Reel It In

Nerves taut with anticipation, you tightly grip your fishing rod, awaiting the potential catch that lurks beneath the waves. Fish circle as you flash tasty bait on a fancy lure, drawing them near.

Then you feel it – a nibble. And then another. The time spent waiting has paid off – they’re nipping at the bait.

Think you caught a sale? Think again.

Sure, you may have prepared the hook just right and presented design/build clients with some fairly appetizing visual bait, but the “gone fishing” approach doesn’t always close the sale. Without some strong pulls on the rod and a little crafty maneuvering, the fish will just take the worm.

Contractors can’t waste time waiting for hesitant clients to bite. To reel in design/build sales, contractors have to put the weight of professionalism behind their reel and use proper estimation and budget discussion, as well as other helpers, like design fees and phased–in projects, to hoist sales on board.

PLACE A STANDARD ON DESIGN. Since landscape design sales involve visual and artistic creations, charging for this expertise is customary – and can encourage clients, who already have invested in designs, to retain contractors for build services as well.

But customers typically confuse estimates with designs and plans during the sales process, which makes placing a value on them difficult, pointed out Andy White, president and majority owner, Wayside Landscape Services, Asheville, N.C. “For all practical purposes, bids, prices, estimates and proposals are the same things,” he explained. “An estimate should be free because it is merely a price to do a previously defined job. Do not confuse estimating with designing: One task is done for free, the other is not.”

Most design/build contractors charge for their design work because it demonstrates a client’s sincere interest in the project and shows that he or she has a clear understanding of the time and skill needed to produce that design.

Though many contractors bill for designs, some admit doing so early in a business’ history is challenging. “It is tough to [charge for designs] when you just start out because you see all this work and you think, ‘Hey, they have this money to spend and I need the work, so I will do all this planning work for free to get the job,’” admitted Chip McClintock, president, Green & White Outdoors Landscape Co., Kent, Ohio. “But then you do all that work and they don’t hire you – now what?”

Donna Vignocchi, vice president of sales and marketing, ILT Vignocchi, Wauconda, Ill., agreed, stating that experience and professionalism are worth the extra cost. “We are landscape architects and, therefore, charge for our professional services,” she maintained.

All contractors charge differently for their design work. Some base design fees on the time it takes an architect or designer to complete the drawing or plan. For instance, Rick Winnestaffer, president, WinnScapes, Gahanna, Ohio, said his company charges approximately $50 an hour, “so a $200- to $400-design is not elaborate,” he remarked. “It’s a quick sketch that works simply to show a general idea.”

Wayside Landscape Services also charges its clients design fees based on time – at least $75 per hour plus expenses to produce a plan, White said.

And as the hours add up, based on project size and complexity, the cost rises and, for example, can range anywhere from $1,000 to $75,000 at ILT Vignocchi, Vignocchi said, or from $150 to $50,000 at Akehurst Landscape Services, pointed out Bill Akehurst, vice president of the Joppa, Md.-based company.

Sometimes, client relationships and commitments dictate the design fee. For long-time customers, Bruce Birdsong, president/owner, Precision Landscape Management, Dallas, Texas, waives the design expenses, unless the project is extremely tedious and requires a few hours or more of a landscape architect’s time. “Another factor is the likelihood of the customer doing this work,” Birdsong added. “We don’t want to give them ideas for jobs that will never materialize.”

In other instances, design fees are set at a base price because a computer program does the work. For instance, Samuel Fava, co-owner, TLC Landscaping & Design Corp., Staten Island, N.Y., uses digital imaging software to produce a likeness of the completed project. He charges a base price of $300 and adds to this as needed for more difficult drawings or larger projects. “Then we do a three- to five-page proposal explaining every detail plus options, including cost and warranties,” Fava explained. “Digital imaging has been the best sales pitch by itself. The client gets to see an actual photo of the completed job before we lift our first tool – they love it. And it gives us an edge over the guy who says, ‘Imagine this here and this over there.’”

