What do you do if someone requests a discount on lawn mowing?
We all hate this moment, especially if you have just finished quoting on the lawn. You may even feel it was rude of them to ask, but you still have to deal with it.
Many people have asked me for a discount over the years, and how I have dealt with it has sometimes been different. You want to be respectful and polite at all times, but personally, saying “No” is something I have always struggled with. So what do you do if someone requests a discount?
Should you offer a discount?
This depends on the stage of growth of your business. If you are just starting or have spaces available in your schedule, you could say to yourself that earning some money is better than making no money. And that could be true.
When a discount might work
It is okay to take on the job as a short-term fix until a better job comes along as long as the discount is small.
When you do not discount
When you start filling up, you can always look at price increases or replacing the job with a better-paying lawn. Always remember that there is only one of you, and you have a limited amount of time you can work, so your time is precious.
However, this sometimes becomes more of a factor as your schedule fills up and time becomes short. When we start our business, all we have is time, and we are much less fussy about the work we take on.
Because we run a fully booked business, we immediately turn down any discount request. We are in a position where we have to cancel a lawn to take on a new one, and there is no room for discounts there.
We usually price increase our lowest-paying lawn each week and will only quote if we have a vacancy.
Video What Do You Do if Someone Requests a Discount on Lawn Mowing?
What happens when you offer a discount?
When you offer or accept a discount on a regular lawn job, it is not just the one time you will be giving that discount. You will provide that discount every time you do the lawn for the life of the job. And that can soon stack up.
You will find that soon you will hate mowing that lawn because the discount will always play on your mind. It is not a nice feeling.
If you are working on the bigger picture and you are looking at it as a short-term job. It may be alright.
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What about promotions?
I see plenty of lawn-mowing businesses running crazy promotions like
“Your third cut free”
“Every tenth mow free”
Or the worst of them all
“First cut free.”
You do not need to offer these kinds of deals to bring in customers. If you build a business with these kinds of clients, then you may end up building a bad business.
These are not your ideal customers; they are bargain hunters who will always go with the cheapest deal. As soon as someone cheaper comes along, they will go with them, and you may find yourself in a race to the bottom. This is a race that you want to avoid winning.
It’s okay to discount the first cut if it’s overgrown, and they book a regular mow afterward. A lot of lawn mowing companies do that. It’s cutting your regular price that’s the killer.
Don’t underprice the competition to secure jobs. I have never seen that work in my thirty-plus years in the industry.
How to politely deal with a discount request.
If someone requests a discount on lawn mowing you’re going to decline the request. You need to handle that correctly. You do not want to upset the customers and end up with a bad review. Explain to the customer that you are running full and only have one vacancy at this point. Tell them that this is why you cannot offer discounts.
Here are a few other methods you could use instead as the need arises.
Increase the price.
I sometimes do this if I know someone just wants to haggle over the price. I tell them that I will have another look at the lawn. I will then take a walk around and come back. I tell them that now I’ve had a good look, I might have underquoted. I then give them a higher quote.
They are usually quite surprised by this and immediately try to haggle back to the original price. I then let them get the price back to the original quote, and we agreed on that. Everyone is happy.
They got to haggle with the price, and I got the price I wanted.
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Offer a mulch
Another thing that I do is to explain that I can’t reduce the price, but I could offer them a mulch mow. I tell them about the benefits of mulching a healthier, more drought-resistant lawn. If they accept the mulch mow for the discounted price, then you have also saved time emptying the catcher, taking the grass away and dump fees. Its a win-win I would say.
Three mows rule.
This is the last resort and only to be done if you really need the work. You agree to the discount but tell them that you will mow the lawns three times and time yourself. You will then reevaluate the price and tell them if you can continue or not after the third cut.
This will get you the work without the commitment. Sometimes, we have given price increases after the third cut and had it accepted. If not, no worries, and you can move on to the next job.
The big picture.
Remember, you are there to build a lifestyle business, which does not mean working for nothing. The only time you should even entertain the thought of a discount is in the very early days.
Once you are full, you should consistently quote more and increase the price to drive up your hourly rate.
There is no room for discounts with a successful lawn mowing business. Your income should be going up, not down.
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