The summer is coming.

Today I wanted to talk about the big summer push that all your merchants will be focusing on (including myself at work).

Its the time of year where you get up in the morning, go to the kitchen, make yourself a coffee (or tea) look out at the garden and because the sun is rising nice and early you get to see the blank canvas that is your garden.

Well at least this is the scenario that your customer is going through, this year (fingers crossed & touch wood) we WILL have a summer and instead of your potential customers thinking "You know what, lets go to Spain with the money we saved for the garden as we wont get to enjoy it even if we get it done" there now thinking "You know what, Lets get this garden done and we can finally have a BBQ and invite the neighbours round and show off".

So your customer has you round to get a quote, you price up the labour but where do you source the materials?

This is the big question! There is no easy answer this year because so far ALL my competitors at work are throwing out very good deals and some i cant keep up with no matter what i do.

My advice first off is get an idea of what your customer wants doing (yes i know I'm telling you to suck eggs again) once you have an idea get on the Internet and check the big guys out (national merchants) there all putting up digital firework displays on there homepages and see if there deals are matching up with what your customer wants.

My second piece of advice is ring the smaller regional merchants, these guys are usually backed by a buying group like L.I.M.A so there buying power is still pretty strong and again see if there matching up with your customers requirements.

Now we have a product in mind and you show the customer and there happy with what you've shown them so like a previous post advised get them down to YOUR merchant, let them see the product in the flesh.

Not only will this put your customers mind at rest with what they have chosen, the merchant can close your sale (job) for you and even offer add on sales (which could lead to more work for you....that you get paid for of course).

I'm speaking from previous and very recent experience as a landscaper came down with his customer and they wanted a new shed and a decking area, well the shed was a straight forward sale, just a bog standard apex shed but the deck turned out to not just be a 6m x 10m deck which was originally wanted it actually turned out to be the following:-

6m x 10m decking area,
Handrail, Baserail, Balustrade, Newels,
An arch,
and alot of Stains, Timber protectors.

This gave my landscaper a much bigger pay day.

The last thing you should all look out for is watch out for hidden inflated materials.

So you have a great deal on paving slabs! cheaper than every other merchant and your happy right? well what if your sub base costs more? or your cement? I would break the enquiry up into two parts if you really want the best deals, price up the prep work and then price up the finishing product, this way merchants and suppliers wont try and sting you as its alot harder to hide an inflated price when its broken up into smaller parts.

In summary for this post, your options for landscaping this year are in my opinion the best it's been for along time, a recent suppliers meeting informed me that alot of my suppliers took a really heavy hit on sales as winter lasted 12 months last year so they are pushing hard to make up for it this year, deals are flowing like rain in summer 2012, take full advantage and if you do need any help or advice don't hesitate to ask me.