| Janis and her husband Tony arrived in Sarasota in November 2011 from the UK. They came on to enable Janis to take over her management consultancy company's US office. In March 2012, Tony bought a landscape maintenance company which he renamed Greenscapes. Now Tony is the Finance Director and Janis has assumed the role of Greenscapes' Business Development Manager. Their biggest challenge was: "Taking over a company which had been run-down and mismanaged. We spent the first month or so opening letters from customers cancelling contracts. We had to try to convince them we were a different company and they should continue to give us a chance." Their biggest achievement has been: "Taking a company from the dark ages to the forefront of business practice. We now have computerized task lists on tablets with every crew, an employee handbook, best practice health and safety, a comprehensive customer database..... we could go on!" The biggest difference between running a business is the UK and US is: "EVERYTHING. Although many of the differences can be explained by the difference in the type of business, some of it was just getting to grips with US HR law, Florida regulations, completely different tax, different government structures, etc. The other challenge was going from a place where we were someone, with a massive credit score and a long respected history, to being some place with no history, no status and no credit score." If you'd like to be featured in our future emails please let us know. Email us by clicking here. |
