19 Jun Two Absolutely Truthful Predisposed Beliefs about Landscape Lighting Design Build Contractors
By Mike Gambino
Being a Landscape Lighting Design and Build Contractor for more than 30 years, I can say with accuracy that we are absolutely 100% guilty by association when you walk into the home or the business of a potential client that we wish to serve, and here’s what I mean. The contracting profession follows with it its reputation everywhere we go. Largely its negative and people have had terrible experiences with “A Chuck in a truck” fly by night businesses, contractors, et cetera, since they started living in their home. And when you show up, even though it is completely unfair and even though you had nothing to do with all of those negative experiences that they’ve had in the past, you’re guilty because … Guess what? You’re one of those people and when you’re one of those people, they’re going to suspect you before you ever get started. So there is guilt by association.
The second thing to become clear on is that not only is there guilt by association, we are guilty until proven innocent. Meaning when you show up to do an estimate, people look at you, look at your profession, look at contractors in general, and they immediately believe that things are going to go wrong and that you are going to take advantage of them. So from the beginning, our job is to prove to them that’s not the case. Now, it is not enough to simply make some small talk, to show up, to look professional. It’s not enough to be in a logo branded shirt, it’s not enough to drive up in a logo branded vehicle. Guess what? They’ve been taken advantage of by people like that before. It’s not about if this situation is fair, it’s about reality. So our job is from pre-positioning, to presenting, to post-positioning, to follow-up, to have tons of powerful proof that we show them all the way through.
If you were on trial, what would happen? You couldn’t just stand up in front of the judge and say, “I’m a pretty good guy, and all this stuff that’s happened doesn’t matter”. No, you would have to … just like in our legal system, show a ton of proof and that means opening arguments, your entire case file, closing arguments, supplemental information you would give to jurors and we break those down into primary tools such as the company story, a massive gallery of beautiful and successfully completed projects, a clean and current contractor’s license, bonding and insurance coverage specific to the work that is being hired and then stellar reviews from past clients for winning the job. If you haven’t as a consumer done your due diligence before inviting a prospective landscape lighting design build contractor to your home to consult and get a quote to check on all of these things and are feeling a guilty by association attitude, as unfair as it may be and guilty before proven innocent – you’re really making a big mistake.
Just because they smile and show up at the door and nod and seem to be very affable while they’re there at your home or in the office does not mean that you should be convinced that they are the contractor of choice. It does not mean that they are a professional, because our industry, specifically with landscape lighting and, larger overall with contractors, is not as professional as it could be and people have had bad experiences. So, I hope you will take these two predisposed beliefs and perform due diligence to disprove them beforehand and make sure that you apply them in your hiring process with research, processes, and procedures so that you can receive a client experience that it is so unique and different that you can’t help but give a positive verdict, which is start the job and ultimately get what you want which is a beautiful high performing landscape lighting system that is cost effective to operate, maintain and lasts.
This landscape lighting blog is published by Mike Gambino of Gambino landscape lighting inc. all rights reserved. Mike is a professional 
landscape lighting system designer/ builder and has been designing, installing and maintaining landscape lighting systems for more than 30 years. Mike resides in the Los Angeles area with his wife and 2 sons. To visit his website go to www.Gambinolighting.com . To inquire about hiring Mike please click here .
Blog articles may be published with permission on other websites without editing or removing links.
No Comments