The Role of a Garden consultant

Over 16 million people have turned to gardening as a way of coping with stress and anxiety since the beginning of the pandemic.

That number—16 million!—fills me with excitement. You see, I'm on a mission to bring back the kitchen garden, to remind people of the joy of growing a bit of our own food, of feeling a connection to the things we put in our bodies.

That number also shows me the opportunity.

While I love that 16 million people have taken up something that I think every single person on the plant should be doing, most of those new gardeners lack the knowledge to actually be successful. 

They'll fall prey to buying plants they're not ready for at the big box stores, they'll fill their soil with synthetics, and when their plants die or fail to produce any food, they'll give up.

That's where garden consultants come in.

A garden consultant is someone who not only has a passion for gardening, but also feels motivated to help other beginner and intermediate gardeners discover the pure and simple joy of picking a little bit of food or cut flowers from their own backyard daily. 

Before we get into the requirements to become a garden consultant, let's discuss what you don't need.

You don’t need a farm. You don't even need acres of your own land.

You don't need a truck.

You don't need to rent a warehouse or a storefront.

This is a business you can launch using nothing more than your own experiences in the garden. I launched my first business, Rooted Garden, from my backyard in Houston.

In fact, there aren’t a lot of requirements to become a garden consultant compared to other jobs.

It's a fairly unregulated field, and you’ll find that holds true for consultants in almost any field (business consulting, health consulting, dog obedience consulting, etc.). 

Depending on your state, you may need a contractor’s license to perform certain types of work. Some states have higher requirements than others. California is one of those states with higher requirements, but we still have plenty of garden coaches who are having great success in California by working around those requirements. Talk to your local county clerk to find out exactly what you’d be allowed to do without a license. 

Wait, you might be saying, I at least have to have some kind of related degree, right?

Nope.

You don't need to be a horticulturist or a botanist or a master gardener. (I'm none of those things, and I successfully built my own garden consulting business.)

You could truly go out and start working as a garden consultant tomorrow with the gardening knowledge you already have.

So, let's look at the five things you do need to become a garden consultant.

Actually, I should say the five requirements to become a successful garden consultant.  

Requirement #1: A willingness to declare yourself a professional garden consultant

Sure, maybe you've always been the person your friends turn to when their houseplants are dying or they want to do some landscaping. But now, you have to suddenly declare that you are a professional consultant.

You are someone who not only knows more than someone else on a topic, but who is also capable of teaching that topic. You’re not a total authority figure, but you’re in an elevated position as someone who can give advice and guidance. 

Being a professional means engaging in a specific activity as your main paid occupation. Gardening was a hobby for me that I then turned into my profession. 

A lot of people wonder whether gardening is still fun once it becomes your profession. I’ll be honest. A lot of it is not fun. I need to make that clear. This is a business, and they call it work for a reason, right? You’re not going to be gardening all the time by becoming a garden coach. In fact, gardening will probably make up a small percentage of the work that you do. 

Gardening will still be your mission, but it won’t be the task you’re doing all the time. 

A huge hurdle I see so many gardeners face is not getting over the idea of charging a client to help in the garden because they’ve gardened for so long as a hobby. They’re used to giving their advice for free, lending a helping hand for the sake of the plants or from the goodness of their hearts. You have to decide that you’re going to take your love of gardening and turn your passion into a business. 

Garden consulting is a paid occupation. There has to be an exchange of money. That’s what keeps us going. That’s what allows us to have a bigger impact. 

The only reason I’m here with this platform is because I’ve been charging for my knowledge since day one. Being paid has, in turn, allowed me to help so many more people. You will run out of time to help if you don’t charge for your help. In other words, the more you charge for your time, the more time you have to help other people. 

Four things I recommend having in order to call yourself a professional: 

One - a formal setup

You need a name that’s registered. You need branding. Don’t just run out of your garage and start telling people you’re a garden consultant. Do it right the first time by officially setting yourself up. 

Two - some kind of certification or affiliation

This is what I was missing when I started Rooted Garden. There wasn’t another brand I could point to in order to tell clients, "See? I do what they do." There wasn’t an organization I could say I was part of. That’s honestly why I created Gardenary, to prove I was legit. 

