20 May 5 Things All Landscape Lighting System Designer Builders Wish For
By Mike Gambino
As Landscape Lighting Designer Builders, we all pretty much want the same things. In short, we want to be rewarded for our individual creativity, and make a decent living creating the lighting portraits that we enjoy creating.
Getting more specific, I’ve broken this down into 5 distinctly different wants:
1) We want to work with people who appreciate our unique style and approach to Landscape Lighting.
2) We want clients who will refer us to others.
3) We want our projects to be fu and the clients we work for pleasant and easy to work with.
4) We don’t want to be evaluated solely on price.
5) We want fewer assignments, but higher quality + higher paying projects.
Having all 5 of these sounds like a dream situation, right? Getting any one of these sounds like a very complicated task. But the truth is, the answer comes down to one very simple thing…
Not accepting every project that comes our way.
In other words, to be selective about the assignments we take, and the clients we work with. You may think that this sounds great in theory, but it can’t possibly work. It just isn’t realistic. Any paying gig is better than nothing, right? If we feel this way, then we probably want to look at the way we’re marketing ourselves because we’re not attracting the kinds of clients that we really should be working with. Here’s how being selective will help us get what we want.
1) We want to work with people who appreciate our unique style and approach to Landscape Lighting.
Our personality and style should be obvious on our website. If the wrong people keep contacting , then we should take a good hard look at what our marketing messages are saying about us.
The first place to start is our website. Is our passion obvious to everyone? What’s our specialty? What kinds of properties and clients do we prefer to work with? If we don’t make this clear, we’re making it harder for people with shared interests/values to clue in on our uniqueness.
By screening prospective clients, we can find out if they’re excited about our personal vision and the chance to work with someone who is passionate about what they do, or if they think landscape lighting designer builder specialists are no better than their gardener , landscaper of electrician.
When working for someone who doesn’t appreciate our uniqueness, we can’t be working for someone who does. They eat up our time and they burn us out. Don’t accept jobs from these kind of people.
2) We want clients who will refer us to others.
we should aim to work with clients who will enthusiastically refer to other people in their circle — people who most-likely have similar tastes and interests. If we follow the advice in #1, this should be easy. But how do we figure out if they are the word-of-mouth types?
By sensing a working chemistry. It’s so important to us that we feel like we must really connect with each of our clients, which is why we actually don’t take every project that comes to us. Only if we really feel like we will be the very best fit for them and their project will we agree to work with them on their project.
3) We want our job to be fun.
Don’t light anything we don’t genuinely want to illuminate. If our days are filled with doing something we’d rather not be doing, then our career is a job and is going to get old real quick. But if we’re lighting something that genuinely interests us, not only do we feel great, but the people around us will pick up on this too.
Having fun is contagious. If you’re having fun while you’re lighting, more people will want to work with you. The more fun we have, the more fun we’ll continue to have, and the more referrals we’ll get.
4) We don’t want to be evaluated solely on price.
Don’t lower our prices because we think clients can’t afford you. Designer builders are always second-guessing themselves, and lowering their prices just because they think that clients may not be able to afford it. This is crazy.
Don’t accept jobs from people who don’t realize our worth.
5) We want fewer assignments, but higher quality + higher paying.
There is a common misconception that if you charge less, you’ll get more work, and that this is a good thing. Although it’s true that lowering prices may increase demand for our services, it’s not necessarily a good thing. Attracting the wrong type of clients (people who are cheap and/or don’t see our value) isn’t healthy for our business or our mental health in the long run.
By being careful to attract the right kind of client, we can justify a higher rate, and therefore, work less for the same amount of money.
Of course these 5 things are not always achievable however they should be the goal of all Landscape Lighting designer builders who want to remain viable in the marketplace, enjoy doing business with a whole lot less stress.
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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