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If you dont have work, dont stay inside all the time. Get out into the fresh air to get perspective. Drink lots of water fruit and chocolate, soup whisky.
Jon
That is probably about right. I have applied for some positions where they were inviting people interested in jobs to go along and meet them, ranging from 2 to 5 days from 50+ each day. One teaching assistant position post I applied for there was 2 open days, 80 people were present on the first day for a single job. This was before the current climate.
Some of the online resources I use for job hunting shows how many applicants they already have, it is not unusual for there to be 20 or 30 people who have already applied within a couple of days. With all the redundancies being announced it is really beginning to effect my confidence at getting back to work.
If the committee is happy to go with a contractor then I will want to make a decision in July for a September start, that way if we don't find a suitable contractor, which seems unlikely, we will have time to recruit a gardener.
This weekend I'm hoping to take photos of most of our open spaces/flower beds, one area is not easily accessible to non residents of the area. I have already discussed how we normally deal with tenders, and long term aims for the estate. So members here who work in the SE London area will at least have a head start on what is involved, though preference will not be given for being a member here.
As we are developing three areas this year before the summer I will post updates as we go along.
I appreciate where you are coming from. I was feeling the way you are feeling 2 weeks ago and was very down with all of the bad news. Now I have simply stopped listening to it all and I feel happier as a result but I am still aware of it. January is very difficult anyway because it is the quietest month and we're sat around ruminating on it all due to the weather not really able to get out and do what we do best which is gardening.
I had to take stock of everything over the past month and financially it has been hard but we've lost no customers and we've had two referrals and gained those customers due to our good reputation. A lady nearby owns a nursery and it was her best year ever last year due to 2 large contracts but she would still say how awful things are at the moment for her and how down she was and how badly the other businesses around us were affected.
Look at how many customers you have kept, how things are changing in the market and adjust your marketing strategy. You have said you are still quoting for work which is the main thing and hopefully you'll be able to re-employ those people you have lost when things really pick up later in the year. I don't really know much about the gardening market in London but aim for the people who are not affected financially by what's going on. I know it sounds a bit crazy but I'm looking at advertising through the womens institute. Be creative with your advertising and try to separate yourself from the other gardeners/landscapers.
For our business this must be the hardest part of the year anyway, we've been hit by the coldest weather in 30 years and everyone's going around saying things are awful. Plus January's always the worst month financially due to getting over Christmas. People aren't really going to ring much in January and I have to be honest I wasn't expecting new customers this month at all. Try to be positive as this will then bring out positive changes in your business. The thing about a recession is that although people are tightening their belts they still have the maintenance of a home/garden to keep up. They still like to keep up with the Jones's and they will still have money to spend.
I hope that this has helped. I know exactly how you feel but just keep going for it - onwards and upwards. Keep us posted with how you're doing
Lisa
Thanks for the morale booster. I think that you are right. Re think marketing and hit the spring with a positive mental attitude.
Lisa Valentine said:
London is a very different situation to the rest of England, and probably the UK.
You have 32 councils, all with different arrangements concerning open spaces, a high concentration of government departments, each with their own budgets and arrangements, add to the mix hospitals, colleges, universities, professional bodies etc. Schools are currently undergoing major works to bring them up to modern standards and this includes play areas and gardens, as well as secondary schools becoming academies - southwark no longer has community secondary schools as they are now all acadamies, and these include major investment in landscaping. It also has a high number of housing associations, ALMOs, TMOs and private developments.
There are regeneration programs going on all the time, from well known ones like the olympic games to small community projects like our own.
This is without considering the high number of wealthy communities within London, churches, cathedrals and whole range of potential clients I have probably not even considered.
I think this is reflected in Gumtree whose listing for London is differant to other major Towns and Cities in the UK. The London listing is for Farm, Garden and Landscaping, elsewhere it is for Farming and Vetinary
The pure size of contracts available in London would exclude many companies here as the number of employees listed would be too small. Right down to small individual contracts.
But even then it is not that simple. Many authorities were caught out when the Nordic bank went bust which means many have lost a significant amount of their reserves. BIG Lottery is currently doing a consultation as to how it will spend its money after 2012. Currently it has exceeded its aim to giving 65 - 70% of the available funds to community projects. However one of the options being looked at is giving the money to who ever is able to deliver on their aims, community based or not. The effect will be that more money will go to a smaller number of companies greatly reducing the opportunity for smaller companies to benefit from community projects.
I guess in many ways companies in London will be better protected against the recession. However this is no guarantee. At best it will be a short recession but either way with so many household names going into receivership so soon does not bode well. At the moment inflation is being managed, but if it rises significantly how these people will choose to spend their money could change drastically.
I did read with interest how the current climate has benefitted landscapers, but I think if people choose to ride out the current problems there may be other things that people will start considering. I have spent two years at looking at retrofitting green technology into two of our blocks as a pilot scheme to tackle poverty and fuel poverty in particular. The general greed of large companies makes such alternatives more viable. Ground heat pumps, solar panels, water harvesting are becoming more and more popular. Many of our leaseholders are now beginning to understand the benefits to them if we could retrofit some of these schemes, purely in raising the green factor of their homes and the money they can save. At present many don't like the idea of having to invest in their homes. At the moment though many of the big fuel companies are only making the argument stronger. This could make alternative investments a much stronger prospects than landscaping.
It just goes to show how things differ in London and indeed the south, As it does from us up here in the North of the country.
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