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The truth is, it takes an entrepreneurial zeal and a fire inside of you to start a lawn business — and make it succeed — and not everyone has it.

How do you know if you have what it takes to start a lawn business?

There’s really no way to know for sure. But I do find things in common among the industry’s best.

You don’t have to fit all 5 of these categories to be a good candidate for lawn business entrepreneurship. In general, the more of the following character traits you have, the more likely you probably are to being ready to sail the seas of owning your own business.

1. You and Your Boss Don’t Get Along

History shows you and your boss don’t get along. A lot of people who start their own lawn businesses tend to have been extremely unhappy at their job. They may have even gotten fired from or quit more than one job in the past. I’m not talking about being laid off. I’m saying you were let go or you even quit before your boss could fire you. I don’t mean all this in a negative way. People who are successful at establishing their own lawn business tend to have had parents or other family members who worked for themselves. Let’s face it, it’s usually easier to go out and get a job with a company than to start your own lawn business but people who strike out on their own often have the direct example of a mentor or someone to look to.

2. You Have Support

You’ve got the support of your friends, family, and maybe even some of the employees from your last job. Starting a lawn business isn’t always a walk in the park. Stepping out to do it without the support of people around you can make it even harder.

3. You’ve Reached a Dead-End

This is the point in your life where you have gone as far as you can go. You’ve hit that ceiling in your job and your life. Sometimes the motivation to start a new lawn business comes from having reached the dead-end where you are. The desire and the drive to start or build a lawn business can also come from deciding that you’ve hit that dead-end instead of getting somewhere in your life. Fear of not achieving anything of significance can be a powerful motivator, especially if the idea of starting a lawn business is at least more interesting and potentially more lucrative than where you’re at.

4. You’ve Done Some Due Diligence

You’ve at least taken a look at what a lawn business is all about. Don’t even talk to me about your great lawn business idea if you haven’t put the time into figuring out if there’s a market for your lawn care services. The road to failure is paved with “good intentions”. Don’t bother building your lawn business if you haven’t figured out whether there’s a good chance your customers will come.

5. You Need Help

You have come to the realization that although embarking on your own is possible, getting help from other people is far more effective and profitable. You might excel at certain areas of your lawn business. But it’s unlikely that you are going to excel at every task or at all of the tasks involved in running your lawn business. Don’t be a loner. You’re going to need some help sometime. So be willing to call upon the assistance from others — mentors, friends, family, employees for those areas in which you are not an expert.

Typically in my articles I look at ways of helping people save or make more money in their lawn business. This time, however, I’m going to take a look at other side of the lawn care business dream.

Here are four red flags that may reveal you need to seriously change or close down your lawn maintenance business.

1. Your Debt Is Rising

Here’s the first red flag to watch for. It’s called your debt-to-asset ratio. Lawn business owners will often times borrow money to purchase assets like lawn equipment. There’s nothing wrong with that. But if the debt is rising and is slowly increasing while your assets are barely moving, you could be on the verge of becoming over-leveraged.

What percentage should one look for? Typically the sign of trouble is a debt-to-asset ratio of about 50% or more. What you do or don’t do varies from lawn care business to lawn care business. But no matter what box we put this into, a rising debt-to-asset ratio is not a good thing.

As most know, leverage is a powerful weapon that is more like a two-edged sword. We all want to be on the right side of it.

The bottomline - the greater your leverage or debt ratios, the more debt you have to take care off which in turn drains your lawn maintenance business profitability, and the less equity you have in your business.

2. There’s a Hole In Your Financial Pocket

You’re losing money in your lawn maintenance business and the losses are growing. Depending on where you live there may be some areas in the tax code, such as the ability to depreciate assets that may actually be appreciating in value, make it possible for lawn care businesses to reduce their profit or show a loss even though the business is actually doing quite well.

Showing a tax loss is typically not a bad sign but if your lawn maintenance business is losing money outside of this and the tax code is only bringing that loss out in the open, there’s a good chance you’re staring at another red flag.

So if your losses are growing and don’t seem to be disappearing, there will come a point in time where you have to look at your lawn care business and decide whether it’s realistic to assume you’re going to be able to come out of your losses. Can you really get over this “hump”?

3. You’re Out Of Money

You can’t seem to get any more money for your lawn care business. Everybody knows about businesses that were moving along nicely and then a loan application of some sort was turned down. Not good.

Yes, sometimes a reluctant banker may actually be helpful in letting you know that your lawn maintenance business is not as properly planned or viable as you think it is. Sometimes lenders keep borrowers out of trouble or at least, from getting themselves into deeper financial trouble. Like a splash of cold water on your face, a loan rejection can be a fast reality check for anyone who thinks his or her current problems aren’t a big deal.

4. You’re Not Smiling

You’re not smiling. If you aren’t having fun then you better look out. I believe a key to success is that you enjoy what they’re doing. If you get up in the morning and you can’t stand the thought of running your lawn maintenance business, then the truth is it’s time to take a hard look at shutting down.