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Founder Insights: Randy Tumber - Landscape Designer - Randy Tumber Landscape Consulting

This week’s founder is Randy Tumber APLD, CLD, CHT, ISA, a landscape designer with 48+ years of experience working on projects throughout Canada, USA, France, Germany, and the Bahamas.

After running a highly successful design-build practice for over 40 years, Randy sustained a serious injury that forced him to re-work his business and adapt to these changes.

His career has earned him over 120 national and international awards! This represents the most awards ever garnered by a single individual in the landscape/water features field. He has led speaking engagements and seminar presentations at public events, universities and colleges.

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Randy’s Key Takeaways

• Many business owners are hesitant to invest in staff training due to fears that trained employees may leave and become competitors.

• To avoid confusion between his old business and his new consulting firm, Randy incorporated his first name into the business name, which helped establish a clearer brand identity.

• Randy emphasizes the importance of emotional connection in sales. He schedules consultations at times when clients are more relaxed, facilitating better conversations. He says it is not the type of thing you simply look at, the project becomes an emotional attachment once you show off the design. He uses the image of a tropical pick sand crescent beach with palm trees and a rocky mountain in the background as a facilitator to show how the client should feel.

• He charges a $750 consultation fee for design + construction projects to demonstrate the value of his services. This practice not only covers his time but also encourages clients to view his expertise as valuable.

• Randy found greater satisfaction and success by focusing on a narrow niche of natural, timeless designs rather than chasing trendy styles, which he believes are often less meaningful.

• After a negative experience with a large commercial project, Randy decided to strictly pursue residential projects, emphasizing selectivity to avoid burnout and maintain quality.

• He structured his payment plan for the design phase to receive 50% upfront and the rest in increments, ensuring that clients were financially committed throughout the design process.

• For Randy, success is about personal satisfaction and client happiness, stating, “I felt good if my employees were in a good frame of mind,” which reinforces a holistic view of success.

• Randy prioritizes quality of life for himself and his employees over rapid business growth, highlighting the importance of personal satisfaction and a positive work environment.

Website & Selected Projects

Q&A with Randy

You ran your landscape design firm for 42 years and now have ventured off into specialized training and consulting, what led to this transition?

It was a construction injury I got on my hand. It was a very serious injury, and I had multiple surgeries. I was unable to drive for 18 months, unable to work for two years.

After two years of not working I ended up selling the business to a former employee. I was supposed to stay on and do sales and design consultation but that didn’t work out so I had a five-year non-competition agreement and all I could do during that five years was training, teaching, and volunteering. So that's what I did and part of that spawned Tumber International Landscape Training.

What I did discover after not too long was that people were a little bit skeptical of training their staff because some business owners were a little leery of investing this level of training and education into staff that may then feel emboldened to hang out their own shingle, thus becoming future competition, understandably so..

I then began running into too much confusion between my former company, Tumber and Associates, and myself, Tumber International Landscape Training so I was advised to insert my first name into that, Randy Tumber Landscape Consulting, which is who I am now. The guy that's helping me with marketing said, you have to put your first name in there to differentiate, so I did and it actually has worked out quite well.

It’s important to note that, although I am no longer affiliated with my former company, it still bears my name. Hence, I do want to see it flourish, while still simply trying to make a living.

Are you doing training and consulting with a team or is it just yourself? What is your project workload like?

Just me, I had two to three months of steady work this spring and just the last couple of weeks I was able to wrap up one project and then I have the next phase of it to start up in fall once things dry up a little bit because we’ve had so much rain down here (Orangeville, Canada). This project is probably another couple months of work and that works out fine for me. In this case the client provides the man power so that I can be the consultant and designer.

How do you acquire most of your work? After being in the industry for so long do most projects just show up at the door? What is the best approach?

They do yes, but I also advertise in a quarterly magazine called ‘In The Hills’ and I put a half-page ad in there each time. If you go online, you'll be able to see it. It's a picture of me sitting in front of a little waterfall with my German Shepherd dog (Rowdy), that I had at the time. I get a lot of personal feedback where people comment on what a beautiful dog I have and that kind of opens the conversation and makes things a little more casual and not quite as hardcore business, because I like to keep things fairly chill.

