Trellis Coaching - Trellis News Garden Design Newsletter & Attraction Marketing Coaching

Trellis News
The newsletter for Garden Designers

This month's edition features some more of your letters (please do keep sending them in, they are much appreciated by your fellow designers), an opportunity to be on TV, step one towards achieving success effortlessly, and finally an appeal for your assistance....

Spread the word! If you like this newsletter, then please share it with your friends and colleagues, and invite them to subscribe by sending emailing me, .Welcome to Trellis News, the ezine that aims to help you expand your community and your business.

Letters Page -
Your opportunity to have your say, to ask questions, look for resources.
Chris Young offered the following thoughts:
The linked issues raised by the 'disheartened designer' (Trellis News, June 2003) and Adam Bailey's response (Trellis News, July/August 2003) show that the garden design world is at an incredibly exciting and challenging time - especially for the people who are trying to make it their profession.

I have every sympathy with the disheartened designer who is finding competition from the builders and the GP down the road frustrating and challenging; but here is a pure case for survival of the fittest. I do not mean this unsympathetically, but without doubt, potential clients should be able to EASILY and IMMEDIATELY see the difference in service, quality, knowledge and professionalism between him/her and unqualified designers. If such designers are finding themselves up against local outfits such as this, then the designer must expand the potential client catchment base, increase his/her advertising source and actively market his/her justified case for value for money.

Confidence is also an essential trait - a qualified designer should feel confident in charging professional rates. You have learnt it, you know it, you are able to undertake it - so why shouldn't you charge it? Obviously some contracts will be lost, but others - the type that most qualified designers want to work on - will eventually come through. There is no doubt that the current mass influx of those undertaking garden design (in its widest sense) will create a very real challenge for those that want to make it their living. However, if the standard of work is good enough and the self-belief in existence, those who know their business have as good a chance as anyone else.

(Editor's Note: Thanks for this, Chris, and two thoughts spring to mind:-

1. In any marketplace, as more and more people/businesses start to compete in that market, so the need increases for those businesses to be distinct and different from one another. So when Henry Ford was mass-producing cars in any colour as long as it was black, the way for the next entrant (Chevrolet, I think?) to break into that market was to produce a car that could be bought in a range of colours with additional features, and at a higher price. Customers were prepared to pay extra to own something a little bit different. Over the years the market has developed so that now customers have a huge choice of cars and can select based on the style and features that matter to them - some buy on price and economy, some on safety, some on style and some on exclusivity, to name but a few factors.

So what makes you and your business different from all the other designers and landscaping firms out there? Could you write down, or better still, have already got, a list of those factors? Do you know who those factors appeal to, so that you can target your marketing in the most productive areas?

If you haven't got that list, I'ld encourage you to spend some time deciding how you are going to stand out from the crowd.

2. I agree that confidence makes a huge difference to your ultimate success, especially when it shows up as a true belief in your own abilities. However, many people unwittingly hold beliefs about themselves and how the world works that block them from really believing that they can succeed. The good news is that this situation can be changed - for those not blessed with stacks of inner confidence it is possible to build this up, like building a muscle. What would be the first step for you to take to flex that confidence muscle?

Last month, I asked for your opinion on the value to your business of having and maintaining a presence on the Internet, whether as a webpage or as a listing on directories.

Ross Moyse responded:
We have had a website - www.art-scape.co.uk - for nearly three years. In that time we have had about 30 enquiries and approximately half of those came from directory listings, one of which is www.gardendesign.com. Of these enquiries about five we converted into designs and of the five about three were converted into projects. All three were creative and sizeable projects, one of which won a BALI award last year. Although I do not consider the number of enquiries or the conversion into projects high, the cost to set up the website was relatively low and its main purpose was to use it like a brochure/portfolio for all enquiries. The work gained from it is a bonus. One tip though is to give some idea of charges. If I had done this in the beginning it would have reduced my number of enquiries by at least half, saving me time from dealing with 'waste of timers'.

