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• PRO

  Phil Voice June 13, 2008 at 9:02am

  I notice that we do not have any comparisons to Susan's figures as yet - I would be interested to hear from other landscapers what current budgets are running at.
  
  Probably more importantly, what is the best gross margin that is being achieved?
  
  We have touched upon waste removal and fuel costs and also patio base specifications but as yet not any real in-depth input on labour costs as a ratio or percentage of a build.
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  Susan June 13, 2008 at 4:26pm

  Current one will be around £32,000.
• PRO

  Phil Voice June 13, 2008 at 4:30pm

  Any idea Susan what the percentage labour costs of the 32K will be?
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  Susan June 13, 2008 at 4:34pm

  It should be about a quarter...
  
  Our material costs have been way too high at 40-50% between Nov07and March 08....having a serious look at the figures at the moment.
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  Nicky @ GardenImprovements.com December 19, 2008 at 2:02pm

  You'll be pleased to know then Susan that we aint (yet) in direct competition then!! Our budgets have been consistently £5-15K - thats design and build and planting up! To be honest i have probably been underselling a little in order to build a decent portfolio and when things have gone belly up on jobs it has been tremendously costly - our materials often come in around 60% leaving very little margin! On some of the bigger budget projects we have done the budget itself has spread pretty thinly for the size of the area of work.
  
  Having said that though i've yet to be offered a budget in the over £15K bracket at all but i'm sure this will come in time - or is this something you have specifically marketed for? I have the impression that once you get one contract you generate word-of-mouth enquiries from this from clients with similar wallet sizes?
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  Susan December 19, 2008 at 4:17pm

  Its all changing now with the economic situation, and though we have two £25+ jobs that will keep us going till march, we have been doing a lot of smaller ones in between -and its work we would have turned down in the past. We are kitted up for big jobs, but often the smaller ones are less risky as less can go wrong. I will be interested to see what spring brings in in terms of new enquiries, its been a lot lot quieter than last year and the year before. I am beginning to realise that its practically a labour of love this industry if you want to produce high quality work and I am not sure its a route to getting wealthy! Hmmm, lets see...
  
  Nicky Patterson said:

  You'll be pleased to know then Susan that we aint (yet) in direct competition then!! Our budgets have been consistently £5-1 spring brings in termed to see what5K - thats design and build and planting up! To be honest i have probably been underselling a little in order to build a decent portfolio and when things have gone belly up on jobs it has been tremendously costly - our materials often come in around 60% leaving very little margin! On some of the bigger budget projects we have done the budget itself has spread pretty thinly for the size of the area of work.
  
  Having said that though i've yet to be offered a budget in the over £15K bracket at all but i'm sure this will come in time - or is this something you have specifically marketed for? I have the impression that once you get one contract you generate word-of-mouth enquiries from this from clients with similar wallet sizes?
• PRO

  Phil Voice December 21, 2011 at 9:16am

  Are clients spending the same amount of money now as they were in 2008?

  What's been the biggest change you've seen?

  How is your sales pipeline for 2012?
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  duncan ross December 21, 2011 at 5:02pm

  Some really impressive detailed work photos on your page Susan, well done. We are Notts/East Midlands based for 20 years, & while I have not been as actively touting for business this last year, your budgets far exceed what is being spent in this region. The more affluent areas of Notts have high house prices in relation to earnings & the money is simply not there. Last few jobs were approx. £4k, £6k, £2.5k, 8.5k, 2k & 14k & we are not one of the cheap guys. Obviously these were part landscape works, couple of drives, sets of driveway gates, but this is the nature of the work currently available. May our blessings be answered next year. Have a good new year yourselves.

  Regards

  Duncan Ross

  www.gardendesignco.com
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  duncan ross December 21, 2011 at 5:12pm

  Clients are not spending any where near what they did in 2008, bearing in mind that cost of materials have rocketed since then. The main reason I can finger is that the remortgage industry is dead, which was the means for the average working family to be able to invest in big spend projects. You have to have a lot of equity in order to do this & high house prices prevents this as people max out their mortgage. Realisticly, how many people have over £10k plus cash to invest in a good landscape scheme at the moment & if £5k doesn't get you a lot of product (which it doesn't), you can see why customers are shelving their  big plans. I do not know the answer to this either, which worries me.
   
  Phil Voice said:

  Are clients spending the same amount of money now as they were in 2008?

  What's been the biggest change you've seen?

  How is your sales pipeline for 2012?
• PRO

  Stuart @ Eco Garden Maintenance December 21, 2011 at 5:50pm

  Materials prices just seem to go one way and that is up.