I live in the Boston area too. A lot of landscape architects don't do residential but if there are a few you are really interested in, I'd call the office if they haven't replied to your email. I don't think zip code has anything to do with it.

Also consider landscape designers. There is a professional group called the APLD, the Association of Professional Landscape Designers. Contact them for local references. There are also many good landscape designers in this area who don't belong to the APLD.

And call The Landscape Institute of the Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University. That was formerly the graduate program in landscape design at Radcliffe. Many of the best landscape designers within 100 miles of Boston are graduates of this program. You can get in touch with them thru the website of the Arnold Arboretum. Tell them you want to get in touch with designers in your area. Ask for the networking group as they would have a list of active practitioners.

Lastly, go to the New England Spring Flower Show in March. A number of local landscape architects and designers do exhibits and have their cards out. Good luck!

I'd also suggest calling the offices - your emails may have gotten sent to a junk folder, or the person may not check their email regularly. Other than that, I don't have any specific suggestions.

I might have a little insight on this. I have received lots of emails from people over the years as a landscape architect. I have landed exactly "0" jobs from people who have initially contacted by email which contrasts to the 90+% that I close on otherwise. I still respond most of the time, but these have been very low quality leads in terms of amounting to getting any work out of them. Many leads were in good areas.

It just seems that so many people find it so easy to use the internet as entertainment and there are so many free things on the internet that they don't realize, or don't care that some things are actually done by humans. It takes time to reply to inquiries. It takes more time and effort to schedule appointments, to drive to locations, to meet people, to discuss projects, and to write up proposals specific to the job. Any lead can easily use up 5 hours between these tasks without any contract or billing. That is 1/8th of a work week. Every bit of that time is taken away from being productive (and billing) somewhere else that you can not make up. The amount of time that goes into doing a landscape plan is quite a lot and most don't have staff that they pass on these tasks to, so they have to either stop working to go through the process, or be very selective of what jobs to respond to.

Most LA design jobs take more than 40 hours to do. Those are often followed up by the management the projects. What that means is that they can only do so many jobs a year. Volume is not something that they strive for. Bigger jobs that take months to design and require project management are what most are looking to do. Some get 20% of the gross cost of the entire job when they manage the project. That is a lot of money and a lot of responsibility. It also means little time to respond to many emails from unknown people.

It is much easier to take someone more seriously when they call and interact. It shows a lot more commitment than a typed out note that is probably cut and pasted to 40 other LAs that same day. Since it takes time and interaction, it is doubtful that you have telephoned many others, so when your call comes in you have that much more credibility. The person receiving the call has to respond to you in some way or other and you to them. In a matter of a few seconds, both parties are so much more ahead than by exchanging notes back and forth.

You are also dealing with people who make their living by charging money to design. A residential landscape budget in , say Billerica, is much more likely to be twenty thousand than 100k. Oddly enough, it does not take a lot less time to design a lower budget landscape. In fact it can take more time because the designer has to continually calculate the cost as the design progresses. In addition, more effort has to be made in saving and recycling existing elements. That requires more precise measuring in the field to design around existing plants. Because the budget is not king size, the liklihood of you hiring the designer for 20% of gross is very low and 20% of $20k might take as much time to manage as say 20% of $100k even if you did want it.

The thing that is often overlooked is that it is not that the value of the job that you offer that is being snubbed, it is the value of what they have to give up to take on your job that keeps them from doing it.

In the end, if you have a strong commitment in terms of effort and money, that effort should be strong enough to make phone calls and knock on doors. Instead, you have followed up a weak commitment of writing emails by writing emails to disinterested parties. Would you think that this makes me or others want to make the effort of calling you, scheduling an appointment, driving to your house, walking and talking an hour with you, driving back to the office, defining the scope of the work, writing a proposal, and mailing it and hope we get the job? That is what we have to do each and everytime we respond to someone.

Would you do all that for a faceless person who does nothing more than type out a message?

