Sales & Operations Assistant
Coastal Garden Supplies — Cornwall & DevonPart-time: 2 days per week
Coastal Compost is a growing specialist horticultural business producing premium compost and soil products for gardeners, landscapers, estates, venues and independent retailers across Cornwall and Devon.
We are building the business around a simple idea: better materials can be better for gardens and better for the places they come from.
Our products make use of carefully selected, lower-impact and locally relevant materials, including marine and organic resources, with the aim of improving soil health, supporting plant growth and reducing reliance on more carbon-intensive or environmentally damaging inputs.
Where possible, we want the materials we use to contribute to wider restorative practices too, including the use of farmed kelp, which can provide habitat, absorb nutrients from surrounding water and capture carbon as it grows.
We want Coastal Compost to become a genuinely credible South West horticultural brand: commercially successful, rooted in good growing practice, and able to demonstrate that environmental benefit and high-performance products do not have to be competing ideas.
We’re now looking for a practical, organised and commercially minded person to help us grow.
The role
You’ll work directly with the founders and help develop both our trade and retail customer base.
This is not a traditional hard-sales job. It is a varied commercial role combining sales, customer relationships, administration and the day-to-day work involved in growing a young business.
Typical tasks will include:
- Following up customer enquiries, quotes and previous orders
- Contacting landscapers, gardeners, nurseries, garden centres, estates, hotels and other potential trade customers
- Introducing Coastal Compost products and explaining what makes them different
- Building and maintaining a database of trade prospects and existing customers
- Arranging samples and following up afterwards
- Preparing quotes and invoices
- Keeping customer and order records organised
- Helping coordinate deliveries and collections
- Checking in with existing customers about repeat orders
- Following up unpaid invoices where required
- Helping with general business administration
- Identifying larger and recurring customers across Cornwall and Devon
- Helping communicate the story behind our products, materials and environmental approach
There will be plenty of opportunity to help shape the role as the business develops.
Who we’re looking for
You do not necessarily need formal sales experience.
We’re more interested in someone who is:
- Confident and friendly when speaking to customers
- Organised and reliable
- Comfortable approaching new businesses
- Persistent enough to follow opportunities through
- Able to write clear, professional emails
- Comfortable using basic computer systems, spreadsheets and invoicing software
- Commercially minded
- Happy working independently
- Interested in gardening, horticulture, sustainability or environmental businesses
Experience in horticulture, landscaping, garden retail, sales, customer service or small-business administration would be useful, but isn’t essential.
Why join us?
This is an opportunity to join a small business at an early stage rather than simply step into an established corporate role.
You would have a genuine part in helping build the customer base, develop the way we sell our products and shape what Coastal Compost becomes.
We are particularly interested in proving that commercially successful horticultural products can also support healthier soils, more intelligent use of natural resources, lower-carbon supply chains and restorative practices.
For someone who enjoys both the commercial side of business and the idea of working for something with a tangible environmental purpose, there is significant scope for the role to grow with the company.
Hours
Initially 2 days per week, with the potential for additional hours as the business grows.
We’re happy to discuss how those days are arranged.
Location
Based in the Torpoint / Plymouth area, working with customers across Cornwall and Devon.
This is a work from home role with some travel required so driving license and car would be preferred.
Pay
Competitive hourly or day rate depending on experience.
We are also open to discussing a sensible performance-related element for someone who is particularly commercially focused.
About Coastal Compost
We make specialist compost and soil products designed around what gardens actually need.
Rather than simply selling another generic bag of growing media, we are interested in where horticultural materials come from, how they perform, and what wider impact their production can have.
Our ambition is to build a respected South West horticultural brand that combines good soil science, practical gardening experience, lower-impact materials and restorative thinking.
Better soil. Better growing. Better use of natural resources.
If you like the idea of joining a young company early and helping turn it into something substantially bigger, we’d like to hear from you.
Please send a short introduction and CV explaining why the role interests you.
Pay: From £13.00 per hour
Benefits:
- Profit sharing
- Work from home
Work Location: In person
