What I Offer
Alex brings her trademark energy and enthusiasm into businesses to help them reach their goals. She brings extensive experience in retail and hospitality alongside her wide range of skills in recruitment, training, sales and business development to support ambitious small businesses take that crucial leap to the next stage. Alex thrives on bringing teams together to be the best they can be, whilst focusing on their customer’s experience. In addition to her role at Keep Your Fork, she has an exciting portfolio of retained clients which currently span multi-award winning businesses like The Great Escape and also charities like Work-wise, with many others on an ad-hoc basis. She is also a trustee of Kids Around The World Charity. She enjoys the diversity of her client base where she can bring focus, organisation and ultimately, profitability. Alex specialises in troubleshooting operations in need of a fresh approach and also in the opening of new retails sites where attention to detail is paramount. Her love of ‘the customer experience’ came during her seven years in St Ives, Cornwall whilst she worked within the hospitality industry. Upon her return to Sheffield in 1999, Alex co-founded Proper Pasty Company Ltd and took one company owned shop to 5 franchise shops within 5 years. Alex says, “I bring enthusiasm and energy to any organisation or business. With entrepreneurial drive, high operational standards and an eye for detail. My passion is to provide a fun and productive culture within people systems. Leadership with integrity is key. I identify areas for improvement, develop clear strategies for implementation and ensure concise communication to minimise levels of anxiety during periods of change. A fantastic customer experience is vital and I work hard to exceed expectations. Excellent customer service should be the norm and not the exception”.
About Alex
Business Support
Many hats are worn. Passionate about creating businesses a fan base either through excellent Customer Service or Social Media. Smile by name and Smile by nature.
Alexandra Gardner – My Story
Alex brings her trademark energy and enthusiasm into businesses to help them reach their goals. She brings extensive experience in retail and hospitality alongside her wide range of skills in recruitment, training, sales and business development to support ambitious small businesses take that crucial leap to the next stage. Alex thrives on bringing teams together to be the best they can be, whilst focusing on their customer’s experience.
In addition to her role at Keep Your Fork, she has an exciting portfolio of retained clients which currently span multi-award winning businesses like The Great Escape and also charities like Work-wise, with many others on an ad-hoc basis. She is also a trustee of Kids Around The World Charity. She enjoys the diversity of her client base where she can bring focus, organisation and ultimately, profitability. Alex specialises in troubleshooting operations in need of a fresh approach and also in the opening of new retails sites where attention to detail is paramount.
Her love of ‘the customer experience’ came during her seven years in St Ives, Cornwall whilst she worked within the hospitality industry. Upon her return to Sheffield in 1999, Alex co-founded Proper Pasty Company Ltd and took one company owned shop to 5 franchise shops within 5 years.
Alex says, “I bring enthusiasm and energy to any organisation or business.
With entrepreneurial drive, high operational standards and an eye for detail.
My passion is to provide a fun and productive culture within people systems. Leadership with integrity is key. I identify areas for improvement, develop clear strategies for implementation and ensure concise communication to minimise levels of anxiety during periods of change.
A fantastic customer experience is vital and I work hard to exceed expectations. Excellent customer service should be the norm and not the exception”.
“Well what can I say about Alex…well we have developed a new phrase ALEXISM which means enthusiastic, vibrant, excellence, reliable, inspirational, professional, dedicated, talented and much more. Alex is focused, able to quickly adapt to new circumstances and apply her excellent organisational skills.”
~ Jackie Freeborn
Athena SCR (Founder), Wise-work Foundation (Co-founder), The Rotherham Story (Place Manager).
Satisfaction Guaranteed!
It’s safe to say that Alex has been a part to the adventure that is The Great Escape Game. She has supported us on quite a journey of laughter, tears and successes! We’re not an easy mission, but one that Alex fitted straight into, armed with her Great Escape hoodie! Alex helped us form a culture and helped us build our operational foundations from hiring and firing to how to successfully manage a growing team and the difficult situations that can accompany that. Alex understands people exceptionally well – she dismantles emotions and without surpressing people’s thoughts, is able to non-judgementally empower a person to support and drive them to their full potential. We have learnt to put the business in the centre of our decision making, in order for us to rapidly scale and we’re really proud to have had Alex’s guidance every step of the way – all our love H, P and The Great Escape Team ?
Its been an absolute pleasure working with Alex over the past few months supporting our pioneering work on STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths) with Primary School students. Alex is a natural with her young audiences and has taken to this new challenge with her usual enthusiasm, professionalism, good humour and can do, flexible attitude and approach. Her enthusiasm is infectious and adds the learning experience of all the children and staff she engages with. Thanks for your hard work and creativity Alex. Look forward to continuing to work with you on this and other work-wise projects. John Barber. Co-Founder and Senior Associate. The work-wise Foundation.
Alex is incredible. She adds such enormous value to our business. She is literally a fairy Godmother, coming in bringing energy, optimism, sparkle, ideas and fresh impetus alongside razor-sharp business acumen. After my sabbatical, I was excited about the future as the business went from solo-preneur ‘all about me’ to limited company with five staff. I just didn’t want to spend hours stressing myself with endless detail and number crunching when I was simply too close to my business ‘baby’ and too emotional about it. Alex brings a caring but clinical eye to every aspect of the business. She has spent four days this month doing fingertip research, analysis and work with staff and associates, and today facilitated a management meeting which gained everyone’s clarity, commitment and buy-in. Genius and an invaluable investment. Our only issue is that she is rapidly becoming an indispensable and eagerly-anticipated part of our business. In fact, if she was male- I’d have to propose ? !
Get In Touch
Send me a message
Contact Me
Phone
07726 362067
alex@smilebusiness.support