Today Frank focuses on a popular topic: How Much Money Can I Make in The Lawn Care Business?  Frank gives some insights and statistics on how much money you could make with a lawn business. Plus,  how to increase your bottom line and determine how much money you could make per year with your lawn care business.

Lawn Care Frank:
How much money can I make in the lawn care business? Stay tuned! We’re gonna tackle that question right now!

Announcer:
Welcome to the Lawn Care Frank Podcast! Where we help lawn care professionals, like yourself, start and grow their business. By tackling obstacles such as finding customers, hiring talented people, spreading brand awareness, and much much more. And now your host…Lawn Care Frank

Frank:
What’s going on lawn care pros? Hey, today we’re going to talk about how much money you can make in the lawn care business. 

Well, you know the potential to make money in the lawn care business is really up to you and the sky’s the limit. 

But we’re gonna look at some numbers as you’re starting out or, you know, maybe you’re looking to potentially starting out because you’re working at a full-time job, and you’ve been thinking “oh man I’d like to own my own business but I really don’t know how much money I can make in the lawn care business”. 

So, we’re gonna kind of look at those numbers today and kinda give you a realistic expectation of, you know, what to expect in your first year and so on. 

So, if you’re a solo operator and you’re looking to start in this business you know obviously you want to get the equipment. 

And I recommend, you know, getting the basic equipment. Mower, edger, weed eater and blower and you’re off to business. 

So, you know obviously you want to get the DBA and all that good stuff and get your business registered and so forth. 

But in all reality, it doesn’t take a whole lot of money to get started and the question then becomes how much money can I make in this business? 

And we’re gonna tackle that by looking at, you know, a solo operator that’s starting out. You know potentially you’re going to be working 40-50 hours a week. 

And I’m going to break those numbers down for you in really simple simple math, ok? 

Our goal, I’m in Texas, the DFW area, Dallas/Fort Worth area, and when I was first starting out my goal was to make approximately $40 per hour. And as a solo operator, that means you’re making $40 per man hour. That means I am going out as a solo operator. I am mowing a lawn, I’m doing whatever shrub trimming, flowerbed, whatever that might be and by the end of that one hour I have made potentially $40. And that equates to $40 per man hour. 

And I am putting it in really simple terms here because we’re going to expand on that, and I really want you to get the foundation down of what it means when we talk about x number of dollars per man hour. 

So, let’s say that’s our goal for now. That might be different in your area, it might be different, you know, for the type of work you’re doing. 

But we’re really specifically talking about as you’re starting out you’re getting into the lawn care business and you’re doing like mowing, flower bed clean out and mulching and so forth. 

And specifically, we’re gonna really hone in on the mowing aspects so I can speak to you in terms of how many lawns you need and that kind of thing to make x number of dollars per year. 

So, let’s say, you know, here I am, I am starting out and I say to honey or spouse or whatever I want to get into the business. 

I’m working 50-60 hours a week at my job and I’m making $50,000-60,000 dollars a year or whatever it may be. Maybe I’m making $150,000 a year. 

So now we want to make a comparison to see if it makes sense for us to become a lawn care service provider and a business owner. So, let’s get into that. 

If I’m working, let’s say 50 hours a week and, you know, I get into the lawn care business and I say yes, I can do 50 hours a week. 

So, we looked at our potential goal of making $40 per man hour, right? 

So, if I can get enough business to where I’m working 50 hours a week, right? 

And I’m making $40 per man hour and that’s me because I am the man, and I am going to be doing the work.  So that’s the man hour part, right? 

So that’s 50 hours x $40 and what does that equate to? That equates to $2,000 a week, right? 

So now if we can do that on a consistent basis all 52 weeks of the year or maybe you’re gonna take a 2-week vacation so let’s just, you know, round that down to 50 weeks, right? 

So, I’m going to work 50 weeks. 

I’m gonna take 2 weeks off. I’m gonna do whatever I want to do and enjoy those 2 weeks. 

Now if I’m working 50 hours a week and I’m making $40 per man hour I’m making $2,000 a week and I’m going to work for 50 weeks out of the year that is… How much is that? 

Well, that’s $100,000 a year, right? Now that’s not all profit but here’s the good part. 

As a solo operator the majority of that money is profit. 

There’s not a whole lot of equipment cost. The gas that’s related to the business as far as the gas you use for the mowing and so forth that’s very minimal and as you get route density that’s going to be even less gas that you use for your truck, right? 

But ultimately the cost associated with running your business is very very little when you’re a solo operator. You know, you’re really trading at this point labor, right, for dollars. You don’t have to worry about the employee aspect of it. 

You don’t have to worry about, you know, payroll and those kinds of things and what’s going on with your margins. 

Now again you know as a solo operator your margins are going to be exceptionally high so it’s much easier to manage. 

Now for clarification you’re not going to be mowing 52 weeks out of the year.

Well in this example we were using 50. You’re not necessarily going to be mowing 50 weeks out of the year. 

Like here in Texas we are typically mowing 44 some of our accounts 46.  

So, in those other 4-6 weeks you will be able to supplement your income or you will be able to produce that $2,000 like we were using for this example by doing other things: leaf clean up, mulching, flower bed clean up. Those kinds of things. 

