Off Market Research

[Swampy]

Honestly I know there are forums out there that pretain to Landscaping, Marketing, etc but I'd like to hear more raw data.

I'd like to jump my numbers for the business to break into the 1/2 million plus bracket. Also the accountant is warning me for next year taxes towards if I don't claim a major purchase, I'm going through the roof (Thanks Wisconsin).

1. Going green! I haven't jumped on the wagon but a major account that is about 16% of the gross is leaning towards it. I run so called "Dirty" Diesels, low or pre emission diesel equipment. I have a ASE and diesel tech employeed, most of my summer equipment is ready to run Bio-Diesel or E80 gas. Making the switch is bad to me, more labor in shop hours for draining tanks in fall, none of the trucks are set up for vegi fuel (and from what I heard my 7.3's lock up with vegi fuel) I'm pretty sure I'm going with this opition but as a resident do you prefer a greener landscaper for a added price? <---I can take a big tax credit for this.

2. Going back to a major purchase. I believe it's time for my company to jump up to a big truck. Right now I run a single F550 (1 1/2ton) truck. She has been my work horse, slave driver, all around "pull me out of a bind" truck (Plus I got to make out on it since I dropped a new Tranny in it). I'm thinking I can jump into a used Municpal spec'ed truck, I have a 32ft Felling's trailer, but also a Deere Loader Backhoe for around 80K. I ask Condo Residental's this do mind seeing a large truck on site for regualar lawn mainteniance and/or a larger machine parked for snow removal?

[SCpoloRicker]

Condo/townhome owner here. I don't have much of a say in who the HOA contracts for landscaping. I'd probably prefer non-intrusive workers and trucks, but again, not my call beyond a single vote.

I'd target HOAs from a pricing perspective - they're only going to be interested in that anyways.

[Swampy]

Condo/townhome owner here. I don't have much of a say in who the HOA contracts for landscaping. I'd probably prefer non-intrusive workers and trucks, but again, not my call beyond a single vote.

I'd target HOAs from a pricing perspective - they're only going to be interested in that anyways.

Which I do and think about constantly. The unfortuante thing about HOA's it is almost nearly impossible to please everyone. Thus is why contractors like to deal more with the Property Management company vs. the indiviual resident's of HOA's, sometimes resident's cut out or limit a Property Management company and consider themselves as a General Contractor or have a Board, which honestly your opinion or vote could go along way vs. talking to a contractor or employee directly to end up getting "You have to talk to the board/management company so they can issue a work ticket"

My HOA's that I service either cut out the Management company, or limit it so much that they management company can recommend certain contractors (luckly I'm on the good side of Management companys even though its tuff to get paid on time sometimes).

Pricing and having non-intrusive personal go hand in hand together, many Condo owners look at price or cost somewhere when they evaluate us along with other things (quality, time from start to end, friendliness of staff). I could lower overall cost to cut the grass easily by using bigger equipment, granted it doesn't leave a very good cut vs. multiple smaller machines. But it does drop the ammount of time on site and the number of personal on site which drops the operating cost of the work being preformed.

Might be talking to far ahead of myself. Given a situation "I can mow your backyard in 1hour with a smaller machine or use 1 large machine and be done in 15min" thus dropping cost and being intrusive as we would be out of "hair" faster.

[sjrtk]

That is a very good question that i can't answer. But I think you should be able to get a tax credit for running bio-diesel trucks (of course it doesn't have the shelf life of regular fuel) the e85 gas no deal on. As far as the 7.3 goes i've never seen them lock up on veggi if you do the conversion right (second tank heated by coolant And supplied fuel is 100+ degrees to engine start and stop on regular diesel) it will gum up the injectors or pumps and filters if it cools i.e. shutting off on veggi. Look at the stuff Grease Car sells it wont shut down on veggi and has manual and automatic mode for the switch.

[Swampy]

That is a very good question that i can't answer. But I think you should be able to get a tax credit for running bio-diesel trucks (of course it doesn't have the shelf life of regular fuel) the e85 gas no deal on. As far as the 7.3 goes i've never seen them lock up on veggi if you do the conversion right (second tank heated by coolant And supplied fuel is 100+ degrees to engine start and stop on regular diesel) it will gum up the injectors or pumps and filters if it cools i.e. shutting off on veggi. Look at the stuff Grease Car sells it wont shut down on veggi and has manual and automatic mode for the switch.

