How to start a landscaping business from scratch

I interviewed 3 people who own profitable landscaping businesses. They explain how you can get started in a landscaping business, including how much it costs and what tools you need.

Updated December 6, 2021

Written by

Benjamin Davis

Contributor

How-to-start.org

Experts interviewed:

Tim Green - Owner, Green Landscaping in Marrietta GA

Sammie Milhouse III – Owner, Milhouse Landscaping in Bamberg SC

Patrick Rumsey, Owner, Southern Lawn & Landscape in Greer SC

NOTICE: This is a long article. You can skip directly to the guide if you prefer.

SKIP TO THE GUIDE

This article is about starting a landscape and hardscape construction business.

If you're thinking of starting a lawn mowing or lawn care business, see our guide here.

I interviewed three people who got started in the landscaping business years ago, and asked them what you should know about how to get started in the business, and how to run and grow your landscaping business.

First, I wanted to know what background they came from – do people usually work in the industry first, before starting a landscaping business? Or is it common to just get started and learn as you go?

So I asked my three founders – how did you get started in the landscaping business?

How did you get started in the landscaping business?

did you work with someone doing landscaping before? or did you just get started on your own?

Tim: My older brother had a company when I was a teenager up in New Jersey and I worked for him. That was my summer job. And so, I kind of got my feet wet working with my older brother. And then when I went off to college, I started cutting yards on the side and would come home on the weekends and generate some money so I can go back to college with a little cash in my pocket. And then from there, I took a break. I graduated college and moved down to Atlanta with my then girlfriend, now wife. She wanted to go to grad school to be a chiropractor. And I got away from landscaping for a few years until it was time to get married and then I needed to generate additional income.

Sammie: I started in the landscaping business by doing a favor for somebody. I did a favor, and that turned into my livelihood.

Tip: Most of the basics can be learned by watching, listening, and talking with other people. But, with more complicated work, you need experience on your team. If you don't have the experience, consider hiring someone who does.

I wondered if there is a specific set of skills you need to operate a landscaping business, or, is it as simple as it sounds?

What training, what skill, and what experience is needed? Could you hire experienced people to help you?

I asked the three successful landscaping business owners:

Do you need experience in landscaping to start a landscaping business?

can you start a landscaping business with no experience? can you learn everything as you go?

Tim: I think it depends on the situation. If there's enough financial backing or a non-experienced landscaper or a person that has no interest in the industry decided he wanted to have a business, I think there would have to be enough financial backing to be able to immediately hire the key team members that would be able to process and produce the work on a daily basis.

Sammie: No, you don't need to have experience. I mean, you just really have to have a passion, and then go and do something

Patrick: I would definitely recommend actually working for a reputable company for a period of time, probably more than at least a year or two, I mean, just to get your feet wet depending on how in depth you want to go with it but you definitely need probably a couple years working for a reputable company in the special field that you want to be in. There are many different avenues like say with the maintenance or install or irrigation but working for somebody that's been doing it for a long time would be the best way to learn it. I also recommend going to a trade school college, like a two-year associate’s program. There's a lot of them out here where we are that do that. In South Carolina, there's one that's Spartanburg Tech, Spartanburg Community College where it's a two-year program. And if you get just the certificate program, then that's mainly just the core classes as far as your landscape design, irrigation, turf just all that. It's not that you're getting an associate's degree. There's a certificate program that's just the career-driven part of it. It's not like the Math and all that other stuff to get an Associate's degree.

Tip: In my step-by-step guide on How to Start a Landscaping Business, I explain how you can get industry experts to teach you everything you need to know, 1-on-1, completely free of charge. You can check it out >here<.

How much money – and what equipment – do you need to start a landscaping business?

is it an expensive business to start? what equipment do you need as a minimum, to start earning money?

Tim: It all depends on the goals of the owner and how big of a company he's trying to produce and operate. If you're a one-man operation or one man with an employee operation, obviously, the funding and the financial backing will be a whole lot less because you won't have as much overhead. I hate to not give you a more specific answer but I feel as though it's individually based. I think there needs to be some sweat equity or there usually is some sweat equity or initial work where a landscaper has got to get his hands dirty and learn the process in there. You can get a pickup truck and some wheelbarrows and some shovels and pickaxes and you can work out of the back your truck for a relatively low price point but if you're going to flat out hit the ground running and you're going to buy skid steers and dump trailers and dump trucks and all the stuff that we've been able to acquire over time, you're going to need a humongous financial backing or at least very good credit to be able to accommodate that.

