Message Board - Natural Turf: Lawn Care businesss................
17 Aug 2010 by Mark Jones
I am thinking of setting up a lawn care business. Do people think there is a good market for it? I see there are alot of companies out there who do it, but i bet there are some right cowboys aswell!
17 Aug 2010 by Sumomosr
Not at all, they are all very ethical, honourable and highly profitable.
The work is easy and this is an excellent way to make your fortune.
Good luck.
GOGGA
17 Aug 2010 by Vic Demain
What is your background Mark, are you experienced in turfcare or looking for a career change?
17 Aug 2010 by Mark Jones
Hi Vic, to answer your question. I am learning turfcare, where my knowledge is improving but still have a long way to go. I maintain a football pitch. I have done gardening in the past. Therefore i see it as a bit of a career change where i want to learn and build it up slowly.
18 Aug 2010 by Vic Demain
Hi Mark, we are all learning all the time and all credit to you for exploring all possibilities. Is the plan to set up on your own or will you be buying into one of the lawncare companies? Either way there are of course many risks and financial outlay but good luck to you.
23 Aug 2010 by LittleDave
I'm more of a gardener, and a lot of my customers use Greenthumb, and his results are better than mine. They're happy with him, the only problem is that he messes up my schedule when I go to do a garden and he's been, so I can't cut the lawns!
23 Aug 2010 by Duncan Peddie
mark after 30 years as a greenkeeper i have become self employed as an associate with a natural lawn care company and i must admit to a much better life where i can enjoy being my own boss and not using chemicals is something i have become very happy and safe with. The money is heeps better also
23 Aug 2010 by jlawrence
LittleDave - now there's a first. I've never heard of anyone saying GT's results are better.
Of course there's no bounce, bend your back and put some bloody effort in.
23 Aug 2010 by Craig john
hi mark im concidering doing the same thing, ive been involved in greenkeeping for 5 years now and feel its time to try something new, like yourself ive debated whether its actually worth my while making a go of this, as there are alot of companies out there that specialise in lawn care,
after reading some reviews on some companys such as GT it sounds like there is work out there for a reliable company that can guarantee a quality service.. i think its worth the risk.
23 Aug 2010 by Green Green Grass
I have been learning about turfcare from this website and reading books and some of the lawn care companies are putting down weed and feed applications in December, I don't think that is the right thing to do.
23 Aug 2010 by jlawrence
GGG, that depends really.
I've been known to feed in Dec - if the grass needs it.
Weedkiller - not much point in Dec as weeds ain't growing. But, if you've got the money it can be slightly beneficial I suppose. Giving the weeds even a minor kick in the winter can weaken them come spring.
Of course there's no bounce, bend your back and put some bloody effort in.
23 Aug 2010 by Duncan Peddie
agree jlawrence fling away the rule book and work to temp. weedkiller not sure on that one but i do know dec can be fairly warm. but everything is weather depending and even after thirty years i learn
23 Aug 2010 by tonybolton
I'm also considering taking on a lawn care company, or starting my own, preferably in a a lovely sunny climate, where it only rains at night, income tax and VAT are zero rated and beer and wine are supplied on The NHS as remedial substances. Oh s!!t I've just woken up.
A Freudian slip is when you say one thing but mean your mother
24 Aug 2010 by Kip
I own a lawn care company (to save some of you some time - boooo!) and I think it is important to not only think about making sure you have the lawn care skills required, but also the business skills.
If you want to start any business, it may look easy but making a profit doesn't just happen. Choosing the right products, equipment and processes is one thing but getting the customers, selling at a profit, managing the cash, running efficiently, etc are just as important.
Many businesses fail within the first 12-24 months due to this, so do your research and possibly look at franchising to help cover these areas and improve your chances if you can't honestly tick all the boxes you need to if you want to be a success.
Hope that helps.
24 Aug 2010 by Head Tea Boy
I have done it the other way around. I started off by maintaining private lawns, and then went into green keeping. The latter has provided me with a far higher income, but has limited my flexibility somewhat.
I used to have so many clients, that I could not visit them all on a weekly basis - and that was working seven days a week, but that was because I was too cheap.
Once I dropped the gardening aspect of my service, and concentrated on fine lawns, I lost a lot of time wasters, and found a few people that were prepared to pay good money for good results. The best results come from lawns that I have built, as I can build them to a very high standard (sports quality rootzones, fine seed and irrigation systems). Building the lawn to this standard has the added advantage of sorting out the good clients from the bad ones - if they are thinking about a lawn for £300 rather than £1300, you don't want to know them.
