The Green Industry's Resource Center

Durabird02 · #11 08-02-2012, 12:59 PM

I wouldn't say that all of the customers looking in the paper for a "lawn boy" are cheap. A lot of them are elderly or people who actually still read a newspaper. Most people over 60 don't really know where to begin looking for a mowing company other than the newspaper. Just my opinion.

sms8921 · #12 08-02-2012, 09:44 PM

Where exactly did you post both ad's? In our local paper we have a lawn care section and a landscaping section. We do have a wanted section lol

HomesteadPrep · #13 08-26-2012, 11:05 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dylan's Lawn Care

I live in a middle class farming community with around a pop of 8,000 and 15-20 listed LCO's and probably another 10 that just do in for beer money.

This is my first year of running and operating my company. Here in south east texas we have tons of small weekend lawn warriors, illegal outfits that charge $15 for a 1/3 acre lawn, and the beer bounty pirates as well. With the economy in it's current state I have noticed more and more "LCO's" popping up and saturating the areas that I try to focus on. I have a regular weekly customer routine and the irregular folks that only call when the grass is overgrown again, when they have a party planned and forgot that their place looks like a dump, or have projects that they needed to save up for. The sporadic calls I get from Craigslist makes it an almost worthless endeavor. My truck magnets have attracted a 1/4 of my overall customer list.
The referrals are hard to pick up since everyone's neighbors have either been with the same guy for years, they enjoy doing their own lawns, or they can get their lawn serviced by one of the hundreds of truck bed mowers trolling the neighborhoods. Being this late in the season I am having a hard time picking up new customers for the last 3 - 4 months. I have tried to expand my services from the regular mow, weed eat, and edge to include pressure washing, gutter cleaning, roof sweeping, flower bed weeding, shrub trimming and tree pruning, mulch etc... Since this is my first year out as a solo operator I don't have the capital to blow on newspaper ads, websites, or the mass mailing envelope routes. The majority of the neighborhoods in my area are Nazi Strict on solicitors and will file on you in a heartbeat, so the doorknob hangers, mailbox flyers, and other usual things are out for me. Was hoping to find different or more intensive advert methods on here.

meets1 · #14 08-27-2012, 01:36 AM

I like that idea as well. I have even tried that approach in years past. To those that need to recoup there investment - that is a hard sell - gotta try stuff to no if it works, if not chalk it up as a lesson learned and move on.

Cheap people, elderly people, etc. I find that with elderly people I get a better responce on radio during the coffee/hometown/ news time at 9:00 am and again at 3:00pm work great for us - but its just the older folks that are coming into the the nursery, calling about weed/feed/ or snow or whatever services.

BROWNS LAWN CARE · #15 08-27-2012, 07:45 AM

interesting...

i have received ZERO calls from my Cragislist ad. maybe i need to cheapen it up

Green_Will · #16 09-08-2012, 10:21 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by HomesteadPrep

This is my first year of running and operating my company. Here in south east texas we have tons of small weekend lawn warriors, illegal outfits that charge $15 for a 1/3 acre lawn, and the beer bounty pirates as well. With the economy in it's current state I have noticed more and more "LCO's" popping up and saturating the areas that I try to focus on. I have a regular weekly customer routine and the irregular folks that only call when the grass is overgrown again, when they have a party planned and forgot that their place looks like a dump, or have projects that they needed to save up for. The sporadic calls I get from Craigslist makes it an almost worthless endeavor. My truck magnets have attracted a 1/4 of my overall customer list.
The referrals are hard to pick up since everyone's neighbors have either been with the same guy for years, they enjoy doing their own lawns, or they can get their lawn serviced by one of the hundreds of truck bed mowers trolling the neighborhoods. Being this late in the season I am having a hard time picking up new customers for the last 3 - 4 months. I have tried to expand my services from the regular mow, weed eat, and edge to include pressure washing, gutter cleaning, roof sweeping, flower bed weeding, shrub trimming and tree pruning, mulch etc... Since this is my first year out as a solo operator I don't have the capital to blow on newspaper ads, websites, or the mass mailing envelope routes. The majority of the neighborhoods in my area are Nazi Strict on solicitors and will file on you in a heartbeat, so the doorknob hangers, mailbox flyers, and other usual things are out for me. Was hoping to find different or more intensive advert methods on here.

My one year was the end of July, so I understand what you are going through. We have the same what was it? Beer Bounty Pirates? We have a lot of them too. I just wanted to mention that I was able to put up a one page website for free, the domain name was cheap and you can also do the Facebook business page for free. I got 3 calls from the website this spring. I think mainly from my location because it's a small town. Hang in there, man.

123hotdog · #17 09-09-2012, 04:59 AM

I posted an add in Craigslist for a month moving it to the front diligently every 48 hours. The only thing it got me was somebody from the yellow pages trying to solicit my business to purchase an add.