From Creative to CEO: Elevate Your Landscape Design Business with Smart Systems

By Erica Browne Grivas

Many landscape designers are fueled by a passion for creating beautiful outdoor spaces. But when it comes to the practical side of business — from client communication and bookkeeping to marketing and follow-through, even the most talented creatives can find themselves struggling. To spend more of your days doing your favorite part of the job, you may need to learn how to do the other parts better.

Dover offers both on-demand and in-person instruction.
Photo Credit: Carol Spags Photography

Mardi Dover teaches landscape designers how to run their businesses with the same confidence they bring to their designs. She’s seen talented designers struggle without clear systems, while others with strong business habits succeed—even with less-developed design skills.

Based in Asheville, NC, Dover leads workshops and offers online training focused on the business side of landscape design. Although she worked with a business coach for several years before teaching, she wishes she had hired one sooner — it might have saved her many headaches along the way.

A Certified Professional Landscape Designer, Dover is the principal of Gardens by Mardi and serves on the APLD National Board. Her work has received Gold and Bronze awards in Residential Design from APLD. Education in art history, architecture and horticulture and experience in social work all help inform her teaching and coaching.

Dover speaking at a North Carolina Nursery
Photo Credit: Reems Creek Nursery

“I tell my students, ‘If you are in a business that is not running efficiently, you can’t even enjoy doing what you love.’ I want designers to build confidence in the business management area just as deliberately as they have confidence in their design skills, because that confidence really translates into profitability and more enjoyment.”

Dover’s priority with her students is guiding them to make a crucial mindset shift: thinking of themselves not just as designers, but as business owners – even CEOs –first.

Designers – especially solopreneurs and independent contractors – often juggle everything from administration to sales and project management. The load can be overwhelming, causing lost business, missteps, or burnout.

She asks students to identify their core values which form the underlying structure of their business – held in place by systems to help make more procedures automatic.

“If you do something more than twice, systematize it,” says Dover. “It saves time and frees up energy and mental space for creativity.”

These might include time tracking and blocking, creating templates for proposals and intakes. Setting boundaries, identifying your customer, spotting red flags and knowing your worth are just as essential – wisdom she learned the hard way.

“I said yes to a large project in a luxury community that would’ve had a stunning ‘before and after’ but never felt quite right for me,” she says. “The client was demanding, asked me to step outside my process, the scope was fuzzy, and I ignored my gut because I saw the potential in the project, and I wanted to do it. Six months later, I was exhausted by these clients, I hadn’t been fully paid for the work, and I was just drained. I ended up not doing the installation part of the project.”

Though painful, she says, the experience led to a breakthrough. She realized, “Every time you say yes, it’s also a no to something else — peace of mind, energy, focus.”

Finding the right balance takes intention, she says, but it pays off. The reward? Greater profitability and enjoyment; two things, she says that go hand-in-hand.

Dover at the drawing board
Photo Credit: Carol Spags Photography