Ryan King [00:00:00]:
And no, no lie. Every time I posted a project, I'd probably get 25 messages from different homeowners who are looking to have design work done. So I always try to find the balance. I want to make sure I'm not charging too little, but also not an astronomical amount where I'm giving a really fair price. It's definitely high compared to the feedback that I've gotten from other contractors who are using other designers. I was like, I think this is perfect. I was like, why not kind of expand on this a little bit and see if this can evolve into something? And sure enough, I continued to post online, continued to get messages in, and just kind of develop my own system to virtually design all across the US.
Jack Jostes [00:00:44]:
All right, everyone, welcome back to The Landscapers Guide. Today, I'm excited to interview Ryan King from King Landscape Design. Ryan and I met when we both presented an Outdoor Living Mastery. Really great show out in Pennsylvania earlier this year, led by Joshua Gillow. You should check that out. And one of the things that stood out to me about Ryan's business is he only does design, so he does not do installation or construction. He's purely a Landscape Designer. And, Ryan, thanks for coming on The Landscapers Guide.
Ryan King [00:01:16]:
Yeah, thanks for having me, Jack. This is. This is going to be awesome. I'm really looking forward to this.
Jack Jostes [00:01:20]:
So, Ryan, when we met, you shared a story that you kind of fell into this by you got a client in Canada, so maybe just tell us a little bit about your background and then how you got that kind of first job.
Ryan King [00:01:34]:
Yeah. Yeah. So to give you background on me, I graduated from the University of Connecticut in 2014, got my degree in Landscape Architecture. About two years after graduation, I linked up with a company in Connecticut called Baylor Brothers. They're a design-build company since 1985, and they've done just really high-end residential outdoor living. So I designed with them for eight years, just learned a tremendous amount from a construction standpoint, sales standpoint, business. I mean, just really well overall, rounding on a whole perspective on how to run a company. And then in 2019, I got a message from somebody on Facebook.
Ryan King [00:02:18]:
I would always post my designs online just because I was such a huge fan of outdoor living. So I would always post my designs on Facebook, Instagram, stuff like that. And one day I got a message from someone in Ontario, Canada, and I was like, I was like, Ontario, Canada? The guy messaged me and he's like, hey, I really love your work. I've been following you, and I'd love if you could design my backyard for me. And I was like. Initially, I was like. I was like, how am I going to design this guy's project if he's all the way up in Canada? So me and him just got to talk, and I was like.
Ryan King [00:02:53]:
I was like, you know, I'm down here in Connecticut. I just kind of gave my background. He's like, yeah. He's like, I'll send you all the dimensions. I'll give you elevations, pictures. I'll give you whatever you need to make this happen. So I was like. I was like, all right.
Ryan King [00:03:05]:
If he can provide me with all the site notes that I typically go out and get myself, I was like, I don't see a reason why I couldn't make this happen. So sure enough, he sent me all the. All the dimensions, elevations, and I sent him a price. He sent me money digitally. And then we started working. So I was like. I was like, wait a minute. I was like, this guy, I'm paid in full.
Ryan King [00:03:29]:
I have everything I need to make this design happen. I was like. I was like, this is perfect. I was like, why not kind of expand on this a little bit and see if this can evolve into something? And sure enough, I continued to post online, continued to get messages in, and just kind of develop my own system to virtually design all across the US.
Jack Jostes [00:03:54]:
That's incredible. So who are your clients now? Are they other landscape companies? Are they homeowners? Are they a mix? Kind of give me, you know, a rough math overview of, like, how many clients do you have? And what's the makeup between homeowners and contractors?
Ryan King [00:04:10]:
Yeah. So when I first started out, back in, like, 2020 ish, I was doing probably 90% to direct to homeowners and then 10% to contractors. And that's just because, of course, it was a new company. No one knew who I was. So I was posting a lot on different Facebook groups. I went on and found these different residential pool groups, patio groups, just outdoor living groups, probably ten different groups. And I would just post a couple 3D designs here and there, and I would get a tremendous amount of traffic for homeowners looking for 3D design. And then as that began to snowball, obviously working with homeowners is great, but you do one job and that's the end of it.
