Reply To: Who is going to take your place when you retire?

Someone mentioned retooling and restaffing in a down economy makes good business sense. I’m not sure how that relates in a big way to landscape architecture. We don’t make products or parts that we can invest in now and sell later.

The beauty and the beast in our lives is that most everything is done in real time. It is a beauty because as soon as there is work to do staff gets hired. It is a beast because when there is less work, staff is let go. If you think about it, there is not a lot of overhead that small or medium sized firm can manage to control costs as business slows down other than staff. You can not easily sell computers, software, and office equipment and get enough for it. You still need a roof over your head, you have more need for marketing, you need the same insurance, …. what can you change to reduce costs? Staff is about it.

Why do you hire staff? Because you need to increase production beyond what you can do without hiring. Once that is gone, like it or not, you have to reduce staff. What else can you do? … pay them anyway?

Are landscape architects bad businessmen? No more so than any other profession. You can load up on capability all you want and market more than anyone else, but in the end you need a market that has a need for your services. That is beyond your control. Good business is to know what IS in the market right now and find a way to be needed by it.Too many people on this board talk about how to change the market to get them to want us. That is fantasy. We, those of us not already doing it, have to change to address the needs of the existing demands of the market. I believe that is exactly what is going on and that it is good business. Unfortunately, that means they don’t need, or just can’t have, a lot of staff. It also means a lot of consolidation of bigger firms (buy outs) to further cut overhead.