Would you find it easier to invset 5 hours of your time to land work that may keep you busy for a few weeks than twenty to thirty hours?

It is not snobbery. It is practicality based on wasting lots of time and learning that most unreffered email is from people who have a very low commitment.

I'm not saying that you fit any of these circumstances, but I am telling you why you are getting no response.

Look into design/build landscapers. Middlesex county is full of some of the best in the country. They'll make their money on the installation and they know that any time they do a design the client is almost always going to keep them for the installation. They will charge you less to design and get you through the process faster because they also want to get to the point of building the job. They won't charge you 20% more to manage themselves either.

There is no point to going out of your way to hire people who really don't want to work for you (whether for good reason or not) when there are those who are both eager and capable.

Well, in that case, I would think the LA could at least have a stock email response. But then, I don't think our (architecture - buildings, not landscape) has gotten many blind emails, if any. We get 90% of our business from repeat customers or direct referrals, fwiw.

(I could say more, but I'm getting called)

Thank you for your responses, I really do appreciate it.

Ginny12, I've been looking specifically for LAs who do residential. I wouldn't dream of contacting some one whose porfolio is chock full of institutional and civic projects. Your ideas about contacting the Arboretum & checking out the flower show are good ones - I will give that a go, though I really hoped to get the process started before March.

Irene and laag: You make an excellent point about phone calls that I hadn't considered. In my industry, phone calls are almost viewed as a nuisance and the preferred method of communication is almost always email. I made the mistake of assuming others see this the same way I and my colleagues do. Tomorrow I'll try to remedy my mistake by calling the two firms I was really hoping to hear back from (FYI, I only contacted four, total.)

Laag: I have a great appreciation for the discipline and don't doubt for a minute that a great deal of time and effort goes into the job. I value that. I want that - a skilled professional dedicated to the job. If I wanted Acme landscaping, I'd pick up the yellow pages and start at the top of the A's.

On the flip side: I've been blown off by more than one landscape company in the past. One was less than a half a mile away from my house, and I had made an appointment for them to come over. The guy never showed up, and never called to say why or reschedule.

The same week, I actually crossed the street to go speak to another contractor who was working on my neighbor's property. We had a nice conversation. I told him I admired the work they were doing and would love to talk to him about doing a similar project at my house - right over there, across the street. The guy said, "sure, great, I'll be right over." Guess what? He never bothered.

So, while I've never been in business for myself and dealt with the frustration of insincere unsolicited inquiries, I do know what it's like to make calls and even have in-person conversations and still get blown off. No one likes it. I don't care how busy you are, it's unprofessional and isn't soon forgotten by the person who was left in the lurch waiting for a response.

As far as not having time to deal with unsolicited emails that generate zero leads, here's a crazy idea: don't provide an email address on a website. Put it on your business card, by all means, so leads you've actually qualified can contact you. Perhaps by not furnishing an email address on the web, you'll cut down on all those frivolous inquiries, if that's indeed all they ever turn out to be. I'm not being sarcastic. Publish the office telephone and street adress only. It'll save me and other folks the time of bothering to write emails that won't be read or responded to, and we'll all be saved a little aggravation in life.

Because the one firm I've heard from actually bothered to get back to us and came out to the house, they may end up winning the job by default. I would still like to meet with one or two others, as that just seems like good business sense to me, but it may prove impossible if I can't actuallly get in touch with anyone.

Laag, with all due respect, you essentially support my theory by suggesting a project in Billerica would only run $20k. This is precisely what I'm getting at. Someone looks at your zip code and says "uh-oh, blue collar town; they probably want to spend 10k or less. Not worth my time." I feel like this is what is happening, though I live in an area where the home prices are on par with other homes in Middlesex. Had I a phone number in Lincoln, or Concord, or Lexington, I bet I would have gotten four responses from four inquiries.

FYI We're earmarking a minimum $50,000 for this project. We understand it could go higher than that. We're willing to pay for a skilled person who can do (and wants to do) the job. As skilled professionals in our own fields, we understand the importance of appropriate compensation.