Sammie: I would say about $10,000, and that's for things we need like, we need shovels, rakes, tarps, wheelbarrows. And you can buy things used instead of new. Just get something that's not beaten to crap, just something that is gently used, know who you buy it from.

Patrick: The entry level – where a lot of people kind of start – as they'll start in like the lawn care portion of it and they can get a couple decent mowers, but commercial mowers are getting up to $10,000 to $15,000 brand new now, and then you get a trailer or a truck and you can get up to $50,000 really quick if you buy a bunch of used stuff. I mean, you can kind of hop in there with used gear but it's going to be causing you a bunch of breakdown time and things like that. I’d say the entry level would be getting into the maintenance and you could hop in it. If you already had a truck as your personal vehicle and you kind of doubled it as business and personal, you bought all the other equipment, I mean, you could probably be in the maintenance part for $20,000 or so fairly quick. Then you just kind of keep reinvesting a lot for building that first year so or two years really just to buying more stuff because you never finish buying – but once you want to get into the actual landscaping portion of it, I mean, that gets pretty pricey pretty quick as far as needing a bunch of equipment. You got skid steers and mini excavators and all that stuff. I mean, those pieces of equipment range from $40,000 to $80,000 apiece. Then you got to have proper bigger trailers and bigger trucks to move them because they're heavy and a lot of specialty tools and things like that. You can rent some of that big equipment but if you're using it a couple times a month, you could just pay for it.

Tip: Buying second-hand equipment can be much cheaper, but consider the trade-off between reliability and price. Well maintained equipment is key to a productive day.

Once you get your equipment – whatever you need to start – and you hire a crew, you'll be taking on jobs and getting paid.

But, how much exactly? How much can you expect to earn in the landscaping business?

I asked the three successful landscaping operators how much you could expect to earn as you get started in this business, and as you get more established.

How much does a landscaping business earn?

is it a profitable business to run? can you expect to earn a good income quite quickly?

Tim: I could say it could be $10,000 for somebody in a more expensive area, because of where they live and their property taxes and the cost of living and all that stuff but somebody in a more rural area where the cost of living isn't so high, they might be able to make $2,000 a month, $500 a week and that might be ample. I just think it's a little hard to be super specific because I think there's a lot of variables that come into play for that.

Sammie: $25,000 to $50,000 a month – so about half a million a year. I do a little land clearing, tree removal, landscape install, design, commercial cutting contracts, stuff like that.

Patrick: For an owner operator, probably in between $5,000 and $10,000 a month. $10,000 would be on the high side for an owner operator by himself – he'd be working himself pretty hard there.

It's kind of hard to put a number on what they should make but, I’d say, pricing in this industry is probably the hardest part of the whole thing. You got to know what you can get. Different areas of the country are going to be completely different. Your cost of living in the south might be completely different from the northeast and California or anything like that. I talk to a lot of guys up north and stuff, I mean, there it might be one and a half times the rate of what we're getting down here.

The landscaping business can bring you a good income, but it's not 'easy money'. You'll be working to earn it.

Generally, the answer seems to be – you can expect to earn anywhere from $5,000 to well over $10,000 a month with a landscaping business – depending on what part of the country you're in, and what you're charging for your services.

It all starts with getting your first one or two clients, then repeating that process to get more and more.

I asked my three successful landscaping business operators:

How do you get your first few landscaping clients?

do you advertise? do you buy leads? is there something that works really well?

Tim: I actually started, perhaps like a lot of people do, with flyers in my local neighborhood. I targeted the community or the neighborhood that I lived in at the time and I just basically went around and I put out flyers, I gave everybody flyers and put them on sides of their mailbox and stuff like that to try to get some recognition. And then slowly but surely, we've got signs on our trucks and then we would get phone calls from the advertising and seeing the signs on the trucks and then referrals, of course, from clients to their friends and family members. And a lot of times we would pick up neighbors as well. They would see us working there and they'd be curious and come over and then we'd kind of grab some business that way too but that would probably be the most organic way that we generated clients in the beginning.

Sammie: I had someone I knew who was talking about getting a yard cleaned up and I was like “Hey, I can do it.” I mean, I’d kind of seen what he had in his yard and I said “I can do that” and I did it. And what I did was I used that, I took photos of the process and I used the photos to advertise on my social media sites and I got people to start calling me to do their work. And what I did was I just kept doing photos and as I expanded my work, my learning, I actually went to school and got certified in landscape design and irrigation. So, I did do that as well. And within the process, I kind of journaled everything that I’ve done and people just kind of like started calling in satisfied with the work.

