Hi all,
I'm looking for a bit of advice really if anyone has any thoughts. I'm a mum to a young toddler so work part time and fit hours into nursery runs so for me it works well to have set regular hours at customers' gardens. Eg x2/3 hours a fortnight. The driving in between is a pain but okay and I enjoy my job. BUT, I charge £26 per hour and by the time I've taken off 35% to cover tools, PPE, holidays, weather, illness, insurance etc, and then 15% for a private pension I'm left on almost minimum wage. I then spend the equivalent of a decent amount of money a month unpaid on responding to messages from customers etc, so from a financial point of view it's not worth it. I have recently taken someone on which I sub contract some work and earn a little extra which is great, and is the only way I can see this all working. Any thoughts, has anyone been in this position ?
I have a level 2 RHS diploma, strimning/brushercutter and tractor with trailer certificates and 7 years experience over estates and now working for myself. Many thanks.
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This is a difficult one, when I started a long long time ago I did not have holidays for 15 years, no pension and continued to work through illness. Unfortunately the only way forward is to replicate this by reducing your outgoings/costs and or increasing your charges.
£26 / hr is just not enough but appreciate that there is a limit on what a domestic customer will pay the only way around it is to do only price work to increase your earnings. I know you can't do this with existing customers as you have set a benchmark but just do price work for new customers, many threads on here on this subject. I soon realised that there was little money to be made from domestics so went all out to get commercial work where earnings can easily equate to the equivalent of over £100_hr but its not easy to get and you need the kit to do the work.
Truly wish you all the best but wonder without being defeatist whether self employment is the right route?
You might have already seen this, but there is a spreadsheet on working out your hourly rate here:
https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/3314062352?prof...
And whilst it is an old thread, this might help as well:
https://landscapejuicenetwork.com/forum/topics/try-this-simple-hour...
Grass cutting only jobs will massively increase your earnings provided you price them per job rather than for time. If you really want to focus on the more hands on gardening work than grass cutting, then at least fit a few grass cuts in in-between the other jobs each day. You can comfortably earn £300-£350 cutting domestic lawns once your round density is good
Sound advice
Hi AG
Yes business costs just absorb turnover especially in the early days and I know from experience what a spreadsheet tells us we need to charge is not always reflected by what a customer is prepared to pay and we can end up living hand to mouth despite a week of hard physical graft .
My attitude has always been some work is better than no work until the right opportunities or breakthroughs come along .
I always keep the client door revolving and have never settled into a comfortable routine with the exception of reliable trusted bread and butter clients who become the cornerstones of a domestic gardening business and treat you respectfully .
It takes time to establish good clients .
Turning to your situation I can see it in a nutshell and both Peter and Pgm have already offered sound advice .
I can see where you are coming from and you need flexibility but i don't know how likely it will be for you to find employment in horticulture which will offer you that flexibility full or part time but worth considering it might give you a bit of breathing space until you can reset your focus on self employment .
To continue as self employed you need a few quick wins as Pgm suggests such as cutting lawns approx £1 a minute or charging by the job for general gardening .
The way I set about it was to step back from taking on weeding work( which I actually enjoy ) on an hourly rate and steer the customer towards making infested areas into low maintenance areas and charge a project rate , initial layout but actually saves the customer money in the long term and frees up your time to take on other clients at a higher rate .
The other thing I would suggest is team up with another or other gardeners with complimentary skills , project / job share it can open doors and also provides a much needed support network .
All the best .
Yes I think most of the contributors on here make the bulk of their income from mowing on price work.
Mix the job up I do some contracts that work out at £75hr.
Some just grass £500 per day
Some private £25hr
Some priced jobs £500 per day
Don't just stick to hourly rate you'll make nothing. To make bigger money you have to invest in better machines though.
As relative novices to gardening - 4th year of trading - we have experienced what you are going through and feel your anxiety and frustration and "is-it-all-worth-it-I-might-as-well-go-and-work-at-Tesco" thoughts
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At the end of the day it boils down to the fact you've got to either raise your prices or lower your costs. And preferably both !
On the prices-side, I think you could/should raise them - you are skilled, experienced and qualified & should be pushing these positive facts (if you're not already). There's lots of advice on pricing on this site. However, it will depend on what your local area and customers are used to paying and where you are in the country. And raise your prices annually ! I read somewhere that one should aim for £35/hr to make a sole trader business sustainable.....and that was a few years ago. Also, try a "£x for upto x hours gardening" with a new customer i.e. fixed pricing & that way you can factor in travelling time. We don't charge by the hour anymore.
You say you spend a large amount of time responding to messages - what questions are you responding to and in your time or their time ? Once our customers are up-and-running on their weeky/fortnightly/monthly slot we receive very few messages. We try to sort everything out whilst at the customers address - questions, what we are doing next time, what we need to bring next time, invoicing- & tthat way when we leave the customers we rarely hear from them in between visits. There is the occasional customer that calls you at 9pm on Sunday asking when you are coming that week so we got round that by writing it on the paper invoice we give to them each visit
Get lots of good advice off here and stick with it as you are doing a job you enjoy
More good advice
Thanks so much everyone, great advice, will give it some thought and try some new pricing ideas with new customers....best to give it another chance and if all fails will try something else. Best wishes.
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