As your business grows you might want to become a limited company. You will need to check with companies house to see if your nsme (John Smith Gardens) can become incorporated and is available ( ie become John Smith Gardens Limited) Go to the companies house website to run a name search

Of course, you want your name to be unique. Check that you can get the domain name for a website and that it’s not already taken. An easy way to do this is at http://www.lcn.com. Just do a domain search and see if your name choice is available

A sensible choice of name is your own name followed by your services. For example John Smith Gardens or John Smith Landscapes. Putting your own name on your business implies that you are happy to be known and have nothing to hide. It invokes a sense of trust in your potential clients that an anonymous name cannot.

Rain. Set your inclement weather policy. Yep, bad weather can cause a lot of problems for both hourly rate and price only gardeners. Of course, if you are on a price you just pick up where you left off. It’s not so simple for hourly rate gardeners. Say you get rained off on a Tuesday. Do you do Tuesday’s work on Wednesday or just carry on with Wed…[Read more]

If you do landscaping and supply the materials then you are sure to come across the old ‘I’ve paid for the unused materials’ line. Let’s say you are doing a bit of block paving and you buy the packs of blocks and have 40 blocks left out of the last pack. Don’t be surprised if the client comes out with ‘you can stack them around the back cos I…[Read more]

Accept the first time. Set your time for the next visit for example 8am till 10am. Explain that that is their allotted time and what happens in that time will be charged for. Be firm and they will learn, be weak and it’s the same next week.

Although I’d advise against doing hourly work, sometimes, especially early on its unavoidable. A fairly common tack by customers is the concept of ‘your time’ and ‘their time’. Their idea can show itself as the twenty minute walkaround to tell you what to do followed by the glance at the watch and then ‘the paid time starts now’

If you start your gardening business by doing private gardens, eventually you will come across a customer that will try to take advantage of you. Here is how to deal with some of the most common situations.

Think how your business might develop. A lot of companies that started as grounds maintenance business then go on to become facility services providers supplying services such as cleaning, window cleaning and rubbish removal etc. If you are called Fred’s mowing then you are going to have problems if the opportunity to price for such work comes along.

Jobs where you don’t initially meet the client are housing association and council work. You will have to do a pqq (prequalifying questionaire) before getting an interview

If you are providing a product ie fencing or artificial grass, make sure it is in the title. Eg Essex fencing or Evergreen artificial grass.
If you are looking for just private customers, then your name is not so important because you will meet the client in person. When you don’t meet the client, your name is very important.