Want A Thriving Landscaping Business? Focus On Garden Design

Find out how focussing on great garden design could help you to build a thriving landscaping business.

What is your biggest source of new business? It’s really hard to evaluate, but I’d say that In my landscaping business, Holland Landscapes, a large proportion of the work comes through word of mouth. The rest of it is heavily influenced by images on social media and on our website which showcase our work.  In other words, showcasing the beautiful gardens we’ve built leads to opportunities to build more gardens. 

But here’s the rub.  If we had no pictures to show, or if our images were of poorly designed gardens, then we just wouldn’t attract the kind of work that allows us to re-invest in staff, training and equipment. I.e. the things that help the business to thrive.

Garden design is so intrinsic to creating instagram-worthy images to promote our business.

A beautiful front garden built by G W Landscapes from West Sussex and designed by My Garden Design. What a great advert for his business!

The Cost Of Winning Better Business

People might trust us to extend their patio or fix their driveway without a garden design, and those are all valid jobs. But they’re nowhere near as profitable as the bigger budget, full on garden makeovers.  I take pride in running a thriving landscaping business and I want it to be able to support my wife and I when we retire.  I’d also like to be able to pass it to my children as a going concern. And for that I need to be working on gorgeous gardens that make me proud and win me more business.  

The thing is, it costs money to find new customers in order to keep the business going. Which is something that’s easy to overlook when you are running a business.  Of course there’s the marketing spend – website costs etc which will appear on your spreadsheets. But it’s important to also factor in the time spent updating social media, and also the time it takes for initial site visits, quotes and drawing designs.  Especially as not every visit results in winning work.

Calculating the cost

If, for example, a landscaper like yourself were to spend the equivalent of 3 days a week responding to queries, making site visits and building quotes.  You’d need to be a super salesman to win every job you quote for (unless you’re undervaluing yourself to compete on price, in which case you’ll never make a profit).  

Let’s say you respond to 10 enquiries in your 3 days a week and win one one job.  Will there be a big enough margin in that job to cover the cost of the advertising and the 3 days you spent to win it? Chances are, if it’s a shed base that will take you half a day – the numbers won’t stack up.  

Ideally, you need to be working on bigger budget jobs that cover the cost of winning the work. It’s for you to decide whether you are winning enough of the work that will help your business to thrive. If you’re not getting the lucrative jobs – garden design is one tool you can use to change that situation.

Beautiful Gardens Begin With Great Garden Design

So where do beautiful gardens begin? The jobs that you need to populate your portfolio with if you want to help mitigate the cost of finding new customers all begin with beautiful garden designs. 

The Holland Landscapes Team never build gardens without having a design to work to. It’s just too difficult to be sure we’re building what the client expects without them having agreed a layout plan first, and almost impossible to quote accurately.  As a result, of creating well-planned garden makeovers we win profitable work based partly on our past portfolio.

Of course there are lots of factors involved in winning landscaping work, personality, salesmanship, prices, availability etc, but I strongly believe that good garden design is key to a thriving landscaping business. 

Have you also considered that adding garden design into your marketing strategy will give you a wider reach too?  You’ll be able to attract potential customers who are looking for a garden designer or a design and build service as well as people who are looking for landscapers.  Hmmmmm food for thought.

Don’t fancy working with a garden designer? My Garden Design offers a less intrusive alternative.  Just great designs based on the information you provide.  No risk of personality clashes, no input into project management, no complications and no time delays.  Want to know more? Give me a call and I’ll talk you through my online garden design website that will help you too build a thriving landscaping business.

 

Contact Paul at My Garden Design

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