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Pushing The Boundaries!

Hi allAs you can see from my Profile Information, I offer Garden Design/Landscaping services to mainly domestic clients in and around Kingston Upon Hull (Hull/Ull - local pronounciation!).Although Hull has a very poor image to those who have not been/lived there, it has a beautiful city centre full of Medieval, Georgian and Victorian buildings, lots of open space, a continental/scandinavian feel and the people are very friendly/funny/entrepreneurial.Unfortunately for Hull, its political boundaries are in the wrong place and its affluent suburbs to the west/north west have been gobled up by the East Riding Of Yorkshire.These suburbs are mainly where I ply my trade as they are very 'leafy' and full of large executive homes for the company directors of Hull's many companies (and the country's 27th richest person!).However, I now feel that I should be pushing the boundaries of where I operate and start to offer a DESIGN ONLY service to clients further afield such as York, Leeds, Harroate and Lincoln etc.I have no problem with local knowledge of these areas as I studied in York and worked for some years in both Leeds and Bradford and have a good idea where the affluent areas are.I was wondering, as fellow Landscape professionals, on what radius from base the majority of you are comfortable with and how you have gone about infiltrating 'alien' markets, how you have handled the logistics of remote working and what success you have had?

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  • Hi David,

    Mrs B's family are from Hull and Leeds so she has many happy memories of both. Have only been to Hull once (and for a funeral) but we went through some picturesque villages about 15 minutes outside of the centre with beautiful and interesting gardens. Have spent time in York, Leeds and Harrogate.

    My foray into remote working was somewhat forced on me. My business was grown in central and suburban Manchester, but then I met Mrs B who lives about 45 minutes outside of Manchester. Needless to say that's where I live now. Therefore the majority of my business remains in Manchester but as people have got to know me in the area I also now have clients further afield. Most of these have come through personal recommendations and are dispersed across Wigan, the surrounding villages heading out towards Southport and to the south in Sandbach, Cheshire.

    Logistically I group jobs together trying to get full days in particular areas to avoid the excessive mileage. I have also developed relationships with local suppliers which did take a bit of research and effort - personal visits always work best for me. I also tend to go and look at the remote jobs at the weekend to avoid eating into my 'paid days'. However, my focus is on hard and soft landscaping (not design or maintenance) therefore I always need to see the job first and, of course, that's a 'free' visit. Not sure whether you need to do the same in design or whether you charge for all visits. If your first visit is free then you need to be mindful of the travel costs including time.

    I am now considering whether I should target any of these areas specifically. Before deciding to do so I need to do some research into the competition which is on my ever growing 'to do' list. The village communities are probably going to be the easiest to penetrate as personal recommendations and local advertising (shop windows, village hall etc.) are cheap and effective.

    I'm assuming that you've created your business plan and are clear on your objectives for moving further afield.

    Good luck!

    Donny
  • Hi Donny

    Thanks for your reply.

    I to have thought of doing the remote site visits on 'non-school days', especially if there is a few I can cover the same day. I do not charge out for my initial site visit/consultation (should I fellow designers?) for local visits within a certain radius in East Yorkshire as I believe it would put quite a lot of potential customers off!

    However, I have the following clause within my extensive terms and conditions:

    "INITIAL DESIGN CONSULTATION

    This meeting usually lasts around 1 hour, and is best if carried out on site during day light hours and gives the Designer the opportunity to gauge the scale of the project, observe the architecture of the property, witness the personal interior design taste of the Client and listen to their ‘needs’ and wants for the outside space.. DBGDC do not charge a fee for the Initial Design Consultation* During this meeting the Designer would provide you with an abundance of ideas for how you could develop your site, and would also provide you with an opportunity to review DBGDC’s portfolio of work. This allows the Client opportunity to examine other gardens undertaken by DBGDC and will show you before & after pictures of projects completed, together with an array of Plan Drawings/3D Images to show how work can be visualised ahead of the construction stage.

    *Local appointments only, for appointments 10 miles plus radius from HU10 6SN, DBGDC charge a nominal fee of £XX* for this consultation, which is fully refundable off any further design work commissioned, also additional travel time/expenses may be charged to the Client".


    The radius for "non charging" is reasonably small because if you travel 3 miles south from my base you have the River Humber and have to pay £2.70 toll each way across the Humber Bridge, head 20 miles East and you reach the North Sea!