I'd be more than happy to go with a Landscape Designer if I thought my town's zoning board & conservation commission would accept a plan from one. But from what I've read that's unlikely. I'd much rather go before them with a plan from a licensed architect; I strongly believe it we would have a better chance of getting the necessary permits.

Thank you all for bearing with me and replying to the thread. I guess I'm venting no small amount of frustration here, and I don't mean to dump it on kind strangers. I do appreciate your time and thoughtful input.

respectfully,
Sooz

Sooz,

You may want to contact a Civil Engineer's office (by phone) and ask them if they could recommend anyone and find out if the town will accept certain designers who are not LAs. They do more in front of regulatory bodies than anyone and will no the answer to both those questions.

By the way, you have very good email manner. Your posts don't seem hostile, only frustrated. Good luck with your project.

Id like to offer a different perspective on the e-mail contact issueÂ. For some of us (e.g. the profoundly deaf), e-mail is more effective than a regular phone! I do not do business with a company that does not have  or does not respond to  e-mail. For any of you who may think disabled=poor and therefore my business is of little value so it wouldnÂt matter to a company, youÂd be wrong. In 1999, we bought our current house and did a complete renovation/addition that doubled it in size. Aside from a couple of face-to-face meetings with the architect that required translation, the architect and I did all of our discussions via e-mail and exchange of drawings, both in paper and electronic form. It was a somewhat unusual experience from the architectÂs perspective, but worked quite effectively. Maybe it helped that we were located in the right town/code area :- )

Thank you for the advice Laag. I did call an engineer's office in town this morning, and as luck would have it, it's the same firm that was hired to do all the work when my house was built. Serendipity baby!

I spoke at length with the engineer who did all the original plans for the site, and lo and behold he still has them on file. He remembered the project and gave me a lot of insight into what may be going on with the drainage issues, etc. He said we could discuss what it is we were hoping to accomplish and he could probably give me a good idea as to wether or not it'd fly. He also provided invaluable insights into the current state of our conservation commission that may prove helpful as the process goes forward.

Also spoke with the head of the building/zoning board this morning and basically got assurance that a plan from a Landscape Designer would be okay, even with retaining walls up to 6ft. (This suprised me). I had read somewhere (or so I thought, it's all a blur now) that anything over 4ft would have to be planned by a licensed architect/engineer. Laag, perhaps you could confirm this?

We're going to have other issues to deal with regarding the brook out back, beaver dams, etc. but at least I feel a little more empowered here, and not so much like I'm the wallflower sitting at home waiting for the phone to ring the night before the prom! This forum provided the nudge I needed to get the straight scoop.

And now... time to locate and contact (by phone) one or two designers. As always, referrals, tips and advice are welcome.

Thank you again for your time.
Sooz.

This is very interesting. I do think there is a zipcode bias and assumptions are made at all levels. I have a friend who sees the flip side of what you are getting-- because of where she lives, contractors assume she is rolling in dough, and anything she has bid out comes in $10,000+ higher than if she were on a regular street. Keep trying, you will find someone. Look in the Lowell, Andover, Southern NH areas too. Some people just don't want to make the drive out of their normal working radius.

Around here, for architects, there are plenty of firms that simply won't do smaller projects. We aren't one of them. ;) Then, there are the one-person firms who often don't always have someone answering the phone. It seems like we get a fair number projects every year simply because we answered the phone and were willing to take on a smaller project! We weed out the "lookie-lou's" by charging a Design Consultation fee in order to do a site visit, tho we sometimes waive that for direct referrals.

Btw, referrals are often a way to get attention from a firm that might ignore a blind call. Can the engineering firm that did your survey give you a name of someone they know who might be interested?

Woody,

There is no doubt that zip code or people who have to be dependent on email does not preclude the possibility of great people with great projects. What I offered was an explanation of why they are not always responded to.

