Hello, Clippers! Dave Tucker here again. As promised, we’re kicking off the CLIP.com series on starting your own successful lawn maintenance business. As you may recall from last week’s article, my family is my top priority. Back in 1986, I wanted to earn a little extra money to support them, [...]
Hello, Clippers! Dave Tucker here. When I first started mowing lawns for my brother-in-law in 1986, I did it because I had a family to feed and bills to pay. But it wasn’t long before I saw the opportunity that exists in the lawn maintenance industry. I worked hard and [...]
If you're unfamiliar with H-2B labor, it's a visa that you can get to bring in foreign workers to do seasonal temporary work that American workers don't want to do.
You've probably heard quite a lot about this on the news, especially since we're coming off of the holiday season. However, for this industry, our busiest time is coming soon.
Let's talk about using GPS trackers in your lawn care business. The Hard Sell on GPS devices You've seen the ads. You've likely had an encounter with the pushy salesperson. They probably hit you with the hard sell, too. "Just think! You can hide it out of sight, they'll never [...]
I know that even though it's March, a lot of you still have snow, and it's probably starting to feel like Spring will never come. However, you should view the snow as a blessing, because you'll have a little extra time to get your records in order and manage the [...]
It's almost springtime and that means you're going to be doing spring cleanups soon. That's a good thing because usually they're very profitable. In fact I know a couple of companies that all they do is spring and fall cleanups and they don't mow grass. We've been talking about piecework [...]
Delegation. I often joke with people that my spiritual gift is delegation. I like to tell people what to do and give them the power to do it. Delegation is an essential thing because unless you want to continue to do what you're doing and be involved in every different [...]
At the beginning of the partnership, take a moment to step back and think logically. Ask your partner what you’ll need to do if you decide to undo this partnership. Decide who will owe money, who they’ll owe the money to, and how much they’ll owe so that you can dissolve the partnership.
How can you tell when an employee has maxed out? Learning your employees' limits I thought a lot about this many years ago, and this little scenario came to mind. Let's say I hire a brand new employee into my company. I go to them and ask them to go [...]
No matter what, you should always be thinking about your exit strategy.
Considering the pros and cons of surcharges; yes, you make more money, especially with something like fuel. It's obvious, it's public, people drive past the gas station, and they see the price. It's an understandable expense that you could probably get away with adding to a bill.
On the other hand, creating customer loyalty can't be undervalued. Creating a nice, even, and boring business has a lot to be said for it.
You've probably noticed if you've been using CLIP that everything in CLIP is based on man-hours. Here's how to use CLIP to pay with Piecework.
Last week we introduced you to Piecework, or if you've been around a while, refreshed your memory. This week we're going to talk about how CLIP helps you pay with Piecework. You've probably noticed if you've been using CLIP that everything in CLIP is based on man-hours. You have a [...]
If you're like most landscape companies, especially this year, labor is hard to find. And motivating your employees to do that labor is even harder sometimes. Piecework can help make motivation a non-issue. We wrote a book on piecework and all of this information and a lot more it's in [...]
CLIP Lawncare And The Shrinking Effects Of H-2B Recently an “old time” customer asked me how CLIP Lawn Care, LLC in Maryland was doing. I responded, “Terrible!”. It has been a tough year and a half. Right before the elections in 2016, Congress neglected to pass the “Returning Worker Exemption [...]
People tend to spend months, maybe years, planning to start their business, but hardly any time at all on is their lawn care company ready to sell. Being born in 1960 places me close to 60 years old. At this point, I know that I will not be able to [...]
Delegation is a process. Have you ever been “worn out” from making decisions? Have you ever felt exhausted from having to think about things over and over? The solution is likely, delegation. It is a fact that we can only handle so many decisions in a given time period. After [...]
When I worked as a lawn care business' crew manager, my guys would take 2 hours just to get their trucks ready and leave the shop. And when they finally started, they still made their regular stop at 7-11 for coffee plus random breaks throughout the day — all while [...]
How To Determine Which Customers To Raise Lawn Care Prices For Last month we talked about how raising lawn care prices can actually hurt your bottom line by causing your customers to get new bids which leaves you possibly losing your most profitable properties and keeping the worst ones. You might [...]
Most consultants and lawn care business blogs will tell you to raise lawn care prices every year. It makes sense on paper, if I raise my prices by 5%, I should get 5% more revenue, and since my costs don’t change, I should be able to see 5% more on [...]
