How Christine Makes Six Figures With A Self-Taught Business
This week’s story is proof that sometimes the “temporary” plan turns into the real thing.
Twenty years ago, starting a lawn care business in small-town Arizona was just a stopgap for Christine and her family. It wasn’t meant to last.
Today, at 59, she runs a lawn service company that brings in up to $30K in peak months, and grossed a whopping $220,000 in 2025.
All with word-of-mouth clients, a tight schedule, and zero fancy marketing.
Here’s how she built it and doubled her income in six years.
How Christine Makes Six Figures With A Self-Taught Business
Can you introduce yourself, your business, and how you first got started in lawn care?
I am 59 years old. My company name is Spires Lawn Service LLC. I am the owner/ operator. I work with my husband but he is basically just an employee. I do all of the book keeping, bidding the jobs, setting the schedule, and running the crew. It is just me, my husband and usually one other guy.
My husband is no longer able to work with me this season so it will be me and two employees. I have been in business for roughly 20 years.
I live in a small town in Arizona called Taylor. We have a neighboring town called Snowflake and it is in these two towns that I operate my business. I first got started in business with the help of a neighbor who operated a landscaping business. He only did commercial jobs and didn’t want anything to do with residential lawn service.
I kind of stumbled into this and didn’t realize its potential until about 10 years ago. It was only supposed to be a temporary thing for my husband and I to do until he found a new job.
We were given a few jobs to start with from our neighbor and he would recommend any residential customers who called him to me. I still work for some of those very same customers twenty years later.
I have a set clientele of about 50 clients that I do lawn care for weekly. My season starts in March with about half of my clients starting and then the rest start in April. I work through December and take January and February off except for about 4 clients that go year round. I have a healthy mix of commercial and residential clients.
What kind of income does your business bring in, both during slower months and peak season?
Since I was subcontracting under someone else I was making more money from the beginning than what my husband was making as a block layer. In my slow months I bring in around $3,000 but in my peak months I bring in between $25k to $30K. My business grossed $220,000 in 2025.
What services do you offer, and what makes your business so profitable compared to what people might expect?
I basically maintain already existing landscapes. This can include mowing and trimming the lawns, blowing off their porches and sidewalks, pruning shrubs or weeding flower beds, picking up trash and keeping the property’s weed free.
I am in a position where I can cherry pick my jobs now so I don’t take on any new job that is too time consuming. I also maintain and repair sprinkler systems. This is something that I taught myself how to do.
I don’t advertise all of my business comes from word of mouth or from someone seeing me working who stops and wants a bid on their yard.
What makes this so profitable is you can start with nothing but an old lawn mower weed eater blower and a good work ethic. This is what I started with and as I started to make more money then I invested in better equipment. I grew slowly over time and just in the last 6 years I have doubled my income.
My husband and I did all of the work for a lot of years or only hired help occasionally which made it a very profitable business for us. When I bid a job I give them a weekly maintenance cost for residential and a monthly maintenance cost for commercial jobs. I bill at the end of each month and receive checks throughout the next month as people pay for their service.
How I determine what to charge depends on what kind of landscaping they have and how much time it will take to maintain it. I go look over the job and then give them a price. If they say yes then I tell them what day I will do the job and then I show up every week on the same day throughout the season to maintain their landscaping.
How many clients do you typically serve, and what does your workload look like during your busiest months?
I have a set clientele of 50 businesses and residential customers but during the growing season I usually pick up another 10 or more customers depending on whether I have quality help to do the jobs. I have done as many as 16 jobs in one day.
I have a set schedule. I stick to keeping the jobs each day as close by as possible to cut down on travel time. Once I get going in the summer it is the same jobs every day every week.
My best month financially was 65 clients plus a huge commercial pruning job. With my regular clients I brought in around $25k. I also picked up a new client that I did some sprinkler repair and landscaping repair for who became regular clients. This brought that month up to $25k.
On top of this I also got a big commercial pruning contract that was done in the afternoons and weekends over a two week period. This job paid $22,500 but since it is a commercial job I have to wait 2 months to get paid but it was worth the wait. Last year I also got this commercial pruning job which paid $15k. These two commercial pruning jobs are what has allowed me to become debt free this year.
In order to work for this company I had to be a llc and carry commercial business insurance which I became about 6 years ago. I am hired solely on my reputation of doing quality work.
Do you have a most profitable type of client or contract? What makes that relationship especially valuable?
