Landscapers, How Do I Find Clients?

1st, good work will speak for itself...Word of mouth accounts for about 40% of my new business. 2nd, online presence...The more your business shows up across various websites, the higher your Google ranking will be. People rarely make it past the first or second page looking for services. I started out going door to door (or mailbox to mailbox) handing out cards/fliers. Now, 7 years later, we have more work than we can handle with little more marketing than a good website and word of mouth. Good Luck!

I am not a landscaper, just a dumb marketer- may I respond?

I live in the land of landscapers- Florida. Almost everyone has their yard maintained.

One simple trick I gave to a pressure washing college kid works great for landscapers, too.

Get a portable 'sandwich board' type sign holder that is bright orange. (You know, the type that hinges at the top and folds flat.) Have a simple sign printed that inserts in this holder that says "Your property can look this good, too! Call xxx-xxx-xxxx. Free evaluation".

Then, every time you pull up with your trailer, put that sign out on the street side by the back and leave it there while you work. Pick it up when you leave and head to the next place and repeat.

My pressure washing college kid made several thousand dollars every summer with this method. He told me he got so busy sometimes he stopped putting the sign out!

Hope it works for you, too.

Mark

Hi Ray we use HomeAdvisor to great success. You pay for your leads but you can pick your area and set a budget so it doesn't get out of control. Also, referrals are our best clients (as far as closing), my husband Kelly gives out 2 business cards to every client, and every estimate and that seems to works (long term). My last is door hangers, we have been in business of one sort or another for 30 years now and there seems to be a universal rule of marketing 100 phone calls or flyers or cards...yields 3 prospects every time and 1 will close. Sounds like alot but its worked for us for both of our businesses.

Let me ask you this...what is a customer worth to you? What is the average Lifetime Value of a customer over 12 months? Knowing that can really begin to answer that question. Once you know what a customer is worth to you and the business you then should know how much it costs to acquire a new lead and then how much it costs to acquire a new customer. Knowing these key metrics will dramatically help you decide how to grow your business and what method to use. I agree that Home Advisor and Thumbtack work pretty good for the home services industry however most businesses are plagued with a few issues. For one, they are typically over paying for a lead. These platforms are a business and generate revenue by providing you leads. Then there is the issue of the quality of the lead. Some business owners don't like some of the leads that come in. Additionally, these platforms usually farm out those leads to 5-10 different companies at the same time and whoever grabs the lead first gets it. Word of mouth works effectively but it also takes time. Time is money and as I stated above you should really be focusing on a few different metrics to know exactly how to grow your business and attract new customers. So I would say that there isn't enough information to answer that question effectively. Keep in mind, every geographical market is different so what may work for one business may not make sense for you. A method that works for one business may not work out for you. But knowing key metrics that are proven to grow any business will tell you exactly how to grow your business and will also be a much safer investment because the growth in the business is based on pure mathematics and not just theory.

This is my third year doing this full time and all I do is run a good looking ad in my local paper. I make sure my customers are satisfied with my work and they refer me to their friends and neighbors. Sometimes I also send out letters to real estate agents who have sellers who need yard and bed clean ups. Again those agents call me back for other houses and when those sellers buy new houses they call me to put in new landscape. All those little one time jobs add up. I've tripled my income in the first two years

get your web site into the so named 3 pack or snack pack for google local business. Not hard to do. Back up with excellent photos and video content. How to do xyz to your yard. One a week, 2 or 3 minute. Name it your city landscaping info. Local video is super easy to make show in Google search. You become local knowledge source, people call. Target zip codes in face book ad...again almost never sell, just infomation to prove experience, knowledge. Sell 5 percent of the time. Selling is old and dated, making people trust and feel you are knowledgeable is the new way of selling.

You might want to check out hardware stores or equipment rental businesses to see if they have a bulletin board. They might allow you to post your business card. Most will see this as an opportunity to exchange referrals to their businesses as well.

As others have stated before me, once you have a satisfied customer as a client, it should be easy to ask for referrals.

Please try Home Advisor. They are great to work with and will get reviews for you when the job is completed. They helped me out many times.

Time and Word of Mouth is the best source! However i spread flyers only in the neighborhoods i want to be in. This is a slower method but pays off in the end. when mass marketing you are all over the place, and the driving is reducing your Production & profitability! Hand spread flyers in the neighborhoods you want to be in and you will do more work side by side or close together. When I cut a customer I flyer two houses on each side of them and the 3-5 across the street on the day of my cutting.

From a customers' point of view, I have been waiting and trying for months to find a landscaper. Out of 9 companies I called, only 1 got back to me within 3 days. The others took more than a week! By the time I got more than 1 to come out and bid my yard, only 1 (the same one that got back to me 3 days later) was able to give me a quote in reasonable time. The other took 10 days, and 1 month later I am STILL waiting for landscapers to quote me labor! Know your prices! I understand that quoting takes time, but keep in touch! First, the only company that got back to me had a website, and it took them 3 days to even reach out and ask if "I was still interested". Calls like that should be made within a day! I understand that you need to quote the yard after seeing it, but 2 weeks is too long. And some guys...never got back to me at all. I contacted 9 landscapers, and only 2 in the end got back with an estimate. FYI, I need a landscaper because I just built a house and don't know a darn soul in town. I don't know my neighbors to even ask who they used, I called the local nursery and they didn't have anyone to recommend...so I looked online for local landscapers. If you didn't have a website, I most likely missed your company!