Equipment You Need to Start a Lawn Care Business

Mike Andes from over at Landscape Business Course. And I got a question about what type of equipment you need to get started in the lawn care business.

The main thing is obviously your mowing. It's very, very basic as far as type of equipment you need. It doesn't have to be expensive. And if you heard me before, I don't like people getting romantic about the equipment that they do get. I don't care about brands, I don't care about the fanciest, the greatest, they're the best. I do believe you should get a lot of your equipment new just because if it's been mistreated and sometimes even like weed eaters, the lifetime value, the lifetime life expectancy of a trimmer, for instance, might only be three or four years. And if you're using it a lot, and so to get something used, it better be at like a massive discount. And to find good equipment that's not been abused is very tough in this industry. And so I usually buy all of our hand tools, hand power equipment, our mowers, everything brand new. Not so on the trucks. The trucks I buy used and I buy them with cash. The trailers I also buy new. And so that's how we've done it. And so I want to talk more about though, how to get started, what equipment you need to get started. And so number one, and really this kind of goes from the least expensive tools, the most expensive equipment that you need to get started. And the beautiful thing about it is you don't have to go, I'm going to talk about the six things that you need, from cheapest to most expensive. You don't need to get all six to get started. You can just start with number one and number two, get a few customers, get a little revenue coming in, then go to number three, then get a little more revenue, get a little more customers, and then when you get the money, you can go to number four and just keep working your way down. That's a great way to do it if you don't have very much money. So, so as I walk through this, you might not have the 20, $30,000 to get all of the items, but you can easily get started with just number one and then get a little more money, get some clients, get some revenue coming in, and then move your way down the list. So number one is hand tools. I'm talking like rakes, shovels, wheelbarrows, very, very basic equipment. You can get started with a lawn care business, even have that as your name and know where your trajectory is for the business. But just get started with hand like weeding people's gardens, maybe some shears to trim a few boxwood bushes or trim a couple plants in their yard. It's very, very cheap. For just a few hundred dollars you can get some quality hand tools and get started. You don't need to get fancy like if you don't have the money, this is something you can do, which is number one. Number two is power equipment. Power tools as far as weed eaters, hedge trimmers that are powered, whether it be electric or gas, blowers, all different hand tools that we use in our business, edgers, things like that, the combi system for steel. And different people, different brands have developed different hand tools, electric and gas and all these different things. But at the end of the day, number two is power equipment. And we always get those new. Like I said before, if you're using a hand powered equipment a lot, they might only last three or four years. The blowers are great, they usually start up right away. But sometimes the weed whackers the carburetors. After three, four years and hundreds and hundreds of hours of being used, they get clogged up and it takes like 30, 40 pulls on a string. And that's time that eventually it's just worth it to buy a new one instead of constantly fixing the thing. So their lifespan is sometimes shorter anyways. That's. Number two is the hand powered equipment. Number three is your push mower. A lot of times a 21 inch mower, there are exmarks come up with a 30 inch mower. There's the time saver with Toro. Other push mowers that are out there that are 30 inches or more even. However, 21 inch kind of standard size mower, all the different brands have it. And if you heard me in the past, I really I would focus on which brands. You have a dealer next to you that's the closest dealer to you and work with them regardless of the brand type because they're gonna have pieces of tools and they're to fix the thing and they're also gonna have the parts. When you're down in the field and you need a part that's broken, they will have it and have to wait for something to get shipped in because your local, the dealer that's closest to you is 100, 200 miles away. So I focus on using those dealers that are closest to you. Like I said, don't get romantic about the brands. It's not important when it comes to the business side of your company. So number three is that push mower. 21 inch mower. For $1,000 to $1,200, you can get a quality commercial mower. Don't go out and try to buy one from Walmart or Home depot. That's for two, $300. They're just not going to hold up when you're trying to 10, 15 lawns a week. They just aren't built for it. And you're gonna spend more time in downtime and driving it around and trying to fix the thing. If you're gonna get a push mower and that's where you're at and you've gone through one and two and you're working on number three, get a, get a good, good solid, a commercial style push mower. Honda Exmark, there's so many Toros, Husqvarna, they may all make great 21 inch mowers. They're rock solid, they last a long time. I still have the first push mower that I ever bought. It's still on our routes today. It was an Exmark 21, the slightly cheaper model, not the more expensive one. And it still works just fine and great today. Treat those things good, they last forever. 