Mike Andes, founder of the $75 million Augusta Lawn Care franchise, says the biggest mistake home-service businesses make is adding too many services too fast. New owners copy established competitors offering lawn mowing, mulch, tree work, and snowplowing, but those companies have decades of market presence. Start with one core service and only expand to recover customer costs faster or fill seasonal gaps.
I believe that 80 to 90% of home service business failures actually just stem from one core issue, and that is we add too many services to the business too soon. My name is Mike Andes. I'm the founder of Augusta Lawn Care. The franchise has over $75 million in revenue this year, and I make this mistake. So many other home service business owners have too. And that is we look at the biggest businesses, the biggest competitors in our local market, and they offer a whole bunch of different services. They do everything. If you're in lawn care and landscaping, they mow grass, they install mulch, they do projects, they do bush trimming, they do treatments, they do grub control, they do everything. They do trees, they do Christmas lights, they do snowplowing. And because they do that, we think we need to offer all those services in order to be able to be successful. And what we fail to realize is they've been in business for 20 years. And if I could start again, if I could start my lawn care business from the get-go, I would do one service. And the only reason I would add any other service is for 2 other reasons. One is I need to recoup the customer acquisition costs faster, and 2 is if I need to fill in the off-season. In my opinion, those are the only 2 reasons to add more services to a home service business.
