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Mow For More $$
1 Mar, 2002 By: Wayne Volz Landscape ManagementUse these strategies and build your own system to price work for profit
The three most important words in real estate are location, location, location. In commercial mowing, they're production, production, production.
 Today's landscape business owner wants mowers that are bigger, faster, more maneuverable and more comfortable. |
There's no secret to running a successful landscape mowing/ maintenance operation - you mow and trim as much property as you can in the least amount of time that meets or exceeds your clients' expectations. You do it over and over again. Day after day. Week after week.
What was considered a good day's production from an operator and his commercial unit 20 years ago is child's play to the same operator on a ZT rider today. In fact, few facets of landscape maintenance have changed as much as commercial mowing, in particular mowing equipment. Remember what was considered a state-of-the-art commercial mower just 10 years ago? Five years ago?
Bigger and faster
Today's efficiency-conscious landscape business owner wants mowers that are bigger, faster, more maneuverable and, to some extent, more comfortable.
 You'll boost efficiency when equipment is properly stored, fueled and ready to go. |
One New England operator is now mowing his large commercial properties with a Deere fairway unit with a 11-ft.-wide cut. The batwing design allows the operator to swing up either of the side cutting units (or both) with a push of a button. He hardly slows even when approaching a tree or other obstacle.
Maybe you don't mow properties that large, but you get the point. Production is one of the biggest keys to profitable mowing.
Is the price right?
An equally big piece of the mowing profit puzzle is pricing. If a company overprices a property, it risks losing the job to a competitor. But if that same company underprices the job, it can find itself doing a lot of work for little return.
A landscape company that doesn't know why it charges what it charges is in for trouble. A "guess" bidding process may seem to work for awhile, but as your company grows, the chances that process will fail greatly increase.
To succeed in commercial mowing, you have to accurately calculate your cost of operation. McDonald's knows exactly what it costs to get an order from them to you. Why should your business be any different?
Don't charge "x" number of dollars per manhour because your competition is charging "x" number of dollars per manhour - know why you charge what you charge. The success of your business is more important to you than the success of your competitor's business, isn't it?
Don't second-guess
I found myself second-guessing my bids a lot. I knew other companies were bidding on the same jobs we were, and knew they were bidding less than we were. I caught myself thinking they were right and I needed to adjust my bid. Unfortunately, we were trying to bid against other companies that had no idea why they charged what they charged.
I finally realized I was on the same path of destruction as them. When we established our current bidding strategies, we began bidding with confidence. We calculated our cost per hour of operation and knew what we needed to charge. By knowing our cost, it made the service easier to sell.
How did we develop our bidding system? We put together a system that accurately measured the cost of each job. This included:
- the equipment needed,
- the hourly production of the equipment,
- the mowing time required,
- the trimming time required,
- the blowing time required,
- the level of difficulty of the job,
- travel time
- any contingencies and
- overhead.
Also, knowing the production possibilities of each piece of equipment your company uses is critical to the success of estimating the man-hours necessary to mow a given area. The formula I use is simple and easy to remember: ground speed (mph of the unit) times width of cut (inches) divided by 120 (assuming 80% productivity from the operator) equals production capability per hour of operation. As an example, let's consider a mower with a ground speed of 4 mph and a 48-in cutting width. Multiply the two factors and divide by 120 (assuming 80% productivity allowing for overlap, turns and terrain differences) for a production rate of 1.6 acres per hour. (For more info, See "Best Practices" page 92.)
Calculate the trimming and blowing time by taking a given percentage for each. We've found you can add between 25% to 35% of the mowing time to your bid to cover the time necessary for weed-eating. Increase or decrease these amounts depending on conditions.
Take between 4% and 8% of your mowing time and use it as the blowing time for most residential jobs. This has been reliable for our service through the years.
It still amazes me to see how many failures there are due to improper bidding. We often think nothing of spending thousands of dollars on trucks, trailers and equipment, but don't want to spend money for business education.
All of us must consistently look for ways to become more efficient and better managers. I have yet to meet anyone across the country who has told me, "I can't wait until the day I go out of business."
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