Success Stories!
Here is an exciting business idea for people who have a good taste, are creative and smart enough to know that they have both qualities!
Let’s see who out there in the real world has made themselves a pretty penny taking care of landscaping designs and working with their hands in people’s backyards.
Artis Tree $13 million dollars revenue in 2006. They went from $250,000 in annual revenue to almost $13 million between the mid 90′s and now. Their source of business is landscaping and lawn maintenance for golfing and residential communities.
company’s website: http://www.artistree.com/
Schill Landscaping and Lawn Care Services $4.2 million dollars revenue in 2006. They operate a full-service landscape company specializing in design, installation, and maintenance for both commercial and residential clients.
company’s website: http://www.schilllandscaping.com/
Moss Lanscaping $6.0 million dollars revenue in 2006. Their income is from designing, installing and maintaining landscaping, largely for affluent homeowners.
company’s website: http://www.mosslandscaping.com/
Dennis Seven Dees Landscaping $20.3 million dollars revenue in 2006. They also are in the landscape and design business. They also have four garden retail outlets.
company’s website: www.sevendees.com
Magic Gardens Landscaping $3.0 million dollars revenue in 2006. They provide residential clients with landscape design, masonry, construction and also maintenance services.
company’s website: www.Magic-Gardens.com
What Does Landscaping & Design Include?
If you love to play in the dirt or have a passion and love for organizing an outdoor project this business could be the place for you, there really is huge potential to be very successful.
You don’t need a college degree or a lot of money to start, just some available time and a bit of ambition and a bit of persistence.
Some of what designing a backyard or adding to something someone else has already done includes elements such as walkways, patios, decks, lighting, retaining, walls, everything and anything external to a building or house within that yard. It can and will more than likely also include planting and caring for trees, ground covers, flowers, grass, shrubs, etc.
Now here is a business that will never cease to exist!
There are a lot of magazines in hardware and home stores that talk about the decor and construction or reconstructions of backyards to help you get your ideas rolling and become more inspired.
There are various books on starting a landscaping businesses available. There are also basic courses in landscape design to help you, Community Colleges are the first place to take a look. You can even find some specialized programs at your local nurseries during different times of the year, you just have to call them and ask.
Any experience or training in horticulture, agriculture and business will greatly improve your chances for success.
Creating
-Try something that looks very different from anything you have ever seen, maybe even weird, be a revolutionist, try schemes that people won’t expect.
-Try it out in your own backyard, learn how to do it very well. Ask your friends and neighbors to offer you their yards and gardens to experiment with. They will be happy to see some changes and will more than likely love to help you out.
-Take many pictures of the entire process, start to finish.
-Try 5 to 10 different designs, get really creative and make sure to document with pictures all of your work.
The thing that you should keep to be successful is staying creative, having an artistic eye. You can always keep up with what’s new and in style by reading different decor magazines.
Getting Known & Marketing Your Portfolio
Go to your PC, upload and edit the pictures and put them together in form of nice flier . Finding software for this is really easy and free online, use Google.
Be very sure to keep all of your pictures so that you can put together a nice portfolio of your work. Remember you are making art and should always have a way to show potential customers what you can do. Within your portfolio you can have sample plans of some of your work, drawn out along with your “professional” pictures. All of this can be put together pretty inexpensively at your local print shop, just save everything on a desk or flash drive.
Marketing, how can you sell your service?
1.) Go to your local wealthy neighborhoods and put your fliers in their mailboxes. 2.) Buy a mailing list NOT an email list, don’t even try to do spam business. There are mailing list that are connected directly to the post office. These lists are organized by income and by zip codes. There are websites where you can get these lists, Google it!
3.) Don’t be shy to contact contractors companies and offer your services to them, they can even market your services with theirs and you pay them a certain percentage of each referral you get from them or even you can set up a yearly fee.
4.) Put adds in local newspapers and free online adds like Craigslist in your area. 5.) Visit your local nurseries and show them your portfolio, offer them a handsome percentage from each project they refer to you.
6.) Developing and maintaining good relationships with your customers, potential and otherwise is very beneficial and necessary. They will always need you to help them upgrade or maintain what work you have already done, or may just pass your name along because you spoke with them and offered good service.
7.) Coming up with quarterly newsletters can help a lot, just sending them out to your clients, would be clients and local nurseries is a great way to promote your business.
8.) Offering incentives such as free services in exchange for referrals or deep discounts on the first visit to new customers can help to boost your services as well.
9.) Include free estimates and consultations.
Of course the beginning is not easy and any business has some hard work that needs to be put into it but once you get the first projects going and people see your work in real life time your phone will start ringing.
Tags: backyard design, Business Ideas, business opportunity, exterior decorating, gardening, How to Start a Business, landscaping and design, planting
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