Hi, I'm looking at selling my small gardening round and wondered if anyone on here has sold or bought a round in the past and has any advice for me please?
It's only a small round with a minimum take of £10,000 per year but usually more with extras. Mostly through the account with a small number of older clients that will only deal in cash.
I'm going to have to shut it down due to the London mayor expanding the ulez. For such a small business like mine I couldn't possibly cover the extra cost of running the van having to pay out £350 per month more. And can't afford a ulez compliant one. But it would make a decent addition to a bigger company looking to expand a bit.
For starters I wouldn't know how to put a value on it. Any ideas would be much appreciated?
And I know people may be weary as there's no contracts involved with customers, but of course I would speak to my customers beforehand and believe all would keep the new gardener on. As most are unable or don't have the time to do it themselves and there's a lack of gardeners in the area. In fact I gave away a couple of days per month a couple of years ago and to my knowledge every customer kept them on.
So if anyone has any advice on this please it would be much appreciated. Especially how to value it and where to advertise it.
Thanks
Tommy
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Replies
Where is the work based please?
It's based in Orpington, pratts bottom, Bromley and chislehurst
Ah a bit out of our catchment area, good luck with your sale....
Thanks
Without any contracts the sale price is limited, if not nothing at all. Sorry but there is just no value; the vaue of your goodwill is not tied into a brand name presumably, there is no legal commitment from customers to retain the new buyer. There is just nothing in it for your buyer unless you were selling your equipment etc.
But why do you feel you have to meet the cost of ULEZ yourself? What does that work out at per customer visit if you spread that cost over your round? Have you spoken to your customers about a price increase and the reason behind it. If you did how many would you retain after that? If you kept 90% of them, could you make that work? If there is a lack of gardners and a demand for them maybe now is the time to sacrifice those that can not pay and replace them with higher paying clients. Harsh but that is business reality - if you dont do it you lose your business or are you at the point where you want to sell regardless.
Bear in mind that any buyer would also have the same issue and so any selling price might reflect that i.e. if a price increase would lose 50% of your client basis then why buy it?
so right.............. if you're any good and you have a good relationship with your customers and if you have say 5 customers a day, I'm pretty sure they'll pay an extra £2 or so to keep you on when you explain the problem.
I agree with both replies but £350 a month extra is a lot to divide between the amount of customers generating 10K
One regular customer can possibly generate 2K per season ?
Also how many customers affected by these ULEZ charges are having to pay them to get about themselves It would be adding more expense ?
Is it possible to find or add new customers locally without having to travel through the zones ?
I had thought about this but I literally live right on the border. I come out of my road and I'll be in the new ulez zone. So the van has to go. I'll lose money on it as I haven't paid it off yet and it's now worth less because not ulez compliant. But it's really the only option I'm left with
I do have a good relationship with them, but as I've just replied to Andy garside a moment ago, I've already put the price up last year by £5 ph to cover fuel costs. To cover the ulez with the amount of customers that I have I'd have to raise the price by a further £9ph. That's £14 per hour rise per customer in 2 years. that would work out £90 pm more for one of my customers and £72 pm for another. No one would pay that much more no matter how good our relationship is. A bigger firm with a lot more jobs could spread the cost out better, or would quite probably have a newer ulez compliant van anyway. I'm not in that position unfortunately. I haven't even paid off the van I have. Poxy ulez has mullered me and so it's either sell it or just walk away and sell my tools
For that to work I'd have to put up the cost £9 per customer per hour extra. I've already put the cost up £5 last year to help with fuel costs, I don't think many if any would wear that. £14 rise per hour in 2 years would be a lot to ask
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