4 Unique Ways To Make Your Lawn Maintenance Business Stand Out Online

In this episode we talk about 4 unique ways to make your lawn maintenance business stand out online: 

• Stop trying to copy the competition. 
• Create company culture by come up with unique names for some of the lawnmowers
• Share, share, share. Go live, create videos of the daily work, go behind the scenes and show us the daily life of a lawn maintenance company.
• Make yourself an expert in your industry.

Aaron: [00:00:16] Hey,guys. Thanks for tuning in to another episode of The Marketing Natives. Hopeyou are having an awesome day whether you're on the treadmill or riding in yourcar. Those are probably two very typical areas where you're listening to us.This episode is four unique ways to make your lawn maintenance business standout online. Christian said this was a long title, but we want to make sure thatyou can find this online because that's what you're searching for. All right.So today's topics or today's things that we're going to cover are beingoriginal, giving your crew or lawnmower a name so you can brand it - we'll divedeeper into that obviously - giving tips and insights, and then making yourselfthe expert in your field. I think these are all going to be really good topics.I love lawnmowing season, and it feels like- We're recording this on a Saturdaymorning, and it's like a-

Christian: [00:01:11] Perfectday.

Aaron: [00:01:12] Yes,perfect day to go mow like all day.

Christian: [00:01:14] Althoughyesterday it was kind of raining so might be kind of wet for that, but.

Aaron: [00:01:18] Okay.In the next hour it's going to be perfect for mowing weather.

Christian: [00:01:21] Yeah,true that. All right. So the first thing here is to be original. Stop trying tocopy the competition, man. All right.

Aaron: [00:01:29] Iknew you were going to do that because he was practicing that kind of likebohemian-style intro earlier.

Christian: [00:01:38] SoI think something that stood out to me when I went to- We saw Jeff Bezos on aleadership forum talk thing here in Dallas maybe last month. It was last month.Yeah. And he said that Amazon is a customer- I think we talked about this inanother episode too. Customer- They love customers. You know, they don't reallylook at the competition, and I think that's what, you know, every single- Atleast service-based companies should be focusing on is the customer and not thecompetition. Not what Joe's Grass Munchers over here is doing and just focus onyou and trying to be the best lawnmowing service for your clients.

Aaron: [00:02:25] Yeah.You're ultimately going to grow that way. It's probably- It will probably takeyou longer to build that kind of word of mouth, but if you treat your customerscorrectly, you're going to have a very long sustainable business because-Especially for home service industry, people are constantly asking like hey,who do you trust to do this? And if you take care of them, they're going torefer you. So even people who are like average but they take care of theircustomers and their lawn is kind of like eh. It's not as good as somebody elsebut the person just kind of ignores the customer, they're actually going to getmore business long term just because they are that dedicated to the customer.So if you try to copy the competition, you may go out of business.

Christian: [00:03:08] Nowhow do you do this online? I think, you know, again a really good thing to dois literally don't go to their Facebook business pages. Like don't check themout. Like don't worry about any of that stuff. I know for us, it's kind of hardnot to look at the competition that we have around and see what they're doing.It's hard, but you just have to do it. You just kind of concentrate on your ownthing and what you're doing online, and I mean, a huge thing- If you'retreating your customers right, then ask for those reviews online, on Facebook,on Google, on Yelp, and get your reputation seen, not just, you know- You wantyour customers to know that, you know, you're awesome, but you also want theworld to know that you're awesome. So definitely ask for those reviews.

Aaron: [00:03:52] Oh,and I was going to say as that- As you're doing that, you're really going toset yourself aside from the competition anyway. So. All right. So number two isto give your crew - and I put on here your crew or your lawnmower - a name anduse it when you're building your brand. So for example, if you have OldFaithful, and it's this old, red John Deere riding lawn mower that you've beenusing since the start of the business or maybe you purchased it from thejunkyard and rebuilt the motor and you kind of told that story about how itstarted the business. People can get behind that especially if you had like acool emblem or logo on the side of it, and it's like hey, that's, you know, OldFaithful. That really starts to help you brand your business and stand out. Iknow that I'd be like yeah, that's that one company, and you know, maybe Icouldn't remember the name, but they have that mower that's Old Faithful. And Icould find them online. So that will really help you brand yourself. It willhelp you stick out because otherwise it's just like oh yeah, it's one of thoselawn mowing companies, or for example, in this Dallas area there's - I don'tknow - Legacy Mowing, Legacy Mowing and Weedeating. Like there's just so manypeople that use the same names, and you just don't know the difference betweenany one of them.

