Mike Andes reveals five things landscapers don't tell homeowners: cheap first-year prices jump on renewal, fertilizer is high-margin work, some treatments need multiple applications to work, a thick lawn from overseeding and aeration beats pest problems, and organic treatments cost more and work worse than chemicals but are safer.
Hey everyone. Mike Andes landscape businesscourse.com and today we're going to be sharing what your landscaper is not telling you about your fertilizer and treatments service. These are things that all landscapers and lawn care service operators might know, but we don't necessarily share with our customers. Let's jump into it. And that's the first thing, and that is you as a homeowner need to be aware of, of initial discounts for new customers. What I mean by that is the traditional advertisement for treatments and applications for a fertilizer treatment program is going to be like 50% off $19 for your fertilization application. And that's good and that's fine. But there are some really, really big players in this market and their whole goal, their whole business model is basically trying to keep you as a customer for the second year or when they renew their contract with you and they double the price of their entry offer. So be very aware of the fact that when your first year ends, or maybe your first six months ends, your first contract, you're going to get a massive increase in price if you're going with a bargain basement, really cheap company. So if you're wanting to get a more premium service from a local company that's gonna charge a little bit higher up front but not be trying to double or triple it the year after, you might wanna take that in consideration. The second thing is that you need to know that as a landscaper, one of our highest margin services is treatments and fertilizers. We might spend two or three dollars on the chemicals and then charge 40, 50, 60 or more dollars for the actual application of that. Now the reason for that is because there's licensing as well as insurance that goes into being able to apply those chemicals. And that's the big cost as, as well as the fact that our employees have to be trained and a lot of times licensed to actually apply those chemicals. But the actual fertilizer itself, it doesn't cost very much. But you can't really compare us against just going to the store and buying some off the shelf because yeah, the cost of goods, the fertilizer itself isn't very expensive. It's the fact that we have employees, it's the fact that we have licenses and liability that we have to pay insurance for. Now the third thing is you need to know as a homeowner is that most treatments, or I should say some treatments take two or three applications to actually become effective. And sometimes that's because we've got to get the saturation level in the soil to a certain level before it's actually going to have an effect on weeds or certain type of insects. And so we can't just dump the fertilizer on your lawn. It would kill the grass sometimes. So sometimes it will take two or three applications to get the nutrient profile to the point where it's actually going to be seen and effective and kill the dandelions or the broad leaf weeds that you're trying to get rid of. It might take a few applications over the course of six, eight, or ten weeks, depending on the specific type of fertilizer. We're not trying to rip you off, we're not trying to sell you more things. It's just that if we put it all at the same time, it would burn the lawn and look bad. The fourth thing that your landscaper is not telling you is that a healthy, thick lawn is one of the biggest things to prevent from having weeds and insects and algae and fungus and all the rest of it growing. And one of the biggest things you can do is have a thick, healthy lawn. What I mean by that is you might not need bunch of chemicals that are hazardous, you might not need those. What you might just need is overseeding and top dressing, which overseeding just make the lawn thicker by adding more seed. Top dressing is get some good soil and nutrients into the ground. So like the grass actually is thick, healthy, has deep roots that get the moisture out of the ground, get the nutrients out of the ground. Maybe you need a core aeration treatment that's just going to punch the holes in the ground, allow the roots to get deeper. That alone might be enough to actually make the grass healthier and actually ward off disease. It's sort of like your immune system. Your body has a strong immune system. You're more likely to kind of ward off sicknesses, viruses and diseases simply because you're stronger. If your grass is stronger, healthier roots, deeper roots, and the grass is not patchy, it's actually thick, it's filled in. That is the best way to keep weeds and insects from taking over. The fifth thing that you need to know that your landscaper does, but you might not, is the fact that organic treatments are not nearly as effective as most chemical treatments, and they're twice as much in terms of price. So if you're going to get organic lawn treatments, it's going to cost more and be less effective. Now that might seem like, why in the world would you do that? There's definitely advantages to having organic treatments in the fact that you might not have to now worry about your pet or your child being on the lawn for the day or two after a chemical is applied. That could very well be hazardous to them, especially if they're licking the ground or if they're playing in the grass. That could be really, really unhealthy. So organic is great. It's definitely the trend that fertilizers are going. However, keep in mind that traditionally they're just not going to be as effective as a chemical. They're not going to have that instantaneous weeds dying and looking great grass within a week or two. It might take more treatments and and a lot of times the materials and the actual components of the fertilizer are a lot more expensive for us as landscapers to buy when we apply it. So if we might spend 10 or $15 on a bag of weed and feed fertilizer from Home Depot, we might have to spend $25 or $30 for the same comparable bag and apply it twice because it's less effective if it's organic treatments. So I hope today something was said that gives you the information you need to choose the the correct landscaping service, lawn care provider or treatment applicator to make sure that your lawn is healthy, thick and looks incredible. If you need someone to do that for you. Augusta Lawn care we have 50 locations around North America. We would love to be of service to you and if you are trying to make money doing these treatments, actually upselling your lawn care customers and your mowing customers into these fertilization treatment packages, definitely check out landscapebusinesscourse.com where we talk about that. I'm Mike Andes, landscapebusinesscourse.com, we'll see you tomorrow. I'd like to invite you to Landscape Summit. It's the conference we have in January of 2022. Go to landscapebusinesscourse.com conference for more details. We talk about P4P efficiencies and how you can grow your lawn care and landscaping business. I look forward to seeing you.
