Landscaping Business – How to Start a Landscaping Business?

Introduction

Landscaping is a business that is growing more and more, so it is a good idea to set up your own. More and more people are requesting these services. However, others still confuse it with gardening, and it is essential to study to distinguish them.

On the one hand, landscaping is the planning and design of green areas in outdoor spaces and encompasses everything we see in both rural and urban outdoor landscapes (houses, buildings, shops, open spaces, etc.). But on the other hand, natural and artificial elements are used to build them.

Knowing this, you will understand that landscaping is a business mainly based on aesthetics, which is why it is considered a luxury. However, this can be a huge advantage since the clients who hire these services are people who can afford them.

How to Start a Landscaping Business?

1. Planning

Before starting, you must do a market study that reflects its behaviour in the geographical area you intend to undertake. It will save you from mistakes, reach your goals faster, and help you determine if it’s feasible to expand your business later.

2. Location

The landscaping business must locate in a place that is easily accessible to your target audience. In general, it works very well in central cities and even near businesses related to this business, such as contractors, decoration stores, DIY, and construction materials.

Note: this decision is closely related to your budget. It is better to pay rent that you can afford without going into debt and improve the location later when the business begins to bear fruit.

3. Structure

Setting up an office for this business is not as complicated as you think. You will only need a meeting room to serve clients (and where the people in charge of the projects also meet), a production area (equipped with tables, chairs, computers, etc.), an administrative office, a reception, a dining area for employees, and restrooms.

The virtual object is not the size of the structure but its functionality. For example, if you don’t already have the budget to rent or buy a space, you can meet clients in restaurants and work production from home.

4. Equipment

Equipment and work supplies depend on what type of business you have. For example, if you only design open spaces, you should get office furniture and computer equipment. However, if you want to construct them, you must include all the material for the work.

5. Staff

Depending on what your company is responsible for, you must include certain professionals in your work team. You can dedicate yourself to landscaping projects or to that plus its execution. That is, you can only plan and design the spaces or, apart from that, build your designs.

In case you decide. First, you must hire expert professionals in the field, but to carry out both activities, you must also have civil construction professionals, masons, and painters, among others.

6. Investment

The amount of investment capital is another variable that depends on the service you will offer, your investment capacity, and what you aspire to earn with your business.

Budgets may differ depending on the magnitude of your business, its location, the size of the company you create, the number of employees you hire, etc.

How to Get Clients for Landscaping Business?

There are usually many competitors in the gardening sector, so getting clients can be demanding. Read on to discover how to get more landscaping clients.

1. Choose the geographical area

The first thing to get clients for a gardening business is to define the geographical area in which you will work.

If you try to cover too large a geographic area, you may not be able to perform your services efficiently.

2. Analyze potential customers

To begin with, you have to decide which clients you want to target since different actions will have to carry out for each type of client.

In this sense, it is crucial to know the different types of clients in gardening to adapt your services and have the opportunity to sell more than the competition.

3. Private

These clients usually request garden design, construction, or maintenance services. Sometimes, they replant the garden of their habitual or second residence. In addition, they can also request indoor gardening services.

• About the services most requested by individuals, we can highlight the following tasks:
• Prepare budgets and offer prices to maintain a garden.
• Install artificial grass (price table to install artificial grass).

4. Collectives

The most typical collective gardening clients are urbanisations, communities of neighbours or owners, shopping centres, schools, residences, etc. Usually, they request continuous maintenance services, so service contracts are typical in these cases.

5. Sport clubs

Like collective customers, gardening customers made up of sports clubs demand continuous maintenance services. In these cases, contracts are also complete guaranteeing a high billing level.

For this type of customer, the lawn mowing service can dye (see lawn mowing prices for communities ) since most neighbourhoods with swimming pools or gardens have green spaces that must maintain.

Differentiate yourself from Competitors

An important factor in getting landscaping clients is knowing how to differentiate yourself.

Generally, in the gardening sector, all companies offer similar services; That is why it is logical to think that the client will go to the lowest price. However, if you are starting in this sector or directly considering setting up a gardening company, choosing a speciality can define the business’s profitability.

·       Interviews with clients

We recommend conducting interviews with customers to offer a better service and differentiate yourself from competitors. With these interviews, you can find out precisely the tastes and opinions of each client.

Once the service surface, we recommend arranging another interview with the client to find out their opinion about the service and see how it could improve.

·       Garden design

Companies specialising in decorating gardens or terraces may miss topics belonging to the gardening field. Therefore, an excellent way to differentiate yourself to get landscaping clients could be to offer landscaping and landscaping services together.

·       Maintenance

As we have indicated previously, clients for gardening (both groups and individuals) usually look for gardening services that also offer maintenance.

Therefore, when you offer your gardening service, let the client know that you are also willing to provide consistent maintenance services to ensure that their garden does not deteriorate.

·       Customer Support

Once you have finished the gardening service, the customer service will begin. If the client has problems after performing the service, you must be fully available to help them solve them.

·       Get recommendations

If there is something essential to getting gardening clients, it is a job well done. If the service offered to the client is of excellent quality and at a reasonable price, this client will recommend your service.

Marketing for Landscaping Business and Gardeners

To publicise a business, you also have to develop a marketing strategy that allows the information to reach a more significant number of likely customers. Here are some actions you can take in your landscaping business.

Physical advertising: brochures, cards, flyers

• To publicise your services and get clients for gardening, you have to invest in advertising. Much of the advertising must be in physical format since it is usually very effective for your target customers.
• From Cronoshare, we recommend you advertise through advertising brochures or business cards. You can leave them in urbanisations or private houses in the area where you are going to work.
• Designs should be very innovative and creative as this is another way to set yourself apart from the competition.
• You must include your services, rates, and contact information in the brochures. In addition, if you have a blog or a site, you should also indicate that in the brochure.
• Another advertising strategy to get more customers can be to create alliances with garden stores. Look around the area you operate in to see if there are any small gardening or decorating stores.
• Many potential customers go to this type of business. You can reach agreements with stores so that they recommend you to their customers or allow you to leave business cards on the counter where you advertise your services.

Online advertising and digital marketing

• The best way to get more landscaping customers is to create a website. In this online channel, you must show your service as something new and innovative.
• It is also essential to be present in most social networks. The most relevant today are Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and Pinterest. Having a profile in them serves to achieve a greater reach and to be able to attract more gardening clients.
• On the other hand, on the website, your blog, and the networks, it is convenient to include images of work that you have already done to show potential clients the qualities of your services.
• Also, every time a customer is delighted, you can ask them to leave a comment on your blog, social networks, or website. It is usually another good claim to attract more customers.
• Another tool you can use to develop your online marketing strategy is advertising in Google Ads.
• Finally, if you are looking for clients who need a gardener, we invite you to sign up for Cronoshare to start getting gardening clients.

Create an online profile in Cronoshare

• From Cronoshare, we support all the self-employed and gardening SMEs looking for new clients daily to run their businesses.
• Signing up for Cronoshare is a straightforward process. You will receive requests from clients seeking services for garden maintenance, tree trimming, palm trimming, clearing plots, and creating new gardens. A whole world of possibilities before you! You can register for free and start testing our system.

Conclusion

This service intends to develop landscaping projects for houses, apartments, farms, gardens, companies, and commercial buildings. The work process designed by a landscaper consists of the elaboration of a project in accompaniment and goes to the touch-ups and evaluation of the final result.