    My main thrust with this posting is cheap/free marketing in the remote towns mentioned. I have Google Maps Local Business listings for Hull & Bradford and also an entry on FreeIndex, do you know of any others I might try?

    Right, back to the drawing board now. I am currently working on a 3D drawing (using sketchup) for a garden design I have already presented to (and got the nod from) the client. The already presented design was a photoshop enhanced autocad produced design demonstrated on the clients laptop as a PDF file. A "work in progress" image is attached for anyone whos' interested!

    David

    P.S. Where in Hull does Mrs. B's relatives live?

    Donny Bryan said:
    Hi David,

    Mrs B's family are from Hull and Leeds so she has many happy memories of both. Have only been to Hull once (and for a funeral) but we went through some picturesque villages about 15 minutes outside of the centre with beautiful and interesting gardens. Have spent time in York, Leeds and Harrogate.

    My foray into remote working was somewhat forced on me. My business was grown in central and suburban Manchester, but then I met Mrs B who lives about 45 minutes outside of Manchester. Needless to say that's where I live now. Therefore the majority of my business remains in Manchester but as people have got to know me in the area I also now have clients further afield. Most of these have come through personal recommendations and are dispersed across Wigan, the surrounding villages heading out towards Southport and to the south in Sandbach, Cheshire.

    Logistically I group jobs together trying to get full days in particular areas to avoid the excessive mileage. I have also developed relationships with local suppliers which did take a bit of research and effort - personal visits always work best for me. I also tend to go and look at the remote jobs at the weekend to avoid eating into my 'paid days'. However, my focus is on hard and soft landscaping (not design or maintenance) therefore I always need to see the job first and, of course, that's a 'free' visit. Not sure whether you need to do the same in design or whether you charge for all visits. If your first visit is free then you need to be mindful of the travel costs including time.

    I am now considering whether I should target any of these areas specifically. Before deciding to do so I need to do some research into the competition which is on my ever growing 'to do' list. The village communities are probably going to be the easiest to penetrate as personal recommendations and local advertising (shop windows, village hall etc.) are cheap and effective.

    I'm assuming that you've created your business plan and are clear on your objectives for moving further afield.

    Good luck!

    Donny
  • Hi David,

    From my little knowledge of people in london in the profession - they are normally based on the inner city/semi suburbs and work about 2 thirds of either side plus Central London.

    I think beyond 2 hours travel time and they avoid the job if they can.

    I also liked your work in progress - is that the sketchup file? i didnt think sketchup had a garden section for trees and things
  • Hi Michael

    Wow up to 2 hrs travel time each way! On that basis I should be covering Newcastle to the North, Liverpool to the West, The Midlands to the South an er some sandbank/gas platform to the East.

    To be honest, I think everyone would agree that London is a 'different kettle of fish' with hundreds of designers, landscapers and suppliers charging what they can get away with. Of what I have observed, unless you live in a footballers etc. mansion in Surrey, the average London Garden (if your lucky enough to have one) is the literal 'outside room', warmed by 'urban heat island' effect and very overlooked by your 'packed in' neighbours. Thus Clients are probably a lot more eager to spend their money on top spec. contemporary hard landscape materials (especially boundary treatments), tender sub-tropical plants and the 'instant screening' provided by large specimen plants as they are always focused on the space through their powder coated aluminium bi-fold doors!

    I would say that gardens in East Yorks. and Lincolnshire are probably quite large based on the UK average and, although clients' up here allocate decent budgets for their design/landscaping, the overall spec. has to be lower to cover the larger areas involved. Saying that though, Landscapers based near Hull do have a great range of landscape materials at hand due to the docks importing timber, paving from India/China and plants from Holland etc. This coupled with a cheap labour force means that I can still produce striking contemporary designs with the foresite that they can be built to budget.

    With regards to Sketchup, if you click window>components>vegetation there are readily usable 2D and 3D plants to insert into your model. If you need more you can download them from the Google Sketchup site or from Google's 3D warehouse site.

    David

    Michael Parmar said:
    Hi David,
    From my little knowledge of people in london in the profession - they are normally based on the inner city/semi suburbs and work about 2 thirds of either side plus Central London.
    I think beyond 2 hours travel time and they avoid the job if they can.

    I also liked your work in progress - is that the sketchup file? i didnt think sketchup had a garden section for trees and things
This reply was deleted.

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