Lawn mowers, fertilisers, British values. Hamburg, Germany.

Good morning everybody.

Let me first thank Martin Wilkinson and Andy Kenny for spending a lot of time with me discussing various options and allowing me to brain dump on them!

I live over in Germany in the wonderful city of Hamburg. Having recently been made redundant I am now looking at pursuing a life long dream. To set up a lawn care business.

All of the investment, finances, public liability, accountants, fuel etc have all been taken into account including initial start up costs and expenditure projections for three years.

I am now trying conclude several parts to my business. These core parts, have been discussed in great detail in the past on this very forum yet there maybe something that we could uncover pertinent for my needs.

The first point being: Lawn mowers.

These shall be purchased, just in time, when and if required.
Eg. Purchase a four wheel collector just in time for early spring. Then April time I can look at a mower that stripes (if there is a % demand for this service). Possibly in May I can look at a dedicated mulcher if the demand is there. Hence investment savvy for business cash flow.

For the law mowers do I look at buying brand new or second hand?
Do I buy from the Masport line of mowers. (Fantastic value for money) or do I buy an estesia for collection, an estesia for mulching and the hayter/Honda for the traditional british lawn stripes? Buying a branded product is scary due to initial investment setup sosts.
I can offset my tax as my tax is very high due to being a fresh start up. I am looking at keeping what ever I purchase for a minimum of three years.

The second question fertiliser.
I have been exploring the www.symbio.co.uk product range. Organic lawn care is key here in hamburg.
I have also decided to look at Yates or Scott's if the above is unsuitable.
If I were to use a none branded cheaper option for fertiliser is this false economy???

My third and final question.
One or two work colleges of my wife have shown an interest. They would perhaps like to use the services of my company.
To that end.
Growth/client predictions are driven me potty.
Yes I have a table with my hourly rate.
Yes I have a table that identifies how many times i need to attend my clients and how many hours I need to invoice each client to allow me to be in positive cash flow.

Would 10 customers, 100, 1000 customers be an accurate projection to base my turnover on? I do have my projected figure against clients yet is this realistic to achieve within the first/second year?

The customer projection seems to be the only thing I cannot get my head around. What experience did yourselfs have?
I am sure many of you started along the same journey as I. What are people's lessons learnt?

I know customer projection is equal to the length of a piece of string!

If anybody has good solid points to offer on any of the above points then all shall be gratefully received and I thank you in advance.

Kindest regards

Gregory.

Hi Gregory, well done and best of luck with this decision. It could be the best thing that has ever happened.

The questions on machinery would, to my mind, depend on the dealer network local to you. What brands do they sell to professionals? Can you get an idea what other garden businesses in your area use? There is no point getting a machine simply because a UK-based network recommends them.

You could get a lot of things second hand, and if you do then start looking now as it should be a good time of year to get a bargain (grass cutting has finished, Christmas is coming so businesses are changing machines).

Now, the projections - are you planning to work on your own all the time? Why not do a projection based on hourly rate x 80% of a full week instead? I mean, no matter how many clients you have, you can still only work the number of hours in the day at the very most. There is a lot of dead time during the week and with travelling between sites, setting up, etc, you will find it hard to do a lot more than 6 hours a day chargeable work if it's all small lawn treatments and cuts. Of course, you charge per job, not per hour, so this may be considered irrelevant.

I am a sole trader and work with one member of part time staff. A typical day doing domestic jobs might consist of between 4-10 clients. I tend to do a full maintenance visit though, lawns, weeds, trimming. If it was just lawns all day long, a 2-man team would be doing something between 14-18 a day at a guess, more if there's a lot of very small lawns. This would result in a theoretical max of 90 per week, or 180 clients in total if you do them all on a fortnightly basis. Packing a week out to this extent would prove challenging though. Please DO consider leaving half a day free at least every 2 weeks to catch up on admin or to do high-value jobs that come in on top of the regular stuff. Next season I plan to have at least half a day per week free. This ALWAYS gets filled up anyway.

Feel free to keep hitting this forum with specifics as they arise, people will be only too glad to help someone starting up a new business and see it succeed.

