The Green Industry's Resource Center

Florida Gardener · #61 03-18-2012, 02:48 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fine Gardens Landscaping

They are mostly being hurt by CUSTOMERS who hire irresponsible clowns to do their yard work in my opinion.

My thoughts on lowballing

1. Guys that lowball are inexperienced or uneducated or both

2. There are certainly guys on this site that lowball

3. Savvy customers (relatively few) realize the importance of dealing with a licensed, insured business. They want the people who work in their yard to be knowledge-able in regards to plants, turf, and pests and are willing to pay for this service.

4. Uneducated customers (majority) don't know anything, and just go for the bottom $ price. This customer type creates the demand for lowballing, and as long as there's significant demand there will always be people willing to fulfill it.

5. There is virtually no enforcement at the state level. You're supposed to be a licensed contractor to do jobs over $500, have a Pest Control Qualified Applicator Certificate for maintenance related work, have a business license in every city and county you work in, have liability and WC insurance. In reality you could run a landscaping/maintenance business for your whole career with out ever having the state step in and tell you what's what.

You can report guys who are working without the proper licenses.
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Fine Gardens Landscaping · #62 03-18-2012, 03:15 PM

That's be like trying to put out a fire by pissing on it

gusbuster · #63 03-20-2012, 08:30 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fine Gardens Landscaping

That's be like trying to put out a fire by pissing on it

Only time enforcement is ever done at the state level is after a disaster such as the Gas explosion in San Bruno, though will share an experience I had in the valley at my own house.

I always had done maintenance work in this area since I was working with my dad in his business. Most of the damaged properties occurred down wind from the actual explosion sight

Anyway, the state (dept of insurance) investigators worked the fire area for a month after the explosion. They did nail 5 guys for not having workmen comp and having illegal employees. It did open up a lot of work but was also a p.i.a. since the state enforcement had no system in place to verify that a company had been checked.(maybe a sticker or some other marker would of been good) I estimate each contact with an investigator cost me 30 minutes of labor cost because they were running my contractor, wc and id's of me and guys.

Why I mentioned this, well the investigators were based out of Morgan Hill. Morgan Hill to San Bruno, good 70 mile drive. By the time they drove up from there, they only were able to do maybe 3 hrs worth of enforcement work. And you see they did bust a lot of companies in my area various trades, but the point i'm making is were is the efficiency if there are 4 enforcement officers for 1000 sq miles of high density population?

Like it was said......pissing into the wind.