Brian Kubota, KBT, Lawrence Kansas

Al1 you have to do is get one good development; if you get one development, you’re set. If you have a good development, then you have a good developer. Then you have to do a good job and your reputation will spread by word of mouth. The success or failure of how you handle these projects is directly related to how you get along with the allied professions, and especially within the public sector, such as the city planners and city engineers. If you believe in a project your chances for success are much greater. You must believe in a project or else it will catch up with you through the public approval process.

Consistency is the key and a landscape architectural firm must do its homework. One form of homework is independent market studies. Our firm wants to know two things about the market. Number one is, what is the market? Is what the developer or your firm proposing compatible with what the market will bear? For example, if an area is saturated with office buildings, a housing development may be the optimal use of land in a certain area. The second thing is the issue of compatibility of land use. Will the proposed project properly fit into its surroundings, aesthetically, and politically? We have based our success on knowing what the market is, independent of what the developer knows. Sometimes this is a very hard thing to do, and it essentially comes down to knowing the individual you are dealing with.

The feasibility of a project must be known independent of what the developer tells you. The more you know about a project before any drawings have been started, the greater your chances are of getting the job, and having the job be a success. A complete analysis should be done on the client, the project, and the feasibility before any plans are proposed.

Mark Lewis, Mortonson-Lewis-Scully

Developers are extremely important to us. About 90 percent of our business is derived from developers in this area. The majority of this is private work, and the public work we do comes from developers who have used us in the private sector and are now involved in public development.

There are two right ways to market landscape architecture services to the private sector. One is to go to the architects. We will solicit work from the architects if they are already involved in a major project that we want a part of. The other way is to go directly to the developers. Going to the developers directly is always the best way to market your services.

Ray Uecker, The Uecker Land Team, Fort Lauderdale, Fla.

Most of our developer clients have come from what I call our networking system. The system essentially starts out with one development project. You have to get the first one, though, and then you can start your networking system. The best way to become familiar with the developers in your area is to become involved with their associations. Join the local home builders associations and start asking the developers what they are up to. Look at what other Landscape Architectural firms are doing and whop they are working for. Try to get as much information from the developers and architects as you can in these meetings to see where the market is going. Another good thing to do is to become familiar with the various public and private review boards. If at all possible, become a part of that board. The advantages of this are obvious.

As with everything else, timing is the it key. You cannot be badgering the developers with inquiries, but you must stay in contact enough to know when a project is coming on stream. Once it you have made initial contact with the developer, or you have been awarded the job, you then want to focus your attention on the project managers. Working closely with the project manager is critical to the success of the job. If Development companies are primarily concerned with one thing, and that is it the bottom line. They assume that you can do a good job because of your reputation and previous work completed. What they are now concerned with is whether or not you can do the job at, or under budget. The success or failure of a job oftentimes does not come with how a project looks, but at what price the job was completed. That is why working with the project manager is so important. Project managers come and go on a job and in a company, and each wants to have his own effect on a project. Sometimes there will be several project manager changes on a single job, and with that, oftentimes, come several project changes. Changes cost money and the more changes you have the more it is going to cost. Project managers want to do the best job they can for the company and each has a different view of what, exactly, it is their boss wants to it see. It is critical that each aspect of a change be fully analyzed and that the Landscape Architect make sure that the project manager is fully aware of the economic impact of the change on the budget.

There is another reason to keep a good working relationship with the project managers, and that is they have a tendency to move around from one company to another. If you have worked well with a project manager and made him look good by coming in under budget with quality work, they will remember that and will recommend, to their bosses, using you again. This is an often overlooked, but very effective way to expand your network.

Rowland Jackson, Myric-Newman-Dahlberg, Dallas Tx

Developers are an important part of our business. They account for about 60 percent of all the work we do. It used to be a higher figure than that but a number of years ago we decided to diversify a bit and start concentrating on the public sector projects a little more. It is fortunate that we did. When the Texas market began stagnating because of the local economic scene we did not have to drastically change our strategy. The developers market is, of course, tied to the cyclical nature of the Real Estate market. When things are going very well in an area, as they are in Southern California and Florida right now, developers have a tendency to over-build leaving a gap between consumers and units available. This will immediately stagnate an area that two years ago was doing very well.

Timing is the key. You’ve got to stay in touch with your clientele, be it developers, architects, engineers, prime contractors or municipalities. You have to get a group of key people in your networking system. This means you have to know and understand who the leaders are. These are the leaders in all the allied professions, as well as the leaders in the building industry. If at all possible you should develop a good working relationship with the leaders in the allied professions, as well as the leaders in the building industry. If at all possible you should develop a good working relationship with the leaders in the allied professions because they can be an invaluable source of work for you company. Beyond that, if you have a good group surrounding you, your firm can specialize. If you have a good network of people to work with they will recommend your firm, or you will recommend their firm.

Dealing with developers is probably the best way to generate business, but none of the other potential clients should be ignored. The Real Estate market varies greatly over the long term and with it, the developers. The best marketing tool a company can have is a fresh idea that has worked. Then you get the “leap frog” effect. You do one innovative project and someone will see it and want the same type of effect on their project. This can go on and on, from one project to another, from one geographical location to another. Be innovative, diversify your clientele and specialize you teams and contacts.

Kay Tiller, Kay Tiller Public Relations, Richardson, Texas

Deb Mitchell, Texas ASLA

Our approach to the developer marketplace is very selective We primarily target the high end private commercial developer as the people we want to talk to. We will solicit business from the targeted developers through direct contact, which sometimes takes some doing. Once we have our foot in the door and have had a chance to find out more about the client we will go through a weeding-out process to determine the people that we want to specifically target. Once those people have been determined we go after them with the idea that our firm can create the image that they want to project with their projects. We try to bring the point across that with our help, they can differentiate their project from others through the proper image. The expression of a building or development is much more than the architectural effect. What is outside a building is often more important to a desired image than the building itself.

Once you have a client and are working with them there a few rules that are key to your success. Number one is, do not cause any pain. In other words, developers can change their minds as fast as anyone about what they want to see with their project. Do not point out all the problems that this is going to cause, and all the changes that have to be made. Be a part of the solution, not the problem. Number two is, and most importantly, know your stuff. Know what your firm is capable of and what it is not capable of. Getting in over your head can cause irreparable damage to your firm.

Julie Binkerhoff Edwards, Lifescapes, Inc., Newport Beach, Ca.

The developers are where we get the majority of our work. In fact about 90% of our work comes from the developers and the other 10% of our work comes from architects. Although you may get the majority of your work from the developers it is still important to nurture your relationship with the architects. There are two factors involved here; one, your design relationship with the architects, and two, oftentimes your contract is folded into the architectural contract.

Developers want to know that you are going to be personally involved in the project, and that once your are awarded the project you are not just going to turn it over to the design team and no longer be involved. This brings us right back to the service idea. Attention to projects, no matter what the size, is very important.