Creating a lawn care contract template is not dissimilar from a family law attorney creating draft agreements for child custody, parenting agreements and visitation agreements. In each case, clear contracts are critical to avoid disputes, to prevent disagreements and to ensure that both parties understand their schedule and the mechanics of performance. Without a good contract template, you can expect that the process will be filled with needless disputes and ugly arguments. For both child custody and commercial lawn care, I have learned to always insist on a written agreement. My experience teaching family law makes it easy for me to organize through the raw materials of a proposal to arrive at a comprehensive, balanced and clear commercial lawn care contract template.
It is important to remember that each contract template in the commercial lawn care industry is never the same. Each commercial lawn care company must find unique solutions to their specific issues. In other words, the commercial lawn care business model, its client and its property must all be understood before the lawn care company can begin to create the right commercial lawn care contract template. Each client is unique to the commercial lawn care company. Lawn care contracts are also particularly sensitive to the frequency of contact. Few things are more annoying than a lawn care company that does not perform services as regularly as indicated in the lawn care contract template. Unlimited oil changes, for example, are easier to negotiate than leave or discard of clippings. The type of services rendered have a direct impact on the parameters of the commercial lawn care contract template. If the services are provided regularly under predictable circumstances than the terms of the commercial lawn care contract template can be particularly precise. Depending on the services performed, the contract is likely to be quite short. If, however, the circumstances are particularly unique, periodic competitions are needed.
The Court system also cares about going far and beyond the standard terms of any commercial lawn care contract. If the lawn care company is not careful to spell out what services are going to be performed, the lawn care company may find itself in an expensive disagreement with its client. A clear, commercial lawn care contract template will need to account for either, on-going or periodic services. The important point is that a lawn care company should ensure that the terms of a commercial lawn care contract template are clear and predictable.
When commercial lawn care companies enter into contracts, they are often stretched thin in terms of time and resources. Some commercial lawn care companies have salespeople, supervisors and office assistants. It is easy to dismiss the importance of using a good contract simply because doing so will save some significant time. Unfortunately, both savings and losses accrue at the same rate. If you do not use a clear commercial lawn care contract template, you are simply transferring 100% of the risk to your business. If you are not willing to play the full hand, absolutely do not enter into the game. Assuming that you have taken the time to consider the important components of a commercial lawn care contract, you will be ready to ensure a good deal for your clients and for your business as well.