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Providing quotation to prospective clients is an important aspect of a lawn care business. If you are new to the lawn care industry, you'll need to do some serious research before you can come up with a pricing model for all the services that you provide. Here are 4 things that you should keep in mind when establishing the prices for your lawn care services.

Know how much to charge per square foot

This is the basic factor in your pricing model that determines whether your business will be profitable in the long run.

Here is a quick way to generate some idea on how much to charge. Measure your lawn size and then call up a few reputable lawn care companies and ask for their quotations. Taking this a step further, you can ask a few of your friends to do the same and then get the feedback from them. You will have a good idea on the various pricing for different lawn size and help you determine the acceptable price range for your services.

Once you have an idea on how much to charge, set up a pricing schedule based on the type of service performed per square foot. For example, you may charge $3 per square foot for mowing and $1.50 per square foot for fertilizing. Most lawns various from a few hundred square feet to a few thousand square feet. Thus it is more convenient to set your price in terms of per hundred square feet or per thousand square feet.

Bring this pricing schedule with you whenever you meet up with your clients. It will make you look more professional and increase your credibility.

Do not quote or bid blindly

When your customers call you up to get a quotation, remember to ask for the dimension of their lawns. Do not quote off the bat blindly. Give them an initial estimate of the cost and tell them that the final pricing can only be determined after you have surveyed the site.

Try to meet up with your client and survey the actual site together. You will have a better picture on how much to quote and provide your client with a more accurate pricing. The other advantage is that you can pitch additional service at the same time. Try to pitch in a few other services like aeration, fertilizing and other add-ons but do it with a soft approach.

Cheapest isn't always the best

As a new business owner, it is unwise to set a high price for your lawn care services. However, it is equally unwise to be the cheapest in the industry. Being too cheap can raise doubt about your personal and business credibility. Pricing your services somewhere in the middle or a notch above the average is a good starting point. Once you have proved that you are really professional and able to consistently provide a high quality of service, you can justify charging a higher price.

Do not attempt to undercut your competition with low prices. Entering a price war can hurt your business profitability and you will have a hard time staying afloat with a low profit margin. Instead, try to add value to your services without any price reduction. For example, you can provide a free soil analysis as part of your standard lawn care package.

Know your business costs

As a business owner, you need to be fully aware of all the costs involved in running your business. Your cost of doing business will depend on your business size and the type of services provided. The basic costs will include mower acquisition and maintenance, fertilizer spreader, measuring wheel and other tools required for your business.

You should also factor in the time you used for running the business. This means your personal labor cost. Unless you have an assistant, you will have to do the administrative tasks yourself. These administrative tasks include scheduling jobs, handling customer queries and complaints, preparing invoices and mailing them out and many others. The more time you spend on these administrative tasks, the less time you have to service your clients.

To grow your business, you probably have to advertise and this can constitute a significant portion of your business cost. You will have to spend time crafting up a sales message and researching good advertising sources. Put in some form of tracking mechanism so that you know which advertising sources are giving you a good return in investment and eliminate those that are not effective.

With these four tips, you should be able to come up with a good pricing model that will allow you to stay profitable and compete fairly with other lawn care companies. By consistently adding value to the services you provided, you will be able to build a large loyal customer base that will keep you in business for years to come.

Jack Greenwood is the webmaster of GreenLawnCareTips.com which provide information on lawn care and simple lawn care business tips. Sign up for your free 7-part Green Lawn Care min-course at http://greenlawncaretips.com today.

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1. Be identifiable: Make sure your name badge is easily viewable to others. This may mean attaching it up near your collar or face, so that people don't have to look down your body towards your navel to find it at the end of a lanyard. Make sure it doesn't twist and dangle there back-side out where nobody can read your name.

2. Be identifiable, part 2: Use your own button or name tag in addition to the event name badge. Nothing wrong with overkill here. For this, we use our Blog Squad bright pink buttons, and put them on our shoulders (of both our jackets and shirts in case we take off the jackets), our purses, the conference tote bag. (We haven't yet bought pink laptops and put our decals there, but this might be a good idea in a conference where everybody has a laptop open!)

3. Be identifiable, part 3: Hand out your biz cards to everyone you meet, right away, and ask for theirs. If you wait, there may be a distraction and it doesn't happen. Of course, be sure you have plenty on hand. (One enterprising woman we know left 3 kinds of biz cards with intriguing photos on them in all the ladies' bathrooms! Well, why not! For sure she got noticed, and maybe more than a few emails and web visits. Discretion advised.)

4. Be bold: Don't wait, go ahead and introduce your self to people at your table, in line with you, wherever you find yourself waiting. You never know who you'll end up introducing yourself to! (Cautionary note: we don't advise doing this in the bathroom line as people aren't really relaxed when they are on a mission. Use non-verbal queues as to how open they are to a meet-and-greet.)

