New business help plz

just noticed your sig Spud.. :lollol:

 

Thankyou very much for your advice, it's priceless to me and is helping a great deal!

Ok, so perhaps I should think about purchasing a van, having read your comments, it's probably the best thing to do. I don't really want anything too big or expensive at this stage.

In all, at the moment, I have £2000 to go towards setting my business up and I predict that I should have around £3000 by the time I am ready to get going, maybe a little more. Problem is, this will need to get me a van aswell. Plus insurance, both van and public liability. Is £3000 too little in reality? Bear in mind, all of my equipment is budgeted in this aswell.

In regards to taking the waste away, the council suggestion is a great idea. I could perhaps include this in my price to have it taken away each week.

I have a few more questions to raise.....

Now that you know a little more about me and lack of experience, what services could I offer to start with? What's realistic to include on a full-time gardening round?

Talking of gardening round, in your experience do people want their gardens mostly tended to weekly, fortnightly, monthly? Weekly would be ideal. How many hours might you work for at each property per visit?

Thanks again for all of your help, it's really is very much appreciated and sorry about all the questions, i'm just very keen on starting this business and learning all about it.

 

I would urge you to wait another year till you have more savings, If you injure yourself 6 months down the line youll be royally*. In this economic climate you really need savings.

Stick to grass cutting and hedge cutting to start and build your plant knowledge up, when you are ready then you can broaden your scope.


As a generalisation:

Grass cutting is done fortnightly.

Weekly is proper gardening ie complete maintance were the customer does nothing. Once a month will be larger propertys, were the customer cuts the lawns themselves, for this it would be blitzing borders, hedges, large amounts of strimming etc.

As for hours spent...... Depends on the garden and what the client wants.

 

3 grand will be a bit tough to get set up i think i mean you cant get a good van cheep an who knows wot the insurance will be might be an idear to look about for some prices on that maybe you could do it part time just mowing an hedges for a while an then put the money straight back in i started like this but i was liveing at home then so that helped :wink:

 

One more thing i forgot is tell the tax man :thumb: and keep records of everything that comes in and goes out

 

Thanks guys for all of your advice, I will take it all on board. Very helpful indeed.