Self Employed Gardener Training Course

Invicta

I am 50+ and 3 years ago I was made redundant and as a result of not getting any sensible job offers I decided to become a self employed gardener.
Starting from scratch I now earn over £20,000 and am considering offering training to anyone who is thinking about doing the same thing.
My idea is to provide a one week course covering:
What you need to know about plants, lawns and ponds.
How to prepare a budget to work out your labour rate.
What basic marketing is required.
Accounting including creating invoices, self assessment and profit & loss.
Vehicle, tool and clothing selection.
Time management and value added customer service.
Techniques and tips so you improve quality and cut cost.
Associated forms of income e.g. Hedge laying, dry stone wall building, window cleaning.

The course would include a tour of and practical demonstrations in gardens belonging to some of my customers from a small suburban bungalow up to a 12 acre holiday cottage complex.

I would appreciate any suggestions and ideas from people as to the format and the type of cost people would consider fair for this.

Many thanks,
Bernard

SailorSam

SpaM, SPAM, SPAM.

heretolearn_2

I don't think this is spam.

I think there might be a demand for this but have you done any market research? If all that can be earned is £20k then you might find it a slightly hard sell - unless it's a pretty cheap course. I wouldn't invest £1000 to earn £20k, for example.

1) How would your customers feel about your students trooping through their private gardens?
2) You'll need to insure your activities - if one of your students stabs himself through the foot by treading on a garden fork left lying around by one of your customers - who is liable? Your customer won't thank you if they get dragged into anything.
3) You will be creating more competition for your own business, unless you insist everyone lives at least 50 miles away from you.

SailorSam

It may not be Spam in the sense that the Op is coming out with a load of rubbish, but people are not allowed to advertise their own sites,
This gardener is offering training to someone, but not out of the goodness of his heart, he's asked what cost people would consider fair.
I think the Op is in fact almost selling a franchise.

getmore4less

I think you have to ask the simple question.

If the business is so good why take time out to train people

You also increase the local competition.

If business is so good what about building up a proper business and take on traineesstaff to cover the workload

heretolearn_2

It's not spam to ask questions about a possible new business , people do it here all the time, it's what the forum is for (partly). The OP is not advertising anything.

Oldernotwiser

You don't mention any training or qualifications you have in this area; I doubt that anyone would want to pay an unqualified person to train them.

In addition, how many self employed gardeners do you think your local area can support?

lincroft1710

I just cannot see this working.

In addition to what has already been posted:

How will you advertise?

Any interested people who are school leavers or on JSA probably have little spare cash to invest. Where will your "students" come from? Locally, intake will soon dry up and there probably isn't enough work available. Further away and you're talking overnight accom which will be costly for the students unless you've got a large house or a caravan (or 2) in the back garden.

Are you any good at lecturing? You may well know your subject(s) but can you put it across.

Will your "base" be in your own home, and thus you're running a business which may offend household insurance, tenancy, restrictive covenant. If not suitable room may be expensive, which will increase costs.

As you won't be gardening for the week you're running the course, you've got to clear £400 just to make up your lost wages. What about your regular clients, they expect you every Thursday at 2.00 pm.

In any case I just don't you'll be able to attract enough students to make it worthwhile.

glasgowdan

Without coming across as bragging I have ran my similar business for less than 3 years and make over double the figure above. I don't have time to do training courses.

Without lots of letters and certs you won't be able to sell training.

I would NEVER allow anyone other than myself or staff be present on a client's property under my say so.

I don't think this is a good idea; you should focus on your own business activities if you wish to increase your turnover/profit. Happy to give advice by pm.

Murtle

I would suggest an apprentice might be work to train them whilst they earn money, and I think training courses for groups of people interested in gardening *might* work

glasgowdan

Murtle wrote: »

I would suggest an apprentice might be work to train them whilst they earn money, and I think training courses for groups of people interested in gardening *might* work

Yes but you would need to be formally qualified yourself to get anyone to follow you as a teacher! i.e. a list of RHS courses behind your name.