Dear Jenny,

Sometimes I look at Pinterest and YouTube tutorials and the whole DIY culture and wonder if the market for service-based businesses is shrinking.

I studied horticulture and help people put in their own backyard vegetable gardens. How do I convince potential clients of the benefits of hiring a pro to do the job?

Dear Veggie Gardener Guru,

You may want to sharpen your pruners because despite the DIY boom, self-employment is rising and that means more folks like you are building businesses around their services. Here’s some insight from a recent study:

Some 27 million Americans will leave full-time jobs from now through 2020, bringing the total number of self-employed to 42 million.

There are two kinds of people in the world: people who want to plant their own gardens and people who want you to do it for them. The former (the diehard DIY-ers) are not your customer. The latter are! When you shift from thinking about “convincing” potential customers to finding the ones who don’t need convincing, things feel much simpler.

For me, the thought of having a pro gardener create and maintain an organic vegetable garden for my backyard makes me want a big, fat salad.

Think about your marketing efforts as showing the value you bring. Share before and after photos with potential clients showing your customers’ yards before and after they hired you. Make your services even more tempting by showing the meals your customers have prepared from their organic vegetable garden. #YardToTable

Make graphics showing the money they’ll save having their own veggies instead of buying from the local grocer. I would even include a pricing chart on your website – for example, it will cost X amount of dollars to build a X square foot space, and X for maintenance, which gives you an overall savings of X when compared to buying organic groceries for a month or year.

When potential clients feel your passion and can simply understand the benefits of your service and hiring a pro rather than rolling up their sleeves themselves, they’ll want to hire you or may even want to work beside you so they too can learn. (Hey, that can be another service you offer: One-on-One Veggie Gardening Instruction).

Your ideal customer won’t need any convincing. All they need is to learn that your awesome service exists, see the value you provide and they’ll be in. Now come on over and help me plant a garden!

All my best,
Jenny

P.S. Join our new Facebook Group and pull up a chair!

Disclaimer: The advice given in this column is for educational, informational and entertainment purposes only. The reader is responsible for the outcomes of any actions and/or decisions made based on this advice.

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