Breaking into a new Market

[Jonathan Smith, RLA]

Is there anyone who can give me advice on expanding my business to new (geographical) areas.  I graduated in 2008 (there were no jobs) and started my own design service, which soon expanded to design build (easier to support a design habit with a build job).  My business has grown every year and I’ve had the opportunity to work with non profits and academic clients as well as architects and home owners.  The area I live in has a combined pop. of less than 40,000, which may limit my ability to continue to expand, so I want to market myself in larger areas before the pond dries up in my immediate vicinity.

How do I do this?

I almost have my LA license (one test left, taken, now waiting), which I hope will help me expand my business opportunities, but even then, how do I tap other markets?

Any suggestions?

[Andrew Garulay, RLA]

I know your market because I used to work in it. You are very isolated in that your geographical region does not support much more than residential or very light commercial until you get to Spokane/Cd’A which is a hundred mile haul for design/build and a market that is very well served from within those communities. Additional expense of travel will be very hard to recoup the farther you get from Moscow/Pullman. Landscape is valued less the more rural you go. Your best bet for market expansion in design/build without moving is Lewiston/Clarkston. High end residential is virtually non-existent in the region, so you have to build because you (or I) could not make a living on design only in that market.

L/C is a totally different climate as you know. It is again pretty limited to residential and light commercial and no high end as well. What sells landscape design in any market is your ability to remove doubt from the outcome of the job. More accurately, it is your ability to do so more than any other person they are talking to. That climate difference and the existence of others established in that market makes that a bit harder to do because you might be seen as an outsider in terms of experience while others won’t be. The university towns have a more transient demographic which makes it an easier market to get started in than one of a stable population like the L/C Valley. It is a different culture once you get out of Moscow/Pullman which is not as open to trying new people or new things. That is not bad, but makes it difficult to compete from outside.

The biggest problem that you have is that within 100 miles there is nothing but the same kind of work (at best) only a farther distance to travel to get it done. Travelling within that radius will only add to your overhead and not do much else in my opinion.
I’d work really hard to do the best you can locally unless you are planning to move. Think about how difficult it would be for a small design/build from out of town to compete with you in Moscow/Pulman without being based there. My opinion is that if you stay there, you would do better economically to expand your ability to do as much site work as you can. Your market is loaded with very poorly sited houses that are often sited by a builder eyeballing a stock building plan onto whatever lot was available in a former rolling wheat field. Retaining walls are a key area that you need to explore, if you have not already. It was the biggest profit center when I was working out there because so many houses needed them to correct the poor siting. A market that small is going to require doing a lot of little projects that you might not enjoy, but are needed to keep the money flowing. People do not want to hire three different contractors if they can hire one to do everything.

Survival in small lower end markets starts with filling your weeks up with billable work as you know. It often means being equipped to do a wide range of services to keep busy and survive. Then as you get more established, you can drop less desirable services as the more desired services displace them on your schedule as you become a stronger presence in the market.

Your hope is to specialize in certain services of design/build and fill your schedule with only those. That is very difficult to do unless you have established a market presence. Small residential landscape design is tough because you have to be where the potential client will be looking for you when they need you. It is not a business where you have steady success “finding work”. That is why establishing a market presence is essential. Expanding your geography will not help without an established market presence. It does not get any easier to be found by the client out of town.

Nothing is better for getting in the way of potential clients in a market like that than a nursery, but I think you are over saturated with them at this point. Get your name on your trucks. Having your company mow lawns and being seen all over town every day is a good way to be thought of when they need you if your services are known. You can drop those services later, if you really don’t want to manage that much.

[Jonathan Smith, RLA]

Thanks for replying, Andrew.

The realities of the market around here are much as you describe. Not a great base for high end anything. At the high end I may get $1500 from the design side of a project, so my bread and butter is the installation. I’ve thought of lawn care and starting a nursery, but, as you said yourself, the market is fairly saturated here.

My business plan when I started was to build for a couple of years and slowly transition into a design only firm. Part of this plan has been the possibility of moving to Seattle, but I’m afraid to make that move without drumming up any business over there first. I guess my question is, how do I break into the design market over there while I’m still here?

Build is hard to do long distance, but design is more flexible and I’d like to start designing for clients in a larger area like Seattle before I physically move there.

Thanks, for taking the time to write.

[Andrew Garulay, RLA]

My honest opinion, as a guy who worked as a laborer for others in my youth, an owner of a small design/build/maintenance company in my twenties, as a designer/site supervisor for a few others (including Moscow Landscaping/Crossroads Nursery), a landscape architect for a few companies, … if you want to work in a market and at a level that you are not currently working in (no matter what level you are at), the fastest and most guaranteed way to get that work is to work for others who are already in that market doing those things. You build up networking, a portfolio of built work, and a much better understanding of the uniqueness of that situation to continue it on your own. You ride the elevator of someone else, then you step of on the same floor (maybe not with the ability to go into every room on it).

