Overall, a better service
Here at Outdoor Living Gardens, when you start a project with us, we request the design fee upfront before we start any of the work. This is not uncommon – in fact, it’s very commonplace within the industry. Of course, it can be a little daunting to hand over money to someone without having any evidence of the work they can produce, and sometimes reviews and images on social media just aren’t enough to assuage those concerns. However, we are confident that having this cost be paid upfront does leave the client with an overall better service, and today we’d like to go over some of the reasons why.
Commitment and Investment
When you pay for an upfront design fee, you demonstrate your own commitment to the project. You want this design and are willing to put money down on it. It’s more than just the financial aspect, though, as it’s also a sign that you value our expertise and are serious about transforming your outdoor space. Designing a garden involves creativity, research, and exploration. The upfront fee allowed us to dive headfirst into a project and gives us a chance to work with you to explore layout options, plant selections, colours, and everything else that goes into converting your outdoor space to your dream garden.
A client who is this excited about making their perfect garden is a dream client to us – we love seeing the smiles on faces from clients who are happy with their finished design, but excitement about the entire process excites us too. It will start us off with a stronger client-designer relationship and sets a positive tone for our entire collaboration.
Resource Allocation and Risk Mitigation
As a garden design company, we allocate our resources based on the projects we take. And by ‘resources’, we don’t just mean the computers we use to create your design, but the time of our designers, and even our admins who handle invoices, phone calls, and everything else needed for our business to run. By collecting an upfront fee, we can plan our team’s time and our business’ materials effectively. It ensures that we can dedicate the necessary time to your project without spreading ourselves too thin.
An upfront fee helps us manage our finances as a company, but it can also help you as a client do the same. By providing a clear breakdown of the costs upfront, we help you budget more effectively. You’ll know what to expect, and there’ll be no surprises on the way. This transparency builds trusts and continues to foster that positive client-designer relationship.
It can also help us – and you – mitigate risk. When you put money down on a project with us, we are sharing the risk of the project together. Both parties are going to be equally invested in the project’s success. If we encounter unexpected challenges or required revisions, we can address them together.
Professionalism and Expertise
Charging an upfront fee reflects out professionalism and expertise, and our dedication to doing our job and doing it well. It shows that we take our work seriously and value our time and effort, and we value and appreciate your investment into the project. We hope you recognise this commitment and trust our recommendations and design decisions. On top of showing our dedication, knowing the total fee allows us to streamline our workflow. We can use it to create a realistic timeline, set milestones for your project and deliver on time. We aim to deliver you with timely updates on your process.
Delivering a quality design is only part of what we aim to do – we also want to deliver a quality experience. By knowing beforehand that this project is something you want to commit to, it gives us the chance to give you that experience.
