DavidDixson
06-10-2005, 05:39 PM
My wife and I have just started a "side" business where she does residential landscape design (the "garden" type) and I build the furniture and other wooden garden "accessories" should the customer desire them. She's been in the green industry quite a number of years with various job titles.
Until recently, she worked for other companies where she did designs, presented them and if the customer accepted the design, a contract was signed and an installation performed. Occasionally, they would provide a customer with just a design and charge a flat rate for doing just a design. They did not require a contract to perform this work and there was one incidence where a customer got a good understanding of where the design was doing, then "decided" they could do it themselves. In other words, the customer got the design concepts, then opted not to pay for the design or have the design work completed. This resulted in the company not getting paid.
My wife is now doing designs on her own where she'll be working strictly with reasonably affluent residential customers who wish to do their own installation, but need someone to do the landscape design. We've been discussing how to insure she gets paid for the design work without running into a situation described in the previous paragraph.
What we'd like to know is what most landscapers do in a "design only" scenario. Do you folks get a signed contract or do you simply do the design, then get payment on delivery? Do you provide an estimate the customer agrees to by signing?
Also, what is the typical method you use to charge for design work? By the time it takes to do the design or a flat rate charged based on the design difficulty? Not sure if this helps, but she's doing designs that involve plants that the standard homebuilder contractor does not use, but that folks who want their yards to be a "garden" want to have.
Thank you for your assistance,
Dave
Until recently, she worked for other companies where she did designs, presented them and if the customer accepted the design, a contract was signed and an installation performed. Occasionally, they would provide a customer with just a design and charge a flat rate for doing just a design. They did not require a contract to perform this work and there was one incidence where a customer got a good understanding of where the design was doing, then "decided" they could do it themselves. In other words, the customer got the design concepts, then opted not to pay for the design or have the design work completed. This resulted in the company not getting paid.
My wife is now doing designs on her own where she'll be working strictly with reasonably affluent residential customers who wish to do their own installation, but need someone to do the landscape design. We've been discussing how to insure she gets paid for the design work without running into a situation described in the previous paragraph.
What we'd like to know is what most landscapers do in a "design only" scenario. Do you folks get a signed contract or do you simply do the design, then get payment on delivery? Do you provide an estimate the customer agrees to by signing?
Also, what is the typical method you use to charge for design work? By the time it takes to do the design or a flat rate charged based on the design difficulty? Not sure if this helps, but she's doing designs that involve plants that the standard homebuilder contractor does not use, but that folks who want their yards to be a "garden" want to have.
Thank you for your assistance,
Dave