When you need to invest 5 hours of time to effectively respond to requests, you simply must prequalify the people you will respond to. Prequalifying is work in itself. If there are enough people contacting you in such ways that place them in a higher level of prequalification, there is little reason to entertain those that have not.

If fish are jumping out of the stream, there is no reason to go in after them. That does not make the fish in the stream of lower quality. It just makes the effort to find out what their quality is an unnecessary adventure. Sometimes you just have to jump out of the stream to be appreciated.

Laag wrote:
"If fish are jumping out of the stream, there is no reason to go in after them. That does not make the fish in the stream of lower quality. It just makes the effort to find out what their quality is an unnecessary adventure. Sometimes you just have to jump out of the stream to be appreciated."

What am I, The Incredible Mr. Limpet? :)

Don Knotts movie references aside - what it all probably boils down to is the market's been red-hot, particularly in this area, for a certain number of years. The crazy real estate boom, combined with all the HGTV shows have certainly helped spur the demand for residential landscape professionals. But that's changing as fast as people start defaulting on their ARMs.

So, maybe when the fish stop jumpin' and the fish in the stream ain't bitin' what then? I wonder how avg. response time will change as a function of market conditions....

This afternoon I left a voice message with one designer w/in ten miles of here. As of yet there's been no response. Tick, tick, tick.

Then I called another firm that recently moved right up the street & had a delightful chat with the proprietor and scheduled an appointment for late next week.

Ironically, the most helpful conversation I've had to date was with the office manager of a firm who did contact me w/in 24 hours of my original inquiry to say that we were out of their service area. But she talked with me for a good ten minutes plus and gave tips and advice on the design/build process. She was a joy to speak to and incredibly helpful. If I were to move or build within their service area in the future, they'd be the first phone call I'd make after the boxes got unpacked.

Meanwhile back at the ranch, the first firm to respond (hereafter known as "Alpha") has sent a proposal/contract in the mail and I'm looking forward to looking it over closely. They're still the frontrunners, IMO, though they very well could end up costing me more in the long run.

I'll update again as developments unfold.

Soozd, (for the benefit of others observing the thread)

You did jump out of the water and when you did you got responses. It was nothing too drastic - just a few phone calls. All you have to do is just enough to be ahead of the rest of the pack.

My descriptions of why I think many people don't get responded to still seem to make people think it is an elitist mentality. Think of sitting down to eat dinner and the phone ringing. Nine times out of ten it is a telemarketer calling at that hour. Do you stop dinner and answer the phone 10 times? If you don't, does that mean that you do not value the people who were trying to reach you that were not telemarketers? Let's say that all ten left messages on your answering machine. Do you play them all through? Do you call them all back? You might not think this is a good analogy, but if you got several emails a day or several messages on the answering machine each day, you might think differently.

If someone knocks at the door during dinner, you would be much more likely to answer it.

My suggestion for anyone looking to hire an LA, a designer, or a contractor (they are all in the same boat, the situation is not unique to LAs)is that you start with a phone call. If no one answers leave ONE message. Let them know when you can be reached and at what numbers during different parts of the day. Realize that these people are often not in the office and may not get messages during business hours, so letting them know when it is OK to call makes it easier for them to feel comfortable calling.

It is important only to leave ONE message. That allows you to call back several more times to try to catch a live person in the office without being the person who left twenty messages. That makes it uncomfortable for the person to call back.

Soozd had a much better experience with each person she talked to on the phone. Some could not do her job, yet were friendly and nice gaving her time and advice that was helpful.

Email is a great way to communicate after you meet. It is extremely impersonal and often lost between disguised spam messages before you are known. People don't like opening emails from unknown sources for good reason. Spam is disguised very well these days with more advanced use of subject lines.

Do what Soozd did. Pick up the phone. It works better.

Just wanted to pop in and say this is a really interesting thread.

Sooz--I hope you keep us posted...sounds like a cool project as well!

