How to Buy Lawn Mowing Accounts

One of the great things about the lawn care business is that there are actually two ways that you can pick up new business. Like most businesses, you can acquire new customers via your marketing. The other way is to purchase lawn care accounts from other business owners. In this article I look into the buying and selling of accounts in the lawn care industry. Find out why people buy and sell lawn mowing accounts, how to reduce the risks involved with such a transaction and more.


Why Lawn Businesses Sell Accounts

Accounts are sold for a variety of reasons. Sometimes people will sell off accounts if they are going out of business or looking to raise some quick cash to pay down debt. Some business owners will sell accounts that don't fit in well with their routes or scheduling. Other times accounts will be sold because the customers is question are known to be difficult and the business owner wants rid of the headaches associated with dealing with them.

Why Lawn Businesses Buy Accounts

Business owners that buy accounts are usually looking to pick up a good deal and expand their business quickly. If they are new to the business and are not particularly proficient at marketing then the purchase of some lawn care accounts can help them to get started easily.

Is This Method of Customer Acquisition Right For You?

Many lawn care business owners will advise against account purchases. They will tell you that you are better off investing your money into building your own client base. However, if your marketing strategies are failing you and you find that the cost of acquiring a new customer are quite high then it may make sense to look at purchasing accounts.

If you have the budget for it I would advice that you pursue both methods. Focus on your own marketing efforts but still keep your eye out for accounts that are for sale. If you don't you may be missing out on some good opportunities to grow your business.

How to Value a Lawn Account

Finding a fair price can be difficult and the value of an account will depend on many factors. A purchased customer will not be as loyal as one that you have acquired yourself and spent time developing into a loyal client.

Accounts are usually valued at around four or five week’s worth of the income that they represent. Prices can go fairly low if the seller is desperate to sell. Prices may go higher if there is an agreement in place that reassures the buyer that the customer will be sticking around for a while. It pays to be realistic and remember that you are buying a job and you will still have to put in the work to service them. You don't want to have to mow a lawn for ages for free just to pick up a customer.

Due Diligence

From a buyer’s point of view, you do have to be careful about trading in accounts like this. Some dodgy lawn business owners have been known to scam others into buying accounts that are either grossly over priced or don't exist at all. You want to be sure that the accounts that you are buying are real and are not just buddies of the seller who are lying to help out a friend. You will know that you have been scammed if you take on new accounts only to find that they all quit your service within a couple of weeks.

Try to find out why the seller wants to offload the accounts in question. Quiz them with a few direct questions and see how they respond. You will want to find out how long they have been servicing the account and if the account in question involves a 'problem customer' or any other unusual difficulties. The seller may just be passing their nightmare on to you and charging you at the same time. Try to get some kind of financial history on the client and find out if they have been paying on time.

It helps if you can go out and meet each customer before you take over the account. This will give you a chance to meet them and make sure that they are aware of the change. If you do this you will find out exactly what the job involves and you can decide if the current price is fair.

Find out if there is any agreement in place and if there is you must be aware of the terms. You then have to either decide if you want to proceed with the present conditions in place or make any changes that are permitted. Taking over a job and raising prices right away would probably not get you off to a good start with a new customer so make sure that the current price is enough to allow you to make a profit.

Have an agreement written up for the transfer. You may include a clause that protects you in cases where customers quit your service after only a short period of time causing you to lose money on the deal. The way would be to pay the seller in installments over a period of six months so that the total payment amount can be reduced if clients start dropping off.

Finding Opportunities to Buy Accounts

If the idea of buying lawn mowing accounts is appealing to you then you will want to stay on the lookout for opportunities as they arise. You will want local jobs so you should look at local classified listings in newspapers. Contact equipment suppliers or other lawn business owners and ask them to let you know if they are aware of anyone selling accounts.

Look online as well. Perform a search on major search engines using keywords like 'lawn care accounts for sale' and keywords relating to the area that you service. There are many websites where sellers can list their accounts.

StartaLawnMowingBusiness.com Sold at Auction

So the site finally sold.

I was pleased to see it go to Ken LaVoie over at http://www.lawnguru.net/

During my time running StartaLawnMowingBusiness.com I read many of the lawn biz guides that are available online. I read Ken's guide a while back and I still remember it as being a really good read with a lot of useful information. He is definitely one of the good guys, offering solid advice to aspiring lawn care entrepreneurs on the Internet.

Ken is an all-round entrepreneur with other businesses in addition to his lawn care business. His writing backs this up and he comes across as one of the more genuine writers with real, practical advice to share.

I know that he has big plans for his site in the future so keep checking back into www.lawnguru.net for the latest updates.

Top 'Starting a Lawn Care Business' Website for Sale

I'd just like to announce that one of the top 'start a lawn care business' websites is currently up for auction. If you have been following the lawn care business niche for a while then you should be familiar with StartaLawnMowingBusiness.com. It is one of the larger sites covering the lawn care industry with over 50 pages of articles.

