As the year grows older and the
grass' growth begins to slow, it is time to think about winterizing
your commercial mowing equipment.
I have written articles before on
winterizing techniques. Most of the steps deal with keeping the
machine in good mechanical order. Lately, I have thought about
maintaining (and improving) the appearance of my 48" commercial
walk-behind lawn mower. This is a Scag lawn mower and the paint job
has not faired too well. There are places where the paint is
peeling.
I am a firm believe in giving a
professional appearance to my customers. If you take pride in your
equipment, your customers will be proud of you and you can charge
just a bit more than the other guy. I remember one estimate I did
for a customer. It was a small yard. I was busy that week and did
not have time for a new customer. At noon, I pulled into her
neighborhood. There was another lawncare company in front of her
house. The other company was in a pickup truck with some rusty, old
looking lawn mowers. I saw the guy on the porch giving the
estimate. He was in a dirty tee shirt without any name or logo on
it and just generally did not present a professional image.
I waited for him to leave and
then I gave my estimate to the customer. Without asking what the
other guy was charging, I told the lady my estimate was $35. At
that point, she asked if I had seen the other lawn care company.
They were only going to charge $20 for the lawn. She asked if I
could come down on my price. Since I would have to take time
away from my other customers, I told her $35 was as low as I could
go. Seeing that she was interested, I took her out to my truck and
showed her the equipment I would use on her lawn and I showed her my
log book so she could see some of the other customers. Without much
hesitation, she hired me on the spot and asked if I could do her
lawn that afternoon. It was about a 25 minute job (not bad for
$35). As she paid me she told me that she liked my professional
appearance and that she knew I would not have breakdowns since my
equipment was kept in good working order.
Now, I believe that you can
present any appearance you want and you can dress how you want and
no one should tell you how you should look. In that instance,
though, my professional appearance got me the job even though I was
charging $15 MORE than the other guy every week.
Let's get back to the winterizing
of my walkbehind lawn mower. Because of the story above, I am
thinking about striping down the deck of this machine this winter
and having a professional paint job applied to it. The cost will
probably be in the $150 to $200 range (maybe a bit more). I
really think it will be worth the hassle and the expense since it
will allow me to continue to have a great looking lawn mower for
only a little bit of money.
When you are just starting out in
your lawn care business, you might have to start with older
machinery. There is nothing wrong with that. But, as you start to
grow and you begin to make more money, do what you can to buy better
and more professional looking equipment. I think you will really
see the benefit in the types of customers you will get and the
amount of money they will pay you.
I will let you know how the deck
painting goes. If anyone out there has painted a lawn mower deck, I
would like to hear from you so we can compare notes.
My email address is:
LawnCareBusiness@Gmail.com
Take a look at the Lawn Care Business program found at the website
address below.
