10 Apr Working with Landscape Lighting Design Builders – 4 Tips for Clients for Successful Collaboration
By Mike Gambino
Every experienced and successful custom Landscape lighting design builder has most probably crossed paths with I know it all type of clients. Working with Landscape lighting pro’s is not like managing an employee. As professionals, we don’t like clients who micromanage our team; clients who think they could do the work better than whoever they hired and end up wondering why they hired them at all in the first place (although the Custom design builders work is superb).
This article is for such clients – to help them understand what their attitude and mindset should be, if they want to have a successful and fruitful working relationship with a professional landscape lighting design builder.
Giving sufficient preliminary information is the first step to successful collaboration.
Many clients keep the project details in secrecy and reveal important and needed information only after signing a contract. Such clients are more likely to hire unprofessional or the very least, inexperienced practitioners whose quality of work is questionable and often fail to deliver on time. Every experienced landscape lighting design builder would ask questions in advance and stand by their principals – they would never sign a contract before having the full picture.
Dear clients, to make sure you hire the right custom landscape lighting design builder for your project, make sure you give all the needed preliminary information, provided details in advance can make or break your project’s success.
You, being the client, have the answers to all questions which design Builders may ask you. They don’t ask out of curiosity. They ask to better understand your preferences and needs, their role in your project, your requirements and timeline and everything else which matters to give you an accurate price quote.
Asking and addressing all questions is the only way to fine-tune your expectations – who should do what, when and within what budget. Remember, knowing what you want and conveying it effectively is the first step to finding the right custom landscape lighting design builder for your project.
When working with custom landscape lighting design builders, give them their space
If you have conducted your interviews and have chosen the right candidate for your project give them their space and let them do their job.
Control, progress reports, directions, feedback, critique and praise are an indispensable part of your successful collaboration. But don’t breathe down your design builders neck all the time, micromanaging every single step they make. Successful custom landscape lighting design builders avoid working with I know it all type of clients.
If you have done your due diligence properly, the design builder you hired is a professional. You hired them because of their skills and experience. Let them do their job so that they can complete the project on time, within budget and with the agreed quality.
For successful collaboration with a design builder, make sure you give them your feedback promptly.
Unlike micromanagers, some clients hire a design builder and then forget about or do not follow the progress of the project. When a question arises or feedback is needed, those clients disappear and can’t be found and the design builder cannot proceed with their work. Don’t be that client!
As a client, it’s your responsibility to give feedback and answer ongoing questions. If you don’t give them feedback when needed, your design builder can’t be sure if they are working in the right direction; if they met your requirements; if brightness levels are to your satisfaction and such.
The lack of feedback or even only delaying it leads to delays in your project as well. Furthermore, it demonstrates lack of respect to your design builders efforts and time.
The quality of your feedback is important, too. comments like “uhm, I don’t know what the problem is but I don’t like it!” Such feedback doesn’t give any information to your design builder.
For the sake of your project’s success, you as a client must give your reasons what you don’t like and why. In the course of discussions with the design builder, together you can even reach a decision how that something should be changed to fit your needs. So, if you want to complete the project successfully and keep the design builder dedicated to the project, make some time to provide them with quality and prompt feedback.
When working with design builders, it’s paramount to keep your end of the deal.
Making good on your word and sticking to the terms of your contract is a rule both design builders and clients should comply with. However, I am including it as a tip for clients when working with design builders for a reason. I notice a tendency in clients to expect more than they have asked for, without price adjustment.
When you hire a design builder and have agreed upon a certain scope of work for a certain amount of fixtures included. Do not expect a design builder to pay for extra fixtures that may be needed because you’d like to see more light spread and in your logic “the professional should have known therefore I should not be required to pay”. The fact of the matter is that not every client or project is the same and the design builder does not have a crystal ball. What may be too much light to one client is not nearly enough for another. A professional design builder draws on his or her own experiences based upon what they feel will look the best. This may or may not align with clients perceptions. Landscape Lighting is not a cut and dried exact science. Sometimes, albeit on rare occasion, additional materials and labor will be needed to complete a project to the client’s satisfaction or they may want to increase the scope of the project based upon what they see during the progress of work . Client’s should have a contingency in the budget to cover this scenario.
Pay bills on time and within the parameters as outlined in the agreement.
Honor your agreement or you risk being labeled as a bad client and nobody would ever want to work with you.
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 20 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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