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Have a read of this previous thread: http://www.landscapejuicenetwork.com/forum/topics/is-it-viable-to-s...
I know there are plenty who disagree, but my philosophy has always been that it’s better to be on the road working than sitting at home, so good luck to them. Obviously the prices are not sustainable, but the work will help build up a portfolio and probably some longer term business.
I did a lawncare offer through living social last september - I wont discudss on open forum but happy to post in Hub - suffice to say results were good, It covered all costs incurred - and about 70% of people brought full price additional services, and about 50% are on the books as regulars now.
The anoying part is the 10% or so who have a 500sqm lawn and expect it to be aerated and scarified for the £9 they paid - even if the offer explicitly states upto 100sqm, etc... happy to walk people through the pitfalls.
Overall - as a form of advertising It is unrivalled in my opinion - even if you had 10% retention rate, the cost of aquisition is still £0 - £5 assuming lots of talking time with customer affects labour cost, far cheaper than leaflets or magazines.
If you have people working for you and you are only charging £8.50 an hour, you not making any profit whatsoever, in fact you are making a loss when you take into account all your materials and overheads. This looks to me like and accelerated money losing scheme and a fast route to bankruptcy.
For a larger scale company this is just not possible.. However for one man and his trainee/apprentice this is perfectly feasible..
I think its a great idea.. and if my main line of work was maintenance i would probably do the same. especially over the winter months.
All our advertising is done by our customers for free. We promote our company as having the highest standards of workmanship and customer services, and in return our customers refer their friends and neighbours to us, so our advertising costs are just about zero. Not only that, but we have built up a "Brand" which puts us apart from the "Bob a Job" Guys, so when people employ our services they expect to have a high quality service, and expect to pay a good rate.
If you start out offering your services for peanuts, your customers will always expect you to charge peanuts forever, and that puts you in direct competition with all the other "Bob a Job" Guys.
Danny M Cane said:
It won't work....
You might get any amount of people doing an internet search for cheap bargains, and that's fine for a one-off if the numbers add up. But, as an on-going weekly service, are they the people you want to target?
I can't see how I could offer £xx per hour as a starter-price, then need to at least quadruple it for on-going work? I'd be run ragged with the first visits, then I bet I'd not convert many in to long-term contracts.
Work out your costs, then add what you want to earn. Divide by how many hours you work, excluding holidays, bad weather etc., and charge that. Never offer less: they will try to hold you to it!
Having read the last few replies, am I missing something here? Of course it isn't a sustainable idea, surely the idea is to gain some quick work, get on the road, some money in(any money is better than no money) a few follow-ons a higher rate and maybe build up a portfolio of decent 'before and afters'. Networking while working if you like.
Plus if you are doing work, that is advertising in its self wether repeat business or someone next door.
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