Following on from Ross' comment, what do you think about websites being open about the costs of projects featured there (with the client's consent, of course) - would it raise general awareness of the prices clients can expect to pay? If you don't mention prices on your site or in your brochure, why not? Your comments on this or any other topic of potential interest to your colleagues in the design and landscape world would be appreciated - please send them to for publication in the October edition of Trellis News.

Making Life Effortless - Part Two
The drive to Portugal and back was a once in a lifetime experience, 1600 miles in each direction in this August's heatwave! But we achieved our objectives of getting there and back safely, delivering the caravan there for future use, and finding a suitable builder to start the house restoration work this autumn.

Our trip is a great illustration to show you how to start to making your life effortless, so that opportunities and success come to you, rather than you having to struggle to achieve them.

I could choose to tell you about how awful the trip was - sitting for twelve hours each day in a car without air conditioning, sweating from every inch of our bodies in the 40 degree temperature, unable to talk with anyone else because of the white noise created by having to have all the windows open - and who'd have wanted to talk with my two teenage children in the back, who knew this was the most tedious time of their entire lives, or to my husband who'd lost his voice and was feeling intensely irritated by having to whisper hoarsely each time he wanted me to check if it was OK for him to pull out to overtake? I could moan on about having to sleep in a stifling airless caravan plagued by mosquitoes and having to put up with being woken up every half an hour through the night by lorries and tankers parking up or setting off from the overnight stops we stayed in. Or the 5 trips to the Portugese hospital to have treatment for the very rare but dangerous spider bite I got, which meant I wasn't allowed on the beach or to get any sun on my ankle ........

But what would it do for me if I did that? Have you noticed how when people are telling you tales of their lives, they'll tell you how awful something was, what a nightmare, etc - and as they're talking, their bodies are reacting to their words, sending out streams of adrenaline and other stress inducing chemicals, so they then begin to relive how awful it was, how nightmarish etc. Whereas if we treat events as situations that we can choose how we respond to, it puts us in control again, and we can remain calm and unstressed. I used the drive down to Portugal as a great opportunity to daydream about how I wanted my future to be, it allowed me some of the quiet time for reflection that I normally have to structure into my daily life. I got the opportunity to not have to build interminable sandcastles but to sit in a shady cafe with a good novel. It's about having a positive attitude on life, and about looking for the opportunity to learn from the situations that life sends (although even I had to admire my friend who, when their house burnt down, declared that they'd been meaning to have a good sort out for ages, and this had done it for them!).

So thinking about your professional lives, what are the circumstances that leave you frustrated and fuming? Maybe when clients won't settle their bills, or suppliers let you down, or it's raining for the umpteenth day. These are all situations that can happen, and you can choose how you want to view them, as dramas, or as an opportunity to learn how to do things differently another time. Those people that have, or learn to develop this attitude spend much less effort coping with what life sends them, leaving them with far more energy to expend on the areas of their business that they want to.

The first step is to notice whether you're a 'glass half-full or half-empty' person, and if you're the latter, to deliberately stop and think about what you can learn from the frustrating incidents, and to imagine what it would be like to be able to view them differently, without the drama. This links back to Chris Young's letter, where he has pointed out some of the opportunities for learning, change and thus growth that are present in the frustrations expressed by 'the disheartened designer'.

As you succeed in growing your positive outlook, so you'll have taken step one towards effortless success.

Best Wishes

Annie Meachem, ACC

Trellis Coaching
0845 456 9382
+44 (0) 1243 545010 (from outside UK)
email

"I help designers and entrepreneurs grow their success - who do you know who's serious about being effortlessly successful, and is willing to invest in themselves to achieve their dreams?"

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Copyright © Annie Meachem 2003/4. Copyright in this document is owned by Annie Meachem. All rights are reserved. This document may not be copied or distributed without the prior written consent of the Copyright owner.