Jon Bristow (39) from Ed’s Garden Maintenance takes a look back at how his business has developed since he started delivering garden services.

Jon Bristow (39) from Ed’s Garden Maintenance takes a look back at how his business has developed since he started delivering garden services.

After living abroad and running a ski hotel I started looking for a business opportunity that fitted my lifestyle, I wanted to be outside and not tied to one place. I started with Ed’s Garden Maintenance in September last year.  Within two weeks of signing up I was out on the road and in the first week took over £600.  The first couple of months I spent mostly working on larger one off jobs like cutting hedges and clearing overgrown gardens, even working on film sets with Rowan Atkinson.  The work was quite varied, great fun and mostly one day jobs which I was paid for on the same day. Within weeks I was easily achieving the weekly and monthly Ed’S targets and consistently banked over £1,000 per week.  I also took on a few regular customers who were great for filling the days I finished early or boosting my revenue at the end of the week.

To date, being designated driver at the Christmas party has been the only low part of the experience so far.

In January Ed’s Garden Maintenance organised a ski/ training trip to Austria which was great fun and very educational.  It was a great opportunity to meet the other guys with some of the team building activities which were put on.

After Christmas my children were offered a school place in Surrey which meant moving house and areas. Ed’s Garden Maintenance were very supportive and helped me relocate my business without  question and although dubious about changing areas and starting again I was very quickly back on target.  From March to July I built up over 30 regular customers and in May, my best month yet, managed to bank £10,600 which isn’t bad for a gardener!!  I met Ben Stiller, appeared on ‘Rat Pack’ a BBC programme and have met loads of great people (and cut their grass!)  I have taken on a seasonal worker to help in the busy weeks and still have more work than I can manage; my aim now is to get a second team on the road and build up my regular customers.  I have owned several businesses before and can really appreciate how good Ed’s Garden Maintenance have been at getting the phone ringing so I can be out on the road earning and doing what I am best at- it would have taken me months with no income and a large investment to get to the level I am now achieving.  The work has also changed; with more regular customers there is less driving and estimating and now I can really plan my weeks and make family and financial commitments to suit my lifestyle.