From Blueprints to Backyards: Creating Dream Landscapes with Steve Griggs

0:00 Welcome to the Living the Dream Podcast with Curveball, if you believe you can achieve. Welcome to the Living the Dream with Curveball Podcast, a show where I interview guests that teach, motivate and inspire. Today, I am joined by landscape architect Steve Griggs. He's going to be giving us some golden nuggets about landscaping, how he makes people's land look nice and how you can make yours look nice if you have a tough job.

0:44 He is the architect of Carl. He is the OG of landscaping. Steve. Thank you so much for joining me. Thank you, Curtis, Glad to be here, man. So yeah, it's more about just business also, right? So it's a whole gamut of, you know, designing and business. Right? So you can't have the pretty pictures without the business side of it. Right, Because we do run a business also. So I'm really looking forward to talking to you and hopefully we can get some of your people on board and kind of, you know, tell them what the real world is about. Absolutely Well. Why don't you start off telling everybody a little bit about yourself? Sure, sure. So I'm from New York, born and raised in New York.

1:25 We live in the suburbs of New York City. I've been doing this for 40 years. I've been doing landscape design built 40 years. A lot of my clients are athletes, celebrities, high net worth individuals in a very demanding market in the New York area. So I build from swimming pools backyards, basically create resorts in people's backyards. Right, that's kind of how I like to sum it up in the short version. Right Went to school for it in Mississippi State, like we just recently spoke about landscape architecture, moved back to New York area and been doing it ever since 1985, man the 80s long time.

2:10 Well, what made you have an interest and a passion in landscaping in the first place? So when you take one of those little tests in high school, you check the little boxes before you go to college. I checked all the boxes where, didn't want to be in an office, creative, like to be always busy and moving and it just turned out that that was pretty much the path that you know. Hey, let's give it a shot. Listen, the grades weren't that good, be honest with you. So I wasn't going to be a lawyer or doctor. So we figured let's do landscaping. You know, let's be outdoors. It's nice to be outdoors.

2:52 Well, I know that you are highly regarded. You've been featured in several different publications and places and you've also received several awards for the great work that you do. So kind of tell the listeners about that so they know that you're definitely qualified at what you're talking about. Yeah, so you know I don't want to sit here and brag on it, but let's just give a little context. I mean we run the Bravo TV show. We have national publications. I have written a book bestseller book. We also were Inc 5000 twice fastest growing companies in America. It just came from hard work and just showing up every day doing what you say you're going to do, when you say you're going to do it.

3:34 There's no Instagram fame here. There's no microwave. It's just been a long process and I think people need to be patient when they're starting a business and it's just not going to happen overnight. I don to do it the right way. Yeah Well, give the listeners best practice tips on how to create because I know you know you can take care of the listeners that's local, but for those who are not, you know, give best practice tips on how to create an outdoor space that will match a person's lifestyle. So I think one of the first questions you want to do is you really want to get inside the client's head, right.

4:15 You want to see what's very important to them. Don't talk too much about them. You want to listen first. You want to listen what their needs are. You want to listen to what their wants are and try to take that all in before you even put pen to paper. And once you get all what they're feeling and how they want the space to feel, then you can kind of design the space that fits their needs, whether it's for a hot tub, a swimming pool, outdoor fire pit. So it really starts with listening to the client's needs and wants and then coming up with a graphical representation of what that's going to look like through a landscape plan. And then the critical part is here is, I feel that a lot, of, a lot of people can design the pretty picture. It's the execution of the project.

4:57 How do you go from the plan to actually finishing the job on time and on budget? That's the tricky. That's the tricky part. Anybody, a lot of people, can draw a fancy picture and speaking of fancy pictures, you, you talk about how spaces aren't just beautiful, they, they are meaningful as well. So you know kind of uh expound on that and explain that to the listeners so. So, like a space has to fit the person's personality, I think right. So when you're designing a space, you want to ask them how do you want to feel? When you're designing a space, you want to ask them how do you want it to feel when you're in that space? Do you want to feel like calm? Then you got to plant certain types of plants and grasses and fragrant plants that blow in the wind.

5:44 That'll give you a more calming feeling. Usually we like to put a little water feature in there. The sound of water is very calming, right. But if you want to have I want calming right. But if you want to have or feel like I'm at a Ritz-Carlton resort, it's going to be more contemporary, high-end finishes, right. So you want to really design it to fit the person's lifestyle. Big tip there Don't design it for you, design it for them. And speaking of designing for them, you know, give the listener some best practice tips on the you know, the little things that can turn you know, your yard to a sanctuary and make it the best it can be. So a lot of times people get intimidated by large budgets and you see all these big, fancy houses with the big, big backyards.

6:30 You don't need to spend all that, you can get the same feeling. Big backyard, you don't need to spend all that, you can get the same feeling. Like I tell people, when you're in a swimming pool, your eyes are closed, you're floating on the raft. It doesn't matter if it's a blow-up pool from walmart. You're going to get just as wet and you're going to have that same feeling as a big, luxurious pool. So it doesn't matter if you have a 10 by 10 terrace in new york city or a five acre estate up in the country. It really comes down to the proper designing of the space, like you really design it, so you maximize the space, so it feels very inviting and you want to create different areas just so you can an area to dine, an area to lounge out, an area to entertain. Those are on the bigger space.

