[Andrew Garulay, RLA]

I am in the US, but one would assume that EGL means existing ground level and PGL means proposed ground level. Hear in the US we use decimal feet for elevation on site plans. Sometimes they are carried to the tenth and sometimes to the hundredth even on the same plan. It certainly looks like the difference is 1/10 of whatever unit of measure they use where you are.

[Andrew Garulay, RLA]

The difficulty is that it is a profession that at the support staff level could be compared to a trade like plumbing or electric work. There are several industry specific skill sets or knowledge criteria that anyone who has gone through an undergrad program in LA is going to have quite a bit of exposure to. That in itself puts any person who has had some of that miles ahead of you in getting their foot in the door. But even in the absence of such a candidate bringing on an untrained person takes the employer or a staff person out of their job role in order to train a new person who has not demonstrated any commitment to the profession other than wanting to try it out.
You are basically expecting to get an education while being paid by your teacher. This profession, regrettably, has a built-in mechanism to exploit people coming into the profession – that is internship requirements to get licensed. A new hire will more likely be someone with a bachelor’s degree in LA from an accredited university that will be trained in the latest software, is very committed to the profession, and will work peanuts.

That is just the reality of it.

If you want to do residential landscape design most landscape architecture offices are not going to be the best place to get yourself going in that. You will get more targeted training by taking landscape design classes from adult ed courses. Look for a design/build contractor who is doing what you hope to be doing and work for them even just as a laborer. Ask questions. Show enthusiasm. Pay attention to all aspects of what that person does and learn from it.

[Andrew Garulay, RLA]

Honesty is the best policy. If you are capable most people understand that it takes a bit of time to build up enough work to go full time into freelance design. They will know up front that you can only be reached at certain times and such.

I worked for 5 years “on the side” to get established while working full time in a civil engineering office (with my employers knowledge). I was totally upfront with that with my potential clients and the ones that hired me were good with that.

Always have contracts and always take a retainer. Never value doing the work more than the person hiring you.

[Andrew Garulay, RLA]

I believe that when you stamp and sign a document you have something akin to a trademark. This can be important in the future because I don’t believe that anyone or firm could stop you from using that work as part of your portfolio. It may also carry more weight with a future employer to see plans stamped by you in that portfolio.

A solid body of built work that is clearly your own is one of the strongest influences on potential clients in choosing a designer. Anything and everything that works in that direction should be done if you ever plan on not being an employee for your entire career.

That is a great opportunity your employer is giving you. Embrace it.

[Andrew Garulay, RLA]

Everyone has different ways to deal with it.

My father used to tell me that when you reach a creative block it is best to do something knowing that you’ll undo it later rather than to stagnate. I found that to be true back when we were building rock gardens … we’d add a plant or rock that did not really do what we wanted it to do, but soon afterward it would trigger a creative response that did work, so we’d pull them out and rearrange.

I find it works designing on screen as well. I will save my drawing, then save it with a new name so that I can always go back to the old one. Then I go on tangents, sometimes weird ones, that either develop into something good, or enable me to see yet a different path to follow. … and I don’t have to move rocks or plants to accomplish that!

I’m always saving drawings by adding a number onto the end of the cad file …. one job got to #42, but that was because the client was changing stuff constantly. Usually a residential job will be up to 5 or 6.

[Andrew Garulay, RLA]

Brian,

I agree with some of what you are saying, but the license and ability to use the professional title is a big incentive to jump through all those extra hoops. Those extra hoops take a lot of effort and commitment which builds knowledge. If you take that away by making it available to anyone, almost everyone would bypass gaining that extra knowledge.

I’m not saying that people should not be able to practice landscape architecture without a title, but if you look at almost any “Practice Act” they have so many exceptions that those are really are no more than a “Title Act”. It is to some degree a copywritten club that you have to pass the initiation to join. I don’t know if that is good or bad, but it is what it is.

Basically, not having the title is not holding you back yet you desperately want to use the title. Can you see the irony in that? You are saying on the one hand that you have what it takes to function as a landscape architect (and I’m not saying you don’t) yet you still think you can’t simply because you can’t call yourself one. It can’t be both.

This is all in your head. I know because I lived the same thing. I did stick it out and got licensed. That process forced me to do work that I would have otherwise avoided, gave me a chance to see that some things that I designed or was involved in producing work for did not look anything like what I thought they would which made me start understanding much better what I was putting on paper, and I saw how regulation, business, and other things were being done that were not anything I was lead to believe in school. There is no way that I would be doing what I am doing now had I not forced myself through that process.