5. Be prepared with a gift or handout. Use a CD if you have one of you being interviewed, or a booklet, or something of value that shows your knowledge. You can even give out your book, to special people you have a connection with.

6. Be sure to get other people's biz cards, and ask if you can email to them. Do not add them to your ezine list without their permission, and a good way to invite them is to follow up with them after the conference. "Here's that report I was talking to you about, and if you'd like to get more, we have an ezine you can subscribe to, go here" for example.

7. Don't be afraid to ask people to remind you of their name, if you think you might know them. They will be glad you did, because they probably can't remember yours either and might be embarrassed to ask.(Note: you might want to make notes on the back of their biz cards about what you talked about for follow up later on.)

8. Ask them questions about their business, how they are finding the conference so far, what their most important take away has been, their best session so far, their recommendations, etc. Everyone attending a conference has an opinion, so ask them for theirs.

9. Withhold judgment based on dress, age, hair color and other physical attributes, especially when you are working in a field that is mostly done online. You never know who you might be missing.

10. Even when you are tired, and are suffering from information or conference overload, remember to smile and look interested in others. Many other attendees may be experiencing the same burn-out, and by sharing these feelings, you can connect.

Patsi Krakoff wrote the ebook "Secrets of Successful Ezines" with partner Denise Wakeman. They recently released the All-in-One Ezine Publishing System: http://www.ezinepublishingsystem.com . Learn how to publish an ezine at http://www.ezinesecretsminicourse.com and sign up for their 7 Step Mini-Course on Ezines.

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Those of us who work in the home construction and design industry tend to forget how many little things there are that go into the creation of a new home or a redesign. There are design elements that have to be decided upon, from the big picture such as the overall architectural style of the home, down to the simplest things such as the type of kitchen hardware or the balusters for the staircase or deck. Recently in helping some new friends with their home project I was reminded how much there is to take into consideration in even just one area as basic as staircase design.

Who would have known when we began designing our dream house just how many little details we would have to decide on? Did you know we spent an entire week just looking at balusters, banisters, treads and newels? I had no idea what any of these even were before we started all of this except that my grandmother used to let us slide down the banister at her home when we were very small. But growing up in a California ranch style house all on one level, stairs were somewhat novel to me. I really had no idea of everything that goes into putting together a staircase - there is practically a new language to be learned! What exactly did we want? What kind of treads? Iron balusters? Wooden newels? It was all overwhelming. And after listening to them for a bit longer, I understood what they meant, even I felt exhausted just from their recounting all that theyd been going through before coming to see me.

So after reminding them that this process was something they had dreamed about for years and it was something they were supposed to be enjoying as much as possible and having fun with it, they relaxed a bit and listened to my suggestions of how to proceed encouraging them to consider three easy tips that anyone taking on a home project, big or small can use.

Concentrate on one area at a time Whether youre starting from the very beginning with having to determine what style of architecture you want for your home or deciding on a particular element, such as my area of focus, staircase design, concentrate on that one area and work through the possibilities. With staircase design, this might mean first learning about all the different things youll even need to decide about. What exactly is a newel or a balustrade? Then you can get a bit more specific - what types of treads are characteristic for the architectural style weve chosen? Would iron balusters compliment the area of the home the staircase will lead to and from? Although you will be thinking about and focusing on one area in particular, thinking contextually about how this one area fits in with the rest of the home will not only help you to make good decisions, but will also help you uncover other questions to be addressed. The key though is to note those down and come back to them. Remember, one area at a time to keep from going into overwhelm.

Search out pictures of what you like and even what you dont - This is a great way to help your through your decision making process. Head to the library or a bookstore and spend some time going through magazines and books until you find something that you really like. Its again important to keep your focus narrow look only at staircases and their elements in one sitting - dont let yourself get distracted by chandeliers you like. If you see something you want to come back to, make a note of it so you wont forget. Looking at particular elements in use is another option. Grab your digital camera and go look at buildings that might have iron balusters if youre considering them or the particular type of handrails you loved the sample of but would like to see in an actual home setting. Oftentimes, vendors or builders can help you with referrals of where their work or products can be seen. Gather up all of your pictures to not only help you to solidify your vision, but to help to explain what you really want to your architects and home designers as well as examples of what you absolutely do not want so that they really can get a visual sense of your style.

