Selling Garden Design To Landscaping Clients

Posted September 15, 2022

Selling garden design to clients who don’t expect to pay for it can be daunting. Here are my tips for making sure you are paid for the services you have provided.

Selling garden design is all about good communication and managing expectations. Not all landscapers are natural salespeople. But selling is all part of running a business. And as we head towards a bumpy year or so, we all need to get better at explaining the value of our work.

Three of the biggest problems with selling garden design are

Most householders don’t think they need garden design – or they think that the services of garden designers are for a different demographic, not them.
The big nationwide home improvement shops design kitchens, bedrooms etc for free. Therefore landscaping clients assume that the same protocol stretches across all industries.
Landscapers don’t feel comfortable selling garden design

In this blog I’m sharing some of the lessons that I’ve had to learn in order to grow and sustain my own landscaping business. I’ve been greatly helped along that journey by Neville Stein, and if you feel you need coaching in sales techniques, I can thoroughly recommend his services.

Staying up long into the night, designing gardens for free doesn’t make good business sense and can all too easily lead to health issues

First – Get Comfortable With The Idea Of Selling Garden Design

Whether or not you know it, you’re already good at selling your landscaping services. If you weren’t, you wouldn’t have a business and you wouldn’t probably be reading this. So what’s the difference between selling landscaping and selling garden design? In my eyes there’s very little difference, but with hindsight, that’s probably because I’ve been doing it for so long.

I’m going to say something controversial slightly here – just to get you thinking about your own approach to selling garden design. When it comes to design, many landscapers are people pleasers…..and that’s not good for the pocket.

Of course the customer is (almost) always right, after all they are paying. But they are paying for your expertise and your experience because they know they can’t do the job themselves. How many people in other industries do you know of that will work for free? Would a builder offer free architects plans as a loss leader to get work? I don’t think so. And those free kitchen plans you get from DIY superstores….are they free? Of course not…they’re factored into the price of the kitchen units.

So before you convince yourself that it’s not worth even trying to sell garden design to a client – ask yourself why you think that. Is it because you don’t want to put them off buying a garden from you? Is it because you want to come across as super-helpful because you think that will get the client relationship off on a good footing? Or is it because you don’t value your own time and you are happy to work 12 hours on the tools and then come home to draw up a design?

YOU are the expert in the client landscaper relationship. And if your expert knowledge says that this garden needs a properly drawn up design, then that’s what it needs. You have three choices.

Ask the client to bring a garden designer into the equation and then be prepared to work alongside that person to develop the garden.
Draw up the design yourself – not forgetting that your time is valuable.
Outsource the design but keep control of the client relationship.

Rant over – here are my tips on selling garden design.

Breaking Down The Barriers To A Sale

In my experience as a landscaper, most clients simply don’t realise how crucial a garden design is to a garden makeover. They assume that it’s possible to build a garden on the basis of some vague instructions and a bit of arm waving to indicate the position of various features. Now you and I both know that this approach often leads to plans being changed part way through the project, costs that the customer never expected and a general feeling of frustration from both parties. So it’s important that we gently break down those barriers to spending money on a design.

Explaining The Function Of Garden Design

Very few people in this world will spend money on something they don’t feel they need. And the bigger the bill, the more likely they are to question that need. Take me for example. I might part with a pound to buy a chocolate bar that I want but don’t need. But there’s no way I’ll spend £500 without weighing up the pros and cons.

So your first job when selling garden design, is to explain WHY that client needs the service. I normally compare building a garden to building a house. You wouldn’t dream of building a house or an extension without having an architect’s plan to work with and a garden is no different.

An architect’s plan is more than just a pretty picture of what your house will look like. It thinks about how each area will be used and how people will travel from one area to another. The plan considers where the best views will be, and how the plumbing will work. Most importantly it outlines what infrastructure is needed to make sure that the building is fit for purpose and can stand the test of time.

Does that sound familiar to you as a landscaper? It does to me, because all of those factors apply to garden design too.

Explaining The Benefits of Garden Design

Now that your client understands what a garden design is for. You can explain how it will benefit them personally.

Explore imaginative ways of overcoming challenges with the plot and meeting their needs
Have a truly unique garden with that ‘special something’ touch that only designers seem to be able to visualise.
Know what to expect for the build budget
Be sure that the landscaper actually builds what they are expecting – ie that there is no miscommunication in the brief.
Gives the opportunity to tweak the garden layout before work begins – and therefore save the cost associated with re-quoting and making changes mid-project
A garden design will allow for accurate quotes ensuring there will be no hidden costs arise when building the garden. Of course this does exclude anything unforeseen.