That might work. Summertime run vegi, winter run straight diesel. I don't want to sound like I'm shooting down your idea but I have employee's, thus is why on the F550 I've ran threw a engine(washed out 2 cyclinders, short blocked it, then threw a rod), now on a full crate motor, 2 turbo's (now twin turbo'd) , front and rear end diff's, and recently a transmission. Not all their fault is a FriMonday truck from Ford :rofl: . While your opition of running a second tank won't work, the F550 is fitted with central hydralics systme with a 10 gal reservoir on the driver side, in the middle is the scissors lift, passenger side has a 40gal aftermarket fuel tank (that little ford 19gal tank wasn't cutting it)

Right now I run off road diesel in the mowers, skidsteer's, and the tractors. Which the over the road diesel tax is elimated since they are agri equipment or not on road use. Even though my big mower, Toro 580D, does get roaded between some accounts. Now like I said most of the diesel equipment will run bio diesel such as my Kubota's, Kohler, Cummins, and Deutz's will run. But the older Mistubishi's, CAT, Peugeot, Ford New Holland, and Navistar's won't. As a business sense is it worth it having 3 open diesel fuel type accounts, plus a open 2 type gasoline account?

I just read a little bit about this opition of changing gas powered over to propane powered. I do run 5 pieces of equipment that are over the 20hp mark which could make a difference. Propane being far more efficent per hour than gasoline. But I don't think there is a credit yet for it. Forklift guys, how do you like running a propane powerd vs other powered?

[sjrtk]

To bad about the veggi didn't think about the lay out of the hydraulics (and the 19 gal. ford tank doesn't cut it driving off the lot). My brothers dump had twin rams with room for a 35 gallon tank along with the hyrdo equipment.

[leloup]

As far as the "should you go green, will people pay for it?" conundrum, may I ask who your target market is? What is the income level of the areas you currently service, and what is the public opinion of the people in WI (that is where you are from, right?) about the environment? In Oregon, if you were a green landscaper in the affluent Portland area (super enviromental and very yuppie) you would do very well. I think if you want to target an upscale market, green is the way to go.

As far as other "major purchases", do you have a back hoe? Maybe a new truck? What are your needs as a company? I don't really know your business, otherwise I could use some analytical tools on it. Tell you what though, if you can pm or email me a detailed description of your business and operations, I will have my entreprenuership students try and figure out some possible solutions (though some of them are not the sharpest tools in the shed, I can wager we can come up with something).

[Swampy]

Sorry for the late reply I was busy moving to a new apartment. Plus had to wait to get the internet moved over. But it sounds like your brother runs a bigger rack dump then my F550. I'm just running with a single ram scissors lift on a 11ft flatbed dump, I had posts and a bulkhead welded on. I wasn't going to drop the coin for a actually dump bed such as a mason dump. Though the next F450 or F550 will be a mason dump, So will my next F350 will have a landscape body which will have a electric over hydralic lift on it.





As far as the "should you go green, will people pay for it?" conundrum, may I ask who your target market is? What is the income level of the areas you currently service, and what is the public opinion of the people in WI (that is where you are from, right?) about the environment? In Oregon, if you were a green landscaper in the affluent Portland area (super enviromental and very yuppie) you would do very well. I think if you want to target an upscale market, green is the way to go.

As far as other "major purchases", do you have a back hoe? Maybe a new truck? What are your needs as a company? I don't really know your business, otherwise I could use some analytical tools on it. Tell you what though, if you can pm or email me a detailed description of your business and operations, I will have my entreprenuership students try and figure out some possible solutions (though some of them are not the sharpest tools in the shed, I can wager we can come up with something).


I've have some interest from a few costumers, to move towards "going green". Reduce my chemical applications of synthetic lawn fertilizers (liquid) and multiple applications of a solid organic fertilizers such as Milgoranite. That is my current situation. I really don't like it, as one of my major spraying units will now just sit around but increase the use of spreaders (thus a increase of labor hours). I know it sounds werid increasing the number of applications actually decreases my profit in this sector and that hurts because I consider this service a up sell from lawn mowing (which I make very little profit off of).