The alternative is to use the stairs. It is very, very, difficult to work your way up to higher markets on your own because very few clients hire on potential, but only on what you have done. A university town is much more open to giving people a chance, but the problem is that the work you get only begets more of the same. One consistent thing that I have observed no matter where I’ve been is that very few landscape companies grow into higher markets. Most, regardless of talent and ability, get bigger, but are basically in the same market that they started out in. I don’t think it is a bad thing to work whatever market is available unless it is with the idea that you’ll rapidly grow out of it on your own. Then you find yourself doing the same thing twenty years down the road.

Also, when people with LA degrees go into business early, they seldom give it up to go work for someone else. Then they stay at about the same level they started at.

I was in Moscow in April and it seemed like at least one of the bigger guys has pretty much retired out of landscaping and I know that the age of another one would make me expect that he’ll give it up sometime soon as well. It could be a good place to be if you are looking to make a good living and nnot striving to do the kind of work that simply is not marketable there.

I am actually hoping to move back there at some point down the road and would not rule out a similar business plan depending on the limitations of other opportunities in land planning. It is a great community to live in. We miss it very much.

I would expect the area to have some moderate growth a bit faster than other places when real estate starts to come back up. It did very well in the early nineties with an influx of Californians dumping their houses back there for a much more affordable homes in Idaho that they could buy outright. I expect that will happen again. …. but when?

[Andrew Garulay, RLA]

It is a great marketing tool in the type of market that is Moscow/Pullman. Your trucks with your name on them get seen over and over again. When I had my company, there was me, my brother and two other guys. We only had three trucks, but several people made comments like “wow, that’s a big company, I see you guys everywhere” when they met me through friends. It establishes a market presence just as long as it is clear that you do design/build and not just mowing.

However, with thousands of college kids in town (Washington State University and U of Idaho campuses are 8 miles apart), mowing was not a big business when I was there. I only knew of a couple mowing companies and nether was very big. I’m not sure that it would be very easy to grow that side of the business in that town, but it would help to fill a schedule and be seen.

My brother continued the small landscape business we had (20 years ago) and the maintenance side is essentially his construction marketing by being seen, customer referal, neighbors of customers, and projects for those customers. This is a much larger and diverse market than M/P.

The difficulty is that there is considerable overhead with equipment and repairs not to mention managing your help. It is a different animal that may or may not be something right for you.

[Jonathan Smith, RLA]

Truth be told, I’ve been applying for every entry level position that comes across the ASLA job board. Most of my family and my wife’s family live in Seattle and I have taken resumes and small portfolio’s around to firms on several occasions. I have a fear of being lost in this pause in the economy and started my business simply to pay the bills and to work in a field relevant to the profession I went to school for ( also have degrees in English and education but would rather pursue a design profession.) I’m a pretty ambitious person but the opportunities for working for someone else have yet to be realized.

Don Brigham, an LA down in Clarkston, started his business in a situation similar to my own (recession = few jobs = start your own business) and, like you, recommended working for someone else before starting your own firm.

So I hear what you and Don are saying.

I definitely don’t want to be stuck at this level, so it just a matter of getting hired with a firm.

[Andrew Garulay, RLA]

Since you are very interested in getting hired by someone else at some point, another thing that you might want to get advice about is whether you are helping or hurting that possibility by doing your own thing at this point. I’m not going to claim that I know that answer, but does it make sense for another firm to hire someone who clearly is on a fast track to open his own firm? I’m thinking that if all else is equal on a resume, I’d be more likely to avoid training my next competitor. On the other hand you will get on-site project management experience that could be very valuable to a hiring firm.

No matter what we do there are benefits and consequences.

Balancing your day to day survival and advancing your career can be at odds with each other in times like these. One alternative is to have an unrelated job for stable income, whether full or part time, and then do design work on the side. I do that, although my job is not unrelated. One advantage is that I can pick and choose what work I take on because I don’t have to take anything to keep money coming in. That keeps me from getting referrals for more jobs that I really don’t want.One reality is that you’ll get higher numbers of referrals from lower end jobs than from higher end jobs simly because there is a bigger pool of work the lower you go. It is very easy to be consumed or displaced by lower end referrals when you need to fill a schedule and you can become synonomous with being as good as your worst job. Having the ability to not take on a job eliminates that. Doing it on the side shows a potential employer that you are dedicated to the profession, but may not seem as someone who will be using them to gain a foothold in their market by using their firm.

I hope others chime in on this aspect of the dilemma that faces people in the post school/ no job limbo that so many are finding themselves in.

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