How to Use “9 Arounds” to Boost Your Lawn Care Business this Year

There are plenty of new ways to market your lawn care business…

But here’s something the younger crowd doesn’t know:

The “old-school” methods still work … especially door-to-door advertising.

Selling your services door to door can be an effective way to turn more lawn care leads into paying clients. But that doesn’t you have to knock on every door and recite a sales pitch.

There is a technique called a “9 around” that uses door hangers (or flyers) to build a close-knit client base rapidly. If you run a small or mid-sized landscape business, you owe it yourself to use 9 arounds starting now.

Here’s why:

What are 9 Arounds?

"9 Arounds" are part of a marketing strategy that will land you a lot of new clients all in one place.

It’s a terrific way to market your company and make your routes denser. Route density = significantly less drive time and more profit per job.

There are several ways to execute a 9 around. Here is one common strategy:

1. Put three guys on a crew
2. Drive out to a job
3. Two guys perform the job, while one guy takes a stack of Doorhangers or Flyers…
4. …and places them in the 9 closest houses (hence the name 9 Around)
5. When the clients bite, you will now several jobs within walking distance of each other.

Obviously, you can change the number of houses – 5 arounds, 11 arounds, etc. The most important part is that you quickly pepper a tight-knit area with your marketing.

Get the timing just right, and you’ll have hyper-profitable routes.

What Makes 9 Arounds Work?

• The cost is minimal.
  • Other than spending some money to print door hangers, your only investment is time.
• They can help you learn more about your clients and their properties.
  • Not only can hanging door hangers help you spot opportunities to upsell services to your existing clients, they can also give insight about what services other people in the area might want.
• They can help you get clients who would otherwise never see your other advertisements.
  • While you are out hanging door hangers, chances are you will meet a prospective client and get the opportunity to sell them in person.

You will start to see common landscaping problems and lawn care needs in an area. Create door hangers to promote services that solve these problems.

It’s all about timing.

Your door hangers should be appealing, but don’t get carried away by aesthetics. In fact, we’ve found that real photos tend to perform better than stock photos.

Hook clients with a good headline, and reel them in with a compelling offer:

• new client coupons
• Free fertilizer applications
• A gift card raffle for first timers

[FREE Download] We've put together a number of Door Hanger and Flyer templates for you to download for free. These were the 7 best marketing pieces that we tested and used for years.

How to Execute Your 9 Arounds

Now you need to get your brand new door hangers/flyers in front of new leads.

Most likely, you know which areas you need to hit (if not, use this feature in Service Autopilot).

Since you and your team are out in the field already, assign one of your team members to do “9 arounds”—or hang door hangers on the nine nearest houses.

Your best bet is to leave the marketing piece where people will see them – either slide them into the door or leave it lying face up on a flat surface.

Once you’ve dished out a few 9 arounds, you can follow up with postcards or by knocking on doors—or both. Most of your prospective clients will remember you from your door hangers. Having a referral program for existing clients encourages them to recommend you to neighbors who ask about your service after getting a door hanger from you.

Offer a deal that speaks to their problems, and you’ll get yourself a whole bunch of new clients.

Conclusion

"9 arounds" are some of the best (and cheapest) tools to market your lawn care business, because they:

• build route density
• bring in new clients
• don't cost a lot to put out

If you want to make big bucks - without spending big bucks - you need to start using 9 arounds today.

Want to make sure your 9 arounds work?

[Free Download] Click here to get 7 Proven Flyer and Door Hanger Templates ... already tested in the field!