Twice a week cuttings only?!!!!

[pilotcoplawnboy]

My neighbor wants me to get his yard established and when it gets growing he only wants me to cut it every other week. Any of you guys do that. I know if the grass gets high it will put a train on my mower and to me it's not worth it. Anyone else have the same issue with customers??:cool:

[Harvestman]

Not me way to much work. Of course in August when the grass is not growing I don"t have a problem with every other week.

[jeffex]

Tell him that you will prpbably cut his lawn about 22 times this season. When it is raining it will be every week and as it slows down you MAY be able to let it go for 2wks. Sell him on the season not the interval of cuts. Your area may be higher or lower in # of cuts.

[keifer]

Give the man what he wants. Either set the mower way up or charge him extra to cover ware and tear.

[RoyaleRcr]

Try to get control of his fertilizing. You probably know what happens when McPoison lawn dumps a ton of liquid cow p_ _s
on lawns in May. You will regret taking this work. I also never do work for neighbors, especially in a situation like this. Remember, everybody in the neighborhood will see your work, and if this looks bad, you look bad. Just my opinion.

[Strongmd]

I push for weekly cuttng only. If you're running a business, and you need to make a certain amount of
$$ per week, you should pursue weekly accounts. I'm thinking of telling customers that if we show up to their lawn in July/August and it definitely doesn't need cutting, we are going to spend an equal amount of time doing something else there - ie. weeding, re-eding etc. The only way I would accept bi-weekly accounts is if I charged extra AND had other bi-weekly accounts to offset it, so that I'm mowing roughly the same number of lawns every week. I've often thought that if you had two routes of biweekly lawns, you might be able to do very well, because you'd be mowing a full route every week.

[Harvestman]

After I thought about it I do have 1 Yard I cut every other week. She is a friend of my wife who has asthma. She can't afford to pay me weekly so she cuts on the week I don't. Thus it gets cut every week.

[GrassCtr]

twice a week or every two weeks, you said both? no way i would, if you do tell him if you have to mow it twice during that one visit then he pays double. another good thought is to not do work for any neighbors or friends. the take advantage and expect more from you, i have a neighbor that still ows me 60 from last october.

[Nebraska]

Too many of them and your going to create a staffing issue.

[jaybird24]

I did a neighbors lawn last year. it sucked. The last thing I want to do when I get home is cut another lawn- I'm lucky if I cut mine every three weeks. You might want to consider this before you spend a sunday afternoon feeling obligated to cut his lawn after you've been behind because it rained 4 days that week.

[Kent Lawns]

What?!

Sounds like many posters aren't proud of their work!

It's a new lawn! Of course you want to keep traffic to a minimum and the lawn won't need cutting as often.

Just make sure you're both on the same page: once that lawn is established, you cut it EVERY week.

[LAWNS AND MOWER]

Did you mean to title this thread " Twice a month???". All my accounts are on a "as needed basis" I'll determine how often it gets mowed. 70% are mowed weekly, 25% every ten days and 5% everyother week. Some of my weeklys that are on a fert. program get mowed every 4 or 5 days should we have alot of rain. I explain this to the customer before I put them on a fert. program and most don't mind seeing me every 4 days. As for working for neighbors, I do two distant neighbors, but don't encourage it. One point made on this site has stuck in my head. " It's okay to make customers your friends, but don't make friends your customers. "

LAWNS AND MOWER

[Chuck Sinclair]

Yep i do it but i charge what i would to do it every week.

[SLS]

I stopped doing 'every 2 week' lawns. But hey, I'm solo.

