Why hire a landscape architect? looking for an article

[Chris Hale]

…as opposed to a civil engineer, garden designer, or other professional. I’m looking for a well written article, preferably online, that adresses this question. I’d like to share it with a potential client who is considering hiring a civil engineer to do a master plan for a church property. Any suggestions?

 

Thanks,

Chris

 

[Andrew Garulay, RLA]

Sell yourself instead of the profession. If you are the right firm for the job, you’ll win every time.

 

The alternative is to sell the profession and then to associate yourself to that profession.

 

That makes it a two step process. You’ll have to convince them that the entire profession is better for this project than the entirety of those other professions – a tough task. Then you still have to demonstrate that out of all landscape architects, your firm is the right one. Why not just do the latter without trying to prove the former first?

 

I can never understand the obsession to sell the profession with the notion that it will automatically sell  everyone within it. This seems to be the standard way of thinking that so many of us have. We expect that which ever profession wins, we all get to divide the prize. …. Good luck with that.

[Rob Halpern]

Wise words.

 

And a possible outcome is successfully selling the profession and losing the job to another L.A.

[Leslie B Wagle]

Here is a small short one I ran across, although not in the same category as a church.

http://www.gardendesign.com/designer/perks-hiring-professional-designer

[nca]

Well said.

[Rick Spalenka]

My Father-in-law was a high end corporate attorney.  His creed was (not exact words but close), “a $200 an hour attorney gets the job done in two hours = $400.  A $100 an hour attorney gets the job done in 5 hours = $500.”  Might be something useful for us there.  I’ve tried that and low ball still sells.  Just look at car loans.  Salesmanship first skill.

I remember a “landscape designer” on the ocean front who was very successful selling his designs.  You can always tell his work.  Turned over boat, pier roping, bouys, etc.  Looked crappy from a professional designers point of view but the unsophisticated market loved it.  So do we sell high end sophistication or become a peddler of the low end unsophisticated and make money?  BTW a Dollar Store just got landscaped yesterday in our community.  Not quite bouys but just as crappy.

[Matt Fridell]

I hesitate to post it, but ASLA has some decent propaganda for you on the website.  I don’t know if you have invesitigated there, but it’s worth it.

[Andrew Garulay, RLA]

The issue here is that there is a specific landscape architect with a specific potential client / specific project attempting to land the project using general marketing. This using a trawler instead of a flyrod to cath a single rising fish in a stream at a particular moment.

….. as thet say …  “Match the hatch!”

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