hey guys so today I wanted to share my thoughts about branding your lawn care
business and how important I think that is if you guys listen to my podcast
you'll know that I talked quite a bit about you know making sure that you have
a brand for your business to focus in on having professional-looking uniforms
things like this jacket hats shirts that sort of thing as well as
professional-looking signage for your trailers or vehicles
tied into a website all using the same theme or colors so that it's a overall
cohesive look for your lawn care business and you know I feel this is
important because it gives you a leg up on the competition you know if you think
about the way that human beings work we are a visual species and that's
probably why you know things like YouTube do so well people are visual and
so if you're thinking about you know if you were to hire a service company and
you had two choices and you knew nothing about either of those companies you
didn't know anything about their history whether their work ethic was good
whether they had good reviews or referrals or that sort of thing and you
know one company had a really professional look clean trucks and
trailers uniforms clean you know overall appearances of the service providers and
then the next company Company B was you know just a sort of dirty looking guy
with old clothing on and you know the truck was maybe an older model that was
rusting and falling apart and maybe you know you could see sort of a mess in the
back of the truck bed as far as equipment and stuff goes kind of
unorganized looking and you have to base your sort of decision on that
you know I think most times maybe even as high as nine out of ten times you'd
find that people would go for the professional looking vehicle rig company
just because it you know when you're inviting a service provider onto your
property and a lot of times you may not be around you know the overall sense of
safety and security of having that sort of professional company on your property
versus having somebody who you may not feel comfortable with I think can set
you know again like I said can set you apart from the competition give you just
that you know leg up on the competition I'm gonna share two stories with you
guys about how I noticed this working in my lawn care business and like I said if
you have watched my part or listen to my podcast rather you know that I talk
about branding quite a bit from time to time and you know I've modeled the look
and the brand of my lawn care business after 1-800 GOT JUNK you know I see them
around they actually are a local company as far as where they started from here
in Vancouver British Columbia where I'm based out of so they got their start
here and you know I've seen their trucks for quite a few years now ever since
the beginning and you know they've always been clean trucks you know nice
uniforms on the employees you know a nice website all cohesive all tying the
whole brand of 1-800 got junk you know all together whereas you know if you
think of previous rubbish removal junk removal companies it was always you know
a couple of guys maybe in an old pickup truck with some plywood sides on it you
know with a whole bunch of garbage and scrap metal and stuff hanging off the
sides where this was a completely new and fresh approach to that whole junk
removal business so in my own business with branding and keeping the trailers
clean you know proper and professional you know decals and
logos on the trailer that match my jacket match you know the invoice books
match my you know quotation forms when I'm doing a written quote for somebody
you know it all is that sort of seamless look when somebody is you know first
looking for a lawn care service in my area they will be most typically
searching the web my website will come up you know that's their first
impression is that website so they go to that website they see the branding the
logos the colors they see examples of work when they call me up again
professional and courteous on the phone I go and meet them for the first time
the truck pulls up they know what to expect what to look for they see that
branding there I get out uniforms jackets all that sort of stuff
I you know always in a professional talking manner with them I write them up
a quote not only do I write a quote for them on a you know invoice book for
quotations that has the branding and everything all carried over but I also
when I first talking to them I get their general information including their
email address and when I go to the truck to write up the quote for them I also
immediately email them that quote so then I go to the door and you know tell
them talk a bit about the quote you know talk about the job I also tell them you
know here's your paper copy of the quote and I also emailed it to you just
keeping that whole professionalism going throughout the whole service call so the
two stories I want to share with you surrounding a branding is the first one
involves credit cards so I pulled up to a lawn to do a quote for a customer talk
to them for a few minutes did the quote and I explained to them that I only take
credit cards and that they're build once a month at the end of the month and that
I would need an imprint of their credit card so they went and grabbed their
wallet pulled out their credit card and handed it to me and as they did that and
