How to Start a Lawn Care Business

Starting a lawn care business is not that difficult. Just look at how many young teenagers are running around with a trailer and some pretty nice equipment. It's not rocket science, but you do need to have some direction. Choosing the right direction takes some knowledge and that is what we are going to give you.

What do I need?

Business

The first thing you need is a desire to start and run a successful business. If your heart isn't in it, then you might as well go home. The next thing you need is to write up a business plan for your new venture. This includes coming up with a name for your business, listing your startup expenses, writing a mission statement, and creating a list of short-term and long-term goals. Develop a list of several points that will be key to your success. Finally, you need to lay out the steps you need to take to meet your short-term and long-term goals.

How to Start a Lawn Care Business

What should I name my business?

Obviously, one of the easiest names to pick is your own, but some people like to get creative and choose names like Razor Lawn Care or Above the Hedge.

What equipment should I get?

This is one of the most important steps to the success of your business. It is the difference between being professional and well... not. You need to get commercial grade equipment if you want to succeed. The amount of use and abuse your equipment is going to have is very substantial. I'm sorry, but Wal-Mart brands are not going to cut it. You need brands like Toro, Husqvarna, and Exmark. To start out with you are going to need a good walk-behind mower, edger, trimmer, and blower. As your business grows you can add a zero-turn radius mower and other equipment as needed.

How do I get clients?

Ok, so you have your business plan, your equipment, and a will to make things work. Now what? Get some clients. Starting out is the hardest time to get clients. The key is to display yourself and your equipment in a professional manner. First impressions are everything. Once you have established yourself, you won't have to work nearly as hard to get more clients. The easiest and cheapest way to get started is to exhaust your circle of influence. That is family members and people that you know. Then you can make some business cards, signs, and flyers. They aren't that expensive and you can pass them out pretty easily. If you're still not getting enough clients, then you may need to start going door-to-door. Remember to present yourself and your equipment in the most professional way you can.

What price do I charge?

Pricing is a sticky issue. Nobody has a set formula that is easy to apply. It all depends on your location, competition, customer, and the job. I personally have a minimum that I charge for extremely small yards that take 15 minutes or less to finish. The price can go up to as much as several hundred dollars depending on the size and difficulty of the job. The key with pricing is to get the job and charge enough to make it a profitable job.

Do I need accounting software?

If you want to make things a hundred times easier, yes, you need accounting software. I use and recommend Quickbooks Pro. It is pretty easy to setup and makes keeping up with your finances a breeze. You can also create really professional invoices to send out to your customers, keep up with when you receive payments, and who still owes you money.

How do I deal with trouble customers?

Everyone ends up getting a trouble customer and there is nothing more annoying than someone who is never pleased with your work and basically demands something for nothing. I always treat these customers with the same respect that I would any customer with one exception. I always charge them more. If they accept my higher prices, then I get paid for dealing with them. If they decide to stop using me, I got rid of them without a bad taste in their mouth because I was respectful. It is a win-win way to handle them.

Keys to Success

Finally, let's discuss the keys to your success in starting up a lawn business. Always do more than is expected of you. Going the extra mile always pays off. It means higher customer retention, referrals, and ultimately more money! Present every aspect of your business with the utmost professionalism. Your image and reputation are everything to your business. Do not do anything to hurt them. Last, have fun and enjoy your work. Take pride in the job you do and you will succeed beyond measure.

How to Start a Lawn Care Business

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Unethical Business Practices

Bad press and lawsuits are things that every business owner fears. Bad press can ruin your reputation, as well as your business, and lawsuits can bankrupt you. The easiest way to avoid both of these situations is to avoid unethical business practices. There are very easy ways to avoid unethical business practices.

First, adhere to the old standby that honesty is the best policy. Be honest in all of your business dealings, whether it concerns vendors, customers, or employees. This also means that you need to use honesty when reporting earnings and expenses, when paying employees and vendors, and when disclosing information to customers.

Business

When you are faced with a complaint, whether that complaint comes from a customer, a vendor, an employee, or the community, the complaint needs to be dealt with head on. Burying your head in the sand, and hoping that the problem will go away will only serve to make the situation worse, and because you are responsible, this isn't the ethical way to handle problems. Never try to spin your own version of the truth to make the problem not look as bad as it really is. This will only damage your reputation in the long run.

Unethical Business Practices

When many companies are using unethical business practices, instead of trying to correct the problem, they try to cover it up. They will even go as far as paying loads of money on advertising and public relations to try to hide the problems at hand. Again, this is an unethical business practice, and it should be avoided. When mistakes are made, address them clearly, apologize, do better, and move on. The community as a whole will respect you a great deal more for this than they will if you do nothing, or try to hide a problem, only to be found out later.

