Month: February 2012

Starting a Lawn Care Business – What Separates the Successful Business Owners from the Rest?

Post author By Ethan Theo
Post date February 13, 2012

Everyone will have a different definition of success. As you proceed to set up and run your own lawn care business you should have a clear idea of what success means to you. Your goal may be to become a millionaire or it may simply be to reach a level of income that allows your family to live a comfortable lifestyle. You may want to become the dominant market player in your area or you may just want to have a business that can run smoothly without your presence, allowing you to take time off whenever you like.

Some lawn business owners reach goals like these. However, there are many that do not attain a reasonable level of success. For some, their lawn business becomes just like a job. It can even become a stressful low paying job if you are not careful.

Below I have listed out some of the factors that separate the successful lawn mowing business operators from the others. Here is what it takes to become a success in lawn care.

1) Marketing Expertise

When you start a lawn business you are really starting a marketing business as you success will depend on your ability to attract and maintain customers. You have to do solid research to find out who your customers are and what they are looking for. Only then can you tailor your brand and your offers to suit them. It’s all about being in the right place, at the right time and having your offer in front of the right people. It’s going to help immensely if what you have to offer is unique and allows you to sparkle amongst all of the other dull looking local lawn services.

You need to think of marketing as a system that must be constantly refined so that it brings you better and better results over time. Focus on generating more leads, test advertising and make it easy for prospects to contact you. Once you have generated an enquiry you have to know how to go out and sell your service to them.

Once you do acquire a new customer you have to know how to maximize the revenue that you get from them. You need to be selling multiple services and premium services. You always need to be ready with another up-sell so that you can politely push for more business from them.

Part of your success in marketing will involve accurate estimating. You have to come up with prices that allow you to seal profitable accounts without losing out due to quoting prices that are too high. You have to become good at knowing what you can get away with.

2) Reputation and Referrals

Once you have acquired customers you need to know how to keep them over the long term. This is not difficult if you continuously strive to provide a quality service as satisfied customers will naturally refer their friends to you. The best lawn business operators introduce referral systems that encourage customers to spread the word about them and refer new business.

3) Industry Knowledge

Whether you are going to be mowing lawns yourself or hiring employees for this purpose you need to understand the practical side of the business. To get the job done right you need to understand lawn care and the equipment that you’ll be using.

4) Productivity

You can have all of the accounts in your city, yet if you are not able to service them in an efficient manner you will struggle to stay in business. It’s all about getting the most out of the precious resources that you have; your money, your time and the time of your employees. Your daily business operations need to be refined so that you are getting as much done in a day as possible. Introduce systems to streamline your operations and help keep you organized. You’ll need to be running good software, know how to set up efficient routes and schedules and know how to increase productivity when you are out in the yards of your clients.

5) Attitude

Your success will also come down to your character and strength of mind. It is not easy to develop a successful business and many people give up along the way. You must understand that every failure gives you an opportunity to learn. If you have determination and are persistent then your success will be inevitable.

6) Leverage

Most successful people know how to use the resources of others to create wealth for themselves. While you can become a reasonable success in the lawn business by yourself you will not become rich unless you are hiring teams of employees to go out and mow lawns for you.

Leverage also applies to financial capital as well. Those entrepreneurs that take calculated risks by borrowing money to develop their businesses are usually able to grow faster than those without access to funding.

The lawn care business does not have to be difficult if you know what to expect. Focus on the fundamental ideas listed above and everything else should follow along nicely. Before you know it you will have the income and lifestyle that you are dreaming about.

About the Author:

Steve Sutherland runs StartaLawnMowingBusiness.com, a site dedicated to helping beginners get started in the lawn care business.

Sales & Marketing

3 Mistakes Conscious Entrepreneurs Make When Launching a Product or Program

Post author By
Post date February 11, 2012

Of all the marketing tools out there (and make no mistake about it, product launches are a TOOL — nothing more, nothing less) product launches have got to be the most frustrating, misused and misunderstood tool.

There is nothing that will bring an entrepreneur to their knees faster than a busted launch. Worse, even if the launch ISN’T a failure, it’s still the cause of more worry, anxiety and sleepless nights than any other marketing tactic I’ve ever seen (and trust me, I’ve seen a lot).

However, since launch failure certainly is one of the top concerns (not to mention a bad launch makes everything else look worse) I thought I’d take some time today to discuss the top 3 mistakes entrepreneurs make when launching a product or program.

Mistake 1: They rush into the launch.

Let me explain what I mean by this because it’s not as clear cut as you might think. While I do think giving yourself some time and space to launch something properly (especially when you’re doing it from scratch) is a good thing, if you have a big enough list to meet your sales goals, you can rush your launch as much as you want.

Where I see the biggest problem with rushing your launch (other than just keeping yourself up nights working on all the promotional pieces) is when your list is small and you are dependent on affiliates or joint venture partners to meet your sales goals. If this is the case, you are pretty much guaranteeing your launch will fail.

You see, affiliates and joint venture partners are busy people. They have their own products and services to promote plus they too have agreed to help other people. The less lead time you give them the more likely they will tell you they can’t help you promote.

However, there is another way to look at this, which actually leads into mistake number 2.

Mistake 2: They don’t know the numbers.

Here’s how this mistake plays out. You’ve been hearing about these 6 figure launches, but you’re just starting out — you don’t expect to have a 6 figure launch. You would be happy with 50 people in your program. And with 200 people on your list that should be doable, right?