I was taking a copy of their credit card they kind of looked and said this
crazy I've only known you for five minutes and I really just gave you my
credit card and I started to laugh because I was thinking and I say in
inside that you know that's exactly that trust that I want to instill with people
and the person said but I know and I can tell from your truck and trailer and
your uniforms and stuff that you're not going anywhere you're not a fly-by-night
service so you know I have that trust with you that you're not gonna do
anything malicious with my credit card so that was Story number one and like I
say after that call I was driving away and I was that was a total affirmation
to me that branding really does work even for a small single owner/operator
business the second was we got a call and when I
say we as some of you guys may know my brother-in-law also has a landscaping
company single owner operator but we operate under the same brand overall
brand I started the company and then he joined a little while after and asked if
he could just work under my brand much like a franchise system so we've been
doing that same uniform same truck and trailer stuff but he's a completely
separate business than I am occasionally we work together we'll team up and do
larger projects together this is one of those cases where we got a call to do a
quote at an Auto Mall so if you don't know what an auto mall is it's basically
a mall for vehicle new car dealers so just a large property and but instead of
having one car dealership on it there may be five or six separate building
separate dealerships but all under one large property so you as a car buyer can
go park your car once and walk from dealer to dealer to shop around and
check out all the different brands so they called looking for some landscape
maintenance for a year-round contract so of course this was gonna be a larger job
that not either of us could handle on ourselves so something that we would
have to team up on so we thought we'll go do the quote together now this company
the property manager you know had done the research found us on the Internet
saw our website and decided you know these guys look like they're reputable
we'll give them a call so you know we show up and we were at separate jobs so we decided
to meet down the street and we just followed each other to the Auto Mall
both trucks and trailers matching logos matching trailers and all that and you
know we walk in to this property managers office and we both have our
shirts on the stuff and the first thing the guy says is hey nice shirts he says
I saw you guys both roll in and he says you know you look like something I would
expect to see on Dragon's Den now if you don't know what Dragon's Den is it's the
Canadian equivalent of the TV show shark tank in the United States and actually
dragons den I believe was the original because it was around for probably five
or six years before Shark Tank and a bunch of the Dragons on the Canadian
panel also went on to do the Shark Tank show and become sharks on that show as
well but that was another affirmation for me that yes this guy gets it you
know it's exactly what I was looking for the full branding the full package of
the uniforms that whole cohesive look you know like he said it was something
that he would expect to see on that show of a company that's looking to expand to
you know pitch their product and all that sort of stuff
the other thing actually I'll throw in a third story here and it's one that I get
quite often and that is the question from people whether I'm at a garden
center or just stopped on the street actually the latest one that I had was
about a month ago I pulled up to a customer's property
I couldn't park in front of their house so I had to park a little further
distance away and there was another company doing some fencing for
another house and the one guy came up to me and asked me hey are you a franchisee
and that was another affirmation because you know just being a single owner
operator but operating you know with a look of a much larger company that
people on multiple occasions will ask me if my company is a franchise
I've had people ask me not even ask me if it is a franchise but come up to me
point-blank and ask me hey do you know if there's franchises available still so
you know just that overall branding overall look I think you can really give
you a leg up on the competition especially if you're just starting out
you know and you're trying to get a foothold in the area it can make you
seem like a much larger much more professional company than you may
actually be just starting out and give you you know potentially a lot more
opportunities coming your way because that branding is prominent and cohesive
throughout everything you do your Instagram your Facebook your website
uniforms invoice books keep it all the same keep the logos the colors all that
continually through all that your vehicle signage and graphics so that is
my thoughts on having branding and why I think branding is so important in a
small lawn care and landscaping company so what do you guys think do you think
branding is as important as I think for a small lawn care and landscaping
company leave your comments below if you like this video don't forget to hit the
like button if you haven't subscribed consider doing so and you know here's to
wishing you guys all overwhelming success and freedom in your lawn care
business bye for now