$10 an acre, you've GOT to be kidding!

[KirbysLawn]

I was talking to a friend of mine that owns a local resturant the other day and asked him about his lawn care, he has a rather large lawn at 7 acres and I mow in his area. He said I get a pretty good deal right now, the fella mowing it charges $70 a week and mows my dad's lawn for $100 a week (10 acres!).

After I picked myself off the floor and dislodged the food from my throat, I assured him he better keep his current lawn guy. I even suggested catering to him since an idiot like that does'nt come around often.

Ray

[Greenkeepers]

Hey Ray-

OH Boy -- you did it now, the "S" word is going to be flying over this one. The problem is that your buddy probably didn't think that it was that big of a "discounted" price. How does this guy do it for $10 an acre. Does he have a 24 foot batwing or something so he's there an hour.... Boy we must be doing something wrong if we can't make a profit at $10 an acre :) I wonder what he would charge for a residential and if he want's to come and sub out to me????

Mike
Greenkeepers

[Charles]

He must be a ******. No offense to some of you ******s out their.

[Guido]

Charles, I always get a good laugh from you!!

Ray, It's amazing how many people out there in our field bust their A$$'s just to be able to afford to stay in business. Sad, huh! At least you know your making money!! You should find out when that guy cuts and check out his operation and let us know how long he takes there, the equipment he's using, etc. I'd be curious to know how he can charge so low and "make it". Maybe hes retired or something and just does it to keep busy?? Who Knows?? Anythings possible after seeing that guy haul a trailer on his bike!!

[Runner]

Ray, If this guy is a good friend of yours, than you better advise him he's treading in dangerous waters. If this "lawn guy" gets hurt on any one of your friends properties, who do you think may end up paying for the injury or hospitalization? OR if the guy throws a rock and hits one of his customers (Lord forbid). Chances are, the guy just isn't insured if he's charging a dollar two ninety eight. What's MORE than that is that this guy sounds like a rank amateur on top of that, so he wouldn't know operator safety if it came up and bit him in the ...! We just never give much thought to these things until something happens.

[thelawnguy]

Depends on what he mows the 7 acres with. A 6 foot finish mower behind a large ag tractor can do that in 1 1/2 hours, not a bad price depending on your area. Now, if he's doing the lawn with a 21 inch crapsman...

Bill

[yardsmith]

you're in good company.
Lady called me 2 days ago & had a lawn overgrown & needed cut. I told her I had a $25 min. & she said "boy that seems kinda high". Smiles came to my face as I gave her the lawnsite oratory :)
Told her why we charge, cuz ins., WC, etc. & we're not a fly-by-night either. We have $XXX of equipment to maintain, etc. & we do a quality job, not just 'cut da grass'.
I refuse to load up & hook up for less than $25, & it'd be on a mowing day too; no load up just for 1 lawn, unless circumstances rendered it necessary.

[Stinger]

Unfortinately I'ts guys like this that screw up things for the rest of us. One idiot wants to work for $1.98 and customers start to think we all should. I am still trying to come up with a better way to help in educating customers what seperates pros from scrubs. Tired of preaching to Mrs. Smith about how I'm liscened, certified, insured, and provide a quality svc on a regular basis. Oh, well Mr. Scrub is still cheaper she says. If Mr.Scrub would adhere to the rules like most of us it would be amazing what we could charge for our services.

[lawrence stone]

stinger wrote:

>If Mr.Scrub would adhere to the rules like most of us it would be amazing what we could charge for our services.

Rules are made to be broken. Or why would the powers that be not have different levels of punishment for each law.

Once you move up the food chain Mr. Scrub has no effect on your outcome.

[CandJ]

At $10/acre, he can't stay in business that long. Unfortunately we have to deal with fly-by-nighters who thing this is easy work and quote that way.

[AGG Lawn Maintenance]

$10.00 an acre!!! Two thumbs down. =( He must live at the place he cuts for free. Then maybe you have a deal. We charge about $40.00 an acre around here. The markets tight so its hard to get more. But to get less easy, he would get all the jobs in my area. The question is would he be able to keep them? Travis AG&G Lawn Maintenance "Where quality and reliable service counts"

[thelawnguy]

"Oh, well Mr. Scrub is still cheaper she says. If Mr.Scrub would adhere to the rules like most of us it would be amazing what we could charge for our services."

Being lower priced does not make one automatically a scrub. It makes one competitive. Are they a scrub because they have more productive equipment? Lower overhead? Maybe this guy uses a second hand wide area mower which has been paid for the past fifteen years. Maybe this guy didnt just drop $40k for a shiny new powersmoke and is still using his 23-year old Chevy.

You compete when you can; otherwise you try to take a lesson from it so next time around maybe you will be allowed to belly up to the bar.

