FEATURES
An interview with
SIMON N’JIE
MANAGING DIRECTOR OF ARTEMIS TREE SERVICES
Pro Arb visited Artemis Tree Services in Hertfordshire to meet managing director Simon N’Jie, who started the company as a one-man band almost 20 years ago. A small business success story, today he runs four teams and presides over a yard that is chock-full of kit What is your role within the company? I’m the managing director. I oversee the office and the yard and I keep an eye on the teams, but I don’t necessarily manage them. Did you study arboriculture at college? I went to Merrist Wood College from 1994 to 1995. I did the NCH arb course. So how long have you been in the industry? Twenty-one years in total, 17 of which have been spent running Artemis Tree Services.
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What made you want to start your own business? I started the company in 1998. I had always wanted to run my own business, so that I could do things my way. I started off as a one man band and built up to the four teams that I have now. We also have dedicated office staff. How difficult was it to set the company up? There wasn’t any difficulty, it was very easy really. I bought a truck; I already had a chainsaw and a climbing kit. I bought one more chainsaw and I put an advert in the yellow pages. Off I went! How many staff do you now employ? We currently employ 17 people. We tend to have four teams going out each day. It’s four teams of either two, three, four or five people, depending on the job. It’s never easy to find good staff. When the good ones come along, you make sure you keep hold of them!
How do you go about winning your work? We look at tenders and we get a lot of work through word of mouth from current or previous clients. Aaron, our contracts manager, is in charge of sourcing all new commercial work. Do you do domestic, commercial and local authority work? We do all three, but about 50% of our revenue is gained from commercial work. It’s a large portion of what we do. Are you involved in any apprenticeship schemes? It seems to be a popular way of taking people on and building their skills. We put all of our apprentices through Capel Manor College’s apprentice scheme. The apprentices we take on work with us and go to college for a few days every other week on average to make sure they are heading in the right direction; it’s basically to make sure they are doing what they need to do in a structured environment.
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03/09/2015 12:53