[site]

I go for the best quality I-we know how to do. Of course, there are tons fo companies who do better, but it gives me something to aspire to. I have considered lowering it down a couple of notches and trying to cash in, but then I wonder...will (Landscape architect) keep calling if my workmanship is less than it was? I'm not willing to risk it, and it wouldn't suit my personality.
I agree with Paul about the employee wage issue, but there is catch 22 - You need good, skilled employees to generate reasonable profits, and you need reasonable profits to pay top dollar to skilled employees. In addition, there are a lot of potential employees out there who talk like they are god's gift to landscaping, then you give them a chance and they dissapoint.

[Paul]

As with any tradesman (or woman) there are god ones and bad! But if the bar was raised and your laborers where making $20 to $25 per hour do you think that you might get better people?

Why do you think lots of guys go out and start their own companies? They think they can make money by doing the work cheaper and putting their labor into their own pocket along with what you would make! So if they where to be paid a livable wage they would stay working for someone else and not be a competitor.

The next part of it would be changing the customers perception of landscapers in general, in most minds anyone with a pickup truck and a wheelbarrow is a landscaper, not a skilled tradesman. We as an industry are slowly changing this but even here in the Chicago area there are only about 100 CLT's, just going thru the phone book will get you over 100 different landscape companies, and that only covers about 5 towns.

We as a industry have to change, it really starts with us............

[site]

Paul- I envy your position, and would love to jump on the high pay bandwagon. How did you do it? Was it a particular job, or was it a mindset?

[Paul]

Actualy it's a requirement, we work on public jobs that require us to pay these wages, so the field is leveled. We carry this forward to private work that we do.