OK, so you are probably wondering – how can I launch and manage a lawn care business from my dorm room? A traditional lawn care business involves lawn mowers, leaf blowers, and all sorts of other equipment, true. So how can it be done?
I am not sure, but let’s figure it out. This is probably not a business that you can necessarily start from your dorm room, but if you do live off campus, it can definitely be feasible, especially if you are in a house that has extra parking available.
First, the service.
What kind of service are you going to offer? Will you offer basic lawn maintenance such as lawn mowing and leaf removal? Will you offer extra services such as gardening and mulching? If you start small, you can always expand. Starting small also helps keep your start up and operating expenses down.
Start thinking small with an expansion plan in mind. If you start offering lawn mowing in the early part of the fall semester and then move into leaf removal, you can also move into snow shoveling/removal as the winter rolls in (if you get snow during the winter). Once the winter month’s end and the spring comes back, look at moving back into the lawn maintenance portion of your services.
Finding Your Clients
Alright, so the next hurdle is finding your clients…your in a college town, most students wouldn’t want to pay for this type of service or it is already included in their rent – property managers/owners probably have someone take care of it for them.
Start with the people you know. Ask around in your circle of friends who live off campus in houses. Find out who owns their property and who maintains it. If you are able to get to the source decision maker, you may be able to make some moves.
If you are able to find students who live in houses that their families own, such as if someone bought a house for their child(ren) and other family members to live in as they went through the university, this may be a great place to find a client. These types of situations usually leave who ever is living in the house up to maintaining the property. So if you can strike a deal with them so that they don’t have to do it, you can start finding more clients on top of them.
You can also look at the actual community members and permanent residents of the town where your school is. Many of them probably already perform the duties themselves or use another company for them. However, many people are more than happy to help support student run businesses, especially if they help out the community that they live in.
So, I’ll let you take it from there with getting the idea rolling and continuing to expand it. There is a bunch of different ways and opportunities that this could be taken…you just have to think creatively about them.
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