Creating a Landscaping Business Plan That Minimizes Overhead Costs

Peyton Duplechien • 11 Jan 2022 • 4 min read

Did you know that the landscape services industry had a market size of $105.1 billion in 2021?
Landscaping has been a steadily growing market over the past 5 years, with an average increase of 5.1% each year from 2016 to 2021 and an expected growth of 5.3% in 2021. 621,733 businesses and 1.2 million employees have felt called to the landscaping services profession, and these numbers are expected to grow over the next few years. 
If you were aware of these statistics, then odds are you’ve been considering starting your own landscaping business this year. If that’s the case, congrats on your new venture!
Owning a small business is incredibly exciting and fulfilling. Just like any other career path, however, owning a landscaping business comes with its own issues: finding personnel, navigating government regulations, and more can make getting your foot in the door tricky at best, and too overwhelming to continue at worst. 

Building Your Landscaping Business Plan – Tackle the Issues

A common obstacle to getting your landscaping business off the ground is the difficulty of building up a consistent customer base. Attracting new customers and growing your number of regulars is a huge part of creating a reliable monthly income for your business so that you can plan, hire, and budget your business accordingly, but finding those customers in the early stages of your business is an uphill battle. While referrals are an important part of this growth, they are far from the only way to increase your number of clientele.
One way to expand your client base outside of referrals is to make yourself accessible for non-English-speaking clients. The U.S. happens to be the second-largest Spanish-speaking country in the world, and as such is home to a large number of potential customers who are underserved by landscaping businesses that only cater to English speakers. Luckily, VoiceNation offers bilingual answering to elevate your available services and expand your business’s reach.  Our amazing bilingual virtual receptionists are ready to help you at no extra cost so that you can better serve your non-English speaking clients. Providing bilingual support will allow you to expand your customer base, increase customer satisfaction, and grow your business.

Avoid Expensive Overhead

While attracting new customers can be a difficult task, the most daunting potential issue for most small business owners is the amount of overhead you’ll likely run into. While there are ways to calculate your fixed, variable, and semi-variable costs so you at least have an estimate of what you’re going to have to spend, it’s also vital to the success of your new business that you get these costs down as much as possible.
This is why it’s vital that you write up a landscape business plan: companies that take the time to write a business plan typically grow 30% faster than those that don’t. 
So how do you create a landscaping business plan with minimal overhead costs?
Surely skyrocketing prices on elements that you need to have are not an ideal part of your lawn mowing business plan. One way to minimize your overhead is to build relationships with other companies that can help you streamline your services to customers without locking you into a contract or adding to your expenses with unnecessary fees. VoiceNation, the best live answering service for small businesses, is here to provide you with the service you need to better care for your customers and grow your business without incurring absurd overhead expenses.
Think of our landscaping answering service as an extension of your business — while you focus on your landscaping business plan, our team of professionally trained virtual receptionists handles your calls with ease. 

Conduct a Landscape Market Analysis

  Another essential component of any successful landscaping business plan with low overhead is conducting a market analysis. When you conduct a market analysis, you’re forcing yourself to look not just at your business as its own entity but as the market, you’re entering as a whole. How saturated is the market in your area? Is the supply of contractors and the demand for lawn service evenly matched? What are my market competitors charging on average for the same services that I offer?
By asking yourself these questions and conducting thorough research, you can target your services in the areas where the need is greatest and make an early profit. A market analysis will also help you know what prices you should be charging and the specific costs associated with the needs of your business so that you don’t end up undercharging and overspending.

What Does it Cost to Run a Landscaping Business?

Finally, no successful small business plan would be complete without a  finance section. When you use your small business plan to analyze your financials, you’ll be able to see before you even start your business the funding you’ll need, the startup costs you can expect to encounter, and the general viability of your project. While it can be intimidating to dive headfirst into the books, taking the time and energy to do a full financial analysis in your landscaping business plan will save you endless time, energy, and money in the long run. 
We started out as a small business ourselves, and we’re dedicated to helping other small businesses thrive. Our small business answering service comes in a variety of flexible, affordable monthly plans with no hidden fees, no contracts to sign, and no pressure! You can change your plan or cancel at any time.
Plus, our live chat support offers you and your customer base whenever and wherever you need us.  Still not sure? Try our 7-day free trial, and see how you like it. With absolutely zero strings attached, you can get the full experience of working with our incredible VoiceNation staff. We guarantee once you give it a try, you’ll see the value VoiceNation can bring to your landscaping business.