Ethical business issues often arise that have little to do with the workplace, but a great deal to do with the product that is being sold. It could be that there are dangers with the product that were only recently discovered. If you are practicing ethical business, you will notify the public about these dangers, and depending on the extent of the danger, you may need to recall the product - even if it means losing some money, and losing some business in the future. Recall the product and fix the problem, and you will avoid a loss of your reputation, as well as lawsuits. When you recall a product, you get press, but because you took the appropriate ethical action, it isn't considered to be bad press.

Placing blame is another issue. When problems occur, it seems that a businesses first instinct is to look for someone to blame, instead of taking responsibility for the problem themselves. Not only is this unethical, it is almost childish in nature, and it does little to instill trust in the public, in employees, or in vendors. If the issue arose because of a mistake that an employee made, depending on the seriousness of the problem, the employee may be fired, but it is unethical for the business to name that employee. In the public's eyes, it is the company that made a mistake, and not an employee.

Again, there are many unethical business practices that crop up in the business world on a day-to-day basis. For your particular business, it is important to constantly monitor yourself and your employees to ensure that you are operating above board, and that unethical business practices are dealt with immediately, in the best possible way.

Unethical Business Practices

This and other topics that deal with corporate communications, business to customer relationships, and sales training through Collective Vision are just some of the topics discuss.

And now I would like to offer you one of my book chapters absolutely free. You can get instant access at http://www.jedreay.com/freechapters

From Jed A. Reay - The Communicator/Connector and Visionary Master Sales Trainer.

How To Create An Effective Business Development Strategy

The Business Development Strategy is used to underpin your main Business Plan and essentially it sets out a standard approach for developing new opportunities, either from within existing accounts or by proactively targeting brand new potential accounts and then working to close them.

This document highlights the key issues you should consider prior to compiling your own plan and will hopefully guide you logically through a proven framework.

Business

The key word is 'Strategy', because you are creating a workable and achievable set of objectives in order to exceed your annual target.

How To Create An Effective Business Development Strategy

Your Starting Point:

The key words are Who? What? Where? When? Which? Why? How?

For example:

Who - are you going to target?

What - do you want to sell them?

Where - are they located?

When - will you approach them?

Which - are the appropriate target personnel?

Why - would they want to meet with you?

How - will you reach them?

If you have conducted regular account reviews with your key accounts during the previous twelve months, you should be aware of any new opportunities that will surface during the next twelve months. You will also, when assessing what percentage of your annual target usually comes from existing accounts, need to review data over the last two or three years. (It is likely that you can apply Pareto i.e. 80% of your business will probably come from existing accounts and in fact 80% of your total revenue will come from just 20% of your customers/clients)

You will be left with a balance - i.e. "20% of my business next year will come from new opportunities" - therefore you can then begin to allocate your selling time accordingly.

Ideal Customer Profiling:

Pro-active business development demands that we create an ideal target at the front end - i.e. an "Ideal Customer Profile." The essential characteristics you will need to consider are:

- Industrial Sector

- Geographical Location (Demographics)

- Size of organizations (Turnover, number of employees etc)

- Financial Trends

- Psychographics - i.e. Philosophical compatibility

Many strategic sales professionals merely profile their best existing clients and try to replicate them - there's nothing wrong with doing this but we should always remember that we are seeking an IDEAL and we can always improve on what we already have.

'New' Opportunities From Within 'Old' Accounts:

Because it costs approximately ten times as much, to first locate and then sell to a new customer as it does an existing one (although these costs are rarely reflected in the cost of sales), it is essential that we fully develop our existing accounts working upwards, downwards and sideways, thus making the most of the (hopefully) excellent reputation we have developed already.

Most corporate accounts have several divisions, departments, sites, even country offices and you must satisfy yourself that you have exhausted every possible avenue. Don't be afraid to ask the question "Who else should I be talking to in your organization"?

This is an extract from my FREE eBook - "How to Construct an Effective Business Development Strategy" which is available for download - please see details below.

Copyright © 2012 Jonathan Farrington. All rights reserved

How To Create An Effective Business Development Strategy

To download my new revised FREE eBook "How to Construct an Achievable Business Development Strategy" please visit my personal site The JF Consultancy, - www.jonathanfarrington.com

Univera MLM Business - Opportunity Or Scam?

Univera Life Sciences is a network marketing company that provides a variety of nutritional supplements and services. They have established themselves as a leading network marketing company, and are quickly becoming known for their business opportunity.