Check out the details for the auction on Flippa here -

https://flippa.com/2758345-lawn-care-business-opportunities-established-adsense-affiliate-earner

Here are some of the details from the auction page. Visit the link for more detailed stats and Analytics reports.

Description

Every month thousands of people look for information on how to start a lawn care business or improve their existing operation. They buy information products, logo designs, business plans, software, website designs, business cards, flyers, SEO services, lawn mowers, other equipment and much more.


This site targets this group of business opportunity seekers by providing them with free information and by advertising and promoting the products and services that they need.

Established in 2008 StartaLawnMowingBusiness.com has grown to become one of the larger sites in the niche with over 50 pages of well written content.

The site can basically be run on autopilot and represents a great opportunity for someone with products targeted at this niche or any webmaster in general.

How much does the site make?

Adsense - With the current Adsense setup this site is currently earning between $25 and $30 a month with Adsense ($27 in the past month). This could be improved with better positioning.

Affiliate Programs - There are a lot of offers on clickbank for information products related to the lawn care industry. StartaLawnMowingBusiness.com promotes one product with a review page and affiliate links and has made an average of three sales a month so far this year. Commission is $21.24 per sale and I have an agreement with the product owner for an extra 10% via paypal taking it up to $25.94 a sale.

This brings the basic site income up to an average of $100 a month.

Additional Advertising - I have run direct advertising on the site too. You will see a banner on the left hand-side that is set up to run an ad campaign for a lawn care software provider at a monthly rate. The campaign has been cancelled due to this sale but the opportunity to resume this could be open to the new owner.

What is included?

The buyer gets everything that can be seen on the site. This includes the logo, all of the written content, the site design, the advertising banner and all of the images (rights purchased from Istockphoto.com).

Why am I selling?

Simply to raise some funds. I have new business ventures in mind that will require funding.

Traffic Details

I have included an Analytics attachment showing 931 unique visitors in the past month.

I have also included an Analytics report showing traffic sources in the past month. Traffic comes from a wide variety of sources. At the moment Google traffic represents less than 25% of the traffic.

You will see that Google sent 200 visitors in the past month. The site used to receive between 1000 and 2000 visitors a month from Google and there is potential to regain this. The site lost some Google traffic during the Panda update and I was able to regain this by increasing the time that the average user stays on the site (over 4 minutes). However, some of the pages on the site were hit by the penguin update. The site is in need of a 'penguin fix' if it is to fully realize its potential.

Luckily the site has numerous other traffic sources. You will see that it is still stong in Bing, Yahoo and other search engines. It also has links from other quality sites in the niche as well as links from Web 2.0 properties. Any links that I control are guaranteed to remain in place after the sale.

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Check it out here if you are interested in bidding or learning more -

https://flippa.com/2758345-lawn-care-business-opportunities-established-adsense-affiliate-earner

Information on How to Start a Lawn Care Business

If you are looking for information online about how to start a lawn care business you will know that it is hard to track down solid well written content. Well, I may have the answer for you.

StartaLawnMowingBusiness.com was recently updated and lots of fresh content has been added. What's even better is that the site has an improved navigation system so readers can easily find what they are looking for. Visit the site now and you'll find that the articles have been divided into areas of interest that are popular among lawn business owners and industry newcomers. You can find sections dedicated to business plans, flyers, marketing, business names, pricing and more.

There is some decent content on the site and many of the articles and resource pages also link you up with other quality information that is out there on the web.

You can also find reviews of the top lawn care business startup guides. Check them out here - Lawn Care Startup Guide Reviews.

Ten Ways to Use Flyers to Promote a Lawn Care Business

Many people will tell you that advertising flyers are no longer an effective medium to generate leads for a business. However, numerous lawn care business owners are still having a great deal of success with this method. You really don't want to write off any low-cost marketing opportunity until you have tested it for yourself.


You will find a great deal of information online about what a well designed flyer should look like and how you can go about having them printed. This article focuses on distribution. Once you have that big stack of freshly printed flyers in your office, how are you going to get them in front of the eyeballs of prospective lawn care customers? Here are ten ideas.

1) Your Existing Clients

If you do already have some lawn care accounts, start by giving a few flyers to each of your customers. Just tell them that you are currently doing a promotion to drum up some new business. Ask them politely if they would be able to pass on a couple of flyers to their friends or neighbors.

2) Hand Them Out

Walk the streets in your target area and look for people who are out in their yards or walking down the street. Hand them a flyer and politely ask them if they would be interested in receiving a free estimate to do their lawn. This approach gives you a chance of making a personal connection and possibly an appointment. Your flyer will stand a better chance of being read as well.

3) Door to Door Delivery

Select houses in your area with decent sized lawns and drop off a flyer to them. In some countries like the US it is illegal to put unsolicited mail into mail boxes so you must check with your local post office first so that you know what is permitted. You may be better off having door hangers printed as these can easily be slipped over a door handle. You can always do it officially and purchase stamps and a mailing list from your local post office.

4) Insertion into Local Publications

Many local newspapers and magazines will insert your flyer into their publication for a small fee. This will usually give you better exposure than purchasing ad space.

