In this article, we will cover an essential component of building a successful landscape design business – conducting an effective and thorough analysis of your competitors. I truly believe competitor analysis to be more important than both industry and consumer analysis, which is why I am dedicating an entire article on the topic.

A detailed competitor analysis will provide you not only information about a rival business, but it can also provide insight into the overall health of your local industry, it can uncover gaps within the marketplace that your company can fill, and it can offer great lessons on how successful businesses market themselves. As I have stated previously, the planning of your future business is similar to building a sturdy foundation for a house – we want to take time and complete this step appropriately so that the upper levels remain stable.

How to Conduct Effective Competitor Analysis

A proper analysis of your design-industry competitors has three main components:

Gathering Information Reviewing & Confirming Information Making Critical Evaluations

In the sections below, I will outline some of the key tasks necessary to ensure each component is successfully completed.

Gathering Information

Your primary role for this first task is to pretend you are a sponge. You need to soak up all the possible information about your market competition, regardless of its perceived relevance. Any information that you obtain, put it aside for future review. In general, this part of competitor analysis should be quick and unrefined – one hour should be all the time needed to gather this info.

Where To Get Information

We live in a wonderful age. Most of the valuable information for your review should be obtainable online.

Search Engines: Obviously, the first thing any customer does when they are looking for a new contractor is to Google Search their need. Most likely if a customer was in need of landscape design services, their query would be something akin to: “Landscape Design Companies in (name of town or state)”. Fittingly, your analysis should start the same way.

Once you’ve searched for that phrase, don’t just copy down the information, rather take a screenshot from your computer and save it. (A screenshot is done by pressing the Ctrl tab and the PrintScreen key simultaneously). Now that the screenshot is copied, simply paste it into a Microsoft Word or PowerPoint file and date it. We can then come back later and analyze the changes in these results over time.

Also, the screenshot will give you other information that you may have missed if you just furiously copied down company names. Notice in the example above, we not only have map of where the companies are, but we also have information on the number and quality of their customer ratings.

The map is useful, as it relates to the saturation of designers within a given area. If there were minimal landscape service companies within your designated area, Google would pull from surrounding areas to fulfill your request and this would be easily noticeable on the map. Likewise, the number of ratings can highlight the size, health, and overall consumer opinion of a competing company.

Next, you should also look on Facebook for the same query. Many large design/build companies have tremendous community groups through which they communicate design ideas, plant trends, and upcoming events. This information will not only be valuable to you for competition analysis, but can also spark your own creative ideas for marketing your company in the future.

Don’t worry about duplicating information or about ensuring that you search the same companies that showed up on your initial Google search. You just want to gather anything and everything you can find.

Another resource for finding information on potential competitors is through the U.S. Census Business Builder. I had discussed the value of this site in the previous article “How To Start A Landscape Design Business: Part 2 – Industry & Consumer Analysis”. Be sure to review it if you need additional information. The Business Builder can be of assistance in identifying other landscape service businesses not highlighted through Google or Facebook.

Finally, take a look at your local Chamber of Commerce business directory. Depending on where you live, this might be easily accessible online or you may need to call your town hall. Either way, the directory should give you a complete list of all the designers within your area.

Reviewing The Information: How To Organize & What To Look For

Once you’ve gotten past the initial push of information gathering, we will want organize the information in a logical way in order to best analyze our findings. For this next step, I will be referencing an organizational approach using the Draftscapes Competitor Analysis spreadsheet. It is completely free and can be obtained by clicking this link. If you download it now, it will be easy to follow along as we move through the article.

The first task in reviewing the compiled information is to identify 5 companies that will serve as indicators of the broader market. When selecting companies 1, 2, and 3, you want to identify direct competitors that are similar to your own business idea.

To do this, you want to be sure you’ve identified that they are (a) in your desired geographic region, (b) provide the same or similar services, and (c) are currently active within your industry. These will be the three “key competitor calls” we will discuss in the next section. After you’ve identified those companies, simply fill in the required information into the spreadsheet.

For companies 4 and 5, you should find companies that are indirect competitors to your niche. What is the different between a direct and indirect competitor? A direct competitor offers the same service/product within the same region, and is of the same quality/cost as your intended company. An indirect competitor would only meet 1 or 2 of those characteristics.

For example, if my landscape design company was focused on affordable approaches to create vegetable gardens in southern Florida and I research a competitor that was both affordable and located in southern Florida, but did not provide any information as to their ability to design edible landscapes, they would be an indirect competitor.

Once you’ve identified the indirect competitors, identify the required information for the “Info” section and input it into the spreadsheet.