21 inch mower, that's number three. Number four is a walk behind or a zero turn mower. I didn't get this for the first six months of my business. I literally did. I used a 20 inch mower to mow a lot that was over 2 acres. And so yes, that wasn't efficient. But when you have more time than you do money and you stay with number three, that push behind that push mower for a while. And so like I said, we still have that push mower and that's the one I used to mow a two acre lot. I did another one that was like an acre and it was a good three feet long of grass. And I use a 21 inch mower. But that next step, number four is a walk behind or some sort of zero turn or a hydro gear drive. Whatever it is that you want to step into is a little more powerful. Use a more efficient for larger lawns, really, what depends there going from three to four, going from the push mower to the zero turn, what's going to make that decision for you is really your market. If your average size lot is or average size lawn, like square footage of the actual grass is 10,000 or 20,000 square feet in your market, you're probably going to want to go to a zero turn pretty quickly. For us, our average lawn is under 5,000 square feet of turf. And so I was okay with using for six months that push mower. And then finally, obviously we had larger ones for acreage and things like that, but I would just push mow them all just because I didn't have the money and I had the time. But eventually you want to become more efficient. And so what I'd be doing if I was you, is when you're running out of time and you're getting a little more money, then pay out to go to the zero turn so you save time and can continue to be more efficient. And so it all comes down to how much money you have. You can do this all faster, you can buy all this stuff together. It's just how fast you do it. And if you're starting with little, you can work through one all the way to six. So number five, we talked about your hand tools and your power tool number two. And number three is your pusher mower. Number four is your zero turn mower. Number five is your trailer. And so if you get a zero turn mower, you're probably gonna have to get a trailer right away, unless you do some sort of custom bed for your truck. But usually if you get number four, you're gonna need number five. And that's the trailer. And so up until number three, the push mower, you, you could just throw that in the back of a pickup truck or even in the back of an suv. And I've seen it done before, and when I was really young, we used a Dodge Grand Caravan to throw our push mowers up in behind and we would bag all the clippings and throw them in there. So like until you hit number four though, where you have a zero turn, then you need a trailer. And so whether that's an open air landscape trailer, whether it be an enclosed trailer, whatever it is, you need some sort of trailer. At this point, we have always gone with enclosed trailers for a couple reasons. Number one, for security. We can lock the thing up and it's safe from the rain. And so we don't have to get some other sort of shop or structure. It's a little more efficient from a shop standpoint, so the equipment can stay inside, stay dry, we can lock it up and we don't need to buy a big shop. Another reason we do it is we have our massive logo on the side of the trucks and the trailer. I'm sorry, the trailers in these enclosed 7x14 trailers. My first enclosed trailer, the first one I ever bought was a 6 by 12. And now we've changed to the 7 by 14 trailers that are enclosed. But whether it's open air, whether it being closed, and that debate can go on another time. But regardless, you need a trailer at number five. So the last thing, number six, the equipment you need to get your business started is your truck. And so when it comes to your truck, it really comes down to your budget because for $3,000 you can get an older, late 90s, early 2000s work truck that has 150,000 miles on it, eight foot bed, whatever color your logo is, white, yellow, whatever color isn't significant so much, but it's decent, it runs. And you know, if you have a larger budget, 15, 20,000, you might get diesel or a little bit of a bigger truck or whatever it is. It really comes down to what you know you're gonna be doing with the truck. If you're just gonna be mowing, you don't need to get a, you know, a one ton truck that's lifted or new. Like you don't need to have a massive amount of pulling power if you're just mowing lawns. If you're just gonna be pulling a 6 by 12 or 7 by 14 trailer around, or an open air trailer even more so it's not very heavy, you don't need a massive truck. So I'd be looking for that first truck to be smaller. You can even get away sometimes like a Ford Ranger, a Toyota Tacoma, smaller truck, but I'd be looking to spend under $10,000. And you need a very nice truck as far as, you know, five, six years old. Standard cab will reduce the price on that truck. Having an eight foot bed will reduce. Like if you want to have a crew cab or extended cab, you're going to be paying more. But if you want a work truck, you can get that standard model, doesn't have carpet, doesn't have cruise control or power windows. Get the base model, but focus more. If you're gonna be focusing more on the outside, making sure it looks somewhat decent, somewhat new, it doesn't mean like in the past couple years, but you know, five, six years old. We try to buy no trucks under more than 10 years old besides the big dump trucks. And so as far as pickups, we try to stay. Right now we're at like 2008, 2009. That's where we try to stay when we buying new stuff. Because beyond that you're just gonna start paying for maintenance, downtime, things like that. So if you're looking for your first truck it doesn't even need to be a very powerful truck. My very first truck was a Dodge 2009 1500. It was only a V6, not even a V8, but it got the job done. It pulled that around. That little enclosed trailer was able to haul clippings. It wasn't able to haul like gravel or anything. But that wasn't where I was starting out at. And so if you're just getting started, you don't need a big truck. You just need a truck that is going to look professional. It doesn't have a lot of nicks and dings. And I'm really against having big dents in the truck. As long as it looks in decent shape. Even if you want to do some paint, a paint job on it. Spend under $10,000 if you're, if, if that's what you're just getting started with. You know, I bought mine for I think about 7,000, like $6,500 for that little Dodge truck that I got there at the beginning. Standard cab, eight foot bed. So you can get lots of clippings and debris in the back and doesn't need to be super powerful. So those are the six things you need tools, the power tools to your push mower, to your zero turn, to your trailer and then to your truck. So you can go from 1 to 6 really fast. Get it right up, all up front. If you have the capital or if you get some sort of money for your friends, family or a loan or whatever, you have some money, you can get started right away from all six or you can really just take it really slow. Start at hand tools, which is a few, with just a few hundred dollars worth of investment in equipment, you can get started, start generating money. Get number two, get those power tools, get a nice blower, things like that. Work on down to the push mower. It's very, very simple. It doesn't take a whole lot of money and you can get started today. So thank you and I hope that helps a little bit.