Are you tired of working for someone else? Are you thinking about starting your own landscaping company? With so many people leading busy lives and fewer people wanting to do the manual labor that's required to keep a yard looking nice, landscaping can be big business. Although you could start with just a few hand tools and a lawnmower, it helps to start by making a business plan that includes future expansion. It may seem premature at first to make plans of this nature, but good plans can be essential to making various business decisions. Some things that you'll want to consider include:
Pricing strategy: In order to know whether or not your business will succeed with your current resources, you'll have to do some research to find out how much any other landscaping companies in the area are charging. You don't want to undercut them so much that you're not making a profit, but neither do you want to charge so much that nobody will hire you to do the work. In addition to finding out how much similar companies charge for their most common services, find out how much it costs to purchase or rent new landscaping equipment.
Customer milestone numbers: Obviously, you can't figure out exactly how many customers you'll have before you actually open. However, you can decide how many customers you'll need before you can purchase or rent various equipment. Large heavy equipment, like cranes for moving large landscaping components, can be expensive to rent but can be even more expensive to actually purchase. While you can rent some of the necessary equipment from local crane companies, you may eventually want to have one of your own once you've expanded enough. But first you'll need to decide when, if at all, it will be cheaper and easier to purchase a crane than to keep renting one from any of the local crane companies.
Advertising plans: When you first start your business, your advertising budget will almost certainly be quite small. Initially, you may only be able to hand out business cards and flyers as you attempt to drum up business. As you get more clients hiring you for your services, you'll be able to afford a custom wrap on your company vehicles, turning them into moving billboards. You may also be surprised at how inexpensive it can be to make and then air a short commercial on one of your local television stations.
Share29 April 2017
After one of your buddies mentioned that land grading is "easy" with the help of a backhoe, you might have been more than willing to run to your local tool rental shop and rent one for the afternoon. After all, how hard could they be to use? Unfortunately, heavy machinery rentals can be tricky to operate, which is why going through a little training beforehand is so important. I have been working on my yard for years, and I have learned a thing or two about heavy machinery. Check out my blog to discover how to stay safe when you work with heavy machinery.