Going self employed - advice needed please - Gardening

Newdirection

Hello everyone,

I hope you are all well. I just want to ask for some advice of anyone out there that has started there own small business, or even has started a gardening round and has any tips for me.

I hope I dont get put off and lots of comments of do not bother, lol. I have had an awful last year and I would nto no where to start, its just been awful, you could not make it up. However I am at a point where I have lost any passion or desire to go back into what I was working as before or anything like it.

I however have always wanted to work in gardening and have never got round to learning or trying it, I just have messed about in my own garden and enjoyed it very much, spending alot of time on it.

In short I want to start a gardening round, I am inexperienced but will attend courses upon courses to gain knowledge, I want to start off doing smaller gardening jobs like, lawns, hedge trimming, digging, planting, fence paint work and cleaing rubbish, and all the other smaller tasks and build up as my knowledge grows. I really want to try it and feel I have a good chance as I have a lot of passion for it and also have good marketing skills and business awareness from studies and experience. I am very hard working at the marketing side and PR for my work. I just need to learn off people what I need to do and any advice and tips would be great from people whom have been there.

I spoke a little to a guy whom does some gardens in our road and he built it up over a year and is doing well, he said you get what you put in.

Sorry this is a long post, but any advice would be great, or even to speak to someone, it would be good to hear and learn off people whom have a knowledge of what I am after, so thank you for reading and thank you for your time if you can reply, just any advice or to chat with someone who has been here would be great to learn what my next steps should be, I have a good idea but thought why not ask genuine people and pick up life skills.

All the best.
P.S This is somthing I really want to do and have a lot of drive and this job role will free me as a person as its out door work and I have worked at a desk all my working life so far and it is NOT me and I need to break from the trap, plus whats happend to me I just can not face that line of work or working for people again.

WHA

With all "trades" services the key is to keep the customers happy. That doesn't mean being cheap and bending over backwards for them. It doesn't even mean doing a brilliant job that exceeds expectations. It's often the little, almost irrelevant, things that annoy customers. A happy customer will recommend you to their friends, neighbours and family and will ask you back the next time they want some work doing.

You need to turn up when you promise (and phone them up if you can't make it). Nothing worse than waiting in for someone to come and they don't. You need to respect your customer's property - i.e. offer to take off your shoes (whether dirty or not) if you need to go into the house for the loo or a chat. Don't bring a loud radio, your dog, swear or smoke whilst you're working.

Word of mouth and recommendation is far better than getting new customers from advertising, so nurture your customers. Give them a few business cards and ask them to pass them on. When on a job, drop a few leaflets in the surrounding houses. Get advertising on your car or van - doesn't have to be expensive wrap-arounds or full signwriting - something cheaper and simple is fine as long as it doesn't look cheap and tacky. Whilst your van's parked anywhere, it's an advert for you, so make sure it's always clean and tidy (and drive carefully as any other drivers you annoy are immediately lost customers if you cut them up or give them a v sign or whatever!).

As for pricing, don't undervalue yourself. Come up with a pricing structure and keep to it. If you're good at your job, people will pay a reasonable price. People will shop around for a penny off corn flakes, but that doesn't translate to trades people - you're better off without the few customers that want you to work for stupid money, like minimum wage or less. If you're providing your own equipment (mowers, trimmers, etc). then you need to be looking at the £15-£25 per hour range as a minimum. Anything less just isn't worth you doing it. If you're using the customers' equipment then £10-£20 per hour.

When setting prices, don't forget to factor in all the time you can't work, such as rainy days, winter, etc. You may be surprised just how few "working days" there are in a year for garden work if you're limiting yourself to lawns, trimming, weeding, pruning etc - basically just April to September! Try to find other services you can offer, especially for winter, such as clearing overgrown gardens, wheelie bin washing, power washing drives, general outdoor handyman work (shed roof repairs, replacing and painting fence panels etc). The more diverse range of services, the better.