[lawrence stone]

One man with no other equipment (lawn) other than an old pickup and trailer, could make up to $40 an hour at $10 per acre with a 72" Toro or Jacobson groundsmaster, bought for a grand from a local golf course.

[Charles]

Lawnguy, you gone off the deep end on this one. Bigger, faster equipment NEVER EVER should mean you charge alot less money than the going job price. Penalising yourself in this way so that you make less profit than you could have is just plain ******ed. I didn't drop my prices when I got my lazer. Even though it knocked 20 min of most jobs. Damn thing drinks gas like crazy. The parts on it are expensive. The engine is still going to just run so many hours. Whe i give a job price the faster I do it the better for me. Every hour of every day spent working should be maxed out in the profit capabilities. Or you are just cheating yourself. Which is stupid. Take for example this eye surgeon I saw on the news. The going rate is 5000$$ for the new eye surgery. He is doing an operation every 10 minutes. All day long!! 20 patients waiting on him at all times. Think he cut the going rate because he was doing the job faster or voluminous? Hell no he doesn't. I guess be cause he is a doctor and much smarter than the 10$ an acre goober.

[thelawnguy]

" Penalising yourself in this way so that you make less profit than you could have is just plain ******ed."

As an example, your expenses work out to, say $40 an hour, My expenses work out to $10 an hour, you mow the 7 acres in three hours with your $7000 Lazer and charge $150 I mow the 7 acres in two hours with my $1000 groundsmaster for $70 I just made $50 profit you made $30. Actually, you made nothing, cuz your higher overhead cost you the bid while my family eats steak tonight.

In my neck of the woods, its called "competition". Its why some live and prosper and why some wither on the vine.

Hop in, Charles, the waters fine.

[Edited by thelawnguy on 08-06-2000 at 07:04 PM]

[Charles]

Lawnguy, my lazer will still be running and in good repair and paid for. When your ground master is in being repaired or in the ground. And if I don't get that job at my price. I move onto the next one. Bill ,do you really have to cut your prices that drasticly to get work? My regular customers keep me busy and I try to fit in new work. But there is no reason at this point for me to cut the going rate at this point. i have read where you have alot of business too. So why try cut your prices when you don't have too? If I miss a bid it doesnt mean that I am going to be idle for a minute.

[little green guy]

Hey Lawnguy are you realy serious? I mean why work for less when you can get more money for the same work. It's people like you that are bringing this industry down (please don't take that as a personal attack). We need to be getting more money not less. The whole piont of lower overhead is to make more profit. If you have a lower overhead then why not take advantage of it and make more profit bycharging the same as the guys with the high overhead. To me competitive dosn't mean you have to charge less. I do quality work and have a good rep. but people know i'm not cheap either but they are willingto pay because of the quality of my work and if they arn't I don't want to work for them.

[1MajorTom]

The bottom line is this. People who have low overheads have the OPTION to bid what they want on a job. This doesn't mean that EVERY job they bid on, is going to be 'lowballed' or "scrub bidded" or whatever you want to call it.

But let's face it. When you (You meaning anyone out there, not anyone in particular) are driving around with a $35,000 truck, $25,000 in financed equipment, you don't have many choices. You HAVE to be the highest bidder out there. And I bet it gets darn frustrating when you bid on a job that you want, and are told by the customer, "Holy moses, you are way overpriced".) Your bid might be $60.00 a cut. But Mr. LowOverhead bid $45.00. Now Mrs. Customer couldn't care less when she looks down the driveway and sees your shiny new truck. She goes with Mr. LowOverhead, because quite frankly she doesn't care that you need to make your truck payment. So of course I can understand why some of you on this forum seem to get offended by the person who has the CHOICE to bid what they choose.


Let's use us as an example. Two years ago we were wondering what we were going to do about a truck. We just could not see buying a brand new truck for this type of business. I am the type of person who wants things to look good. And I knew I would be heartbroken when the shiny truck began to get all scratched up and beat up from work.
But every used truck dealer was selling garbage! Beat up pieces of crap that were way over priced. I thought we would NEVER find something that suited us.

But persistence paid off. We found an individual that was looking to sell his 1985 4 WD automatic Dodge Truck.

Can still remember the conversation. It was on a Sunday and it was in the middle of the Steelers game.

"Hi, I'm calling about the truck I see you have listed in the paper. I need to know what kind of condition you consider this truck to be in."

He proceeds to say, "My name is Tom and I guarantee that you haven't seen a 1985 truck that looks better. Come out and take a look at it. I'll be here all afternoon."

"Sorry Tom, can't do that. We're in the middle of watching the Steelers game. Aren't you watching it?"

"No, I don't watch football, but I'm telling you this will be worth your drive."

"Tom, you wouldn't believe how many times we have heard that. Anyways, you are asking more for that 1985 than Kelly's Blue Book says you should."

"Come look at it and you'll see why."

