There are many resources available to those wanting to start a lawn care business. Before taking the plunge and investing in your startup it is wise to spend at least a few months researching as much as possible about this industry and business in general. Below are some lawn business resources that you may find useful for finding relevant information.
Books and E-Books
Many successful lawn care entrepreneurs have published books on the subject of setting up and running a profitable company. Online book retailers have numerous titles available and there are also some great lawn care business e-books and startup kits that can be purchased online. The advantage with e-books is that you can download them immediately after you purchase them. E-books often also come with additional resources such as standard letters and flyer templates.
Lawn Care Community Forums
The Internet offers a large variety of forums or message boards related to lawn care. Some of them are based on the subject of lawn care in general and some are specifically targeted to lawn care business owners. The benefits of registering with one of these forums is that you can read a huge volume of posted information and network with other like-minded businessmen and women. You can also post queries that may be answered by some of the communities more knowledgeable members.
Courses
Courses in lawn maintenance, landscaping and gardening are reasonably popular at night schools or community colleges.
A course specifically related to starting a lawn care business would be hard to find but there are many business related courses that you could consider taking that teach you how to set up and run a small business.
Get Information from Competitors
Do some investigation into how other 'green industry' players in your area are running their businesses. The successful ones must be doing something right that may be worth replicating. You can get a lot of information on your local market and discover what marketing methods are working locally by learning more about your competition.
Get Information from Suppliers
Find out where you can buy commercial lawn mowing equipment in your area and visit some of these stores. You will not only be able to learn something about the equipment that you will be using but you may also pick up information about the local industry by chatting with the owner or sales staff.
Other Lawn Business Resources and Information Sources
Consider starting out by working for a well established lawn care company before setting up your own. By working with a professional for six months or so you can learn all aspects of the business and they may even help to guide you into your own business when you are ready.
Approach some successful lawn care business owners and ask them if they would be prepared to help guide you to success. Ask them if they have any work that you could do for them to return the favor. This can only really work if you find a mentor in another city or state as they won't be interested in helping you if will eventually be competing against them.
Being fully informed about the industry before you enter it will ensure that you plan your course for success and start off in the right direction. Getting up to date information on starting a lawn business can also help you to avoid some of the common mistakes that business owners in this industry often make. There are some great information sources and resources out there so get stuck in and start planning for your success in this potentially lucrative industry
Showing posts with label Customer Service. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Customer Service. Show all posts
Tuesday, April 13, 2010
Some Things For Young Entrepreneurs to Consider
Being an entrepreneur while still in school can be an exciting venture for teens and young adults. The prospect of earning their own money and toying with the idea of retiring when they reach thirty is one of the reasons why some young people would want to try their hand at running their own business.
Think before you leap. That saying could never be more appropriate than in starting one's own business venture. Before one takes the plunge and invests hard earned savings or money borrowed from family, one should consider some important things. Having these cleared out before even starting will help one later on especially when the going gets tough.
Is this something that you love? The importance of doing what you love is very much a priority when running one's own business. Therefore, one should ask this question first and be sure that the answer is a very clear "yes". Loving what you do will be the necessary fuel in order to persevere when the business may take some time to take off or hits a snag.
Despite being a newbie in business and being very young at that, young entrepreneurs should never be afraid to do something different. This is an advantage that the youth can exploit while they still have that boundless energy and unlimited ideas that are out of the box.
Finally, one should examine one's motives and goals for entering into business. As the saying goes, "Begin with the end in mind." Young entrepreneurs then should ask what goal do they want to eventually reach. Is the business just for the summer? Is it going to be just a side project while attending university? Or is one willing to leave school if the business takes off? Asking these questions will help in guiding one in making business decisions.
Think before you leap. That saying could never be more appropriate than in starting one's own business venture. Before one takes the plunge and invests hard earned savings or money borrowed from family, one should consider some important things. Having these cleared out before even starting will help one later on especially when the going gets tough.
Is this something that you love? The importance of doing what you love is very much a priority when running one's own business. Therefore, one should ask this question first and be sure that the answer is a very clear "yes". Loving what you do will be the necessary fuel in order to persevere when the business may take some time to take off or hits a snag.
Despite being a newbie in business and being very young at that, young entrepreneurs should never be afraid to do something different. This is an advantage that the youth can exploit while they still have that boundless energy and unlimited ideas that are out of the box.
Finally, one should examine one's motives and goals for entering into business. As the saying goes, "Begin with the end in mind." Young entrepreneurs then should ask what goal do they want to eventually reach. Is the business just for the summer? Is it going to be just a side project while attending university? Or is one willing to leave school if the business takes off? Asking these questions will help in guiding one in making business decisions.
