How much can one man profit?

[JBlawn]

dont know, if its a 30 mile radius thats not a really tight rought for 50 lawns. I do all my mowing (43 lawns) in 3 days, in the spring maybe 3.5 days. then I do all my fert myself and have a 2 man crew do all the maintainace, witch I do help on fridays and weekends with that.

[kilgoja]

i'd be happy to do 25 yards a week solo...50 a week you would need 2 or 3 people

[sdk1959]

One very important thing that has not been mentioned is it is very expensive to develop a tight route. You have to use a direct mailing of several thousand pieces and target the neighborhoods you want to cut in. You will only get a 1-2% response and only about a third of those will become accounts. A ad in the local newspaper while cheap will bring calls from all over.

The other option is hand delivering flyer's which will take several days of your time to hand out several thousand. Keep this in mind.

[betterlawnsandlandscaping]

Originally Posted by sdk1959

One very important thing that has not been mentioned is it is very expensive to develop a tight route. You have to use a direct mailing of several thousand pieces and target the neighborhoods you want to cut in. You will only get a 1-2% response and only about a third of those will become accounts. A ad in the local newspaper while cheap will bring calls from all over.

The other option is hand delivering flyer's which will take several days of your time to hand out several thousand. Keep this in mind.

That is exactly what I did and it was not as expensive as you think. All of my customers are on the same side of town and they are all within a few minutes of each other. It makes mowing a piece of cake. The response is determined by how nice the mail piece looks. If it looks like chit.... you will get a chitty response.

[grassmasterswilson]

It's doable. You got to figure that he will have some stops where he does multiple lawns. Location will be a big factor....could have a lot of drive time.

I'm solo and the problem I run into is rain days, and extra stuff (weed apps, fertilization, pruning, pine straw, etc)

[Texas Lawn]

I guess im confused. Im assuming you dont already have 50 customers, or you would know. If you do have 50 you should know costs and what you are capable of. You should also know if 50 is realistic.

If you dont have 50 how do you plan to get there? Are you not doing any yards to use as a frame of reference. Are you just throwing out a "what if" and seeing how much you could make?

[lawn guy 300]

Originally Posted by Texas Lawn

I guess im confused. Im assuming you dont already have 50 customers, or you would know. If you do have 50 you should know costs and what you are capable of. You should also know if 50 is realistic.

If you dont have 50 how do you plan to get there? Are you not doing any yards to use as a frame of reference. Are you just throwing out a "what if" and seeing how much you could make?

I'm not in business now. I'm just researching for a future indeavore.
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[lawn guy 300]

Originally Posted by betterlawnsandlandscaping

That is exactly what I did and it was not as expensive as you think. All of my customers are on the same side of town and they are all within a few minutes of each other. It makes mowing a piece of cake. The response is determined by how nice the mail piece looks. If it looks like chit.... you will get a chitty response.

how many postcards did you send out and what did you spend on them? How many accounts did they yeild? Did you send them all out at once to different addresses or did you reppeatedly send them to a smaller group? Thanks for you info.
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[lawn guy 300]

Originally Posted by Raymond S.

You can do 50 lawns per week in a 30 mile radius solo but it will be a drag by about...well this point of the season. You can schedule 12-13 jobs per day on a 4 day week. Split the 30 miles into 4 semi-tight routes. You then leave Fri. open for rain and if need be Sat. Very doable. I maintain over 50 accounts solo, some large commercials and some cookie cutter residentials. I often call in a helper just to ease my back a little bit but there are many many weeks I go alone, but it does suck. I often spend Fri. on maintenance or trimming bushes, whatever. The mowing isn't what will kill you. When cleanups come around, bushes need trimmed, leaves need picked up, someone calls with a landscape job, that's when things will get tough. Just when things seem to be covered and your schedule is cleared, something pops up.

To answer your question about profit. Without getting crazy about specific numbers I think if you can hack 50 residentials with a $40 average cut, average maintenance work (bushes, cleanup, etc) and some mulch here and there you could expect a return of around $40k - $45k per year. You would have to pay taxes out of that so it's not a true net but operating costs such as insurance,
equipment, maintenance, fuel expenses and intangibles that arise from time to time are included. That's weekly mowing for 26 weeks plus spring/fall cleanups and trimming. You will have to spend a
little more than average for good equipment to use day in and day out dependably so there is no down time.

thanks for your advice man. Of coarse I'd have to split that 30 mile radius up throughout the week so that each day I'm just driving around about a 10 mile radius. Glad to hear other people are doing it and it works.
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[betterlawnsandlandscaping]

Originally Posted by lawn guy 300

how many postcards did you send out and what did you spend on them? How many accounts did they yeild? Did you send them all out at once to different addresses or did you reppeatedly send them to a smaller group? Thanks for you info.
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Sent you a pm