I had a customer request a price on lawn apps. The area to be treated is 3.5 acres. They said they have a quote from Scotts for $330 per app! Thats what I would pay for a W&F combo material alone. Anyone know how thats possible?
THey aren't using high priced granualr como products. They are using lower grade urea based fertilizers and spray weed applications. PLUS they buy in huge quantitys. Even at my low quntity amount I COULD treat their lawn for $150.00 or less. Now --- that being said... I only do much smaller propertys so I do not have a price structure set for something that lage -- but it would be much higher than that.
bowerj, Where in Ohio are you located??? There is a new Scotts franchise in my area throwing out ridiculously low prices too!!!
I often wonder about the marketing strategy of Corp America. A few years back CENTREX came along and offered one year free lawn care service(fert&squirt) to a upscale housing development they built. There were well over 700 homes in this community. Of course they knocked out all the competition. FREE is a very strong Marketing term. Now they have lost most of the accounts and once again the local guy is moving back in. BTW "Save On", one of the larger LCO at 33 million in sales per year, has the rather large common grounds. They also provide the home owners yard service. Their prices are also very low. However they also are losing ground to the small operators. Being an up scale community the home owner are looking for a little more personalized service that the big boys can not provide and are willing to pay for it. Therefore the point of my post is. Offer a quality personalized service and forget the low ballers.
Yah, $500 here too. Anyways, I mow a school district and have insiders that get me the quotes from Chem-Lawn. They say they fert and spray for weeds, but they're still there later in the year, Chem-Lawn never comes back. Maybe the school district doesn't care? I tried to get the bid last year, but Chem-Lawn is doing it at $1000 less than what I can get my material at, so much for that bid. I'll have to take pictures of the weeds this year and show the school what they're getting for their money.
EJK2352- i am located just south of columbus anyways i priced it at $450 (i am doing alot more work for them also, so i tryed to give them a little better deal) but as far as other scotts treated lawns i am right in line on price (a little over or under) i cant figure what kind of pricing structure TG and Scotts are using, it varies so much between area even on same size lawns. I guess it just depends on areas they want to target
Herbicide @ .22/M = $33.88 Urea spray @ .30/M = $46.20 Materials Total for lousy app = $80.08 2 hours to boom spray @ 120 = $240 Grand total for entire lousy app = $320.08 I wouldn't do it. But this should at least get you thinking.
I understand regions are different and price structure is different but in where I am at, 3.5 would run around $360. Now if there is more app or mowing or other work related to this bid I will jive the numbers a bit to obtain the entire project. But as I did this I would itemize eash service out and then offer them a "total pkg" plan.
Scotts and TG to name only a couple of Corp America Lawn Care types price apps according to 1k square ft increments. when it gets up to 3.5 acres (545,860SqFt) they negociate price. having been a sales supervisor for Scotts( 1yr) and TG sales and apps(5Yrs), they will find out competitors prices from the prospect then beat it from there. This doesn't mean they provide great service! Usually the applicator zips thru the app in record time and neglects the outer periphery completely. They may get two maybe three apps b4 the customer cancels. I sold one that was 5acres for about $7500 for 6 apps. They cancelled after two because the service guy blew thru the app just to get the revenue. Place looked terrible, streaked and weedy(the guy is no longer w/Scotts) but after that kind of service, you have lost the customer(and many more he told about the wonderful service he received). Bottom line... forget about the big conglomerates, they only look at the numbers not the results. stick w/ providing good service and you will continue to grow and prosper. Good Luck
