How to Start a Landscaping Business

With people leading busier lives than ever before, more homeowners are looking for landscaping services to help with their gardening needs. While landscaping was once an odd job for local teens, it’s now a serious niche and one growing in importance for both businesses and customers.

If you’re hoping to start a landscaping business, the good news is that there’s likely a market available for you to penetrate. However, this doesn’t mean that you should drop everything and launch without a plan. Today, we’re going to uncover everything you need to know about how to start a landscaping business successfully. We’ll address the steps involved with starting a business, the cost of launching the business, and possible financing options even with bad credit!

How to Start a Landscaping Business

With the nature of the world right now, people can start a business with a laptop and an internet connection. However, there’s a difference between launching an average business and laying the right foundations for success. If you’re looking for the latter (we don’t blame you!), we have a few important steps to follow.

Step 1 - Choose Your Services

It’s all well and good saying that you want to start a landscaping business, but what does this mean? Remember, services require equipment, and you might not have the funds to buy every single piece of equipment at the beginning. Depending on your budget, you may need to start with a core selection of services while then expanding over time.

During these early stages, you must identify your services as well as your target market. Who are the people that will pay for the services? Will you provide simple lawn maintenance services to homeowners? Will you offer golf course maintenance to companies? Will you plant flowers and trees for clients? Can you install retaining walls?

While answering these questions, consider whether you will rent or purchase equipment. Later, we’ll cover the cost of starting a landscaping business and how you can take advantage of alternative funding methods such as equipment financing, loans for bad credit, and landscaping business loans.

Some new business owners rent high-quality equipment while others purchase older equipment - you’ll need to consider your business and your budget when deciding on a route.

Step 2 - Get Your Licenses and Insurance

If you’re to operate as a business and provide services to the local community, you’ll also need the right licenses and insurance policies. The best way to not fall foul of the law is to research the rules in your location. For example, you’ll probably need general liability insurance - this essentially means that you’re covered in case you or another employee causes damage while on another property. Since accidents can happen in life, it’s best to have protection. Also, this is something that clients will check when choosing a landscaping service.

Depending on your location, you may also need workers’ compensation insurance. This time, the protection is for the business in case an employee gets injured while working on a property. As well as medical expenses, this type of policy can also help with court costs. Of course, other optional forms of insurance exist including auto insurance, equipment insurance, and commercial umbrella insurance.

In terms of licenses, you may need to follow certain processes such as the pesticide charter to use such products. Additionally, you’ll need to register as a business for tax purposes and get a business license to operate in the location.

Before moving on, we also want to address a common pain point for new business owners - employment law liability insurance. If you want to hire employees or plan to hire workers in the future, this information is essential. With this form of insurance, you can protect the business against mistakes when it comes to hours, overtime, and wage violations.

With rules always changing, this is another layer of protection for both yourself and the business. If you don’t use the right contracts or payment system, it could catch up with you as the Department of Labor investigates all discrepancies. As well as paying to fix the mistake, you could also receive a fine.

Step 3 - Create a Business Plan

Regardless of the services you want to offer to the community, you’ll need a business plan. Not only does it guide the business in the early stages, but it also shows your intent to all potential investors. Your landscarping business plan should include the following information:

• Your intended services
• Pricing information
• Competitor analysis
• Potential challenges
• Marketing techniques
• Planned presence (social media, website, etc.)

Often, new business owners ignore potential challenges. They think that investors won’t want to see difficulties for a landscaping business. However, this is entirely wrong. What investors want to see is that new business owners have considered obstacles to success and have a plan to overcome them.

Meanwhile, competitor analysis is essential because it tells you the number of other services in the niche. Who will your competitors be after you launch? Remember, you’re attempting to steal customers from these companies. Therefore, you need to complete in-depth research to determine their prices and how you will position (and price) your own services.

Step 4 - Financing

At this stage, we come to an important topic for our guide: financing. In the second half of this article, we have information regarding startup business loans, landscaping loans for bad credit, landscaping equipment financing, landscaping business loans, and other forms of alternative funding. But first, what can you expect to pay?

How Much Does It Cost to Start a Landscaping Business?

In the first half, we talked about equipment, launching websites, building a presence on social media, and getting insurance and licenses, and this probably leads to an important question for many budding entrepreneurs. How much can you expect to pay to start a landscaping business?

