[Terre]

I have sort of fallen into this, and let me say first off, that I don't consider myself a landscaper, but a gardener, with a talent for design. That's how it started. I'm still amazed that people will actually pay me to dig in their dirt and spend their money on flowers!

One issue I'm having, is when I submit an estimate, the client looks at the breakdown, and doesn't want to pay me MY labor rate for removal of brush, juniper, etc. But that is partly where I cover the hidden costs, like time spent doing research on what plants will be best for his soil composition, color combinations, etc, and time spent tracking down those plants, etc.

How could this be better handled? It has been suggested to me that I should give someone a total price and not break anything down at all, but I've not had a lot of luck with that approach, the first thing they ask is how much I'm spending on plants.

Help?

[TrickyDick]

One issue I'm having, is when I submit an estimate, the client looks at the breakdown, and doesn't want to pay me MY labor rate for removal of brush, juniper, etc.

I don't really get why that would be a problem, unless your labor rate is really high. They can keep the debris if they want but if you're taking it away you have to get paid for both your time and whatever it costs you to get rid of stuff. One option would be to charge a flat rate per truck/ trailer (or whatever) load of debris. Don't show it as labor if that is an issue.

that is partly where I cover the hidden costs, like time spent doing research on what plants will be best for his soil composition, color combinations, etc, and time spent tracking down those plants, etc.

You can solve that problem by charging outright for designs. Whether you choose to do it by the hour or as a flat fee depending on how involved the project is your time and expertise are something you should charge for. I personally think you should charge for design work seperately from the rest of the job. Do a design for someone....they pay you for it....then they can have you install it or not and at least you don't waste your time completely.

It has been suggested to me that I should give someone a total price and not break anything down at all, but I've not had a lot of luck with that approach, the first thing they ask is how much I'm spending on plants.

I'm a believer in breaking down pricing by task as in

Remove existing plant material $x

prepare planting area $x

install new plant material $x

Mulch, fertilize, water $x

etc.

Another way to do it, and what I do most often, is to give a price for each plant INSTALLED. So you take the cost of the plant, add in the labor involved in getting the plant and planting it and a your markup on the plant and you have a price for each plant. That gives the client the opportunity to decide if any specific plant is more expensive then they would like (like do they REALLY want that Japanese Maple bad enough to spend $2k on it) without giving them more info they they should have.

Nobody needs to know a labor/ materials breakdown and it is absolutely never anyone's business what you spent on plants, or any other materials. If they want to find out what wholesale prices are for a plant they can do the research. Otherwise they need to trust that you are a professional who is trying to provide them with a service and not trying to screw them. If you don't have that basic level of trust with a client you are just going to have one problem after another.

I'm rambling cause I'm putting off doing a proposal. I just want to go to sleep. 'Tis the season...

[EpicInterlock]

I agree with Tricky Dick, but I am also a great believer in not breaking down prices, otherwise you will get into trouble like Terre with the labour prices. If you charge $400 to install a Japanese Maple, most people will be outraged and think "Hey, I can plant a tree myself and save the $400". Obviously they don't realize they will have to transport the tree themselves (or pay to have it delivered), dig the hole, and install a tree, likely with the help of a few buddies. It would actually end up being easier and perhaps cheaper to go with a pro. Unfortunately, most customers don't appreciate it......let's face it, money talks.

If you're going to do a breakdown of any sort, I agree with Tricky Dick, don't put in your labour at the bottom of the quote, just add the labour to install with the prices of the trees/shrubs/flowers. Don't show how much you charge to install.

Good luck

[Terre]

Thanks guys, I never thought about pricing stuff that way. I will have to reevaluate how I bid, and invoice. What you have made me realize, is I'm putting in man hours on each task, and that is too much information.

I'm frequently asked my "rate" and if I have to quote an hourly rate, I quote them $25 an hour for me or my irrigation and lighting technical expert. (Read: husband) No one seems to have a problem with that, until it comes down to the manual labor part, where I have just been doing it all under one rate.

It seems silly, the most recent customer with issue, is a lawyer with a million dollar home, who is planning on spending $50K on his landscaping. His figure, not mine. But he wants to "help" so it won't cost so much. ??? He's 50 years old, I considered asking him if he knew what a hernia felt like. Obviously, diplomacy isn't my strong point.