Patrick: Both my first two customers were people I didn't know or anything and I didn't even have the equipment. They called and wanted a quote. To this day I still wonder how they got my number.

thousands of people

have used the worlds easiest guide on How to Start a Landscaping Business. It has literally everything you need to build a thriving landscaping business. You can get it for free, or you can buy it

GET THE GUIDE

available for free or to purchase

As you're getting established in the industry, you'll have phone calls and customer enquiries coming in. People will be enquiring about your services, and will be asking you to help them.

Turning those enquiries into paying clients is the next task.

Usually, that's pretty simple – just be helpful and answer their questions, and they'll use your services. If you do a good job, they'll probably use your services over and over again, as well as recommend you when their friends and family ask if they know someone.

I asked my three industry experts – how do customers choose which landscaping business they'll hire?

How to make sure a client chooses YOUR landscaping business?

what do clients really care about? what are they looking for in a landscaping service provider?

Tim: I think our type of client is basing a lot of their decision making or their interest in our company on our Google reviews. We are blessed to have a lot of great clients that are happy to share the word about their experience with us. It seems to be very common for our clientele to go to Google and research us before I even go out and meet with them to look at their job and give them a proposal.

Sammie: I think customers want to see your vision. Like having a vision for just finding out what they want. And then you take what they want and bring it to life and kind of give them a little more. Take what they got, tweak it and make it better.

Patrick: I think pictures of work is great. They know and they can see the results of what you've done and all that, kind of word of mouth really travels a lot too. I think reputation. So, your reviews are really big. And seeing the quality of work. Yeah, I think it's just basically the reviews and quality of work is what really they focus on. So, if you got some really bad reviews, that can kind of really, really limit yourself.

Tip: The worst thing you can do is offer a 'cheap' landscaping service. You'll earn no money, you won't be able to maintain your equipment, and your customers will be annoyed and give you 1-star reviews, which will eventually kill your business. I've dedicated a whole chapter in my guide (available for sale, or for free here) to the topic of setting your fees properly.

As soon as you start advertising your services, you'll probably get calls and emails from companies selling you advertising and other types of marketing.

Some of those services are great, and some of them are a complete waste of money.

I asked my three successful founders what their experiences were with methods of generating new business. I wanted to know what had worked well for them, and what had been a waste of money.

What is the best way to get more landscaping clients?

regular advertising? door hangers? online advertising? what works, and what doesnt?

Tim: I would think the one that was probably the least beneficial, and I can kind of bulk them all together, it's the Home Advisors, it's the Thumbtacks, it's the Yelp. I kind of package those in my mind as a group of similar service providers out there. What we found with that was it was a very competitive market. In other words, the potential clients were looking typically at the cheapest provider. And because we don't want or cannot offer to be the cheapest provider, we found that even though they generated a lot of leads for us, the leads typically weren't what we would call our ideal client.

And the ones that do well for us are, of course, referrals. People do business with people they know, like and trust. And so, if we were recommended obviously from somebody that typically comes in as a client that is either familiar with our work and/or has built-in trust based on their relationship they have with the referring partner. And so, referrals are real big. We get a tremendous amount of referral this, I guess, under the referral window too from one of our main vendors that we purchase materials from in town. And so, that's been a very helpful source of business for us as well.

Sammie: Well, the best for me is always social media and word of mouth. I’ve done the Home Advisor and all of that stuff. It wasn't really satisfactory for me. I didn't really see a return that I would like to have on my investment. I was paying about $250 a month. It's 20 dollars per lead or so, depending on what service you go through but I was paying Home Advisor about 250 a month. I did it for about a year and I really didn't see a whole lot of return on my investment. Word of mouth and social media has been very good for me.

Patrick: I’ve never done the online leads sites like Angies List and Home Advisor, because I’ve heard it is pretty tough. I mean, they'll make your phone ring like crazy but you're going to pay for leads type thing and those leads might not ever turn into anything. So, I’ve never done those just because I’ve heard the bad things about them. Another thing that I did years ago was like the actual Yellow Pages but that's done, that's gone but now, I’ve done like coupon mailer, magazines and things like that. It'll make your phone ring like crazy but it makes it a lot of tire kickers that don't understand the cost of things. You may go out and look at a job and give them a quote and their eyes swell up and they're like “Oh my God! That's way too much.” So, they just don't understand the cost of the industry and what ranges things may be. It may turn up some business but it's just a different clientele. I mean, the best thing we've found now is just being visible when people are searching. When that person's ready to buy, they're going online to find someone. So, they're going to Google or whatever and googling whatever their search term for what they're needing and just being visible and ready to come up in front of someone that's ready to actually purchase.

