Frank is back in the studio this week discussing some key points on tactics you can come up with when you are rained out.   You can implement these “working opportunities” into your business whether you are rained out for just one day or several.  

Listen now to gain some valuable insight from Frank that you can start applying to your lawn care business today. 

Lawn Care Frank:
You’re not sure what to do when it rains several days in a row? I’m gonna show you how to utilize your time effectively when it’s raining several days in a row. 

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:
So, if you’re looking in the forecast for let’s say next week and you see that it’s gonna be raining all week long or maybe 3-4 days out of the week. That’s no time to panic. What I want you to do is really think about what things that you need to get done that you haven’t had the opportunity to get done in the past. So, when we’re entrenched in our business we’re mowing and, you know, doing out mulch jobs and flower bed clean ups and all those other things. We’re really entrenched in what we’re doing. And we never have time to take care of some of the most important things in our business. Making sure that, you know, your bookkeeping is right, your licensing is correct. Maybe even, you know, pricing out insurance on the vehicles, right? So that’s a good time for you to really hunker down and figure out some of those things. And some of the other things that I like to do is also look at opportunities that we can have as far as adding additional services to our existing customers, right? So, for example I can see when I look at all my customers really closely that Mrs. Jones hasn’t had a flower bed clean out or a mulch job and let’s say 3-6 months or whatever it may be, right? I can really identify each and every customer what they’ve had and what they really need to have, you know, pretty soon, right? So that’s a golden opportunity for me to take a look at that. Take the overall picture and decide what I’m going to talk to them about as far as selling them. When I give them a call and say sorry, we’re not gonna be out today or the next day because it’s raining, right? So, you’re killing 2 birds with one stone. You’re going to communicate with the customer regardless. So, you’re gonna tell the customer “Hi Mrs. Jones as you can see it’s really rainy out and we’re not going to be out today but hey I’m looking at your account and I just wanted to go over some things with you and I can see you haven’t had any mulch in the last 6 months and mulch you know breaks down over a period of time. Let’s go ahead and get some mulch down for you when the rain clears.” So, I can go ahead and book that additional service right then and there. And there’s no better opportunity to do that when it’s a rainy period of time and you can really hunker down and look at your customers and what they need. 

Interviewer:
Now you touched upon it about calling them when it rains obviously customers will hopefully know you’re not coming out. But is it ok to text them or just call every one of them? What should you do when it rains like that?

Frank:
Whether you’re going to text them or call them, either way, you have to communicate with your customers that, you know, we’re not coming out. And 99% of the customers that you’re dealing with, you know, can look outside and say, “oh it’s raining, they’re not going to come out”. They already know you’re not going to come out. But this is an opportunity for you to stand out. This is an opportunity for you to be different than other lawn care business owners. So, what I want you to do is go ahead and make that call and again, going back to not just making that call to let them know that you’re not coming out because of the rain. And it’s obvious. This is an opportunity to connect with your customer. You know, ask them how they’re doing, you know, it costs nothing. It costs nothing for you to give some of that good will. That’s free good will. “How’s everything going? How’s Mr. Jones? How’s your puppy? Is everything ok? You’re doing alright? “And then at the same time if you’ve identified that that customer needs additional services you can go ahead and offer that to them right then and there. So, you can go ahead and book some of the things like, you know, mulch clean out or mulch installation or flowerbed clean out or the hedges needing to be done. You can go ahead and get that booked, you know, for the following week or maybe even 2 or 3 weeks out, whatever it may be. But that’s a golden opportunity for you to, you know, touch your customer, and make sure that if they need additional services that you’re on top of it.

Interviewer:
And you know you talked about upselling the customer. Of course, as a lawn care service provider I’m thinking I’m already behind. How am I going to have time to upsell my customer and add more services, but I think you always mention that you can’t make up a mowing right?

Frank:
Yeah so you know as far as upselling or providing that additional service of let’s say flower bed clean out, mulching, shrubs, whatever it may be, maybe lawn aeration, whatever it may be that’s kind of different, that’s totally different than, you know, your mowing, right? So, if we have a rain day or rain week here let’s say we’re mowing Mrs. Jones on Monday and it rains you know it rains on Monday so we can’t do the service obviously. Well, if that happens and it rains Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday and we’re like way behind, right? And we’re trying to keep up with the people that were supposed to be mowed on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. We have to make a decision, you know, if we’re going to even be able to mow Mrs. Jones that we were supposed to mow on Monday if we can mow them on Friday. But the problem is if we mow them on Friday, we can’t really mow them again on Monday, right? So, at some point, you know, I typically like to use a 3-day window so if it’s Monday and here we are on Wednesday and we’re not able to mow Mrs. Jones because of rain still I’m not going to mow her on Thursday. So going back to your question as far as you are being behind the truth of the matter is you’re not really behind because you’re not going to make up that mowing. So, if we don’t mow that customer let’s say this week, right? We’re not going to necessarily mow that customer down the road. You’re not going to add a mowing if you’ve lost the opportunity here this week.  You’re not going to add it in December, right? Because they’re not going to need that service in December. Depending on where you are. I know here typically March 15th through November 15th that’s a good, you know, window of when we’re going to mow. So, if we miss an opportunity let’s say April 17th or whatever that date may be we’ve lost that opportunity. We’ve lost that income. We’re not going to add an additional mowing, you know, past November 15th or let’s say December. So, we’ve lost that opportunity. So, it’s not really, you really don’t have to worry about, you know, the following week that you’re going to be overwhelmed or 2 weeks out. So yes, go ahead and book some of the additional services for the 2, 3 ,4 weeks out. That’s not really going to affect the mowing business, right? That’s not going to really, you can’t really say, oh I’m already booked up because I’m mowing. You’re not going to mow on a Monday and a Friday or Monday and a Wednesday so you’re going to lose that one week of mowing. So, no better way to make that up than with additional services, right? And that’s something that the customer needs anyways. To make sure that they’re lawn and landscaping is beautiful at all times. 

