Landscaping can be a profitable business. After all, we all know that many people rely on landscapers to keep their property looking amazing!
So, what can you do to ensure all of your hard work is bringing in the profits instead of headaches?
If you don’t know the answer to that, keep reading to see how you can create more profit within your landscaping business.
How to Create a More Profitable Landscaping Business
The Profit First system was created as a way to manage cash so that you know exactly how each deposit should be spent (or saved). With this system in place, there will be no more guesswork on how much of your money is for your owner’s pay, taxes, profit, or expenses. Profit First is an easy system to implement and will bring clarity to your cash flow.
2. Consider Revising Your Current Prices
When you think about pricing, you likely considered all your costs when you made those decisions. You will have considered your expenses, the time it would take you to do the work, the cost of all of your equipment, and even the cost of hiring employees to help you.
If you haven’t adjusted your prices in a few years, you may want to consider raising them soon.
Supply and demand is often an aspect that business owners overlook. If nearly every potential customer accepts your pricing, it’s a good indication that it’s time to raise them.
3. Lower Your Expenses
One of the best ways to increase your profits for your business is to decrease expenses. When is the last time you took a good hard look at every expense that’s running through your business? Consider the monthly subscriptions you are paying for. So often we forget about that app we don’t use but still subscribe to. When is the last time you reviewed that phone bill or your insurance policies? There may be ways to save there by just making a simple phone call.
There are so many ways to lower your expenses. You may just need to think outside the box at first and get creative. Once you get started, you will be amazed at how many unnecessary expenses will jump out at you and how easily you will cut them out!
4. Review and Revise Payment Terms
What does your Accounts Receivable report look like? How would it feel to have all of that money in your bank account right now?
Many landscapers bill their customers at the end of the month for the whole month. Then, they wait another 30 days to get paid (if they’re lucky). At the worst, you’ve waited 60 days to get paid for something you delivered 2 months ago. This will put a huge cramp in your cash flow, because you already paid your crews and you already paid for materials and supplies. No wonder money is always tight!
What’s the remedy? Get credit cards on file for all customers, and bill them automatically every day. Or even once per week.
5. Cross-Sell to Your Customers
Many landscapers offer multiple services, but your customers may not be aware of everything you offer. Change this by communicating with them about all of your services, so they have the option of purchasing additional services from you. Upselling to existing customers is less expensive than finding new customers
6. Create New Services
Depending on the services you already offer, you may find that you can add a complementary service or two. As a landscaping business, you are working more during the spring and fall. But, what happens during the winter, especially if you live where it snows? Are you offering snowplowing services or roof raking services to your clients? Think about some services you can offer that will keep your crews busy during the slower months, and bring in the cash to cover payroll.
7. Encourage All of Those Customer Referrals
Customer referrals are always going to help your business, so it’s important to make customers feel well-taken-care-of. You can do this by providing excellent service, addressing issues immediately, and showing appreciation for their loyalty. All of those things will have every one of your customers talking about your services with their family and friends.
8. Stay Focused
It is going to be so easy to plow ahead and try to implement many of these ideas all at one time. However, I recommend slowing down a little and staying focused. After all, if you have too many things going on at once, you are going to drop the ball and something will suffer. From there, all of your plans can plummet and you will be no further ahead than you were.
These are eight things you can do to create a more profitable landscaping business. Let’s work together to increase your profits this year and every year moving forward! Give me a call today!
