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As long as you did a good job making it clear that the price is based on content and that there are lots of ways to adjust content without completely tossing out the integrity of the design, it has nothing to do with you.
I don't know what you do for a design contract, but it should have a couple of things built into it if it is design/build.
The first is to have a flat fee that includes a finite number of revisions (I like to limit that to one). That gives you the best chance of selling a job because the client knows the price won't blow up. It keeps the client from playing to many "what if" games with you that can blow up the amount of time you have to put into it.
The second thing is that you need to have a mechanism to give the client an incentive to give you the input that you need to get the best design done within the framework of that contract. There is no better way than to have a fairly high hourly rate that will be charged for work outside of that contract. They go out of their way to make sure that you have the info that you need and they tend to focus on being realistic because they want the design to stay within that contract. It is very effective.
The third thing that you have to do once you are about to present your proposal to do the installation work, is to let them know that the estimate is based on exactly what is in the plan including the size and numbers of plants. You have to make them understand that you can adjust the price by using smaller plants, less plants, or otherwise reduce materials from what is in the plan. You have to make that point before you present the proposal in order for them to not have an emotional reaction to the proposal. If you wait until after sticker shock sets in, they tend to not listen because they think you were trying to rip them off (even though you were not).
Once the design is complete and they are still willing to work with you on adjusting the content, I'd feel comfortable taking the time to redline a plan to go along with a proposal that would lower the price. I would not go out of my way to produce a clean reduced plan for them to shop around.
What usually has happened when someone else has given a much cheaper price is that hey have adjusted the content of the plan in their proposal by listing smaller plants or not including everything in their proposal. Some are up front about it, and others put it in their proposal but the client does not notice that the sizes have changed.
If this happens, you need to ask them if the plant sizes are the same or there were any other adjustments to the plan and that you would be glad to price the reduced content as well. But, this really should not happen if you are proactive as I descibed above. Sometimes there are people who you will never please and it has nothing to do with you. If it happens a lot, it has something to do with you or the people you represent.
If you represent a company that has a very big stream of leads, it is not uncommon that they price themselves rather high so that they don't take on more work than they can handle. I don't have a problem with that if they are able to fill their schedule at a higher profit.
One of the more difficult aspects of working out of a busy nursery s that you have a very diverse market. You get called out to people who really can't afford a good landscape one minute and a wealthy homeowner the next. There is no way that you will have a system that works for that big a demographic. That means that there will be a lot of dead ends. That is not bad, but you can't dwell on the fact that you won't please everyone.
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