You may be wondering if you could turn your hand at something you love doing being your main source of income. If that is gardening, landscaping and caring for agriculture, then maybe a landscaping business is for you. The issue is, it’s a niche. And like all niches, it’s going to be hard to find clients that could just as easily go to a much larger brand than your own. So you have to be marketable, know your stuff, have the best equipment and also, be a people person. You’ll be dealing with a special kind of customer, usually older, affluent and knows their stuff about landscaping too. Here are some of the things you need to keep in mind.
Know your equipment
Before you get going with the branding, marketing, and hiring of employees, the first thing to do is to learn about your equipment. Having the best equipment possible will allow you to get just about any job done. No nut is too hard to crack when you have a supplier like AKRS Equipment that is known in the field to supply cutting-edge agriculture, gardening, and landscaping equipment. You can get anything from lawnmowers, tractors, compact construction equipment, etc. When you have good equipment that matches your skill level, you can provide so many more solutions to your customers.
Know your customer (KYC)
KYC is a major challenge for someone starting out on their own, but even the largest banks and corporations in the world have to continually investigate just who exactly is their type of customer. As a landscaping business you will be dealing with a niche clientele, such as those mentioned below:
- Local authorities – governments that need public property to be maintained, improved, extended, etc.
- Country manors – properties that are very big, pricey and have a richer older ownership.
- Private businesses – golf courses, parks, nature reserves and resorts all do annual landscaping reshaping, maintenance and more.
- Rich and famous – sometimes you will be asked to go to a famous person’s house to do a bit of landscaping, which is always interesting.
Get to know what your clientele would like, what kind of things they want in their garden, and any features they particularly enjoy, such as swimming pools, garden mazes, flower patches, fountains, and more.
Market yourself correctly
The little guy is always fighting the bigger guy and if you’re not careful, you’ll be added to the long list of losers who were out-fought. Make sure you are marketing your services directly against your rivals. Show your clients what you can do and what your competitors can’t do. It’s vital that you showcase skills and talent in landscaping, which gives confidence to customers as they know any long-term project with permanent impact will be done correctly by you.
Landscaping businesses are few and far between and they usually have a very niche clientele. Thankfully, the equipment has improved making the job easier, and marketing techniques have also.