NEWS
A fresh approach to business BROADLEAF MIDLANDS TREE CARE IS SETTING THE STANDARDS FOR CUSTOMER SERVICE AND ENVIRONMENTAL CREDENTIALS
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roadleaf Midlands Tree Care is a young and vi rant ar orist firm ased in Shepshed, near Loughborough in Leicestershire. The business is run by couple randon ing and im erley llen who both left other successful careers to set up the company two years ago. To date, Broadleaf Midlands has achieved a string of five star reviews and is now winning much of its new usiness through recommendations and word of mouth. Commitment to planting The company has also achieved recognition locally for its recent initiative to donate a sapling to a ational Trust woodland for every tree it fells. The idea came from their year old daughter rooke who is a passionate environmentalist and who was unhappy with the idea of trees eing cut down. s im erley e plains he was learning a out deforestation and we have told her that trees sometimes have to e felled such as if they are unsafe or they are causing subsidence and damage to a home. We’ve made e orts to ensure our own home is car on neutral ut we also oth wanted to do more. We used to o er to plant trees for customers ut it was rooke who gave us the encouragement to make it o cial.
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Pro Arb | August/September 2021
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Working with the ational Trust means we can give something ack and customers like it they can follow our progress on social media.
Whether it’s me or a member of the team, we want to be known for being professional and polite roadleaf idlands was set up in shortly efore the pandemic struck and while it closed for the first lockdown it was then a le to continue trading and has gone from strength to strength. erien e on the ho oor randon had worked with trees efore ut had started a career in retail. e was a high yer and was working as a team manager for Waitrose at one time managing a workforce of around sta . e comments had previous e perience of working with trees and knew it was what really en oyed. also wanted to run my own usiness where could work outdoors and start up from scratch. We talked a out it and started drawing up plans a out how we could operate. e e plains that with two young children to support it was initially decided to test the water. t’s quite scary when you give up a regular monthly salary. o we set up the usiness ut continued to work part time at the supermarket as well as helping my dad with teaching at his karate school.
We didn’t know how the usiness was going to go. We started o doing small o s for friends and family such as pruning or hedge trimming and then the work started coming in quickly ust from our social media presence and word of mouth. t was then we decided we could run it full time. Passionate about business im erley had a management role in childcare and has also recently attained a business management and marketing degree from ottingham Trent niversity. he comments love usiness and we’ve developed the brand and service standards. Working with trees has not een that di erent to what ’m used to as have a good knowledge of safety culture which is very important in what we do and ecause of my ackground in childcare. randon says his e perience in retail has also helped. t’s a out customer relationships and listening to the customer if you can uild a rapport with people that really helps. Whether it’s me or a team mem er we want to e known for eing professional and polite and for those we work for to know that they can trust us. t’s incredi ly satisfying having new customers get in contact that have een recommended y someone we worked for. roadleaf idlands continues to work in the domestic sector and also has a growing ook of commercial usiness including an e panding portfolio of maintenance work for local independent schools. On the stump s usiness has taken o the couple have invested more into new equipment. This includes randon’s favourite piece of kit
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10/08/2021 14:52