04:58 - Homeowner Referrals Fueling Contractor Growth
Ryan King [00:04:58]:
So as that began to snowball, those homeowners were taking my prints, going out, getting two to three quotes from contractors to actually build it. So not only was I doing these projects for these homeowners, but they were essentially going out and handing out my prints to different contractors in their area. So then, now my company started to evolve where these contractors were reaching out to me after seeing these plans and being like, hey, I would love to utilize your services for future projects. So then my contractor base started building. I had some really great referrals from different stone contractors across the country who saw my work, and they're like, hey, we have contractors we work with in our area that really could utilize your services. So then my contractor base just really started growing faster and faster, which was obviously my goal, because contractors have recurring revenue. So now I work primarily, I'd say pretty close to 100% direct with contractors, but I probably do. I probably do maybe five projects a month direct to homeowners, which obviously is still great.
Ryan King [00:06:08]:
I mean, it's just, it's just fun working directly with a homeowner because you got an open pallet, and they just have a lot of really cool ideas as well. So it's still fun working direct with homeowners.
Jack Jostes [00:06:17]:
And so you do five a month for homeowners. Roughly how many are you doing in a month total?
Ryan King [00:06:26]:
Yeah. So, for a month total, I mean, right now, at the end of April, I was over 60 jobs. I got to total it for this month. But at the end of April, is over 60 jobs already? Yeah, January to April.
Jack Jostes [00:06:43]:
Okay. Got it, got it.
Ryan King [00:06:45]:
60 jobs completed. Last year, I did 135 jobs total. This year, I'm projected somewhere between, like 150 to 200. But, yeah, so if we take January to April, 60 jobs. So a pretty, pretty good handful each month of jobs being completed.
Jack Jostes [00:07:06]:
That seems like a lot. I just wrote down 200 hundred designs a year. Seems like a lot. Does it seem like a lot to you, or like, how are you doing?
Ryan King [00:07:19]:
Yeah, exactly. That's a good question. It's. Right now, it's definitely a lot. Right now, my wife and I are in the middle of building our own home. So that's probably my hardest challenge right now, is balancing these projects, coming in with my house, because we're designing our house as well. So it's a tremendous amount of work. But if we set the house aside, it's a really good pace for me of having jobs.
07:48 - Handling Multiple Projects Without Feeling Overwhelmed
Ryan King [00:07:48]:
A good, steady amount where each day I'm not completely overwhelmed, but I'm also not wondering what I'm going to do tomorrow. It's a really nice balance. Like I said, if we took the house construction out of the picture, it'd be pretty smooth. But all these projects, too. It's a high number, but some of those projects like, I have a couple of contractors who just need dimensional plans for construction, so their sales team will send me, like, a pretty, pretty accurate sketch of what the yard looks like. And they're like, hey, just give us a digital copy of this with dimensions and a material take off. So it's not like all 200 of those projects are these complete outdoor living resorts with 3D renderings, lighting, stuff like that.
Jack Jostes [00:08:34]:
That's awesome. And so how are you finding clients?
Ryan King [00:08:38]:
So when I first started, it was all social media. Like I said a little bit before, it was Facebook groups, posting on Instagram.
Jack Jostes [00:08:46]:
So, like, Facebook groups for landscape professionals or, like, neighborhood Facebook groups.
Ryan King [00:08:53]:
Exactly. More so neighborhood Facebook groups. So, like, one, one of the pages, I got a tremendous amount of traffic on. It was a pool group where homeowners would go there who are going to be building a pool, and they just want to get ideas. So I would post a couple projects here and there. In no lie. Every time I posted a project, I'd probably get 20/25 messages from different homeowners who are looking to have design work done, which was just, which that was back in 2020.
