Nigel’s winning formula – Sharing his recipe for success
Nigel’s winning formula is there for all to see in Ed’s. He has been running his successful Ed’s gardening business in Worthing for almost nine years now. Certainly all our business owners are personable – it is a key attribute for success in this business. However, Nigel is a particularly energetic, charismatic and engaging character. It is easy to see how customers would warm to him. Yet, running a successful gardening business takes a lot more than that. And so, we caught up with Nigel to find out what he feels has been important in his successful Ed’s journey. This is what Nigel had to say…
The Background
” Before I talk about Ed’s, I’d just like to say a little bit about Worthing. It’s true that you can feel gardening at the heart of Worthing. When people think of Worthing they think about its late 18th century heyday as an elegant Georgian seaside resort. However, in the 19th and 20th centuries, Worthing and the surrounding area was one of Britain’s chief market gardening centres. Gardening feels part of the fabric of the town and I love running my own gardening business there.”
” I’ve run businesses for a long time before I joined Ed’s but I have to say that I have enjoyed running this one by far the most. Right from the start I loved the direct customer contact and the feeling that I was really making a difference to people’s home lives. That has always been really rewarding and I still feel the same in this respect as I did in my early days.”
The Early Days
” I had a good amount of business experience before I joined Ed’s. However, I didn’t know anything about gardening businesses as such. Certainly, I thought about going the independent route. However, I concluded that I would do far better as part of a good franchise business. Ed’s really knows what makes these businesses fly and I wanted to tap into that”
“I had a very good flow of work from Ed’s pretty much from Day One and that helped me to build my confidence a lot. Looking back, it’s fair to say that I quickly got the hang of delivering the range of services. Also, I got confident at estimating jobs quite quickly. I joined at a quieter time of year which meant that I could really hit the ground running when demand took off (big time!) in my first spring.”
” I was able to build a decent business really quickly. To be perfectly honest, It surprised me how quickly it all took off. Other business owners tell you that you will get busy very quickly but you don’t really believe just how busy you can get until it happens to you. By the end of my first year I had a pretty impressive regular customer register. However, it certainly wasn’t time to rest on my laurels. It was important to appreciate that the next phase was every bit, if not more, important than the first if I were to really make this business fly.”
Nigel’s Winning Formula – Taking things to the next level
“I think this is the important part that can get overlooked when people are looking at buying a franchise. There is the risk that you only focus on being fully busy and running on all cylinders. However, there is a key distinction to be made between being busy and being optimally busy. That appreciation is key to running a top tier franchise business. It’s this next phase that is particularly important. It’s relatively straightforward to get up to full capacity utilisation in Ed’s – the leads are plentiful and generally very good.”
“The more critical stage is optimising your business. That means getting everything very well calibrated with a grouping of excellent regular customers, with well thought out days whilst trying to build in enough manoeuvre room so that you have the capacity to take on excellent one-off jobs. Those factors are what really underpin optimum efficiency and sustained high profitability. It is also really important to understand that this is a continuous process. Factors change all the time and you need to stay one step ahead of the game.”
” For me, the yardstick for a good day working on my own, is earning around £450. That is pretty much the norm for me. When people think of gardening businesses, they don’t really think that these figures can be achievable but I can personally vouch that they are.”
Final thoughts
“Ed’s is a happy place to be. No-one is really competing against each other. It’s more that business owners will help each other out wherever they can. I have made some very good friends who are Ed’s business owners.”
“However, a happy life is not enough on its own. There has to be strong profits to go with that. When both are in place, the two work together really well to build a really great lifestyle of freedom and financial reward. You get all the support you need. Yet you are also the author of your own journey with your business and that is a powerful thing. The combination of these factors explains to a good extent why the vast majority of Ed’s business owners decide to stay with Ed’s after their contractual period is up. Once business owners start to run a really good Ed’s business they think ‘why would I want to do anything else?’. It truly is a wonderful way of life.”
We thank Nigel for his valuable insights and wish him all the very best as he goes into his tenth year with Ed’s. For the record, Nigel is absolutely right when he says that the vast majority of business owners decide to stay with Ed’s after their contract period. By our most recent calculations, that figure is around 80%. We place a lot of store by such a high retention rate. We appreciate that the high quality of our franchisees and our strong relationships with them really is a lynchpin of Ed’s overall success.
If you would like to find out more about the Ed’s way of life, please do not hesitate to get in touch.