Landscaping remains a lucrative venture that’s attracting more entrepreneurs. According to data, there were 604,163 landscaping businesses in the U.S. in 2021, representing a 4.9 percent increase from 2020.
On average, the industry’s market size has been growing at a rate of 2.5% annually between 2016 and 2021.
Therefore, there are high growth expectations for your budding landscaping businesses. However, you must do a few things to enjoy great success.
Some great tips for managing and growing your landscaping business include having a good business plan, simplifying and improving your quoting process, taking care of your bottom line, focusing on customer retention, and marketing all year round.
Here’s all you need to know to thrive in the landscaping business.
How Much Does a Landscaping Business Owner Make?
The amount of money you can make as a landscaping business owner depends on several factors, such as the size and location of your business, your experience and expertise, and the kind of services you offer.
However, most landscaping business owners can expect to make a decent living out of their venture with earnings well above the average wage.
Your potential to earn more money also greatly depends on how you manage and run your business. That’s why you should be armed with the best strategies to ensure you’re edging the competition and grabbing the attention of the highest landscaping spenders.
According to data, 35 to 44-year-olds are among the highest landscaping spenders.
Armed with this market knowledge and a well-put strategy, you should make decent money out of your business.
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Essential Tips to Help You Run a Successful Landscaping Business
Here are a few tips that should place you competitively among the top landscaping businesses in your market.
1. Have a Good Business Plan
A good business plan is the pillar of all successful businesses. It creates the map that leads your business to profitability.
A good business plan also makes it easier to manage a business that’s growing more complex as it scales. As demand grows, you’ll be making pivotal business decisions daily.
A well-built business plan will act as an excellent framework to inform these decisions and make the right choice since you know the overall business strategy.
Your business plan shouldn’t necessarily be complicated. At its core, it should state your goals and outline how you’ll achieve them.
2. Take Care of Your Bottom Line
Small landscaping businesses have to deal with the dreaded challenge of running into cashflow problems early in the business. Therefore, you should have effective money management skills to take care of your bottom line and keep your business afloat.
Your financial focus should be on the business’s profitability and capacity to pay all expenses.
One area where you can lose a lot of money and hurt your bottom line is in estimates and payroll. If you estimate too low, you risk paying for the extra expenses out of pocket. If you quote too high, you might lose a decent job.
The best approach is to research the market beforehand. Figure out how much other landscapers are charging for similar services. You might have to phone a few since most don’t post their prices online.
Also, research how much different staff earn in the business. Then, add your profit margin to these expenses. If your figure is too high or too low compared to the competition, you may have to make some adjustments.
3. Simplify and Improve Your Quoting Process
Professional quotes and estimates win your landscaping jobs and keep your business running. Apart from figuring out how much you should charge to keep the business’s bottom line safe, you need to develop a simplified, efficient, and effective quoting process that will set you apart from the competition.
This process should essentially make generating a professional quote faster. Some strategies you can use include:
- Use templates – Instead of pen and paper, you can invest in landscaping business management software that offers quote templates customized with your branding. Therefore, you can generate and send quick quotes.
- Send quotes over email – Typically, you want your clients to receive their quotes on the platforms they use the most. Email is one of the most preferred in the industry.
- Follow up – Clients are busy people. Polite reminders will improve how quickly they approve quotes, winning you more jobs.
4. Have Flexible and Efficient Schedules for Your Team
Scheduling is a big challenge for most home service businesses. You should always record all work requests in a calendar that’s easy to read, edit, and share with your crew.
Investing in a software solution is the best way to have a flexible and efficient schedule. Most landscaping business software feature scheduling tools that make it easy to set, edit, and track work requests for multiple clients.
With an efficient tool, you can:
- Create schedules online so that everyone on the team has access to it and can respond in case of emergencies or any changes
- Personalize your calendar using filters and color coding to see job statuses, important tasks, or scheduled visits
- Create faster routes and maximize your crew’s productivity as they move from one job site to another
5. Focus on Customer Retention
Poor customer retention can hurt your business’s bottom line. According to data, it costs five times more to attract a new customer over retaining the one you’ve got.
Moreover, existing customers are the biggest catalysts for a business’s growth over new ones. That’s because they’re more likely to order more services since they’re pleased and confident with your service delivery.
Therefore, despite putting a decent effort into your marketing to attract new customers, you should also put significant effort into upselling new and existing services to existing customers.
6. Focus on Marketing All-Year-Round
Marketing is not aimed at new clients only. Existing clients also want to feel that your business is active in the market to maintain their trust in the quality of your service delivery.
Moreover, your business can be affected by competition, poor economy, and undercutting. Marketing helps you fight these forces and keep the business’s cash flow active.
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Use Technology to Make Your Processes More Efficient
Succeeding in the landscaping business is possible. However, you must use the right strategies to attract new clients, simplify your processes, and improve your bottom line.
One of the best investments you can make is in technology, specifically landscaping business software. Contact a trusted vendor today and learn how to gain a competitive edge by going digital.