Remember your budget, but make decisions that you can live with for the years to come Sometimes your budget as well as home size will decide from the get go for you if certain elements are not to be considered. For example, that grand balcony and sweeping staircase you saw in that Mediterranean estate on your honeymoon simply wont work or be cost effective if youre building a 1600 square foot 3 bedroom, 2 bath home. Youll not only use up too much of your floor space if you go that direction, but lots of your budget as well. But thats not to say that with a little creativity and inspiration that you cant capture the same feel of what you loved about it and bring it to your home. The large antique hand-carved iron scroll work you admired can be emulated with todays iron or aluminum balusters and accent pieces scaled to fit your particular staircase and home. And with the ability to shop online now for virtually any product for your home, you will also be able to find options to fit within your budget. The important thing is to capture the essence of the design style you like, even if initially it seems out of reach, so that you will enjoy living with your choices for years to come and ideally stay within your budget.

Although these three tips may seem to oversimplify the process you are sitting in the middle of or are about to embark upon, by applying them over and over to all of your different home design decisions, particularly those you arent sure of, youll be able to focus your energy one step at a time and break down what might at times seem a daunting task. Your home is important and should reflect your style and desires. The project at hand may take time and energy, but the end result should and will be one you love and treasure for years to come, from the kitchen hardware to the iron balusters, if you just relax and take it step by step and enjoy the process as much as possible.

Shawn Capell is an expert on the finest details of staircase design as owner of http://stairwarehouse.com, the premiere online source for iron baluster, newels, handrails and everything else stairs!

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Free classified ads are very much the same online vs. offline. The biggest difference is the amount of space you have to place your ad in. In an offline publication, you are normally using abbreviations and have room for an ad with 16 to 24 words. In online advertising, classified directories normally tend to give the advertiser a great deal more space, often as much as a couple of short paragraphs, and that is on the free services. In a paid classified service, the space allocated can be as much as a full page or more.

Years ago, classified advertising online was a very popular means of driving free website traffic to your website, but it seemed to die out in the late nineties. Or at least the fad of free classified ads seemed to fade away. However, if you do a keyword search on Google for "Free Classified Ads" you will get results of 1,110,000 websites using the term Free Classified Ads. And if you do a broad search without the "---" the results are a staggering 14,600,000. I am guessing that the only thing that faded away in the late ninties was my interest in using free classified ads.

There are hundreds of free classified ad software programs out there should you wish to include a free classified ads section on your website. Should that be your decision, you may check out eclassifieds dot net, the-classified-connection dot com or theadnet dot com forward slash webmaster dot htm.

Considering that there are thousands of websites that run free classified ad sections, it's easy to see how you could spend all of your spare time just submitting your ads to these sites. There is only one such site that holds the Alexa ranking and PR rating that I would encourage you to submit manually to. The most prolific of all Classified Directories is one most people have familiarity with. CraigsList.org has weathered the storms over the years and is now one of the most visited websites in the world. With an Alexa ranking of 46, it's no wonder that Ebay has purchased a third of Craigslist.com for big bucks.

And Craigslist.com has a Google page rank of 8 (PR 8): what that means is that advertising on craigslist.com will give you a back link to your website from a high PR level website. Google loves this sort of link from another site. And there are actually ebooks out there that will instruct you on just the right ways to utilize craigslist.com to enhance your free website promotion techniques.

Craigslist is certainly not the only classified ad site you cna submit your ad to. However, unless you have tons of free time on your hands every week, I would suggest that you consider locating Classified Ad Submission Software. With this type of software your ad will iterally be placed into thousands of Free Classified Ad sites. Do a keyword search for "Classified Ads Submissions Software" and you will see ads that claim you can send your ad into over 50,000 classified ad sites with the simple push of a button.

If you select the right software having the proper features, you will save yourself an immeasureable amount of time in the management, organization and submissions of your free classified ads. You will be able to decide exactly where you want you ads to appear. Controling the ability to manage, organize and control where your free classified ads are placed opens up many options for you to tailor your ad campaigns. The good proframs will also automate the submissions to those sites that require a login and password to access the free classified ads section.

You will have to make the decision yourself whether or not you will use Classified ads Submissions as a part of your Internet marketing arsenal. I can tell you this; Free Classified ads are considered a powerful advertising medium on the Internet. Advertise4rs can reach more potential customers and you can point your ads to virtually anywhere you want them to go be it a squeeze page, a larger ad, or your sales page, as it is just not practical to submit your ads to thousands of Free Classifeid ad sites.

Good luck in you free classified ads submissions. I trust you will make the right decision as to whcih software to choose. Remember to do a keyword search on Google for "Classified Ads Submissions Software" and seriously take a look at the choices you have.

Jimmy Oakley-©-2007- Jimmy is an Internet Marketer who markets a variety of the best Email and Internet learning systems offered online. Today you can learn his secret weapon to getting 1,645 quality, 1 way links to my brand new websites in less than a 2-4 weeks with very little effort! Increase your Google ranking by easily using this new software program that is being secretly used by top ranked websites in Google, Yahoo, and MSN! I think you'll be surprised when you visit the website and watch the demo video and read all of the user comments... Visit http://www.jimmyoakley.com/DirectorySubmitter.html

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