7:11 But if you want to have like a small little terrace garden, let's say, if you're in an apartment building somewhere, you can still get that same feeling. A little potted plant even gives you that same feeling, right. So it really comes down to the emotional. It's really very emotional when you're designing somebody's home. It's their sanctuary and you want it to feel very emotionally connected to them. Well, you also wrote a book, so tell the listeners about your book, what they can expect when they read it and where they can get the book from. So you can get the book on Amazon. It's called Straight Dirt. It was really designed. The name of the title came from straight dirt telling it like it is, because I feel like a lot of people mislead clients on design and all, and I'm from new york, so we like to tell it straight up what things cost.

8:01 What's it going to look like? How are you going to maintain it? It's basically it's a coffee table book that has a lot of beautiful photography in it. Not too many words, because I think pictures a thousand words. So it just has all these beautiful landscapes that were done by me over the last 30 years, so it's more of a sales marketing tool, let's say. Right, by the way, if you're new in business and you need writing a book has been very critical part of it because it it puts you up as the authority in the space as opposed to like just another landscaper. Let's say, you and me were going at it on a client. I had the book and you didn't, and my price was a little more. I think they're going to lean towards somebody.

8:42 That's a little more of the authority in the space. That's just my personal opinion and it's been working so as a landscaper, just so listeners know what all do you do. Do you mow yards or or what you know, what all do you do as a landscaper? so there's different divisions of landscaping right. So there's landscape contractors that do the work right. There's guys that mow yards, pull weeds, plant trees. We don't do any of that. We are the designers and the visionaries for the client. We create the create the vision. I get paid to think, not to dig Right.

9:23 So my role is to create the vision for the homeowner. And then think of me as a conductor in an orchestra. I put all the pieces together, I put all the trade partners together right and I make the project happen right, because a lot of homeowners don't have time or the knowledge to deal with several different contractors. If you ever try to do, like, a bathroom renovation in your house and you have to deal with the plumber, the sheet rocker, the painter, it's a lot to coordinate. So that's where we specialize in, only because we've been doing it for so long, so we're able to put all the trade partners together to get the projects done on time and on budget. And people are busy, they don't have time to like babysit contractors.

10:03 That's what we do. Absolutely so if there are some listeners out there looking to get into the landscaping field, kind of explain to them. You know what advice would you give them and explain to them how they go about getting into it. If you're a new start now you're looking for a business opportunity. Landscaping is very rewarding. You don't have to go to eight years of college, like I did. You can simply just learn. Your key is learn the plants. Go to your local nursery, look at the flowers. The plants go to your local nursery, look at the flowers, see what's out there that grows locally in your area, and you really need to get that first client under your belt.

10:45 And when you get that first client under your belt, the biggest thing is they need to instill trust in you. So you need to deliver on time, on budget, with no excuses. They don't want to hear about your dog or your cat or whatever. You just need to deliver the project on time, on budget. Show up when you say you're going to show up, and from that that leads a word of mouth. So I like to use like client relations. Marketing is a very big term that we use is like you know, don't just keep putting ads on Facebook. You're going to get most of your work from referrals and a referral is the best kind of job because you're coming from a recommendation.

11:27 So you want to treat those clients like family and they will refer you to other friends and family and that's how you just build it slowly and you keep building it and building it and the projects get larger and larger. That would be a very good advice from someone who's been doing this for so long is like start slow, be price fair and do what you say you're going to do when you said you're going to do it. Okay, well, I'll watch your contact info so listeners can keep up with everything that you're up to yeah, you just go to at steve griggs design on instagram, right, I'm the og, so I had to learn how to use instagram right.

12:08 Or website is wwwstevegriggsdesigncom right, you'll see the pictures in there and listen. You can always hit me me up on DM if you have any landscape questions. I'll tell you honestly my opinion on certain things. But yeah, that would be the best. If you're looking to start a business or get into this type of business, ask the questions, ask a guy like me. Just DM me, I'll give you the answer. Right, I'm here to help Curtis's audience. That's my job today. Absolutely Well close this out with some final thoughts. Maybe, if that was something I forgot to talk about, that you would like to touch on, or any final thoughts you have for the listeners. I think what we wanted to touch on, which we could have spent a whole podcast on, is bet on yourself.

12:55 Does that make sense? Just go all in with yourself. You got to believe in yourself. Believe in yourself, like, don't block out all the noise. And they say it because that's how we were brought up, at least in my family where, like it was always, work hard, work hard, work hard. Like you need to really develop the mindset of just you know, allowing abundance to come in, that you're worth it and and it's a lot of self-talk and self-image and just trying to, like you know, be the best person that you can and you will be rewarded, guaranteed. All right, ladies and gentlemen, to check out Steve and everything that he's up to in his landscaping work visit stevegriggsdesigncom.

13:39 Follow rate review. Share this episode to as many people as possible. Follow us on your favorite podcast platform. Visit wwwcurveball337.com for more information on the Living the Dream with Curveball podcast. Thank you so much for listening and supporting the show. Steve, thank you for all that you do and thank you for joining me. Thank you, Curtis. Enjoy the weekend, buddy. For more information on the Living the Dream with Curveball podcast, visit wwwcurveball337.com. Until next time, keep living the dream.