Lesley and Jamie Clark – Greensleeves Doncaster and Greensleeves North Yorkshire
What gave you confidence there was real room for growth in those areas?
We know both areas very well. Jamie has lived in Doncaster all his life, so he knows the area inside out and understands exactly where to target. With our North Yorkshire territory, Lesley grew up in York and still has family there, so she knows York just as well as Jamie knows Doncaster.
In fact, we would have taken North Yorkshire on for York alone. To then have all the other great towns and villages within the patch was a big bonus. Both territories have villages that are ideal to target, but they also have less affluent areas where we still have plenty of customers. So it wouldn’t be right to say you can only succeed in affluent locations. It’s about understanding your market and positioning yourself properly.
Before taking on each territory, we scoped out the competition carefully. We researched how many other lawn care businesses were operating and where they were primarily based. Even if we had felt the areas were saturated, it wouldn’t have put us off completely. Good competition is healthy. It just means you have to make sure you’re doing a better job.
As you’ve grown to multiple units, what systems or operational habits have been most important in helping you scale sustainably?
We’ve always run the business lean. We make sure we’re maximising the workload of our existing staff before taking someone new on.
Both of us were out on the tools for several years before moving into more office-based roles. That experience means we understand the job inside out. We know what a realistic day looks like, how much work can be done and how different team members perform. Every staff member is different, so understanding their individual capabilities is key.
When we do take someone on, it’s because the business can genuinely afford it and it supports growth. In the past, we might have expanded a little more cautiously than some would. But because of that approach we’ve never really worried about how we were going to pay anyone. That gives you confidence when scaling.
What common mistakes do you see franchisees make when expanding?
The most common mistake we see is not having the support system in place, particularly on the admin side.
As you grow, the office function becomes more important than ever. Having capable staff handling administration is crucial. If you don’t have that structure in place, you can quickly become bogged down in day-to-day admin tasks and lose focus on actually growing the business.
For us, having strong office support means we can concentrate on expansion, customer service and maintaining standards – rather than firefighting paperwork.
Before investing further, how did you assess whether you were financially ready and whether the franchisor support was strong enough?
We ran Doncaster for 14 years before acquiring North Yorkshire, so we had a clear understanding of how to take a territory and grow it properly.
We did our homework on the new territory. We analysed the numbers, looked at turnover and identified where we could make adjustments to increase revenue relatively quickly. That gave us confidence that there was genuine headroom.
Our franchisor, like any good business, wants to grow and increase profitability. They have the systems and support staff in place, so whenever we need help, it’s there. The model works, the products work and the systems work.
We’ve seen that first-hand. We took Doncaster from a £38,000 turnover business in 2011 to £575,000 in 2025. So we knew that if we implemented the same systems and approach in North Yorkshire, it would grow too. In our first year there, we increased turnover by £75,000, which reinforced that belief.
