[South Florida Lawns]

Okay so say you have that one customer or a few that are always late on payments or behind a month or more. Do you still provide your best quality? What if they don't water/fertilize and its a dust bowl or weed farm? What if they say that they know there behind so don't cut the back of my yard or sides? Do you keep them or dump this customer? You don't want your name on a crap looking yard what do you do? I have my answers, lets hear yours.

 

[greendoctor]

FIRED! You did/do your part at every visit, and they cannot pay you. You know, I have a hard time being tactful and restrained when a customer crying poor gives me all kinds of signals that they are able/willing to spend money on everything else but their lawn.

 

[Florida Gardener]

Easy, Fired! I will not take on dust bowls anymore and have eliminated all the one's that i had. They give you no extra work and usually dump you in the winter anyways. Let the lawn jockeys have em.

 

[Hawg City Lawns]

always provide your best quality never know that weed farm might turn into a hear say yard as in the man or woman is sitting at the barber or beauty shop and they bring up lawn mowing your customer might say "oh i have a guy that does my yard and hes reliable and does a great job even though my yard is pretty weedy let me find his card for you...when it comes to late payment its tough to do those yards ive been taken quite a few times lately maybe talk with them and see whats the deal with the late payment by any chance is this an older person?

 

[South Florida Lawns]

No they are not old people.

 

[Hawg City Lawns]

No they are not old people.

i was thinking if they were might be a fixed income issue but in this case go by your judgement i try to work with people as much as i can but man id be tempted to drop them also

 

[South Florida Lawns]

yeah that would make sense. I cannot stand people that are cheap on their lawn and then ***** and moan when its dead or looks like crap.

 

[Richard Martin]

I would hold onto them unless it's an unbearable situation. Then when they're gone it's no big deal. I had one guy for 3 years. He didn't mind paying, when you could catch up to him! I put up with that for 3 years. This past fall he said he was no longer going to pay me to cut his daughter's grass since her boyfriend (whom he despised) had moved in with her. I said See Ya! I replaced that job yesterday.

 

[MJB]

Personaly I would drop them , I hate dusty lawns. I'm here to mow the grass not eat dirt. But if you need this job, just tell them that due to many people having a hard time paying their bills on time, you will need to be paid in advance or weekly. Stand your ground and get paid in advance.

 

[oakwdman]

FIRED! You did/do your part at every visit, and they cannot pay you. You know, I have a hard time being tactful and restrained when a customer crying poor gives me all kinds of signals that they are able/willing to spend money on everything else but their lawn.

Exactly, I have a customer who STILL hasn't paid for a spring clean up last year. It was a small $150 clean-up and since then she has a mobile dog groomer at her house, numerous contractors doing work in her house etc. but still doesnt pay the bill. $150 isn't gonna put me under but its the principal of why exactly she can't pay the bill!

 

[yardguy28]

as long as you are getting paid i would do your best work at each and every client. no matter what type of yard they have. after all you partly chose your clients in that you even gave them estimates.

if you don't want certain types of lawns don't bid on them.

but as a rule of thumb as long as they are paying something on a regular basis even if it's a month or 2 behind you should give your best work. just because they are late paying doesn't mean they don't think highly of you. purhaps they are just bad at managing there money.

 

[LandscapeSavannah]

I do not take on poor looking landscapes unless I am meeting with them to discuss a plan for a new one. I do not want my company name on lawns full of weeds, beds without mulch or pine straw, or dust bowls with no turf at all. When cars pass your trucks in front of a place like that... I just don't like the impression. But when that same car passes your company in front of many different great looking landscapes, and doing an array of work. That's what being in the LANDSCAPE business is about. "Cuttin' Grass," is for the guys that do just that. Or cut weeds.

 

[yardguy28]

blah blah blah......

i could take offense to that but i won't.

i don't do the landscape part. all i do is maintenance part. mowing, trimming, edging sidewalks driveways, mulch, shrub pruning and i take care of the leaves if there are any.

i will work on any property where the owner is willing to pay the price i want. i have clients with nice kept up landscaping and i have others that don't have any landscaping at all. i have some that have a fert company so there turf is nice, green, thick and weed free. other places just let the turf do it's thing.

i guess it depends on how hungry you are for business. some clients of mine just want me to keep it knocked down from week to week. others want the whole package deal. doesn't matter to me. it's all money in my pocket.

with the way the economy is a lot of people don't want to hire that guy who only wants the full service deal anyway. there are lots of people who are just looking for someone to do a quality job cutting there grass. thats fine by me.

