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Author: Jody Shilan

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Jody Shilan

Jody Shilan is a landscape design/build sales consultant, editor of FromDesign2Build.com and former executive director of the New Jersey Landscape Contractors Association. Reach him at 201-783-2844 or jshilan@gmail.com

Spread the holiday spirit with Adopt A Tree

The holiday season is a wonderful time for all of us to remind ourselves to be thankful for what we have, while thinking about how we can help others. I’d like to share with you an idea that’s not just good will, but good karma and great publicity. I call it Adopt A Tree, and […]

How to benefit from peer networking

We’re all familiar with business-to-business networking (B2B) as well as business-to-consumer networking (B2C). Well there’s a category of networking that you’ve likely been involved with for years but rarely think about as a business networking opportunity. It’s what I call C2C networking. No, it’s not consumer-to-consumer networking—but contractor to contractor. Think about it, have you […]

When offering options, less is more

Q. We spend too much time on concepts and revisions before we go to contract and get a deposit. How can we reduce our design time so that we can make a small profit on our drawings and shorten our sales cycle without compromising the quality of our work? —Lenny Hartwell, New Traditions Landscaping, Fredericksburg, […]

The unbiddable master plan

Q: This might be a silly question, but is there anything that you can do to stop your client from taking your design, making copies of it and then shopping it around to your competitors to try and get a lower price? Any advice would be greatly appreciated. —Danny Wantague, Dreamscapes, St. Paul, Minn. A: […]

How to determine a homeowner’s landscape budget

Question: How do you get homeowners to tell you what they want to spend on a project without being pushy ?    — Amanda Bell, Landscape Designs by Amanda, Red Lion, PA Answer: One common problem for landscape designers and contractors is trying to find out what a client is budgeting for a particular project. […]

Never give a client a ballpark number

Q We provide our clients with landscape master plans and charge a design fee for our drawings. Our problem is that a lot of times we scare them off and lose the work and the relationship when we give them a price for the entire project. Is there something we should be doing differently? —Bob […]

Competing with value, not price

Q. Many companies offer “free drawings” to get installation work. We’ve always charged for our landscape plans, but often lose work because of this. What can we do? — Bill Smith, Greenscapes Unlimited, Greensboro, NC. A. This is a  common problem no matter where your landscape design/build business is located. There will always be companies […]

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