No risk at all!

Just skim from both ends, charge as much as you think you can get away with, and watch the business just flow in! Be sure to have a "no returns" policy and charge a lot for delivery.

Someone is having lots of fun!

It's easy peasy pie, just like running your landscape design buisness, your landscape installation buisness and your high end garden boutique business/ shop .

where do you find the time ?

I fear our joyous friend from California has more time on his/her hands than he/she would like - quite a few posts on the forum today. Maybe thinking the pro's forum a bit dull lately? Or maybe the design biz ain't going so good right now :-(

"You either have to learn how to do the whole package and gain a reputation for putting that package together, or come to the realization that there is little more than wages to be earned in what you are trying to do."

Calif...for a number of months you have posted and have been given constructive criticism and quite often, invaluable advice. Laag's comments in the quote above is about as succinct as you can get.

Spinning your wheels and trying to have too many brands in the fire will only do 2 things....wear out the bearings and get the iron hot. Not much more. As a neophyte in all this Im learning a number of things....and all geared to one vocation. Your wanting the money fast without establishing your credibility. You won't the referals your desiring if you cannot assure clients that you have something of value to offer.

Listen to what these people have been trying to give you.

My 2 cents...for what it's worth
Neil

What strikes me the most when reading over the myriad of Calijoys posts is that s/he desperately desires to be respected, wants to have an affluent clientele and wants to make a monetarily lucrative living..... now.

All of these reasonable desires are attainable but they require an investment of time .

Time to prove oneself to the general public that you have gained their trust via years of successful completed projects.
Time to establish a reputation that you know what you are doing.
Time to learn the ropes of the business as well as the time to educate oneself to the Process of Design.
Time to hone your skills for the many different hats that one wears in this field.

Most all of Calijoys posts lament over how s/he can make quick money without any long term time investment.

We repeatedly read about a new career direction every few months because the money did not appear either in quantity or quickly enough. Also there are continual laments of the lack of respect from his/her client.
To me it seems blatantly obvious that the real reason for this continued disappointment is that there is no 'sticking power' and that s/he desires immediate gratification without the prerequisite time investment to learn the ropes of the process and the business.

I believe that once you accept the fact that to succeed in this industry that it takes steadfast perseverance and dedication , and that this is not a big buck in the bank buisness .
Most people get into this industry because they love what it does for them and are willing to sacrafice for it. ( READ the thread," Did anyone really think it was going to be easy " for a reality check. )

Immediate gratification is something that doesn't normally happen in this business.

Darn it, Mich! I was just hoping that once I graduated out of university with a degree in LA, I would be snapped up by a multi-billion-dollar luxury hotel chain to design fantasy-tropicalesque landscape backgrounds for ultra-modern restaurants catering the nouveau-riche. Next thing that you're going to say is that all the people that we encounter in this business aren't going to be polite, fantasically wealthy, free-spending and unbelievable attractive and single. :P

-Audric

Audric, you are da bomb!

Audric,
You probably WILL get snapped up right out of university because, as Catkim says, "you are da bomb!"

Wow!!
I just have to pipe in. This is one of the best forum threads I have ever had the pleasure of reading. The information, you all gave is so right on the mark. I hope the person who started the thread was lisening. It took 20+ years to be able to make good money from landscaping. I worked for a wage so I could have the little things like food and shelter. Except I used my places of employment as my schoolroom. First it was a nursery, learned about plants, design and chemicals. Then I became a CCN (Ca. Cert. Nurseryman) then on to CCN/IWD ( Ca. Cert. Nurseryman with Insects, Weeds & Disease Cert.) Then on to Chemlawn To get Cert. In my applicators and operators lincence. And so on and so on.
Now I work part-time as a consultant for a few nurserys in my area. I also run a landscape staging business, mainly for the real estate community. It took many hard years to get here. Remember the last drought? Very few landscapers had work. I went to all the raindrip courses I could get to. I then took a collage course and became a Ca. Cert. Water Auditor. That means I could work for the government or on my own, as a person that goes to customers homes and figures out how to conserve water in their landscapes. This and Drip Irrgitation was my weekly paycheck.
Now on Sat. mournigs I teach drip Irrigation classes. Just had a one hour class at my local Lowes garden department. This time it was for the store employees. Im working on more classes through other nursery`s for the public. One more thing I would like to add to this thread to anyone who find it...
Never stop taking classes! Never stop learning of different aspects of landscaping. Even if you do not like the subject, learn it anyway. As you grow and get older in life you just do not know where that info is going to take you. Best of luck and learning to you all.

This is a very good thread indeed - I'd like to see if califajoy is still around and what he/she is doing these days!

I'd like to echo what landscapeappeal said. I just started my own interior landscaping company this summer, and it is going very well (knock on wood). I have had a rather erratic career path and a broad education, but I'm finding that almost all of my past experiences are incredibly helpful and relevant to what I'm doing today. Examples:

Plant hobbyist - trial and error learning of proper plant culture and selecting appropriate plants for the environment

Computer hobbyist - taught myself how to make a website and use new, complex software

Bachelor's degree in economics - supply and demand; how general condition of the economy affects businesses

Banking - warning signs of pending small business failure; how to get good credit; how to sell

Child care - kids WILL destroy plants indoors if they are bored/unsupervised

Mystery shopper - excellent customer service is valuable but rarely found

Nursery employee - learning the retail nursery industry, learning more about ornamental horticulture, networking with locals in the business

Interior landscaping technician - OK, this one should be obvious...

Pesticide and insect courses I'm currently taking to get my license - I thought they'd be boring, but I'm learning a lot of helpful stuff.

I prefer to think of my life as having not so much a "career path" as a "career zigzag" or "career web"! And I'm rarely bored.

Hello all
This is the most excellent thread. I have just decided to go into this industry after 30 years in the graphic design field and so I'm trolling all relevant posts trying to see what opportunities and issues there are. Too bad this is under "Plant Broker", some people who need to see it might miss it.
Guess I'll have to read everything now!

You are going to be competing with heavy hitters there...The plant broker business is very competitive...On the grower side, you need to bring in a large volume of business. On the other side, it is all about being able to deliver the plants that contractors/landscapers need in a timely manner at a very competitive price.

There are companies that have a team of staff dedicated to just to call the nurseries on a daily basis to get updated information on their inventory. Master nurserymen to make sure that plants are coming in healthy and well taken care of, a fleet of trucks to deliver all the plants and back haul the plant material for the following days' inventory, and laborers to make it all happen. Because of all of this, they can drive volume which in turn gives them premium discounts. BTW, the profit margins are low...

This provides value to both the growers and the landscape contractor community. Just knowing a lot of nurseries will not be enough. There are substantial risks because if you try to build up an infrastructure like what I have described (heavy, substantial monetary & time investment), but don't have the clientele to service, then your return on investment will take time to happen...and that's if you know what you are doing to cover all aspects of a business (which most people don't).

If you do it on a small scale, what value are you going to provide? If you do provide the value, is the profitability of your business model going to meet your expectations? What sort of return were you looking for? If you are looking to be high profitable quickly, then this will not happen.

As everybody here has said, it is an organic process that takes TIME to build up a successful business (any business). Of course things are different if money is not an issue...

FYI... I consult for these types of companies so I am pretty confident that I am not speaking out of turn...

HTH's,

Joe