How to start mowing lawns for money?
Let's just say for example that I am an older potential client. ( with landscaping experience ) you knock on my door and I start asking you questions. 1. I have a kentucky bluegrass. do you know how high to cut it? 2. How often are you going to be fertilizing? 3. how much experience do you have? 4. I was wondering? how often should I be watering my lawn? 5. When should I dethatch? 6. how often should I be power raking? 7. how frequently will you be mowing? 8. are you going to make sure your mower blades are always sharp? 9. how often should clippings be left to break down in the grass or picked up? There are other questions as well. these are just a few that may come up. I am not trying to discourage you but you need to do some more research on, soil, grass types, watering, fertilizing, care and maintenance, and how to run a business before you venture into something like this. Could you please spend at least a little bit of time educating yourself first? here is a link for you to do some reading on. Colleges and Universities are a great place for info. good luck to you. and anyone else reading this..it's a good site to bookmark.
How would I go about starting a small lawn mowing business for my neighborhood?
Parents can be a great advertising source, too. I assume you do your family's lawn. Is it a reference lawn? If not, perhaps you could do more to make it one. For example, if it has a lot of weeds, perhaps a treatment of Weed B'Gone and another service you can offer. If it is a showcase lawn (trimmed, kept mowed, etc.), it is your advertising. Once you go door-to-door, consider giving your early customers a referral bonus if they bring a neighbor to you. You want to dominate your local market until you can afford to expand. A flyer is a good leave behind, but my experience many years ago is you need to make face-to-face contact. If they have interest, tell them the price and even offer to mow their lawn and they don't pay until they are satisfied. Once you have the hook set with the first mow, suggest they go with a regularly scheduled service. That way, they don't have to call you, you can adjust the mowing based on how much rain, whether their scheduled day was rainy, etc. And don't forget leaf raking services in the fall (if applicable), driveway snow shoveling in the winter (if applicable), and lawn fertilizing. Good luck. Two of my close friends in high school drove low end Porsches and had several trailers and lawn mowing crews as they grew their business.
I am 14 and I am going to start babysitting, lawn mowing and car washing for other people, what should I not do during this?
Henry, I think you should start mowing lawns. Forget the other stuff. Think of this as a business. Get up early, eat your bowl of oatmeal, and get to work before it gets too hot. People are going to want to give you work so take this seriously.Wear professional looking clothes and appropriate gear. Show up at the same time every week and before you know it you’ll have all kinds of other work. If you like the work you can have a decent little business before you graduate from High School.You can sell the business, keep it growing, hire employees that run it while you are away at College, etc. Again, this is a great business if you like it. Study turf grass or horticulture and you can be a millionaire by the time you are 40, no kidding.Take it seriously and have fun! Mike
Why is it that many men have heart attacks and die when mowing the yard.?
Physical stress resulting in depletion of oxygen to the heart. Lawn mowers normal overdo for which their heart is not physically capable. Hence acute massive Infarction results and sudden death/death ensues. People in the above age group must be warned not to overdo specially in hot (water depletion) or cold weather (coronary spasm). Precautionary method is to take a sublingual pill prior starting mowing but within limits say 5 minutes than a break than 10 minutes and a break, better on empty stomach, nothing doing after you had your breakfast or a large meal.
How much would it cost to start a lawn mowing business?
You could start it with as little as $500. However it would be better to have about $2000. Half for equipment, mower, edger, barrow, assorted tools. The other half to print business cards and pamphlets. I used to letter box drop all around my area as they were the closest clients which means less traveling time. Traveling from job to job wastes your time and that means money.
What's too early to start mowing your lawn on a weekend?
You'll hate me for saying but I have three children under three and my partner is at sea 6 days a week therefore time is precious if I want a nice garden I have to do it before the kids get up or after they go to bed - I love gardening but I can't safely mow the lawn with three toddlers so I have to do it at odd times - I hate disturbing people but i hate an untidy weed ridden garden more. I have mentioned/apologisd to my neighbours and they are all so lovely about it as they appreciate that I am unable to do it with the tiddlers in the garden.
How can two 14 year old boys start a lawn mowing business?
what you do is have a "pot" and you both "sweeten" it with $5 to start with. you can use a jar for this. then when you need gas, you get the money out of the pot and pay for it with that. then each time you get paid, you both chip in the same amount to the pot. you'll also need this extra money to buy spark plugs and mower blades, maybe some tools if you can't borrow them from your fathers. this is called "paying the equipment first". one of you can keep the pot at their house and the other can keep the records at his. get a notebook and in the front of it, write down each person's name whose yard you mow, the date, and the total they paid you. now turn to the back of the notebook and start a running total of the money contributed to the pot and the money taken out of the pot. write down why the money was taken out and how much EVERY SINGLE TIME. you definitely need a broom.. you're going to have to sweep the grass off the driveway, nobody likes it left messy. you should try to build up enough surplus in the pot to acquire a string trimmer or weedeater. nowdays people expect to have their yard trimmed out, too. so whenever you can finally afford a weedeater, you can charge another $5 per lawn. when you build up another surplus in the pot, you can get a blower if you don't want to have to sweep. you need to learn what weeds look like. then you can offer weed pulling as another service. if you start doing that, then that's the first thing you do when you get to the yard... pull the weeds first. rake them up and bag them. if you pull weeds last, then you'll have a little mess instead of a nice fresh mow. once you get to know your yards, start doing the weedeating before you mow, too... that way when you mow, it cleans it all up and it looks perfect. a lot of people weedeat after they mow and that leaves debris and it just doesn't look as nice.