My target market has been for the spring, summer, and fall months 80% residental and 20% commerical/municipal. Snow and ice season is more towards 70% commerical and 30% residental. The average income of a indiviual homeowner is around 40-50K per year, with combined income of around 80-90K.

I'd say in WI we have a mix, while not a major concern to some but its still a plus. I'm not saying people want it done as cheaply. My work and employee's work sells itself. I'm looking at going green not to just improve my image but this past quarter I had to pay out a $10,500 tax bill. I look at going green to add on to the company to say "green company" but as well as the tax credits that would lower the quarterly taxes.

I don't currently own a true backhoe, Currently running a John Deere Agriculture tractor with a 3point back hoe attachment, While it works, but age/high hours/chemicals has attacked her it the point that in winter time use of a starting aid in getting to be common use (which is a :nono: with diesel engines). I'll end up keeping the tractor around, might just rebuild her or use as a shop loader but its going to be "backlined". I've acquired 14 different attachments that I use for the tractor which is used for lawn maintanence, construction/renovation's, and snow/ice control. On the construction side of my operation I currently run 3 skid loaders (New Holland Lx865, LS180.5, and a Bobcat S250 w/VTS tracks). In operation these four machines are the bulk of my construction side of the company, along with the snow removal operation. For snow/ice this year I winter leased a CAT 914IT Articulating wheel loader at a cost of 2K per month. Could I just go out a purchase a ariculating loader for next year, maybe but honestly it wouldn't get much use other that winter or loading trucks.

Thus is why I'm turning towards a loader backhoe, to my company it would be more cost effective for the constuction season digging footings for retaining walls, planting trees, handling both material and outcropping stone. Snow/ice season the machine would be clearing snow and stacking snow. Buying new would set me back around $110,000 that can be taken over 7 years worth of taxes. I have a demo scheduled for a CAT coming up during the next snow event. Problem I don't have the truck or trailer to pull this monster around. Looking for a truck right now it's time to buy, I was on trucktrader and found a 3 year old International 4700 single wheel box truck for $38K, I'd need to cut about 6ft off the frame to shorten it up and find a dump body and plow for it, or a bigger truck a Peterbilt single wheel dump with a 11ft plow at the dealer for $85,000. Trailers agian a dime a dozen I can find them as cheap as $2,000 off craigslist.

leloup to your students. A few words of advice to young entrepenuers. "Sometimes you have to spend money to make money." Right now its a buyers market for equipment and tools. When the economy picks up you might have $10,000 for a equipment purchase, if you sit on it and wait for better times. Your going to shoot yourself in the foot, because when this slump picks up, the inflation rate is going to sky rocket, and your 10 grand isn't going to amount to much.

A little background info for your students. My company is a Limited Liability Company, which they should know operates like a Corparation but is handled like a Sole Propiertership. I started out 8 years ago with a partner, he ran the lawn maintanence divison and I ran the landscaping installation division. I've since bought him out after long arguing about him not pulling his wieght, he has since just recently purchased a turn key operation. Every year since I bought him out I've been adding services. Such as Snow/Ice control, Spring and Fall clean ups, Shrub trimming and small tree pruning, chemical applications, brush cutting, rough cutting. This year I'm adding another shift along with the service, parking lot clean ups in spring here when the snow melts. Last year I got offered by a factory that I maintain to sweep up their parking lot, rented a broom bucket combo for a skid loader and did it at night when the lot was empty. At the end of the season the place I rented the broom and bucket combo from had the unit up for sale I put in a resonable offer in, now I have another job that one of my skid loaders can do between snow/ice season and the constuction season. This should keep a few employees happy as I already have 4 contracts signed to preform this service.