So, I just wanted to clarify that, so you feel confident about the numbers that we were talking about. 

So, let’s go back to, you know, the potential of making that $100,000 dollars. What is that gonna take? How many lawns is that? 

Well, here in Texas our typical lawns are gonna be between 5,000 to let’s say 7,000 square feet. The sweet spot is probably around 5,000 square feet as far as the lawn surface area goes. 

And we’re going to charge around $40. And it’s going to take about 50 mins and we’re going to allocate about 10 minutes for the drive or whatever we’re doing.

So ultimately for simple purposes math, right? This is all, we’re kind of doing this as a cookie cutter kind of a thing. 

So, I’m trying to make this as simple as possible from the math aspect of it. Some lawns are going to be bigger. 

Some lawns are going to be smaller. Some of them you’re going to charge more. Some of them you’re going to charge less. 

But ultimately our goal, you know, when I was first starting out is gonna be $40 per man hour. And your goal might be even higher. 

And like if I was starting out right now in 2021 my goal would be higher than $40 per man hour. But I want to make some realistic expectations. Some attainable goals for you. 

So, let’s stick with the $40 per man hour and you know dive in a little bit deeper. 

So, what does that equate to? You’ve done that first lawn and it took basically an hour between your drive time and loading up and doing all the work.

And you made the $40. And you wanted again, remember we’re going to work 50 hours a week. You can work more. Or maybe you can work less, right? 

And that’s going to, you know, let you make more or less money. And so, we’re going to do the 50 hours as an example. So, if you’re working at 50 hours, you’re basically doing, on the math we just did. You’re basically needing to get 50 lawns in order to make that happen, right? 

So, let’s do the math now. We’re just gonna keep breaking this thing down. 

So now I’ve got 50 lawns and I know how much I’m making and let’s say that equates to about $100,000 a year. 

And you know we’re not going to talk about expenses today but again on the solo operator it’s very minimal. So, if I had to throw a number in there let’s say our margins are 70-75%.

 I know a lot of people are going to balk at that. But that is for solo operators. 

That’s not if you’re running a 2 million-, 3- or 5-million-dollar company. 

Your margins are going to be much less than that, right? 

So, if you’re making $80,000 a year that’s pretty good right? 

So again 50 lawns is our goal. So, let’s break that down. The breakdown of that is how many lawns is that per day? 

So, if you’re working 5 days that’s real simple math. You’re doing about 10 lawns a day. If you’re working 6 days that’s approximately 8 lawns a day. 

So, I am throwing these numbers out to you so you can understand what it takes to get to that $100,000 mark, right? 

Now you may want to say to yourself well, or you might be thinking, well I’m already making $150,000 so that doesn’t make sense to me. 

But then, you know, there’s many aspects to this game and that’s you know as you bring on new employees, you’re going to you know pay your employees $15-20 an hour but you’re still making that $40 per man hour. 

And that’s where the growth opportunity comes. The margins will shrink, right? 

But your topline will increase and if you do everything right your bottom lines will increase which means more money in your pocket. 

So really this gives you a really good foundation of understanding your numbers and you can kind of adjust that from there, right? 

We are, you know, throwing these numbers out as an example so you know if you wanted to just work 25 hours a week. 

You have a good idea of what you can expect as far as how much you can make. 

Maybe you’re just going to do it part time. 

Ok I am going to do 20 lawns or 25 lawns, right? 25 lawns would be half of that, right? 

Half of the example we gave today. 

Maybe I want to do 100 lawns. But now you’re talking about can I physically do 100 lawns by myself and most likely the answer is no. 

And that’s when we get to the next level. That’s when we go from a sole operator to ok, I’m now ready to hire the next person, right? 

So, for example if you are going to hire an employee and you’re still making that $40 per man hour or that’s what you’re charging right? And you’re hiring an employee and you’re paying them $15 an hour. You’re making that difference, right? 

But now there’s additional costs involved because you’ve added another truck or new equipment or additional equipment and so forth. And that’s where we talk about margins. 

But now let’s go back to what we were talking about which was the solo operator working, you know, 50 hours a week charging $40 per man hour, you know making that $2,000 a week, that $100,000 a year as far as the gross income. 

Back out, you know, margins of 75-80% maybe you’re making $75,000-80,000 a year. How does that appeal to you? 

That’s the question you have to ask yourself. Is that worth getting into business for myself and doing that? Maybe you want to spend a lot of time with your family or go fishing or whatever it may be. 

Maybe you’re, you know, this is just supplemental income. 

Again, you can do that as well. But this gives you a really good foundation of understanding your numbers and clarifying to yourself before you jump into this. 

How much can I potentially make in the lawn care business? Now again going back there are companies that make millions and millions of dollars and that goes back to, you know, multiple employees and such and such, right? 

And that’s something we can talk about and that’s what you have to explore. 

But you have to get started. And no better time to get started than right now. I just want you to understand the foundation of how to get started and how much you can expect to make, right? 

Again, the sky’s the limit but I really wanted you to understand the basic foundations of how do we get from point a to b. I hope this information was helpful for you today. We’ll see you in the next podcast!

Announcer: 
Thank you for listening to the Lawn Care Frank Podcast. Please subscribe and visit lawncarefrank.com for more helpful tips and information.