I Fired My Designer (And My Close Rate Went Up)
Let me tell you about Marcus.
Marcus runs a landscaping company in Arizona. Last year he did about $400K in revenue. Not bad.
For the past three years, he'd been working with a designer. Freelancer. Good work. Professional mockups.
$125 per mockup.
Turnaround time: 24-48 hours.
Marcus would go to an estimate, take photos, send them to his designer, wait 2 days, get the mockup back, then email it to the customer.
By then, they'd already gotten 3 other quotes. And two of those contractors had shown them designs ON-SITE.
Here's what happened:
Marcus was spending about $1,500/month on mockups.
12 mockups a month.
Some customers would ghost him before he even got the design back.
His close rate was stuck at 32%.
Then in June, one of his crew members showed him YardPal.
Marcus was skeptical. He'd tried design software before. Photoshop took him 4 hours to learn and he still couldn't make anything that looked good.
But his crew member showed him how to do it. Drag a photo. Drag some pavers. Drag some plants. Done.
2 minutes.
See how it works
Watch how contractors create designs in under 2 minutes
The first time he used it:
Marcus had an estimate on a Saturday morning. Backyard project. Pavers, turf, planters. About $22K.
He took the photos.
Came back to his truck.
Opened YardPal on his laptop.
Dragged the photo in.
Added the pavers, turf, and planters.
Took 90 seconds.
He knocked on the door again.
"Hey, I just mocked something up real quick. Want to see what it could look like?"
The homeowner's eyes lit up.
They sat at the kitchen table for 45 minutes. Made a few tweaks. Swapped out some plant colors. Moved the planters.
By the time Marcus left, they'd signed the contract.
$22K job. Closed in 45 minutes. On-site.
Three months later:
Marcus's close rate went from 32% to 68%.
He fired his designer (amicably — they're still friends).
He went from spending $1,500/month on mockups to $297/year for YardPal.
But here's the thing: The designer wasn't doing bad work.
The designs looked great. Professional. Polished.
But Marcus wasn't losing jobs because his mockups weren't pretty enough.
He was losing jobs because he was TOO SLOW.
The lesson:
You don't need a professional designer.
You don't need Photoshop skills.
You need to show them what their yard will look like BEFORE you leave their driveway.
Speed wins.
Not perfection.
Marcus can now create a design in 2 minutes. Show it to the customer while he's still there. Make changes on the spot. Close the deal before lunch.
That's what YardPal does.
The Numbers:
- Before: $1,500/month on designer mockups
- After: $297/year for YardPal (First 100 customers only)
- Close rate before: 32%
- Close rate after: 68%
- Time per design: 2 minutes (instead of 24-48 hours)
If you're still waiting days for mockups, you're losing jobs.
Not because your designs aren't good enough.
Because someone else showed up with a design first.