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Business plan advice / questions

5K views 30 replies 12 participants last post by  Srtstang 
#1 ·
I want to go back into business for my self doing lawn care and general landscaping.

Couple years ago I had my own landscaping company and had 2 guys working with me. I mainly did hardscaping and dirt work with skid steer and mini excavator. While doing this I also worked a full time job on the weekends as a supervisor at an aerospace machine shop. I was getting very burnt out on working 80+ hours a week and my wife was / is a stay at home mom and our bills at the time we’re to much to feel comfortable making the leap to do landscaping only.

Present day I no longer work at said machine shop and have gave up the landscaping gig sold skid steer and nearly all tools needed for what I used to specialize in. I currently am a heavy equipment operator. Since being out of the business a few years and things changing in our life I really want to go back into business for my self but want to make some changes from my previous venture.

I don’t want to do the hardscaping stuff so much as it’s hard on my body with previous back injures as well as hard to find people I trusted to build retaining walls or patios to my standard if I was needed elsewhere. So this time I want to do more lawn care side of things.

I want to make an actual business plan this time but have no idea where to start. What did / do you guys include in a business plan? What were / are some of your goals?

Here’s what I have in mind so far. Insurance of probably 1mil liability, 5000$ in business account to start off with a little bit of working capital, 1500$ in advertising within first year then go from there, goal of 30 residential mowing customers in first year, goal of 40 aeration customers for first year. Get Missouri applicators license and offer full yard maintence programs by second year. Planning to be mainly solo for first year or 2 and just get help as needed from my dad who is ready to retire but still wants to work 2-3 days a week. Still trying to decide what I need to make per hour, I’m thinking shoot for 45$ an hour for first year then make adjustments as needed. I know there’s a lot more to a business plan but I’m still thinking and trying to figure out what I need as a plan.

My equipment consist of a 2003 Ford F-250 4x4 long bed standard cab diesel truck, 77”x12’ trailer with gate, 2016 60” exmark mower with suspension platform, 21” toro push mower with bagger it’s an aluminum deck commercial mower I believe, 2013 toro 30” ride on aerator, older Ryan walk behind aerator, Stihl fs110r trimmer with edger attachment, Stihl fs 56 trimmer, Kawasaki trimmer, Stihl bg86 blower, Maruyama back pack blower, Stihl headge trimmers, and all handtools needed for any landscaping type work. May possibly buy a smaller walk behind mower yet.

All of my equipment is paid off and I’m
Debt free now which makes it easier to go out on my own again. I ideally want to keep my business debt free if possible. I will only consider debt if it is absolutely needed for a big job or if things are going well and I need to add equipment faster than planned.

Any help / advice is greatly appreciated I know there’s lots of things to consider and I don’t want to miss something if at all possible.
 
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#7 ·
I had planned to make business pay me back for all equipment but was going to let my cpa sort that all out on how I should do it.

What do you mean on pricing my market? I’m assuming I’m not doing that or atleast doing it correctly since Im Not sure what your asking.
 
#9 ·
That was my plan. I want to hopefully mow on the weekends and evenings or try to work 4 days a week then mow fri-Sunday until I had enough to keep me busy.

I also had planned to buy a 36" walkbehind but figured I would wait until it was closer to season
 
#14 ·
Figure out you markets pricing. Call a few companies for quotes on your yard. Use company like task easy for an idea of pricing on you lawn as well. Once you have an idea of what your market can bare then you know you target pricing. Then see how that lines up with bottom line.
 
#15 ·
I did call all 3 big lawn companies for pricing on aeration and lawn maintenance programs for my yard. However I have a 120sqft lawn not everyone has that big of a yard so I’m not sure how to go about figuring out how they came up with pricing I’m assuming by the acre but I don’t know.

Aeration I was quoted 600-700$ 5-6 step lawn programs ranged from 440-530$ per step
 
#16 ·
I did call all 3 big lawn companies for pricing on aeration and lawn maintenance programs for my yard. However I have a 120sqft lawn not everyone has that big of a yard so I'm not sure how to go about figuring out how they came up with pricing I'm assuming by the acre but I don't know.

Aeration I was quoted 600-700$ 5-6 step lawn programs ranged from 440-530$ per step
120sqft? Typo?
 
#18 ·
If you can’t trust employees to do hardscape to your standards what’s your plan to have them do lawns and general landscaping to your standards?

