Oxford Lawn Services’ niche is mowing, trimming and edging. Thanks to great employees and equipment, Tom O’Brien says they do it better than anyone else.
Tom O’Brien ditched his life as a New Jersey auto repair shop owner in 2008. He wanted a fresh start, a new career in a new place to call home. After doing some research, he and his wife, Tracie, settled on an area roughly 50 miles northwest of Orlando, Florida.
“We learned about this retirement community called The Villages,” Tom says. “From what I’d heard, it was one of the largest retirement communities in the country. Growth was absolutely through the roof back then and still is today. We also learned that the per capita income is quite high. It’s the perfect place to start some kind of service business.”
Tracie was an experienced hairdresser, so finding a good-paying job in a salon would be easy. For Tom, on the other hand, it would be a different story.
“I learned that auto repair rates in this part of Florida were not very good,” Tom says. “I knew I wasn’t going to try and start that kind of business again. My parents were already down here. One day I saw the guy who mows their property. I asked him what the lawn maintenance business was like and if I could ride around with him once in a while to learn about it. He told me there was no shortage of work. There was also good money to be made if you knew how to run a service business.”
Tom’s landscaping “mentor” had planned on retiring soon and passing the business on to his son. But the son had lost interest. After some negotiation, Tom bought the business. At that time, there were 30 accounts on the books. Today there are roughly 350.
Oxford Lawn Services in Wildwood, Florida, has become a leading provider of residential mowing services in The Villages. “Our niche is mowing,” Tom points out. “We do some sprinkler service for our existing customers, but not a lot. We don’t do any fertilizing or landscape installations. We are even getting out of the shrub trimming business. In a market like this, you have to focus on your niche and do it better than anyone else—and then do a lot of it.”
THRIVING IN A VOLUME MARKET
Oxford Lawn Services runs two 2-man crews. From left: Diamond Albertie, Sean Drew, Tom O’Brien (owner) and Matthew Wright.
Tom refers to The Villages as a “volume market.” There is a lot of work available, but also a lot of contractors competing for it. Pricing pressure is heavy. Fortunately for Tom, he had a lot of experience working in cutthroat markets. Now as a lawn maintenance contractor, he knew what he needed to do to succeed. “I had to deliver mowing services better, provide better customer service, keep routes tight and pack them full,” Tom says.
Oxford Lawn Services runs two 2-man crews. A longtime crew leader actually left the company earlier this year after deciding to move closer to family. To start the season, Tom is back in a truck. Thankfully, Tracie is helping manage the back end of the business while Tom helps service properties. That is no small feat given Tracie’s rapidly expanding flower farming business.
Thanks to the tight routing, each crew can service around 35 properties per day. As a result, Tom is in the enviable position of being able to turn work away if it isn’t a good fit.
“The Villages continues to grow like crazy,” Tom points out. “The developer is selling 300 or 400 new homes a month. As The Villages has expanded south, we’ve begun shifting our service area with that growth. It can be difficult to tell longtime customers that we aren’t going to be able to mow their property anymore. But they understand, and we always provide them with good referrals.”
When Walker Talk visited Oxford Lawn Services on April 1, Tom’s phone was buzzing all day long with people calling for estimates. He says it is the result of old-fashioned word of mouth. As burgeoning as The Villages is, the retirees who live there remain pretty close-knit. Many have been talking about the higher level of professionalism Oxford Lawn Services provides.
“Having operated a service business in the Northeast for so long, I think we have an advantage,” Tom says. “The majority of the retirees buying homes on the southern end of The Villages are from the Northeast. They have a higher expectation of their service contractors. We understand how to provide that.”
First of all, all employees are uniformed. Trucks are clean with attractive decals. But the real secret? “I answer my phone,” Tom says. It might sound basic, but that is the top complaint Tom hears from new customers when asking why they are looking for a different lawn maintenance provider.
STRIPES OR NO STRIPES, IT’S STILL ABOUT THE CUT
One other thing Tom often hears from new customers relates to cut quality. His Walker Mowers with 42- and 48-inch mulching decks provide him with another advantage.
Both Tom and Tracie O’Brien traded in their lifelong careers for one more connected to nature when they decided to move to Florida.
“When a potential new client tells me they are unhappy with the ruts and divots their previous contractor was leaving, I ask them to come outside so I can show them the kind of mower we use,” Tom says. “We don’t do much bagging. Here in Florida, it’s all about that perfectly flat, carpet-like appearance. We mulch our lawns to 3 inches for zoysia grass and 3.5 inches for St. Augustine. We have still found that the Walker is the best mower when mulching. I show the client how the deck is out front and articulates with the terrain. I point out the wide footprint of the tires and explain how ground pressure works. I point out the tire in the back of the mower and how the drive tires are in the center. All of this engineering keeps our mowers from damaging the lawn. They’re sold.”
In addition to the two mulching mowers, Oxford Lawn Services does have a GHS machine. It is used to mow overgrown properties, such as when a snowbird finds out that their previous mowing contractor hadn’t been doing much mowing at all. “We also use the GHS mower in the fall when dethatching lawns, as well as in the spring when picking up leaves,” Tom says. “I also bought a 56-inch side-discharge deck this year for a select few properties. This setup is replacing the mid-mount zero-turn we had been using.
”Tom regularly talks about his equipment choices and other topics on social media, mainly Instagram (@oxford_lawn) and TikTok (@oxfordlawn). He is especially skilled at creating videos, many of which have thousands of likes and shares. Tom honed his video-producing skills prior to owning his lawn maintenance business. He once had popular YouTube channels for both camping and fishing.
Tom O’Brien was back in the field earlier this year after a valuable employee moved away to be closer to family.
Now Tom is making an online impact as a lawn maintenance influencer. In fact, he is part of a group called LawnFluencer—a collection of 20 or 30 landscaping professionals that each create their own social media content and promote various products.
“It is a lot of fun,” Tom relates. “This is also turning into a side income stream through some of the product promotion we end up doing. There is just so much money to be made on the internet these days. Why not try to get in on it?”
There is also good money to be made as a lawn maintenance contractor in The Villages. Yes, it’s a volume market and you can only charge so much. But with the right customers in the right locations, and the right employees operating the right equipment, the opportunity is through the roof.
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