Replies

Dan Frazer Gardening December 5, 2012 at 2:38pm

Hi Gregory, well done and best of luck with this decision. It could be the best thing that has ever happened.

The questions on machinery would, to my mind, depend on the dealer network local to you. What brands do they sell to professionals? Can you get an idea what other garden businesses in your area use? There is no point getting a machine simply because a UK-based network recommends them.

You could get a lot of things second hand, and if you do then start looking now as it should be a good time of year to get a bargain (grass cutting has finished, Christmas is coming so businesses are changing machines).

Now, the projections - are you planning to work on your own all the time? Why not do a projection based on hourly rate x 80% of a full week instead? I mean, no matter how many clients you have, you can still only work the number of hours in the day at the very most. There is a lot of dead time during the week and with travelling between sites, setting up, etc, you will find it hard to do a lot more than 6 hours a day chargeable work if it's all small lawn treatments and cuts. Of course, you charge per job, not per hour, so this may be considered irrelevant.

I am a sole trader and work with one member of part time staff. A typical day doing domestic jobs might consist of between 4-10 clients. I tend to do a full maintenance visit though, lawns, weeds, trimming. If it was just lawns all day long, a 2-man team would be doing something between 14-18 a day at a guess, more if there's a lot of very small lawns. This would result in a theoretical max of 90 per week, or 180 clients in total if you do them all on a fortnightly basis. Packing a week out to this extent would prove challenging though. Please DO consider leaving half a day free at least every 2 weeks to catch up on admin or to do high-value jobs that come in on top of the regular stuff. Next season I plan to have at least half a day per week free. This ALWAYS gets filled up anyway.

Feel free to keep hitting this forum with specifics as they arise, people will be only too glad to help someone starting up a new business and see it succeed.
PRO

Brian www.mibservices.co.uk December 5, 2012 at 3:07pm

I would say forget projections for the first couple of years, they are just horizons to which you need to move forward to and will by there nature keep moving. Which machines ? I would purchase good used machines from the Etesia and Honda Izzy ranges. Fantastic reliable machines that I will personally recommend. Good luck with your venture
English Sheep December 5, 2012 at 6:15pm

Hi Dan.

Thank you for your kind words.

I have already made the decision that I will purchase a Stihl kombi. I will buy the strimmer and the hedge cutter attachment first. My local dealer here is the Stihl repair shop as well so I dont mind spending my money with him due to the fact that the price he has quoted me works out amazingly cheap. I think his price is more than competitive compared to ebay prices. Plus I get to use it on my own garden and hedge. Teeheee!!

"Fingers crossed for it being the best thing ever". It is such a bizarre level of euphoria. 95% of each and every day I cannot wait to go live. The other 4.5% is part a vision that catches me dreaming of managing my own gang. Naturally starting with one other first! .5% is a harsh reality check. This is really going to happen.

I must admit that my projections have all been based on hours. I will get a builders tape measure this week and measure my family and friends gardens. I will then use these to allow me to lend towards quoting for price for jobs and build this into the business as well.

I do like your much easier projection for hourly rate x 80%. I have tried to project on a 10 month year which takes into account wet weather, sleet and snow and lets not forget that I cannot work here on Sundays. Noise pollution etc etc!!! This time next year I do hope NOT to be sat on my laurels however I hope to have secured other revenues of work. Snow clearing or look at the Chinese market, maybe I need to spend good quality time in the office ready for rapid expansion in 2014?!

I really wish I had a snow clearer right now as the kids out side are having snow ball fights!

I will start my ebay.de search some time next week I think.

Is it correct to assume that I will get funny looks from my wife as I scour the product catalogues and create my dream sheet?!
English Sheep December 5, 2012 at 6:26pm

Hi Brian.

Thank you for the good luck vote of confidence.

Yes you are very true with the projections.

My wife is German and my accountant is very German hence I have to do projections to keep these two very special women happy in my life!!!

Two days ago when I finally managed to create a graph that allows me to accurately judge time, costings and clients it was some what of a relief I must say.

I will have a quick read up on the Etesia and Honda Izzy range. Maybe research how to sharpen the blades as well?
PRO

Brian www.mibservices.co.uk December 5, 2012 at 6:43pm

You might want to check out Gary's recent post and doc. donation on lawn pricing and measures. Its a recent post so will be easy to find
English Sheep December 5, 2012 at 8:06pm

Yeap I thnk I replied to that post as it was either my first or second posting here on the forum.