09:27 - Innovating to Meet High Demand from Homeowners
Ryan King [00:09:27]:
So that's what really made a light bulb click in my head. Like, this is a, this is a pretty high demand for homeowners all across the country because these homeowners were, as we got into conversation, they were saying, yeah, we're working with a pool builder now, but all we have is this little pencil sketch. So I'm like, well, if I can find a way to reach these customers who are going to spend 50, 100, 200 plus grand in their backyard, I could easily solve a problem they're having by being a little bit hesitant on spending that amount of money just looking at a pencil sketch. So that's when I started just continuingly posting more and more online. But now, now it's pretty much all direct to contractors. So I'm. I'm not posting in those groups really at all anymore.
Ryan King [00:10:18]:
It's really just contractors that I've developed really good relationships with, and I'm just doing recurring work with them every week or month, depending on the size of that contractor.
Jack Jostes [00:10:30]:
I love it. And, you know, Facebook groups, you know, even folks who are listening, that I really think, regardless of what service you offer, Facebook groups are an incredible resource for generating leads. The neighborhood groups, like my neighborhood. Well, I live in a small town with around 2,500 people, and we have a very vibrant. Actually, there are multiple Facebook groups. One of them is for, like, political banter about town politics stuff. One of them is more generally where people are talking about stuff happening in town, events, bands coming through, and every week someone's asking, like, who do you know who does landscaping?
Jack Jostes [00:11:17]:
And, like, you know, you can. You can search in a group for your keywords, like landscaping, landscaper, Landscape Designer, and just find people who are asking those questions. And even if the question is old, going in and commenting and adding a link to your website. Hey, everyone, my name is Ryan. Just wanted to let you know I'm a resource, you know, whatever. I think that that's a low hanging fruit while you're even after you establish your business. I had one guy on the show, and that was his, like, the only thing that he did to generate leads, and he was a high end design build company.
Jack Jostes [00:11:57]:
So I love that you're doing that.
Ryan King [00:12:00]:
It's a great way, too, that I found just to get your. Just to get your name out there and just to help other people. I've had probably countless conversations with people in these groups who already have a design, and they're just looking for a little bit of feedback on if they should change something or if it's not flowing properly. So even if you might not be getting paid for something specific, you can still not only get your name out there, but find a way to help other homeowners or other contractors who maybe just need a little bit of advice on something that could really enhance their outdoor living space or their business model.
Jack Jostes [00:12:34]:
So, Ryan, right now you're doing about 200 designs a year, and it's just you, right? Do you have anyone working with you, or is it just. Just Ryan?
Ryan King [00:12:46]:
Yeah. So. So right now? Projected between 150 and 200. I mean, I would love to hit that 200 mark, but even if I hit 150 or 175, I'd obviously be super happy. But, yeah, right now, it's. It's just me. I always go back and forth about whether to bring on another designer.
Ryan King [00:13:06]:
Which I absolutely could. I mean, I got plenty. Plenty of work to fill a schedule, but I always just toy with the fact, like, right now, I'm having so much fun doing what I'm doing, working with the contractors that I have.
Jack Jostes [00:13:21]:
And you're making money.
13:23 - Maintaining Strong Contractor Relationships
Ryan King [00:13:23]:
Exactly. Of course. But I have a really, really great relationship with my contractors, so I want to be able to maintain that and not lose sight of it. But also, I want to make sure that my business doesn't turn into something where every morning I'm just stressed out about filling my employee schedules or making sure I have enough work coming in to pay my payroll, whatever that amount would be. And, I mean, right now, everything is going pretty smoothly. So if I stayed at this capacity with the 150 to 200 jobs a year, I mean, I'd be ecstatic with it. So I don't know. As of today, I don't plan on bringing on other people, but obviously, you don't know what the future brings.
Jack Jostes [00:14:11]:
Yeah. And I don't. I don't think you have to. I think that. That you can reach a sweet spot in business and enjoy it.
Ryan King [00:14:17]:
Yeah.
Jack Jostes [00:14:18]:
And that's totally cool. And sometimes all we hear about is how you need to have this enormous thing or whatever. One, a couple fun ideas I have is, like, could you charge more?
Ryan King [00:14:33]:
Right.
