Further Lawn Care Experts Join KLC!
AND Exciting 2024 Updates!
I believe 2024 will prove to be one of our most exciting years to date. Following some extensive recruitment throughout the autumn and winter, we were delighted to add two new lawn care superstars to the team at the start of the year!
Not only have we been bringing Lee and Paul up to speed, but we've been putting the finishing touches to our service for spring with heaps of networking, learning and development for us all. See what we have been up to below!
Lee Simmonds
Lee Simmonds joins us with a number of years of experience in garden maintenance and landscaping. He also has a proud military background as an ex-paratrooper.
Lee has completed his early training weeks with us - successfully passed his PA1 and PA6 spray qualifications in just his second week, and has met many of our customers already.
With our mix of dedicated in-house training portal, hands on-experience and external training, Lee is already excelling in his new role.
Lee is very much into his fitness and even runs a bootcamp class twice per week. Therefore, we’re sure that even those harder lawn renovation days will be no issue for him!
With Lee based between Hurley and Sutton Coldfield, you can expect to see him providing lawn care services in Solihull and our 'southern' postcodes.
Paul Reeves
Paul Reeves joins us with several years of experience in the lawn care industry with a local franchise branch. Paul has been part of their success for the last 7 years, and has also had other sales and customer service roles prior to this.
Paul started at Kingsbury Lawn Care more recently than Lee, but with his knowledge and experience he is soon finding his feet with our ways of working. He is greatly looking forward to spending time with customers in and around Lichfield and Sutton Coldfield postcodes in particular.
Outside of work, Paul is a keen cyclist and will be found out on his bike each weekend. He has previously cycled around Spain, and used to work in the cycling industry before moving into lawn care. We’re delighted to have added a couple of driven fitness junkies like Paul and Lee to our ranks!
You can expect to see Paul most commonly on our Sutton Coldfield lawns, along with looking after our customers in Walsall and Lichfield too.
What Else Do Lawn Care Specialists Get Up To During The Winter Months?
Winter 23/24 has been mighty productive for us once again. Along with maintaining our lawns with moss treatments and servicing machinery and equipment, there is a lot of investment that goes into our service at this time of year. This in terms of both cost and in terms of learning and development so we are each in peak condition for the spring season!
Not only have we continued to invest in our new and existing team members this winter, but we’ve also added two new vans to the fleet to best serve our customers. With the cost of new vans in 2024 it feels good to be in a position to be continuing to reinvest into our service.
We’ve just finished kitting these out into the perfect spaces for our lawn care specialists to work from. We couldn’t be more ready for the spring this year!
The only place that we're getting this photo out for as my van isn't the tidiest with new customer Welcome Packs everywhere - survey central!
UK Lawn Association Annual Conference 2024
At the end of January we attended the latest UKLCA Annual Conference - ‘Scaling for Success’ - at Tewksbury Park Hotel. We have now attended every annual conference of the UKLCA since it’s graduation from the UK Lawn Care Network in 2016. It is the home of thriving independent lawn care businesses, who are willing and open to share best practice in their companies.
Myself and Stan arrived early on Sunday in an attempt to play golf (Stan far more successfully than me!), whilst also trading lawn care service ideas on the golf course with fellow independent specialists and suppliers. Mark, Lee and Paul joined us on Monday - a day which, for the first time, saw two rooms in use for dual presentations. Many presentations on Monday were aimed more towards technicians, with Tuesday featuring more HR and marketing content.
Our technician team benefitted from hearing about how to get the very best from the latest industry products, including the control of leatherjackets and chafer grubs and the science behind wetting agents as just two examples. We also spent some invaluable time trading ideas and experiences with fellow lawn technicians from all corners of the UK.
It's also a new chapter for me, as after playing a part in the organisation of this years’ conference, I’ve stepped down from my UKLCA committee role of the past 5 years. A great deal has been achieved in this time, with the UKLCA offering more to its members than ever before. It has been a privilege to help so many up-and-coming small businesses - but with those goals achieved, it is time to place a greater focus on this team and other projects.
The UKLCA Conference 2024 left to right - Stan, Paul, Jack, Mark and Lee at Tewkesbury Park Hotel and Golf Club
The Premier Lawns team, Belfast which Jack visited earlier in January for YouTube filming and a 'Roots to Revenue' podcast interview
The Finishing Touches for Spring...
The learning and development of our team isn’t confined to one month of the year. Last week we had Richard Salmon of ProLawnCareUK deliver a company wide training day as a final high-level knowledge boost for our team before another busy spring season.
With Richard we discussed topics such as:
- The treatment of hard surfaces
- Types of top dressing
- Weed and grass types
- The various weed controls available to us and getting the best from these applications
- Lawn renovations and re-turfing
- And much more!
Unfortunately, Richard wasn't able to bring Monty with him, but we do have this photo of when Jack SS met a very excited Monty in autumn 2021 - he is a lot of fun (see: mad)!
Monty that is - but Jack is certainly good laugh too!
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