Although there are already several articles in The Landscape Library on specific matters concerning the early days of setting up a Garden Design Practice, there are many elements of the subject that have not been addressed in a progressive and comprehensive article. There are still too many questions left unanswered, or relevant to those who currently work as designers in a commercial world – earning an income from their skills – or who seek to enter the marketplace and sell their talents but have yet to take the plunge and start a business.
A little background about myself; although I have designed hundreds of gardens, including thirty-seven RHS Show Gardens at Chelsea, Hampton Court, Tatton Park and Gardeners World Live, as a Contractor foremost, and designer second, I have never considered myself as a Garden Designer. Designs have always been a means to an end. Design and Build projects included the Show gardens, as designs were part and parcel of the commission.
I have never designed a garden purely as a Designer, leaving the construction to a Third Party. Perhaps this explains my reluctance to call myself a garden designer. However, apart from building my own designs, I have built hundreds more gardens for other Designers, including some of the most highly regarded in Britain. Robin Williams, Dan Pearson, David Stevens, Peter Rogers, Geoff Whiten, Sarah Massey, Paul Temple and a host of other designers have seen their plans turned into reality under my Landscaper hands.
I have been privileged to work across Europe including Russia and outposts such as Gibraltar over the past five decades and more, working with, for and on behalf of some greatly talented people. I mention this only by way of explanation. How can someone who has been a garden builder all his career even begin to understand the problems, trials and tribulations of establishing a garden design business in an already crowded market?
Throughout my career, I have always sought to reinvent myself, trying to stay one step ahead of my competitors, to such an extent that I had none. I created and established my own niche roles, regularly as and when I saw an opportunity to use my skills within existing markets and creating new ones where none existed. I have never tendered for work against another firm.
Having spent seventeen years as a very active Member of the British Association of Landscape Industries (BALI) becoming a Director and National Council Member, Chairman of PR and Marketing for BALI, I left to start The Association of Professional Landscapers (APL), not for my own benefit, but because I could see the need for a strong trade association that could represent the domestic contractors (of which I was one) working solely for that sector of the Landscape Industry. That was in 1995, and the APL is now the largest and strongest Association primarily representing Domestic Landscape Contractors in the world. It now has separate sectors – all closely aligned under one banner – for landscapers, designers and maintenance contractors.
I have always associated my work with small companies and individuals, always championing the ‘start-ups’ of the industry, as I see them as the seed corn for the future. I have therefore devoted a lot of my time over the years, helping to mentor a number of individuals, all off the record/under the radar, to become successful businesses.
Portfolios
In order for anyone to succeed in a market place, especially one that is already crowded as mentioned before, requires a progressive strategy, involving a list of actions that need to be ratcheted and completed as the programme moves along. Anyone seeking to become a Garden Designer must develop their own programme. Not in association with another person, or group of people, but on their own. Too much collusion may dissipate and dilute any originality of thought and uniqueness.
Hence this article is very open to interpretation by the reader. In theory, if a hundred people read it, the result will be a hundred different Practices, each with own original foundation, as your own personality and skills form the basis of your personal business.
Starting then with establishing and creating a portfolio. So many designers lament the fact that they lack material to present to potential customers. How can we show something that does not yet exist? We have no previous commissions to show. How can we sell ourselves with no examples?
One answer is to produce your own ‘Fantasy’ portfolio; not to be presented as previous commissions, but as examples of your creativity. I suggest a smartly presented Master copy of your work, together with some printed versions available as Photobook style presentation copies costing a few pounds each, one of which should be left with the customer.
There are various ways of producing such fantasy portfolios, the choice of which will depend on your chosen style. An example of this would be a uniform site, using the same house and garden layout, showing fences/boundaries and the same slopes, existing trees etc, as a blank canvas upon which you could design ten or more different schemes, either in style or nature.
One, a modern garden designed for outdoor living, another a traditional cottage garden, then a family garden complete with greenhouse, compost bays and washing line.
The same site, ten or more different styles. Don’t get bogged down in the costs to build each garden (unless you have a friendly landscaper willing to supply you with outline budget costs). The purpose of the exercise is to provide the customer with a menu of your charges. If the scheme calls for lots of detailed planting plans, or hard landscaped areas, steps and pathways, as much work as you have put into producing the plans will provide you with the cost of each individual drawing or plan. The longer the hours, the higher the figure. Some people charge for mileage – that is your decision, although I personally prefer a flat rate based on distance rather than actual miles, as this reassures the customer of the amount they are committing to spend.
This project plan will cost (say) £300.00 for the most basic layout. This next one will cost (say) £400.00 due to the amount of time required to provide the details of the scheme, and so on. By providing the customer with a menu of costs based on the likely time spent on a scheme will put the onus on them to decide their spend. A progressively different menu or rate for each plan will act as guide to the customers funds and wishes. Any alterations to an accepted scheme will cost extra at an agreed hourly rate. At this stage, you are only talking about YOUR fees. Not the cost of building the garden!
Perhaps you may find it easier to design ten different gardens for ten different shaped sites, some rectangular, some square, triangular or any permutation you desire. The choice is yours!
Developing this logic of marketing your talent to customers, even if you have never had a scheme accepted or constructed, will give you the confidence to discuss finances in a professional manner with your customers. Always be firm regarding finance, without letting it dominate discussions. All you have to sell is your time and talent!
The next progressive step, having agreed a fee for producing the plans, is to establish a ceiling on the cost of the actual project. The customer is by now aware that you are confident about talking money, and you can emphasise that you must have a realistic budget in order to design something that is within that figure, and not wildly exceeding it and disappointing the client.