So, my advice is to settle in your own head whether you want to join the club so you can have the little rubber stamp, or whether you have the skill set to build your career outside of that. It is you who is conflicted.

I don’t think there is anything wrong with dismissing going after the title of “Landscape Architect” and moving on with your career. I know more really successful landscape designers with LA degrees who did not bother chasing the license that do awesome work than I know licensed LAs doing awesome work in the market that I work in.

Either chase the license and title, or stop worrying about using the title and just kick some ass a designer. People are going to hire you by your capability and experience, not your title. You just have to find a way to build and document that experience (that is where chasing the license helped me).

I could stop renewing my license and I don’t think it would impact my business at all. I have to say that in my case the process of getting my stamp was exponentially more valuable to my development than the stamp.

Good luck with either path that you chose, just get off the fence and go all out on one path or the other. The title is not holding you back.

[Andrew Garulay, RLA]

We were also taught that we are important and need to take control of everything landscape – the less you do the more diminished you are. This is something that took me forever to learn. It goes back to the most important thing that we need to do -Get Work. Every time we over reach we are affecting someone else’s livelihood. Some would call it “leaving money on the table”.

But here is the thing. Most of us work in a not so huge environment where we are known and cross paths with other players in our markets whether they are builders, architects, landscape contractors, nurseries, stone yards, lighting suppliers, irrigation installers, excavators, arborists, …. We can affect them by what we do and they can affect us as well. One of the biggest things is that anyone of these is a potential marketer for us.
Bringing us on board for any of these folks has the potential to enable them to make more money or to lose money they could otherwise make by using someone else. It can speed up their project or it can slow it down. We can leave open opportunities for any of them to upsell, or we can close those by over specifying. We can make their lives easier with a plan to follow, or we can complicate their lives by specifying methods that are not how they normally do things. Plenty of other examples out there, but the main point is that if you can make as many of those things positive for the people around you without compromising the job you will be a valuable asset and they will all be referring you as much as they can …. especially if the next landscape architect is not following the same philosophy – ie, doing it the way he was told to in school and by professional organizations.

When you think you can’t compete with the ones that are doing everything because they do the complete menu better than you can, you might not realize that the one thing that you can do better is serve a different menu that meets the jobs needs better.

Never underestimate the importance of making the entire design/build team happy and not just the client. The team and/or its members are going to be around a lot longer than a single landscape design client. They are potential free marketing. Just make sure that they have reason to market you over others.

[Andrew Garulay, RLA]

Leslie, those three areas that you mentioned you are weak in are exactly the types of things that were beaten into our heads by professors and cheerleaders of the profession.

I do a ton of pool plans (especially since the Great White Shark spike here on Cape Cod). I don’t touch the pool guts other than for accounting for the structure of an automatic cover if one is being used. The pool contractor is going to hold the clients hand and pick out interior details and try to upsell on the gadgetry, so thee is no reason for me to do it.

I used to do some basic lighting plans, but there again the products and gadgetry options are huge and ever changing. I tell clients that and they are all good with it.

Irrigation in my area is not something people like too pay to have designed, so again nothing to worry about. The contractors take care of it (in the field without a formal plan).

A really good example of some of the things young people coming out of school can dwell on unnecessarily. … that and having to have superior hand drawing skills.

[Andrew Garulay, RLA]

One thing that I did not understand early on and for a long time after was that the concept of that all landscape architects need to know and be good at a certain template of skills and knowledge to succeed is not necessarily true due to the diversity of the profession. I think I wore cement shoes for quite a while trying to do what I was taught was the way to do things and how to compete in the profession. Once I got over that the things that I had to learn were specific to the niche that I was/am working in. You’ve heard that out of me a million times, so I’ll move on to more general thoughts.

How to get work.

Learning how business was being done locally is a huge thing that is true in any niche. We are all taught a cookie cutter idea on this in school, but I really had to observe the bigger picture on who was doing what, how work (and referrals) flowed in my niche, where opportunities might lie, what that I could do that was

valued by others in that work flow

, and what things I needed to learn to make me a valued team member.