I also keep trying to get Phil book but I am not allowed access from over in Germany??
Daniel Wilkie December 7, 2012 at 10:29am

Hi Gregory,

First off i would like to congratulate you on taking the next step into making a dream job, reality!

Hopefully i can help where i can with the second question of fertiliser and seed. Thank you for having a look at our website and researching our products.

What may be of interest is that we offer a Professional lawn care range that we do not currently advertise on our website. This has been developed alongside our lawn care professional customers in the UK to offer a cost effective, durable range.

We offer a range of Organic, part organic, Inorganic products for lawn care, as each area requires a different approach for either cost effective solutions or the desire for going organics. We like to use organic fertilisers as these bolster the soil biology, but we do realise that demanding customers makes the organic option not as viable.

One of the most popular aspects of our fertilisers is our Biological TRB's (thatch reducing Bugs). These are naturally occurring soil microbes that we add to certain products. What these bugs do is 'recycle' thatch in grass back into nutrients that the plant can absorb. This is very popular with our lawn care professionals as it reduces the amount of scarifying needed, reduces the required amount of fertiliser required, and has great results!

If I can help you in anyway or would like more inforamtion please let me know, if anyone would like to know more about our lawn care range please email me on dan@symbio.co.uk

We are also looking to plan a lawn care seminar this year for our existing lawn care companies and anyone that would like to know more about our range of products, how the biological aspects work, how we work. Who would be interested in this?

Again i would like to wish you the best of luck with your new venture!

Many thanks

Dan Wilkie

Symbio
English Sheep December 7, 2012 at 7:53pm

Dan.

Thank you for the insight.

I look forward to hopefully trying to attend one of your seminars some time.

I'm also very curious to see how my soon to be potential clients react to my offering of an organic lawn care package.

The cost analysis for your product against the likes of conventional lawn care products will certainly be interesting to weigh up.

Any other thoughts anyone?
Mark Ellis December 9, 2012 at 1:45pm

Hi Gregory. I read your posting with great interest.

I started my own Lawn Care business in the UK 3 years ago. It is a franchised business.

Not sure what your aims for your business are. Are you setting up as specialized Lawn Care service or general gardening business?

If you want to offer Lawn/Turf treatments then I trust you have the relevant training, knowledge and licences to carry out that side of it. If you want to treat turf with herbicides/pesticides commercially do you need relevant licences in Germany? Are you going to offer scarification and Aeration services.

As far as fertilisers are concerned I would recommend Scotts. Now known in UK as Everris.

As far as lawn mowers are concerned; Masports are ok, I used one for a year but now use Honda Pro. Far better in my opinion. Model will depend on your budget and if your customers want a stripe finish. I use 4 wheeled in wet conditions and rear roller in dry conditions. I never 'let fly' and always collect, so mulching machines are not needed.

Hope above helps and best of luck. One tip I would offer before you start. Do your research my friend!

If you want to talk, call me. 07884 052 363.

Mark. TruGreen Bromley.
English Sheep December 9, 2012 at 8:20pm

Hi Mark and many thanks for the useful insight.

My intent is to specialise within lawn care.

Yes I have the PA1 & PA6 qual. Because of the ever tight use on chemicals I am leaning towards the organic methods for treating clients lawns. Hence promoting the Symbio range of quality products. Scott's / Everris are available over here which is great and a useful back up. It must be said that the Netherlands is more or less on our door step perhaps with a little research product sourced from the Netherlands I would imagine should be cheaper?

Great advice on the lawn mower thank you. Buy cheap buy twice is something I do not want to accur. I have searched for the Honda pro and the Etasia models on ebay.de. Few and far between, that certainly tells me something. However the initial outlay is certainly very very scary. Scary yet if a company can get three or five years life from initial purchase then perhaps one should lean to this as the choice?

Tips we all love. Research, man the research is driving me crazy.

Mark thank you again and you may get a 0049 40 number calling you. Do not worry it will be via VOIP so will not cost you a penny!

Regards

Gregory