[Mark Oomkes]

Haa, you mention storefronts, good point I didn't discuss.

We've had several landscapers buying $750K+ buildings and land recently. Some in prime commercial areas. These guys are still pricing at the same level or lower (mostly lower) than they were before getting into this kind of real estate. I just don't see how you can incorporate those kinds of payments and taxes into your overhead without increasing your rates. I was figuring very roughly a while ago and came up with about $5\hour to cover the increase. My math is probably off, but you still can't go around to every customer and just raise your rates that much across the board and maintain the same number of customers.

OK, trying to calm down here before I go

[TrickyDick]

I think you have to differentiate between the bigger companies that do a lot of revenue at low margins and the jackasses dropping the walk-behind on thier leg as they try to get it out the back of the pick-up truck without a ramp. The first is a legitimate business model that is impossible to compete with. It's Walmart. If you're doing 5% net on $10 million you're not going to starve to death. Those companies tend to have a lot of customer turnover but they get new work faster than they lose it cause everytime you open your eyes one of their trucks drives by and people figure..."Well they have a lot of shiny trucks so they must be good." The guy that dropped the walk-behind on his leg is either an idiot or he's just inexperienced. A lot of us probably started out as that guy with a pick-up and lawn mower and a handful of jobs.

Most of us fall somewhere in the middle of those two and I really believe that the only way to compete with either of them is to not try to. Don't try to do $25 lawn jobs and don't try to bid against Walmartscaping for the 50 acre condo complex if the board of directors is worried about how much they should spend on landscaping. Our company has the luxury of behind located in a community where the market for high-end and very high-end services is extensive enough that we can focus on that and I don't feel any of the market pressure that a lot of you are obviously dealing with. Everytime we try to compete with the big lowballers we get our butts kicked and wonder why we were dumb enough to try that again. The smarter we get the more we see that focus is the key. When we do what we're good at those other companies can't compete with us. On the other hand I make enough money to be considered well off in a lot of places and I'm going to need to save at least $100k for a downpayment to afford the mortgage payment on even the crappiest of houses within driving distance so I guess it's all relative.