How To Start A Landscaping Business? – A landscaper is someone who uses their understanding of horticulture, building practices, and artistic design to beautify land. Landscape professionals perform tasks like:
- Leveling land
- Selecting plants and other materials that will thrive in the local climate
- Creating a layout that will create specific emotions, paths to follow, or lighting conditions
- Planting and caring for the landscape
1. Decide on the Services You’ll Offer:
Many people use landscaping as a blanket term that includes lawn care. But, lawn care also referred to as lawn maintenance, is a standalone business.
A lawn care business exclusively deals with the health of the lawn or garden. Typical lawn care services may include:
- Mowing
- Fertilizing
- Weed control
- Dethatching
- Aeration
- Cleanups
- Pruning
- Lime application
A landscaping business is more encompassing and covers many aspects of the outdoor space. Typical landscaping services include:
- Planting
- Installing sod
- Hardscaping work such as installing water features, pavers, concrete, and retaining walls
- Foundation planting
- Ponds and outdoor patios
- Garden sculptures
- Driveways for vehicles
- Mulching
- Landscaping design
2. Create a Plan:
The services you plan to offer, any specializations you might have, the tools and equipment you need to get started, your budget.
For example, here’s a list of items that you’ll need to start a landscaping business:
- Pickup truck: $30,766
- Mower: $350 to $1,499
- Trimmer: $169 to $249
- Edger: $109 to $119
- Blower: $109 to $409
- Two gas cans (one for regular fuel and one for mixed fuel for trimmers and edgers): $25
- Shovels: $13 to $34
- Shears: $13 to $32
- Rakes: $12 to $28
- Work gloves: $12 to $15
- Noise-canceling headphones: $89
- Safety goggles: $3 to $13
- Steel-toed boots: $76 to $83
3. Register Your Business:
Establishing your business entity involves choosing a name and registering your business with the state. While you can choose to be a sole proprietor with a “doing business as” (DBA) name, you don’t give yourself liability protection from that structure. Establishing an LLC or corporation offers you more protection.
To establish an LLC or corporation, you’ll file the appropriate paperwork with the secretary of state after you run a name search. The name search ensures that you are not choosing a name that competes with an existing business. The paperwork establishes the LLC documents or articles of incorporation.
3. Get Necessary Licenses And Permits:
With the paperwork you receive from the secretary of state, you will be able to file for a tax identification number (TIN) with the IRS. The TIN is similar to a Social Security number for your business and is necessary to open a bank account.
The TIN is free if you do it directly with the IRS. You can do so by submitting an online application.
4. Market your business:
You can help get your business off the ground with advertising and marketing aimed at your target audience.
Landscaping companies will probably want to blend digital and traditional marketing efforts when seeking new business. A comprehensive marketing strategy includes:
Online marketing:
Many prospective clients will find your business on the internet, so it’s ideal to have at least a basic website. If you don’t have the budget to hire a professional web developer, you can try creating one yourself with inexpensive tools like Wix, Squarespace, or WordPress.
Social media business pages at Facebook and LinkedIn can help reach potential customers, and make it easy for people to contact you. You can also generate business by creating profiles at online marketplaces such as TaskRabbit.
Physical advertising:
Flyers and brochures have long been effective marketing tools for lawn care services. Physical advertising is also relatively inexpensive and can help build name recognition as you start out.
Customer referrals:
For any business, one of the best ways to get new customers is word-of-mouth referrals.
Ask your clients if they know of anyone else who needs landscaping services. Encourage existing customers to recommend your business by offering discounted services if a referral becomes a client.
5. Maximize Profits with Landscaping Business Software:
I highly recommend Jobber to help you organize your business. Project management software also allows you to appear professional to your clients. In addition, jobber offers three pricing tiers, including:
- Core – Costs $49 per month with an annual plan
- Connect – Costs $149 per month with the annual plan
- Grow – Costs $249 per month with the yearly plan
I also recommend going with the annual plan rather than the monthly billing. You’ll save up to 20% off the monthly cost this way.
The Core plan is good enough to get you started. You’ll get all the essential features you might need out of project management software. For example, the CRM feature lets you keep track of crucial client information on the go. The client hub is a self-service feature where clients can check appointment details, approve quotes, print receipts, or pay invoices. Other features you’ll get with the Core plan include:
- Real-time scheduling
- Job details and attachments
- Consumer financing
- Quoting
- Invoicing
- Tip collection
- Instant payouts
- Credit card processing
- Reporting
- Jobber app marketplace
- 1-on-1 product support