However, there have been some concerns about the Univera business opportunity. In this article, we will go through and give an unbiased review of the pros and cons of promoting a Univera business, and see if Univera is truly a great business opportunity...or a great scam.

Business

1. Univera - The Good

Univera MLM Business - Opportunity Or Scam?

Univera was founded in 1998 by YunHo Lee, a Korean businessman that had long-suffered poor health. As the story goes, Mr. Lee tried all the tonics of conventional medicine with no results. One day, a friend gave him some juice from an Aloe vera plant, and made a "miraculous recovery".

In fact, Univera is one part of the ECONET conglomerate, which consist of

• Univera
• Unigen
• Aloecorp / Russia Biomass
• NatureTech

The flagship product for Univera is their AgelessXtra nutritional supplement. They are also have a well-structured compensation plan for their associates. As a network marketing business, you earn up to 15% on direct signups, and up to 5% on your downline, depending on what rank you achieve. They also have a 2% profit sharing program for distributors that reach a certain rank. They also have a BMW car program that allows their reps to bank an additional ,600 per month toward the payment of a BMW. Not too shabby.

2. Univera - The Bad

The Univera business opportunity looks really good at first sight; however, flags start to appear when we see their marketing plan. Like many network marketing businesses, Univera recommends that you grow your business with "relationship" marketing, i.e. selling product to friends, family members, and others that you know. Their program focuses on leveraging your "warm market" to grow your business which worked really well...50 years ago.

We live in a very different society today than we did in the 1950's, when network marketing first got started. These days, most people do not have large warm markets, and even if they are large, most people do not like to be sold items from their friends and family members.

3. Univera - The Ugly

Another issue is the concept of marketing the business first, the product second. Like many compensation plans, Univera gives out the most generous bonuses for the recruitment of other associates, so form a distributors standpoint, they are compensated for finding distributors first, product-users second.

The problem comes when a new distributor (who is not making any money yet) approaches their warm market with a business opportunity to make money. There is a credibility issue that arises when someone who is making no money is telling other people how they can make a whole lot of money. Many network marketing companies try and resolve this issue with "3-way calling", where the distributor calls their upline (who is supposedly making money) to talk to their prospect. Unfortunately, this only positions the distributor as a gopher instead of a legitimate business builder.

Growing a Univera business can be a great opportunity. They appear to have some good products, but there are plenty of companies that have great products, and many people that market great products never make a dime. There are also plenty of terrible products that generate millions of dollars in revenue (anyone remember the pet rock?) The difference is the marketer, and their ability to target their market effectively.

In closing, I would say that starting and developing a Univera business is lucrative if you know how to use the telephone, the Internet, and other effective marketing tools to grow your business. It is not a scam, but like any business, success will be determined by the skill-set of the marketer. Univera is definitely not a lottery ticket or a stock option - meaning, you do not just buy in and wait for a payout.

If someone does not have the first clue on how to market effectively, then I would suggest they either learn how to be an effective marketer, or else just use the Univera products as way increase personal health.

This article can be freely published on a website as long as it is not modified in any way including the author bylines and active hyperlinks.

Univera MLM Business - Opportunity Or Scam?

Joshua Fuson is a professional marketer, and has marketed dozens of different products and services. He has participated in the generation of over million dollars of revenue in network marketing in past 4 years alone. To find out how, you can go...here

To learn more about growing a Univera Business, you can get the Univera Success Blueprint

How to Start A House Cleaning Business In 7 Simple Steps

One of the main reasons people start businesses is to make money. For some it's a blessing to make money doing something they love. I'm not saying that you have to love house cleaning in order to have a successful house cleaning business; however it would be a good idea if you didn't hate it.

How much money you make depends on how big you want your business to be. It could be a one person operation where you set up at home and service areas close to home, or you could set up a commercial office and hire people to work for you.

Business

Here are 7 simple steps to get you started on your own house cleaning business.

How to Start A House Cleaning Business In 7 Simple Steps

1) Decide exactly what kind of house cleaning services you will offer.

Here you decided what cleaning you will do, like making beds, vacuuming, mopping and waxing floors, dusting and so on. Also note what you won't do, e.g. laundry. You can also decide to specialize, e.g. by cleaning carpets only, or cleaning suspended ceilings only.

2) Pricing your housecleaning service.

To have an idea of how to charge for your housecleaning service, use your competition. Check your telephone directory and the classified ads section in your local newspapers for cleaning businesses, call them up (pretend to be a prospective client) and find out exactly what cleaning services they offer and how much they charge. With this information gathered decide the best price to charge for your cleaning service.

