Her Magazine is New Zealand’s only women’s business lifestyle magazine! Her Magazine highlights the achievements of successful and rising New Zealand businesswomen. Her Magazine encourages a healthy work/life balance.
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It's never too late to bloom As others her age settle into retirement, Judy Dawson's gardening business is in full boom AT A TIME OF life when most women are ensconced in retirement, 72-year-old Judy Dawson is notching up several gears. Her gardening business, The Evergreens, employs seven others besides herself, and keeps her occupied outdoors six days a week. Although Judy has dabbled in gardening from her childhood, the idea of making money from it only emerged tentatively once her own children left home. Judy was in her mid-50s and gardening for others to supplement her salary as a special education teacher. It was a hard slog because invariably the gardening couldn't be done until after she had finished her day job at 5.00 p.m. "I'd do a couple of hours gardening, and get a peanut slab. It would just last me the two hours and then I would come home tired," she says, laughing. Her first clients came via a letterbox drop, and she still gardens for some of these same people 16 years later. She has never had to pay for advertising, relying instead on informal networking and word-of- mouth to pick up more jobs. Judy's recipe for customer retention is simple: always do a high quality job. "I've got confidence in myself and the team. We go the second mile and don't look at our watches and think, 'It's time we went.' Because we are passionate about what we're doing, we're good at it." Her clientele generally falls into three groups – overseas-based landlords, the elderly, and workers who don't have the time to put into their gardens. A few times she has been commissioned to design a garden from scratch, including writing a plan for maintenance. Judy admits the business was run on a fairly casual basis until 2011. Although the team has had uniform emerald green tee-shirts for several years, the name 'The Evergreens' only came to her in 2010, which is when she got business cards printed. The same year, she started allocating jobs geographically so travel was reduced for each staff member. "Everybody has got two or three gardens they do on their own, but in some of the bigger gardens there are up to four of us working together. Most of us are teachers, all busy, so it's a lovely way to socialise, keep up-to-date with each other, and celebrate each other's highs – births of grandchildren, passing exams, all that sort of thing." If it sounds genteel, you wouldn't be entirely wrong. When Judy and her all-women staff are working together, they choose the most congenial garden in which to have lunch. It's no mean picnic; they bring coffee plungers, a damask cloth, proper china mugs, plates and "very good food". As well as a social opportunity, they use the time to diary their next jobs and bring bookwork up-to-date. Operating a business in your later years does have its challenges. For one, Judy says she has to be careful about monitoring her energy outputs. Depending on the season, she works about two to three hours a day in the gardens, with the balance of her workday spent on organisation and accounts. She also has a large garden herself. This often gets just "a lick and a promise", but her goal is to spend more time sitting in it and enjoying it. "I find it hard to say no when people ask me if I can do their gardening because I get excited at the thought of improving a garden. Having the others on the team has reduced that hurdle a bit because we are beginning to be able to say 'yes', and one of us is going to be able do it." Another pressure is keeping up with industry knowledge and trends – all the things required to be an inspirational and effective gardener. However, Judy says this is not a burden because she loves "devouring" gardening books, magazines and catalogues. Despite these challenges, Judy says her later-in-life business has brought its benefits too. "It is very energising being outside; I don't need to go to a gym and I don't need to go walking. Also it fills my days with something I enjoy. I think it is a privilege to be able to do that. I have to force myself to stay in bed in the mornings as I can hardly wait to get up, and I think that is fantastic." Linda Grigg Judy's three tips for women starting a business in their later years: 1. Enjoy doing something you are passionate about to a deeper degree than you've had time to do. You've got to be passionate about it so you don't begrudge time that you need to put into it. 2. Maintain a healthy lifestyle so you've got the energy to put into whatever. 3. Make time to spend with friends and family, so that they are not excluded with your business endeavours. www.hermagazine.co.nz | 117 Sue Marshall