In the 2008 Teleseminar "Surviving in a Struggling Economy", Tim Thoelecke, Jeffrey Scott and I talked about various ways to generate revenue.

One of the things we discussed is what Tim called "Wholesale Design".

Basically, another company, such as a landscape contractor, is bringing you the leads and design work. And this occurs on an ongoing basis.

A lot of designers utilize this approach successfully. You spend your time designing, and not worrying about marketing for new clients (that's good and bad).

When I first struck out on my own, this was the approach I took to finding work. What I found is that there are many small landscape contractors who do good work, yet just don't have the time to spend on design. They also don't have the means to hire a full-time designer.

These are great people to be on the lookout for.

An easy and efficient way to find these contractors is to ask your local supply companies like stone and brick suppliers and nurseries. They know who does good work and who could probably use some design help.

Nurseries and garden centers are another terrific source of "Wholesale Design". Many designers have built relationships with these folks and get a ton of referrals from them.

Of course, it's not always easy building a relationship with landscape contractors and nurseries, so you should have a logical process or system.

One of our members, Cheri Stringer from Colorado, just outlined her process for LandscapeLeadership.com that she's been using successfully in her design business. It's titled:

"Building Sustainable Relationships with Landscape Contractors"

You can read the article in it's entirety in the Members Area here:

http://www.landscapeleadership.com/members/176.cfm

Cheri uses a very logical and standardized process. You can do the same and earn some extra revenue from "Wholesale Design".

All the best,

Chris Heiler, Editor

Follow me on Twitter- http://twitter.com/chris_heiler