Interviewer:
And you know whether it’s one day or four days you obviously have some time on your hands. Give me some examples of maybe what you would do with your time. 

Frank:
So, whenever you are, you know, you can see that the forecast shows that you’re going to be down or not going to be working for 1-4 days or whatever it may be, right? You want to really try to take that opportunity to do some of the things that you weren’t able to do when you were entrenched in your business, right? The last thing you want to do is blow that time, right? Cause you’re not going to get that time back either. So, what I recommend is really going through each and everything that, you know, that is pertinent to your business. Making sure that you have your general liability insurance or whatever, you know, your vehicle insurance. Really looking at those things, you know, and giving your insurance company a call and saying hey, you know, can we re-evaluate all this? Maybe you do this and you’re able to save yourself some money. So that’s a great opportunity right there. Making sure your books are kept nice and clean and they are up to date. That’s a great opportunity, right? Cause once the quarterlies, monthly’s, annual reports and all of those things come, you know, that’s when we scramble to go “Oh my god I gotta get it done, I gotta get it done”. So, take the opportunity when you have down time and try to really catch up with some of those things. And another great opportunity for you is making sure that you’re maintaining your equipment. So, we all have, you know, those things that are cumbersome or things that we don’t want to do but no better opportunity to do some of those things and get them out of the way when you have some down time. And when it’s raining that’s a great time to get that done. Get your maintenance done, re-evaluate your books, re-evaluate your insurance, strategize as far as marketing goes, you know look at your route, route density. And try to figure out hey I need to add some lawns in this area or this area to really get more route density. So, you can really hone in on that too. That’s part of strategizing whenever you have some down time. So, take the opportunity to do some of these things instead of doing nothing during that time when, you know, we have rain for a whole week. 

Interviewer:
And as part of that strategizing you would recommend even trying to place some ads online or going out and maybe even getting some new customers, right?

Frank:
Absolutely! So that’s, you know, that’s part of the strategy that you’re going to try to look at. During this time that you’re down, you’re going to look at some of the opportunities as far as, you know, do I want to advertise here or there? Am I going to use Facebook, Nextdoor, Google? What am I gonna do? And maybe you’re not versed at using Facebook, Nextdoor, Google? Here again is an opportunity for you to take an hour or 2 hours maybe 4 hours and learn some of those things, right? Maybe you’re not familiar with Facebook , you know, how to place an ad on Facebook. Here again there’s a couple hours that you can spend learning how to place ads on Facebook. So again, I can just keep going on and on about, you know, making sure that you don’t waste that time. Don’t be down on things and thinking oh my god it’s going to rain again and again and again. Think of those rain days as opportunities. Don’t think of those rain days as how am I going to make up that income, that kind of thing. In reality that could be an opportunity for you to educate yourself or maybe even save some money with your insurance or really look at your route density. Look at your customers and see if there’s some opportunities for you to add additional services. And also, maybe even look at your customers and say hey this is a customer that’s not a profitable one for me. You know, maybe I’ve had the customer for many years and I’m still charging $25, and I need to look at that as an opportunity and figure out hey I need to increase my prices on these 4 customers. And again, don’t get down on yourself on rain days. Use that as an opportunity to really excel and propel your business. 

Interviewer:
Yes, that’s a good point and maybe some other final closing thoughts you’d have for anybody that gets discouraged if they are just starting out and they’re in their second week and wow they get 4 out of those 5 days out of the week. What would you tell them?

Frank:
I tell you what, it’s never a good feeling, you know, as a business owner in the lawn care business that we, you know, look at the forecast and all we see is rain, rain, rain. It’s never a good feeling. But you know instead of getting down on yourself. Think of this as an opportunity on how you’re going to expand your business. I’ll give you a great example. This last week, you know, I looked at the forecast and I kid you not it showed rain from Monday through Saturday. I didn’t get down on myself. First of all, I said, you know, the forecasters probably don’t know what they’re doing right? They are one of the professions for making a prediction and half the time it’s wrong. So here we are, you know, Friday and I can tell you only one out of those 5 days we had rain. So that’s a good thing. But in recapping even if we did have rain those 5 days, I have a list of things already ready that I’m going to take and accomplish during that time, right? So, I want you to do the same thing. So don’t scramble next time it’s raining. I want you to go ahead and start right now. Make a list. Make a list of things that you need to get done, right? And when the opportunity presents itself that would be a rain day or 2 or maybe even 3. Really start tackling that list, right?  I want you to tackle it irregardless of rain or not but sometimes we just don’t have the time, right? We don’t have the time when we’re entrenched in our business. So have that list ready so when it rains, you’re up still at 6 o’clock or 7 o’ clock whatever it may be in the morning. You’re not taking a break. It’s not break time cause it rained. You have that list, and you can really tackle some of that. And, you know, that’s gonna make you so much further in your business further down the road. So in recapping, don’t waste that time. I want you to stay motivated and stay focused. And we’ll see you next time lawn care pros!

Announcer: 
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