It always seems to start raining when they are due, you get a couple of days behind on your 'weeklys' (to which you will feel most obligated) and the next thing you know that 'every 2 week' lawn hasn't been cut in 17 days or so...and they are wet and growing fast. It always seemed that I had to 'double cut' (I don't bag) them to make them look up to my standards. Most of them were Bermuda so edging always took up more time too. They wound up getting two cuts for the price of one but would not pay the price of 2 cuts. :(

Cutting them loose freed up the time to take on more weeklys...thus boosting my bottom line, made scheduling a heck of a lot easier, and eliminated alot of the 'dread factor' as well. Besides, 'every 2 weeks' lawns create a hole in your schedule every other week that can only be filled with other 'every 2 weeks' lawns...and that becomes a vicious time and equipment killing cycle.

I'm now in the process of weeding out the '10 day' accounts as 'weeklys' come in to replace them.

Just my experience with 'every two week' pennypinchers.

[BRIAN GALLO]

The 2-weeker's are penny pinchers, why else would you not want to have your lawn cut every week if it needed it. I have a bunch of these lawns, only because they are offset one week to the next. These lawns rate high on the dread factor and just plain annoy me! You have to go over them more than once to get them looking good, and the trimming is usually out of hand too. I am looking for replacements, and trying to persuade the 2 weeker's to go weekly.

[pilotcoplawnboy]

Thanks everyone! I didn't mean twice a week, I meant every two weeks.

[AGG Lawn Maintenance]

How to beat the every two week cuts. Give them a price for every week and a price for every two weeks. Say its $100 a month for every week tell them its $75 for every two. If they still want it done every two than they are fools for it. If not no loss.
Travis

[script]

I usually look at the yard and how fast it grows in two weeks. I have several yards that are every other week, but their grass grows about the same as most of my weekly yards. I do charge $5-10 more per cut, but the customer is usually retired, single, and on a fixed income so even with the extra charge they're still happy that they don't have to pay weekly. And like Travis posted, instead of paying $100 a month, they're paying maybe $70 but for half the work. If the type of grass is fast growing and in a non shaded area, it would have to be cut weekly or I could not take the account.

Bobby

[RB]

Jefex said it best -- I second that!

Ron

[Bladewielder]

Half our accounts are weekly and the other half are ten dayers or two weekers. The latter half we split up so that in a period of two weeks we get to them all. Thus, in a given week we will mow all the weekers and half of the others. While I would rather have 100% weekly accounts the biweekly ones do have their benefits. One is that when things get hectic they are much easier to push forward than the accounts where customers expect services on a certain day. We can arrive a day or two early or late on these and usually that is just fine. Another is that they allow you to have more customers. This gets your name around more by word of mouth and lets you in on more of those extra jobs. Plus the more accounts you have the more you will have to do if things dry up badly in the summer. They also help out a lot mentally. You can drive up to one and not feel like you live there. Most of our customers are pretty realistic concerning their lawn's mowing needs. If you have a customer that wants it done not frequently enough charge him extra and tell him why. Your time is money and if he doesn't understand that he shouldn't be your customer.

[Mykster]

Two weekers are definitally penny pinchers. One commercial acct only wanted a two week schedule. Every time we were done it looked great, when we would show up, it looked like it wasn't touched. I agree with Chuck Sinclair.

[naturescape]

I have just a couple of customers who only want bi-weekly cuttings. Hopefully, you have a quick height adjust mower. Then just tell the customer no more than 1/3 should be taken of the grass height at a time. This is a rule that should always be followed, anyway. If 2 weeks go by and their lawn is 5" tall, you can only cut at 3.5" or higher. If you follow this rule, you'll seldom have to double cut. The high-cut grass will easily hide any clippings. Cutting more than 1/3 of the grass blade is extremely stressful to the lawn, and to your quality of work and $/hr.

[Commander]

"You probably know what happens when McPoison lawn dumps a ton of liquid cow p_ _s on lawns in May."

Anybody wanna help me out here? I believe that MOST forms of N that we apply are derived from N2 (Nitrogen gas) which is found in the atmosphere.

[SLS]

Maybe the term "cow p..s" is in referance to UREA???

Ammonia and carbon dioxide synthesis = cow p..s???

Any chemistry majors out there? :laugh: