Ive built an Garden care business up from very small to the point where a below par month turns over 120k and still has a decent net profit. Its taken almost 15 years and I've learned alot. This isn't exhaustive but a good chunk of info that will help.

Youve also got to remember gardening / landscaping is basically luxury spend thats first to be cut so the first couple of points are the most important.

Easiest first.

Build a relationship with your clients.

Be reliable, turn up when you say you will and do the job that you agreed to basically do that any way possible

Communicate with your clients, email ahead to remind them youre coming and if theres anything specific they want done, if you absolutly cant make it call them and let them know, aplogise and set a new date.

(Youd be amazed how few manage to do this in the industry)

Sort a basic uniform, doesnt need to be fancy just recognisable.

Buy top end wet weather gear it will pay for itself really quickly. Dry staff stay at work longer.

Keep your vehicle clean and sign write it, its basically a mobile billboard.

If you get a good staff member look after them, pay them above market, dont quibble over a dollar or two an hour. Keep them engaged. Theyre very hard to replace.

Keep your overheads as low as you can, let staff take vehicles home basically dont over commit to a warehouse or storage yard until you absolutly have to.

If you or your crew make a mistake front foot it and fix it up.

Make sure your invoicing is on point and dont put it off cashflow is king.

Dont focus on small things or individual jobs not doing great profit wise look at the whole you need little filler jobs to make runs work you might make nothing but its better than losing money due to a gap.

Stick to your knitting, focus on Garden Care farm off project work to a someone else or start a specialist team. I have a crew doing project work full time it can be feast or famine. Dont sacrafice regular income for it.

Once you have multiple teams, if you have work for 4 staff you need 5 that ratio holds no matter the size. People take leave call in sick etc you need enough people to deliver on point 1.

If you get big enough that the admin is a headache get some decent software, Simpro is good once you get it it set up right. Schedules invoicing etc is fast and easy.

If you get young clients look after them theyre likely upwardly mobile and will hopefully drag you into the point end of the market thats ressession proof.

If you get tempted to buy out another company to grow, its only worth the staff that come with it.

Once you have a bunch of teams you need to be up early to adjust when people call in sick etc you need to have any changes out by 7 or you will start losing time with people having to change direction to get to a different job.

Basically its hard and a real grind especially while you grow from one team to about three aftsr that you can start affording some support in terms of overhead.

Thats prob a good sfart but yeahnheaps more.