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How to start a gardening business

If you fancy yourself as a bit green-fingered and find that you spend many a weekend pottering (ahem!) around the garden planting flowers, trimming shrubs and pruning bushes, it might be time to start thinking about a career change. In case you’ve ever thought about how to succeed in the gardening business, Paul Power’s book contains practical and invaluable business gardening advice to help you achieve this. With his range of knowledge and expertise, Paul’s book will guide you in setting up a gardening business and tell you all you need to know about how to run a gardening business. Time to sow some seeds of change….

Win at business 

Before you do anything, it’s important to do the following three things:

i) Plan a strategy – in other words, plan to survive and plan to succeed!

ii) Write a Business Plan – don’t be put off by the formal approach, but get all your ideas for the business down on paper.

iii) Start!

Be prepared 

The first few months will be an enormous challenge for you, but don’t be put off. Your hard work will pay off; just stay determined and always have your end goal in mind, whatever that may be. Earning little or no money and working long hours can lead to resentment, so make sure your goal is to survive first and succeed afterwards.

Know your Business Plan

Writing a plan before you start any business is a great way to focus on what you need to do in order to achieve your dream. If the plan doesn’t deliver, then you can re-write and re-work it so it does. So what guidelines do you need to follow in your plan?

i) Always be realistic

ii) Accept you may have to rewrite a few things before you’re fully satisfied

iii) Write three different plans: the first detailing the worst-case scenario, the second what you think is achievable and the third, your ultimate plan

iv) Include a contingency plan

Be honest 

Writing up your financial history can be painful, but so worth worthwhile. Include your past and present spending habits and deduct any regular incomes including part-time salaries and pensions. The difference between what you spend and what income you currently have is known as survival income. This is the minimum amount of money you will need to earn every month in order to stay afloat.

Include details

In your Business Plan, it is important to include what skills you have and to write a short paragraph on what your business actually is. Make sure you are:

  • Specific
  • Creative
  • Adventurous
  • Positive

Look at your finances 

This is one of, if not the, most important part of your plan. Calculate your initial start-up costs only, as in the items you need right now. If you buy everything in one go, it could be economically catastrophic for your business, before it’s even got off the ground.

These are just a few of the things to consider when starting up a gardening business; for lots more tips and advice read Start and Run a Gardening Business: practical advice and information on how to run a profitable business (£14.99, Robinson) by Paul Power