Not many lawn pros can gross better than $25,000 in their spare time. But that's what Dennis Sloan, owner of Sloan Landscape Maintenance, Ardmore, Oklahoma, did last year. This sixth grade science teacher did it with two Walker mowers, 20 residential accounts and virtually no help. Sounds like a lot of work for a part-time job? It is, notes Sloan, but not nearly as much as it used to be.
Dennis started mowing lawns in 1982. A brief hiatus from teaching and a stint in the oil fields shortened by the oil bust left him with no employment. When a friend suggested he mow lawns, Dennis took him up on it, charging $10 per lawn.
The heart of his lineup in the spring of '82 included a two-cycle 21-inch walk-behind, an inexpensive line trimmer and a few additional pieces of equipment which put his initial investment at $800. By season's end he had grossed $2,000. "It just wasn't worth the effort," he tells. When a teaching position opened up he grabbed it and said goodbye to mowing. Or so he thought.
When the following spring rolled around, Dennis had no intention of mowing lawns. But what he intended didn't coincide with what an older customer in town wanted. She just wouldn't take no for an answer. That one lawn led to another, and Sloan Landscape Maintenance was up and running, again.
Dennis Sloan is not a typical part-timer. Sure, he wants to make additional income. But he also wants to build a business that can support him after he retires from teaching. The fact he was nearly always running short-handed and was constantly under a time crunch made growing a business difficult. He had all he could do to maintain his current properties, mowing evenings and weekends.
He wasn't long identifying the problem. The small walk-behinds just didn't "cut it" mowing lawns. Two years after hanging his shingle, Dennis noticed a competitor with a 36-inch intermediate mower. He bought his first intermediate that year and purchased a second one the following season. "The difference was like night and day," he notes.
"I thought the new intermediate was the answer. But after a few years I got tired of walking and carrying the bagger. So I started to look at riders." And look he did. In 1990, his search took him to Dallas, Oklahoma City and Tulsa. But it wasn't until he saw an ad for a Walker mower in a trade magazine that be had a line on his first rider.
"A Stillwater, Oklahoma, distributor demonstrated the mower," he relates. "I drove it, I made it buck and I told him I'd buy a machine." Unfortunately, Dennis neglected to mention the purchase to his wife, who heard about it a few days later. The proud owner made a hasty call to the distributor to cancel the order, but the mower was already on its way. As the story goes, he didn't have the heart to make the delivery person drive back to Stillwater with the mower.
Creative Financing
There is one thing that Dennis has in common with other lawn maintenance professionals around the country. Poor cash flow in the off-season. Although teaching takes the pressure off, this entrepreneur still needed to find a way for his fledgling business to pay for his first Walker... and his second one the following year.
The answer he devised was fairly simple: Sign customers up to yearly lawn programs. Out of his 20 accounts today, 13 are on a yearly billing schedule. Sloan pro-rates the accounts just like gas utility companies do, so monthly payments are equal for the year. An average customer, for example, might be charged $30 for each mowing maintenance visit. Thirty visits would total about $900 for the year. Dennis simply divides the figure by 12 and bills the customer monthly. Scheduling the mowing, scalping/dethatching, weed control, fertilization and leaf removal, a 7,000-square-foot lawn can generate $100 to $125 per month for 12 months. "Two customers and I can make a $230 monthly payment year-round," he relates.
Signing up customers for the year has one drawback for this Oklahoma native. Direct expenses are higher during the busy season, and he could use the additional income he deferred. The difference is made up by doing some extra work, e. g., de thatching and some seasonal mowing accounts. His new Walkers, he adds, afford him the time.
When Preparation and Opportunity Meet
Johnny Rutherford said, "Luck is when preparation and opportunity meet." Dennis subscribes to this definition of luck. Being a science teacher, he has never been a true believer in luck. As he puts it, most people think luck is the result of pure chance. "When competitors see my new Walker mowers, they may think: “How did you get so lucky?' The truth is, if you want something, you have to be prepared to work hard for it, and take advantage of the opportunities."
It used to take Sloan 20 hours to "scalp back" and dethatch a 7,000- square-foot property, including bagging the thatch in plastic bags and scalping with reel mowers. Now, using two Walkers, it takes only four hours. On regular mowings, one Walker cuts his mowing time in half. ''When people see a Walker they see the light," Sloan remarks. To be sure, seeing is believing for Sloan. There's a picture of a dump trailer above his workbench. No, he doesn't need to be reminded he wants one for his business. He just thinks it makes sense to keep your dreams in focus. After all, science teachers have dreams, too. They also have a way of turning them into reality.
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