WHERE'S YOUR BREAD AND BUTTER?

[Mowman]

WHERE DO YOU GUYS/GALS MAKE YOUR MOST MONEY? RESIDENTIAL CUSTOMERS OR COMMERICAL CUSTOMERS? HOW DO YOU GO ABOUT GETTING THE BIG BUCK CUSTOMERS? WHAT DO YOU PREFER, RESIDENTIAL OR COMMERICAL? YOUR COMMENTS ARE APPRECIATED AS ALWAYS. MOWMAN

[Scag48]

I get all residential jobs but in a town of a population of 3,000 there are not alot of commercial jobs.<br>

[GrassRoots Lawn Care]

Depends on your definition of &quot;Bread and Butter&quot; We have a few commercial accounts that represent a huge portion of our monthly gross. These accounts are also on contract and have lots of potential for income besides mowing (ie irrigation, palms, landscape maintenence). But these commercial bids are competitive and we make our money there because we are there so long with minimal travel time. If you are talking dollars per hour, residential hands down. We have rezzies paying $40 for a 20 minute cut, $30 for a 10 minute cut and so forth. Lots of people on here say commercial work has less administrative hassles than residentials, but I have not found this to be so, but then again, the first homeowner that gives us trouble we immediately let go. They are simply not worth the added stress and are quickly replaced. <p>----------<br>Mike Reynolds,<br>GrassRoots Lawn Care, Florida<br><p><font size="1">Edited by: GrassRoots Lawn Care

[Barkleymut]

I have 8 commercial customers and 32 residentials. I work alone and can do the commercials in 2 days, the residentials take almost 4 days. I make 55% of my income on the commercials. The market here isn't too tight for commercials because most business owners want someone who appears educated and clean cut. And form a complete sentence while delivering an estimate. (ie. take the Metallica hat off and shave at least once a week if you want to hang with me)

[curlawngreen]

Small residential, 15 min. $22.00 . I love to take care of your yard.

[Scag48]

Curlawngreen:<br>You charge $22.00 for 15 mins.! Are you nuts?!

[Keith]

I agree with ya curlawngreen. It doesn't seem like a great deal of money, but those little ones really add up when you think about what little time is involved. We have a lot of residentials ranging from $80 month to over $200. You can do 5 $100 lawns (if they are close) in the time it takes to do a one $200

[southside]

I do strictly commercial.Residential here is<br>a pain in the arse.<p>Karl<br>

[TGCummings]

Take off the Metallica hat *AND* shave once a week??<p>Man, I *do* have a long way to go... ;)<p>I cut 90% residentials for way too little money. In the $21/hour range, though that'll be $23 starting next month. I'm edging my pricing structure up to see what the market will bear in my area. I've gotten some good nibbles, but the Central Coast of California is the original home of the Mow 'n Blow service (since I'm not allowed to use the word SCRUB anymore :) ). Still, as said, it's time to fish or cut bait around here.<p>My biggest problem currently is too much work. I can't get everything done in an average week and fit in additional services as the same time. The week of the 4th was devastating, and I'll still be making up for it today. It's clear to me now that I need *less* customers for more money if I'm going to succeed in the long haul...<p>-TGC

[Parrot]

i work alone and i have 36 res and 2 comm. the comm accounts are 100 and 150 percut and res avg 50 per cut. i wouldn't mind having more comm, but i've never really went after them. Too busy fishing i guess.<br>

[Parrot]

i work alone and i have 36 res and 2 comm. the comm accounts are 100 and 150 percut and res avg 50 per cut. i wouldn't mind having more comm, but i've never really went after them. Too busy fishing i guess.<br>

[thelawnguy]

Like the plumber says, one persons $#!t and paper is my bread and butter!<p>Seriously my money in the summer is made small residential (largest lot is ~1 acre) 60 mowing accounts plus hedges, winter its 90 per cent commercial snow plowing the other 10 per cent is driveways from the lawn customers I cant afford to lose out on.<p>Bill

[bill phagan]

Mowman,<p>The profit PERCENTAGES on residentials should be higher than commercial....but assuming your pricing is correct on commercial, the dollars are higher....look at it like this....SHOULD you make more money on a $150 job or on a $600 job?<p>Bill Phagan<br>Green Ind Consulting, Inc.