Jack Jostes [00:14:33]:
Do you think you could, like. Like, I don't know. When I hear 200, I don't know. You seem pretty content with it, but I'm like, yeah, could you charge a little more? Like, do a 180, you know, and make the same amount of money, or, like, just a fun number to play with is your price?
Ryan King [00:14:51]:
Yeah. So. So that's a great question. And that's something I think about often. I mean, my company is still only. Only four years in business, so still pretty new. So I always try to find the balance. I want to make sure.
Ryan King [00:15:06]:
I want to make sure I'm not charging too little, but also not an astronomical amount where I'm giving a really fair price. It's definitely high compared to the feedback that I've gotten from other contractors who are using other designers. But it's worth every penny.
Jack Jostes [00:15:25]:
So how do you handle that objection? Ryan, your price is higher than this Landscape Designer, Joe, who charges us.
Ryan King [00:15:34]:
So I just have a nice conversation with them. Totally open ended. I just compare the quality of detail that you're going to receive with the 3D package and the construction documents. Obviously, the 3D package is phenomenal for homeowners because they can visualize it, but the construction plan is what the company is going to bring out and build and make their profit on.
Jack Jostes [00:15:58]:
Right.
Ryan King [00:15:58]:
So that's why. That's what I try to compare it to. I'm like, what? Exactly?
Jack Jostes [00:16:02]:
Are you a Licensed Landscape Architect?
Ryan King [00:16:06]:
I'm not. Nope.
Jack Jostes [00:16:07]:
You're not. Okay. But you studied Landscape Architecture.
Ryan King [00:16:12]:
Yeah, I have my degree.
Jack Jostes [00:16:13]:
So this is where I get a little confused with Landscape Architects. Can you describe yourself as a Landscape Architect, or do you need to have the license to do that?
Ryan King [00:16:23]:
You need to have the license to do that. So basically what I say is just, I'm a Landscape Designer. Technically, to say you're a Landscape Architect, you need the license.
Jack Jostes [00:16:32]:
Yeah, that's what I thought. Because I've worked with a handful of Landscape Architects, and they're like, oh, I really dislike this designer because they say that they're an architect and I know they don't have their license and whatever. So, well, that's cool. I was just, I was just curious, just for fun. The other thing is, maybe, are there parts of the work that you're doing that you could hire out or outsource or, like, have a virtual assistant or an executive assistant that would, you know, I don't know if you're doing everything, like invoicing. And are there, I just wonder, are there certain parts of the business that someone else could do so you could do more?
17:16 - The Benefits of Outsourcing Architecture Tasks
Ryan King [00:17:16]:
Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And that's one thing I explored, too, like trying to find ways where the, I don't know if I want to call them simpler tasks, but there's certain tasks that I feel like take up a good amount of my time that I could easily outsource. Like, for example, just finalizing construction documents, doing material, take off, things like that. Obviously super important to make sure those are as accurate as possible, but they just take up a pretty significant amount of time. So I always toy with the idea if there's a way to hire out the smaller tasks, even if it's as simple as managing a social media account, because I have all this incredible content. But at the end of the day, it's just, I just run out of time where I can't turn this content into a meaningful social media post. I mean, I try as hard as I can, but, like springtime, where we get it, projects coming in, it's just so hard to manage.
Jack Jostes [00:18:14]:
It is. Your social media is really good. I want to encourage everyone. We'll put a link to your Instagram in the show notes, but it's really good. And it does take a lot of time to do social media well. One question I'm wondering. So you've mainly talked about construction and architecture, and you're delivering these detailed plans.
Jack Jostes [00:18:35]:
Do they include plants or is it just construction focused?
Ryan King [00:18:42]:
So it'll. I try to include anything that will benefit the contractor. So a lot of my contractors are just hardscaping only. So patios, walls, pools, fire features. But some, some do get into the planting aspect of it as well. So I just add on another sheet to the construction documents that's planting layouts. The tricky part with that is, especially when I first started out, is obviously, different parts of the country require different planting plans because not every plant is going to grow everywhere in the country. So one of the biggest learning curves I had was just really starting to study plants that grow well in California or Florida or up in Washington or up in Canada.