I still have a small number of private lawns, and although the income is not fantastic, the work is a welcome change to bowling green maintenance.
As for buying into a franchise, I understand that they are very expensive. I am also told that the operative is under great pressure to get the rounds done - with very short visits and lots of driving. I believe it is the franchise company that earns the money.
Good luck to you - you will have gained a lot of experience by now, that will help you in the future.
Peter
ps the picture is of a £1600 lawn @ £900/year maintenance. Not a good picture though
24 Aug 2010 by Kip
As the Head Tea Boy Peter said, there are good and bad in everything - customers, franchises, businesses. Therefore, good and bad franchises where you can make money within a potentially proven business model.
My main point was that starting a lawn business is more than just maintaining a lawn - if you don't have the skills to run a profitable business, then beware.
24 Aug 2010 by Duncan Peddie
couldnt agree more kip the lawn side i can do no bother but the business side has been testing and thats why i went into a franchise where i work to their model with all the back up i ever need. i would recommend that to everyone who is not sure on the business side to get backed by a reputable company. if any one is interested in the best send me a pm.
head tea boy your work is ace well done.
30 Aug 2010 by mickjm
Starting a lawncare company requires far more than the ability to 'do the lawn side' and having a bit of business knowledge. Well, havin a bit of buisness knowledge isn't really needed is it. You go, you apply some random chemical application at any point in the year safe in the knowledge the customer hasn't got a clue and you put on your stetson whilst drivin off into the sunset.
GREENTHUMB. Now theres a good quality opertion which I would highly recommend investing your hard earned into.
Being 'backed up' by a reputable company is an absolute joke. Transporting yourself around in a franchised van spouting the terms, professional and expert quite loosely is and should be taken to task under trade descriptions. Quite how a qualification is spraying makes a man an expert beggars belief.
AND just to highlight the expertise being tauted around these days. The mighty Greenthumb who are professional experts in the field of lawncare continue to use hollowcoring as a route to aeration and decompaction, whilst leaving the very cores on the lawn to "break down". Hollowcoring is for soil exchange. Soil exchange never occurs. The clue is in the title! Whilst the cores rot down they prevent the very thing they are trying to improve from growing and hence the possibility of disease beneath the cores since the grass can't 'breathe'. And so now they advise treatments for the lawn which has consequently been damaged by the 'professionals'. Painting the forth road bridge?
So if you want to start a lawn care company make sure you know what you're doing. 'Doing the lawn side no bother' is ok but theres more understanding of lawncare than just spraying nothing more than a slightly stronger version of what anyone can get in B&Q, but then doing it at the RIGHT time, not when the 'computer says so'. What these companies do not give a monkeys about are the weather conditions, regional climatic conditions, soil types and compatibility, customer requirements. Their slogans should be "B*llsh1t baffles Brains"
Finally I don't care that I've mentioned Greenthumb, I will gladly show them how to do the job, I will also happily walk them around a number of lawns FULL of weeds since they have been applying their own special weedkiller solutions diluted to one part per billion to make more money. I will also show them that B&Q stuff does a better job when applied by someone who knows what they're doing. AND I will show them lawns they have just scarified after telling the customer to GROW the grass before scarification, and I will then show them the 1" of thatch they coveniently MISSED, whilst I go through the 50 bags of grass clippings they have disguised as scarifyings.
I'm done.
No Fork handles....Handles for forks!!
31 Aug 2010 by Kip
ouch - i feel your pain..........
31 Aug 2010 by aturnbull
Hi Mickjm
Quite an expression of feeling about lawn care companies, or is it about just one in particular?
Let me reassure you that a good lawn care franchise will:
1. Give excellent customer care
2. Give the franchisee the freedom to apply the correct treatments as and when required.
3. Give excellent training in agronomy
4. Give excellent training in business management
5. Support the franchisee in all aspects of running his/her business.
In addition, the franchisee will be building an asset that can be sold at a good profit.
Many reputable and intelligent Course Managers and Head Groundsmen are choosing this as an opprotunity to leave behind the trials of committees etc. Think about it.
Andy Turnbull
1 Sep 2010 by Head Tea Boy
Are you confused yet Mark?
