Whether you are a lawn care contractor or a resume writer, one of the pressing questions you will be faced is whether you need to offer more services than what you currently provide.

Offering additional services has its advantages and disadvantages.

Add-on services can increase your revenue stream and add to your bottomline. By widening the services you offer, you may be able to attract a wider customer base and upsell to them more profitable services. A resume service can add coaching services or interview training, helping those looking for a job package themselves well and beyond their resumes.

Diversifying will also help your business during slow periods. Lawn care business, for example, is seasonal in some states that you need to adjust the types of services that you offer based on the seasons. So when demand for mowing services start to significantly slow down in the winter, you can offer holiday decorating or landscape lighting design during those lean months.

Adding more services also gives you a leg up on your competitors. It allows you to market your business as full service offering customers one-stop comprehensive services. They want to simplify their lives by dealing with, as few vendors are they can.

However, adding a new service has its drawbacks.

If you are offering a service that poses new risks — e.g. a lawncare business now offering tree services will have workers get up the air — expect your insurance and workman’s compensation to increase.

There will also be investments in equipment, additional skilled workers, training and technical know how. You need to consider how much resource you are willing to commit. Decide whether the new services you are thinking of offering are a one time or occasional deal, or whether these are repeat business — and whether you have the resources to commit. You don’t want to spread yourself too thin trying to do your main business while coping with the demand for the new services.

And of course, despite your investments in the add-on services, they may not click well with your target audiences that your new equipment or new skills remain sadly unutilized.

Study your proposed new services first. Look at what the competition is doing, and see if adding them to your list of services offered can prove beneficial to you.