Wow. I can hardly believe how many installation jobs we are landing right now. These may not be big jobs to y'all but they are big for us.
Just finished a $6K irrigation / replace lawn job. Just about to finish a $7K plant install job with tons of profit. Just starting a $3.5K retaining wall / sod job. Next week, starting a $5.5K irrigation / plant install job. Week after doing a $6K Retaining wall. And amongst all of this are some smaller $500 clean-ups and such.
People are just throwing money our way. I can hardly believe it. This is all just in addition to our lawn maintenance biz, which is where most of my money usually comes from. But with all these extra installs, we are definitely having a record month. It's weird. Just a month ago I was praying for more install work. I guess my prayers were heard. Usually this time of year we begin to taper off on the landscaping side of things.
The other weird thing was that two of these jobs I didn't think I'd land. When I gave the estimates, both people were very surprised. They were about twice what they were expecting to pay. So they both basically said, "Thanks. Will call you." And I thought that'd be it. But sure enough, they called back and said let's go!
Anyway, just wanted to share my excitement. Coming from a lawn care background, it's just crazy to see how up and down landscaping can be. But it sure is nice when things are rockin' like this!
I CAN SHARE IN YOUR EXCITEMENT TOO JIM, LAST WEEK WE DID ABOUT $16,000 IN SALES, THE MOST WE HAVE EVER DONE IN ONE WEEK, SEEMS THAT $$ IS BEING THROWN OUR WAY TOO !!!
I have almost rebounded to were I was last winter almost went under now im making what took me and my wife 5 days in 3 1/2 days thanks to lawnsite and bill phagan
That's good to hear Jim. Doesn't suprise me either. Are you doing anything thing different than usuall? I hope you took pics and are going to take pictures of all the future jobs.
I know this is different, but I referred about 12K in work this week to another landscape company. We do more maintenance than installation. We'd do it if we had the time. Congrats to you guys.
I'm a one man show and I did almost $6000 last week. I dont do that much in most months. Renovations and new home lawn establishments abound! All I can say is thank God, with the threat of war in Iraq, the stock market on a rollercoaster, the recent drought just ending, the anniversary of 9-11, etc. etc. I can hardly believe it myself. Only in America! :laugh: God is definetly aswering my prayers
Yah, we are getting work, but not the same volume of last year this time.
Being in the heart of the tech sector, many and I mean many people lost their jobs due to bankruptcy and lay offs. What I'm finding is that I can lose a job for a lousy $5 difference on a bid.
John
Sometimes, when you're hot, you're hot. It's those times that I feel like I'm 10 feet tall, the best looking guy in the state, and on the way to the Inc 500 list.
For me, celebration is usually a Starbucks Frappaccino (sp?) and a cigar.
Not really. I mean, I suppose I am a little. I continue to get better at bidding jobs more accurately. I am more confident than ever and I think that shows through. We have a lot more experience and and better reputation. I am getting a lot better at reading what customers want and want to hear. But all and all, these few changes don't hardly account for the recent growth spurt. I don't really know what to account to it.
All I know is if we were always this booked with big jobs I'd be a rich man. Unfortunately, it's not always like this. I gotta figure out a way to make it so, though. That'd be nice.
Congrats to you Jim..you seem like a nice guy with a quality operation...the past 6 weeks I too was very concerned about new accounts....asked the man upstairs if I made a mistake by starting this new biz in a tough economy wrapped inside a multi year drought...well he answered me this past weekend with having one of the largest commercial realtors in my area calling me with multiple properties he wants maintained and re-landscaped...he said I got the jobs because he heard about the excetional high quality of our work....so I guess that extra effort is paying off... oh and some of you bigger operators will chuckle at this since you can relate when you were smaller and that is that sometimes we little guys can all of a sudden have more work than we can handle in a timely manner...but I wont whine about that!by the way Jim, your logo and color scheme is impressive....very memorable to anyone seeing it for the first time...
I've told many people this, but I've always been of the opinion that if a man works his business right and he's always staight up and honest and his quality is excellent and good, he'll reach a point where he will not be able to hold his business back.
We had a lot of people put things off during this summer because of the drought and heat. I think many wanted to enjoy the summer without having to water and construction dust. Could that be a factor in anyone else's spike in activity?
Way to go Jim! Its definately been an interesting year. I surpassed last years entire total on August 30. The biggest part of the year hasn't even arrived yet.
Originally posted by AGLA We had a lot of people put things off during this summer because of the drought and heat. I think many wanted to enjoy the summer without having to water and construction dust. Could that be a factor in anyone else's spike in activity?
Also, we experienced a considerable loss of our fall aeration and overseeding work, last year, and we felt it was because of the Sept. 11 tragedy. No one wanted to think about anything else until some of the healing process could get underway.
Now, it seems as though the entire country is making up for lost time. Things are getting back to normal and I think that what we're seeing is business from this year, that we would get anyway and business from last year by the folks who are now getting "around to it."
Iam very glad to here of your success. Perhaps it will get going here. I just had a nursery call me trying to move trees and I talked to a reseller yesterday and she told me that the nurseries had gone to aggressive price reductions. I know that our pansy and mum sales in September are down 75% compared to last year.
On a brighter note I have been on the Web for over 10 years and have rarely run into a forum with as many usable and knowledgable responses to inquires.
I am counting on this forum to help me in the future as we take on more and different landscaping jobs.
We get leads from all sorts of places. We don't advertise any more except flyers. But even flyers we do very rarely.
We get a lot of calls off of our trucks. If you got a big maintenance business you better have some good lettering on them. Make sure the lettering and logo look the same on every truck and can be seen from a distance. It takes a while to establish a lot of name recognition but if you do it right it pays off.
We also get a lot of leads from referrals - from someone we did an install for in the past, current lawn care clients, other LCOs, our landscape designer, nurseries, friends, other contractors, etc. It's helps to network a lot. This is probably our biggest source of leads these days.
Finally, I really like ServiceMagic (.com) and Townpartner.com. They are producing some real good quality leads for us and the cost is affordable. We've landed some big jobs from each of those places.
Congrats on that work. Wish I could "find" those good jobs. A big plant job for me is $600.00. I'd really like to do more landscaping than maintenance, but the phone is just not ringing. I have a great looking rig with the numbers on it, but have recieved absolutely NO calls for a year, from the advertising on the truck/trailer. Here is a pic of my rig, sorry for the poor qualilty, just learing that my new camera is a piece of junk.
Wow. You definitely have a very nice set up. That's exactly how it should be done.
Realize that calls from our trucks and trailers aren't where all of our calls come from. But we get a fair amount from them. Part of that, though, is because we have 4 such trucks driving around a small area every day. People can't help but notice us. Plus, our trucks, trailers, uniforms, etc. are bright red. Can't miss us. So we stick in people's minds.
Anyway, keep in mind the truck and trailer advertising is just supplemental. It should work if you're seen often enough. It also depends on the traffic in the areas where you're parked and on the economic conditions, neighborhoods you are working in.
Keep up the good work and do other advertising too. One day, you'll see calls come in from those trucks and trailers as you get bigger. I didn't see a lot of calls back when we had just 1 or 2 trucks out there. But now we get a decent amount.
It is my belief that signs work when potential customers are looking. If they're NOT looking, at least you're building credibility. So the money spent combined with the effort made is not being wasted.
But here's the thing. People are looking when there's high demand. With all the scrubs, lowballers and general competition, the "John Doe" public isn't having to scramble to find someone to do their work and, as a result, you may not get the calls that you've been expecting. However, consistency should bring results. Leave the signs in place and eventually those who grow weary of the shoddy work of your competition will indeed call.
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