Generally we are a Landscape design/bid/build type company. The lawn maintanence is there to pay the bills, while I do profit from it, its not as profitable as the construction end of the business. It only makes up about 22% of my total revenue of a $450K this past year. Its enough to cover the over head, and pay some of the employees wages. I've had some jobs actually come over to the constuction side that were from my lawn maintanence side. The problem with lawn maintanence is that everybody does or can do it, fuel cost goes up, the amount of fuel consumed for day to day operation, equipment cost can range from a few hunderd bucks to over $100,000 for a lawn mower. plus the cost has to be marketable to homeowners. In my market for lawn mowing I stay towards the High dollar residental homes, homes up for sale, homes owned by the banks, Apartment complexs, and HOA's are the bulk of the mowing accounts, while developers, banks, factories, schools, and warehouses consist of commericals/municpal accounts. The construction side is the same way. Why? Because there is a lot homes out there then businesses. Previous years we reach to the high numbers by doing new installs or cookie cutter landscapes 6K-15K, and bigger jobs up to 50K range. We would leave those jobs that someone wanted a few plants installed up to someone else as they weren't worth the time to complete. This past year we changed the focus to accepting those smaller jobs, which a single employee could be dispatched in the morning with schedule full of work orders, and a revoling door of credit from my landscape supplier and nursey. Though we did end up doing 3 big jobs this past year to and my biggest, furthest away to date in northern WI at around 78K, I got that one from a lawn maintanence costumer actually.

[Lohman446]

However...

*IF* you are running non road fuel in a road vehicle you are responsible for the taxes associated with road fuel (every gallon has X amount of tax on it) and can get in big time trouble for not claiming it if caught. Since you are talking of taking tax credits for it I would assume that the agencies share information.

[Swampy]

Actually if your running off road diesel on a road in your trucki, you get fines. Exception to farm equipment moving field to field. I have a 2000gal tank for off road diesel that is used for filling mowers, tractors, and skidsteers throughout the year. I've been trying to find a smaller tank for Gasoline, right now I just fill them off a 1/2 transfer tank.

[Lohman446]

I try to encourage people to get around buying the correct fuel(s) for there vehicles. It makes me a lot of money :)

[leloup]

Thanks, swampy, you provided a lot of good information. I will definetly get them started in about a week or two on this, once I compile some of it into an easy to read format (I hate to say it, but this is me "least smart" entrepreneurship class so far). We are covering forms of ownership next week, and then a little bit about copyright/tradmark/patent stuff, and then we can get to this project.

Just a quick assessment: it sounds like you are between going green and a loader back hoe. What do you think would give you the greatest opportunity for growth? If the backhoe will help out with more commercial, and if you get most of your revenue from that, go with the hoe (that rhymes...and sounds bad). If the majority of your revenue is from residential, the going green might give you that boost. The good news is that you have many opportunities to better your business. Maybe go with equipment this year, and then green the next?

[Swampy]

Lohman: You are correct sir! though you can fill up with over the road diesel and just claim it as non road use later but I find running two types of diesel (off road which has a red dye to added and over the road diesel) easier to keep track of cause of my bulk tank. Though I got to say to how many companies that I know and see still that don't prebuy fuel or still pay off a per use type of system. I bulk order on road diesel and gasoline for the trucks at the beginning of the landscaping season which last's me into the snow/ice season.

leloup: I can't wait to hear what you and your students come up with, seriously its always good to hear what the younger generation have to say and what they think. With the "going green" and the backhoe issue both are a plus to the business, at least I believe.

Call it I'm stuck between iraq and a hard place. Going green doesn't have a big following right now, I know there is a compettor in the area that mow's with Black and Decker battery/electric mower they picked up from Home Depot and charge it higher rate. Granted those mowers are not ment for commerical use, but it appears that its gaining interest. (From just a visual aspect one crew is set up with the mowers, its a 05 F250 with a 8ft enclosed trailer). While I wouldn't technically be the leader in the area for going green, but there is a small market for it. I'll wait on this and see what kind of calls I'll get this year on it. I was talking to a few dealers about this, their manufactures are going to start pushing the Propane powered mowers and aftermarket kits this year and I do have a older "backlined/reserve" gas powered mower that can be converted over to propane I might try out later on the season. Big thing I'm looking at it is that supposably propane powered is not only cleaner its suppose to have a longer life expectinacy to the mower from the cleaner burning fuel, and higher fuel economy with out the loss of rpm's or horsepower. Its suppose to beat out diesel powered equipment to, which I really don't understand cause my diesel mowers really don't bog down in tall and/or wet grass.