Finally, don't fall for the "I'm a poor pensioner trap" - it's easy to get sucked into working longer hours than you're paid for and giving discounts. Stand your ground however nice/poor the old dear looks. When you're stuck doing a lawn for a fiver, you're not able to do the gardening for the house down the road who'd pay you £20. Fine if you're desperate for money/experience short term, but make sure you pull away when you get busier. Remember that once you've committed to a fiver to old Mrs Smith, you're going to get their friends expecting the same cheap services and you'll have trouble increasing your rates later down the line. If you're going to do a discount and do it for a fiver this year, tell them you're doing it to get up and running at that price and that the price will go up to £20 next year, so that there'll be no arguments.

Mistral001

Newdirection wrote: »

Hello everyone,

I spoke a little to a guy whom does some gardens in our road and he built it up over a year and is doing well, he said you get what you put in.

.

This guy will be your competitor remember. You probably told him quite a lot about yourself for him to decide whether you are going to be serious competition to himself.


Do you think you will be serious competition to him?

PasturesNew

You'll need a commercial license to take cuttings to the tip, so find out what the costs/limits/rules are for that.

motorguy

PasturesNew wrote: »

You'll need a commercial license to take cuttings to the tip, so find out what the costs/limits/rules are for that.

+ public liability insurance, plus £500 ish a year for an accountant

And set aside 25% of your income to pay the tax man.

The big problem i see here is the O/P's relative lack of experience so initially is going to be limited to relatively simple tasks which anyone can do and dont pay well, and also the low cost of entry of this type of work - so everyones at it. There'll be people who'll do the work at under your costs because they'll be claiming the dole and not paying tax.

jetplane

Lots of good advice already from posters. Are you pricing by job or time? If you're inexperienced it may take you longer than others to do the same job and people won't like to pay you to learn on their garden. Do you live in or near an area where people regularly pay to have their gardens maintained? Personally I don't think an accountant should cost as much as £500 for a one man new business, but whatever they cost they should save you more than their fees. I do agree that there will be people doing these type of jobs cash in hand who can undercut you.

Have you written a business plan and do you have the start up costs?

Savvy_Sue

I've just started using a gardener, and she says she has two kinds of customer: those like us who are still working and just don't have enough daylight time to 'do' the garden, and older people who are unable to keep on top of it any more.

Bear in mind you might want to pitch slightly differently for each kind: we're just thrilled to have ANYTHING done to keep the place tidy; our neighbour knows exactly what she wants done, and how ...

DawnW

motorguy wrote: »

+ public liability insurance, plus £500 ish a year for an accountant

My accountant charges only about £40 a year to help with my self assessment. Not sure where the £500 comes from, but I would imagine it would relate to a much bigger business than the OP seems to be envisaging.

zygurat789

DawnW wrote: »

My accountant charges only about £40 a year to help with my self assessment. Not sure where the £500 comes from, but I would imagine it would relate to a much bigger business than the OP seems to be envisaging.

That is a bit lower than average.
The fee should depend upon the work the accountant has to do, which in turn depends upon the work done by the client. If your books are easy to deal with your fee will be lower, give the accountant a mess and you will pay a lot more.

themull1

If i was looking for a gardener, i would get a price for the job, not an hourly rate one, i do that for all jobs, and then at least you know how much its costing in advance. There are quite a few people round our estate who get gardeners in once a week/fortnight, and their gardens always look immaculate. Good luck.!!

Game_Over

DawnW wrote: »

My accountant charges only about £40 a year to help with my self assessment. ...

Is that mates rates, or doesn't your accountant provide you with much help?

I find that most accountants charge at least £100 to complete a self assessment (and take care of all associated matters involving HMRC) and that excludes self employment

e.g. here's a couple that I have just plucked off google

http://www.jamesesmith.co.uk/taxreturns.htm
(Prices start from £99 +VAT)

http://twdaccounts.co.uk/services/self-assessment-tax-return
(£125)