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1. Offer Winter Snow Plowing Services: By offering Winter services such as snow and ice management, you’ll be able to keep your team a bit busier in the Winter months. Many lawn and landscape companies that have downtime in the Winter should consider this profitable service. Snow and ice management in many cities across the U.S. is considered a emergency service and commercial businesses need to keep their clients safe from slip and fall accidents when entering or leaving their properties. By adding a snow plow and salt spreader to your pickup truck, you’ll be able to use your existing equipment all year long. Keep in mind that by offering this service, you’ll need to be available to service most accounts 24/7, so if working during the night time hours isn’t your cup of tea, this service offering may not be for you.
2. Offer Holiday Lighting Services: If you already have a list of existing lawn care clients, consider announcing and offering the service of holiday lighting! This popular and lucrative service offering can be a fun and exciting service to add onto your business. Many clients want their holiday lights installed either right before or after Thanksgiving holiday. Additional work hours will be available to take down the holiday lighting, which typically occurs after the New Year. Materials can be purchased through your local SiteOne dealer and once an account is setup, wholesale pricing is then available to you. Material markup is generally in the 20% plus range when selling the product to your clients, plus charging your typical hourly labor rate. Margins can be very good as custom holiday lighting typically is not a commodity type service.
3. Offer Pre-Pay Discounts For The Upcoming Season: By offering a Pre-Pay discount for the upcoming lawn care season in December or January, many lawn care clients could enjoy a discount on their future lawn or landscaping services. At my landscape company, we used to take a small percentage of money off of the clients total yearly service if they pre-paid for the season in full. We decided to change this offering and now offer the pre-pay discount back in the form of a gift certificate good towards future services. This way the client is still getting a promotion and we are encouraging them to buy additional services from us, ultimately allowing us to visit their property more often. After all, who doesn’t want clients that want full service, right?

Adam Linnemann is a green industry consultant and business owner. He can be reached at www.thegreenexective.com