Ultimately, there’s no way that we can provide a universal number in this guide. As we’ve already seen, the biggest chunk of your budget will probably go toward equipment. Here are just some pieces of equipment and their estimated cost:

• Leaf blower - up to $500
• Gardening tools - up to $50 each
• Trimmer - up to $300
• Vehicle - up to $5,000
• Mower - up to $1,000

When providing a landscaping business, you must realize that customers are outsourcing this task for a few reasons:

• They don’t have time to do it themselves
• They don’t have the right equipment
• They don’t have the skills

Consequently, you need to have high-end equipment. Otherwise, the homeowner may as well have just done the work themselves. You’re offering your time and you have the right skills, but the equipment is the secret ingredient that makes the whole service worthwhile for customers.

The amount of money you spend on equipment depends on the services you want to offer to the community. For example, simple leaf removal and lawn mowing services don’t require too much equipment. On the other hand, you’ll need advanced equipment for driveway repair and pond installation.

If you want to start a business by yourself and offer simple maintenance services, you can get away with starting with just $5,000 (especially if you already have a vehicle for transportation). As revenue increases, you can steadily invest in more landscaping equipment and expand your landscaping services.

This being said, the average cost of starting a landscaping business is between $15,000 and $20,000. With this budget, you don’t have to cut corners and you can launch the landscaping services that you desire rather than starting with basic services. As mentioned earlier, you can reduce the initial cost by hiring equipment rather than buying it outright. Of course, you’ll also find other ways to save money along the way, but this is a general estimate.

Fortunately, the fact that you don’t have this money right now doesn’t necessarily spell the end of your dream. Even if you have bad credit, we have some alternative funding options in the next section.

How to Get a Landscape Business Loan with Bad Credit - Your Financing Options

If you have bad credit, this is even more reason to create a business plan and show the whole world that you’re serious about what you want to achieve in the landscaping industry. Before even thinking about financing, you need to plan your landscaping services, determine how much you’ll need to spend, and then include some money for contingency. For example, the landscape equipment can break down and you’ll need running costs like fuel and other expenses.

Depending on your goals, you may start by yourself, or you may hire experts in the field to help with your vision. This costs money, and the good news is that bad credit won’t necessarily end your dream. The first step is to look through the forms of alternative funding and startup business loans on the list below. Then, contact the South Florida Funding Group for expert assistance at starting a landscaping business with bad credit..

Secured and Unsecured Business Loans

With this form of loan, the idea is to provide small businesses with funds based on either a secured or unsecured basis. With an unsecured loan, you borrow money based on your credit history or score. If you want loans for bad credit, you can instead opt for a secured business loan where you borrow using an asset as collateral. With quick approval and lending, you could have the money in your account within one week.

SBA Loans

Traditionally, SBA loans have always been one of the best startup business loans because they help people with bad credit get access to finance that they otherwise wouldn’t have. In short, these loans are partly secured by the Small Business Administration, and this makes qualification easier for business owners.

Despite the positives, two of the biggest problems is that the application is long, and you can also wait months to get the funds. Also, you need to supply large amounts of documentation.

Equipment Financing and Leasing

As this business idea is so heavily reliant on equipment, this is one of your best and most reliable options. However, it’s important not to get the two confused. If you sign a leasing contract, you’re essentially renting the equipment from the vendor. As you pay monthly, you’ll have the continued use of the tools. This being said, you will never own the equipment and it will go back to the vendor when the contract is up.

If you want to own the equipment and start building assets for the company, you’ll want equipment financing instead. You’ll have the same monthly payments, but this time you’ll own the equipment once the equipment financing is up. If you fail to make payments in either contract, the vendor will take the equipment back as collateral.

With the South Florida Funding Group, you can get a decision within 24 hours of your application.

Unsecured Business Line of Credit

Next, you can get an unsecured business line of credit to meet your financial demands. Here, you essentially open an account like a credit card. Whenever you need to buy something, just tap into the line of credit and then pay it back when you can. If you keep on top of repayments, you don’t have to worry about endless interest payments. Again, the South Florida Funding Group helps to get you on your feet in a matter of days.

Merchant Cash Advance

Finally, another form of landscaping business loan comes in the shape of a merchant cash advance.  Here, the idea is to get a loan while repaying a percentage of all future sales. If you have a short-term cash shortfall, this is a beneficial way to get a landscaping business loan and repay when summer comes (and everybody wants help with their front and back lawns). The South Florida Funding Group can often help businesses to get through approval within 48 hours while accessing funds within one week.

The South Florida Funding Group

If you’re looking for alternative funding and loans for bad credit, you’re in the right place because the South Florida Funding Group can help. Why not get your landscaping business started today? It will require hard work, but it will also be worth it!