Mowing Grass and Improving Profitability
Figure 1: Efficiency is often the key to profitability in any business. Utilizing mowers with a larger effective mowing width is one way to increase efficiency in the lawn maintenance business. Photo: Thomas Ford, Penn State
The company that I was with at that time had just laid sod two weeks before, and the landscape crew was asked to mow the sod in preparation for the Viet Nam War Memorial’s opening. Each crewperson was given a 24” push mower, and we were each instructed to mow the turf with military precision in perfectly straight lines across the sodded area. After making the second pass with the mower, the foreman came up to me and chided me for the slight curvature in my lines, and I was told to move slower and more deliberately in my mowing pattern. When I looked across at my fellow crew members, they were all plodding like turtles with their feet encased in concrete, mowing in perfectly straight lines. Despite emulating their pace and technique in my next pass with the mower, I was abruptly reassigned to trash pick-up, and just like that, my mowing career ended.
When I look back at mowing the Viet Nam War Memorial site, I think about the core inefficiency of our mowing efforts and how the company probably lost money that day. A 24 inch mower operated at 22 feet per minute by a worker will take 23 minutes to cut 1,000 square feet of turf. If we outfit the same worker with a 36 inch mower and keep the operating speed the same, the worker will be able to cut 1,000 square feet in 16 minutes, and if we equip the same worker with a 72 inch mower and keep the operating speed the same the worker will be able to cut 1,000 square of turf in 8 minutes. The key point is that the larger the "effective width of the cut" by the mower, the more efficiency is gained.
Due to an injury and other health issues, I have had to utilize a lawn service to cut my grass for the past several years. When I called around to get mowing estimates, I was surprised to find that many firms quoted me a price without ever looking at my property. Other companies drove up the driveway walked up to the door, and handed me a business card with the price estimate written on the other side of the card. None of these folks walked the property or even talked to my wife and me about our expectations. The last company that we called came in and walked the property and talked to my wife and me before offering a price. Their knowledge and professionalism greatly exceeded that of their competitors, so they were hired. When their 2-person crew arrived later that spring, they brought with them a 60 inch zero turn mower, a string trimmer, and a gas-powered blower. They whipped through the yard in a manner of minutes and left my property professionally manicured and ready for company.
There are thousands of lawn maintenance companies that operate in Pennsylvania, but how many are actually profitable? In my official capacity as an Extension educator, I have asked many lawn maintenance firms if they knew what their daily overhead rate was or if they knew how much it cost for them to "give a free estimate" when trolling for new business. In most cases, I have been met by blank stares or have been told that their business partner deals with that "stuff." If a lawn maintenance firm wishes to be profitable, it must first know its operating costs and then look to improving efficiencies in operation which will make them more competitive in the marketplace.
In closing, one landscape maintenance business owner told me that he was confronted by a customer that complained about the rising costs of mowing their lawn. The business owner told the property owner, quite frankly, that the reason their mowing costs were escalating was that the size of the opening in the fence limited what equipment could be brought in to do the job. The property owner then brought in their fencing contractor and had them put in a wider gate. Once the wider gate was installed, the lawn maintenance firm was able to deploy larger equipment which ultimately reduced the fee for mowing services for the consumer. Efficiency, pricing, and profitability go hand-in-hand in any business. When driving to your next job site, think about how you can improve efficiency or reduce operating costs.
