[Pelican]

Well my diligence and hard work seems to finally be paying off, my lawn crew is working beyond capacity and new customers are calling nearly daily. Some might think being so busy is a good thing, but it presents me with a problem.

I hate turning away work, especially when it's next door to an existing client, but I don't want to work my crew into the ground either. I've built the business on quality of work and don't want to sacrifice this for speed.

I figure I'm faced with two choices, either hire a third man for the crew or put together another crew which would mean purchasing about $60,000 in equipment. The trouble is the second crew would only be busy a few days a week at this point, plus the huge investment. I currently have a Z turn rider (60") and hydro walk behind (52") working, plus 2 trimmers, one backpack blower and 2 walk behind blowers. Could a third man, doing trimming and blowing while the two mowers are running speed up my production much?

Is there another suggestion I'm not thinking of?

[GLAN]

easiest is to hire the third man........yes it will speed up things......how could it not?

[Nebraska]

I would say a hire a third man and max out the crew of three....at that point re-visit the idea of starting a second crew.

Personally we use a third man three days per week on a mowing crew.....it does speed things up.

[Bill Schwab]

I'm an equipment freek...But then consider a 33% labor burden and 30% work comp rapeage from the good ole libs in California congress. off topic but right on with keeping labor down, we have two Ingersol Bobcat power dump trucks/wheelbarrows ordered and in route. I figure they will slice hand wheeling labor by 40%.

Back to topic, if you can keep the orange, yellow, red, or green iron moving (depending on your mower choice) I would go for the second crew so long as you know your first does not need you. Get the next one dialed in and then step back and assume a strictly managerial slot.

What we found is that there comes a point where more bodies will not add the extra time you need to take no more accounts. Heres one for you....Keep the crew as is, then hire a TLC guy who will run a pick up. His job is shrub trimming, walk edging, basic making the job neat. He blows walks, he gives things the once over. Yes it will add an extra visit to sites, but will lossen up the time consuming things from the crew so they can assume more. Then, calc out where he is maxed out, and for those jobs he cannot get to, instruct the regular crew to do TLC. This way all you need is a mid size pick up (Dodge Dakota, Chevy Colorado, maybe an F-150) a trimmer, edger and blower. Truck lease cost, $250 a month, Edger, $400 (+ -) Blower $400 (+ -) and Trimmer $300 (+ -).

As it builds, shift duties again.

[HardDaysKnight]

Bill, that is fantastic advice. I don't do maintainance but,
I can see how that would seriously make his service glide
through the week. Great input.

[Nebraska]

I respectfully will disagree with sending a second truck out on the same properties....

How could possibly dedicating two visits for the same price allow you to come out ahead? The third man on the crew can assume this type of role...or rather that's the crew leaders responsibility before they check it off and move on....and do it all in one visit.

I know the the big question for anyone in maintenance is always two man or three man crew.... I personally like the three man crew set up and put it into practice as we've grown. We keep two men on mowers and the third as a mostly a dedicated trimmer. The crew leader is resposible for the outcome in regard to quality and time.

I've thought a lot about it and I believe the most cost effective way to grow would be to max out a three man crew before purchasing ALL the necessary equipment to start another.

[Pelican]

A bit of additional information:

I'm no longer involved in the lawn care end of things other than addressing complaints. I've got two great workers doing it for me, but they're working 12 hour days and I don't want to burn them out.

I've done something a little similar to Bill's suggestion in the past, during extended wet periods I'll send the guys around to do just the trimming so that when conditions are dry, all they need to do is mow. It's not as profitable, but it keeps things as close to schedule as possible.

I realize a third man would speed things up, but my concern is whether it would increase production enough to cover his wage. Have those of you who have the 3 man crew done the math on this? In my area, lawn care profits are very slim, I use the service as a marketing tool for additional work and advertising, but I'd hate to have it cost money.

[Bill Schwab]

The 3 man crew proved counter productive when we were running maintenance, that's why one took over TLC. Where you loose is while running job to job you only have one guy working and the rest getting windsheild time.

The same held true to 2 man garbage truck routes. WE added more trucks and made one man crews, and could haul more trash in a given day with the extra volume and work getting done. Instead of one guy now drawing non productive pay, you would now have two.

In order to make it work, you need to know how much time is lost when say your mowers are done, and waiting for your clean up trim guy. Or, vice versa.

On a tight route, (stops less than a minute apart) this method is not significant, but when you have stops over 5 minutes apart, it works.

[Nebraska]

For us the increased production with a third man on the mowing crew is financially justified....especially when considering the reduced hours of overtime.

No one sits either....if the two are done mowing and there is trimming to be done..they trim....etc.