Thank you very much for the help. I will be changing the way I do this.

[jwholden]

Terre,

It sounds like you are new to the business. The first thing you should do is get a book on estimating and calculating your overhead. Just because everyone else is charging so much for a similar service is no reason you have to or should. They may all be out of business in a year or too and take you down with them.

If people are asking you to break down prices it is because they are cheap and don't see the value of your services. There is something you are not doing to convince them of the value of your services.

Some people always go with the lowest price because that is the way they are wired (run from this type). Some people test your price by asking you to take a little off here or there (convince them of the value of your services or say you can lower the price of the job by taking something off the job). Some people want to lean on your expertise and not be bothered with the details of the job (get clients like these and hold on to them for dear life).

There is a learning curve when you are new to the business and learning about finding the type of people you want to work for. If a customer wants to help with the project it will cost you more (meaning less profit) because they will call you with a million questions about what they should be doing or they will screw it up and you will have to fix it based on your original estimate.

Be very careful when dealing with the type that wants a breakdown by labor materials etc. or wants to help with the job. Let them either rip out the old stuff or mulch the gardens at the end, once you are on the job it must remain in your control. Imagine if this lawyer was going to spread 8 yards of topsoil over the weekend and you show up on Monday morning and it wasn't spread. What if he spread it and did a lousy job and you need to spend two hours fixing that mess?

I know I had a point to this ramble....

Learn how to run a profitable business. You must learn the true costs of running a business so you can keep your business, house, and sanity. DO IT NOW!

Focus on showing prospective customers the value of your work so they don't even think (too hard) about what it costs.

Work on your customer screening skills and learn from the mistakes you have made and most likely will make again. Learn to recognize the customers you want to work for and focus your efforts there.

Good luck!

[TrickyDick]

Rich Lawyer + Cheap Bastard + asking questions about costs that he KNOWS are none of his business + nickel and diming on the small stuff = HUUUUGE RED FLAG

People like that are trouble. Is it possible that he is totally naive about the process of contracting and really wants to do some work himself for fun on weekends? Yeah. Likely? No. Chances are pretty good that he knows what he's doing and is trying to manipulate you. Chances are also pretty good that at $25/ hour you are on the cheap side and he probably knows that too. Or maybe he's just an idiot. Either way be very very careful.

[Terre]

Yes, I am new to gardening as a business, but not to running a business. In my husbands automotive businesss, we used to have a sign up:

Price per hour:
Price if you help:
Price if you worked on it first:

And all prices went up incrementally. Maybe I need to dig out that old sign. In that business, I was pretty good at markup, and upselling, and there was a flat rate book for time/labor.

Can you suggest a good book for estimating? I have been to the library and bookstores, have a lot of books on landscape design, but most seem to focus on hardscapes, and which I have no training for and have sense enough to know is totally out of my realm.

Yeah, $25 is probably cheap, but I'm a gardener, nothing else. I don't want to misrepresent myself nor do I want to get in over my head. At this rate, I can pick and choose my jobs and still stay busy. I've turned down several, my pet pieve is the "Oh, do this job cheap for me, and I'll get you a lot more jobs!"

You are right, this guy may be a big red flag. I didn't recognize him as such at first.

[Green4Me]

One of the better books out there is"How to Price Landscape & Irrigation Projects" by Jim Huston. It will tell you more than you ever wanted to know about the subject and will open your eyes and help you make better money for your efforts. don't sell yourself short, at $25.per hour all your getting is tired.

If this were an easy business, 50 year old lawyers could do it themselves.

[Terre]

Thank you, Michael. I just found that used on Amazon, so it'll be here in a couple of days.

I'm very much an amateur at this as a business, and I certainly want to learn. A lot of what I'm doing is correcting gardens gone wrong or gone wild. The lawyer is a combination of blank slate in front, and 40 years of neglect in the back.

[HardDaysKnight]

Terre asked

How could this be better handled? It has been suggested to me that I should give someone a total price and not break anything down at all, but I've not had a lot of luck with that approach, the first thing they ask is how much I'm spending on plants.

