Helping a landscape builder to achieve more
I recently had the pleasure of working with Bowood Landscapes Ltd, a business providing professional landscaping and garden design services. The owner, Andy Woodason, reached out to me because he was finding it more and more difficult to manage every element of his business as efficiently as possible, and needed support in setting direction and delivering a plan to improve. During our initial discussion, he asked me to assess the running of the business, identify any problem areas, and present solutions that would facilitate its operations.
Put simply, my approach to helping Bowood Landscapes can be broken down into three core parts: I needed to:
define its key values and establish a clear vision and direction for the brand,
develop a business strategy that would help Bowood achieve this vision and sustain growth over the next 5-10 years,
deliver solutions to maximise business efficiencies and drive additional profit by reviewing and improving the business’s capabilities and the end-to-end journeys of its customers and employees.
Here’s a little more about precisely how I guided Bowood Landscapes towards success.
DEFINING THE BOWOOD VISION
It’s essential for me to gain a comprehensive understanding of a business from the outset and make sure every member of the organisation, who will each play a vital role in its journey to success, is on the same page. So that everyone’s aspirations for the company were aligned, I facilitated workshop sessions, in which Andy, key stakeholders, and I discussed the core vision, beliefs, values and principles of the business – ‘The Bowood Vision’. These sessions, and the outcomes they drive, are extremely valuable. Without a clear and unifying direction for the business its ability to move forward can easily be stunted. The time spent facilitating the sessions enabled me to shift everyone’s focus to an ambitious yet achievable target that all team members could work towards.
To communicate The Bowood Vision to all stakeholders in a concise, easy-to-understand way, I created mission and vision statements that reflected what the company wanted to achieve and how it saw itself in the future – i.e., a reliable, friendly landscaping service that prioritised customer service and designed beautiful gardens of the highest quality. I also helped define a guiding set of brand values that would be used to build a firm identity, one that customers could grow to recognise and trust.
The brand values, vision, and mission statement informed my decisions throughout the entire process, and I used them to lay out Bowood’s main goals and objectives for 2022/23. These were to increase the performance and overall profitability of the business, maintain its excellent level of customer satisfaction, increase employee engagement and satisfaction, and reduce its environmental impact.
“You gave us a chance to reflect on ourselves, and helped facilitate and define our strategic direction. ”
Now that I had given Andy and the rest of the Bowood team a stronger sense of exactly what they wanted to achieve, it was time to determine how best to help them work towards this vision using the most effective methods. I first needed to acquire a complete picture of the their current strategies and how closely they aligned with the new objectives by conducting a full strategic review, in which I examined every area of the business – including its management hierarchy, the communication between the different departments, its operations, its relationship with its customers, and the well-being of its employees. This analysis allowed me to diagnose any weaknesses hindering the company’s progress towards its outlined goals and gave me a better idea of all the possible opportunities for improvement. By strengthening these weaker areas, I knew I could alleviate the stress Andy had been experiencing and set the business in a fresh direction with streamlined processes, happier workers, and greater profits.
INCREASING COMMUNICATION
Boosting the company’s performance required a variety of factors, chief of which was ensuring structures were in place to facilitate communication throughout all levels of the business and to stakeholders; after all, effective communication is simply imperative to success. I led the business in planning its communication strategy, helping the management realise which stakeholders to contact, when they should be contacting them, and which channels they should be using.
It was important for everyone to stay coordinated and understand the structure of the company, so I created a management structure that illustrated the balance of workflow and responsibilities across the business’s hierarchy. Once this framework was in place, employees at every level found it far easier to stay in sync and know whom they had to report to. I also assisted in setting up a fortnightly management meeting – an essential arrangement for the efficient running and organisation of any business – that provided Andy and the other top-level staff with the opportunity to keep abreast of current projects, discuss strategy, and solve problems.