Value-Centric Business - How Creating Shared Value is Healthy For Your Business
An attractive title, and is usually talked about but rarely practiced for many reasons. Doing business comes usually in two formats: a vendor sells a customer a solution or service, or a company strikes a partnership with another for the former goal; selling a solution or a service. At least that is valid and comprehensive in the world of solution vendors. Whether you're selling to a customer or partnering with others for that, you need to focus on "value" and that value should be a shared one amongst all parties. This value persuasion should happen from the first time you initiate a business, and should remain throughout your execution towards that business. Most people - if not all - believe in that as a fact of doing business, but they lose that focus down the road. In my opinion, what differentiates a successful deal from failure is the hard grab on "creating shared value".
To understand the importance of a value-centric business, I will try to compare it with the other not-so-optimal approaches that I could think of, and that most of what I have seen falls under. These are: sale-centric business, metric-centric business, and compete-centric business. I will then close by show the optimum approach: value-centric business.
In a sale-centric business, a salesperson is typically assigned a quota and he usually goes after his quota with no vision and plan. He usually goes without a plan, and hunts down those deals that will make him achieve what he has been assigned. In this mode, the salesperson ignores the deals that require a lot of preparation and efforts and focuses on the quick ones. He usually puts his company and the customer under pressure to make a deal without looking at what his customer really asks for. This approach usually creates unhealthy business relationships, if any at all, and usually end up with failure due to the increasingly unsatisfied customer base it tends to create. It goes without saying; the person who operates in this mode usually lacks the vision, or at least doesn't try to focus on one, and is usually a short-term thinker. Don't get me wrong here as some people who work in this mode are smart and hard-working but sometimes get forced to work like that with the great pressure from their companies and lack of leadership in their teams. It's definitely their responsibility to make a change, and usually requires a lot of work and value thinking to make it happen.
The other approach, the metric-centric business, is a superset of the above as it focuses on getting something done when that is measurable. A sales number is at essence a metric that all organizations are after, and some organizations include more metrics to monitor and enhance their business. Metrics like productivity, readiness, satisfaction, and share are some examples that don't have revenue at their core, but influence it in an indirect way. Metrics usually are put in some sort of a company-wide scorecard for monitoring and reporting. People who are after achieving metrics could easily lose the focus and the essence of doing real business, and get trapped in how quicker they can mark there metrics green. Getting a green metric becomes - unfortunately - a check mark that simply signifies the achievement. In reality, that check mark hides a great deal of logistical efforts without a real business impact!
We live in a competitive world, where companies are competing for share and winning customers. The competitive market offers great value to end-customers, and usually highlights the uniqueness of a company or an offering that couldn't be possible otherwise. When focusing solely on getting market share (what I call compete-centric business), a salesperson may lose track of his customer needs, and usually goes head-to-head with his competitors in a way that they all complicate the original requirements in order to win the deal. You may experience this when a customer asks for a simple solution and the different companies competing start to show off their solutions and how feature-rich they can be. The original requirements get complicated without the customer noticing! Unfortunately, if you try to advice the customer how simple his requirements are, and how complicated they are becoming, you may be seen as less-competitive and hence get out of the play easily. It then becomes a hard decision to either go with the follow or stand by your position.
A value-centric business avoids the problems caused by the other approaches, and is very important to create sustainable business; a business that continues to grow with happy customers and partners. On the other hand, it is the most challenging path to go through. Creating value and focusing on how to make that balanced between all parties is not an easy task at all, and usually requires long-term thinking and a great deal of effort to create it. It is, from my perspective, worth persuading since it creates the platform that everything will stand on, and the stronger it's the healthier your business is going to be. If you are laser-focused on creating shared value, you'll end up achieving your sales, greening your metrics, and winning share from your competitors. Besides, and this is what I love the most about value-centric business, you'll end up enjoying what you do because of the deep involvement of both your mind and heart!
To understand the importance of a value-centric business, I will try to compare it with the other not-so-optimal approaches that I could think of, and that most of what I have seen falls under. These are: sale-centric business, metric-centric business, and compete-centric business. I will then close by show the optimum approach: value-centric business.
In a sale-centric business, a salesperson is typically assigned a quota and he usually goes after his quota with no vision and plan. He usually goes without a plan, and hunts down those deals that will make him achieve what he has been assigned. In this mode, the salesperson ignores the deals that require a lot of preparation and efforts and focuses on the quick ones. He usually puts his company and the customer under pressure to make a deal without looking at what his customer really asks for. This approach usually creates unhealthy business relationships, if any at all, and usually end up with failure due to the increasingly unsatisfied customer base it tends to create. It goes without saying; the person who operates in this mode usually lacks the vision, or at least doesn't try to focus on one, and is usually a short-term thinker. Don't get me wrong here as some people who work in this mode are smart and hard-working but sometimes get forced to work like that with the great pressure from their companies and lack of leadership in their teams. It's definitely their responsibility to make a change, and usually requires a lot of work and value thinking to make it happen.