Do you ever get into a complete stranger’s car? Or just walk into someone else’s home without knocking? You probably have if you’ve ever used Uber or Airbnb. We feel comfortable doing things we wouldn’t normally do because of brand affiliations. Even a little sign in the window of a car can go a long way.  

My goal is for Gardenary to one day be as well known as Airbnb. I’m working on it, but until then, you can point us out on social media and say, “I’m affiliated with them,” or if you go through our certification program, “I’m a Gardenary-certified garden coach.” That way, your clients know that you’re part of something and can see what others in the industry are doing. 

Three - a speciality

You can’t do every single thing related to gardening. Start out by doing one thing. Check out some of the specialties are past students have selected.

Four - a fee structure

Make it very clear how you will be charging for your time and your services. If the client wants deliverables on top of a consultation, that will cost more than just a consultation. We walk you through different fee structures and business models in the Gardenary Consultant Certification.

Requirement #2: A progressive attitude

To be a successful garden consultant, you need to be progressive. We’re here to disrupt the landscaping industry and the way things have been done before (which haven’t been serving consumers very well). 

According to the National Association of Landscape Professionals, consumers spend $150 billion on products and services in the landscaping industry every year. That’s $100 billion in services and $50 billion in garden products, to be more exact.

So, we have this huge red ocean market, full of services and products; there are already too many people covering those two things. 

As progressive garden consultants, we’re sliding into the one gap in the market. We’re still going to offer services and products, but we’re doing it through the vehicle of garden consulting. We’re telling clients, “We don’t just want to sell you a garden knickknack or mow your yard. We want you to actually understand gardening through education and training. We want you to become a gardener. We want gardening to be an ordinary part of your life.”

Offering something different (education and training) is how you make your way in a market that’s otherwise really full. This is how you find your piece of the $150 billion-dollar pie. 

When you’re first starting out, you’ll need to be very clear about what you do and what you don’t do. You might find yourself repeating, “I’m here to help you learn how to grow your own food in a productive kitchen garden. I don’t design normal landscapes, I don’t plant shrubs or begonias, but if you want some raised beds, I’m your go-to person.”

We’re not going to disrupt the industry by taking on every single type of job that comes our way. We have to prioritize people over products. We’re here to help our clients learn to grow as gardeners. 

A progressive garden coach also doesn’t view gardening as something you only do from April to September in a colder climate. This is a year-round business. You will need a revenue source for every single month. In November, you’re selling cold frames and greenhouses. In December, you’re selling consults and gift certificates. In January, you’re doing garden designs. 

Instead of seeing the winter as something limiting, you will see it as the season that adds an entire new layer of products on top of your typical garden services. 

I know coaches who’ve done consults in single-digit weather. I’ve trained coaches who are now running successful businesses in Canada, Maine, and a freezing mountain town in Colorado. 

You might have ups and downs. Some months will bring in more money than others. Overall, the big months for gardening will sustain you. You will be a progressive coach. You will not listen to the big box stores when they try to define the gardening seasons for you. 

Requirement #3: An understanding of your defined market

Your market consists of the people you’re going to be talking to. 

In her first year of business, one of our GCC students, Jamie, performed coaching and maintenance services for a little over 100 clients. The population of the city where she operates, Boise, is 300,000 (and growing). That means she’s only reached 0.03 percent of her market, and yet she had a fantastically successful year of business. 

Jamie’s not trying to reach the entire population of Boise. She has a very specific group of people she wants to work with. As I like to say, if you’re talking to everyone, you’re talking to no one. Every time that you make a phone call, send an email, or create any type of messaging, you need to be talking to a specific group of people. Maybe that group is the parents at a preschool, members of a fitness club, or the HOA for a neighborhood. Focus on one market. 

I teach more about the idea of parallel markets inside your Society coursework. For now, I’ll say that most of our garden consulting clients don’t even know they want to become a gardener yet. For the most part, we’re not serving people who are already gardeners. We’re serving ordinary people who belong to all of these other markets, and while they do want to garden, they’re, as of now, unaware of that. 

Your future clients aren’t necessarily at garden centers. They’re at Whole Foods, Pure Barre, Yoga One, Orange Theory. They’re at the farmers’ market, the local interior design store. They’re browsing boots for the upcoming season. They’re researching the benefits of installing solar panels on their home. They’re working to beautify their neighborhood. They’re volunteering for Junior League. They’re sitting in line for preschool pickup. 