The Backhoe route: I need to replace/shore up the old Deere. It just doesn't have the power it use to a few years ago. Give it as well, projected the economy is suppose to pick up this year which will mean more landscape jobs. Also with this piece of equipment/crew setup I can enter into other fields down the road I.E. Excavation, Spetic and Sewer lateral installation not only that but fortify my position in other fields such as retaining wall construction, landscaping, landscape renovation, Finish grading, and snow/ice management. I have a demo scheduled for a loader backhoe coming up this next storm so lets see what happens. The other advantage of this crew is the truck itself as well. Not just for the construction side, but right now my F550 isn't all that bad at now 10yrs old (with only 68,000 on the truck and about 10,000 on the engine) but its strains itself uphill pulling a 32ft trailer loaded with my big mowing crew close to 9,000lbs with out the trailer and truck to boot. Plus the juicer brakes on the truck make it nice rollercoaster ride down hill trashing the trailer brakes in the process.

I'm now leaning towards the backhoe opition from a safety aspect, I don't need a foreman losing control of a truck and taking out a bus full of preschooler's as well as I can expand my business horizon.

Sorry for sounding so distant but on Friday I was served papers for a slip and fall incident from a snow account that I plow but do not salt, contract states so. But I have court to prepare for plus get paperwork in order for the lawyer.

[maniacmechanic]

Sorry for sounding so distant but on Friday I was served papers for a slip and fall incident from a snow account that I plow but do not salt, contract states so. But I have court to prepare for plus get paperwork in order for the lawyer.

so you get sued for following the orders your employer ( under contract to ) gave you , I do so hope your employer is also getting sued , all because someone doesn't know how to walk , the tort system in this country stinks , I do hope the judge laughs & throws it out

[sjrtk]

Good Luck with the unfortunate business ahead of you.

Sounds like the back hoe is looking to be the option to look at due to the rest of you business, the propane for the mowers does prolong the service life and interval of equipment less stress full on parts and cleaner burning.

[Swampy]

Sorry for the late reply been busy running around getting things for my designer to get the first few jobs locked down for spring. Sor far so good I must say.

The suit was dismissed, the person didn't show. Kind of funny that they serve me and yet are a no show to their own case.

So anyways the backhoe was a success for the most part. I don't like how slow it moves snow but the guys where happy with it. It looks like that opition is what I'm going to go with this year. I only demoed a CAT and would like to try a few more manufactures such as Deere, New Holland, Volvo, Case, and going to try out a JCB. I've heard some horror stories with JCB but supposable its a different company now. Plus this past storm I rented a 426 JCB 3 1/2 yard loader, needed to stack some snow mounds and the dealer gave me a deal on a weeks rental for only 1000 bucks.

[sjrtk]

Congratulations on the case, and lining up the spring work.

JCB is a different company now but i still want to see what there gonna do. All the others are good choices all thought the Volvo's are the quickest IIRC.


Good Luck.

[Swampy]

Congratulations on the case, and lining up the spring work.

JCB is a different company now but i still want to see what there gonna do. All the others are good choices all thought the Volvo's are the quickest IIRC.


Good Luck.

I've seen the specs on volvo machines and they look good. I'm not happy with my local volvo dealer. The sales personal seem to treat me and the few personal that I bring with like crap, they just want to sell me a machine. But I run purchases like this, I am the purchaser, my foremen are the operators 90% of the time, my mechanic does 100% of the monthly and yearly maintenance/repair.

But just because my local volvo dealer sucks doesn't mean they are excluded.

[leloup]

I have the results from my entreprenership students. It was about 50-50 for going green or getting a new machine, with a little advantage to green. Some of the kids really liked the idea of green, some did not care (it suprised me to see who those kids were also). I also compiled a list of some of their suggestions.

A couple though you should purchase your competitors, a few others though you should open up shop in a few of the surrounding cities. Several (and these were my low kids) thought you should sell you business all together :D . Some thought since you take on too many areas, you may want to cut back and focus on specifics.

Some of the better suggestions I thought are increase advertising (be it through tv, radio, internet, billboard, flyier, etc). If you went green, one said you should use all green materials for advertising, like recycled paper and plant dyes for inks. One also suggested you could advertise at expos or demos (maybe a sponsored demo at home depot). Another one that I liked was doing some charity work (they suggested for tax credit) for churches and other organizations. I was thinking that some of the churches I know do a community garden, and if you tilled it for free, it might get you some local rapport with the church members and then they would tell their friends.