Jack Jostes [00:19:25]:
Right. I would think that that would be the hardest part of what you do, because when you're a Landscape Designer in a specific state or county or, like, series of counties, like, you really get to know the soil and the weather patterns and which plants really thrive and which wildlife are issues and all those different things.
Ryan King [00:19:46]:
Yeah.
Jack Jostes [00:19:47]:
So one idea is like, is there another service you could add on? And could there. Are there people like you who are, like, regional horticulturalists, who could be like, hey, I'm the northeast plant geek who's gonna. I'm gonna help you figure out this. This ultimately begs the question, though. So who is the person, what company buys this service from you? Is it primarily an installation and construction company that doesn't have a designer in house, or is it a design build firm, and they're just, the owner does all of the design, and they are at capacity, so they're hiring you for overflow. Like, tell me, like, more about the people who actually hire you.
Ryan King [00:20:34]:
Yeah. So the people that I've seen to be hiring me are contractors who don't have any designers on staff, as it is. The owner of the company is doing it himself. But I've also seen contractors who have a design team, but their workload is just way too busy. And they're like, hey, we either need to hire a new employee, or we need to find a way to outsource this. So the feedback I've gotten is that it's much easier to outsource a designer rather than bringing a whole new employee onto their payroll.
Ryan King [00:21:08]:
Obviously, that just adds to your overhead, whereas you could have a virtual designer who you're sending all these prints and whatnot to, and they're just producing these plans for you and then emailing it back to you. So it's a lot of mix, mainly. Mainly design, build contractors. A lot of the contractors, the owners doing the design themselves currently.
Jack Jostes [00:21:30]:
Yeah that makes sense. What budget do these projects retail? Meaning what? What to the homeowner who's hiring the company? Like, what's the total budget?
Jack Jostes [00:21:44]:
Are you designing? Are people hiring you for, like, $50,000 design build projects. Or are they like quarter million design build projects? Or like, is it all over the place? What, like what kind of projects are you designing?
21:57 - Finding the Sweet Spot for Project Sizes
Ryan King [00:21:57]:
Yeah, so my sweet spot right now that I've been seeing is kind of between like 100 to 150 or, sorry, 100 to 250. But a lot of the projects that are really fun is like that 50 to 100 mark as well because those are usually kind of your smaller, more intimate outdoor living spaces. But, but a lot of the, a lot of these projects are those larger scale ones where these contractors are like, hey, I just need a really accurate set of plans because if I'm going to jump on this project that's going to take me a month to two months, I need to make sure our guys know what they're doing every day and we're not doing anything twice because obviously that profit could start to sink really fast. So I've found that to be the sweet spot. But yeah, it's typically 50 to 100. It's pretty common. But really 100 to about 250 is most popular.
Jack Jostes [00:22:51]:
Yeah. And, and how do you determine how much you're going to charge the contractor? Is it based on square footage? Is it based on like, how do you, do you have a set tier for this, this type of project and tier two for this one? Or how do you figure out the, how much to charge?
Ryan King [00:23:10]:
Yeah, so, so when I develop a new relationship with a contractor, all my pricing is based on job size and complexity. So it's not so much based on square footage. It's not so much based on project dollar amount. Like for example, you could have a huge 10,000 square foot paver driveway. But obviously that's going to be easier to draw than a 10,000 or a 2000 square foot patio with different levels and stuff like that. So I based it all off of size and complexity. But then once I get into a rhythm with each contractor and really start to develop a relationship, we set a standard set pricing because now I kind of know how big these projects are, how complex the contractor likes to get. And I give them a set price list so that when they're going into that initial meeting with that homeowner, they already know what price to figure into that estimate so that they can have all their design costs covered.
Ryan King [00:24:05]:
Because I want to make sure that there's not a lot of like, hey, we're going to talk to our designer. We'll get you a price. We'll get it back to you. I want them to know already, like, hey, figure x amount of dollars into this estimate. And it should cover you. But we have really good conversations where they know if all of a sudden they get into this huge backyard with all these different features, like, shoot me a quick text with some pictures of the site and what the homeowner wants, and then I'll shoot you a price right back.