Well…

You do the launch and end up with 8 people in your program. You’re crushed.

Now the reality is with your list of 200, that’s a 4 percent conversion of your entire list. You should be THRILLED with that conversion.

But, because you don’t know the numbers (specifically the CONVERSION numbers) you’re just looking at the end result — how many people actually bought. And if it’s lower than what you wanted (or expected) you’re going to be disappointed.

But if you know the numbers, then you’ll know going in how many people you can expect to buy. And you’ll ALSO know what to expect regardless if affiliates help you promote or don’t. And that’s a really powerful way to keep yourself from getting too disappointed or frustrated.

Mistake 3: They either give up or decide not to send “one more email.”

This happens if they either get too discouraged from lack of sales or they just start feeling “icky” about the whole launch. At that point, they just stop.

And when you stop, you’ve also just stopped getting any more sales. And even if you’re stopping because you’re feeling sort of icky, you’re probably going to feel even more icky when people stop signing up for your program. (You CAN cut down the number of emails, just as long as you know which emails to cut.)

So you need to know going in you’re probably going to feel like giving up somewhere in the middle. If you know this, you can stand firm when it happens and make sure you still send that “one last email.” (Who knows, that could be the email that turns everything around for you and to think you almost didn’t send it!)

Tags internet marketing, online marketing, online marketing strategies, product launches, small business marketing strategy, strategic internet marketing

Success Attitude

Do More with Less

Post author By Ethan Theo
Post date February 9, 2012

I was putting up some fencing around our horse pasture. Like most men, when I get involved in a project, a trip to the home improvement store becomes necessary. And I have to look around and make sure there’s nothing else I need, especially if power tools are involved.

Well, I bought what I thought I needed to do the fence. When I returned, I discovered that I already had the parts I needed from a previous project. I learned that if you do an inventory, you discover what you need and what you already have.

You do more with less.

You achieve more with less when you discover what your business needs and what you already have. Let’s inventory three aspects:

Attention

What gets most of your attention—the positive strengths of your business?

Or, the negative weaknesses?

Sure, we have to shore up the weak links in our chain of business operations from time to time. Do it quickly and efficiently whether it’s a personnel issue or software upgrade.

When you consistently focus on the negative, you find more problems to be solved. This use of your attention is counterproductive to your business’ growth.

Focus your attention instead on the positive strengths of your business.

One way to do this is to give yourself 10 minutes of positive thoughts each morning. Go over your calendar or list of tasks and spend 10 minutes visualizing positive outcomes. This focus on the best, positive possibilities for your work sets your attention compass on the due north of success. The rest of you follows.

Intention

What is it about your business that emotionally engages you? Why do you do this business instead of another one?

All business professionals have competing intentions. The real challenge for us to align our intentions with our attention. The positive strengths of your business are your priority attention. You couple those strengths with what you enjoy most about your business, or, as so many people talk about today, with what you’re passionate about.

You pair up your positive thoughts and people—strengths of your business—with your emotional engagement—your intentions—and create a vibrant, Work Positive business that spins off profits when you…

Action

…act on what you’ve paid attention to and given your intentions.

The question here is, “What do you do?”

How many business professionals do you know who, when you ask, “How’s business?” say something like, “All I do is solve personnel problems.”

What are they paying attention to? The weaknesses. So their actions reflect it.

How many more professionals tell you, “All I do is put out fires?”

Where are their intentions? Divorced from what they wish were their actions.

Such intentions pave the road to nowhere.

Action follows Attention and Intention.

Look at your to-do list and ask yourself, “Do these activities reflect my focus on positive strengths and people and what I get excited about in this business?”

Delegate or delete the ones that don’t.

Move the ones that do to the top of your list.

Then go do them.

That’s how you do more with less.

About the Author:

Best-selling author, speaker, and coach Dr. Joey Faucette shares how all of us working together create a more positive world this week. Adapted from his #1 Amazon best-seller, Work Positive in a Negative World.

Success Attitude

Camel dancing? No way…

Post author By
Post date February 7, 2012

What happens when we set our sights on something magnificent?

It may seem unlikely but it is our true nature. It may seem ridiculous but it is our heart’s purpose.

It may be entirely unsupported.

This wonderful story by Arnold Lobel came to my mind. I want to share it.

The Camel had her heart set on becoming a ballet dancer.

“To make every movement a thing of grace and beauty”, said the Camel. “That is my one and only desire.”

Again and again she practiced her pirouettes, her releves and her arabesques. She repeated the five basic positions a hundred times each day. She worked for long months under the hot desert sun. Her feet were blistered and her body ached, but not once did she think of stopping.

At last the Camel said, “Now I am a dancer.” She announced a recital and danced before an invited group of camel friends and critics. When her dance was over, she made a deep bow.

There was no applause.

“I must tell you frankly,” said a member of the audience, “as a critic and a spokesman for this group, that you are lumpy and humpy. You are baggy and bumpy. You are, like the rest of us, simply a camel. You are NOT and never will be a ballet dancer!”

Chuckling and laughing the audience moved away across the sand.

“How very wrong they are!” said the Camel. “I have worked hard. There can be no doubt that I am a splendid dancer. I will dance and dance just for myself.”

That is what she did. It gave her many years of pleasure.

Are you showing up with your heart and soul following the path of your true nature?