outdoorliving,
Since it's obvious you aren't going to wake up and give up chasing this 20 billion dollar lawn business you want to build after you woke up dreaming about it one early morning, I'll add my input.
I know what you are speaking of, it goes back to the old theory, you have to spend money to make money. In reality, it's true. Most of us do pay for customers in some way, one way or another, you are paying too much.
Remember what I told you about your first idea? About your workers running with your customers? The customers do the same thing with your money and I've experienced it personally. You are saying spend ($350.00?) to make $3,500.00. I've seen companies do this, for example, they plant a tree for new customers, and what not for signing up for service. But over my time in business, I've learned it's hard to find permanent customers in this business. I actually learned that my first year. I had 9 customers in one year, sell their house or move, one past away. If I would have spend $350.00 to obtain every one of them customers, I would have lost a quarter in just one year, of what some people earn in a whole year. I followed your plan just a few weeks ago, one lady talked a big game, she wanted this and that done, fertilization through the year, shrubs trimmed, grass cut weekly. I cut her a deal on a $500.00 leaf clean-up at $250.00 just to obtain her business. In other words, I paid $250.00 to obtain her business. I pulled up this past Friday to a big ol, you guessed it, not even a for sale sign, a "CONTRACT PENDING" sign right in the smack dab middle of the front yard. That is after I spent $250.00 to obtain her business. Another one two weeks ago, "I want the yard neat, cut weekly, a deep grooved edge, everything bagged, this and that. I cleaned up the yard, had an excellent edge set, leaves gone, the yard looked flawless. Owner comes home and even says Wow, it looks great. I'm going to talk to my wife and see if we are going to be able to afford you. Really? I seen you edging your lawn with the trimmer last year. You couldn't set a groove with a trimmer on your now over-grown edge. You didn't have a bed edger to carve out the flower beds so your lawn would look like your neighbors I do. Now after I put it all this work after you told me you wanted this and that done through the year, now you can't afford me. I could go on, and on, and on, and on again about how many times this has happen to me. If you don't think it won't happen to you, you'd be a fool. The only way around it is force people to sign a 1 year, 2 year contract, with a clause saying if they break, they pay. Which will eliminate more customers than it's worth. It's just part of the business.
The only I found around it, is instead of spending money to obtain customers, charge them a premium for the first clean-up cut, if they really want you working on their lawn and plan to be loyal customers, they won't mind paying it. The ones who are not going to be loyal and walk on you, won't pay it. My average customer now days cost me between 5 cents and 10 cents.