap tarp to haul the mess to the truck,a 36&quot; power brush to remove the thatch from the lawn if nessesary and to remove sand left from snow plowing along the road,a Shindiawa power broom for smaller hard to get at areas, a 48&quot; Walker GHS mower, a Giant Vac truck loader.<p>I start at the farthest area and work toward the truck. I blow out the shrubs and around the house, rake onto the tarp and drag to the truck.I then brush the dead grass and sticks toward the truck,as I get enough to fill the tarp I drag it to the truck.The next step is to mow over the lawn at 2&quot; higth for finial pick up of grass, sticks and leaves left from the brush. In the spring a lot of debris will have to be hand loaded into the truck with a fork. I try to sort it as I haul it to the truck.I use a leaf loader when possiable,it makes the job easyer. When I am done the yard is clean.I don't do any jobs half way.The customer never has to call me back. I look forward to clean-ups,its a big start and a big finish every year.You'll have to decide where you fit in,and what works for you.<p>

[jrblawncare]

Gene,in your list of Equip.you speak of a 36&quot; power brush to remove thatch,Do you mean a power rake or Dethatcher are are they two differant things?I have seen the Shindiawa power broom.Thanks

[Charles]

I have done spring cleanups every since I started. But I find this part of the business to be the most damaging to your equipment than anything else you do. Except for regular customers I hope to gt out of this part of the business too. There are som many unseen objects that are in leaves that have set all winter. Limbs, rocks, stakes, hosepipes, packdown leaves and almost anything else you can think of. The jobs are usually so dirty and dusty that your filters clog up in no time. I know a contractor who only had his Commercial mower only 6 months before the sand from bagging wore a whole in the center of his mower deck. Warranty doesn't cover this. People who wait and let debris build up usually have little grass and more dirt.

[gene gls]

jrb, There are three brands that come to mind,York,Sweepsteer, and MB.I have the MB,its a 5 HP Briggs,20&quot; diameter X 40&quot; long brush with stiff plastic type brissels. The brush pivots 45 degrees left or right,very handy.I would not buy another MB brush because of the handle arrangement.I have changed over to Snapper Snow Blower handles for greater control.I am changeing the engin to 8 HP this year.My buddy has a Sweepsteer, it only pivots to the right, but its a good unit. The brush doesn't do as thoural of a job as a dethacher but for spring clean-up its fine and is a lot faster. I paid $1800.00 two years ago,new.The greener the grass the harder it is to do.The unit is made for hard surfaces,brushing sand off road edges at construction sites.<p>Charles, Any mower designed to collect grass will receive excessive wear on the deck and the chutes to the collection box when driven over sandy areas. This also happens on lawns that are sparcely covered with grass when mowing. Any new customer looking for a clean-up is almost certain to have a crappy lawn. Most times they are too lazy to do clean-up. This is where the extra charge for labor, wear and tear comes into effect. The first clean-up is always the hardest.I have several customers for just clean-ups. Until the grass gets into full growing mode I have extra time available. Once I do a clean-up I am certian to get other work from that customer.In my area less than 50% of the customers want full service. You have to learn to adjust or do a lot of traveling to find full service customers.