Emphasise that the cost is for the investment in their property, not the expense of having the work completed.
PLEASE! Never offer to attend site free of charge. Even a modest £50.00 initial consultation will get rid of time wasters. Time wasters are not ‘good for experience’. They can be thoroughly demoralising!
Marketing
It is almost a pre-requisite today that a Garden Designer must have an attractive professional web-site. These can cost a great deal of money, only to end up looking exactly the same as a thousand others. A plethora of pretty pictures, mood boards and photographs of garden features that do nothing to sell your story. In my work as a Consultant, I check out around a dozen web-sites each day, for a variety of sound reasons. I see so many copies or close copies in the same format. Pretty pictures. Mood boards. Garden Features. No differentiation in style. Nothing to make one stand out from the others………………..
Once you have your portfolio plans, designed, coloured, laminated and placed into presentation photobooks, why not include them on your web-site? These are YOUR work, even if they have not been built. These are what you are selling. Not some vague idea about pretty gardenesque scenes. Never be afraid to put a cost against each one of the plans. Providing the customer with an idea of your likely fees will only attract those who are willing to pay your rates. (My consultancy rates are clearly shown on my web-site. I do not get any timewasters!)
As previously mentioned, your ambition to become a professional garden designer requires a progressive campaign, with each step marked out and once arrived at, you move on to the next. You now have an attractive set of drawings and plans, that are genuinely yours (not photographs cut out from magazines) and you know how to present them to prospective clients. Your web-site is up and running and looks different from the majority.
Now to set about selling yourself!
Always remember that a part of what you do today becomes part of what you will do tomorrow, and a steady progressive pathway will provide you with foundations for today and inspiration for tomorrow.
Choose your business name carefully. I would always recommend that you start out by using your own name, and not try to sound like a multi-person group of designers, especially in the beginning. You need to create your own image. Your own style, colours and typeface, and keep the ambience rolling throughout. Build your own corporate image, so that whatever colour or style you choose, it becomes identifiably yours. This may seem odd at first, but after a couple of years, it will become natural.
One of the most attractive, cost effective, pleasurable and genuine ways of attracting potential custom is to present yourself in person. Look around your area. If you live in a city, you will be surrounded by local outlets and opportunities. If you live in towns and villages, you will find many ways in which to get your name in the public domain. I hesitate to use the word ‘advertise’ as I hate spending money on such things. Adverts taken out in local papers will never return your investment. However, taking out a regular monthly advert in your local Parish or Church magazine costs only a few pounds a year, and provides you with a public image and ready-made potential clientele.
Check out the dates for all opportunities over the next two years, chances to present your work to the same people who will read your local magazine advert, thus reinforcing your image in their eyes. It is amazing how many people will only deal exclusively with those advertising in ‘their’ local magazine, as they consider them somehow trustworthy because they have a local ‘presence’.
These may include a Spring Fayre, or Summer Fete, Autumn Fayre or Christmas Fayre. By taking a stand at any or all of these will cost twenty pounds or so for a table, which you can prettify and sit besides, showing your plans – Fantasy or otherwise – handing out leaflets and importantly, making diary dates for site visits. (It will pay at such events, to waive your initial consultation fee for all bookings taken at the time. This can greatly increase take-up and will please the organisers who like to offer some incentive to their Fayre-goers)
Why not take your presentation along to a local garden centre, especially an independent outlet. Offer to set up your stall or clinic on a Sunday afternoon or perhaps even during a quiet period, taking questions and answering customer questions in return for having a small permanent stand somewhere discreet within the premises. Leave a note book inviting customers to contact you with a view to making an appointment. This is where your corporate colour scheme and image come into play. Leave a couple of the photobooks on display, together with a background banner or laminated enlarged copy of one of your schemes. Using the plants displayed in the centre will help to illustrate colour combinations and plant association, helping to develop a rapport with a potential client. Recommend your planting schemes from those plants sold at that garden centre, perhaps even helping the customers to choose their own selection from the displays. The more plants you sell for the owners, the higher your status and value will become!
The secret of success is to offer a professional service, acting as such at all times, and never giving the impression that you are new to the business. Avoid using the words ‘I do not know’ as they will devalue your image. If you do not know, find another form of words that enable you to find out what it is you don’t know!
Listen very carefully to everything said to you during your initial interview. Make as many notes as you need. Never let the customer demand something intangible. A WOW! Factor can never be defined. Low/No Maintenance can never exist. Other descriptions such as ‘rabbit proof’ should never be allowed to remain disavowed – in writing if possible.
Request any existing plans of the site be provided, especially regarding drain runs etc. Never assume that these plans are accurate, as to do so is to take responsibility for their accuracy. They can be very useful as a guide, and any checks you make may be made against the information marked on them by way of comparison.
Finally, invest in some decent equipment for use when inspecting, evaluating, assessing and measuring a site. A small camp table with clips to hold papers in place, and a plastic cover in case of rain. A decent 100m tape or better still, a surveyor’s measuring wheel. A camera and a back-up method of taking photographs, a wooden mallet with some pointed broom handles to act as points of reference when marking out (preferably painted white and red. Red markers remain permanent during the surveying exercise, the white ones can be moved around) plus plenty of notepads and pens.
The impact on a customer, watching a survey taking place, can be very positive. The better equipped and professional you appear to be, the greater the confidence in their choice of designer will be.
Alan Sargent FCIHort MPGCA
The Landscape Library