3) Workout startup costs.

For this you need to consider, tools, material, transport, advertising, insurance etc. Write down a list all the tools and material you need, like cleaners, sponges, mops, carpet cleaning equipment etc. Next find out the cost of each item on the list and write it down next to the item.

Transport: you will have to estimate your costs here. You see it depends on where your client is located and your means of transportation to get to your client. (Having your own vehicle would be to your advantage).

Advertising: You can use free advertising (word of mouth) and paid advertising (classifieds, telephone directory ads etc). Phone calls to your local newspaper and the telephone company who publish your telephone directory will tell you the cost of placing ads.

Once you've gathered all this information, calculate your total startup costs.

4) Name your business.

Choosing an appropriate name for your house cleaning business is important. Here are a few examples I got of the internet, 'Maid Brigade', 'All Shine Cleaning', 'White Glove Cleaning Service'. Please avoid using 'Your Name Cleaning Services'. Using your own name as part of your business name is over done by many house cleaning businesses. Brainstorm and come up with a name that helps you stand out of the crowd.

5) Learn the zoning regulations of your community.

Check the city clerk's Office or your local library for a copy for a copy of the zoning laws governing your community. Your reason for doing this is that some zoning regulations prohibit home businesses in a community.

6) Do a few free cleaning jobs.

Well you're not actually doing them for free. You're doing them in exchange for references (these add to your credibility for future paying clients and are invaluable). You can offer these free cleaning jobs to friends, non profit organizations in your communities etc.

7) Get your first paying client then get another and another and another and so on.

Tell everyone you know that you've started a cleaning business and place ads in the local newspapers. In the beginning you need to spend most of your time and money getting paying clients. However, the more clients you get the less time and money you spend on marketing and more time you spend on cleaning and making your clients happy.

This is just the beginning. Once you start making money take a house cleaning business course to help you better manage your business in terms of growth, accounting, taxes, insurance better marketing strategies and more.

--

You have permission to publish this article electronically or in print, free of charge, as long as the bylines are included. A courtesy copy of your publication would be appreciated. fayolap@yahoo.com

How to Start A House Cleaning Business In 7 Simple Steps

Fayola Peters is the webmaster of housecleaning-tips.com. To find more information about a house business cleaning course check out her website at http://www.housecleaning-tips.com.

fayolap@yahoo.com

Report Writing - How to Format a Business Report

Introduction

Report writing is a time consuming business so it is a great shame if, having devoted all that time to writing your report, the quality is such that hardly anyone can be bothered to read it. Quite frankly, most report readers do not actually read all the report; they are too short of time. You might as well know it and accept it -- that is normal. They only read the parts that interest them. Frequently these are the summary, the conclusions and recommendations.

Business

Of course, some readers do need all the details you so carefully included, they are specialists, but most do not. Most readers just need two things: that the information they want is where they expect it to be so they can find it, and that it is written clearly so that they can understand it.

Report Writing - How to Format a Business Report

It is similar to reading a newspaper. You expect the news headlines to be on the front page; the sports coverage to be at the back; the TV listings on page whatever and the editorial comment in the middle. If what you want is not in its usual place then you have to hunt for it and you may get irritated. So it is with a report.

There is a convention as to what goes where. Stick with the convention and please your readers. Break the convention and people may get slightly irritated - and bin your report.

So what is that convention, the standard format?

Standard Sections

Title Section. In a short report this may simply be the front cover. In a long one it could also include Terms of Reference, Table of Contents and so on.

Summary. Give a clear and very concise account of the main points, main conclusions and main recommendations. Keep it very short, a few percent of the total length. Some people, especially senior managers, may not read anything else so write as if it were a stand-alone document. It isn't but for some people it might as well be. Keep it brief and free from jargon so that anyone can understand it and get the main points. Write it last, but do not copy and paste from the report itself; that rarely works well.

Introduction. This is the first part of the report proper. Use it to paint the background to 'the problem' and to show the reader why the report is important to them. Give your terms of reference (if not in the Title Section) and explain how the details that follow are arranged. Write it in plain English.

Main Body. This is the heart of your report, the facts. It will probably have several sections or sub-sections each with its own subtitle. It is unique to your report and will describe what you discovered about 'the problem'.

These sections are most likely to be read by experts so you can use some appropriate jargon but explain it as you introduce it. Arrange the information logically, normally putting things in order of priority -- most important first. In fact, follow that advice in every section of your report.

You may choose to include a Discussion in which you explain the significance of your findings.

