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Why Adding Turf Care to Your Landscape Business Is Worth It

October 27, 2017

If you own a successful landscaping company, you really ought to consider adding lawn care to your selection of services. Why, you ask? Because it’s an opportunity that just makes sense. Looking at the numbers, it’s undeniably worth the investment to add lawn spray equipment to your arsenal. And looking beyond the numbers, we spoke to someone who’s made the leap and never looked back.

Why It Makes Sense

  • Lawn care can produce as much or more revenue with one truck and one man, than one truck and three guys in the landscape business, so the overhead is less.
  • Lawn care offers a revenue stream that has a great profit margin. Each customer you sign up represents steady income month after month, with at least 7 to 12 applications per year for an average yard. If you prove yourself and do a good job, that customer will stay with you for the long haul.
  • Word of mouth and neighbors seeing with their own eyes a bad lawn becoming a good lawn makes the acquisition of other customers in the neighborhood easier than signing up landscape customers who are only interested in a one-time design and install.
  • Providing comprehensive lawn care services offers makes you an appealing one-stop shop.
  • If you’re doing $1MM per year in installation, you’re chasing those sales. Turf care is an add-on, requiring far less chasing.

Tips for Success from Someone Who’s Been There

Don’t believe us? Chad Smallwood of Perfect Turf in Dallas, GA, knows the payoff firsthand. He’s been in the landscape business for 10 years and recently decided to seriously pursue the turf side of the business. Here’s his best advice for someone looking to do the same:

  • Once the other parts of your business are running smoothly, go all in. We offered design, build and maintain, and turf treatment since the beginning but did not make a big push in turf care. We had several hundred lawn care accounts but did not have the right tech or turf spray equipment. At the time, it was more of a burden, and we failed. If you’re looking for revenue that makes it worth your time, commit fully and invest in quality equipment from a company that provides top-notch service.
  • Know your market. Study the chemicals that you are using so you know which of them work best with various grasses.
  • Sell what you do – do not try to match competitors’ prices in the market.
  • Educate the customer – it makes yards much easier to maintain. Help them to understand turf care is a lifestyle, just like eating right is a lifestyle versus a diet.

Many of us dream about expanding our businesses and taking them to the next level. Is your landscape company positioned to do just that? Sure, it can be intimidating to make that jump, but just remember, the bigger the dream, the bigger the risk, the bigger the success.