So, desperate as we were, we took the drive out there. We were totally shocked when we saw the truck. It had 71,000 original miles, the paint SHONE, the interior was squeaky clean, no rust (a major problem in the north), and it had great power and pick up, along with a brand new bedliner.
This guy was driving it about 3,000 miles a year!!

So two years ago we bought our USED FOURTEEN year old truck for $5300.00. Paid for in cash.

What have we replaced on it? Got rid of the Cooper tires, oh please, replaced the left cv joint, new radiator, and the water pump. All done by Matt himself.

I wish I had a scanner so I could post pics of this truck. I am more than proud of it.

So not everyone has to be the highest bidder. Some people have OPTIONS.


JODI

[cantoo]

There is a 14' farm swather for sale for $450 about 20 miles from me, I could buy it and cut 10 acres real quick and still make money at $100 per cut. I think we need a little more info on the type of property and the quality of cut that the customers expects before we cut apart this price.

[bob]

Sub work out to him.

[Guido]

I think the last thing Bill is doing is bringing the industry down!!! The people that are bringing us down are the ones working out of moms trunk charging $10 a lawn. He's not saying he'd charge the same he's just making a point that THERE IS NO GOING RATE!!!! Your price should reflect your overhead. If he can cut faster with his equipment, his price might be different than yours with 22" mowers, ya know?? If your making what you want to for a profit, after your overhead and other expenses, whats the problem?? I'm not going to try to make an extra $10 just to loose a good job to someone else.

The people that can't price and are bringing the industry down are the ones who don't understand how to price their work and ask over and over again how do I price this kind of Job and how do I price that kind of job, etc. ITS ALL THE SAME!!! It's the people that are working just to keep their business a float. If you can make a high profit and stay below the competition's prices, why not??? It's not the same thing as lowballing.

[thelawnguy]

It was an example of how things like overhead can affect the bottom line and doesnt in any way reflect my pricing policy. I wouldnt mow a 7 acre lot for $200. Not with the equipment I have.

My whole point was to try and illustrate how someone could price a job that some of you think is completely outlandish. No, it probably doesnt make good business sense (or is it necessary) to price below the market but some people do, either out of some misguided ethics thing or just plain ignorance.

I have, in the not too distant past, priced landscape jobs which netted me a decent profit, only to find out later that I could have recieved 3x the amount and have been competitive. Did I lose money? Not by a long shot. But not knowing what my competition was, like Mr $10/acre probably doesnt either, I left money on the table.

For all we know Mr $10/acre is quite happy collecting his beer money, and will stop mowing lawns once his equipment makes its final run, so has no worries about future expenses. The one who will really take the hit, though, is Mr customer when he spends 3 weeks calling co's and cant figure why "there prices are so high" when in fact their prices will most likely be where Mr $10/acre should/could have been all along.

[Charles]

oH YEA bILL, while my lazer is still running like a swiss watch many years down the road. I be eating Lobster while your family is eating porkin beans. Just messin with ya :)

[thelawnguy]

Fine by me. I OD'd on too much lobster and cheap beer many years ago, now just the sight of those ocean-going spiders makes me wretch. Give me a can of B&M any day over seabugs!!!

[little green guy]

Lawnguy and Guido- sorry i didn't mean anything personal agianst thelawnguy it just came out differantly than I was thinking. I totaly understand and agree with what you are saying, my piont was just that if someone has a low overhead they should take advatage of it and charge as much as the guys with the higher overhaed and make more profit cause then there ahead of the game. Sorry if it sounded like i was bashing you lawnguy, In my own little twisted mind i ment something else, I know you're not a "scrub"

[Edited by little green guy on 08-08-2000 at 04:35 AM]

[little green guy]

that red face scares me

[Edited by little green guy on 08-08-2000 at 04:34 AM]

[Guido]

Originally posted by little green guy
that red face scares me

[Edited by little green guy on 08-08-2000 at 04:34 AM]

Sorry LGG, I get carried away with all these neat little faces!! Didn't mean anything by it!!

[KirbysLawn]

I have found it surprising that some have come to the defense of this charge. Think about it, $10.00 to mow an acre of grass, after fuel and the other expenses how much is left? And as it was pointed out I also don't see how he has insurance to cover for any accidents.

Just think, my friend tells his friends "my lawn guy mows my lawn for $10 an acre", how does it look when we charge $25.00-$35.00 for a normal size 8000sf home lawn?

As Charles said: Bigger, faster equipment NEVER EVER should mean you charge a lot less money than the going job price. Penalizing yourself in this way so that you make less profit than you could have is just plain ******ed.

I agree 100%, if I was to mow a lawn with a 21" mower and charge $30.00, when I finally saved enough money to buy a $7000.00 mower I would not drop my prices just because it takes me less time! If you are bidding on a new property with that mindset it's the same thing!