Landscaping or Lawn mowing ?

[capetan]

.......... okay iam landscaper that does lawn mowing and landscpaing, i have been in the industry for over 10 years and full time in the last 2. And i have noticed there are a a lot companies that just do lawn service and no landscaping. Which is fine. but my questions is , to have a successful lawn only business with say one crew of 2 or 3 guys would you have to have close to 100 customers and work 50 to 60 hours a week, now i know it helps if like 10 customers are on one block, but the equipment, maintenance, paying employess paying your taxes, paying yourself. Honestly it just doesnt seem worth it. Now i have about 20 lawn customers, but primarily do landscpaing work mulch weeding edging trimming mainly maintenance. And i can make almost double what i can make in a day than lawn mowing, plus most of the equipment for landscaping is hand tools hedge trimmer and grass trimmer, which is FAR less maintenance than mowing equipment. BUT lawn services is constant its there every week and its a steady stream of money ( no matter how thin that stream may be), for me lawn mowing covers my cost every month i dont make really make anything but my cost is covered for my business. ........... SO MY conclusion is you have to be uncomfortably efficient to do well just mowing for me personally.

So how do you lawn only guys do it ?

[lawnpro724]

one person with the right equipment can knock off around 15 lawns a day and even more. My average homeower pays $30-$35 a cut so if you have 45 lawns that you cut weekly its a pretty good payday. When you have employees your costs go up and profit goes down at first until you have a rather large maintenance division. Your profits are going to be much larger if you mow your self. I don't know about where you live but $1300 a week is pretty good money around here especially for a 3 day work week.

[RhettMan]

I notice im alot less fatigued after a day of mowing vs a day of landscaping.

[Daily Lawn/Landscape]

We treat mowing as a loss leader. We make our money on all the add on services. I can make more money on a 2-3k landscape job than I can make in 2 days of mowing and I charge Premium for mowing weekly.

[slawn]

I do both, but I can make more on landscape installs in one day than I can make in a week of mowing. However I do alot more mowing than Landscape installs. If I could do it the way I wanted I would mow during the growing season and do installs in the off season, but it dosen't work that way, seems everybody wants landscaping in the summer. I'm solo with only one guy to help when I do installs, so I'm not a large company. I do know guys that only do installs and they do very well. Just seems not enough to go around for everybody. I just do small landscape jobs, here's an example of the average size job.


http://www.lawnsite.com/showthread.php?t=269468&page=2

[Runner]

We treat mowing as a loss leader. We make our money on all the add on services. I can make more money on a 2-3k landscape job than I can make in 2 days of mowing and I charge Premium for mowing weekly.

Bingo. There is no question about it, that mowing is by far the least lucrative operation in the entire green industry. When doing mowing, it has to be done in numbers. One poster said that he can do 15 $30-35 lawns a day. That sure isn't going o happen around here. Standard 1/2 acre lots around here go for 35-40 bucks average, and there is no way that 1 man is going to do 15 of those by himself.
It has been said before, and still remains a great point...I can make more money with a 16 dollar shovel from Home Depot than I can with a $10,000 Lazer. We use mowing the same way...as a foot in the door to do the extra work.
On the other side of the coin, the nice thing about the mowing and maintenance is that it is regular work. It is consistent, and you can depend on the numbers (pretty much).

[kj330]

I agree that mowing is steady money every week. but here in CT I mow 40 lawns a week 10 per day if not more per day. Average lawn here is 3/4 - 1.5 acres. and pay 35 - 80 each per cut. i start mowing the last week of April every year and average just under 2k per week. I am a one man show. so that is great money for me.

[borwicks]

We dont do any new installs any more. We focus on maintaining the whole property instead. We dont offer a mowing package by itself the margins for mowing are horrific.

[lawnprosteveo]

I enjoy the landscaping side of it and I agree there is very good money in it. Also, there seem to be fewer guys chasing that kind of work. The only reason I dont do more of it is I havent really figured out how to get that kind of work. The landscaping jobs I have done just fell in my lap...existing customers or people who knew me. If I could get more of that kind of work I would take it.

[borwicks]

The other reason we dont focus on landscaping is there is tons of maintenance to do on peoples property and we dont have to wait for people to get there bonus or refund. I like to see money coming in week after week. focusing on maintenance has kept us busy year round weather its cleaning gutters or replacing concrete there is always something to do.

one other reason is staffing and equipment overhead.

[TaylorLawn]

Good comments all the way around on both sides....I was a one man op for a very long time, and also took the landscaping jobs as they "fell in my lap" from existing clients....I had an opportunity one year to have a frank discussion with a friend in the "maintenance" only side and was able to compare our gross vs. net. He was amazed that my simple 60 accounts done by myself (occassional Part timer when needed) was only about 3700 less than his net, though his gross was about 54,000 more than mine....Amazing....He had 3 crews running and made only about 4,000 more for himself personally than I did....Needless to say he is now a one man show and doing well........I love the Landscaping jobs, but when I was working solo I had to be careful it did not back my schedule up. ---I now have help, only 2 workers, so I advertised once again and picked up enough to cover the cost of them assisting with the other accounts.......Its been working well for 18 years, I just turned 40 and dont want to do it all myself anymore.....My son is stepping up now however, makes things easier........

[phil_peek]

Well, I am a one man show as well. I normally charge 30-35 for mowing, and that is mainly what I do. The cleanups, mulch, weed jobs I personally dont like to do, but I have to say do pay more. Never done any big jobs, biggest was a cleanup of an old house with tons of small trees and junk all over, in the fence, etc. I did 11 yards in a day, but i dont have a ztr, just a 36" walk behind. looking at ztr's but not able to buy quite yet. The steady flow of money is great, couldnt live off it, but helps out quite a bit. I dont know if I ever really want to get into major landscape, too many headaches you dont have to deal with when just mowing. Anyway, I had about 25 yards the first year, 45 the next year, and still growing. I will still do the small jobs my customers want, but probably wont advertise for landscaping unless I go full time sometime. Props to those handle the landscaping headaches