JimLewis
LawnSite Fanatic
- Location
- Beaverton, OR
I am directing this question primarily to those of you who have say a large residential client base (say 100-200+) and also have employee crews doing the maintenance;
Do you make an effort to work with the crews at every property from time to time?
Reason I ask is I read in another thread a guy said he would rotate and work with one crew per week so that he eventually saw every client every few weeks. He listed the advantages of doing this.
This got me thinking.
I agree, this has some great advantages and definitely builds a closer personal relationship with your clients. No doubt it helps business.
But I do not do it. And I started thinking about why. And if it was a good idea. And if it was duplicatable as your business grew.
There are several reasons why I haven't done this. For one, I have personally mowed more lawns in the last several years than I ever want to mow in my life. I am sick to death of it. I don't even mow my own lawn. One of my crews does that.
Secondly, I never wanted to mow lawns in the first place. My goal first and foremost was to run a big company. It just started as a between jobs thing then I realized that "Hey! I could make good money doing this!" I always saw my mowing time as a stepping stone, but not something I'd continue forever. I call it being ambitiously lazy. I am just ambitious enough to create a situation where I could be lazy sometimes and still get paid well for it.
Third, at least in the spring and summer, I don't have time to mow lawns. I give a average of 5 estimates per day. I answer maybe 15 calls per day, and I stop by and oversee several job sites per day. This is above and beyond the time I spend in the office. If I spent time on a mowing crew we would never grow. I feel my time is best spent doing what I do.
Fourth, I am not sure how long I could keep this up if I did want to do it. I mean, eventually when I reach 300 clients, there is no way I could work at every house. At some point it seems you have to delegate these things to crew leaders or foreman.
And finally, it seems that for landscape maintenance at least, my crews leaders do a very good job at dealing with the clients and their landscapes. I rarely get complaints and they seem to be doing well when I stop by to check on a property.
I guess I should add that I DO stop by my clients houses whenever I am in there area. That means that I do take a look at their yards on a regular basis. I just don't make a point to go work at every house on a regular basis.
Anyway, I just wanted to see what others did and why.
[Edited by jimlewis on 01-11-2001 at 04:42 AM]
Do you make an effort to work with the crews at every property from time to time?
Reason I ask is I read in another thread a guy said he would rotate and work with one crew per week so that he eventually saw every client every few weeks. He listed the advantages of doing this.
This got me thinking.
I agree, this has some great advantages and definitely builds a closer personal relationship with your clients. No doubt it helps business.
But I do not do it. And I started thinking about why. And if it was a good idea. And if it was duplicatable as your business grew.
There are several reasons why I haven't done this. For one, I have personally mowed more lawns in the last several years than I ever want to mow in my life. I am sick to death of it. I don't even mow my own lawn. One of my crews does that.
Secondly, I never wanted to mow lawns in the first place. My goal first and foremost was to run a big company. It just started as a between jobs thing then I realized that "Hey! I could make good money doing this!" I always saw my mowing time as a stepping stone, but not something I'd continue forever. I call it being ambitiously lazy. I am just ambitious enough to create a situation where I could be lazy sometimes and still get paid well for it.
Third, at least in the spring and summer, I don't have time to mow lawns. I give a average of 5 estimates per day. I answer maybe 15 calls per day, and I stop by and oversee several job sites per day. This is above and beyond the time I spend in the office. If I spent time on a mowing crew we would never grow. I feel my time is best spent doing what I do.
Fourth, I am not sure how long I could keep this up if I did want to do it. I mean, eventually when I reach 300 clients, there is no way I could work at every house. At some point it seems you have to delegate these things to crew leaders or foreman.
And finally, it seems that for landscape maintenance at least, my crews leaders do a very good job at dealing with the clients and their landscapes. I rarely get complaints and they seem to be doing well when I stop by to check on a property.
I guess I should add that I DO stop by my clients houses whenever I am in there area. That means that I do take a look at their yards on a regular basis. I just don't make a point to go work at every house on a regular basis.
Anyway, I just wanted to see what others did and why.
[Edited by jimlewis on 01-11-2001 at 04:42 AM]