[AB Lawn Care]

It all depends where you live.But in my case there is way more $ in residential.Most people don't charge more than $30 an hour for commercial work!That's nuts!And that's cnd dollars were talking about.That is why I am doing high end residential work.I am getting $30-100 an hour.I will soon bring that up to $40-100.Down the road I will get back into commercial work.But I want to maximize my business before I do that.I think if you live in a large city commercial work is great but I live in a town of 28000 people with about 15 other companys big and small.<p>----------<br>from:Adam<br>AB Lawn Care

[bob]

I'll take a commercial account over a residential any day. No one watching you like a hawk while yor on their property. No nit-picking. And when they ask for extras, they don't question the price.

[bdemir]

BOb just about clarified it with his post. A customer stares at the lawn all day all week commercial just sees it as a lawn and not their home. The company pays for it so they dont usually care and the home owner just needs to save because the house is an expense and their trying to save with it. This is not the case evrywhere but in my opinion its a good summary of the way it is in most cities.

[MOW ED]

My bread and butter is in the pre-cutting season with cleans and dethatchings. On and off quick and high $ per hour ratios.<br>Some residential customers could care less and some are a pain in the tail as stated.<br>It takes time to learn who is the pain and who isn't.<br>Next year I am going for more mid sized commercials, thats where the money is here.

[A CUT ABOVE]

At the present time, my money on commercial vs. residential is about 60/40. I have about 60 residential and 10 commercial. One of my commercials though pays me $10,000/mo and it only takes me two days/mo to do it with 3 other guys besides myself. Next month the ratio of commercial to residential will cahnge to about 80/20 with the acquisition of about a $200,000/year commercial job. Most of the guys in my town of about 30,000 do not want the commercial jobs, because they say there is not enough money there...go figure. If everyone in town went after the commercial jobs, there probably would not be much money with everyone involved in trying to outbid the next guy. I think it all depends on location. I did not set out with the intentions of having most of my income come from commercial jobs, but I am not complaining. I'll have to hire a whole new crew next month when I start my big account, but that's just part of it. I plan on keeping my current crew busy on everything but this new account, and putting the new crew on this new account. From my standpoint, commercial is way better.<p>----------<br>Richard Holton<br>Jesup, GA

[Keith]

MOW ED wrote:<p>&quot;It takes time to learn who is the pain and who isn't.&quot;<p>In fact it is a skill. After you have been dealing with people on this level for a while, you can &quot;read&quot; new customers when you meet them. You actually can tell how they are going to be as customers a large percentage of the time.<p>

[Toroguy]

TGC,<br>Try a &quot;Korn&quot; hat, they will think your a farmer. Or a &quot;Tool&quot; hat, now your a mechanic.<br>&quot;EMENEM&quot; your dislexic.<p>The fourth screwed me up as well, but I recovered...now its raining. Keep upping those rates. I shave twice a week.

[TGCummings]

Toro,<p>I actually, usually, wear my &quot;Broncos&quot; cap. Does that make me an Equestrian? I do plan to budget in some company shirts and hats in the coming months, but in the meantime I'll just go with what I got... :)<p>Recovered fully from the Fourth and upped my rates on about 19 customers (the bottom 19). Of the bunch, five have left (good riddance!), four have told me they're 'considering leaving' (to which I promptly replied that I'd be happy to continue their service at the new rate, but to be forewarned that this might not be the last rate hike in the near future... ;) ), and three have told me they'll be with me no matter what I plan to charge (good customers!). The other seven or so I haven't heard hide nor hair from. Their deadline is the 31st.<p>It's just the beginning, though. Once this is done I'll take another 'snapshot' of the business and see what I have to do to proceed. <p>Oh, and I shave twice a week as well, whether I need it or not... ;)<p>-TGC

[yardsmith]

I get $25 for 12 minutes, & have made $100 in an hour mowing soccer fields.<br>My makeup is about 40% commercial, 60% residential as far as customer base goes. I like them both, as long as we are mutually good to each other. <br>The commercial market is getting tapped out a bit- There's alot of stuff I don't even bother biding on because it's lowballed- keep those no profit accounts while I go after other prospects. If I could have my cake & eat it too, I'd probably lean towards most all commercial work, where you didn't have to always worry about continually new mgmt. whose only concern is botttom dollar.<p>----------<br>Smitty ô¿ô<br>