 

[LandscapeSavannah]

I hear you there. But usually those are the clients that drop you in a fall, or pay your bill last, and sometiems not at all. When you have year round maintenance, the turf is just a small factor in your focus. But I am not knocking what you do; it is just a preference.

 

[topsites]

Either do a good job or don't do it at all, and on that note I'd have to agree
it would probably be best to address this at the estimate stage.

Remember, if you're mowing lawn then you first need a lawn to mow...
Dust bowls and weed infestations don't count, although honestly speaking I'll still take on a lot full of crabgrass or
so long it's full of something... I could care less what grows in that sense but the dust I ain't dealing with.

Not only is it bad for me and my equipment, but if they were too cheap to do anything about it in all those years...

i was thinking if they were might be a fixed income issue

Yeah well I'm on a fixed income, too.

 

[greendoctor]

Exactly, I have a customer who STILL hasn't paid for a spring clean up last year. It was a small $150 clean-up and since then she has a mobile dog groomer at her house, numerous contractors doing work in her house etc. but still doesnt pay the bill. $150 isn't gonna put me under but its the principal of why exactly she can't pay the bill!

I would not care about the $150. However I would see to it that B#$%H will not be able to even borrow a cup of sugar next door. I had a client like that. Everyone on his street knows I fired him for nonpayment. I still do the lawn and landscape care for 3 people across the street from him. Their lawns look great, his is becoming weedy and patchy. Now whose fault is that?

 

[clallen03]

I will maintain any lawn for the right price. Period!

I dont understand some of you'll talking about you dont mow lawns thats weed infested or dust bowls. That sound like a bunch of crap to me.

We maintained a lawn full of clovers for 2 years and every time we left that lawn looked like Turner Field, stripes and all. We picked up 3 customers off that lawn that we still maintain today. They knew it full of weeds but they was impressed what it looked like when we left. Thats all that mattered. It might sound hard to believe but its true. That $1600 per year spent just like his next door neighbor's $2800 that is on a full service maint program. Who cares what the lawn looks like as long as the money looks green.

A couple years ago we were in a serious drought. We had water restriction so tight that EVERY yard was a dust bowl. What would you have done then? Would you let your pride allow you to starve? I doubt it.

I dont like maintaining lawns with steep slopes so I charge a lot more to do it but I'll be damned if I turn it down because I dont like it. It could be a dusty lawn full of dallasgrass, on a steep slope, and at the front of an exclusive gated community and for the right price I would maintain it like it was the white house lawn. Please believe it.

Maybe Im foolish but thats the way I see it.

 

[topsites]

I will maintain any lawn for the right price. Period!

I dont understand some of you'll talking about you dont mow lawns thats weed infested or dust bowls. That sound like a bunch of crap to me.

It was mentioned these folks were also late / slow payers although I do admit
LS threads have a way of taking a few left turns

Yeah, for the right price...
If you can get away with it and that's a pretty big if,
what do you do, pull Jedi mind tricks on them?

It ain't that I don't know how...
It's that I'd hate to see what comes of it ...

 

[shovelracer]

The question was do you do a good job for a slow or nonpayer. Lets go with the most common situation: You state payment at a certain time, but they ignore it cause they pay their bills on the say the 1st always. So they always pay, but it is always late. Now this same person is more likely to complain and have additional requests. Now on the other hand the old lady across the street will never ever complain, pays her bill the day she gets it, and give referrals. It is a sad truth that most businesses face. The old lady will not get as much attention as the slow payer. 10% of your customers will cause 90% of the problems and that 10% will get far more attention than they deserve and lastly that 10% will be the first to send you packing.

It takes quite a bit of effort to prevent this, and most put up with it for fear of loosing an account they never real had.

 

[jdw0876]

I had a lady who refused to water her grass, then fired me when it died! I also cut her neighbors beautiful thick grass..... He watered regularly!!! She apologized a few weeks later and asked me to consider cutting hers again!!! Amazing