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For the researching visitor there's a wealth of landscaping ideas, garden design ideas, lawn advice tips and advice about garden maintenance.
Replies
Profit (and contingency element) should be higher on one off jobs by quite a high margin, but contracts = cash flow and is reliable. Should we ever get a downturn in the economy (unlikely I admit) and building went into decline you might be glad of a few less profitable, but regular contracts! And having them means you are not competing from new with those suddenly looking for maintenance. Also brings cash in over a full year which you can timetable to give you reasonably regular income.
If you are in it for the long haul, then I would recommend a split between 'one-off' hard/soft landscaping and maintenance contract work.
We started many years ago with probably 80% 'one-offs'. Over the years, they spawned a few maintenance contracts..........then the maintenance contracts spawned more maintenance and they in turn created more 'one-offs'.............and here we are 36 years later!
Re margins, 'one-off' jobs can be more profitable, but the maintenance is your bread and butter.
Don't forget one-offs often come on top of contracts (e.g. a planting project for a contract site etc). I consider my contracts as the most important part of my business.
I agree. I see my regular customers/contracts as the bread & butter of my business and one off work as the jam on top! but both very important!
I am the other way round with one offs making up 80-90% of my work. I do a lot of hard landscaping though and running a schedule of weekly/fortnightly maintenance along side 2 week paving jobs is not easy at all.
I have a couple of gardens and 10 lawns that i do regularly and i mainly keep these on as i enjoy mowing and the variation. Plus the 2 gardens are in woodland areas and therefore need plenty of work in winter.
I am strongly considering dropping the regular contract work because as i mentioned scheduling it is increasingly difficult.
Q. As above
A. Absolutely :-)
Haha love Andrew's analogy-
Contracts are the bread and butter, one offs are the jam on top! lol
We have split our weeks between maintenance and landscaping- and it is in our long term plan to have two teams running, one looking after regular maintenance and one looking after landscaping.
I really enjoy the relationship that I build with our regulars- most of which we have had now over three years (since we started) - so they have seen me pregnant, then have our first son, then pregnant again and have our second son. They have celebrated with us as our buisness has grown, as Aye has completed courses and enjoyed getting to know our workers and see the change of vehicles etc.
But we also do love a one off garden clearance into landscaped garden too!
Susan
I manly cover maintenance and over the past few years have followed advice on LJN about fixed fees over hourly rates (having used an hourly rate in the past like we all start out i bet!) and it appears to be starting to work. Begin more profitable so I am charging approx £35 to £50 per visits depending on size and requirements (eg disposal etc) and if you pick up about 2 to 3 clients a day can work wonders on a fortnightly basis providing your regular and keep the sites tidy and they can see improvement. As many of the clients work during the day.
I offer handyman services as well and am trying to introduce a simular plan for my landlord service which I offer direct to the property owner (so they do not have to pay high agent maintenance costs) and again if your prompt and reliable and more importantly do not over charge or scam the clients they seem to keep coming back. I also try to keep in touch with them regularly to makesure the service is kept up to date.