Hope some of that might be usefull for tha future. If you wouldn't mind, I thought this was a pretty good learning experience for my students, and I would like to use it for future classes. Also, the kids were really curious, they wanted to know the name of your business.

[Swampy]

I have the results from my entreprenership students. It was about 50-50 for going green or getting a new machine, with a little advantage to green. Some of the kids really liked the idea of green, some did not care (it suprised me to see who those kids were also). I also compiled a list of some of their suggestions.

A couple though you should purchase your competitors, a few others though you should open up shop in a few of the surrounding cities. Several (and these were my low kids) thought you should sell you business all together :D . Some thought since you take on too many areas, you may want to cut back and focus on specifics.

Some of the better suggestions I thought are increase advertising (be it through tv, radio, internet, billboard, flyier, etc). If you went green, one said you should use all green materials for advertising, like recycled paper and plant dyes for inks. One also suggested you could advertise at expos or demos (maybe a sponsored demo at home depot). Another one that I liked was doing some charity work (they suggested for tax credit) for churches and other organizations. I was thinking that some of the churches I know do a community garden, and if you tilled it for free, it might get you some local rapport with the church members and then they would tell their friends.

Hope some of that might be usefull for tha future. If you wouldn't mind, I thought this was a pretty good learning experience for my students, and I would like to use it for future classes. Also, the kids were really curious, they wanted to know the name of your business.

Hey thanks for the use of your students and sorry for the late reply, been busy putting together a bid to do work on a island on pewaukee lake and there is no bridge to get there either. My company is call Landscape Engineering Services. I tend to try to do everything I can but really I'm just trying to fill holes in the years schedule the two biggest's services I offer is Snow/Ice Management and then Landscape Construction. I offer the others such as tree pruning/removal (if it can wait) in the winter months, not only is it better for the health of the tree or the lawn underneath if your felling but it evens out my employee's hours and they are more happy to be working than collecting unemployment. My months that I have nothing really going on is between about mid March to the end of April as its to soggy to put equipment on for construction. With three Skid Loaders and a two tractors I can equip them with brooms or broom/bucket combo's for parking lot clean ups when the snow melts (look at a gas stations parking lot snow mounds collect all the trash, stones, and dirt). It would help me bring up my ROI on the loaders a bit.

The one thing I'm going to be scaling back on is the Lawn Maintanence side of things. That division has the highest overhead to it with the lowest profits. I'm actually over priced on it if you average on per visit together at about $52/acre vs the average at $45/acre. But the cost of equipment eats you up a Toro Diesel Zero Turn Mower runs about $13,000 plus tax. You don't want to know how much a Toro 5900 costs. This year I'm planning on selling off the lawn spraying and applicating equipment and just sub contracting it out to someone that does it full time like Tru-Green/Chem Lawn.

Satilite Locations, haven't really thought to much on it. Personally I like to come in the morning and see everything, things like what material needs to be loaded for which crew, or security wise if anything walked off during the night. The lawn maintanence is pretty much centralized within the county. But my landscape crews, usually drop off equipment/trailers from site to site, unless a machine needs maintanence or holiday weekend. At first I wasn't to fond of leaving equipment on site but it grew on me. Easier for crews, easier on my pocket.

Advertising is my old enemy. I don't like it cause no set form of advertising (radio, phonebook, etc) is really doesn't have the worth of word of mouth. Happy customers are worth the weight in gold, plus if you go into a new development project and you complete a job when the first few homes go in everyone sees it. I use to just use those flimsy cardboard lawn signs, I still use them but I talked with a graphic's artist kind of guy, on bigger jobs I'm going to have "future look" type of signs made up per job. Plus if they want the home/business owner has a keepsake. One thing I've found that works well is Local Paper advertisment at least here they have for citys the number over 10,000 pop a local type of paper. In my area its the Waukesha Freeman, Occonomac Sun, Lake Country Reporter are to name a few. Though I'd avoid the National types such as Wall Street Journal, and USA Today. Most of them target people out of my area, even some of the bigger local papers such as My area Milwaukee Journial Sential which are spread out through the state. Online is good, its cheap to run a website I am going to have one built soon hopefully the one problem I see is getting people there. Avoid the Phonebook it is absolutily worthless, plus it literally costs a arm and a leg to have a Ad placed in one. Unless your business name starts with a "#" or a "A" I just leave it at my phone number, which I might just drop that anyways, for the fact that if you see our trucks you know the name and the internet is king of info.