Christian: [00:05:05] Yeah.I think a quick thing would be like us, for example, like because we made thatribbon cutting video and we used that dinosaur, like a lot of people knows usnow by oh, you guys are the dinosaur guys, you know. And that's a good thing.People recognize us by associating a physical object. So that's kind of likethe idea behind this is to, yeah, have like old Bertha or what'd you say? OldFashioned?

Aaron: [00:05:26] OldFaithful.

Christian: [00:05:27] OldFaithful.

Aaron: [00:05:29] OldBertha. That's better. Bertha's way better. You'll remember Bertha.

Christian: [00:05:33] Yeah,I feel like, yeah, Bertha just sounds like a lawnmower name. Sorry for anyBerthas listening out there. But yeah. I mean, I think that's a good idea, andit just puts a funny spin to an everyday business. So.

Aaron: [00:05:50] Ithink we should go with Bertha. Yeah. Bertha.

Christian: [00:05:55] Whoa.Whoa. What is that?

Aaron: [00:05:58] Thatis our favorite time of the podcast episode. Why don't you tell them a littlebit more about it?

Christian: [00:06:04] Allright. So technically this is a little ad section that we talk aboutBitBranding. That's both Aaron and I, and we've been doing this for about threeyears. I think, we're are about to go to four years now, but we are a digitalmarketing company here in Allen, Texas. We help businesses with two main thingsand that's social media marketing and website design. I don't know- Do I haveanything else? I feel like we should have talked about this before. On our lastepisode we talked about the event that we had coming up.

Aaron: [00:06:38] Butwe've passed then.

Christian: [00:06:38] Youdon't think so? This is still up in the air. So we have an event coming up thatwe don't know the date yet, but it's a social media marketing forum. And it'sjust a free event for us to talk about social media marketing with otherbusiness owners and get your questions answered. We've been kind of talkingabout this for a while, and we're still planning on getting the date finalized.Hopefully by next episode we will, but if you have any questions or if you'reinterested in this, definitely message us on Instagram or Twitter or Facebookand let us know if you're interested. This is just like a free event. Get yoursocial media marketing questions answered, enjoy the company of other businessowners, learn from other business owners, and connect with other people too.

Aaron: [00:07:24] Nice.This will not have food.

Christian: [00:07:25] No.

Aaron: [00:07:27] Allright. We are back, and we are here with our next spot here which is our nextsegment. I guess, our next tip is to give tips and insights into the type ofjobs you're doing. So go behind the scenes. I honestly have not- I've seen onecompany on Instagram that did a decent job with their lawnmowing service. Ireally cannot remember the name of it because it's just been lost since then.Maybe I'll follow them again since it's getting into lawnmowing season, butgoing behind the scenes and then just sharing your passion, geek out about things.Surprisingly enough, there are enough people who are interested in what's goingon with you, and this one will kind of segue into our next tip. But just addingthat insight will really help you stand out from other people, and you justnever know that person who does the push mowing in front of their yard, you'vehelped them figure out how to fix the blade. And then it's Sunday afternoon.They're like hey, you know, I want to spend more time with my family. I don'twant to be mowing my lawn. I remember this guy helping me out. I'm going togive these guys a call.

Christian: [00:08:37] AndI think a big thing here is to do these tips and insights in video form.

Aaron: [00:08:45] Yes,yes.

Christian: [00:08:46] Ithink that's one of the biggest things to stand out online. A lot of businessowners don't want to do this. Either, you know, they're not used to being infront of a camera. They're not used to being, you know, the face of thebusiness is online, but I feel like nowadays that's just so important. I mean,this applies to every type of business not just lawnmowing. It's to, you know,be up front- In front of, you know, people. Have your face out there, makevideos, make funny videos, show your personality. So it's not just- Yeah, Imean, yeah. We're saying here to give tips and insights, but I think the bigthing here is to show yourself out there. And it doesn't have to be yourselfactually. You know, you can have one or two employees that are the Instagramguys, you know, that take care of that, and you don't have to. That'sdefinitely possible, and that still would work.

