It Took Me a While to Figure Out How to Make Money as a Garden Consultant

I started a consulting business out of my backyard in 2015 with $415 and a strong desire to make a little extra cash for my family. I had an accounting degree and a couple years of gardening under my belt, but that was about it. I didn't have a wide social network, I wasn't on Instagram, and I could barely figure out my smartphone (I'd only recently upgraded from a flip phone).

Oh, and I could only work in the mornings in between dropping my kids off at school and picking my youngest up from pre-K. I mean, can you tell I was an entrepreneur in the making?

It took me several months of taking any and every job that came my way to figure out what my business would even look like. Eventually, I stumbled upon a business model that not only worked, it brought me long-term success. My business made $100,000 in 15 months, and from there, it only continued to grow. By year six, we hit the seven-figure mark.

There's nothing particularly innovative or complicated about my business model. It's actually pretty easy to replicate. In fact, almost all of us can do it.

It may have taken me a while to figure out how to make money garden consulting, but I can teach you the five steps to replicate my success in the time it takes you to read this post. Are you ready?

Create a Consult Product

When you work as a consultant, you yourself are the product. You're selling the knowledge and experience it's taken you years to acquire so that your clients can get started and see success in a fraction of that time. That means you can get started right away as soon as you decide to become a consultant.

The way that you sell your knowledge and experience is through a garden consultation. During a consult, you drive to the client's home and spend an hour with them. If the client wants to set up a garden, you would take measurements, note the sunlight in their space, look for water sources they could use for the garden, and assess any limitations that might hinder their success. If the client already has a garden, you might compare and contrast their setup to yours.

The second part of a consult is usually spent asking the client about their preferences and sharing your three-step plan to help them find success, whether they're adding a garden or making improvements to their current setup.

Garden consults have a wonderful profit margin. The only cost to you is gas money and maybe the price of a couple printouts to give to clients. When I first started doing consults, I only charged $25. I eventually increased it to $100 for my time. I scheduled all my consults for the mornings while my kids were in school.

Offer Your Consult to Clients

As you're getting started, you'll offer your consult product in 3 stages. First, you'll offer free consults to people in your social circle. Ask friends and neighbors if you can help them with their garden. Offer to spend an hour with them for free.

When someone agrees, deliver a consult as if you're getting paid. Make sure to document the process with pictures, and afterwards, ask your first couple of clients for a review.

Once you've got a couple of free consults under your belt, you'll start offering discounted consults. You can give discount coupons to your first clients, and ask them to share them with friends and family. Complete a set number of discounted consults. Do a superb job and ask clients for a review.

Finally, offer consults at full price. Share promo cards with the clients who received your discounted consults, and ask them to share the cards with their friends and family. Whenever you book a full-price consult, ask for a review and a referral.

Offer Classes & Workshops

In addition to one-on-one consults, you can also start teaching monthly workshops alongside local businesses. For your first couple workshops, you can invite friends and family, plus all of your past clients. Ask them to bring a friend.

Teach a topic that's relevant to your community at the workshop. My first workshop, for example, covered how to grow salad greens over Houston's winter months. Make sure to connect your workshop to your work. Come up with a way to give your attendees a quick win. Maybe they can plant up their own little herb gardens, for instance, and cut their first harvest then and there.

This type of event is great because your guests have fun and you're supporting a local business.

At the end of the event, tell your attendees about your service as a garden consultant. Have a sign up sheet available, and share a free resource that will let them know more about you and your consult services. Offer your attendees a chance to win a free consult, and give everyone a coupon they can use to book with you.

Create Shareable Material as You Work

Set up a website and social media accounts for your business. That way, as you're offering consults and workshops, you can document them with photos and videos and share them online for free. Give tidbits of advice in your posts.

Each project you complete, take before and after photos. Maybe one of your clients asks you to help them design and install a new garden. That's a wonderful opportunity to take lots of pictures and videos of the process. You'll also note any lessons learned with each project so that you're always improving your process.

Share your lessons and progress online. Write blog posts to publish on your website. Share videos and images on your social media. Send videos and photos of your clients' projects with them so that they can share on their own social media, as well. At the end of each post, offer your consults and any other services you're providing.

Determine Your Revenue Goals & Create a Strategy

By this stage, you can begin to see how this type of business can be sustainable and profitable long term. So it's time to set some goals.

Set Your Revenue Goal

Decide how much you want your business to make in one year. Calculate how many consults and workshops you can offer in one year based on your schedule. Divide your revenue goal by that number to determine how many consults you'll need to provide.

Set Your Consult Goal

Determine the number of consults you'll need to provide per quarter. Then, divide that into months and into weeks. Decide on your consult goal for each week in your business.

Determine marketing efforts needed to reach your goal

Use your workshop numbers to determine how many events you'll need to offer to hit your goals. Plan your events for the next quarter. Measure the results to see if you need more or fewer marketing events.

Find Support as You Launch & Grow Your Own Garden Consulting Business

Do you see what I mean about how replicable this is? I hope this encourages you that you can absolutely take these five steps and apply them right in your hometown.

If you're a gardener who's interested in becoming a garden consultant, I would love to teach you more about making money from gardening! There are so many jobs out there for us if we just take the leap, and I am here to help you every step of the way.

We have a certification program inside of Gardenary, and we offer free kickstarts throughout the year to introduce you to the garden industry. Inside the certification program, we deep-dive into topics like what to sell and how much to charge, how to create a year-round revenue plan no matter what climate you live in, how to find your first clients, and how to build a business that lasts.

Gardenary is the place to come to learn how to start a garden or start a gardening business, and we'd love to help you level up your gardening game, no matter where you are.