Aeration neighborhood discounts.....how deep $$$...????

[Exact Rototilling]

Ok these are actual captures of a coupons off an aeration website ....not mine....prices seem too low IMO.

My minimum is $45 for super tiny lawns and I'm considering raising it to $49. Telling a potential customer to round up 10 clients in the same neighborhood seems a bit extreme but if you offer a deeper discount.....?

So if you give a larger pool of customers a deeper discount for addtional customers piled on in the same neighborhood how should it be structured? A discount for each customer only 2 or 3 homes vs. 10?


I like the idea off putting your customers to work drumming up business but I'm a bit concerned about them expected a special trip next season and still aerating at a reduced rate as a solo customer?

[grass4gas]

Those prices are Waaaaaaaaaaaaay Toooooooooooo Looooooooooooow!
He's charging around $5.50/1000 if he is doing the max of 7000 sq. ft. for 1 lawn and $12.85/1000 for aerate and seed on the same size lawn...that's ludicris.

At those prices he's charging, I'll hire him to do my aerations...not.

I could see giving a discount if you are doing several lawns at one stop, but he is giving a "HUGE" discount for jobs that could very well be multiple stops.

I just don't get the way some people think.

[Exact Rototilling]

Originally Posted by grass4gas

Those prices are Waaaaaaaaaaaaay Toooooooooooo Looooooooooooow!
He's charging around $5.50/1000 if he is doing the max of 7000 sq. ft. for 1 lawn and $12.85/1000 for aerate and seed on the same size lawn...that's ludicris.

At those prices he's charging, I'll hire him to do my aerations...not.

I could see giving a discount if you are doing several lawns at one stop, but he is giving a "HUGE" discount for jobs that could very well be multiple stops.

I just don't get the way some people think.

I totally agree zero point in aerating at those prices. My take is they must being doing a real rush job and not getting all the corners. Fert and plugs all over walks - generally sloppy work then split? As a home owner I would not want just any old seed put down either. My angle on aeration is more plugs per square foot since I run a Plugr 850 and I may get a Ryan 28 or another Plugr 850 for backup.

My point is is if I just ran the same common equipment as everybody else or even used my Lawn Solutions WB to compete with these low rates with just one pass....there is little reason to bother. Just mow lawns and forget aerations completely.

What I'm trying to get away from is getting a call for an aeration estimate, then driving across town look at the lawn, kick tires with customer, leave them flags for sprinklers in hopes they will green light it. Come back another day. Mowing lawns in an established tight route is much more profitable for me than wasting time zig zaging across town for a few aerations even if the rate is double or triple what mowing is.

I'm just trying to come up with a fair discounted structure a "true incentive" for a stack of aerations in a neighborhood all in the same day. Everybody wins.

[rdharris]

Originally Posted by Exact Rototilling

What I'm trying to get away from is getting a call for an aeration estimate, then driving across town look at the lawn, kick tires with customer, leave them flags for sprinklers in hopes they will green light it. Come back another day. Mowing lawns in an established tight route is much more profitable for me than wasting time zig zaging across town for a few aerations even if the rate is double or triple what mowing is.

I'm just trying to come up with a fair discounted structure a "true incentive" for a stack of aerations in a neighborhood all in the same day. Everybody wins.

Exact, This may not work in your area but if you want to give a new customer a roundabout quote without driving the the location, I sometimes use google maps to get a so so layout of the property from an aerial view.. Then using a site like zillow.com (gives property square footage along with home sq. footage) Most of the time you can get a good idea of what the lawn size is. You may be able to give the customer a price range before you make the drive

[sildoc]

We do it a couple of ways. Let me start out that we blanket certain areas only. These areas average 3-4k total front and back and offer a 35.00 price tag. Spurs huge interest and usually do 40 a day one guy one machine. Basically door to door to door and so on.

On the larger properties I work it a bit. drop of our aeration cards get some interest and say hey, you get 3 neighbors and I will cut your aeration in half, this one time only. so a 75 dollar aeration we give away at 40 or so and have 4 to do instead of one. Saves money in drive time and fuel. Usually once we have been in the area we have many more call and we charge full price 45 min.
Been working on a formula so we don't have to bid just mail out or pay someone to deliver.
something like 25 stop fee 5 per thousand up to 10k. so a 10 k lawn would pull in 75. saves walking around delivering when I can send a monkey to do it. Not quite sure of this though. Most of our aerations are right around 4k total.