Starting any company, in the hope to run it for more than 5 minutes and to earn money in the process, requires a degree of knowledge of the subject in question and of business practices.
I believe the most important questions a person could ask before committing themselves, is how much they realisticly expect to earn from the enterprise, how much work they are prepared to do for that money, and how much are they prepared to invest in the business.
If you are after a quick buck, then a cheap rotory mower and a blower in the back of the van will do you better than a franchise.
For a long term, steady flow of reasonable money, work on building up your own reputation, and look after you customers - staying with them for many years.
If you want to earn lots of money, I understand the best way is to get other people to do the work for you - but I'm afraid I can't speak from experience here.
All this talk about franchises is narrowing down the conversation a lot. My only experience of a franchise was a leaflet that was delivered to one of my long standing clients, saying that a lawn of her size would cost £15 per visit. I cannot travel to and from that house, and do the most simple of tasks for £15. How is it possible to get back the £21,000 (or what ever it is) franchise cost, if my business is made up of such commitments?
As for hollowcoring lawns that I have not made myself, forget it. If you don't find three tonnes of rubble within the top foot of 'soil' on a 50m lawn (I have pictures to prove it), you may well get the tines in. However, if the soil is sticky clay as it is here, you will not get many cores out of the turf before the tines clog up and the holes in the lawn are produced only by pushing soil downwards - compacting it.
Mark, the answer lies within you. What sort of person are you? what are your capabilities? what are you resources? what are you requirements?
One piece of advice that I would like to offer you though, is spend you own money.
Cut up your credit cards, bin the tempting letters from the bank. Those people are better a business than you are (or you wouldn't be in this game).
Running a business is expensive enough as it is, without paying interest on loans that you don't need. Start off with low cost (but not cheap) machinery and look after it, and you will get your money back quite quickly. I use a domestic 17inch Atco cylinder mower for my private lawns, which cost me £760 five years ago. It has payed me back twice that amount (in hours of use, on a 25% depreciation), and still has a lot of life in it.
If you take this advise and then find that business is not for you, you can drop it all and walk away. Once you sign a dotted line, things will not be so simple.
Peter
1 Sep 2010 by MrC
Hi Mark
The market for lawn care is a large market. There are many players in this sector, both franchise and non franchise. The franchise breaks down to established companies, ie proven and new companies which by their very nature are riskier, thay are not proven.
Within the franchise sector you will come up against the franchises own marketing, they may have, or believe they have, a unique selling point. Just because it is written down don't take these things as factual, or if unique ask yourself if there is a real market out there for this uniqueness, eg, chemical free, what does this mean? How do you kill weeds without chemicals? Are people really adverse to chemicals, after all we all use them everyday with success. Do your research talk to real franchisees. Assess if they are a real business, or would just like to be. This is difficult with new franchises as they don't have a track record, so are riskier.
Talk to as many people you can in the franchise network, and be critical.
Others on here can advise you better with a non-franchise route
1 Sep 2010 by aturnbull Last edited 2 Sep 2010
Hi MrC
We used to use leaded fuel until it was withdrawn, we used to use heavy metal based pesticides, in fact all kinds of chemicals we use in our homes are being changed. Just because the norm is to use a synthetic weed killer we cannot assume it will be available in ten years time. Nor should we willingly putting our families and pets at risk by using potentially harmful treatments if there is a viable alternative. "Yeah, mate. I'll get rid of your weeds, just keep your kids and animals off the lawn for 24 hours" - what is that about if weedkillers are safe?
Larger organisations, eg a franchise, can allocate resources into researching and trialling before rolling out unique services - impossible for one man bands who have to spend all their time earning a living.
Getting involved in a good franchise operation is a business decision, not a way of buying a job, and you are absolutely correct in your advice about investigating as thoroughly as possible any organisation before spending money with them. I am willing to speak to anyone at anytime.
Just PM me
Andy Turnbull
1 Sep 2010 by MrC
Hi Andy
You've hit the nail on the head...used to..
1 Sep 2010 by Henk Vlug Last edited 2 Sep 2010
Hi all,
After 35 years of experience in lawn and turf research being a specialist on grassland insects I started my own consultancy bureau 10 years ago. I still like it but if you have no experience in this field it is a long way to go. I am not exactly aware of the situation in the uk but in The Netherlands we have 7 species of grubs and two species of leatherjackets besides some other problems. Next year I will be 65 years old and considering to stop the bussiness at 68 when my handbook on grassland insects is ready. It is the intention that it will be translated in German and English. To learn something from me will take another three years.
