Many young pre-teens have earned money during summers off by mowing lawns. Even more of the earn an allowance by mowing the family lawn. It is only the most enterprising that build this pocket money enterprise into an actual profession. There are probably local lawn care companies in your area, but what you may not know is that there are also lawn care franchises in the UK. Whether you wish to start your own lawn care franchise or purchase into an existing one, here are some pointers that will help to make your business run more smoothly and create more profit.
Depth of Service
If you are considering starting your own lawn care franchise, you’ll need to decide the depth of service you wish to provide. Generally, if you want people to call you instead of the neighbor’s kid to mow the lawn, edge, and run the weed eater, you’ll have to offer service a little more specialized.
For example, you may need to study treatment options for various lawn diseases and pests. As a lawncare professional, you will need to be able to troubleshoot and determine why a particular lawn is not doing well. It could be because of pests, disease, or traffic. You will then need to propose a solution to the problem.
Those neighborhood kids who damage your garage door are usually not certified to apply pesticide to kill grub worms, but, are you? As a professional, you’ll need to get the training necessary to apply whatever chemicals the lawn needs.
Another facet of your service may be tree pruning. Don’t undertake this dimension without proper training, because you don’t want to pay for ruining someone’s specimen tree. This may be a service you should consider, though because most people who hire lawn services want someone who can take care of the entire landscape.
Business Sense
Some people are born entrepreneurs. They have a way with people and have no trouble building up a customer base, and they have the mechanical sills to do the job right the first time. They also are good with time and money management Unfortunately, most people are good at one or the other of those skills, but not all three. They can either do the job well, or they have good people skills, or they can work on the books.
In other words, before you jump in and start any business, you need to make sure you have the training to do the job correctly. But, you’ll also need to know how to handle scheduling problems, such as complications due to weather, or how to handle ethical crisis such as when a huge new customer wants the spot you usually reserve for small, loyal customers.
Franchises
A franchise is a company that sells licenses to individuals, and provides training and equipment for the franchise fee. Usually, franchises do their own market research to assess competition. This is a great way to get into the lawn care business, because they will provide you with the training you need.