The general idea seems to be – try everything at least once, but don't assign much budget to it. In an industry with a good number of high-ticket customers and jobs, it doesn't take much to get your landscaping business established.

It can be tempting to start buying things – new computers, or services, or things to use in your business – once the cashflow starts coming in.

I asked my three founders whether there was

What is the biggest waste of money for a landscaping business?

is there something that sounds like a good idea, but is actually a bad purchase?

Tim: We hired a website company/marketing company to redo our website and help generate online traffic for us. And I did not research the company well enough and ultimately wasted a good chunk of change on what we thought performance issues. They were going to be there and they weren't, unfortunately, and it was just a mess. So, that was a mistake that we made in the last 18 months was not vetting and appropriately hiring a social media/website company to help with our marketing efforts.

Sammie: Buying the leads and going the whole Home Advisor and all that stuff. It’s been a waste of money for me.

Patrick: There's probably a couple things for me. As far as equipment goes – the waste of money is not going big enough the first time, thinking you don't need the biggest one type of thing, kind of 'under buying' on the size that you need whether it be a trailer or a truck or something like that. You'll never regret going too big. You'll always regret going too small and then you have to sell it and re-buy again. We've had that issue a few times where I’ve thought like “There's no way I need a F550 truck to pull this” or whatever or “There's no way I would need a 24-foot trailer. I think I’d be fine with the 20.” Two years down the road you're like “I think I really should have gone for that bigger one. We need more room” or this and that. That'd be my biggest thing.

Start a Landscaping Business

in one week

with Little or No Money

GET THE STEP-BY-STEP GUIDE

available for free or to purchase

All three of the landscaping business owners I spoke to have built nice businesses for themselves, and, they each seem to have plenty of working and are bringing in reasonable amounts of money.

I wondered what a typical workday looks like for someone running a landscaping business.

I asked my three founders – what is a typical day for you now?

What is a typical day for a landscaping business owner?

is it busy all day every day? is it an enjoyable business? how's the work/life balance?

Tim: I’ve got a morning ritual that I do personally that helps prepare me for the day. So, I’m up every morning at 4:45 to do some preparation for the day. I exercise at the gym and then I meet my crew and my guys at the shop at 7:30 a.m. We roll out at 8:15 every morning, everybody's out by 8:15 and then my day, depends on what is happening… three days out of the week, I have sales appointments. I still do the majority of the sales work for my company. Two days out of the week I’m doing manager meetings, staff meetings as well as follow-ups on proposals and actually sending out proposals. So, I sandwich my Mondays and Fridays or my office days where I do a lot of the quotes and the follow-ups and the staff meetings. And then Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays, I’m out selling work.

Sammie: We'll start about 7 o'clock and we work till – it depends, about 3, 4 or 5 – depending on what we’re doing but about 7 to 8 hours, sometimes 6-hour days. But 7 or 8-hour days is kind of what we got to do. I tried to do more hours but it burned my guys out when I first started. It was balls to the wall. We’d run and do 8, 9 hours a day or more but I realized that a lot of guys can't handle that at that level of output. So, in order to keep people on your crew, you got to kind of be a little more flexible.

Patrick: Right now, I’m at the point where I kind of oversee the jobs. I get the guys going – and on landscape projects, I’ll come in and I’ll oversee, make sure everything's marked out, they've got supplies, I'll help with supplies, make sure everything's placed properly. Occasionally, I’ll see the project through – like being on site the whole time if it's a more technical job but usually, mornings, I’m there same time as all the guys.

We kind of do a debriefing if I’ve had any emails or anything that needs to be talked about or any issues or anything like that and the maintenance guys will head out and then I’ll get the landscape install guys going kind of “Here's what we're doing today, where we're going. We need to pick up this” all that. Then I kind of oversee all the aspects of that throughout the day, the constant emails and dealing with customers and quotes and selling all that stuff. Right now, I kind of wear a lot of hats as far as that goes – like I'll do the paperwork as far as the billing, the invoicing of all that and recording. We have a bookkeeper that comes a couple times a month to help us on that side but mostly, I’m probably 20% physically working in the company at this point and 80% more on the paperwork side and all that. Hopefully, by next year maybe that reduces to about 95% percent and 5% in the field. By that point, we're going to probably add another crew next spring.

