“If you think it’s expensive to hire a professional to do the job, wait until you hire an amateur.”

15 Feb “If you think it’s expensive to hire a professional to do the job, wait until you hire an amateur.”

By Mike Gambino

I love this quote by Paul Neil “Red” Adair as It pretty much sums up my thoughts on the work I do:

“If you think it’s expensive to hire a professional to do the job, wait until you hire an amateur.”

Most of my clients find me through word of mouth or referrals from other trade professionals they have worked with.  Often  I come across buyers who don’t have a budget for a professional landscape lighting specialist but really need to hire one.  They sometimes try and ask me to reduce my rates and cut the quality of the design and build of the system, which is something I NEVER do.  For a business that is built on referrals the worst thing a landscape lighting professional could do is give discounts and cut corners on the installation.    I have had several buyers call me after hiring  someone that lacked the experience but gave them bargain basement rates and they found themselves spending more because the other lighter had already taken a deposit.   My business is what I do full time so if I discount and undercut other landscape lighters I wouldn’t be in business very long.

In some instances I have come across property owners who have a failed system on their hands and can’t get or don’t want the original installer back to fix it. It is evident by the quality of the work that the job was done on the cheap and everything needs to be replaced nothing is salvageable.

After experiencing such failure you would think that Logic would dictate that a buyer would do things differently the next time in regards to the hiring of the next service provider. Remarkably  in some instances this just isn’t so. “Give me your best price”, “You’re not the only bid I’m getting”,  “sharpen your pencil”, You need to lower your price, it’s too high!”,”Remember I have bought before so I know what things cost” etc. Instead of focusing on finding the right individual or company  and getting them excited about working on your project and doing the best job they can do, they are once again fixating on cost and care little about anything else.

And speaking as a service provider myself I can tell you that the buyer is doing himself no favors by making those statements. In fact they can have the opposite effect. No one wants to work for little or no profit or have clients who expect the world and do not want to pay for it. On the other hand professionals expect to make a fair profit on every job and expect to be treated reasonably and with respect at all times during the working relationship. Owners behaving in this manner before the sale can result in qualified professionals losing interest in the project and opting out of being considered for the job lessening the chances of finding someone who can successfully complete it the second time around.

I think I charge a fair price for what I do.  I am not the most expensive landscape lighting designer/builder but I am not the cheapest either.  And it’s really difficult to determine from the price of your landscape lighting professional the real price until the system is done.  A good landscape lighting professional could save you a lot of money and stress in the long run and going cheap could cost you a lot more than money.  That being said, just because someone charges a lot doesn’t mean they are better. When hiring a landscape lighting designer/installer consider more than the price.

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 20 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 .

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