educating customers on weekly cuts

[grassmasterswilson]

Seeding aerating fertilizing. Pre on warm season are mainly what's left for the end of the year.
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[jsslawncare]

Originally Posted by TriCountyLawn

Customers in the EOW frame of mind or budget dont give a F***.


Thats what I have learned this summer.

I was trying to think of a nice way to say this,but here you go.

Only about 2% of mine are weekly. The rest could care less. And they don't care about education about weekly. It all comes down to money.

[easy-lift guy]

Originally Posted by grassmasterswilson

I was thinking I could show them the benefits of weekly mowing and make it more attractive than EOW. Maybe get them to switch without asking.

I suggest that you do not over sell switching your accounts from eow to weekly
service. Your reasoning makes sence, however it is possible to over sell what
your trying to accomplish. Use the kiss method and allow your customers to believe they are making the best decision for their needs. This takes a certain
amount of practice and in time one can become better at reading and knowing
how their customers tic, until they change their mind. When that happens all bets are off. Fall back, regroup. Repeat untill you have reached your goal.
easy-lift guy

[coolluv]

Originally Posted by grassmasterswilson

I have a mix of weekly and every 2 week cuts. I would really like to switch everyone over to weekly cuts only or even full service plans. I'm in the process of writing of a fall and end of year schedule of services that customers may want. I figured this would be a good time to educate them and hopefully switch them over(I'm waiting to finish out the year on wheter I'll even do cuts other than weekly). It is a good time since the grass has jumped because of lots of rain and fertilizer. So here are some things I wanted to share with them and hope you will suggest or make changes to the list that would be good selling points.....

-weekly service allows us to spend more time on beds, weeds, etc
-rule of thumb is never cut more than 1/3 off the height, so cutting too much creates more thatch and too much thatch creates disease and insect problems
-cutting height is important, warm season likes to be cut low. This encourages growth throughtout the plant. Cutting too high causes a "canopy" effect that causes the grass to be thinner.
-cutting too much off the grass stresses the turf. When the turf is stressed it stops sending nutrients to the roots and redirects all efforts to repair the top that was cut off.


I could also say something about how there is more value in weekly cuts, because the extra time it takes on an every 2 week cut can be used elsewhere on the property.

Don't bother trying. If they cared about the yard they would be a weekly customer. I still have a few that are Bi weekly but they will be weeded out if they don't convert. I hope by next season I can weed out the rest of my crap customers.

Go after a better customer and slowly dump the Bi weeklys as you grow. If they won't convert that is. Its a slower way to grow your business but its less stressful and more profitable.

Dave...

[32vld]

I learnt my lesson with EOW. Last year I had an old lady that said my lawn never grows you come EOW. I told her if her lawn takes off she will need to be switched to EW.

Her lawn took off and she would complain about the grass clippings.
Told she would need EW she said we see.
Next week complain about clippings, told her lawn grows to fast needs EOW. Her response we see.
This cycle repeated to the end of June and we parted ways.

She didn't want to hear that to mow her lawn twice and get paid once was not fair. Cutting an over grown lawn was not fair because it was abusing my equipment. That is was not healthy for the lawn to have more then 1/3 it's length cut off at a time. She did not want to hear any of it.

I have learnt that people that want EOW are cheap and don't value having a great lawn. They may like the idea of having a great lawn but won't pay for it.

If a person wants EOW I charge them 50% more due to the extra growth, and extra time involved. Wear in tear on mower and edger and line trimmer due to taller grass. So that $30cut-$120 month cut is a $45cut-90 month cut. They still get a savings. I also tell them that if there lawn grows too much they will be switched to EW. If they have a problem then go with someone else.

It's not about the money but not being abused by the cheap customers.

[H & M Yard Improvements]

Originally Posted by grassmasterswilson

I have a mix of weekly and every 2 week cuts. I would really like to switch everyone over to weekly cuts only or even full service plans. I'm in the process of writing of a fall and end of year schedule of services that customers may want. I figured this would be a good time to educate them and hopefully switch them over(I'm waiting to finish out the year on wheter I'll even do cuts other than weekly). It is a good time since the grass has jumped because of lots of rain and fertilizer. So here are some things I wanted to share with them and hope you will suggest or make changes to the list that would be good selling points.....

-weekly service allows us to spend more time on beds, weeds, etc
-rule of thumb is never cut more than 1/3 off the height, so cutting too much creates more thatch and too much thatch creates disease and insect problems
-cutting height is important, warm season likes to be cut low. This encourages growth throughtout the plant. Cutting too high causes a "canopy" effect that causes the grass to be thinner.
-cutting too much off the grass stresses the turf. When the turf is stressed it stops sending nutrients to the roots and redirects all efforts to repair the top that was cut off.


I could also say something about how there is more value in weekly cuts, because the extra time it takes on an every 2 week cut can be used elsewhere on the property.

I wouldnt bother trying to "educate" them. Ive noticed something between my weekly customers and my bi weekly customers. The weekly ones tend to care more for their lawns (ie. watering, fertilization/weed control). The bi weekly ones just seem to want to save a buck and prefer to have nature do the watering for them meanwhile theres weeds, nut sedge and crabgrass everywhere. I am slowly in the process of weeding (no pun intended) the bi weeklys out of my routes. Weekly seems to be more profitable!

[herler]

Yep, well, weekly, bi-weekly, monthly, twice a year, I don't care.
It's ALL money in my pocket!

My biggest challenge for many years was the scheduling.
Once I found the right software, nowadays I can schedule a customer's service date as far ahead as I want.
Not true, it runs from 1.Jan-31.dec but between that I can schedule someone's October visit today.
So it really doesn't matter, it all boils down to scheduling, then when it comes up on the calendar, I go do it.
Why kill yourself, some people want more, some less, and all of that sounds good to me.

But you go ahead and do that thing with the converting, let me know how it turns out.

[BROWNS LAWN CARE]

i have customers all over the board...

weekly, every 10-14 days, 1 every 21 days and even a monthly....

of course i value my weekly, irrigated customers the most, but at this point in my YOUNG companies life i take whatever i can get.

i do always charge a bit more when i first go to cut and the lawn looks like a jungle. once that price has been established if they wanna go long and not have me cut it very often the price remains at a higher rate.

[ProStreetCamaro]

Originally Posted by TriCountyLawn

Customers in the EOW frame of mind or budget dont give a F***.


Thats what I have learned this summer.

You hit the nail on the head. They dont want to spend much money and they dont want to do it themselves. Plain and simple. They could really care less what the lawn looks like as long as they dont have to go out and hack through it themselves.