Milieu Landscape Consulting: Mastering Contractor Advertising and Personalized Design in Vancouver

Audio Transcription

Mark Lamberth:
Hello, welcome to another episode of The Contractor Grow Show. My name is Mark, I’m your host, we are a contractor marketing agency and today I have the honor of speaking with Alex Lerner at Alex Lerner Landscaping Design in Landscape Design in Vancouver, British Columbia. Alex, thanks for being with us today.

Adam Lerner:
Yes, thank you for inviting me, mark. I’m excited to be here.

Mark Lamberth:
Fantastic. So I’m taking a look at your site. You guys do absolutely stunning work. And I’ll say just in a nutshell, I mean, I’m going to talk more about the site, but you guys have really got your marketing just dialed in. It’s beautiful. And I would even say, guys, if you’re listening to this show, just head on over to al landscape.com, like alex lerner al landscape.com to take a look at an example of a beautiful site that really portrays someone’s work very well. So I just want to take that to open up here, Alex. Great job on that. Maybe you could just tell us a little bit about the history of the business, where you guys are at today, and what’s going on with Al Landscape Design.

Adam Lerner:
Yes. I guess I should maybe start with the fact that we are, as of probably this last week, we’re no longer Al Landscape Design we’re landscape, is that right? Okay. Yeah. So we changed our name and that’s maybe the story of the business. We kind of grew and incorporated, and so it’s no longer, I felt like it doesn’t represent what we do, just going by my own name as we’re expanding as a team and we’re taking on not just the single family residential projects, were going a little bit more on the commercial and multifamily and sometimes even industrial. And so I thought a new name, new branding would be appropriate. And so now we’re called Milieu Landscape Consulting.

Mark Lamberth:
Okay, great. I love it. How do I spell that? M-I-L-I-M-I-L?

Adam Lerner:
Yes. M-I-L-I-E-U. Landscape Consulting.

Mark Lamberth:
Yeah,

Adam Lerner:
The website is still the same though.

Mark Lamberth:
Okay,

Adam Lerner:
Great. Yeah.
If you’re a landscape designer in Canada, checkout this association.

Mark Lamberth:
Okay, fantastic. So that’s probably been a little bit of a project for you guys, so the team’s expanding, and then maybe you could tell me about the history of the business. You guys have been around for a while, it looks like since 2018, and they’ve got a really prolific portfolio for being around, really for the last short 60 years. How about the history of the business? How has it started and how has it grown?

Adam Lerner:
Yeah, that’s a good question. So it’s interesting because I kind of came to the residential sector maybe through an unexpected backdoor. So I graduated, I did my studies of landscape architecture back in home in Israel, and then I moved to Canada in 2016 and I quickly needed to find a job as a landscape architect. It was a little bit more complicated because there’s all these steps you need to go through the portfolio and all these. And so I thought, okay, maybe I’ll just start with the landscaping business and I’ll just do some hands-on work, which would be valuable for just my experience, but also some connections. And I started working with a contractor that was great. They were a great employer and they primarily worked in the residential sphere. And that’s how I kind of got hooked on that idea of working residential, because when you’re doing landscape architecture, typically it’s public domain on the city scale, bigger things.
And after working with them for a few years, I started working in a landscape architecture firm here in Vancouver and on the side and already told them that. I said, well, you know what? I do have some of my own projects, some of my own clients that come in, so I want to preserve that. And they allowed me, they were wonderful. So they allowed me to take my time and also work on my own projects. And that’s how from 2018 to 2022, I was just doing residential design on the side. And in 2022 I decided it’s just not, the business is growing, it’s not fair for anybody involved, my family, my day job, and my business to just do each of them. And so I decided to just go full on and start my own business, my own practice. So that’s where we are today.

Mark Lamberth:
Wow, amazing. So it truly hasn’t even been since 28. So was 2018 the official start date for it then, or was it a little bit after that?

Adam Lerner:
Yeah, 2018 is where I started to taking, I’d say my own clients, but again, it was part-time. So I would have maybe 10 projects a year, five projects a year at the beginning. And then it kind of exploded really after Covid, because after Covid really interesting thing happened. People were sitting at home and at first everybody in the industry was quite worried because people thought, oh, there’s uncertainty, economic uncertainty. People didn’t know what to do. But an interesting thing happened in our industry because people stayed at home and they didn’t go on their Euro trips, so there was this dispensable income. So people invested in projects and they thought, oh, well, the home now is becoming this kind of multifunctional machine of providing me with all the needs that I used to outsource and going on vacations and everything. So now I want to meet all these needs in my backyard. And then that’s where it’s really exploded for us.

Mark Lamberth:
Amazing. And that was completely unexpected. I mean, is that across the industry? I mean the landscape architects, designers, people helping make people’s homes spaces beautiful. I mean, is that what you’ve seen is basically a growth even across the whole industry? I mean, certainly for you guys as well?

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Adam Lerner:
Yeah, I think it was across most, across the whole industry, landscapers, I work with a lot of contractors, so the guys that essentially installed the designs, and there was a lot of uncertainty at first, but then around 2022, they just started to get hit with a lot of projects. And that’s kind of it. I think one of the industries that really didn’t get impacted as much or actually got good out of the whole covid situation was really the construction industry. Yeah.