The average increase for my three man crew, three days a week is approximately 24% for each of those three days. That does not include the money saved on overtime.

[GLAN]

I understand Bills method........though realisticaly it has added a significant amount of over head......

Truck for one........Still have the 3rd person.........but now the extra truck........insurance, gas, maintenance. And still the 3rd guy.

I run 5 man maintenance crew. I will throw on an extra from time to time when my work is complete, delay due to rain, or if there is the odd day I have nothing going on for myself.

2 guys on mowers
1 guy on line trimmer
1 guy on edger
1 guy doing beds.

first one done will either pick up a blower or help with the beds. This depends on the timing of every thing. Where we run a whole street. They move down the street at a pretty darn good pace.

[Nebraska]

Bill has been there and done it many times over....... I think that it will vary depending upon the dynamics of your crews, the route, cash, and direction you want to take your business.

The main reason for not buying more equipment on my part is cash and direction of growth. I felt more confident in trying the three man crew first rather than setting up a one man crew and incurring the cash outlay.

I wonder how much more productive a one man crew is over two man crew?

[cutntrim]

If your doing resi's, I'd stick to a two-man crew. If it's all commercial, then 3 is fine. If it's half-and-half, then perhaps a third man on in a part-time capacity, for the days when you've got a lot of commercial work.

If you're doing installation work as well, then the install crew can do maintenance one-or-two days a week, to pick up the slack from the maintenance truck. That's what I do. I'm moving towards 50/50 maintenance vs. installation, but right now my installation crew (myself + 1-2 workers), cuts lawns on one day each week.

Incidentally, I'm also at full maintenance (and installation) capacity right now. I just changed my voicemail greeting to reflect that. I'm not currently taking on any new maintenance accounts, and I'm booked-up until July for installation work. For me, I'm concentrating on streamlining what I'm currently able to handle, rather than looking to lay out more cash in order to take on more work. Sounds as if you're in a similar situation.

[GLAN]

I can't remember back far enough to the beginnings of where I started when running anything less than a 5 man crew. Though there was the few short years where I ran 2 routes each having a 3 man crew.

For maintenance.......2 men is better than 1. 3 is better than 2. 4 is better than 3. 5 is pretty much maxed out before people start tripping on each other.

[jwholden]

I changed my message last week as well. It says that we are not scheduling new projects until early-July. Hoping that helps rather than hurts, there are too many people who need to have it tommorow.

Back when I did residential lawns a two man crew was ideal. When I took three men with me there was always someone stretching a job or loafing back at the truck while the others finished. Unfortunately for me, I only cut a couple days a week and had to bring both of my employees with me. It has always been difficult to explain the concept of make it look good but don't take all day doing so.

A 'boss' could probably keep up with a two man crew alone, but I wouldn't want to work that pace everyday. That is where the employees come in to spread the workload.

[Mark Oomkes]

Steve, many questions here, some already asked. How big are your jobs? How many days are your crew working 12 hours a day. If they are working 5-12 hour days X 2 people, they are working 120 hours or 40 hours OT total.

If this is the case, are you charging more for those 40 OT hours? If not you are losing money for every one of those hours worked because of the increased cost for OT. If there are 40 hours, you already have a full week of work lined up for another crew. Could you possibly purchase a minimal amount of equipment for this 1 man crew and he can go out by himself?

I am going to go opposite of almost everyone here. DO NOT put a third man on, epecially if they are small sites. We have run 2 and 3 man crews. The most profitable crews are 1 or 2 man crews. We used to just load up mowing crews with whatever work was there and close by and didn't pay attention to how many HOURS they were scheduled for. And we never really made money in the summer, while doing it this way. Once we started paying attention and actually scheduling our mowing crews for approximately 40 hours worth of work, we started making money during the summer while mowing. Now we are not subsidizing our mowing with our plowing money anymore. In fact, last year we covered almost 80% of our total overhead with our summer work instead of vice versa. I know that the reduction in OT by actually scheduling our crews also contributed to this turn around.

Most of the trade magazines have at one time or another printed articles on how big a maintenance\mowing crew should be. Most of them concluded with smaller is better. Our 1 man crews blow away even our 2 man crew dollars\hour. Production wise, maybe not, but dollar wise they do and I am actually trying to make a couple bucks while working my butt off.

I should point out that our mowing crews mow, trim, edge and blow off. They do not weed, trim\prune shrubs or anything else.
I have a lot of money tied up in equipment that I do not want sitting while someone else is pulling 3 weeds or 2 guys are trimming with $300 trimmers and my $12,000 mower not making me money. I know this is still going to happen, but I do my best to limit it as much as I am able. Bill is absolutely right on this idea, it does work and it works well.