How to Build a $1 Million Lawn Care Business

Dec 14

Do you dream of growing your lawn care business to $1 million in revenue?

Over the last 8 years, we’ve worked with hundreds (yes, hundreds) of lawn care business owners who hit a million per year … including a few who went to $10 million and beyond. It’s hard work, but most people have the wrong idea about why it’s hard.

Here’s the truth: you don’t have to outwork everyone else. You don’t have to work 80 hours a week to build a million-dollar lawn care business. In fact, this “keep grinding” mindset might hurt your chances in the long run…

Instead, you must work smarter.

When it comes to the lawn care business, you’re already a lawn care expert. Now, you need to become a business expert.

You need three things: a profit-focused mindset, create razor-sharp efficiency, and systems that allow you to grow with minimal effort. Whether you’re just starting your first lawn care business, or you’ve been running one for 10+ years, this guide will show you how to scale your business and finally reach $1 million in revenue per year.

How Long Does it Take for a Lawn Business to Reach $1 Million?

The fastest we’ve ever seen someone reach $1 million in revenue was within their first year. But this person was an outlier—they had started several businesses before, and they had a significant cash investment at the outset.

More likely, if you start focusing on it now, it will take you around 3-5 years. Please note this timing is not guaranteed. Over the next years, you will have to put in the work and you will have to continuously evaluate and optimize your business practices.

In a moment, we’ll walk you through the math to figure out exactly how many clients you’ll need to find to hit this number. But first, let’s talk about the most important mindset for reaching $1 million:

Mindset #1: Get Out of the Field

Too many owners get stuck working in the business. They wear all the hats—from salesperson to crew leader to answering calls from upset clients. As a result, they don’t get to focus on the most important task: being the CEO.

The CEO’s #1 job is to work on the business. This is the most valuable work you will ever do for your business, and you’re the only one who can do it. Whereas mowing a lawn might be worth $20 an hour, the CEO’s time is valued at $1000 to $10,000 an hour, because the CEO works on extremely valuable systems and projects. As CEO, it’s your job to make decisions that will forever change the future of your business.

So if you’re still working in the field, performing $20/hr work … you are slowing down your business. You are holding yourself back from real growth.

Getting out of the field might be the most difficult phase for any lawn care owner. It’s not easy. You need to hire the right people, you need to train good crew leaders, and you must be able to trust them. This means you need the money to hire the right people, which probably means raising your prices (or lowering your personal living expenses).

This is the one time when you may have to work extra hours every week. This overtime is temporary, but you must do whatever it takes to get out of the field.

When you get out of the field, you will have far more time to work on the major projects and systems that are worth $1000+ per hour and more.

Mindset #2: Focus On Your Numbers

The equation for growth is simple:

More clients x more money per client = more revenue.

But nobody grows to $1 million with a simple formula. You must know all your critical numbers, inside and out.

Which numbers are critical to the lawn care industry? Here is a set of questions that will allow you to get the health of your business down to a science:

Are your routes as efficient as possible?

Do you price as high as possible?
Do you pay your best employees enough to keep them happy?
Do you pay them the right way to keep them motivated?
Do you know your client retention rates?
Do you know how much your clients are worth per year?
Do you know your average client lifetime value?

That last question is the key to achieving your $1 million goal. When you know your average lifetime value, it becomes simple to see exactly what you need to do to grow.

Here’s an example of how that works:

What Does a $1 Million Lawn Care Business Look Like?

If you charge clients $50 per week, and you mow about 30 times a year, your clients are worth $1500 per year. That means you’ll need 667 clients to reach $1 million in revenue per year.

$1,000,000 ÷ $1500 per client = about 667 clients`

However, if you increase your value per client, you reduce the number of jobs (and therefore, the number of employees) you need to reach $1 million.

For example, if you increase your client lifetime value to $2000, you only need to have 500 clients total.

$1,000,000 ÷ $2000 per client = 500 clients

Thinking about your lawn business in these terms is critical to your growth. You must be logical and look at your business with an analytical eye. Then, you’ll be able to make more intelligent decisions, work smarter, and grow the business of your dreams.

Mindset #3: Build Systems that Run Themselves

The best way to build a million-dollar business … is to build a business that runs itself.

Who is the hardest worker in your business? You.

That’s why you must build systems that run automatically, without your involvement. This will allow you to essentially “clone” yourself across your business. Imagine if you had 10, 20, or 100 more of you working in your business. That’s what the best systems can do, and that’s the only way to scale your growth.

The Most Important Systems in a $1 Million Lawn Business

1. A Strong Hiring Pipeline

Why would you want 500 clients if you don’t have enough employees to service them?

The most important system any lawn care business can build is your hiring pipeline. Ideally, you always have a full bench of applicants, ready and waiting to be interviewed and join your company.

You need to build a hiring process, one that makes your search for employees easy and automatic. There are two parts to this:

1.You need to create an interview process that helps you compare applicants in a fair manner.

Create an interview document that includes interview questions and your desired criteria so you can hire more efficiently.

2.You need a way to keep your bench of applicants full.

For that second part, we’ve got a great guide on running hiring ads through indeed. If you want some help with this—or you just want to get this task off your plate—Lightspeed Social Agency can help you build, run, and optimize your hiring ads on Indeed, Facebook, and more.

2. A Customer Satisfaction Machine

Who answers the phone? Who schedules jobs? Who dispatches your crews? Who deals with customer complaints and keeps your clients satisfied?

You need office staff to take this work off your plate. The easiest way to start is by hiring virtual assistants until you can afford full-time office staff to help you run your business more smoothly—and let you focus on higher-value tasks. Remember, it’s about working on your business, not in it.

3. A Marketing Engine that Runs All Year Long

You want to build a marketing engine that constantly feeds new clients into your business. It should have a strong Return on Investment, or ROI, which means that for every $1 you put in, you should get more than $1 out.

Predictable marketing results like this allow businesses to scale to ridiculous heights. After hiring, this is the #1 secret to hitting $1 million and beyond.

Your marketing should yield predictable results, all year long. It should help you generate new work, even during your slower seasons. You should be able to see how much money your marketing generates, so you know where to keep spending your marketing dollars.

Want to Grow Faster?

Working with a Marketing agency can help you massively ramp up your business. Even better, a good agency will help you optimize for growth—all without taking up your valuable time. You get to outsource the hard work, while your company continues to grow.

At Lightspeed Social Agency, we’ve worked with many lawn care companies to gain significant growth, even into the millions of dollars. The Green Industry is our specialty, and we use tested and proven strategies to give you the greatest ROI on all your marketing efforts. We specialize in helping lawn care businesses find more clients (and great employees) with powerful digital ads.

If you want to work with our expert team, contact Lightspeed Social Agency here, and we’ll show you how we can help you reach the growth of your dreams.

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