Key Competitor Calls

Now that most of the heavy-lifting for the competitor analysis is done, the next part can actually be quite fun and inspiring because you will see how companies (whether well performing or not) operate their businesses.

From Companies 1, 2, and 3, you will want to review their websites or advertisements and obtain the contact information. If they are smaller design companies, then you will only probably have one number to call; however, if the company is much larger, they may have several departments – you will need to ensure you are calling to speak to their design group.

These companies are what I refer to as the “key competitor calls”. You should actually call the company – or if you are too nervous, email – to inquire about you hiring them for your project. I know this may seem like a silly task, but it actually can provide some of the best insights into a well-run business. I will use my own academic profession as an example.

For college students, one of the worst things to face when navigating the waters of undergraduate studies is finding out program requirements, transferability of credits, or career advice. The college faculty are key contacts for this type of advising information and if a student is not able to get a quick and fulfilling answer then studies have shown they are likely to drop out or take the wrong classes.

I was interested in seeing how other similar college programs advised their students as to this information, so I obtained contact information and started calling as if I were a student. It was a treasure trove of information. Not only did I learn what NOT to do, but I also found some other valuable information/resources that I could utilize in my own program. Call it covert or just smart, the best way to find out information about your competitors is directly from them.

Here are 6 items you should analyze when making the call to the company:

Does anyone answer your call or do you need to leave a message? If you leave a message, how quickly do they return your call?

Reason: Contact is king: Ask yourself – how many times have you called a contractor for work on your home/property/etc and when you didn’t hear from them, you simply stopped trying other contractors? Most often, people will call until they get the service they need. If your competitors aren’t picking up their phone, or are late to calling you back, this is a great strategic advantage.

What is their design process like? Do they want you to fill out a questionnaire? Do they need to come to your site for initial consultation? If they need an on-site visit, will it cost money?

Reason: There is a good deal of information that can be accessed from how a design company handles new clients. If they have a questionnaire, be sure to review what they are asking for and the relative strengths/weaknesses of the documents. If instead they wish to visit the site, see how quickly they can schedule the visit and how much they charge. Perhaps this is an area in which you can capitalize on.

Is there a project size minimum or maximum you should be aware of? (Pretend you aren’t sure how much you want to accomplish right away – larger companies may not want to work on very small projects as it isn’t worth their time.)

Reason: Although the company may seem like they are covering an identical market, you may find that they prefer larger full-scale residential property designs rather than only small gardens, or vice-versa. Asking this question might provide insight into a potential opportunity to provide service to the clients they do not take.

What is the turnaround for getting your service scheduled?

Reason: You want to take notice of how healthy the industry is and how busy this particular company would be as well. A standard turnaround for getting a service scheduled is around two weeks. If they inform you that they can be out tomorrow and get a design done within a few days, this would indicate they are starved for work. (A bad sign for your niche).

From the opposing perspective, if they are very busy and cannot schedule your service for over a month, this would indicate a potential opportunity to capitalize on the industry backlog. Be sure to also take note of the season in which you are asking this information. Having delayed service in the height of summer when most design/build firms are busy is common and a much different clue than being delayed in the winter.

What is their pricing? Do they offer any other services not found online?

Reason: Obviously, you want to see the going rate of design services within your area so you can price accordingly. Additionally, it can help to see what other services they provide which aren’t advertised on their website or Facebook page.

Do they have any projects they recently completed that you can look at?

Reason: Unless there are privacy issues related to the homeowner or project site, the company should have no problem showing you pictures of past projects, even recent ones. It’s important not only to see what their designs look like, but how they “sell” themselves. A good designer will offer you several options and strategies for design. A poor one will show you a similar design for almost every site.

After you’ve compiled this information, you will also evaluate the relative strengths/weaknesses of their design work. This is subjective, but should serve to assist you in setting your own business up for success.

Finally, don’t be discouraged if a company “knocks it out of the park”. If you go into these calls looking for problems but quickly realize there is a company similar to yours that does an excellent job – that’s ok! They can be a model to aspire to and possibly a mentor in years to come. It is a good thing to see landscape design companies and the design industry do well. A rising tide lifts all boats.

Hopefully, after you’ve completed this section, you will have noticed some gaps within the market that you can leverage for your own company. The outcome of a well-completed competitor analysis is to identify how you can differentiate yourself from the existing players in your area. By asking the right questions and reviewing the pertinent information, you will be moving one more step closer to getting a legitimate and successful design company off the ground.

In the next article, you will learn how to take action on the research and planning you’ve done and register your business, identify licensing requirements, and begin to estimate startup costs. Click here for Part 4: Registering Your Business.

Be sure to also check out all our other professional business-building articles on the Business section of the Draftscapes website.

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