IMPROVING EFFICIENCY
A significant part of my work with Bowood Landscaping involved increasing the efficiency of its operations. I looked at how to simplify procedures, eliminating unnecessary difficulties that were costing the business time and money. Because a key goal was to make project management as smooth as possible, I made sure I developed and facilitated the implementation of new project-tracking capabilities. One such capability was an Excel spreadsheet for tracking multiple projects, which provided Andy with easy access to the end-to-end, high-level status of all ongoing projects, from the customer’s initial enquiry through to the final invoice. I also introduced the idea of having individual project reports so employees would have easy access to all the details of each project, including the customer requirements and the agreed material and equipment. These capabilities greatly improved the time management, scheduling, and organisation of its projects.
“... I needed someone like you to show us a clearer way of working and bring us up to date.”
Uncertainty is often the root cause of unfocused, disorganised, and sluggish work. To ensure clarity among the workforce, I helped establish the responsibilities that fell within the remit of each role so that every employee was clear on the part they played and could focus on performing it to the best of their ability.
I also realised I had to help tidy up Bowood’s admin processes. Before I came in, the company was still using handwritten paper timesheets and did not have a coordinated admin system in place. I advised Andy that he could expedite these processes by modernising them, recommending that they move the timesheets to a new online format and that all team members use a single productivity suite across all admin functions. Not only did this advice make admin far easier and quicker, but it also allowed Bowood to become more eco-friendly by reducing its paper usage.
CONNECTING WITH CUSTOMERS
High levels of customer satisfaction were absolutely integral to Bowood’s brand and something I knew I had to focus on from the outset, so I made sure high customer satisfaction was a value embedded in the vision and mission statements. As I wanted to develop its reputation as a customer-oriented company, one that prided itself on providing excellent customer service and forming long-lasting relationships, I equipped Bowood with the tools that would enable it to gain in-depth insight into its customers' journey. This involved creating a customer satisfaction survey, which provided insight into previous and recent customers’ experiences. The survey allowed the company to collect a Net Promoter Score, supplying a single metric to help them gauge overall satisfaction, and verbatim feedback. I helped develop further survey capabilities so that Bowood could continue to monitor the rate of satisfied customers and address issues when necessary.
CREATING A BETTER PLACE TO WORK
Throughout my work I have always adopted a people-focused approach since I believe that the well-being of a company’s employees should always be a top priority. When consulting at Bowood, I gathered a detailed impression of how all the employees felt about their work, engaging in individual conversations with each of them to discuss their level of satisfaction, asking which parts of their job they enjoyed and which they felt required improvement. I then sent this feedback to Andy so we could see what actions needed to be taken to alleviate concerns.
To keep all employees in the loop of the larger business operations, I ensured they were included in the communication plan, which encouraged wider team engagement and, as a result, increased motivation and productivity. I also made sure that the overall team structure was aligned with and served to achieve the vision statement and business objectives.
Since I understood the importance of creating a healthy work-life balance, and for there to be a strong relationship built on trust between management and employees, I discussed with Andy the possibility of adopting a flexible working model. I explained the benefits of implementing Flexitime capabilities, which allow the employee to choose when they start and end work (within agreed limits) while still working certain core hours. By implementing this flexible approach, the company could strike a better balance between employee and customer satisfaction and increase efficiency by allowing employees to reduce their commute time, shape their personal life around their work more effectively, and, therefore, relieve stress.
“You’ve certainly succeeded. My head is a lot less full and it feels great!”
A WORD FROM ANDY, BOWOOD’S OWNER
My work with Bowood Landscapes has put the business on a strong footing for the years to come. Through my consulting services, I have laid the firm, fixed foundations for them to further build upon and reach new successes – and they couldn’t be more pleased! Here is what Andy had to say:
Thanks so much, Neil. You gave us a chance to reflect on ourselves, and helped facilitate and define our strategic direction. By taking the time to truly understand the business and our brand, you were able to help us identify areas where we fell short and recommend effective ways to improve. Nothing was ever forced on us – you managed us in the nicest way possible and always put the well-being of our employees first. As a business leader from a background of working on the tools, I needed someone like you to show the team a clearer way of working and bring us up to date. You’ve certainly succeeded. My head is a lot less full and it feels great!
Andy Woodason, Owner, Bowood Landscapes Ltd
LET’S MOVE FORWARD TOGETHER
If you, too, would like to enlist the help of a business consultant who will define your goals, develop innovative solutions, and deliver an approach that allows you to achieve more, contact Steady Consulting today.