Henk Vlug.
1 Sep 2010 by Duncan Peddie
mr c i for one am adverse to spraying chemical and i fully support not using any kind of it we kill weeds without chemical for the record. good luck henk vlug with your book.
2 Sep 2010 by vid
I dont advocate the use of chemicals, far from it, I am trying to move in to much lower chemical dependance as it can be so detrimental to the soil. But there are chemicals which are residual and dont break down and others that readily do. Most hormonal weedkillers do break down within the soil and have a shorter detrimental effect so I am less inclined to want to see them banned when they are so important in fine turf management. Fungicides and insecticides, lumbricides etc are far more likely to be very detrimental but can mostly be replaced by sound cultural practise and in some cases antagonistic organism innocculation so I tend to have my problems with this class of chemical.
As turf care specialists we must always consider the environment and the long term effect we may be having on our soils, but due to the intensive nature of what we do it may not be possible or in fact necessary to eradicate all chemicals purely because they are classed as pesticides. We dont want to end up unable to produce high quality fine turf because we have banned all classes of pesticide - this is quite possibly what will happen if our European Bureaucrats are allowed to carry on as they are. So we need to be careful and selective in what we say to avoid an over reaction from the political bodies.
2 Sep 2010 by MrC
Back to the core topic. Lawn care business...... Chemicals or no Chemicals is a different discussion, it was picked on by me as a means to point out simply that companies can offer different reasons for going with them. That said, the thread was geting into a position whereby it was inferred, that anybody who uses chemicals must throw them about willy nilly, which is so far from the truth.
I would suggest that anybody looking to get into the franchise side of this should follow the bfa advice of making sure that the franchise has actually a proven method of trading which is, with a reasonable amount of training, reproducable by others, and also that two test areas have been set up in different parts of the country and have been succesfull. This then allows some confidence when purchasing a new model of franchise. To reduce your risk further, go with an established, proven company. Don't be taken in by the nice person on the end of the phone. Get hard evidence to back up each claim.
2 Sep 2010 by has 2 mow
Sounds like the lawn franchise are out in force.
One thing to consider is how much is it going to cost you to buy a franchise?
Van / spiker /spreader /sprayer/ scarifier plus purchase of said franchise.
How much will they expect in return for your hard work ?
Do you have to re buy your franchise after so many years.
As far as i can see the franchise owner can get very wealthy from it, whilst some one does all the hard work, and running your own business you will be lucky to get 30 % of what you take, the Tax man you have to pay and also the franchise.
You will also get the superior products on offer and full back up, well at least when your ordering, and some great sales talk, and then like some companies who offer a new chemical free range of products and talk the talk, after a month no contact.
If i was you, pick your clients yourself, and work for yourself, do your pesticide training, and work when you want to, and when the weather is fit for the job.
Rant over.
Tea boy love your work
2 Sep 2010 by has 2 mow
Chemical or no chemicals, the results are what we are after.
Ex council green.
2 Sep 2010 by Vic Demain
Welcome back has 2 mow. Green looks great mate and a lot of wise words.
2 Sep 2010 by Head Tea Boy
Thanks for the vote of confidence, has 2 mow; unfortunately though, that picture was taken by the estate agent.
I wish I could post pictures of my greens that look as good as yours, but I'm afraid I can't. I have three ex-council greens, but none of them are good yet. After the council, they were all kept by a bloke who lost interest, moved to Cambridge, and sub-contracted them out. After four years, I am just beginning to pull one of them into shape - the other two have only been mine for 18 months. (The picture is one of these on my first visit - five weeks before the start of the season)
I use chemicals, but not as a first resort. The spraying process takes so blooming long, that I find it hard to fit it in - even feeding can be a problem. I'll be looking for better spraying equipment at Saltex next week.
I tend to rely on cultural methods of problem control - careful watering and feeding, and as much aeration/scarification as I can manage.
I'd like to know how the non-chem boys (or anybody else, for that matter) control worms. I treated one green and a lawn with Mascot Systemic a while ago, and the worms loved it - told all of their friends about it, and they can't wait for the next dose.
Other pests that are currently troubling me include foxes, squirrels, players and comity members.
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