However, talking the visual talk works for some contractors. Akehurst said his top gun design/build salesman Charles Newcomb “can sell ice cubes to an Eskimo,” when he’s depicting vast landscape plans with words. “He is not a very good designer when it comes to plotting on paper, but he knows what he wants to do with the project and conveys that through words to his clients,” Akehurst explained, adding that on one occasion Newcomb drew a very quick, yet bland, black-marker sketch in the field with the client, but his verbal description and excitement about the project sold the job. “Upon completion of the sketch [and explanation], he looked them right in the eyes and said, ‘That will cost about $15,000, what do you say?’ He closed the deal right then and there.”

McClintock has sold jobs using a similar approach. “Many of the projects that are our bread and butter are those that I am able to prepare a thumbnail sketch of as well as including pictures downloaded from the Internet that depict specific plants,” he said, referencing online plant dictionaries as ideal sources for these images.

But be careful when showing specific plant photos, Vignocchi warned. “We want to sell the concept, not the minutia,” she said, pointing out that preliminary drawings act as budgets for ILT Vignocchi’s clients of scale, i.e. projects that cost $75,000 or more. “You don’t want to have the customer stuck on the necessity of having a certain plant at the beginning of the sales process. The consequences could be that you cannot find it at the time of the installation. You have to be careful of setting up expectations that could trip you up later.”

Since many design/build contractors want to sell clients on the design and the installation – and not one or the other – they often refund their design fees based on a build agreement to lure clients.

Wayside Landscape Services offers design-purchase rebates where some or the entire design fee factors into the construction price as long as crews finish the project within the year. “This can be a decided advantage over companies that only offer design services,” White said (see Wayside’s example in How We Do It).

ILT Vignocchi uses a comparable method. “If they just want the design, we keep the retainer,” Vignocchi said. “If they hire us for the installation, we return it. For example, if we collect a $2,000 design fee, propose a $100,000 landscape and the customer opts out of doing everything except for an option for annual flowers that total $1,700, we would owe the client $300 for installing flowers. This is a way to cover ourselves. That is why we set a minimum purchase amount for the return of the retainer. This one was a learning experience – a scenario that actually happened, believe it or not.”

Clients like the one above, who tease contractors by nibbling at the $100,000 bait, but then take only a tiny portion and run, aren’t typically model clients for an average design/build contractor. Stating the design fees up front can save contractors from these wasted efforts. “Mentioning the charge is the fastest way that I get turned down for a sale,” McClintock said. “This is fine with me, as it usually means that I have just eliminated a possible headache.”

OFFER PIECES & PARTS. Occasionally, fishermen break up their days, casting their lines early in the morning one day and late at night the next. Maybe a fish steals the bait and runs the first day, but like a mouse, that potential catch will be back to sniff the cheese again.

Similarly, installing a design/build project in phases can help snag one large project. This works particularly for larger, more complex and expensive projects that can be split into parts, White said.

“Sometimes the only way to keep the door open when presenting a project is to break the project down into acceptable bites,” Akehurst maintained. “The belief is that by having a project broken out the client is more likely to pick and choose, rather than become sticker-shocked by a lump sum that would close the door on the sale.”

This lifts the pressure off of money-conscious clients and makes them more comfortable with closing the sale as long as they spend in small bits. “Customers can spread he cost over several years and not be hit with large capital expenditures all at once,” Birdsong said. “If they see we can be flexible and work with them and within their budgets, they are inclined to go ahead with the project.”

Because of the success of this sales tool, many contractors, like Fava, are adding stepped projects to their service options. Fava calls his P.O.M.P. – phasing out a master plan.

However, phasing in a landscape can add to its overall cost due to extra mobilization and other work-related inefficiencies, White pointed out. Phasing also needs to be planned carefully. “Phasing a project cannot be done haphazardly,” he said. “It must be done in such a manner that work completed in an earlier phase is not affected by work done in later phases. Compare the phasing of a landscape with painting the floor of a room having only one exit. You must start at the furthest point and work towards the exit, otherwise you will be trapped or ruin your work trying to get out. In general, construction work must be done before planting work.”