Sales calls I usually try to push towards the end of the week, especially after people have had a chance to get home and have their supper and sit down with a glass of wine and relax. People are in a much more congenial mindset to talk, whereas if you go the first of the week, a lot of times, particularly if it's executives and stuff, they're sort of occasionally at the cutthroat of their business and it's all dollars and cents as opposed to the wow factor of the potential outcome, timing is really critical.

You want to be able to very sincerely speak to their emotions and once they're emotionally involved and you've established credibility with them then you can move forward from there with a little more success rather than strictly a divide-and-conquer numbers type of thing.

People come to me and I will explain to them that I have a $750 consultation fee for the initial consultation and I tell them what that entails, and then I say that in the event that you do engage me in any capacity then that $750 is credited back to you on your first invoice, so all that does is ensure that I'm covered from the start.

In the past with free estimates, I would run myself ragged doing three to four-hour sales calls a day, and Saturdays and Sundays, and so some screening over the telephone prior to doing a site consultation, for which I get paid $750 bucks, then that really helps stop the wheel spinning on the clients who aren’t serious. If they stop at that then all I have invested is a phone call.

After 40+ years of experience you certainly know your worth in the profession, how can firm owners better show their value and charge what they're worth?

The one thing that I have had pounded into me over the years is that if you don't attach any value to what you're offering, neither will the homeowner. All they see is, you’re Joe Blow business and they’re calling three different designers and getting three prices and seeing if there's anybody willing to come up and give them a free estimate, essentially ‘tire kickers’. If you attach no value to your services, neither will they, and they'll spin your wheels all day long.

I have a consulting fee and all of a sudden that helps because if they have something invested they see that there's value attached to that, and all of a sudden you rise to the top.

I think experience is your best friend in terms of your client interview because when people call me, they think they're interviewing me, but it's just as much I'm interviewing them. So during the screening process when I'm chatting with them, I very subtly and very respectfully interview them and find out a lot about what they're doing and what their intentions are, what their current intentions or long-term intentions are and how long have they had the property, where they want to go with it; what kind of amenities are they considering. I casually try to find out as much as possible about what they're doing and their goals, aspirations, entertainment habits, lifestyle, and I can find out how genuine they are, a lot of things are evident just by being audibly observant, and how they say what they want.

These are all things that help me to establish a level of credibility with them as they're doing the same thing to me. I beg them to please scrutinize me. I welcome scrutiny.

How have you differentiated yourself from other, similar firms?

A long time ago I was trying to keep up with all the leading designers and landscape architects at the time, who were speaking all this stuff and I was thinking: How can I catch up to those guys instead of constantly following their lead? I felt like I was plagiarizing, copying everything that others were doing. When in actuality, I started thinking, but I don't want to catch up to them because I don't necessarily like this stuff (referring to trendy design styles). I like natural stone and I like flagstone and other natural elements of nature. I prefer something that will stand the test of time. I mean I would still use other materials for a driveway or for a pool terrace around the swimming pool if you didn't want to invest in the cost of flagstone.

So I very quickly realized that many of these other designers who are spec’ing all these trendy things aren't necessarily some gifted creative geniuses. Often they're spec’ing the latest that the manufacturers are saying “Here, look at this, start selling this stuff.” And they're saying “Oh, okay, this year, let's start pushing this stuff.” So the word trend just about makes me sick. I try to avoid that as much as I can while everybody tries to stay on top of it. I have a very, very consistent style. And I try to observe, learn, understand and replicate natural elements and processes as much as possible. I forced myself into a very narrow niche market because not everybody wants what I do. That's fair enough, because I can't work for everybody.

Did you feel as though this approach has been an advantage or disadvantage for you in the long run?

It's been an absolute advantage for me because I don't want big and trendy.

I went through that already. I had three construction crews, a maintenance crew, architect on staff, a receptionist, studio, all that kind of stuff, and I ran myself ragged,, because “bigger is better” and if you're not growing, you're dying, right? Well, then I realized, this sucks, and all I'm doing is running myself ragged. I don't get to be on site myself like I wanted to so I just changed my format and I went back to one crew and I ran the crew myself, and I was on site 10 hours a day 5 days a week and I loved it.

I did my sales calls in the evenings and weekends, and I screened my sales calls or I had them screened by my business manager. Out of around 30 sales calls in a week, I would have about four that were willing to pay the consulting fee, and out of those four, I would land one or two and it worked out really well.

