My Local Market
I work in Bergen County, NJ, one of the wealthiest counties in the country. There is a mix of densely populated areas with expensive home on small lots (1/8 acre) and even more expensive homes on big lots (1 acre and up). Many communities revolve around religious centers which makes for very close knit neighborhoods. This is great for getting word of mouth referrals.
In the town I do most of my work in there are about 10,000 housing units. Over 35 landscapers provide weekly lawn maintenance services and range in size from 25 customers to over 500. Most are owner operated with 2-3 helpers and service about 100 customers on a weekly basis. I’d guess that over 3000 homeowners hire a landscaper in my town and spend an average of at least $1250 a year on just the basic package. There are two lawn chemical companies that have a significant presence, Chemlawn and Green-a-lawn. Many of the landscapers provide a full service including lawn cutting, pruning, fertilizing, pesticides, mulch and plantings. However, their crews are unable to communicate directly with customers, the sales person/owner is usually hard to reach, and most are understaffed and unable to do more than just the basic service. Few companies have more than one or two people licensed to do pesticide applications. I see many instances of pests or disease on shrubs that people want treated, but are not due to inadaquate monitoring.
It’s seems easy to sign up new customers here. Staffing seems to be a bigger issue. I remember an article a couple of years ago about a doctor’s office that had switched from scheduling most appointments many weeks in advance to having a more open schedule. When a landscaper has a crew of three working 5 or 6 days a week maintaining 100 or more homes a week there is little room to take care of any extras. That’s not to mention getting behind from rainy days or cleaning up storm damage. This year I kept my prescheduled work down to less than 30% of my time. The rest was usually filled up with doing extras for my existing clients and taking on new ones. Most of the work was completed within two weeks of it being requested. Compare that to the competition who just finished their shrub pruning two weeks ago.
My plan for next year is to sign up 100 customers for a minimun of a monthly service visit and provide them with fertilizing, weed, insect and disease control, hedge pruning and selective hand pruning, seasonal plantings of annuals, perennials, bulbs and mums, and mulching.
I am in need of suggestions for pricing options. For the regular maintenance work I have been doing (including lawn cutting) I have set an annual fee and have broken it into 10 monthly payments with an option to prepay for a 10% discount.