My most profitable clientele is a commercial property that I maintain. I am the sub contractor on the property. March through October I get weekly work orders. This property is pretty easy to maintain.
Every week we walk the property picking up all of the trash and debris from the parking lot curbs and landscaping. We also pull or spray any weeds we see on the property. We have to keep the property weed and trash free.
I make $1345 per month and it takes two or three people 1 to 1.5 hours to maintain the property weekly. During the off season I get bi weekly work orders that pay $600 per month. What makes this business so profitable is the pruning contracts or any extra work orders that come up.
In the last two years I have made $41k or more on these extra work orders plus my monthly work orders and any irrigation repairs that may have come up. This company has been very profitable for me.
What skills or experience does someone need to start a lawn care business like yours?
You don’t need any special skill to begin. If you have ever mowed a lawn you can do what I do and learn as you go. I didn’t know anything when I started and have self taught myself.
All it took was a good work ethic and taking pride in my work. To succeed early on you have to treat it as a business and a willingness to work hard.
I didn’t start treating it like a business until six years ago when I had a friend who has become a great mentor to help me to realize what I had already accomplished. Once that sunk in it helped me to change my mindset and I doubled my income in six years time becoming debt free.
For someone just starting out, is it better to focus on residential or commercial clients?
Commercial Jobs will always pay more but you have to have a business license, business insurance and in some cases a contractors license.
Residential yards can be profitable because they are pretty simple and quick to do. Most residential yards I can do in thirty minutes.
You don’t need anything special to go mow a yard. Higher end neighborhoods you can always charge more but the elderly are also a great client base. I always charge less for my elderly if I know they are on a fixed income.
What works best is a healthy mixture of commercial and residential but there is nothing special you need for residential so it is a great place to start. There is nothing more satisfying than doing several yards in the same neighborhood. All you have to do is drive around the block mowing yards counting the money as you quickly go from one yard to the next in a very short time lol.
The closer the jobs are, the more jobs you can do. The more jobs you can do the more money you make.
What are the most common mistakes people make in lawn care, either beginners or even homeowners?
The most common mistake when it comes to lawn care is mowing the grass too short. You can start by just mowing a lawn. I have become an expert in lawn care over the years. I can troubleshoot a lawn, tell them what is wrong with it and then how to fix it.
My yards and landscapes are show places and it doesn’t matter if it is a yard for a rich client or an elderly they are all given the same love and attention.
The next mistake is letting the client take up too much of your time. Time is money. I don’t see most of my customers. If they have an issue they text or call me. Most of the time I am the one letting them know that I found a problem and it has been fixed.
Never let the client talk you into bi weekly service. When you do that you are doing twice the work for half of the money. The customers try all of the time. I just tell them no weekly I can’t do the job.
What does a typical workday or schedule look like for you, and how many hours do you work?
In the beginning I was spending a lot of time per job. I was doing maybe 4 jobs a day with a lot of driving time and poor equipment but I was still making more money per month than my husband did as a block layer.
Realistically to make good money you would typically spend 6 to eight hours a day working 5 days a week to make good money. My day starts at 5am and I am usually done by 2pm. This includes lunchtime and all of the breaks we take going to the bathroom buying gas dumping brush etc.
Everytime you stop, even just using the bathroom takes at least 15 minutes. If you are serious about making money with lawn care it has to be treated like any other job. If you are just looking for some extra money you could do it on your days off or in the afternoons after work. My residential jobs run from $60 to $125 per service.
What advice would you give to someone considering starting a lawn care business for extra income or as a full-time path?
I would look around at how many companies were in the area. Some companies will not do residential customers at all. There is a huge need for residential lawn care and it is often an overlooked possibility for extra income or even a full time business.
I got started with mainly residential customers and if I had been a little smarter business wise could have grown my business much quicker. If you love working outside growing a garden doing your own yard then this may just be the right job to look into. It is mostly considered a man’s job but it doesn’t have to be.
I am making a good living mowing yards and making my properties beautiful. It is quite satisfying driving down the main street in my small town looking at all of the beautiful landscapes knowing that I am the one who made it look like that.
If you have your own yard you are taking care of you already have the equipment you need so why not take one or two yards in your neighborhood for some extra income? If you like it then keep growing!
She built this business figuring it out as she went and starting with nothing more than basic equipment and grit. Now, she’s debt free, running a $220K business in a small Arizona town, and still showing up every week for clients she’s had since the beginning.
Next week, I’ll introduce you to another woman building income in a completely different way!
