The Number One Reason Most Lawn Care Companies Fail

You’ve sent out mailers, you’ve sweated from block to block leaving door hangers, you've paid a small fortune for internet ads. Your stomach is in knots worrying that all your effort and expense is not going to pay off.

How can you get the biggest return on investment from your marketing campaign?

The Number One Way to Prevent Failure in the Lawn Care Business

Imagine a football team on an offensive run. They fight the ball up the field. They receive a couple of risky passes to make first downs until they’re within ten yards of the touchdown.

The quarterback catches the snap and hands the ball off to the running back. The running back sees a perfect gap to jump through. No one can touch him. He stops, one yard from the end zone.

And he throws the ball down before he scores.

How can you prevent your lawn care business from FAILING after all your hard work?

Answer your phone. Really. It’s as simple as that. Run the ball into the end zone and THEN throw it down. It’s not enough to fight up the field, you’ve got to score to win.

When someone needs your services, they probably have a list of companies to call. They’ve looked around online, maybe they’ve gotten a few door-hangers or direct mailers. Now they’re ready to hire someone.

They call the first number and get a friendly voicemail recording. Leave a message after the beep! More often than not, they will just hang up without leaving a message and dial the next company.

Your potential clients will not wait for your earliest convenience. This is the time they set aside to figure out their lawn – and they want to hire someone right now so they can stop thinking about it. Don’t be the company that misses out on their business!

This might mean answering the phone on Saturdays and Sundays during the spring months when you’re picking up a lot of new clients. Every missed call could be a lifelong client, over the next five years they could be worth ~$7000; they’re worth the few minutes of your time right then.

Last year at Service Autopilot, we were working on a project where we had to reach out to members via telephone. Even among the larger companies that partner with us, we uncovered a disturbing trend:

"More than 60% of lawn care businesses didn’t answer their phones, even during business hours."

With many companies, it took us four or more call attempts before we could get someone on the phone. Imagine if all those missed calls from Service Autopilot were potential clients who called the next guy. How much income would they have lost through missed calls? Thousands? Tens of thousands?

Tips to Catch All Your Lawn Clients’ Calls

• Hire an office assistant.
• Use Call Forwarding when no one is in the office to have the calls pushed to your cell phone.
• Make certain the phone is answered courteously. Give your name and your company name, ask how you can help.
• Use Service Autopilot’s Call feature to forget about your hodge-podge of Post-Its and random envelopes, log all your calls where they are easily accessed and sorted by client.

Every time the phone rings, it could be a client ready to buy your business. The simplest way to increase the return on your marketing investments is to be ready when people respond to them. Answer your phone; this is the number one way to prevent your lawn care business from failing!

Related Post: The Best 9.5 Ways to Market Your Lawn Care or Landscaping Business