Laag wrote:
"Soozd had a much better experience with each person she talked to on the phone. Some could not do her job, yet were friendly and nice gaving her time and advice that was helpful."

Soozd would have been just as happy with the very gracious email I got back saying "This is out of our range, but here's were you could look for qualified professionals who do service your area." Remember the important part of the story here - I had just finished dialing their number to call & follow up my email as their emailed response showed up in my inbox. THAT email response from them alone was great, it showed integrity and class -- even if it was just a stock response. It was a courteous and professional acknowledgement of my emailed inquiry. I don't think that's too much to ask for, particularly if your firm provides email contact information in its website/advertising.

Sorry to beat a dead horse on this Laag. You and I may have to agree to respectfully disagree on this one. :)

Further updates:

Yesterday Designer #2 returned my call and we had a wonderful chat, and I felt as though we clicked. This designer was the first one of the three firms that I've talked to that I felt comfortable telling my real motivation for this project, and she got it - completely.

The real motivation? I'm 35 y.o., have one year old child and am becoming increasingly limited by inflammatory arthritis in all of my joints - hands, feet, spine, etc. Seems I've got a bunch of rougish white blood cells bent on destruction. I'm being treated by a very good rheumatologist. But the future is uncertain.

Designer #2 seemed to automatically understand that we need a garden that works on a very practical level (boundaries to keep my son safe & helps reduce the ground I have to cover to keep up with him, accessibility & comfort for me, tranquility for my poor DH who moves mountains to take care of both of us as best he can). But seeing as gardening has become very difficult/almost not possible for me, I need something that I can still enjoy without wallowing in the mud over not being able to care for it. Nothing is more depressing than seeing the work of your own hands decline due to neglect.

So that is my little back story here, and why I've been so determined/desperate to get this project going. Last summer was a very hard time for me, most of it was spent indoors, ready to jump out of my skin because I couldn't get out there and do the things I love. I'm determined things will be different this year. Designer #2 just might be the one that makes that a reality; we shall see.

So laag, there's a point in your favor - much of what I shared with Designer #2 I wouldn't (and didn't) share in any of my emailed inquiries. But then I didn't share it with the first two firms I talked to either; the opening was never there to discuss that aspect of the project. So maybe I'm already figuring out who the right person for the job is...

That's "the rest of the story" as they say. Hope it didn't turn into too much of a sob story, because it really isn't. We're going after something that could add great joy to our lives, and we're really fortunate to be able to do that.

Thanks for letting me share that with all of you, and for bearing with me.

Sooz

I have been following this thread with interest. Thanks for sharing your experience as you go, Soozd. I also have a modest suggestion: After you have your landscape installed, you may want to hire a local gardener to help you maintain the landscape. Maybe a hort major from the county ag school or state u., or an older, semi-retired garden club member. It will take a lot of the load off your joints, literally and figuratively. :)

I have a modest career as a "fine gardener" and horticulturist, serving my clients by keeping their landscape investment in prime shape. Some are affluent, others have a modest income and budget. It all works out "to scale." In my book, everyone deserves to have a nice garden if they want one. You likely can find someone in your area who can help you. Depending on who you hire, you likely can find someone to work a half-day a week for 8 months of the year for a reasonable rate. It might be worth looking into as part of your overall project.

soozd--

You may also find that you will be able to do more this summer than last, now that you are in the care of a good rheumatologist. Of course, depending on what meds they've got you on...you may have to "time it." My mom has dermatamyocitis and has to stay out of the sun mid-day. If you need sun-shading--make certain that gets included in your design parameters. It can make the difference between being stuck inside and being OUT. If you are a gardener at heart, you'll be happier out.

I understand completely about the garden going to hell in handbasket--I was unable to work in mine all last spring and much of the summer 'cause MY white blood cells were after my thyroid. I'm fortunate, all I had to do was drink some radioactive iodine and wait. ;~)

Cady had some great suggestions. I'd like to add...you may be able to find some help through your local garden club.

