The Grass Doctor

what is needed to start a lawn care service?

Public Comments

1. Start with a lawn mower and a rake,hoe,and shovel. Do small jobs. There are MANY , then save money to buy more equipment.
2. Probably a truck,references, insurance and lawn care equipment.
3. Form a business plan - who will be your customer, what will you charge, what do you do if you don't get enough customers, etc. Will you hire anyone out? Get insurance or form an LLC - you don't want to lose all your money because some idiot walks too close while you are edging. Buy some equipment - a truck and trailer for your lawn mowing equipment, mowers, gas cans, trimmers, edgers, etc. Advertise - use flyers, tell people you know, etc. That's the basics, beyond that if you don't know you should work for someone else for at least a couple months to get a feel for it. It should be something you like to do.
4. You only need "excellant quality" when you do your jobs, though they might only start out being cutting the grass and such. Your reputation will precede you and you will get more business. Then you will find out what tools and equipment you really need and what you won't ever use. Also, once you have a job going or finished, ask the owner if they would refer you to other people, assuming they like your work. If they do, they will most likely be very happy to help you with your new business. I know a guy who painted a house once when he was out of work. The neighbor liked what he did so much that he got his house painted, and then another person found out, and another. Then he got a crew going. Then two crews, and now all he does is ride by a prospective customer's house to do a cost appraisal, and he says he hasn't lifted a paint brush in years. But it's all because he did his best always.
5. First, you have to decide what kind of service you want to perform. Are you going to stick to lawn mowing, edging, and leaf raking? That's fairly simple to do, with a lawn mower, edger and rake. If you want to also maintain shrubbery, you'll need a hedge trimmer. And if you want to get into lawn health, you'll need to get fertilizer, mulch, etc. Please don't use weed and feed, since the chemicals get into the water table. If you want to do minor landscaping, you'll need shovels. Once you decide on that, you need to decide if it's going to be a one-man company. If it is, you can take the risk of not having insurance. I'd probably just get a $50,000 liability bond for things like broken windows, etc. If you hire employees, you need to decide whether you are going to self-insure or use a workman's comp insurance company. Then you need to figure out an advertising budget. Will you put flyers in grocery stores? On doorknobs? In free newspapers? Will you be getting a yellow pages listing? That's about it. Hope you succeed in your business!
6. you need clients you will need workers and truck and a trailer buying a trailer is much easier to load and unload your equipment you need a few lawn mowers in case one breaks down a few trimmers on straight one curved you need to buy and edger and a blower to clean up after you are done mowing the lawn and one of the most important rule is to never buy cheap equipment because you will pay for it later have a good business plan such as the more lawns that are grouped together the more you can make and like someone before me said have insurance and an L.L.C. because if you get sued they can take your business assets but not your personal assets such as your home and so on good luck
7. It depends on how big your business will be. If you just plan on taking care of several small houses, you can just get a push mower, If you have large contracts such as parks or apartment complexes you should get a commercial zero turn mower ( Exmark, John Deere, or Kubota). Then you will need to get a weedeater, and a leafblower. Stihl makes great products, plus they have combi's which allow you to buy the engine alone and then add on the attachments you want. You can get a trimmer, edger, cultivator, tree trimmer and many other attachments that hook on to the engine. Then you will need to get a truck and trailor. Enclose trailors are good to have, they keep equipment out of the elements, and offer great storage in the winter. When you get a truck you should look for one with a diesel engine, they are built to work. Plus if the fuel milage on a gas engine that is towing a trailor is way low. Our Truck which has a Power Stroke diesel in it gets 15-16 mpg towing a trailor full of equipment. You will also need to purchase liability insurance. If you plan to go into fertilizing you need to have a license to apply the fertilizer, and even higher liability insurance. Its not just like putting bags of scotts down. You need to have extensive knowladge of lawns and associated problems with them. The chemicals that you use are only available to liscensed applicators.
8. Why would you want to?!!!