28 Nov CHARGING FOR LANDSCAPE LIGHTING PROPOSALS SAVES CLIENTS $$$
By Mike Gambino
Many Landscape Lighting Design Build contractors waste their time by running around giving out free estimates to what appears to be qualified and motivated prospects who turn out to never intend on hiring them. This practice increases the cost of a project because someone has to pay for that wasted time. If a Design Build contractor doesn’t provide a level of screening prospects, then they will end up running all over creation, spinning their wheels, increasing their costs or working for unqualified clients on unprofitable projects.
Working for the wrong clients on projects that don’t produce desired results, neither for both property owner and professional service providers, serves no one’s purpose.
It is our goal to Design and install landscape lighting systems for the best clients who are appreciative of our work which will give them the best value for their dollar and the most profit for our efforts.
The solution, we found long ago, to breaking this cycle of chasing prospects who would not or could not purchase starts with properly pre-qualifying those who contact us.
To cut to the chase, and in the best spirit of respect for everyone’s time, we found the best way to pre-qualify potential clients is to have them first fill out our design inquiry form to gain insight and ultimately charge them a very modest initial Design Consultation Fee to meet on their site. A fee which is waived upon immediate acceptance of work (see below) at this meeting. This meeting is to find out specifically what it will entail and cost for the landscape lighting project they want to have done. On occasion this policy turns off or angers some of the people who contact us requesting a meeting. So be It.
Frankly, If they aren’t willing to pay a one hundred dollar or so fee for this information including our costs to travel to meet with them, then they aren’t a good fit for our business and I can only conclude they are a very low probability prospect that will not pay the thousands it costs for one of our custom lighting systems. Of course this is not to say they are bad people. Just not good prospects for one of our lighting systems. Stay tuned next week when we describe what happens during an on-site design consultation with Gambino landscape Lighting.
This landscape lighting blog is published by Mike Gambino of Gambino landscape lighting inc. all rights reserved. 
Mike is a professional landscape lighting system designer/ builder and has been designing, installing and maintaining landscape lighting systems for more than 29 years. Mike resides in the Los Angeles area with his wife and 2 sons. To visit his website go to www.Gambinolighting.com . To inquire about hiring Mike please click here .
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