Lawn Landscaping Business Plan

Greens Manicure Service will be aggressively targeting Steve’s neighborhood community by emphasizing its competitive edges of quality and professionalism. For year one Steve will be personally canvassing the area signing up clients. He will be able to leverage his competitive advantages as well as his status as a member of the community. For year two Steve will begin advertisements in the local paper to generate additional business.

5.1 Competitive Edge

Greens Manicure Service’s competitive edge will be based on quality and professionalism. During the first year Steve will be doing all of the lawns with only one other employee. This provides him with direct supervision of the employee and direct involvement with the job. This will ensure customers receive a quality job. Steve knows what quality work is, based on previous experiences to be detailed under the Management section.

Greens second competitive edge is professionalism. Steve will ensure that all interactions between the customer and his employee, as well as himself, ooze professionalism.

Steve truly believes that professionalism and quality are the factors that attract and maintain customers. Consequently, Steve will be truly vigilant in ensuring that his competitive edges are always apparent to the customer as his livelihood is dependant on this.

5.2 Sales Strategy

Greens Manicure Service’s sales strategy will be based on one-on-one communications with prospective leads. Steve will first be leveraging his relationships with his parents (pillars in the neighborhood) and his connection with the neighborhood. The prospectives will generally form a bit of a bond with Steve because of local familiarity and then Steve will need to communicate his experience in lawn care and his constant benchmarks of quality and professionalism. Steve is willing to offer a free estimate and cutting for those that are interested in a possible contract. Although some of the free cuttings will not turn out to be long term customers, he is confident that his competitive prices and superior service will turn most of the leads into customers.

By year two, the business will be ready to expand outside of the neighborhood and Steve will be using advertisements in the local paper to generate business. When people call with questions, Steve will have already (the previous year) built up a loyal following of customers that will serve as an effective referral system in which prospective people can call the current customers and get a glowing testimonial of Green’s service.

5.2.1 Sales Forecast

The first month will be used to set up the office, purchase the necessary lawn care equipment, hire and train an employee. Additionally, during the last two weeks of the month, Steve will be canvassing the neighborhood to build up a customer list.

Month two will see some business. The business will be growing as Steve continues to increase the number of jobs that he has. Month two through October will see a steady rise in revenues. Business will pick up again in April of year two. From February through April Steve will be working hard on generating new customers and will bring on two additional employees to service the new customers.

5.3 Milestones

Greens Manicure Service will have several milestones early on:

1. Business plan completion. This will be done as a roadmap for the organization. While we do not need a business plan to raise capital, it will be an indispensable tool for the ongoing performance and improvement of the company.
2. Set up the office.
3. Signing up the 20th client.
4. Revenue exceeding $50,000.