My younger brother is finishing up college in a couple of months with a degree in business management. He called me yesterday to tell me he was working on a business plan for a landscaping business. He's no stranger to long hours, manual labor, etc. He recognizes that he won't likely turn a huge profit his first season or two out of the gate.  He seems to have a strong desire to work outside and be the boss for once rather than working at a fixed salary for someone else.

Any issues specific to this type of work that anyone can think of that I should bring to his attention?  He seems to have a fairly good idea of what he might be getting into, but with any business there's always some issues you didn't think of until you actually start doing it.

There's more to landscaping than mowing of course, but for information purposes, the mowing season here is pretty much early March through late October if not into early November some years.

Check out Lawnsite.com
 

I started a landscape business when I was 18.  Started cutting grass.  By age 20 i signed my first 100k job.  Took a good 6 years to make any decent money.  Feel free to email me with any questions you have.

There seems to be a LOT of competition in the business. There's always lawn care stuff for sale on Craigslist. The biggest problem I see is that the "barrier to entry" is too low. It doesn't require a whole lot of formalized training or specialized equipment to enter the business so you have to compete with tons of folks on price who don't have any insurance or overhead like a full-fledged lawn company has. Just my observation.

My cousin owned one of the largest landscape companies on the east coast and I worked for him for several years when I was younger. He started in the early 80's with one truck, a trailer, a few mowers, and one commercial job. When he sold it a few years ago he had over 400 trucks and was servicing everything from Baltimore into North Carolina.

When the company was sold, he signed something saying he would not own or manage a landscaping company for X number of years, nor would he ever have any business dealings with past customers. A year or so after the sale, he started a new landscape company and went after all his old customers, and got many of them. He was sued by the company he had sold his prior business to and lost. I don't know what he had to payout, but it's had practically zero effect on him. He's still running and growing the same company he started, and he's as wealthy as he's ever been.

He got into banking shortly before selling his company and did well with it. As I understand he's worth north of $100 million. He started with nothing, and lived in an apartment when he bought that first truck and trailer.

I'm a big fan of the landscaping industry as a result of witnessing and taking part some in his successes. I will tell you this, he was a workaholic, and would show up before any employees, and leave after the last one. He also seemed to know more about his industry than any experts he ever hired.

Focus on commercial work. If after a few years, your brother isn't adding a truck or two to his inventory every year, he's not going to attain that kind of success from it.

If your marketing is creative and you provide a good service, you can easily grow and prosper in a crowded sector. For the reasons you listed, I would stick only to commercial work.

as long as you like competing with illegals (both labor and contractors) and no barrier to entry and sale prices that haven't moved in 20+ years
sure, you'll do fine

Again, this is a problem you are more likely to encounter if choosing to focus on residential work, rather than commercial. The large commercial landscape outfits get raided by ICE rather routinely.

He needs to be able to maintain and repair his equipment.  Waiting for a shop to repair/service equipment for him is gonna greatly hurt his bottom line.  Also, paying other people to work on his equipment is expensive.  

He should be finishing up for the day and then go home and service the equipment/sharpen blades.  Long hours but working for yourself does offer some real benefits.

not here
and although some commercial work at least has insured contractors 90% of the workers ..........................  

it's a low price business with no barriers to entry.
Nobody gives TWO SHITS about service that they have to pay for.
they want it done, they want it done for free, and they don't care how you do it.

They want Cadillac service at wal mart prices.

if you really want to do it
buy someone else's customer list who wants out (retires/new business/whatever)
the business is worth nothing but the cost of the equipment and a few thousand for the customer list.  You'll be up and running MUCH faster for much less money.

I've worked every day since I posted this. Thanks for the responses. I think I'll send my brother to the thread and let him contact those of you who offered. Thanks again.

LawnSite.com™ - Lawn Care & Landscaping Business Forum
especially
Starting A Lawn Care & Landscaping Business

ar-jedi

BTDT
it's all about price
you talk about 10 to 25,000 dollars contracts
but it depends on the place, how big it is, what is required, etc.  
I've watched more than a couple big contracts go out from solid contractors (had the business for years, never raised price, etc) go for HALF of what they were getting to some new guy.
sure, the new guy will go bust sooner or later, but it resets the price.

and the only advice to this guy (like every other guy in a no barrier to entry business) to get business is you can undercut the others in price

this is not a recipe to make money.

2 guys in a truck, or 4 guys in 2 trucks for commercial places.
the margins are thin and getting thinner and equipment, insurance, taxes, etc only go up.

most places cost less to have maintained/installed now than they did 20 years ago.   Some of that is efficiency (better mowers, trimmers, etc), most of it is just brutal price competition.

No, I actually did mean $10k to $250k annual contract prices...2 guys and a truck can't handle a $250k annual job.

You're misunderstanding me.

a job bid at 250k sounds great
unless all other bidders bid it at 400k

the size of the job doesn't matter, profit does.  Big jobs tend to have very small margins because "everyone" wants one and are willing to cut their price and the property managers look EVERY YEAR for a lower price.

and 2 guys and a truck can easily handle up to 50k jobs.  maintain an HOA that takes all day to mow once a week for 6 months at $1000/a pop is 25 grand or more, that's not hard to run up, 2 guys and a truck should be billing (gross) 200,000 easily.
What they make can be $100k, can be minus 100,000.

I have been a branch manager of a commercial landscaping firm for 6 years. My branch does between $3 and $5 million annually depending on improvements and sales. We are predominantly based on commercial maintenance.



The absolute most important thing is relationships with clients. I spend the majority of my time maintaining and improving that relationship. I have seen shit landscaping and landscapers chosen because of relationships, so never discount it.



I expect $52k annually for each man employed as a laborer. IOW I will not hire additional labor until we meet the $52k threshold. We use the H2B visa program to find seasonal labor, though the Federal DOL is doing everything in their power to torpedo the program.



If your brother has any other questions post them up in this thread.


 

tag

You guys that have businesses, what are some things you wished you



knew when you started out?



Also how did you transition and learn to do more than just mowing?

Installations, hardscaping etc.


 

ask those questions on Lawnsite:
http://www.ar15.com/forums/t_1_133/1303474_Landscaping_business_considerations_.html&page=1#i33156466

ar-jedi

I already post there.



Looking for different opinions and advice in general.