When you go to a store and buy something, will they tell
you how much it cost them to make or how much profit they are making on it? You either buy it or not.
It's hard to break things down in our business because
the machines and manpower can do things in certain ways
if there are several projects as opposed to 1 or 2.
If they insist on a breakdown, make sure the overall number
is much higher so the better deal is doing it all now while
you are there than to come back for part 2 or 3 etc.

[familyguy]

Yeah, $25 is probably cheap, but I'm a gardener, nothing else.

This kills me. I started out strictly gardening at $24.00 p hr 7 or 8 years ago. It kills me that I knew so much more about horticulture than the "lawn jockeys" who would whiz by me on their ZTR's. I would watch them, with their $35.oo p hr labor rates (justified because.... I'n not sure exactly... but they did have much bigger trucks than I did) plant shrubs with the bad side facing out, burlap still tied up, or some other sin, and it would kill me.

Now, we are a full service company. We still garden. We just stopped limiting ourselves. One thing that our customers really like about us is how learned we are in horticulture.

It would help the image of our industry soooo much if there were more folks like you.... you know... just gardeners.

[Terre]

I need more help here. I just got an email from the lawyer, that included this:


For a flat fee of $1500, my friend (a landscape architect at a major company) will prepare a detailed landscaping plan. The plan for the front of the house will implement what you and I have agreed upon. He'll be doing some repairs over the next year to my back porch and has a crew that can help with bigger clean-up jobs. I'll try to help on clean up as well to save money and I've already started. He's willing to work with you as I told him I need a gardener to maintain what gets put in. He requested you send me a schematic showing your plan for the front and the specific plants you envision. I'll get Randy to use that plan for the front and then perhaps we can put them in charge of creating a master plan that you and I will implement for the side and back of the house. Everyone envisions the same thing. Formal beds in the front, but no rocks for borders or mulch. More informal English country garden in the back. He likes the pergola idea by the apple tree.

I have a plan, for the front, side, and rear yards. Certainly not what a LA would draw up, but workable for me. We are removing a lot of overgrown evergreen, which he was going to have them do, but now I feel like I'm losing control of the project.

I'd rather not be relegated to the position of "maintenance gardener", I was really looking forward to having this property in my portfolio, and if the other company takes over, it isn't really mine to show.

On the other hand, are there benefits to working with them? Bound to be, depending on the working relationship I can establish, but I won't know that til I'm stuck with it.

Not sure how to answer this guy?

[Raj Venugopal]

Run away quickly.

For every door that closes a window opens.

What would the Mona Lisa have looked like if Leonardo subbed part of it out, had Mona help out in her spare time and had every brush stroke questioned by Mona's husband?

[TrickyDick]

Correct me if I'm wrong but it sounds like what he is asking you to do is give your design, that I'm assuming he has not paid you for, to another designer who will charge him $1500 to basically transfer your drawing to autocad and edit it as he sees fit. Then "you and he" will implement your design that he bought from someone else who got it from you for free. So he can save money.

Sounds to me like an absolute cluster**** in the making, with nobody getting anything good out of it but his "friend" who is selling him your plan for $1500. Raj's advice is probably good. If you choose not run however I would suggest you do at least this...

1. Get paid for your design. Offer to sell the lawyer your plan for whatever you think is fair compensation for the time you spent on it. Then he can give it to whoever he wants.

2. Get written agreements on specifically what responsibilities or aspects of the project are going to be handled by who and what you will be paid for your part and then stick to it.

By the way Terre I have news for you...you're not just a gardener anymore.

[Terre]

lol, I like you guys.

I can't totally run backwards, I've already accepted (and spent some) a check for $2000 to start. When we met on Monday, I told him I wanted a retainer, figured a lawyer would get that.

I use a copy of the landscape contract I found on this site, which is how I found this site to begin with. I think I'll write an addendum to it, detailing who does what like you said.

What I have done, is send him back an email, telling him it is duplication of work, since I already have a plan. I told him that at this point, there is no need for a landscape architect, until it becomes time to build the pergola I suggested.

He just a few minutes ago came back with "Ok, I get it. Too many cooks in the kitchen. I'll tell my friend we don't need him til next year." DUH!

I absolutely LOVED the Mona Lisa analogy. And I think my title might be babysitter before I'm done with this guy. Wonder if I can find some big heavy rocks for him to move?

Thanks both of you.