Conclusions. Present the logical conclusions of your investigation of 'the problem'. Bring it all together and maybe offer options for the way forward. Many people will read this section. Write it in plain English. If you have included a discussion then this section may be quite short.

Recommendations. What do you suggest should be done? Don't be shy; you did the work so state your recommendations in order of priority, and in plain English.

Appendices. Put the heavy details here, the information that only specialists are likely to want to see. As a guide, if some detail is essential to your argument then include it in the main body, if it merely supports the argument then it could go in an appendix.

Conclusions and Recommendations

In conclusion, remember that readers expect certain information to be in certain places. They do not expect to hunt for what they want and the harder you make it for them the more likely they are to toss you report to one side and ignore it. So what should you do?

1. Follow the generally accepted format for a report: Summary, Introduction, Main Body, Conclusions, Recommendations and Appendices.
2. Organise your information in each section in a logical fashion with the reader in mind, usually putting things in order of priority - most important first.

Good luck with your report writing!

Author: Tony Atherton
© Tony Atherton 2005)

Report Writing - How to Format a Business Report

Tony Atherton is a freelance trainer and writer based in England. He has had four books published and about 90 of his articles have appeared in various magazines and journals. After an earlier career in industry he now runs in-company training courses in business writing, report writing (including technical reports) and taking minutes, as well as negotiation skills and time management. Over 6000 delegates have attended his courses. See http://www.tony-atherton.co.uk/reportwriting.htm for details of report writing courses, or see http://www.tony-atherton.co.uk for general information.

ACN MLM Business - Opportunity Or Scam?

ACN, Inc, is a network marketing company that provides consumers low cost telephone service, internet, wireless service, as well as digital and video phones. They have built themselves into a well-known MLM company, and claim to be the worlds largest direct seller of communication products.

ACN has also gained much attention for their income opportunity, and there are some very real concerns about starting or participating in an ACN business. In this article, we will go through and give an unbiased review of the pros and cons of doing an ACN business, and see if ACN is a great business opportunity...or a great scam.

Business

1. ACN - The Good

ACN MLM Business - Opportunity Or Scam?

ACN was founded in 1993 by Greg Provenzano, Robert Stevanovski, Mike Cupisz, and tony Cupisz. They operate in 19 countries and have over 1,000 employees worldwide. The company itself has a pretty simple product line - low-cost telecommunication service, internet service (DSL, broadband, and dial-up) and other basic wireless services. They have experienced double-digit growth for the past few years, and claim to reap 0m in revenue annually. One of the more notable achieve of ACN is that they have gotten Donald Trump to publicly endorse them as a great business opportunity. So far, so good.

2. ACN - The Bad

Whether or not ACN is a good business opportunity, it is clear that Mr. Trump has no intention of starting an ACN business. Additionally, making RVP or SVP (the top positions in ACN) take considerably more work than finding 3 people...who find 3 people...who find 3 people...etc. etc.

The theory of growing an ACN business is that the representative will simply find a few people who are already using telecom service, and switch over to ACN because of the income opportunity. The picture is painted that the distributor can be paid off everyone in their neighborhood who has a telephone...which is most everyone. The problem comes with a marketing concept called positioning.

3. ACN - The Ugly

ACN, like many other MLM's, teach their distributors to leverage their "warm market", friends and family. However, when a new distributor comes talking to their friends and family about making a tremendous income with a business opportunity...and the distributor is not making any money...there is a credibility issue that occurs, and the distributor is positioned as a gopher for someone else's business.

Growing an ACN business can be a great opportunity. They appear to have a good service, but there are plenty of companies that have great products, and many people that market great products never make a dime. There are also plenty of terrible products that generate millions of dollars in revenue (anyone remember the pet rock?) The difference is the marketer, and their ability to target their market effectively.

In closing, I would say that starting and developing an ACN business is lucrative if you know how to effectively use the telephone, the Internet, and other effective marketing tools. It is not a scam, but like any business, success will be determined by the skill-set of the marketer. ACN is definitely not a lottery ticket or a stock option - meaning, you do not just buy in and wait for a payout.

If someone does not have the first clue on how to market effectively, then I would suggest they either learn how to be an effective marketer, or else just use ACN as a way to save a few bucks on your phone bill.

This article can be freely published on a website as long as it is not modified in any way including the author bylines and active hyperlinks.

ACN MLM Business - Opportunity Or Scam?

Joshua Fuson is a professional marketer, and has marketed dozens of different products and services. He has participated in the generation of over million dollars of revenue in network marketing in past 4 years alone. To find out how, you can go... here

To learn more about growing an ACN business, you can go to The ACN Success Blueprint