Jack Jostes [00:24:29]:
I like that. Well, Ryan, we've got about five to seven minutes left to the show. I try and keep them under half an hour total. So why don't we transition into you asking me a question? And then we'll kind of wrap up. Cool?
Ryan King [00:24:45]:
Yeah. So, one of the big things that I would love to chat with you about is from a marketing perspective, I want to. I want to be able to help out all contractors of different sizes. I mean, obviously, it's great to draw these huge backyards because you can show them off on social media, you get big reactions from them. But I want to be able to help even the smaller guys who are maybe just starting out. And what I found is, with the smaller companies, finding a way to communicate to them, actually show them how.
Ryan King [00:25:17]:
Yeah, you might spend two, three, $5,000 on a set of plans, but how that's going to increase your profitability and job efficiency, but also keeping your employees happy where they're showing up to work, they have a clean, crisp set of plans, and they know exactly what they're building that day, and they're not getting frustrated by having to go back and rebuild something twice. So I would say, yeah, the biggest thing is, and I think it's through some sort of graphic or webpage, but trying to find a way to convey to them, like, hey this design might cost you x amount of dollars, but here's the profitability that could turn around for you on all these jobs you're selling.
Jack Jostes [00:26:01]:
There's a really good book that we read as a whole company at Ramblin Jackson called "Copywriting Secrets" by Jim Edwards. And in it, he has. I don't have it in front of me. It's like the top ten reasons people buy things. And one of them is to save money. Another one is to save time. One is to boost your status, like so, to be perceived as a bigger authority or something like that. So it goes into these number of reasons.
26:29 - Saving Time, Money, and Avoiding Mistakes with Efficiency
Jack Jostes [00:26:29]:
And what I'm hearing from you is primarily, one could be saving the embarrassment of doing it poorly and then saving time and saving money. And I think that if you could quantify those things for people, that would help. And one of the ways to do that might be to do, you could even do this over Zoom like we're doing right now would be to interview somebody that you have a really good relationship with about what were they doing before and how much was it costing them, and then what are they doing now with you? And how much is it saving them and how much money? How much more money is it making them? Is it freeing up their time so they can go and sell more instead of being bogged down on their computer designing? Because I think the person that you're describing is out there. Like, think about their life. They're, I don't know, managing employees and recruiting employees and replacing employees and all the joy of employee land, and they're probably calling leads back and, like, qualifying people. They're probably driving to go and meet with someone, and then they're coming back. So I talk with this person every day, and they're working, like, 80 hours a week.
Ryan King [00:27:56]:
Exactly.
Jack Jostes [00:27:57]:
And many of them also have families. And so the cost is, like, the 20 hours a week that you're overworking, you're tired, the quality is low, you're missing family time. So I think when you get into those, those are some of the, like, the emotional things that would actually motivate someone. And then, and then some of it, I think, is legit, quantifiable. And as far as a graphic goes, like, I'm envisioning a simple bar chart of, like, here's how much it cost before, and then here's how much it cost after. But you've got to have real data. And I think that that's where if you could. And you may need to really coach people on how to find this because they may not know the data.
Ryan King [00:28:42]:
Yep.
Jack Jostes [00:28:42]:
You know, they may not know it, but I think it would be a combination of stories and interviews.
Ryan King [00:28:50]:
Yeah.
Jack Jostes [00:28:51]:
Because that's partly what's worked well for me, is I have lots of interviews with people about how much. How much were you spending in marketing before? And, like, how much did it actually cost you when you didn't grow your business as a result of it? And they're like, oh, I spent 60 grand on marketing that generated a bunch of bad leads, and then I asked them questions, and, like, how much time do you spend talking to a bad lead? And they're like, oh, well, sometimes we spend half an hour on the phone and an hour in person, and I'm like, do you pay an employee to do that, or do they do that for free? And they're always like, oh, we pay people, and now they start to quantify their overhead per hour, per person to go on a bad lead, and they're like, wow. Like, bad marketing actually has this enormous cost to me, so that's where. That's how I've kind of figured it out in my own business.
