Teenage lawn mowing "business"

[bentothejam1n]

So I want to start mowing some lawns this summer I can have some money for once. I'm making some fliers and I'm going door to door so people can put a face to a name. Anybody have some advise about summing mowing jobs?

[Cheeze]

If you can haul away the leftover grass to someplace and dump it, offer that service along with mowing. Some people will pay extra for that kind of service.

[Dark Side]

Put money down for a good mower. You will get your money out of it. \See what others have charged for a lawn and beat them by a few bucks.

[thecavemankevin]

craigslist.com and advertise for your area. make it look good too. Not just text. Go to office max/staples and have them make some cheap business cards too. Give them to all your clients and potential clients.

take a broom/blower with you so you can clean off sidewalks, driveways and plant beds when done.

Offer a refferal bonus to your clients, something along the lines of, if you reffer a new client to me and they become a customer, you get 1 mow job for free.
If you want to get really creative, offer a punch card system like subways use to with the stamps.

good luck, i really enjoyed it when i did this 10+ years ago....damn i'm getting old

[rawbutter]

Since I mowed lawns as a kid, and now that I'm older, I've had kids do it for me... I can probably give you some tips.


1. Charge a fair price. Unskilled labor is worth what... $15-$20? Max? Don't expect to be making $40 on little fifteen-minute mow jobs. The first time you mow someone's lawn, tell them you charge $20/hour (which most older people will gladly pay so they don't have to do the work). Mow the lawn, and time it, and charge the correct percentage. If it only takes you thirty minutes, then charge $10. If it takes you two hours, charge $40.

2. Do a good job. Learn how to mow in rows. (PM me if you don't know what that is.) Get a weedwacker to do the edges of flower beds and driveways. Get a blower (caveman already mentioned that) for sidewalks.

3. Don't waste money on equipment. I don't know what kind of lawns you're doing, but I earned a lot of money with a $150 push mower and a $100 weedwacker (the cheapest I could find at the local hardware store). If you're doing HUGE lawns, then maybe you need something bigger, but if you're just doing small lawns around the suburb, you only need a small mower.


If you make the law look really nice, and if you do it for a fair price, people will always ask you back, and they'll recommend you to friends (and you could always use a referral bonus system). That is the key.

Do a crappy job, and charge too much, and they'll only let you do it once. Then you're poor and stuck with equipment that you don't need.

(Sorry for the long post.)

[angrysasquatch]

I'm just running my business on free mowers that crap out chips of metal in the oil (c'mon, make the season ) You could always use your parents stuff till you know that they will actually pay themselves off.
For sidewalks I just use a weedwhacker and rev the piss out of it. It works surprisingly well. I suppose it depends on how much clippings you get on there, I have a commercial Echo leaf blower (not free unfortunately) because I'm up in cottage country (of Ontario) and theres usually tons of leaves I don't want to rake.
I use vistaprint.com for my cards, they look pretty good and you can get them made as magnets which I find are more convenient for the customer than cards.

[billybob_81067]

If there's any way you can, beg, borrow, or steal a zero turn radius mower. We just bought a brand new cub cadet zrt mower with a 17HP kohler engine today and it's freakin sweet! Even has a cupholder to hold my beer. I just got inside not too long ago from mowing our yard. I've still got a bit more to go but it was getting awful dark. Now I just need to put lights on it so I can mow at midnight!

Some of the grass I was mowing was damn near 2 foot tall and it rarely bogged it down. Some of it was the first time it was mowed this season, so it should be much easier from here on out.

[maglover728]

Good luck. It feels great to have made your own money, unitl you have to send your own money. lol

[DaFin]

1) show up.
2) speak clearly and slowly when spoken to
3) do a quality job, like you would like yours to be done
4) act/dress professional

Do these things and I'd think you'd have more business than you can handle.

And don't be afraid to look people in the eye and give them a firm "two-pump" handshake.

[Remington]

This is a real anal, technical thing, but I don't believe you're allowed to go door-to-door unless you have a permit, so I would stick to fliers and word-of-mouth. Good luck though!

[thecavemankevin]

This is a real anal, technical thing, but I don't believe you're allowed to go door-to-door unless you have a permit, so I would stick to fliers and word-of-mouth. Good luck though!

that would be a state or county statute so i wouldn't worry too much about that. Also, make sure if you are Hispanic you speak English, most Americans prefer this.