I Got My Yard Designed, and It Changed the Way I Do Business

Furniture stores are the arch enemy of nice people everywhere. If you are even remotely a nice person—of which there are few precious of us left—don’t even tip toe into those things: you will get steamrolled.

(And by “steamrolled” what I mean is “harassed into a permanent state of despair by a middle-aged former Applebee's manager having a turbulent mid-life career crisis, seeing if the grass is really greener hawking 90s-era, gold-accented, nutmeg maple colonial American bookshelf headboards.”)

Second in line for the “most annoying customer experience ever award” has got to go to insurance companies, followed closely behind in a real nail-biter of a race by cable & internet providers, rental car companies, and definitely banks. All of these industries need a swift kick in the ass. We’ve been disrupting things since like 2009—why did we stop at Dollar Shave Club?

Clearly there are a lot of things that can be done better. I am still waiting for sensible scissor packaging, for example. No product has caused more ire than the humble scissor. It is not lost on me that they call that type of packaging “blister packaging,” presumably because once you’re done opening the package, you’re going to need a whole tube of antibiotic ointment to heal your raging, fluid-filled sacs.

You’re welcome for this. ⬇️

^^^ Boy am I glad scissors aren’t under any threat of being shoplifted. You deter those morally-impotent maniacal motherfuckers!

Fortunately, there are some companies that make my daily life a joy:

• Gummy - This is my new favorite copywriting tool by FAR. 🔥 It’s a search engine specifically for searching Reddit forums, so you can find out what your target audience is actually thinking, asking, complaining about, wanting. You can use it to validate products, inspire content, ideate startups, find sales leads, and—hell yes—use it to source VoC (voice of customer). (Which I use in copywriting to write headlines and copy in the exact words of my customers—one of the biggest underestimated tactics there is.) For example, if I want to sell to realtors, I can go, tell it I’m looking for realtors, it’ll present me with a bunch of relevant subreddits that I can select, and then tell it to search for things like “advice requests,” “pain and anger,” “hot discussions this week,” “money talk,” and more—perfect if I’m trying to think of what to write about in my newsletter for realtors, or if I’m trying to come up with a product for realtors, or if I’m trying to write copy for realtors. I LOVE THIS. (Though I do wish “Gummy Search” was not the name, based off a gummy bear mascot. I propose something more irreverent and memorable like “Eat the Internet.” Which is absolutely a URL I own. 💪 (Want to buy it for your project? Contact me: ash@ashambirge.com.)
• Kick - my new favorite AI accounting software by FAR. Say two words with me: auto-categorization. It is so refreshing to be able to see your numbers, made human. (That should be their new tagline. Feel free to steal it, Kick!)
• Kit (of course) - they’re my favorite email marketing software on earth - such a lovely UX (user experience), I literally always look forward to writing emails in there (like I want to start more and more newsletters just so I can set up awesome email sequences & automations and have I got a condition????? I think I may have a condition).

My newest favorite, however, is not at all business-related.

Not business related at all.

And holy gin tonic, am I in LOVE.

I had to tell you about it because I’m impressed with the business model. I really like the way they’re running their business. And I thought: this could be a very useful model to replicate, no matter what you do.

So first thing’s first: you know what kind of business this is???

LANDSCAPE DESIGN. 🏡 ⛲️ 🪴

Which is not something I’ve ever written about.

But, the farmhouse really needed some help—particularly after I leveled the old barn, rented a 12,000-pound destruction machine to clear out trees, and barrelled across my lawn and ripped out a bunch of evil, no good, very perverted bushes.

But you know how you never want to call people like that? People like landscape designers who you perceive are going to cost an arm, a leg, and an organ, all while trying like hell to get on their schedule in the first place, while having to pay for them to come to your property in the middle of nowhere, while then painstakingly taking months to complete???

It's a shame this is the perception, but it is. Ditto for architects (please give me $500 to breathe on your front porch).

This is why I was curious to see a company that seemed like they were disrupting the landscape design industry, making it a simple, affordable, fun digital-first experience in which they design your yard online.

That company is Yardzen. 🏡

As soon as I saw some of their before/afters, I was like AWWW SHEEEETTTT.