The balance between work and rest seems to be 'up to you' in the landscape business. If you want to work more hours and make a better income, that's what you can do – but even working shorter 5 or 6 hour days, you'll be earning a very good income for yourself.

I wanted to know if the industry had a reputation for bad operators, or if other landscaping businesses were taking nasty shortcuts.

I asked the experts:

What sort of CRAZY things happen in the landscaping industry?

are there shady operators doing things the wrong way? or is the industry mostly full of professionals?

Tim: Yeah, unfortunately, because there's a low barrier of entry into the business, like I said, you can start with a pickup truck and some tools in the back your truck and because a lot of areas you don't need to be licensed or certified to do a lot of this kind of work, you see a large combination of different projects that are just poor craftsmanship, structural issues. We repair and fix a lot of retaining walls that weren't properly constructed from a different service provider or where the wall is structurally failing or doesn't have correct drainage behind it and some different things. So, a lot of guys try to get into things that are over their skill levels, especially in the beginning, and then typically we come in and have to fix a lot of those projects.

Patrick: There's a lot of bad craftsmanship where people jump into something that they don't know how to do and they do it and then we'll get a call and we'll come back. Mostly it's like irrigation or pavers and walls, the things that are more technical and you come in and you're like “Wow! I can't believe they did that.”

Often they don't know what they're doing, they'll try to cut corners or didn't even know they were cutting corners because they didn't know how to do it but then it has to be kind of done over again. So, that's where you don't need to just dive straight into things. That's where you would get a lot of that learning from another company, working with them for more time like apprenticeship or something. So, they get big eyes because somebody called them to do this big project and they're like “Oh yeah! I could definitely do that. We've never done it before.” Then they send out a ridiculously low quote and the customer pulls the trigger on it because they're like “Man! Yeah, that's a steal.” And then they go out and it's just awful or a lot of times, we've even seen it where they'll start the project and they realize they don't know what they're doing and end up just stopping midway and leaving and don't even finish the job and things like that. So, it's just jumping in things they don't know what they're doing, for sure. They just need to learn it more. Be honest with the customer. If it's not something you know how to do, then don't be afraid to say “That's not something we do.” Don't be so thirsty for that job that you'll agree to something you can't do.

The basic principles of do a good job (and that starts with only taking on work you know you can do well!), charge a fair price, and treat the customer fairly seem to stack up in the landscaping business as well. Just don't try to be the cheapest – it won't lead to a growth in business, it will just lead to financial problems for you. Customers are already paying more, so why not stick with what they're willing to pay.

In landscaping, as in most other industries, it's always easier to get more from your existing customers than it is to find new customers.

I asked my three experts what other services they can offer, in addition to just landscaping, to increase revenue?

What additional services can a new landscaping business offer to customers?

are there extras and add-ons? what do customers often request?

Tim: There are a lot of what we call enhancement type projects or kind of segments that you can add to the company. An example would be – we are looking to launch a chemical and fertilizing division of our business in 2022. So, that in and of itself is kind of like a little segment or a side business but it's going to fall underneath the main umbrella of what we do and give us another service we can provide to generate another source of recurring revenue for us. And so, that would be one example. I know a lot of guys in my peer group that do Christmas lighting seasonally and that's almost become side business or a small business within their business as well. There's irrigation work as far as doing the irrigation systems. There's lighting as far as landscape lighting and architectural lighting on the house. And so, there's a lot of subcategories and different services that people can provide. It's just basically up to that individual. Then there's other companies that just want to stay solely “We specialize in retaining walls and that's all we do and we're not going to touch anything else.” So, it's to each his own on that but there certainly are a bunch of options in the way of side or enhancement work or different kinds of projects and different kind of divisions that you can add to the core company.

Tip: Knowing exactly when and how to offer an extra, an add-on, or an up-sell can mean the difference between almost nobody saying yes, and almost EVERYBODY saying yes. I have dedicated an entire section in my guide to the topic of selling the easy way – you can check it out >here<.

Advice for starting a new landscaping business, from industry experts

the three successful founders share their keys to success in this industry, based on their own experiences

Tim: Probably the first thing I would do, if you're financially able, is to join a peer group of likeminded business professionals. I joined a peer group about two and a half years ago of landscape professionals from around the country and it's been probably the best investment of time, energy and money that I’ve put forth because the ability to learn from likeminded individuals that have the same struggles, challenges, frustrations and to share information freely and to help each other has been very powerful for us. I would definitely join a peer group if at all possible.

