Gardening Business Training – Valuable, varied…and fun!
Gardening Business Training – What’s the story?
Here in Ed’s, we rounded off the first week of February with our first gardening business training session of 2020. Consequently, the office was a real hive of activity, even more so than usual! And so, we were delighted to welcome many of our Gardening Business Owners, from a whole range of locations, for a valuable training afternoon.
As always, we covered a range of relevant business issues. Furthermore, the Ed’s way of doing training is that we all agree a list of hot topics with our Business Owners on the day. Without a doubt, we find this is fundamentally much better than coming up with a dry pre-fabricated agenda.
First and foremost, this means that we train our Gardening Business Owners in matters in which they are really interested. Thus, topics that will make a difference to their businesses. We take the view that training for training’s sake is of no value at all. Training must add real value for our team of busy Business Owners. This training ethos runs through Ed’s. It applies to new Business Owners, who have a tailored training programme for their own specific needs. Equally, it applies to planning training sessions for Gardening Business Owners who have been with Ed’s for twelve years or more. The Ed’s mantra is that training should ALWAYS make a difference.
The Format
First of all, our training session kicked off with an overview from Ed himself on the big picture in Ed’s. This is always useful for our Business Owners as it puts their own business efforts into context. Next, we welcomed new Ed’s Gardening Business Owners and then cut to the main agenda , which focused, first of all, on agreeing the hot topics of the day.
We always love hearing our Business Owners putting forward their ideas on their hot topics at a specific point in time. After agreeing the hot topics, we split into groups, mixing up new and experienced Business Owners. Notably, we all find that it is so beneficial for business owners with a whole range of different levels of experience and perspectives to contribute to a wide breadth of discussions.
Our aim is to strike a balance between keeping discussions informal and flowing but also capturing the essence through a structured approach. We find that breaking into small groups for initial discussion works. The next stage is to have group presentations to feed that input into the whole group. The Office team are very experienced facilitators and this helps us to make this fluid approach work!
The Proceedings
In Friday’s session we covered a whole breadth of hot topics, ranging from ‘What makes a really good customer?’ to ‘Key considerations when employing staff’. Breaking things up with some fresh air, we did an outdoors practical exercise on estimating some tricky jobs. In addition, we had a presentation on physical wellbeing from one of our experienced Business Owners, Richard from St Ives.
Finally , we were able to squeeze in a great session from one of the large gardening equipment suppliers. He spoke to us about latest developments in the world of gardening equipment. We found it really useful to have his expert opinion on kit performance.
After all that talking, we were certainly ready for some refreshments. We like to have an informal social element at the end of our training sessions as it gives Business Owners the chance to get to know each other better.
The Feedback
After the event, we always ask our business owners for feedback so that we can continuously improve our training provision…
First of all, we got a five star review from Paul, who runs his gardening business in Swindon. Paul said” I thought it was a really great session. Well worth the time out of my business. It was really useful content, the time flew and it was fun. It’s always great to see the other Business Owners too. All in all, a great Friday afternoon.”
Next, Dave, who runs his business in Andover, was equally positive. He said “The Ed’s training sessions are really spot on. I always look forward to them. The things we cover are always really interesting and you leave with ideas and solutions that make a great difference to your business. I really like the team aspect as well. It’s all done in a fun, fresh way too. Actually, great training is one of the real advantages of being part of Ed’s.”
Finally, Nigel, who runs his business in Worthing fed back, ” I find these get-togethers so useful, as well as motivational. I thought that the small group exercise of pricing up the jobs at the front of the building were very enlightening for future reference. Thank you!”
A final key measure of success is that the Office team always enjoys running the sessions as much as our Business Operators enjoy participating. This has to be a key ingredient of a successful and fun training event.
If you would like to find out more about life as an Ed’s Gardening Business Operator, please do get in touch.