At some point in the lifetime of your landscaping business, you’ll come to a crossroads that will make you think, “Am I happy with what I have, or do I want to grow?” If you want to grow your business, your focus should not only be on bringing in new business; it should also focus on closing more landscaping leads, optimizing the business, and improving your profit margins. According to a survey,
- 68% of consumers say they are willing to pay more for products and services from a company that offers good customer service experiences.Â
- 65% of customers said they have changed to a different company because of a poor experience.Â
What does this data tell us? You need to provide what the customers are asking. If you plan to grow your landscaping business, the first question you need to ask yourself is: Is your business currently equipped to provide what your customers are expecting? If not, your chances of survival are bleak, let alone grow. While hundreds of landscaping business growth strategies are likely to exist, the following 9 will take your business to the next level quickly and efficiently.
Tips for Growing a Landscaping Business
1. Increase your online presence
With more than 86% of people turning to the internet to research before making a buying decision, it’s not enough to rely on word-of-mouth marketing. You must have an online presence to scale up your business. The following are some effective online marketing strategies on how to grow a lawn care business:
- Claim your Google My Business Page to drive more traffic to your website.
- Post on social media frequently to boost your word of mouth marketing, build positive brand awareness for your lawn care business, and increase customer retention.
- Build your email list to send informational or promotional emails to your audience that build awareness and drive conversions.
- Build a website to gain your company organic leads and the opportunity for even more business.
- Have a profile on online review sites to develop a good online reputation for your landscaping business.
2. Automate Your Operations
Automation is the catalyst for any business growth. When you add more customers to scale up your business, you must automate your operations to free up your time so you can focus on the revenue-generating aspects of your business. Moreover, automation saves time and money and helps you provide an exceptional customer experience. Here is a list of things you can automate:
Invoicing
By automating your invoicing process, you don’t need to worry about forgetting to send an invoice for your landscape services or wondering if the payment is made. Bonus Tip: Zuper’s invoice automation software can give your customers the convenience of making payments at the click of a button. It can also help you:
- Create custom invoice templates
- Set up automatic invoice reminders
- Easily track your customer’s payments
Scheduling
The scheduling automation system provides a seamless, error-free resource allocation in real-time with minimal or no human intervention. Bonus Tip: Zuper’s automation scheduling system helps you allocate the right person for the right job in real-time across multiple locations. Integrating your business processes with intelligent landscaping field service management software can automate and streamline a lot of your business operations, including work order management, dispatching, estimates, timesheet management, etc.
3. Become the local expert in your field
You don’t have to do much to become a locally recognized expert in your field. All you have to do is answer people’s questions on a regular basis and put out useful information for them to read, online and offline. When you are putting yourself out as an expert, you are pre-selling yourself and your company. Pre-sold customers are familiar with you, trust you, and are willing to buy your services, regardless of the price.
When you position yourself as an expert, you’re basically selling yourself and your company up front. You can naturally gain people’s trust and respect by establishing yourself as an authority. They start seeing you as a reliable and knowledgeable source, which makes them more inclined to turn to you for help when they need expertise in your field. This trust is incredibly valuable because when customers are ready to make a purchase, they already have faith in your abilities and credibility.
4. Diversify your client base
If you have been servicing only residential clients, you can consider opening yourself up to commercial clients. However, this transition is likely to be daunting as you’ll need to make contracts, increase insurance coverage, possibly upgrade your equipment, and add more employees. Thoroughly research the commercial market to understand its unique needs and demands. Commercial clients often require different services than residential clients, such as more frequent maintenance, larger-scale projects, or specialized skills. You can tailor your services to meet these needs effectively by identifying them.
5. Cultivate referrals
Referrals are the fastest way to increase the number of your customers. If you want to speed up the word of mouth process, incentivize your clients and create a win-win situation for your company and its clients. For example, you can give a complimentary mowing, aeration, or hedge trim service to a customer who refers you to others.
6. Expand your service area
If it’s commercially viable, consider covering more ground and expanding your services to the surrounding areas. This will open up new business opportunities for you. This expansion will require you to conduct market research. Consider conducting surveys via email or phone or gathering quick opinions on social media.
7. Develop off-season service
Diversification can help you grow your business, even in off-season months. Winter months are not landscaping-friendly. So when snow sets, clients don’t have traditional landscaping needs. But your business must keep generating revenue all year round. So, you can introduce seasonal services to compensate for lost revenue. Some potential off-season services include snow removal, outdoor holiday decoration, etc.
8. Partner with other lawn mowing companies
Partner with other lawn mowing companies and ask them if they are willing to send their extra work to you. To start off, you’ll want to find some lawn mowing companies in your area that might have a lot of extra work, especially during the busy seasons. Look for businesses that offer a similar level of service and have a similar customer base so you know you’ll be a good fit. Once you’ve found some potential partners, reach out to them with a proposal. Make it clear how working together can benefit both of you.Â
Let them know that by sending their overflow of work your way, they can keep their customers happy and avoid turning anyone away. To keep things running smoothly, set up a simple referral system. This could mean creating a special email address or an online form where your partner companies can easily submit job details. The key is to make the process as easy and efficient as possible so you can count on getting consistent referrals. Pay them a commission for the lawn mowing jobs they send to you.
9. Look after your people
When you look after your employees, they look after you and your business. Pay them what they deserve, give them opportunities to progress in their careers, reward them for their high performance, and take care of their training and development needs. When people love the companies for which they work, they’re more likely to work hard to make their business a success.Â
Let’s face it. Scaling your business is hard. Like anything else in life or in business, you have to put in the time and effort if you’re looking to reap the benefits. You probably won’t experience growth right away, but you will see progress if you continue to implement the above growth strategies systematically and consistently.
For your automation needs, try Zuper for free today. See for yourself how well our field management software works and how it can help grow your business.