Secondly – I would find great people to be on your team. Without great people, this business is very complicated just like most. Luckily, we get a lot of referrals from our internal people, from our people that already work for us. We've got a reward system for them when they bring qualified people. Based on the amount of time the new people stay, there's a financial reward for the referred employee. And we do traditional methods of course, your Indeeds and your Craigslists and some of those kinds of platforms to try to find a qualified candidate. We’ve got signs on our trucks that say “We're hiring.” We've got our work t-shirts, “We're hiring” on the back. And I’d be honest with you. I look for people early at the gym. I look for people that are up super early at the crack of dawn and that are out and getting a jump on their day and I make sure I talk to everybody and see if they're looking for an opportunity because if they're up early and they're getting a jump on their day, they're typically a hard worker and this business requires hard work.

Then finally – I would hire as quickly as possible. I think a lot of people wait too long to try to hire somebody. They feel like they can do all the work themselves for a period of time whether it be a year, two years, three years, four years and they wait a real long time before they feel confident enough or comfortable enough to actually bring on an employee. I would say the quicker you can hire your first employee, the better offer you're going to be. And I guess another way I could put it is you can create a job landscaping or you can create a business. And a lot of people make it a job and a lot of people keep it as a job for a real long time and they don't turn it into a business that can support and run without that particular person being there. And I think a lot of people are just nervous and scared to push that direction and start allowing other people to produce some of the work instead of just themselves. And I think people wait a super long time and sometimes get burned out before they even get a taste of what it's like to have a business just because they did a job too long.

Sammie: Take your time. Don't rush. If you're going to start a project, finish it. Even if you bid it too cheap, just finish it because one bad customer, one complaint can cost you 10 potential customers. So, if you got into the job and you say “man, I didn't make enough money,” sometime you got to bite that bullet. So, you have to go ahead and suck it up, buttercup. And bid higher next time.

And also – it's okay to get ideas from other people. Ask questions to other landscapers, seasoned veterans that have been doing it for a while. And then take some courses – that will help as well.

Patrick: Be prepared for long days and long hours. I mean, it takes a lot to really get it going. Be ready to sacrifice time. I was young when I started and there was a lot of things I missed out on as far as like going fishing and doing extracurricular activities because I was working daylight until dark to try to get it going. So, it just takes a lot of dedication. It's not going to be instant. It's not going to be something that happens in the first six months. You got to really be willing to put the hours in and do what has to be done and wear a lot of hats until you can get to the point where you can delegate down and afford to pay someone what it's worth to work with you. That would be my biggest thing. It's not all rainbows and butterflies, I guess, you would say. I mean, it's tough to get going and that aspect though.

Secondly – you can't satisfy all clients. Don't take it personal if the relationship with a client doesn't work out. Do your best. Even if it's a long-lasting relationship. I mean, even if it's like a maintenance customer or say it’s a big project – you're not always going to satisfy everybody. Do your best and try to make it the best you can. And if it comes down to that, then put it down as “I’ve learned something from this” and move on because some clients and some people are just difficult. Some people, maybe they should have done it themselves because they are going to micromanage you the whole time. So, just don't take it personally when it just doesn't work out. That'd be one of my hardest things. It's like a client that you just couldn't satisfy and you tried to go above and beyond or whatever and they end up sending you a big nasty email and you kind of take that personal or what I do is just take the attitude of “Business is business. We did our best and I’m sorry it didn't work out. If there's anything else I could do better to help you, I’d be glad to” but some relationships just can't work, just like anything else – personal relationships with other people, etc. Sometimes you just don't mesh well and that happens.

I have spent over 100 hours learning everything there is to know about starting a landscaping business, by talking to industry experts and landscaping operators. I have compiled it into the worlds most useful guide on the topic, How to Start a Landscaping Business. You can check it out here.

Now Get the Guide

I wrote the worlds easiest-to-follow guide on How to Start a Landscaping Business, with little or no money. It's available for free or for purchase.

GET THE GUIDE

available for free or to purchase

Business Startup Study 2021

We reveal what people REALLY thought about starting businesses during 2021

Sales Letters: do they still work?

A deep-dive into a $10,000 sales letter experiment

Ranked: The Easiest Businesses for Women

We show you the girl-bosses absolutely KILLING it

How-To-Start.org