Phasing projects also requires client patience. Contractors should inform clients of the specifics of what each installation will include so they aren’t shocked by the outcome. “Each project is unique and has its own logical phasing scheme,” White said. “Once a landscape plan is developed, it is easy for the designer to define a phasing plan to suit the needs of the client. It is important to note that often the landscape element the client wants most or that is the main focal point cannot be included in the first phase because doing so would make completion of the later phases impossible or prohibitively expensive.”

At Wayside, phasing also affects clients’ rebate on design fees since the company’s agreement states that all project phases must be completed within 12 months of the original proposal date to be eligible for rebate. “Despite the extra costs, sometimes phasing a project is the only way a client can afford it, much the same as a car loan makes it possible to purchase a new vehicle,” White said.

Just as splitting up project steps aids sales, so does speeding up the installation to meet a client’s deadline. “When you are design/build, design and construction feed each other – we try to be very conscious of that. We can sell those projects to the clients more quickly because we can sell timeliness to them,” Vignocchi commented. “We also try to fast-track certain projects if it will benefit the production schedule.

“But don’t set up time expectations with the client that are unrealistic to your system,” Vignocchi added, stating that building clients for referrals is the name of the game. “Instead, tell them they will see a design in five weeks and deliver it in two.”

TALK IN DOLLARS & SENSE. After a contractor spends hours putting together a $10,000 bid, crafting a nice presentation and presenting it to the client, the last words he or she wants to hear are, “Oh, I only have $2,500 to spend,” McClintock pointed out.

Budget is the most feared discussion among design/build contractors and clients. Clients fear revealing their budgets because they think a contractor will max it out, while contractors hesitate to ask, figuring they won’t be able to sell a larger, more extravagant landscape once clients mention their magic number. Either way, without a budget discussion of some sort, both the client and the contractor lose due to wasted time and increased, unreachable expectations.

To avoid any misunderstandings, McClintock uses a sales trick that always forces a client to admit the budget he or she has in mind. “I find most clients are reluctant to tell me their budget, which at times I can understand,” he said. “But what I have been doing this year that works really well is call them [to tell them the amount their ideas will cost before I start designing the project] and that brings out the budget in them. For example, I called a client yesterday and told her our ideas would cost just over $9,000 and then she said that in her mind she was thinking $6,000. So, at this point, I have not wasted any time on preliminary or thumbnail sketches – I just used what she told me and what I saw from her property as a means to determine a close guesstimate. Now that I have her in range, I can draft the concept, run over to her house and nail the sale. And I saved myself a late night of drawing and not seeing the kids to bed – which I don’t get paid for.”

Using positive words also helps clients feel comfortable discussing budgets and ideas with contractors, Newcomb said. “It’s like thinking of the close from the minute you meet them,” he explained. “Speak positively with words like, ‘when we do this…,’ ‘as we are doing this…,’ or ‘we will...’”

Then, Newcomb’s encouraging closing statements include, “Do you want me to finalize this and move forward with this project?” “What can I do next?” or “Can we get together? I’d like to have your thoughts about this project and when we can get started.”

Winnestaffer said another option is looking the client dead in the eye and asking, “’May I do this job for you?’ If there isn’t an immediate acceptance, I’ll try to address issues they have and schedule an appointment to follow up and keep them interested in the project.”

And after asking the closing question, use a pause to expose answers, Newcomb advised. Just as a fisherman remains quiet as a fish nibbles the bait, waiting for the chance to reel it in, contractors can use the classic sales shut-up to close the sale. “Ask the right question and then wait for the answer,” he said. “The pause is an absolute sales technique that forces the client to act. Say, ‘What do you want me to do next?’ And then take a break and let them do the talking.”

The author is Managing Editor of Lawn & Landscape magazine and can be reached at nwisniewski@lawnandlandscape.com.

EDITOR’S NOTE: This is part two of a two-part series. To read part one, check out the May 2002 issue of Lawn & Landscape.