More to training than meets the eye

I have a friend, Willy, who is a qualified green keeper, has his PA1 and PA6 pesticide spraying certificates as well as a chainsaw licence. After several years of working on golf courses, and for various garden maintenance companies he was fed up of taking orders from others and decided that he had all the experience he needed to set up on his own. Stands to reason with all that training.

Sadly, after less than a year he had to pack it in. For sure, he was an excellent gardener but it wasn’t enough. He had no experience with sales or marketing nor did he know how to develop customer relationships. He lacked the business training.

At Jim’s Mowing, the world’s largest gardening maintenance organisation, we offer a fully comprehensive suite of training modules to allow our franchisees to flourish and succeed. We see our franchise opportunity not as a gardening business but as a business in the gardening sector. With that mind-set we start with our Induction Training which focuses on all the business aspects – how to set up your business, your business accounts, the legal and financial framework, and how to organise your clients. We deal with how to win new clients, how to treat them and exceed their expectations. There are sessions on how to use the bespoke Jim’s software packages which help you organise your schedules, your clients and your records.
Then we move on to the exciting practical training course which not only includes how to mow a lawn but also general gardening, hedging and pruning as well how to lay a new lawn and look after your equipment. Obtaining the necessary pesticide certificate is also included in the training package. With all this preparation, the new Jim’s Mowing franchisees are ready to mow their first lawns in total confidence, even if they, like me, had no previous gardening experience except possibly in their own backyard.
But it doesn’t stop there as there is on-going training for personal and business development. So it is not essential nor is it necessary to have gardening experience or qualifications to run a garden maintenance business. With a healthy interest in horticulture, a love for working outdoors and bags of drive and enthusiasm, an investment in a Jim’s Mowing franchise can be a rewarding, satisfying and a successful move. Training comes in many forms to help create a stable and solid foundation from which you can grow. The moral of this blog is don’t be a Willy, be a Jim!