Mark Lamberth:
Wow, amazing.
So you guys do a great job. I mean, going on your site and taking a look at your portfolio, it’s clear and there’s actually not a whole lot of words required to see the quality of the work that you guys do. And then I have a special place, I love high quality landscape design myself, and I’ve been on landscape crews at different times, especially more construction, but I’ve done a fair amount of landscaping myself, and I just love that type of work and kind of design making spaces outdoors. Beautiful. I saw that you guys focus on some interesting pieces, visualization techniques, design, local bylaws, but in your words, what makes milieu landscape design different? I mean, there’s a lot of landscape design companies, there’s a lot of great companies in Vancouver. What have you guys focused on and what makes you guys special and stand out in the marketplace?

Adam Lerner:
Yeah, that’s actually a good question. And as we are rebranding and as we’re kind, rethinking our values, we do think about it a lot. I did think about it a lot in the past few weeks and months, and really I could say that we wouldn’t come to a client and say, we are the best. I think it’s all about the context, and that’s kind of what we’re good at. We’re good at understanding the context, the context of the site, the context of the client of what they might need, listening and understanding those needs. That’s kind of the key for any, I would say in the wider scheme of things, it’s a key for any consulting job. So I guess that’s what our solutions are never generic. They’re always very tailored to the particular needs of the client in the context of their site, of their property, in the context of their budget. And I guess that’s kind of what makes us, I dunno, maybe a better fit for some, but not a good fit for

Mark Lamberth:
Others. Sure. I love it. Interesting. So just sort of really personalized care. I mean, these are not cookie cutter you. You’ve got a many, many designs and many on your site, and I think many that we’ve seen in LinkedIn, I think maybe over 170 projects you’ve designed, but you’re not reusing those design elements because every site is unique and so you’re going onto it, you’re obviously going to meet with an owner. I mean, what is the process when, I’m just curious, I am fascinated by this kind of the sales process that contractors, professionals at your level go through when they’re meeting with a homeowner. And so somebody contacts you guys off your website and they say, Hey, we saw you guys, we looked at some of your reviews. Would you be willing to, we’d like to talk to you guys about working together. What is the process that you guys go through that I think would include this kind of meeting the owner at the site and really putting a lot of care into it? What does it look like to meet with an owner and start that design process?

Adam Lerner:
So we do get contacted a lot by just homeowners that they find us on our website or social media. But many of the projects also, they just come from contractors. So they would have a client, they would have a homeowner they work with, and they need that design component. Sometimes it’s just for the client and sometimes they need to go through permitting. And so we help with that as well. So typically the process with the homeowner would look something like, we would either start with a phone call just to understand a preliminary understanding of what they’re hoping to achieve and ties back to what I said before and understand if we’re even a good fit.
And we would say that if we’re not a good fit, if we think that we’re not a good fit, we would just tell that to the client and then we can say, Hey, there’s other guy that could be potentially a good better fit for you. So that’s kind of the preliminary, I guess pre-qualifying the project and seeing the fit. And then later on we would meet on site and discuss the specific requirements of the project, the potentials, the needs. We would document the site, analyze what we’re seeing. And this is the point where really its magic happens because here is what happens in the homeowner’s mind. They see the property 24 7, they see the year round and they have some problems or they have some issues, or they have some needs that are not addressed. And immediately they think of the solutions. So they come to me and they say, well, here we need a hedge and here we need a Perla
And I at this point, and of course we listen and we let them speak bent out. But then what we really care about at this very initial meeting is really not the solutions but the problems we want to see what are the challenges we’re facing, what are the needs that are not yet addressed? And then we can propose a variety of solutions that we know exist, for example, for that particular hedge solution that they sometimes say, we say, well, what is behind that hedge? Is that a privacy? Or you just want a backdrop, a background? And they say, oh, you know what? This is a privacy issue. I have this thing with the neighbor. They’re looking into their yard and they say, well, great, a hedge could be one solution, but maybe a privacy screen or a fence or something else could be another solution. And it kind of opens up their mind into various potentials, various possibilities, and that’s where they start understanding, oh yeah, there’s so much to it. Then we just thought the solutions we thought about.

As a contractor marketing agency we have a lot of great guests on our podcast. We learn a lot from them!

Mark Lamberth:
Wow, amazing. Interesting. So it’s the homeowner’s got an idea of what they want and exactly where they want it to be. And you’re there almost as a patient kind of consultant to listen to what they’ve guided their mind, but you’re also really looking for not the design that they’ve come up with, the problems that they have that they’re trying to solve, that maybe solved by the ideas that they have and maybe solved by some other ideas in your portfolio that you guys can come up with. So it’s really about deep listening to what the problems are, the kind of use cases that folks need with the new landscaping solution.

Adam Lerner:
Yeah, exactly. That’s right. It’s all about understanding the underlying message. So it’s never what is said on the surface. It’s always kind of being able to dig a little bit deeper. And here’s, I think maybe a key component of being a designer is that when you work with clients, you kind of want to get a bit intimate with them in terms of getting them to open up and speak about their real needs versus the levels, the surface level.