I don't know if bigger is better, I loved running one crew and I surrounded myself with the best talent I could possibly find and my employees were excellent employees. I don’t even like calling them employees, I never said a guy worked for me I always said he worked with me.

Looking back on it now, do you have an ideal team size in mind?

I mean every business guru will tell you that I'm a moron because you have to grow, you got to grow revenue, revenue, revenue, profit, profit, profit. But to me it was more about quality of life and peace of mind not only for me but for my employees, I wanted them to have a life.

But I had guys who could do everything, The only thing we did not do in-house was anything to do with gas or electrical, we subbed that and we used the same trades all the time, they were guys that we knew, years-long relationship, and it's all about, in my opinion, it's all about relationships. The older I get, the more important those relationships are.

What advice would you give to other design firm founders, specifically early-stage founders?

You have to be a determined person, you can't be a quitter. You're going to run into hard times; you absolutely are going to run into hard times. You've got to be willing to bite the bullet and really bear down and stay with, stay with it with whatever your goal is.

But as far as financing and everything is concerned, I didnt have that option. I just started small and worked my way up, and scrounged. I know a lot of people get a line of credit and get their bankroll or they'll have money up front and everything. I didn't do that, I don't know how to do that. I didn't have formal business training, in fact, I'm like the world's worst businessman. But my creative juices kept inspiring me to move ahead and I gradually acquired one machine, then another machine, and then another machine. So then the workers that you do have, you train them to operate and you train them on all these other disciplines.

One regret that I have is that I put so much into it at the beginning and that it took a heavy toll on my family, fortunately, I was able to hit reset and I still have a very happy family life. My wife and I just celebrated our 51st anniversary this year and my kids are all happily married and doing well and my grandchildren are doing well.

Having said that there are still a lot of sacrifices that have to be made for you to make the whole ship keep floating.

What did you find out early in running your practice that prevented future pitfalls or issues?

I stay strictly residential, I am very selective about the projects that I worked on. I did a large commercial project one time and I got burned really, really badly and I realized that I was set up like a bowling pin.

A great big company from the city, and they picked me up and they ate my lunch, it took a huge toll on me. I realized at that point, I do not want to do this tender process anymore.

The design got slammed in the ground and the love and passion for horticulture and for quality, craftsmanship, and longevity all went out the window because the focus was get it in, hurry up, and get it done.

How did you structure your sales process?

The way I structured my business arrangement was that I got 50% down on signing; I got 25% on the presentation of the preliminary landscape masterplan, and I got the remaining balance on the presentation of the detailed planting plan. So by the time I was halfway through the design process, I had three-quarters of the money.

What had happened before is sometimes people would get the preliminary landscape masterplan and they've only paid half up front and then they wouldn't call you back and so they think, 'Oh, I can build it, I can build this myself. I'll just get some shrubs and this and that and do it.'

So by doing the 50%, then 25% and 25%, then they're 75% invested just by the time they get the masterplan. So then the detail planting plan, they would be happy to pay the last 25% because it wasn't all that much anyway, and then that would be it.

After 40+ years of running your practice, what is your definition of success and what reaffirms that you’ve done it the right way?

Personal satisfaction was huge. I felt good, I had a huge sense of accomplishment at the end of every day, but it was also rounded out by if my employees were in a good frame of mind and doing well. Then I could come home and leave all the stress and everything with the job and have my home life.

And I let my employees have their home life as well, with almost no weekends worked.  Each long weekend all season was a paid 4 day weekend, plus, we shut down for a week in July for a paid week off, (all, on top of their vacation pay). All apprentices that graduated under me, was given an expenses paid week’s vacation in a place of their choice (a resort in Florida, Cuba, the Bahamas, etc.). 

 And my clients, I could tell by the body language, (the customer hand shakes & hugs) and the expressions from my clients & how happy they were. I’ve been  able to receive rave reviews from almost all my clients about how thoroughly pleased they were with their projects & how my crews were so conscientious & courteous.

We had a standing thing that if you see the client come in with groceries, you open the door, you hold the door, you help them carry them into their home. The little kids have something with their bike or whatever, help them with their bike. The job site cleaned up every night, swept every night, everything neat and tidy, organized and no loose ends. So you would feel confident that your bases were covered at the end of every day.