Help!! Gardener wanted to tame garden of run-down house

ive started to charge alot to sort a mess then dropping down the price due to people saying they want me regular then droppin me when its looking good :rolleyes: however 30 quid a hour for basic maintanace is alot in my opinion

 

I think thats the worst part-do a good job then get sacked off. I think the problem is that it is seen as a hobby-an interest, and then they get a shock when they ask for a professional quote.

 

AHHHH made 666 posts there :eek: lol yep i think that is the problem on the whole i charge by the hour makes the day easyer for me then :D

 

I worked it out at 30 quid an hour for once a year hedge cutting. It is regular work and we are already booked in for next year. The guy has more work than he can handle. He has a 20 minute drive to the site where he can dispose of clippings which is a 40 minute round trip, plus he has to pay the farmer to dump the stuff there. His equipment is top notch.

I work in manufacturing, it is my own company. I know what life in the real world is like. I understand the importance of having the best tooling for the job and I know how much it costs and all the other costs involved in running a business.

Yawn ...... :D

 

ah ha i see :o i charge 35 a hour for that lol lol :o

 

Ha - You must be loaded :D It seems to be the game to be in:thumb:

 

UJH, fair enough.

Spud, My prices are worked out on an hourly rate I just dont tell the customer.

I cant argue that £30 an hour isnt a fair whack, more infact than I charge howevr living costs in the SW are not as high as HANTS. Personally i aim to make around £150 - £200 pd (an averadge wadge) for most trades. IMO this is a fair price for a good service. I do not remove waste and this is charged extra at cost.

i only advertise for fence repair and replacement, The garden maintance and property maintance work I do is via recomendation only now, day to day I am kept fully booked.

 

For the record, My equipment investment is close on £40,000. Substantially more than many trades yet my prices are comparable. Perhaps I should have been a Brickie!!!!

 

40 grand :eek: what the hell have ya got just out of interest do you pay yourself the same ammount every week ? ( i dont wanna know how much by the way lol )

 

Lolli, In the first hour a cup of tea and a biccy are consumed!!!!!

 

Spud, I take a fixed wadge out the business.

Re equipment A heck of a lot!!!, Remember that I have a pestcontrol business and also do a lot of property maintance, each has seperate equipment.

Basicly Ive geared my business so i work for the type of customer for whom money isnt an issue but trust and quality are. On top of this I quote for and carry out work on normal propertys but I have no intrest in being competetive they either employ me or not.

One day I might have a 100' beach tree to fell, the next i could be painting windows or laying a patio, the next doing normal garden maintance or diging a pond out with a 5 ton 360. In my evenings i do the pestcontrol.

I couldnt ask for a better job but I work damned hard for every penny I earn. Thus I do feel peed off if I feel the proverbial is being taken.

 

yeah but 40 grand :eek: though saying that i supose if i include the van ive probably got about 20 grands worth of stuff just for the gardening :D mounts up dont it

same here :D sadly though i dont get the big jobs like you but on the other hand i can make about £150 a day an only need to drive about 15 miles

 

That`s one expensive gypsy cream Paul-you`d have to have the own brand rich tea finger.

A good point was made there-I hate to use certain terms, about "target market". If you gear prices and fees according to your market you can`t go far wrong I think.

 

Hi all, just catching up with all the threads here. I'm glad this has calmed down. Here's my 2p worth.........

A few years ago before I got into gardening I was in a situation where I didn't have the time or inclination to keep it tidy. All it was was abit overgrown round the edges but I just couldn't face it. I looked in the paper for a company, found one, they came round. At the end I paid them £100 for a couple of hours work (they were the workers not the owners). All they did was cut it down, didn't do any digging or anything.

Now that was a rip off. They weren't professionals at all.

All the same, now I really appreciate 'proper' professionals & would pay accordingly. It's true that people don't appreciate what's behind a real business.

It is a shame though that there aren't people out there that just want a bit of pocket money & maybe no longer have there own garden to work, or it's too much to keep on top of one but you could do a bit at a time. Anyway, I'm not knocking what you pro's charge.

Maybe it's a good idea to place adverts in the local shops etc, just be aware of who comes knocking! I think the idea of a travelling gardener is fantastic - never mind other countries, I'm sure there's enough gardens in the UK to keep them busy. Now, that's the kind of job I would love if I was younger - oh, of course and had the knowledge

cheers

 

Borrowers-I have a fourteen yr old lad you can have for a weekend. He is over 6ft tall and 13 st so not a slip of a lad, bit of an attitude-everyone is against him etc, but he responds to a clip round the ear. LOL-PS if you can get him to work it is part of the deal that you tell me how you did it.