It’s going to exactly the same problem

My advice would be to NOT go into lawn service
Stick to hardscaping since you already know it
And make laborers do the back breaking things while you direct and delegate and operate the machine.

Keep your heavy equipment job as you might find/pick up walls and oatiod from that job as long as there isn’t a conflict of interest
 
#19 ·
If you can't trust employees to do hardscape to your standards what's your plan to have them do lawns and general landscaping to your standards?

It's going to exactly the same problem

My advice would be to NOT go into lawn service
Stick to hardscaping since you already know it
And make laborers do the back breaking things while you direct and delegate and operate the machine.

Keep your heavy equipment job as you might find/pick up walls and oatiod from that job as long as there isn't a conflict of interest
I have thought about doing hardscaping again but it cost so much money in equipment that I figured lawn service would
Be a bit cheaper route to go and if things do good then I can start adding back equipment for hardscaping.

I would love to see it turn into a full service landscape company down the road but fell like I should take it one step at a time and see how it progresses before I try to offer a bunch of things I can't complete in a timely manor.

Some retaining walls take several days and if I'm only doing it on weekends until things were booming I could have a customers property messed up for 2 maybe 3 weeks since I couldn't get to it during the week and I don't feel that's very professional or fair to them
 
#20 ·
I figured lawn service would
Be a bit cheaper route to go
It is , that's why everyone and his brother do it. You are looking to get out of high profit segment of the industry to get into the low profit stuff. That is why you got so little responses at first. No one wanted to be the dick to tell you that. I obviously don't have a problem with it.
 
#21 ·
I would like to do hardscaping still but with my current work situation it's a little harder than before.

So I would like to start off with mowing and other general things until I'm
Back to a point where I can take on bigger hardscaping jobs.

I get that it's lower profit but profit is still profit and if I'm making money and I'm
Able to sustain my business and family as I keep growing until I'm in a position to get back into the higher profit stuff then I'll be fine. I don't need to make millions and millions of dollars to be happy.

Yes I want to make good money and I realize everyone and their brother mow grass but that's also why I bought aerators and plan to add in full lawn care programs because not everyone and their brothers have aerators or do full lawn programs or could even build a hardscape if a customer asked.

It takes a lot of money to to buy the equipment needed to do hardscaping and as I stated before I want to try and do things debt free this time around so that's why I thought this may be the way to go to get my self back into it without needing 50k in equipment right off the bat
 
#24 ·
I would start doing misc. landscaping such as tree/ shrub work, mulch, fall/ spring cleanups this season etc. Get contacts and have enough lined up this spring to be able to reason w/ investing enough for quality equipment to get the job done efficiently. Mowing isn't really all that profitable until you can knock out 2 or 3 avg. lawns an hour solo.
 
#25 ·
I have pretty much everything I need to small tree work, shrub work or mulch / general landscaping work. Just not everything for hardscaping. I kept some hardscaping tools but very little.

I had hoped to mow a few yard in the evenings and weekends and try to get other small jobs from those people and take it from there.

My wife is going back to school and is a stay at home mom so I can’t try to jump the gun to fast I have to let things slowly take place until she’s done with school and back at work.
 
#27 ·
Honestly since you have the skill to be doing that kind of work I would stay there and just get more help for the physical aspect. Much higher profitability than mowing, and one job you could pull in $25k gross where mowing you might get $1250 gross for a season worth of scheduling and headaches.

If you do this you can be picky with what mowing clients you do accept. If you get the right clients it will be profitable but unlike with hardscsping, most people are much more about price shopping and getting a good deal than quality.
 
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#28 ·
I'm sure that's why many solo don't expand, they are big on quality and don't want to manage the stress of quality control and employee mistakes. You will have to give up control eventually if you don't want to do the labour forever. Find guys with experience or train them yourself. Train someone to be a foreman with the same standards as you. There will always be mistakes just have to accept it.
 
#29 ·
You guys have lots of good points and that’s why I wanted to ask everyone’s thoughts.

I think what I’m going to do is start out with lawn care like i has planned and if asked to do hardscaping I’ll rent machines until I’m able to buy them again.

I’m going to take it slow unless phone blows up with work. I’m going to try to find someone I can train to my standards as mentioned and turn them into a Formen hopefully that will make things a bit easier on me and maybe allow me to go start another job while he finishes up or vise versa.

It does make sense to stay in that part of the business since that’s where I have all my knowledge.

I have been curious about doing landscape lighting and learning irrigation as well. What’s everyone’s thoughts on that?
 
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