What do Chelsea and Procurement have in common?

It's that time of year again when Chelsea Flower Show reminds me of the origins of a process that I've used with clients for over 20 years.

Despite the image above, I'm not talking about gardening clients but procurement clients.

In the late 90s we were struggling to get the managers at the bank that I worked for interested in supplier management. My love of gardening provided a means of getting them a little more interested - in that questions about when they last pruned back their suppliers, or allowed one time in the greenhouse, or what tools were they using to develop their suppliers piqued their interest.

Since then I've shared many a post looking at the analogies between gardening and procurement such as

• Garden full of suppliers

• Benefiting from the fruits of our labours

• Sowing the seeds for cost reduction in your business

• How to have a flourishing procurement garden

• Low hanging fruit

• Would you win best in show? or Would your team win gold at Chelsea?

• Are you business tools just for show? 

• How will your stakeholder's grow?

• Anyone can buy - the difference between the tools in the buying, purchasing and procurement potting sheds

• Or see any of this LYL playlist of vlogs on the subject

Since it's early origins the metaphor got bigger and I wasn't just using gardens as a metaphor for supplier management but nature became a metaphor for our lives and Landscaping Your Life (LYL) was born.

For over 20 years I've had a foot in two camps - purchasing and wider personal development. Whilst often delivering both to clients I've kept my social media separate. That double life has confused clients, and me, which has led to the decision to move my blogging to my personal development blog - Landscaping Your Life.

This week to celebrate this merger I'm going back to my gardening roots. I do hope you'll join me for vlogs, blogs, posts and insights as I visit different landscapes and explore many aspects of landscaping your life, and specifically:

• Mon 20th: Landscaping your potential
• Tues 21st: Landscaping your time
• Wed 22nd: Buzzing with life
• Thurs 23rd: Landscaping your relationships
• Fri 24th: Taking a landscaping your life journey
• Sat 25th: Landscaping your success

I certainly think its time that I allow the Landscaping Your Life seed to germinate, and plant it out into the garden for all to benefit from its insight. 

Alison Smith
Head Gardener
Landscaping Your Life - making life more beautiful