Get Paid for Design

Which would you rather do, plow snow in the cold, hang Christmas lights in winter, or design landscapes in a warm studio?

Instead of worrying about how cold and miserable it is outside, or running out to do Christmas lights, what if you GOT PAID FOR DESIGN?

How do you package your company?
How do you wrap up your company for Christmas? Do you wrap it in a grocery bag by offering free designs? Or do you make it a beautiful package with beautiful ribbon, by making your design work something worth paying for? When you give your design work away for free, it’s like you’ve packaged your company in a grocery bag. By charging the customer for the value of your design time and efforts, you’re giving them a fancy package. The process of designing the landscape is like the fun of unwrapping a wonderful gift; and inside is the finished landscape project.

Do you want to spend your winter plowing entryways or designing them?

As marketers, we should always be packaging ourselves, but in a way that’s consistent with what we do. The old axiom “You get what you pay for” rings true for most people. A package that says “free design” tells people we didn’t spend much effort. If the opposite is true and you do spend precious time and effort designing a customer’s landscape, then you need to charge for it and package that properly.

We see the design process as one where the landscape contractor and the customer have fun designing a landscape together. Why give that away for free? This is the best part of the whole process, so we want to use the mutual design time as one where we can educate and enlighten our customers, and let them dream. Our job is to understand their dreams and make it happen for them. In our “Process,” the clients see their dreams come to life as the landscape project unfolds. That’s packaging our services!

Why does our industry forget that the design part is the most fun part of the Design Build process for the client? Because we start selling the products and giving the design part away for free.

How do I package my Design Build company for Christmas?
You might be wondering, do I wrap myself up to be free, or do I package myself as something of value? Things of great value are not handed out for free. Customers inherently understand that. The fact that you value yourself creates a mystique in the client’s mind. The industry doesn’t do this for us; we do it.

Think of yourself as a reservoir with a dam at one end, from which you release your value to each client. The value you bring is the time, effort and skills you have to design and build a landscape. If people can empty your reservoir for free, there is no value to what you have. If you only open your reservoir to clients who pay, you’re not wasting your time or efforts on clients who don’t value your services.

You know it’s true that people understand the inherent value of products and services. When those things are given away for free, most people become suspicious or start to look at that product or service as not having much value at all. They expect to pay for expertise. When it’s given away like a present in a grocery bag, most people will think it has less value.

Do you want to install Christmas lights or design lighting projects?

We want every project to blow our own minds
The reason we do ho-hum work is because we get off track, or off of our “Process.” The reason we get off track is because we aren’t realizing our own value and expertise. We’re afraid to stick with our own set of beliefs because we think we might upset the client, and lose work. So we change how we meet with them, when we meet, where we meet. We are just too nice and too accommodating.

At Kinman Institute, we believe everything we do revolves around an understanding this psychology concept — everything! Having a firm grasp of strong communication and psychology skills will actually give you the code to unlock the project of your dreams.
In some cases, you will leave the client, but that client likely was never going to become a paying client anyway. This will be a step in your business process that starts transforming your operation, and insulates you from being used.

We get paid when we become the professional
Once we become the professional, not the peddler, we get paid for our knowledge, experience, and skills. This is the key to understanding success. Now, we are not relying on selling product to sustain our business. We are creating an insatiable demand for our expertise, not the product.

Are Christmas lights consistent with this thinking?
Some folks in this industry have turned to installing Christmas lighting this time of year. That’s an option, but we don’t take it. We don’t need to sell the lighting products; we get paid for the designing of the lighting project, whether it’s for Christmas or it’s dramatic, permanent landscape lighting. We don’t want to rely on a sales call to sell anything. Instead, we’d rather rely on our reputation and work to sell our expertise.

It is like being a lawyer or doctor or any other professional. Be consistent, charge for your expertise (even in Christmas and landscape lighting), and you will be surprised at the reaction people have when you are not gung-ho to run out and do free consulting or free designing. . . it just creates demand!