Jeremy Ratliff
Reporter
Longstanding customers of Mark’s Lawn Care- formerly known as Ted’s Lawn Care of Merrill- can rest easy this summer, as lawn care services spanning over 25 years in the community will be continued under new ownership; courtesy of John Kaufman of John’s Home Care Services of Merrill.
“Mark (Folta) came to me in January, asking if I would be interested in purchasing his lawn service, as he was interested in pursuing other endeavors,” Kaufman explains.
“I was very interested in Mark’s offer, as it would further expand our current lawn services and continue to provide services to Mark’s customers. Some of Mark’s and Ted’s customers have been on-board with them for several years.”
The purchase entailed the inheritance of over 120 customers in the Merrill area and since then, has now grown to 157 according to Kaufman.
Serving a large customer base is nothing new to Kaufman, as John’s Home Care Services has been serving area residents with a full schedule over the last four years.
As he explains, his road to full-time entrepreneurship began in 2013.
“I started out with just my son Justin and I, on a part-time basis several years ago. Then upon retirement from my full-time job in 2013, we decided to give it a go on a full time basis. Our customer base started growing immediately, basically by word of mouth. Within a couple months I had so many work requests coming in I had to hire on a small crew just to keep up!” he explains.
Within two months of offering his services full-time, Kaufman hired two additional crew members and within the first year of operation, his crew had grown to 6..
“We have been steadily growing non-stop ever since,” he adds with a grin.
John’s Home Care offers services year-round from snow removal, plowing and interior home improvements in the winter, to complete lawn care and virtually any home care need through the remainder of the year.
Interior/exterior painting, decks, patios, concrete work, landscaping, pressure washing as well as tree and garden work, roofing and siding; there isn’t much John and his crew can’t do.
Each and every job is guaranteed 100% customer satisfaction and complete job site clean up.
As he adds, customer satisfaction and quality work is what John considers the cornerstones of his business.
“My crew and I pride ourselves in the work we do. To me, getting a phone call from an unhappy customer-whether due to missing a few weeds when we mowed their lawn, or we didn’t get everything taken care of on a job cleanup-is unacceptable and my crew understands that. An unhappy customer means we didn’t do the best job we could and that too is unacceptable. We work hard to keep our customers happy and I think that is a main reason why we keep the large customer base we have, and are continually hearing from new customers. That means a lot to us.”
John and his crew are continually accepting new customers and welcome any contacts for future work. John can be reached at (715) 803-5564 or prospective customers are welcome to drop by the shop located at 702 S. Center Avenue, open 7AM-7PM, Monday-Friday.