GopherHaul 34 - How to get dead beat lawn care customers to pay up.

http://www.gopherforum.com A landscaping and lawn care debt collection letter that works.

Do you have a lawn care customer or customers that are telling you repeatedly that the check is in the mail? Maybe they have even go so far as to tell you they arent going to pay you. One of our Gopher Lawn Care Business Forum Members had to deal with this issue until she sent out a letter that got her dead beat lawn care customer to pay up.

Amy: Thanks for the sample collection letter in the Gopher Forum, because of it I was paid. Thats one deadbeat down and 1 to go! It was a small victory and a boost to my self esteem.

Steve: That is great news! Tell us what you did to get paid. I am sure a lot of new lawn care business owners are reading this, wondering what steps you took to get success.

Amy: First, I called the Small Claims Court in my County and gathered information on starting a small court claim. How much to file, how much for the Sheriff to serve papers, etc. Then, I gathered my information regarding my deadbeat client; like the dates we performed lawn & garden maintenance and filled in the blanks. I stressed she had 5 days after the receipt of the letter to settle her bill. If not, then I will file a claim against her for theft of services.

I went to the post office and sent the letter registered mail. 3 days later, I received her payment in full. I ran to the bank and deposited the check; hoping she didnt put a stop payment on it! Accompanying her check was a little nasty note stating that she was the one who fired us, but that doesnt excuse her nonpayment.

Heres the lawn care business debt collection letter format that I used. I removed the personal information and others who use it can just fill in the blanks appropriately. Dear deadbeat: You had hired ABC Company on (insert date) to perform garden maintenance at 3 week intervals, starting this day. At the same time, you hired us for lawn maintenance at an agreed price of $$, starting this day. Since then, Ive performed garden maintenance per our contract on this day and lawn maintenance was performed on the following dates. Payment terms per our contract are due upon completion. Payments for the services listed above are now due immediately. Despite several phone calls to you to collect payment, you have stated on 3 seperate occasions that your payment is in the mail. Since I have not received payment to date, your services were terminated by ABC Company on said date, due to theft of services. As per our contract, I am requesting to be paid $$$ for our services

To read the rest of this letter and download it in its entirety visit the Gopher Lawn Care Business Forum free marketing templates section.

If you are in need of free lawn care marketing material for your lawn care business, please visit our site at http://www.gophersoftware.com. We have hundreds of free lawn care logo, flyer, door hanger and web templates you can download and use for your lawn care business. We also have free lawn care business contracts, estimate and proposal forms. Download our trial version of Gopher Lawn Care Business Software. Gopher will help your lawn care business schedule and invoice more customers in less time, allowing you more time to grow or enjoy your life. Check out my lawn care business blog at http://www.lawnchat.com and my lawn care business forum at http://www.gopherforum.com

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[MrGiantstpss]

well duhhh u take them son bitches to court. i just stop mowing no pay no work.

[Pacerjames]

Hey gopher could you help me out. I'm doing this work for this nice older lady who need some yard work. I'm stumped on what I should charge her. I trimmed her bushes and pull out all her weeds. I also layed down about 15 bags of mulch spread it for her. The yard looks great but I'm stuck on how much I should charge her. I worked about eight to nine hours on the whole job. Could you help me please. How much do lawn works make and what should I charge thank you so much man!

[MatTYojeves]

This is great advice. On your forum i have also found that if an account is overdue, print the invoice, put it back in the printer, go into word and put a OVERDUE watermark diagonally across the invoice in red. send that one out. This has worked very well for me. In nz we have debt colectors that will add all there costs to the unpaid invoice, so it is very easy to recover after a month overdue. you simply send invoice to them and a month later you have a cheque for the amount due. U rock steve