I got more towards your reply but I have to run its getting late and I have to be up early.

[Lohman446]

May I suggest this for advertising:

Find the local little league (softball league, whatever). If they are short fields (they always are) offer to help offset the cost of a new field at there location as sponsorship. The field will advertise for you (make sure you are allowed a sign stating "built and maintained by") and those directly involved with the little league (coaches and organizers) will look to you first. Its likely all tax deductible as well. It generates word of mouth advertising and good will. I know my cousins who own a major landscaping company (landscaping, snow removal, pretty much the same stuff you do) find it to be one of the most effective forms of advertising they use, and is a feel good thing at the same time. Bonus: It helps keep your guys busy

[teufelhunden]

Just my input on the tax issues that seemed to come up a couple of times:

No deduction (on whatever form you're filing for your LLC - 1120/1065/Schedule C) for volunteering. Meaning if, for instance, you build a baseball field for free, you don't get to deduct the $100k it would have brought in had it been billed out. You likely would be able to deduct any of your costs (if it costs you $10k in labor, that would be deductible in most cases), but that may be offset by the value of the advertising you would get in return (as far as the Internal Revenue Code, if you get anything for free, you get to record income for the fair market value of what you received).

So, hypothetically, you build the baseball field. It costs you $40k, you would have done it for a paying customer for $100k. Having your name in center field would cost someone else $1k/year, and in return for doing the field, your sign will be there forever. Assuming you start and finish the field in the same tax year, you'd get to take $39k as a deduction (potentially limited, but that's beyond the scope here). Then probably $1k a year in income til your sign comes down.

All that said, I'm not your accountant, and any different facts or circumstances will change the tax treatment of any transaction :) So check with your accountant first :)

[Swampy]

I got more towards your reply but I have to run its getting late and I have to be up early.

Can't sleep, and the cookies and milk are not helping either.

If your students want more info just let me know, go ahead and use it as a future example. I find it more challenging and exicting to have new blood in the industry, but I also learn a lot about and from these guys.

I was thinking towards of donating time but to build a baseball field takes time and materials. Which, I haven't run the numbers on building a field, I would lead to cost a lot towards me. It's a little extreme to for that, plus me trying to be a perfectionist in nature would want me to build it to MLB spec's. Though going on with that idea maybe contacting a city's or villages about renovating area's of a park, such as adding tree's or making some landscape beds. I'm thinking smaller and multiple since I'm already servicing and operating in with in 20+ townships. I 'd think it would be unfair towards helping one town out vs. the larger picture.

The other thought I came up with was with local food drive's. Donate a driver and a truck for the day, get people to load it up with food, haul it to local pantry's. Maybe get a couple of other contractors in the program and call it "Dump trucks for Food" even then make it a competition between businesses I guess. Even just a spur of the moment I'll even throw in, a up $1000 to match the items in the truck. It hits me a little hard personally when I went to hire personal for spring and in to the winter months the number of skilled service/tradesmen that where out of work. Some of these guys worked 20 plus years running a road grader, lost their job, and now feeding a family off peanut butter and jelly. Sorry for getting a little emo on it but its sad to see that. But I'll qoute Napoleon "A army runs off its belly" The army being people, people have many wants but one of the basic's is still food.

Sorry got to continue on the Phone book. Take this a example. You(and guests) want a pizza. Three thoughts that run through your mind chain store pizza, local joint that has been better, or the frozen kind. So what is the need of a phone book if your not looking to try something else and just looking for the number for Pizza Hut! Thus you know I dislike phonebooks and phone companies.

Devil: I belive my form was a 1065 but don't qoute me on that, I have my CPA that does the business taxes, that is what I'm horrible at. I did it number of years and I messed them up bad, I'd forget to claim things like my off road use fuel, office supplies, etc. But what he broke it down to me in stupid style is that A. I need to make a major "new" purchase this year or B. get enough tax credit that nullifies.

Anyways I'm off to try this thing called sleep. Thanks again you input is well appreacited.

[leloup]

I totally agree with you about word of mouth. It has been proven to be the most effictive (not to mention most cost effective) form of advertising.