And, as the mother of a couple of wild-arsed boys (now mostly grown)--a fence is a beautiful thing. And little boys can be entertained for HOURS with a bare dirt patch and a garden hose. You can always hose him off when he's finished!

melanie

Hi Cady, thanks for the suggestion - it had crossed my mind to look into getting someone for maintenance. If my DH balks at it, I'll sweetly suggest that if he'd prefer doing the job himself, I'd be happy to oversee the work...

Yeah, that ought to win the argument. ;)

Update: Just got a contact in the mail from firm "Alpha" along with a list of residential references. I'm anxious to review it thoroughly with DH once the little one is sleeping. I glanced at it briefly and saw a couple things that stood out.

They included some features that we aren't even sure we want - we just threw them out as ideas of things that could be done to mitigate certain problems. We didn't specfically state "we must have a Whoosie-whatzit" but they put it in the contract... which makes me wonder if the person we met with really listened and understood us clearly when we met. DH said after the meeting he wasn't sure Alpha's representatlve (not an LA/Designer; more of a project mngr. type) really listened to us, and that he only jotted down three or four notes. DH may have been on to something there.

I'm glad now that I did make appointments with Designer #1 (hereafter "Beta") and Designer #2 (aka "Gamma").

Next week the property will be re-flagged for wetlands... I'm anxious about that. Hoping the guy can give us some insight as to whether or not we might be looking at future problems vis-a-vis the septic/leach field & the brook (diverted our way by two beaver dams).

More to follow. Thanks for listening.

Sooz.

Soozd,

I agree whole heartedly that a polite email SHOULD be returned. You would have gotten one from me.

An interesting sidebar to this is that I received an email inquiry two weeks ago, just before this thread started. I returned an email and spoke with the person on the phone a couple of days later. We made arrangements to meet last weekend and I spent nearly two hours walking the site and discussing the project. Between the email response, the phone call, the travel time, the meeting, and the contract writing, I have more than four hours into it. I did't know if I will have a job out of it or not, but that is how I handle things. I mentioned that I have never landed a job that originated by an email shopper, yet I treated just as I would any other.

Since I only run my office part time, I am very low key and don't have a lot of blind inquiries. I do know that I would not be able to do the same if I had 12 inquiry calls and 17 emails to respond to each day.

Coincidentally, there are some health issues to be considered in this design job as well.

Make no mistake, I don't condone or excuse people not responding to inquiries. I just understand why it happens and think that those of you who see it that way and take a slightly different approach will have more success at getting people out to do their jobs. I'll point out that Soozd followed my advice (perhaps coincidentaly, perhaps directly). She got the results that I suggested would happen by using the phone. Even more so by calling the engineer's office. After a couple of conversations she found someone who she felt truly wants to help her out. That was from interacting on the phone and getting a feel for one another which would not have happened by email.

Like it or not, it played out pretty much as I suggested it would. You can live your life by hoping everyone is going to conduct themselves in the most ideal ways, but reality is different. It is like any other planning. You inventory reality, understand it, and adjust your plan to work within what you are dealt with. That is what Soozd did and now she is getting what she wanted without changing her zip code.

Melanie, thank you - I am on a DMARD that causes photosensitivity. I know we definitely need shade (none of us have ever been into sun worship), but I completely forgot about my meds... Thank you very much for mentioning it.

The house has a 2nd story deck...we were considering having the patio extend out from under the deck into the lawn - that way there could be some seating under there. We're not fond of how a 2nd story deck looks, but we're going to have to find a way to work around it so it doesn't look so... stilty.

I also wanted to add one or two mature-ish trees (maybe about 8'?) that would provide at least some dappled shade right away. But clearly yes, we need to give this more serious thought with the designer.