Ryan King [00:29:45]:
Yeah, definitely.
Jack Jostes [00:29:48]:
I like your website. You've got testimonials, and I like that they're from people from different states, because that shows that, oh, this guy has clients in a bunch of different states. It might be cool if you could collaborate with them to get some installation photos of what does the end product look like? Because you've got designs in here. And when I'm working with my clients, I always try and get like, okay, cool designs are cool, but show me. Show me, like, a photograph of the actual landscape, and. And, like, wouldn't it be cool if there was a video? So that would be that. To me, video is such a powerful tool, because when you record video, you can also transcribe it, and now you've got text to put wherever.
Ryan King [00:30:39]:
Yeah, that's a great point. And that's one thing that's been on my list, is getting those after pictures or even a video fly through so I can overlay it with the design transitioning to that end product. But I like what you're saying about those testimonials, because I could definitely reach out to my contractors and get that feedback saying, hey, before you, I was designing at nighttime. It was eating up all my free time with my friends and family.
Ryan King [00:31:04]:
And now that. Now that we outsource our design work, it's given me x amount of hours every day just to spend on myself or spend with my family or back in my business.
Jack Jostes [00:31:14]:
Yeah, I love it. You know, and I. When I interview people, I kind of give them the objections that I get from my clients, and I ask them to talk about it. And so I was concerned about hiring Ryan because it's thousands of dollars. Like, if you could get them to say that, right?
Jack Jostes [00:31:29]:
Cause it's one thing, Ryan, when you're. When you say it, but it's a whole other thing when we have, like, three, four. I've been doing this for 15 years. I have over 30 video interviews with clients, and I've organized them based on whatever objection I get.
Ryan King [00:31:44]:
Yeah.
Jack Jostes [00:31:45]:
So that way, then, if you're meeting with somebody, you can be like, hey, you know what? You remind me of so and so. And you send them the video, and they're like, oh, I guess so and so had that problem. So that would be my number one tip, because we both sell to landscapers, and those are the real life problems. And if you solve them, you got to help them understand it, because I think I did this, too, in my own marketing, was I got too focused on the, like, your website will do this, and it has this thing, and, like, it's like a bunch of, like, geek speak. And landscapers do this all the time, too. They, like, really geek out on soil or plants or, like, the homeowner is like, I want a place to enjoy having meals with my family outside.
Jack Jostes [00:32:29]:
Oh, okay. I think kind of dumbing it down for people of, like, here's what you. Here's what you get. And then writing those pains onto your website.
Ryan King [00:32:44]:
Yeah.
Jack Jostes [00:32:45]:
So there's no pain. There's no pain on your website.
Ryan King [00:32:48]:
Right.
Jack Jostes [00:32:49]:
So you could ask questions like, are you a million dollar landscape company currently working 100 hours a week?
Ryan King [00:32:56]:
Yeah.
Jack Jostes [00:32:56]:
Yeah. And they'll be like, yes, that's me.
Ryan King [00:32:59]:
Yeah. That's a great point, actually. Yeah. Yep. Definitely. I follow you.
33:04 - Jack Jostes on Embracing Design Help
Jack Jostes [00:33:04]:
Well, Ryan, I'm excited by what you're doing. I think figuring out how to do landscape design is a challenge that many landscape companies have. And they reach certain points where, like, yeah, the owner can do it, but, like, wow. In order to get to this next level, I can't. I can't do it. And maybe I don't have enough work to hire a designer. And then there's the whole, do I hire a designer who can also project manage, or do I hire a project manager? And then who does sales? And I think that, like, the problem that you solve is that the owner can still go out and sell, but if they didn't do the design part, it would free up so much time.
