Landscape Design Jobs

Planting good ideas

There’s more to a smart slogan than words that just sound good together. A company tagline guides the branding and can set the tone for customer experience. Just ask Mike Kunce, CEO of Pike Nurseries, which has 16 locations in Atlanta and a Charlotte, N.C., store. Before deciding on this year’s “Gardening Without the Guesswork” slogan, Pike Nurseries worked with a New York research firm.

“From that research, along with another project we did about four years ago with another firm, we found what’s most overwhelming for customers is the selection in a garden center – they think, ‘I don’t want to kill it. I want to make the right decision,’” Kunce says.

The tagline speaks to customers’ key concern: choosing the wrong plant and then watching it wilt in the wrong place in their back yards.

“You establish a brand, and that brand will fall flat if everyone [working at your company] isn’t on the same page,” Kunce says.

At Pike Nurseries, this means comprehensive and rigorous training for sales associates, along with incentives for selling the nursery’s additional services: landscape design/build (the firm has seven crews) and the pick-a-plant service, where a Pike gardener will visit the client’s home, take measurements, create a design and expedite a crew to install plantings. “We can do small jobs – or we can do patios and retaining walls,” Kunce says.

Another aspect of delivering on the company’s main brand promise to Play in the Dirt at Pike is that gardening and choosing plants is exciting – and social. A calendar year of events planned for customers, including wine tastings and local food events, invites regular customers and interested prospects to experience Pike Nurseries in a casual, relaxed setting.

The key to marketing the core nursery retail business and getting the word out about its tempting side dishes – design/build and pick-a-plant – is delivering marketing in surprising packages. So, Pike Nurseries focuses on coming up with creative ways to interact with customers, and the company uses its 3-percent marketing budget across the spectrum of media (TV, radio, billboards, newspaper, garden shows) to layer the message that Pike is a place to play, get information and feel comfortable with one’s investment in plants and gardenware.

“We are one of the top 10 retail names in the city of Atlanta,” Kunce says. “And we have so much traffic going through our garden centers that it’s natural to gain leads from those customers for our landscape services. Being able to advertise our landscape design/build services under our marketing umbrella gives us a competitive advantage.

Landscape Designers Needed (Vista) | Telecommute Job List

North County Landscape Design/Build firm specializing in low water plants seeks designers with Vectorworks or Autocad skills, or mix of CAD & hand drawings skills, knowledge of low water plants and some construction for small to medium-sized residential projects in the Carlsbad area and east to communities near the I-15 corridor.

Must have own computer, software and transportation and be able to attend client appointments on site as needed. Plant identification and measuring skills are desirable. Excel, InDesign & Photoshop skills desirable but not required.

Pay is on a project by project basis ranging from $900 to $2,000 per design, depending on size of project. Opportunities for advancement and bonuses available.

Send pdf's of representative work -- conceptual drawings, hardscape layout, planting plans -- by email or link to online portfolio, along with a description of education or experience.

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