When to start mowing
How Much To Charge for Mowing? | Pricing Cheat Sheet
how do you come up with your initial
price whenever you're sending out your
estimate for a lawn mowing job you know
in the beginning is very intimidating
trying to figure that out we've all been
there and in this video my point is to
help you out and hopefully streamline
some of that process show you some of
the stuff that I use in determining how
much I charge per yard okay my
disclaimer is is your market is
different from mine and his market is
different from his and we all have to
come into agreement on that and
everybody has to be on the same page so
you cannot simply plug and play and copy
people's prices I will give you some of
my example prices for my area but again
this does not work if you have not done
a little bit of the legwork yourself and
made a few mistakes okay there's no
substitute for getting out there and
making a few mistakes okay that being
said how can we streamline a couple of
those mistakes all right the first thing
is that you can call your your friends
and family and ask them on their
particular size yard what would you be
willing to pay for lawn service on their
yard now you know hopefully they're not
like cheapskates or something but you
can actually ask them say hey you know
realistically what would you what would
you pay to have somebody come out you
know fully serviced the pools fully
serviced the yard that's a good way to
check the second way to check is to get
in touch with a couple competitors and
then have them come out and even give
your friends and family pricing and that
will get you in the general ballpark
okay that is my disclaimer on how you
can go ahead and figure out your your
basic market prices in your area but now
we're going to dive into okay let's talk
about some of the nitty-gritty how you
determine what you're actually going to
charge why yards should be thirty
dollars instead of thirty five or why
yards should be forty five dollars
instead of forty dollars all right let's
talk about that
the first tip that I would give you
whenever it comes to figuring out your
lawn knowing prices is that you have to
be laser focus on a particular size
property okay you have no business
cutting a 1/8 of an acre and then
driving off from that property and then
going around and cutting some five acre
field if you're just starting out man
and that's what this video is geared
towards is for the new guy is that if
you are just starting out you're not set
up
to do all that in the fastest way for
you to screw up is to take on different
size properties and your pricing is
gonna be messed up man the best tip that
I can give you in the beginning is to
figure out what your market supports
what are the builders building are they
building on quarter acre lots
that's your market dude are they
building on half acre lots that's your
market ok if you live up in the north
and most of the properties are like two
acres and lots of rolling hills and the
next your market and that's your thing
but you have number one have got to
figure out exactly what property you
want to focus on okay you have to know
that that is that is the key to
everything that is the number one most
important thing the number two thing is
that whenever you figure out you know
what your what your ideal size property
is you have to come up with only a few
prices alright I say a few there's gonna
be some fluctuations but in general you
know you need to have a small variance
in your pricing and let's take that a
step further and say we are only going
to offer a few different prices for this
we're going to keep it completely simple
and I go back to this all the time guys
but you know I I like to think I have a
pretty good head on my shoulders but the
fact is is that nothing gets implemented
unless you keep it simple I've always
taken they keep it simple stupid
approach that's what we're talking about
here getting focused is keeping it
simple
our only offering a few different prices
is keeping it simple ok let's go to the
third thing so the third thing whenever
you're determining your pricing um for
your lawn mowing is you need to come up
and this is this is it this is what
everybody's been waiting for the pricing
schematic sheet okay you need your own
for your market alright it's going to
have the turf square footage size number
one it's going to have if they have a
lot of obstacles in the yard you know
like if it's an inline lot corner lot
those types of things you can give that
different weights and then number three
it's going to be do they want weekly or
bi-weekly service that's it dude like
there's so many details you can get
bogged in you know as to do they have
three three three trees to weed it
around or four trees do we need around
do they have edging to do on the
sidewalk or just the driveway but they
have a
or they a corner lot are they on a hill
do they have obstacles in the backyard
you know how much stuff is there to mow
around and you can just get bogged down
and all that crap man but I'm telling
you the easiest way is to come up with a
pricing schematic she with just a few
different property sizes I see a
property size I mean turf size give
those property sizes different weights
based on how much weed eating or how
difficult the property is in terms of
edging I just give it three different
weights and then finally does the person
want weekly or bi-weekly service alright
that's how I do my pricing schematic she
let me give you an example of a pricing
schematic sheet I'm not gonna give you
exactly what I do here have my company
because I know a lot of my competitors
watch my channel and that's cool
whatever but you know I don't want to
give you our exact pricing so I am going
to give you a concept sheet that you can
implement immediately and and again this
goes back to you doing a little bit of
legwork on your own knowing what size
property you want and then focusing on
those sets of properties with only a few
different prices okay check it out okay
so the first thing you're going to see
here is on the left-hand side there is
the turf square footage and then level 1
level 2 and level 3 that is the
difficulty level of the property okay
level 1 would be just I mean why did I
open just about as easy as it gets
minimal weed-eating an inline lot you
know meaning no corner lots just minimal
edging maybe just a driveway so level C
would be something that has you know a
fence and some weeding in the yard and
maybe they have a driveway and a
sidewalk that would be an example of
level 2 yard and might a level 3 for us
would be something like it's a corner
lot with a sidewalk the wraps all the
way around it a big curb to edge around
that requires more time and there's a
lot of you know weed eating and stuff on
the yard so that is in general guys just
a rough way to give your properties
different weights because we all know
that a 5 to 6,000 square foot lawn is
not the same on every property every
property is different so that's why how
I give them weights ok level one being
the easiest level 3 being the most
difficult all right now the levels are
those are all weekly prices and then if
a client wants to
switch to bi-weekly service instead of
weekly service we tack on an extra 20
percent I'm gonna do a separate video on
why I love bi-weekly yards there's a lot
of controversy as to whether you know
you should even do buy with these or not
and I just got to tell you guys I
absolutely love bi-weekly service that's
the topic for another time but I
I love bi-weekly service I'm just going
to leave that at that okay
so again all those prices are for weekly
service and then if the client wants
bi-weekly we just have an extra of
twenty percent so that's the way we do
it guys how do we get our turf square
footage we use yard book I will pin a
nother video that I have done regarding
yard book and how we do our estimating
process with measuring out the property
online but that's it so again just to
recap it's so important that you know
the ideal property size because whenever
you have your ideal property size and
you're able to focus on that then you
can just offer offer only a few
different prices only a few different
pricing options whether it want weekly
or bi-weekly and then based on difficult
to get the yard it just keeps everything
simple for you and the simpler you can
make it the quicker you're going to
implement it and the quicker you
implement some type of pricing
schematics you the quicker you are going
to stop making mistakes and then get out
on these properties and be realize oh my
god I'm out here cutting this for $40
and this is a $65 yard guys that is a
miserable feeling whenever you are out
there working your butt off on a yard
for the same price when you go next door
and do that same garden as twice as easy
for the same price like you've got to
stop doing that okay the way you fix
that is by having some type of cheat
sheet that's the way that we do it here
at my company so again I want to share
with you a couple of those videos I'll
link those up here so you can see those
very important that you check those out
because they tie into this video
whenever you're trying to figure out
your mowing prices you need to not only
understand your market and your
particular size yard you need to have a
pricing schematic sheet and you need to
understand how profitable each chart is
this is the way that we do it good luck
guys y'all take care
