Founded in 2008. The Landscape Juice Network (LJN) is the largest and fastest growing professional landscaping and horticultural association in the United Kingdom.
LJN's professional business forum is unrivalled and open to anyone within within the UK landscape industry
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We are about 90% commercial what are you mainly looking for Flats, industrial or housing or all lol
We find our biggest profits are to be made from either large flats or housing estates. The best place to start would be finding out about your local housing associations which run these developments and contract out gardeners.
You'll have to be good at bidding too as most work is put out to tender these days. Mrs B is the tendering queen which is my secret weapon. She's really propelled my business forward with the contracts she's won for me including recently with a County Council to deliver services across the whole of their borough.
I know that there's a real knack to writing these and half the battle is knowing which ones you can realistically be considered for. As Martin says you can go direct to housing associations but be warned that they are usually looking for someone who can deliver across all their properties - this can be 1000s of properties. Most north west contracts are advertised on The Chest - you'll need to register on there - and you should also subscribe to www.supply2gov.uk
You'll also need to put in place the right policies, processes and insurances - most require you to have a minimum of £3million public liability these days.
For many of the contracts you'll also need to be Criminal Records Bureau checked as will all your staff who work on the contract.
If that's all a bit daunting for you Mrs B is running workshops from January for beginners in Public Sector tendering - she's actually on the BusinessLink site as a case study in small businesses winning tenders and recently spoke at the NW Securing Business in Public Sector conference. She will be doing seminars from January for small businesses if you're interested...
Also the housing associations with 1000s on there books will never have just one gardener on there books they normal have quiet a few of each trade on it.
Donny Bryan said:
Just spotted this post,does anyone know if the formidable Mrs B is still in the same business as could do with some help with tenders.Already looked on Business Link but perhaps need a bit more info to find her, thanks