Service Business Plans

A business plan for your lawn care business is essential. If applying for a business loan or looking for business partners then it has to be comprehensive and you will find many templates on line that you can use.

However for a small lawn care start up a self-styled plan can be sufficient. At the very least a business plan is a way of getting all your thoughts and ideas down on paper and provides a benchmark for you to assess your progress as your business grows and changes.

Using information from your market research you should anticipate monthly income (remember to include a conservative estimate as well as a realistic estimate as your customer base may not grow as quickly as you hope). Then research lawn business set up costs and monthly expenses to have a clear idea of what kind of profit you will make on a monthly basis and what kind of start up capital you will need. These figures should be projected into the future so you have clear ideas about the rate of growth that you require to meet your long-term goals.

It’s important to have a clear idea of how many new lawns you need to add each month to maintain a rate of growth that will achieve your goals. You then need to have a solid marketing plan to bring in these new clients regularly.

Carefully analyzing what your competitors are offering is also a great way to understand your local market and to work out a plan for yourself.

One of the most important goals to consider is at what point you will take on your first employee. Working too hard mowing lawns can impact on your marketing efforts. In my opinion you should spend 70% of your time mowing lawns and 30% of your time managing and developing your business. AS you grow you can then continually reduce the amount of time spent mowing lawns. If you find that you are spending more than 70% of your time mowing lawns then you should hire an employee rather than neglect other aspects of your business by spending too much time on day to day business chores. ‘Work on your business and not in it’ so they say.

Your lawn care business plan should also clearly set out how you plan on running your business operations on a daily basis, from handling customer enquiries and invoicing clients to hiring crews and how you will manage them.

A solid plan should also include information on accounting, taxation, insurance and legal matters. Getting professional advice from experts is recommended in these areas.

Best of luck planning and setting up your new lawn services business!

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Author: Steve Sutherland

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