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27th July 2012

Starting up a landscaping business as a teen any advice?

posted in Society & Cultures |

Question by : Starting up a landscaping business as a teen any advice?
Hey, i’m almost 18 and I have a few of my friends that would be interested in working with me (I would be the boss). But I had an idea to start up a landscaping company like taking care of peoples lawns, mowing etc. But does anyone have any advice that would help me with the business? And especially some good ideas for advertising. THANKS!

Best answer:

Answer by John
Great glad to see your wanting to do something positive at your age i recommend you begin researching what it will cost to purchase equipment/gas/ and related materials. What do you want to get paid for your service and find out how many yards you would have to do to break even. You will also have to think about how big you want to make it. Do you want it for a job? Do you want to expand it and make it a leader in your city? All this is up to you, if you are truly interested in becoming a businessman a great book to open your mind to it is: Think and Grow Rich by napolean hill.

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1 On July 27th, 2012, Fred said:
The first thing you need to decide is how you will structure your business.

If your the employer, and you hire them, you need insurance and employee coverage for everyone that works for you, and it can be costly.

However, if your the employer, and you contact out to them, then you dont. Everyone that works for you is an independant contactor, no need to register a business. They bill you every 2 weeks and you pay them a service, no need to pay taxes for employment.

They just use the earnings to file yearly taxes.

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You need to research equipment, depreciation value, and costs of running the equipment, Cut, Trim, Blow, basic lawncare. Also consider gardening, weeding, outdoor window washing. Everything outdoors around the outside of the house to boost your customer base and profits.

Business cards and self printed flyers is all you need to get started for advertising. Just leave a flyer in everyone mailbox within 4 blocks from where you’d like to start, flyer should include your business name, services, email address, phone number, and website.

You would need just a basic informational website that talks about your services and contact info.

Offer free quotes like;

$ 45 cut per time.
$ 8 trim
$ 8 blow
8% taxes
$ 3 fule charge

Ideally for a lawn care business, you’ll break even the first 8 months, you wont be making profits until you get more customers closer to each other (remember to pay employees and yourself, should have no profits for the first 8 months after paying everyone)

Then you need a simple accounting program to invoice customers, cover the cost of working. You bill them, they give you a cheque.

Once you get a few customers, word of mouth will be your strongest advertising.

You can run some online flyer and newspaper ads later that cost money, but door to door self made flyers is the best.

Then you can work on getting vehicle sign for your trucks to advertise on your transportation.

Always offer other services! Be polite, respectful, and customers will come. You might go to a customers home to do a quick cut and trim, then offer to clean easetraughs and wash their windows for a intro discount. Now you have a customer for multiple services in the future.

Best of luck!

posted on July 27th, 2012 at 7:20 pm