Would another Landscape companies sign on a lot you service bother you?

[zedosix]

Is it just me or do most people skip the long posts. lol

[TPendagast]

Maybe if you took time to read posts that are article sized, it would give you practice in reading,eventually leading you to have enough attention span to read the actual articles in professional magazines where all this information has already been laid out, and it would not need to be rehashed here?

The do-it-yourselfers arent professional enough to read the articles themselves or so the to professional seminars and then there are those that can't read more than 5 paragraphs, which unfortunately the two later categories comprise the bulk of people comming to this site.

People want quick easy advice to make a quick easy buck or save money.
Rather than improving the over all profession.

The more expereinced and knowledge of this site have become more cynical and less willing to share their information on this site becuase of that attitude.

It's sad. Chicken or the egg?

[EagleLandscape]

the reason why we don't read posts that take 20 minutes to read is because it gets old fast. there are professionals on here, and there are guys that one day will be professionals. i just crossed over to the professional category about 2 years ago.

we wont do a job, unless we can be the best contractor out there to do the work. there is no sense in competing if you are just "average". I have better things to do with my time than go broke. if i wanted to go broke, id sit inside watching tv.

when we do jobs, its high skill / high customer service, and then we charge accordingly. a price that i feel is necessary to operate and make a profit on, and one the customer feels is resonable for the work performed, but they still feel they made a sound investment.

taken over a few properties where our maintenance program is 30% above what they were paying a previous vendor, they dont have aproblem with that because we excel at the jobs we were hired to do.

[Yard.Barber]

A tad off topic but saw some mention about jobs being from $50 grand up to over $100 thousand for a project. It is pretty obvious to figure these are houses in upscale neighborhoods and most of those around where I live do not allow any signs at all on the property, it is part of the HOA wording. I am wondering if this is something you all run into a lot or not? Based on everybody saying I always use signs for every job be it hardscape or mowing get the feeling it isn't a problem?

[JimLewis]

We do projects that size. And yes, most HOAs won't allow signs.

I don't worry about signs though because every truck and trailer I own is a giant sign in itself. So with our vehicles parked in the street every day while we're working there for several weeks is plenty. No need for a sign.

[zedosix]

Originally Posted by TPendagast

Maybe if you took time to read posts that are article sized, it would give you practice in reading,eventually leading you to have enough attention span to read the actual articles in professional magazines where all this information has already been laid out, and it would not need to be rehashed here?

The do-it-yourselfers arent professional enough to read the articles themselves or so the to professional seminars and then there are those that can't read more than 5 paragraphs, which unfortunately the two later categories comprise the bulk of people comming to this site.

People want quick easy advice to make a quick easy buck or save money.
Rather than improving the over all profession.

The more expereinced and knowledge of this site have become more cynical and less willing to share their information on this site becuase of that attitude.

It's sad. Chicken or the egg?

He asked a simple question, imo he doesn't need to read a book to have it answered. If the question was "how do I construct an outdoor bbq with srw blocks" then we would expect to read a proffesional article on such.

[TPendagast]

HOAs dont exist everywhere either. So a 100k job is most likely to be on a private residence on multi acres and less likely to be in the HOA.

The south and south west (like texas) tend to have alot of HOAS in comparison to the North or East. So more or less it depends on where you are operating.

[TPendagast]

Originally Posted by jwingfield2k

..... i just crossed over to the professional category about 2 years ago.

we wont do a job, unless we can be the best contractor out there to do the work. there is no sense in competing if you are just "average". I have better things to do with my time than go broke. if i wanted to go broke, id sit inside watching tv.

........

That's totally contradicting yourself. On one hand you say you just crossed over to the professional category two years ago.
But then you state you won't do work unless you can be the best.

At some point you had to start out being the worst. Improved to average, gained expereince to be above average along the line and then "The Best" is an abstract opinion.

Also you are speaking strictly from a craftsman point of view. There are TONS of guys that are really good at what they do (carpenter, mason, irrigator etc) but make cruddy businessmen and company owners.

The disciplines are literally unrelated.

You can mow a heck of a lawn and still have your customer hire someone else to do the hardscape in the back and hang a sign out front on "your lawn".

The issue is not, and never will be, who cuts a better lawn. Nor does it have anything to do with "whos customer it is"

It has everything to do with the fact, that the guy with the sign did a better job at letting potential customers know "we do hardscapes".

The long and short of it is, if you send 4-5 days a week of YOUR time physically mowing lawns. You DONT do hardscapes, you mow lawns and your customers know it.

We are all in business to make money (hence the term professional). You don't have to do ALL the work out there to make money.

There are plenty of mow blow and go guys who dont know anything about hardscapes, and dont care to learn.
They dont care someone put a hardscape in any more than they care if someone is spraying for ants on the same property!

My point is, change the way you do things, in order to show your customers you are a different type of company than they currently percieve you.
IF they think you just mow lawns, who's fault is that?

No amount of lawn signs will change how your company is preceived.

[TPendagast]

Originally Posted by zedosix

He asked a simple question, imo he doesn't need to read a book to have it answered. If the question was "how do I construct an outdoor bbq with srw blocks" then we would expect to read a proffesional article on such.

The thread is 5 pages long. IT IS atricle length, with multiple authors, you are clearly one of the guys who just adds comments and reads the recent stuff, rather than reading the 3 pages inbetween the orginal post and your own.

More often than not, I don't bother to post anything on something I read, if someone before me already said what I have to say.

I dont throw in a bunch of wasted one or two line posts with "me too" as the basis of my message.

[zedosix]

Originally Posted by TPendagast

I dont throw in a bunch of wasted one or two line posts with "me too" as the basis of my message.

We can see that.