Outsourcing garden design to an expert will save you hours of stress and worry.
Especially if that expert will then leave you alone to get on with project managing and building your client’s garden

Presenting Garden Design As A Necessary Expense

If you want to be selling garden design to a client, that client needs to feel that garden design is a necessary expense. Don’t cheapen yourself by ‘dissing’ the competition, but do point out that no professional landscaper would build a garden without a well drawn design to work with.

Sadly the landscape industry isn’t regulated but we DO have to comply with local planning laws and building regs. Point out that a garden design will give everyone the opportunity to ensure that the planned garden won’t break any rules. And if permissions do need to be sought, well, drawings will be essential.

All of the above points are explained in a rather helpful leaflet that you can download from the My Garden Design website. The document has been formatted so that you can add your own logo and company contact details. Use it to inspire website text, email it to prospective customers or have some printed to hand to clients.

You will need to register as a trade user on the website and be logged into your account to download the document from our ‘useful documents’ section. But that will only take a matter of seconds and I think you’ll find it’s worth the effort.

Click here to complete your registration.

Justifying The Cost Of Garden Design

I could launch into another rant about TV garden shows here, but I’ll try to control myself. TV garden makeover shows are usually edited so that the design part of the show takes about 5 minutes. A well known character sits down with some pens and some watercolours, blobs a bit of paint about and hey-presto, we have a design. Real life isn’t like that.

There’s more to garden design than flicking a paintbrush over a piece of paper. It’s a skilled job that can’t be done by just anyone.

It takes a long time to design a garden. And I’d say that 60% of that time is spent either thinking or re-thinking. 20% of the time is gathering information and feeding it into the computer so that basic outlines can be seen clearly (without the clutter or any existing features that will be removed). The last 20% is in adding details so that the design can easily be interpreted by the client and the landscaper.

It is fair to say that most designed gardens will have been designed, deleted, redesigned, deleted again over and over many times before you get to the final layout the designer is happy with.

Most clients, if you ask them, have already experimented with pen and paper and tried to decide how their garden should be laid out. I’ll wager they’ve spent several hours fiddling around and got nowhere. If they were to count their hours, multiply them by an hourly wage, and then factor in overheads such as lighting, software, etc, what do they estimate that (failed) design would have cost them?

When you buy a professional garden design, you are paying for many things.

Time spent measuring and assessing the site.
Learning about the client’s needs and how they want to use their garden
The designer’s training and experience
Knowledge about average build costs for different features – so as to keep the design within budget
Complex drawings with information related to the garden build up
Horticultural knowledge (if you are including a planting plan)
High powered computing equipment and specialist software

Asking For The Money Up-Front

Ahhhhh the old asking for the sale. That has to be the most awkward part of selling garden design. I used to hate it, but over time (and with Neville Stein’s help) I’ve become a lot more resilient.

Many people don’t want to pay for something they can’t take away with them – and I understand that. So you need to build trust with your clients. They need to feel as though you won’t take their money and disappear over the horizon with no trace.

How can you do that? Dressing and acting professionally will help. Logo’d clothes, good manners, smart vehicle – they all create the right impression. But to add to that, my preferred method for converting a garden design sale is to give the client a rough idea of what a garden design will look like and what it will cost and then go back to the office to write a proposal.

It helps to show prospective clients some examples of garden design. My next job on the My Garden Design website will be to make some sample designs downloadable so that you can print them off and show your clients. If you’d like to be notified when that happens – register as a trade user and I’ll send you an email as soon as they’re ready.

In the written proposal, I outline what we’ve discussed. I’ll summarise what they want to achieve with their budget, remind them of the design brief (which is why it’s a good idea to use the design brief questionnaire available from MGD for free) and give them a clear quote for the design. Don’t forget to include T’s and C’s

Email the proposal to them and ask them to sign and return it – that way everything is in writing. And writing is comforting to a client. Paperwork = protection. Send their garden design invoice at the same time as the design proposal. Once you have received payment, you can go ahead and commission the design knowing that it hasn’t cost your business a single penny.

Offering Garden Design Deals

When clients hmmm and harrrr about the cost of garden design it feels a bit unsettling. But please don’t be tempted to ‘give in’ and do lots of extra work for nothing. You need to have a decent work/life balance and you need to make a living out of your business.

One technique I use when offering a design and build service, is to suggest that the price of the garden design can be taken off the landscaping bill IF they choose our company for the garden build. In that way, the garden design feels more like a first stage payment than a separate service.

Train Yourself In The Art Of Selling Garden Design

Your business is unique to you and some of my tips might not be relevant. But someone who can really help you to think about what steps you need to take to reach your business goals is Neville Stein. He has a way of working with you and your team to explore different approaches to your work practices that will increase efficiency and profitability. This is a link to Neville’s website. I think you’ll like what he does.