Business Ideas | Small Business Ideas: How to Start a Gardening Business

Wednesday, September 10, 2014

How to Start a Gardening Business | Gardening Decor Business

Garden design is the art and process of designing and creating plans for layout and planting of gardens and landscapes. Garden design may be done by the garden owner themselves, or by professionals of varying levels of experience and expertise. Most professional garden designers have some training in horticulture and the principles of design, and some are also landscape architects, a more formal level of training that usually requires an advanced degree and often a state license. Amateur gardeners may also attain a high level of experience from extensive hours working in their own gardens, through casual study, serious study in Master Gardener Programs, or by joining gardening clubs

Professional gardeners can add a welcome new dimension to customers’ home and business environments. Garden services work with homeowners to install and maintain colorful gardens, borders and water features. The Professional Land care Network notes that gardens and other landscape features also make business environments more attractive to potential commercial tenants. PLANET stresses that well-placed garden and green features can influence adjacent buildings’ cooling and heating costs, and potentially deaden distracting noise as well.

Natural skills

Running a gardening business will require you to function in a lot of different ways. While your ability to create beautiful landscapes will be put to the test regularly, as a head of a business, so will your financial expertise and people skills.

Therefore, before committing yourself to the business, ask yourself if you have the following skills:

A creative mind set
Great personal communication ability
A talent for organizing
An aptitude for design
Planting and general gardening proficiency
Negotiation skills to drive down costs and increase profits
Reliability to hold up your business' name
Motivation to keep working in the wonderfully changeable British weather
A grasp of business and accounts

Training

Once you get past your immediate circle of contacts, you will need some clout to show you know what you are doing in a garden. While a bulging portfolio of your work will help, so will a professional qualification.

Instruction:

Step 1

Document your garden business. Select a business structure with a certified public accountant familiar with gardening or landscaping businesses. Common business structures include sole proprietorships, limited liability companies and Subchapter S corporations. Consult with a commercial insurance agent about liability insurance. Obtain a business license, along with any required local permits, at your city or county clerk’s office. Contact your state department of revenue about a sales tax license.

Step 2

Lease business and storage locations. Find a small office easily reached from main roads. Ensure that the office has high-speed Internet access to facilitate client communications regarding garden specifications and designs. Lease a storage unit to accommodate your garden installation equipment and supplies. Examples include tillers, aerators and gardening tools, such as shovels and hoes. Plan to purchase plants, soil and other garden accessories for specific customer projects.

Step 3

List your garden business competitors. Local garden center staffs frequently offer computer-aided garden design services. The employee surveys your property, and designs a garden that meets your sunlight and drainage parameters. The customer often receives a discount on planting supplies purchased from that retailer. Landscaping companies often employ certified landscape designers who design gardens and outdoor living spaces.

Step 4

Publish your garden-related services. Work with a graphic designer to create a garden services list accented with colorful flowers and plants. Include photographs of past garden projects, along with references from satisfied customers. Add creative ideas for gardens of varied sizes. Emphasize your ability to design a garden for customers with varied preferences, budgets and environmental constraints.

Step 5

Purchase gardening tools and equipment. Buy planting, weeding and pruning tools from a gardening specialty company. Add labor-saving supplies such as garden carts, pot lifters and other special-purpose tools. Visit local home improvement stores or garden centers for tillers, edgers and aerators. Buy powered equipment if your budget allows.

Step 6

Hire personable garden-savvy staff. Place newspaper help wanted ads for knowledgeable, physically capable gardeners and plant hobbyists. Consider applicants seeking part-time or on-call work. Contact nearby colleges with horticulture or landscaping programs about student work/study opportunities. Outfit your staff in matching company attire.

Step 7

Market to businesses and institutions. Business offices and corporate headquarters often install gardens on the company's property. Gardens often enhance the facility’s image among customers, employees and in the larger community, notes the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Join your city’s Chamber of Commerce, and visit member businesses regularly. Present a live floral gift and at least two budget-friendly garden concepts. Utilize chamber networking and business expo events to showcase your garden business.

Step 8

Promote your garden business to homeowners. The Washington State University Extension stresses that garden-related businesses can utilize personalized service to appeal to consumers. Create garden concepts that incorporate colorful, climate-appropriate plants and flowers. Display small-scale gardens at regional home and garden shows. Contact your city’s convention center or newspaper for show dates. Speak to garden clubs and offer special garden installation discounts for members unable to create or maintain home gardens.

