After a long and varied career, most recently as an entrepreneur and business owner, Hunter local Gai Alder is set to retire.

Gai Alder has spent the last 15 years of her career growing her festive business, Christmas Tree Hire, from the ground up but is now ready to hand over the reins. A cancer diagnosis in 2022 was the catalyst in Gai realising it was time for a new phase of life and has therefore decided to sell the business.

“After my cancer scare, my husband and I decided that we had kicked all our career goals and that it is now important to take time for ourselves,” Gai said.

An earlier career in secretarial administration then led to the opportunity to strike out on her own. First with a plant hire business, then with Wrapped To You, a hamper and gift business, but the true passion was found when she founded Christmas Tree Hire.

“Without realising it, I had spent a large portion of my career preparing for business ownership – getting to know the community and developing strong relationships.”

“This was a business that really solved a need, but also allowed me to embrace my love of the Christmas season!”

“In the first year, I had only four clients, and we are now averaging 300 per year, with the expectation this client base will continue to grow consistently,” Gai continued.

Whilst Gai has a long list of plans for retirement – with travel and hikes rating high on the list, she plans to first sell the business and onboard the new owners.

“Realistically I have been in semi-retirement for the last few years, because I created a business where I am only working full-time for four months of the year, part-time for a few more months and then have the rest of the year off.”

“I wish I could say that that was part of the original plan, but it has just turned out to be an added benefit that was never within my business plan!”

“But what was within the business plan was a core focus on processes and systems over the last few years, so that we would be able to easily hand over the business when the time came – which is now!”

Christmas Tree Hire is now on the market, an ideal opportunity for anyone looking to own their own business, especially those who are Christmas enthusiasts.

With a huge range of stock included – everything from the trees to an extensive range of decorations, as well as a solid database of return customers and a pattern of increasing referrals each year, Gai says she is proud of what she built.

“Looking back on my career I am really surprised about the businesses I have built from the ground up or grown and sold. 20-year-old me probably wouldn’t believe where my career has led me,” Gai continued.

“And then even to the systems I have introduced to bring automation into the business, the storage solutions for our warehouse to make stock management easier and the onboarding processes for our new team members, these are all things I am so proud of.”

“I always thought I would just service the Newcastle area, but that quickly expanded to the wider Hunter region, then south to Sydney and finally north all the way up to Brisbane. Each year our reach just gets wider and larger as our customers tell others about us, or people see the trees for themselves and want to know where they got them from.”

“I was pleasantly surprised when it was not just corporate customers who wanted to have an easy and beautiful solution to their Christmas trees and decorations, but also private residences who saw the benefits of outsourcing – not just so the work is done by others but because it’s easy to change your colours and theme each year!”

Gai’s last actions for the business will be to provide full-time training to the new owners once to the business is sold. to ensure a smooth transition.

The real magic of Christmas Tree Hire truly seems to come from the passion and Christmas spirit behind it. As Gai steps back to enjoy her well-deserved retirement, she invites interested buyers to discover what this festive business can bring to their lives and help the Christmas spirit of the business to live on.

“Having the ability to create beautiful displays through Christmas trees and to completely transform a space into something magical, is not an everyday line of work, but an extremely fulfilling one.”

“I’m sad to be finishing up, but excited to see new owners take the reins (from Santa’s sleigh!) and make Christmas Tree Hire their own.”

“But I am now ready retire and travel around Australia,” Gai said. “There are mountains to climb, and I have ambitions to do things overseas while I’m young enough.”

IMAGE | Gai Alder from Christmas Tree Hire, set to retire.