Mike Andes answers a question about presenting landscape projects and using 3D/visual design software. He advises charging clients for 3D designs (either refundable as credit toward the job or non-refundable), warns that large project work often requires expensive, non-billable project managers which reduces profitability, and emphasizes preferring scalable, simple services where lower-skilled labor can be profitable. He gives specific pricing/salary examples (e.g., a $500 non-refundable 3D design and project manager salaries cited at roughly $50k–$100k/year).
Questions this video answers
$500 (example of a non-refundable paid 3D design option)
$50,000–$100,000 per year (cited as example salaries that can consume project profits)
Hey Mike, how do you typically present a landscape project to your client? What does that process look like? We are looking at investing in.
Vistura landscape design software to better sell installation services through a much more visual method. Any recommendations? Okay, so I'm not going to talk about too much about landscape design software because we have not used it a lot at Augusta Lawn Care. We are much more focused on creating a scalable model and, and something that scales is something that's simple, that I can get lower level of laborers to join and get profitable and make more money on P4P quicker and not have to spend 5 years teaching them on excavators and skid steers and track loaders and how to do certain types of trees and a whole bunch of other chaos. So we don't really use landscape design software. That being said, if you really love hardscaping, and this is probably a great way to sell jobs, I would recommend making sure that the customer pays for the design. If they want the 3D beautiful design software layout that you're going to do for them, make them pay and then have that money go towards the project. If they accept, do not sell yourself short and spend hours creating these designs for free. That's ridiculous.
They need to pay what you're worth. And the last thing you want to be doing is spending a whole bunch of overhead and unbillable hours just to get these projects. Because guess what, they a lot of times aren't super profitable unless you are managing them yourself. Because as soon as you get a project manager that's just completely overhead and isn't actually working, that's a big chunk of profit coming out of your jobs. And you better have a lot of jobs to make up for that guy. If he's making 50, 60, $100,000 a year because he's so skilled and experienced, you better make sure you have a lot of jobs filling up the pipeline because he's taking a piece of every single one in the form of non billable hours. So just something to think about. That's again why I'm not a huge fan of projects is because it requires a very skilled person. That's going to cost your company a lot and that person is not usually working. They're just non billable hours. They're just managing. It's expensive. For the price of that one person, you get two or three labors doing weeding and mulching jobs and things like that. Again, just my opinion, if you love landscaping and hardscaping, having software where you can do designs is super cool, great way to sell it. Make sure you charge for it and then have that just credit towards the job. Or just make them buy it up front as an option. Like, hey, I can either just do an estimate for you with a quick sketch for free, or I can do a 3D design for you and it's going to cost $500 and it doesn't get refunded to the job.