[Andrew Garulay, RLA]

Amber,

If you are just starting out you might want to start with flat rate fees. That makes it much easier for a prospect to feel comfortable about the overall cost. You’ll need to write a contract with the scope of work described so it is clear what you are and what you are not doing for the fee. You should state how many revisions you’ll do with that fee (I suggest one) and have an hourly rate for work that goes beyond the scope of work in the contract.
Keep that rate on the high side for two reasons. One is to get paid well, but the other is probably more important if you are just starting out – that is that it will encourage the client to be more focused on giving you information to ensure that you have enough to complete the design without going beyond the scope of work. Basically, it gives them a financial incentive to make sure you can get them what they need in the first draft.
It is not the best long term solution, but it sure helps to close on design jobs to get things going. The design business is like a heavy load. It takes a lot of effort to overcome inertia, but once it gets moving it takes less and less to keep it moving. It all starts with getting as much work as you can get to build a body of work, get some referrals, and decorate a portfolio with BUILT WORK.
Another way to overcome inertia is to work for someone else and make connections and be identified as having been part of that successful group. The trick there is to get hired. If you are not getting hired you’ll have to go out and get it on your own.

[Andrew Garulay, RLA]

I’m all for 50% retainer, but I know there are some states that limit how much you can take up front. I’m almost certain that California is one that limits it to 10% or $1,000 which ever is more. I might be confusing this with Oregon, but I don’t think so.

[Andrew Garulay, RLA]

Check your state laws on how much you can legally ask for up front. I think California limits that to 10%.

The simple yet complex answer as to what landscape designers charge is this – whatever someone is willing to pay. We are not selling something that comes in a box that is the same thing in the box that the next landscape designer is selling, therefore pricing is not one size fits all.

However, like any product in a box, the higher the price, the more likely the buyer needs to know what is in the box. If you are a known commodity like Bob, it is fairly easy for a potential client to understand the value they are getting for what they are being asked to pay. That value is built on a portfolio of built work, a reputation established by a body of work, and by direct referral from people that have used the designers services.

The thing that most people coming out of school have been convinced of as being of high value are credentials such as a degree, LA license, or membership in professional associations. Those on their own have little value unless there are regulations that exclude others from engaging in the same services. However, the process of gaining those things typically gives one a lot of experiences that can generate those other things that I mentioned that are valued.

Your rates need to be based on the value that your potential clients perceive and how they perceive your skill set and experience matches their project. A big influence on that perceived value is what others offering the same potential are charging. If you value yourself more than the potential client does, you are not going to get work very often.

If you don’t get work very often, you are limiting your ability to produce a body of built work, a referral network, and a portfolio.

My opinion is more important for a new designer to invest in building his/her value to establish a good billing rate, than to declare a good billing rate which can limit your development.

There are millions of good designers, many of which are not getting much work. You will see that some “good designers” get a ton of work while other “better designers” get overlooked. The key to this business is not that you have to be a better designer than the next person, but that you have to be better at getting the jobs than the next person. Ninety percent of that is from building a body of work, getting known because you built a body of work, and getting referrals from those you have worked for or with in the past.

If you are buried in work, you are charging too little. If you lack work, you are charging too much. As your body of work increases your schedule will fill and you adjust your rates accordingly.

[Andrew Garulay, RLA]

J.,

Now you can develop your side work without a conflict of interest. You also don’t have to rely on it for your sole source of income. I used that to allow myself to pick and choose side work to develop a portfolio of built work and develop methods and strategies that worked for me.

It helps that you do not necessarily have to charge top dollar since it is not your primary income. I found that volume of work was important to build a portfolio and to build a footprint to get more and better work. We all know our own talents and abilities, but that does not go far with potential clients. Most prospective clients are looking for a designer to remove doubt from the outcome of the project. They are most comfortable with direct referrals which comes from a large number of past clients. Second to that is a portfolio of built work which can be built much faster than a trail of referring clients. That is why I think building volume early is more important that getting top dollar.

Your price puts you in competition for work with people charging the same price. If you compete with people with a strong referral network and very good portfolios of built work it is hard to be seen by a prospect as the person removing the most doubt from the outcome of the project. Then you raise rates accordingly as your portfolio builds and clients refer you. That is the philosophy that I used, although many others disagree with it.

Andrew

[Andrew Garulay, RLA]

J.,

I’m glad to share.

The secret to walking on water is knowing where the rocks are.

[Andrew Garulay, RLA]

My mentality is to harness energy that already exists rather than trying to force something. If you pay a lot of attention and observe where the energy is or more importantly where it starts to grow.

An analogy is to put your mill wheel where the river is flowing. Recently, all the good mill sites were filled so there was no place to put your wheel. Events like these change the course of rivers and streams. Pay attention not to what people think should happen, but what is actually being built, where it is being built, and who is involved in the process – those are the rivers and streams. That is where you want to put your wheel. Also, don’t dwell on the notions that they plant in us at school that you should change how things are done to make sure you are included – that is the same as trying to re-route a river. Look at how it IS being done and look to fit into that naturally flowing stream.

Bottom line: Go with the flow.

[Author]

Posts