Lawn Mowing Contractor Won't Return

Q

My lawn mowing contractor has told me he cannot continue mowing my lawn because he is reducing the area size of his round. I'm not totally convinced this is true, any ideas? I have a feeling I may have done something wrong?

A

There are a number of reasons why lawn mowing contractors will have to stop servicing a customers lawn. No contractor wants to lose business unless of course his round is too big, so it would be an important reason for him to take this action.

Do not rule out that your contractor is reducing the area size of his round, as this is often done. Reducing a territory size reduces the cost of petrol, and reduces the wasted time the contractor spends driving his car and not earning a living. A smaller territory increases income and reduces expenses.

But you may be right, there may be another reason why the contractor has stopped servicing the property. There are a few very important reasons why this occurs, which the contractor is fully aware of, but many clients are not, so let's have a look.

If the work is infrequent then the job has much lower value. The lawn mowing contractor aims to fill his round with regular clients on a regular schedule so he can reliably earn his living. A client who only wants lawn mowing every 2 months is not regular, and often has to be squeezed in amongst his regular work. This can often be very difficult to do in the busy growing season.

Underpriced lawn mowing jobs can destroy his business very quickly, even if only 20% of his round is underpriced, these jobs collectively cost him a lot of money each year, so if he cannot put the price up to a proper level then he will need to let these jobs go, to be replaced with correctly priced work which can provide for his income.

Gates which are regularly left locked and which deny access to the property forces to contractor to re-book the job for another day, which not only costs his time and money spent on petrol, but also leaves the contractor with days which become overbooked. If this happens continually, the lawn mowing contractor will relinquish the work.

Lawn Mowing Contractors need to be paid regularly, this is their income after all, and their only means of wages, on top of this - the contractor has a lot of expenses which need to be paid for up front. The contractor will need to be paid after every service in order to give him his regular wages. Unfortunately, some clients try to pay their contractors only every few services which can often be months apart. This is deadly for the contractor and deadly for any other type of business. So if the client cannot imagine only getting their own wages sporadically and once every few months, then they shouldn't expect their contractor to accept the same. Remember, the client in question may only be one of perhaps 40 customers who pay late, and when combined together - this equates to a LOT of unpaid wages the contractor isn't receiving regularly. All Lawn Mowing Contractors must relinquish all these types of jobs.