Career Track in Residential Landscape Design

Get the idea of being a salesman out of your head. Talk about design and construction. If you demonstrate your knowledge and give the prospect confidence the sales will follow. If a sales person is not a designer working for that company, they won’t sell a thing. You can’t pick and choose the things you like to do. You can only fill a need or not.

Soft sell is very effective. Keep your confidence and work with what you know. If you know your stuff, are responsive to the prospect, and demonstrate your knowledge you will sell a ton of design without acting like a salesman. When you sell design, the build is yours to lose.

The only reason someone hires a residential landscape designer is to remove doubt from the outcome of the project. Concentrate on that and prospects will become clients without a lot of sales talk or technique. That is all about being a designer and nothing about being a salesman.

Are you a good designer? Then you are a good salesman.

After I got my LA degree I worked for three design/build residential landscape contractors. All of which used the position for design/sales/project management … with a shovel in my hand as well for two of them.

You have to understand why the company has a staff designer. It is not necessarily to create more creative landscapes, but it is necessarily to gain more opportunity to get jobs.

YOUR VALUE TO YOUR EMPLOYER (and reason to be on the payroll) is to turn a prospect into a client and to attract more prospects. Some people do that using slick sales techniques while others do it by focusing on their craft and communicating.

YOUR VALUE TO YOUR PROSPECTIVE CLIENT (and reason for them to contract you) is to make them very comfortable that their landscape will be what they want it to be and at a good value. I would suggest, through my own experience, that this is done by focusing on your craft and not on slick sales techniques.

The “thoughtfulness” of the design MUST be in line with the clientele (your market) that the company you work for is attracting and to the ability the company you work for has to execute the design. If you go further than either can handle you are not being effective.

I am currently a one person Landscape Architecture office (licensed since 2000) that does 95% residential design. I very seldom do project management or contract administration. My sales technique is to concentrate on discussing the design and being very open about where I would go with it (no sketches, just discussion). I send a proposal for design within a few days and very few do not come back signed with a retainer (only 2 in 2014, so far).  As I said before, the more that you remove doubt from the outcome of the project, the more the prospect wants to hire you over anyone else.

It is far better to waste an hour and a half talking (my typical initial meeting that I don’t charge for) than to waste 5 seconds drawing a sketch or 2 hours doing a free concept plan in my opinion.

I know a lot of LAs get upset that contractors under price design, but the fact of the matter is that if a design/build gets paid to do a design (even if it is under priced) the build is theirs to lose. It is far easier to sell a design as a flat fee than as an hourly rate (hourly rates = doubt of cost). You have to cover yourself by limiting the revisions (I suggest 1 revision) and having a higher hourly rate for additional revisions (it keeps your client engaged to make sure you can complete it within the revisions allowed). The amount of money you charge has to fit the market that the company that you work for is working. If you push it too high, they won’t bite, but the more that you charge the more you are covering your salary and the more commitment your client is showing. You’ll have to rely on the experience of others in the company to get a handle on that.

As a designer (and apparently a salesman) we got the build on about 90% of the designs. That is why I say that once you sell the design, the build is yours to lose. … not true for free designs.

I started out doing flat rate designs to build a body of work and a network. Now I mostly work at hourly rates, but still do some flat rate projects. I never feel like a salesman. I am a designer and the more I demonstrate that, the more that they are sold on ME.

Realize that you are selling YOURSELF and not a product. Make them understand that they need you. The product is a matter of fact that will follow. The portfolio and any sales propaganda should not be presented as the reason to hire you. They need to see them, but they can not be presented as being bigger than you. 

That is one person’s opinion. Hopefully others will tell you how they go about it so that you get a wider perspective. I have learned that I am unconventional on a lot of things.