With the advent of warmer temperatures comes the responsibility of mowing your RV Park. But who should you hire to do it and what should it cost? In this RV Park Mastery podcast we’re going to review the correct methods and strategies to get ready for mowing season.
Episode 142: All About Mowing Transcript
All Americans are happiest as spring and summer approach because we enjoy the warmer weather. We enjoy it being lighter later. But there's one thing we dread about the advent of warmer temperatures, and that's the concept of mowing your RV park. This is Frank Rolfe with the RV Park Mastery podcast. We're talking about the best way to approach mowing season, how to determine which vendor to use and what the appropriate number is for your budget. Let me first point out that mowing is a unique skill. It's really not a skill. It's walking behind or riding on a lawnmower.
So as long as you can propel that thing in a somewhat straight line and understand the concept that you have to go back and forth and back and forth until all the grass has been chopped, it's not something that is a very high skill level endeavor. And as a result, it's a commodity. So basically, mowing is mowing. Doesn't matter who does it, you're gonna end up with the same end product pretty much regardless. So, when it comes to pricing of mowing, the first important item is getting bids because it's almost all about labor.
It's not one of those situations where you have parts and labor and the parts are the majority of the work. In that case, the bids will come in very close together. In mowing, it's all about labor, and as a result, the price can be very elastic. Someone could just wake up grumpy one day and throw out bids significantly higher than the day before when they were in a happier mindset. So, it's essential if we're going to figure out how to mow the RV park, to get multiple bids. Now, when you're looking at multiple bids for the RV park, you have to take some things into consideration.
First option is, should I actually just have it mowed myself? Should I have the manager mow the RV park? But the problem with that is many managers are not really set out to be mowers. So, they don't really find that to be an appealing part of their job. And on top of that, if you look at the amount of time they take to mow and how much you pay them per hour, that may be your most expensive concept because you'll have to buy all the equipment, maintain the equipment, and then see if your manager can effectively mow with the same rate of speed as a professional mower.
In many cases, when you add it up, when you look at the amount of labor cost you've got in the manager mowing plus the equipment cost and repair, that price probably may not be your winner, but that's definitely one price you can look at. Now the next thing I would do is I would get a bid from the most expensive mowing company, the most professional mowing company in the whole market. The one where they have T-shirts and they have pickup trucks with their logo proudly put on them, and they have multiple crews. These are the kinds of mowers that any of the bigger institutions will be using. People like Walmart or some bank branch, they always show up. They're very professional, they do great work.
And if one crew calls in sick or has a flat tire, they supplement that with the second crew so you always get the property mowed. So, I would definitely get the bid from one of those groups, and then I would drop back and I would get a bid from someone who's not a big company, but they may still have a pickup truck with their logo on it. So, they're professional, but they never really grew big. They might even have two crews as opposed to one. But it's pretty much an owner-operator. And that's who you get when you call the number. That's the person who answers their cell phone, is the guy that he basically it's all him. It's his company. He makes the pricing. Because that guy may give you almost the same quality of service as the big company, but theoretically, maybe at a lower price since he's a smaller company.
Then I'd also open the doors wide open to anyone else who wants to bid. If there's a young person living down the street and they want to give it a shot, well, why not? Again, it's a commodity. So, no real skill required to do it. So, once you've pursued that, you're gonna end up with a bunch of bids. Then here's what you do. You look at those bids and you see where the big company comes out at. And if that big company is pretty much at the same bids as all the others, then you're gonna go with the big company. That's always your best shot because then you will get the best service, fully insured, no problems whatsoever. And again, it's a commodity. So, hey, if the good one, the great one, the big one, is right in line with the other bids, well then, heck, that's an easy decision. We're gonna go with that. Or sometimes when you get the bids in, the big company is very, very expensive compared to the others.
But the middle one and the smaller one, they're about equal. So, in that case, go with the middle one. Go with the one who's got big company demeanor but not really big company stature because they'll always show up, they will never let you down. They got lots of insurance and all that kind of good stuff. But sometimes the winning bidder by a landslide is just that guy that lives down the street. His pricing is the lowest of all. Now, again, it's a commodity. So, even though there's no depth to the player chart, it's just them with their pickup truck and their lawnmower, why not give them a try? You'll have to make sure that they have insurance. So, you'll have to bridge the gap apples to apples to make sure they do have insurance in line with the other contractors. And if they don't have it, make sure that you have insurance for them that you can obtain under your policy.
You also have to factor that into the price. But it's remarkable how in so many markets we see this huge elasticity between the bidding in some markets, and in other markets we see virtually none. Now, on top of this, figure out what you think your cost will be to mow it yourself. But remember that that one has to come with a huge discount because you gotta charge a premium for your own worry and your own time in setting all of that up. It's not fair to go with the in-house mowing if it's the same price as the big company because on the big company you had no time, you had no skin in the game, didn't have to worry about it. But now you do have to worry about it. You have to manage that person, you have to manage that equipment. The bottom line, though, is when you compare them all together, you will see pretty quickly which option is the best.
You'll see it in price point, your gut instinct will tell you, and then you'll know which one to pick. Now, there's still one more part to it, though. Once you've selected who you want to go with, you need to try and renegotiate it one more time. Go to the big company or the middle company or the low company and tell them that they're not the lowest bid, but you really like them and you want them to get the job, so, could they come down a little and see what they say? Now, you may say, "Oh, that's so crass." That's just a part of business. That's how it works. That's what everybody else does. And even if you can only get a little bit off, even if the person will only drop an extra $20 off per cut, well, that's a $100 a month savings. I'm sure you have something you can do in your life for 100 bucks.
Sometimes, though, you will get even larger amounts, particularly at the really big companies. Often they've got a little more margin in there and they're also trying harder to get your work. That may be why they're the big companies, is they're much better at getting new accounts. The bottom line is there's a system, there's a science to getting ready for RV park mowing annually. Now's the time to get it going because mowing season is approaching, and if you follow these recommendations, I know you'll have a successful year. This is Frank Rolfe with the RV Park Mastery podcast. Hope you enjoyed this. Talk to you again soon.