If you're only looking for clients at garden centers, you won't find very many. 

Requirement #4: A mind for profit

To succeed as a garden consultant and stay in business, you have to be profit-minded. Without an investor’s mentality, you just have a hobby. 

The majority of the people I see who fail in this industry lack that investor’s mentality and were never profitable. 

The great thing about this industry is that you can be profitable right from the start. I recommend the book The Lean Startup by Eric Ries. Garden coaching is a lean startup industry. You don’t need a greenhouse, a warehouse, a truck, or even acres and acres of land. You simply go out and coach from your own home and garden. 

I started Rooted Garden with a refund check for $450 from my daughter’s preschool. I could have put that money right back in the bank. I could have immediately spent it on something for myself or the children or our home. Instead, I treated it as an investment. I decided I wouldn’t enjoy that money just then but would put it into a business that would eventually return profits.  

True investment is putting off what we want right away to get what we want most. Delayed gratification. 

Your most valuable asset as a garden consultant is your time. You can always earn more money. You can take whatever dollar amount you invested in your company and earn that money back. But you cannot ever earn your time back. You can’t make or steal or buy more of it either. Time is your most precious asset, more valuable even than your money. 

So here’s the secret to being profitable. You have to find clients in your market who also value their time more than their money. They understand that they have precious few hours in the day, and they’re willing and able to pay people to do things to save some of those hours. People who value money over their time, on the other hand, will figure out how to do something themselves. 

My original clients for Rooted Garden could have gardened for five years and learned everything I knew, but they wanted me to take everything I learned in five years and teach it to them in five hours. Their time was worth more than the money they paid me. 

As a professional, it’s unlikely that you’ll be able to charge enough for your time until you’re accustomed to paying to save time yourself. Let that sink in for a moment. 

When I first started Rooted Garden, I did not value my time. I charged $25 for a garden consultation that lasted one hour. I had been a stay-at-home mom who saw my time as something nebulous to be filled with changing diapers and helping my older kids with homework. I didn’t see the time-money exchange, so it took me several years to get my pricing to a profitable place. My consultants at Rooted Garden now charge $250 per hour. 

This isn’t to say that you won’t give some consults for free when you’re first starting out. But your mentality will be that it’s okay for now because you know where you’re going.

Valuing your own time boils down to confidence. Don’t begin your business by limiting what you believe you’re worth. There are people out there who will be willing to pay top dollar for your services to save themselves time and receive a fantastic product in return. 

Requirement #5: Commitment

It takes ten years to become an overnight success, as the saying goes. 

My company Rooted Garden has grown by 100 percent, and we hit $1 million by the end of 2021. I know so many other garden consultants who are one and two years into their businesses and on track for success because they recreated what I did. Meanwhile, many other businesses will fail. In fact, over 95 percent of small businesses do not make it past the first five years. 

Those that do find success didn’t follow a straight line to get there. You’ll encounter many ups and downs on your journey. But it’s important to remember that it is a journey. If you just arrived at success tomorrow, that could actually be very detrimental to the future of your business.

Think about it. What if there were a formula for immediate success without undergoing trial and error, without building systems, without learning from your mistakes?

No thanks!

If growing a business were that easy, everyone would be doing it. We’re here because we’re willing to do the heavy lifting, the hard stuff. Anytime something is hard but you push through, you’re pulling yourself away from the crowd. You’re moving to the next level.  

That’s why I personally believe that being an entrepreneur is one of the best ways to discover new things and evolve as a person. 

While you can have profits in the garden coaching industry in year one, the bigger successes happen when you stick with it for the long run. So just make yourself comfortable for the journey. Prepare for a bit of turbulence. 

Here's Your Invitation to Come Train With Us

I didn't create the idea of a garden coach or consultant. But what I have done is take all of the things I wish someone had taught me when I was starting my own garden consulting business, plus the things I've learned from helping others start their businesses, and I've built those things into easy-to-follow lessons for you to study.  

We'll help you find your first stop on your roadtrip to success (and the second and the third and so on). By the end, you’re going to have the confidence you need to become a profitable garden consultant and business owner.