5) Waiting Rooms

Think of some businesses that people go to and spend time waiting around. If you can get a flyer onto the wall or notice board at a fast food restaurant, laundromat, dental surgery or hair salon then you may benefit from some free or low cost exposure. Your flyer will have a better chance of being read if people in the room are sitting around with nothing to do.

6) Parking Lots

One common approach to flyer distribution over the years has been to put them under the wind screen wipers on car windscreens. Be careful with this approach though as it does bother some people. If your flyers end up blowing all over the place in the wind then your reputation may suffer as a result.

7) Community Notice Boards

Many buildings in your community will have notice boards. Churches, schools and other organizations may let you post a copy of your flyer if you are polite and seek permission first.

8) Busy Events

Look for busy events in your local area like fairs, carnivals, garden shows or even garage sales. If you have permission to attend and hand out flyers you may meet some local prospects.

9) Direct Mail

Purchase a mailing list of targeted prospects in your area and mail them a copy of your flyer with an accompanying letter and business card. Some printing companies will handle this for you. They will take your flyer hot of the press and mail them out to a targeted address list.

10) PO Box Drops

Some post offices will arrange to have a copy of your flyer inserted into each one of their PO Boxes. A small fee is charged for each flyer. Many box holders will be business owners so this approach may be effective for securing commercial lawn care accounts.

It is ideal if you can have flyers made up with different coupon codes on them. Or you can put separate stickers onto them. Then you will know which of the above methods is more effective for you and you can focus more on that method. If a method is not effective in generating leads for your lawn care business then you can drop it all together.

Running a Lawn Care Business - Focus on Marketing and Productivity

The lawn care industry offers so many opportunities for entrepreneurs during both good and bad economic times. But not all lawn business owners are successful at making a decent income. Some don't even survive past their first year.

Your success in the lawn care business, like any other industry is almost certainly going to be measured by how much money you are making. To make a good income you have to be generating healthy profits.

Success comes down to not only the need for lots of lawn mowing jobs but also the need to complete jobs efficiently. Marketing and productivity are the two areas that you need to focus on.

A lawn business owner who is a master of marketing but slow at mowing lawns (or currently employing staff who are slow at mowing lawns) will simply not make money. Likewise, you can be the fastest lawn mower in the world but fail in business due to the fact that you were unable to generate any customers.

Let’s look a little more at these two important buzz words; marketing and productivity. It is important to focus on both and not to become a master of one while neglecting the other.

All the other details about starting a lawn business such as getting licensed and insured are trivial really. If you can get these two things right your success will almost certainly be assured.

Marketing - Maximize Opportunities to Make Money

Firstly, you have to have a constant stream of income coming into your lawn business at all times. For lawn care business operators this means having healthy routes with a slowly increasing number of accounts. While some lawn business owners buy accounts, most depend on marketing to bring in the clients that they need.

Your marketing system will have to generate leads, convert these enquiries into new accounts and then encourage loyalty and referrals over the long term. Customer retention is just as important as customer acquisition so a high standard of customer service is required.

The starting point for marketing should be research so that you can understand who your customers are, what they want and what kind of promotions they are likely to respond to. You need to meet market needs by coming up with a brand that is appealing and services that are in demand.

Then you can test advertising strategies, offers and sales approaches until you hit on winning combinations that produce results. You also have to become good at doing business in a way that allows you to stand out from the competition.

Marketing can be a complex beast to work out. Just break it down into parts though and work on getting every step right. If you keep making changes and experimenting you will come across a system that works.

Productivity - Minimize Money and Resources Going Out While Still Providing a Quality Service

Secondly, you need to focus on daily operations and productivity. You need to be able to get tasks done efficiently in order to make money. You have to know how to make the most of the work that is available to you.

This is done in the office, out on the road and in the yards of your clients and will involve systems to manage and track the performance of every aspect of your business.

You need a reliable computer system and dedicated software that can handle accounting, scheduling, estimating and other important functions.

You will need to understand how to plan routes that are efficient and save on time and gasoline. Equipment like a mobile phone, GPS and route planning software can really help you to be more organized and keep control.

You will also need to ensure that your productivity out on the job is maximized. You need to have the right gear and you need to know how to maintain it and how to use it correctly. If you have employees then you will need to have systems in place to monitor their productivity.

The Right Balance - Slow Growth Is Best to Keep Things In Balance

Success in the lawn mowing business is all about becoming good at marketing and managing an efficient operation. You need to maximize cash flows coming into your business and you have to give your clients a high standard of service while minimizing the time and costs that are incurred in the process.

Your marketing and operating systems have to develop slowly together. If one gets ahead of the other then problems can occur. A sudden burts in new accounts can be a disaster if you can't handle them properly. Slow growth usually allows your operational activities to keep pace with your growing number of clients.

Some people tend to overcomplicate business and make everything seem more complicated than it has to be. Just remember two words; marketing and productivity and you'll be fine. If you focus on these two things you will be able to keep a clear head and remember what the fundamentals of your lawn care business are all about.