Survive the Holidays: Managing a Successful Lawn Mowing Business.

Managing a Successful Lawn Mowing Business means knowing how to deal with holidays

Planning for the holidays.

When you are busy running a lawn mowing business, you don’t give much thought to approaching public holidays. I remember when I paid such little attention that I wasn’t even aware until the actual day. 

I remember sending a guy to mow a retirement village a few decades ago on ANZAC morning. Fortunately, I realised what I had done shortly after he left, and I could catch up with him before he began to inform him that it was actually a public holiday and he could go home. That could have been awkward.

Your workload doesn’t go away. 

One of the great things about lawn mowing businesses is the recurring income. However, there is a downside. Unlike a shop, you cannot just close down for a day and then open your door the next day as if nothing happened. A lawn mowing business is different. 

If this hypethetical shop acted like a lawn mowing business, you would have a queue of all the customers who would have visited yesterday when you opened the doors after your day off. You would then need to deal with all these customers BEFORE you could service any new customers. 

Lawn mowing customers are the same. Suppose you are mowing 12 lawns a day and miss one day. You will then have 24 customers the next day. Then 36, the next day, things can get out of hand pretty quickly. 

These days I am no longer ambushed by public holidays, and things run much more smoothly. 

Managing a Successful Lawn Mowing Business means you can answer “Yes” to the following question

Is your lawn mowing business ready for the holidays?

Use a calendar

One of the first things I learnt was to pay attention to the calendar. When the new year starts, I get my wall planner and mark all the holidays so I can see them coming from a mile away. 

Once I know where all the holidays are, I take steps to manage them. 

Let customers know your schedule.

Our holiday management starts when we onboard a new customer. We tell them that we will always be there on the same day, except in a week with a public holiday. 

If the Holiday is on a Monday – we may be a day late. 

If the Holiday is on a Friday – we may be a day early. 

This gives us time to catch up if we take Monday off. Or time to speed up and complete our work by Thursday if Friday is a holiday. 

Which customers are going to be away? 

Another thing that is good to know is whether customers will be away for the holidays. 

What about access?

Also, if the customer is going away and usually leaves a gate unlocked on the day you mow, you will need to arrange access. Work out what alternative method you will use for access. Will they give you a key or the combination number? 

If you have customers’ keys in your vehicle, keep their address off the keyring. You don’t want anyone finding or taking the keys and knowing the address. We usually use the numbers in the address and the first two letters of the address for identification. 

Communicate with text if possible (don’t use their work emails)

Try to have a text number for all your customers or their personal email address. If they are going to be away for four weeks. You might want to be able to contact them before then. Managing a Successful Lawn Mowing Business will be a lot easier when you know how to contact your customers over the holidays. 

Remember, people can sleep in over the holidays.

You need to be aware that you may disturb your customers over the holidays. You may be busy starting early and finishing late if Monday or Friday is a public holiday, but that doesn’t mean that your customers are working. 

The early starts are unavoidable, but one thing that we do to reduce the disturbance is to do our commercial work first. You could also do lawns where you know that your customers have gone away. Even after all these years, I still don’t like those early starts on the short weeks. 

Don’t go on Holiday yourself.

Don’t be one of those lawn-mowing guys that leave their customers to fend for themselves over the big breaks like Christmas and New Year. Stick around and look after your customers. Take your holidays mid-winter when the grass isn’t growing, and your customers won’t even notice that you’re missing.

Working over the Christmas break and taking your breaks over the winter is the price you will pay to have a successful lawn mowing business in the southern hemisphere.

How about building your business?

Even though I was busy, this time of year was an excellent time to build my lawn-mowing business. Many lawn-mowing contractors foolishly go on holidays at this time of year, and some of them leave their customers high and dry while they are away. 

I have lost count of the number of calls I get every Christmas from people whose lawn guy has gone away, and they need an urgent mow before a family gathering. I get around there, do the job, and tell them I am always around this time of year. 

Then I sign up a new regular customer.

The contractor comes back to a smaller business while mine has grown. 

Lastly, Don’t stress.

know you know the secret to managing a successful lawn mowing business over the holidays

So even though public holidays equal short weeks and long days, it is not the end of the world. Everything will return to normal soon, and you will quickly return to your regular routine. 

You may get the occasional hiccup, but if you follow the suggestions in this post, things go a lot smoother. 

Keep your customers in the loop, and let them know how you manage public holidays. Arrange access if necessary, and make sure that you have a way to contact your customers during the holidays. 

Stick around over the New Year’s break and grow your business while you are at it. 

Then take a well-deserved holiday in Mid Winter when travel is cheap and the grass isn’t growing.