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I service all sizes of garden and offer lots more than just mowing and weeding - lawn care (organic if required), turfing & seeding, pruning, planting, feeding & pest/disease control, soil improvement, spraying, large scale strimming & brush cutting, minor tree surgery, hedge cutting, hedge reductions, compost making, leaf clearance, wildlife habitat management and others.
I don't offer any landscaping except soft (turfing & lawn seeding, new borders, planting). Also i don't offer power washing, painting or staining, gutter clearance or any other "odd jobs".
I do plenty off one off jobs both small and large. Having the right machinery, skills and work methods are the key.
I find it relatively stress free (just getting paid is sometimes a issue) .
Iv invested in good mowers and made it possible to get the jobs done fast .
Im at the moment deciding what to do get someone to work with me or stay as I am ???????
Currently have 58 grass cuts and 3 contact jobs so its a bit full on for just me but not quite there yet to pay someone else . Any advice on how to get over to the next level please contact me .
Thanks again Craig
Craig Spence And Hedges said:
Stuart @ Eco Garden Maintenance said:
Personally, I just do maintenance, so lawns, weeding and hedges etc. Everything for the domestic garden or small commercial site. If anything too big is needed, I just farm it out.
If you want to stay small, and nothing wrong with that, then limiting the amount of equipment you carry is important. Stick to what you do best, and don't try to take too much on.
I still don't get the October to March thing, though. I've never stopped regular work in October, the leaves are still coming down in to December most years! The first cut of the year is often before March as well: if left too long it's a harder job to cut them.
I used to work on an hourly rate, and the idea was to make a year's money in 9 months. Any extras in the winter were a bonus. To do that, you need to be charging enough, and working at least 6 day a week when you can. The up-side is you get the whole winter sitting indoors in the warm, catching up with accounts, servicing gear, doing some DIY etc., not out in the wet and cold trying to earn a bit of money.
Changing to monthly contracts means the money comes in regularly, so winter is no different to any other time of year. The client benefits, as the garden is done as often as needed, even if it's more than the budget some years. I would pop in regularly in the winter anyway, maybe monthly, just in case there's some dead wood come down or something.
If the customer understands that they pay less, get more work done, and the garden is looking at it's best all year round, for less money, then most will convert. People are used to monthly payments for most bills now: no-one wants the huge energy bills in winter, and low in summer, they want it spread evenly.