Lawn Care and Landscape Estimating Tips - MUST-HAVE TOOLS!!

Hi, everyone. My name is Marcus. I'm the estimator here at the local Augusta Lawn Care Services shop here in Washington. Today we're going to be going over the top five tools. You must have to be a better estimator in the lawn care and landscaping industry. Now, we've prioritized them, so number one, that's going to be your most critical. Stick with me throughout the video and I've show you exactly how I've used these tools to not only sell more jobs, but to earn a higher profit margin on those jobs that we do sell. Let's get after it.

All right, number five phone, car mount. This is the one I got that you could plug straight into the bottom here. And then that way I could have a charger on the bottom. This could charge my phone while it's holding my phone here. So some people have it, you know, right here, some people have it over to the side, some people have it on top. For now, we're trying to minimize the time it takes for me to be looking at the road through the windshield, to be looking down to my GPS on the map. So with that being said, this is something I got at Walmart. You could get this off Amazon, anything like that. 10, 15 bucks. Most I plug this into the bottom, holds my phone.

Then I have GPS on there. As far as gps, a lot of people use Apple Maps, there's Google Maps, there's something called Waze. Google Maps is what I use for routing. Most accurate, most of the Waze, though, if you listen to audiobooks on Audible, Spotify, things like that, you can actually link it to the app there itself. So while it's pulling up gps, it'll also have a bar on the bottom that you could skip forward and back in your music or your audiobooks or anything like that. Very hands off while driving, very easy. And we're trying to avoid this down here. Trying to text and drive. So that's number five there. These next two things, sort of honorable mentions. So the next thing is WhatsApp. WhatsApp, we use, our whole team uses it. So you're the estimator sitting in the car, you're sitting in the truck, you have the gps, you got your phone mount. Now you gotta relate to your team because throughout the day there's a lot of things going on with your service crew at your office, really depending on the size of your team there, but really relating to at the office or whoever you want to talk to, really at the time we use WhatsApp. So WhatsApp has a feature and you tap on there and you slide the microphone up. Sliding the microphone up. It's an audio recording so it's going to listen to everything I have to say. I just slide it up. I could, you know, be doing whatever and once I'm done talking I'll just send it off, no problem. And then that way again, super hands off. Way to do it. You're not trying to type while you drive. You're not trying to use a Siri audio recording that doesn't really get everything you want to say. So really easy way to communicate with your team. Next thing kind of again in the phone mount in the car is sticky notes. Very simple. I have all my clients names on here for the day. So again I just attach it to my dash here. And then as I'm growing throughout the day I have it categorized. So certain cities, I'll have one city over here, over here, over here, over here. That way I'm not going all across the county like this. With my timed estimates I could get to all of them individually and then also drive bys near them. I'll do the same again. Route optimization is a lot easier to understand it to know where you're going next and what's going to be the most efficient. All right, number four. This is sort of a two part thing. We got a measuring wheel, then we also have a measuring tape. Both these you could get at a Home Depot or Lowe's, basically any hardware store. This is what, 10 bucks? This is even less. Just a 12 foot tape, you don't need anything special. So what we're going to be doing, I just talked to the client, they want this whole retaining wall replaced. So very simply what I'm going to do, this measures distance in feet. There's a little odometer on the bottom. So what I'm going to do, replacing this wall, gotta get our distance in feet here. So I just run it along the ground.

So 20 foot. Say we're just doing this 20 foot section, ripping it out. Whole new retaining wall in here. So 20ft. And then they wanted the same high, so same kind of high like this. It's, it's hard you know, talking to the client to know exactly how high it's going to be. So measuring tape, very simple, very straightforward. Little less than three foot wall. The gray legacy blocks we use, I know they're six inches tall. So I know we're going to need six blocks to build it up to height here to replace this wall. That's number four. Okay. Number Three on our list here. We got business cards, door hangers. We even do magnets. What's something memorable that you could give to the client that they're not just going to throw away? Obviously, business cards. Something you should always have. It has a phone number, which is great. Has, you know, our logo, everything like that. Everything you need. Business cards. You get a business card. Most. Most likely people will throw them away. So get creative with this. What's your target demographic? A lot of our clients golf. Kind of spitballing ideas over at the office. Can we order just a bunch of bulk golf balls? Maybe get our logo on it. Something memorable to say, hey, Jim. Oh, yeah, by the way, here's a golf ball catch. Kind of something funny, Something memorable, something they'll keep, something they're not just gonna throw away. So door hangers, again, a great thing for brand awareness. Just you have your client's house, we call it five around. So that the two houses next to the client's house and then the three across the street, gotta have door hangers on there. Brand awareness will help over a long period of time. Magnets too, as well. They might just throw it on the fridge, forget about it. And then in December, when all the leaves are down, they're gonna see it on their fridge, not gonna want to go outside because it's so cold. And then there you go, brand awareness. You're on the fridge now. So. All right, number two on our list here, materials reference binder. So what's really good about this is when your clients, whether they call into your office, whether it's online, they fill out an online form. A good thing to ask them is, what kind of service are you looking for? That way Gonna get to the job. Just met with Jim here. I already knew he's looking for a new retaining wall to replace this retaining wall behind us. So I already got my measurements. Walk right up to the door. I already know what we're gonna be talking about. Perfect idea. Very impressive. Because when Jim says, what kind of blocks do you have? I don't really know. I don't really like these wall blocks here. What kind of product do you use? I say, I'm glad you asked, Jim. Already have my finger up to it. This is the gray legacy blocks we do use. They're 16 inches wide by 6 inches tall. It' great. Everything like that. This is a project we did this last year. So again, your materials reference binder, very important. You should have your products, plants, trees, materials, everything you'll use in this reference binder. So you could show the client exactly what you install and then you could really promote it using this. So that's number two. Okay, the moment you've been waiting for, the number one tool you must have as an estimator in the lawn care and landscape industry, this one's imperative. You got to have. This is to scroll down, like this video. Comment, subscribe the comment section. Tell us what's your top five tools that you use. So with that being said, number one is.

Yourself. I'm not calling you a tool, but Harvard School of Communications, they did a study on first impressions. You have seven seconds, seven seconds to make a good first impression. As for the client, to decide if they're going to buy from you or if they're not going to buy from you. So in that seven seconds, if you just got back from a big mulch installation job, a big sod install job, and you're all dirty and you're all wet, it was pouring rain. I really advise you have a new shirt, nice new shirt like this, something that's not all wet, something that makes you look, again, more professional. That's what it's all about. That's what it's all about. Selling the clients. So change out of clean clothes. Absolutely imperative to be more professional, to sell more jobs, and to earn a higher profit margin on those jobs that you do sell. Again, let us know in the comments section what five tools you use. Again, it's community. So the more you comment, like and subscribe, the more content like this we could pump out for you and then the more we could help to change the level of professionalism in the landscaping and lawn care industry. Thanks, everyone. Have a good one.