The other approach, the metric-centric business, is a superset of the above as it focuses on getting something done when that is measurable. A sales number is at essence a metric that all organizations are after, and some organizations include more metrics to monitor and enhance their business. Metrics like productivity, readiness, satisfaction, and share are some examples that don't have revenue at their core, but influence it in an indirect way. Metrics usually are put in some sort of a company-wide scorecard for monitoring and reporting. People who are after achieving metrics could easily lose the focus and the essence of doing real business, and get trapped in how quicker they can mark there metrics green. Getting a green metric becomes - unfortunately - a check mark that simply signifies the achievement. In reality, that check mark hides a great deal of logistical efforts without a real business impact!
We live in a competitive world, where companies are competing for share and winning customers. The competitive market offers great value to end-customers, and usually highlights the uniqueness of a company or an offering that couldn't be possible otherwise. When focusing solely on getting market share (what I call compete-centric business), a salesperson may lose track of his customer needs, and usually goes head-to-head with his competitors in a way that they all complicate the original requirements in order to win the deal. You may experience this when a customer asks for a simple solution and the different companies competing start to show off their solutions and how feature-rich they can be. The original requirements get complicated without the customer noticing! Unfortunately, if you try to advice the customer how simple his requirements are, and how complicated they are becoming, you may be seen as less-competitive and hence get out of the play easily. It then becomes a hard decision to either go with the follow or stand by your position.
A value-centric business avoids the problems caused by the other approaches, and is very important to create sustainable business; a business that continues to grow with happy customers and partners. On the other hand, it is the most challenging path to go through. Creating value and focusing on how to make that balanced between all parties is not an easy task at all, and usually requires long-term thinking and a great deal of effort to create it. It is, from my perspective, worth persuading since it creates the platform that everything will stand on, and the stronger it's the healthier your business is going to be. If you are laser-focused on creating shared value, you'll end up achieving your sales, greening your metrics, and winning share from your competitors. Besides, and this is what I love the most about value-centric business, you'll end up enjoying what you do because of the deep involvement of both your mind and heart!
Who Pays Your Salary? 3 Ways to Get You Back in Touch With Your Customers
When people receive their paychecks, they rarely look at the signature line and are even less concerned about where the money comes from as long as they get paid. When you think about it, the CEO or President of your company has less influence on your pay than the customers you serve.
Customers are necessary for companies to stay in business, however, people who deal with them on a daily basis forget this basic fact. Without customers, you and the rest of your business associates would not be working.
It is no secret that clients can be pushy, unreasonable and demanding. Why not, they paid good money for your product and expect value for their purchase. Your job is to give them what they want within reason. If you are not committed to this idea, your time will be limited within the company you work for. It is understandable that some people just do not want to deal with the demands of the client and there are certain skills that are needed to keep them happy without driving your company out of business.
Not every customer should get what they ask for but these three traits should help you get back in touch with them:
1. Intent Listener - Customers want to tell you their issues and get your understanding about their situation. This is a natural process they go through with the hope you will be able to assist them in resolving their problem. Within 30 seconds of listening to their story, you can gain instant credibility and rapport if you respond with a sympathetic ear, even if you cannot solve their problem right away.
2. Understanding and Follow Through - Having the ability to speak articulately and really understand the issues and potential solutions speak volumes above the Yes Sir type of person. Nobody wants empty promises, they want a resolution to their issue and without intent listening, understanding and ability to follow through on a solution, you are wasting their time and causing more harm than good.
3. Sincere Desire to Help - Helping a client is not about doing it all yourself. It is about determining the issue, finding the right person to resolve it. It requires you to have the fundamental desire to assist others even if they are frustrated and venting. After you understand their issues, your desire to resolve them and satisfy the customer is critical to making them happy.
Customers are necessary for companies to stay in business, however, people who deal with them on a daily basis forget this basic fact. Without customers, you and the rest of your business associates would not be working.
It is no secret that clients can be pushy, unreasonable and demanding. Why not, they paid good money for your product and expect value for their purchase. Your job is to give them what they want within reason. If you are not committed to this idea, your time will be limited within the company you work for. It is understandable that some people just do not want to deal with the demands of the client and there are certain skills that are needed to keep them happy without driving your company out of business.
Not every customer should get what they ask for but these three traits should help you get back in touch with them:
1. Intent Listener - Customers want to tell you their issues and get your understanding about their situation. This is a natural process they go through with the hope you will be able to assist them in resolving their problem. Within 30 seconds of listening to their story, you can gain instant credibility and rapport if you respond with a sympathetic ear, even if you cannot solve their problem right away.
2. Understanding and Follow Through - Having the ability to speak articulately and really understand the issues and potential solutions speak volumes above the Yes Sir type of person. Nobody wants empty promises, they want a resolution to their issue and without intent listening, understanding and ability to follow through on a solution, you are wasting their time and causing more harm than good.
3. Sincere Desire to Help - Helping a client is not about doing it all yourself. It is about determining the issue, finding the right person to resolve it. It requires you to have the fundamental desire to assist others even if they are frustrated and venting. After you understand their issues, your desire to resolve them and satisfy the customer is critical to making them happy.
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