Thank you!
Sooz

Ok laag, you're wearing me down :) [waves white flag]

Out of curiosity (and you don't have to answer this if you wish) Do you charge a fee for your consultation? One of the three firms I'm dealing with does. But it seems like a fair price for the time, so I don't mind paying it, even if we don't choose them. If we do, the fee goes towards the initial payment/installment. Fair enough. This firm also records the consultation for future reference, which struck me as pretty smart.

Firm Alpha did a free consult with a project manager type person and wants us to sign the contract and give them a pretty hefty retainer fee before the LA even gets involved. This makes me uneasy. How do I know whether we're going to be able to establish a good working rapport with the LA until we meet him or her? And yet we'll be locked into the contract before we even know who'll be working on the project. I'm not sure I'm liking that. There is a provision for cancelling with seven days notice, but then we still owe the LA their hours, vellum/drafting supplies, etc. (That's fair) and end up with scratch, because he/she retains ownership of the design. (If I actually read the contract right). Hm...

Firm Beta is doing a free consult and is the only one of the three that's been kind of vague about fees/payment schedules. If after the Beta consult I don't know exactly what will be due when, they'll definitely lose points. They do fantastic stone work though. That and their relative proximity are working in their favor right now.

Anyone have any insights, reassurances, warnings, or experience with similar terms?
Thanks. And happy Friday. :)

Sooz

Sooz--look into shadesails. I've NO idea what they cost--but I there are a couple of restaurants here that use them...and they work. AND they seem to be holding up to our summer weather.

I've linked one website I found below...just a quick google, mind you. A number of the companies I came up with initially are in Australia and NZ...but the one i've linke is at least in the US.

Your LA will probably know a local source. Good luck.

And come back--we can be a bit snarky, but we are good fun. If I DO say so myself!

melanie

Yes, Soozd, I do invest my time to try to get design jobs (that means I do not charge for initial meeting). However, that is something that you or I would have to do if we had more inquiries than time to invest. It does weed out some good serious folks among those lighter inquiries, but it leaves ONLY very committed people in the market pool and recovers the expense of dealing with those less serios folks.

I did work for a LA/design/build company that had a very high profile garden center on the south shore (MA). We had an average of 30 calls a day in the spring from people who wanted us to come out and meet with them about their landscape. When they were told about the $45 consultation fee, 2/3 of them would not continue. That left 10 calls a day to pursue. Those consultations would last about an hour. We often did quick sketches on site with graph paper and Prismacolor, but you could not keep them or copy them. Then we would go back to the office and write up contracts to either do a simple install or for design. That can take considerable time. While this is going on, we were also doing design work for those who hired us for that, and were were managing the jobs that were being built at the same time. When you consider how long it takes to construct a landscape, usually weeks, it should be clear that there is no possibility of constructing all of the work that is asked about. You would be faced with ways of filtering down the amount of work you do at every stage until it is managable at each of those stages. If not, you'd be faced with having three years of work booked in March. How professional is taking work on that you can not do for three years? That was definitely an extreme case, but that system was perfect for them.

I worked for, and continue to do some work for, a very high end company that six to seven digit landscapes. The jobs are big and take months to complete. They do not do a lot of jobs each year because they are large, tightly managed, and involved. They don't advertise in a big way, so the numbers of inquiries are low and generally from sources consistant with the market in which they work. In other words the leads are usually of high quality and there are not many of them. There is no charge to meet with clients, although they are generally extremely wealthy. That works just right for that company. But, if you call from an area inconsistant with the type of work that they do, you will be subtly told to go somewhere else because they value those 5 hours of invested time managing the jobs they have and don't really want to take the work crews off of those higher production jobs to do a less productive job if they were to get it.

Again, I don't see why someone can not take the time to do a mass email response to people once a week, or to put a staff member aside a time to return calls. However, you can imagine that each person calling wants to make a case for their job or wants some advice. It is rather difficult to make one of these conversations short without seeming rude. Then you have to do it over and over for each. I think I can empathise with those who will blow some of these off, if they are in big numbers.