So, here’s how the business model works:

1. You buy a package online—front yard, backyard, whole yard, premium. Prices are *super* reasonable compared to what it would cost to hire a traditional landscape designer.
2. You then go through online onboarding and answer a bunch of questions about what you like, don’t like, need, want, etc. (without talking to any sales reps, thank god).
3. Then, you upload photos of your home, based on their specific instructions. (E.g. take photos from these angles.)
4. And, voila, they get to work designing your yard, digitally rendering the whole thing.
5. In a couple of weeks, you get your full design: a gorgeously landscaped yard, including everything you asked for.
6. You swoon for days and show everyone you know.
7. You submit your feedback.
8. They do a round of iterations.
9. Then, you’re done! They link you up with all the products they used in the design—which are surely affiliate links—and you go off and buy them and DIY your yard. OR, you hire their vetted contractors (which they will definitely have financial arrangements with).

Now, before we talk about the business, let me show you what they did to my yard. 😍

(Don’t forget I have the farmhouse and the matching guest cottage, so that’s why you’re seeing two houses.)

Andddd, this email will definitely be truncated because of the size of the images, so you may need to click to view it online, but omg, so worth it.

Isn’t that just gorgeous?

I was going for an English cottage garden style, but make it deer proof. 🤣 (Which is forever impossible, but hey, they hate lavender!)

I think they did a phenomenal job, and you know what the best part is???

• I never had to talk to anyone
• I didn’t have to wait months
• It was quick and painless
• I’m thrilled with the result
• And now they give me the goods so I can implement myself—another plus for people like us who are action takers

Now, this is where it gets good.

This is my point about the business model.

This kind of business model is a 1:1 business model—but it’s not structured like one.

When you think 1:1, what do you normally think of?

• Email inquiries
• Setting up a time to speak over the phone
• Spending ~1 hour having pit sweat over a sales call and nervously saying things like, “well, what’s your budget like?”
• Drafting up a full-blown proposal
• Waiting on pins and needles because they didn’t respond right away
• Having to negotiate the rate / scope
• Sending contracts
• Sending invoices
• Waiting for signatures
• Waiting for a deposit
• Doing another kick-off call
• Sorting through back-and-forth emails with additional thoughts from client
• Project management / timelines / deadlines

…you get the point.

1:1 client work can be challenging, for a lot of reasons, but also because the process is so daunting. And worse, this is all the stuff you’re expected to do before you even start billing.

Personally, I think this is why so many people running service businesses are so unhappy with them: the process can be nightmare-ish.

But, what if you did it another way?

What if you stole Yardzen’s playbook?

Instead of all of the above, here’s what that would look like:

• Here are the packages
• Client signs up, pays, and then goes directly into a client portal where they automatically go through onboarding
• Client answers a series of questions, add images, links, inspo boards, context, whatever is necessary to perform the work
• Client completes onboarding and message appears that first deliverable will be delivered within two weeks (all they need to do is kick back and relax!)
• The work gets done on schedule and uploaded to client portal.
• Client reviews and submits feedback.
• You perform iteration.
• PROJECT IS COMPLETE, CLIENT LOVES IT, THE END.

…all without having the typical bloat of the typical 1:1 client project.

Not that there’s not room for those—naturally, some client work absolutely benefits from a closer client relationship, etc. But generally speaking, this model does one thing that the old model doesn’t:

It lets you focus on the work.

Imagine how much better the work can be, when it’s what you spend 80% of your time doing?

So far, one of the best tools I’ve found for this, short of hiring your own developer and making your own software, is a tool called Dock. Clients get their own portals and you can customize for onboarding, request items, and even message back and forth with client.

You can set up templates so every client gets the same onboarding flow, AND you can also set up workflow automations so as clients take actions, they get emails, etc. Then, you can deliver the work.

Other platforms like Honeybook do things similar to this, but mostly by letting clients sign proposals and contracts—but they aren’t set up specifically to work together in a project. Other tools ARE project management tools, like Asana, but mostly for running big teams and keeping everyone internally on track. Basecamp is an oldie, but goodie, and have been around forever: but it feels more “let’s work together on this hands-on” than it does “hey, this is an app, and you go through the process, and it’s less hands-on.”

(If you have any alternatives, def let us know in the comments!)

Truly, however, if more service providers tried to create a process that worked for them, instead of against them, they’d be so much happier.

The key, of course, is showing up like this is exactly how it works, isn’t it great? And setting expectations for awesome, rather than apologizing that it’s different.

You’re the business owner. You’re in charge of how your business works. And sometimes?

It might be the best thing that ever happened to your client.