Dealing with rain

Dealing with rain

Down here in Victoria winter can be miserable. We get soaking wet and freezing cold making it hard to get any work done (or at least to get the motivation to do it), and the grass slows right down.

In other parts of the country winter can be an enjoyable time of year but in summer you might see a years’ worth of rain in a week.

So, what can we do in our industry to make sure we are still bringing in the money? Plan and diversify.

Let’s face it, there’s only so many rain days you can spend in the shed doing maintenance.

At the Lawn and Garden Professionals Group we teach long-term strategies that would allow you to take anywhere up to 15 paid days off for rain or heat, combined with other short-term strategies to get you through those extreme weather periods

Below we can discuss some short-term strategies that will get you out of a pinch.

For example, if your business model consists of acreage mowing and the ground is soaked through, how can you put a 500kg machine on it without tearing it all up and getting bogged? You basically have to give it a crack and leave a mess, wait until it dries out which could take weeks, or try an alternative method.

What I’ve done in the past using the push mower is to continue to mow any important areas like directly surrounding the house and any pathways etc, edge or brush cut the main areas you normally would and then leave the bulk of it to dry out. In winter this is ok because the grass isn’t growing much and come springtime it’s usually only a little bit harder to do.

In summer we don’t get the luxury of slow grass, which means it will be very long and thick when you get back to it. In this case you would have to communicate to the client that the grass will need to be slashed or get a double cut when it dries out, and that the client will have to pay for it, just make sure you explain to them that the savings of not mowing it in the wet should make up for the extra work at the end.

If you are keeping up those critical areas and all the edging, the main area won’t seem so bad, as it will be pure ride on or slash work.

Of course, you must communicate this with the client and adjust the amount you will charge, but it’s not a bad compromise, you still get some money coming in and the customer appreciates you are doing what you can.

An alternative method might be to brush cut or push mow the whole lot but personally I would try to avoid that much extra work on acreage jobs.

These days something to consider would be investing in robotic mowers, they are much lighter meaning they won’t bog down and make a mess, and they can work through the day and night, rain, or shine. I’ll get into more detail on robotic mowers on another post.

If you can agree on a compromise with your customer then you can use the extra time you have to do other work that doesn’t matter if it’s raining or not.

This all sounds good in theory, but you should make plans and be prepared for these events.

It doesn’t matter if you are doing acreage or tiny townhouses, summer, or winter, you can plan for rain and have alternative work ready to go.

Throughout the year you should be taking notes and speaking to your customers about extra work you can upsell to them.

In winter it might be rose pruning, summer might be extra mulching, whatever it is just communicate with your client. Occasionally mention you know how to prune the roses and it might be a good job for a rainy day, plant a seed in their mind and chat to them about what time of year you like to prune for the best results.

Now when that rain hits, you can call them up and say “Hey, looks like the lawn is way too wet to mow, how about we get your roses done? “

They already know you can do the job, it’s wet outside and they don’t want to do it, 9 out of 10 times they will say go for it. Then you can upsell some mulch or rose food at the same time.

I like to call it “saving up” jobs. You can do it with all your customers multiple times over and it works for those dry periods too.

In the end you cannot stop the rain, but you can plan, compromise, and diversify to make sure you still have an income.

This June near Ballarat in Victoria we had terrible weather, just consistent rain. Luckily, we had “saved up” a decent landscaping job. We had retaining walls, steps, pathways, rock walls, garden beds and mulching. All work that could be done in the rain. This kept us busy for a good 2-3 weeks during weather that normally would have kept us in bed.

It was still a wet, sloppy mud pit but it didn’t matter.

When this job was finished we then up sold the customer on installing all new Sir Walter Buffalo turf with full irrigation. Being winter we spoke to the customer about waiting until it warmed up a bit so we have it “saved up” for the beginning of spring which will also give us another lawn to look after through summer.

What if I don’t know how to do anything except mow? Or I haven’t prepared any other work?

Well right now is the time to dive in and learn new skills, you need to hustle. If you can’t mow and there’s no money coming in you need to be doing something.

Think about what other services you could offer your clients tomorrow without investing much money.

A few examples might be:

Rose pruning – A pair of secateurs’ and a few YouTube videos will get you by to start out.

Pressure cleaning – Have you got a pressure washer in the shed?

Mulching – Offer to top up garden beds.

Window cleaning – You only need a few cheap tools and a bucket to get started.

These examples take little skill and are inexpensive to get started, it will be enough to get you out of trouble when you suddenly find yourself dealing with torrential rain.

But when it comes to long term business success you need to be ready to offer up extra services that you have partly or fully pre-arranged with your clients, and have your business set up to handle having some paid days off for extreme weather.