Aaron: [00:09:38] Butthe whole point: get in front of the video. And yeah, if you love thelawnmowers, then just have them record you, and you just explain what's goingon because there's a guy actually who owns a tree- It's kind of related. It's atree business, and he just geeks out about it. But people are really interestedin knowing how he plants trees and, you know, new grass and everything in thearea, and if he had his own Instagram story, I'm pretty sure he would gosomewhat viral in the area because there's a lot of people who have questions.So. All right. Our next one here is to make yourself an expert.

Christian: [00:10:14] Yes.I think like lawnmowing is one of those jobs that anyone can go purchase alawn- I mean, we did this when we were in college. One summer we just had mydad's lawnmower, and we just went out and started mowing lawns, you know, andjust getting some clients. And we were not experts by any means at all.

Aaron: [00:10:37] Yes.I was an expert.

Christian: [00:10:39] No,definitely not an expert, but no, this is like- What's the other- There wasanother job that we were talking- Oh, roofers. Whenever hail season comes,they'll have a little magnet. They stick it up on the truck, and they callthemselves roofers without being licensed or insured or anything like that. Solawn maintenance and landscaping could be the same thing, and really what youneed to do is make yourself an expert. Meaning, you know, that people are notgoing to take you seriously until maybe you're certified or you're joiningorganizations, and you start building, you know, a credible resume. You're notjust Grass Munchers from down the street.

Aaron: [00:11:21] There'sinsight to that story. I used to have a lawnmowing business when I was growingup, and that's what it was called. That's why Christian keeps referencing itfor some odd reason. But anyway. Yes. You want to stand out especially- There'sgoing to be some people who want the lowest price obviously, and those areprobably not your customers. But then there are people who really want to knowwho's going to do the best job, take pride in what they do, and they actuallyknow what to do. For example, Christian, maybe he's out mowing a lawn, and hedoesn't know that, you know, you shouldn't mow around this type of tree or thatsomebody had just planted something and now they just ran over this tree thatwas, you know, a ten thousand dollar tree they were trying to grow. And hemowed over it. So having an expert who knows, you know, where to mow, how tomow, and make it look nice and tight and clean, that really helps you standout. And then efficiency. I think in the Dallas area just being able to mow alawn, get it done well, and get it done efficiently and on time is another bigthing instead of just like hey, I got a little one acre lot here and it took mefour hours to mow. So being efficient also means that you know your craft andyou know how to get the job done quickly.

Christian: [00:12:34] Yep.

Aaron: [00:12:34] Allright. Any other cool tips for lawnmowing people? Actually, I would love for ifyou guys found this podcast, if you own your own lawnmowing business, to reachout to us on Instagram. We'd love to follow you because there isn't very manypeople to actually follow on Instagram for lawn maintenance. So curious. Takethese tactics and use them. All right. And please subscribe. If you've gottenthis far into it and you've listened to more than one episode, we hope thatyou're enjoying it, and if you have been listening to it, I would think so. Somake sure you go subscribe. We are on every major podcast platforms. SoOvercast, Spotify, the Apple iTunes, Google Play. Wherever you want to subscribe,that's fine, but just know that every week, every Monday, our episodes go out,and they're always 15 minutes-

Christian: [00:13:24] Notalways. Last week- Man, we went over.

Aaron: [00:13:27] Yeah,we went over by five minutes. So 20 minutes or less. Most of the time, they'reaveraging 15 minutes, and then please share this with a friend. If they'restarting a lawnmowing business, share it with them. If you're on an iPhone,it's those three little dots in the corner, click that right button, click share,and if you guys have any questions, shoot us a message on Instagram. We've beengetting a lot of those lately.

Christian: [00:13:47] Yeah.Awesome.

Aaron: [00:13:49] Allright. Have a great rest of your week.