Mark Lamberth:
I see.

Adam Lerner:
And you sometimes need to get, the more they’re able to share and willing to share, the less generic the design will be because we will be then tailoring it to their very particular specific needs.

Mark Lamberth:
Got it. I see. Interesting. So the sort of deeper you can go into that conversation, the better solution you can come up for them ultimately.

Adam Lerner:
Exactly. Exactly. Yeah, love it.

Mark Lamberth:
Well, Alex, sounds like you guys have grown the business come by referrals and you have contractors, a lot of relationships out in the community. What are some other ways that you guys grow the business? I mean, is it all by referrals? Do you guys do any kind of marketing, radio, kind of advertising online, any of that kind of stuff?

Adam Lerner:
So you know what, I did something right at the beginning of my whole journey in business, and so far I’m still reaping the benefits of it. So what I did back then when I was still employed in my day job and I was kind of trying to get some traction with contractors going and maybe homeowners, I just took the phone book specifically of the contractors association here in Vancouver and the home builders and landscapers as well. So just two separate websites with all their information. And so I just started calling them one by one. And you know what? It was a numbers game. So I called maybe 200, 300 companies around, and eventually, obviously a very small percentage of them turned into business collaborators. But those who did, they actually turned into strong partnerships and then they later on recommended us to others. And that’s how it slowly, slowly grew. So at the very beginning, I invested pretty much zero in any type of marketing, and it was all through essentially knocking on doors. So that was my strategy. Yes,

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Mark Lamberth:
That is amazing. What an amazing sort of business launch story. Yes. Yeah. And therapy, it works. That’s awesome. Alice, basically, cold call has way into success.

Adam Lerner:
It worked for me and I realized that it’s not a skillset or it’s not something, an approach that even though everybody, every business owner can apply. I know some people are more comfortable with cold calling and some people are not, and everybody needs to find the strategy that they’re comfortable with. But at the very beginning, as you’re a business owner, I would say try different things, try different things. There might be some things that you’re not yet very comfortable with, but as you try and do it more, you can get a bit more comfortable, but you also need to monitor and engage what is the strategy that is working best for you, for your particular personality, for your particular industry, for your particular business. And that cold calling was real helpful for me, but again, I don’t know what would’ve happened with somebody else. Today we do invest a little bit in marketing. We do a little bit of social media posting, and I give some talks in the local university, so that also opens up some connections. I see.

Mark Lamberth:
I love it. That’s great. Do you guys have any growth targets here for the next sort of 12, 24 months? I mean, are you guys kind of in growth mode or are you guys sort of in a really nice stable place where you’re at now?

Adam Lerner:
We would always like to grow, but I think what traditionally growth means for many contractors or many consultants or businesses is not necessarily what maybe I see as growth. So for example, for me, it doesn’t mean more people and more computers and more designers and more working hands. It’s just sometimes solidifying and enhancing the base that we already have. So that could mean it could look like something like offering. So for today, for example, the AI revolution has started, and in our industry it’s crucial because you need to be able to make design more approachable and affordable to homeowners, because right now, for the most part, it’s a bit of a luxury project, not a product. Not everybody is going to invest in that if they’re a bit of in a survival mode and they don’t have the funds. But ai, what it does, it is able to reduce to maybe 10% of the time it used to take us, and again, not all the tasks, but some tasks. And now all of a sudden we can build for less design hours to the client and we can produce it faster. So that’s kind of one of the things that we really want to invest in our business and make sure that everybody is using, utilizing these tools. So that would be a growth target for me.

Mark Lamberth:
Okay.

Adam Lerner:
Yeah.

Mark Lamberth:
Amazing. Okay, fantastic. Well, great. Well, Alex, fantastic. You’ve shared a lot of great wisdom here today. I love really just to focus on deep care with your potential customers, meeting with those guys. I love the way that you grew the business and also just the organic nature of how you grew into this with spending years working with other landscape designers, really got your chops up and got really good at the work that you do, and then just slowly branched out on your own. Meanwhile, kind of setting up a relationship with your previous employer that you could just kind of work on your own project. I mean, that’s a fantastic story and I love it. Very inspiring. If folks are in bc, if they’re in the Vancouver area and they’re looking for landscape designer, what are a couple of good ways to get in touch with you?

Adam Lerner:
Yeah, I guess one of the options is just to go to the website that you’ve mentioned at the very beginning. So that’s just one option and the information is all there. It’s not going to change. And then social media, so right now on Instagram and Facebook, we’re called Milieu Landscape Consulting. That’s another way to reach me. And yeah, these are I guess the main channels.

Mark Lamberth:
Perfect. Great. And that website, once again is Al Landscape and Alex’s name, it’s Alex Lerner, L-E-R-N-E-R. So if you’re looking up Alex in Vancouver, Alex Lerner, L-E-R-N-E-R-A-L, landscape.com. Great. Well, Alex, thank you so much for spending time with us today. I know you’re busy, got a lot going on, and it’s been a pleasure talking with you.

Adam Lerner:
Thank you so much, mark, for having me.

Mark Lamberth:
Okay, talk with you soon.