Another week, another not-so-sexy but cash-flowing business you should invest in. Let’s talk all about lawn care business.

I know that taking care of blades of grass may not sound like the most interesting business concept (unless you’re a teenager looking for an after school gig) but that’s kinda why we love it so much. 

If you’ve been around Unconventional Acquisitions for a while, you know that we get a little riled up when we talk about boring businesses, and lucky for you, the lawn care business fits the bill. 

And you may not know that in 2022, the landscaping industry is worth around $128.8 billion, with a 5.3% growth rate over the past 5 years. 

Not bad for a bunch of tools you’ve got lying around in your garage, huh? 

Even better is that the number of people who don’t feel like pushing a lawn mower and would rather pay someone else to do it for them is on the rise. 

It’s not quite the same vibe as your friendly neighborhood lemonade stand, but it’s highly profitable and relatively easy to manage, especially if you’re hiring a team to do the work so you don’t have to. 

Here’s why buying a lawn service is the perfect boring business to add to your portfolio:

Reasons To Buy a Lawn Care Business

1. There’s Always Demand for Lawn Care and Maintenance

Head to any neighborhood and you’ll notice that every house has one thing in common. They probably have a yard.

And what do yards need every two weeks? To be mowed. 

What’s even better? Pick the right neighborhood, and your soon-to-be-clients are looking for the best lawn care business in town so they can win Yard of the Month. 

Because yes…baby boomers live for the bragging rights that comes with a perfectly manicured lawn.

As long as we keep buying up houses and other properties with patches of grass outside of them, the demand for lawn care services will always be around. 

You could also extend your lawn care services beyond residential homes and offer them to any business with large yards or green spaces. 

Think commercial office buildings, golf courses, hotels, rental properties, apartment complexes, college campuses, and even cemeteries (but only if you don’t mind the whole dead people thing). 

2. It’s a Repeatable and Consistent Service

When it comes to grass, the one thing we can always rely on is its annoyingly fast growth rate. Two days go by, the blades stand taller than they were 48 hours before—and on and on. And no matter what you may try and do, grass will never stop growing. 

That means…that if your customers love your work, you’ll be their dedicated lawn person all year round.

Do it for an entire neighborhood, and you’ve got a booming business. That’s the power of word of mouth and a good mow job.

3. You Can Easily Scale by Expanding The Services You’re Offering

If the landscaping business you’re interested in buying only offers lawn mowing, you could also consider adding on other services to increase your profit margin. 

Take my friend Brian for example. His landscaping business pockets $58k each month. Yeah, you read that right—not bad for a small team and a humble operation. 

What originally started as a one truck and a two-man team, that only offered basic services like leaf removal and patio repair, eventually grew into…well, something much bigger.

Originally, each lawn service appointment was priced out at around $130 per visit, and in a few months, he was able to pay off his original start-up costs of $10k.

Then, he took it to the next level by expanding his services to bigger projects like deck building. Brian now charges around $7k per deck and profits around $4k per project.  

Services You Can Tack Into lawn Care Busienss

Here’s a few of other services you could easily tack onto a lawn care business to increase cashflow:

• Weeding, fertilizer, or pest control
• Landscape design and architecture
• Bush, tree, and hedge trimming
• New sod installation
• Sprinkler installation
• Deck staining

But The Grass isn’t Always Greener…

As with buying any business, a lawn care business also comes with a few cons.

Winter is coming and that means you’ll be outta lawns to mow…Solution number one is to move somewhere where the temp doesn’t drop below 70 all year round. 

Solution number two would be to offer another service that caters to the different seasons. Get your snow shovel ready, folks. 

It also ain’t cheap to start a lawn care business. From lawn mowers and other heavy-duty equipment to the trucks needed to transport it, the startup costs can add up real quick. 

You also need to factor in paying your staff, which will only grow as the business expands. If you’re not on top of your margins and adding in additional services and upsells, this can and will sneak up on you. 

Competition is hot, and once your competitor has infiltrated the neighborhood, chances are you’ll start seeing signs in your neighbor’s yard. 

This market is also highly susceptible to competition, so if you want to have control of your own pricing and profit margin (versus looking onto your competitor’s paper), you might want to pick a different industry.

Looking for more information on how to find the best boring business to purchase? We walk you through exactly what you need to do in our small biz buying course.

And if you’re ready to get the support and playbooks to match, you should probably head over to our mastermind. 

Yours Unconventionally,

Codie & Ryan

Co-founders – Unconventional Acquisitions

If you want to learn more about how to find and buy businesses, check out these articles👇

• Is Business Buying Right For You?
• The Four Things Holding You Back From Buying a Biz
• The 5 Most Common Mistakes in M&A

You can also register for the course here OR if you are serious about buying a small business, join our Mastermind.