Insurance

Insurance is a big deal in the gardening industry. You need something, which covers you for accidents, injury, theft and damage to property. When starting a gardening business, you should consider the following insurance options:

Property insurance for wherever you keep stock
Individual insurance of expensive pieces of equipment
Motor insurance relevant to your specific form of transportation and who is driving it
Business interruption insurance
Professional indemnity insurance if you are offering advice as a professional
Product liability insurance if you are selling equipment to clients
Employers' liability (mandatory if you ever take on staff)

Things Needed:

Photographs of past garden projects
References from satisfied customers
Help wanted ad copy
List of local colleges with horticulture or landscaping programs
Floral gifts for chamber member visits
List of climate-appropriate plants and flowers
List of local garden clubs
Garden club member discount sheet

Tips:

Don't be blind to the range of opportunities available. While acting as a gardener, remember you could be selling tools and products to your customers too.
Seek out new ideas. Attending gardening shows and keeping good relationships with others in the market will allow you to stay attuned with trends and ensure you have a wide range of abilities to offer your clients.
Keep up-to-date with technology. Not falling behind on any developments as far as equipment goes could be crucial to cost saving and presenting a professional image for your business.
Be inventive in a traditional market. Just because gardening is a long-established market, doesn't mean all your thinking should be traditional. If you don't use a website to advertise yourself and effectively brand your company, you will lose out.
Stay on top of your administration. Keeping up with invoices, emails and maintaining spreadsheets will save you from last minute revelations, missed deadlines and unnecessary stress.
Be both professional and friendly with clients. Striking up friendships with all your customers is the best way to bring in business, but always stay professional, have prices agreed and decisions documented to prevent unwelcome disagreements later on.

References

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Easy Tips and Ideas to Start Business

Although anyone can start a business, many people fail because of a bad product or improper research. If you want to start your own business, you can improve your chances for success before you even begin. In order to make your business successful, start strong and make sure that your idea will hold out for the long haul.

Have a Good Product

Ensure that you plan to sell something useful. Although you may think that your product is important or special, that doesn't mean the general public will agree. Ask friends, family and strangers what they think of your product. If they don't seem that interested, ask them why. With their suggestions, you can either improve the product or scrap the idea completely. According to Brad Sugars of Entrepreneur magazine, most small businesses fail because they sold a product that didn't have an adequate market. This also applies to small businesses that provide a service. A lawn-care business might be useful for part of the year in a northern state, but it is in-demand year-round in the south. Consider whether people will actually want to use your service and get constructive advice from those not afraid to give their opinion.

Research Local Businesses

Research local companies before starting up your own business. This will not only give you an idea of the amount of competition you will have, but it will also help you price your product or service. If you're looking to start a wedding photography business, you may find during your research that the market is over-saturated in your area. If not over-saturated, you should contact each business and ask them for a price list. Alter your prices so you can stay competitive with the competition in town. Researching similar local businesses will also help you decide where to locate your business location. Try not to start up a store or office close to another business of your type. If your small business is located away from similar business types, this will cause locals to choose you over businesses that are farther away from where they live.

Get Professional Advice

You may know someone who has started their own successful business. Ask him for advice and listen to his stories of how he started his company. You may gain useful advice on the good and bad ways to start a business. Local entrepreneurs can also introduce you to local product providers or advertisers that you may not have met without their help. Accept any advice with open arms, especially if the advice is coming from someone successful in the area.

How to Calculate Business Start Up Costs

Starting a business in no easy endeavor. It takes a great deal of research, perseverance and hard work. While sweat equity will make your small business more successful, you will most likely need real capital to get the business started. Before you start raising capital and/or investing your own funds, the first thing you need to do is determine the total start-up costs.

Step 1

Determine your costs of sales. For most small businesses this means inventory, the cost of raw materials, manufacturing equipment, shipping, packaging, and warehousing. However, not all businesses sell products. In this case, the cost of sales is primarily the direct labor involved in making the sale. For example, to open a small shoe business entails purchasing enough inventory ($10,000) to stock the store.

Step 2

Determine professional fees. Planning your business structure, i.e., limited liability corporation or general partnership, means hiring an attorney. There may also be the need to pay an attorney for help with establishing trademarks, copyrights, and patents. In this scenario, that puts total professional fees at an estimated $20,000.

Step 3

Determine technology costs. Technology can greatly reduce the cost of labor for small business if used effectively. Most small businesses require computers, printers, cell phones, website development, Internet access, software applications, information security, data storage, and outsourced information technology (IT) consulting. If the cost of technology is $10,000 to start, add an additional $5,000 a year for maintenance (hint: maintenance is not included in start-up costs).

Step 4

Determine administrative costs. This varies with business types and may include items such as business insurance, office supplies, product packaging, parking, rent, express shipping, desks, chairs, fax machines, phones, or anything else necessary to operate the business daily. A good estimate for start-up administrative costs would be $5,000 for the first six months.

Step 5

Determine initial sales and marketing costs. Now that you have your product, you need to let folks know about it. Sales and marketing costs generally include marketing materials for presentations, printing stationery, business cards, advertising, trade show events, and public relations. These initial sales and marketing costs can add up to $3,000.

Step 6

Determine the wages and benefits needed to secure a staff. This includes employee salaries, benefits, workers compensation, and payroll taxes. Let's put the cost of wages and benefits estimated at $20,000 for the first three months of business.

Step 7

Add all costs associated with starting the business for a total. Be sure to only include business start-up costs that will be incurred in the first three to six months of operations. For this example, the calculation is: $10,000 + $20,000 + $10,000 + $5,000 + $3,000 + $20,000 = $68,000.

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