These are just some reasons why some charge for consults and others do not. Everyone's circumstance is different and it is not all about trying to milk as much money as possible. It is actually a way to manage the office's time by affecting the source of the work instead of the production end of it.

Hm. So there IS a zip code bias. :)

I didn't say (I hope I didn't imply) that I thought firm 'Gamma' was trying to milk as much money as possible by charging for a consult. I thought it was a fair price for the time involved, particulary if the designer does a rough sketch on site, like Laag describes having done.

Paying Firm Alpha a huge retainer & signing a contract before we even talk to a LA I do take issue with - and this would be true even if I had seven digits to burn on a landscape project. Though I imagine if I had an oceanfront home in Marblehead they would have sent the LA over to pour my tea. But instead we got the new rep who didn't have business cards yet!

I say this with tongue in cheek, somewhat bemused; I'm not ignorant about business. Whatever buisness you're in, there is a certain cost to acquiring a customer - whether that's in advertising, website design/hosting or face-to-face consults, it costs you money.

I've worked in software companies (personal disclosure) that sell lower-end product to small firms & mom/pop shops. I've also worked in large enterprise class software firms. On average it probably cost the small firms more in terms of face time to acquire a customer, though the actual dollar cost was probably less than what the large corporations pay in daily web hosting costs. And yes, different tiers of customers get treated differently. I understand that.

So perhaps firm Alpha is hoping to weed us out as clients? Hard to say. DH and I read through the contract this morning over coffee and agreed that there was nothing in the contract more specific than a laundry list of about five general things we want done (deck, terrace, play area, walkways, etc.) We never got a sketch or any sort of artistic discussion about the project. The "free consult" didn't net us any more than my email inquiry or a phone call would have achieved. I'm beginning to think it was more of an 'advanced scouting' mission by the firm to see if it was worth their while.

Again, I'm not bitter about this or angry - it's just all very interesting and I chalk it up to a learning experience.

I did ask the rep from Firm Alpha during our consult if they ever turned jobs down and why. The answer was fair. "Yes, we have. If we think a client would be better served putting the money they'd spend on our fees into hiring a designer or landscape contractor, we tell them that."

But the rep didn't tell US that our $ would be better spent elsewhere. So, it would seem (to us anyway) that they might actually want the business. I suppose they wouldn't send us a contract if they weren't wiling to take us on.

It has been interesting. I hope this thread proves instructive to others considering a project such as this. I am trying to be as neutral (but also honest) as possible for the benefit of others. If someone else comes away with more wisdom and insight about it, then so much the better.

thanks again for input and responses. It really is very helpful.

Sooz

P.s. to Melanie - I can be rather snarky myself, so, no harm/no foul. ;-) I appreciate you taking the time to look up the sun shades & provide the link - Thank you very much! :)

Btw, the contract with Alpha is fairly consistent with how we proceed, if there was not a paid Design Consultation. We write out the scope of work (although we attempt to list optional items as optional!), but do not actually do any design work until we have received a retainer and signed contract. We don't always know who will be working on the project until the project starts, since sometimes people hang onto the contracts for a while, and by the time the project starts, the person we originally planned to head up the project may be busy with something else. However, if someone wanted to meet the projected project lead before signing, I'm sure we could arrange a meeting.

Oh, and the site visit is very helpful for us to put together the proposal, so we can get an idea of the site in context.

Thank you Irene, this is helpful to know.

I wish I'd asked up front if they would do a design consult for a fee; that may have been a better use of everyone's time.

The project mngr did take a few photographs to bring back with him, so I imagine someone there has at least looked at them.

I'll call him back, clarify the scope and see if it would be possible to at least know/speak on the phone with whoever would be handling the project, assuming the actual design phase kicks off in the next 4 weeks.

Progess Update:

The Engineering firm was here today to flag the wetlands. The good news is that they don't encroach any further than we thought, and he doesn't think we'll have to do a full scale survey. We might have to apply for "minor landscape exemptions" for the patio, but that might be it. Hopefully it ends up being relatively straightforward...