Working with serious Landscape Lighting prospects only

11 Mar Working with serious Landscape Lighting prospects only

By Mike Gambino

Last week’s blog article was about What to expect from a Gambino landscape lighting design consultation .

As a designer, one of the most important skills we must learn is how to qualify our prospective clients. Why? Because if we don’t, we’ll waste our most precious resource that we can never get back – our time. Or even worse – we could end up with a nightmare client who could negatively affect us psychologically and  financially.

Here are the 3 most important things we try to uncover in our first conversation:

1. Means: What is their level of investment? Do they have the means to fund the project? If no, then we must move on. If they’re not sure, then we ask more questions to help them determine what they’re comfortable investing.
2.  Motive: What’s motivating them to complete this project? If there isn’t a strong motivation, there isn’t a project. Move on.
3.  Opportunity: Is it a good mutual fit? Are their expectations and timelines realistic? They may have a big budget and are very motivated, but if it’s not a good fit, we must move on.

We must have all 3 of these confirmed before we agree to the next steps with the prospective client. The very best service business tradespersons I’ve ever known have been laser-focused on qualifying their prospective clients as quickly as possible, because it frees them up to concentrate their efforts on building value with the best clients.

 HOW WE RESPECTFULLY AND GRACEFULLY TURN DOWN A PROSPECT

By asking the right questions, we should know after the first conversation whether they’re an Ideal Client. If we decide that they are not, then we do not agree to meet with them, because it would be a waste of both our time as well as theirs.

What I’ve found is that my happiest clients are the ones who immediately get excited about working together, and if I don’t sense that same level of excitement in their voice they are usually not going to make the best client. It may just be that they need to talk with a few designers to determine what’s important to them. Either way, my suggestion is that they meet first with the designer(s) who really excites them, and see if they connect with them. If at that point they still want to meet with me, I’d love to come out and see their project if all three criteria above are present.

This is  practicing smart business sense by not spending precious time on clients who will never hire us, even if they don’t realize it themselves yet.

But when they do, they’ll likely become good clients.

It is our right and our responsibility to accept clients:

1) With whom we enjoy working with

2) Whose projects are within the scope of our preferred services

3) Who are most likely to hire a professional landscape lighting design/builder specialist.

So the purpose of our initial interaction with a prospective client is to determine whether they are a good fit for us as a client, from a design and monetary perspective.

AVOID BEING SHOPPED!

Today more than ever, property owners are ‘shopping’ landscape lighting designers. What I mean by that is the issue of clients buying products themselves, but the bigger issue of people looking to designers for free advice, or nominal design consultation fee, with no intention of ever hiring them.

The reason why prospects ‘shop’ designers is because designers allow themselves to be shopped by giving their ideas away without commitment from the prospect. I’m not talking about giving  ‘appetizers’ or sample ideas – those are OK in small quantities. But we need to confidently educate our prospect on how the process works: that what they see on TV does not reflect the way designers work in the real world. we’re happy to discuss our portfolio, as well as discuss specifics about the feasibility of what they want to accomplish, but professional landscape lighting designers don’t give away intellectual property without a commitment. Once they hire us, we’ll create their personal design for them.

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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