Jack Jostes [00:33:52]:
So I really like this model. I think there's a lot of different ways. There's having an in house design project manager salesperson, there's outsourcing the design. And I think that what I'm seeing in the landscape industry in general is starting to welcome this idea of outsourcing the design, and I think it's pretty smart.
Ryan King [00:34:15]:
Yeah. And that's what. That's what's one thing that helped me, too. I mean, back when I was working with Baylor Brothers back in 2016, I mean, they taught me a tremendous amount about. About business, where I was able to transform this into a model that just kind of evolved on its own, because there I was doing design and sales but then I was seeing all the aspects around it in terms of project management, managing your employees, things like that. So it just really opened my eyes on how to just evolve a business and how to make it grow.
34:48 - Thanks for Watching!
Jack Jostes [00:34:48]:
Good. Well, Ryan, it's been a pleasure talking with you. Where can folks listening connect with you if they want to learn more?
Ryan King [00:34:56]:
Yeah, so Facebook and Instagram is @kinglandscapedesign. My website's kinglandscapedesign.com so they can reach out anytime. Messages, shoot me an email, ryan@kinglandscapedesign.com. but yeah, definitely reach out anytime. I'd be more than happy to answer any questions that you guys have. Even if you already have a design staff and you're just looking for ways to improve it, I'd be more than happy to connect with you.
Jack Jostes [00:35:21]:
Awesome, Ryan. Well, thanks so much and thanks, everyone, for listening to The Landscaper's Guide.
Ryan King [00:35:27]:
Thanks, Jack.
Jack Jostes [00:35:27]:
Hey, everyone, it's Jack Jostes. And thanks so much for listening to The Landscapers Guide. I had a blast talking with Ryan, and you're going to want to check out our show notes to get a link to his website. Make sure you follow him on Instagram. He does incredible work. And I just think it's fascinating to think about maybe, maybe Ryan's your guy. Maybe you end up working with Ryan, or maybe you work with someone like Ryan, you know, but just opening the thinking to include the possibility that maybe you don't do all of the designs, maybe you hire somebody who helps you with that. And I think somebody like Ryan can work in that kind of fractional capacity to allow you to grow and scale your business faster.
Jack Jostes [00:36:09]:
So I love what's happening in the industry. I love, I love these stories. I love that he connected with somebody in Canada through social media and that led to this whole business for him. So I love these stories. And while you're listening to them, I want you to have some of the best beef jerky. Before we pressed record, Ryan was like, dude, this jerky is so good. So I want to send you a bag of beef jerky in the mail with the Marketing Field Guide. So click the show notes, go to landscapersguide.com/toolbox.
Jack Jostes [00:36:41]:
And yes, I will actually send you beef jerky in the mail with The Landscapers Marketing Field Guide. And this is going to help you save potentially years of experimenting with marketing that might not work for you. I want to teach you what's been tested and proven with over 100 landscaping companies in this marketing toolbox. So go ahead and grab yours at landscapersguide.com/toolbox click the show notes. Whether you're on Spotify or Apple podcasts, you can just open this episode and click the show notes and get the link to that. And you'll also see links to Ryan's website and all that other stuff. All right, guys, we've also got some, some really cool events coming up.
Jack Jostes [00:37:25]:
We're going to be at the SIMA Symposium in Pittsburgh. We're going to be, I'm speaking in Raleigh, North Carolina. So if you know anyone, share this episode with them, say, hey, you got to go see Jack. And we're going to do some other events, some webinars live events. Check out landscapersguide.com/events that'll be in the show notes as well. And I look forward to talking with you, connecting there and maybe even having you on the podcast. Let's have a conversation. All right, guys, thank you.
Jack Jostes [00:37:54]:
Have a great weekend and I'll talk to you soon.
Show Notes:
Watch the full episode + see the transcript at: https://landscapersguide.com/podcast/
Tell us where to send your beef jerky: https://landscapersguide.com/toolbox
Visit us at the SIMA Symposium: https://landscapersguide.com/sima/
Connect with Ryan King:
???? Website: https://www.kinglandscapedesign.com
???? Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kinglandscapedesign
???? Email: Ryan@kinglandscapedesign.com