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find better clients : bigger jobs , what else can you do . do you advertise or get word of mouth... i only do a few lawns now and one new client wants monthly. shrewd is the word.
as you know people are doing this job for not alot, but they dont continue, are not insured, reliable or experienced with good equipment and dont offer other services...
they soon realise they cannot continue and go back to factory work after messing it up for everyone !
I would refuse - what they are saying is "I want to save money by having you do a lesser quality job and pay accordingly"
I would say simply "I don't want to do any thing short of the best, and being seen to do half finished jobs, even if instructed to, is not the image I want to project to the public, so I'm afraid I cannot oblige your request".
I agree with david they either change there attitude to reducing the quality of the job or you either take no claim to the job but still do it o you find better work, unfortunaly there not much room for negotiation this one i have had the same problems with a few contract, going from fortnightly grass cuts to monthly cuts as you can imagine the grass grows alot in that time so i have resulted to mulching instead of cut and collect .
lol sounds a bit funny although i used to have a few weekly visits but they have been fortnightly for about a year about time we saw some growth in the market! A few have not come back this session and have noticed there homes on the market so looks like they have decided to downsize.
David Cox said:
I agree with David. If the neighbours saw your work they would think "that's not a very good job" when what you would like them to think is "so and so is too tight to pay for lawn edging"
We used to maintain a churchyard, trimming around graves etc., 1 day x 2 men, a real pain, it paid OK, but at 6 cuts per year it was a struggle and we often put in an extra cut at no cost! Then back about 18 years ago, when 'global warming' first hit the public domain, I recieved a lovely letter from the Parish Council that said "...... thank you for your past assistance etc, we would be pleased for you to carry on etc, however, in view of the impending climate change and hotter summers, we feel that you only need quote for 3 or at the very most 4 cuts per year"! Needless to say we declined!
i aggre with the comments mostley are elderley folk whome i have bean with for several years, so its hard to ditch them, but the three weskley one on the small front lawn ragged a bit because i canot get the mower running at full spead and it will look bad in a weeks time. but i have ditched two of my clients in the last coupple of weeks over simarlar things
less money (or no increase) = less time spend on the job/on site .... half pay/half a job
you cant have your cake & eat it as they say !
if paid less i dont strim or vacuum, dont mow over 3 times or mulch as stated above.
extras will be charged much extra not discounted as before ie spraying weeds.
the old adage ' you get what you pay for', some folk dont realise 'its not about money'
others that realise it will all be relative & dont argue or let you get on with it properly are the most happy, get a great job done (and in-fact wont have a headache, need job doing again, more work, it looks better etc too ) false economy !!!
you dont get a BMW for yugo prices :)
Does anyone else charge more for fortnighlty grass cuts than for weekly?
I always say something like £20 per week, or £30 if it's fortnightly, as most of the year it'll need going over twice, and fortnightly is awkward to fit in the achedule. If the weather is too wet to cut it, do you leave it a whole month, or will they expect me to fit it in?
I find that, if the monthly cost is not that much higher, they go for weekly most times.
For tight customers that that are thinking of switching from fortnightly to 3 weekly, I give them a free application of lawn fertilizer......... they soon realise they need it done fortnightly!!
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